The Bible Says...

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, if free will is true, this is a fantastic thing.

If the Bible is true, and we are each of us utter subjects of an all-knowing, jealous, omnipotent, stern, inescapable supreme king, this is not so fantastic.

So, while I agree with you regarding the OT’s worth as literature, I remain adamant that the desire for it all to be true is a dangerous one. It is one thing to be a slave and to be unable to win one’s freedom; it is another to hope for slavery and to be glad of one’s chains.

Edited[/quote]

Gaps in education identified: biased mischaracterization of principal character ; your free will is very much part of the Old Testament.

Read Friedman, The Hidden Face of God. Then we talk–about literature.
Not enough time? Then continue to revel in your received biases. I don’t share them.

62

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
From The New York Times: "We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
[/quote]

I assume by “behind” they mean the people that planned the attacks not those that executed the attacks. My guess, and it is a guess, is that the majority of the people blowing themselves up for their serving of virgins are not college educated.

63

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, if free will is true, this is a fantastic thing.

If the Bible is true, and we are each of us utter subjects of an all-knowing, jealous, omnipotent, stern, inescapable supreme king, this is not so fantastic.

So, while I agree with you regarding the OT’s worth as literature, I remain adamant that the desire for it all to be true is a dangerous one. It is one thing to be a slave and to be unable to win one’s freedom; it is another to hope for slavery and to be glad of one’s chains.

Edited[/quote]

Gaps in education identified: biased mischaracterization of principal character ; your free will is very much part of the Old Testament.

Read Friedman, The Hidden Face of God. Then we talk–about literature.
Not enough time? Then continue to revel in your received biases. I don’t share them.[/quote]

Where exactly did I deny that free will is part of the Old Testament?

The free will to displease and incur the wrath of the all-master is of course central to most Abrahamic religion.

The free will to writhe around in one’s chains is, I suppose, free will after all, as is the freedom of my dog to operate within the boundaries of his definitional servility and subordination.

64

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
From The New York Times: "We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
[/quote]

I assume by “behind” they mean the people that planned the attacks not those that executed the attacks. My guess, and it is a guess, is that the majority of the people blowing themselves up for their serving of virgins are not college educated. [/quote]

I assume that because they’re talking about attacks on Westerners that most of the perpetrators were exactly the people I’m talking about - the spearhead of Wahhabi terrorism against the west - mostly the foreign fighters who speak a European language and are usually educated and middle to upper class in their own societies. Many if them have lived in the West or were born in a Western country. Many of them simple become radicalised virtually overnight.

65

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
If you don’t understand the context, it can be conflicting. Trouble is, it takes a great deal of study to learn the true history and context. [/quote]

What context is there to understand?

Right now, we are all calling the Muslim extremists barbarians for what they are doing in Iraq (killing people, crucifying people, convert or die, etc…). But according to the Bible, God tells his people to put the men to the sword. Kill all the women who have lied down with a man. Save the virgin girls for yourselves. And to kill babies…On multiple occasions.

What am I not understanding here?

Those are the requests of a fucking psychopath…[/quote]

