Stoning in the old times was a death sentence, usually used to people who blasphamed God, who commited adultery or any of the ten commandments and the law Moses implied during their wandering in the desert broken in 'which' at that time was a very offensive crime.

As Jesus came and began to preach, the Pharisees wanted to trap him by asking questions hoping it'll break 'their' law and put him to death (Cause at that time, Jesus' teachings where new and they considered most of his teachings as an insult, I mean, in those old times, who'd be a fool living in a very religious community saying "I am the One, I am the chosen one, you're sins are forgiven and" blah blah blah).

Now if you did read the bible in the New Testament, they brought out a prostitute and began to ask Jesus if she is to be stoned to death according to the law which Moses impose to them. Jesus didn't do anything other than said "Let one without sin cast the first stone." and began to write on the ground till one by one those who brought in the prostitute walk away, meaning all of them had sinned and throughout all those times in the past where stoning upon people were done by these 'religious' groups, they could point out the sins of others but couldn't point out their own sins and allow themselves to be stoned for it.

And about the morals you expected from the Modern life of Christianity, Jews, and Muslims. We are only people, we sinned, we fall, we make mistakes. Some say this is right, some say this is wrong. Follow what you believe and walk through it, bring in more with you to share the blessings God has promised to us all.

Okay, that's enough, I may be Christian but definitely not a fanatic.

I'm certainly no religious scholar like the others in this thread, but for myself, I don't understand how an atheist movement can be so passionate and evangelical without compromising the very principles of calm and rational free thought upon which it is founded. I would have thought there could be no equal and opposite counter to religious fervour, because it functions best through indoctrination, pressure, and the ignorant bliss of groupthink, all of which are detrimental to free thought and logical reasoning.

Personally the idea doesn't sit well with me in ethical terms either, I think a lot of 'religious' belief is really an expression of hope (that many charismatic leaders have taken advantage of and formalized into bizarre superstitions, true), but I wouldn't militantly go about proving exactly why someone's hope is logically pointless.

Objective truth is a nice standard, assuming our terms of reference and perception are the same, but we each experience things very differently, and thus surely there is some scope for interpreting our hopes in different ways. It is when superstitions become accepted as reality by a society without question that it becomes a problem - Americans who decide to become Christians should be welcomed, a Christian America on the other hand leads to the predicament it finds itself in at the moment.

Oh, and Nementh, that is bull about religions leading to morality. Incarceration leads to people not killing each other, but I'm not sure I'd say the institution is therefore a paragon of ethics.

Ethics is born of conscience, which is born of empathy. Any religion which divides groups into 'us' and 'them' ('believers' and 'nonbelievers') will encourage less morality than a society without it. ((That goes double for nationalism and patriotism, by the way, which people still think are good things. ))

Haven't read most of the rest of the thread yet, but I'm fine with this. I personally detest religious people preaching anything towards me and I'm glad none of my friends try it. (The one that did was very good about it and said she'd only try it once and then drop it if I wasn't going to hear it. So I can't fault that.)

I'm very sad that people who believe preaching about their religion is okay are against this. Xavius is right. There IS only one thing that's true, even if it's hard to determine what that is. And I think that if people act like it's okay to try and indoctrinate others with their own religious beliefs they have to accept that people want others to know what -they- think is the truth.

That said, it is kind of an annoying style I'm seeing here...but it's a good start. More power to 'em.

EDIT: Having skimmed it a bit more...sorry, but what's wrong with the morals of "gut instinct" (I don't do things that feel wrong or like they'll hurt people, if I can help it) as opposed to following someone else's gut instinct or the aforementioned "fear of bronze age deity"? You can talk all you like about holistic wisdom and "the big picture" but that doesn't excuse a lot of what various religions, ancient and modern, actually preach. I got a pretty vicious Jehovah's Witness pamphlet just the other day, in fact, though I binned it so I can't find exactly what it said now.

Just remember: Jesus saves.



Everyone else takes damage

But the Flying Spaghetti Monster has Improved Evasion and takes only half damage!

half-damage is still damage

Pardon?

Did you post anything up untill that point? No you didn't... Verithax said he agreed with you, but you hadn't said antything to agree with.

He probably meant Xavius.

Same person, really.

Fixed.

If I ever become president of the US, the first thing I'm going to do is commission a couple hundred boats, bury some mounts in the continental shelf, and attach you to France.

I myself am a natzionale socialist, an outpspoken enemy of the church. Despite the common notion, nazi's are very intolerant to religon, and are devout ahteist's....

This is unique. I wonder if this is an alt of someone else (Stagar's bad song lyrics in the sig once again) or someone completely random trying to troll. I don't think we've come across it before.

Sano, go away, nobody wants you here

That's not really "trolling", just stating your opinion when nobody gives a flying rat's arse.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopædia:

In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, most often in the form of posting inflammatory, off-topic, insulting, or otherwise inappropriate messages.


That's a troll if I've ever seen one.

ETA: He's not a real nazi, or is simply a retard. A quick glance at the Wikipedia page on Nazism tells me his swastika is pointing the wrong way.

Heh. Is his avatar that Buddhist symbol then?

Pretty much. He also mispelled 'national socialist'.

Spinoza.