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Billy Graham sells the couch
Comments
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Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
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This is my favorite Hitchens discussion of all time with all my other favorite Atheists. Dawkins and Harris are equal opportunity haters as well and don't exclude Islam.RaceBannon said:
Hitchens is one of my favorite atheists along with @allpurpleallgold .BearsWiin said:
As Hitchens used to say, religion is humanity's first attempt to make sense of the larger world, and because it was the first, it was the worst. People who were technologically and organizationally primitive and who didn't know much about how the world works outside of their own limited environment and experiences used their limited abilities of pattern-recognition to conjure up frameworks whereby they could improve their outcomes. Those frameworks were drawn from their own experiences (Indians had their cobra god, Egyptians had Ra and their crocodile god, and the Norse had the Fenris Wolf), and they set about trying to figure out what they could do that would please these deities, so that those deities would give them good fortune. Lo and behold, what works, in terms of social order, is cooperative behavior that had already evolved in us. So they codified their pre-existing cooperative behavior into their sets of social rules, slapped some cool creation myths and stories along with it, and voila, they got religion and all the non-evidentiary dogma that goes with it. As far a the Judeo-Christian framework is concerned, look at any thou shalt not in the Commandments or any deadly sin, and you can make an argument that it's an attempt to promote tribal cooperation and limit discord, which can be detrimental or fatal to the collective. The acts aren't evil or sinful in themselves; they're manifestations of the natural individual desire to act in one's own self-interest. What makes them evil or sinful is the context in which we want to exercise those impulses.salemcoog said:
Chinteresting... so natural selection. the tribal collective and opposable thumbs. However your ancestors worshipped something and/or somebody besides the bearded Zeus in the Sky throughout their history. All of our ancestors did. For some it did bring peace. For others bondage as it was twisted by man himself.BearsWiin said:
My DNA needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Cooperation conveys a huge survival advantage, so my self-interested impulses need to be channeled within the larger cooperative context; morality arises from our need to cooperate. "Needing" something bigger than myself is merely a shell program on top of the basic instructions, in order to help me survive in the cooperative social environment and propel my DNA into the future. To my mind, it's waay cooler to understnad that my DNA is the result of 3.5 billion years of trial and error in a changing and usually hostile natural environment, rather than that there's some omnipotent bearded guy in the sky who gives a shit about how many times I've had filthy thoughts about Dana Delany.salemcoog said:
But you need something bigger than yourself... No???BearsWiin said:
We're evolved to be cooperative; it conveys a huge survival advantage, and we do it so much that we don't even think about it most of the time. We don't need Christ in our hearts to act nicely to each other.creepycoug said:
Was Billy a charlatan?BearsWiin said:
We all do. It's what we do in that 1%, when the decisions are hard, when doing the right thing might not be the easy thing, that separate decent people from lousy assholes.salemcoog said:
Why does someone who lived their life genuinely righteous 99% of the time shame you?BearsWiin said:
It's cute that you think this.YellowSnow said:I respected that Graham, at least, tried to maintain an a-political stance as opposed to being completely in the bag for the right- e.g., like Jerry Falwell.
The man amassed wealth and influence acting as a purveyor of spiritual snake oil, and he laid the groundwork for others, including his own spawn, to use the religious right as a political force for shitty policy over the last four decades.
I'm crushed.
Btw, Salem isn't even close to 99%. Frankly, none of us are. I'll bet Billy wasn't either.
Look I don't buy the bearded guy story myself. But I feel the creator of the Universe is a thing and the peace that it brings to the created comes in many forms. And to deny that is pretty short sighted imo. While your DNA is the result of evolution, It was indeed created by something.
Hitchens didn't get all faggy when it came to Islam. He ripped all religions not just the ones that were approved to hate.
And he was smart. I really enjoyed his appearances on the Dennis Miller HBO show with drink in hand.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n7IHU28aR2E -
More accurately, they are mindless hypocrites. You can believe what you want, however. That’s why it’s called “faith.”RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that -
The fuck you putting words in my mouth? People can disargee plenty in politics, as long as they've got some sort of evidence to back their views. When people let their religion inform their political views, I have a problem with that. I think you do too, since you seem to have appreciated Hitchens taking it to the Muslims.RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that -
So if they vote according to the "sky monster" they are stupid and if they vote according to political reasons they are hypocrites.CirrhosisDawg said:
More accurately, they are mindless hypocrites. You can believe what you want, however. That’s why it’s called “faith.”RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Nice little box there. And stupid but still
Hillary had every opportunity to win the evangelical vote. Calling them deplorable may have been a tactical error on her part.
Why She Lost -
Tactical errors? Evangelical vote? Deplorables?RaceBannon said:
So if they vote according to the "sky monster" they are stupid and if they vote according to political reasons they are hypocrites.CirrhosisDawg said:
More accurately, they are mindless hypocrites. You can believe what you want, however. That’s why it’s called “faith.”RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
Nice little box there. And stupid but still
Hillary had every opportunity to win the evangelical vote. Calling them deplorable may have been a tactical error on her part.
Why She Lost
Good riddance to white trash.
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Evidence and reason aren't informing them.RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that -
Coming from you that's rich.TierbsHsotBoobs said:
Evidence and reason aren't informing them.RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
And easy to ignore -
If they liked evidence and reason, they wouldn't have voted for a birther conspiracy theorist.RaceBannon said:
Coming from you that's rich.TierbsHsotBoobs said:
Evidence and reason aren't informing them.RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
And easy to ignore -
Sure. Great evidence and reason thereTierbsHsotBoobs said:
If they liked evidence and reason, they wouldn't have voted for a birther conspiracy theorist.RaceBannon said:
Coming from you that's rich.TierbsHsotBoobs said:
Evidence and reason aren't informing them.RaceBannon said:
Of course it is. Which is why I find it amusing that anyone that doesn't agree with you is accused of not doing so.BearsWiin said:
My in-laws are pretty devout Christians, but they separate their flying spaghetti monsterism from their politics. It's not that hard to have evidence and reason inform your politics, instead of superstition and tradition.RaceBannon said:Christians can vote and be politically active even if @BearsWiin disagrees.
What a great country
That's why evangelicals vote Trump. They aren't voting for the local preacher and are smart enough to know that
And easy to ignore
They should have voted for the creator of the vast right wing conspiracy instead.
Let hondo take it from here
