aaa said - "those who claim to value "tolerance" above everything are revealed to be the most intolerant" That pretty much describes Falwell does it not? aaa again - "every moron on ET seems to have felt a need to demonstrate their ignorance" And your taking your turn now as am I. --- Your attacking others for their view is just like them attacking you for your views. No difference at all. So every name you call them applies to you too. You can't preach tolerance while being intorerant yourself, well you can but it makes you look foolish.
I can't speak for others, but I don't think that tolerance should be extended to the intolerant. Surely you can figure that out. Jerry Falwell was an intolerant man who wrapped himself in the cloak of God and passed judgment on anyone unlike him. He did not just judge other people's opinions, he also judged the value of those people. I am not celebrating his death. However, I did not celebrate his life, either. Jerry Falwell personified all that is wrong with religion. There is a tendency for the deeply religious (i.e., deeply self-righteous) to let faith crowd out good judgment, quite apart from any issues relating to ethics. Where true spirituality is a personal thing, Mr. Falwell gave us the "Moral Majority," a veritable holy tyranny that sought to impose its will on everyone else. I have been described as being intolerant of religion. That is not entirely correct. I am not at all religious and I cannot really understand how mature, intelligent people can actually believe in a deity. However, that is a matter of opinion, not judgment, because I have friends who are religious and with whom I get along quite well (apart from religious debate). However, I occasionally encounter people who I would describe as deeply religious. Almost invariably, they are self-righteous, judgmental and intolerant. I don't know if there is a causal relationship, but there certainly appears to be a correlation. That is what I have difficulty tolerating.
The ET atheists are every bit as self righteous, judgmental, and intolerant as the religious folks, stop deluding yourself.
why cant you understand?? i am not very religious myself, but do believe in a diety...why is that not understandable to you ??? A person that seems to me to be a very smart kid...
not too mention some are outright insulting...just take a look back at the religious threads and you will see what i mean...
The position is regularly one of ridicule, demeaning and condescending comments from the ET atheist toward the theists, with near Hell Fire and Brimstone zeal in their presentations, lots of dogma and there is little to zero tolerance toward people and their belief systems if they are opposite the atheists at ET.
Isn't the secular Left as anti-libertine as the religious Right? At least the religious right contains themselves to just a few "moral" issues like abortion, homosexuality and the like. Quite a few people also despise the Left for the same reasons you ascribe resentment of some to the religious right. Even seemingly innocuous stuff like motorcycle helmet laws freak people out. Let alone the wealth transference system of taxes that threatens earners with prison if they refuse to tithe six months a year on behalf of Big Brother so that influential contractors can get rich and Federal employees can retire at 55 with virtually full salary and benefits. Certainly you remember how Reagan so effectively tapped into America's resentment of Big Government i.e. the mammoth created under the FDR-Nixon Democrat Congress. Picking fights with bigots like Falwell is easy. Examining the whole system and concluding it's anti individual is too daunting for feeble minds.
Well done , equating dislike of extremist cults to communism in the one post. Anyone remember billy graham? I know of entire families, large portions of communities, that gave EVERYTHING to his church. EVERYTHING. All spare moneys, all spare food, their kids wearing rags running around in the fucking snow, so billy fucking grahams god bothering SICK cult could prosper, but dont worry, YOU will be granted eternal fucking salvation for your troubles. If you dont fucking FREEZE to death first. Another apologist for a pointless, death worshipping sick cult, JMO.
The left is not trying to pass laws to outlaw marriage for heteros... The estate tax has been around for a long time, before the left was the left...and a desire to see that poor and needy people in this country get the basic necessities of life (including decent and adequate health care, are in my mind, essentially real Christian ideals.) Moral issues, based on religious belief, that is not open to debate, reason, compromise, etc. That's the problem... I don't support such dogmatism on either side of the equation, left or right.