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Email: Part I

Tags: emails part i, religion, comments | Categories: Articles, Atheist, Christianity Posted by Christina on 11/30/2009 12:14 AM | Comments (11)

Thanks for the email Caleb. I will let our visitors comment.

"I'm just curious as to why you hate religious people so much. I mean, why not just live and let live? Let people be happy with whatever they choose? The usual answer that I hear to that is that religious people don't allow you to live and let live, and will push their beliefs on you. However, that is a small but vocal minority. The vast majority are perfetly happy to live and let live. Granted, I absolutely understand hating extremists in any religion. That includes Christians who scream that you're going to hell, Muslims that blow themselves up, etc etc. But those are a tiny minority that give the rest a bad name, and yet are cited as the primary argument of the anti-religion crowd. I just don't get it. Why spend time working on a website dedicated to the hatred and intolerance of religion, when instead you could be out living your life, pursuing enjoyable and productive tasks? If you think religious people are stupid, why not just let them be stupid? I'm friends with plenty of atheists and agnostics who are perfectly happy to co-exist with tolerant religious people. They don't feel the need to tell others what to believe and what not to believe. They don't push their non-beliefs on others, and anyone who does is a hypocrite for complaining about religious people pushing their beliefs. Frankly, I find it quite alarming that there's so much hatred, mockery, and intolerance towards religious people these days, and Christians in particular. It's eerily reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s, only this time it's all religions instead of just one. Sure, people laugh if you bring up genocide, but it doesn't just happen overnight. It happens in very small and gradual steps, starting with contempt and mockery of a specific group. It's the boiling frog theory.

Anyway, like I said, just curious. By all means feel free to re-post this and make fun of it, I only ask that you don't modify it."

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Comments

I think the Germany thing in the 1930's was about race, not religious belief. This guy sounds kind of cool, too bad most religion people weren't like this. I'd be interested if the sentiments would be the same when voiced among a group of his "ingroup".

Religion should be mocked and scorned as a whole, but not particularly it's members. It's a stone age mentality that hinders the advancement of humanity. Period.

My mother had to flee Germany in 1937, and can tell you it was mainly a racial thing, but religion got mixed in. Hitler believed he had the Christian God on his side (he refers to this a number of times in Mein Kampf and his troops had 'Gott mit uns' on their belt buckles) and his aim was to achieve what he called 'racial purity' in Germany.

The e-mail from Caleb is entirely reasonable. Live and let live. What people choose to believe is their own business. Right on.

Unfortunately very many religions don't do this. They send out missionaries to 'convert' people far and wide - from my front door to the depths of the jungle.

They also tend to kill people who believe differently ... protestants kill catholics, catholics kill protestants, muslims kill christians, christians kill muslims, christians and muslims kill jews, hindus kill sikhs ... the list is endless and it's going on at this very moment.

I would guess that more people have been killed in the world in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That's one big why religion, any religion, is a curse.

I'm an atheist. If the e-mailer is a Christian, does s/he believe I'm not going to hell? - Because if that's the case then s/he is not in line with Christian teachings.

Like he/she said, religious extremists are a *vocal* minority. They somehow manage to enforce their radical ideas on society by influencing politicans. And the religious moderates do not speak out against their radical cohorts. Instead, many religious moderates I know support religious extremism by opposing same-sex marriage, opposing women's reproductive rights, encouraging creationism, and wanting to "bring Jesus back to public schools." The reason secularists/atheists speak out and criticize religious people is because religious thought is creeping into the political forum more and more each day.

Well, this site isn't really militant about religion Caleb, it's about religious people being funny, and you have to admit most of the content here is indeed funny like that.

Maybe this kind of humour just isn't your thing, think of it like black humour.

I would like to post an idea here, an idea I've been pondering for a while, I'm sure everybody knows of the question: "is there a god?"

Well here's my idea, following Voltaire's steps: "is it important whether there is a god or not?" What changes if there is?, I think nothing. Whether there is a god or not is completely inconsequential for life.

Caleb. Do you find this website hateful? It hadn't occurred to me. I've always found it pretty spot on for making light of religious matters, but never hateful.

And you ask why focus is on a vocal minority. Well, it's a bit hard to comment on a silent majority. They don't publish articles or blog posts, or get noticed in the media.

When you mention "hatred and intolerance of religion" I think you have to distinguish between people disliking the results of religious behaviour, and disliking religion itself. They're not identical.

I think most of this website's readers are all for people believing and practicing, any way they see fit, as long as it doesn't mean acting in a way that harms people. But when any strong opinion or belief manifests in oppression, violence, murder etc. it's hard not to look for a common denominator. Many people find that religion is that common denominator. Maybe so, maybe not.

We're a vocal few who find religious people entertaining when they act according to our preconceptions of religious nuts. But don't worry. We're not planning any witch hunts or ethnic cleansings. We're just poking fun at things that are incongruous to us.

I wholeheartedly invite you to poke right back, or do nothing, whichever's your preference.

It seems some facts are bring ignored. I have never even heard of any deist that would not vote to enact their beliefs into law. It has happened in every society in history. So the freedom of thought, speech and action has been consistently denied others by deists.

Yes, if they would "live and let live" that would be fine. But few deists have ever been content to do that.

I'm a christian, and my husband's jewish, and we have 2 kids together. Now, howw "tolerant" is that? If everyone was not so obsessed with being right, the world could be just like this, i think.

Zenna/Jenna. How nice that you have been sensible and caring. Unfortunately any statement that contains the phrase "if everyone" is going to be void of any logical content.