Religious debate

[PugofCrydee]

Hmm...

I'm not an atheist, though I'm sometimes mistaken for one. I actually studied religion in college and even went to divinity school for a while. I was raised in a Christian faith, though by very skeptical parents.

This brief background is just meant to give this question context:

Is it offensive to say "religion sucks balls, especially yours," but not offensive to defend being a member of a faith that claims exclusive truth and that condemns unbelievers, non-cishet folks, and others as less than human?

I've run out of thanks, good point PeterO :thumbup:

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

Hmm...

I'm not an atheist, though I'm sometimes mistaken for one. I actually studied religion in college and even went to divinity school for a while. I was raised in a Christian faith, though by very skeptical parents.

This brief background is just meant to give this question context:

Is it offensive to say "religion sucks balls, especially yours," but not offensive to defend being a member of a faith that claims exclusive truth and that condemns unbelievers, non-cishet folks, and others as less than human?

It's not about what is offensive and what is not, at least from my perspective as a mod.

Telling someone "religion sucks balls, especially yours" is a rules violation (#4). Being a member of any faith whatsoever is not.

Guilty by association is meaningless, as is someone implicitly believing something because that's officially what their faith believes.

However, if a member of that faith were to actually tell someone they're less than human (because that's what their religious text says or any other reason) then that would be a rules violation (#s 1, 2, &/or 3 depending).

 

[PugofCrydee]

However, if a member of that faith were to actually tell someone they're less than human (because that's what their religious text says or any other reason) then that would be a rules violation (#s 1, 2, &/or 3 depending).

What about if your religion states if your son or daughter doesn't believe in 'god' then the mothers and fathers hand is to be the first to cast a stone in their stoning?

Wouldn't that be offensive?

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

What about if your religion states if your son or daughter doesn't believe in 'god' then the mothers and fathers hand is to be the first to cast a stone in their stoning?

Wouldn't that be offensive?

Evening Pug.

The rules are not about what books say. The rules are about what individual people say who are members of this forum. Until some member suggests stoning someone to death then no rule has been broken. If they did it would be a violation of the part of rule 3 about encouraging crime.

 

[PugofCrydee]

Evening Nathaniel :thumbup:
Ok, so if I posted something like this (and I'm asking genuinely here because my aim is to hopefully make ppl laugh, not to offend) would it be breaking the rules? Do you think anyone would be upset by this?

 

[PugofCrydee]

^ Like you, I am also an atheist, Pug. However, even I find that video blatantly mocking the Pentecostal church is in poor taste. I don't understand how mocking something is funny??? :idontknow:
No one likes being mocked about anything, so why would you post something like that on a forum that is supposed to be supportive, anyway? :idontknow:

Benny Hinn is a con man and deserves to be mocked. He takes advantage of people's 'faith'.

I grew up playing video games and yes - street fighter. Maybe you didnt.
But thats why I found it funny. Not even the religious side of it.

Knocking people over with your jacket?? I want one of those..

 

[PugofCrydee]

It's ok Blue I deleted the vid. Can't have anyone getting upset right?

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

Benny Hinn is a con man and deserves to be mocked. He takes advantage of people's 'faith'.

I grew up playing video games and yes - street fighter. Maybe you didnt.
But thats why I found it funny. Not even the religious side of it.

Knocking people over with your jacket?? I want one of those..

Well, it made me laugh. I too grew up with street fighter and I have a very dim view of televangelists in general. Many of them (including Hinn) have been shown to be con artists and yet they still have very lucrative careers.

I wouldn't have deleted the post or given infractions or anything. If someone would have reported it...eh. Probably I still would have left it up. There have been times where your posts have been reported and I was like "wait, that was offensive against religious people?" and I had to think about it. Sometimes after thinking about it I agreed and sometimes I did not.

Meanwhile, have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEQoScnvbvw

 

[PugofCrydee]

Meanwhile, have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEQoScnvbvw

Bah!... I can't watch it - blocked in my country. Is it this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBJEJsAhJQU

If so yea it's hilarious - if you get street fighter humor..lol

 

[F0AM]

2:14 - Chun-Li is glitched!

 

[PugofCrydee]

Question to anyone who want's to answer, religious or not;

There have been approximately 10,000 deities that have been worshiped in history at some point (that number blows out to 320 010 000 if you include the 320 million from Hinduism).

If you could talk to a cave man and ask him why he worships the sun(?)
a viking and ask him why he worships Odin
an ancient Egyptian - Raj
today,an isis terrorist - their version of muhammad

and go maybe 5000 years into the future and ask why they worship the deity of their time/choosing.

