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This has come up a lot lately. Why argue against religious people? Why not just let them have their beliefs? What harm comes from it?
There have been many people suggesting that not confronting irrational religious beliefs leads to harm.
This may seem to be a bit of a stretch, but it was this whole argument that sprang to my mind upon reading this article:
http://www.huffing...ook_n_1503592.html
Powell writes. “[Bush] had crossed the line in his own mind, even though the NSC [National Security Council] had never met -- and never would meet -- to discuss the decision."
...
Former CIA Director George Tenet made an admission similar to Powell’s in his own 2007 memoir. "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat," he wrote. Nor "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
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The first concrete evidence was the Downing Street Memos first published in 2005, which documented the conclusions of British officials after high-level talks in Washington in July 2002 that “[m]ilitary action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
I believe that Bush's irrational thought processes, based primarily on religious beliefs, is what allowed him to convince himself, without external facts, evidence, or support, to start a war out of a significant lack of reality.
So... the cost of not allowing religious belief to go unchallenged, and in fact be heralded as the proper way to think and believe?
The war, which President Barack Obama officially brought to an end Dec. 31, cost the U.S. government around $3 trillion, left 4,487 U.S. servicemembers dead and killed more than 100,000 Iraqis. The Pentagon counts 32,226 U.S. servicemembers wounded, but the toll, including cumulative psychological and physiological damage, may be as high as half a million.
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mutantMandias is something more than human, more than a computer. mutantMandias is a murderously intelligent, sensually self-programmed, non-being | |
I know nothing about W.'s psychological makeup but my understanding was he wanted Saddam because his daddy couldn't get him. Is that based in religion? Maybe, I don't really know. Anyway, I don't like seeing people attacked for their beliefs (unless they are conservative Republicans  ), and if religion offers them comfort, I say leave them alone.
You betcha | |
But, if my religious beliefs are that gays should be prevented from moving into neighborhoods with children, and I can get the city council idiots to agree with me, and all of that provides me with great comfort, do you not have a problem with that?
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Posted by MutantMandias
But, if my religious beliefs are that gays should be prevented from moving into neighborhoods with children, and I can get the city council idiots to agree with me, and all of that provides me with great comfort, do you not have a problem with that?
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I'm talking about a live and let live attitude; your scenario is fraught w/problems and I hate the very idea of it. Most folks, when not being dicks, are like, "Yeah, I'm down w/Jesus, leave me alone," and that's the end of it. Those people should be left alone. If you are going out of your way to make someone have a rough go at it, you are anti-Jesus and a mean prick and you should be called "dickwad" wherever you go.
You betcha | |
But those people who are quietly and privately down with Jesus are the ones who typically end up providing support for the people who are Dicks for Jesus.
Invalidating the whole Jesus meme would help to disenfranchise the Jesus Dicks.
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Posted by MutantMandias
But those people who are quietly and privately down with Jesus are the ones who typically end up providing support for the people who are Dicks for Jesus.
Invalidating the whole Jesus meme would help to disenfranchise the Jesus Dicks.
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But to invalidate the meme is to take away the comfort they may feel in Jesus. That would be like taking away the food for some people, or booze. What we need to do is get those Jesus Dicks out and beat them if we must. In fact, if the Jesus Dicks were more Jesus and less dick, we wouldn't have a problem at all.
You betcha | |
Right, Jesus Dicks generally aren't good/honest representatives of their religion (or, in the worst cases, they are fanatical).
But, they take advantage of the comfort giving power of the irrational beliefs that many people have to increase their Dick Powers. It is the comfort in nonsense that leads us to ruin.
[last edit 5/10/2012 7:35 PM by MutantMandias - edited 1 times]
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Consider this... put yourself in my shoes for just a minute... If the Jesus Dicks (this is a good name for them) had their way, they would have me and everyone like me killed. They would then turn, point to their book and claim that they had every justification to it do citing Biblical commands.
How are Jesus Dicks different from radical muslims again?
And, G, I agree with most of what you're saying, but it's the silence that most religious people have towards what the Jesus Dicks are doing that pisses me off and really does cause me to go a bit overboard. In all honestly, its because of this that cause me to really fear and hate everything to do with god and religious people.
[last edit 5/10/2012 7:44 PM by Samurai - edited 1 times]
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Whatever happened to respecting others and their beliefs? Irrational hateful beliefs shouldn't be respected, be they saying all Christians should be beaten because they want gays murdered or a christian saying all gays should be murdered. Hateful beliefs are hateful beliefs even if you are the one being hateful.
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Can you not even hate hateful beliefs?
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Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
Whatever happened to respecting others and their beliefs? Irrational hateful beliefs shouldn't be respected, be they saying all Christians should be beaten because they want gays murdered or a christian saying all gays should be murdered. Hateful beliefs are hateful beliefs even if you are the one being hateful.
