Since the entire debate can be boiled down to a single issue, you'd be advised to try to convince each other of the correctness of your respective positions on said underlying issue rather than throwing around rhetoric. A social conservative will not be swayed by arguments about women's rights any more than a social liberal will be convinced by arguments about the rights of a zygote, embryo, or fetus.
Things aren't so simple, have you considered the fact at least in the early stages of pregnancies you could argue that the baby is part of the mother's body. Certainly the baby cannot be considered an autonomous creature. So why shouldn't the woman have control over her own body? If she wants to she should be able to have an abortion, she is not undermining anyone liberty, she just taking control of her own body.
There are other issues involved as well, even if you do believe that life begins at conception, why should you be able to make abortion illegal (or in practice illegal)? It might be immoral, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal or limited. The fact that there is debate on this issue of when life begins already demonstrates that this is not a simple issue and we cannot simply make abortion illegal. The morality behind this issue is questionable and until there is a consensus on this issue, abortion should be easily available conservatives should be prosecuted for stopping other people from using their liberty.
By doing so you are undermining the liberties of the people who you are beating up. Thus you should be punished for that. Abortion involves a woman having control of her own body. And the baby's life is dependent upon her body. I don't see how you or your views come into the equation... Don't like abortion, don't practice it, unluckily for you, you have no rights to limit other people's liberties.
Bad choice regarding Russia. You have no clue what you are talking about. Googling a bit for some info isn't good enough. The reasons for the high abortion rates in Russia are far more complex than you imagine. Plus you magnificent thesis regarding high abortion rate = death of the nation is a bit flawed. Russia might have the highest abortion rate but it certainly doesn't have the highest rate of population decline.
Accounting how abortion is affecting countries? Since when do you have the rights to force people to have children? Did you consider that sluggish population growth in Europe could be a result of other factors? Did you consider that in Europe they don't have various religious organizations and society forcing their 'family values' upon you? And people would rather pursue other interests than increasing their nation's population?
First of all, where in my post did I state that I agree with the ideals of the Democratic Party? As far as I am concerned that not much better than the republicans. I see them as republican lite. Just take a look at Hillary Clinton and her attitude towards 'violent' games. She obviously isn't interested in protecting our liberties.
And as far as the issue of abortion being a litmus test for competence, I agree that's incorrect. But what it does show is that a person is willing to undermine our liberties to comply with some stupid religious views that not everyone cares for.
With the issue of female circumcision, things are a bit more complex. There are huge social pressures involved and it is questionable to what extent a girl/woman that goes through circumcision does this out of her own free will. If a woman makes her own choice to get circumcised, then that's her choice, of course its a whole different story if you bring other factors such religious and social pressure....
A whole different thing IMHO, while I respect your views, I am not willing to tolerate partial restrictions on abortion. This creates a precedent where on paper abortion is legal, but in practice it's impossible to get an abortion. I just don't trust the conservative establishment, whenever they have a chance, they will limit your liberties and we should not allow them to that.
I never understood this, why do you need a gun? The sole person of guns is to kill people. If you're all big on protection why not get a device that can bring people down but not kill them? Or do you need a freakin rocket launcher to protect yourself? Or how about spending money on a more efficient police and judicial system that does label recreational drugs users as criminals? Or is that too complicated for you? Then learn martial arts, the possibilities are endless....
Of course, you can say that you need the gun to protect yourself against the government, but that's just bullshit. If the government wants you dead, no gun will protect you. And anyways, gun owners tend to be conformist cowards who support things like illegal wiretapping, so this argument doesn't work.
Guns are stupid and have nothing to with protecting our liberties, if anything they undermine out liberties by making it easier for people to get involved in murder.
Please don't compare the right to have something as anti-social and counter productive as gun, with the right not to be censored.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but seriouslly guns are not an essential aspect of liberty and in a perfect world they should be banned along with things like organized religion and the military.
