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What rights? The right to abortion? No, there is no right to abortions. The right to free birth control. No, there is no right to free birth control just as there is no right to free double cheese burgers. Maybe here should be. Yes, I have a right to free phones and free cars now under my interpretation of the Constitution, under ..."liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and phones and cars are required for that. Somebody get the Rev on the line, he'll confirm this for you.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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What rights? The right to abortion? No, there is no right to abortions. The right to free birth control. No, there is no right to free birth control just as there is no right to free double cheese burgers. Maybe here should be. Yes, I have a right to free phones and free cars now under my interpretation of the Constitution, under ..."liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and phones and cars are required for that. Somebody get the Rev on the line, he'll confirm this for you.

Abortion. Birth control. The right of gay people to marry. The right of children to learn the truth at school rather than creationist bullshit. These are just a few of ways in which the religious right seeks to suppress the rights of others. As far as this thread is concerned, none of that really matters though. This thread is not about nasty things fundamentalist Christians do nor is it about nasty things fundamentalist Muslims do. It is about whether or not some of us should discuss the threat of conservative Christianity to America because some Muslims are nastier.

The OP obviously thinks we should not, having gone to the trouble to point out the nastiness of some Muslims and then complaining "And I keep hearing about this "War on Women" in the US?" The implication is obvious: shut up about what the Christians are doing because it is not as bad as what the Muslims are doing.

Well so the fuck what? I'm supposed to accept the trampling of people's rights here at home just because things are worse elsewhere?

No.

I'm not going to shut up about it.

Discussing the wrongs perpetrated upon people by fundie Christians does not in any way negate the wrongs of fundie Muslims - as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive. They are not. Yet the OP and others clearly want them to be. Why? Who benefits if we stop talking about the danger to our freedoms that the religious right represents? It is obvious who benefits.

Fuck them. I'm not going to play along. Why the fuck should I cooperate with my would be oppressors? We have seen what happens when Christians have authority - torture, executions, laws restricting speech and other freedoms. It was the advent of secular authority that put an end to such atrocities. Rather than serve as a lame excuse to roll over and allow the Christians to trample us, the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS should serve as a warning as to what happens when religious fundamentalists are allowed power unchecked. They should serve as a reminder that it is more important than ever to speak up.

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No she was saying that we constantly hear about your "war on women" from people who don't want to talk about something far worse.

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The killing fields and Rowanda should serve as a reminder of what happened when secularist have unchecked power, the problem is unchecked power, not that someone has the gall to disagree with you.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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What rights? The right to abortion? No, there is no right to abortions. The right to free birth control. No, there is no right to free birth control just as there is no right to free double cheese burgers. Maybe here should be. Yes, I have a right to free phones and free cars now under my interpretation of the Constitution, under ..."liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and phones and cars are required for that. Somebody get the Rev on the line, he'll confirm this for you.

Abortion. Birth control. The right of gay people to marry. The right of children to learn the truth at school rather than creationist bullshit. These are just a few of ways in which the religious right seeks to suppress the rights of others. As far as this thread is concerned, none of that really matters though. This thread is not about nasty things fundamentalist Christians do nor is it about nasty things fundamentalist Muslims do. It is about whether or not some of us should discuss the threat of conservative Christianity to America because some Muslims are nastier.

The OP obviously thinks we should not, having gone to the trouble to point out the nastiness of some Muslims and then complaining "And I keep hearing about this "War on Women" in the US?" The implication is obvious: shut up about what the Christians are doing because it is not as bad as what the Muslims are doing.

Well so the fuck what? I'm supposed to accept the trampling of people's rights here at home just because things are worse elsewhere?

No.

I'm not going to shut up about it.

Discussing the wrongs perpetrated upon people by fundie Christians does not in any way negate the wrongs of fundie Muslims - as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive. They are not. Yet the OP and others clearly want them to be. Why? Who benefits if we stop talking about the danger to our freedoms that the religious right represents? It is obvious who benefits.

Fuck them. I'm not going to play along. Why the fuck should I cooperate with my would be oppressors? We have seen what happens when Christians have authority - torture, executions, laws restricting speech and other freedoms. It was the advent of secular authority that put an end to such atrocities. Rather than serve as a lame excuse to roll over and allow the Christians to trample us, the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS should serve as a warning as to what happens when religious fundamentalists are allowed power unchecked. They should serve as a reminder that it is more important than ever to speak up.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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No she was saying that we constantly hear about your "war on women" from people who don't want to talk about something far worse.

