So, using this line of thought I can logically reject the various arguments that posit 'religion' and 'faith' are negative influences merely because there are some people who happen to have been part of a religion have had questionable motives. To do otherwise would be a classic example of an ad hominem logical fallacy, no?

No, that would not be an ad hominem. It would be a (perhaps rather weak) inductive argument. Since the argument goes to the desirability of religion (whether or not it is a negative influence), rather than the truth claims of religion, it is perfectly valid to talk about ways in which members of that religion may or may not be influenced to behave well or poorly.

I have found no document to this date from a major religious charitable institution that states that mandatory conversion is required before assistance is distributed.

You mean a major Christian institution, don't you, rather than a major "religious" one? There are Jewish and Muslim charities that only offer aid to Jews and Muslims (this is significantly more toxic for Muslim charities, as Judaism is not in the practice of seeking converts).

It is rarely done, among Christian ministries, so overtly as to leave an obvious paper trail. Rather, at the individual hospitals, charity wards, and so on, non-Christians are turned away if they refuse to convert. Exactly how common this is, is very difficult to tell, but it's certainly common enough to constitute a problem.

It is not a problem, as I said, in the US or the industrialized world. Your personal experiences with charities operating in the US or Europe is not representative. It is a problem in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.

It is also not, generally speaking, a problem with US organizations that take public funds. Federal rules prohibit government money being used for proselytizing. In fact, a small number of US religious charities have refused to accept government funds under Bush's "Faith-based Initiatives" program precisely for that reason; it would restrict their ability to require service attendance when providing aid.

Oh goodie, all sorts of interesting discussions going on here.

Yay, somebody that wants to respectfully debate, rather than call me a pussy. If I were you, I'd ask your camp to show a little more respect. Not that it's always returned by the proselytizers, but I hardly feel I'm being disrespectful to your beliefs. I wish your comrades would show the same courtesy.

Agnostics make no claims to know anything, they say "I do not/cannot know X". The celestial teapot is the oldie counter for that - in principle we have to be agnostic about it, but in actuality we're not. We are all a-teapotists. Atheism is the same way. You can say that you believe in the celestial teapot, but with no evidence, you're not going to convince anyone.

Yes, but we are not all a-consciousness. Nor are we all a-string theorists. This comes down to basic inference. One adopts an arbitrary prior probability over the space of alternatives. This is the rational Bayesian thing to do. Putting any sort of constraints on that process is completely a subjective process. For instance, people typically cite 'simplicity', or 'elegance', as properties that should be more highly weighted. There is no more evidence for that then there is for God, at least as far as the 'truthfulness' of the claims is concerned. Now, I remain agnostic as I'd rather not make the claim, because as you've correctly pointed out I shouldn't expect to be able to convince anybody else. That doesn't mean that I consider the lack of existence of a deity as more likely than the existence.

As for determinism, what about quantum mechanics? When I look at that evidence I see randomness, not determinism. Some people, such as Roger Penrose, have thought that the key to the hard problem might dwell at the quantum level. I'm not prepared to jump into the "micro-tubule" camp, but the existence of quantum mechanics does leave the door open for a less deterministic reality.

[edit] If you are interested in this idea of consciousness as an illusion, you should read "The User Illusion" by Tor Norretranders.

who the hell do you hang out with?
most of the people i know arent gay and most of the people i know are actually pretty damn gung ho about equality.
deciding people dont care if it doesnt actually directly affects them is part of the problem.

hes in the position he is in because has the outlet. he is a writer and sex columnist. and is intelligent and poised and wise and articulate and clever. the recent series of savage videos on the sift are from talks and q&a sessions he has at colleges, answering peoples questions about sex. he didnt go there to proselytize a gay agenda. he was answering a question a student asked at a sexuality education talk.

so we can assume that the audience isnt overwhelming gay, and the audience seems pretty fucking gung ho about equality too.

i reject your statements that people that dont belong to your particular group arent concerned with your plight. and i dont think he actually meant neanderthal when he said "knuckle dragging bigot". im half limbaugh, the limbaughs are all knuckle dragging bigots. theyre also all extremely wealthy and powerful.

sam harris is opposed to religious dogma..check.
thats a fight i have been waging for 20 yrs.
then he goes on to say that atheism is not a belief system,yet in the end of the discussion talks about changing people in the intelligencia's belief system that is religiously based,into something that resembles his own.
thats called proselytizing and not a little hypocritical.
his argument is with dogma and doctrine,and i do not have a problem with that at all.
he just uses contradictory logic too much for my tastes.

Atheism is not a belief-system, no, but that doesnt mean Sam Harris (or any other atheists) "don't believe in anything" That was part of the point. You can still believe, for instance that reason, science and evidence-based reasoning should always come before faith-based "reasoning", and that people who subscribe to iron age mythology are probably making a big mistake. In a sense that is perhaps proselytizing, yes, but not necessarily in a bad way. Imagine, for instance you were to come to a primitive island where they threw virgins into the volcano every full moon, would attempts to persuade people to stop this horrible practice be "dogmatic" or "proselytizing"?

We atheists are also vocal opponents of childhood indoctrination and threats of death on conversion, brainwashing and so on, but that doesnt mean you are never allowed to try to change someones mind with some effort. To call this hypocritical is in my opinion like saying you should despise all forms of work because you think slavery is wrong.

sam harris is opposed to religious dogma..check.
thats a fight i have been waging for 20 yrs.
then he goes on to say that atheism is not a belief system,yet in the end of the discussion talks about changing people in the intelligencia's belief system that is religiously based,into something that resembles his own.
thats called proselytizing and not a little hypocritical.
his argument is with dogma and doctrine,and i do not have a problem with that at all.
he just uses contradictory logic too much for my tastes.

