Marinus

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Everything posted by Marinus

  1. Marinus
    The myths state it started with 13 men, in reality it started with several cults around the teachings of what may be one man. And Christians definitely have a strenght in numbers approach, that's why it became the biggest and baddest religion on Earth.
  2. Marinus
    I know that, I know loads of Christians that even seem to get off of it. Actually, while persecution didn't do the job (mostly because there simply wasn't that much persecution) education and information (dare I say "words") are currently destroying Christianity in most of the Western World. If you watch trends in the US it seems it's starting in the US too. Just cross your fingers that the War on Education is won......
  3. Marinus
    Yeah, your atheists are easy to rile up too, however in other parts of the world atheists are much more relaxed about trivial religious symbolism. Christians OTOH seem to feel persecuted everywhere, even where they are dominant, like in the US.
  4. Marinus
    Awwww poor little puppy If you look at the persecuted/persecute ratio, Christianity is a very safe demographic to belong to. I history repeats itself, it will probably Christians who start burning people for reading Harry Potter or something, not Christians being fed to lions. If you can't handle that people hate your religion, you should consider switching to a religion that doesn't promote hate as much as your religion does. Other then that dislike (and even hatred) of a religion is not persecution, of course, but since you're a Christian......
  5. Marinus
    Which would be a logical assumption for something that happened in a country where the best way to commit political uicide is coming out of the closet as an atheist. Especially if you take into account that Christians are so sensitive to persecution that they often even imagine it.
  6. Marinus
    You don't make a lot of sense, but at least you know your trance music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fbkS5hrUb4
  7. Marinus
    If God exists, then the universe is his greatest creation as far as we know. In my arrogant opinion trying to understand God without trying to understand the universe seem like the idiot thing to do. Nothing humbler than believing you're going to outlast the sun because the creator of the universe deems you important enough to do so.
  8. Marinus
    Yes, but my shire is the only one in the world with facilities to survive a Zombie Apocalypse: http://www.pilotswatch.nl/images/vliegen/naarden_vesting.jpg Ergo you loose and for absolutely no particular reason, not to mention it's the wrong sea too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJFKFOW0eE
  9. Marinus
    I was born and raised in The Shire, strangely enough.
  10. Marinus
    Not really, As a homosexual apostate I know more about Christianity than 90% of Christians (including what Christian Neighbourly love truly means, of course). Most ex-believers know a lot of religion because they're usually the ones that examined it. Knowledge: fucking up faith since 666 BCE
  11. Marinus
    I didn't claim that Christianity is the only violent religion, but AFAICS it's one of the most violent religions. It's sister religion Islam is also very violent. A good thing for the rest of the world both religions where also mortal enemies and are locked in perpetual combat. Of the examples you provided 3 out of 4 are (also) about Christians an Muslims IIRC. I don't have some naive notion that other religions are peaceful and tolerant, but relatively spoken they are compared to C and I
  12. Marinus
    I believe this is total bogus, it sounds like fear-mongering from the Cold War but you can provide me a link to change my mind. Stalin did persecute religious people because religious dogma competed with communist dogma. I do reject state atheism as much as state religion, btw, and that goes for the great majority of Western non-believers. I disagree with the OP because I think there's large differences between religions. The religions of the far east tend to be relatively benign for example, but If one studies the history of Christianity, one can only conclude it's an extremely violent religion. It's good to keep in mind that it goes through a relatively civilized phase ATM, and that one shouldn't judge contemporary Christians based on their religion. But that doesn't absolve the ideology.
  13. Marinus
    Yeah, one group wronged another, and while things are corrected decades ago, there's still a lot of hurt feelings etc. everywhere. It's a rather common and understandable phenomenon but it will get you nowhere in the end. Better to team up with the people who want equality (of whatever ethnicity) against the bigots.
  14. Marinus
    Don't forget this is SC, it's sort of my moral duty to question your discussion techniques here. While I was lucky to be born into a relatively progressive society, this was more or less neutralized by the fact that I was born into a orthodox Christian family. So I suffered my share of bigotry and hatred. I'll be the first to admit I still feel resentment because of that, I just try my best to not live by that resentment and become part of the vicious cycle. Thanks for your very interesting post, btw.
  15. Marinus
    It's very ignorant of you to assume that we as a people (and I as person for that matter) never ever had to get over any injustice done to us. But apparently we're better at it than you are.
  16. Marinus
    Of course they did, but not because of their lack of believe in Gods.
  17. Marinus
    It's not so much religion, I think, it's dogmatic faith that's dangerous. For a non-religious example: dogmatic faith in communism also resulted in a large pile of corpses. Religion is different because it results in punishments for completely mind-numbingly stupid reasons. There were people put to death for causing thunderstorms and shape-shifting into a cat for example.
  18. Marinus
    The only reason that contemporary Christianity is relatively civilized, is because Christian persecutions were outlawed. It's as simple as that. Before that it was about as civilized as the Mayan religion, including the practice of torturing people to death in spectacular public displays to ward off evil. Islam was a bit more civilized and tolerant, but not that much.
  19. Marinus
    Well spoken, informative and a clever way to shift the goal posts. I do especially like the subtle way you shortened the time since civil right were granted from almost 50 years to 35 years. Let's face it, the people who do remember segregation are almost all elders now, and they'll die out in the next couple of decades. It's about time to be over slavery and to get over segregation. It should be remembered but people who dwell on those things are a problem because they actively keep segregation alive. I'm btw member of a severely discriminated group that was granted full civil rights only a mere decade ago. I'm over it, so guess how much consideration I have for people who bitch and whine about discrimination that happened before they were born.
  20. Marinus
    In a sense she got lucky, she was shot and thus saved the horror of traditional stoning, which prescribes the use of stones that are big enough to hurt and wound you but small enough to not result in a quick death. It's effectively a primitive way to torture someone to death, and IIRC it can take victims up to an hour to die. Funny fact: while males are buried waist deep, women are buried chest deep before they're stoned to death. God forbid that she's indecently exposed while she's tortured to death, it might cause psychological damage in onlooking children or something. Behold the warped ethics of Abrahamic Religion. (I think it's unfair to judge every religion by the atrocities committed in the name of some religions. While it's (for example) trés lunatique to be a tree-hugging Wiccan, their faith is inherently peaceful and tolerant.)
  21. Marinus
    Yeah, there's even epidemics called Oktoberfests On a more serious note. I think any addiction is just bad behaviour that's usually a symptom of an underlying condition, but not a disease in itself.
  22. Marinus
    There's not really a consensus about alcohol being a disease, especially because it looks suspiciously like a pattern of behaviour. To me the disease theory sounds like an excellent way to have an excuse to drink, btw.
  23. Marinus
    The wonderful thing about suggestion is that it still works if you don't actually believe the suggestion is real. I use loads of suggestion to keep me from smoking, but in reality I don't really believe that my happy smiling (and perfectly clean & pink) lungs just want to take a deep breath of air whenever I crave a cigarette. My addiction to nicotine was in the junkie stage, btw.
  24. Marinus
    Alcohol abuse is a behaviour pattern that can lead to alcohol dependence, but it's not a disease. That alcohol abuse usually is partly the result of an underlying medical and/or mental condition that may or may not be genetic doesn't make "alcoholism" itself a disease. The withdrawal syndrome is considered a medical condition, and is indeed one of the most severe known, only rivalled by some drugs that act on the same receptors.
  25. Marinus
    Alcoholism is an imaginary disease pulled out of the arse of Bill-what's-his-name along with any any evidence regarding this "disease". People commonly use the term to refer to (some forms of) alcohol dependence, but in the end alcoholism belongs in the same category as Hysteria.