ace in your face: Neither has any more proof than the other.

That depends on what sense of the word "proof" you have in mind.

ace in your face: But it isn't. Some people do truly mean "that doesn't exist" (which is usually followed by the insinuation "and if you don't believe me you are stupid and wrong"). Some people (yourself I suspect from what you have written) do believe a more expansive statement behind it but the truth is those two statements are not the same.

practically the difference is nill.

believing in something for which there is no evidence IS retarded.

and despite your attempts to weasel out of it, it is also harmful to society.

especially when the crazies have a political party (the GOP), and the moderates don't oppose them. very few Christians actively oppose the fundamentalists, the rest are enablers.

and they ALL have at least one of the traits that is harmful to themselves and others (without even getting into the philosophical argument that believing in the unsupportable is in itself harmful).

ace in your face: .....

again: find me a christian who doesn't do AT LEAST ONE of these

Kazan: they infringe upon my freedom when they pass patently religious laws - laws against "obscenity", laws against "gay marriage" (note: i'm straight and married, i'm speaking hypothetically), laws supporting their position. they infringe upon my freedom when they attack school curriculum based on their beliefs.

they harm my physical health when they bomb doctor's offices, and murder doctors. when they ban medical research because their religion doesn't agree with it. when they attack science because it disagrees with them. they harm people's physical health when they refuse to teach them proper sex education. they harm my physical health when the insist unneeded, irreversible, unjustifiable medical procedures be performed on infant males altering their anatomy.

they harm people's mental health when they perpetuate the idea that various natural healthy things (masturbation, non-martial sex, non-traditional relationships [between consenting adults]) are "bad"/"evil"/"sinful". they harm people's mental health when they perpetuate the idea that mental illness is "demons" that must be "exorcised" (Yes this still happens in the US).


/this is by no means an exhaustive list

jayg22: Or people who actaully know about History...

and i've already explained at least twice why it's not a constitutional issue and how it's different from this case...

keep beating that dead horse.

ace in your face: That may seem hard for you to grasp, but peoples experiences are different, and they aren't invalidated just because you don't share it.

The problem is not the validity of the experience, but the validity of the interpretation ascribed to that experience.

ace in your face: Most of the christians I know don't believe in ANY of the things you listed,

bullshiat, even the most liberal Christians i know at minimum subscribe to the virgin/whore dichotomy w/ the accompany male vs female double standard.

ace in your face: But it isn't. Some people do truly mean "that doesn't exist" (which is usually followed by the insinuation "and if you don't believe me you are stupid and wrong"). Some people (yourself I suspect from what you have written) do believe a more expansive statement behind it but the truth is those two statements are not the same.

I still think you're giving religion some special privileges here, just for being religion. There's no teapot, and no invisible fire-breathing dragon. There's no Flying Spaghetti Monster, no Thor, no Zeus, no Leprechauns, no Loch Ness Monster, no Invisible Pink Unicorn, no perpetual motion machine. None of these things actually exist within the boundaries of what we mean when we use the word "exist."

But, oh, when it comes to modern religion, we have to break it down to very fine distinctions to avoid annoying people who don't think orbital teapots, invisible fire-breathing dragons, flying spaghetti monsters, Thor, Zeus, leprechauns, Loch Ness monsters, invisible pink unicorns, or perpetual motion machines exist either.

It's pedantic and it's tiresome.

ace in your face: but you can't just win on "there are totally more I could bring up but I am not gonna".

i didn't say i wasn't going to, i just made a point of saying that it wasn't an exhaustive list. the ones that aren't on it are the ones that i don't readily recall and require me sitting and thinking about for a while to remember.

ace in your face: Apparently thats not everyones experience either.

you're seeing america through the filter of the city with the highest percentage of self-identifying atheists (at 1/3rd of the population).

ace in your face: Would it help if I revise to "A lot of Atheists I know proselytize all the time". I figured that by definition of me typing it it would indicate that this is MY experience. I know tons of super liberal christians. Apparently thats not everyones experience either.

I have a problem with the "proselytize" part of this, using it as an exclusively negative discriptor. If someone says something that you truly think is wrong and quite possibly harmful to themselves and society, is it wrong to try to convince them otherwise?

If someone says "the Government is evil and we should all live on ranches with automatic weapons and keep the Government out" is it wrong to try and convince him that things aren't as bad as he thinks, and that living on a ranch with machine guns is probably harmful?

If someone says "these horrible books should be banned" is it wrong to try and convince them of the benefits of free speech and how banning books is wrong?

Why is it wrong to try and convince someone that religion might be wrong and bad? What makes religion different from any other opinion? Why is it that if you take an informed and passionate view against religion that it makes you equivalent to someone who roams around door to door trying to sell their god?

ace in your face: Would it help if I revise to "A lot of Atheists I know proselytize all the time".

Some, as it helps suggest that you may be able to distinguish between your personal circle of acquaintance and a statistically representative sample of the national population. Even then, however, I'd statistically expect that's still horribly inaccurate; most Atheists don't talk in their sleep, for example.

