I mention Christianity the most because it has the most influence in domestic politics.
Sure I'll accept that, I'm not going to bother looking up anything but I'm pretty sure Christianity is the most common religion in the US.
I am not as ignorant as you are implying here. All three of the Judeochristian religions have the same basic concepts, all of whom are not good.
What sort of basic concepts are you talking about?
Christianity in the United States has skewed politics in a lethal way.
Expressly the belief in a god or the bending of religious text to fit an agenda?
When you say I assert my belief that something is not true, you are essentially saying that asserting the view that anything without evidence should not be believed is moronic.
I stated what that you made a comment irrelevant to the conversation. You stated that you believed these were fabrications. And I passed no further judgement beyond the simple statement that yes, I did in fact say that was what you believed.
Promoting bigotry and censorship?
Really? In what way? Instructing their members to kill cigarettes and blow up abortion clinics? These people might make the news but they certainly aren't representative of the entire population.
It is not just Judeo-Christian morality that harms this country, it is some of their basic ways of thinking. For example, there is an overwhelming tendency to assert that God did something because it cannot be explained. If this assertion is accepted, we would not advance in science at all.
This "overwhelming tendency" simply does not exist. Evolution, dinosaurs, carbon dating and other technology which some people feel may directly threaten their religion aside, few, if anyone, will debate recent technological advancements or assume the sky is blue because "god made it so."
It's interesting that you put Judeo in there. Since, I'm not familiar at all with it, can you tell me what the Jewish opinion of evolution, modern science, abortion, stem cell research, etc is? What about Muslims?
I'll know if you used Wikipedia or google because I already read the articles. ;)
You said that morals existed before religion, which is fits exactly into why we do not need religion for morality.
Let me clear up what I was arguing. Morals are without religion. The morals Christians believe in are not inherently religious. Do not kill. Do not be mean to people. Do not steal. There is a religious framework built around them and a story to explain how they came into existence. Some people think it's true. For the sake of debate, perhaps it is, I'm not judging here. There are religious laws mixed in with them. But few Christians are going to tell you that worshiping a stone is amoral, if that's what you really believe in and the stone isn't telling you to kill people.
They directly promote bigotry and intolerance
This kind of flows in from my last point. They are big slow organizations firmly rooted in tradition and it takes a long time for them to change, unfortunately they only change about as fast as their members die. But you do an injustice painting Christianity (and other religions) as religion founded in bigotry and intolerance, many Christians fight bigotry and intolerance.
and not in the argue / debate manner which I pioneer on this forum (yell expletives and arguments and hope someone gives up).
Then you're in this for the long haul. Lets see who can yell louder.
If someone works on the sabbath, has a different view about religion (another problem with religion in general: intolerance of each other), and uses common phrases such as "OH MY GOD" (which is so ingrained into our society that even I say it), they are viewed as unholy by the Judeo-Christian religions and therefore frowned upon.
No, it's not. People
really don't care.
They really don't care.
Really. There are a few people who do but the majority of people don't worry themselves about it. They have jobs to do, friends to talk to and errands that need to be run. People simply do not care as long as you do not go out of your way to insult them. They typically do not go out of their way to bother you. Maybe they think less of you, maybe they don't, but I've really never gotten that vibe before.
They are treated as equal. Out of 10 possible rules, would those four be the ones you pick?
Having an ox kill someone means your ox gets killed. Killing someone means you get killed. This does not sound like they are being treated equal to me. The punishment fits the crime. Committing a religious crime gets you religious punishment (ostracization, excommunication, damnation), physical crimes mean you get fined, get an arm cut off or an eye gouged out, or killed in some cases. This doesn't sound unequal.
But all of this goes off topic. The fact of the matter, as I've stated before, most Christians just live their lives, try and follow the rules, repent when they break them, and really don't cause any trouble for everybody else. Again, you have not built a case for religion being immoral, you argue that religion is bad public policy, especially in a nation that does not have a homogeneous religious population.
Now you say you're not God and neither am I, but if a God goes against human morality, as imperfect as it is, what kind of God is this?
In what ways does a God go against morality? I don't exactly understand.
Would you worship him because he's good or you want to go heaven? This God is jealous, a quality that even humans can control.
Are you trying to justify that the morals of Christianity are destroying the nation here are you are trying to point out inconsistencies in the religion/bible/translation/whatever? If it's the latter I don't really believe it's relevant, how would a god being a hypocrite lead to the tenants of the faith destroying a nation?
so does Wedge
I leave a tab open, I write when I think of something. I do it while I'm browsing the web, checking email, and chatting with friends online. Instead of playing a couple of rounds of L4D I chose to argue with someone on the Internet. It's easy to find the time. You could do it too if you really wanted. I do regret not playing a game a little bit and considered not posting but I'm not giving up that easily. :)
Not when someone is wrong on the Internet!
