No, you don't think theism is wrong, you think it is false. However, let's test your tolerance a little further. Is it ok if someone believes that it is their right to kill their wife if she makes them unhappy?
Sure, they are allowed to BELIEVE it, provided that they don't actually ACT on it. And acting on it includes using that belief to mentally abuse, threaten or oppress their wives, in addition to any actual physical assault. Are you suggesting that we need to be thought police to be a moral society? The dude may be a murderous douche in his own head, but if he's not acting on those beliefs, who cares? And, indeed, who would even know?
And I think that theism is both wrong(as in it is detrimental to private and public life) and it is false(there are no gods or other supernatural entities). However, if it's not having an impact on society, those beliefs are immaterial to me. You keep trying to paint me into a corner, and frankly, I don't even know what corner it is. I don't think that I've been in the least unclear in the fact that I'm not a relativist, but you keep beating on that horse.
Tolerance is allowing something you believe is wrong. You don't believe that anything is wrong except for believing that something is wrong.
Actually, no. I believe that theism is wrong. It makes a lot of completely unsupported statements, and conditions people to accept faulty logic. I consider it to be foolish and unbecoming of a rational adult. That being said, I don't care if my neighbor holds those beliefs, as long as they are not using them to try to exert control over others. The same goes for other irrational beliefs. So, no, your attempt to paint me as a relativist is completely off base. I do believe that lots of beliefs are just flat out wrong, but I am not going to act as the thought police. You can believe whatever you like, even things which are obviously incorrect, and as long as you aren't trying to inflict your delusions on society, I'm content to ignore you.
HA! You think that that is an attack ad?! Man, you live a very sheltered life. Those mean atheists, who even couched their tepid claim with the term "probably." I imagine that you would enact a Victorian-style fainting spell if you cracked a Hitchens book.
Close, but no. While we get measured doses of Westboro Baptist Church around here, it's mostly the garden variety Baptists and Catholics here.
Here (the u.s. midwest, FYI) the Christians are at the forefront of many local projects. I kind of like the idea because it just means one less Democrat program to siphon my wallet buying votes for morons that I don't want in office anyway. It also means that there are some churches who take the role of "the church" seriously, feeding the poor, helping the needy and generally being an asset.
Plenty of secular groups doing that. The churches I have had the misfortune of dealing with usually treat those services as recruitment drives. I'm glad to help out groups without such agendas.I don't give a dime or a moment of time to those that do.
Probably changing your community or going cold turkey on the Dead Kennedys albums would make life better for you
Dead Kennedys? I know the name, but I've never heard the music.
... no its heterosexuals parading it up and down the streets in full view and also sometimes in your face. Those "nice respectful straights" that feel it is their right to be proud - arrogantly so - and ram their overt sexuality every where that it can go. Why would they want to stop. they're hetero! and proud of it!
Put down the remote control and look around you. The news is *OVERRATED* sensationalism tabloid trash. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash 90% of the people around you are Christians. But they are not in your face about it or blowing themselves up now are they? But in your world they at any minute will snap and kill us all.
You know what I do see? I see atheists screaming (many times a day on boards such as this one) that they are being persecuted when it is usually the other way around. You seem shocked when you push so hard eventually they stop turning the other cheek.
So 'clap clap' your an atheist. Confreekingradulations. I see people like you pushing your views on others. Then using 'religious' arguments to push their own world view. Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and see what you are doing is exactly what you accuse others of.
Dont know why I came into this discussion I *KNEW* I would find someone like you in here. There always is. Someone who heard something on the news and then extrapolates it to everything around him. Then treats it like it is the one end all be all truth.
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/atheist.htm
Yeah, you are right. It's not like I WAS a Christian at one point. I only know them from the news, like some exotic tribe on a South Pacific island. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Christian preachers from using class time to teach religion to my kids. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Creationism out. I never have had to hear Christians(who didn't know that I have rejected their beliefs) proclaim that people like me shouldn't be allowed to vote or hold office. No, I've never been on the end of Christian prejudice. It's all just shit I've read on CNN.
How about this? Go piss up a rope, you blind motherfucker.