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as much as I hate to resort to this... 'they started it.'
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Posted by MutantMandias
Can you not even hate hateful beliefs?
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I don't respect hateful beliefs, from anyone. I don't hate them, because I just assume they have had troubles in their life, or were brainwashed, or something traumatic happened to them. Samurai hates Christians because he feels they are the ones who have wronged him and oppressing him. It doesn't make his hate towards every single Christian correct or justified.
Posted by Samurai
as much as I hate to resort to this... 'they started it.'
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Does that make it right? Isn't hate always wrong?
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Yeah, I gotstagree, hate is always wrong.
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Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
I don't respect hateful beliefs, from anyone. I don't hate them, because I just assume they have had troubles in their life, or were brainwashed, or something traumatic happened to them. Samurai hates Christians because he feels they are the ones who have wronged him and oppressing him. It doesn't make his hate towards every single Christian correct or justified.
Does that make it right? Isn't hate always wrong?
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sorry, but thats going to stay with me for many years to come. I'm not apologizing.
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Posted by Samurai
sorry, but thats going to stay with me for many years to come. I'm not apologizing.
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but you blaming every Christian is just as wrong as when someone says to you "gays are wrong." as Ghandi said, an eye for an eye makes the world blind. You want to prove they are wrong, then rise above the hate and show them you are a better "Christian" than they are.
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Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
but you blaming every Christian is just as wrong as when someone says to you "gays are wrong." as Ghandi said, an eye for an eye makes the world blind. You want to prove they are wrong, then rise above the hate and show them you are a better "Christian" than they are.
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i'd like to share your rainbow sentiments and good-naturedness, but the long story is not nice
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Posted by G to the Race
I'm talking about a live and let live attitude; your scenario is fraught w/problems and I hate the very idea of it. Most folks, when not being dicks, are like, "Yeah, I'm down w/Jesus, leave me alone," and that's the end of it. Those people should be left alone. If you are going out of your way to make someone have a rough go at it, you are anti-Jesus and a mean prick and you should be called "dickwad" wherever you go.
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Pot, this is Kettle. You are black, over.
Your recite by rote dogma that everyone should believe what they want exists independent of reality or evidence. Some beliefs are just wrong and many are harmful.
Your position is the least valid and the least morally defensible.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. Robert A. Heinlen | |
Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
Whatever happened to respecting others and their beliefs? Irrational hateful beliefs shouldn't be respected,
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This is a direct contradiction. Perhaps people should only respect beliefs if there are good reasons to believe those things.
Why should irrational NON-hateful beliefs be respected?
You should not try to equate respect for people with respect for beliefs. Good people can hold bad beliefs. Bad people can hold valid beliefs as well.
Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
be they saying all Christians should be beaten because they want gays murdered or a christian saying all gays should be murdered.
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This is a straw man argument. You are inferring that the only option "athiests" or opponents of unreason are presenting is to beat all x-tians for the actions of a few, and trying to make it equivalent to the fundys calling for gay bashing.
In reality, there are a whole range of options available. If you separate the ideas from the person - logical respectful debate - it is easy to point out good and bad ideas.
You seem to be advocating special pleading - respecting some unreasonable ideas while not respecting other unreasonable ideas - for logically invalid reasons.
Point to note: The most unpalatable ideas of the fundies comes directly from the bible - a book all x-tians profess to believe is divinely inspired. It is not wrong to point the contradictions and hypocrisy of the non-fundy x-tians that choose to cherry pick which parts of the "good" book to ignore or not.
Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby
Hateful beliefs are hateful beliefs even if you are the one being hateful.
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Had you only said this, you might have been correct.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. Robert A. Heinlen | |
Posted by tekriter
Pot, this is Kettle. You are black, over.
Your recite by rote dogma that everyone should believe what they want exists independent of reality or evidence. Some beliefs are just wrong and many are harmful.
Your position is the least valid and the least morally defensible.
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I do? Really? If so my "rote dogma" is atheist, believe what you want, religious person, believe what you want, both of you leave G-race to do whatever it is that he wants to do and don't preach to him about your beliefs. And, since when is leaving people alone morally indefensible?
You betcha | |
Well, to be technical, leaving people alone could be morally indefensible if they need help, but that's not the issue.
What he's saying is that "everyone should just mind their own business" is never going to be reflected in reality, because the very nature of people's irrational beliefs shapes culture, education, and politics in awful ways.
It's just another of many concepts that do nothing but make people sit quietly and accept nonsense, while allowing themselves to believe that they are doing the right thing.
The only people who are served by "let people believe anything" are the people who have amassed the greatest power. Its exactly the same as "the government did it, so its okay."
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