The internet has more representation from (and this is observation and little more) North America and Europe (mainly northern). They are areas with more christianity = bigger target. Besides, I don't think lol-Muhammeds has as much ability to be as amusing as lol-Jesus for some reason. Possibly due to people being more accustomed to seeing certain images.
If you are talking about mocking people: Yes, I agree that it is a bad thing. However, your own profile contains some of this mockery (under "Location").
If you are talking about mocking people's faith: IMHO every opinion, belief or view is open to questioning and, if there is reason for it, irony and ridicule. You may want your faith to be "holy", i.e., exempt from this scrutiny, but on what grounds?
If Christians want to mock the Atheists' faith, they can just go ahead!
I wish to expand on what you have said as I think we are both in exactly the same frame of mind when it comes to this, although I think Islam is a lot, lot worse than Christianity
Religion is the driving force behind almost all the wars that have ever been fought. Without religion, there would be no wars. There would be no fundamentalist muslims going on about 'killing all the infidels', there would be no hardline christians in the USA wanting to bring about the end of the world. Christians may feel their beliefs are more important than others, but (and this counts for the UK, I'm not sure about other places) you just have to see how easily the governments will cave in and pander to the Muslims to avoid 'offending' them, the ministers bend over backwards enforcing dozens of silly rules/legislations, there is a Muslim police officer in the UK dragging the entire police force through the courts because he wasn't promoted, and he's claiming it's because he's a Muslim. Well I'm sorry, but all this bullshit about 'employing people from different religions/ethnic backgrounds/whatever' is a joke, employers should look for who is best for the job and not be worried about how many Muslims/gays/women/lesbians/africans are working for them
If a certain magazine published cartoons seriously insulting christianity and then christians the world over went onto the streets holding placards saying 'kill the publishers' 'behead the cartoonists' etc they would come under worldwide condemnation. But, like we saw a few years back, it seems perfectly OK for muslims to take to the streets waving cards with the exact same slogans. And the whole carton thing is dodgy - a fundamentalist got hold of the original cartoons intending to cause a stir, but it turned out they weren't offensive enough - so, he, doing what all muslims would inserted new cartoons which were a hell of a lot more offensive to muslims, and craftily didn't tell anyone. And nobody thought to question him, lest they be accused of being anti-islamic
Moving on to christianity, I wonder how many christians have actually read the old testament? The old testament has to be one of the most vile things ever written. It includes material on incest, rape of children, god killing almost everyone except 2 people because he got pissed off (noahs ark) etc etc etc. And yet there are people out there who believe every word thats written in it? Hard to believe to be honest. You gotta hand it to thechristians though - at least they don't go around blowing up people of all faiths believing that it's a way to get into heaven
If we got rid of religion tomorrow the world would be a much, much better place
i dont belive into things they say in bible but i do belive to god. i trust to sience more that some old dusty book...but one thing got me a weard feeling. why doesnt apes look humans anymore, why they turned back to apes
Also, don't forget the bonus of being able to throw shit at someone and not get a lecture on hygiene - but of course that takes us back to organized religion again.
I actually find myself more drawn to the Pagan system where it's more about forces and you only assign faces to them because it makes it easier to deal with.
I like things I know exist. The sun is there, it provides heat and light and is required to sustain life. I'll worship that because I know it's doing something. Same goes for the moon - it controls the tides and therefor the winds. Sorted.
Whether you want to believe that a higher being put them there or not is irrelevant, the fact is they are there and they do what they do. If that means I'm worshipping a god by proxy, so be it.
So many theologogy vs science debates at some point have the religion side claim that science outright denies the existence of any kind of god. This is blatantly not true, it's just that god isn't something that can be measured or affect any physical property of the measurable universe, and as such is irrelevant.
The cool thing about science and religion is that they're all theoretical. You can find out that somethign exists a certain way, but you have no idea WHY. And if you ask me, that's where the religious part would overlap. God made it that way. It doesn't change the way it is, it just gives a reasonable alternative as to why a certain chemical compound formed that way. And I don't see why not.
The problem a lot of religious debaters have is that they want the rules to be fact or nothing. They don't seem to want to allow any space for interpretation or that what was a fact centuries ago may have been embellished a little, like any myth or legend.
It's all about the give and take. Science says e=mc[2]. Religion says God limits the speed of light to c. Where's the problem?
I've said here elsewhere recently but I will repeat it, the King James Bible and derrivatives of it have a mistranslation on the second word of Genesis, it should read "In A beginning" not "In The beginning". The Adam and Eve story is not meant literally, but sadly now is taken as so. This has a rammification for the entire bible to be taken in a different context.
A lot of religion is out of context in this way. Really what is important to Christianity is the ten commandments, but over time it's become an institution thats wrapped up inself so that now the most important issues are things like gay priests. The original message is lost.
The religions as they stand all have a history, for instance all Christians should understand the apocrapher and the story as to why there is an apocrapher, and should if nothing else be resolved as to why they havnt read it when they do read the rest of the bible.
A lot of religious people question their faith, but do so without analysing the religion and its history. I find that odd, personally.
As for God. I'm agnostic. I've no idea how the universe came to be. In accepting that Genesis isnt to be taken literally I can accomodate the big bang theory into that of Christianity and have no issues with that. I dont believe it's likely God made man in his own image, I think thats arrogant. I dont think it likely God will condemn me for not following his one true faith without being clear about which religion is the right one to follow, I think thats rule by fear. I think therefore, that religious institutions have forgotten their original mesage and purpose and are more worried about whether I turn up for service on Sunday and put a note in the collection bowl.
Sidestepping organised religion for a moment, can I accept the Christian pantheon? I certainly could, if I was to deny other pantheons are possibly right. So in choosing to follow a denomination of God I am in turn turning my back on him and most of his followers.
I can be open to God without ecluding other people, so I think the most Christian thing I can possibly do is to not be religious at all.
Exactly. Take Kepler's Laws that state how planets orbit. Whether you think momentum and gravity makes them do that, or god, or a giant invisible dung beetle, the observable fact is that they DO do it according to those laws, and you can predict (various complications regarding relativity aside, but that just goes with the argument, that its based on observable data - Kepler couldn't measure it with the accuracy needed to come up with relativity) where a given planet will be in the universe if you know where it is and how fast its moving.
That's the basis of science, that its based on observable data that you can use to predict some future state of a given system. That's the unshakable FACT that science is based on, it's got nothing to do with the theories themselves, something that's utterly lost on most anti-science, pro religion debaters.
Adding to Becky's peice on basing your whole religious belief on something that could have been misquoted, I give you this extract from Red Dwarf
i think if god really existed when someone tries to do something really bad he wont let him so the devil would fake horrible news pretending god is inexistent
so the only slight posiblity i conceive for god to exist is that all those horrible news are faked, could be though i never personally lived anithing that convinced me of the contrary, just hear tales from tv
but that would be denying reality wouldnt be? thats why im agnostic but as said in the case god exist certainly most news are faked
Do you know how evolution works? The so called Apes that you're thinking of are not what we evolved from; those species (and I pluralize because we were not the first evolution from the original bipedal creature like many anti-evolutionists..) are all long extinct. Modern Apes also evolved from those same species (somewhere along the line), they just evolved in a different way than we did, into a whole different species.
Oh they don't huh? . And every poster on a wall or wacko in the town claiming I'll go o hell because my lack of belief or working on sundays or what ever. I consider that mocking me.
All I need to know about religion is this. It was a form of control in a time of lawlessness, and if I want to get promoted faster in the Army I need to go to church at least once a month.