Not really the same thing. "No True Scotsman" aims to denounce Scotsman who would otherwise fit the definition of being a Scotsman by adding some arbitrary condition to the definition. This is denouncing so-called "Christians" who don't even fit the base definition of being a Christian as defined by their book.
I'll have to see some non-arbitrary conditional before I agree. Given that the various denominations can't even agree on that point, I doubt I will be seeing anything anytime soon.
Sure, I admit it. I am prejudiced against those who try to force irrational beliefs on my society. Guilty as charged.
You are prejudging that the Indian Christians in this story are all dicks, just because a FEW american christians treated you poorly.
Funny, I never even addressed the Indian Christians. I don't know if they are dicks or not. Deluded and irrational? Sure. Dicks? Who knows?
That's just as wrong as prejudging that all Blacks or all Asians are thieves, just because you saw some getting arrested on the TV. Stop prejudging an entire group of people, just based on the acts of a few. That's what the KKK does and I know you are better than that.
Actually, you don't know that. I may be the biggest peckerhead you have ever dealt with. How the fuck would you know?
It's a sad story that not all of those who call themselves Christians care so much about actually following their master. What's even sader is that I, as a Christian , often will have to point that finger at myself too.
In the end that's why I keep beeing a Christian. I realise I'm not perfect and therefore in need of a someone to help me. How about you?
And btw, if evil men do nothing there's still going to be people dying because of starvation and disease. Having the power to do what's right and not doing it is also defined as beeing evil.
I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm not going to irrationally embrace an old Semitic blood-sacrifice religion to make things better. There is no justification for that.
It seems like you don't know the right Christians, then.
Apparently not. I keep hearing about these vast congregations of Christians who reject the public Christian leaders of these various irrational movements, but they never actually show up at the ballot box or the local political rallies. Very odd.
Or, maybe, that these people are the same people as everywhere else -- generally rotten, hypocritical bastards.
In my personal experience, the Christians that I've known have been good and bad, same as everyone and everywhere else. I've been especially lucky, on the other hand, that the authority figures (priests) in the Church that I was raised in were good, well-educated men who had no problem with reconciling real life with what was written in the New Testament (I personally can't get over Christians that can quote the Old Testament better than they can the New Testament, but that's a different gripe altogether). In fact, the way that they managed to live what they preached -- one priest, for instance, donated a sizable sum of money to the Church when it fell on hard times, even though he makes a very small salary himself -- was truly inspirational to me. I would like to one day be as good a Christian as the example they set in front of me, but I'm not hopeful (I'm afraid I'm one of those other "normal" people).
Personally, I find it odd that people find the doctrines of the New Testament to be much more palatable than those of the OT. Sure, you get a nice summation of the Ethic of Reciprosity, but you also get the whole eternal damnation and human sacrifice bits, so it's pretty nasty in its own right.
I think you're guilty of the exact same kind of behavior, unfortunately, that you rail against from the theists -- a sense of moral and intellectual superiority that lets you separate them from yourself and subsequently dehumanize them in order to do them harm (in this case, social ridicule). Granted, some of the ideas are very bad, and especially can't be reconciled with modern scientific thought, but in my mind the way forward isn't to establish entrenched camps of intolerance and start firing at one another.
C
If you think that the public ridicule of irrational beliefs is even on the same plane as denying people rights and perverting science, there's not much else to say.
Yeah, because bitching about intolerance on the Internet and actively working to have irrational beliefs enshrined as law are TOTALLY the same./sarcasm
I don't consider it reading comprehension problems to equate "Where I live, the Christians are" with "Where I live, Christians as a whole are" as opposed to "Where I live, there are examples of Christians who are" nor even "Where I live, every example of X is a Christian".
Since I started this thread off specifically mentioning that I was referring to Christians leading movements in the US Midwest, your inference that I was making a statement about all Christians is an invalid assumption on your part.
This may simply be an example of where if you don't use grammar carefully, you will actually say something else entirely.
Also, the entire rest of that post after the clarification seemed off-topic. In particular I don't know where you got the idea that I suggested anyone other than Christians were involved in whatever you were objecting to.
