Author Archive for StaksPage 2 of 17

What Republicans Think

Published
by
Staks
on April 25, 2012
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Yesterday I was at the polling booth all day talking to mostly socially liberal Republicans. Some of which told me they planned to vote for Obama. Others said that Obama is too polarizing and won’t budge on any issue. That one was comical because I don’t think there is an issue Obama hasn’t tried to appease the Republicans on. The funniest moment for me what when a Republican told me that Fox News was… wait for it… fair and balanced.

The Republicans did run the gambit on issues. Some of the more socially liberal Republicans agreed with me on legalizing pot and gay marriage. I met middle ground with them on gun laws too. But the more hardcore Republicans insisted that gay marriage would destroy America, but when I asked how he just restated that position with a, “you’ll see” at the end of it.

The Republicans seemed okay with Romney, but there was a Ron Paul woman working the polls that even the Republicans weren’t fans of. The Republicans told me about the Ron Paul plot to become convention delegates and override the vote’s decision at the convention so that Paul could be the nominee.

For VP, the best choice most Republicans preferred was NJ Governor Chris Christie. Marco Rubio of Florida was the second choice with Republicans fearing a “Palin Pick.” When I brought up Santorum’s name, the Republicans I talked to were united in their glee that he was out of the race. They were not a fan with one prominent Republican saying that Ricky shouldn’t have weighed in on the Terry Shiavo case when he was Senator.

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Primary Time!

Published
by
Staks
on April 24, 2012
.

Well, today is primary day and I will once again be away from my computer the whole day. Three years ago, I wrote myself in when voting on various local offices that didn’t have a democratic candidate and to my surprise I got a letter telling me that I won the election for Minority Election Inspector. So now, on Primary Day and Election Day I sit at the polling booth.

The fun part for me is talking to my co-workers and the politicians. You see, my precinct is almost entirely Republican and few if any Democratic candidates come around. Republican candidates on the other hand love to come out. So I get to talk to all these people about politics and religion… outside the polling place when it is slow.

I should also mention that my area is pretty Catholic and most of my co-workers love to gossip about the drama of their local church. While they tend to be Republican, they also tend to be socially pretty liberal and so that gets into all kinds of fun conversations.

Last time, I had a great time asking the Republicans who they wanted their candidate for President to be. This time I get to ask them, how they like their candidate? Will they vote for him? Will they campaign for him? And who they want for VP? It should be fun.

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Should We Be Funding Politicians?

Published
by
Staks
on April 23, 2012
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On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Maher mentioned that despite the fact that Mitt Romney has a large unfavorable rating (even among Republicans) the race for President is pretty close. Maher took the news as vindication of his decision to donate one million dollars to the Obama campaign. But perhaps that money would have been better spent funding the cause of reason and/or funding issue based awareness as opposed to candidate awareness.

But what if the money that was spent on Democratic candidates focused on changing people’s opinions about particular issues or about how to think critically about the issues? This type of shift would leave individual candidates scrambling to find cheaper and more creative ways to get their message out, but the battlefield would be changing more to their advantage in the meantime. They wouldn’t have to make their case; they would just have to let people know where they stand on the issues.

I bring this up because in my congressional district the Democratic challenger entered the race late and I know nothing about the guy. I went to his website to find out where he stands on the issues and left his website no more informed. He listed a small handful of issues which he didn’t even articulate a clear position on. He could be a right leaning Democrat or a progress and I have no idea. For all I know, his positions could be the exact same as the Republican incumbent.

If he can’t even inform people about where he stands, how is he going to persuade people to change their position on an issue? Why would anyone fund this guy rather than fund the actual issues to set the ground work for the future? Donating to his campaign seems like a waste of money even if you think he is the better candidate. That money like the money Maher donated to Obama would be better spent funding campaigns for individual issues that are important to Americans.

Because of the two party system people who vote don’t usually vote based on the candidate anyway, but rather based on the political party. Dynamic candidates are bold and they can get their message across better, but that has less to do with money and more to do with style.

