All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Mikekerr3]

To that Individual...sure.

To a Buddhist is his or her faith a lie?
A Muslim?
an Atheist?

The faith is not a lie, but the faith may simply be based on myth and delusion

[Michael P]

I actually hope some bozo tries to enforce one of those laws, just to see them get smacked down in court. It would be delicious.

[Mikekerr3]

I actually hope some bozo tries to enforce one of those laws, just to see them get smacked down in court. It would be delicious.

They tried fairly recently in NC I believe, I do remember news reports saying the judge tactfully laughed at them and the case was dropped.

[Mister Mets]

I agree absolutely that either one is right or they're all wrong (I'm for the latter, as stated before). I just think pointing that out isn't bashing any one religion, or all religions. It's just disagreement. As to getting along, I'm all for getting along and allowing anyone to worship as they see fit so long as they don't harm anyone else. I don't know of any atheists who feel otherwise.

Some may say they wish religion didn't exist, but they're not actively trying to ban or suppress religious worship. Unless we're talking communist countries where the governments are following dictates written decades ago to eliminate competition and set up the State as the focus of worship.

I'd say they also tend to fall in the "go along to get along" group, and most communist atheists have given it no more thought than most religious folk, just doing what they were born into.

Completely agreed.

It's weird, because liberals/progressives tend to be harder on their own (in my experience here, anyway), and are more willing to change their mind when presented with evidence. See also: climate change, homosexuality not being a choice, trickle-down economics being completely ineffective, the existence of institutionalized racism, the school to prison pipeline, etc., etc., etc.

Meanwhile, you'll find that conservatives are far more intellectually inflexible (torture works, Saddam had WMDs, Sarah Palin still can't name a single newspaper), and far more likely to excuse/sweep under the rug the shameful behavior & policies of their elected officials. Aside from complete silence, I have yet to see the right-wingers here express anything about the content of WBE's daily posts other than the crybaby "why are we getting picked on so much?" Instead of expressing general condemnation like a decent human being is supposed to do.

The fact that no one from the right is willing to speak up once a week, or even once a month really says something.

There aren't a lot of Republicans posting here.

Nor is there much value in telling you guys something you already know.

[Jeff Brady]

To that Individual...sure.

To a Buddhist is his or her faith a lie?
A Muslim?
an Atheist?

One of the ideas behind Buddhism is the acknowledgement that "their way" isn't "the only way".

Islam, according to your own beliefs, is based on lies.

Atheists don't have faith.

Meanwhile, you've moved the posts from analyzing an institution to analyzing an individual's faith. These are two very different things.

Please stop trying to argue. You're not very good at it.

[Tendrin]

Nor is there much value in telling you guys something you already know.

I've learned quite a bit from WBE's posts. You seem very eager to have him stop. If someone could show me five hundred idiotic democratic senators, govenrors, and more who held opinions at least as crazy, you can bet I'd be rethink a few things.

[Jeff Brady]

There aren't a lot of Republicans posting here.

Yes, and?

Nor is there much value in telling you guys something you already know.

What, that Democrats generally don't try to pass legislation that is based on hate & ignorance?

That Republican officials don't care about helping anyone other than their very rich friends?

That people who support said officials don't have any shame?

Fine.

So next time someone says "both sides are equally bad", you can just say "no they really aren't" instead of the mealy-mouthed nonsense of "they kinda are, but I don't feel like proving it because reasons".

[Arvandor]

I've learned quite a bit from WBE's posts. You seem very eager to have him stop. If someone could show me five hundred idiotic democratic senators, govenrors, and more who held opinions at least as crazy, you can bet I'd be rethink a few things.

I'm eager to have him stop. Because its boring and makes clicking this thread a chore. There's never anything new on this thread - just the same old rants day after day.

[Tendrin]

I'm eager to have him stop. Because its boring and makes clicking this thread a chore. There's never anything new on this thread - just the same old rants day after day.

You just described every political thread ever.

[Jeff Brady]

I'm eager to have him stop. Because its boring and makes clicking this thread a chore. There's never anything new on this thread - just the same old rants day after day.

You can just put him on ignore.

