These people are one reason I am sometimes ashamed to be a Christian. I've seen my knuckles turn white at some of the things these people say in the name of hypocrisy, hate, and neglect. One quote from the Bible is "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself". Do these people even know what God they are praying to?

 

What do you think of this situation???

That's all. 

Hahaha this is EPIC 

That's a good one:

lol, that was going to be the picture instead of the broken image in my first post in this thread.

 

Anyway, I believe the only reason some people are homophobic is because they are too scared to realize people's differences. Humanity has always been hateful, and, sadly, always will be.

Speaking of that, there was a famous case from where I live where a gay student wanted to go to prom with his boyfriend, but it went to court.  He was initially not allowed to go as it was at a Catholic high school and against the "good book", but he ended up being allowed to go at the end.

I do not understand it either. Well, maybe theoretically I'm able to understand why some prejudiced, hateful person is afraid of homosexuality but as far as I'm concerned, homosexuality is not only harmless, but even natural (in a way ). I mean, all animals have homosexual individuals among them but I've never seen a group of homophobic cats burning a gay cat couple at the stake! That leads to an obvious conclusion that human's self-consciousness is not only a gift but a curse as well  And another conclusion, based on my fragmentary knowledge about ancient history, is that the main reason why present day society is so homophobic, is judeo-christian religion (sorry bout dat). Really, as far as I know homosexuality was something more or less accepted in Ancient Greece and I don't think anyone was killed or punished for being gay.

The original sense of the word "gay" is "happy" so I think it's time to let these people be happy in our oh so modern society. I'm absolutely positive about legal gay marriage and even children adoption as I believe that in the era of broken families and unwanted children, we can be sure that gay couple will adopt a child only because they want to raise it well and with love.

 

One of the worst things about religion - indoctrination of children.

Amen to that!

 

...well not necessarily. I�ve chosen not to babtize my children, so they can make their own choice when they are old enough. I�m honest when they ask me if I think God exists and says no, but I also always tell them that there are people who believe in God and that they should make up their own mind if that�s something they want to believe in (I also read the bible to them for educational purposes). I�ll be honest and say that I would be disappointed if they chose to believe in God, but I�ll respect whatever choice they make and try not to make a fuzz about it. I think there is a big difference between indoctrination and giving your children a choice to believe in what they think is right, when they are old enough to make such a choice.

Well, the point is we're talking two different things here while you, correct me if I'm wrong, see that as a whole. These two things I'm talking about here are: 1) morality 2) dogma. I mean, atheism is by definition devoid of dogma. It's not a religion or even a real ideology. Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. 

Anyway, by indoctrination I understand putting religious dogma into the heads of children. Children cannot decide for themselves and they are "programmed", through the process of evolution, to take everything their parents say as an indisputable truth. So they learn about God and Jesus, about heaven and most notably hell, the place they go to if their lives are full of sin (I'm not going to elaborate on why morality based on fear is a bad thing, that's another story for another discussion).

Now that's where that aforementioned division steps in. You can't make your kids Christian without combining dogma and christian morality together. Their morality is based on dogma, that heaven/hell dualism defines their approach to what is good and bad. Many Christians claim that Christianity has exclusive rights to morality which is just not true. They tend to overlook the fact that respecting animal rights, equality of women, respect for nature and ecology are all fruits of moral philosophy called ethics and it has very little basis in religion.

My point is that atheists, whatever kind of people they are, teach their children that dogma doesn't exist, in other words they teach to be objective. The only thing they put into their heads (or at least they should) is morality, yet unrestrained by dogma.

>That includes Darwinists

lol what

 

Hear, hear

dtguitarfan wrote: The point is that everyone teaches their children what they believe in. Some are more constructive than others - using reason and logic to support those things that they believe in, and some are just repeating back what they have been taught as children without having ever developed an understanding of why they believe it, it is true. All religions have reasonable and unreasonable people in them. That includes Darwinists....

