Damn, much to do and not a lot of time to do it…I kinda didn’t want to jump in to the frey because of long and involved this stuff gets, but hey it’s Christmas, the timing sucked me in. I’ll try to get to this later.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Because I believe in an absolute source of morality. [/quote]
Then the argument you are currently pushing (Christian morality is the best) does not support the conclusion that there is an absolute source of morality.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
It doesn’t matter what some other culture does or doesn’t do. [/quote]
It does matter if you are trying to argue there is only one absolute source for morality. How could it not?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Regardless of my group’s numbers, or what your group might believe and practice, I maintain that you’re wrong (as example). You might believe I’m relatively wrong by your standards. But, you must believe that my standards also make me relatively right.
[/quote]
Not necessarily - as I’ve repeatedly pointed out. We can evaluate various morality schema based on the consistency of their views. So, if one says ‘killing is wrong’ yet at the same time says ‘kill group X’, then we can say that such a morality is inconsistent and irrational.
Further, I can always say by my moral standards, your morality is wrong because of X, Y, and Z. You may object, but so what? If we agree that morality is supposed to foster X or Y (say, a functioning society) then we can judge those various standards as to which is the best morality to achieve that end. In fact, this is PRECISELY what you’ve been attempting to do with your ‘Christian morality is the best’. You’ve essentially been arguing my side in that sense. However, I have to point out that there is no one ‘Christian morality’ and that you have to define what you are talking about and all that.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Meatros wrote:
To blather on for a moment longer;
Let’s assume there is one Christian morality and the adherents of the system met all the criteria for a functioning society.
That fact alone STILL does not mean that morality is not relative or that morality is absolute or from god or anything. It just means that Christianity has the most successful morality schema.
So, at the end of the day Sloth, even if you prove what you are currently trying to prove, you still have not demonstrated that morality is absolute or from God.
So why are you going down this road?[/quote]
Because I believe in an absolute source of morality. It doesn’t matter what some other culture does or doesn’t do. Regardless of my group’s numbers, or what your group might believe and practice, I maintain that you’re wrong (as example). You might believe I’m relatively wrong by your standards. But, you must believe that my standards also make me relatively right.[/quote]
…if you believe you are right, then you are right, even if reality does not support your belief. This logical discord lies at the heart of religious beliefs…
[quote]pat wrote:
Damn, much to do and not a lot of time to do it…I kinda didn’t want to jump in to the frey because of long and involved this stuff gets, but hey it’s Christmas, the timing sucked me in. I’ll try to get to this later.[/quote]
Yeah, I hear you - plus we are all arguing about three things, each are HUGE topics… So that doesn’t help.
- Does God exist
- Morals
- The nature of time (which gets back to one, theoretically)
It’s been 3,000 years and people haven’t come up with anything definitive…So this thread is probably going to get rather long… 
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’ve been making lengthy responses without noticing something about the group survival/expansion as morality, position. If some of you have truly adopted this as an absolute in your relative morality, then Christians are one of the most moral people in all of history. This group, the Christian group, has survived and thrived, afterall. Any other consideration for determing this group’s morality would be relative.[/quote]
…now, if you mean by “moral” that Christians have been very succesful at manipulating, indoctrinating, eliminating, confiscating, obfuscating and debilitating the various peoples and it’s possessions of many continents, then yes: they are the most moral people in all of history…[/quote]
Well, I was using the views shared by others. The surviving and thriving bit.
As far as our crimes, no need to remind me. We pray for forgiveness of the evils (evils, even if we prospered from the act) we’ve done while claiming to be christians. We do so rather often, actually. And, as a group. Now atheists? You guys just shrug your crimes off onto us with notions like “Political Religion.” You guys won’t even own up to evils carried out in the name of atheism. No, through some convoluted reasoning, the religious also carried out the sins of atheistic persecution. No hey, it’s a good stragety though. We’d just feel too guilty borrowing it. But whatever lets you guys sleep at night.[/quote]
…what orion tried to convey was the fact that the communists may have been atheist, but their evils were commited in the name of communism, not atheism…
[/quote]
That’s lame. This if no different than if I were to claim that evils committed in the name of Christianity were actually evils committed in the name of secular/worldly/materialism. New lands, conquered people (slaves for labor), resources, borders, etc. That the treatment of jews was simply base tribalism to hoard resources from the ‘other.’ I could blame forms of government and economy for infiltrating us, and using our name.
