Originally Posted by Skybird

Religion should be a private issue - says me, but also: jesus. Not a public one. At home you can believe you are the highly developed form of a bicycle - I do not care and will not comment. but if you sit in the movies beside me and start to oil your skin with machinery oil, you will get something to hear from me. Your freedom ends, where you affect the freedom of others. Your responsibility begins where you affect the stcurtures of the community, and it's goings. Religion is no excuse to violate that principle. and if you would be serious about following the teachings of Jesus the socalled Christ when calling yourself a Christian, then you would not try to behave like that all by yourself. I am a fan of much of the wise things he had said, he really was a reasonably guy. That's why I am so bitterly against what you are telling me, or Escriva ( if that is his real name, since he for mysterious reasons changed his names so very often). "Non religious people", you said. I consider myself to be very religious or spritual, or however you wish to call it. but I do not believe that any gods exist, although I thunk that creation is not by random chance. I do not need any deity to be at peace with the cosmos and accept it like it is. I even go a step beyond that and say that theistic belives prevent true mystic exprience , atheism is a precondition for true and direct religious experience.

In the end, when studying other cultures and history even you have to learn and admit that there are relgions that are not theistic at all. Atheism in no way is the same like anti-religiosity.

And concerning the reasons and causes and the afterlife: what is so difficult in eventually saying "I do not know for sure"? Doesn't hurt your honour to do so.

"Keep thy religion to thyself."


Edit: Ninethousand! All drinks on me!

Originally Posted by Ducimus

The core of the issue, is really simple.

Respect the beleifs of others.

Unfortunately, nobody really does, and both sides of this issue have the "im being persecuted" menatilty, in a bid to have the moral high ground over the other.

The result, is a never ending sea saw battle of Christian groups trying to assert themselves with the unfortunate result of "forcing down the gullet", and groups that oppose them simply because they are "forcing down the gullet", or feel that they are.

It's my belief that "Freedom of religion" means that every person in this nation is free to worship god in their own way. Similarly they are free to not worship god, or worship another diety altgether if they so choose. Beleifs such as these a very personal, and i think private matter that should be kept between the indvidual and their creator; and should not be put on a spotlight, in any form or context.

Unfortunatly, these private beliefs are the core makup of what makes up a person, and if you attack that belief in any form, people will react because its an attack on their core being. This is why i say, "the best way to make an enemy, is to try and change them". When someone says, "I beleive in this (insert beleif here)" what we all should strive to say is, "Thats fine", instead of interjecting their beliefs with our own.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Religion should be a private issue - says me, but also: jesus. Not a public one. At home you can believe you are the highly developed form of a bicycle - I do not care and will not comment. but if you sit in the movies beside me and start to oil your skin with machinery oil, you will get something to hear from me.