Please respect me as I vote to ban your right to marry as a homosexual. Please tolerate me as I make it a crime to get an abortion. Please don't attack me when I tell you that you're going to burn in hell for all eternity for not believing in my book and that your lifestyle is an abomination. All I want is for everyone to be peaceful and loving of me and each other. You need to accept me even though I step on you for my moral obligations, because otherwise you're a hateful and intolerant person.

It's great to respect people and tolerate what they identify as, no problems there. When it *only* applies to them (the adult adherents) and they don't force/harm things onto their own members (punishments, forced marriages, etc.) or non-adherents then it's perfectly fine. I will never respect or tolerate those that do though or the ones that try to use "religious freedom" as a right to discriminate against others.

^Even though the theme of the thread is "be nice" that still had to be said. We can't be respectful and tolerating of everything indiscriminately just for the sake of trying to be friendly. And if you're like me then you like clearly defined parameters. Accept people, challenge ideas, oppose wrongs.

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I think you'll find the irony is that most people are frustrated with organized religions as they have orchestrated Scrutiny, Judge-mentality, Elitism, Fascism, Conditional Acceptance.....all adding up to Discrimination.

On the other hand, some denominations have done a lot of good work Charity & Relief wise.

Would this be a bad time to ask if anyone knows what the Tuesday release is going to be? :D

Keane, or if we're really lucky Keen.

Well that would pretty much eliminate every post I've ever made.

I'd like to know what you mean by blaming needing to be avoided. I've had religious murderers in my own family, that if they didn't directly pulled the trigger (which I would not be surprised of knowing) were at the very least saying that 'those guys' fighting for a different political regime were enemies of god and had to be killed. Them, their families and anyone defending them. When this behaviour is institutionalized, is blaming wrong? Should I just forget these event and pretend they never happened?

Look, you want to believe in a religion (any religion), fine. But if you come to me saying that "god is love", a snort is all the answer you'll get. Religion can be used for good, but it is by no means intrinsecally a good thing. In fact, the most religious person I've known is also the worst human being I know. That would be my grandma, BTW.

There's been a lot of shit in my country that religion has been directly responsible for, and then more where religion has been used as a tool to push even more shit our way. So yes, I blame religion for a lot of it, and I don't give a damn if you consider me intolerant for pointing that out.

... you don't even know about Wild Mountain Honey...

The key here is that, infact, we all have the right to say pretty much anything we want at any time, ever, without justifying it in any way. The question isn't whether or not you can, but whether or not you should. A whole lot of people only ever seem to consider the former.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png
Think that sums it up quite nicely, actually.

From what I gathered from the original poster's message, many of the people replying are doing exactly what he (or she) is asking not to do.

Namely, don't blame religion itself for the actions of the few working under that guise. And I agree with that statement.

Religion is a group of beliefs and shared tenants about life. It does not make people into evil psychotic mass murderers. What does? The people who interpret the religious ideals and convert and twist them to achieve their own desires. No major religion was created for "evil". They are all about the same concepts; how to be a good person, achieve peace (in this world or the next), and to educate people on how to properly behave in society. It's people, human beings who are the ones who decide to take those messages of love, trust, family, friendship, and twist them into hate. There's many great religious people who do what they can to help those around them, even if they don't believe in their life choices.

The fact is, if you believe in Atheism you are religious. Particularly if you then go around telling people about it and saying that others are fools for their beliefs. That's what a missionary does. By being atheist you're subscribing to a concept that there is no God. That the universe was created by other means. And many Atheists, just like in other religions, have to try to constantly convert others to their line of thinking. Religion is a shared concept of life, mortality and morals; which is exactly what Atheism is. The act of non-believing is in fact a method of believing.

If you were truly non-religious, you wouldn't care about what other people believe in and only react when it directly effects you. There are very, very few of those people in the world.

There have been tons of horrible acts done in the name of religion, and there will be many more. But if religion didn't exist, people would be finding some other reason to kill each other, such as the color of your skin or gender or your shirt color. To those people that's what religion is; It's an excuse to exert power and control over other people. It's not the fault of Jesus, or Mohammad, or the Bible, or the Quran; it's the people who are at fault.

Guys, why dont we just get along well?

:)

Hello friend,

I am Prince Joe Eboh of Nigeria, and I have $20million USD with your name on it. I just need a small fee of $18k to release it to you.

Charter member of the Church of the Red Breast,
Prince Joe Eboh

So, what about people who don't give a toss about deities and just dislike the concept of an organized religion? :-P

You create your own!

Just remember, "protestant egotheist" is taken. If I started taking in new believers, we'd have to organize (shudders)