Well I’m a liberal, and no I don’t personally subscribe to any religion. I do not however begrudge anyone the right to subscribe to any religious flavor that suits them, nor do I hate religion or those that “truly” believe in it. But I certainly have no use people who “use” religion, (whatever flavor) to manipulate, control, oppress, or rob other people for personal gain. Especially the likes of those who assure salvation to desperate souls for a small donation (and yes, they take credit cards) when the poor sods they solicit can hardly afford to feed their own children. And while the recipients of all those donations are walking around in Italian leather shoes, $1000 suits and being driven around in limos, the children of their benefactors are wearing hand-me-down rags and going hungry. This IMO is flat out wrong.

The only thing I actually “hate” as far as religion is concerned is anyone that would harm a child in any way in the name of religion. This includes rape, molestation, torture, female genital mutilation, as well as psychological abuse. All of which IMO there is far too much of across the religious spectrum.


This does not mean that I believe “all” religious people are like this, I don’t. I know many people from all sorts of religions who are wonderful and sincere people who peacefully live their own lives and mind their own business. They don’t make careers out of judging people, belittling lifestyles or damning others to hell for not conforming, which many “so-called” religious people do.


Just my 2¢

I have no idea what you mean to say in that sentence. Prescribe to any religion? Huh?



This statement is incorrect. While there may be some ambivalence in general about religion, your characterization of that as hating all religions is way off target. Aside from that, there are some of us who quietly go about practicing the religion of our choice and make no comments one way or the other (me, for example).



That's easy, I have never made a post castigating any religions whatsoever. Next?

My take on it is that there is nothing wrong with any religion. Rather, it is some of the practitioners that give their religion a bad name.

jrob subscribes to the notion that x-tians are singled out for persecution in a country that's about 88% x-tian.

It's quite painful to observe.

JROB,

I have you on ignore, so I've only read your first two posts, but here's my answer to your "when did you stop beating your wife?" question:

I am an atheist, but I see much value in Christianity and many, if not most, other religions. My problem is with the many hypocrites professing to follow the teachings of Jesus while living the life of a Pharisee (so to speak). Personally, I believe that individuals trying to live in the manner that Jesus taught provides an effective foundation for a healthy society (although there are other philosophies that this could be said about as well). You could say that I believe in the gospel according to Tom - Thomas Jefferson, that is (he wrote a version of the gospels which removed all of the references to the divinity of Jesus [not to mention the Declaration of Independence, which isn't a bad set of founding principles either...]). I don't have any problem with Christianity, just with the hypocrites who loudly profess their Christianity (often implicitly or explicitly asserting their superiority thereby) along with antithetical ideas like "Jesus was a capitalist" (if you're a rich Christian you'd better start practicing putting that camel through the eye of a needle... Jesus was far more of a socialist that President Obama will ever be [to put it mildly]) and "It's okay to murder innocent people" (Governor Perry seems more than willing to kill wrongfully convicted men while loudly proclaiming his faith - the lack of a bolt of lightning and a smoking crater where he was standing seems to be proof positive that there is no god to me...). I am fortunate to have many friends and family members who are Christians in thought and deed as well as in word (none of whom have any problem with my atheism, by the way) and it bothers me to see people falsely professing the ideals that true Christians work hard to embody in order to gain advantage from their perceived piety.

What do you believe? (I'll read any posts of yours on this thread on the off chance that you give a substantive answer... I'm not taking you off ignore, though.)

I don't usually "castigate" religions, though I am often very critical of them. And usually in a fairly clinical way. Here's an example:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=6046&p=256347&hilit=Islam#p256347

But it would be idiotic to "hate all religions equally." After all, religions are different, and so we should expect them to be differentially distributed on the continuum of "harmless" to "atrocious." Just as it makes sense to hate some people more than others, or some governments more than others, or some snakes more than others, it it only reasonable to hate some religions more than others.

Why would anyone imagine otherwise?

The only reason I can see for someone imagining otherwise is that the conversation they are participating in is between themselves and the stereotypes in their head. But maybe that's just me...

Wrong. I respect all religions equally as they are an important part of our society, often personal and sometimes intrusive on others. When the latter happens, I will speak out. In our Nation it tends to be Christianity which has been given such a bad name by the actions of few, and sometimes the many. Look at evolution versus creationism as one great example, or the increase in opposition against Islam. As such Christianity is more visible than many of the other religions, especially when some religions are quite tolerant of other religions and ideas, others tend to be less.

An example of a religion which deserved some scrutiny is L Ron Hubbard's Xenu creation story since it has caused so much harm to some.

So it should not come as as surprise to hear liberals address the excesses in Christianity most, as it is most prevalent in our culture and nation.

PS: I also consider myself to be a Christian

Hmmmm... I've never castigated a religion.

Is that like when people claiming to be Christians rant that ALL Muslims are evil and should be driven out of the country? Or that ALL Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims? Or that ALL Muslims approve of cutting off hands and heads? Or all Jews are manipulative and greedy.

Could be I just don't hang out in the right places on the web, but I've never seen a where a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or person of any other religion has equated ALL Christians as behaving like Warren Jeffs or the Mountain Meadows massacre Mormons, or the Spanish Inquisition folks or the Crusaders...

So, yeah, your whole premise is screwy.

That was pithy!

That, believe it or not, qualifies as the most coherent thing he ever posted. Granted, he is incapable of following up with a second coherent post, but want do you want from a teahadi?

That has to be one of the best video clip when it comes to dealing with birfers and their kindred spirits.

http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/tx/Schultz_v_Medina_Valley.pdf
FRED BIERY, CHIEF UNITED STAES DISTRICT JUDGE

Awesome. Totally awesome.

I think I'll head to PACER later and pull some of the other case documents - particularly the appendix mentioned in that order. I'll start a new thread once I have.

Texas Federal Judge Demagogued By Gingrich Fights Back — ‘You Should Be Ashamed’

From ThinkProgress



My personal favorite...

Mike, here's a link to the order and both appendices:
http://texasweek.blogspot.com/2012/02/l ... y-isd.html

I wasn't familiar with the case and went looking for background. Ouch! It really did get ugly. Scroll down to the end of this Texas GOP site where the posters are talking about how to punish the Schultz family and drive them out of the state. How unChristian of them!

http://www.texasgopvote.com/Schultz-v-M ... yer-002932

I suspect your definition of "liberal" means something different to my UK definition, so I may be wrong, but I don't think being religious and being liberal are mutually exclusive. They aren't mutually exclusive here, and the majority of the UK population self-identify as non-religious (51%, British Attitude Survey, 2010). Prescribe is the wrong word to use in your sentence; perhaps you meant subscribe?

Absolutely and completely wrong. I don't hate any religions. Hate and prejudice have no place in liberal thinking.

I cannot do this as I haven't ever castigated ANY religion, Christianity included. I have, at times, castigated those people who use their religion to force their beliefs on others; just today I've been involved in a thread elsewere about Baroness Warsi (a muslim member of the House of Lords, our upper parliamentary chamber). I'm not attacking her religion, I'm attacking her. If you are sufficiently interested, you can find it on JREF, but I'll repeat the substance here in this sentence: The woman is a bigoted fool.

Should "inevitably" be "inevitability"?

It is in the version of the order I pulled from the docket just now.

I'm going to bump uploading the documents down the road a little, though. The bulk uploader on scribd seems to be broken in multiple browsers right now, and I really don't feel like uploading the documents one at a time.

This one seems good enough.