After all, not one of you could sit here and say the general theme in history wouldn’t have at least been the same under atheistic predominance. Man would still seek more and new scarce resources. Land, precious metals, labor, borders. They’d still have run into conflict in trade, political ideologies, and otherness. And if you’re a ‘god spotter’ then you must also believe that man, without his god spotting, would’ve been even less adapted to survive and come together to form functional societies. To claim any different is to claim that something entirely inhuman stood in our place in history.
[quote]Meatros wrote:
Then the argument you are currently pushing (Christian morality is the best) does not support the conclusion that there is an absolute source of morality.
[/quote]
Meatros, I’m using your arguments. Not mine.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Meatros wrote:
To blather on for a moment longer;
Let’s assume there is one Christian morality and the adherents of the system met all the criteria for a functioning society.
That fact alone STILL does not mean that morality is not relative or that morality is absolute or from god or anything. It just means that Christianity has the most successful morality schema.
So, at the end of the day Sloth, even if you prove what you are currently trying to prove, you still have not demonstrated that morality is absolute or from God.
So why are you going down this road?[/quote]
Because I believe in an absolute source of morality. It doesn’t matter what some other culture does or doesn’t do. Regardless of my group’s numbers, or what your group might believe and practice, I maintain that you’re wrong (as example). You might believe I’m relatively wrong by your standards. But, you must believe that my standards also make me relatively right.
[/quote]
Except your morals stem from belief in an unprovable, unkowable set of circumstances and realities. You cannot say that about an atheist viewpoint. So your morals have the same validity as any other religion, you ARE on common ground with them. Atheists morals come from reality, from the physical world, from the societies they live in. So on an individual level, the atheist moral model works 100% of the time because it is literally shaped by thier surroundings.
Let me give you a hypothetical and entirely unbelievable circumstance to prove my point. You should pick it up with great ease. You are married to your wife, you are a christian and hold your marriage vows very religiously, till death do us part and all that, you will stay faithful to your wife. Well one night you get abducted by aliens, see there is this other planet which they have been doing expiraments on with humans and one of thier expiraments happened to kill all the males on the planet. The aliens were not very cautious and failed to secure a source of male sperm before the failed expirament. Their only recourse to save this civilization was to grab you and a couple hundred other males from earth and have you seed the female population.
As luck would have it, the population through the alien expiraments have been granted some very special physical gifts, longevity and mind blowing physical attractiveness. The aliens telapathically communicate to you that this is your new home and you need to have sex with as many women as possible here to save thier civilization, literally a whole planet depends on your infidelity. Your wife still lives, yet you will never see her again, and you could help save a civilization by fornicating over and over again with thousands and thousands of nearly perfect females.
Using christian morals, if the aliens grabbed 100 christian males, the planet they brought you to would have no reproduction going on and the society would die out. Your wife would still never see you again, and you her. The good part of your christian morals just condemned a civilization to doom. And there is no wiggle room for you, there is no, if there is a greater good you must do it clause.
If they abducted 100 atheists, the atheists would adjust thier moral compass to the new reality they live in, and they would save a civilization, which in my opinion, it is a more moral thing to do than to be faithful to a person who I will never see again. They would also probably enjoy the hell out of themselves, but I just threw that part in for the fun of it. The reality is that Your christian morality with it’s steadfast rules, does not give you the freedom to do the most good with your actions. Sometimes you have to chose to do a marginally good thing and forego doing a truly amazingly good thing.
Also I could think of real world examples, but you seem to like fairytales so…
V
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Meatros wrote:
Then the argument you are currently pushing (Christian morality is the best) does not support the conclusion that there is an absolute source of morality.
[/quote]
Meatros, I’m using your arguments. Not mine.[/quote]
?
Then you are not disagreeing with me that morality is relative and your prior statement that you believe morality has an absolute source is false? I don’t think that’s correct.
My point is that your current tact is neither discrediting my position or supporting your contention. So why are you discussing it?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’ve been making lengthy responses without noticing something about the group survival/expansion as morality, position. If some of you have truly adopted this as an absolute in your relative morality, then Christians are one of the most moral people in all of history. This group, the Christian group, has survived and thrived, afterall. Any other consideration for determing this group’s morality would be relative.[/quote]
…now, if you mean by “moral” that Christians have been very succesful at manipulating, indoctrinating, eliminating, confiscating, obfuscating and debilitating the various peoples and it’s possessions of many continents, then yes: they are the most moral people in all of history…[/quote]
Well, I was using the views shared by others. The surviving and thriving bit.