There is A LOT of context to understand in the OT. The historical context in which it was written would be very easy to understand for the original audience since they lived in those times. And your writing for a primarily uneducated nomadic (in the beginning) minority in the ancient world. Qualification of everything is something they would not understand.
The Pentateuch, from which you quoted primarily are legal and historical books. Primarily legal, and not a complete history. It was a history of the ancient Hebrews and it tells there story. Like any discipline, religion for the Judeo-Christian traditions studies it’s own history. You need to know where you came from to understand where you are at.
Some of the accounts are brutal, but they fit the world they lived in at the time which was brutal.
The customs of the time were barbaric, women were chattel and people sold their own family into slavery. This was not unique to the Hebrews.
And again, you are dealing with uncivilized, uneducated, brutal and barbaric people.
Explaining to them the intricacies or moral theory and explaining why you should do this instead of that was unconvincing.
You’re dealing with people who had to be told not to have sex with their livestock and that eating buzzards and vultures is not a good idea. They were also very superstitious would worship and sacrifice to pretty much anything.
So how do you get those people to listen and right their ways and get everybody on the same page? You speak to them in a way they understand.
This is what you do, this is who you offer you sacrifices to, this is how you treat each other, these are your commandments and if you don’t it’s your ass.
But it wasn’t all negative reinforcement. If you keep the commandments and obey you will be blessed. Your harvests will be plenty, your livestock will flourish, you will have plenty of land and lots of children. If you disobey and think you know better then your ass is grass.
Simple terms for simple people.
If we lived in the 18th - 14th centuries BC this would not appear strange at all to us. It would be quite normal and more than that it would seem to us somewhat advanced comparatively.
What seems to us gross and barbaric was normal to them. That’s the world they lived in.
It would actually be frightening if in 21st century western civilization if this type of stuff didn’t seem barbaric to us.
We have advanced, as we should have, since those times and in many ways we have the ancient Hebrews to thank for the advancements we have made, particularly in our understanding of morality.
If the ancient Hebrews did not succeed and thrive and become a great Israelite nation with great influence in the old world, who knows what kind of world we would live in today.
We have no way of knowing, perhaps we’d still be screwing our live stock had it not been for the advancement of the Hebrews in to the great Kingdom of Israel.

66

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Why is Deuteronomy even a part of the Bible?

I mean, this is some seriously fucked up shit you guys preach…[/quote]

So why bother reading it. It is not meant for you, and no one should be preaching it to you.

*You are not living in the Bronze Age and you do not have a Bronze Age mind; nor do you have an appreciation for Bronze Age culture and its horrifying alternatives (no criticism intended). These rules do not apply to you, although many of them are so much better than those of lawless tribal nomads

*Why is Deut part of the Bible? Read the last chapters backward. As JB puts it, this is the index, the index of laws by which the people regain the Eden lost in the first chapters of Genesis. When you have swallowed this, then the whole story arc is open to you. And you will appreciate the Bronze Age mind just a leeetle bit.

*Polyester and cotton are perfectly legal. The woman is spared.
[/quote]

I read it because there are psychopaths crucifying people right now based on what it written in THEIR book. So I was talking shit about the Koran. But it was pointed out to me that there is PLENTY of the same kind of SHIT written in the Bible.

Why is that kind of hate permitted to be printed? Seriously? How can you people HONESTLY love and worship something that would KILL CHILDREN just to teach you a lesson?

And then have the balls to call Muslims crazy?

You are ALL crazy if you believe these monstrous fairy tales.
[/quote]

I don’t call all Muslims crazy, just the radical ones interested in ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Jews. I call them crazy.
While the Judeo-Christian faiths have advanced past those times and lessons from the ancient world, you see those who disregard the history and lessons and advancements of ethics from Old Testament essentially reliving and resurrecting past mistakes and practices from those times.
We don’t preach the Old Testament history and legalism, we study it and learn from it.
We don’t want to relive the ‘good old days’. It’s our history and yours really.
Just because you disavow religion and faith, that doesn’t mean it’s not your history too. Secularism as Kamui put it, is the ‘afterbirth’ of Christian history.
You subscribe to ideas that certain things are ‘good’ and ‘evil’. You believe people shouldn’t be oppressed, that poverty is bad, that people should be free to live as they choose, etc. Those notions didn’t come from Babylon, or Assyria, or the Mongols, or the Egyptians. They came from a Christian world view that dominated western politics and society for centuries.

67

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, if free will is true, this is a fantastic thing.

If the Bible is true, and we are each of us utter subjects of an all-knowing, jealous, omnipotent, stern, inescapable supreme king, this is not so fantastic.

So, while I agree with you regarding the OT’s worth as literature, I remain adamant that the desire for it all to be true is a dangerous one. It is one thing to be a slave and to be unable to win one’s freedom; it is another to hope for slavery and to be glad of one’s chains.

Edited[/quote]

Gaps in education identified: biased mischaracterization of principal character ; your free will is very much part of the Old Testament.

