Magic Magnum said
Jesus himself may of been a decent guy. But that sadly doesn't change what the Bible which Christianity is based off of says.As for murder, women degrading, racism, homophobia etc.My family atm is yelling at me to hurry up so we can get going somewhere so I don't got time atm to pull out the quotes.I'll link some pages of them quickly, but past experience shows that to be messy so I'll pull out specific quote's afterwards.http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Killing/http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Racism-and-Slavery/http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Homosexuality/http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Women/I'm not against all religious people, just the way religion is used.Though I already addressed in the post you replied to that I don't think someone should call themselves a member of ________ religion anyways if they don't follow the Bible.Which is where a lot of my issues with Religion comes from.
Those verses do exist and are vile, but there's also positive verses that have been used for good. To give a recent example, there's pastors who support LGBT rights and how do they justify it? By using Jesus' words of love. To me, and what I know of Jesus, that is what Christianity should be about, but unfortunately it's not for a lot of people. (I'm an atheist.)
What's happening there is people fighting for the separation of Church and State which is in the american constitution.People don't want a Religion being given special status among others by putting on their money, on the pledge etc.America and it's founding father never wanted America to be a Christian Nation, it was Christians who later on made it that way without the consent of everyone non-religious.Also, no one's saying you can't be religious, or that you can't pray.What they're saying is that you can't be forcing others into your religion or be forcing others to pray.But I can sympathize with having grown up in a country where praising God was just common practice to suddenly be told people don't like having to do that and want it to stop having to can seem like discrimination.But it's really just fighting for the rights of everyone who isn't a Christian.I won't argue that part.
See, that's as far as my tolerance for religion goes: if it's kept out of the public sphere then I'm cool with people believing in it. However, the moment somebody steps over that line it actually begins to become dangerous. We all see how well theocracy works out for Iran... Yes I realize they're not Christian, but a Christian theocracy would not look much different. So yea, just don't come to my doorstep trying to convert me or expect me to say a pledge to a god I don't even believe in, and I won't have an issue.
This is true, but I mentioned in an earlier post also how this is basically a retaliation to how Religious people demonize those non-religious.Treat 10-20% of the population like second class citizens simply for who they're attracted to, kicking their own children out suddenly to fend for themselves cause the child is atheist or of another religion etc.Atheist's may be rude much of the time, but I find that much preferable to the outright horrid treatment Religion causes so many people to inflict on others.
I know of somebody personally who essentially got disowned by her religious parents, just for being lesbian. Shit like that is when I really begin to despise religion. It seems assholes like that are the ones who are hindering all social progress. There's also those people who refuse to medicate their sick children because they think "prayer will solve everything". Yea, come back to me when prayer manages to cure AIDS, cancer, and whatever other horrible diseases exist out there. I am yet to see any atheists do stuff like that so we're entirely in agreement here.
I just tend to be very blunt and straightforward with what I think, and learned to not be afraid of conflict.The way I see it, if people I know can even agree to disagree with each other stances, the friendship probably wasn't true to start with (Not implying this is our case, I'm speaking in general here).Honestly, even though we disagree I support you being vocal and standing up for what you think and believe.We need more people willing to do that if we want to move forward in the world.
We've been almost entirely in agreement up until now. I have my views, but oftentimes I feel they're just better to keep to myself in order to avoid flame war(I have learned the hard way). I'm sure there's many other people who are hesitant to discuss hot topics for that same reason, and that's understandable. Also, it's worth noting that even with opposing views friendships can work. LSW and I have complete polar opposite views yet we get along wonderfully. There has only been one major conflict between us, but we both got over it quickly, not wanting to lose each other.
