In fairness I’d like to expand that to including torture, rape, murder or physical violence against another human at all. Such as punching, hitting, kicking, judo chopping Austin powers style etc.
Can we add to that
- Happiness comes from within and is not solely dependent on spiritual belief.
That’d make me pretty happy. 
The lack of any such passage certainly hasn’t stopped Christians from acting as they pleased. To be fair, the idealism of scripture is often ignored or perverted - all the more reason to distrust scripture and the people who claim to base their lives on it.
IANAC, but the perversion of the scripture is no reason to distrust the scripture.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
I don’t know of one passage where Jesus says to post on an internet message board, does that mean no posters are Christians?
That’s the point I was hoping to make. It’s not the religion, it’s the person. A good person will take a religious book and live good, help the poor, turn the other cheek etc. A bad person commits genocide against the natives for Gold, Glory, and God.
However look in modern times. Most of the recent wars where about communism and “spreading democracy”. Lots of innocent people still died, lots of good people were beaten, raped, etc. Babies in Vietnam where carpet bombed and burned alive.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s religious jingoism or patriotic jingoism it’s equally bad. There’s no way to prove religion one way or the other. As far as Earthly life is concerned it doesn’t matter one way or another. What does matter is putting aside our differences and learning to live togather.
This means you shouldn’t be harnessed for being Atheist, but Christians and other groups shouldn’t be ridiculed for their beliefs either.
Now their actions on the other hand go to town. Someone does something bad or hateful under religion and they deserve all the flack they get.
I was under the impression it was generally a default permit system.
Of course it is, since we’re not talking about a math or science textbook with facts and assertions anyone can independently verify. Scripture has no internal consistency, is subject to obfuscating translations and then can be selectively interpreted by just about anyone. If followed literally, scripture can guide one to do bad things. If followed figuratively, scripture can also guide one to do bad things. Sure there may be some good people guided by scripture, but always be careful.
I think the lesson is to practice empathy and understanding and try to teach others by example. The golden rule if followed tends to drastically cut down on Bad Things ™
Every thread where religion is not immediately laughed off and mocked, the way that claims that ( for example ) the Moon landing was a hoax are laughed off. Claims which are far, far more plausible than religion, mind you. And then there’s the double standard that I’ve repeatedly pointed out in this thread; for non-religious claims, the person claiming something exists is required to produce evidence. For religion, the person who wants evidence of God is required to produce evidence that he doesn’t exist; the opposite of normal practice. It’s as if people claiming that there are no fairies were subjected to demands for proof that they didn’t exist, and called intolerant and bigoted for pointing out that the fairy-believers had no evidence that fairies existed.
Giving religion such a privileged position does indeed make the SDMB biased in the pro-religious direction.
Assuming that’s true, so what ? They don’t have a right to inflict suffering on others just because their delusion make them happy.
Arguing with someone on a message board isn’t “persecution”.
It’s purpose is to spread itself, and survive.
The systematic slaughter of unbelievers will do that. And all that an “evolutionary advantage” means is that a gene or set of genes was successful at some time in the past. Not that it’s good now, or that it was ever good for the people hosting those genes or those around them. Evolution is a description of how the world works; not a moral imperative.
No, it’s not. Every study I’ve heard of shows that religious people, and religious societies are no better, and typically less moral.
Once again; arguing on a message board isn’t "persecution. This is, again, the double standard for religion; arguing against religion is “persecution”, while it’s not persecution for religion until the believers build bonfires out of people.
Nonsense. A great many of the evils committed by religion have no other motivation than religion. And a great many would be unlikely to happen with people who considered the real world, and their own lives to be of value. If nothing else, you wouldn’t have well meaning people doing horrible things because they are operating on a false view of the world.
And isn’t it interesting that when it comes to bad things, religion makes no difference according to you; but when it comes to good things, you want to give religion the credit.
No. A good person and a bad person who believe will both do bad things. The bad person because he’s using it for excuse ( and because the religion is in itself typically evil ), and the good person because he’s operating on a delusional view of the world. It’s an old principle that nothing is better than religion for making well meaning people do horrible things.
It’s more creepy than infuriating. I find the idea of fake or theologically mandated “love” directed at me unpleasant. It reminds me of the sort of people who tortured sinners on the rack with “love”, for the good of their souls.
It’s a logical implication of the whole Christian worldview, along with tyranny, mass murder and so on. What Christ said doesn’t matter; he has little connection with Christianity beyond the name.