Just a suggestion, you might consider using iRiver HDD 'multi-codec jukeboxes.' While they are not as sexy as the iPods (are at least thats what they say), they are pretty functional and can even play video (only avi with Xvid/mp3 sadly). And of course, iRiver's products support ogg.
Only in your mind its called 'killing babies', not every thinks like that. Some people believe in women using their bodies as they see fit and not being forced to undermine their liberties for some conservative zealots who like to think that they can tell other people how to live.
They are supposed to continue what their proud ancestors accomplished, not take the spiritual emptiness and boring homogeny of the West. What is happening now is cultural suicide. No people should be allowed to extinguish their precious diversity.
And the alternative is to choose Russian stupidity and imperialism? No thanks, let us decide how we will develop. I personally would rather choose being exploited by the west than Russia. Russia can offer nothing but dark ages to the Ukraine. Russia is a dead end.
Ukraine is at least a trilingual nation. That no official status was granted to Russian and Rusyn is an outrage. Ukrainian should not have been forced upon people whose lands were always Russian-speaking, and Russian shouldn't have been imposed on the West. A Belgian solution might have been found.
Why should Russian be an official language? And whats this trash about Prussian speaking? Where was Moscow when during Kiev's Rus? First show some respect to Ukrainians in Russia, then we might consider giving Russian official recognition. Teach your stupid cops to act properly. Its not "Hahol" but Ukrainian, until this is fixed, there shouldn't even be any talk about Russian becoming an official language. Furthermore, just because a lot of people speak a particular language doesn't mean it has to be official. Almost everyone speaks English in Holland, I don't see English becoming an official language.
And stupid Russian rule is any better? You are not to decide whats good for Ukraine.
Still, better to stay with fellow Orthodox than surrender to the atheism of the West.
Whats wrong with atheism. If I don't believe in some old dude who lives in the sky (in -40C) does that make me any less Ukrainian?
Learn some history before posting. Stalin did not eat all that food, what he did do was sell for export in order finance his industrialization program. The only way he could get the tools needed for implementing industrialization was to exchange crops for hard currency. You really don't what you are talking about do you?
Yeah right, very peacefully. Doesn't the fact that many Ukrainians decided to join the Nazi's to fight against the Soviets tell you anything? Just because American's exterminated the native American population doesn't mean Russia's stance against Ukraine is any better.
Lets not even start about the artificial famine in the 30's that created by Russia. And the present Russian government doesn't even want to apologize for their crimes.
I understand getting a robotic pet for geek purposes, trying to hack it and see what it can do, but why would you want a robot dog/cat as a real pet? I mean it's not like you can't spot the difference between the real thing and the bot. Sure in the future, there might be no visible difference, but NOW?
Dude, if you don't like porn, don't look for it? Why do you care what other people do in their free time? This is what I hate about conservatives, putting their noses in other peoples business. Are you such a bad parent that you can't trust your kids? And in general, what's wrong with porn? As long as it is regulated, there should be no issues? Why do you want to limit other people's liberties? Seriously, you are comparing porn to Nazism? Do you even understand how stupid that sounds?
Address what issue? There is no issue, porn is a fundamental liberty! Anyway, we can't trust the government or right wingers to set a precedent and allow you to block porn. If that happens, soon atheism will also be banned and atheists will have to wear badges. You see my point?
Well why not? Your comparing Clinton to Bush! It's Bush we are talking about here, you know the village idiot dude, the one who was too stupid understand evolution so decided to support some made up bullshit?
What are movies like Alien, Star Trek and Star Wars doing on that list. Any movie with stupid booster rocket sounds in space cannot be considered a space or true sci-fi movie.
And in general, what does alien have to do with space/science? Stereotypical aliens with a humanoid bodies, artificial gravity on spaceship. It's trash aimed at the mainstream audience.
