Posted: Mar 29, 2019 8:35 am
quas wrote:Scot Dutchy wrote:You two are only talking about your backward part of the woods.
The basic premise of religion, if accepted, inevitably leads to intolerance and probably violence. This is assuming that the acceptor has the courage and intellectual integrity to follow his logical convictions. You have a belief in a god, and this god has given you a specific set of rules and instructions to live your life and how to worship him. His rules are not compatible with the rules of competing gods from other religions. Failure to comply with these rules, have severe repercussion not just in this life, but, more importantly, in the afterlife.
I guess we atheists can consider ourselves lucky that you are an atheist, too. Any ideology, taken to extremes, leads to violence, as we've seen in what launched this thread, and there are plenty of those that are not theistic, at least on their face. Religion is really a much broader category than you let on, and you might want to consider using more precise language to state your case.
You never know, though. Given human tendencies, atheists, too, may fall to fighting hand to hand for ideological purity, too.
quas wrote:
If you accept the existence of religion, you accept that there is going to be intolerance and violence towards the out-group of non-believers. If you accept that, you accept that there is going to be those who are probably going to violently oppose that.
Mark my words. Theism isn't the only evil. Ask some people, and they'll tell you capitalism is evil. If you know enough theology, you can try to prove that capitalism is foundationally theistic.