Teacher arrested for Teddy Bear name

[Good Old Neon]

fanatacists of any sort can be both annoying and/or dangerous. all religious fanatics are not dangerous...all non-religious fanatics are not dangerous.

 

if a muslim kills someone in their name of their religion versus someone killing another person in the name of nothing, does it make the murder any more horrible? if someone is screaming at you that your lack of belief in god makes you a bad person versus someone is screaming at you that your belief in god makes you a bad person, does it make the act any more annoying? it's really not apples and oranges at all.

 

jnick, are you saying that a large part of a person's being is not comprised of their thoughts and feelings on a particular subject and when disrespecting those thoughts and feelings, you are, in turn, disrespecting them? i know you are big on science, but w/out any thought or feeling we'd just be a big clump of skin, tissue and bone walking around aimlessly.

 

countless number of people have personal experiences where some occurence has happened...experiences that could not be explained by testable, empirical means...that they have either witnessed God's tangible existence or his actions. to them, that's proof enough...you can call those folks any sort of name you want, but how can you challenge they didn't see what they say they did? i realize that isn't your definition of founded, but it's not your place to have the universal context.

 

what other questions haven't i answered?!

 

Sure, but those sorts of experiences do not justify banning same sex marriages, flying planes into buildings, limiting a child

[EL the Famous]

Please, don

[caliber66]

No, not at all

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I sense another 100+page angst fest. IT's a car wreck...but I must admit that these never degenerate into Godwin's law territory.

 

But one thing we all agree on ( I think ), when a teacher's life is threatened for naming a Teddy Bear Mohammad, it's crazy.

[MattZ]

thousands of white supremecists, militia group members, organized crime families, etc. would probably disagree. is it the organizational aspect versus the belief itself that you take issue with? while innocent death on any count is horrible, i find killing someone w/out any basis of reason for doing so just as, if not more, frightening.

 

does an organized religious group who saves lives via missionary work have any less of a positive end result than those who save similar lives under no religious belief or context? save a life, take a life, etc.

 

I disagree with your central point (my opinion, of course) and would say that I am frightened more by the innocent murder of folks when the murderers have a perceived basis for doing so (and especially when that basis is in religion or white supremacy or organized crime). I wouldn't describe saving lives through missionary work as "fanatacism" but again, much of the debate here between you and me derives from the definition of fanaticism. There is, of course, good and bad fanaticsm, and I assumed that by describing TDW as a fanatic you were insinuating a bad or intolerant type of fanaticism.

 

Which is why I got into this discussion in the first place and have already wasted too many brain cells here. My point was that there are *bad* fanatics of all sorts. All things being equal, a *bad* fanatic of an atheist -- how I thought you were describing TDW -- is just someone engaging in a debate on a message board. Comparing him to a muslim fundamentalist seemed overboard. Saying they are both annoying is really what I objected to.

[EL the Famous]

Sure, but those sorts of experiences do not justify banning same sex marriages, flying planes into buildings, limiting a child

[Good Old Neon]

no, when reasons may not seemingly exist. the rest of that is a sweeping bullshit, cop-out generalization. you main man harris seems to think that god and science cannot co-exist, discounting the fact that it has for a long time now and will continue to do so. what does he have to say about:

 

Sure, they can co-exist, if religious dogma continues to lower the bar every time science demonstrates one of its core tenants is incorrect. Evolution for example, for the longest time, the church was completely unwilling to accept that man evolved from an early ape-like ancestor

[Sky God]

this would be a great time for a hunny break

 

I agree.

[bjorn_skurj]

So Muslims are scary but evangelical Christians aren't? I also find it very difficult to believe that the "vast majority" of Muslims are crazy fanatics, any more than the vast majority of Christians.

 

Personally, I'm way more scared by the people in our own country - in our own government, no less - who don't believe in the separation of church and state, who want to force their morality and religion on me whether I want it or not, who don't care about what happens to the rest of the world because the Rapture is coming and they're all going to get taken up to heaven, leaving the rest of us heathens to fend for ourselves. Just because they're (ostensibly) members of a religion that advocates peace doesn't make them any less frightening to me.

 

Fanatics are scary no matter WHAT religion they belong to - or even if they don't belong to any religion at all. (Stalin and Mao, anyone?)

Your point is well-taken, and I admit that my reaction is an emotion-based one, not a rationally based one. Still, there's no getting away from the fact that it was Muslim extremists, not Southern Baptists nor Jehovah's Witnesses, who have twice attacked New York City, a place I find myself in from time to time. Is there something unique to Islam which caused that? Probably not - any ideology in the hands of evil people can be twisted. But I say again - until the "vast majority" of Muslims stand up - much like the people in Eastern Europe did in 1989 - and refuse en masse to condone the extremists, I will be more suspect of Muslims than evangelicals.

[caliber66]

At what point do we simply say, god does not exist? If through science, the entire belief system is slowly whittled away, at what point do we say enough is enough?

