That’s funny - I advocate hitting pastors for pushing this nonsense called ‘god’.
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Yep, people (including myself) shun violence, but I also feel that some people only speak some languages… I will never hit someone first, but if someone punches me then all bets are off since this person clearly doesn’t understand words. If this guy punched me he’d be bleeding and crying on the ground calling for his precious god to come help him.
Proof that the southern redneck stereotype is not just a stereotype. Yes, you’re all still backwards hicks, southerners.
I’m pretty sure it’s brains that create atheists.
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At least we’re in the correct hemisphere!
From up here in QLD, I couldn’t agree more about Southerners. 
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If you say so. At least the stereotypes about us aren’t accurate*.
*we do swear a lot and ride kangaroos to work/school
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Converts and believers of that fucking bullshit (If it wasn’t obvious already, I think all religion is bullshit) have to say these words:
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If you’re from the south, you can check you local papers for comments defending Adrian Peterson and the importance of beating children severely and often.
My GF is from the rural south and she describes a simple life of regular church, beatings, and rape.
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I am constantly badmouthing southerners not because I truly believe they’re all like that but enough unabashed xenophobia, racism, sexism and ignorance comes out of the locals there and with such frightening regularity that I feel it won’t change until they’re constantly called out on it and shamed into being better.
Also an Aussie friend of mine driving from coast to coast was fooled into believing TX cops when they said no one would be arrested if someone admitted to being the owner of a few grams of weed they found in their van. After she admitted to it (it was actually kind of everyone’s, no one’s in particular) they sent the rest of her friends on their way and sent her to a prison for illegal immigrants (where she languished for 2 weeks before getting out) because they (possibly deliberately) mistook her last entry visa for her current one and said she wasn’t legally allowed in the country. Oh, did I mention she’s asian and the rest of the party were caucasian? Way to live up to your racist name, TX!
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Hate to break up your little USA-centric party over there, but in Oz we have next to no religious fundamentalism, religion has very little influence or impact the large majority of people’s lives, yet there are many, many ardent atheists, myself included.
We have to endure a bunch pejorative nonsense from the religious about how there MUST be a god, so is there any surprise that the knee-jerk reaction is the opposite? If one is to weigh the evidence objetively there’s next to no chance there is a god and a lot of likelihood that there isn’t one. I’d rather listen to whiny atheists over whiny religious types any day - especially since they aren’t trying to (literally or figuratively) sell me something.
My X-wife came from California, lived the rest of her life at the northern border between the USA and CA, was beaten, molested and raised by religious conservative racists. I grew up in an area many, including me associate with “Southern” values and ideas, came from an educated progressive family who has had little trouble integrating the members of our family who are gay or non-white, what’s your point? Athens GA, Bloomington IN, Austin TX and myriad other places not on either coast or in what you consider the enlightened and holy “north” or morally superior coastal regions are every bit as progressive and ‘hip’ as any other place.
Defining human beings by their membership in some set, which you have decided they are members of tells you nothing, injures everyone and is not in any way helpful. How is it that so many people who stridently advocate for equality and acceptance can without even stopping to blink, commit the very same ‘sins’ they so readily accuse others of?
This is exactly the sort of thinking that continues the ‘culture war’ and keeps a great many who would like to be more progressive or tolerant in their politics voting and thinking in step with with the Right/Republican/FauxNews side of American politics. Calling me names and implying I’m a homophobic racist, in fact using the word ‘redneck’ makes a great many of us wonder if we’re not on the wrong side of all these issues for a moment. Then the moment passes and that feeling is replaced with a general hopelessness as we come to accept that the left is fundamentally no better than the right and that people generally suck.
Last I heard assault and battery was a crime not to mention child abuse. It’s incredible his flock of sheeple didn’t utter a word of shock or protest. The criminal says ignorance is a virtue and independent thinking is the devil’s work. Meanwhile, he rips off the losers who attend his propaganda meetings. As Sinclaire Lewis said, “When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” (or words to that effect.
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So is art.
That seems to be begging the question that all religions are the same, and that an element that may be common to all is the essential element in religion. The Bible certainly presents subjective elements of faith, but it’s also very corporate and makes definite statements about many issues. I don’t doubt that someone with your concept of religion would see some value in its teachings, but they would have to heavily edit them.
This is a big issue, but faith (from a Christian perspective, at least) seems to be more about what you do with the belief that your god exists, rather than a belief in your god’s raw existence. If you have faith in your table’s ability to stop your computer from falling on the floor, you might put your computer on the table. If you have faith in your god’s faithfulness, you might live in a way that wouldn’t make much sense if you thought that we were alone in the universe or that there was a deity who didn’t care. Hebrews 11 lists a number of people who had faith - it doesn’t seem to be in God’s existence, just an obedience to what he said and acting in a way that showed that they saw a reality that didn’t exist outside of a promise from a god they believed in. There never seems to be any suggestion in the Bible that it’s important that you can’t prove his existence - in fact, there are plenty of times when he supposedly reveals himself and his power fairly convincingly.
Fair enough, and I’d agree that a lot of the historical accounts in the Bible have a more nuanced reading than the bare facts (I’m using the Bible because I haven’t done a lot of comparative religious study, not because I see it as a model for all religions). Still, it relies a lot on history and its writers don’t talk about timeless truths or subjective metaphysical experience much at all (although when they do they’re really tripping).
That would be Zach Weiner (or at least, that’s where I got the quote)
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I’d rather listen to whiny atheists over whiny religious types any day
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Knock yourself out! I’d rather avoid whiners of any sort.
… yet you’re on the internet? Good luck with that!
You see, the concept of ‘rather’ means that you may not want to do either, but that you’d prefer to one over the other if you have to.
If you have any further difficulty with the English language, I’m here to help!
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Just because you guys have Nasenbluten, you think you’re more enlightened than the rest of the world. Yeah… well… somethingorother
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Shouldn’t Mao Zedong or Josef Stalin be in the last panel, if we’re to be even handed about it?
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