Same applies to Star Trek and Star Wars. The aliens are simply humans that look slightly different. There is no understanding of the depth and complexity of space. It's all "Yo dude! Lets check out that new planet, start up the motor." The Star **** series is imply a mix of action which is set in space. They don't deserve to be up there:
Movies that should be on that list:
2001: A Space Odyssey
2010: Odyssey Two (still a worthy movie)
Dune (lynch could have done a better job, but Dune beats Star **** any day)
Contact
Apollo 13
Solaris (nowhere near as good as the book, but still great movie)
In general, I think that things like Star **** and alien shouldn't even be classified as sci-fi. It should be action/horror/melodrama. True sci-fi shouldn't have pointless violence and crap aliens (humanoid). True sci-fi doesn't even have to have futuristic sets and shit like that. Think of the following movies:
That's debatable. Bush is religious? Isn't he? The point is religion and some the crap it uses to justify itself (bible etc) has a lot of stuff that creates problems in the world (Catholic views on contraception?). So why don't we try and get rid of these problems? You can't just say that religion and all the horror commited by its memembers aren't related. Perhaps, religion is easy to exploit (without even having to twist it significantly)? Are you saying things like limiting of homosexual's liberties, abortion isn't caused by religion.
But whether they were actually religious or using religion as a motivator, and whether they were doing what they honestly thought their god(s) wanted them to do or were making it up, is a moot point.
Then why is so common for people to exploit religion? Doesn't that bother you? Haven't you considered that perhaps we don't need religion anymore? Think of it as a security hole, we need to patch it ASAP to not allow people to exploit it and harm other people. Of course, this works only if we agree that all the deaths due to religion had nothing to do with true belief and that some dudes where just using religion. Like you said, this is a very moot point.:)
I am sure there is no one that is opposed to abortion who is also not religious.
Please... one person doesn't characterize a whole movement. How come the vast majority of people who oppose abortion are religious? You can't say that there is no correlation....
For example, you wanting us to live in a free society are forcing a free society upon others.
I am not forcing anything on anyone. I just want religious nuts to stop interfering with people's civil liberties. I don't mind if say christian won't practice abortion. That's fine by me, they can do themselves whatever they like, what they shouldn't be doing is telling other people whats good or bad. That's not for them to decide. Killing limits someone's civil liberty, they might want to live. For those who don't, we have euthanasia. It's a simple as that, moral relativism. Do what you want as long as you don't hurt someone or limit their liberties and don't harm the fabric of our society (this includes the environment).
And about fairy tales. Besides that being inflammatory and sensationalistic
Prove that crap in the bible really happened. Especially the bit about creating the world in seven days. I am sorry if like calling things their proper names and I don't make exceptions for organizations in one way or another involved in mass murder and a whole range of discrimination. If you like the word fiction more, I could use that.
Some people believe this. You probably don't. They would say you believe in a fairy tale world of things that actually exist.
Thats fine by me, as long as they don't stick their noses where they don't belong.:) This is a very bad way to counter my arguments. Just because some people argue that nothing exists, doesn't mean that counters my argument. In order to have a proper argument we have to be on the same plane. See my point?
Oh, but logic doesn't suit your purpose here, which is to be sensational and inflammatory. By all means, continue to support the ignorance of the populace. Go watch the news. That's also sensational and inflammatory, reducing complex ideas into sound bite drivel. You'd fit right in.
Ad hominem Alert! What ignorance of the populace? What populace? Since when did Atheism go mainstream? As far as I know most people are still religious and if anything the media supports religion (not a very large market for atheists and they don't watch mainstream TV anyway).
So what do you think is more likely? That you're smarter than every religious scholar and philosopher for the past 4,000+ years, or that there are actually very defensible positions on both sides of the fence - and you're just not succeeding in understanding any of the points that don't support your conclusion?
