iaink

Why is it not the same?, you seem to believe that an hour of church a week is somehow going to brainwash people onto the benefits of faith. An hour of church for a skeptic lasts about 10 in my experience.

The closed minded intolerance of religion on principal by evangelical aethiests is just as judgmental and doctrine driven as a bible basher insisting everyone should see the light and get on board the jesus train in my opinion.
Just because I am an atheist doenst mean I dont see a benefit to religion for people that have faith, its clearly a source of comfort and strength to them. In some respects I am somewhat envious of that.

The churches that I occasionally attend in my guise as "dutiful husband" have had one central theme. I boils down to "Love is better than hate and we should all try and do the best we can to let love conquer fear and hatred." Never mind all the bollocks about heaven and hell and the afterlife, if we could all live that way the world would be a better place here and now.

Sally Redux

It's not an hour a week though is it? It's your parents and community forming your world view constantly.

Comfort and strength, yadda yadda yadda, same old.

iaink

So to summarize, Stalin and Hitler as you say had little or nothing to do with religion, and ultimately the societies they headed were heavily controlled anyway with lots of discrimination and inequality.

Doesnt that illustrate the point I was trying to make, that humanity is perfectly capable of screwing things up even without religion around to hang the blame on.

Oink

But why add more nonsense to the fray?

iaink

You can dismiss the comfort and strength all you like, but it doesnt change the fact that that is the reality of her experience.

We live in a multicultural world, we are exposed to different world views in our neighborhoods, on TV, in the media, even on internet chat boards. If the churches plan it to brainwash everyone attending then it had better have a rethink.

500 years ago everyone attended and lived faithful lives of prayer and feared burning in hell, and all their children would be subjected to the same, and yet now we reach a point where the majority dont, so if the churches plan is to brainwash everyone coming through the doors, its not working.

Some people have faith, that doesnt threaten me at all, Im fine with it. If it works for them to make this crazy journey through life a bit easier, good luck with that.

Sally Redux

Hitler quotes:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...otes-he-was-q/

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty
Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”

Shard

It only illustrates your point that evil is independent of religion. It doesn't address the point that religion is a source of evil.

Shard

Well day to day, we're all like that. I don't berate my religious friends and family for their irrational beliefs. But that doesn't mean I accept that religion in general is benign. Your way if thinking is the intellectual equivalent of staying in a five star resort in Haiti and refusing to accept that there are any problems in the country.

jossie

Bit of an oxymoron going on there Shard

Alan2005

Huh?

jossie

berating is criticizing which he says he doesn't do yet in the same sentence he calls them irrational which I would say is a criticism is it not? Or am I not making sense here?

montrealresident

no you are not

even in my wildest imagination there is no oxymoron at play here

go check the dictionary

JonboyE

There are over 5 billion adherents to just the major religions of the world. That's a **** of a lot of irrationality.

Oink

A third of all human beings put things up their bottoms. What's your point?

dbd33

Perhaps too much for one thread. Let's deal first with the evils of Catholicism. The Catholic church opposes women's rights, gay rights and has a history of persecuting children. It is un-christian and un-Canadian. Participation is morally indefensible as it implies endorsement of the policies of the church.

Islam, not so good with women or gays either.

Judaism, ack, again no so much cop for the women.

Zoroastrianism, well maybe that's the true path of God, I don't know anyone afflicted with it.

"Evangelical Atheist" is, btw, a silly oxymoron. One cannot proselytize for the absence of something.