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The moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well.
If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone.
Our Western politicians avoid mentioning...religion and instead characterize their battle as a war against 'terror', as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of its own. Or they characterize terrorists as motivated by pure 'evil'. But they are not motivated by evil. However misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian murderers of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.
They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.
Originally posted by apex
He said that no one should try to persuade someone else to believe something.
Then he decides to go and try to convince everyone to be an atheist.
Does he think he is exempt from his own rules or something?
Originally posted by daedalas
sounds like a good read, I will have to read some of his earlier stuff as well. This book is not an attack on christianity, by the way, any more than the bible is an attack on atheism.
Originally posted by daedalas
sounds like a good read, I will have to read some of his earlier stuff as well.
you forgot to mention all other religious belief
religions tend to attack contrary religious beliefs very readily in their texts
and nice avatar daedalas
Originally posted by daedalas
yes they do, the bible doesn't attack atheism as directly but I have no doubt that it would if atheism was a big enough threat to the church at that time.
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Originally posted by Astyanax
However, I have also noticed that while Buddhism and Taoism may be non-theistic in their classical or 'pure' forms, in actual day-to-day practice they are positively lousy with Immortals, Bodhisattvas, ancestral and elemental spirits, local folk deities, members of the Hindu pantheon and heaven (ahem) alone knows what else. So maybe the god concept is the problem after all.
Of course, some will use the fact that all cultures seem to evolve gods to claim that such gods, or a God, must exist.
Originally posted by I_s_i_s
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Funny that. I've met my share of fanatic buddists who'll probably get more than "peaceful" if you disagree... Whats with their idol worshipping anyways?