Atheists Least Trusted

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Trust me...I don't.  There used to be a billboard on my route to work that continuously had some catchy religious phrase like "GOT JESUS?"  I drove right on by...never bothered me because I know that if I had the funds and the desire I could put up a billboard saying "ATHIESM=TRUTH".

What I do want to deny is using government as a vehicle to proselytize...that is the one place where I can expect complete nuetrality.

So why do you believe it is unfortunate that Christians spread the word? It doesn't bother me, and though I am somewhat agnostic, I also believe there is a higher being, just not what the Christian Bible believes.

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by Jackal1
OK, let`s not be . You first.
Why do vandals snap off mirrors, rip off chrome, break off antennas and leave them laying on the ground? Are they offended by reflections, shiny articles and music?
Jumping to conclusions to fit your agenda.

Oh goodie...a strawman.

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
So why is it that believe it is unfortunate that Christians spread the word?

Got no problem with them trying so long as it doesn't include assault, tresspassing/solicitation, or using government as their pulpit.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Got no problem with them trying so long as it doesn't include assault, tresspassing/solicitation, or using government as their pulpit.

Well I agree with youl. However, I say leave the "Grandfathered" stuff alone. The Atheists are the one using the Government as their "pulpit" now trying to remove stuff like statues, and "God" in our current Gov't verbage thats been there for decades. Waste of taxpayers money, and they're no better than Christians doing the same.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by z0rch
Yeah, you can only trust bible-thumpering conservatives, like Chimpy McFlightsuit;

Holycrap, MG found the AH BBS.

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by deSelys
I remember having read in one of his sermons that atheists and all other religions are wrong (he had explicitly named buddhists) and will be deprived heaven. Regardless of their actions or motivations. How open and understanding is that?

Andy...please say it ain't so.

I just listened to your sermon: He Who is Not With Christ is Against Him (Luke 11:14-23).

Help me understand, Andy...your flock is already converted...why use hate and fear like that?  What is the point?  Where is the compassion?

Let me tell you a story of a Christian that I admire...and I don't even know his name.  I used to drive tempramental little British cars.  And one day 20 years ago I was out on the interstate and came across a beat up '68 MGB with out of state plates on the side of the road in distress.  I pulled over to see if I could assist the driver. The thermostat gasket had let go and the driver had no spares.  My Triumph's trunk looked like a TR spare parts store...but I had no generic gasket material and my TR gaskets were no where close.  But with the tools I had we started to remove the thermostat housing figuring we could go to a store and buy what we lacked.  About that time a rusty old Toyota pickup pulled over and a weathered fellow ambled back, opened his bed gate & topper to reveal he was a roving car repairman.  He had gasket material and together we got busy getting this fellow running again.  The MG driver was so angry at his car and himself for being unprepared that he let out a "G** damn car".  The repairman quietly but firmly said, "God loves you.  He put me in your path today to help you."  I recall quietly laughing and shaking my head at the circumstance of an evangelical and an agnostic both stopping to help the same fellow.  I kept quiet out of respect as the repairman began to witness. His transition was so smooth that 20 min later when we were done the MG driver hugged the repairman as he was given a weathered Bible (I wouldn't be surprised if it was the repairman's personal copy).  It was compassion--not fear-- that won that MG driver over.

One other question Andy...in your sermon you rattled off a list of religions that you perceive as in league with Beelzebub.  I don't recall hearing Judaism in that list.  They are no more for Christ than Muslims are for Christ.  Can you help me understand why you left them out but specifically mentioned Islam...was it a simple oversight?

[Hangtime]

I was brought up in a religion that assured me I was better than other people: I was saved, 'they' were damned. The Hymms and sermons were loaded with arrogance and self congragulations on how cozy we were with the Almighty and the Hell that everyone else would catch come Judgement Day. Are all religions prejudicial?

In 'private practice' a religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion.. any religion.. is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason... but one cannot have both. Move that religion from 'private practice' into the arena of politics and government and this 'source of happiness' becomes an evil most profound.

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. Islam is doing so now.. the Catholics, the English Protestants.. Europe just a few centuries ago, Coatia, Serbia now.. how many historical examples of the horrific endgame of church control of government and influence in poltics need to be trotted out before we get the point...

Religionists with political power and influence are hideously dangerous critters... they use the mask of godliness to hoodwink the masses to a hysterical hatred.. and the aftermath is always blood.

I do not condone an American Theocracy. Keep the churches outta government. Yes, Islam needs to be crushed. But not by a holy christian army. By an angry American army that rejects ANY theology as it's cause celebre..  we must do this for Mankind, to break the grip of religionists on the hearts and minds of people subverted by holy prejudice bent on making their God the 'supreme deitey'. We HAVE to fight for the rights of MAN.. not GOD.

