Blogs Apr 30, 2012 at 9:29 am

Comments

2
I'm an atheist, but I don't agree that having a religion necessarily subscribes someone to the belief 'that there is only one true religion, and all the others are bullshit.'

I know people whose religions are personal to them and they don't expect anyone to share the same experience/perspective that brought them to their own belief.

I disagree with their conclusion, but I can respect the impulse that brought them there. But by and large, your statement is correct.
3
I like this.
4
Word.
5
Believing in one true religion and that everyone who doesn't follow it will go to hell or in some other way be punished is NOT a universal trait of all religions.
6
Yay!
8
I find it sad that I actually have to point this out, but there exist religions that don't have sacred texts. What you SEEM to be saying is that all "holy texts" are bullshit. That may be true. But there exists religions that look at what is common among all religions and examines it in a analytical way. There are religions that don't believe in a Supreme Being that exists outside of humanity and judges us from afar. While I actually agree with the sentiment expressed, to paint all religions with this broad brushstroke does both religion and your argument disservice.
9
"Bullshit" does not mean "lie". It means having no relationship with the truth. A liar knows the value of truth and chooses to tell a falsehood because it serves them better. A bullshitter doesn't know and doesn't care if they are telling the truth or telling a lie.

It's like having faith in God. If somebody proved God, like proving the Pythagorean Theorem, what need is there of faith? The point of faith is that you don't care if there is evidence of God or evidence against God. Facts mean nothing to people of faith. That's the definition of bullshit.
10
poor Goldy.

fearing The One True Way™.......

actually, and obviously, there is only one Truth.

either "God" exists or he does not.

There is a hell or there isn't.

Homosexuality is a benign or beneficial lifestyle choice or it is destructive.

If he paused to think before hitting send Goldy would realize that he is in fact being as assolic as any fundy because he rejects all "religion" and proclaims his secular humanist homoliberalism as The One True Way™.

.

We are feeling generous today
so we will share the Secret of the Universe with you.

We are not alone in the universe.
There are others of our race, and have been for uncountable eons.
We lived before our birth and will after our death.

(Wordsworth put it nicely-
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!")

Members of our race; our souls' parents, actually;
have gone before us and are wiser than us.
They want us to succeed and be happy.
They share with us the way to live successfully.
They point out the pitfalls that will destroy us if we do not avoid them.
They point out the paths that will bring us joy in this phase of our existence
and allow our growth and progress to continue.
If we are wise we listen and learn and prosper.
If we are foolish we reject and stumble and fail.

don't be foolish........
11
It's silly that you can call someone's politics bullshit, but not their religion, since religion is "sacred".
12
Jello Biafra sums it up here:
http://youtu.be/ZBa6YMs-AbY
13
Amen!
14
This is fun! I didn't stay in high school long enough to get to the part where we talked about this stuff, so this is like filling in gaps in my development.
15
@2 These people have been and will always be the minority. It's good that they fail at religion, but they are an anomaly.
17
I think these were all attempts to bring some control when there were not any governments or laws to protect people from each other. They were a sort of evolution of the societal nature of humans. But like everything humans create, and these were created by humans not gods, they are seriously flawed. One flaw is they claim to be truth when ordinary observation and experience prove that to be claim false. But brainwashing diminishes people's analytical ability. So while your assertion they are all bullshit is true, for the brainwashed it's an alternative reality.
18
Religion isn't responsible for the dark aspects of humanity, or its failings, any more than it should be given credit for the best in humanity. People are going to feel and act the way they do no matter what. It's simplistic and convenient to lay all the evil of the world at the foot of religion.

So then we should wonder what we gain by alienating those who believe in some sort of religion (the vast majority of people in America and in the world) by disparaging their beliefs. Maybe religion is bullshit, but there are such things as being considerate of others, as recognizing the own bullshit within ourselves, and as living by the Golden Rule, even if just to make life easier for ourselves. It can feel good right away to vent and express what we feel without bothering about possible consequences, but when those consequences make life harder for us, we still have to live with them.
19
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. [Robert Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long]
20
Whether a text is "simply untrue, both as historical documents and as factual accounts of the word of some deity" or not is about the most simplistic place you can start with any type of textual analysis, especially narrative accounts. It's fine if that's where you want to stand, but you'll rob yourself of understanding how it is that these texts have been extremely powerful and how they continue to have control and influence over people. What's appealing about them?

