Is Islam the religion of peace.....pffft....NO

[fr0d0]

Min represents the AtheistForums militant front. Luckily they don't have guns.

[Grasshopper]

In short, the western justice system appears to be based upon religion.

... which is why we stone adulteresses and kill gays, right?

Dishonest and ignorant is a shitty way to live, lad.

Like it or not, our western culture IS influenced by christianity. I'm certain you had atleast one ancestor who was christian.
Ironically the Christian world was the first to fight for human rights.

Don't take offense but I think you guys are too rigid in your view of religion. Yes it has been used to justify wrongs but it isn't all bad.
In my opinion viewing it as purely evil isn't a good way to look at things in the world. The church is responsible for the operation of various orphanages, schools, hospitals, charities and the largest private healthcare financing in the world. And it's been doing the same since the beginning, even during the plague.

So no . . . This doesn't cancel out the bad, but please don't have such a narrow view of anything. I feel people will be happier if they let go of what some institutions did in the past and accept that everything has good and bad traits. I don't think that if the Europeans of the 18th century were atheists slavery wouldn't have happened. In my opinion their excuse for slavery would've been survival of the fittest.

So my point is . . . Just chill the hell out and be cool

[Brian37]

Yea and algebra was influenced by Arabs? So?

Newton had beliefs in a god, but that did not make his alchemy true.

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... which is why we stone adulteresses and kill gays, right?

Dishonest and ignorant is a shitty way to live, lad.

Like it or not, our western culture IS influenced by christianity. I'm certain you had atleast one ancestor who was christian.
Ironically the Christian world was the first to fight for human rights.

Don't take offense but I think you guys are too rigid in your view of religion. Yes it has been used to justify wrongs but it isn't all bad.
In my opinion viewing it as purely evil isn't a good way to look at things in the world. The church is responsible for the operation of various orphanages, schools, hospitals, charities and the largest private healthcare financing in the world. And it's been doing the same since the beginning, even during the plague.

So no . . . This doesn't cancel out the bad, but please don't have such a narrow view of anything. I feel people will be happier if they let go of what some institutions did in the past and accept that everything has good and bad traits. I don't think that if the Europeans of the 18th century were atheists slavery wouldn't have happened. In my opinion their excuse for slavery would've been survival of the fittest.

So my point is . . . Just chill the hell out and be cool

Holy crap, no one is being "ridged" about human rights. Yes, you have the government protected right to hold any god claim and religion you wish. That is not the same issue as the credibility of the claim itself. Human rights should be valued, but claims are not free from scrutiny or even blasphemy.

I think stupid claims should be assaulted, like the claim women and girls are to follow and obey men like property. Just like I think we have every right to call bullshit on claims that Ouija boards work. If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves.

Rights are not in question here, credibility of the claim is the issue. Since when is it bad to question something to insure quality of the claim?

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No one is calling all religious people evil. But the idea that a placebo can work equally to a fact proven by testing and falsification, and deserves to be scrutiny free, that is evil.

If we always allow religion to set up taboos we never would have progressed. Please do not confuse rights with ideas, rights are a given, but ideas do not deserve a pass.

[Grasshopper]

Yea and algebra was influenced by Arabs? So?

Newton had beliefs in a god, but that did not make his alchemy true.

WHAT the hell are you talking about? I didn't say anything about anything being true you're clearly arguing for the sake of arguing or just to piss me off. I was simply saying that thinking of something as purely evil creates hateful feelings and isn't really good for yourself or others. Sheesh! I have no idea where the arab thing came from but pretty lousy argument.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Do we take a shot everytime one of these hookers whines about context - or what?

I stopped drinking hard liquor about twenty years ago precisely because of these sorts of party games -- too easy to come to in the park with your underwear around your head and ... um ... never mind.

Let's just say I'd get too drunk too quick, and leave it at that.

[The Grand Nudger]

Like it or not, our western culture IS influenced by christianity.

Indeed, we've learned by repeated example of precisely who we no longer wish to be. We now have a litany of reasons to which we can refer in order to establish why this decision to change was a prudent one. A hefty portion of which was, and continues to be supplied by christendom and your brothers in christ.

Thanks fellas, we owe you a solid.

[Grasshopper]

Yea and algebra was influenced by Arabs? So?

Newton had beliefs in a god, but that did not make his alchemy true.

---

Like it or not, our western culture IS influenced by christianity. I'm certain you had atleast one ancestor who was christian.
Ironically the Christian world was the first to fight for human rights.

Don't take offense but I think you guys are too rigid in your view of religion. Yes it has been used to justify wrongs but it isn't all bad.
In my opinion viewing it as purely evil isn't a good way to look at things in the world. The church is responsible for the operation of various orphanages, schools, hospitals, charities and the largest private healthcare financing in the world. And it's been doing the same since the beginning, even during the plague.

