I think if someone is in a particular church -- or not -- or whatever they are personally drawn to -- IT IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS TO JUDGE THEM.

If they need it, they need it. Whatever happened to them in their childhood, or whenever -- the church -- whatever church -- or non-church -- fits them.

You are an atheist, right? I don't know if you grew up in a church or not. I don't know why it is so terribly important to you to be an atheist.

But it FITS you.

It is the height of judgmental righteous behavior to look at anyone else's choice and say it is wrong.

Am I a Mormon? No. I agree with you. How this church started is the height -- or the depth -- of religious absurdity. How anyone can choose this church as an adult? How can that be.

And yet. My brother -- who has a Master's Degree in Aerospace Engineering from USC, military pilot, history buff, wide stripe of artistic urges and talents -- this guy chose the church in his early 20's. For his own reasons. Because he needed it, coming from our family of origin.

To quote Jerry Maguire -- it completed him. And like love, it is illogical and not for anyone else to judge.

You don't like religion being all judgey? I recommend you stop doing it yourself, and let people be.

Now, the Mormon church getting involved in the laws of the land? I got a big beef with that.

But as for individuals, making individual choices, for individual reasons.... I gotta say I don't see much difference between your judginess and any Catholic priest laying down "God's law" about how people are "supposed to" believe and behave.

You see that, don't you? There is no difference between your judgement and any religious person's judgment?

Attacking the religious text is a strawman in my opinion.

There's all sorts of outrageous (by modern standards) stuff in the Bible, Koran, Talmud, and other major religious texts. How could there not be? They were written hundreds to thousands of years ago at a time when reading and writing was limited to the wealthy or elite (i.e. priest classes). Much of that stuff is outright ignored or at the very least acknowledged by deemed less important by practitioners of those religions in modern societies.

All literature is open to interpretation and this includes religious texts. The fact that there are tens of thousands of denominations of Christianity with differing opinions about what it means to be Christian and how to behave as one gives testament to this. While there aren't as many named denominations in Islam, if you actually look at how it is practiced locally in say urban Malaysia (i.e. no Bhurka for women) compared with rural Afghanistan (i.e. full body covering required) you can see there's huge diversity there as well.

So if you want to judge the religion, then you actually have to take the time to make an informed opinion by looking at who does what and why they do it. And when you do that, you tend to find that there's this complex inter-relationship between religious teachings, economics, politics, ethnicity, history and so on which make it difficult to assign full blame to any one "thing" such as religion. The female genital mutilation example I used above makes this pretty clear.

Sticking solely with criticising the religious text puts a critic on very unsure footing, as at the end of the day all the critic is really doing is criticizing a specific interpretation of the text (i.e. their own understanding). That's why, as I said, it's something of a strawman argument since you're really arguing against an interpretation you yourself have created.

It is much better, in my opinion, to look at how specific groups are interpreting and enacting the text, and then criticizing their actions (or the effects of their actions) in the event that there is a negative effect. But in doing so I think it quickly becomes apparent that those actions are almost always enacted locally as opposed to globally. In other words, they are the actions of a specific group of people in a specific place at a specific time who have been influenced by all the factors (history, economics, etc.) I mentioned above.

And when you reach that conclusion you realize you're not criticizing Islam anymore, you're criticizing one groups' interpretation and enactment of Islam in specific context.

On the other hand, if you ask which type of criticism gets you more views on TV or more headlines in newspapers...

Three things I have to say, @bobknight33:
1. You're complaining about christianity being attacked. Ok, fine, I'll tell you something: I am tired of your religious beliefs invading my life like an middle eastern dictator a small, oily country. Oh, I have it good, I'm a straight, white middle-european man, I'm fine so far. Others are not. They're tired as well.
I can go on a meth-bender, marry one of the Kardashians in Vegas and annul the whole affair in less than a week. If I win the lottery, I can post on Craigslist and get myself a nice gold-digging whore who'll sign a certificate that makes us husband and wife if I'm willing to trade lackluster blowjobs for money. Best part, it ain 't prostitution if you're married, legally worldwide. Heck, I can even become an abusive piece of shit as long as I can beat her well enough so she won't complain to others.
Because marriage is sanctimonious.
If I was gay and would like to marry the guy of my dreams that I've been with for 20 years, that isn't possible. Because the book doesn't approve.
If my sister got raped, you people would force her to birth the child of her rapist. Her concerns don't matter, life is a holy gift from god. Care to explain to me the position of the catholic church (you know, those christians that make up the majority of christianity) on slavery during centuries slavery? How holy was life in all those european colonies back in the day with all these missionaries teaching the good book? What exactly was their statement as an organisation when millions or people were murdered during the third Reich?
All that silence but when it comes to abortion, you people show up with guns and show the value of this great gift by murdering doctors. Fuck my sisters concerns, right? It just rape, walk it off.
I'm well of, I could join the club as a full member anytime. As long as I'm not calling the cops on the pedophile priests and the self-loathing faggots can stand on their pulpits and tell little children they're broken. I could be among you.
But I have a conscience. I can't buy all that talk about love and forgiveness and ignore all that hatred and cruelty that is in the very basis of your beliefs, that wretched, old bible of yours.
I have to look that man in the mirror in the eyes.
The only way you can impose all that crap on me anymore if through the government. I believe your faith has as much place in there than Tom Cruise's. None.
The Prodigy said it best and I think the people who lived at the time the bible was written would agree: Invaders must die.
Your religion invades my rights as a human being.