I don't know about being smarter, but I do know that its literally impossible to prove to a believer that god doesn't exist. This mostly stems from the fact that belief mostly uses faith as a way of knowing. How can you prove something, when someone says "it is so, because I believe it!" Seriously, if something has no relation to reality, how are we supposed to argue against it? For example, if god appeared in front of me and gave me a tour of heaven (hell, even if would be able to talk to god on shrooms), I would admit that he exists (though I wouldn't join him, I'd go tell hell and start a rebellion against anti-god and god). Is there any way that I can convince a believer like you that god is just a bunch of fairy tales? I don't think so. Lets say we uncovered all the gaps in the the fossil record, and ran a full-scale simulation of conditions in pre-biotic life and recorded the movement from chemicals-->organic. Lets add more proof for the infinite age of the universe (as much as it is possible to explain such proof), would that be enough for you to agree that god doesn't exist? Arguing with faith is impossible beacuse it doesn't really relate to reality. Furthermore, the 4K arguement sucks, for most of those 4K vast majority of people though homosexuality was wrong, that doesn't make it wrong. Plus, the dudes from most of those 4K years didn't have the knowledge we have.
but that's a mark against the people who excommunicated him, not against religion in general.
I wonder why is does this sort of thing happen so often with religion, I wonder if there is some sort of correlation - or is every time it's the people involved who are at fault. This happens way too often for it to be a simple coincidence.
So if you want to say that religion limits freedom, you're going to have to do the research,
Lets just forget about mormonism, did you that combined mainstream christians and muslims make up more that half of the world population? The fact that such a huge proportion of believers support religions that aim to limit our freedoms already portarys religion in a bad light. Regarding mormonism itself, I wouldn't call that very liberal. While mormonism isn't as bad as some other, I wouldn't go as far as saying that mormonism is associated with liberalism. I am sure a lot of peer pressure and manipulation goes in mormon dominated areas. Why do you bother people? They can decide for themselves what they want to believe. Would you allow your children to become atheists? And I don't see mormons campaigning for things like freedoms for homosexuals, the right to smoke pot and do shrooms. I'll give you credit that you guys sorted out your issues with polygamy and afro-americans, though you must remember that mormonism isn't really representative of religion as a whole. For instance, if most of the religious world would be budhist or taoist, I would have no issues with religion. What bother me is when religious nutcases start telling me how to live and what I can or can't do. That's not for them to decide.:)
"you don't like abortion? don't practice it!" Response: "You don't like slavery, don't practice it!"
Two different things, by no stretch of imagination could you consider slavery a civil liberty. Slavery is wrong, period. You cannot have a rational debate for slavery. It's a woman's decision if she wants to abort or not and stupid religious teachings should not limit that liberty. It's her body, if you don't believe in a soul, you are not doing anything bad by terminating a bunch of cells. you don't go saving every sperm cell, do you? This is such a bad comparison. Abortion is personal choice. Slavery is not as it involves
Who said I liked the USA foreign policy? I don't want the USA to impose their version of democracy on other nations. On the contrary it makes me sick to see all this talk about democracy in Iraq, while at the same time the USA ignores the totalitarian regime in Turkmenistan because the local nutcase allows USA oil companies into the country. Just because, the USA's foreign policy is bad, doesn't mean its ok for religion to do the same.
"You guys probably killed more people than Hitler?" Wait, and you're calling the parent irrational? Wow.
Umm considering the amount of deaths due to religion (I am sure I don't have to list every damn case - crusades, inquisition, killing of non-believers), I wouldn't be surprised if religion killed more people than Hitler. Or is it ok to ignore the deaths of all these people just because God (TM) is involved? Utter hypocrisy if you ask me....
Slashdot Mirror
Why not use deivce that simluate guns in target shooting? Do you really need the real thing? Sounds like a very lame excuse to me....
Things aren't so simple, have you considered the fact at least in the early stages of pregnancies you could argue that the baby is part of the mother's body. Certainly the baby cannot be considered an autonomous creature. So why shouldn't the woman have control over her own body? If she wants to she should be able to have an abortion, she is not undermining anyone liberty, she just taking control of her own body.
There are other issues involved as well, even if you do believe that life begins at conception, why should you be able to make abortion illegal (or in practice illegal)? It might be immoral, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal or limited. The fact that there is debate on this issue of when life begins already demonstrates that this is not a simple issue and we cannot simply make abortion illegal. The morality behind this issue is questionable and until there is a consensus on this issue, abortion should be easily available conservatives should be prosecuted for stopping other people from using their liberty.
