What do you as a person gain from making negative criticism of other people's religions or worldviews?
Is it important for you to get your own opinion and view across?
Or is your criticism a sign of being curious but not knowing how to ask so both you and the one you question can feel good about the discussion?
The world is messed up. Homeless people, crime, pollution, global warming, wars, torture camps, etc.
The Religious Right has been working feverishly to put their leaders in power. Ostensibly, they want peace, not war. So what went wrong?
Why did President W. Bush try to shut down the port of Los Angeles, and making a port in Mexico to exploit cheap foreign labor? Wasn't shutting down car production in Detroit, so cars could be made in other nations to exploit cheap foreign labor an omen of what would become of the rest of the nation?
I estimate that there are about a 50/50 break between those who critique with an interested question and those simply are out to steal, kill and destroy (metaphor) - the problem is that those out for the destroy are more vocal.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Aren't theists responsible for most of the wars? (Thou shalt not kill....turn the other cheek). Look at the longest war in history...the war in Iraq....that was started because the 911 attack was handy to blame another (unrelated) Arab nation. The president (W. Bush) bore false witness against a neighbor (accused them of being terrorists, lied about Uranium yellow cake from Niger (to take over the peaceful nation of Niger, as well). W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent Wilson to Niger to tell lies to motivate war. When Wilson refused tell lies and start an unprovoked war, they ratting out Plame (Wilson's CIA wife), causing Plame's embedded CIA agent friends to get assassinated. (Please google Plame and Wilson).
W. Bush's dad and Reagan created the Iran Contra scandal, selling narcotics from the Medellin drug cartel of Colombia using Manuel Noriega (a man who used to sell narcotics to W. Bush's dad for use at the CIA, where he worked, for Project MKULTA. The Iran Contra scandal, behind the back of Congress, supported a brutal Contra dictator who hurt his own people, including women and children, and fought the Sandinistas who merely wanted educations for their kids (who were exploited at young ages in the fields, picking vegetables), and wanted living wages (they were starving).
Aren't most Mafia members highly Catholic?
Aren't most graffiti vandals Catholic? They also vandalize, and in high crime neighborhoods, you'd be lucky to escape without getting knifed or shot.
If you are comparing someone who questions a religion to one who actually does crimes, I think you are getting confused. The good guys are not the ones who "think" that they are getting into heaven.
Interestingly, the bible is a good thing to use. But, those who tout themselves as Christians seldom use it.
The bible is misused to keep condoms from kids who need them to stay healthy. The bible is misused to abuse Gays.
Slave owners couldn't be bothered with Negros who were being beaten because they had to piously study the scriptures (portrayed on the TV miniseries, Roots, as they were whipping Kunta Kinte until he accepted the American name Toby).
Christians are telling people that bad people are telling lies about them, and trying to tear down their religion. Shouldn't they, instead, adhere to their own religion? Shouldn't boy raping priests admit what they have done, atone, and apologize? Shouldn't the Catholic church admit wrongdoing (hiding child molesting priests), and allowing them to continue molesting innocent little boys? Some of those raped boys grow up traumatized and become criminals. Shouldn't the Catholic church stop its bankruptcy proceedings so that some of its mammon could justly compensate its victims?
Lets set the record straight about who the villains are, and who the saints are. Lets set the record straight about those who hate atheists. (Is hatred one of God's virtues?)