Some of your Christian chums are tired of the threads as well, dude. And it ain't just Christian's starting the threads. There are a few militant athiests doing their fair share of antagonizing others.

Oh, wait, I'm Christian. Should I have not answered?

Halt, you should have started yet another thread and answered there. :)

Many them are good threads with good questions and discussions that then get trolled or argued into pointlessness.

Are there any threads that don't get trolled and argued into pointlessness?

I'm one of the "not-so-Christian chums", and they don't bother me. I have no desire to either defend or attack anyone else's religion, and I've already spent a good deal of time learning about various religions, so the amount of benefit I would gain from opening them is very close to nil. Therefore, I easily scroll past them.

I don't see the point of attacking another religion. If my religion isn't hurting you or your beliefs, what's the big deal? Everyone mind their own business.

I don't see the point of attacking it either, Gun. However, if you look at the wars over the course of history, it seems that the majority of people of the past (and the present) don't agree.

I disagree with that Chief Young Money,


If you're interested I'll pm you a link to a little study that a guy did on that subject.

The upshot was that if you establish a reasonable criteria.

Fought over doctrine
Fought for converts
Fought to defend land or materials considered sacred
Etc.


His findings we're that out of a large random sample of wars (2,500 if I remember correctly). Only 7% could said to meet the criteria as religiously motives. Half of those involved one religion, and all other religions combined accounted for 3.5% of the sample.

I can look it up for you if you like.

Religious motives and sparked by religious differences are two different things.

@ bo_sox48

The religion itself didn't cause those wars. Perversion of the religion caused those wars.

Fair point. I can't think of a religion that backs war at the very least, but it seems like all become militant when skewed, particularly Judaism into Catholicism and Islam, and vice versa.

Religious rhetoric can also be used to mask secular motives, so it becomes very hard to determine exactly which is which. That's why I usually pipe up on that one. People have a history of being warlike and tend to find lots of reasons to fight.

Brother Dingus, please pm me the link asap. Or post it in this thread. Sounds quite intriguing.

I figure most people do the things they do for a mixture of motives, like this: "The French have colonies we'd like to steal, which is fair because they stole our colony seventy years ago so they have it coming. Plus they talk funny and eat weird food. Fortunately they're also Catholic bastards so we can justify taking their stuff. And anyway, with the Juggernaut falling apart we don't need a Western Triple anymore."

Whenever religion has a negative impact its always 'a perversion, they're not REAL *insert religious adherent*'.

Scotsmen, the lot of them.

What's the deal with the Scotsmen?

> I don't see the point of attacking another religion. If my religion isn't hurting you or your beliefs, what's the big deal?

Children shouldn't be raised in religions that teach fear of Hell, disapproval of LGBT, male priority over women, xenophobia or prejudice toward other faith/nonfaith groups.

When all religions teach that there is no Hell (or no one goes to Hell), have women and LGBT pastors and church leaders at all levels, encourage women's education and employment outside the home, and stop teaching that atheists and/or people of other faiths are suspect — then people who still feel like debating the existence of God can do so at their leisure in private debate clubs. Until then it is a moral imperative to spread atheism.

No true Scotsmen.

Person A: "No Scotsman (insert religious adherent) puts sugar on his porridge (insert something they have done in the name of their faith which is unacceptable)."
Person B: "I am Scottish (insert religious adherent), and I put sugar on my porridge (have done something in the name of my faith which is generally unacceptable)."
Person A: "Then you are not a true Scotsman (you are not a true member of my faith, your view is a perversion/skewed/misguided)."

@gavrilop your statement has a very similar tone to that which early religiouns used to justify the spread of their own beliefs.

Also does anyone find it ironic that a thread created to complain about religious threads became a religious thread?

Point taken. I'll pipe down :)

@gavrilop - That is your opinion. Thank God we here in the US have *freedom* of religion. It's enshrined in the same document that allows you to spout off at the mouth with your anti-religious hate.

No hate.

Religions which already do all that is morally necessary, such as the Unitarian Universalists, I do not oppose.

> your statement has a very similar tone to that which early religiouns used to justify the spread of their own beliefs.

Tone, yes. Content, no. Are you worried about style, or substance?

> Also does anyone find it ironic that a thread created to complain about religious threads became a religious thread?

No. For it to be ironic, it would have to be unexpected.

Gavrilop it doesn't matter that the content is different, even it would still be teaching kids hate. Which seems to be your main concern, even though it would be hate of different people.

The way you want to spread your beliefs isn't any better than the religioun you campiagn agianst. You don't want kids to be taught a religion but you also want to teach them your opinions.

Of course the content matters. There's no hate in what I'm talking about. I don't want to teach kids hate. I want kids to be taught that no one is going to Hell, that LGBT people are equal to everyone else, that women are equal to men, and that people of all faiths and nonfaiths can get along living together in the same community.

If you see hate there, you're either confused, or you're putting words in my mouth. I said it's a moral imperative to spread atheism. What do you think I mean by that? I mean by debate, argument, words. The same way people spread Libertarianism, or Democratism, or Republicanism.

Words.

You want to spread atheism, others want to spread their religion. It doesn't really matter what you are trying to spread. You honestly don't know which is better, as long as someone is happy and isn't harming others we shouldn't try to change what they believe.

There a very few religions that are actively harmful to others, I don't know what your experience with "traditional" religion is but I have never been taught that one person was less than another. Regarding hell; you believe there is none, others believe there is one. You have no right to choose that it is your opinion that is taught. It should be left to the person to choose which they believe.
( and as a side note I'm not "traditionally" religious though I was raised that way)

> as long as someone is happy and isn't harming others we shouldn't try to change what they believe.

If someone tells other people that Hell exists, that LGBT people are deviant or should not have all the same rights, that women should be secondary to men, or that people of other faiths/nonfaiths are suspect, then that person is harming others. And so we should try to change what they believe.

> You have no right to choose that it is your opinion that is taught.

Taught where? What do you mean by this?

> It should be left to the person to choose which they believe.

It is. And they should also be confronted with other beliefs.

seth24c, most Christians believe that they have a moral imperative to spread Christianity. It is called the Great Commission, and it can be found in Matthew 28:16–20 as well as other gospels.

Do you believe that when Christians try to talk other people into become Christians, those Christians are doing something immoral?

>You don't know whether hell exists or not.

"that LGBT people are deviant or should not have all the same rights, that women should be secondary to men, or that people of other faiths/nonfaiths are suspect, then that person is harming others" agreed and few religions that I have experienced do this. But many athiest do the same to people of other religions.

> "taught where" you said that you want to spread atheism, and teach/not teach that hell is real. So wherever you plan to do that.

"It is. And they should also be confronted with other beliefs."
> but I guess you only want that if those beliefs are yours?

I don't believe it is immoral to spread Cristianity, however I take issue with the way many Cristians go about that spread. And I think we would often be better off if we were left to ourselves as far as religion goes.