In the end, politicians come and go, but it is the issues that remain important from election year to election year. That is what we should be funding. Then politicians will be more vocal in their support for issues that more voters support. The key is to get more voters to support the best positions on the issues. That is where Maher should have donated his million dollars.

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Two Sets of Laws

Published
by
Staks
on April 20, 2012
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Democrats used to talk about the two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. This is certainty true, but there is another set of two Americas developing. With relation to the rule of law, there is one set of laws for the religious and another set for everyone else.

Religious groups have been demanding that exemptions from laws that they don’t feel like adhering to. The most talked about example these days is of course the contraceptive health care coverage debate. The law wants to make it so all employers pay to cover the contraception needs of their employees. But the religious want to be exempt from this law.

There is of course the law that pharmacists have to fill the prescriptions that doctors prescribe… except that the religious want an exemption from that and have been lobbying congress to include such an exemption.

The religious are also pushing for an exemption to adoption laws that require agencies to not exclude gay parents. This debate got so heated that Catholic Charities even tried to hold our nation’s capital hostage over the situation. Fortunately they failed.

But the point is that more and more bills headed to congress are including religious exemption and are creating two sets of laws in this country; one set of laws for the religious and one set of laws for everyone else.

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‘Truth’ Is a Four-Letter-Word

Published
by
Staks
on April 19, 2012
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You know someone is full of shit when they use the word, “Truth” instead of laying out the evidence for why something is true. Also, you know they are full of shit when they use the word, “Truth” instead of saying that something is “true.” For example, “God is the Truth.”

Religious believers also like to stick “Truth” or even “True” in front of everything to change it to mean the opposite of what it does. For instance, if you see a group that calls themselves “Freethinkers” they probably are free thinkers. But if you see a group that is call, “True Freethinkers” then they probably aren’t.

While at the Reason Rally, there was a group called, “True Reason” and guess what? They weren’t very reasonable. In fact, while I was walking to lunch, I ran into an elderly couple handing out postcard advertisements for the Reason Rally. I told them that we were already there and that we will be going back after lunch. They handed us a postcard anyway and while sitting at lunch I noticed that they were really advertising for the “True Reason Rally.” Guess what? It was all about being unreasonable and having faith.

I bet next they will come up with “True atheists” who believe in Jesus. Frankly, I’m surprised some Christian hasn’t actually thought of that. Maybe we should create an organization dedicated to the, “One True God,” no god at all.

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Doubt Is The Devil

Published
by
Staks
on April 18, 2012
.

Yesterday I talked about my conversation with two Jehovah’s Witnesses that came to my door. As we were talking, I wanted to make it clear to them that I was not dogmatic in my thinking in the hopes that I could encourage them to be less dogmatic and consider the possibility that they might not have all the answers (as the older “Witness” actually claimed to have “all the answers”).

This is where things got interesting in the conversation. I told them that I might be wrong about the world and that they should likewise consider the possibility that they may be wrong as well. The older “Witness” then told me that “doubt is the devil.”

Now, I took that opportunity to joke about how I have just as much doubt about the devil as I do in God before trying to move the conversation along to the idea of continuing to search for answers even to questions we have already think we settled. Here I talked about how last year scientists thought that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity might be wrong and that this was actually pretty exciting for many scientists.

I tried to explain to them that the Theory of Relativity was settled science and as solid a theory as the theory of gravity (of course I had to take a moment to explain the difference between a layperson’s use of the term “theory” verse a scientist’s use of the term). So even though we know that the Einstein was right about Relativity, we actually for a moment had to re-question that view.

My point here was that even though they know that Jesus died for their sins and that God exists, that maybe they too should re-examine that view. But doubt is the devil was again repeated by the older witness. He said that if you have the answer, there is no need to keep searching for it.

Still, he was not my target and so I encouraged the younger witness to doubt and to not be dogmatic. I encouraged him to do his research. I pointed out several books that he could read or even search YouTube for lectures on those books. I again repeated that I too would keep an open mind and that he should as well. I told him that doubt wasn’t the devil, dogmatism was. We should doubt everything, even things we think we know with certainty because you never know when you might be wrong about something.

