This is why I hate people who hate "fucking christians"

[pineapplebunnybounce]

I, too, do not get your point, Deidre, in your previous post you said dedicating time to fighting religion would be a belief system and that it's more or less not a good use of time because it's here to stay. I don't believe it's a waste of time, I believe it's very important to keep society secular and if a society isn't secular fight for a society to be secular. That includes going out there and dismantling religious arguments, trying to convince others of our viewpoints and reducing religious influence on policies that affects everyone. You may think it's here to stay, and I'm not sure how you deduced that but many do not think so and think that it's a good investment to fight against religion, and I agree with them.

This has nothing to do with freedom of religion. In fact to ensure freedom of religion would require religions to withdraw their hands and reduce their influence on the government. Telling someone that their religion is bullshit does not violate their right to worship. Telling them to stop forcing their religion down others' throats is not violating their rights to worship either. If we see that they do something distasteful and want to say so on the internet it has nothing to do with freedom of religion either. I'm just confused because I don't think anyone on this thread has called for christians to not be allowed to be christians, so why is this issue of freedom of religion brought up?

In terms of disasters, I'm not sure who's responsible for this in the Philippines, but yea, disasters are disasters when the city is not prepared. I mean yes, you'd suffer damage definitely, but if you don't have proper buildings, water system, medicine, when disasters strike they're much worse. Most people who die from a disaster do not die because of what happened, they die later of infections, disease, etc. etc. resulting from dirty water, injuries that are not taken care of, being homeless, starvation, and things like that. Charity is of course important when disaster strikes, but we have to keep in mind that that is not the only time to do charity. And often the organizations doing these charities have the capabilities and resources to affect actual change that will help these countries be more self reliant, but for some reason, they continually give aid that doesn't affect permanent change. So, some of us who are more cynical would see that this is a way for these charities to boost their own image. I don't see why doing one good thing excuses them from taking money from the poor under false pretences and using the money to provide better lives for themselves that some of their parish cannot even afford, but I can see why they'll continue to do these good things if it helps them get away with it.

ETA: oh and about religion. It's not just it's effect on policies, it also affects many individuals on personal levels. There are people who give up medicine and believe in faith healing. There are those that are forbidden to marry the ones they love because they don't share religions. There are those who would marry their daughters off to their rapists because of religion. It's a real thing that people believe in and it's a very strong influence on people's lives. I personally believe that if I could convince these people that they are free to choose according to their own moral compasses, it's worth doing. So yea, it's worth discrediting religion.