Deeds in the Name of

Christians fear atheists because atheists act not in the name of god. Atheists fear Christians for what they do in the Name of god!

Originally posted by 667joe
Christians fear atheists because atheists act not in the name of god. Atheists fear Christians for what they do in the Name of god!

Charles Mason acted due to the Beatles White album, if people want to do bad
things they will find some form of justification for bad behavior it is what
people do.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Charles Mason acted due to the Beatles White album, if people want to do bad
things they will find some form of justification for bad behavior it is what
people do.
Kelly

True...but amongst those who don't really want to do bad things, religion inspires them to do so all the same.

Originally posted by Agerg
True...but amongst those who don't really want to do bad things, religion inspires them to do so all the same.

You just want to paint religion in a bad light, it also inspires the best in us too,
but people will use whatever they can to paint themselves in a good light as
they do what they want. It is a people trait and you want to blame the excuse
instead of the one making it, just like people want to blame the weapons
and not the hearts of the people who use them. Until you start looking at all
of us as flawed you will always be looking for a reason people are bad instead
of just acknowledging that is what we are.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
You just want to paint religion in a bad light, it also inspires the best in us too,
but people will use whatever they can to paint themselves in a good light as
they do what they want. It is a people trait and you want to blame the excuse
instead of the one making it, just like people want to blame the weapons
and not the hearts of the people who use t ...[text shortened]... e looking for a reason people are bad instead
of just acknowledging that is what we are.
Kelly

Yeah and you can you use Charles MaNson to paint religion in the best possible light using the most convenient examples at hand

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Yeah and you can you use Charles MaNson to paint religion in the best possible light using the most convenient examples at hand

I'm using Charles Manson as an example of people using whatever to do
whatever they want. It isn't religion it is people that do these things.
Kelly

Some people (theists or atheists) will use religion as one of their excuses/reasons for doing bad things.

Other people don't need an excuse/reason and will do bad things without any excuse/reason.

Originally posted by divegeester
Some people (theists or atheists) will use religion as one of their excuses/reasons for doing bad things.

Other people doesn't need an excuse/reason and will do bad things without any excuse/reason.

If we saw only those people with religion behaving badly there may be some
type of argument here, but since every group with people in it do these bad
things I think our root cause is just that, people and the evil in their hearts.
Kelly

Originally posted by divegeester
Some people (theists or atheists) will use religion as one of their excuses/reasons for doing bad things.

Other people doesn't need an excuse/reason and will do bad things without any excuse/reason.

Some people (theists or atheists) will use religion as one of their excuses/reasons for doing good things.

Other people doesn't need an excuse/reason and will do good things without any excuse/reason.

If this doesn't ring as true as its inspiration, why not?

Originally posted by JS357
Some people (theists or atheists) will use religion as one of their excuses/reasons for doing good things.

Other people doesn't need an excuse/reason and will do good things without any excuse/reason.

If this doesn't ring as true as its inspiration, why not?

Of course the premise is applicable to both good and bad acts.

Originally posted by KellyJay
If we saw only those people with religion behaving badly there may be some
type of argument here, but since every group with people in it do these bad
things I think our root cause is just that, people and the evil in their hearts.
Kelly

The problem with religion and what any sane person would consider evil acts is the leaders define what they want done and millions if not billions of minions carry out those edicts.

There are no atheist leaders calling for the death of religious people.

But there were and still are religious people calling for the death of other people not of their persuasion.

Look what is happening in Afghanistan over the apparently accidental burning of the Qurans.

Or what happened in the middle ages during the peak power of the church, the inquisitions (there is still an inquisition office open to this day in South America somewhere).

Or the witchhunt trials in Salem.

The do gooder aspect of christianity is only a relatively new phenomenon.

Certainly a welcome break from the truly barbaric accesses of the past but that is no guarantee those barbaric practices will never come back.

I can tell you this: I fear the US becoming a church state which is exactly what the right wingers want in our country. That's all we need is the US equivalent to Iran.

It's bad enough that 40+ % of the US population believes in the fairy tales of creation and so forth but the really bad part is the attempt to force creationism to be taught in a science class along side of evolution in a deliberate attempt to discredit evolution as a science in spite of 200 years of solid evidence that is just poo-poo'd by the creationists with just opinions spread out by the leaders of this movement to it's minions which works really well to destroy interest in science in the youth of the US and thus bring the US further on down the road to it's technological deterioration, led by idiot politicians who don't know their asss from a hole in the ground and only want to keep up their power base by bandying to the demands of a deluded populous.

You better believe the dark events of the middle ages can happen again.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The problem with religion and what any sane person would consider evil acts is the leaders define what they want done and millions if not billions of minions carry out those edicts.

There are no atheist leaders calling for the death of religious people.

But there were and still are religious people calling for the death of other people not of their ...[text shortened]... uded populous.

You better believe the dark events of the middle ages can happen again.

Seroiusly, you are saying Atheist have not killed people for being something
they didn't like either about their person or their views?
Kelly

Originally posted by sonhouse
The problem with religion and what any sane person would consider evil acts is the leaders define what they want done and millions if not billions of minions carry out those edicts.

There are no atheist leaders calling for the death of religious people.

But there were and still are religious people calling for the death of other people not of their ...[text shortened]... uded populous.

You better believe the dark events of the middle ages can happen again.

I'm not going to defend bad behaviour by Theist, as I have pointed out either
calling one's self an Atheist or a Theist does not excuse or make one detached
from being able to do bad things. The root cause is people's wicked nature
and only a change in human nature will cause us to be something more than
the people we are by nature. You need to be born again.
Kelly

Originally posted by sonhouse
The problem with religion and what any sane person would consider evil acts is the leaders define what they want done and millions if not billions of minions carry out those edicts.

There are no atheist leaders calling for the death of religious people.

But there were and still are religious people calling for the death of other people not of their ...[text shortened]... uded populous.

You better believe the dark events of the middle ages can happen again.

"It's bad enough that 40+ % of the US population believes in the fairy tales of creation and so forth but the really bad part is the attempt to force creationism to be taught in a science class along side of evolution in a deliberate attempt to discredit evolution as a science in spite of 200 years of solid evidence that is just poo-poo'd by the creationists with just opinions spread out by the leaders of this movement to it's minions which works really well to destroy interest in science in the youth of the US and thus bring the US further on down the road to it's technological deterioration, led by idiot politicians who don't know their asss from a hole in the ground and only want to keep up their power base by bandying to the demands of a deluded populous."

I like how your beliefs about the past are part of what makes something good
or bad. As you point out people use their beliefs to define what is good or bad,
and you have choosen other people's beliefs about the past as a measure of
what is bad about them. I think your closer to what you are complaining about
than you realize.
Kelly

Do we have to keep having this argument? Evil nutbags will do horrible things, it's just what people are like. Some of them will be religious evil nutbags and some of them will be atheist evil nutbags. There is no correlation between goodness/evil and religion.