So no . . . This doesn't cancel out the bad, but please don't have such a narrow view of anything. I feel people will be happier if they let go of what some institutions did in the past and accept that everything has good and bad traits. I don't think that if the Europeans of the 18th century were atheists slavery wouldn't have happened. In my opinion their excuse for slavery would've been survival of the fittest.

So my point is . . . Just chill the hell out and be cool

Holy crap, no one is being "ridged" about human rights. Yes, you have the government protected right to hold any god claim and religion you wish. That is not the same issue as the credibility of the claim itself. Human rights should be valued, but claims are not free from scrutiny or even blasphemy.

I think stupid claims should be assaulted, like the claim women and girls are to follow and obey men like property. Just like I think we have every right to call bullshit on claims that Ouija boards work. If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves.

Rights are not in question here, credibility of the claim is the issue. Since when is it bad to question something to insure quality of the claim?

---

No one is calling all religious people evil. But the idea that a placebo can work equally to a fact proven by testing and falsification, and deserves to be scrutiny free, that is evil.

If we always allow religion to set up taboos we never would have progressed. Please do not confuse rights with ideas, rights are a given, but ideas do not deserve a pass.

I never used the word "rights" in that post. And the social taboo and all you talk about isn't even mentioned. So what is your post about? It's not related to anything I wrote
I just said that no thing is purely evil or purely good. I didn't say you called religious people evil. I'm saying you call religion evil and that has to make some negativity.
Now I personally wouldn't insult your non belief because it's your critical thinking that brought you to that conclusion. I don't agree with you, but I don't go around saying your beliefs are wrong or anything . . . Do I?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Like it or not, our western culture IS influenced by christianity. I'm certain you had atleast one ancestor who was christian.

No one said our Western culture weas not influenced by Christianity. My point was that Christian values and dictates had much less to do with our system of justice than the writings of guys like Locke and Montesquieu.

Ironically the Christian world was the first to fight for human rights.

And in a neat double irony, Christians have been fighting a rearguard action for the last fifty years in denying human rights for woman and gays, both here in the West, and in places like Africa.

Don't take offense but I think you guys are too rigid in your view of religion. Yes it has been used to justify wrongs but it isn't all bad.
In my opinion viewing it as purely evil isn't a good way to look at things in the world. The church is responsible for the operation of various orphanages, schools, hospitals, charities and the largest private healthcare financing in the world. And it's been doing the same since the beginning, even during the plague.

The evils that flow from blind faith far outweigh the good deeds done by the faithful. Blind faith and an appeal to a superstitious entity have been behind racism, sexism, homophobia, and wars innumerable, not to mention the justification of immoral behavior.

Of course there are good and bad aspects to everything, but blind faith and organized religion both seem to have their good outweighed by their evils.

So no . . . This doesn't cancel out the bad, but please don't have such a narrow view of anything.

My views are based on my 48 years observing the way religions work. It's not "narrow."

I feel people will be happier if they let go of what some institutions did in the past and accept that everything has good and bad traits.

The problem with this view is that you Christians won't stop trying to advance your religious cause. Here, look at yourself, you're a great example: you come to an atheist forum and start telling people you don't know how to behave. Do you see me going to Christian forums and telling them their god is evil? No, because if they want to believe that he's good and worthy of worship, they can have at it.

On a wider, sociocultural scale Christians weren't happy with, say, the belief that marriage can only be heterosexual; instead, Christians all across the nation have fought a rearguard action against gay marriage, seeking to deny the Constitutional right to equal protection under the law to gays simply because your little book says they're abominations.

Christians keep on trying to spend my tax dollars on your religions without regard to the fact that I don't agree that government has any business doing things like supprting religious charities.

I'm not willing to let any bygones be bygones while Christians keep trying to foist their religion upon society at large, and trying to shove their beliefs down my throat -- even as they cry "persecution!" at the drop of a hat.

I don't think that if the Europeans of the 18th century were atheists slavery wouldn't have happened. In my opinion their excuse for slavery would've been survival of the fittest.

Setting aside your anachronism for a moment, we'll never know, because atheists were forced to remain silent at risk of jailtme, or worse.

So my point is . . . Just chill the hell out and be cool

Quit lecturing people you don't even know.

[Grasshopper]

Forget it. I'm done debating here. Keep mocking faiths for whatever reasons you feel on how they destroyed or keep destroying the world. I'm sure you're all great guys but waaay too rigid and quite frankly I'd find better arguments in a high school.

Hope you guys do great things with your hatred of religion. May we see the enlightened generation of practical thinkers in the future.

And if it doesn't happen, I hope you always have the peace you claimed to get mocking and, in your words "scrutinizing" religions.

[robvalue]

Okay bye then. I had high hopes for you too