By doing so you are undermining the liberties of the people who you are beating up. Thus you should be punished for that. Abortion involves a woman having control of her own body. And the baby's life is dependent upon her body. I don't see how you or your views come into the equation... Don't like abortion, don't practice it, unluckily for you, you have no rights to limit other people's liberties.
Accounting how abortion is affecting countries? Since when do you have the rights to force people to have children? Did you consider that sluggish population growth in Europe could be a result of other factors? Did you consider that in Europe they don't have various religious organizations and society forcing their 'family values' upon you? And people would rather pursue other interests than increasing their nation's population?
And as far as the issue of abortion being a litmus test for competence, I agree that's incorrect. But what it does show is that a person is willing to undermine our liberties to comply with some stupid religious views that not everyone cares for.
A whole different thing IMHO, while I respect your views, I am not willing to tolerate partial restrictions on abortion. This creates a precedent where on paper abortion is legal, but in practice it's impossible to get an abortion. I just don't trust the conservative establishment, whenever they have a chance, they will limit your liberties and we should not allow them to that.
Of course, you can say that you need the gun to protect yourself against the government, but that's just bullshit. If the government wants you dead, no gun will protect you. And anyways, gun owners tend to be conformist cowards who support things like illegal wiretapping, so this argument doesn't work.
Guns are stupid and have nothing to with protecting our liberties, if anything they undermine out liberties by making it easier for people to get involved in murder.
Please don't compare the right to have something as anti-social and counter productive as gun, with the right not to be censored.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but seriouslly guns are not an essential aspect of liberty and in a perfect world they should be banned along with things like organized religion and the military.
Check this out:
http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/hd/
http://www.iriver.com/html/product/prpa_product.as p?pidx=42
Incorrect
Only in your mind its called 'killing babies', not every thinks like that. Some people believe in women using their bodies as they see fit and not being forced to undermine their liberties for some conservative zealots who like to think that they can tell other people how to live.
(I am considering that you did not intend to be ironic) And how are corporations better?
Well if it's so easy to get free PR, why didn't Yahoo and MS do the same?
And the alternative is to choose Russian stupidity and imperialism? No thanks, let us decide how we will develop. I personally would rather choose being exploited by the west than Russia. Russia can offer nothing but dark ages to the Ukraine. Russia is a dead end.
Ukraine is at least a trilingual nation. That no official status was granted to Russian and Rusyn is an outrage. Ukrainian should not have been forced upon people whose lands were always Russian-speaking, and Russian shouldn't have been imposed on the West. A Belgian solution might have been found.
Why should Russian be an official language? And whats this trash about Prussian speaking? Where was Moscow when during Kiev's Rus? First show some respect to Ukrainians in Russia, then we might consider giving Russian official recognition. Teach your stupid cops to act properly. Its not "Hahol" but Ukrainian, until this is fixed, there shouldn't even be any talk about Russian becoming an official language. Furthermore, just because a lot of people speak a particular language doesn't mean it has to be official. Almost everyone speaks English in Holland, I don't see English becoming an official language.
And stupid Russian rule is any better? You are not to decide whats good for Ukraine.
Still, better to stay with fellow Orthodox than surrender to the atheism of the West.
Whats wrong with atheism. If I don't believe in some old dude who lives in the sky (in -40C) does that make me any less Ukrainian?
Fuck wikipedia, read "Harvest of Sorrow" by Robert Service. If that not a good enough source for you, then you are nothing but a troll.
Learn some history before posting. Stalin did not eat all that food, what he did do was sell for export in order finance his industrialization program. The only way he could get the tools needed for implementing industrialization was to exchange crops for hard currency. You really don't what you are talking about do you?
Lets not even start about the artificial famine in the 30's that created by Russia. And the present Russian government doesn't even want to apologize for their crimes.