As far as our crimes, no need to remind me. We pray for forgiveness of the evils (evils, even if we prospered from the act) we’ve done while claiming to be christians. We do so rather often, actually. And, as a group. Now atheists? You guys just shrug your crimes off onto us with notions like “Political Religion.” You guys won’t even own up to evils carried out in the name of atheism. No, through some convoluted reasoning, the religious also carried out the sins of atheistic persecution. No hey, it’s a good stragety though. We’d just feel too guilty borrowing it. But whatever lets you guys sleep at night.[/quote]
…what orion tried to convey was the fact that the communists may have been atheist, but their evils were commited in the name of communism, not atheism…
[/quote]
That’s lame. This if no different than if I were to claim that evils committed in the name of Christianity were actually evils committed in the name of secular/worldly/materialism. New lands, conquered people (slaves for labor), resources, borders, etc. That the treatment of jews was simply base tribalism to hoard resources from the ‘other.’ I could blame forms of government and economy for infiltrating us, and using our name.
After all, not one of you could sit here and say the general theme in history wouldn’t have at least been the same under atheistic predominance. Man would still seek more and new scarce resources. Land, precious metals, labor, borders. They’d still have run into conflict in trade, political ideologies, and otherness. And if you’re a ‘god spotter’ then you must also believe that man, without his god spotting, would’ve been even less adapted to survive and come together to form functional societies. To claim any different is to claim that something entirely inhuman stood in our place in history.[/quote]
Regardless of the motives, religion was the tool used for war. Atheism has never been a tool for war. I don’t know why you cannot grasp this concept. The crusades used religion as the motivator to go to war. Re-capture the holy land. You cannot claim that this wasn’t religiously motivated and you also cannot claim that religion wasn’t the tool used.
If an atheist leader of a state denounces a religion, and then attacks another nation, his people aren’t following him because he is atheist, there is nothing for them to gain by doing so. If he is truly an atheist as are his followers, he would still need to have some tangible benefit, either riches, elimination of an enemy, resources, freedom from tyranny, do it or I’ll kill you for being a traitor etc… There is a rational reason why these people would go to war, atheism is not the reason.
With religion, even if there is no apparent gain, as in the crusades, we just want gods land back, there is no tactical reason, there is no monetary reason, it’s because our made up religion wants to hold this land which is holy to our made up god. The great thing is there is another whole religion who also views this worthless peice of land as holy to thier made up god so we get lots and lots of killing over a worthless peice of land, realistically speaking. Religion can use the added bonus motivation, go to war for me or god will send you to hell for eternity. It just isn’t there with atheism, the reasons for war are not BECAUSE of atheism, even if the leader is atheist.
V
[quote]Sloth wrote:
That’s lame. This if no different than if I were to claim that evils committed in the name of Christianity were actually evils committed in the name of secular/worldly/materialism. New lands, conquered people (slaves for labor), resources, borders, etc. That the treatment of jews was simply base tribalism to hoard resources from the ‘other.’ I could blame forms of government and economy for infiltrating us, and using our name. [/quote]
I think it is different - but only slightly. During the crusades the powers that be attempting to defend their actions to the public by saying it was a religious cause. Was religion then the cause of the Crusades? Not in my opinion.
I haven’t been blaming Christianity for mass atrocities, btw. All I have said in this regard is that in Christian holy books there are atrocities committed under god’s name (with god’s participation). Personally if such a deity existed, I would not worship it, as I value human life and the god of the bible clearly does not.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
After all, not one of you could sit here and say the general theme in history wouldn’t have at least been the same under atheistic predominance. Man would still seek more and new scarce resources. Land, precious metals, labor, borders. They’d still have run into conflict in trade, political ideologies, and otherness. [/quote]
I don’t know what you mean by ‘atheistic predominance’, since it would necessarily assume a specific worldview attached (which ‘atheistic’ doesn’t adequately describe). However, yes if there was a different worldview that was dominant in history there probably would be some general theme differences. Probably not in the sense that you mean; ie, mankind fighting for resources and all that - so I would concede your point in a general sense.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And if you’re a ‘god spotter’ then you must also believe that man, without his god spotting, would’ve been even less adapted to survive and come together to form functional societies. To claim any different is to claim that something entirely inhuman stood in our place in history.[/quote]
I have no idea what you mean by ‘god spotting’ or what you are claiming here. Please explain.