Likewise, you might want to take into account the pressures placed on followers of certain religions to proselytize and knock on doorbells, and sympathize with them.

21
Knock on doors, that is, not doorbells.
22
@9 But isn't religion also lying to oneself? I mean, nobody really believes in the after life, otherwise theists would be happy when their loved ones die.
23
Whether Religion is Bullshit or not, Goldy. The battle is that Fox News and other Right Wing Outrage/Noise Machines are trying to find a narrative at this moment. Dan’s speech fits that narrative, and they just want to use Dan as the weekly narrative to say “See, Anti Bully Advocate is in fact a Bully”, and hammer that over and over again.

They are doing this for two reasons. First, to rally social conservatives, and second, follow the Rovian Principle: go after some of the strong points of the other side. “It gets better” project is simple, it is effective, and it has appeal of hope.

I appreciate the double down, but it really isn’t about religion, it is about the power that Dan has done, in getting the word out about bullying against Gay teens, and trying to stop lower gay teen suicide rates. Dan is a very effective spokesman, (or in Colbertian “Spokesgay”) and they need to attack that that power.

Fox News is run by former Political Operatives, and right now Dan is the flavor of the week until the next faux outrage appears.
24
Following up on @5; to wit, there are only two world religions that adhere to the concept of "This is the one true religion and if you believe in any other religion you're going to be severely punished": Christianity and Islam. Even that's limited, because there are branches that don't include that belief. Christianity, for instance, has some universalist denominations.
25
@22 Or they would continually put themselves in dangerous situations so they could get to heaven faster. All life is misery, right? So why waste your time here?
26
what do you think of people who eschew the term 'religion' in preference for the term 'spiritual' ?
27
@23 I think you just nailed it. Sadly, if they watched the video, they'd see that Dan really isn't bullying them. He's making a calm, salient point about the Bible and the people who don't want to listen leave.
28
Bullshit is so much easier to adopt, then say...the truth. Unvarnished, unromantic and non-magical simplicity is simply not as interesting as perhaps a pink sparkly unicorn hopping over the rainbow into a 'sacred' text describing how to 'Live". Strip away the bullshit from Christianity for instance and hello! Death cult. Pretty gay jesus as vampire zombie risen from the grave describing everlasting 'life'. Bullshit. A moody old man named 'God' who lives in the clouds and doles out mercy or damnation...bullshit. Irresponsible, childish and dangerous bullshit. It's ridiculous how difficult it is for us to accept simple truths like: common sense, personal responsibility and compassion as remedies for what troubles our world. It's not the act of an angry god, it's the ignorance of intransigent Neanderthals.
29
Oh, and BTW Andrea Yates, the woman who murdered her five children because "God told her" to, wants to get out of the asylum to go to church. That's insane in so many ways.
30
Word x 2.
31
Not all religions are practiced as "being the one true religion" or that their texts
are totally literal and factual." Many Pagans see what they call deity(ies) as a means of relating to a Higher Source - even if that source is humanity. Their texts are stories for teaching, conveying ideas.

When the context of the source of a text is forgotten, that text becomes irrelevant to current times. A religion that does not change/grow with the people and times is not a living thing.

If you read The Politics of Jesus by Obery Hendricks, you will learn a different way (and I think more accurate) of what Jesus' teachings actually say.
32
Not all religions are practiced as "being the one true religion" or that their texts
are totally literal and factual." Many Pagans see what they call deity(ies) as a means of relating to a Higher Source - even if that source is humanity. Their texts are stories for teaching, conveying ideas.

When the context of the source of a text is forgotten, that text becomes irrelevant to current times. A religion that does not change/grow with the people and times is not a living thing.