I understand getting a robotic pet for geek purposes, trying to hack it and see what it can do, but why would you want a robot dog/cat as a real pet? I mean it's not like you can't spot the difference between the real thing and the bot. Sure in the future, there might be no visible difference, but NOW?
Address what issue? There is no issue, porn is a fundamental liberty! Anyway, we can't trust the government or right wingers to set a precedent and allow you to block porn. If that happens, soon atheism will also be banned and atheists will have to wear badges. You see my point?
What the GP said:
Get it dude? He was takling about idiots who want to limit our liberties because they such as parents.
Since it's so safe, I am sure you wouldn't mind if dumped a whole bunch of white phosphorus over the neighborhood you live in, right? :)
Well why not? Your comparing Clinton to Bush! It's Bush we are talking about here, you know the village idiot dude, the one who was too stupid understand evolution so decided to support some made up bullshit?
What are movies like Alien, Star Trek and Star Wars doing on that list. Any movie with stupid booster rocket sounds in space cannot be considered a space or true sci-fi movie.
And in general, what does alien have to do with space/science? Stereotypical aliens with a humanoid bodies, artificial gravity on spaceship. It's trash aimed at the mainstream audience.
Same applies to Star Trek and Star Wars. The aliens are simply humans that look slightly different. There is no understanding of the depth and complexity of space. It's all "Yo dude! Lets check out that new planet, start up the motor." The Star **** series is imply a mix of action which is set in space. They don't deserve to be up there:
Movies that should be on that list:
2001: A Space Odyssey 2010: Odyssey Two (still a worthy movie) Dune (lynch could have done a better job, but Dune beats Star **** any day) Contact Apollo 13 Solaris (nowhere near as good as the book, but still great movie)
In general, I think that things like Star **** and alien shouldn't even be classified as sci-fi. It should be action/horror/melodrama. True sci-fi shouldn't have pointless violence and crap aliens (humanoid). True sci-fi doesn't even have to have futuristic sets and shit like that. Think of the following movies:
13th Floor Gataca Primer
Excellent sci-fi without any mainstream trash.
That's debatable. Bush is religious? Isn't he? The point is religion and some the crap it uses to justify itself (bible etc) has a lot of stuff that creates problems in the world (Catholic views on contraception?). So why don't we try and get rid of these problems? You can't just say that religion and all the horror commited by its memembers aren't related. Perhaps, religion is easy to exploit (without even having to twist it significantly)? Are you saying things like limiting of homosexual's liberties, abortion isn't caused by religion.
Then why is so common for people to exploit religion? Doesn't that bother you? Haven't you considered that perhaps we don't need religion anymore? Think of it as a security hole, we need to patch it ASAP to not allow people to exploit it and harm other people. Of course, this works only if we agree that all the deaths due to religion had nothing to do with true belief and that some dudes where just using religion. Like you said, this is a very moot point. :)
I am sure there is no one that is opposed to abortion who is also not religious.
Please... one person doesn't characterize a whole movement. How come the vast majority of people who oppose abortion are religious? You can't say that there is no correlation....
For example, you wanting us to live in a free society are forcing a free society upon others.
I am not forcing anything on anyone. I just want religious nuts to stop interfering with people's civil liberties. I don't mind if say christian won't practice abortion. That's fine by me, they can do themselves whatever they like, what they shouldn't be doing is telling other people whats good or bad. That's not for them to decide. Killing limits someone's civil liberty, they might want to live. For those who don't, we have euthanasia. It's a simple as that, moral relativism. Do what you want as long as you don't hurt someone or limit their liberties and don't harm the fabric of our society (this includes the environment).
And about fairy tales. Besides that being inflammatory and sensationalistic
Prove that crap in the bible really happened. Especially the bit about creating the world in seven days. I am sorry if like calling things their proper names and I don't make exceptions for organizations in one way or another involved in mass murder and a whole range of discrimination. If you like the word fiction more, I could use that.
Some people believe this. You probably don't. They would say you believe in a fairy tale world of things that actually exist.
