I think I found a simple way to qualify posts..... After reading a post, attach the following addendum onto it: "So that makes me better than you!" IF (and I say IF, because not all do...) the addendum fits in naturally with the tone and content of the post, that means that the point the poster is actually trying to get across is encapsulated in the addendum, and that part is really all you need to focus on.... If the addendum seems out of place or context with the post, then you may want to reread the post for content.... That is all.
lets say your kids were convinced that allah was the real god. would you allow them enough critical thinking skills to "know" that allah is not a real god?
This thread is funny. The irony is that the leftist drone who started this thread and most of the other leftists don't have the education or experience with the education system to understand that "critical studies" is leftist code for a marxist rewrite of history, events and mores. So we have the ignorant calling the experienced and educatated, ignorant. Mark Twain must have a pithy quote for that.
did you fail government class? the government is the people speaking through their represenatives. are you saying people have no business giving charity?
lets just say if your critical thinking skills were a little better you wouldnt be getting your ass kicked so much in the religion threads.
once a fundamentalist non thinker always a non thinker. there are some fundamentalist type personalities who are binary thinkers... They can't see nuance or be nuanced. They swing from rock bottom criminals or drug addicts to on fire from Christ... then after a few years the binary thinking kicks on again and they become some other form of fundamentalist zealout.
No offense but you sound like a total outsider The word "Allah" means "God". You mean, if my children wanted to convert from Christianity to Islam? Christian adults have the freedom/right to choose their own religion. I wouldn't encourage it but it's their decision. After all, good religious people are not very different across religious traditions. My wife has a second cousin who's Jewish and has devoted her life to taking care of an old friend who's paralyzed. We have several close friends who are Hindus and are spending all of their time raising money for orphans in Southern India. I joke with all of them that they are some of the best Christians I know. Every moment in the life of a good/smart/sane religious person is influenced by critical thinking. The point, however, is that what some people call critical thinking (cold logic-driven decision making) is not the only factor in a religious person's relationship with God... faith, trust, hope, love, intuition, etc etc also play their role, like they do in all aspects of a good/smart/sane person's life.
True charity is sharing your own resources, like money, time, etc... Not going through a democratic-like process to force other people to give up their money and time... Not to mention that in Government's efforts to rob Peter to bribe Paul, they can always depend on the help and approval of Paul. That's the whole dishonest, thieving, hypocritical goal of the Pauls in this country. They do the dirty thing and then the MSNBCs all around us fabricate the moral-sounding words to justify the act through politically-motivated spin. Government wants power and many among us just want "stuff". They all think it's a fair exchange: more stuff for my vote. That's how democracy disintegrates.