For sake of clarity I'm using prejudice in the sense of "any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable".

The reason I'm for some amount of prejudice against religion is that some religions/religious views are quite favorable, whereas some others are just bloody dangerous, inherently immoral and wrong, and several are like this by design (death cults for example). And some religions/religious views are just... Silly. While others can be both, like how scientology is silly, but if even part of the controversies regarding them are true then they're also bloody dangerous.

I'm not going to interact the same way with a self-professed death cultist, scientologist, raelian, or a fundamental/extremist of any religion or lack thereof as I do with so called "normal" people. By going that way they've already made some things painfully obvious, by signing up for some specific religious view they've already declared some things they believe in. If I know that some of the tenets of their professed view are just wrong, dangerous or possibly ridiculous, I will interact differently with them. I am also likely to be positively prejudiced towards for example christians from more liberal sects (like those who support gay marriage and women's rights), as opposed to, say, the Westboro Baptists.

Religious views are not something you're born with, they're the result of your own reasoning or some outside influence, but it's always something that can be affected. That puts them on another level entirely when compared to something like race. Whether some amount of prejudice can be helpful in certain situations (dark alley, strange person pointing a weapon at me, I'll initially judge that particular book by it's covers, even if the contents may possibly have some redeeming features), that's debatable, but race and religion aren't nearly on the same platform.

@lantern53 Where were Bush's apologies? Didn't he say that history would be the judge hence no need to apologise? Also, the government is not some mythical separate entity from 'the people". America is the bastion of democracy, don't you agree? How are we to separate the actions of its people from its government? Democracy, especially one as purportedly strong as your own, implies consent if not endorsement.

@bcglorf The first point just restates what I said which I think we both agree on.

The second point about Pakistan has been over simplified to the point of misdirection. There are 3 domains of power in Pakistan; the ISI (Intelligence), the military and the government. The ISI largely controls the madrassahs and although there is a huge amount of violence in Pakistan at the moment (something you won't hear about in Western news broadcasts) the main area of contention there is about Kashmir. It has little if nothing to do with the USA. In fact the USA aids the Pakistan cause by their alliance with Pakistan in an attempt to oppose Chinese backed India. Further, charities does not automatically mean state-based endorsement. Its quite a stretch.

Plus, I can name many muslim nations that did not have spontaneous celebrations. Afghanistan for one. Sure maybe a few in Kabul got wind of it but as a nation they are still pretty much in the dark about the whole thing. Some more, Turkey (secular yes but muslim by demos), Azer Baijan, Sudan, Bosnia-Herzogoznia, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Gambia, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Somalia.... I'm sure there were lots of other countries that had spontaneous displays of celebration after 9/11... France, Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venuzuela, Russia, Guatemala, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Serbia.

To paint any display of celebration with the brush of enemy eliminates any nuance or desire for understanding complex issues for the sake of post hoc raltionalisation of ones own immediate intuitions. Does the Westboro Baptist Church mean that America is no better than any of the Muslim nations you list? Of course not. To say as much as absurd. To see brown people doing the same is merely convenient.

The third point you seem to provide your own refutation. Drones etc do indeed fuel Al Queda. You admit as much. If the AL Qaeda aim is indeed about Pakistan and India (which I think you may be very confused about Al-Qaeda and its Pakistani brethren, two very separate entities with almost no commonality bar what we grant them). Al Qaeda in the Bin Laden days cared nothing for Pakistan. It was almost entirely focused on Saudi Arabia and only went to Afghanistan as a sort of Boys Own adventure club. They were the laughing stock of the Mujahaddin.

@bareboards2
my comment was not really directed at you my dear.i painted my premise with a broad brush that expanded from this thread and addressed something i have found to be more and more practiced on the sift.

you posted your reasons why you used the ignore.
to get rid of the "rabble" and make it easier to read posts you enjoy.
now if that means posts that you agree with or dont find offensive ..well..that is kind of my point.

and you are so right.we all have a right to our opinion and in my opinion to sequester posts you disagree or find offensive is intellectually weak.

