My Mom Won't Vote for Ron Paul because...

Lol oddly I'm reminded of a bible verse and I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of shit for quoting the bible on WF, but the book holds a good piece of advice on the subject.

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

In other words if you don't enjoy it when others hold your atheism against you don't hold their Christianity against them. Fair enough I suppose considering Ron Paul works hard to protect the people's rights to be atheists despite his personal beliefs.
 


Atheism makes no sense at all. A bunch of something that came out of nowhere exploded a long time ago for no reason and culminated in a bunch of galaxies filled with stars, at least one of which has a planet revolving around it with an extremely efficient ecosystem and reasoning animals?

Pull the other one. There's no arguing first cause.
 
Lol oddly I'm reminded of a bible verse and I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of shit for quoting the bible on WF, but the book holds a good piece of advice on the subject.

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

In other words if you don't enjoy it when others hold your atheism against you don't hold their Christianity against them. Fair enough I suppose considering Ron Paul works hard to protect the people's rights to be atheists despite his personal beliefs.

Let me ask you one simple question that should put everything in perspective.

Why should anyone HAVE to protect the people's rights to be atheist?

Think about that for a while and you'll see why religion is and has always been such a pariah.
 
Let me ask you one simple question that should put everything in perspective.

Why should anyone HAVE to protect the people's rights to be atheist?

Think about that for a while and you'll see why religion is and has always been such a pariah.

Well originally people came to this country to escape catholic persecution. Suppressing other peoples' beliefs is built into everyone and it's a constant struggle to keep people off each other. Have you ever been tempted to try to convert a bible thumper into an atheist? That's probably about the same feelings they were having about you. It's human nature to always want to be validated.
 
Well originally people came to this country to escape catholic persecution. Suppressing other peoples' beliefs is built into everyone and it's a constant struggle to keep people off each other. Have you ever been tempted to try to convert a bible thumper into an atheist? That's probably about the same feelings they were having about you. It's human nature to always want to be validated.

I absolutely don't care about other peoples beliefs if they don't effect me. Believe in what you want to.

Although I do not respect the intelligence of people who believe in the teachings of organised religion in the same way as I don't respect the intelligence of people who believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden, but I absolutely believe in their right to believe what they want.
 
Aw shit, religion thread.

Am I seriously supposed to believe that atheism and Christianity are two equal but opposing views? Isn't one entirely based in blind faith/mental retardation whereas the other is based in logic and reason? I don't believe a god exists because it's never been proven that one does. Christians believe God exists because the preacher on TV says so and there's this old book and lots of people believe it so it must be true. Or because they "feel it in their soul" and the eyeball is obviously the work of intelligent design and not evolution; evolution is just a hokey theory!

PRAISE JESUS!!!

Anyway.

I think an atheist trying to convert a Christian to atheism is quite different from a Christian trying to convert an atheist to Christianity. I think it's comparable to a parent trying to convince their teenager Santa doesn't exist (and vice versa).

"Sorry to break it to you son, but Santa doesn't actually exist. WAKE THE FUCK UP"
 
Science is supposed to 100% agnostic. From my understanding you are supposed to always be open to your truths being invalidated by further experimental evidence.

Religion is the absolute belief in some absolute truth that disregards all contrary evidence.

I think some atheists turn science into a religion.
 
As far as I am concerned a Christian is a creationist, otherwise they are Christians who don't believe in the bible, which makes no sense.

I agree with you though, as I said he is the best of the other shower of shits and if I was there I would most probably vote for him too.

But my point is that IF he wasn't a Christian and a maybe bit younger he would be the ideal person to really make a difference in the world (not just the US).

The fact that he is a Christian makes him seriously flawed in my mind, so wouldn't be ideal as there is no way his beliefs would not get in the way of some of his political decisions as they are what he believes in and he needs to stick by his beliefs to be a strong leader.

