OMWOW!

[Miyabi]

So a friend was online and found this and I'm too dumbfounded to even have a response.

[dawncawley]

I agree Miyabi, I share the "too dumbfounded to have a response" feeling.

[GreenMonsta]

Its not too surprising. I mean its a little surprising to see that the paper actually printed that letter but not that someone feels that way. I'm not really to taken aback to respond I just don't think someone like that is worth it.

[MrPaperCamel]

Just more evidence about what I why I was frustrated in the 'Are you Serious?' thread.

[CthulhuKefka]

Uhhh....my head hurts just reading that. Almost as much as reading this.

[The Jade Knight]

The first one fails to understand that atheism is a religious movement.

The second one is a simple straw-man argument, and a weak one at that.

[Chaos]

The first one needs to get its facts straight. Atheists believe in the lack of a supreme entity, so that makes it a belief system. If Alice Shannon really wanted to pick on a non-believer, she should have picked on agnostics (hey, that's me!). What "agnostic" means can vary, but quite simply, it means that supernatural powers or a God cannot be proven or disproven. Agnostics are different than atheists, because atheists believe; agnostics do not subscribe to any particular belief (that, at least, is my form of agnosticism).

This is reason enough for me to disregard Ms. Shannon's letter--she doesn't have her facts straight. Also, she seems to believe that religion is only limited to Christian denominations by only mentioning "Baptist, Catholics, and Methodists". It's not like, hey, there are these other big religions like Judaism, Hindi, Buddhism, and Islam. That would just be silly to mention those.

I'm not even going to touch the prayer in school comment except to say that there are these wonderful things called private schools. Please, I'd love some scientific evidence to say that prayer being in those schools makes them more valuable to society. Convince me, please.

The second one seems it inconceivable that things over millions of years can't change drastically. No one can comprehend the true vastness that a million years entails.

Also, the letter definitely displays his ignorance on the subject of evolution. I aided teaching Life Science to 7th graders when I was in High School, and for the last time, things do not decide to become other things! Whales cannot just choose to develop wings (I actually spent twenty minutes discussing that one), and monkeys did not just suddenly choose to be humans. All evolution means is "common ancestry". Sheesh.

I'm rather peeved at this person, so I'm going to say something extra mean: it's unfortunate God didn't give him some logic.

Sigh.

I don't mind people with religious viewpoints--in fact, I've had many discussions about such things and they were always civil, rational endeavors. Ignorance, on the other hand, is inexcusable.

Maybe I should write a letter explaining how ignorance and hatred is destroying America, just because it would be humorous to see people enraged.

[The Jade Knight]

What "agnostic" means can vary, but quite simply, it means that supernatural powers or a God cannot be proven or disproven.

I'm afraid that's a little too specific: you have just described what "strong agnostic" means.  Agnostic, in its more general (as well as literal) sense, simply means that one does not know whether or not supernatural stuff exists, or what nature it may have.  Strong agnostics believe that one can not know, whereas weak agnostics believe that it may be possible to know, but they simply do not yet know themselves.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Chaos, I think you put a bit too much effort into responding to those newspaper articles. Maybe if there was someone on the forum who actually would write what the people who wrote those articles wrote then there would have been some point, but I think the basic idea here was to laugh and point fingers.

Not that I think laughing and pointing fingers is very nice, but I do think both those letters are pretty ludicrous. I think the funniest part though is the headline: "Reader voices strong opinion on atheists." Now there's a headline writer who knew this letter was comedy gold.

Honestly—I think the country would be better if more people would believe in God. But the answer is not to kick atheists out—the answer is for religious people to live good lives and share their beliefs with their neighbors.

I also personally believe that there was no reproduction or death on this earth until the fall of Adam and Eve—which I am inclined to believe was rather more literal than figurative—and thus I don't think evolution happened the way people think it happened. However, evolution is a perfectly fine theory and genetic relationships cannot be denied. So there's the third option—evolution happened somehow during the spiritual creation that God did before he did the physical creation. This is my personal theory at the moment. It doesn't explain everything, but it's the best way I can think of to reconcile things. However, as for whether or not evolution happened—I really don't care. There is no point in trying to scientifically prove it did not happen, because my belief doesn't have anything to do with science and is a religious belief. Anything else (such as where fossils came from) can easily be explained by hand-waving.

[Miyabi]

I qualify as a Buddhist/weak agnostic.  Buddhism isn't a "religion" so much as it is a perspective.  It's all about learning to see and consider every perspective and to be less materialistic. (Unless you become a monk, then you're basically a religion.

Ook, I agree with you to a point.  Not necessarily believing in God, but believing in respecting others and abstaining from violence.  (Which are both taught in Christianity as well as many other religions.)

I also believe that a religion can be right for a person, but no religion can be right for everyone and that if there is a God or Gods then they will reward you for being a good hearted person, not only if you completely devote yourself to one denomination.  There is too much happenstance in the world for that to be expected.

[The Jade Knight]

Various religious organizations require differing levels of commitment from their adherents and priests.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requires a rather high level of commitment from members.  Most Buddhist schools do not.  However, there are Christians who take Christianity as more of a perspective than a religion as you take Buddhism as more of a perspective than a religion; this is not inherent to the religion itself so much as it is a matter of personal commitment, I'd think.  Christianity is one religion.  Buddhism is another religion.  Your own level of commitment to or agreement with that religion is up to you.

Of course, I'm trying to explore nebulous lines such as these over in the nascent School of Relosophy at Wikiversity.  Feel free to join me.

[Chaos]

Chaos, I think you put a bit too much effort into responding to those newspaper articles. Maybe if there was someone on the forum who actually would write what the people who wrote those articles wrote then there would have been some point, but I think the basic idea here was to laugh and point fingers.

Yes, I was doing a very poor job of trying to laugh and point fingers. I wanted to explain why those were so stupid.

Sorry... right now I have some weird stuff going on in my life, so I'm in a far more serious mood than is healthy for me. So:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

* Chaos2651 points fingers at the morons.

There we go. Much better

[MrPaperCamel]

I am officially thread-hijacking.

This thread is now about muffins.

[Miyabi]

Of course, I'm trying to explore nebulous lines such as these over in the nascent School of Relosophy at Wikiversity.  Feel free to join me.

My definition of religion is/was a bit confined.  I wasn't allowing it to expand and include just beliefs.  I was specifying it to systems of worship. ha ha.  I spent way too long taking debate and nebulous views with certain concepts takes more thought than it used to. xD

[Loud_G]

*sigh*

It always amazes me that people can make such strong statements seemingly without thinking any of it through.
It is people like that who truly make us Christians look like idiots...

  <-- too depressed to laugh