The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
Impish:
--- Quote from: Kelpersmek on October 27, 2006, 08:21:00 pm ---That large percentage of Christians probably has a huge percentage that are very much Christian in that they want to be good to people, pray a bit, and live a "nice" life. Unfortunately they lend strength of numbers to the far right.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. They don't realize that their sense of morality (the real, Good, morality) doesn't come from Christianity at all. These are the people who have cherry-picked their way through the bible, choosing those bits that they agree with. How do they decide which parts to follow? They decide based on their own innate sense of right and wrong, that is, a sense that exists quite apart from their religion.
What astounds me is that when such basically-good people come across the evil in their holy book, they don't put 2 and 2 together and realize that christianity (or judaism, or islam) doesn't really represent their own beliefs about the world around them. GLBT christians amaze me most of all: all that effort to explain away the simple fact that the bible really does teach hatred toward them.
The fundamentalists, on the other hand, who have actually read the bible AND agree with its "morals" are a different story. In terms of theology, they're on stronger theoretical ground (as they haven't cherry-picked their beliefs). But to the degree they believe in the bible as literal truth, they are to the same degree, evil.
Is that too extreme a statement? It's hard to believe that there are modern-day people in the U.S. that actually agree that Lot was right to offer his daughters up to be gang-raped. But there millions of such people.
In fact, some of them are running our country right now.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Impish on October 28, 2006, 10:33:49 am ---The fundamentalists, on the other hand, who have actually read the bible AND agree with its "morals" are a different story. In terms of theology, they're on stronger theoretical ground (as they haven't cherry-picked their beliefs). But to the degree they believe in the bible as literal truth, they are to the same degree, evil.
Is that too extreme a statement? It's hard to believe that there are modern-day people in the U.S. that actually agree that Lot was right to offer his daughters up to be gang-raped. But there millions of such people.
In fact, some of them are running our country right now.
--- End quote ---
I don't know that it's extreme, exactly. I'm just trying to figure out whether they're actually evil or just plain stupid. Can you be truly evil when you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground? I'm sorry, but fundamentalist Christians just astonish me in their ignorance. I know several personally and I can't quite call them evil because I don't think they're bright enough to be. Like Dennis Miller said about 20 years ago when he was still funny and had some semblance of a soul left, these are people who've somehow been so hurt by life that they turn their backs on their fellow humans in favor of some myth. Now Dennis Miller *is* evil because he's smart enough to know better. But those other people... I don't know.
Impish:
A short video of Lewis Black, giving his (very funny) take on the subject:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/lewis_black_explains_religion.php
A word of warning to those offended by the F-word: this video is chock full of it.
Enjoy!
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Impish on October 29, 2006, 10:50:56 am ---A short video of Lewis Black, giving his (very funny) take on the subject:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/lewis_black_explains_religion.php
A word of warning to those offended by the F-word: this video is chock full of it.
Enjoy!
--- End quote ---
Oh, and I did. Too bad it stopped before his anti- anti-gay rant. I especially enjoyed this: "I'd like to have faith. But I have thoughts. And thoughts'll really f*** up the faith thing. Ask any Catholic priest."
Impish:
"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he as a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time.... But He loves you!
--George Carlin
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