Ones a pain in the arse and the other isn't.

http://www.blasphemychallenge.com/

Atheists "not trying to convert" people?

Huh? That standard seems to be unworkable because some people will consider atheistic arguments to be irritating, while others find religious arguments irritating. Simply asserting that you don't like the other side's arguments doesn't really get us anywhere.

I've never heard of atheists coming to your house all the time trying to convert you or try to get you to come to their house of atheism.

And the exact same could be said about atheists who try to promote anti-religious arguments under any circumstances. Once again we've gotten nowhere - unless people are willing to say that there's one standard of behavior believers must adhere to, and another standard for atheists. What I'm looking for is more comprehensive arguments about why atheists should be free to evangelize, but religious people should not.

being stopped in the street by people wanting to discuss Christianity, or hand you christian literature, is just a part of life in the free world - it doesn't bother me at all, but it's something that happens often when walking through any given town centre. And this in God-hating Europe, which so many of you Americans get into an irrational tizzy about.

How often have you been stopped in the street, in Europe or the US, by someone trying to discuss atheism and hand you atheist literature? Be honest now.

Finding a silly anti-religious gimmick on the internet to prove your point that there is a vast atheist conspiracy trying to draw you from the good word is foolish and demonstrates nothing much but how stressed you have become. It's not like there aren't equally foolish christian sites on the internet

Never been stopped in the street. I HAVE been accosted by an Atheist teacher in High School who tried to dissuade me from applying to a religious college. But I suppose to some atheists that does not count as "evangelizing" and is perfectly OK. "One rule for me and another for thee".

You are assigning motives to my most recent posts. When did I say that I seek to prove the existence of a "vast atheist conspiracy?" If you can find a post to that effect, step right up and show it to me. Please don't be shy.

This only proves that there are annoying people on both sides. Does not prove anything more. Religion does not have a patent on annoying people.

My beliefs are personal and I really really really wish other people would respect that.

It is the lack of respect by trying to push their agenda (religious or atheist) that annoys me.

Especially when someone claims the "right" to proselytize.

It is not a right, it is just being rude.

Oh don't you be shy! It is a theme that has perfused your many recent posts.

And this idea that it's one rule for them but not for you is nonsense! Christians have a cultural prerogative to proselytise, and they do so with alacrity!

You've never been stopped in the streets by either Christians or athiests? Maybe christians don't do that in america. I didn't know. Well it's normal behaviour in europe, i assure you - and for me it's no problem. I don't have anything against christianity.

Maybe your teacher had specific reasons why he didn't think you should go to a religious college, and it is a teacher's prerogative to advise as they believe they should, and it's yours to take it on board or not. This is not the same thing at all.

In addition, to go to a non- specifically- christian college is not to be converted to atheism (or didn't you know...?:o ) There in fact many happily christian students and professors at regular colleges and universities all over the western world. you know they even have churches on campus - with many differend denominations provided for.

It is possible that your teacher had misgivings about the effect that a narrowly religious education might have on the mind of a promising student, and believed you would do better with a more rounded education. I presume you chose to ignore the advice and went ahead anyway, and do not regret your decision. In which case good for you.

Point being - this is not the same thing IABL

Please, relax a little. The world's not out to get you!

sure they have the right! You can ignore it, can't you? It's just part of the background noise

Iambecomelife,

dammit, slowly you are killing my nerves. I want nothing from you just to leave me and people like me alone and not shoving what you call your religion into other people's and society's throats. I don't care a bit wether you believe me or not, and where in the past I made some remarks on atheism and relgion, I did not tell anybody to just believe me, and do like me, and think like me, whereas religious communities do this all the time. I have no other agenda than believers leaving me alone, and not trying to change society according to their religion. And eventually I say why I consider relgion to be stupid - but again, where I argue against religion, I do not try to evangelioze others of my "religion". I attack relgiojn whwre religion attacks society, because I do not want to live in a world and country dominated by such things like religions, especially not when they are fundamentalistic.

And while you may think that now I do with the following quote that I have used repeatedly in the past two or three years, note that it says NOT to believe, but to see and test yourself, and base your views on empirical experience. A person following that advise will not try to evangelize others, and where that person evangelizes, it does so in necessary violation of that advise. But argue with the thought of that advise, if you see any reason in trying to falsify it:

Do not put faith in traditions, even though they
have been accepted for long generations and
in many countries. Do not believe a thing because
many repeat it. Do not accept a thing on
the authority of one or another of the sages of
old, nor on the ground of statements as found
in the books. Never believe anything because
probability is in its favour. Do not believe in
that which you yourselves have imagined,
thinking that a god has inspired it. Believe
nothing merely on the authority of the teachers
or the priests. After examination, believe that
which you have tested for yourself and found
reasonable, which is in conformity with your
well being and that of others.

