The White Queen tells Alice in through the looking glass “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.". One can substitute absurd, prejudiced, stupid, miraculous for impossible, what you chose to believe is a personal matter and I will be the champion of your right to hold these beliefs no matter how much they may sicken my being. Where I stop supporting your rights is when you use your religious beliefs as a cudgel in secular forums, to bully those who do not hold them in the same reverence, and worse assume an arrogance that you may use secular platforms for the furtherance of your belief system as though it was a right.
The preponderance of religious dogma that makes up the mainstay of articles in MyNews24 is misplaced, this is a secular platform. I post on a number of Buddhist forums so know that platforms exist in which you can engage with like minded persons to discuss issues that pertain to your belief system. It is bullying to post articles that consist of religious dogma, particularly prejudiced hate speech in a secular environment. You are a bully if you are doing this, and I believe that any fair minded person has a obligation, a duty even to oppose bullies.
Why do atheists spend so much time defending their position in the slurry of oblique that makes up the comments on articles? We are the vanguard of reason, we are perhaps the only thing that is preventing this platform from becoming a bible study group. If we agree with Dawkins that religion is dangerous, we have a duty to defend and denounce religious bullies , to fight prejudice and ignorance where we find it. My question to you is are we obliged to spend time with a textured and hermeneutic lean to our answers. It is safe to assume that none of the religious commentators have a Theology degree from St Peters, is it acceptable to just slag them off rather than make reference to Wittgensteinian fideism when discussing matters of faith. One cannot even establish lines of conventional acceptance, are you arguing Sola scriptura, is your point exegesis. Discussion is a complete waste of time, for most of the commentators are unlearned on the subject of their religion. My ambivalence is this, is it unkind to just attack these people, are we becoming the bullies ourselves, would well thought out rebuttals change the position of the faithful, are vulgar insults not more appropriate given the platform?
“Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.” Christopher Hitchens
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