1. i have lived in poverty. i worked my ass off while taking care of 2 kids to get out of it. and that is why i think you should try it. you seem to desperately need some perspective before you attempt to proselytize here.

2.the ER bill is $4000, i thought i said that.
his preventative home administered asthma medication is $350/per month after my insurance pays 40%. he recieves a dose everyday as a preventative measure. when hes in a flair up its 4-6 doses a day. the nebulizer cost $500. we bought it 3 years ago. you obviously know nothing about children healthcare and asthma. i couldve always just watched him asphyxiate while his airway swelled shut and the home treatments we were prescribed and had on hand were not effective.

3. did you miss the 500 posts ive made about how I HAVE WORKED IN A FUCKING EMERGENCY ROOM FOR 8 FUCKING YEARS?!?! so fuck me and my kids because their sorry ass mother chose to be a hourly wage slob providing healthcare to a mostly hispanic and poor demographic. if you want to talk about how much healthcare costs and why it costs so much and treatments, procedures, illnesses, pathologies and tests with anyone on the sift, im sure i can hold my own.

4. the fact is, you really have no business trying to assess the cost and circumstances surrounding medicine healthcare or childhood illnesses.

meh..just the same ol' fire and brimstone preaching,just in arabic.
should get a baptist revivalist preacher and this guy and have them try to out-proselytize each other.
now THAT would be fun to watch!
just like tennis:
"you are going to hell"
"no..YOU are going to hell"
"your religion is the false religion"
"no..YOUR religion is the false religion"
"my god can kick your god's ass"
"no way! my god is the greater god"
it would be fun in a ridiculous,waste of time sort of way.
we could even throw in the voice over from the Mortal Kombat games:FIGHT...finish him..flawless victory..
ok..ill stop...i could do this all day.

>> ^vairetube:
was that liddy england at 1:00~ praying for more prisoners to torture..
fuck the bible. it's got inspirational language, but so does the lord of the rings.. and LOTR has more to back up it's story


To be fair, LOTR is thought to be inspired by stories from the bible, although not as overtly as the stories of C. S. Lewis.

Your video, US Military Burns Bibles In Afghanistan To End Proselytizing, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Yes, just imagine if Iraq was the superpower who invaded the US under false pretences and then felt it okay to ship in Korans translated into the native yankie language for use in proselytizing the correct religion of Islam, and the one true God Allah, as opposed to the barbarism of Christianity. What if in that hypothetical scenario someone had the gall to propose we burn the Korans.

Just imagine the ramifications across the world!

^gwiz strikes gold yet again. The problem with the vast majority of proselytizing videos is that they're of an intellectual equivalent of a 6-year-old, whereas there may be a couple of rotten eggs in the anti-theistic videos crowd, but they're far outweighed by these.

And to think, the catholic church tried to proselytize by associating themselves with this guy...

http://www.videosift.com/video/Get-saved-with-Soul-Wow

Tags for this video have been changed from 'proselytizing, evangelism, Afghanistan, military, Al Jazeera' to 'proselytizing, evangelism, Afghanistan, military, Al Jazeera, christianity' - edited by kronosposeidon

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but seeing as I'm not sure if the Sift community has a resident lawyer, I'm going to give my lightly-educated opinion anyways. Feel free to correct any errors.

>> ^youmakekittymad:
this is another example of the "free speech" issue that came up in this video about evangelical groups proselytizing in the military. the problem that many of these religious groups seem to have is a lack of understanding of the difference between free speech for an individual, or group of individuals, and free speech for a religious institution.

This actually isn't the same issue. The problem in the linked video is that the military is specifically prohibited from expressing certain things because they're the military. A soldier in uniform can't go on record publically and say that Obama's decision to add troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure -- That would be speaking out against a superior officer.

I know there are some ex-military (and maybe active military) individuals here, so feel free to correct me. My point is that the rules are different for the military. I believe there are specific rules against coercing soldiers into a particular religion, which is the problem in the video above. LDS is a private entity, so the rule does not apply to them.

to the best of my knowledge, every mormon in utah could go to california and campaign against prop 8 and that would not be a problem, but as soon as an institution like the mormon church involves itself and its money to back said effort it becomes a religious institution acting to directly influence the working of the state, which is not legal. this is why in both of these videos, and in many many other examples of religious groups attempting to have laws changed in america, members of these groups are always trying to paint themselves as committed individuals rather than members of a very large, organized, and well-funded institution.

To my knowledge a church or any other religious or non-religious organization is free to say whatever they want, even as a unified group, as per the First Amendment. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." However, that does not prohibit religious organizations from trying to influence the law like any other group of private citizens. It just says that Congress is prohibited from passing a law that counts Mormon votes triple, for example.

The trouble is that many religious organizations are defined in the tax code as non-profit organizations that are entitled to tax-exempt status. There are rules attached to that status; groups that have it are not allowed to make certain types of political statements or endorsements because they are effectively doing so with public money (the money that would have been paid in taxes). This is the crux of the problem -- we're not so angry that LDS is campaigning against gay marriage (okay we are, but that's within their rights), we're angry that they're using "our" money to do it.

this is another example of the "free speech" issue that came up in this video about evangelical groups proselytizing in the military. the problem that many of these religious groups seem to have is a lack of understanding of the difference between free speech for an individual, or group of individuals, and free speech for a religious institution.

to the best of my knowledge, every mormon in utah could go to california and campaign against prop 8 and that would not be a problem, but as soon as an institution like the mormon church involves itself and its money to back said effort it becomes a religious institution acting to directly influence the working of the state, which is not legal. this is why in both of these videos, and in many many other examples of religious groups attempting to have laws changed in america, members of these groups are always trying to paint themselves as committed individuals rather than members of a very large, organized, and well-funded institution.

i believe this is the case, though someone please correct me if i'm wrong.