RDCF wrote:
Well, probably. I know those were never proven. Why do you keep insisting on this nonsense? I don't know, ask yourself.
All I can do is present the facts. If you'd like to cup your hands over your ears, shut your eyes, hum and pretend that somehow you can wish these facts into inexistence, there's not much that can be done about your ignorance.
It's not the same. Cutting a finger is much worse than circumcision. People do voluntarily circumcise sometimes, no one cuts his finger voluntarily.
People voluntarily circumcise because they're either ignorant of the facts, or do so to explore their religion. Either is acceptable if the person does so of their own accord at the appropriate age of consent or above. If a religion required a person to cut off their finger, people would willingly do so and try to make up some bogus reason as to the benefits "Oh look, when you cut off one of your fingers, you have roughly a 10% chance to avoid finger cancer!" and will try to justify it as religious freedom to perform the operation on their children.
The question is not whether you believe in god or not and why, the question is whether you respect other people who believe, knowing your case isn't any stronger than theirs, or continue to live in your arrogant ignorance.
Human rights were created (at least partly) through reasonable debate, true, but that is not a belief but a fact. It's like saying that you believe that the Roman Empire have fallen, it's not a belief but a fact, however, saying that god crashed because they were cruel and evil is a belief. In the same way, saying that human rights were created through reasonable debate is not a belief, saying that they are a good thing for humanity is, though. Because it depends in what you define as good for humanity, which is a thing that can't be proved. The same with democracy.
My case is possibly the strongest. I don't accept claims that have virtually zero logic, reason and/or evidence to support them. When such evidence becomes available, I'll be looking into it.
These concepts, democracy and human rights, at least in the modern world, are based on reason and logic, which is in turn based on an ever evolving understanding of the world and a rationally discussed logic behind how these concepts can benefit society. The positions are open to change. They aren't fixed in place like many religious beliefs, where challenges would mean imprisonment... or worse. I don't "believe" in either of these concepts in the way that a religious person believes in a creator.
Atheism, by definition, says that god doesn't exist, if course it has clear tenets. Religious people also have huge differences in how they see the world.
People have used and still use religion as a way to justify their own barbaric urges, But I think that it actually says more about human kind than it says about religions. People also use other ideologies, including complete atheistic ones to justify horrible crimes. I think the violence accusations is a very good claim against clericalism, much less against religions.
Atheism is an absence of belief, it doesn't actively make the claim that god doesn't exist. There are some people who are atheists who make that claim, but atheism itself does not tell people that you must be certain a god does not exist.
With regards to people using religion as a way to justify barbaric urges: circumcision, case in point. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a divine creator. It has never been used and will never be used to justify horrible crimes, because it does not make any sense logically.
[CENTER]People who put too much time into a forum signature are fucking stupid.[/CENTER]
