They are not saying that gay people can't get married but that certain people do not have to preform these marriages. I still think you are over simplifying it but I think this discussion has come to a point where neither one of us is going to budge on their stance so to each his own I say.

So then ethically you think it would be ok to execute iraqi children because they belong to a heathen people and might grow up to be terrorists? In this case the parallel would be to bring the children back to america and then execute them. Condemning the child sacrifice of a foreign nation doesn't mean much when you demand the sacrifice of countless children, and killed countless children for no discernable crime. Apparently he's only opposed to children sacrificed to other gods.

Furthermore the nations that weren't in the promised land, if they didn't surrender they still killed all the men, women and children, except of course for virgin women. They could be taken back as one of their many wives, but only after shaving their heads, mourning for the death of her family for a for a month and then they get to be the wife of one of the men that just executed her entire family and all her friends. Furthermore divorce law didn't apply to them. While god condemned divorce of normal wives, these could be divorced for any reason whatsoever, so as long the man doesn't sell them for profit. That's from deuteronomy 21:12-14

That is some screwed up ethics. None of that is not designed with human rights in mind, that isn't designed to benefit humanity, that isn't designed to allay the suffering of all individuals involved. Any country that still had these laws would be considered grossly inhumane and barbaric, and would no doubt be lead by a psychotic dictator. It's not that we're in an age of grace, it's that a nation like that can't exist and call itself righteous with a straight face. After the jews lost thier military power, suddenly killing the infedels wasn't so important as gaining personal salvation through peaceful means.

And the verse about burning some one with fire isn't punishing them for killing somebody with fire, it's about a man that sleeps with both mother and daughter. All three are to be burned with fire. The god of the bible is hands down the most horrifying character ever written, and it's only more horrifying that people look to him as the supreme example of justice and mercy.

I'm not on your back, you seem to be a nice fellow. I'm on the bible's back, and I'm very willing to debate that it isn't any source of morality.

Does it become religion or faith? Religion is a community of people sharing a faith, complete with an established structure of holy people (priests, shaman, etc). If your faith is yours alone, and not shared with a larger community, would it not just be faith, as opposed to religion? I think there are several differences that need to be noted between the two. As a Catholic of 20 something years and now a practicing Christian Druid, I can tell you there's a big difference. =)

I disagree that people should be able to talk about religion here. If these kids are getting enraged when someone disses the Wii, how are they going to have an open and honest discussion about religion without going nuts?

I just had sort of a funny thought. Atheism has dogmas. For example, God doesn´t exist. They have to believe that. If they believe in God or have doubts, they are no longer believing in that dogma and can no longer call themselves atheists.

I don´t expect a real response to this. It´s just one of those things that just pop in your head and make you laugh. :D

Athiesm also requires some faith (a belief in something that can't be definitevely proven), as it is impossible to either definitively prove or disprove the existence of God. Athiesm is the belief (faith) that God doesn't exist, and they'd better be right. If he does exist they're in trouble .

Athiesm has shades of grey. I'm known as a weak atheist, the kind with no faith. I think logically god cannot be proven or disproven, so I don't say their absolutely is not god, but I also don't rule out the possibility of invisible space leprechauns. Unlikely, but impossible to prove or disprove. What I believe is that the god of the bible, the god of the koran, the many gods of the hindus, they are disprovable at least as far as their religion goes. Disproving god is impossible, disproving religions is easy.

Strong Atheism is the more radical form of atheism that denies outright that there could be a god. It is a bit less logical seeing as how you can't logically arrive to that conclusion in any substansive way.

As for the comment "they had better be right. If he does exist they're in trouble". If any god exists and he's as big of a douche as religions make him out to be, everybody is in trouble, not just atheists. Any god that judges based on belief rather than actions is a god that will be a horrifying and unjust ruler. Any god willing to commit the atrocities religions ascribe to him with be a terrifying dictator of a deity.

As for the comment atheism has dogma, only in the most literal sense of the definition, in which case my affirmation that mint chocolate chip icecream is the best flavor is also dogma, and the government needs to start giving me tax breaks for my ice cream religion.

As for Faith being different from religion, I agree with that. Faith is belief in that which is intangible and unprovable by any logical or empirical means. Many people don't separate faith and religion, and I don't think simply believing in something unseen and unknowable, and unprovable makes one religious. Irrational maybe, but not necessarily religious. Faith only requires belief, religion requires adherence to dogmas set up by those that believe.

LOL well that's the textbook definition of humanity - irrational creatures.

Vagabond is definitely on the right track here of the repercussions of religion influencing politics.

Religion should NEVER influence political decisions/legislation explicitly, unless it is in relation to clarifying some issue with the Constitution. Political policy should also try to avoid any kind of implicit relation to religion, although trying to separate such a strong religious influence as the humanitarian sentiment within the New Testament for instance as espoused by Jesus, Paul, and others would be nearly impossible.

But the absolute worst is when people use religion as a political tool or as justification for their actions. For one, doing so either commodifies religion into a secular tool or comes with the assumption that some person/group/political party understands the will of God/Allah/etc., which is inherently blasphemous in most religions, and is an insult to people of that religion.

People also mistakenly associate, in the U.S. for example, a political candidate's professed religious faith as an indicator of his morals and his strength as a candidate. This is a more recent phenomenon with the proliferation of the media and the resurgence of the evangelicals along with the Reganesque "Moral Majority" mentality. It has been extremely counterproductive to politics, and for a long period of time the Republican party "owned" God in a sense that the Republicans were most often associated with God. This is all pretty ironic considering that the Democratic Party's social policy, which at its foundation is concerned with helping the poor and easing economic disparities, is incredibly similar to Jesus' message. But don't tell the Republicans that. They think Jesus wants you to have a big house, an SUV, and to help the poor by telling them that only they can help themselves.

America's recent religious mentality (which has been steadily decreasing along with the Bush administration's and the Republican Party's disintegration within Bush's 2nd term) has also led us to be more racist when coupled with events like 9/11 and other terrorist events. In many ways it influenced the decision to wage war in Iraq as well as the American public's acceptance of that decision, not to mention our involvement in Israel which has gone back to WWII. It has given many people the mentality that it would be OK if we nuked the entire Middle East, thereby transforming them into the very people they hate and call religious extremists.

So religion can influence political decision in some ways without negative consequences, associating religion to closely with politics creates far too many problems to justify doing so. It also assumes a religious consensus among the people being represented, which is never the case.

those things are free.