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# I found it through thunderf00t:
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 10:23, archived)
# Thunderf00t was name checked on The Big Questions with Nicky Campbell yesterday.
Dude's really hit the big time ;)
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 10:44, archived)
# awesome stuff
I mentioned him when grilling a Google exec over free speech on the internet a while back :)
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 10:46, archived)
# To be honest,
never really listened to his stuff.

I'm sure he isn't the same, but as you said up there, there are too many ill informed morons who attach themselves to these groups. I know plenty of muslims who are lovely people, I know plenty of atheists are fuckwads. I think it is a dangerous thing to start attacking "Islam" when it isn't strictly Islam that is the problem, but the way that certain fundamentals preach and practice it. Same as any religion.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 10:50, archived)
# Isn't it Islam that disallows men to shake a woman's hand in case she's on her period and therefore "dirty"?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 10:57, archived)
# Aren't there also certain Christians who believe
that the world was created 6,000 years ago?

It doesn't mean that all Christians believe that though.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:03, archived)
# Yes but I understood it to be a fundamental of Islam.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:23, archived)
# I doubt it, I have worked with plenty of practising Muslims who shake hands with women.
I imagine it is the same rule as in Judaism.

It's all down to interpretation at the end of the day.

You can argue that it is a fundamental of Christianity to believe that the world was created in 6 days by God, that Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs, that Moses parted the red sea and saw someone with thrush or something like that, burning bush etc.

However, you don't have to believe that to be a Christian as far as I am concerned.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:29, archived)
# Because picking and choosing the best bits from a religion is obviously the way to go
I'm with Doug Stanhope on this one. When someone says "I'm a Catholic but I don't believe in all the bad stuff", then they're not a Catholic. It's like saying you're a heroin addict, having never taken heroin.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:31, archived)
# All of this ^^^
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:34, archived)
# This whole picking and choosing thing is a bullshit argument
That's like saying that you're not a rational person if you've ever been in love, or danced, or put yourself in harms way for someone else.

If you can't see a grey area, you're just as extremist as the extremists on the other side of the coin.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:34, archived)
# eh?
surely the argument is that if you believe the bible (say) to be the word of god, you have to accept *everything* in the bible -- who the fuck are you to try and tell god what he should and shouldn't have told you? by extension, if you believe a part of the bible to be the word of god, what makes the rest of the bible *not* the word of god? if i believe the ten commandments to be from god, what makes me believe that the rest of the laws in exodus and deuteronomy *not* to be from god? what gives me the utter arrogance to do so?

nothing -- if i believe any of it i have to believe all of it. if i cast doubt on any part of it, by arguing it's been filtered through the imperfect understanding of man or any other such apologetics, then i have to cast doubt on *all* of it.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:40, archived)
# Do you consider yourself to be a rational person?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:43, archived)
# I consider myself a person
but I couldn't really give a fuck if anyone else thinks I'm rational or not, in all honesty.

However, anyone who professes a religion and then cherry-picks the bits that they like -- I don't consider them to be thinking rationally about that religion. That doesn't mean that they're not perfectly rational about everything else, I'm not suggesting that, just that they're not being rational about their religion.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:44, archived)
# Hahahahaha
The words "rational" and "religion" rarely co-exist
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:49, archived)
# I'm sure they have at some point in history
Some time.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:53, archived)
# What about Scientology?
That's scientific. It has science in the name and everything.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 13:09, archived)
# I didn't ask what other people think
Do you consider yourself to be a rational person?

The reason I ask is that by your logic, if you've ever done anything vaguely irrational then clearly your ability to think rationally must be in doubt. According to you, you don't get to pick and choose.

I'm sure you can see what a retarded argument this is.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:52, archived)
# Only a sith deals in absolutes
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:54, archived)
# No, I'm sure you can see it's pretty retarded
to compare my opinion about myself with what GOD is meant to be telling us. I'm not God, so who gives a wet fuck about me? Everyone's irrational at times and most people are rational most of the rest of the time. But if this book is God's word then we should take every word of it extremely seriously. My logic hangs on a belief that the Bible is God's word. Since no-one in their right mind thinks that anything I say is God's word the logic doesn't even begin to apply.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:55, archived)
# I give a fuck about you, that's why i'm asking.
It seems to me that you just don't see the bible for what it is - a 2000 year old self-help book. The only people that run into problems are the people that take the stories literally. The vast majority of christians don't take it literally. Start treating it like aesop's fables and you'll probably find some life lessons that you agree with.

(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:03, archived)
# So essentially, the Bible is harmless as long as you don't believe in God?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:06, archived)
# Yes
It's fine to be religious if you don't believe in it.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:08, archived)
# Depends on your definition of god really
I'm a quaker so my definition might not be the same as yours.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:10, archived)
# Quakers are about the only religion I have any time for
Mainly because they don't preach, they keep themselves to themselves and yet they do good and charitable things without having to tell everyone about it.

