respecting religious beliefs

[cygnustaxt]

Pharyngula: We are amused (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/we_are_amused.php)

haha

[killerweed420]

Respect is earned, not given.

[psychocat]

I respect anyones right to believe anything they want just as long as they respect my right to believe they are raving loonatics :D :thumbsup:

Mutual respect allround. :p

[hazetwostep]

fair enough... i leave room for my perspective to be crazy or anyone's... i just don't think we can know at this time.

[theforthdrive]

this really upset me for three hours yesterday!

YouTube - Merry War On Christmas! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzIoS9_0aA4)

He actually states that he is offended by someone saying happy holidays. LOL, he respects others rights to religion just as long as you realize they are second to the true religion Christianity. Furthermore, Im not down for violence but that priest that said the catholic churches biggest obstacle is the commercialization of xmas and not the raping of children needs his teeth knocked in! just my two cents!

[psychocat]

Christians should try to remember that Christmas was a pagan festivel that was hijacked by christianity.

Origin of Christmas | The Real Story of Christmas | How it Began (http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm)

[roninwithnoname]

The whole "War on Christmas" thing is a joke. Just a joke. It's a blatantly pagan holiday with pagan trappings (the tree is a glaring example) that was "Christanized" like a great deal of pagan culture during the first centuries of the Catholic Church, was generally widely ignored by Protestant groups until the 19th century and as a federal holiday is now, for the most part in America, a secular event.

But maybe that's what they're really complaining about, people not acknowledging the official High Holy Day of the Church of the Consumer.

[killerweed420]

I'm an avid athiest but I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I have no problem with public displays of religion, including satanists. If you want to believe in that stuff who cares. As long as you don't persecute me for being an athiest and my belief that religious people are delusional. I've got a right to say it and believe it as much as a religious person has the right in believing in what ever they want as long as it doesn't hurt other people.

[delusionsofNORMALity]

The whole "War on Christmas" thing is a joke.it's no joke. it's just the same deadly game that has been played out with the emergence of each new religious power. each time a new faith begins to gain control over the hearts and minds of the people, its proponents always seek to outlaw their most vigorous predecessors.

our new deity resides in test tubes and computers, but the fervor it engenders is religious in nature none the less. the average citizen has no better understanding of the sciences than he does of the workings of any other god and he is just as convinced in the infallibility of science as the christian is of the omnipotence of his god. he does not differentiate between theory and fact. the origins of life and the workings of the universe are still as inscrutable, but the simplified versions they are taught are taken for granted and accepted as gospel. the priests of our new religion are garbed in lab coats and business suits. the new church is supported by tithes that are wrung from the people in the form of taxes and handed to the religious hierarchy as funds for "research", donations by wealthy benefactors and through the sale of religious artifacts or special dispensations. our temples are widespread and often secretive. does any of this sound familiar?

religion seems to evolve, just as everything else. we began with the animistic concept of gods within everything, evolved to sets of gods, consolidated them into monotheism, and we are now doing away with god altogether with the church of the no god. it is still blind belief, but it is a blind belief based in the bastardized form of logic we are all indoctrinated into. it seems we are slowly growing beyond our need for a god, but not beyond our need for a church. we are denying the most benign part of religion and carrying on its more destructive component.

[psychocat]

How many times must it be pointed out that

XMAS IS NOT A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY
THEY STOLE IT !

[delusionsofNORMALity]

and how many times must it be pointed out that there is nothing new under the sun, that each religion borrows and steals what it needs from its predecessors. we love to blame christianity for its excesses, but they are really nothing more than the latest manifestation of man's own insecurities and no better or worse than all that has come before. as the predominant religious force in the western world it makes an easy target, but attempting to replace it with a secular version of the same old game is no better.

[Breukelen advocaat]

I agree that Xmas and the other mainstream religous holidays are based on Pagan tradition.

I am an Atheist, and have no problem with public displays for religous holidays, so long as it is not on government property. I actually like Xmas, especially in NYC. Most of the department stores' displays, such as Macy's, are very secular and not objectionable.

[psychocat]

and how many times must it be pointed out that there is nothing new under the sun, that each religion borrows and steals what it needs from its predecessors. we love to blame christianity for its excesses, but they are really nothing more than the latest manifestation of man's own insecurities and no better or worse than all that has come before. as the predominant religious force in the western world it makes an easy target, but attempting to replace it with a secular version of the same old game is no better.

I get the feeling that you are maybe under the mistaken impression that I don't like Christians.
I don't like or dislike anyone I don't know , I find that many religious (NOT JUST CHRISTIAN) people to be "good" people at heart and they share a common theme of wanting to live a "good" life.
I don't subscribe to any religion and I actualy believe a lot of religious people to be ever so slightly deranged in thier venomous attacks on other religious beliefs.

This however does not detract from my dislike of all organised and disorganised religions and from seeing them as nothing more than heirachy disguised as piety.