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BTH

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Hey now! You can't just come on the controversial thread and state things like that without giving reasons! How can we argue your points and enter into a civil debate when your statements are so simplistic and grade 3? ;-)

Explain how or why they suck, and we can go from there!

:rofl:

I just wrote out a short essay to answer the questions, took like 45 minutes, then I realized from my experiences this year that I have a new aversion to explaining things.

I had this friend last year, he was a kid like 10 or 11 and I was so stupid, he wanted to trade my ipod for his skateboard for a few days, and I was so resistant that he stared crying and even started to kick me, little did I know that he was right - I should have made the trade... children know. There is a reason it's called a leap of faith.

Anyways... *runs off to the floating music thread*. :rofl:

I shall stay grade 3 thanks. ;)

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Hey now! You can't just come on the controversial thread and state things like that without giving reasons! How can we argue your points and enter into a civil debate when your statements are so simplistic and grade 3? ;-)

Explain how or why they suck, and we can go from there!

No, things are more controversial when you don't explain.

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No, things are more controversial when you don't explain.

That leaves room for interpretation.

Like now the belief that because Mystic doesn't agree with anarchy... he is obviously a fascist.

and because he thinks atheism sucks he must be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church (the one that protested at all them funerals)

:P

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That leaves room for interpretation.

Like now the belief that because Mystic doesn't agree with anarchy... he is obviously a fascist.

and because he thinks atheism sucks he must be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church (the one that protested at all them funerals)

:P

:rofl:

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I don't think atheism is controversial. That being said, I am not only an atheist but staunchly anti-religion, which obviously is controversial. A fan of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Dan Dennett, James Randi, etc. Oh, George Carlin and (usually) Bill Maher too, of course. lol But I prefer Carlin's talk about fascism and fascist use of language.

Did you know that a true theist is actually also staunchly anti-religion? Think about it and how that can be possible.

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Did you know that a true theist is actually also staunchly anti-religion? Think about it and how that can be possible.

Too deep! Too deep! Does not computer. MEDIC!

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Did you know that a true theist is actually also staunchly anti-religion? Think about it and how that can be possible.

I'm not sure I agree with what I think you mean (--> that there are multiple religions and a theist only believes in one, thinking the rest are nonsense, therefore he is "anti-religion." I think he would still have to qualify as religious because of the one he believes in). But if you explained yourself it wouldn't be very controversial of you.

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I'm not sure I agree with what I think you mean (--> that there are multiple religions and a theist only believes in one, thinking the rest are nonsense, therefore he is "anti-religion." I think he would still have to qualify as religious because of the one he believes in). But if you explained yourself it wouldn't be very controversial of you.

well i guess it depends first on how you define 'religion'. then you can test my sentence "if there's a God then..", "if there's no God then.."

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Did you know that a true theist is actually also staunchly anti-religion? Think about it and how that can be possible.

Because being spiritual doesn't mean you have to believe in anything any particular religion attests? Is that what you're saying? That religion is, for lack of a better word, "cult" where theism is the belief in a deity removed from religion?

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Because being spiritual doesn't mean you have to believe in anything any particular religion attests? Is that what you're saying? That religion is, for lack of a better word, "cult" where theism is the belief in a deity removed from religion?

interesting way to describe "spiritual" and "cult". how would you define "religion" then?

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interesting way to describe "spiritual" and "cult". how would you define "religion" then?

Well, I was just hypothesizing on what you said. In that context, "religion" would be a dedicated following that was faithful to whatever it was following. For instance, Mac lovers might consider Steve Jobs their spiritual leader and Mac's their religion. Same thing for PC lovers and Billy Gates. Habs fans and Maurice Richard.

Again, I was just trying to figure out your angle.

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I argue that it is more controversial to be staunchly religious than staunchly athiest/anti-theist.

I will agree with that argument in about 100 years when religions are in the minority. Right now, though, I think some kind of religion is practiced - at least partially - by a majority of the population. But I believe there's an increasing trend towards atheism.