[quote]Vegita wrote:
Except your morals stem from belief in an unprovable, unkowable set of circumstances and realities. You cannot say that about an atheist viewpoint.[/quote]
Of course I can. You guys aren’t a group, remember. Unless now you’re telling me you are not only an organized group, but that atheism has agreed upon a set of morals.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Vegita wrote:
Except your morals stem from belief in an unprovable, unkowable set of circumstances and realities. You cannot say that about an atheist viewpoint.[/quote]
Of course I can. You guys aren’t a group, remember. Unless now you’re telling me you are not only an organized group, but that atheism has agreed upon a set of morals. [/quote]
Ok if an atheist has a mental problem where they hear voices, then yes you could. I just was basically talking about your run of the mill normal atheist who exists in his environment with no mental problems. Also I am not an atheist as I have stated several times, so the you guys reverence is not valid either.
See what you seem to be missing here is that I myself subscribe to a belief system which is unprovable to anyone. I cannot prove it, yet the difference is I don’t want anyone to believe as I do. If someone asks me a question, I answer it according to my belief system and if someone wants to know more I tell them, but I hardly want my individual experiences to be spread to the masses where I couldn’t even begin to accurately communicate them all. Which is another reason I think religion is bullshit, I can barley handle the information directly from my god, yet religions claim to have it all ironed out written by hundreds of different people through countless years and yadda yadda. There is just no way there isn’t massive misinformation from the way it origionally came down to the human for which it was intended.
V
[quote]Meatros wrote:
I haven’t been blaming Christianity for mass atrocities, btw. All I have said in this regard is that in Christian holy books there are atrocities committed under god’s name (with god’s participation). Personally if such a deity existed, I would not worship it, as I value human life and the god of the bible clearly does not.[/quote]
Atrocities were committed because that’s what the people knew, and was how a people could become a group and maintain their group inspite of the opposition of others. It is not that these actions were moral, as it is fullfilled in the view of Christians through the New Covenant and the examples of Christ and the apostles. It is a resignation to the reality of the time. That isn’t relativism, as you’ll say. Because we DO hold those realities as imperfect.
Heck, an eye for an eye isn’t even Christian, though it’s found in our bible. It was simply better than a head for an eye. Christians are tasked with doing better than both. Better than exacting revenge in disproportionate or even equal measure.
Revelation is not a one shot, shazam!, “you’ll behave this way, and that’s it!” type of deal. It was a gradual process. Intrusive, but not completely overwhelming to existing “conditions on the ground.” Narrow if taken in snaphot at any single second, but progressing in realtime. Local in geography too, at first (a chosen people), but always destined to spread even to the gentile.
[quote]Vegita wrote:
See what you seem to be missing here is that I myself subscribe to a belief system which is unprovable to anyone. I cannot prove it, yet the difference is I don’t want anyone to believe as I do. [/quote]
Then you’d have nothing to say on this thread. Instead, you’ve stated multiple times that our religions are “bullshit.” Then there’s the fact that you’d rather our faith mirror your own in outlook. If you don’t want us to believe as you do, you’d have no dog in this fight.
[quote]Vegita wrote:
With religion, even if there is no apparent gain, as in the crusades…
V[/quote]
Bwahaha. Come on, man. Just as in your “rational” examples for the atheist group, the same rational examples still apply to the religious group. Land, resources, labor, borders, even the disruption of attacks by the other group upon your own people. Now we’ll switch back to atheists not being a group, while still telling us what atheists can’t do (besides not being theists) without being excommunicated from the group, and having them foisted upon us.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Atrocities were committed because that’s what the people knew, and was how a people could become a group and maintain their group inspite of the opposition of others. It is not that these actions were moral, as it is fullfilled in the view of Christians through the New Covenant and the examples of Christ and the apostles. It is a resignation to the reality of the time. That isn’t relativism, as you’ll say. Because we DO hold those realities as imperfect.[/quote]
What are you talking about?
