He doesn't even stand behind the constitution and basic human rights, and I bet he's no idea of what would happen in the U.S. were a politician to ban "ALL" religious institutions. The stupidity of it all is that clearly all these mosques, synagogues and Hindu temples have been in place and use over the country for the longest time, yet it's somehow an issue now. Why people are being so stupid as to buy into it now is beyond me.

The anti-mosque crowd is of the view that the mosque is a provocation. There cannot be a provocation with a mosque that was in existence, near ground zero, before 9/11. Nobody is calling for a ban of synagogues or Hindu temples or mosques. They are simply using their free speech to pressure the proponents of the mosque into moving the mosque elsewhere.

Sort of like the calls for Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Imus, etc. to resign whenever they say or do something controversial while exercising their (and the corporations for which they work) constitutional free speech rights.

I consider property rights equally as important as religious rights. The group owns the mosque and they should be able to do with it whatever they like and people should be able to bitch about it however much they like.

Please notice again that I said institutions and not places. If people want to reunite in a place, fine with me. My main concern is who controls that place.

What I'm again is when there is someone behind that wants to regulate and act as a controller of that religion. You can be a Christian and belief in God, but be absolute against what the Vatican represents. People don't need an institution telling them what's wrong or right and said institution acting itself above the 'herd' they want to represent.
And this goes to ALL religions. Many mosques are financed by Islamic governments and its clear their main concern is not the religious rights.

And thank you Caius for being the one that seems more civilized without resorting to snide personal remarks when someone doesn't agree with you, especially when someone has to debate in a foreign language.

There's the magic word!


(Fun Fact: It's a synonym for religion.)

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are just theorizing about how you would like the world to be, and not advocating for laws that would make that world happen.

But if you're actually trying to push for that, may I suggest you study the history of religion repression in USSR, where religious institutions were virtually banned for 70 years?

Fun Fact: Bradley Witherberry is a stupid troll.

Obviously that is not going to happen as religion is too entrenched into mens culture to suddenly disappear be it by force or not.

And wasn't the repression in the former Soviet Union not so much because of a fear of religion itself but because of the desire of Absolute Power without interference from any other source, something similar to the Khmer Rouge where even wearing glasses was seen as a sign of intellect and reason or excuse enough to kill someone so that that person could not undermine the power of the ruling party?

If I'm wrong please correct me

Well the larger point is it will always be there, whether you like it or not. And it's not just because it's entrenched; it's also because humans are wired that way (seeking higher authority, etc.).

Well, not, not quite. Knowledge and education were highly valued in the USSR, and because of that religion was out of favor. The technocrats in power decided that religion is wrong, and because in the USSR one size fit all, then being a religious person meant all sorts of trouble.

Mind you, religion was not technically illegal, and there were some churches, but early on it was definitely something that was consider immoral and religious people were legitimately persecuted. After the 60s things got better, but the deed was done - the majority of the Soviet population was atheist (or at least claiming to be, while secretly attending service).

There already was a ground-zero mosque - - on the 17th floor of the World Trade Center.

Your one note ad hominem arguments are growing very tiresome. Perhaps you might consider expanding your debating skill repertoire? As to the factual basis of your "argument", let's compare our respective first posts in this thread:






Who is the troll here?

Worse, Krem is the pitiful kind of political wonk who comes to a small movie based forum to do his trolling.

Instead of playing with the big boys in a political forum (where, of course, his bush league trolling would be spotted a mile away), he chooses to practice his "craft" where he thinks he will receive little resistance - - sort of like a middle aged Lothario acting the big shot in the local high school parking lot. Hard to believe? Take a look at Krem's posting history - - in the past four years he has made a total of 22 posts to the Cinemania and Everyone's A Critic forums. The rest of his 1641 posts? Have a look for yourself...

Aww, are you upset? Here's a hint: if you don't want to be called a troll, don't post clearly trolling statements.


Congratulations! You have successfully discovered that we both posted jokes as our first posts in this thread. You can, of course, complain about the lack of humor in mine (just like I can complain about the derivative nature of yours), but I hope even you can see that there's a difference between an attempted joke and a troll post.


I do appreciate the fact that you carefully went through my posting history to figure where I posted. Makes me feel special.

One thing you might've overlooked, though, is that this is not my first user name; my original user ID was unfortunately deleted - this was at the time when I was the forum admin and it was targeted for that reason. But of course in your mind I was the troll who chose to target this unsuspecting movie board with my small-minded political rants.

Keep it up, B-Dub, you're doing fantastic.

Haha.

I like that picture. Even though it's bullshit.

The best church sign I've ever seen. You definitely won't find support for such in the bible.

As an atheist, I appreciate the sentiment, but as an atheist, it's absolute bullshit.

What more could you expect?

It depends on your point of view. It's only true bullshit from the viewpoint of those who are taking scripture literally. I just found that a poll showed 69% of people agreed with the sentiment. The higher the agreement from the religious, the better, I'd say. "God" at best is a reflection of the moral zeitgeist, in which case agreement can be seen as a good thing.

I think some of you are too harsh.

Not as many people take scriptures and Religious rules as seriously as you think. Many and I would say tens of millions or 100's of million believe in a higher power from a spiritual POV.


From a religious POV the message is false.


However from a spiritual POV, I think a righteous GOD would prefer people to not believe him in but be good decent people.

Rather then having people believe in but actually be an evil terrible person.

In some religions though, the message is not that Islam or Hinduism or Christianity is the sole route to God.
The message is God does not care what you are but, but judges you on the way you conducted your life.