After talking to these people, if you could tell them that there have been as many as 10,000 deities over human history and ask them why they think their god is real and the correct one - what do you think their answer would be?

 

[F0AM]

A cave man: What history? we're the beginning - if you could explain them that you come from the future without them imploding then they'll probably tell you: Then how would you explain all this natural phenomena, and then you would have to explain science and those who didn't implode when you explained time-travel, would do so now.

Vikings and Egyptians some may accept the existance of other gods in other regions? But probably would say: That's absurd (just because) cause these Gods are the ones X (their culture, a book, a prophet, shaman, etc.) says is/are the real one/s, and every other god/s is/are fake cause is/are not mine. Just like today ppl.

Isis terrorists: i think they use religion as an excuse to do what they like, murder. I don't think they have any real spiritual believes. Anyway, if they do have one, then they would tell you that their God is the right one cause they say so, and then they would kill you - Maybe not in that particular order.

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

Bah!... I can't watch it - blocked in my country. Is it this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBJEJsAhJQU

If so yea it's hilarious - if you get street fighter humor..lol

The clip I posted was slightly longer and shows more characters but basically yes.

:bigsmile:

 

[PugofCrydee]

A cave man: What history? we're the beginning - if you could explain them that you come from the future without them imploding then they'll probably tell you: Then how would you explain all this natural phenomena, and then you would have to explain science and those who didn't implode when you explained time-travel, would do so now.

Vikings and Egyptians some may accept the existance of other gods in other regions? But probably would say: That's absurd (just because) cause these Gods are the ones X (their culture, a book, a prophet, shaman, etc.) says is/are the real one/s, and every other god/s is/are fake cause is/are not mine. Just like today ppl.

Isis terrorists: i think they use religion as an excuse to do what they like, murder. I don't think they have any real spiritual believes. Anyway, if they do have one, then they would tell you that their God is the right one cause they say so, and then they would kill you - Maybe not in that particular order.

Whilst I'm not sure if you are religious I think you basically got what I was asking Foam, with all the people in history worshiping so many different deities, what makes them think their's is real when comparing it to others?

I mean, apart from just saying 'oh mines the right one' how would they prove it against the other claims?:idontknow:

 

[F0AM]

Whilst I'm not sure if you are religious I think you basically got what I was asking Foam, with all the people in history worshiping so many different deities, what makes them think their's is real when comparing it to others?

I mean, apart from just saying 'oh mines the right one' how would they prove it against the other claims?

They really can't, thats why they believe

I was a religious person once: i was baptized, completed (don't know if that's the correct expression, sorry) the catechesis, made communion, used to go to the church and sometimes i even helped as an altar boy.

Eventually i turned into an agnostic, precisely for that (and because i think a lot of things don't make much sense): nothing could prove God's existance. Only beliefs.

Who knows, maybe God exists, maybe it (don't know why it have to be a certain gender) doesn't; maybe there's life after death, maybe there isn't or maybe it is totally different to what we think.

¯\(°_o)/¯

That said, i'm cool with religions as long as they (or their communities) don't try to impose their ideas or attack certain collectives just because they are alien to their beliefs.

Believers:

Atheists

Agnostics

Meanwhile, Cthulhu worshipers

 

[PugofCrydee]

They really can't, thats why they

I was a religious person once: i was baptized, completed (don't know if that's the correct expression, sorry) the catechesis, made communion, used to go to the church and sometimes i even helped as an altar boy.

Eventually i turned into an agnostic, precisely for that (and because i think a lot of things don't make much sense): nothing could prove God's existance. Only

Who knows, maybe God exists, maybe it (don't know why it have to be a certain gender) doesn't; maybe there's life after death, maybe there isn't or maybe it is totally different to what we think.

¯\(°_o)/¯

That said, i'm cool with religions as long as they (or their communities) don't try to impose their ideas or attack certain collectives just because they are alien to their beliefs.

Haha I love your post

The only exception I have is the Gif about the Atheist. As far as I'm aware an Atheist basically says because they have seen no proof of said gods existence they choose not to believe in that god until it indeed shows itself or undeniable, credible scientifically validated proof is presented.
So under that definition I count myself as an Atheist. But I only choose to not believe in a god because I have never seen one iota of evidence which can stand up to logic and reason and indeed credible scientific scrutiny.

If the Gif was implying that Atheists flat out deny a 'gods' existence then I think that is because over the years the lines and understanding of what an Atheist actually believes has become somewhat blurred.