I’m specifically referring to the atrocities in Joshua. Those were sanctioned by god and participated in by god (if the text is correct). I have no idea why you think that killing children fosters a group identity. Can you explain that to me? Certainly if I, a lowly human, can think of a better way to address the outsider problem (say, by rounding up the children and educating them and treating them civilly), then God should be able to have addressed the problem better then slaughtering the children (how about never creating them in the first place!). Further, your apologetics for the changing of the moral code don’t really absolve the fact that the change destroys any claim to absoluteness.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Heck, an eye for an eye isn’t even Christian, though it’s found in our bible. It was simply better than a head for an eye. Christians are tasked with doing better than both. Better than exacting revenge in disproportionate or even equal measure.[/quote]
You are correct - IIRC, it’s Sumerian. This is an example of the early religions adopting moral codes that worked (at least for a time) and incorporating them into their beliefs.
The strange thing is, if there is an absolute morality, then how could ‘eye for an eye’ change?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Revelation is not a one shot, shazam!, “you’ll behave this way, and that’s it!” type of deal.[/quote]
Why not? Seriously, it would make more sense. Further, how do you know which revelations are truly from god and how can you be certain what they mean?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
It was a gradual process. Intrusive, but not completely overwhelming to existing “conditions on the ground.” Narrow in snaphot like views, but progressing in realtime. Local in geography too, at first (a chosen people), but always destined to spread even to the gentile.[/quote]
I don’t see how you can reconcile this belief with an absolute morality. Again, I’ll ask an earlier question: Is lying always wrong?
What you are left with is several sources of morality - none of which are absolute. I’ll ask again, for a definition of what you mean by ‘absolute’. A bigger question is why ‘ought’ we follow god’s commands (supposing he exists)? If it’s because he’ll punish us, then we can use this justification for morality without god (ie, might makes right). The final question is, what evidence or reason do we have for supposing there is an absolute/objective morality? How does it account for what we see in nature, which does not show signs of an absolute/objective morality?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’ve been making lengthy responses without noticing something about the group survival/expansion as morality, position. If some of you have truly adopted this as an absolute in your relative morality, then Christians are one of the most moral people in all of history. This group, the Christian group, has survived and thrived, afterall. Any other consideration for determing this group’s morality would be relative.[/quote]
…now, if you mean by “moral” that Christians have been very succesful at manipulating, indoctrinating, eliminating, confiscating, obfuscating and debilitating the various peoples and it’s possessions of many continents, then yes: they are the most moral people in all of history…[/quote]
Well, I was using the views shared by others. The surviving and thriving bit.
As far as our crimes, no need to remind me. We pray for forgiveness of the evils (evils, even if we prospered from the act) we’ve done while claiming to be christians. We do so rather often, actually. And, as a group. Now atheists? You guys just shrug your crimes off onto us with notions like “Political Religion.” You guys won’t even own up to evils carried out in the name of atheism. No, through some convoluted reasoning, the religious also carried out the sins of atheistic persecution. No hey, it’s a good stragety though. We’d just feel too guilty borrowing it. But whatever lets you guys sleep at night.[/quote]
…what orion tried to convey was the fact that the communists may have been atheist, but their evils were commited in the name of communism, not atheism…
[/quote]
That’s lame. This if no different than if I were to claim that evils committed in the name of Christianity were actually evils committed in the name of secular/worldly/materialism. New lands, conquered people (slaves for labor), resources, borders, etc. That the treatment of jews was simply base tribalism to hoard resources from the ‘other.’ I could blame forms of government and economy for infiltrating us, and using our name.
After all, not one of you could sit here and say the general theme in history wouldn’t have at least been the same under atheistic predominance. Man would still seek more and new scarce resources. Land, precious metals, labor, borders. They’d still have run into conflict in trade, political ideologies, and otherness. And if you’re a ‘god spotter’ then you must also believe that man, without his god spotting, would’ve been even less adapted to survive and come together to form functional societies. To claim any different is to claim that something entirely inhuman stood in our place in history.[/quote]
…actually, the cop-out usually is, “they are/were not real christians/muslims”…
[quote]Meatros wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Atrocities were committed because that’s what the people knew, and was how a people could become a group and maintain their group inspite of the opposition of others. It is not that these actions were moral, as it is fullfilled in the view of Christians through the New Covenant and the examples of Christ and the apostles. It is a resignation to the reality of the time. That isn’t relativism, as you’ll say. Because we DO hold those realities as imperfect.[/quote]
What are you talking about?
