The Amish not having electricity would make it difficult for them to bug an Internet forum.
Nivao said:Take all the really religious people in the world, put them in
If fanatics only bugged us on online forums I could care less.StarOfEight said:The Amish not having electricity would make it difficult for them to bug an Internet forum.
Yeah? Then apparently you've not been paying attention to the incredibly LARGER number of vitriolic, inflammatory, and downright aggressive sentiments expressed by the religious faction against the rest of us! Throughout history there have always been huge swaths of territory on this globe where an atheist or even someone who is not a member of the so-charming Abrahamic sects could be executed with no fear of punishment. There are arguably equally large tracts where Abrahamists of competing sects are out gunning for each other. And the earth is in a brief respite right now. The more "normal" state over the past two thousand years has been for the Abrahamists to be on a mission from their god to wipe out our (as well as each other's) entire cultures, including our written histories, our traditions, and our very languages. Sometimes they let us live if we agreed to convert at swordpoint, other times we were only allowed to live as slaves, and other times they just casually exterminated us like we were gophers in their angry, vengeful, cruel and abusive god's front lawn.SkippingStones said:Lately I've witnessed a lot of opinionated anti-religious sentiments online and in my daily life.
It scares me a lot worse to see the leader of the world's most powerful country citing his religion as he sends troops without provocation into a sovereign nation whose people (Iraqis) just happen to be of the same religion (Islam) as the people (Saudis) who perpetrated 9/11. It scares me even worse when he deliberately saturates the airwaves with photos of those soldiers demeaning Muslims (don't tell me that happened by accident, nobody takes hundreds of photos of themselves committing atrocities as souvenirs of their summer vacation) so that now two frelling BILLION Muslims are starting to think that we really are the Great Satan and now they're going to come and try to kill ME even though I'm not one of the superstitious yokels that attends Bush's damn church.It scares me when people jump on these opinion band-wagons whether they be pro or con on the issues.
Quick??? This has been going on for two thousand years -- more if you count the atrocities that the Abrahamist Jews got away with before Jesus's time. Abrahamism has brought us the burning of the libraries of the Cushitic Egyptians and the Aztecs, the Inquisition, the total annihilation of the civlizations of the New World, and a nearly constant state of feudal, revenge-driven warfare in the Middle East. It has failed to deter its followers from practicing slavery, genocide, the subjugation of women, and the repression of sub-Sahran Africa. That's a pretty sad list of evil achievements.Don't be to quick to judge, lest you become that which you hate, only this time in a different skin. I agree that there are harmful aspects of organized religion but I have found that the helpful aspects have far outwayed the harmful in my person experience.
This consistent, only occasionally and briefly interrupted, pattern of behavior that I have identified in the Abrahamic communities is not "hypocrisy." With no qualms they loudly call each other and the rest of us "infidels," "heathens," "pagans". They joyfully and with great fanfare proclaim themselves superior to each other and the rest of us. They proudly march off to war, crusades, witch hunts, and occupations of other lands, dead certain that they are doing their god's bidding. There is no hypocrisy here.Be also careful to look for the very hypocrisy that you fight in other areas of your life, perhaps in places where you are less secure in your stance.
Thanks for your supportive words. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go put on my flame-retardant suit.EvilSquirrel said:Fraggle Rocker-- I couldn't agree more. I appluade you for putting it into words with such ease. -Salutes-
Fraggle Rocker said:Thanks for your supportive words. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go put on my flame-retardant suit.
StarOfEight said:Sentiment-wise, I agree with you ... but then we'd just have Trekkies butchering Star Wars geeks.
No, we wouldn't! And that's the whole frelling point. NOTHING makes people as angry, hateful, irrational, righteous, and violent as the Abrahamic religions. Well maybe soccer, I'll never understand that crap, and even then they have to be stone drunk and they only do it in the stadiums.StarOfEight said:Sentiment-wise, I agree with you ... but then we'd just have Trekkies butchering Star Wars geeks.
No, I haven't forgotten them. How could I? I am old enough to have lived through the inception of the last two and I had an aunt and uncle who emigrated to the USSR during the Great Depression because life was "so good" over there.StarOfEight said:Frag, you're forgetting Soviet Russia, Communist China, and the Khmer Rouge, all of whom were inspired by an economic theory.
Dreamwalker said:I agree with you StarOfEight, there would only be new groups around wo would claim power and start butchering one another.
As long as all the humans do not change their behaviour and belief drastically there will be no peace. Religions are not the cause, but a result of the human way of thinking.
It scares me a lot worse to see the leader of the world's most powerful country citing his religion as he sends troops without provocation into a sovereign nation... ...so that now two frelling BILLION Muslims are starting to think that we really are the Great Satan and now they're going to come and try to kill ME even though I'm not one of the superstitious yokels that attends Bush's damn church.
Don't even get me going, man....with photos of those soldiers demeaning Muslims...
I find religion to be a crutch of humanity