If all religionists were Quakers, I wouldn't have a problem with them.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:12, archived)
# Jesus once extolled the virtues
of the man who prays in silence, and of the man gives charity in secret; and he condemned the man who prays loudly on street corners and makes a show of how much money he gives away.

I wish the wee frees in St Andrews had heard of that. No idea what charitable work they do but they don't half shout loudly on the street corners.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:14, archived)
# See, there I completely agree with Jesus
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:16, archived)
# I don't think anybody should tell anyone else that their beliefs are wrong.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:20, archived)
# Flipside: I don't believe anyone should tell me their beliefs are right, either
If by "beliefs" we're meaning "religious beliefs". (This isn't a criticism at you, you've not done so.) But I believe I should have the right to say that I don't believe in their beliefs and feel that they're wrong, and they have the right to say that I'm wrong and they're right all they like. (I probably won't listen but hey, they most likely won't either so everyone's even.)

There is a distinction there but it may have been lost...
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:24, archived)
# Everyone has the right to say whatever they want, whevener they want.
In my mind the most important thing society can do is just accept that there are people out there who are their polar opposites and just move on. Not tolerate, accept.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:29, archived)
# Rubbish porridge though.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:38, archived)
# I'd certainly not argue with that!
Didn't mean to sound like I did. But that's not taking it as God's word in the way I meant -- I meant people who take it literally. And cherry-picking the bits to take literally is a horrible thing to do because I feel that's an inconsistent way of thinking. That doesn't say that there aren't things to take from it that can be helpful for your life -- but it probably does say you shouldn't sit there and memorise the books of Law and stick to them all.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:06, archived)
# If someone wants to tell me that homosexuals are evil because God said so in the Bible
but then can't explain why eating shellfish isn't evil when it's just as clearly written, then they're a fuckwit using an ancient text to prop up their own prejudices and bigotry. That's what picking and choosing gets you.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:58, archived)
# Or if someone says that we should all 'love thy neighbour'?
Why is it that Atheists take the bible so seriously?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:05, archived)
# Because we've read it?
For every "love thy neighbour" in there there's a whole lot of nasty shit that I wouldn't want anyone to take to heart
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:07, archived)
# 'Love thy neighbour' is obviously a good message to take
unless you live next door to Fred West. 'Murder the raped woman because she can't scream loud enough' clearly isn't. The problem comes, I think, if you take the Bible to be God's revealed truth to humanity -- if you believe that, then who are you to pick which to follow?

Clearly, a normal human being will tend to take "love thy neighbour" and reject "murder the rape victim". That's absolutely fine by me. What gets my goat is when people will then justify it not so much by pointing at the Bible but by pointing and the Bible and saying that you should love your neighbour because God tells you so.

Also, why can't I just love my neighbour anyway...? If it takes God hitting me over the head with the Bible to stop me acting like a tit then I'm probably a lost cause...
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:10, archived)
# Of course some people don't require the bible to guide them.
But some people do and that's been my point all along. If it helps someone, then no-one should have the right to tell them they're wrong provided they aren't harming anyone?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:16, archived)
# People have the "right" to tell them, they just might not be right in doing so.
Free speech and all that.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:18, archived)
# I'm not sure anyone was intentionally arguing against that
Where I feel people go wrong -- so to speak -- is by then elevating the Bible above, say, "Overcome Bad Self-Esteem" or, to use gronkpan's more pertinent example, Aesop's Fables. Even that doesn't actually matter, except the distressing tendency of *some* people who do so to go around telling everyone else how wrong they are and trying to influence not just our lives but the laws of our nations on the strength of their ancient life-guide. When it gets to the point that they'll want to murder me for suggesting that Jesus quite possibly didn't exist in the form we believe he did, or that Mohammed might have been power-mad, or that Abraham almost certainly didn't exist and Joseph was a myth based on a long-dead Jewish chamberlain in Egypt -- or, more farcically, that the world is older than 6,000 years, that's the problem.

And I believe you agree with me on that one...
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:21, archived)
# I have no problem with that.
Having grown up in a religious household, gone to a religious school, and consequentially, most of my friends being religious, I can say that not one single one of them has ever preached or told people how to live their lives according to the bible. It's a choice that people make, barring the few who are truly indoctrinated, and they are few and far between in my experience.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:26, archived)
# I've had a couple of friends who were like that
Perfectly decent people in all other respects (well, naturally; I'd not be friends with them otherwise) but trying to convert me and pushing the Bible as absolute proof -- or ducking the question of literalism -- when it arose. But far more of my friends who were religious didn't do it.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:34, archived)
# There's nothing wrong when the message is "be a good person"
but that's not the whole story, it's often "women and gays are inferior" and "nonbelievers will go to hell"
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:23, archived)
# I'm only speaking from personal experience,
but surely it is down to interpretation? That is exactly the reason why some Muslims believe that it is their duty to kill in the name of Allah, and some Muslims don't believe that. They're all reading from the same book and getting a different outcome.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:36, archived)
# they obviously haven't read Letts' GCSE Islam revision guide
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:38, archived)
# So I got this book right, that can mean anything I want it to mean.
And it's really cool, because if anyone disagrees with it I just pass the blame onto my imaginary friend.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:38, archived)
# Just like when people defend dawkins with "i think what he was trying to say is..."
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:42, archived)
# Cheesy
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:47, archived)
# I've also worked with Muslims and I found them to be crooked untrustworthy cunts
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:39, archived)
# Exactly, people are cunts.
It has fuck all to do with their religion ;)
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:43, archived)
# hahahaha
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:43, archived)
# I was quite good pals with one I worked with
Until the conversation turned to Salman Rushdie, who "deserves to die for what he said"...then he tried to impress me with the story of how he and his brother hospitalised a "poof" with pool cues

