Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackEleven
It's not the belief in God here that is being attacked, at least by most people. Its the belief that some guy sailed around in a wooded boat for 40 days feeding sheep to dinosaurs, like in the originally posted article. I think we can all agree this is pretty absurd.
It is the fact that a rational human being could believe such a thing actually took place that is being attacked. Such beliefs are not only stupid, they're dangerous. If you can convince a person of this story using religion as the justification, then you can convince that person of almost anything, including thoughts like homosexuals and doctors who perform aboritions deserve to die. It's this kind of thinking that alarms some people, and that's what they fight against.
Its unfortunatly ironic that virtually every religion out there preaches tolerance and love at the core of the religion, yet people do horrible things to each other in the name of their religion because people, like Falwell, are able to twist their beliefs into something else.
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And a thousand years ago people might look back at a book and think its absurb that men traveled to the moon in a small three man capsule in a trip that took more then 10 minutes.
Sure there are people that take whats said in the bible to a literal level, but its thier freedom to do that without having to worry about prosecution based on religion. They might believe that god created all life on this planet and it didn't evolve but was put into place as is, and God decided to remove some specis (Dinosaurs) because they had outlived thier usefulness. Whats to say, and playing devils advocate here, that the meteor collisision that killed off the dinosaurs wasn't sent by the maker himself?
People on the whole have the right to believe what they want to believe, and calling them stupid or suicidal or ######ed because they don't fit into your own personal interpretation of the world really reflects a high level of intolerance and ignorance.
In a free society you can believe what you want to believe, and you shouldn't be forced or pressured into adopting someone elses beliefs. Its thinking like that that lead to the acceptance of the inquisition. You don't believe in Jesus, lets fix that by strapping you to a wheel that rotates you over a fire, and you will believe what I want you to believe.
Just because you don't believe in a god, or a ark, dosen't make you more enlightened then your fellow man, or smarter then your fellow man, it just makes you a man. But what denigrates you is when you try to strip someone or pressure someone away from thier personal beliefs system with insults and pressure.
Frankly I'n not a religious person, but I believe in god. I believe that there are stories in the bible that might have seemed true at the time, but grew in stature, or are alagories of real events.
Noah might not have built an ark that held two of each animals. But there might have been a flood, and Noah had the foresight to put together a raft, and he put a couple of cows, and a couple of dogs and a couple of sheep on that sucker with the family and the story grew.
Moses might not have split the red seas, but he could have lead his people across a swamp, and when the pharoah tried to follow him with his army equiped with heavy war chariots and war horses they got stuck or drowned, and the story got exagerated.
He might not have gotten the ten commandments from god himself, but his belief in god might have inspired him to create the 10 commandments.
Does it hurt you personally if someone dosen't believe in evolution, not really, and are you prepared to figuratively burn someone at the stake because they don't believe in it (deny them jobs, or respect or a position of leadership), because that goes against everything that we as a society are supposed to believe in.
Sorry about the rant, but a couple of posts in this string really tipped my goat.