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I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church.

bcglorf says...

@newtboy,

Hate to single you out, but your missing most of poolcleaner's points by focusing exclusively on one. And your even doubling down on 'proving' the sentence you object to.

You first object by saying:
Atheists give theists much more respect than theists give us.

But then one sentence later:
Theists beliefs deserve no respect, neither do beliefs in Santa, Krampus, fairies, Lord Zenu, Ookie (my brother's imaginary friend), or any other belief in fantasy. You don't respect an inability to recognize reality.

And then your next post leads with:
Don't most of you know that Christians are required to murder you if you don't worship properly, or try to leave Christianity?


It is EXACTLY your extremely vitriolic responses that poolcleaner was no doubt referencing in saying Atheists are often the worst for disrespecting the beliefs of others.

Read over the balance of comments above, particularly including Shinyblurry's unapologeticly evangelical one, and tell me which group's representative in this thread is showing the most contempt and disrespect for the beliefs of the 'other'?

keith olbermann-bespoke prophecy 7 years ago-special comment

moonsammy says...

It is rather disturbing how accurate he was. Trump isn't really too far off from a Palin, all idiotic bluster and charisma masking an intellectual and ethical vacuum. He's clearly just signing off on whatever he's told, with his own pet issues getting most of the media flak. Can't imagine Trump from before 2015 or so giving much of a crap about the Johnson amendment or anything Jesus-related, but tell him in 2017 it'll get the evangelicals on his side and of course it's a vital issue.

I think I would have preferred Palin, as her family in the White House (rather than swinging quasi-bachelor Trump) would have been entertaining on some level.

Might have to look into seeing what Olbermann is saying about the next few weeks / months / years...

Demon-Possessed People

RFlagg says...

They WANT the apocalypse. If you hang around these evangelical far right people, they truly want it. They want Jesus to return.

Even when I was evangelical, I wouldn't want the end of times. Not because I cared for myself, but I thought the longer the better. I never got the thinking that so many seemed to have, which is why it scares me when they get close to being on the button.

And for Mr Baker here to actually mention the anti-Christ... if I were still Christian (back after I stopped being a Republican and was a Libertarian), I'd be likely thinking Trump is the anti-Christ as I was starting to think the Republicans as a whole were the anti-Christ system, as so many Christians seemed deceived into believing that it was THE Christian party, when the party was so opposed to the teachings of Jesus. I'm frankly surprised more crazy people aren't out there calling Trump out as the anti-Christ... he fits the bill... though going back to my original topic, perhaps that's why some of them voted for him, to help bring about the end.

PlayhousePals said:

Saw an interview with a woman who truly believes Trump is god's hammer to bring on the apocalypse. That's why she supported him. Say what?

Bill Nye tours the Ark Encounter

RFlagg says...

My mother, another far right evangelical, once said that even if global warming was true, most of that stuff doesn't happen for hundreds of years. The implication I got was that Jesus was coming long before any of the dire predictions of it all. My sister once said that after Obama won in 2008 that it is proof that Jesus must be coming back soon if He'd let somebody like Obama win. So yeah, people of this ilk don't care, because God is in control, we could never destroy His creation, we are foolish if we think we can do anything like that, and if it happens, it is because God willed it, not because it is something we did.

Jinx said:

tbh, as much as a I think you put it very eloquently, the response will still be "but why does it matter".

Mark Steyn - Radical Islam and "the Basket of Deplorables"

RFlagg says...

Meanwhile this filth and the horrible people who voted for Trump and support the Republican party, AKA radical right Christians HATE homosexuals themselves. They don't show their hate via bombs, but via tossing stones of bigotry and laws to discriminate against them for daring to sin differently.

And there is no opinion on climate change... again it is science. No denying the science. You are entitled to your own opinions, yes, but not your own facts. Sorry, but the universe isn't only 6,000 years old, no matter what your stupid book says.