Read Friedman, The Hidden Face of God. Then we talk–about literature.
Not enough time? Then continue to revel in your received biases. I don’t share them.[/quote]

Where exactly did I deny that free will is part of the Old Testament?

The free will to displease and incur the wrath of the all-master is of course central to most Abrahamic religion.

The free will to writhe around in one’s chains is, I suppose, free will after all, as is the freedom of my dog to operate within the boundaries of his definitional servility and subordination.[/quote]

Same song, different words.
Learn a new tune, I find this one exceedingly tedious.

68

Edit: Never mind: I’m not in the mood for argument, and not with one of my favorite posters. To borrow a thought from you, Doc, I respect you no less. I mean that sincerely.

69

And surely you understand that I respect the OT no less either, my opinion of the philosophy that takes its supernatural claims as more than literature notwithstanding.

70

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: Never mind: I’m not in the mood for argument, and not with one of my favorite posters. To borrow a thought from you, Doc, I respect you no less. I mean that sincerely.[/quote]
Ditto. Except I am with one of my favorite posters: you.

71

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Edit: Never mind: I’m not in the mood for argument, and not with one of my favorite posters. To borrow a thought from you, Doc, I respect you no less. I mean that sincerely.[/quote]
Ditto. Except I am with one of my favorite posters: you.[/quote]

: ) I know you know I meant that you are absolutely one of my favorites.

Actually Doc, I have been meaning to ask you if you wouldn’t mind exchanging an email with me? I have a question or two, relating to my current professional endeavors, which I cannot ask in a public forum.

If you would be so kind, my email, which (ATTN mods) I have created specifically for this public posting, is smh.23.public at gmail.

72

Doc–many thanks! Unfortunately however, Gmail is insisting that your email address does not exist any longer, and it’s returning my message to me undelivered.

73

[quote]ScholesGoals wrote:
They are with that statement, acknowledging the bible is th work of man, not something holy.

[/quote]

Are these things mutually exclusive?

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ScholesGoals wrote:

The bible was written in a hard time where people lacked understanding of things, this is reflected in the book. Or did god morally evolve at the exact same rate as us and now needs to write a second edition. The Bobby Seale of gods.[/quote]

As long as you remember that our things today are written in a time of abundance which makes a lack of understanding far less painful than it would have been in a time of struggle. [/quote]

This is very clever and pretty significant in its simplicity.

74

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
If you don’t understand the context, it can be conflicting. Trouble is, it takes a great deal of study to learn the true history and context. [/quote]

What context is there to understand?

Right now, we are all calling the Muslim extremists barbarians for what they are doing in Iraq (killing people, crucifying people, convert or die, etc…). But according to the Bible, God tells his people to put the men to the sword. Kill all the women who have lied down with a man. Save the virgin girls for yourselves. And to kill babies…On multiple occasions.

What am I not understanding here?

Those are the requests of a fucking psychopath…[/quote]

There is A LOT of context to understand in the OT. The historical context in which it was written would be very easy to understand for the original audience since they lived in those times. And your writing for a primarily uneducated nomadic (in the beginning) minority in the ancient world. Qualification of everything is something they would not understand.
The Pentateuch, from which you quoted primarily are legal and historical books. Primarily legal, and not a complete history. It was a history of the ancient Hebrews and it tells there story. Like any discipline, religion for the Judeo-Christian traditions studies it’s own history. You need to know where you came from to understand where you are at.
Some of the accounts are brutal, but they fit the world they lived in at the time which was brutal.
The customs of the time were barbaric, women were chattel and people sold their own family into slavery. This was not unique to the Hebrews.
And again, you are dealing with uncivilized, uneducated, brutal and barbaric people.
Explaining to them the intricacies or moral theory and explaining why you should do this instead of that was unconvincing.
You’re dealing with people who had to be told not to have sex with their livestock and that eating buzzards and vultures is not a good idea. They were also very superstitious would worship and sacrifice to pretty much anything.
So how do you get those people to listen and right their ways and get everybody on the same page? You speak to them in a way they understand.
This is what you do, this is who you offer you sacrifices to, this is how you treat each other, these are your commandments and if you don’t it’s your ass.
But it wasn’t all negative reinforcement. If you keep the commandments and obey you will be blessed. Your harvests will be plenty, your livestock will flourish, you will have plenty of land and lots of children. If you disobey and think you know better then your ass is grass.
Simple terms for simple people.
If we lived in the 18th - 14th centuries BC this would not appear strange at all to us. It would be quite normal and more than that it would seem to us somewhat advanced comparatively.
What seems to us gross and barbaric was normal to them. That’s the world they lived in.
It would actually be frightening if in 21st century western civilization if this type of stuff didn’t seem barbaric to us.
We have advanced, as we should have, since those times and in many ways we have the ancient Hebrews to thank for the advancements we have made, particularly in our understanding of morality.
If the ancient Hebrews did not succeed and thrive and become a great Israelite nation with great influence in the old world, who knows what kind of world we would live in today.
We have no way of knowing, perhaps we’d still be screwing our live stock had it not been for the advancement of the Hebrews in to the great Kingdom of Israel.[/quote]