If you read The Politics of Jesus by Obery Hendricks, you will learn a different way (and I think more accurate) of what Jesus' teachings actually say.
33
Sorry for the double post
34
@5 and@24 are right. And there's only one religion in America whose followers knock on doors and threaten you (nicely but persistently) with hell. The leaders of that religion tell its followers to vote for discriminatory policies, are clamping down on nuns who dare to think, seem unable to understand that religious texts are to be interpreted, not followed blindly, establish law schools to turn out fundamentalist lawyers, and buy the obedience of politicians. This is America, not Saudi Arabia, so in this country, Christianity is the problem.
35
If you're talking fundamentalist religion, Goldy, then I'm 100% with you. That kind of literal, absolutist belief is in fact deeply anti-religious. That is, it misses the essence of what religious experience can be. It tries to assert that faith is fact, and denies the power of human imagination. But if you're talking about real imagination -- i.e. not 'made-up,' imaginary stuff, but a sense of what I'll call for now the poetry of existence -- then your thinking seems to me kind of blinkered. It leaves no room for humility and wonder, and you become in a way as fundamentalist in your atheism as are the bible-thumpers in their warped authoritarianism. It seems pointless to me to counter literalists with a different kind of literalism. That way, we only turn ourselves into literalists too. (That said, I still loved Dan's pushback!)
36
Prepared for the flood of people who believe in the slipperier bullshit of non-specific, spiritualistic, worthless deism? Have fun with them and the people who think it's respectful of the intelligence of religious people to patronize them and lie about how you view their delusions.
37
I wish I could favorite this post, but I guess I'll have to do the next best thing- print it out and hang it on my fridge.

Everybody else: Leave your imaginary friends at home. The rest of society is trying to live in the real world, thanks.
38
All religion is bullshit.

O, how rare is my delight in agreeing with Goldy!
39
It's really hard for me to understand how this even needs to be said in 2012. Shouldn't this be common knowledge?
40
All Politics is Bullshit:

Oh, I'm not saying there aren't some good things that come from politics or that politicians or political commentators are inherently bullshitters, just that in a very real and literal sense the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, Anarchists, and all the other political beliefs and parties on which the world's various governments are based are total bullshit. They are simply untrue, both in their platforms and relaying factual and unbiased accounts of the world’s events and policies. And I base this assertion not on my own political skepticism, but on the simple fact that while these political beliefs may share some universal values (doing right by a certain subset of people that they are believed to represent), they are very often totally at odds with each other in everything else, especially their proscriptions for the best form of governance.

And in case you think I'm being an asshole by declaring all political beliefs bullshit (i.e. factually incorrect), I'd just like to point out that the only reasonable alternative—that there is only one true political belief, and all the others are bullshit—is equally assholic. Honestly, only an asshole would ring my doorbell to tell me that unless I vote exactly what they believe, our country will be doomed.

Of course, much of what gets us through life is bullshit, so I really don't mean to judge your bullshit as any better or worse than mine. But bullshit it is.
41
Wow, no one has said "Goldpussy" or mentioned a rape whistle yet, even on such a troll-bait post (true as it may be).

But maybe they just do that when it comes to economic news...
42
See? @29 is an example of blaming religion for everything.

Andrea Yates didn't kill her children because she's a Christian. She killed them because she has a severe mental illness.
43

How about a "religion" which cannot account for the force of an expanding universe, so it posits a mysterious, unseen powerful "matter".

And then, after 30 years of browbeating this Dark Matter into the heads of people, the priests of the the religion suddenly discover that they cannot find it!

cf. AGW
44
extremely well said.
45
I think you're conflating religion and interpersonal politics. At the core of religious practice is the mystical or transcendent experience, not the badges and totems of the ego.
46
A+
47
@43: The difference is, you dolt, that science adjusts when new information is discovered and drops disproven hypotheses. Science is not a religion.

Really I don't know why I'm bothering with you at all.
49
Good post.
50
Haha, and #47 just beats me to it.

Well played Lissa, well played
51
@42 What if religion is a mental illness?

And neo-pagans are the hipsters of religion.
52
"Honestly, only an asshole would ring my doorbell to tell me that unless I believe exactly what they believe, a compassionate and loving God will torment me in Hell for all eternity."
Many religions, including my own, hold that a non-believer who lives in a righteous manner will be rewarded in the next world.
53
Word^4

The fact that there is still even a "debate" about this now, given all we know, makes me despair for pretty much every aspect of human society. If we can't even agree that obviously phony mythologies are bullshit, it's clear that nothing will ever be done that is based on facts and clear thinking.