You attempted a bit of "sleight of hand" to make it seem like I was making universal claims. I refuted that, and then went on to ask you who else was leading these movements if it isn't Christians. Do you have some counter-examples to tender, or are you going to concede the original point?
Hold on. You're doing two things wrong here. First, you're changing the definition of, "tolerant," to, "acceptance," or, "agreement." Second, you're lumping together totally different groups of people.
Nope, I'm not. I don't care what they believe in private.
The gays aren't knocking at my door, telling my children that they are going to burn in hell forever.
Okay, define how this is intolerant. Are they killing your kids if they do not convert? You always have the option of shutting the door if you don't like it.
No, they are applying social pressure to my kids. They are attempting to impose irrational fears of punishment in order to sway my childrens' beliefs. And I can't "shut the door" when the pressure is coming from authority figures like teachers(66% of the teachers in my children's school are practicing Christian preachers, and I have video-taped them pushing religious dogma in school).
They aren't shooting abortion doctors.
How many abortion doctors have been shot by self-described Christians? Less than a dozen (which I would say is still too much). And true Christians condemn these acts (that whole Sixth Commandment and all).
How many have been shot by non-Christians in this country? How many non-Christian groups are actively promoting such activities?
They aren't launching suicide attacks on my neighborhood.
Ah, now you're talking about Muslims, which is a totally different religious group. Fundamentalist Muslims will try to blow you up. Fundamentalist Christians just pray for your soul and witness to you.
Did you skip over the term "theist" that I keep using?
They aren't polluting science with their fictional delusions.
To turn this around, aren't you being a little intolerant in the way you're presenting their beliefs?
Nope. I'm not in their Sunday school classes, trying to inject rational thought into their religious dogma.
When the theists abandon their irrational bigotry, grow up and stop trying to control their neighbors, they'll be worthy of tolerance.
That also doesn't sound very tolerant.
Absolutely correct. I don't tolerate that behavior.
Both. I'm pissed off at most of the theists I have to endure and intolerant of people who wish to force their irrational beliefs on society in general.
You realize that your statements have put you far outside of both historical Christianity and the dominant Christian denominations in this country, right? Speaking of just my corner of the US, I do a lot of business with Christians and Christian churches(I am the only PC repair-person who makes house calls), and thus I am privy to a lot of private information, such as emails. They also have some irrational desire to open up and tell me about their beliefs while I'm removing yet another round of malware(I don't have a scarlet A tattooed on my forehead, so they assume I'm some brand of Christian, too). Aside from a couple of elderly pastors from California and a family of unobservant Lutherans(note that both examples are not native to this area), I haven't met a single practicing Christian or a single denomination that didn't preach Creationism, anti-homosexual bigotry, weird end of the world AntiChrist beliefs or forms of Christian Triumphalism(sometimes intermixed with militant militia beliefs). Or some bizarre mish-mash of all of the above. And these irrational beliefs are quite vocally the basis for their votes.
I encourage you to attend some midwest political meetings and canvas them for religious beliefs. It will open your eyes to what your fellow theists believe and are trying to push onto the rest of the population.
Perhaps you have reading comprehension problems. I never said that all Christians do that, even in my community. I said that Christians are at the forefront of those movements. And that's absolutely true. I can't think of a single non-Christian, in fact, who is even visible in the state or local political scenes. I can't think of a single non-Christian in my area fighting for Creationism. No non-Christians have been fighting gay rights here. No non-Christians running nonsensical attack ads. Hell, we even have threatening road signs on the highways! http://www.flyoverpeople.net/images/RegretItForever.jpg
So, tell me again, who are these invisible "others" who are leading these irrational movements in the midwest?
Slashdot Mirror
And it will likely be made by Uwe Boll, which is scarier than the actual movie.
No, you don't think theism is wrong, you think it is false. However, let's test your tolerance a little further. Is it ok if someone believes that it is their right to kill their wife if she makes them unhappy?