As an atheist I believe that Christians and people of other religions have a fundamental flaw in their thought process and if history shows us anything that is that that one flaw can cause a HUGE amount of pain and misery.

Ok, I'm going to regret wading into this one, but...

You're confusing Christians with Christian Fundamentalists.

Fundamentalism is the belief that everything that the Bible/Qur'an/Richard Dawkins says is literally, unarguably true.

Christians are people who believe in God as he's described in the bible, and believe that Jesus was the son of God who died and was resurrected for our sins (or something like that).

There's an important difference. Not all Christians are black-and-white about their faith. Maybe my experience is different, because I don't live in the US, and thankfully, the people I know who are Christian aren't a pain in the ass about it like most born-agains seem to be.

For what it's worth, a lot of atheists believed in things that turned out to be fairy tales, like the fact the 2008 boom could go on forever, and that the economy was somehow different. And their is plenty of non-religious pain and suffering that's been caused. Unless I'm wrong, Stalin wasn't know for his piety.

Religion isn't the cause of humans being shitty to each other, it's just an excuse. We're very good at dividing the world into "Us" and "Them", and then treating "Them" like crap because they're "inferior".

(I should state for the record that I'm neither a Christian nor an athiest, so I have no dog in the particular fight)
 
Aw shit, religion thread.

Am I seriously supposed to believe that atheism and Christianity are two equal but opposing views? Isn't one entirely based in blind faith/mental retardation whereas the other is based in logic and reason? I don't believe a god exists because it's never been proven that one does. Christians believe God exists because the preacher on TV says so and there's this old book and lots of people believe it so it must be true. Or because they "feel it in their soul" and the eyeball is obviously the work of intelligent design and not evolution; evolution is just a hokey theory!

PRAISE JESUS!!!

Anyway.

I think an atheist trying to convert a Christian to atheism is quite different from a Christian trying to convert an atheist to Christianity. I think it's comparable to a parent trying to convince their teenager Santa doesn't exist (and vice versa).

"Sorry to break it to you son, but Santa doesn't actually exist. WAKE THE FUCK UP"

And Christians see atheists as fad chasers whose beliefs change every 10 years. Always right now, always wrong tomorrow. Think about how much science has learned and changed in the last 25 years and think about what you'll believe 25 years from now. Even you'll be laughing at how naive your beliefs on the universe and it's formation are now.
I'm confident in saying that most Christians actually know very little about the bible just like most atheists I've met know very little about science and cosmology.

Resorting to childish name calling from either side shows a strong ignorance and doesnt present your case well when you have to hide from logic to make a point. To say its okay for you to resort to it but the other side isn't allowed is pretty hypocritical.

Like AmatureSurgeon said though. You're confusing Christian Fundamentalists with Christians. No, most Christians don't believe in stupid shit like the world being only 6k years old and fossils being planted by the devil. All that fun stuff :)
 
Ok, I'm going to regret wading into this one, but...

You're confusing Christians with Christian Fundamentalists.

Fundamentalism is the belief that everything that the Bible/Qur'an/Richard Dawkins says is literally, unarguably true.

Christians are people who believe in God as he's described in the bible, and believe that Jesus was the son of God who died and was resurrected for our sins (or something like that).

There's an important difference. Not all Christians are black-and-white about their faith. Maybe my experience is different, because I don't live in the US, and thankfully, the people I know who are Christian aren't a pain in the ass about it like most born-agains seem to be.

For what it's worth, a lot of atheists believed in things that turned out to be fairy tales, like the fact the 2008 boom could go on forever, and that the economy was somehow different. And their is plenty of non-religious pain and suffering that's been caused. Unless I'm wrong, Stalin wasn't know for his piety.

Religion isn't the cause of humans being shitty to each other, it's just an excuse. We're very good at dividing the world into "Us" and "Them", and then treating "Them" like crap because they're "inferior".

(I should state for the record that I'm neither a Christian nor an athiest, so I have no dog in the particular fight)

I don't think I am confusing the two. Either you believe the teachings of your religion or you don't.

