(April 23, 2010 at 10:25 am)Fluké Wrote: Is that sort of attitude really necessary?
When it comes to religious discourse, I always claim my right to offend and express my believes and sentiments about that belief.
But I won’t go out of my way to be disrespectful. This sort of thing does give atheism a negative image.
When I first read that post, my gut reaction was "Yeah, there's no reason to be offensive"... then I clicked Kudos and forgot about it. Now I come back and read the rest of the responses and I have removed my Kudos. The others are right. Why do them the favor of withholding your scorn? They certainly aren't withholding theirs. Besides, this is atheistforums.org. Home turf. We can be as open about our feelings here as anywhere else... or more so.
Everyone seems to think that religion is something that must be handled with kid gloves. 'You must respect the beliefs of others', we are told. That's bullshit. I don't respect the beliefs and I don't respect willful ignorance. I may not be as verbally aggressive about it as some, but I do agree with the sentiments when I read them. The religion of Islam is retarded and hypocritical... just like the rest of them.
One on one in the real world is a bit different. I will try to remain more civil than I might in an online setting, but that is only because it is the only productive way to have a conversation, rather than a heated argument/shouting match. That isn't the same as 'respecting them'.