I agree ONE HUNDRED PERCENT with everything you just wrote. I fully believe that the Bible was a WONDERFUL tool for population control. I think the people that wrote it (and later translated it and changed/refined it) were doing so with the goals of managing a civilization and moving in a positive direction. That’s all well and good back when, as you put it, people were trying to have sex with their barn animals. But we don’t live in those times anymore…

The whole idea that people think the Bible is… “TRUE” is what disturbs me. How any rational adult can believe that bullshit is FASCINATING to me. I’m not saying I don’t think it was useful or that it isn’t artfully written or anything like that. And there is a certain comfort in ritual that can be beneficial to achieving certain states of mind and productivity or tranquility.

But we have otherwise BRILLIANT people who actually believe in the equivalent of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny… People who want to TEACH IN SCHOOLS that the earth is only 5000 years old (or whatever the number is) because “that’s what the Bible says”… That’s retarded…

Then they come with, “well God loves you, he loves everybody - just don’t be gay or eat shrimp (but he’s kinda forgotten about the shrimp part, but you’d BETTER not be gay)”.

It boggles my little brain how any rational person can A) believe that bullshit and/or B) WANT to be associated with an historically infant killing, rape condoning psychopath who will TO THIS DAY, send an innocent baby to hell because you don’t put a drop of water on his forehead (but says he loves you unconditionally - just don’t love any other Gods before him - NOT that any other Gods exist, mind you, there is only ONE TRUE GOD, but don’t worship any others, mmmmkay?).

75

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
If you don’t understand the context, it can be conflicting. Trouble is, it takes a great deal of study to learn the true history and context. [/quote]

What context is there to understand?

Right now, we are all calling the Muslim extremists barbarians for what they are doing in Iraq (killing people, crucifying people, convert or die, etc…). But according to the Bible, God tells his people to put the men to the sword. Kill all the women who have lied down with a man. Save the virgin girls for yourselves. And to kill babies…On multiple occasions.

What am I not understanding here?

Those are the requests of a fucking psychopath…[/quote]