Sure, they are allowed to BELIEVE it, provided that they don't actually ACT on it. And acting on it includes using that belief to mentally abuse, threaten or oppress their wives, in addition to any actual physical assault. Are you suggesting that we need to be thought police to be a moral society? The dude may be a murderous douche in his own head, but if he's not acting on those beliefs, who cares? And, indeed, who would even know?
And I think that theism is both wrong(as in it is detrimental to private and public life) and it is false(there are no gods or other supernatural entities). However, if it's not having an impact on society, those beliefs are immaterial to me. You keep trying to paint me into a corner, and frankly, I don't even know what corner it is. I don't think that I've been in the least unclear in the fact that I'm not a relativist, but you keep beating on that horse.
Tolerance is allowing something you believe is wrong. You don't believe that anything is wrong except for believing that something is wrong.
Actually, no. I believe that theism is wrong. It makes a lot of completely unsupported statements, and conditions people to accept faulty logic. I consider it to be foolish and unbecoming of a rational adult. That being said, I don't care if my neighbor holds those beliefs, as long as they are not using them to try to exert control over others. The same goes for other irrational beliefs. So, no, your attempt to paint me as a relativist is completely off base. I do believe that lots of beliefs are just flat out wrong, but I am not going to act as the thought police. You can believe whatever you like, even things which are obviously incorrect, and as long as you aren't trying to inflict your delusions on society, I'm content to ignore you.
So, you aren't tolerant. You just don't care. That is not the same thing.
It sure as hell is in a functional sense. I don't need to believe in nor care one whit about your private ideas in order to let you live as you will.
HA! You think that that is an attack ad?! Man, you live a very sheltered life. Those mean atheists, who even couched their tepid claim with the term "probably." I imagine that you would enact a Victorian-style fainting spell if you cracked a Hitchens book.
Oh, you live in Topeka! Bummer.
Close, but no. While we get measured doses of Westboro Baptist Church around here, it's mostly the garden variety Baptists and Catholics here.
Here (the u.s. midwest, FYI) the Christians are at the forefront of many local projects. I kind of like the idea because it just means one less Democrat program to siphon my wallet buying votes for morons that I don't want in office anyway. It also means that there are some churches who take the role of "the church" seriously, feeding the poor, helping the needy and generally being an asset.
Plenty of secular groups doing that. The churches I have had the misfortune of dealing with usually treat those services as recruitment drives. I'm glad to help out groups without such agendas.I don't give a dime or a moment of time to those that do.
Probably changing your community or going cold turkey on the Dead Kennedys albums would make life better for you
Dead Kennedys? I know the name, but I've never heard the music.
... no its heterosexuals parading it up and down the streets in full view and also sometimes in your face. Those "nice respectful straights" that feel it is their right to be proud - arrogantly so - and ram their overt sexuality every where that it can go. Why would they want to stop. they're hetero! and proud of it!
Put down the remote control and look around you. The news is *OVERRATED* sensationalism tabloid trash. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash 90% of the people around you are Christians. But they are not in your face about it or blowing themselves up now are they? But in your world they at any minute will snap and kill us all.
You know what I do see? I see atheists screaming (many times a day on boards such as this one) that they are being persecuted when it is usually the other way around. You seem shocked when you push so hard eventually they stop turning the other cheek.
So 'clap clap' your an atheist. Confreekingradulations. I see people like you pushing your views on others. Then using 'religious' arguments to push their own world view. Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and see what you are doing is exactly what you accuse others of.
Dont know why I came into this discussion I *KNEW* I would find someone like you in here. There always is. Someone who heard something on the news and then extrapolates it to everything around him. Then treats it like it is the one end all be all truth. http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/atheist.htm
Yeah, you are right. It's not like I WAS a Christian at one point. I only know them from the news, like some exotic tribe on a South Pacific island. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Christian preachers from using class time to teach religion to my kids. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Creationism out. I never have had to hear Christians(who didn't know that I have rejected their beliefs) proclaim that people like me shouldn't be allowed to vote or hold office. No, I've never been on the end of Christian prejudice. It's all just shit I've read on CNN.
How about this? Go piss up a rope, you blind motherfucker.
