Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
I'm not sure that someone's considered belief that abortion is the murder of a kid equates to wingnuttism, or fucking idiocy. In fact, it is entirely possible for an intelligent atheist to hold that view. I understand that it's easy to characterize it that way, because then you get to make rants like you just did as if they are germane to the discussion, but if you really believe that and don't just bring it up for the rant's sake, you're going to continually get blindsided.
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Uh, I wasn't talking about abortion. I agree with you that an atheist could just as easily oppose abortion as a religious person, and neither would be idiots.
My gripe was with these idiots telling me that I can't criticize their dubious beliefs (creationism, women should be home, heaven, hell, holy war, etc...) because to do so is offensive. If I profess belief in a scientific theory, I can't cry "You're offensive" if someone rebuts my theory with contrary scientific evidence. Yet its tabboo to poke holes in religious thought because those beliefs are considered "sacred" for some reason. My suspicion is that the religious' heightened sensitivity to attacks on their unprovable beliefs is borne of lack of hard facts to back up any of their beliefs. In the absence of proof, they have developed a hardened, knee-jerk self righteous indignation. This indignation has made the people who would tear holes in organized religion gun shy. I have been schooled in religious schools during my life and seen this knee-jerk reactionism at work. When questioned on contradictions within the bible, the pacificist Jesus Freaks would describe the contradictions as "sacred mysteries" which humans can never understand. The angry fire and brimstone religious folk would scream at the questioner and harrumph that such questions were not appropriate - that you just had to "believe".
I do not think there is any compelling reason to smile when someone says something absurd just because he'll be offended or angry if I tell him he's being absurd. This refusal to take on organized religion has precluded a lot of healthy discourses which might have helped to avert the current world problems arising almost exclusively from organized religion.
