Alien Overlord wrote:You talk about gun culture and mention Waco as though Waco is somehow an example of why we shouldn't have gun ownership-If anything Waco should serve as a perfect example of why it's so important to maintain a strong policy for firearms. The whole Waco ordeal was a mess for the agencies involved in it, it was handled so poorly that it is a dark stain on the history of the ATF and FBI even today. While i digress since this isn't the main point of your post, but I do feel it is all worth mentioning.
Did you even click the link?
Alien Overlord wrote:I disagree with your assessment that religion is somehow mostly to blame for homophobia. Looking at modern cultural attitudes across the world it's apparent that homophobia is rampant not in nations where religion has been most active in the last hundred years, but in the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact nations, as well as more conservative nations such as South Korea, Indonesia, India and modern Greece. Religion was actively fought in many of these nations, yet homophobia still remains a rampant issue. Alongside that, since basically all nations and cultures have had a religious presence at one point or another, religion becomes an easy but unfair scapegoat. Correlation does not imply causation.
The stronger the correlation, the stronger the likelihood that the factors are related.
I already mentioned that religion isn't the only source of it, but it seems to be the strongest source in the context of modern democracies where a dictator cannot impose it on the people.
Alien Overlord wrote:For another very good example, you have the NSDAP in Germany during the second world war. The party was fascist and atheist in nature. It was the catholic church which actively worked to help fleeing jews escape the brutal regime, which developed a severe homophobia despite rejecting religion.
Hitler claimed at his rallies that God was with them.
You could argue he wasn't a true Christian, but it doesn't matter. True Christian cannot really be defined.
Alien Overlord wrote:I also strongly reject your opinion that religion is somehow anti-charity.
Not anti-charity, necessarily, but definitely anti-welfare, and that erosion of welfare in practice ends up eventually straining the resources of the genuinely charitable, as mentioned in the link. I have no doubt that some of the opponents of welfare genuinely see the replacement of welfare by charity as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, but if that end in itself leads in practice to poor people dying of hypothermia in the streets, at what point does the moral imperative to save lives take priority over the moral imperative to make sure they aren't saved with other people's tax dollars?
Weinberg once said for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. Religious people believing we must refrain on principle from using other people's tax dollars, even to save the lives of the poor, sounds like a prime example of that.
Alien Overlord wrote:If we're going to blame religion for something, we should probably blame the fanaticism that originates in many Islamic nations, or possibly stem cell research. However is it truly fair to blame those opposing stem cell research? Especially since that opposition is born from a strong desire to maintain the sanctity of life and to help prevent inhumane practices? When do people go from being nothing to being a person and what makes
you more qualified to answer that question than a Christian?
Well, I'd go for what we look at when we think of why taking a life is so heinous. The cutting short of a life that had already been experienced, but not fully experienced, suggests sentience is relevant. Why is doing something "inhumane" to a zygote in a lab so reviled?
Alien Overlord wrote:Just because religious thinking holds back some scientific research doesn't make religion responsible for people "suffering in deathbeds." While I'm not apt to share details about my own life, I will say that I have more reason than most to desire advancements in medical technology which might have saved lost loved ones-however to blame religion for those losses is indicative of someone seeking out a scapegoat, as though we shouldn't have religion to at least put our worst excesses into check.
Why do we need it? Why do you so mistrust the judgment of your fellow human beings, unless they were ones from centuries ago who knew nothing of human nature when they wrote what they wrote?
Alien Overlord wrote:There are also atheists which oppose stem-cell research based off of ethical concerns
Not many of them. Certainly not enough to swing the balance of a federal election.
Also, would they even oppose it, if it weren't for the mainstreaming of said opposition to it by the religious?