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Well, as the OP, the original purpose of the thread was to clarify that, at least for most of we atheists, we don't want to end religion. That couldn't happen anyways. What most of us want, I think, is to put religion in its place. If a person wants religion to control their own lives, that's fine. But they shouldn't want religion to control the lives of others. Freedom of religion means freedom of which religion a person partakes, or even no religion for an individual.
Unfortunately, the fearful religionists want to keep perpetuating the lie that atheists want a world without religion.
Great post. I grew up religious and never, ever had any inkling the non-religious were trying to convince us of anything. All they wanted IMO, was to be left alone from "our" proselytizing. When I left the faith, my own sister would hound me to "come back" to the point where I said "Can't I just be your sister"?
The sad thing is, the extremists get the media coverage which is always negative.
Some of the most moral people I know are atheists. More so than many religious folks.
OTOH, my Baptist dad always lauded the Mormons for their good works and supportive society.
I get it. But more often than not, when we look at the administered discipline ... it probably wasn't unjustified. And now, we glorify knocking the teeth out of a person that did their job.
Actually, Yes, I do. Have you bothered to red anything I have posted on this forum for the past several years?
Moving the goalposts, lol. One does not have to have "personal experience" to observe the well documented and reported fact of con after con after con reported in virtually all media over long periods of time -- in some individual cases, over years. And to even make such a demand reveals that all news reports that are not to the poster's liking will just be rejected out of hand.
And guess what, if you DO have personal experience you will be dismissed as a liar or just simply ignored. I shared two personal experiences of shyster clergy. They don't really want personal experience, they just want to move the goalposts around and keep raising the bar to divert, deflect, distract and annoy. Those who lack facts, deploy BS.
Actually, Yes, I do. Have you bothered to red anything I have posted on this forum for the past several years?
Actually, no, i have not. if you say you have personal experience with Evangelical con men who are buying jet planes, i am not going to argue with that, i believe there may be quite a few.. What I would like you tell me is the percentage of such con men defrauding the trust of the public, their constituents, etc. among the Evangelicals and in the general population. If you have quoted those numbers with credible supporting data before please direct me to that link. I will be very interested in reading it.
Moving the goalposts, lol. One does not have to have "personal experience" to observe the well documented and reported fact of con after con after con reported in virtually all media over long periods of time -- in some individual cases, over years. And to even make such a demand reveals that all news reports that are not to the poster's liking will just be rejected out of hand.
And guess what, if you DO have personal experience you will be dismissed as a liar or just simply ignored. I shared two personal experiences of shyster clergy. They don't really want personal experience, they just want to move the goalposts around and keep raising the bar to divert, deflect, distract and annoy. Those who lack facts, deploy BS.
Maybe you have the data that will be of interest to everyone. The percentage of clergy that defraud the trust of their members, compared to the percentage of fraudsters in the general population, finance, research, science, politics whatever. Just present the data.
Anyone can have personal anecdote and someone else can have one that disputes that, or someone can just make stuff up. Data from reliable source that shows somehow the clergy are more susceptible to corruption than the general population is. That should not be so hard for you as you claim great documentation. Just facts, no BS
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that song.
