That's probably because he's the guy who we spend endless nights at a bar mocking in drunken debauchery; and rightly so.

Muslims believe that Christ was also a prophet, but that Muhammad (PBUH) was the last prophet sent by Allah.

So Christians hide just like those damn, dirty jews? ;)

Seriously though? if you need to defend your beliefs, theres something wrong with them. Believe in something, stop trying to sell it with this guardhouse lawyer nonsense.

Yes, I know, but they still recognize Christ as a really important dude. So do Christians.

You know how I feel about the whole mess. I was just trying to make a point, albeit vague.

That point being that among Christians, there's sometimes such a vast, vast difference in what they believe between congregations.

I wonder why they all call themselves "Christians," and not by their congregational organization. Like Morons and Jehovah's Witnesses. "Christian" is too broad if you ask me.

I imagine it's because they don't want false statements about their religion being spread around. I can imagine if I belonged to some group I'd want everyone to at least understand what my viewpoint is before they go off and criticize me for it.

False statements in religion?!

So the people who defend their belief in the theory of evolution, are wrong? Huh?

But perhaps we don't "believe" scientific facts, I mean, they're facts. No belief required. So how about moral beliefs, like equal rights for women, minorities, etc. Are people who defend those types of beliefs wrong?

Or maybe people just feel like speaking up when certain people get the wrong idea.

There's really nothing to "believe" in, though. It requires no faith. It requires reliance on scientific evidence. There's no emotion in it whatsoever.

Belief implies a desire to put faith into something.

Are you saying women AREN'T on par with men?
That minorities in our nation are LESS than whites?

I am sure you're not saying that, but there's a difference in believing that women and minorities are unequal to white men and putting faith into a deity. I hope you recognize this.

Morals are bullshit. Everyone has a different set of them and they're not quantifiable. What you think is fucked up, I think is funny. I think throwing pennies at jews and telling them to build me pyramids is a great joke - but not nearly as funny as the idea of passing twenty silver pieces out to a congregation.

And it always seems to be the wrong people who speak up, isnt it? Or how else would everyone here have the stereotype of the ignorant pseudo-facist Christian follower. Certainly not by large majorities of intelligent, well-spoken, happy-go-lucky people we see day after day...

That's a Freudian slip and a half.

I will defend science. I will defend morals. And I will defend my faith. What I'm trying to say is, contrary to what has been stated by another, that just because someone has to defend a belief doesn't automatically discredit that belief.

If you want to qualify LeHah's comment and change it to "...if you need to defend your RELIGIOUS beliefs, there's something wrong with them...", that would lead to another back-and-forth. But that would be an argument against ALL religions, albeit not a particularly good one.

And yes, I must admit that there is a difference between morals and faith. In the example I used the difference is clear. But for many issues (for me at least) the dividing line becomes gray. Charity, civil obedience, abortion, socialism, etc.: It's really difficult for me to separate myself from my faith when dealing with these types of moral issues. At times they seem to be the same thing.

Um, I can't really take anything you say seriously in this thread anymore. I don't think you are going to get a lot of "intelligent, well-spoken, happy-go-lucky people " to jump on the "morals suck" and "stereotypes are good" bandwagon.

The first person to say that stereotypes aren't based on anything is the first person to get laughed at. People just don't like owning up to anything, especially on the internet.

That said - the fact that you equate intelligent people with moral people shows just how fucking insipid and small-minded you actually are. I may be a sinner going to Hell the way he wants to - but I am not the one who's giving the big Jesus handjob of moral superiority over people who make a personal decision to do wrong.

I mean, at the very least, any time I get head, I do it to spite your God.

And you also bite off of Deadwood, which is pretty fucking sweet.

The world needs more Wild Bill.

The funny thing is that I've gotten use to that as an AIM away message for so long, I forgot it was from Deadwood...

"Can't you let me go to hell the way I want?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."

Great line.

A buddy of mine once told me he almost wished Otakukin were real, because then maybe, JUST MAYBE, he had a shot of being reborn as Wild Bill in Deadwood.

Why not just say "Christianity"? If you're going to bash Christians (and you might as well lump Jews and Muslims in there as well since a majority of them favor Creationism), at least get the wording correct.:rolleyes:

Because he's not saying all christians believe in christian science, dipshit. He's saying it's a fundamentalist wing of a religion. That's sort of like saying why specify Al Qaeda? Why not just say "muslims"? Oh, I don't know, because it would be wrong?

Creationism is NOT Creation Science. Creationism is a religious belief, Creation Science is a deliberate attempt to mislead and misrepresent what it is.

Shut up.

Two thousand years from now, I bet most people will think all our modern theories are moronic and that we're all dipshits for thinking otherwise.

Adding... what to the conversation at hand? Yeah, 2000 years from now science will be eclipsed by more elaborate science. That's how it works. Would you care to explain how white isn't black next?

this isn't universal. A lot of christian curches / christian individuals feel that prolethysizing isn't necessary and in fact a dickish thing to do.

Some churches say you'll go to hell if you don't. A lot of people in those churches dont' really even like doing it, but who wants to go to hell?

And then there are people who think you just haven't thought hard enough about it. I mean, I understand that, I think the same way about a lot of people to. Generally I'm right.

HOLY SHIT I'M GONNA SAY SOMETHING HERE:

I'm a Christian. One of those "liberal" ones, which means that I've started down the path that certain sects of Judaism have been on A LONG TIME: the one where you take the Bible and make sense of it intellectually. (It is possible!)

I blame my (very strong in his Christian faith) Bible prof from my freshman year at a conservative Christian college. He basically said that the 'six day' thing is because the Jewish people for whom the Bible was originally written had no concept of hundreds of thousands of years, let ALONE the millions of years that the universe has been around. Oh, and the fact that creation is told twice (in different ways and orders, even) kinda makes it hard for everything in the bible to be ENTIRELY FACTUAL and NOT METAPHORICAL at all.

Plus I believe that science merely shows how God works (or set stuff in motion). This comes about through the FACT that microevolution is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt and macroevolution is mostly microevolution over millions of years. So why couldn't God have built evolution into the Universe? It makes enough sense to satisfy me.

OK I'm done for now.

You miss the point. So what if some people still believe in creationism. There's no reason to be baited or overreact to whatever some sect of Christians still persist in believing after two thousand years. Save your outrage for something more worthwhile.

I find this all hilarious as hell. See you there!

Except, Watts, that this moved away from philosophical debate and into the realm of actual issue when they started teaching Creation Science in certain classrooms in the US. Or that at any point, dozens of school systems across the United States are being lobbied to include Creation Science as curriculum, taking away from actual education.

You're talking creationism. We're talking Creation Science. Very different things, skipper. We don't care about creationism, we care about the small sect of Creationists trying to push it as SCIENCE into our CLASSROOMS. And if education isn't worth getting worked up about, that's your problem and you can find somewhere else to not follow the line of conversation.

Name a school district where this is currently being taught. The one school district where the board of education succeeded in introducing this to the curriculum every member got the boot. There is no standing court ruling where this is upheld as legal or constitutional.

There is no rampaging horde of creationists that can make it stick. (bold for emphasis)

I guess everybody needs their political demons. So we can all unite against the Jews/Blacks/Creationists/Abortionists/Women/etc or whatever agenda you're subscribing to. Hey, tolerance is only for the jews and the niggers.