The Obsession with Discussing the Supposed Rudeness of Atheists

[Crossless2.0]

"Goodnight Saigon" is a really good song.

It took me a long time to make my peace with An Innocent Man. I finally had to admit to myself that my resistance to that album had nothing to do with music and amounted to little more than envy that I wasn't banging Christie Brinkley.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There's one and only one Billy Joel song I truly love, "Piano Man", and the rest either leave me high and dry, or arouse my active dislike. Don't get me wrong, he's way talented, and obviously knows how to write songs that move the masses, but at the end of the day, it's still MOR radio pabulum ... to me.

[Ravenshire]

"New York State of Mind," "Piano Man," "Only the Good Die Young," "Baby Grand," "Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me."

"Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" is definitely top 20, maybe even top 10, but not best ever.

To each his own. I like the first three you listed but loathe virtually the whole of Glass Houses. I never have understood why The Nylon Curtain doesn't get more love.

The funny thing is, I'm not really much of a Billy Joel fan anyway. I'm just an opinionated bastard.

The only Billy Joel album I didn't like was "River of Dreams." Having had all (or at least most) of his money taken by his former agent, he (for the first time and by his own admission) wrote specifically for the point of making money, and it showed. It's kinda sad that his last studio effort was a weak commercial piece that sold more on name recognition than it did on merit.

[Minimalist]

There's one and only one Billy Joel song I truly love, "Piano Man", and the rest either leave me high and dry, or arouse my active dislike. Don't get me wrong, he's way talented, and obviously knows how to write songs that move the masses, but at the end of the day, it's still MOR radio pabulum ... to me.

He is one shitty driver, though.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Lol, there's that. Not everything is a minus.

[The Valkyrie]

"Goodnight Saigon" is a really good song.

It took me a long time to make my peace with An Innocent Man. I finally had to admit to myself that my resistance to that album had nothing to do with music and amounted to little more than envy that I wasn't banging Christie Brinkley.

I'm not banging here either.

[loganonekenobi]

I think we can all agree that one "immaculate conception" is enough.

The one I had with a Catholic gal was rather more messy ... in a delightfully fun way.

I'll one up you. my catholic experience culminated into a baby. the mother didnt like to use protection. No we weren't married. now my daughter is 20 years old.

[The Valkyrie]

The one I had with a Catholic gal was rather more messy ... in a delightfully fun way.

I'll one up you. my catholic experience culminated into a baby. the mother didnt like to use protection. No we weren't married. now my daughter is 20 years old.

And someone to be proud of, I bet.

[Whateverist]

Do you believe religion is always poisonous, that every person who believes in a god is evil or does evil on account of holdng that belief?  If so, those seem like some pretty difficult beliefs to back up with evidence.  What do you got?

Thanks for the challenge. I did not say every person that belives in God is evil, but I do think religion is a poison to reason and morality. Like Hitch says: there are wicked things that can only be done in the name of Faith: suicide bombing, circumsition, etc.

I further think that even now, religion retards the advancement of civilization in many ways. For facts to back this up, you only need google to find the crimes that have been made in the name of God for milenia and that are still being done. For example: The pope himself (at the united nations!!) the other day called homosexual marriage a "colonization of the normal way of living of our societies that ignores the nature of genders (...)". That did not surprise me, he is the pope he is just doing what church does. What surprised me is that I did not find amongst my believing friends a single comment on this! They all respected his "authority" even when he was plainly homofobic. For other subjects, they are well open to discuss and debate ideas. But for things like this, their mind is poisoned, its tabu, they cannot talk against it.
Religions are in principle wrong and, in my opinion, if the principles that edify an belief are wrong, then the whole thing is wrong. No matter how hard you cherry pick singular verses or examples between the genocide and homofobia and slavory.

Sorry for the long answer I hope I didnt bore you.

Not too long.  Wasn't bored.  But it sounds like what you really think is that religion can be corrupting, not that it invariably will be.  But your rhetoric lends itself to the stronger claim.  Anyhow, there are many who believe as you do.  I'm just not one of them.

[Losty]

Whatevs that thread has been about atheism, theism, sex, hitler, sex, abortion....it's been about a lot of things but only for a very short time was it about the OP.


Randy thinks that thread is about him....but it's just because he's so vain