Thats fine by me, as long as they don't stick their noses where they don't belong. :) This is a very bad way to counter my arguments. Just because some people argue that nothing exists, doesn't mean that counters my argument. In order to have a proper argument we have to be on the same plane. See my point?
Oh, but logic doesn't suit your purpose here, which is to be sensational and inflammatory. By all means, continue to support the ignorance of the populace. Go watch the news. That's also sensational and inflammatory, reducing complex ideas into sound bite drivel. You'd fit right in.
Ad hominem Alert! What ignorance of the populace? What populace? Since when did Atheism go mainstream? As far as I know most people are still religious and if anything the media supports religion (not a very large market for atheists and they don't watch mainstream TV anyway).
I don't know about being smarter, but I do know that its literally impossible to prove to a believer that god doesn't exist. This mostly stems from the fact that belief mostly uses faith as a way of knowing. How can you prove something, when someone says "it is so, because I believe it!" Seriously, if something has no relation to reality, how are we supposed to argue against it? For example, if god appeared in front of me and gave me a tour of heaven (hell, even if would be able to talk to god on shrooms), I would admit that he exists (though I wouldn't join him, I'd go tell hell and start a rebellion against anti-god and god). Is there any way that I can convince a believer like you that god is just a bunch of fairy tales? I don't think so. Lets say we uncovered all the gaps in the the fossil record, and ran a full-scale simulation of conditions in pre-biotic life and recorded the movement from chemicals-->organic. Lets add more proof for the infinite age of the universe (as much as it is possible to explain such proof), would that be enough for you to agree that god doesn't exist? Arguing with faith is impossible beacuse it doesn't really relate to reality. Furthermore, the 4K arguement sucks, for most of those 4K vast majority of people though homosexuality was wrong, that doesn't make it wrong. Plus, the dudes from most of those 4K years didn't have the knowledge we have.
but that's a mark against the people who excommunicated him, not against religion in general.
I wonder why is does this sort of thing happen so often with religion, I wonder if there is some sort of correlation - or is every time it's the people involved who are at fault. This happens way too often for it to be a simple coincidence.
So if you want to say that religion limits freedom, you're going to have to do the research,
Lets just forget about mormonism, did you that combined mainstream christians and muslims make up more that half of the world population? The fact that such a huge proportion of believers support religions that aim to limit our freedoms already portarys religion in a bad light. Regarding mormonism itself, I wouldn't call that very liberal. While mormonism isn't as bad as some other, I wouldn't go as far as saying that mormonism is associated with liberalism. I am sure a lot of peer pressure and manipulation goes in mormon dominated areas. Why do you bother people? They can decide for themselves what they want to believe. Would you allow your children to become atheists? And I don't see mormons campaigning for things like freedoms for homosexuals, the right to smoke pot and do shrooms. I'll give you credit that you guys sorted out your issues with polygamy and afro-americans, though you must remember that mormonism isn't really representative of religion as a whole. For instance, if most of the religious world would be budhist or taoist, I would have no issues with religion. What bother me is when religious nutcases start telling me how to live and what I can or can't do. That's not for them to decide. :)
"you don't like abortion? don't practice it!" Response: "You don't like slavery, don't practice it!"
Two different things, by no stretch of imagination could you consider slavery a civil liberty. Slavery is wrong, period. You cannot have a rational debate for slavery. It's a woman's decision if she wants to abort or not and stupid religious teachings should not limit that liberty. It's her body, if you don't believe in a soul, you are not doing anything bad by terminating a bunch of cells. you don't go saving every sperm cell, do you? This is such a bad comparison. Abortion is personal choice. Slavery is not as it involves
"You guys probably killed more people than Hitler?" Wait, and you're calling the parent irrational? Wow.
Umm considering the amount of deaths due to religion (I am sure I don't have to list every damn case - crusades, inquisition, killing of non-believers), I wouldn't be surprised if religion killed more people than Hitler. Or is it ok to ignore the deaths of all these people just because God (TM) is involved? Utter hypocrisy if you ask me....