[z0rch]

Yeah! What he said! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Elegantly said, Hangtime

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Oh goodie...a strawman.

Yea, never let common sense and reasoning get in the way of your agenda. Clutters things up for ya.
Evil Christians ripping off legged fish thingies. Sheeesh. Vandals , the hole lot of em.

Waco; Oklahoma City; Christians are so much less violent.

What exactly does the ATF and other government agencies murdering innocnet people and a wacko with fertilizer have to do with Christians being violent?

[Maverick]

No matter what belief you have in a supreme being, God, religion or lack of that you have, sometime between the last breath you take and the full decomposition of your body you are likely to get that situation clarified.  

[Hangtime]

I'm in this life doing the best I can.

I'll deal with the next life (if any) when I get there.

And, if your motivation for adopting religion in this life is beautification in the next then I submit you'll be a coward in the next one too.

[J_A_B]

"Are all religions prejudicial?"


I was raised Catholic (my family has been closely tied to the Catholic church for a thousand years or more, even my surname is deeply religious), and I every Priest I ever talked to said the same thing--God judges people according to each individual's own traits.  A person isn't damned simply because he worships Islam or some such religion, or no religion at all, and even criminals and atheists may achieve salvation.  Many parts of the Bible aren't viewed as literal truth.  In any case, God judges people, it's not up to us, so it isn't our place to try to say who is and isn't saved.

Now, I'm sure some Catholic priest/cardinal/whatever somewhere has said something extremist at some point or another; as large as the Catholic church is and as long as its history runs that's virtually inevitable.  Not all clergy agree with each other on every issue, and there's a lot of debate within the church.  My point is not ALL clergy subscribe to the notion of "if you're not with us, you're damned".


Fire-and-brimstone "YOU ARE DAMNED!" Protestant faiths were usually regarded as phony (their mass isn't considered "real"), bigoted, and an embarassment to christianity.  


As for myself, I'm not religious in any active sense of the word and really never have been, but if I was going to change my mind about it I'd still view the Catholic church as the "real" christian religion, along with the Eastern Orthodox church.  


J_A_B

[moot]

I think Lazs has it right, atheism is as much a leap of faith as theism, and both are different only by virtue of being inverted images.
It's irresponsible to allow one's faith to affect anything but oneself.
Why admit something you cannot prove?

Maybe atheists (or the generic atheist) are less trusted because without the light of faith's promise at the end of the tunnel, man is up against the vast and untamed unpredictability of the universe, and the atheist being at home with this makes him a sort of allegory of bad news..
...
Creo quia absurdum
Adios reason!

[lazs2]

ok... so crow is an agnostic... that really only leaves chair as the preacher for the athiest religion.

but still crow...  no matter how much you hate the guys who use the fish as a symbol.... you can't equate sentancing someone to death for converting to christianity from islam to.....

To maybe... I say maybe... peeling off a walking fish symbol from a freind of a friends cousins car and (gasp) placing it on the...... the ground!  

lazs

[CHECKERS]

Originally posted by z0rch
Yeah, you can only trust bible-thumpering conservatives, like Chimpy McFlightsuit;

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'"
- G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI

"...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...."
- Bush, in remarks in a Press Availablity with the Press Travel Pool,
The Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford TX, 12/28/01, as reported on
official White House site

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)


Good thing he's not wishy-washy.

 Well here is some more wishy-washy for ya .....to distort .....zOrch....

   There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of KJanuary. That's just one American city,
about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.

When some claim that President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following:

 FDR led us into World War II.
   Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost.......
an average of 112,500 per year.

 Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
   North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953 , 55,000 lives were lost......
 an average of 18,500 per year.

 John F. Kennedy started the Viet Nam war in 1962. Viet Nam never attacked us.
 
 Johnson turned Viet Nam into a quagmire.
 From 1965-1975, over 58,000 lives were lost....
  an average of 5,800 per year.

 Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent,
 Bosnia never attacked us.
 He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and
 did nothing. ...
 Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

  In the three years since terrists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed
  the Teliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and North Korea
  without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300.000 of his own people.

 The Librial Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking.
   But.....
 It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidan
 compound. That was a 51 day operation.

 We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons less time than it took
Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records....

 It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Marine Division to destroy the Medina Republican Guard,
than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

 It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida !

  Liberals suck !


   ps if you have a tv ....
 click on C-Span , you can watch you heros in action ,
giving away citizenship & our borders to Mexico .....