Prayer ... SERIOUSLY?!

[DeistPaladin]

I agree that MANY Christians are asssholes. I do not agree that MOST are. I do not wish to speak for Deist Paladin, but I am willing to bet that he and other Deists agree with me that most Christians display Deistic tendencies when really confronted about their beliefs.

Yes. Few of them have even read the Bible. Most would be surprised to learn about what the Bible really says. An atheist on another forum once wrote that "every liberal Christian is one rational conversation away from becoming a deist."

The most notable difference between the feel-good god of liberal Christianity and the distant god of deism is the personal relationship (or lack thereof). Nature's God is a hard-ass and aint gonna carry you on any beach. Deconverting Christians are known to use deism as a way station on their way to atheism, but I suspect many find Nature's God a cold substitute for the hippy Jesus.

Homophobia and arrogance is something that ANYBODY can fall victim to, regardless of religious belief. I agree that Atheists tend to be drastically LESS homophobic than the god believers.

Largely true but, of course, there are exceptions.

If I had to rate the most homophobic guys I know, it would be a toss up between a Christian and an atheist that I personally know. The only difference is that Islamo-Christianity offers you a cover ("Oh, it's not me, it's God that feels this way"). When you're an atheist with feelings of bigotry, you have to either own them or try to hide them. Hence, the difference between the two is the Christian I know is outspoken about his feelings toward gays, openly using the word "fag". The atheist on the other hand, shows a curious duality between nature and consciously projected demeanor (especially after I came out as bisexual). He's the type who would utter an anti-gay slur and then back peddle with a "um not that there's anything wrong with that".

Also see "Dotard" for another example. Atheists can be bigoted. They just don't have the same cover Islamo-Christians do.

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I have to agree with Void and Stat, though Stat's reasoning -- if you can call it that -- is different than Void's reasoning. The very suffix phobia connotes fear. Any base followed by phobia is an irrational fear of whatever that base word describes. In fact, I would go even further and say that homophobia, and other phobias, is more than just fear. It is intense fear, anxiety and irrational reactions to homosexuals. I have never met anyone who is actually homophobic, though I have bandied the term about more than I care to admit in this post.

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It's an irrational fear that makes it a phobia. Fear of heights might be rational if there was a significant chance of falling to one's death. Just being afraid of heights regardless of the safety of the viewing position is what makes it acrophobia. Fear of snakes would be rational if a cobra suddenly appeared in your lab but a intense fear-reaction to a pet snake is ophidiophobia.

The two guys I discussed above who have intense hatred of gay men also demonstrate obvious feelings of rape-anxiety. One of them actually will about half the time the subject of homosexuality comes up go into a monologue, without any prompting, about his fear of being raped by a man. Not once has anyone I know asked him about what he would do in such a scenario and yet he feels the need to segueway abruptly into the subject a good half of the time. The other seems less obsessed with fears of being raped by another man but still overreacts when the subject comes up. He'll go on for minutes making it clear he "doesn't swing that way" despite the fact than no man I know of has ever hit on him or asked him if he does. In these two cases "phobia" is an apt term.