2. Did he rise?
Nope, little, brown Jewish got killed. End of facts, begin of story. I don't trust the testimony of men (and I said this before) who consider a walkman witchcraft. People at that time could be convinced that they farted because they swallowed an angry spirit that wants to escape.
You book did a terrible job of explaining how the world came to be (we're golems that had so much incest that they inbred mankind), makes up the worst disastermovies (everything turns to Waterworld but we have a boat with a pair of every animal in existence [imagine all those different kinds of ants alone] and then incest till population is back up) and turns mushroomtrips/mental illness in supposedly accurate future predictions (you know it's the end of the world because none of the riders is called "Incest").
The only reason people buy into the mythology and the extended universe (where's that bible chapter about Satan ruling the Sarlac Pit and Santa being canon again? ) is because for centuries children were taught it at a young age. And then you told them not to question it as heretics get the stake. Ashes yes but not the quick Buffy way.
Don't get me wrong, I like that Jesus fellow and I'm willing to believe his basic message but let's be honest. If J.K. Rowling was born 2000 years earlier, we'd pray to Harry Potter and wear lightning shaped jewelery around our neck. You guys got big because the Roman empire made you relevant. That's it.

3. What's up with '53'? Is that the christian answer to '42'?

As a metal head myself, though I tend more towards the early bluesy Sabbath/KISS/SLB/Priest sounds and aesthetics of the late 60s and early 70s, my problem is less about the sandals and more about them playing into the public perception of "metal" --which is apparent when they cover the most over played piece of shit in the analogs of metal.

This is quintessentially not even metal when Metallica plays it. If these kids mattered in the realm of metal -- and they could have despite their sandals -- they would have covered Hit the Lights off of Kill Em All, (Mustane, bitch) or a moving instrumental like Orion off of Master of the Puppets.

Say what you will about Mustane and his unmetal born again bullshit, when you hear him on Hit the Lights... you're fucking owned by the beast. You know metal. And it knows you. Enter Sandman, NOT metal.

NOT. METAL. Listen to TRUE metal, bitch. Recommendations provided for you to begin the governance of your metal mind. Join the Metal Militia.

Sheesh, this sounds/looks like Calvary just with a cop instead of a priest. Odd.

Fair comment. We'll certainly never be able to measure it. As with anything of a philosophical nature, there are thought experiments we could conduct, and though they might come up with wrong answers, there's a better chance they're right than arbitrarily picking a side, and human civilization was doing just fine before organized religion entered into it.

Expanding on your point about obeying your priest (and giving myself an opportunity to quote my most hated Bible verse), the lesson the Bible teaches in that vein is to obey not just priests, but all human authority because all leaders were placed there by God.

Romans 13
1Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I tend to think that religion does more harm than good, especially when the lesson it teaches is "Don't think, just trust your priest".

However, his view -could- be right. I cannot think of any way to test it that doesn't involve highly unethical processes, so I can't help but hope that we'll never really know.

Why would you say it's co-incidence?
The area was designed as a giant, open air amphitheater. It's not co-incidence that they built it that way. It was necessary because they didn't have amplification back then, and for the priest/speaker to be heard, it had to be built acoustically near perfect. I think you get the same thing if you clap in a Greek amphitheater.
(But perhaps you just mean the bird sound and the (mispronounced) name being co-incidence? If so, nevermind!)

It is quite funny because the guy on the video, the so called 'priest' is one of the most twisted and unchristian leaders of the polish roman-catholic church. He is a businessman who begs old ladies like these, to send him their last money. He is a cynical hunter of 'jews' and 'anti-poles', whose sole purpose seems to be getting more money. He should be removed from the church, because he pushing it even beyond what catholic church normaly does, but he has such a fanatical following, that it is possible that he would start his own church. Number of followers possibly in tens of thousands, mostly poor people from the smaller cities and villages, older people, generaly people who feel forgoten and cheated by the system. He has a radio station, a tv station, a school - all catholic, tons of money etc. etc. The tv logo is his tv.

tl;dr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Rydzyk#Controversies

Actually I doubt that's why. If I want to be positive I'd think he's refusing to let them kiss his hands because it's a submissive action, and a good priest wouldn't be an asshole who thinks he's somehow above/better than his parishioners.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Yes, it was just old enough to be retro-cool. Kind of like kids today listening to Nirvana. @deathcow and I were also listening to a lot of Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Dio, etc etc. Picture these guys: http://videosift.com/video/Heavy-Metal-Parking-Lot

Okay, those eyes would just freak me the hell out, I'd feel like I should be calling in a priest for last rites or an exorcism.