My views on Christianity ...

[rjh4 is back]

There's such a thing as hate-crime laws, which often target neo-Nazis, and are as close to thought-crime as we've come in recent times.

I like what you said here. I think hate-crime laws are incredibly stupid.

[fr0d0]

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.

[Violet]

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.

How interesting that love leads to fear...

[Dotard]

Furnerals are for the living IMO.

Yes, right now I could say it would be disrespectful and insulting to me to know a sermon would be given at my gravesite and a cross or cruxifix attatched.

However I am dead. I will not care. They can dance and sing 'Amazing Grace' and toss crosses on my coffin, maybe even have on in my hands on my chest and I will not care.

If it makes the mourners feel better, have at it. I can promise them, at that time, I will not care.

[binny]

When my father died he was cremated and put in a nice cherry wood box with a mountain scene on it and he still sits in my moms house. We did not have a traditional funeral for him we just invited family to my house and we talked about him, ate food and drank. It was nice. When I die I would like that, but I'll be dead so I wont know what people do at that point.
I think any religion has it's extremists, there are even extreme atheists. The group of christian women I know are not extremists. I do think they are delusional about their sky daddy running their lives, but they are not a bunch of murdering nut cases trying to turn the entire world christian or be damned. Unfortunately there are those who aren't tolerant of anyone different than them.

[LEDO]

We need to jail anyone who compares anything to Nazism.

[chatpilot]

Then you need to jail me Ledo, because after having read Mein Kampf I came to believe that Hitler truly believed that in exterminating the Jewish race he was doing gods work. In fact he stated in the book the following:

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. "

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. "

"Who says I am not under the special protection of God? "

And in one particular quote he actually stated that he was avenging the death of Christ. These may be the rantings of a mad man but at the same time the Christian influence is evident. If anyone is interested in researching this further here is a good link http://nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

As far as funerals go I want to be cremated and flushed down the toilet lol seriously though I don't give a crap what they do with the ashes since I will be too dead to complain. And finally coming from an extremely fanatical version of Pentecostalism myself I too saw this holier than thou attitude alot in the churches I visited and in the people I met.

[Eilonnwy]

We need to jail anyone who compares anything to Nazism.

THIS!


I am sick of the Hitler fallacy.

Religion should never be banned. Ever.

I don't care what you think of Christianity, people are free to believe whatever they want and you have no right to legislate thoughts and demand they keep their beliefs hidden. I believe religion should not enjoy a special status, so yes, I can criticize Christianity all I want. But I would never ever support anything that would attempt to ban a religious faith.

I also do not think nazism should be banned. In Austria you can be put to jail for being a Holocaust denier. That is wrong. You cannot jail people for being idiots. Ridicule them all you want, but do not imprison people for stupidity. It's disgusting. This is why I do not support any type of legislating hate crimes. We are free to our thoughts, as hateful and offensive as they are to other people.

It angers me when atheists suggest things like this. To me, you're no better than the religion you claim is dangerous by trying to outlaw it.

[Rhizomorph13]

Has anyone else heard of Godwin's law?

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact."

I agree with this sentiment, "...there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress."

Many times I have been tempted to invoke this law but, unfortunately, there are too many arguments that end up spinning Nazi's or Hitler into them for the law to have the necessary punch.

Rhizo

[fr0d0]

Yes I'd heard of that. Although I didn't know the "lost" bit Very amusing