Not really the same thing. "No True Scotsman" aims to denounce Scotsman who would otherwise fit the definition of being a Scotsman by adding some arbitrary condition to the definition. This is denouncing so-called "Christians" who don't even fit the base definition of being a Christian as defined by their book.
I'll have to see some non-arbitrary conditional before I agree. Given that the various denominations can't even agree on that point, I doubt I will be seeing anything anytime soon.
Deja vu. I swear I responded to this post already.
You sir are PREJUDICED.
Sure, I admit it. I am prejudiced against those who try to force irrational beliefs on my society. Guilty as charged.
You are prejudging that the Indian Christians in this story are all dicks, just because a FEW american christians treated you poorly.
Funny, I never even addressed the Indian Christians. I don't know if they are dicks or not. Deluded and irrational? Sure. Dicks? Who knows?
That's just as wrong as prejudging that all Blacks or all Asians are thieves, just because you saw some getting arrested on the TV. Stop prejudging an entire group of people, just based on the acts of a few. That's what the KKK does and I know you are better than that.
Actually, you don't know that. I may be the biggest peckerhead you have ever dealt with. How the fuck would you know?
It's a sad story that not all of those who call themselves Christians care so much about actually following their master. What's even sader is that I, as a Christian , often will have to point that finger at myself too. In the end that's why I keep beeing a Christian. I realise I'm not perfect and therefore in need of a someone to help me. How about you? And btw, if evil men do nothing there's still going to be people dying because of starvation and disease. Having the power to do what's right and not doing it is also defined as beeing evil.
I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm not going to irrationally embrace an old Semitic blood-sacrifice religion to make things better. There is no justification for that.
It seems like you don't know the right Christians, then.
Apparently not. I keep hearing about these vast congregations of Christians who reject the public Christian leaders of these various irrational movements, but they never actually show up at the ballot box or the local political rallies. Very odd.
Or, maybe, that these people are the same people as everywhere else -- generally rotten, hypocritical bastards.
In my personal experience, the Christians that I've known have been good and bad, same as everyone and everywhere else. I've been especially lucky, on the other hand, that the authority figures (priests) in the Church that I was raised in were good, well-educated men who had no problem with reconciling real life with what was written in the New Testament (I personally can't get over Christians that can quote the Old Testament better than they can the New Testament, but that's a different gripe altogether). In fact, the way that they managed to live what they preached -- one priest, for instance, donated a sizable sum of money to the Church when it fell on hard times, even though he makes a very small salary himself -- was truly inspirational to me. I would like to one day be as good a Christian as the example they set in front of me, but I'm not hopeful (I'm afraid I'm one of those other "normal" people).
Personally, I find it odd that people find the doctrines of the New Testament to be much more palatable than those of the OT. Sure, you get a nice summation of the Ethic of Reciprosity, but you also get the whole eternal damnation and human sacrifice bits, so it's pretty nasty in its own right.
I think you're guilty of the exact same kind of behavior, unfortunately, that you rail against from the theists -- a sense of moral and intellectual superiority that lets you separate them from yourself and subsequently dehumanize them in order to do them harm (in this case, social ridicule). Granted, some of the ideas are very bad, and especially can't be reconciled with modern scientific thought, but in my mind the way forward isn't to establish entrenched camps of intolerance and start firing at one another.
C
If you think that the public ridicule of irrational beliefs is even on the same plane as denying people rights and perverting science, there's not much else to say.
Yeah, because bitching about intolerance on the Internet and actively working to have irrational beliefs enshrined as law are TOTALLY the same. /sarcasm
I don't consider it reading comprehension problems to equate "Where I live, the Christians are" with "Where I live, Christians as a whole are" as opposed to "Where I live, there are examples of Christians who are" nor even "Where I live, every example of X is a Christian".
Since I started this thread off specifically mentioning that I was referring to Christians leading movements in the US Midwest, your inference that I was making a statement about all Christians is an invalid assumption on your part.
This may simply be an example of where if you don't use grammar carefully, you will actually say something else entirely.
Also, the entire rest of that post after the clarification seemed off-topic. In particular I don't know where you got the idea that I suggested anyone other than Christians were involved in whatever you were objecting to.
