One Day left to sign petition to make Fox news apologize to pagans and Wiccans

I really don't want to get into a debate or anything but the mainstream view of Christianity is usually based on bigots and narrowminded individuals and groups who use faith to justify their hateful views. Also we have a huge "scene" of evangelists who use it to profit and spread false doctrine.

Honestly, it isn't about being hateful and violent, and hating gays or Jews or people who like to have fun (although history is rife with it due to the church being controlled by people who used it to manipulate the masses instead of spreading the faith peacefully with tolerance)

But it's more about respect, tolerance, understanding and valuing each person even if we disagree with them.

 

this threads sucks with no pics..

 

I married a Christian. I have Christian friends. I have also known many Christians who treated me poorly when I was a child because my step dad was atheist and my mom was pagan. Any religion can have their bigots. I am not putting all Christians down when I mentioned it was hard growing up in a Christian community. I was isolated. It does not mean I hate Christians.

 

I dated a Wiccan chick for a while.....THAT chick knew how to party!

 

basically the reason for this is that most of the posters here come from countries where christians are the largest religious group, therefore not only are other groups to be defended as minorities, but also this increases the chances of their having been personally negatively affected, either directly or indirectly, by the teachings of Christianity, which naturally biases one against the faith as a whole.


personally, i think a little gentle ribbing is useful for keeping zealotry in check, and the occasional reminder that the irrational beliefs one adheres to are no better than anyone else's irrational beliefs are is, i feel, a good way of keeping oneself grounded, a nice little reminder of the ignorance on the subject of what happens after you pop your clogs which, at the end of the day, we all share.

if we all treat every belief with phony "respect" (which is often less actual respect and more fear of offense) and stony seriousness, we run the risk of sitting po-faced while the elephant in the room farts noisily in our puddings. better to inject respect with some humour and levity, even some light mockery, in the belief that a joke, at one another's expense, but not intended to insult can be shared between people of radically different beliefs, so long as there is no intention to wound. TRUE respect can weather a joke in good faith, and true faith need not fear being shaken by a friendly jab.

of course there are unpleasant things that religions are responsible for, but these are issues of the infringement of the beliefs of one on the personal liberty of another. this is not respect, but bigotry and hatred, and should be argued against in strong terms, not on the grounds of convictions of faith, but on the grounds of freedom and the right of the individual to live as he or she chooses.

so with the above provisions i agree with you. what goes on here often has an uncomfortably nasty tone to it.

it often seems not a boisterous, but occasionally near the knuckle rivalry between people of different views, which is perfectly healthy (indeed, rewarding) but rather a tendency towards gross over-generalization and venomous attack, which only serves to polarise and demonise, forcing people into radical positions in self-defence, positions they would probably not normally adopt.

 

Yeah I honestly think you should check out certain threads and certain private messages that the management (so to speak) seems to ignore. Yes I understand gentle ribbing but when it gets down to sheer bigotry and prejudice and becomes a situation where some poster(s) join in it is not gentle ribbing. I understand religious humor but it's beyond that now.

And as I said, if it were about any other faith made up of "irrational beliefs" the issues would be quickly dealt with. I don't know how you can justify it and say it's joking. Really, words hurt and some people cannot understand it simply because they don't think a person's faith should be respected. Race usually is, nationality, sexual preferences; protected. Political and religious persuasions; no respect.

 

i know the threads you're talking about. i agree with you, i find it genuinely unpleasant, that's my point. i wasn't saying that all of it was just harmless jokes, i was just adding a few provisions to my agreement. to whit: although i find a lot of what is said to be unpleasant, i don't think that we should handle each other with kid gloves.

again, i agreed, and offered reasons why.

i meant that joking is not necessarily harmful, and that i often see the ability to share a joke to be a greater mark of respect than false deference. I'm not justifying the statements to which i presume you are referring as jokes, as i said, they are nasty.

to be fair, race, sexuality, gender etc are things which generally pertain to the individual, whereas politics and religion are part of the public, social sphere, therefore criticism is important, as they impact on society as a whole, not merely those who adhere to them. people have a right to weigh in on issues which affect them. all too often, however, i think their manner of criticism is counter-productive and deliberately alienates those with religious faith, engendering division between moderate atheists and moderate religious believers, and creating more radicals on both sides. (for example, wasting time attacking Christianity over the gay marriage issue, thus making the issue into an unwinnable theological debate, rather than what it really was; an issue of human rights.)

the problem comes when they equate a harmless personal faith to religious oppression and violence, as if a suicide bomber and someone having a quiet pray are engaged in essentially the same action, merely in different forms. the whole is seen as necessarily evil and any part instantly takes on all the sins of the whole. this is absurd and hateful; the logic of totalitarianism.

but i understand what you're saying. and (although i personally don't respect any of the things you listed) all too often the anti-christian sentiment up in this place becomes decidedly hateful, and a little bit more respect (or just less hate) would be nice.

