Extreme Christians

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:throws holy Ragu sauce on you:
May his noodles bless you and your offspring.

The message of all religions can be condensed to a single sentence: "Do as we say, or we'll kill you." All the rest (especially all the talk about peace and love) is embellishment.

I don't see why. Both my parents and all my teachers (especially the biology teachers, understandably) were atheists, and there was nothing creepy about it, it was just the natural thing to be. Until I was well into my teens, I assumed that belief in god(s) went out with the Middle Ages! The first time I met fundamentalist Christians and read the Bible as they saw it (i.e. as literal truth), I almost had a meltdown. How can anyone possible believe such abominable, puerile crap? If it weren't for suicide bombers, I would be convinced that no one actually believes in religion - that it's just a lie they use to give leverage to their threats. I still can't help feeling that for a lot of so-called religious people, it's all just a show. Come on, no-one can be that stupid!

I think "The God Delusion" should be required reading for every student on the planet. Religion is the greatest threat to civilisation, far bigger than climate change or nuclear proliferation.

Well, extreme religious beliefs certainly killed a lot of people here in Lower Manhattan, and it did the opposite of creating respect for God or religion.

When you are standing there watching people jump to their deaths from windows over 1000 feet above the street, it is amazing how easy it is to say, "There is no God"

You aren't suppose to hate gays, lesbians, and non-Christians. I'm concerned about their fate, but most of them are quite happy the way they are (and even become highly infuriated if you try to suggest their Epicurean ways are incorrect.) My attitude toward them is "why waste my time and words on people who don't care anyway?" but I still feel sorry for them even if they don't want me to. They are happy the way they are and nothing will persuade them otherwise, so why bother? But I see no reason to hate them. I do hate how they're introducing their views into the class room though; if they are allowed to do this, then every group should be able to.

Many people throughout history have died naturally and artificially for a myriad of reasons, are we to blame the Flying Spaghetti Monster for them? If God is to blame for everything we don't like, then so is FSM, Zeus, Thor, et cetera.

"I broke a nail, WHY GOD WHY????! !! !"

Yes, but the belief in god (Allah), was the main drive behind their suicide attacks. There is not much difference to me between the teachings of Allah or Jesus; they are both Abrahamic religions. You'll never heard of an atheist doing his deeds because of his atheism; in all of history, the reasons atheists ever did horrible things was because of their "religious" belief in dogmatic political ideologies, which were very similar to a religion. Christians did many horrible things in the name of Christianity, explicitly. Blind faith in teachings of any kind is a recipe for inhumanity towards humanity.

Glad to clear that up for you . You should read The God Delusion, you're going through all the arguments he presents in the book. If you would of read it, maybe you could come up with something original, so then we can actually have a thought provoking conversation.


Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H. P. Lovecraft

Last edited by Kalister1 on 06 May 2008, 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Don't confuse blaming God for terrible things, which implies a belief in 'his' existence, with denying the existence of such an entity altogether.

"There is no god" means just that - the utter absence of a higher power. Or, maybe God was on his coffee break the morning of September 11th, and people mistook that for nonexistence.

I guess you had to be standing there looking at the horror of it all in order to understand. Believe me, plenty of religious people questioned their beliefs that day.


Exactly!
One of my heretofore vague points here is that people should be free to question their own beliefs, with impunity, and at any time.

Extreme religions of ANY stripe do not permit the independent thought needed to back away from a religious directive in the name of humanity.

It is good not to accept or reject anything at face value, but rather to search the matter out.

Then don't reject atheism, or Dawkins, when you've never even read the books. Investigate

I could say the same thing to you about my resources.

Ah yes, but you would be wrong. I have proven time and again that your logic is flawed. Read the books

I'm not quoting from the books I've read or my sources, ... yeah if disagreeing with you is "illogical" then I suppose so.

Read the books.

Im not quoting either, I pull these things from my head, from a variety of sources, though Dawkins simple arguments can be used for most things. When you get into more obscure questions, questions which you can't answer with science, he falters.

Well, no, illogic comes from arguments which have bad premises or logic fallacies. Like in this one, you used a logic fallacy called a straw man. You misrepresented what I said, which is your arguments were bad, and said that I meant that anyone who disagreed with me was inherently wrong. Here is what wikipedia says:

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position)."

I'm not just putting things out there, and claiming them to be true. I give arguments, to the best of my abilities, and back them up with casual logical proofs. They aren't extremely rigorous, as that would take too much time, but the means to extrapolate to their true conclusions is given to anyone on the board, and for people to add on their own experiences or arguments. Some people in just the last two pages have proven themselves to far exceed me in most aspects of presenting an idea, so I just hope they can add on to the paltry examples I provide.

Last edited by Kalister1 on 06 May 2008, 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

At that is called nitpicking and distraction.

Read the books.

No, this is simply distraction. You don't have an argument that can refute mine, so you simply say it is "nitpicking". This is constantly used by people who don't have a better argument; they'll simply say you are "thinking too much", or "nitpicking". At this point, its better for the reasonable side to walk away, as the other has chosen to simply be immune to logic.

This is also known as "avoiding the issue"

Yes, which you are> Read the books.