Do you have any evidence to back this up? A study perhaps that shows that individuals who spend time talking about the "war on women" never (or rarely) discuss Muslim atrocities. Short of such a study I see no reason to believe such a statement. Just because you're seeing a lot of discussion of topic A on a particular venue at a particular time doesn't mean that the participants of the discussion have no opinions on, or have never discussed, topic B.

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The killing fields and Rowanda should serve as a reminder of what happened when secularist have unchecked power, the problem is unchecked power, not that someone has the gall to disagree with you.

I'll grant you a minor touche' but only I minor one since I agree that unchecked power is always a problem. Shit becomes serious when unchecked power becomes allied with ideology, that is, the notion that "we have a monopoly on the truth." Ideological "thinking" is easy to spot in that the ideology brooks no dispute: the ideology is NEVER wrong. If something makes the ideology appear wrong (e.g. science debunking the Biblical account of creation) then it is just that, appearances. Since the ideology CAN'T be wrong those who claim otherwise are either mistaken . . . or evil. Either way, they must be dealt with.

This ideological arrogance is why some Muslims feel justified (even righteous) in beheading "infidels" and it is why some Christians feel justified (even righteous) in denying "sinners" their rights. It is also why some communists felt justified (even righteous) in carrying out mass executions of "reactionary forces." It is why any ideology feels justified (even righteous) in dealing forcibly with [inset dehumanizing term of The Other here].

While I will grant that some secular ideologies can be just as atrocious as the monotheist religions that have dominated the world for the last two thousand years, there remains a critical difference. Secularism need not necessarily devolve into a atrocity generating ideology - some secular philosophies, such as skepticism, are based upon NOT conceding an absolute truth. Monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam, however, must be ideological in their thinking. If your god isn't real and exactly the way your holy book describes him, then what is the point of being a Christian or a Muslim? What's the point of being a true believer if you don't get to be right about everything all the time?

The reality is that the difference between atrocity generating religious ideologies like Islam, Christianity and secular ones like communism are merely the labels. Because ideologies like Islam and Christianity base their certitude upon the existence of a all powerful invisible man living in the sky, we label them religion and grant them exclusive rights (no property taxes) and even honorifics (why do I habitually capitalize "Islam" and "Christianity" but not "communism"?). In fact they are the same in that they both have a central unifying figure (God, the State), an identified enemy (heretics, capitalists), and a holy book that is never wrong (the Bible, Das Kapital).

And the fact remains that it was the secularization of the western world (that is, the decrease in religious authority) that led to the abolition of witch burning, the inquisition, etc. What we need now is the secularization of the Muslim world.

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the ideology is NEVER wrong.

The same is true with many secularists,

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you for example. You have your view, people who disagree aren't wrong, they are evil.

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Do you understand that there is a massive difference between having the right to do something and having someone else pay for you to do it.

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If not I have the right to get an A303 Springfield, please send me a check for it.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b


Of course I do, but that is irrelevant to the topic at hand. My opinion on the accessibility of birth control is not the issue. Whether or not the atrocities committed by ISIS should be sufficient reason for me (or others) to withhold my opinion on that or other topics involving the religious right is the issue. I've yet to see a sufficient reason that it should be. I've seen plenty of insults, baseless accusations, and attempts at diversion . . . but not an answer to the questions I posed in my first post on this thread:

Just because some people are more evil than others, why should we ignore the lesser evils? Especially if they are closer to home?

How does ignoring the victims of Christians in any way help the victims of Muslims?

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

No she was saying that we constantly hear about your "war on women" from people who don't want to talk about something far worse.
The killing fields and Rowanda should serve as a reminder of what happened when secularist have unchecked power, the problem is unchecked power, not that someone has the gall to disagree with you.

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If that offends some people - too fucking bad.

That covers every word you said. If you are offended by religion to bad.

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Religion does not automatically devolve into murder and repression either.

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If you were not such a anti Christian bigot you would know that.
But hey if Christians don't want to pay for your abortion that is much more important to talk about than selling girls as sex slaves,

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certainly worth derailing a discussion about it.

