Left over as I leave for the night, from the last thread.

re: #125 William Lewis

Hitchens was too busy hating to notice he was as good a poisoner as any religious person. But considering it’s fundamentalism far more than religion per se that is doing the poisoning, perhaps that’s not especially surprising?

Methodists aren’t fundamentalists.

It would be fascinating to hear how Hitches was “poisoning” anything by attacking unfounded assertions of tens of thousands of gods, all without evidence, but I really do need to get to bed.

re: #124 whitebeach

I don’t know, I was raised Episcopalian, and we didn’t get that memo either. I have to say that, even though I left it long ago, the Episcopal church is about as close to a YMMV faith as I know of. No Catholic guilt, no Baptist hellfire, no evangelical end times. Also no bullshit about how the “wine” in the Bible was really grape juice. OTOH, listening to an Episcopal congregation try to sing hymns is like listening to a hundred gerbils rustling sawdust.

The issue is not whether the church holds an official position. It’s whether you’re part of the “in group” or “out group.”

Non-believers stand in direct opposition (by existing) that you need faith without evidence. As such, we must be painted as having (some) god in us to impute morality or love in us.

It is a conflation by the believer in what they believe with who they are. An attack on the position is incorrectly perceived as an attack on the person, even if there is no attack at all other than existing.

There are plenty of people here who didn’t vote for me because I am an atheist and no other reason. While I am not due any votes at all, my lack of belief without evidence was sufficient regardless of any other thing I stood for.

That was from people who know I am not a criminal or whatnot and mow my lawn and pay my taxes and bills on time.

You can see endless videos on YouTube, listen to endless pastors of all faiths attacking us as immoral (or in the case of President GHW Bush wondering why we should be allowed to be citizens).

The average believer who will simply accept an atheist in his or her midst without trying to convert is very small in my experience.