This Has to Stop

[beepete]

Hating other people that hold a different view will probably only confirm prejudices on both sides. I'm a Christian and for years refused to look at opposing views. Recently I have started watching videos by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and a few others and it has been both eye-opening and challenging (in a positive sense). So far I have not seen them attacking the holders of certain beliefs but rather the beliefs themselves. Clearly, these men have a superior intellect to mine - but they don't attack or hate others for not being as clever as they so obviously are. Hating religious people will probably only confirm them in their belief system.

The ideology is poisonous and maintaining and spreading it is pretty much evil regardless of intent or opinion on it. It can't be ignored. So there comes a point where separating the ideology from its agents is not feasible. There's just different levels of both motivation and means. So someone like Ken Ham is a far greater concern than yourself or CL but the two of you are still, whether unwittingly or not, contributing to something that has historically been doing nothing but harm to humanity and still does to this day in more ways than previously. Imagine if the entire world was awakened to the reality of the falsehood of faith; the Vatican would finally pay for their crimes and the money they've hoarded can be seized and put into humanitarian aid instead of squandered on the wretched scam it all is, among other things that would actually help. Every day you refuse to get on board with that is one more raped kid because someone in a position of ill-gotten power isn't being kept from them, as far as I'm concerned.

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Still getting the hang of this. That religion has been used as a means for pedophiles, perverts and other degenerates to get access to their victims is, without doubt, a sorry fact. Fact - Many Atheists are good upright people. This, however, does nothing to prove that God does not exist, nor does it prove that Atheism has a beneficial effect on society (but it does not exclude the possibility either). Some terrible crimes have been committed by Atheists and obviously, it would be false to conclude that Atheism has a negative effect on society. The same applies to Theism.
I agree with your conclusion about the Vatican, and it applies equally to the Benny Hinns, Crouch's and other money grabbing cretins out in the religious sphere. I may well be wrong, but I think Ken Ham is a genuine believer in Christ and would do nothing to harm a child or use Christianity to feather his nest.
But this does not prove or disprove the existence of God either. It's taken me a while to get to the point but it is this. Hating people who believe in the existence of a creator and seek to do well is not that far removed from an Islamist who seeks jihad and desires to kill all who do not agree with his concept of Allah.
So i do believe that in some (but not all cases) we need to separate the agent from their ideology and accept them as a fellow human being with all its accompanying frailties.