@43 It's "dark energy" that is posited to propel inflation, not "dark matter." They have approximately opposite effects. Well failed, sir.
54
I'm not sure Goldy knows what a "proscription" is. It's not a synonym for "prescription."
55
best slog post in 2012 so far
57
@56: He didn't say it *is* he said what if. Also, citation please.
58
"faith induced psychosis"
59
@56 The prisons are full of murderers and rapists who claim to be and were raised Christian. The Nazis were raised in the Catholic Church.
60
@57

Google isn't lying to you, there really is a correlation between religious belief and health. Not a causal relationship, a correlation.

The argument is crap even in "what if" form, of course, but for reasons that have nothing to do with symptoms. Illnesses, mental and otherwise, can and often do have surprising beneficial effects, in addition to the damaging ones.
61
fun·da·men·tal·ism: a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.

Be careful that you are not being the other side of the same coin.
62
Oh dear.

I just want to make a few points:

1. There are more religious pluralists out there than you give credit. While it's not a prime feature of the Abrahamic faiths (or monotheism in general), it exists even in those contexts. And of course, there's Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Neo-Paganism, Unitarian Universalism, et al, most if not all of whom don't insist they have a monopoly on Truth.

2. Not all religious traditions depend on the factual accuracy of their beliefs or their sacred texts. I worship an ancient Irish fire goddess, but I'm not totally convinced that there's an actual supernatural being there (as opposed to, say, some sort of Jungian archetype). And if She indeed does not exist in a literal sense, my entire worldview doesn't necessarily collapse. I'm perfectly comfortable with my beliefs existing in the realm of symbolism and metaphor. And I think a lot more people share this flexibility than you realize.

3. I think what you might actually have a problem with is Creed-based faith. In other words, faith that's primarily concerned with what you believe. The contrast to that is Covenant-based faith, which is far more concerned with what you do. (In other words, if you're generally a decent person and you do right by your family and your community, you're doing okay.)

4. While you don't quite fall into the trap, you come very close to falling into the trap that many atheist types do- which is, take the worst aspects of Christianity (and, increasingly, Islam) and apply them to every other world religion. So, whether you're a Methodist, a Sunni, a Mormon, a Druid, or a Zoroastrian, we're all part of the same cancer on society. (The implication being that Atheists and Freethinkers are humanity's cultural oncologists.) My faith community (Pagans) has enough problems as it is. Please don't assign us other people's baggage.
64
I just came in here to say what @7 said.

Then I read some of bailo's ignorant-ass blather and I decided that, yep, I had better just stick with the original plan, because I have no desire to look long into that abyss.
65
@22

If you're telling yourself a falsehood that you know is false, because you prefer that to the truth, you're lying to yourself. If you aren't even interested in whether what you're telling yourself is true or not, you're bullshitting yourself.
67
@66 By themselves, no. But there are Jungian models that reflect those ideas.
68
@65 Art isn't Factually Accurate, yet it often speaks Truth.
69
You're ignoring syncretist and monist religions (Hinduism, for example) that don't believe in the one-true-God idea. You contradict yourself by talking about the belief that there is only one "true" religion, because at the very beginning you say "in a very real and literal sense . . . sacred texts and oral histories on which the world's various religions are based are total bullshit." You condemn others for declaring absolute truths, when that is precisely what you're doing here. And you conclude your opinion piece by bringing it all back to fundamentalist Christians that go around ringing people's doorbells to convert them -- when, in fact, most religions of the world couldn't care less what you believe, and usually tend to consider other beliefs perfectly valid. Your problem seems to be with the most vocal of religions.

On the whole, this article is poorly written, and betrays your lack of knowledge on the world's religions. I would suggest taking a comparative religion class so that you actually know what you're talking about when you set your thoughts down on paper, instead of just ranting.
71
@70 Refer to my earlier points (my original post @62) highlighting that only *some* religions purport to represent literal truth. It's mostly the Abrahamic religions, but not exclusively. Refer again to Point #4, re: taking the worst parts of Christianity (and Islam) and attributing them to all religions.
73
@72:

"Not all delusions are unhealthy."