Buddha

Again, I do not try to turn you or anyone into a Buddhist, I am not interested at all in such a thing. To me, it is just healthy, straight, sound reason, and good advise to base my life and decision-making on. In the end, what is said here is a call for most explicit empirism. You can follow that advise, or stick with your own views, it is totally uninzeresting for me as long as you do not bother others, or society, with your beliefs.

Missionising is disgusting, and illogical. It means somebody is arrogant enough to take it upon him to speak and do and act in place of the superior omnipotent deity he claims be existent. As if such wonderful super-beings that religions' gods always seem to be would be in need of a little ant to make HIS case known! and where it wold be needed indeed, such a deity cannot be much bigger than the ant himself.

So you defend my teacher's actions. Not surprising. Suppose it had been reversed and it was an atheist student being urged to attend a Christian seminary - can you honestly say it wouldn't bother you, or would you be talking about "fundies" spreading their "pollution", as Skybird and his kind put it? Seriously - if you think that Christians should be restricted from evangelizing but atheists should be allowed to do the same thing, just come out and say it so that we can know where everyone stands.

Again - tell me where I posted that atheists are engaged in a vast conspiracy against Christians. Anyone who's been paying attention notices how I distinguish between principled atheists like Christopher Hitchens and those who are just anti-Christian.

and then a vocabulary thing, the "pollution". What I mean is the German term "Verursacher-Prinzip". The three dictionaries I checked translates that as "polluter pays principle". That simple. One could also say: you break, so you fix it. You are too loud with the radio, so you have to turn it silent. A real pollution rleigons only becomes where it is pressed into children's mind when they are not ripe enough to form opinions themselves, which I consider to be child-abuse, and where rlegions aggressively try to impose themsleves onto public life and subjugate the rules of secular societies.

This thread is an invaluable tool in teaching young believers in Christ a great deal.

Indeed, Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.They that are whole have no need for a physician.He that is unholy let him be unholy still.

This thread is the how do you say..the perfect example of Christ's teaching warning..."Warning" ...not to cast your pearls before the swine lest they simply trample them under foot.

It was said to the apostles who were sent out by Christ...when you come into a house let your peace rest upon it and if it does not it will return to you and you were to shake the dust from your feet as a curse upon that house...that it would be worse for that house than what happened to Sodom and Gommorrah.

I will never apoligize for spreading the good news that there is hope for a person beyond this life and in this life ,that the way was opened by the very Son of God and can never be closed by any human...mens souls are the harvest...and the command by my Lord Jesus Christ is.

Mark 16
[15] And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
[16] He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
[17] And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
[18] They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.


Indeed the signs spoken of here will mark a true believer...not a church or name of a church..or a religion...the power is in the very name of Jesus Christ.

Salvation comes by no other name in heaven or earth and fear not them which kill the body but after that can do no more.

but this is the condemnation that men loved darkness rather than the light and killed the light.

Peace be upon Subsim and it's members. :)

Matthew 18
[11] For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

^:dead:

Believers proud of their "religiosity" must be amongst the greatest comedians in the world. But in being self-righteous zealots who nevertheless reject the greatest present their god has ever given to them - a brain with the potential to light the world by the terms of reason - they prove to be the greatest sinners of all, locked in self-imposed darkness of mind and trapped between never-checked, never proven hear-say and and a self-centered desire to define the very nature of the còsmos themselves, make it revolve around themselves and effectively demanding their deities to be the way they have designed them all by themselves. Because this is what sin really is about: to reject the light of reality, to separate oneself from the very essence and nature of existence and life itself, and - in a theistic terminology - ro reject what God has given man in potential and capacity, in order to not needing to face responsibility for himself which would come with that present, and live in an infantile dreamworld instead, filled with miracles and wonder and friendly fairy-tales were the good man is rewarded and the bad man drives to hell, and where the good old father cares for your life and you must not decide and be responsible, for the good old man is telling you what to do and where to go and when to sleep and when to eat and when to piss and when to kill and when to die.

Self-induced mental spastic paralysis.

And I and many others are demanded and expected to need to accept being offensively approached by such comedians who reserve the right, despite their own serious handicaps, to lecture about abracadabra, and their victims are needed to politely listen - or even take the effort to chase them away while such missionaries are sticking their nose into other people's business unwanted, uninvited, undemanded? Sometimes I think law should allow to shoot every missionary right in place, like in some nations intrusion of private property also allows to use a weapon to stop the intruder. Because an intrusion such arrogant behavior is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atTSwau9fwM

Keep thy religion to thyself. Speak to your deity in the stillness of your room. Listen to your deity resting all alone in the centre of your heart. Don't try to make your private business the world's business. World doesn't mind, doesn't care and does not wish to bother.

when you get invited to a party, feel free to go there. when you are not invited, better don't ask to get invited - it is considered to be unpolite behavior - even if the other is avoiding confrontation or is polite enough not to reject you.