The stupidity of sin

[Huggy Bear]

Right. Become an atheist right now Huggy, for an hour. Then go back to being a theist.

Why am I bothering.

Response to you and Emjay below, minus the rudeness, since you didn't direct any toward me.

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How is belief not a choice? You either accept something as true or you don't...

If that's the entire basis of your argument and your religion then you and your God deserve each other because you're both as stupid as each other. Belief is not a choice. You believe something if you are convinced by the arguments/evidence in favour of it and you don't believe it if you are not, it's that simple.

Look you ignoramus, I tried to put it to you in simple terms, however seeing how you guys insist, I will provide you with a couple of examples from this very forum.

Example 1.

Bees, btw...all have 2 parents.  They reproduce sexually.........

Rhythm clearly believed the above statement was true (as evidenced by the facepalm emoticon), what caused him to believe that? He couldn't have possibly read any factual information that led him to believe the above was true, therefore he made a CHOICE to believe it was true.

Upon being corrected he CHOSE to abandon that belief.

Wrong, males come from a unfertilized egg, meaning they have no father....

LOL, mea culpa, mea culpa. Haplodiploidy.  So, armed with that knowledge....interested in making a remark on any other portion of my post?

There you go, instant change in belief...

Example #2

The issue of the government of Denmark being secular:

In another discussion there was contention over whether Denmark had a secular government. Despite the fact that Denmark has a state sponsored religion, quite a few members here CHOOSE TO BELIEVE the government is still secular.

If Denmark has a state religion, then it is in FACT not secular, that means it is a CHOICE not to accept that fact and believe otherwise.

The following is from Fidel_Castronaut aka pandamonium...

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Don't bother. You could explain, in parsimonious terms, things like nominal ascriptions, codified constitutions, the nature of governmental structures, de jure defacto, and so on, and stay dry all night here would still fail to get it.

Give him a plastic toy gun and this guy would still manage to shoot himself in the foot.

You're seriously delusional.
This is a clear example of the mindset of an atheist, If you won't accept that Denmark's government is in fact NOT secular which is easily provable, how are you going to even begin to discuss spiritual matters?

Your own quote (in bold for clarity)
http://atheistforums.org/thread-30615-po...#pid835049

Secularism Gurantees what ive highlighted you suggest in the above post. It gives people the ability to chose a religion (or no-religion) without the state choosing for then. It prevents a state mandated religion from either existing or enforcing it's rules and dogmas on the body politic.

Now if that's not the 'freedom to chose' I don't know what is.

so according to YOU, secularism prevents a state mandated religion.
This link is taken from your own post.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-30615-po...#pid846133
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark

Of all the religions in Denmark, the most prominent is Christianity in the form of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark, the state religion.

Also according to YOU secularism "gives people the ability to chose a religion (or no-religion) without the state choosing for them"
This link is also taken from your exact same post
http://atheistforums.org/thread-30615-po...#pid846133
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/rinv...enmark.htm

Let me briefly summarize what the State-church system implies:

• According to the constitution (§ 54), the Lutheran-evangelic Church is the Danish People’s Church (“Folkekirke”), and is, as such, supported by the State, which means that the Lutheran-evangelic religion and its institutions and churches are given a favored place among religions in Danish society. All tax-paying citizens, regardless of their personal religious beliefs, thus contribute to the priests and bishops of the “Folkekirke.”

•  Practically all citizens are automatically born as members of the “Folkekirke.” Not to be so demands that the citizens take the initiative to leave the church. At present 83 percent of the Danish population belong to the “Folkekirke.”

Denmark, then, from one point of view is clearly a Christian country—as are by the same standards the other Scandinavian countries.

This amalgamates into what I for want of a better label would label a secularised Lutheranism as a dominant cosmology in Denmark. Although Denmark (and Sweden) is a country in which most of the citizens by tradition belong to the State church, Christianity as a religion does not characterize the life of any large segment of the population.

Need I go on?
Denmark clearly does not have separation between church and state, yet you fail to acknowledge your own evidence proving this fact.

You're contradicting yourself dude.

I can't wait to hear your next excuse....

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None of the people involved in that discussion to this day, will concede that Denmark is in fact NOT secular, leading me to believe that they still CHOOSE to believe otherwise.

Tiberius being the only one to tell it like it is...

Huggy is correct, and there is no legitimate debate over whether Denmark is a secular nation. It's not. Not by any reasonable definition of the word "secular".

The Oxford Dictionary defines secular as "Not connected with religious or spiritual matters" (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...sh/secular). Thus, a "secular government" is a government "not connected with religious or spiritual matters".

The government of Denmark has a Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_f...Denmark%29)

The Church of Denmark is the state church. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Denmark)

Section 4 of the Constitution of Denmark establishes the Evangelical Lutheran Church (which is what the Church of Denmark was formerly known as) as "the people's church". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituti...k#Religion)

Secularism has absolutely nothing to do with how religious a country's population is, it has everything to do with whether the government of the country supports or is somehow bound to a specific religion.

The government of the United States is a secular government, despite being made up almost entirely of Christians, because the actual government as a single entity doesn't support any one religion (and this is written into the constitution).

Now please go somewhere and sit down.