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You should start a thread about how evil you think Christians are ( and don't claim I am copying you I have made this suggestion before) but no that wouldn't let you distract from the true evil.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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If that offends some people - too fucking bad.

That covers every word you said. If you are offended by religion to bad.

I am not offended by religion per se (I'm more amused by how gullible people can be). I am offended by cruelty and ignorance which religions too often employ to advance themselves.

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Religion does not automatically devolve into murder and repression either.

I never said that it did. I did say that monotheistic religions, by their very nature, must be ideological. Otherwise, how can they sustain themselves in the face of reality? Don't be fooled by those who call themselves religious but in fact are not true believers but merely observe traditions and rituals out of habit. I am talking about the true believers.

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If you were not such a anti Christian bigot you would know that.
But hey if Christians don't want to pay for your abortion that is much more important to talk about than selling girls as sex slaves,

I am not an anti-Christian bigot and you can't prove otherwise. I am however, anti-cruelty, anti-sadism (the real kind, not the fun, consensual, BDSM kind), anti-bullying, anti-bigotry and anti-ignorance. The fact that someone calls them self a Christian, or a Muslim or whatever, does not get them a pass.

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certainly worth derailing a discussion about it.

I derailed nothing. This thread was never about the selling of girls as sex slaves. This thread was about OPs' dissatisfaction with hearing about "the war on women." The mentioning of the sex slaves is a straw man - a rhetorical club to beat those who stand for the rights of women and gays against those who would deny them. The whole point of mentioning the sex slaves is to say "See! We're morally superior! So you people who complain about Christians should just shut up!"

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You should start a thread about how evil you think Christians are ( and don't claim I am copying you I have made this suggestion before) but no that wouldn't let you distract from the true evil.

And you end with the exact same straw man that the OP is. Why is that?

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

FR

Who were the secularists in Rwanda?

In Rwanda in 1994, the Catholic church was the most powerful institution after the government, but some senior members sided openly with the Hutu extremist government and the church hierarchy failed to prevent the slaughter. In 100 days of killing, 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority were massacred. Some priests and nuns sided with the Hutu militias and joined in the slaughter./i]

http://www.libertyforlife.com/religion/catholic-genocide.htm

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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If that offends some people - too fucking bad.

That covers every word you said. If you are offended by religion to bad.

I am not offended by religion per se (I'm more amused by how gullible people can be). I am offended by cruelty and ignorance which religions too often employ to advance themselves.

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Religion does not automatically devolve into murder and repression either.

I never said that it did. I did say that monotheistic religions, by their very nature, must be ideological. Otherwise, how can they sustain themselves in the face of reality? Don't be fooled by those who call themselves religious but in fact are not true believers but merely observe traditions and rituals out of habit. I am talking about the true believers.

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If you were not such a anti Christian bigot you would know that.
But hey if Christians don't want to pay for your abortion that is much more important to talk about than selling girls as sex slaves,

I am not an anti-Christian bigot and you can't prove otherwise. I am however, anti-cruelty, anti-sadism (the real kind, not the fun, consensual, BDSM kind), anti-bullying, anti-bigotry and anti-ignorance. The fact that someone calls them self a Christian, or a Muslim or whatever, does not get them a pass.

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certainly worth derailing a discussion about it.

I derailed nothing. This thread was never about the selling of girls as sex slaves. This thread was about OPs' dissatisfaction with hearing about "the war on women." The mentioning of the sex slaves is a straw man - a rhetorical club to beat those who stand for the rights of women and gays against those who would deny them. The whole point of mentioning the sex slaves is to say "See! We're morally superior! So you people who complain about Christians should just shut up!"

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You should start a thread about how evil you think Christians are ( and don't claim I am copying you I have made this suggestion before) but no that wouldn't let you distract from the true evil.

And you end with the exact same straw man that the OP is. Why is that?

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Maybe a new thread is needed, along the lines of "I'm a right wing Christian and I hate fucking Muslims"

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The slaughter was neither begun nor condoned by the Catholic church.

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It was solely the product of ancient tribal rivalries, those poly-theists that Marc is so in love with.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

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Maybe a new thread is needed, along the lines of "I'm a right wing Christian and I hate fucking Muslims"

I've toyed with starting a thread called "Islam has some disturbing aspects. How can one respond?" But I suspect the discussion would swiftly deteriorate.