It's the spirit of the thread that now takes on a life of it's own.
It's a perfect example of your earlier comment: Religion is a private matter.

Religion should be a private matter.

yes that's what we were discussing.
discussing. ideally, in a non-personal way.

only new thing i learned from this thread is that knox is a massive prick.

repped hip priest, glice, and fltngslwly along the way though.

and suchfriends, God is the Bible, dawg. John 1:1... i don't even have to look that up

i enjoy discussing stuff, so thanks.

It's difficult discussing religion in an objective way. As has already been mentioned in terms of connections between church and state, a person's experience may well be informed by the extent of that relationship (either officially or otherwise) depending on where they are. Living in England I find christianity to be a fairly harmless benign force. It has next to no impact on my life so my views on it are quite moderate. I doubt that would be the case however if choices that I tend to take for granted such as abortion rights, same sex marriage, decisions surrounding who i can marry or even have a relationship with, etc, were suddenly in the hands of (or at least heavily influenced by) the church. I've found that people with the most moderate views on religion tend to be those living in largely secular countries.

I agree.

I don't have to agree with teaching children condoms don't work and preaching virginity in schools.

That does not make me intolerant towards religion and that does not make me a prick.

That just makes me realistic enough to know kids will always fuck.

you've been saying the same thing since like page 3... we get it, kids should fuck.

what public schools "preach virginity"?

ay, republicans! always blind to reality!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,505647,00.html

that's 2009 cuz the DOE is no longer in repuke hands

of course the article features heavily the redneck states that are choosing to keep abstinence only as an "alternative track". it's faux-news anyway.

read, get informed, learned the crimes of your religulous-bent party

you're for palin 2012, right?

anyway, i'm just passing by, and i think calling knox a prick is a bit wrong since she's a woman, if you're going to chose epithets make them gender appropriate. just saying.

anyway, i'd pos-rep her for holding the fort in a reasonable manner, but i need to shoot more blanks first or something.

don't like palin...

kids are pretty stupid either way, but if the abstinence thing is true yeah i didn't know about it

Going back to this, I found this video interview of Chomsky were he explains the historical situation of this left libertarian idea. Fortunately, Chomsky avoids attempting the interviewer's question to connect his linguistics with his politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgWVZUD3pKE

Also, I should mention, I wasn't looking for this (in fact I hadn't seen it before) nor any Chomsky video but just kind of came across it. Again, I've been leaning that way, though skeptical as always.

edit: I misquoted pbradley here, so to anyone who thinks religion should be a private matter:

Why?

Why should religion, or politics, or philosophy, or scientific views, or national identity, or anything else, be a private matter?

Why should people have the right to stop me, or you, stating who we are?

Why can we all not have the freedom to state what we are, defend that position if necessary, and then tolerate (and maybe question) the position of others?

And, especially, why do I keep reading that people should keep religion to themselves, even when it promotes kindness and tolerance, yet see aggressive and abusive anti-religious statements go without comment?

And in the case of Christianity, whether anyone likes it or not, it's not really possible to keep it to oneself. We are told to spread the word, either by word itself or by living a life that is a god example to others.

In what way is anyone entitled to run around insisting that people keep their thoughts peivate?

I was caveatting the previous post which was making a descriptive statement of a prescriptive. It is not my statement. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear with a quote.

Though, if you are taking something from where I described myself as 'religiously quietist,' I should have said something more along the lines of spiritually quietist (which may lead one to suspect me of hypocrisy for describing myself as leftist but I'd argue that its maintained through my position as favoring metaphysical absurdism and, more directly, ethical sentimentalism).

My mistake then. Sorry.

If that's about me, I gotta stop being misunderstood. By being a private matter, i didn't necessarily mean you gotta keep it to yourself. I basically meant religion has to stay away from making decisions in politics, laws, work, school, institutions that we all share. I also think that attacking or discriminating someone because they don't agree with your religious beliefs should be taken more seriously, you know, all in order to promote tolerance in a free democratic state.

We gotta cherish the right to have whatever beliefs we want, so I have to protect that right for everyone else. When I am making decisions that will act outside my religious sphere or community, I gotta put it aside out of respect for that free democracy.

It's really funny how people keep twisting my words. I never say kids SHOULD fuck. I said they will. And it's their right to be educated about their bodies and how to protect themselves. Abstinence can't be taught, it is not information, it is a choice. Proper education doesn't stop anyone from keeping their virginity if they want to do so.

However, that was only an example to illustrate how religious bias in making decisions can affect people in general.

and if someone's a republican, it seems obvious they'd think I'm a prick or whatever.

Thanks. A really interesting interview. I tend to blow hot and cold over Chomsky but I was pleased to see that he hasn't changed his hairstyle in thirty years. I'm also glad that he brought up the differences between an American liberalism and the current European one, a difference that often makes trans-atlantic discussions on the topic quite difficult. Again, thanks for the link.

I hope that last bit isn't true, because I don't see why a Republican should be intolerant either.

As for the general thing, it wasn't targeted at anyone specifically, just anyone who says that people shouldn't talk about their faith.

Thanks for your reply. I pretty much agree wholeheartedly with you.

Davenotdead is a dunce.

Funny you would say such a thing because, from what I can tell, DND at his worst is comparable to you at your best.