And you can think gay marriage is a sin. Nobody on the Left ever said you had to accept the sin, to accept the homosexuality, but you do have to accept them as people. It is the right who wants to deny them rights as human beings, just because they sin differently than the rest of us. Jesus said let those without sin toss the first stone, and then notably didn't toss any stones himself, who hung out with the sinners and taught love was the most important thing, but the Right is far comfortable tossing those stones against the gays, to deny them a wedding cake, to deny them a wedding and other rights, just for a sin that doesn't effect anyone but those doing it. It isn't murder, but the Right treats it as such. That isn't just stating an opinion, that is full action against another human being for being different than you, and this ass hole and anyone who agrees with him is a horrible human being for wanting to deny somebody rights for being different. Yes, we may disagree that it being a big deal, but there isn't an effort to deny you the right to speak out against homosexuality if you are so inclined, but you can't claim you are being repressed when you are the one seeking to do the repression. Apparently the Right's attitude is "my sin, isn't as gross as yours, so it's not as bad... and God isn't doing a good job of convicting you of it, so I'll do that job for Him" as He's too weak or something to do it Himself apparently.

Sodom's sin was being a land of plenty and not doing enough to help the needy and the poor in her borders, and other versus talk about how rude it was to foreigners... sounds a lot like the Republican party in the US... actually, the Republican party and Trump sound a lot like the anti-Christ system in Revelations... but I'll ignore that and assume that Christianity is still more than likely just as fake as the other 5,000 gods. Now, yes, the Bible does mention the sexual immorality of Sodom, so it likely didn't help, but it's specific sin, the thing God judged it for, was not doing enough to help the needy and the poor, though it had plenty of resources to do so. Basically the "I don't want my tax dollars going to help those [needy and poor] people" as my evangelical brother in law once said. That sums up the Right these days, fuck the poor, and help the rich, who cares what Jesus said about the rich and the poor.

Then the whole, you can't judge a whole party based on a few bad apples... yet the Right sits in judgement of all Muslims and want to deny people refuge who are trying to escape the radicals, because one or two radicals might slip in for each thousand saved... that's showing the love of Christ, "stay there you Muslim bastard, have your women raped, and you children forced into military camps and be radicalized, serves you right for daring to be having an accident of birth being born in the wrong country and being raised on the wrong faith". That is the attitude the Right sends out when they want to deny refuge to refugees.

So I sit in judgement of all Christians based on the fact the KKK, Nazis, Westboro... and frankly what seems to be the vast majority of evangelical Christians these days. If they can sit in judgement of others, I'll sit in judgement of them. I realize the hypocrisy of that, and admit it, which is FAR more than anyone on the Right ever would do. But as the Carman (famed Christian singer whom I've seen many many times live when I was a Christian) song says, their "witness could have been more than it had".

Basically this is 5:32 worth of hypocrisy that is so typical of the Right that those deep in it can't even begin to see it.

No Man's Sky Expectations Vs. Reality

dannym3141 says...

People love sandbox survival and they love space exploration and they fell in love with the idea of what this game could be. The magazines talked about it like evangelical christians talk about the rapture - this is the end of gaming as we know it and it's going to change everything! And the internet fandom descended with prepubescent fury on anyone that dared suggest the emperor was, in fact, nekkid.

This long video about NMS covers it extremely well, but i'll cut a long story short. There was something veeery slightly disingenuous about the moratoriums placed on reviews, lack of pre-release review versions, and significant backtracking and retconning of promises made by lead designer(? - but definite spokesperson) Sean Murray. The clean cut, well spoken, awkwardly charming Sean Murray. Who I think understood as the release date got closer that a lot of people were not going to be happy with him, because in his interviews he started to look more and more like De Niro playing Russian roulette in The Deer Hunter.

Extra things that immediately pissed me off before i refunded it:
- Menu stuff can appear offscreen if you open it by the edges in 2016
- Can't alt tab in full screen
- Run in borderless window to solve it, performance hit
- i7 6700k, Maximus viii Hero mobo and a GTX 1080 but yes, performance hit and general poor performance anyway
- Can't bind actions to thumb buttons in 2016
- Mouse sensitivity goes from 0 to 100. Changing my sensitivity from 100 to 0 didn't even half the turning speed in game, I had to alt tab to manually change the DPI in razer synapse, which is where i discovered i couldn't alt-tab.

All this for £40? Overwatch cost £30.