There is A LOT of context to understand in the OT. The historical context in which it was written would be very easy to understand for the original audience since they lived in those times. And your writing for a primarily uneducated nomadic (in the beginning) minority in the ancient world. Qualification of everything is something they would not understand.
The Pentateuch, from which you quoted primarily are legal and historical books. Primarily legal, and not a complete history. It was a history of the ancient Hebrews and it tells there story. Like any discipline, religion for the Judeo-Christian traditions studies it’s own history. You need to know where you came from to understand where you are at.
Some of the accounts are brutal, but they fit the world they lived in at the time which was brutal.
The customs of the time were barbaric, women were chattel and people sold their own family into slavery. This was not unique to the Hebrews.
And again, you are dealing with uncivilized, uneducated, brutal and barbaric people.
Explaining to them the intricacies or moral theory and explaining why you should do this instead of that was unconvincing.
You’re dealing with people who had to be told not to have sex with their livestock and that eating buzzards and vultures is not a good idea. They were also very superstitious would worship and sacrifice to pretty much anything.
So how do you get those people to listen and right their ways and get everybody on the same page? You speak to them in a way they understand.
This is what you do, this is who you offer you sacrifices to, this is how you treat each other, these are your commandments and if you don’t it’s your ass.
But it wasn’t all negative reinforcement. If you keep the commandments and obey you will be blessed. Your harvests will be plenty, your livestock will flourish, you will have plenty of land and lots of children. If you disobey and think you know better then your ass is grass.
Simple terms for simple people.
If we lived in the 18th - 14th centuries BC this would not appear strange at all to us. It would be quite normal and more than that it would seem to us somewhat advanced comparatively.
What seems to us gross and barbaric was normal to them. That’s the world they lived in.
It would actually be frightening if in 21st century western civilization if this type of stuff didn’t seem barbaric to us.
We have advanced, as we should have, since those times and in many ways we have the ancient Hebrews to thank for the advancements we have made, particularly in our understanding of morality.
If the ancient Hebrews did not succeed and thrive and become a great Israelite nation with great influence in the old world, who knows what kind of world we would live in today.
We have no way of knowing, perhaps we’d still be screwing our live stock had it not been for the advancement of the Hebrews in to the great Kingdom of Israel.[/quote]

I agree ONE HUNDRED PERCENT with everything you just wrote. I fully believe that the Bible was a WONDERFUL tool for population control. I think the people that wrote it (and later translated it and changed/refined it) were doing so with the goals of managing a civilization and moving in a positive direction. That’s all well and good back when, as you put it, people were trying to have sex with their barn animals. But we don’t live in those times anymore…

The whole idea that people think the Bible is… “TRUE” is what disturbs me. How any rational adult can believe that bullshit is FASCINATING to me. I’m not saying I don’t think it was useful or that it isn’t artfully written or anything like that. And there is a certain comfort in ritual that can be beneficial to achieving certain states of mind and productivity or tranquility.

But we have otherwise BRILLIANT people who actually believe in the equivalent of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny… People who want to TEACH IN SCHOOLS that the earth is only 5000 years old (or whatever the number is) because “that’s what the Bible says”… That’s retarded…

Then they come with, “well God loves you, he loves everybody - just don’t be gay or eat shrimp (but he’s kinda forgotten about the shrimp part, but you’d BETTER not be gay)”.

It boggles my little brain how any rational person can A) believe that bullshit and/or B) WANT to be associated with an historically infant killing, rape condoning psychopath who will TO THIS DAY, send an innocent baby to hell because you don’t put a drop of water on his forehead (but says he loves you unconditionally - just don’t love any other Gods before him - NOT that any other Gods exist, mind you, there is only ONE TRUE GOD, but don’t worship any others, mmmmkay?).

[/quote]

  1. This doesn’t concern you

  2. Please see your NT and your spiritual adviser for why this does not concern you

  3. This may concern you. Please see your spiritual adviser and the Midrash for why and how this May concern you.

Are you a Christian?

No: Go straight to 1. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Yes: go straight to 2. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Are you a Jew?

No: Go straight to “are you a Christian?” Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Yes: go straight to 3. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

76

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
If you don’t understand the context, it can be conflicting. Trouble is, it takes a great deal of study to learn the true history and context. [/quote]

What context is there to understand?

Right now, we are all calling the Muslim extremists barbarians for what they are doing in Iraq (killing people, crucifying people, convert or die, etc…). But according to the Bible, God tells his people to put the men to the sword. Kill all the women who have lied down with a man. Save the virgin girls for yourselves. And to kill babies…On multiple occasions.

What am I not understanding here?