I wasn't sorry when he was fired
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:44, archived)
# No,
that's "idiots".
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:04, archived)
# I thought it was one of the teachings of Islam.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:22, archived)
# Nope.
It might be one of the teachings of morons, though.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:31, archived)
# It's something about how it would be better for a man to be struck in the head by an iron needle than touch a woman not permitted to him.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:42, archived)
# you could always fart on your hand first - then it's evens
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:05, archived)
# Bah! I do that anyway,
just for funsies!
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:13, archived)
# I believe that Judaism and Christianity do that too
Certainly you can't touch a woman for a week a month around her period because at that point she's unclean. Also every time you shoot your wad you're unclean till sundown, too. (Don't know what happens if the sun's already set. The Bible/Torah don't specify.) Also, you're fully entitled to invade an enemy's territory, kill all the men and abduct (or kill) all the girls. You can then have one of the woman as a "slave" in your tent but if you want to keep her after a year you have to marry her. Result! Eleven months of free rapeage!

Blah blah blah women not allowed to talk in Church blah blah blah widows should remarry because they won't be able to control their lusts blah blah blah stone homosexual men blah blah blah kill a woman if she was raped in town because she could have shouted for help and obviously didn't blah blah blah men should have short hair because I the great Paul the Apostle who Never Met Jesus am going bald blah blah.

Feel free to dig around in the great holy books of all three religions -- and probably most others but I know squat about them. You can find crazy shit in the lot of them that fucking psychos and retards believe.




edit: Check Leviticus 15:16-33 for the original point. That's part of the Pentateuch/Torah and in both Jewish and Christian dogma -- and is almost certainly the root of the Islamic restrictions too.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:22, archived)
# Yeah.
This is why I hate anyone stupid enough to be religious.

They're like politicians - they're all the same. All religious people are judgemental, holier-than-thou idiots. The teaching of all religion is that it is right and anyone who believes otherwise is wrong and therefore a sinner. So anyone who tells me that they follow that religion is automatically telling me that they perceive me as a sinner and that I think incorrectly.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:26, archived)
# What I find worse
is that they're immediately telling me that I'm wrong and stupid -- except that they're the ones who have swallowed something written in a book by a goatherder 3000 years ago and then will warp their interpretation of everything they encounter to force it to fit their beliefs. The sheer lack of critical thought depresses me much more than it angers me these days. I used to try and put forward what I saw as reason to people but I just gave up in the end. :(
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:28, archived)
# That reminds me
I have another meeting with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation today
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:29, archived)
# Hahahahahahahaha
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:30, archived)
# they obviously like you
remember to take a cork
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:31, archived)
# Fucking hypocrite! ;)
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:37, archived)
# Selling out is easy to do
It's not so hard to find a buyer for you
When money talks you're under its spell
Ah, but what do you have when there's nothing left to sell?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:51, archived)
# It sounds to me like you're being more than a little bit judgemental and holier-than-thou yourself.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:30, archived)
# Ah the classic "I know what you are but what am I?" argument
next it'll be "Atheism is just another religion"
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:00, archived)
# Now you're just projecting
I was minding my own business when all this came along.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:07, archived)
# Sorry
just reliving almost every online religious debate I've had
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:13, archived)
# But this comes down to the individual again.
There are probably a lot more people who practice Christianity that believe in Science than don't. It depends how you apply your religion that is the issue. I have as much of an issue with miltant atheists shouting at people who may believe the teachings of a religion for being fools, despite not knowing why they practice their religion. Some people need guidance, and like the lessons that some religions teach. There is absolutely fuck all wrong with that. If you need a book written 2,000 years ago to help you deal with life, who the fuck is anyone to tell you you can't?
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:33, archived)
# I believe in Christianty
I tell my wife to shut the fuck up in Church and that I'm her head because she's the descendant of Eve and sinned first and was born of ME, whereas I am a descendant of Adam and was born of God and am her head just as God is MY head. I'll also divorce her if she ever fucks around on me and she'll be left to starve by the street so long as everyone else is a good Christian, but I'm perfectly free to fuck whoever I want to.
(, Mon 17 May 2010, 11:43, archived)