When we can explain scientifically how the universe came into being.

[Pooh Bear]

When we can explain scientifically how the universe came into being.

 

I don't think that will solve the problem

 

how is everyone breathing today?

[Spawn's dad]

again, as in all the prior threads, I'd like to know by what passive means 'we' will take away religious freedoms.

[caliber66]

I don't think that will solve the problem

 

how is everyone breathing today?

I rode my bike to work today for the first time in almost a month, and I gotta tell ya, it was a little tough on the old lungs. The fact that I've had a upper respiratory infection of some type for pretty much that whole month may have been a factor as well. On a related note, I will not be wearing fingerless gloves again the next time I choose to ride my bike to work when the temperatures are in the 20s.

[Sir Stewart]

Is that a penis in a Santa suit?

caliber, please delete and repost, thanks so much.

[ZenLunatic]

When we can explain scientifically how the universe came into being.

 

I think the answer is already there. People just cant accept it.

[caliber66]

I could just co-opt gary's avatar, also.

 

edit: gary, please delete and repost, so my post is at the bottom of the previous page.

[Pooh Bear]

I rode my bike to work today for the first time in almost a month, and I gotta tell ya, it was a little tough on the old lungs. The fact that I've had a upper respiratory infection of some type for pretty much that whole month may have been a factor as well. On a related note, I will not be wearing fingerless gloves again the next time I choose to ride my bike to work when the temperatures are in the 20s.

 

sounds like you could use some nice warm tea with a little bit of hunny and a friendly hummer

[Good Old Neon]

A survey examining religion in medicine found that most U.S. doctors believe in God and an afterlife -- a surprising degree of spirituality in a science-based field, researchers say.

 

In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.

 

Sir

[caliber66]

I think the answer is already there. People just cant accept it.

I'm sorry, what?

 

The Big Bang doesn't explain anything about how the universe came into being. It attempts to explain the nature and behavior of the universe, and how it came to be in its present state. How did the Big Bang happen? Where did the matter and energy that has existed since the Big Bang pop out of nonexistence? What happened before?

 

[stuff]

I don't know why you quoted my post, as nothing in your reply addressed my question. Whether or not natural scientists believe in God does nothing to explain the origin of the universe.

[bjorn_skurj]

When we can explain scientifically how the universe came into being.

I am under the impression that we're pretty clear on the how, it's the why that may never be figured out.

FWIW, and it might not be much, this is what I think. Science can never prove faith. They are two different spheres of the human experience. Most of us do seem to have some need for the concept of God - there could well be a biological explanation for that. I don't think anyone's religion justifies them being intolerant of others; there NEEDS to be an ethic that is not based on religion that everyone on this increasingly shrinking Earth must adhere to. There's never going to be just one religion, or no religion, so if we're all going to co-exist, religion's role in public life has to be minimized, perhaps to the point where it is as relevant to your neighbors as what football team you root for, or less. For many religions, that's intolerable, as part of their mission statement is the conversion of everyone else. I'll close with a quote from Sidney Hook: "Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant."

[Good Old Neon]

I'm sorry, what?

 

The Big Bang doesn't explain anything about how the universe came into being. It attempts to explain the nature and behavior of the universe, and how it came to be in its present state. How did the Big Bang happen? Where did the matter and energy that has existed since the Big Bang pop out of nonexistence? What happened before?

 

 

I don't know why you quoted my post, as nothing in your reply addressed my question. Whether or not natural scientists believe in God does nothing to explain the origin of the universe.

 

Is that your evidence for god, that at this point in time we cannot fully explain the origins of the universe?

 

And the answer is what, an all knowing all seeing omnipotent being who is heavily invested in the outcome of the Super Bowl?

 

If god is the answer, and the universe can only be explained through the existence of a god like-being, well then, who is god

[Good Old Neon]

I don't know why you quoted my post, as nothing in your reply addressed my question. Whether or not natural scientists believe in God does nothing to explain the origin of the universe.

 

That was a mistake - sorry about that. I went back and corrected it.

[ZenLunatic]

I'm sorry, what?

 

The Big Bang doesn't explain anything about how the universe came into being. It attempts to explain the nature and behavior of the universe, and how it came to be in its present state. How did the Big Bang happen? Where did the matter and energy that has existed since the Big Bang pop out of nonexistence? What happened before?

 

Science explains all that. It's pretty boring in my opinion

 

Info on Big Bang

[caliber66]

Is that your evidence for god, that at this point in time we cannot fully explain the origins of the universe?

 

And the answer is what, an all knowing all seeing omnipotent being who is heavily invested in the outcome of the Super Bowl?

 

If god is the answer, and the universe can only be explained through the existence of a god like-being, well then, who is god

[EL the Famous]

Evolution for example, for the longest time, the church was completely unwilling to accept that man evolved from an early ape-like ancestor