Those are the requests of a fucking psychopath…[/quote]

There is A LOT of context to understand in the OT. The historical context in which it was written would be very easy to understand for the original audience since they lived in those times. And your writing for a primarily uneducated nomadic (in the beginning) minority in the ancient world. Qualification of everything is something they would not understand.
The Pentateuch, from which you quoted primarily are legal and historical books. Primarily legal, and not a complete history. It was a history of the ancient Hebrews and it tells there story. Like any discipline, religion for the Judeo-Christian traditions studies it’s own history. You need to know where you came from to understand where you are at.
Some of the accounts are brutal, but they fit the world they lived in at the time which was brutal.
The customs of the time were barbaric, women were chattel and people sold their own family into slavery. This was not unique to the Hebrews.
And again, you are dealing with uncivilized, uneducated, brutal and barbaric people.
Explaining to them the intricacies or moral theory and explaining why you should do this instead of that was unconvincing.
You’re dealing with people who had to be told not to have sex with their livestock and that eating buzzards and vultures is not a good idea. They were also very superstitious would worship and sacrifice to pretty much anything.
So how do you get those people to listen and right their ways and get everybody on the same page? You speak to them in a way they understand.
This is what you do, this is who you offer you sacrifices to, this is how you treat each other, these are your commandments and if you don’t it’s your ass.
But it wasn’t all negative reinforcement. If you keep the commandments and obey you will be blessed. Your harvests will be plenty, your livestock will flourish, you will have plenty of land and lots of children. If you disobey and think you know better then your ass is grass.
Simple terms for simple people.
If we lived in the 18th - 14th centuries BC this would not appear strange at all to us. It would be quite normal and more than that it would seem to us somewhat advanced comparatively.
What seems to us gross and barbaric was normal to them. That’s the world they lived in.
It would actually be frightening if in 21st century western civilization if this type of stuff didn’t seem barbaric to us.
We have advanced, as we should have, since those times and in many ways we have the ancient Hebrews to thank for the advancements we have made, particularly in our understanding of morality.
If the ancient Hebrews did not succeed and thrive and become a great Israelite nation with great influence in the old world, who knows what kind of world we would live in today.
We have no way of knowing, perhaps we’d still be screwing our live stock had it not been for the advancement of the Hebrews in to the great Kingdom of Israel.[/quote]

I agree ONE HUNDRED PERCENT with everything you just wrote. I fully believe that the Bible was a WONDERFUL tool for population control. I think the people that wrote it (and later translated it and changed/refined it) were doing so with the goals of managing a civilization and moving in a positive direction. That’s all well and good back when, as you put it, people were trying to have sex with their barn animals. But we don’t live in those times anymore…

The whole idea that people think the Bible is… “TRUE” is what disturbs me. How any rational adult can believe that bullshit is FASCINATING to me. I’m not saying I don’t think it was useful or that it isn’t artfully written or anything like that. And there is a certain comfort in ritual that can be beneficial to achieving certain states of mind and productivity or tranquility.

But we have otherwise BRILLIANT people who actually believe in the equivalent of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny… People who want to TEACH IN SCHOOLS that the earth is only 5000 years old (or whatever the number is) because “that’s what the Bible says”… That’s retarded…

Then they come with, “well God loves you, he loves everybody - just don’t be gay or eat shrimp (but he’s kinda forgotten about the shrimp part, but you’d BETTER not be gay)”.

It boggles my little brain how any rational person can A) believe that bullshit and/or B) WANT to be associated with an historically infant killing, rape condoning psychopath who will TO THIS DAY, send an innocent baby to hell because you don’t put a drop of water on his forehead (but says he loves you unconditionally - just don’t love any other Gods before him - NOT that any other Gods exist, mind you, there is only ONE TRUE GOD, but don’t worship any others, mmmmkay?).

[/quote]

  1. This doesn’t concern you

  2. Please see your NT and your spiritual adviser for why this does not concern you

  3. This may concern you. Please see your spiritual adviser and the Midrash for why and how this May concern you.

Are you a Christian?

No: Go straight to 1. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Yes: go straight to 2. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Are you a Jew?

No: Go straight to “are you a Christian?” Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Yes: go straight to 3. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

[/quote]

Well, it kinda DOES concern me. You see, the otherwise rational adults that believe in these fairy tales are trying to use their RELIGIOUS BELIEFS as a basis for passing LEGISLATION that ALL people in this country have to abide by.

