Organized religion used to burn you at the stake for having even a slightly different view of the trinity. There is no major religion that believes in "many paths to the same ideal". All major religions have killed people who had the wrong beliefs when the religion gained power for one reason or another.
Now I'm sure there's some professor of Religion at a college somewhere who believes in "multiple paths to a single ideal". But it's not anywhere near a majority of religious people.
That's what the "Asian look" is all about. It's a group of genes that gives a sexually attractive look and is mostly dominate, so it spreads very quickly. It seems to have spread across Asia in only the last 3 to 8 thousand years.
Well, you have to admit, saying "I don't like people pledging allegiance to my Lord God the Eternal Creator of the Universe" doesn't make a lot of sense.
If he's God then why wouldn't I want to pledge allegiance?
Come on. I'm an atheist. I really don't like the idea that every American is swearing allegiance to a mythical being. Especially as for practical reasons this means they're swearing to obey the orders of their ministers or preachers, and not our elected officials.
All of the Republican presidential candidates have come out opposed to teaching evolution in schools, have said they support Israel because it's a religious duty, and have even come out against the germ theory of disease.
You're the one who takes a few moderate Christians, and tries to convince people they represent all Christians. If that was true, why isn't one of them running for the Republican Presidential nomination?
That's a very good example. Manson didn't kill anybody. He didn't brainwash the Manson girls by playing them Beatles songs. The Manson girls killed those people, and they liked it. You don't hold a pregnant women's arms while your girlfriend tries to stab the fetus unless you're really, really into it.
Yet everyone is like "Look at those perky nips! Those pretty white girls must be innocent!".
Give me an example of someone who had an arm cut off and grew it back after a pilgramage and you might convince me. Using a medical condition that even the doctors didn't understand going into remission isn't very convincing.
It's impossible for a religious person not to base his political policies on religion. If you believed in the imminent return of Christ, as Reagan and Bush did/do, how could any decision you make not be based on that belief?
Look up the statement that Watts, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, made that implied there was no reason to worry about the environment because Christ will soon return. Now he later clarified that by quoting biblical verses saying we should protect God's creation.
The important thing to note here is that at no time did he consider that damaging the environment would cause mass health problems and food shortages. He couldn't, that's not the way a religious person reasons.
Now you talk about the intolerance of atheists, imagine how an atheist feels talking to a religious person who, by definition, believes he is in communication with God. A religious person believes that his beliefs are the beliefs of the supreme being.
How do you argue with that? How do you change the mind of a person who believes his beliefs must be true because God said they were true?
The economy isn't shrinking, it's just not expanding as much as they like. And companies are making profits without hiring more employees, which isn't supposed to happen.
She was living in Italy with an English girl for a roommate. She tried to get a foursome going with her boyfriend, a male friend of theirs, and her roommate, Her roommate didn't like the idea and started resisting. The friend finally ended up strangling her while Amanda and her boyfriend waited in the kitchen.