Indeed. However, the delusion that all religions insist they represent literal truth *is* unhealthy.
74
@70

Tell that to all the people burned at the stake for not "getting" Banksy.
75
@74 Source?
76
All right. I bit on the clever (for a mentally diseased, perverted, corrupt and filthy subhuman scumbag diligently trying to destroy his own culture) trolling done by Little Danny Boy the Savage.

Not biting here.

I mean, pointing out that faith and science aren't mutually exclusive would be pointless, since bigotry about Christianity won't allow you folks to hear it. Science can tell me how to feed and care for my dog optimally. It can tell me the specific mix of breeds she represents in her wonderful muttiness. But you know what science can't tell me? It can't tell me a blind thing about why my dog tilts her head that way, or responds to a specific noise as she does, or why she likes cats despite everything in her breeding. It won't tell me anything at all about where what makes her what she and she alone is comes from. But in your all consuming hatred of Christianity I doubt any of you could hear that.

Pointing out that notions of justice and equality and, yes, charity that inform our legal and philosphical systems derive from Christianity in the West will be met with half truths or outright lies about that faith.

Pointing out that in fact the scientific method, the notion of genetics, logical systems and on and on and on were developed or vastly improved in Christian universities (as incidentally was the university itself) would be met with ignorant bile and hate, so no point there either.

So by all means, enjoy your virulent bigotry. Have a nice day.
78
@76 "But you know what science can't tell me? It can't tell me a blind thing about why my dog tilts her head that way, or responds to a specific noise as she does, or why she likes cats despite everything in her breeding. It won't tell me anything at all about where what makes her what she and she alone is comes from."

Are you sure about that, or are just not familiar with the science on those particular issues? Those sound to me like things that can be researched.

79
The Bible, especially, charts out the rise and fall of The Roman Empire.

If you don't think that's relevant today, you're not paying attention.
80
Religion fulfills the human need to try to explain things they don't understand. At one time people didn't know what lighting was, so they explained it away by attributing it to a god. We now know about electrical charges in the clouds. People don't like not knowing, and will make up bullshit to make themselves feel better.
81
And, some people dismiss religion without knowing anything about it, because while the supernatural aspects of it might, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, be intertwined to sway the less intelligent, younger among us into their ranks, religion, if used effectively, can teach us the mistakes of the past that we seem, as a culture, to be bent on making again today.

All you people who are so dismissive of these stories, all of which have been around, in some form, since spoken language, would do well to actually read them.

You needn't be a theist to see the value of books containing metaphor and allegory to pass on knowledge. (aesop's fables, anyway?)

It's the unchecked power in religious organizations that's bullshit, not the religion itself.
82
The bullshit is not in the "sacred texts," but in how people view or interpret them. Sacred texts are not inherently any more bullshit than Shakespeare or Homer or Picasso, until someone starts insisting that they're the literal truth.

If you view them as a form of representational art, performed by people delirious with spiritual thought (or maybe just delirious), subject to interpretation, analysis and reinterpretation in conjunction with an ethical life, then perhaps they can be useful to complement a nuanced spiritual search.

If you think they're a recipe for something, that all you have to do is follow, then you're an idiot.
83
@ 76: Speaking of Pansy-ass hello to you Seattleblues and yes, science can explain why your dog does what it does you colossal ingnoramus. I mean, I know you flunked out of law school, but thought you had at least gotten through Jr high.

@82: Thank you. You are a voice of reason.
84
@82, thank you also.

@76: "Pointing out that notions of justice and equality and, yes, charity that inform our legal and philosphical systems derive from Christianity in the West will be met with half truths or outright lies about that faith."

Bullshit. Those notions are fully expressed in Judaism by the prophets, whose sayings are repeated by Christians (and usually termed "our prophets", which is one of those outright lies you mention).