You attempted a bit of "sleight of hand" to make it seem like I was making universal claims. I refuted that, and then went on to ask you who else was leading these movements if it isn't Christians. Do you have some counter-examples to tender, or are you going to concede the original point?
Funny, I fucking live in Kansas, so this is entirely on track.
Quite possible. I smell a sociology experiment.
If they are standing by, lending credence and tacit support to their leaders by way of silent membership, then they are just enabling the bastards.
Hold on. You're doing two things wrong here. First, you're changing the definition of, "tolerant," to, "acceptance," or, "agreement." Second, you're lumping together totally different groups of people.
Nope, I'm not. I don't care what they believe in private.
The gays aren't knocking at my door, telling my children that they are going to burn in hell forever.
Okay, define how this is intolerant. Are they killing your kids if they do not convert? You always have the option of shutting the door if you don't like it.
No, they are applying social pressure to my kids. They are attempting to impose irrational fears of punishment in order to sway my childrens' beliefs. And I can't "shut the door" when the pressure is coming from authority figures like teachers(66% of the teachers in my children's school are practicing Christian preachers, and I have video-taped them pushing religious dogma in school).
They aren't shooting abortion doctors.
How many abortion doctors have been shot by self-described Christians? Less than a dozen (which I would say is still too much). And true Christians condemn these acts (that whole Sixth Commandment and all).
How many have been shot by non-Christians in this country? How many non-Christian groups are actively promoting such activities?
They aren't launching suicide attacks on my neighborhood.
Ah, now you're talking about Muslims, which is a totally different religious group. Fundamentalist Muslims will try to blow you up. Fundamentalist Christians just pray for your soul and witness to you.
Did you skip over the term "theist" that I keep using?
They aren't polluting science with their fictional delusions.
To turn this around, aren't you being a little intolerant in the way you're presenting their beliefs?
Nope. I'm not in their Sunday school classes, trying to inject rational thought into their religious dogma.
When the theists abandon their irrational bigotry, grow up and stop trying to control their neighbors, they'll be worthy of tolerance.
That also doesn't sound very tolerant.
Absolutely correct. I don't tolerate that behavior.
Both. I'm pissed off at most of the theists I have to endure and intolerant of people who wish to force their irrational beliefs on society in general.
Don't get me started on the horror that is the Judeo-Christian scriptures. That's a whole other topic of disgust.
You realize that your statements have put you far outside of both historical Christianity and the dominant Christian denominations in this country, right? Speaking of just my corner of the US, I do a lot of business with Christians and Christian churches(I am the only PC repair-person who makes house calls), and thus I am privy to a lot of private information, such as emails. They also have some irrational desire to open up and tell me about their beliefs while I'm removing yet another round of malware(I don't have a scarlet A tattooed on my forehead, so they assume I'm some brand of Christian, too). Aside from a couple of elderly pastors from California and a family of unobservant Lutherans(note that both examples are not native to this area), I haven't met a single practicing Christian or a single denomination that didn't preach Creationism, anti-homosexual bigotry, weird end of the world AntiChrist beliefs or forms of Christian Triumphalism(sometimes intermixed with militant militia beliefs). Or some bizarre mish-mash of all of the above. And these irrational beliefs are quite vocally the basis for their votes.
I encourage you to attend some midwest political meetings and canvas them for religious beliefs. It will open your eyes to what your fellow theists believe and are trying to push onto the rest of the population.
I do all of the above. Read my response to someone above.
Perhaps you have reading comprehension problems. I never said that all Christians do that, even in my community. I said that Christians are at the forefront of those movements. And that's absolutely true. I can't think of a single non-Christian, in fact, who is even visible in the state or local political scenes. I can't think of a single non-Christian in my area fighting for Creationism. No non-Christians have been fighting gay rights here. No non-Christians running nonsensical attack ads. Hell, we even have threatening road signs on the highways! http://www.flyoverpeople.net/images/RegretItForever.jpg So, tell me again, who are these invisible "others" who are leading these irrational movements in the midwest?
I don't care about personal beliefs as long as they are not being used to control others.