I’m specifically referring to the atrocities in Joshua. Those were sanctioned by god and participated in by god (if the text is correct). I have no idea why you think that killing children fosters a group identity. Can you explain that to me? Certainly if I, a lowly human, can think of a better way to address the outsider problem (say, by rounding up the children and educating them and treating them civilly), then God should be able to have addressed the problem better then slaughtering the children (how about never creating them in the first place!). Further, your apologetics for the changing of the moral code don’t really absolve the fact that the change destroys any claim to absoluteness.[/quote]
Answered above. I spoke exactly to this. And don’t assume you COULD have addressed the outsider any better.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Heck, an eye for an eye isn’t even Christian, though it’s found in our bible. It was simply better than a head for an eye. Christians are tasked with doing better than both. Better than exacting revenge in disproportionate or even equal measure.
Meatros:
You are correct - IIRC, it’s Sumerian. This is an example of the early religions adopting moral codes that worked (at least for a time)[/quote] Exactly…[quote] and incorporating them into their beliefs.
The strange thing is, if there is an absolute morality, then how could ‘eye for an eye’ change?
[/quote]
Addressed this specifically.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Revelation is not a one shot, shazam!, “you’ll behave this way, and that’s it!” type of deal.
Why not? Seriously, it would make more sense. Further, how do you know which revelations are truly from god and how can you be certain what they mean?[/quote]
Because while revelation is always intrusive upon human history, for the most part we are the masters of human history. Time and again you will see major biblical figures fail God. They are not puppets on his string. They maintain free will. We have free will and natural laws to live with. We are, outside of minimally intrusive revelation, masters of not only our individual fates, but the masters of the earthly fates of others.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
It was a gradual process. Intrusive, but not completely overwhelming to existing “conditions on the ground.” Narrow in snaphot like views, but progressing in realtime. Local in geography too, at first (a chosen people), but always destined to spread even to the gentile.
Meatros:
I don’t see how you can reconcile this belief with an absolute morality. Again, I’ll ask an earlier question: Is lying always wrong?[/quote]
Lying is always wrong. And, addressed your statement.
I’m not simply a naturalist. Therefore, I’m not consigned to your worldview. I’m also a supernaturalist. So if baboons do this or that, I don’t base morality off of it. I base my morality on a Supernatural diety. You could try the might makes right without God thing with me. But, it doesn’t negate that no matter who wins on earth, the right and wrong will be determined, and rewarded or punished for etenity, accordingly.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[…actually, the cop-out usually is, “that’s not the one true atheism!”[/quote]
You made a series of typos. Now, because we’re best pals, I took the liberty of fixing them for you.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Vegita wrote:
See what you seem to be missing here is that I myself subscribe to a belief system which is unprovable to anyone. I cannot prove it, yet the difference is I don’t want anyone to believe as I do. [/quote]
Then you’d have nothing to say on this thread. Instead, you’ve stated multiple times that our religions are “bullshit.” Then there’s the fact that you’d rather our faith mirror your own in outlook. If you don’t want us to believe as you do, you’d have no dog in this fight.[/quote]
Unfortunately you are wrong yet again. As I have stated several times, the reason I openly denounce orgainzed major religions is that they interfere with my life and the lives of other innocents throughout history, including thier own members. I don’t have any problem coexisting with a religion if thier group has a motto of “we don’t ask people to join us, if someone wants to join us they will” Thats cool and noninvasive. Stupid, but noninvasive. Unfortunately that isn’t how christianity or the muslim faith operates, so I do indeed care about that aspect of your belief. The easiest way for me to get you to stop pushing your religion on me (not you personally) is to get you to think logically and renounce it as I have. I’m not asking you to believe what I believe, just that whatever you believe, leave it to yourself unless I ask you about it.
It’s like that game you played with your brother or sister when you were little, one would stand there swinging thier fist in a big circle and say I’m not hitting you. Well thats fine as long as you are standing still, but if your swinging your fist and you are walking into me, well then I’m going to take offense to it and tell you to get the hell out of my face. I find Hinduism and Buddhism to be less intrusive than christianity or islam, it could also just be that I have far less exposure to those two religions do to my region. They could be equally as pushy on a local level.
V