@VoodooV you literally just made my entire point by your post and i dont know if that was on purpose or by freak accident.

while i agree with your assertion that @shinyblurry tends to wade in the copy/paste waters and he dwells in circular logic land.you have to give the boy props for lending a perspective of a christian fundamentalist on a mainly secular left site.

that boy can rile you all up like a stick to a hornets nest.which is endless entertainment for me.

but lets change that paradigm shall we?
why dont you head down to your nearest baptist church and hand out fliers concerning evolution to the congregation and tell them god doesnt exist.

then maybe you would know what it feels like to get blasted by all sides at once.while shiny lacks in clear debate skills.you gotta admire his courage.

as for @chingalera seeking attention.
i dunno.
maybe you are right.
but the real question is how did you come to that conclusion?
by what means did you discern his intentions?motivations?
crystal ball? black magic? a little fairy come by and whisper in your ear?

no.
you used your OWN subjective understanding.your OWN experiences to presume the motivations of another sifter.
thats weak sauce and you better than that.

and then..finally..you ask for a daddy to come in straighten out the people who you:disagree with.argue in a way you dont find constructive (but may be they do).derail threads that maybe you would have enjoyed more if those pesky kids hadnt messed everything up.

the world dont revolve around you so get over yourself man.for fuck sakes!

i was sincere when i said i love your commentary because i truly do.
smart,witty and you usually have something to say.i ADORE your commentary but you are being self righteous on this thread.

i did something very similar last week to @renatojj and he called me out.he was right and i was wrong.

stop trying to impose your ideals of what constructive participation is based solely on your own and limited understanding.
this is not your sift but rather OURS and things will become chaotic at times.

the sift is organic.
allow it to metamorph into whatever it will become.
we do not need a big daddy to direct where it goes and thats the beauty of this site.

the irony in all this exchange between you and i is that i feel you have something to say and have always admired that about you.
allow other people to have their say as well.

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one. This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

Your argument eats itself. If there aren't any absolute laws of logic (including that one), then there are no rules period, and thus no logic. If there is no such thing as logic then I could say "The cucumber faints west in the umbrage" and it would be an entirely valid response to anything you say. Yet you continue to make absolute statements like:

"All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction."

"This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications"

"you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective"

The sea cucumber faints west in the umbrage, my friend.

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)

No, I can't 100 percent prove I am not actually a circus peanut dreaming I'm a man, but it doesn't matter what I can prove to you. What matters is what is true. You have absolute freedom to live in total denial of reality if you want to, but reality isn't what we dictate it is. Just because you have no way of figuring it out doesn't mean no one does. The one who does have it figured out is God, because He created it. Because He is God He can make us absolutely certain of who He is and what He wants from us, transcending all physical or mental rationale.

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

If everything is permitted then it is equally valid not to permit, which means you have no argument. Your way isn't better than any other way according to your logic so all that you can argue is that you prefer it.

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

I can't prove God exists to you, but He can. God isn't hiding from you; He has been knocking on your door your entire life. It's your choice whether you want to open the door, but you are going to meet Him one day regardless of what you choose.

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

I was created before I had a mind. The Universe has a beginning, it was created, and the Creator is the judge.

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.),

The Catholics borrowed those from the Pagans..you won't find those in the bible.

the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

Sources?

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which..

Let's see some sources..

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))

I know exactly what it is and I am very familar with it.

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)

Abraham is the father of the Jewish people and he worshiped the LORD.

I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)

Because I know Him personally and His Spirit lives within me.

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?

To be a Christian is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore there is no Christianity without Him. He is the only way to know God:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He wasn't pointing to Himself, He was pointing to God.

This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.

This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

You do realize that the word son and the word sun, in hebrew or in egyptian, aren't even remotely similar don't you? The word Christ does mean the anointed one, that is what the Messiah is. Jesus *is* the Christ. In regards to Horus being Christ, and a lot of other things you said, please take a look at this:

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#horus

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.

Read the gospel of John and pray to God and ask Him to help you understand it.

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment.

John the baptist said he wasn't the Messiah and Simon was outdone by Philip.

I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).

The missing part of this theory is the explanation for the empty tomb.

Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

The quran isn't accurate, but if you read the Old Testament without humanistic glasses on, you'll find it was the humans who were malevolent and God was who long suffering with them.

@ shinyblurry

This had already turned into an essay and I didn't want to take up even more room by quoting you verbatim so I've tried to break it down to save space.



1. "Except that?"

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one.
This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

2. "Is that absolutely true?"

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)


3. "Including not permitting..which means you have no further argument against Christianity."

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

As for the other bits

A. "The earliest records of Mithraism bear no similarity to Christianity at all....."

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.), the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which............

Pagan & Gnostic traditions are deeply intertwined to the point where one could consider many examples to be one and the same. Mithraism would be one such example. Pagan just means many Gods/worship of nature & archetypes in the human psyche. Mithraism fulfils this definition but it also fulfils the Gnostic one i.e. it teaches that one finds god of and within oneself, not as an external force, or indeed a force which is separate from oneself.

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))


B. "Actually, they came from a progressive revelation of Judiasm which preceeded all of that."

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)


C. "What Jesus did not teach that came from Judiasm was wholly His and entirely unique, and they came from the mouth of God Himself."


I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)


D. "The difference is Jesus Himself. You could take buddha out of buddhism, or zoroaster out of zoroastrianism and you would still have something. Without Jesus there is no Christianity."

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?
This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.
This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.


E. "The Jesus myth theory isn't taken seriously by even skeptical bible scholars. There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ than for Alexander the Great."

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment. I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).
Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

(I hope that made sense towards the end, getting very late & tired here...)

@hpqp The point is that there is no such thing as "plain old religious fanaticism" - it's always tied up in whatever economic and political circumstances are shaping the region and family and the person committing the act. Sure - religious people would like to think that their religion is separate from their worldly circumstances, but if you don't give credence to any supernatural dimension of religion, it also becomes impossible to separate religion from the other socio-cultural-economic-historic factors that also drive conflict.

I work regularly with Muslims who each are rich enough to buy my worldly belongings a couple of times over, and violence is the farthest thing from their minds. Exploiting migrant workers and suppressing equality and freedom of speech is quite familiar to them, but violence - despite their Muslim faith - is very foreign to most of them. Which of course is why Al Qaeda considers them traitors to Islam - they have too much in common with their supposed enemies the Israelis or Americans, and almost no common points of reference with a radical Muslim Chechen or Afghan.

Islam today is the most violent religion only in its overlap with regions that are good breeding grounds for violent extremism anyway - there's no reason to believe that in a country with the material preconditions the US has that fundamentalist Muslims wouldn't be more like the Westboro Baptists. By trying to indicate that Islam is in itself a greater driver of violence than Christianity, Maher conflates extremely disparate cultures and regions and obscures the real issues.

In my experience, Muslims are generally as horrified about the radical Islamic fringe as Christians are regarding Westboro Baptist Church.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Anonymous-Hacks-Westboro-Baptist-Website-During-Interview

Anonymous Defeats Westboro Baptist has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Anonymous Hacks Westboro Baptist Website During Interview has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals.

I always imagined these rabid atheists to be all self-hatey anyhoo...Maybe that's the core trying to keep all that, inner-frustration with other types of maroons in-check....These two need a corner to stand on with bullhorns of atheist happiness turned-up to eleven on a Sunday morning in front of a Starbucks next to a Baptist church.

Free speech is one thing,but these demented cocksuckers seek only to capitalize and exploit any tragedy for their own publicity.

If Suffering be God's Will,as the Westboro Baptists claim,then let THEIR suffering be prolonged,intense and inventive. It will be Well Deserved,and LONG overdue.

Hackers target Westboro Baptist Church after Newtown threat

After church leaders announce plans to protest at site of school massacre, Anonymous posts the personal information for dozens of members of the extremist group, including names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57559468-93/hackers-target-westboro-baptist-church-after-newtown-threat/

Apparently the Westboro Baptist Church are now planni
ng to picket the school.

In response, Anonymous has said they are going to dismantle the WBC.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Anonymous-Message-To-The-Westboro-Baptist-Church

Anonymous - Message To The Westboro Baptist Church has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.