Jeff said:

J-Man wrote:  Darwinists?  Accepting the theory of evolution does not make you a religious person, Geoff. ...and that's not necessarily true. I will teach my children what I believe in (kindness, compassion, skepticism, scientific thought, etc), but I am not in any way forcing them to adhere to my beliefs. Do you not see how that is different than telling your children "here is what I believe, and if you disagree with me, you will be going to hell."? That is an inherently harmful position to put children into.

My response to Geoff's post:

bartosso wrote: Well, the point is we're talking two different things here while you, correct me if I'm wrong, see that as a whole. These two things I'm talking about here are: 1) morality 2) dogma. I mean, atheism is by definition devoid of dogma. It's not a religion or even a real ideology. Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.  Anyway, by indoctrination I understand putting religious dogma into the heads of children. Children cannot decide for themselves and they are "programmed", through the process of evolution, to take everything their parents say as an indisputable truth. So they learn about God and Jesus, about heaven and most notably hell, the place they go to if their lives are full of sin (I'm not going to elaborate on why morality based on fear is a bad thing, that's another story for another discussion). Now that's where that aforementioned division steps in. You can't make your kids Christian without combining dogma and christian morality together. Their morality is based on dogma, that heaven/hell dualism defines their approach to what is good and bad. Many Christians claim that Christianity has exclusive rights to morality which is just not true. They tend to overlook the fact that respecting animal rights, equality of women, respect for nature and ecology are all fruits of moral philosophy called ethics and it has very little basis in religion. My point is that atheists, whatever kind of people they are, teach their children that dogma doesn't exist, in other words they teach to be objective. The only thing they put into their heads (or at least they should) is morality, yet unrestrained by dogma.

And your response:

dtguitarfan wrote: How can you teach morality without dogma? There is no reason to be moral without dogma, except that with governmental law it becomes an issue of the preservation of self.  And yes, Darwinists must have faith as well. If you believe that billions of years ago all matter compacted into a ball and then exploded and this caused the processes which eventually resulted in life, but you cannot explain where that matter came from, and cannot explain the astoundingly low mathematical chances that everything would be just right in order to cause this, you are also living by faith.

No, the difference between believing in something and knowing something is that you don't need ANY proof to believe. If you have the proof, you know it. I think you can agree with me that from the scientific point of view, religious dogma has nothing to do with science. It can't be empirically proved by any means. That's why it's called belief, and that's why dogma is by definition indisputable. How would you describe God with the use of physics? How did he come to existence? How would you explain God's eternal life with the use of biology? That is impossible. Big Bang, on the other hand, is a highly probable scientific theory based on physics. And yeah, we don't know yet what was there before the big bang. So what? At least atheists are not afraid to admit they simply don't know something. In my opinion looking for answers is more creative and more human than settling for dogma and have answers to all questions provided from the very beginning.

As for morality, that's IMO another misconception. Morality has been there before religion and it's a direct result of self-consciousness. Basic ethical values are the first values understood by infants - "the good is that what's good for me, the bad is that what's bad for me". In later stages of life children learn about empathy, so their morality evolves into "the good is what is good to people in general, the bad is that's what harmful to people in general".

If you need another proof, take Calvinists and their predestination. According to their beliefs, the life and its afterlife are already planned by God. No matter what your decisions are during your life, you'll go either to heaven or hell. It doesn't depend on your deeds. Still Calvinists were never less moral than Catholics, what's more, they were even more decent people even though their morality was not imposed on them with the use of dogma. They simply choose to be good. Just as most of atheists. To me the idea of being good only because I'm going to be punished if I'm evil is... primitive. I want to be a decent human being and I don't expect any reward for that.

Skwid wrote:

I just don't like the absolute morality being used as an argument for religion being morally superior to moral philosophy. That is all, I'm outta here

Let's just end this here for now and agree to disagree. 

I'm sorry I'm back here, I'm just really curious about the answer.