Yeah, but you're supposed to obey those people or go to hell. Most organized religions (catholicism for sure) involve obedience and never questioning (religious) authority. And the people who just want to do good and make others be happy don't have the spare time to get into political wars to get to power, it's those who want power who get it. And the primary goal of those who want power and attain it, is not losing it. As Deus Ex said, "what good is an honest soldier if he can be ordered to behave like a terrorist?"

Granted, I'm mostly familiar with catholicism as that's the one I grew up in, and you could argue that I'm biased and it doesn't apply to your particular version of religion. I don't care, I still think that when you allow others to dictate what you should do in the name of god, the chances of the message being twisted along the way increases exponentially with each level of the hierarchy. And religious hierarchies are pretty damn big.

I think you hit the right spot here. There's a huge difference between personal beliefs and faiths and religion (as in: organized). Among my friends and aquaintances there are Christians (caltholic and protestant), Muslims, a shaman, a druid, people that pray to the old Norse gods, some Buddhists, esoteric people of different flavours, many agnostics and hardcore atheists. And I get along with most of them wonderfully and we can discuss or differences in a civilized and often inspiring manner.
Hell, my favorite late night beer supplier is a Russian Jehova's Witness and think she is a wonderful person.

So if people are asking tolerance for their personal beliefs I'm the last person to deny it to them.

My tolerance stops when religious people are trying to influence my life regardless of what I think about this. When you can't escape it because there are people with political power that try to force their belief system upon others and set up rules and restrictions for things that are "wrong" only in their moral system. Should I tolerate intolerance here?

I don't remember seeing that. Most anti-religion people make a clear distinction between belief at the personal level and the results of religion in general.

I think that the best way to avoid anti-religion posts is to avoid posts about religion altogether.

Or, to avoid religion altogether

hmmm, it seems GOG ate my last reply...

To answer you a little more quickly as I don't want to write all that out again and also have to run off to workies.

You are wrong, atheism is not a religion. It's simply the answer to a single question. Any other beliefs and tenants some may attribute to it is actually part of something else which, in order not to muddy the language, we give different names to.

Your "if you were truly non-religious" comment is also a misrepresentation of both atheism, theism and Humanity in general. Religion doesn't hold a monopoly on those things and many people are affected either directly or indirectly.

I will tolerate religion once there's no such thing as religious schools or religious education in general, and where it's illegal to inculcate and indoctrinate underage children with religious beliefs before they are legally counted as an adult.

Religion is fine, when it's an individuals choice, but in many countries, especially Muslim ones, religion is FORCED upon the young generations, and the entire society reinforces this, you cannot go against religion without becoming a pariah in society in these countries. You cannot really say people in those societies have much "choice" when everything around them in their lives are pressuring them to submit to a religion.

I think the world in general needs something like the struggles France went through after it's Revolution which resulted in the replacement of (Catholic) religious control of education, with public education. Religion needs to be forcefully restrained and legally separated from society, so that the choice of joining a religion is a individuals own choice, and parents or society or a community can never pressure it's children into a religion. Because fundamentally children have the human right (in my opinion) only to be subject to unbiased education and information, even if they cannot understand the concept at their age.

Just look at what is happening in Syria, people blowing themselves up, people being beheaded, woman forced to wear a veil, etc. Where do you think that kinda ideology comes from?

This, I'm afraid, is nonsense. Atheism is a religion in the same way that 'not playing football' is a sport.

No. I don't like assholes coopting my problems and my victories. It's not nice telling me when I'm dying of pneumonia that I'm suffering for a purpose and it's somehow good no matter what happens. It's not nice telling me when I recover and win a fucking marathon that I won not because of my own perseverance and the help of my friends (hey there, Companion Cube!) but because they cast a magic spell.

I don't like assholes coopting my history. I don't like Orthodox maggots munching on the corpses of war heroes. I don't like being told a million dead and a million wounded doesn't count because my home city was really saved by a macrocephalic fairy. It's not nice.

And whoa, a US Christian complaining about intolerance is super rich. There are places where Christians are actually hated and persecuted. The US is not one of those places.

If you believe that an immortal sky fairy pretended to kill himself to convince himself to forgive you for something your great-great-...-great-grandparents did when they didn't know any better, by all means say so. But I believe that your belief is fucking stupid and I can say it, too, and you're free to judge me on the basis of that as much as I'm free to judge you on the basis of your zombie fairy cult. Freedom of speech is all there is. Demanding "tolerance" as in "equal respect and recognition by private people" is idiotic from the outset because no one except the deeply intellectually dishonest word-wranglers can in good faith claim to do it. Christians are Christians because they consider Christianity to be superior to everything else, Muslims are Muslim for the same reason, Parsis are Parsi, etc. If you didn't think your set of beliefs ("belief" in the widest sense as in "affirmative statement") was more correct, you wouldn't hold it. A public institution can put up a church, a fire temple, a wiccan shrine and a satanist altar to cater to people's spiritual needs. A person is 100% free to NOT respect every belief equally, that's what freedom of religion means.

And the believer's personality doesn't matter. The Russian Orthodox Church are white supermacist monsters, they deserve all the bashing (note: religion in Russia among the actual populace is a personal enough matter that people brought up Orthodox Christian can quit anytime without suffering social disadvantages; I understand this may not be the case with other churches; if you're a WBC member and can't quit for reasons, I don't blame you). The United Church of Christ are awesome and an actual force for good, but them being a force for good doesn't earn their supernatural beliefs any special consideration.

I believe in The Mana Tree, Ecosyntony is the way, I fight to liberate mankind from cars and politics !

Edit : and I approve this thread

That's your interpretation of atheism.

Exactly. I respect and tolerate personal beliefs but not organized stuff, that will just lead to conformity and superiority.

I wanted to stay away from this thread, but now I must say at least something XD

True, your plea for tolerance doesn't mean anything if noone has been intolerant (or maybe just few somewhere?).
You are confusing it with personal opinions and critiques.

LOL, best answer ever! (citation or yours?)

I'm not saying I disagree with you but if I may be devil's advocate for a second (pardon the pun):
Does it or does it not take just as much faith to believe in something you can't prove exist than it does to not believe in something you can't prove doesn't exist?

Also on a lighter note, go easy with the sports analogies. XD Some people consider golf a sport. :P

How does not having proof, thus not believing a "faith"? That's like saying you don't believe in the tooth fairy is in fact believing in some sort of being that has wings and steals your teeth.


Edit:

How does calling atheism a faith even make sense to the people that use that idiotic thought process?

We have differences. Deep differences.

The question is how to relate to each other while these differences exist.

I am suggesting tolerance as a way to relate to each other. Not as a way to solve or settle the differences, but as a way to relate to each other.

Ridicule would be another way to relate to each other. Criticism and blame are also ways to relate. I think these ways of relating are harmful to the community.

I would like to see this community be a place where relationships can be formed and can grow. A general shift toward tolerance and away from ridicule, for example, would help this become such a place.

So no criticizing religion? Got it and that's what I thought.