[Thor]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well fanatic is purely my word, and it might be the wrong word.

Well I'd argue its utterly the wrong word, but lets move past that.

Like I say I read God is not great and the tone didn't come across as bad as The God Delusion (which I couldn't even finish). I guess maybe the best description is that these guys come across as holier than thou when I find that same attitude unbecoming for religious people.

Ok fine, but when you have 90% of people speaking one way, and the minority speaks up and you call them out for being offensive, maybe its time to evaluate how just that claim is.

Interesting you use the word holier than thou. Lets for example as a Muslim, why his God is the true God and all other Gods are false. This Muslim will call Christians as infidels, with all the fibre in his being he is CERTAIN you are all going to burn in hellfire because Mohammed the prophet was contacted in a cave.

How can you argue with that??!

So whats more arrogant.

My God is the one true God and I know his mind and what he wants.

or...

I don't know, there is no evidence for Gods of any kind, there are natural explanations for everything we see around us and questions we do not yet know are going to be vigorously attacked by our curiosity.

Yes, your right, the non believer is the arrogant one.

I get that they don't believe in god; I have absolutely no issue with that. Its the attitude that comes with it though and the condescension that comes with it. They might be 110% sure that there is no god but in the same way I don't prefer to hear about a fundamentalist expound on the virtues of their faith ad nauseum I don't want to hear them pick apart religion.

You mean you don't like it when they pick apart your religion. Or are you equally offended by people challenging the beliefs of Scientology, Mormonism, Hinduism, etc..????

So religion in your opinion should be exempt from these attacks by people using logical arguments against the claims and ideals of religion of which is tries to perpetrate and push upon ALL people of this world no matter where they live?

I also find the broad strokes they use to be basically ignorant. If you want to argue that because some catholic priests have gone against their faith and commited terrible acts so therefore the entire religion is hypocritical, thats fine. You just have to wear the fact that a lot of atheists have commited the same crimes and have shown the same pathetic moral standards. In other words you shouldn't judge everyone based on the obvious misconduct of a few; and men like Hitchens are better than that.

Actually statistics repeatedly show in the last 100 years that the least immoral and criminal group is non believers. The fact is the Catholic church has existed as an abomination to what Jesus the person would have seen as the opposite of his teachings. Any basic reading of history shows you why the Holy Roman Church formed and why it continued, because it was a form of power and control that didn't require a large army to propagate.

Sorry but the misconduct of a few?? The entire world has shown Catholic churches, schools, etc.. as BASTIONS of abuse and misconduct. How you can even begin to suggest non organized, non believing people could even ATTEMPT to reach that level of abuse, harm and systematic horror is beyond me. The Catholic church has 2000yrs behind it, modern atheism has what 10 years, when people feel free to speak their mind???

I also understand what you're saying about logic, but in discussions about ethics and morality its not a black/white issue. There are areas where most people agree-not killing each other for example. Does it really matter how we come to agree on that? Maybe you have no belief in god, but adhere to a moral code of some sort. Maybe you are a devout catholic or buddhist. To me its basically irrelevant on a personal level.

It does matter greatly. If I say its wrong to murder because God says so in the 10 commandments, and an atheist says its wrong to murder because its bad for our society, those two have massive differences.

One suggests we can only know morality from God, and one suggest we know morality from interactions in our society, that evolve and change with knowledge, experiences and most importantly from what succeeds and what does not.

Claims of absolute morality, rigid claims of gays are born in sin, muslims are heathens which will burn in eternity, babies who die before baptism will burn in hell, etc... These are not logical issues, these are faith based bronze age beliefs intruding into our modern society.

IF you think we're militant for speaking against all this, well then I'm truly sad for you. Debating a counter point isn't militarism, its just what you'd hope for in a modern society.

Maybe if everyone just agreed and those who didn't shut up you'd be happy, because seemingly that is what you and so many want.

Just speaking out makes us militant, me thinks you need to search out the dictionary, I'd suggest militant is flying planes into buildings, not posing tough questions on a Calgary Puck message forum that isn't nice.

Just a thought