There's also the question of what behaviors that you would consider to constitute proselytizing (independent of creed preached), and whether you are more likely to notice and recall such behavior when the viewpoint is more unlike your own.

ace in your face: Most people I know, atheists and Christians alike, don't think you should be a whore because its stupid and gross (and we call man whores out too).

the virgin/whore dichotomy is litterally that. there is a difference between what you and i were call a whore/manwhore (Someone who has unsafe casual sex) than what they would call a whore (a girl who EVER has had extra-martial sex)

pwhp_67: ace in your face: Most of the christians I know don't believe in ANY of the things you listed,


That's fine, but what percentage of practicing Christians don't believe in those things? A small percentage?

Just because you know what amounts to a handful of Christians doesn't mean your experiences represent the majority of Christians. And I'm just referring to the Christians in this country.

As far as practicing Christians not believing the things that Kazan listed: Why do they still attend mass and hand over their money if they no longer hold the same beliefs as their church?

Seems kind of silly...

qft

ace in your face: I don't believe that bigfoot is real either but if someone says they saw it I am not going to sit there and try to convince them they are stupid. Its a waste of my time. If they have seen something, or felt something then they have their "proof". Its useless to tell them otherwise and it would just make me look like an asshole.

More likely if you try and convince someone that they probably didn't really see bigfoot/aliens/ghosts/god they get mean and defensive. People who construct these sorts of things into their realities seem to have other problems that prevent them from examining their viewpoints rationally. You never see them sit down and say "well I thought I saw what I might call a ghost, but ghosts seem really unlikely so let's look into this further before I start claiming weird stuff in front of other people." The ones I've encountered all say something more like "IT WAS A GHOST THE LIGHTS WERE FLICKERING AND I FELT COLD AND THERE WAS A SHADOW AND GHOSTS ARE REAL YOU JUST DON'T BELIEVE ME STOP CALLING ME A LIAR!"

ace in your face: Trying to convince someone about an aspect of their religion, or an aspect of their political beliefs isn't the same thing as trying to fundamentally change their beliefs on whether there is/isn't a god.

Why does belief in god get to be that special?

Epicedion: ace in your face: Trying to convince someone about an aspect of their religion, or an aspect of their political beliefs isn't the same thing as trying to fundamentally change their beliefs on whether there is/isn't a god.

Why does belief in god get to be that special?

To put this another way, if I, for example, believe that Earth is a big lie and that we really live on the planet Wasdfkhjf in the Ioijfl sector of the Great Intergalactic Empire and it's all a big coverup by a government we have no access to or evidence of, then trying to convince me otherwise would be trying to fundamentally altering part of my basic views of reality and shouldn't ever be done? This view is silly and unprovable, but should give you some insight into how this idea that there's an all-powerful super-being just might be viewed by someone who doesn't hold that belief.

Of course, if 80% of the world believed it, I'm sure the people who said "you know, this seems ridiculous and maybe we should stop" would probably get yelled at a lot, too.

Kazan: again: find me a christian who doesn't do AT LEAST ONE of these

There are more than a few; it's not uncommon (in my acquaintance) for liberal Catholics being fine with sex education in public schools, evolution, stem cell research, and legalizing gay marriage. While it's hard to turn up many "fine" with abortion, finding those who consider re-criminalization a stupidly unacceptable approach to reducing the abortion rate is also not that challenging.

I suspect both my parents would qualify, and probably at least one of my sisters. (I'm not sure about my oldest sib's position on abortion these days.)

Ral: Yeah it's people like this who make my husband look bad. He's an atheist, but he's not in your face about it, and certainly doesn't get involved in any of that retarded "activism".

Please name one atheist that has ever accomplished anything politically for religious freedom, atheism, or atheists, and has not been "in your face about it."

Ral: This thing with the roadside crosses is just mean-spirited.

No, the thing with the roadside cross was that the cross in question was unconstitutional. The government spent money to put a big religious symbol on the side of the road with a big state organization symbol on it. They might as well have hung a sign that said "The Utah State Highway Patrol Loves Jesus." They aren't allowed to do this, so they should never have done it in the first place. If we all said "oh, well, that's okay I guess" then we'd see it happen again and again and again, each time being just as unconstitutional as the first. Stitches hurt, but we've got to repair these damages to religious freedom and religion/government separation somehow, starting somewhere.

Ral: As my husband has commented, "There are more important issues atheists could be involved with than whether the word 'God' is on our money."

There are. However it's still an issue, and atheists aren't an organization. There wasn't a collection of dues and a vote on which religious group to piss off this time.

Besides, what you just said your husband said is the same thing that people always say whenever these issues come up: atheists could apparently always be doing something more important than...

1) Putting that word out that disbelief is okay, on billboards or buses
2) Trying to get Under God taken out of the Pledge
3) Trying to get God taken off the money
4) Trying to get rid of school-sponsored prayers
5) Trying to separate religious iconography from the justice system
6) Trying to keep religious displays off of public property and utilizing public funds
7) Trying to keep religious organizations from receiving special privileges from the government

And so on.

What, then, would you/he consider a worthwhile issue for atheists?

schattenteufel:

Good man. Of course he did have to be in a war against a global superpower to accomplish it.