No, You're Wrong., >:-( Options

Anybody else here getting tired of the people who always want to say that you're wrong?

The "above average" student who tries to use science to debate whatever they can.
The religious zealot who uses arguments such as "Well, you're going to hell. That's just the harsh reality of it."
Or maybe just the goddamn skeptics who like to deny the existence of anything above them simply because they can never get enough proof.

Makes me freaking irate.

We should all do something about these people. Any suggestions? Maybe organized genocide? Mass marginalization and eradication? War? LOL. (It's funny cause those are all basically the same thing.) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rofl.gif)

But no really. Something ought to be done about people like this. Maybe we could start a movement to pass a bill making it illegal to deny another person's beliefs, so that a person has to state that it is only their opinion. I mean really it should all be categorized as hate speech anyway. If I started saying in a public building that all Mexicans were shit, I would get arrested. Yet Christians can stand around in their Churches and belittle the beliefs of others, simply because the people who founded this country were Christian. ...They were also white. And isn't it more wrong to verbally assault someone for their beliefs than for their heritage? It's "Oh, Buddha was a fatty and you're going to hell" as compared to "I dislike you because your people have social standards that most of the rest of the world would imprison a person for."

Am I making sense to you guys? I'm saying that it's one thing to assault a person's heritage, but quite another to assault their beliefs. Yes, it is all marginalization, but one has some degree of rationale behind it (unless you're a hateful inbred).

And I was soooo not serious about starting a holocaust. I'm just making a point in the best way that I can at the moment, and would ask that the moderators not freak out over it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Vagrant, I would appreciate your normal in-depth critique.

Christians believe that people are going to hell if they do not accept the validity of Jesus and ask forgiveness. So the reason to believe is so you can be saved from hell. It doesn't matter, from a Christian perspective, if you believe in hell the same way it doesn't matter if you believe a downed, live power line can kill you. However if you believe it can be dangerous then you can avoid it.

You’ve just said it’s about what Christians believe is going to happen to me (regarding hell).
It’s their belief – which is part of their belief system.


What they believe, according to their belief system, does not necessarily have anything to do with what in fact does happen with, or will happen to, me.


The power line example is a false analogy – because, regardless of anyone's beliefs about power lines, I can go examine how power lines work, do various experiments with electricity, observe what has happened to others who have messed around with power lines and been electrocuted, etc… yet I cannot do the same with regard to their beliefs about hell.

And it is indeed a conundrum because the entire situation involves their beliefs (including the accuracy, relevancy, and importance of believing) in relation to what’s supposedly going to happen regardless of beliefs!

Religious texts apply to all people.

No, they don’t.
Belief systems taught by respective religious texts only apply to those who believe them.

Regardless of how much the assertion is made that their beliefs apply to me, their belief systems don’t apply to me unless they are accurate for me and my experience.

And I alone determine such accuracy in relation to my experience – not them.

I would ask you how you can argue that it is "deceitful and despicable" for me or someone else to try to control your life. What are these principals you are so sure of? Clearly no one can prove their faith to your standard of empiricism and yet you claim that attempting to knowingly lie to you, in an effort to control you, is despicable. Why would that be despicable?

If they insist that something based upon their belief system is going to happen to me, and want me to change how I live my life according to their belief system – when I cannot verify the accuracy of their beliefs about heaven and hell with my ongoing experiences – then as far as I’m concerned they are attempting to deceive me, and are despicably trying to control my life (to dictate how I should live my life) according to their beliefs.

This post has been edited by Praxis: Dec 1 2011, 12:14 PM