I of course, could be incorrect on this :thinking:erfect:

 

[PeterO]

I've always been puzzled by the stance, which is common in the U.S. at least, that you can criticize someone's politics or philosophy but not their religion. Religion, after all, is a metaphysical form of philosophy. It's true most folks follow the one they're born into, but it differs from race or gender or sexual orientation in that it's an outlook, not a genetic characteristic.

Years ago I got into a silly FB argument with someone who basically said any criticism of any statement based on someone's religion is offensive. This person also disliked the president at the time; I wished I thought to say, "Okay, I'm declaring my support for President Obama to be due to my religion, so you're not allowed to say anything negative about him anymore."

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

I've always been puzzled by the stance, which is common in the U.S. at least, that you can criticize someone's politics or philosophy but not their religion. Religion, after all, is a metaphysical form of philosophy. It's true most folks follow the one they're born into, but it differs from race or gender or sexual orientation in that it's an outlook, not a genetic characteristic.

Years ago I got into a silly FB argument with someone who basically said any criticism of any statement based on someone's religion is offensive. This person also disliked the president at the time; I wished I thought to say, "Okay, I'm declaring my support for President Obama to be due to my religion, so you're not allowed to say anything negative about him anymore."

Well, let's take a look at rule 4:

4. Global This forum is a world forum, so members should respect each others religious and cultural differences, this also requires atheists and religious members to show respect when debating

On SPW this rule came about as a purely practical matter. If you search for threads involving religious debate (particularly theist vs atheist), you see the verbal equivalent of people trying to gouge each other's eyes out with sporks and set each other on fire. Now do a search for political terms. Say, "republican" or "democrat". You won't find a string of locked threads but instead a pretty lukewarm response to anything political for the most part. I've seen vicious political flame wars on other forums. Perhaps it's the demographic? In any case a rule requiring people to respect each other's politics was simply never needed.

:idontknow:

 

[PeterO]

Oh, I'm not questioning the SPW rule... just a general musing about how people debate things online and off...

 

[lily]

I have an opinion on that matter so I'm going to try and share it. I laughed at your joke (though I would personnally have stayed with Jesus because I just can't resist unicorns) and I think I know where you're coming from when you say you are offended that you cannot express freely your disagreement towards religion. I'm a litte bit annoyed, as you seem to be as well, when religious people say things like "Jesus loves you" or "God will help you through this" because, as a die hard atheist, to me it sounds as if they were saying "the night fairies will help you through this" (in fact I would be more inclined to believe in the power of fairies). What is an atheist supposed to respond to that? "Thanks, but... you're delusional" ? We could argue that they should assume other people don't have the same beliefs as they do and therefor they should stop annoying us with their beliefs. However Christianism is a very widespread religion so it is sort of natural that christian people will not assume such a thing (I'm talking about christianism because I think this is mostly the religion that we are talking about here). In the same line of thoughts, it is probably also accurate to assume that there is a fair amount of christian people here and that such a joke will surely offend them.

Now as Nathaniel said, when you say you are offended by people expressing their christian beliefs, it's a little delicate to do anything about it. When they talk about God, they are not trying to offend you, they are just speaking with the words that express the world that they live in, in which they often have been raised. They are not talking "against" unbelievers (I mean not on this forum anyway). When you make a joke about Jesus, it's funny for us atheist, but we all know there is christians here and it's going to make their ears bleed a little, and you choose to say it anyway in all awareness.

That being said, should they disregard your joke as we disregard their speeches about God and Jesus? I don't know the answer to that question, but I think that for the sake of decency, without necessarily censoring ourselves, this is important that we pay attention when someone mention that our words might have been offensive for someone else and take some time to think about it. This is also relevant, I think, that the offended people take some time to reflect on the reasons why they are offended.

Which would lead me to 3 questions (beside the main one): Why are you so offended with christian beliefs (I'm not asking you to tell us, I'm talking about personal introspection), are christians offended by your posts here when you talk against, or make jokes about christianism (for all I know I haven't seen any christian participate to this conversation?), and finally should christian people, knowing that it's a little annoying to atheist, be careful not to throw their God loving at us, especially when they know they are talking to someone who is offended by it?

And one last question, did you start this thread to have this current debate or you were talking about an actual debate about religion (did Jesus exist or not etc.)?

Interesting discussion anyway.

Sorry for the long post.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. i have my own reasons that i believe in the lord jesus/God, it's even personal so just like i don't poke fun at atheists, athiests shouldn't do that either, it's disrespectful and it was even a rude post like Nathaniel has commented on. I can choose to ignore and let you see for yourselves and you can ignore that i don't believe in no God and let me be on my own.