I see that a common belief here is that religion = dragons and that convictions are not a defining characteristic, nor something to be offended for when it is attacked, let alone something to defend. The second is a point I am willing to drop, but the first is entirely false.
Please keep in mind that when discussing matters such as these words such as "
entirely false" stand to incite more a drastic reaction than thoughtful reply. Nobody can say for sure what is right and what is false in the issues of morality and ultimately religious ontology and what have you. So for someone that is saying his words get twisted around please try to keep a tighter reign on your words. That is, if you are interested in a civil discussion and not in just carving a circle around you and stating the interior to be your ground. I for one, give you your ground willingly, don't call it
right and what other people say
false. There are on the point, very many people that self-identify with their deity on the level of the magical invisible dragon so who are you to sweep them under the rug because you happen to disagree in your more spiritualist (? I am assuming here) version of faith.
I also see that anyone who takes the minority position here will have his words twisted.
On that note please stop persecuting yourself, you're not being more misunderstood than anybody else but actually telling people they should work harder to understand you is a surefire way to get them to react even more. If you are really misunderstood why don't you try "I'm sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough and I'll restate" instead of "read my posts again"? It puts the burden of being clear on you - where it rightly belongs imo. You're not writing a book where the reader can do nothing but re-read if he doesn't understand something, you're just discussing.
Reread my posts : nobody but the author of the strip and people who completely agree with it is included. And no, anybody who talks about dragons or getting swallowed by whales or such things as defining a faith - whether they believe in these things or not - do not properly represent or understand "religion" (as a whole) so to assert such a viewpoint is to be misguided.
There are many ways to look at religion.
Helm's post I will address separately, and not the arguments, which I found grounded, but the concept of religious murder : People who murder men and children in the name of god are filthy, filthy people
Actually shouldn't we be more compelled from a christian point of view - such as yours - to understand and ultimately forgive these people for their actions? Isn't that the central idea of your faith? No human being is my enemy no matter what he was ever done (and I'm not even Christian) and I try to not call people filthy or wrong, although sometimes poking fun at them is sanity-saving.
who should not be identified with all other religious people because they violate the will of god in doing so, and twist it - I neither defend nor associate with such.
Perhaps you should spend more time associating with them and not judging them before you defend your Christian faith so fervently on the internet.
let's not try and take a tally, and let's not say all religious people are crusaders and terrorists in the same way that I haven't suggested that all atheists are soviets.
Please consider this argument:
1. Not all theists are murderers.
2. Not all atheists are murderers.
3. The motives of theists for murder might be spiritual or not.
4. The motives for atheists for murder are always not.
Therefore the spirituality of the theists might not account for all their murdering but it certainly accounts directly for some of it, and that some is plenty. Millions in fact.
I posit that a human being that has had to question divinity to the point where they no longer espouse any sect or established faith is less likely to murder for such abstract ideas. This is a relatively unfounded position and as such I'm willing to argue it, but let's not 'not keep a tally' please.
However, you are right. Religion is a choice and must be a choice else it is self-defeating. A more appropriate comparison would be a comic which characterizes all police officers as wife-beaters.
Yes that comic would be a ridiculous one. Probably funny though!
*we can discuss the first book of Samuel, Angels in the House of Lot, and other less-than-comfortable passages from the bible in another place, if you desire.
I'd rather not. My problem with God is not with how misunderstood his words are. It is an epistemological and ontological one. The universe I experience doesn't seem to allow for uncontrolled, eternal, super-powerful entities that create themselves and are not subject to thermodynamic laws so it's been many many years since I played the "let's pretend there
is a God, then the book is wrong where it says....". The notion of a God, as it has been explained to me by those that seem to believe in him, is completely absurd. Their desires to believe in him are not and I sympathize because the world is really scary.