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I will agree with that argument in about 100 years when religions are in the minority. Right now, though, I think some kind of religion is practiced - at least partially - by a majority of the population. But I believe there's an increasing trend towards atheism.

I think that there are more people who are fringe religious who find extreme religious people almost offending, compared to someone who is a very strong atheist. The fringe religious people will see thats his belief but it doesn't really effect them cause they'll ignore it most the time. Its the crazy religious people who give the moderate ones a bad name.

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I think that there are more people who are fringe religious who find extreme religious people almost offending, compared to someone who is a very strong atheist. The fringe religious people will see thats his belief but it doesn't really effect them cause they'll ignore it most the time. Its the crazy religious people who give the moderate ones a bad name.

I'll respectfully dispute the word 'fringe' and instead suggest that the general religious person is faithful and respectful. Extremist religious people are a tiny minority - kind of like the Habs fans who burn cars after a win.

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I'll respectfully dispute the word 'fringe' and instead suggest that the general religious person is faithful and respectful. Extremist religious people are a tiny minority - kind of like the Habs fans who burn cars after a win.

By fringe I mean the large group of youth who grew up in religious homes, but now only half believe in it. It doesn't make sense to them, but they were raised that way and would like to believe it, but it doesn't make sense to them.

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Yeah, religion is just like anything else where the .01% makes the other 99.9% look bad.

It's waaaaaaaay more than the .01% you claim (more than 50% of Americans take every single word of the Bible as literal truth, for example) and the damages done to society are vast no matter what the actual percentage is. You only choose to count "the crazies," the type to blow themselves up or to protest at a gay soldier's funeral but I think even mainstream religious beliefs and practices are dangerous for society. If for no other reason, because the propagation of mass delusion is obviously harmful to the development of critical thinking abilities and because faith in a supernatural realm can be, and is routinely, used to justify outrageous and wicked things. Even mainstream religious beliefs negatively effect society significantly in several ways* and since 9/11 there has been a growing movement of the opinion that we don't need to, in the name of cultural relativism, respect beliefs and practices that are looking more and more liable to spell the end of mankind (Islamic doctrines on martyrdom and jihad + modern nuclear weapons).

I think religious moderates like you bear a responsibility to stop waving away criticisms of religious practices and to take seriously the threat of religion on international security. When you make apologies for the "99.9%" of religious people, you are encouraging the suffering of millions. Ordinary religious people have, for religious reasons, committed genocides, tortures, rapes, honour killings, murders of homosexuals, human sacrifices, practiced slavery, systematically abused children physically and psychologically, genital mutilation of children, oppressed tens of millions of women, etc... Many of these practices are the norm in their societies. We are not talking about the fringes of religion here, we are talking about the systematically taught doctrines taken seriously by people who really believe what they say they believe and who number in the hundreds of millions, if not billions.

The comparison to Habs fans is not apt because 1) the people that riot generally are not even Habs fans and 2) they are not rioting because of some message openly being preached to them by the Canadiens organization or the NHL. When religious people do evil things it is because of their religion. The doctrines themselves are evil. The extremists are not misinterpreting their texts or misusing religion. They are the ones following it correctly.

*Further explanation forthcoming if asked of me.

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Religion encourages discrimination without reason. Hate gays because they want to marry and a book doesn't like that? Sorry that is the least thought out thing i have ever heard. It is archaic and honestly really sad. If you are a non ignorant religious person who has actively questioned your beliefs and why you believe them and believe them on a deeper level then just because that is the way it is and do not discriminate. Well then I have no problem with you and honestly have a great deal of respect for you for educating yourself and investigating.

Painting people with the same brush is no better on the behalf of non religious people who see all religious people as uneducated zombie blind followers of a completely unfounded and illogical being. Some people (not enough but some) actually spend the time to investigate and look into themselves and theirs and other scriptures to find what they believe. Some people are born believing in more.

Believe what you want to believe. Do not think your opinion is better then someone elses who has spent the time educating themselves on their beliefs and the beliefs of others.

