Ok, obviously touched a nerve but since this kind of discussion is rife with potential for misunderstanding and bad assumptions because we cannot discuss this face to face, I will try and keep this brief. We do not need to continue this because I do sense an underlying resentment toward people of faith and God and though I have experience in dealing with this as a one-on-one discussion with someone who feels passionate, I don’t think it will play well in this forum.

It is clear we disagree and there is very little chance I will change your mind, my position is simple, people do horrible things to one another and as time has shown, we do it for land, greed and yes in the name of God. But it is not God nor religion that are the cause, it is the base aspect of human nature to fall back to our fears, separate people into “us” and “them” and to turn any difference into a cause to hate. You sound as if you want to blame religion because it is filled with false promises and it has been preached to you from those that use it as a weapon of intolerance. I only assume this because I have felt your passion before from others that detest religion for the same reasons. Prayer is not meant to replace action, it is meant to request comfort when there is nothing else we can do, request patience when we have none, forgiveness when we cannot forgive our selves. It is meant as a solitary act to allow us to meditate on something greater than ourselves and to provide an opportunity for introspection and self motivation. People who pray in place of action have missed the point, people who ask for things other than assistance with accepting what is out of our hands, courage to face what we can affect, and insight into which of these two we are facing are asking to be let down. In each of the predominate religions there is specific scripture that decries the actions you have problems with, and yet people do them because of underlying problems or someone else told them too, not God.

To separate this, the primary reasons for crime, especially violent crime are more closely related too poverty and economic strife than to religious belief. There are exceptions, but most of those that become suicide bombers do not do it out of religious passion, but because they have been told that their families will be taken care of if they do it, or they have been convinced through hardship and manipulation that “they” are your enemy and are the cause of all that ails you. Religion then becomes an excuse, nothing more.

I am sorry to hear about the young man killed within your community but there is no evidence that religion had anything to do with it, the police are saying they have no idea what motivated this attack. Jones is still in the hospital but there is no evidence whatsoever to support your assertion that religious views were involved. Again, I have no real idea as to the basis of your bias, nor do we need to delve into that, but your hatred and intolerance of religion and those that believe is just as wrong as the passionate intolerance you believe religion is responsible for. Please respond as you feel you need to, I am more than willing to continue if you are willing to keep it civil and at least offer the possibility that you will keep an open mind. I am not a religious person, but I do keep my mind open and I have studied quite a few faiths and I have come to understand God in my own way.

Chris

I could also say that every minute spent in prayer for something is a minute not spend DOING something. A waste, if you ask me. And what is prayer anyway? How come we never ask god for the really difficult things? There’s a lot of amputee’s out there who’d love to grow their limbs back, but who prays for that? No, its usually the things that can easily be attributed to science, medicine or probability that we attribute to our imaginary friend.

I could also argue about the lives saved in the world. Using your own argument, without religion those lives would still be saved. Of course the poor in India and Africa would be educated about sex and given condoms, so the millions that die of HIV every year would live.

I don’t hold anything responsible but human nature to believe anything, and justify any action however they see fit. I do hold religion responsible, because of my first comments. The problem is not that a few “misinterpret” their holy writings. My problem is that the writings themselves are so vague and amoral that they have been used in the last 2 centuries to justify racism, slavery, murder, genocide, sexism, subjugation, bias, hate, war, incest, polygamy, rape, torture, and theft.

Screw that. I mean, my god, a kid with Aspergers syndrome was just beaten to death, murdered, last week at my campus by an other student. According to all reports they were both nice, wonderful boys etc etc. Both went to private christian schools. One Catholic, one not. I can’t help but wonder what brainwashed lesson about heaven, or god, made it easier (if even a little bit) for him to pick up the bat and bludgeon this kid to death. The kid couldn’t even lift a hand to defend himself. I realize that that is unfair, I guess god was just too busy answering someone else’s prayers.

No man has so easily picked up a sword to slay another than by order of a higher power.

I am not a fan of organized religion per se due to these same things, but I will not go so far as to say that they don’t have a place nor a positive value in the world. The small number of extremists who lower the value of human life below their standards or beliefs give a bad name to those that hope and pray for peace, love and charity.

The number of lives that are saved or at least aided in each given year by Faith based organizations around the world far exceeds the atrocities, but the bad acts make the news and usually are far worse than the other actions are good.

The problem is you hold the Religion responsible for the few that misinterpret scripture to feed their own fears and justify their actions. You cannot honestly say that Faith or even Religion is really responsible for these acts, it is the frailty and fear in men that makes these things possible, religion is just the excuse.

I do not believe “special interest groups” or whatever you’d like to call them are necessarily bad.. They serve a purpose to draw attention to issues that might otherwise be ignored and are a distinct part of our democratic system. They may not be on the up-and-up always, but there are assuredly equal numbers on both sides of any issue.

And finally for Chris -a treat: Were it not for religion I feel quite confident in saying the number of violent crimes against gays, blacks, heck ANY group would be significantly lower.

Careful what you wish for! I don’t know if you have encountered any of Matt’s “I Hate Religion” rants yet, but you may be in for a treat!

Rich

BTW if we all keep arguing ‘From the Center of Things’ this will end up seeming to be a very thoughtful and practical site. You two ideologically driven looneys need to get out there and make some rabid, absurd arguments so I can poke fun at you.

So, let’s step away from that, the idea here is that if I kill Rich, I can be arrested for manslaughter, if I tracked him down with the intent to kill him, I can be charged with murder, and if the reason I tracked him down to kill him was the color of his skin/sexual orientation (which has been questioned a time or two, I mean he was an RC Div’r)/etc. then I can be prosecuted for a hate crime.

I know everyone is in an uproar over the distinction, but this is just another wrung of the same ladder. I disagree with it, just as much as the rest of you, but let’s be fair, we can look at specific events and acknowledge that the crimes may never have been committed without this underlying malevolence and intolerance. We hear about certain crimes such as a black man being drug behind a truck as his flesh is stripped away, or a young kid, left to die in a field after being brutalized for his sexual orientation and we know they are different than a drug shooting or domestic violence. And regardless of how you feel about the ignorance of this law, you cannot tell me that the ignorance behind these deaths doesn’t make your blood boil more.

Some people pushed for this law, solely because they don’t feel they can get treated fairly by the law, and until they do they feel they need some small measure by which they can feel that the nature and cause of the deaths of their loved ones shall be corrected.

I do not believe making this kind of legal distinction is worth the time and effort that it has taken to make it pass, and I don’t believe it will result in the social engineering they are hoping for, I mean, the death penalty has not had much impact, so why should this? This is an unnecessary measure.