And see, this is the crux of the issue. It seems like, at this point, the wacky fundamentalist religious people are the spokesmen for all religious people. This is annoying, because, as one of the non-wacky, non-fundamentalist religious people, I don’t want them to speak for me.
Do they identify themselves as Christians? Then they are.
But since you asked:
Luke 12:45-48
But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. "That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
There’s one, there are more. Honestly, and I say this as an atheist with a minor in Theology, and a former Evangelical Christian of the Southern Baptist variety, you really shouldn’t ask a question about whether any type of violence can be supported by the bible.
Also, I see what you did there - instead of saying Biblical teaching, you specifically narrowed to the Big JC. So are we going cafeteria style today, or accepting all the teachings of the bible?
Sorry, your hypothetical non-Christer Christer there is still wearing a kilt.
I almost never get involved in religious discussions on the SDMB, so the OP can remove my name from your accusations of groupthink. Most of the time the argument isn’t worth having; neither side is going to gain ground, and it’s usually the same extremely vocal dozen arguing one side or the other. In most cases you can predict who will post on the anti- or pro-religious side before you open the thread.
Me, I almost always stay out of them. I’m only here to point out that I, among many others on this board, refrain from participating. That should dispel the attacks of “groupthink” that are leveled at either side.
Actually, I’m also here to point out this quote by Der Trihs: it’s about the only time I can think of where I have unequivocally agreed with anything in one of these threads.
Someone disagreed with me on a message board does not rise to the level of religious persecution. As I am reading “A History of Britain” by Simon Schama I find that I am periodically appalled by the things that are done in the name of religious purity: Catholic priests being hauled out of the basements where they hide so they can be forced to sign confessions, then are burned at the stake with dynamite hidden in the kindling; churches being torn down, or if not outright destroyed, then the religious iconography seared from the walls with caustic chemicals and repainted over; Jews being encouraged by their sea captain to take a nice walk to stretch their legs at low tide, and then being allowed to drown outside the ship when the water came in, while the captain laughed; wars, invasions, fleets of ships sent to sack and destroy another country because they believed in God the wrong way.
That is religious persecution. Let’s not throw the word “persecution” about as if it has any fucking meaning in a purely message-board context. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and you’ll still be alive, free to believe (or not believe) in whatever you wish. To call a message board disagreement a “persecution” diminishes and belittles all the people who were bloodily slaughtered in the name of God — so forgive this atheist if I get a little miffed when anybody accuses me of anything remotely like the atrocities of the last. Compared to what’s already been done, my “persecution” would get me sainted.
Response to the Der Trihs post (#91):
I’m not sure how to respond to your reasons for why the SDMB is pro-religion. I’ll let someone more qualified handle that one, but I don’t think it’s not an indicator of “pro-religion” so much as (from your perspective) “not sufficiently anti-religion”. I don’t think I can get that excited about the double standard because I just don’t view religion or lack of a religion as a big deal.
If studies show that religion does not make people better, then I stand corrected. I should have just stuck to my original point of “Can’t we all just get along?”. I made a mistake in even bringing up the positive or negative attributes of religion, since it’s somewhat irrelevant to my arguments.
If you think the word “persecution” is too strong, fine, but there is an effect of driving such people away, whatever noun you want to use for that. Unwelcomeingness?
Yes, building bonfires out of people is horrible, but I don’t think that’s what people like Jesse Leigh do in their spare time…
In summary, I hope that my posts can convince you to be more welcoming to religious people (though not agreeing with their ideas of course). Assuming you aren’t already friendly (and I haven’t bothered to search your past posts to see if this is the case), I hope that I can convince you to do so. On behalf of a fellow atheist (or agnostic or whatever I am), let’s try to make ourselves look good by showing the tolerance we want to receive from others.
Okay, I used too strong a word. Let’s not get too hung up on that.
Well, if all religious people were sufficiently quiet that we never heard about them (like 95% of them already) that would be okay.
Nah government systems work just as well. I cite Southeast Asia in the mid 20th century. Us vs Them. Takes many forms it’s one of the few constants through out history.
When you label all religious beliefs evil you label all followers of any religion evil. Remember Bush and his “you’re either for us or against us”? Same thing. You’re a divider. Us vs Them. It’s the evil that caused almost all atrocities (religious and otherwise) and you’re embracing it full tilt.
Sadly there’s alot of truth in that. That’s what drove me to agnosticism. The hate some people preach in inexcusable, but I grew in a heavily religious household and things like turn the other cheek, and the parable of the good Samaritan really made an impression on me.
And there’s a reason why some people, including me, consider Communism just another religion. It’s quite close to Christianity actually.