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Personally I couldn't care less about the issue of is there or is there not a god.

It doesn't even enter my mind. I have a i'll see when I get there approach. Right now I do not see the point in worrying, don't be an ass and you'll be fine. If there is a god who damns you to hell for drinking or eating something they don't like well... then that would be a rather inconvenient thing to find out, but I probably enjoyed eating it so if they want to judge me on that, well whateves.

Just do not hate people without a well founded reason aka... they punch you in the face or insult your mother without meeting her ha.

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It's waaaaaaaay more than the .01% you claim (more than 50% of Americans take every single word of the Bible as literal truth, for example).

This made me laugh out loud. What you're basically saying is that every non-Catholic Christian is a fundamentalist, which is hysterical. I mean, let's think about this. Do you really think they would teach evolution in schools if the majority of the country thought evolution is wrong? If they were the majority, they would propose legislation to ban it and it would pass easily. That obviously is not the case.

And being a fundamentalist doesn't make someone a "crazy" that goes around bombing abortion clinics and protesting funerals. I'm sure revvvrob would be appalled at your generalization.

When you make apologies for the "99.9%" of religious people, you are encouraging the suffering of millions.

I'm no more apologizing for the "crazies" than you are for the rioters from an analogy used earlier. I mean, you can't say that the NHL as a whole sucks just because the Blue Jackets are terrible.

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*Further explanation forthcoming if asked of me.

As you offered, I'd have some explanation requests, but before, i'm still interested to know what your definition of "religion" is ;)

There are many ways to define it, and since you're building a lot of thoughts on what seems a vague idea of the word, it would be useful to start on known ground.

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This made me laugh out loud. What you're basically saying is that every non-Catholic Christian is a fundamentalist, which is hysterical. I mean, let's think about this. Do you really think they would teach evolution in schools if the majority of the country thought evolution is wrong? If they were the majority, they would propose legislation to ban it and it would pass easily. That obviously is not the case.

And being a fundamentalist doesn't make someone a "crazy" that goes around bombing abortion clinics and protesting funerals. I'm sure revvvrob would be appalled at your generalization.

I'm no more apologizing for the "crazies" than you are for the rioters from an analogy used earlier. I mean, you can't say that the NHL as a whole sucks just because the Blue Jackets are terrible.

I already explained the difference. Hockey fans rioting is incidental. Hockey itself can not be blamed. This analogy is terrible. Religious people following religious doctrines is not in any way incidental. In condoning Islamic practice of the laws of the Koran, for example, you are directly condoning the suicide attacks that the Koran licenses. These attacks are not caused by misinterpretation of the text, they are caused by people correctly practicing Islam as the muslim religion understands it to be practiced.

I didn't claim that being a fundamentalist means you will bomb abortion clinics either. That was clear in my post. You have deliberately misrepresented me. I claimed that fundamentalism is harmful to society. Blocking stem cell research (one of the most promising avenues of scientific research available to us) is harmful to society. Preventing homosexual marriage is harmful to society. Indoctrinating your children into a set of philosophical beliefs they aren't old enough to understand yet is abusive to them. Genital mutilation is harmful to your child. Domestic abuse (Islam only) is harmful to society. Preaching the value of faith over critical thinking is harmful to society. Making the lessons of the The Bible, a book that supports ethnic cleansing, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, etc., your moral center makes you harmful to society. Etc, etc, etc. These are mainstream practices. You may be right about the % of fundamentalists, I see a hundred different sources with different numbers, some saying an "overwhelming majority" of Americans believe in the literal truth in the Bible, others saying as few as 30% do. It's difficult to track such things with extreme accuracy. Still, there are a huge amount of Americans, many of them non-fundamentalists that practice and support the above. Also, even many that don't believe in the literal truth of all of the Bible still tend to believe in "the main story": that Jesus was the actual son of God, that he was born of a virgin, and that he will be resurrected in their lifetime, and such similar things. Dangerous beliefs.

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