Mr.T, You think I am a fanatic and at the same time a swell guy. C’mon man my posts are hardly fanatical. If you will also recall my real problem is not believers, but “preachers”. The day an Athiest lands on your doorstep or hands you a pamphlet please let me know. My wife while not a active church go-er is a believer. I do not even consider trying to convince her otherwise. She is her own person. If I was a fanatic would I marry a believer? In my previous vocation as a sound&lighting designer/operator I have even been contracted to work for Christian groups. I had no problems with anyone there. Why? They did not even attempt to preach to me, or I them. During one such performance I got see a fantastic Christian artist by the name or Phil Keagge(sp?). Amazing guitar work. Also a guy named Larry Norman. I think I be more tolerant than you know. I also said I grew up in a small Catholic town where I was expected to believe. When I told my very religious grandmother I didn’t believe in god(grade 7) she said “you have to” or you’ll go to hell. My own grandmother! I had to tell her how I felt because I didn’t want to lie to her. She is not the only person I have heard this from, so don’t try and talk to me about having religion forced on me. Nuns as teachers, no bias there. I never had one teacher that identified themselves as agnostic or athiest. Why do you think that is? They probably would have been kicked out the classroom. Right? As for violence and athiests. Since we are few in number do you think we somehow commit more than our fair share of crimes? The reason I focus on the negative is the same reason you or any other believer would focus on the positive. My beliefs and experiences. As I said I see nothing positive in religion other than a opiate for the masses. How many non-believers think that one can be cured by the touch of some preachers hand. Like it or not religious loonies are far more common than others. Watch cable TV lately? Let’s not forget Jim Jones, Jim Baker, Falwell, Koresh, the Crusades, The Order of the Solar Temple, Satanists. Every day there are new allegations of abuse by preists. To the best of my knowledge no athiest group/groups have done anything like the above mentioned. I don’t even know of any athiest groups. Does that mean all believers are bad? Of course not, as I stated as well.
Ever read up on the Knights Templars? They were pretty fierce fighters during the Crusades. I don’t know if you could compare them to Shaolin monks, at least not the image I have of Shaolin. The wise, kind old master Po and young Grasshopper and so forth.
Hmm, I fail to check the forum for one day, yet I got 3 rants from Mr. Tolerant.
My reading comprehension is actually well above average, you obviously didn’t pay attention to the section of my post where I was referring to the old stick up the butt did you. I did see the “thinly veiled ‘attack’ on Christians”. I didn’t feel like they were really too far off base. We have all experienced fanatical people from various religious organizations that take their beliefs too far. A fanatic in anything is a problem; because they clearly can’t think rationally or see any other way of being other than their own twisted perception on reality dictates. For the point that I am leading up to; I live in the USA so I will use it as an example since it is the country that I am most familiar with. Every religion since the beginning has had fanatics within its ranks, there are crazies in every group. The fact that the USA is primarily Christian leads us to the obvious rationale that statistically Christians have the greatest likelihood of having the largest number of fanatics in the USA. So those of us that don’t believe in that faith stand the greatest chance of being harassed or confronted by one or more of these fanatics in our lifetime. Also, in any large group that shares common beliefs and interests the tendency to discriminate against those who don’t believe as they do, increases in direct proportion to the size of the group. Even if this discrimination is subconscious, unintentional, and accidental, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Currently in the USA Christianity comes in at being 76.5% of the population totaling roughly 160 million people. Nonreligious/secular comes in second at 13.2% at roughly 28 million people. (Info obtained at this website: http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions) There are probably at least 28 million fanatical Christians if not more, and the rest of the Christians for the most part tend to treat us non-believers in a rather standoffish, disapproving way. That leaves us non-believers getting harassed quite often especially if we live in small communities that are primarily Christian , as SD stated in his post. As far as your teaching me something about the meaning of tolerance, you wrote:”Almost forgoet to address the statement about me not living up to my handle. To Tolerate does not mean to go along with. You can get into very heated arguements and still be tolerant. In the case of an disagreement if one does not force another to conform to his/her view, that is tolerance.”
I wanted to point out that your definition is actually only a portion of the true definition of “Tolerance”. I hate to get all nit-picky about this but you were just so smug in your little rant about how tolerant you are so here goes. Tolerance: n. 1.being tolerant of others beliefs. Practices, etc. (the rest of the definition has to do with drug tolerance) Tolerate: vt. 1. to allow. 2. to respect (others’ beliefs, practices, etc.) without sharing them.
I placed extra emphasis on the word ‘respect’ because I am pretty sure you don’t understand the meaning of that word. Here it is Respect: vt. 1. to feel or show consideration for . n. 1. Honor or esteem. 2. consideration; regard 3. [pl] expressions of regard etc, etc.
I am in no way trying to imply that you are stupid, I am just not sure if you know how to read or open a dictionary, so I thought I’d assist you. You expressed concern for my education in your posts to me, and I figured out of mutual respect I would show you the same courtesy.
As far as my being stuck on the PC version of tolerance, I can honestly attest to the fact that I hate the entire PC movement. It isn’t because I don’t appreciate the idea that we should all show respect for each other, but because it is getting taken too far by some very thin skinned individuals that are looking for a way to punish people for name calling or perceived indignities that all mature adults should be able to shrug off with relative ease. So I definitely would not “disagree but shut up about it” as you stated. I do state my disagreement, but I still at least attempt to show respect for those that I disagree with. I don’t automatically feel threatened and go on the defensive the instant anyone says anything that might even remotely involve one of my beliefs. I have noticed in previous posts that you and CCC tend to spew the same accusations and justifications in every religiously themed discussion or debate on this forum. That tells me that you feel like you are on some mission to teach us nonbelievers the error of our ways. You obviously have a build up of preconditioned responses to anyone that disagrees with your beliefs, and you tend to go on a warpath the instant anyone even hints at something you disagree with. Watch out, you could be a borderline fanatic
You definitely do not show any honor or esteem for others’ beliefs in your posts. So the only way your handle could apply to you would be if you have a high tolerance to drugs. I have no problem with Christianity in general, I am happy that many people have found happiness and a source of motivation to improve their lives, and treat others kindly through the Christian religion. My problem is with the people that use Christianity as an excuse to harass, or look down on others. I also have a problem with the individuals that use the religious infrastructure to obtain power and influence to further their own selfish motives. Especially those that use their position to cloak their evil deeds like molesting children. The infrastructure and abuse of power inherent in any large organization is the primary reason that I choose not to follow the beliefs of any organized religions. I am not against any specific religion; I am against the potential for abuse within any large organization that is designed to encourage its members to display saintly reverence for it’s designated leaders. Or to accept it’s teachings, judgments, or the writings of men as “The Word of God’
Sorry about the length of this post, just had to clear things up. BTW Mr.T, could you please specify which posts you perceived as being “thinly veiled attacks on Christianity” so the rest of us can pick apart your logic about these so called “attacks”. For the most part those posts could apply to more than just the Christian religion.