Your thoughtful and intelligent responses are appreciated and commendable.

I'll handle mine with the same respect.

In regards to your words about criminal punishment for blasphemy, I completely agree that any legal or social punishment dealt out to non-practicioners of a religion is an abomination to what I believe are the true teachings of Christ. The vast majority of Jesus Christ's rebukes (as recorded in the New Testament) were towards those of his own religion. It is my belief that any person or government who uses force to propel one's own belief system into dominance is both wrong and, if Christian or Jew, guilty of sin.

That goes for Constantine, that goes for the Crusaders, that goes for the Spanish Inquisition, and that goes for the United States government. I assure you, you will find no greater advocate of the separation of church and state than I.

Quote Originally Posted by StreetHazard View Post

If religion contained any truth, it could be ridiculed, insulted, even defiled, without being diminished in any way. Its truth would shine through, undimmed, unblemished, shaming those who abused it into silence. But that's just not how things are. The only true thing about religion is that it's false. Its claim to higher knowledge is laughable.
This argument doesn't get very far with me.

This same argument could have been used by the Catholic Church pre-Enlightment in regards to science. Just because the modern dictators of truth don't agree that some idea is true, that hardly means that its a throwaway.

I have as well personally helped out strangers I thought were in need, I personally paid for the mortgage of an individual refered to me from a friend to keep his families home out of foreclosure. I just refuse to help ingrates or those that are unwilling to help themselves, and I also did not need to read it in the bible to help guide my goodwill. I have other instances of this, but this example was the most recent.


I would expect nothing less than that. My argument was not to suggest that Christians hold sole ownership of goodwill, only that there are Christians that exist who have aligned themselves with the words of Christ and fight for the goodwill of man, rather than the advancement of a civil religion.

Furthermore, I share your concern with who you refer to as the "ingrates or those that are unwilling to help themselves". I have been involved with enough churches, food pantries, and soup kitchens to know that while a solid handshake is always available, the availablity of certain resources is limited, and must be handled with temperance and effectiveness. Believe me, I've handed out bread to a man who opened the back hatch of his Escalade with a keyfob twenty yards away; however, I do not know that man's story and stand in no place to judge his needs. While I certainly won't be offering any money for his car payments, I will not refuse him goodwill.