85
@76: Are you sure you're not reading "The Kennel Club Training Bible"? Cause I'm pretty sure that's a different book...
86
@76: Also, Christianity would have us believe that dogs do not possess souls, so obviously it is complete bull.
87
@83

"yes, science can explain why your dog does what it does"

No. It can't. See, she and to a much greater degree you or I are far more than the sum of our parts. Genetics and our upbringing and nutrition and the accidental influences of people and thingswe encounter all contribute to who we are. But they act upon something science can't now and never will be able to define.

Like GLOBAL WARMING IN WHICH WE'LL ALL BE CANNIBALS BY JULY AND SWIMMING TO WORK IN BALLARD!!!!!!!!! there are far too many known, let alone unknown, variables just in the physical fact of a person for science to make any authoritative statements accurately. Add in the soul and science would do well to admit that it's licked and stick to inaccurately predicting weather.
89
@84

I meant what I wrote, though it could better have been expressed as "the Judeo Christian tradition in the West."

Last I checked Judaism doesn't recognize Christ or any of the New Testament. You can agree or disagree with the theology, but the reality is that Western civilization relies heavily on how Christianity modifies the Jewish faith for how it views notions of justice or charity or any of the moral virtues.

In Christianity Christ states directly that he comes to fulfill not abolish the law. Hence 'our' prophets. Again, I respect your right to disavow Christ and therefore Christianity, but do try to get the details right.
90
@87: You are dangerously close to asking the classic question:
F*cking magnets, how do they work?

I assure you there is an entire scientific field of study devoted to explaining why your dog does what it does. It is called, rather unimagintively, Animal Behavior.

Christ man. Read a fucking book.
91
The one time that Jesus preaches (Matthew 4), he specifically states, "I did not come to replace the laws AND the prophets".

The good thing about that sermon by Jesus is that he recites "the golden rule", a version of which exists in nearly every religion. What distinguishes Christianity's version of the rule is that it was the 1st time it was ever recited in positive language (do unto others, as opposed to, do not do unto others).

Also, since that section of the New Testament was brought up, Jesus was getting a bunch of his homies together at that moment to perform a prison break...kinda like Selma, AL and MLK.

Man, religion is bullshit...
93
@76-- "It can tell me the specific mix of breeds she represents in her wonderful muttiness. But you know what science can't tell me? It can't tell me a blind thing about why my dog tilts her head that way, or responds to a specific noise as she does, or why she likes cats despite everything in her breeding. It won't tell me anything at all about where what makes her what she and she alone is comes from. But in your all consuming hatred of Christianity I doubt any of you could hear that."

Can Christianity tell you that? Or any religion? No. It's best answer is "God made it that way." which is just "It is how it is." rephrased.

But science actually can tell you at least some of that, and offers the chance of finding out more with time and effort.
94
@76: Have you never heard of cultural context? Isn't it a little disingenuous to claim all the advances in learning in Western universities were due to Christian faith and thought, when for most of the past millennium Christianity in Europe jealously enforced a monopoly on religion and education? Many societies have produced lasting scholarship by academics who had to at least profess their adherence to the prevailing religo-political regime, whether in ancient Greece or China or Islam or Marxist-Leninism.
95
@35 is right on. Goldy, please enroll yourself in a religious studies course at your local liberal arts college stat if you want to keep editorializing about it. You don't seem to understand how to approach reading and talking about religious texts or even grasp what religion is. You're almost as bad as the fundamentalists in that regard. Thanks.
96
@93

pavlov's experiments were made around conditioning. What he's talking about is a dog's ability to empathize with humans. They are some of the few species that can truly empathize with us and have shared a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit with us since we were proto-humans and they were wolves.

I forget where pavlov's notes mentioned all that stuff.
97
@91: Yes. It is a lovely story from which much can be gained as are all the myths across the world's myriad cultures a rich and vibrant tapestry of metaphore and wisdom. Great. Got that out of the way. What the bible is not is factual, nor is the slavish following of the behavioral minutia to be found there in rational. Can personal satisfaction and inner peace be found by doing so? No doubt. But demanding that all and sundry pretend that any one particular brand of self help, regardless of it's long and illustrious pedigree, be deemed superior to any other is, yes indeed, bullshit. You want to go to church, have at it. You want worship pixies, go right ahead, but the two activities are functionally the same. Full Stop.
98
Would you tell the Dali Lama that Buddhism is bullshit to his face? Would you tell Dr. King that Christianity is bullshit to his face? Would you tell Ghandi that the Hindu religion is bullshit to his face? I wouldn't. I'd show them respect, no matter how I might disagree.
99
The Bible is a book of ancient mythology that has no more value or validity than Greek, Egyptian, or any other collection of superstitions. Not to mention much of the Bible is cribbed from other mythologies.
101
@98- I would. I say the same thing, in effect, whenever I tell anyone I'm an Militant Agnostic.

