The Original Messages of Religion

[genkaus]

If I argue, you believe I am worng how then should I make you believe I am right if you already have the predisposition to believing me wrong?

Start by making arguments that are not so easily countered.

Need I prove to you that a rock is indeed a rock? We have defined such traits as virtues amongst ourselves that is why they are called virtues.

Not us - you. Or rather, the religious teachings you subscribe to.

And the reason for his death was to sacrifice himself for the salvation of all humanity. Why would you try and make it sound differently if not to villainize religion?

One is not required to try to make it sound different to make it villainous - sacrificing someone for others' benefit is a travesty of justice and therefore automatically villainous.

A sin by definition is an offense against religious or moral law. When I said that there was an acknowledgment of sin, it was the acknowledgment that we have done something we view as morally wrong. I never said sin existed, it is simply a word to define an action after all.

A shoddy equivocation. A sin is an offense against moral law only if that moral law is equivalent to god's will.

By pure definition they are a virtue, why then need I defend them? Why would you ask that I defend calling them thus if not out of your own bigotry that I am writing of an association they share with religion?

Virtue is a moral concept - it denotes moral excellence. So, if you are claiming that X (faith, piety, honesty, what have you) is a virtue, then you need to defend that claim. Claiming that it is defined as such is not sufficient. Nor is claiming that they are generally accepted as such.