EDIT: something i now realise should have been clearer in my first post- when i said "the irrational beliefs you adhere to are not better than anyone else's" i didn't mean specifically YOU or the views of Christianity, i mean a collective you as in everyone, that we ALL hold irrational beliefs and it does us all well to be reminded of them. we're all just muddling along as best we can. and that's where the jokes have their purpose.

 

shouldn't the management ignore private messages?

i agree that certain people here take the whole anti-christian thing too far, but i'd rather they are allowed to expose themselves as idiots than have the mods run in and close every thread that gets even remotely controversial.

 

Let me just clarify that I don't mean that PMs should be monitored and under surveillance because it's unfair and probably a big waste of time (not sure how it would be done). But I mean if something is reported or flagged as hurtful or discriminatory to anybody/topic, there should be some form of action taken depending on the situation.

 

Personal attacks against an individual in the forum is one thing, something to which should be punished for taking place. It is something for which the site does not stand.

However, simply using a meme to make fun of a religion is not a personal attack against an individual. Rather, it is a humorous jab at a large group. Those few individuals who go around reporting everything that makes them upset need to grow backbones and get over themselves. The persecution card seems to be a free pass to whine, and it is sickening.

 

Stop persecuting whiners, you sadistic fuck.

 

Oh, are we already to "I'm gonna tell the teacher!!!" ?

Life's not fair. people get hurt. but that's not a reason to tiptoe around, walk on egg shells, and obsess on being politically correct so no one gets butt hurt. It's the internet, and furthermore a free speech forum, and as much as you would like to, you can't call the PC Police and banhammer everything that you disagree with.
Race is respected because it harms none and is something you're born with.
Sexual preferences are protected because it harms none and it's something your born with.
Don't get me started on all the hate and violence executed and supported by THE CHURCH.

 

I don't see much hope for you, if you can't understand why the right to exist is one thing, and the right to not hear any dissenting opinions is a whole 'nother thing, and thankfully, isn't much of a thing.

 

My point exactly. No one here has any respect for other people's faiths. Seriously, get over it, people believe in religion. You don't, I get it. But quit making fun of everyone you people have absolutely no respect.

 

There is no need to respect faith or opinion. These things are not inherent to a person, like skin colour or gender or whatever, and unlike those fixed characteristics, they DO have the ability to be VERY wrong, and in VERY harmful ways....

The difference between cavemen and modern society, and modern society and a peaceful society, is just one of opinion and faith. It is absolutely okay to argue about these things.

If you are totally unwilling to hear anything going against your opinions, why the fuck are you on a message board that's for sharing and debating opinions? (and even the most peaceful sharing is being done to effect opinions, even if it's opinion on potato soup recipes)

 

But you guys don't argue about it you just bully others.

 

Part of the problem you're seeing SunDweller, is because of the extreme Christian right's influence on American politics. When you have lobbies trying to get science removed from text books and replace it with creationism, when you have Christian lobbies trying to remove rights from women and gay people and other religions that are heretical to them - you are going to get backlash.

If Christianity was full of the nice Christians that keep to themselves and live with love and not hate, you would not see the hate reflected back.

We are a mirror.

Also: I've posted a picture of Mohamed on this site and while that thread got closed, it was not to do with the Mohamed cartoon but upset Christians.
Antisemitism has also had it's haydays on this forum and was allowed. Holocaust deniers and Zionist plots, oh my!!

 

Well, that's a matter of opinion.

And I was going to formulate a response to it, but realized that's a waste of my time.

I'm not personally TELLING you to do anything, but my ADVICE is, that if you don't like it her, quit bitching and get the fuck out. Because you don't have an opinion against any other opinion, you're basically opposed to the whole forum and how it works. Or really, to ANY forum. You should probably give your computer away.

 

some people find it difficult to not make fun of people with superstitions and imaginary friends.

You call bullying when the other person is right.

 

haven't i seen you posting in the astrology forum?

you can be right and still bully someone. you don't go up to an obese person and say "oh my god you're so fucking fat, you disgusting fatty fat fatass!"