They made a lot of money off this, but I'm afraid for me they did it through unfair means. If you check out the quotes from Murray and what the game actually is, there's a huge disparity and the backtracking as release date approached was the final evidence.

Will Smith slams Trump

ChaosEngine says...

Yeah, but even within religions people can't agree on the rules.

Within Christianity, you have catholics, protestants, baptists, pentecostals, eastern orthodox, evangelicals and god knows what else. All of whom disagree on various aspects of their religion (sometimes fairly major points).

Islam is the same (shia, sunni, etc).

There isn't one single religious text that is the definitive version.

And I grew up in catholic Ireland. Everyone went to church, everyone believed in god (hell, it was in the constitution) and even public schools actively participated in religious rituals.
You would find it incredibly difficult to argue these people weren't religious.

Yet, they ignored large parts of their religion from the minor (dietary restrictions, etc) to the major (sex outside marriage, contraception).

I never met a single person who thought the penalty for apostasy should be death. I still haven't.

Sorry, but @slickhead is right about this point. That's a No True Scotsman fallacy.

I think your environment was the exception rather than the rule.

newtboy said:

IMO, to be devout in any religion, you must be a fundamentalist. If you believe you have access to the direct instructions from GOD, and you believe in that god, yet you ignore the parts you dislike, you aren't following the religion and are an infidel, not devout.
As I see it, if you apply your own morality you are creating your own religion. Codified religions come with a defined set of morals that are unmodifiable, indisputable and unquestionable. If you question them, you question god, so can't be devout or following the religion. (This would be a good reason for any true believer to read only the original texts in their original tongue, not a translated version that's someone else's interpretation of the meaning.)

The religious texts are the central authority, they all contain specific rules and requirements. If you ignore some of those, IMO, you aren't honestly religious, you're a fan of religion.

I grew up in the deep south. I can say for certain that you are wrong that almost everyone ignores the outdated bits, but it's correct that most do hide the fact that they believe them because they know it makes them look terrible....but get them at a church picnic and you'll find out they do think slavery is fine, and whores should be stoned to death, etc. They are just mostly too chicken shit to do it themselves, as their book directs them to, because they're afraid of repercussion (and because they don't really believe god will protect them for being righteous, or that heaven is enough reward for being a martyr).

Samantha Bee - Born Again in the U.S.A.

American Racist History

enoch says...

@bobknight33

the reasons why blacks tend to vote for democrats for the past 50 years is not a mystery and it has been long understood.

labor unions.

the democrats saw the power that was arising from americas labor unions and decided to shift their message to appeal to this growing demographic.

just like the republicans co-opted the evangelicals in the late 70's.

this is about political power,plain and simple and little to nothing to do with actual political philosophy.

this is the second video you have posted today where you appear to be trying to make a case for the republicans,and the presenters are offering a seriously edited,cherry picked and manipulative picture of history.when the history is quite clear.

this is not a republican/democratic dynamic.
this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic.
this is about retaining power at any cost.
to the detriment of our society.

and it is not exactly a secret,but these videos you have posted are a disservice to those who may not know,which it appears,may include you bob.

Ex politician on Dallas: 'This is war. Watch out Obama.'

RFlagg says...

My Facebook feed is filled to the brim from right wing nuts about cops, "pray for cops", "cop lives matter" and the like. Not a single one of them posted anything about the two recent killings that sparked the demonstrations.

And it's like newtboy said, nobody is saying cop lives don't matter, or that black lives matter more than others. What they don't seem to understand is they rush to find an excuse for a cop killing a black man, "oh look at his prior records" and don't care that he was doing nothing in the situation that caused the fatal shooting. They focus on the report that says the one guy didn't raise his hands and say "don't shoot me" and ignore the other report by the same people, released the same day that there was "systemic" racism in Ferguson, and similar reports have said the same about Cleveland and far too many others. When Brock Turner got 6 months for rape, they evoke his swimming records, and deny that if he was black and poor they would have searched for priors instead of his outstanding swimming records, and if he had no priors these same people would have been outraged had a black judge given him only 6 months in jail. They deny such things, but it's evident from their actions every time something like this happens. They lack any real empathy... which is especially funny since many of these people post things like the reason Christians suffer depression so much is they have so much empathy, and I'm thinking I don't see it, and I'm sure those in the LGBT don't see it when you deny them equal rights under the law, or deny them access to the bathroom of their gender identity, and I doubt blacks don't see it when you ignore their plight and instead post about how cop lives matter, or white lives matter.