I think that the gentlemen you name would be able to handle being told their beliefs are bullshit quite ably.
102
I wrote some time ago (not on this site):
...so when I say religion is a silly, outmoded form of tribalism that carries with it an indelible element of malignancy, that shouldn't be construed as an attack against the right to practice religion. Religion is inextricably bound to human culture; it pervades our architecture, literature, and language. We could no more easily eradicate religion than we could completely erase all of these things.

I would just add that I regard with suspicion anyone whose belief in an omnipotent being fills them with certainty rather than humility.
103
@99

Oh. So Europe was founded on the ethics and morals of Ra or Isis or Baal, right?

Of course not. The slow recognition of the intrinsic value of the individual and the notion of fundamental equality as a human being were made possible entirely because the New Testament imposed love and mercy over the basic morality of the Old.

Which is to say, Little Danny Boy the Savage and Goldstein and your lot have the freedom to attack in vulgar terms the majority faith of this nation precisely because that faith created the conditions for your liberty.
104
103, The Bible is not a good guide for ethics and morals. It condones slavery, and the subservience of women, which is hardly equality. The golden rule far outdates the New Testament.
107
@103 Europe wasn't founded. It evolved. And it continues to do so.
108
@103 - So, you are saying that the liberties we enjoy in the US are the same as the liberties Europe enjoys? Because, as you say, both societies are based on New Testament scripture

And here I thought you hated Europe for their lack of liberties. I guess I learn something new every day.

Of course, liberty varied wildly over Christendom for its entire history. It wasn't really handed out willy-nilly during the Crusades, for instance.

I think maybe you overreached when you stated that US liberties were based on the New Testament. After all, we don't have slaves now, and Ephesians goes into quite a bit of detail about how slaves should be treated, as does Colossians and Timothy. (New Testament books, the lot.)

Of course, they all left out "Free them."
109
@87: Name one aspect of caninity that science cannot explain, and I'll show you how ignorant you are. Just one little thing about dogs! Bring it on, Seattleblues. Give me your best shot or forever be known to be all talk.
@103: As a few others here have said, a huge part of European society as we know it was built on the foundation of the pagan Greeks. Christianity was not the wellspring of civilization, remember.
110
Actually, I'm not big on "sacred" texts. Nor is anyone else. Most christians I know haven't even read theirs. Organized religion (with or without the scriptural mythology) is, by definition, a mechanism of exclusion. It's what we use to ensure that we associate with people who are just like us while ignoring (and, if at all possible, denigrating) everyone else. We don't really need the scriptures to do that, though I suppose they do lend an aura of legitimacy to what are in fact irrational prejudices. So, that these books are bullshit (e.g., untrue) is sort of beside the point. They provide the basis for me to tell you to go fuck yourself, whether I've read them or not. "We are a christian nation," I get to proclaim, clutching my bible to my breast, and this gives me the comfort of knowing that all you other people - fags and muslims and buddhists and SINNERS - are all enemies until you renounce what makes you individual and embrace me and my self-satisfaction.

We don't need a book do do that, and it doesn't matter whether the book is bullshit or not. All we need is righteousness and moral certitude, and we have that in abundance.

Amen.
111
What a nuanced and perceptive argument, not reductive at all. Certainly not in the least redolent of the categorical black-and-white thinking and intolerance for ambiguity that characterise people with Asperger's Syndrome.
112
And I think you mean "prescription", not "proscription". A prescription is a command, while a proscription is a condemnation.
113
@Lissa, Fuckin' dogs, how do they work? ~*Miracles*~

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