Rants. Ha! A description of what a person has done is not a rant.

Dennis Miller used to rant. George Carlin could rant. Bill Hicks ranted all the time.

[Arvandor]

You just described every political thread ever.

I know. Believe me. I know.

[ExcelsiorPrime]

By saying that Christ is the way and the truth you're saying anyone who holds a different faith believes in a lie or a myth. I'm fine with that, but then I think they all are. As the old quote goes (or near enough), "We all are atheists I just happen to believe in one less god than you do".

One of the ideas behind Buddhism is the acknowledgement that "their way" isn't "the only way".

Islam, according to your own beliefs, is based on lies.

Atheists don't have faith.

Meanwhile, you've moved the posts from analyzing an institution to analyzing an individual's faith. These are two very different things.

Please stop trying to argue. You're not very good at it.

You assume that All Christian call other faith systems a lie. I do not. I say they are following their own beliefs..is that so hard to understand? And Buddhism does believe their way is the only way..they believe in a Karmic system where people who suffer are doing so because they were bad in a former life. Do you think people suffer because they were bad in a former life? In their faith, Anyone that does not believe that are lying to themselves..and will pay by bad Karma..and have to be reincarnated to try again.

I don't understand why one religion is thought of as worse than others.


And some Atheists do have faith....their faith is that God does not exist, and there is no afterlife. Both theories will be proven or disproved after death. Most Atheists that die and return to life say there is both a God and an Afterlife.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/atheists01.html

but that is their own personal view--I wont speak for atheists who never died and returned--but I can of those who clinically died and returned to life.

[PwrdOn]

I'm eager to have him stop. Because its boring and makes clicking this thread a chore. There's never anything new on this thread - just the same old rants day after day.

Well it's the same rants day after day because Republican politicians tend to toe the party line unconditionally without ever questioning their logic or forming their own ideas. If all of these people just spent some time actually developing their own positions rather than parroting talking points to gain political traction, I bet you they would sound a lot less crazy. But of course, they would never do this because this sick political culture that interprets taking extreme stances as a sign of strength, when the exact opposite is true. After all if you knew that you had a sound argument you would never have to resort to the levels of rationalization that the Republican party does to try and make sense of its own policies.

You assume that All Christian call other faith systems a lie. I do not. I say they are following their own beliefs..is that so hard to understand? And Buddhism does believe their way is the only way..they believe in a Karmic system where people who suffer are doing so because they were bad in a former life. Do you think people suffer because they were bad in a former life? In their faith, Anyone that does not believe that are lying to themselves..and will pay by bad Karma..and have to be reincarnated to try again.

I don't understand why one religion is thought of as worse than others.


And some Atheists do have faith....their faith is that God does not exist, and there is no afterlife. Both theories will be proven or disproved after death. Most Atheists that die and return to life say there is both a God and an Afterlife.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/atheists01.html

but that is their own personal view--I wont speak for atheists who never died and returned--but I can of those who clinically died and returned to life.

Christianity is worse than the other religions because it's an entire belief system based around self-hatred and worship of the most sadistic and vengeful deity ever imagined, which people turn around and claim to be about love for some incomprehensible reason. And that "love" has been used to justify all manner of fun things like the Crusades, slavery, imperialism, and the Holocaust. But Christians seem to reserve their most virulent hatred for members of their own faith, no other religion has such a perplexing variety of sects and denominations all constantly at each other's throats, declaring one another to be apostates and heretics, and perpetuating a cycle of intra-religious violence that goes back just about the full two millennia that Christianity has been around.

[Mister Mets]

I've learned quite a bit from WBE's posts. You seem very eager to have him stop. If someone could show me five hundred idiotic democratic senators, govenrors, and more who held opinions at least as crazy, you can bet I'd be rethink a few things.

I'm not eager to have him stop. It doesn't prove what he thinks it proves.

He's arguing against a position that no one here seems to have taken (that there aren't crazy/ problematic Republicans from a pool of 10,000+ officeholders and candidates.)

[Paradox]

Nobody dies and comes back to life. They're not dead. That's why they call it a NEAR-death experience. Not that I'd give credence to something that science easily explains away as a stress hallucination, anyway.