Thread: Respect vs. Blasphemy

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Look at the torture that Chileans endured in the Pinochet years .... I always wondered where they found people who would do that to other people.

What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with the precision of knives.
Nothing matters to them.
For them blood equals medals.
Slaughter is an act of heroism.

~Victor Jara

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I think it is largely class rather than race that inclines a young man or women to go one way or the other.

I think so too. Class serves as a convenient vehicle for one to justify what one wants to do in order to get what one wants, whether it be upper, middle, or lower class. Religion serves as a vehicle as well so there will be some correlation, but religion is more easily picked up or disregarded than class is in more wealthy countries.

To me in this discussion's tangent on peace vs religion, the more revealing answer is the answer to this question: what does your religion and your class offer you as far as tools to get what you want? The less income I have, the fewer non-violent options I have to quickly get what I want. The more religious connections I can make, the more I can try to present a moral justification to get what I want.

Religion itself doesn't offer peace - it just gives people more opportunity to justify doing what they really want. If you want to live at peace, you'll use religion to try to make it, but if not, you'll try to use it for some other purpose.

I have been thinking about this poll/question and I have decided that the original post is wrong. The question of respect does not apply to any religion. Asking if one respects another's religious choice is like asking someone to respect a professional athletic team, a novel, a recipe, a daytime television serial, a favorite color or or any subjective personal choice. I view an individual's religious devotion the same way as I do that person's sexual preference. If you want to pray to Jesus Christ or Allah means as much to me as you wanting to bump uglies with a chicken or a midget eskimo. If you want to handle poisonous snakes or have your wife paint your ass blue, I don't care. It doesn't affect me and I don't want to know about it. So should the poll then be asking if we respect other's choice of religion? No, says I.

The question should not be anything about religions in particular. The poll (in my opinion) should ask whether someone who is devoted or dedicated to any religious belief respect the right of anyone else to be equally devoted to any other religious belief. In other words, should we be free from the efforts of others to convert us to thier way of worship? If I am going through my life, minding my business, shouldn't I be free from some Christian zealot telling me I need Jesus in my life? If I am attending the synagogue every saturday, shouldn't I be free from some whacky Moslim calling me an infidel and wishing me dead?

No sir, the question should not be whether I respect religion but whether the devoutly religious respect the non-believer. I don't believe any violent problems have ever been started by athiests in the name of no supreme being.

Wow. That was almost well thought through.
Once again X, a good thread. Though the poll options were almost well thought out too, though a little narrow and lacking.

But atheism is a religious belief also, why should they be the ones to get the break? It is a religion like any, based on faith - believing in what you can not see, you have to 'believe' that there is no God. The only way around that is that you would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time, which would virtually make you god and therefore disprove your belief. The 'atheists' have set up this phoney ploy so that they can use it to try and get their way, to be treated 'special', and shove their religion on everyone else. "Oh look, it's the poor little atheist, let's just leave them alone, they're special."

How about just respecting individuals who deserve respect.

Originally Posted by ControlFreak1

How about just respecting individuals who deserve respect.

The poll isn't asking if individuals deserve respect. If that were the case I would say that I believe everyone deserves respect until they prove otherwise. The poll is asking whether any given "religions" deserve respect and to that I responded.

In regards to this, "Oh look, it's the poor little atheist, let's just leave them alone, they're special." Why would you jump to such nonsense? I think you are smarter than that. My point regarding atheism is simply that everyone should leave everyone else alone. The atheist doesn't spend any time proselytising. The atheist doesn't campaign against the religious. The atheist isn't donning explosive underwear and killing innocent people.

Originally Posted by icedog

My point regarding atheism is simply that everyone should leave everyone else alone.

Come on Big Dog, you know that it's not in man's nature to do that.

Originally Posted by icedog

The atheist doesn't spend any time proselytising. The atheist doesn't campaign against the religious.

Some of them absolutely do.

In my attempt to simplify my life as much as possible, I have learned the most efficient course is to sort everything by the Pain In The Ass (PITA) factor. The higher the PITA factor, the more it should be avoided. Well an antagonistical atheist is just as much a pain in the ass as a televangelist selling salvation to poor lonely old ladies.

Originally Posted by ControlFreak1

But atheism is a religious belief also, why should they be the ones to get the break? It is a religion like any, based on faith - believing in what you can not see, you have to 'believe' that there is no God. The only way around that is that you would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time, which would virtually make you god and therefore disprove your belief. The 'atheists' have set up this phoney ploy so that they can use it to try and get their way, to be treated 'special', and shove their religion on everyone else. "Oh look, it's the poor little atheist, let's just leave them alone, they're special."

No actually atheism is not a religious belief. It's just a lack of belief. Atheists just don't believe the claims of the various religions that say there is a god.

There is nothing for atheists to prove since there is no proof god exists.

I had to laugh about the bit of atheist shoving their "religion" on everyone else. Especially here in the US.

How exactly do atheists shove their belief on others?

Originally Posted by icedog

.... just as much a pain in the ass as a televangelist selling salvation to poor lonely old ladies.

They no doubt have the lowest places in Hell reserved for them.

Originally Posted by NYCshaver

No actually atheism is not a religious belief. It's just a lack of belief. Atheists just don't believe the claims of the various religions that say there is a god.

There is nothing for atheists to prove since there is no proof god exists.

I had to laugh about the bit of atheist shoving their "religion" on everyone else. Especially here in the US.

How exactly do atheists shove their belief on others?

Don't fall for that lame 'atheist' cop-out either, they can deny it until they are red white and blue in the face but it doesn't change the fact that their beliefs are inherently religious.
There's no proof that God doesn't exist.
Every cotton-pickin' way that they can, the real fundamentalist ones at least. Through the government school system for one, and of course with these weak lame phoney reverse psycho babble scenarios of theirs.