If you believe that the bible is really true then why would you stray from even one word of it? How do you choose what bits of the bible are truth or just made up? Doesn't that make a mockery of organised religion if everyone can just pick and choose what is the absolute truth or not?

I tell you one thing, if I ABSOLUTELY believed that there was someone up there who was judging what I do every day and he has given me a book of rules that will guarantee my ETERNAL salvation then you'd be damn sure I would obey EVERY SINGLE RULE no matter what. Who are you to decide what rules are relevant or not?
 
I don't think I am confusing the two. Either you believe the teachings of your religion or you don't.

If you believe that the bible is really true then why would you stray from even one word of it? How do you choose what bits of the bible are truth or just made up? Doesn't that make a mockery of organised religion if everyone can just pick and choose what is the absolute truth or not?

I tell you one thing, if I ABSOLUTELY believed that there was someone up there who was judging what I do every day and he has given me a book of rules that will guarantee my ETERNAL salvation then you'd be damn sure I would obey EVERY SINGLE RULE no matter what. Who are you to decide what rules are relevant or not?
You are SO going to hell for pointing that out!
 
@nickster
^the context of any book is very important brutha. If you ever became religious I would really hope you wouldn't go trolling through Leviticus and Exodus blindly applying every pre-Babylonian moral and social description to your own life. :)
 
It's so weird how believers try to fabricate logical arguments to support their belief. Weak sauce.
 
Given that this is her only criticism to RPs campaign (and a deciding factor), what can I tell her?

How about that the secretary of defense said last week on Face the Nation that they weren't trying to build a nuclear weapon? He said that the uranium enrichment was for energy...

Also show her the video of the former CIA head of the Bin Laden unit saying that if we attack them that sleeper cells within this country are going to attack us.
 
And Christians see atheists as fad chasers whose beliefs change every 10 years. Always right now, always wrong tomorrow. Think about how much science has learned and changed in the last 25 years and think about what you'll believe 25 years from now. Even you'll be laughing at how naive your beliefs on the universe and it's formation are now.
I'm confident in saying that most Christians actually know very little about the bible just like most atheists I've met know very little about science and cosmology.

Resorting to childish name calling from either side shows a strong ignorance and doesnt present your case well when you have to hide from logic to make a point. To say its okay for you to resort to it but the other side isn't allowed is pretty hypocritical.

Like AmatureSurgeon said though. You're confusing Christian Fundamentalists with Christians. No, most Christians don't believe in stupid shit like the world being only 6k years old and fossils being planted by the devil. All that fun stuff :)

The thing about science and atheism is that we know that everything science teaches is not the absolute truth and is subject to change (with rigorous proof) and we have no problem with that. We are aware that we don't KNOW the absolute truth about anything. But we use intelligence to work out what we believe is the most likely scenario by thinking about it rationally and use the available evidence to make a reasonable conclusion. This is always subject to change as new evidence is made available. This is because we have open minds.

It is the religions that are so arrogant to believe that they KNOW the absolute truth, no matter if they have no evidence and no matter how much evidence it put forward to the contrary.

When did I name call? There is nothing wrong with me thinking that people who I believe are delusional are not intelligent. What would you think if someone came up to you in the street and told you that they were the child of a purple Gorilla? Would you respect their view and thing that they were intelligent people? I can respect your right to believe what you want, but that doesn't mean I have to respect your intelligence for believing it.
 
THREAD RETARGETING:

I agree with Napoleon's initial prognosis... OP should definitely go with the "Is it OK for your son to be drafted and killed behind the lines invading Iran then?" route.

Just make sure you build up to it showing the real history of why we're going to invade Iran on this present course. Then show her why a draft would be needed. ('Cause it's friggin' huge and modern, durr, but show the numbers.)
 
Show her this:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4a__tcfFug]You Like Ron Paul, Except on Foreign Policy - YouTube[/ame]