Anti sodomy laws for example. Did you know that in Virginia it’s against the law to have sex with anyone other than your wife in ANY OTHER POSITION besides missionary? THAT concerns me… When religious zealots inflict THEIR RELIGION onto other people by passing laws that marginalize people that don’t subscribe to that belief.

So until you get your bullshit religion out of MY STATE POLITICS AND LAWS, I’ll continue to attack YOUR religion. BECAUSE IT DOES CONCERN ME.

77

^^Dude what are you talking about? That’s just one of those thousands of laws that are still on the books but aren’t and never were enforced. Like:

It?s against the law to sing off-key (North Carolina)

And

It?s illegal to attend a public event or use public transport within 4 hours of eating an onions or garlic (Indiana)

And

If you have mustaches, it?s illegal for you to kiss a woman (Eureka, Nevada)

You are not living in a theocracy. Who the hell is asking for these kind of laws? I’m not. I figure you have some hang up about religion in general. Most atheists just try to show how clever they are and ridicule believers. You seem to be angry at religion which is an entirely different thing. I’m guessing you’ve had a bad experience. I’m also very uncomfortable with organised religion and dogma.

78

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Well, it kinda DOES concern me. You see, the otherwise rational adults that believe in these fairy tales are trying to use their RELIGIOUS BELIEFS as a basis for passing LEGISLATION that ALL people in this country have to abide by.

Anti sodomy laws for example. Did you know that in Virginia it’s against the law to have sex with anyone other than your wife in ANY OTHER POSITION besides missionary? THAT concerns me… When religious zealots inflict THEIR RELIGION onto other people by passing laws that marginalize people that don’t subscribe to that belief.

So until you get your bullshit religion out of MY STATE POLITICS AND LAWS, I’ll continue to attack YOUR religion. BECAUSE IT DOES CONCERN ME.[/quote]

Direct your anger towards the proper entity-the state. Christianity has nothing to do with the state. Jesus did not teach that Christians should force others to act like Christians.

79

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
^^Dude what are you talking about? That’s just one of those thousands of laws that are still on the books but aren’t and never were enforced. Like:

It?s against the law to sing off-key (North Carolina)

And

It?s illegal to attend a public event or use public transport within 4 hours of eating an onions or garlic (Indiana)

And

If you have mustaches, it?s illegal for you to kiss a woman (Eureka, Nevada)

You are not living in a theocracy. Who the hell is asking for these kind of laws? I’m not. I figure you have some hang up about religion in general. Most atheists just try to show how clever they are and ridicule believers. You seem to be angry at religion which is an entirely different thing. I’m guessing you’ve had a bad experience. I’m also very uncomfortable with organised religion and dogma.
[/quote]

Those types of laws are huge problems. They sit there, innocently enough, until they are needed to violate someone’s rights. Violating some law that one has no idea even exists, because he’s never seen or heard of it being enforced, can give the state carte blanche with him.

80

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
^^Dude what are you talking about? That’s just one of those thousands of laws that are still on the books but aren’t and never were enforced. Like:

It?s against the law to sing off-key (North Carolina)

And

It?s illegal to attend a public event or use public transport within 4 hours of eating an onions or garlic (Indiana)

And

If you have mustaches, it?s illegal for you to kiss a woman (Eureka, Nevada)

You are not living in a theocracy. Who the hell is asking for these kind of laws? I’m not. I figure you have some hang up about religion in general. Most atheists just try to show how clever they are and ridicule believers. You seem to be angry at religion which is an entirely different thing. I’m guessing you’ve had a bad experience. I’m also very uncomfortable with organised religion and dogma.
[/quote]

Those types of laws are huge problems. They sit there, innocently enough, until they are needed to violate someone’s rights. Violating some law that one has no idea even exists, because he’s never seen or heard of it being enforced, can give the state carte blanche with him.[/quote]

It doesn’t work like that. Any of the charges would be thrown out of court based on reference to precent, existing laws that nullify them and on grounds of unconstitutionality.