If they do so out of ignorance, it is purposeful.

I used to be a evangelical, far right wing nut. Then I started vetting the information and news. Learned what sources are trustable and not. There started to be a pattern. I started educating myself further and changed positions. I became a liberal Christian, and eventually lost the faith due to the far right's overly big influence. So if I, who's not overly intelligent (perhaps more than the average person, but not nearly as intelligent as many family think I am), with no skills or real worth can get out via self education, they can to, but they prefer the comfort of their ignorance, and that I can't abide. You can point things out until you are blue in the face and they will just dig in harder to hold on to that ignorance and their limited world view.

I think we can trace a lot of this back to the rise of right wing radio and eventual rise of Fox News which convinced the Christian right that the regular, responsible news outlets were "liberal" when pretty much all news is controlled by a very select few, and none of them have an interest in making people aware of the truth... just because you can watch perhaps 12 hours of CNN before they point out something in the Obama administration that is bad, where Fox does it several times an hour doesn't make CNN liberal... it makes Fox an ass that is singly focused on making people angry at the Democrats and what they deem as liberals, and then they shift the goal post and make old Reagan era style political beliefs the new liberal... and they work to build the division. It's not longer acceptable to work with Democrats on finding a reasonable middle ground, that's being weak, and they want to dig their heals in and have it their way or the highway (basically they want a dictatorship but under the guise of a democracy). Then the rise of social media is perhaps the thing that really pushed the schism further as they further surround themselves in an echo chamber. So when people say "black lives matter" their echo chamber fills up with "well so do white lives and cop lives" and their echo chamber fills up with the idea that those on the left don't care about cops and that we think most of them are corrupt and don't care about their lives.

...aborts rant early as I'm already a million miles off topic...

Indiana Jones & Pascal's Wager: Crash Course Philosophy #15

ChaosEngine says...

er, by the time of the Last Crusade, Indy has seen:
- the literal manifestation of the power of god melt Nazis faces
- some magic rocks burning an Indian guy

I think it's pretty safe to say that Indy has accepted that in his fictional universe, the supernatural is real. Hell, if I saw what he'd seen by that point, I'd be a god-fearing Christian.

As for Pascal's wager, I've always viewed it as the height of moral cowardice. If you want to believe in God and you're not shoving your beliefs down everyone else's throat (looking at you, ISIS, evangelicals, catholic church in Ireland, etc), go nuts.

But don't believe because you're afraid of hell. If you're a good person and you die and it turns out there is a god, if he condemns you to eternal suffering for not believing in him, then fuck him, he's an asshole and I wouldn't want to spend eternity under his thumb anyway.

Moshing For Jesus

NOW It Makes Sense Why Preachers Need Private Jets

Payback says...

Three ministers were chatting one day about how each faith decided what part of donations went to the church, and which part went to God's Works.

The Catholic Minister said, "We draw a circle on the floor, and toss the donations in the air. What falls in the circle, is for the Church, what falls outside is for the Lord."
The Protestant Minister said, "We do almost the same, only what falls within the circle is for the Lord."
Finally, the Evangelical Minister said, "Every Sunday afternoon, we too throw our donations in the air, and whatever God catches, he keeps!"

Disturbing Muslim 'Refugee' Video of Europe

RFlagg says...

Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

Real Time with Bill Maher: Christianity Under Attack?

RFlagg says...

OMFG... really bob... really... It's people like you that made me ashamed of being a Christian when I was a Christian. Completely believing anything they are told or read from someone with supposed authority without actual critical thought of the original source themselves.

I've hear that Jefferson never meant to exclude religion from politics and believed and repeated it myself for years. Then you know what I did? I actually read the letter that Jefferson wrote. I could have my son, who's going into 6th grade read it and he'd tell you the same thing I'm about to tell you. It's about keeping religion from unduly influencing politics. Especially when you read it in context with the letter that the church sent him that he was responding to, and it becomes more apparent if you read his drafts which were much more to the point.

