Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 10:31 AM "Because, if religious people believe that there is a God, and they believe that knowing God is a good thing for everyone, they would have a duty to tell Adam and all the rest of the atheists about God." A duty? I wouldn't agree with that. I believe that it's a good thing for everyone to reject religion and the idea of a God in favor of a rational belief system instead. It does not follow that I have any sort of duty to change anyone's views on anything. Now, many of these religions do believe they have a duty, being a servant of their God and such, but unless that is explicitly laid out, I can't see how one's belief in their religion being good for anything directly implies a DUTY to spread it. "But, on a side note, I do believe that God punishes people right now for doing bad things. Philisophically, it's called Natural Law theory, essentially people that jack off too much will not be able to work it in the sack with real women." This analogy is probably more incorrect than any of Adam's recent rants. I also have a particular distain for the aspect of Natural Law Theory that essentially says we have rights because God grants us them. You don't need that element to have an objective theory of rights. In fact, it's all contingent on there being a God who in fact granted such rights, which is anything but certain. Also, endorsing that concept hinders the ability to spread logical, rational thought as a defense of individual rights. "Sprituality is promoted by religion so we can't totally dis religion..." Yes we can. I could argue the ideology of religions corrupts spirituality. The fact religion promotes it doesn't mean it doesn't corrupt it as well. (Look at either of the two major parties and their alleged defense of individual rights for an example.) "Young people hate religion because it is restrictive for them. It tells them a lot of things that feel good are bad. Hence why young people tend to be liberals. Interesting enough, when they grow older and have kids, teaching their kids spirituality and moral values become a priority because, hey , who doesn't want their kids to grow up decent? I see a lot of non-believers sending their kids to Christian schools. So older people tend to lean conservative." A lot of colloquial examples plus many sweeping generalizations doesn't add up to much. Being an atheist, I'd never send my child to a Christian school, especially not for moral indoctrination. I will never buy into the idea of teaching values in some authortarian way. The reality is while the West feels the need to derive its morality Judeo-Christian ethic, other places in the world do not and arguably are more moral than Christians are. "you gotta love how he shut drew up when drew mentioned something along the line of how religion brought people peace (not exactly peace, but something along that word)" You've gotta hate the fact that religion tends to bring more conflict, more war, and more death than peace. Too bad Adam didn't have the presence of mind to mention that. —clodhopper | 