Yes the phrase "wall of separation" does come from the letter and not the Constitution, but the 1st Amendment includes an establishment clause that prevents the government from favoring one religion over the others. Remember the pilgrims came here to escape a Christian nation that favored one form of Christianity over all others. Admittedly they were more about the fact they couldn't persecute others the way they thought they God wanted them to, but it was the government's church that prevented them from doing so. You can't even be King or Queen of England unless you belong to the Church of England, and if you were Catholic at some point in your past, you are disqualified, even to this day. Yeah, the Church of England no longer has as much influence over the laws as it did when the pilgrims and other early settlers escaped England to come here,

And if the only reason Christians are good is because of fear of punishment or hope for reward, then they are horrible people. Millions of people are good because they are good people without their faith dictating to them to be so. Most people of other faiths are good without the racist brutal Abramic God of the Bible. Most atheists are good without any god. Most pagans are good with their various gods. This insane all morality comes from God alone didn't make sense even when I was at my most evangelical, Fox News watching/defending mode. There were too many people in the world who's good without God and even in those days the concept that somebody would be good only because the Bible tells them so, or they are afraid of God's wrath if they don't is backwards. And as I read the Bible more and more, it became apparent that the far rights obsession with people's sin over love was misplaced (though the far right's sickening defense of Dugger shows a great deal of hypocrisy since if Dugger was on the Left, they'd be all about his sin rather than showing any sort of love, it's when others sin differently than they do they get upset, like at the gays). It was reading the Bible that moved me to the left as the clear Christian way, since the right defends and loves the people Jesus condemned and shames the people that Jesus defended and told us to love and help. It eventually got to the point I couldn't hold onto faith when over half the Christians of this Nation just blindly follow what they are told in church and on Fox News over the truth that Jesus and the Bible was teaching and thinking they were doing the Christian thing at the same time. I then began to do a critical analysts further and eventually became an atheist, because they are all equally bad/good. There is nothing new or original in the Abramic faiths that wasn't there before or since either in the same region or elsewhere... all those other elsewhere's where Jehovah somehow couldn't make himself known, as if he was just a figment of one small regional tribe or worse a racist jerk not worthy of following.

Anyhow, the best way to maintain Christianity is to keep it out of politics. Because what happens if you set things up to let religion influence politics and the Muslims gain power? Then you'll be crying how religion shouldn't influence politics. Or perhaps not that extreme, perhaps some form of Christianity that other Christian's don't agree with gains power and influence? Perhaps the Morman's or the Catholics or the Jehovah Witness? At what point does religious influence stop? When laws are passed that any church that doesn't practice or allow the speaking in tongues is outlawed? The 1st Amendment is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion.

Let's break that last sentience out again. The 1st Amendment's establishment clause is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion. The whole point is to keep one form of one faith from dominating all other forms of the same or other faiths. It protects those other forms Christianity and other faiths.

Finally there is no war on Christianity. I admitted that long before my fall from faith. I was there with it all, with how it was targeted, but the reality is there is no war on Christianity here... all that's happening is specific forms of Christianity are loosing their influence on other Christians and society as a whole, and they are very vocal about how it's persecution, because like the pilgrims, they are no longer allowed to persecute others the way they want to. Maybe if the people screaming about how Christianity is being persecuted while they try to deny equal rights to others because they sin differently than us, would actually show the love of Christ and behave the way He actually would have in modern society rather than trying to show how Christian they are, then perhaps Christianity wouldn't be losing the numbers they are. I know I, and many other atheists, likely wouldn't have had at crisis of faith if it wasn't for the far right. I never would have explored the logical and theological problems with Christianity and the Abramic faiths... I'd probably eventually found a more Quaker, left leaning (most the Quaker "Friends" related churches in this area are the far evangelical right Fox News types) type church that seems to be more in line with the Bible and teachings of Jesus, but the far right pushed me into a far more critical mode than I would likely ever have gone to on my own. So keep it up those on the far right, you are the ones destroying and making a war on Christianity. You push more and more people away, and more and more people stop seeing any difference between the far right and radical Islam.



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