This was pretty much where the discussion ended. The older witness closing off discussion by insisting that doubt was the devil, the younger witness agreeing with him publicly, and me expressing the radical view that none of us know everything and that we might be wrong and as a result we should keep an open mind to new evidence should it be presented.

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De-Converting Strategies 101

Published
by
Staks
on April 17, 2012
.

Last week, I was visited by two Jehovah’s Witnesses and I actually ended up having a nice long conversation with them (usually they try to run away). In any case, they tried to use all the standard arguments and I was able to easily refute them. But that wasn’t my goal.

One of the guys was an older man and the other was a younger guy. It is unlikely that the older “Witness” would de-convert. He grew up in a Baptist Church and converted to the JW later in life. He actually told me that he has “all the answers.” But the younger “Witness” grew up in the JW and he has never known anything else. He was my focus.

I also know that I was not going to de-convert anyone on the spot. This is true with almost any topic (not just religion) with almost anyone. It almost never happens that someone makes an argument and the other person goes, “Oh, that’s a great point. I’m sold.” The most you can expect is for someone to say, “Oh, that’s a great point. I’ll think about it.” So my goal was to give him something to think about and to direct him to sources that would help him with his thinking.

I asked them if they ever use YouTube. Some religious believers rightfully fear the internet, so I wasn’t actually sure if these two Jehovah’s Witnesses were internet savvy or not. They were which is great for me.

So when the old First Cause Argument came up, I told them about Dr. Lawrence Krauss’s book, The Universe From Nothing, and told them that he actually has about an hour long presentation on YouTube. I admit that I had to struggle to remember the name of the book, but I think that will help the younger guy remember the name.

It isn’t enough to just tell these believers where to find the information though, I have to encourage them to actually go to these places and look for themselves. I encourage them to have an open mind, just as my mind is open to their message. I make sure to let them know that I am willing to believe God exists. All they have to do is provide some valid evidence for their claims. I tell them that I hope they will provide me the same courtesy and be open to new evidence. This is where things got interesting. I’ll talk about this part of the conversation more tomorrow.

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If Atheists Talked Like Christians

Published
by
Staks
on April 16, 2012
.

Hemant Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist is running a contest on twitter and facebook asking people to make atheist versions of Christian phrases. I actually think this is pretty brilliant and even though atheists have done this type of thing on their own in the past, I think it is good to do it in a more organized manner.

Atheists have a problem with messaging and this contest might be able to help. One problem atheists have is that we tend to be rational and therefore expect others to be rational as well. But most people don’t think rationally. So by taking some of the irrational things that Christians say and turning them into atheist things with our message we do two things. 1. We expose their irrationality. 2. We create our own messaging.

Some of the phrases will be in the first category and some will fit more in the second. Here are a few that I liked:

@rksteg you can’t be a good, moral person if you believe in God.

@DEIgebrandt If Jesus turned water into wine – how come there is still water?

@BetterOffDamned There’s no such thing as a Christian. You just hate reality!

Here are my contributions so far:

@DangerousTalk You’d have your answer if you reasoned it out sincerely.

@DangerousTalk You have a science shaped hole in your brain.

Tweet your message using the hashtag #IfAtheistsTalkedLikeChristians

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Do Non-Believing Children Go To Hell?

Published
by
Staks
on April 13, 2012
.

Many Christians talk about non-believers being tortured for all eternity in Hell by their all-loving deity. This is when I like to ask them if non-believing children go to Hell to be tortured for all eternity. I get a variety of answers on this one and they are all comically funny for atheists.

First I get the extreme answer: “Yes, children who don’t believe in God go to Hell to be tortured for all eternity and that is why it is so important to spread the message of Christ to everyone.” I actually don’t have a problem with this answer logically, but let’s face facts here. That is not a moral answer. Those who hold this opinion are saying in no uncertain terms that children should be tortured… for all eternity no less. This answer shows just how morally corrupting religion can be because these people who express this opinion believe they are good moral people and yet they believe that children should be tortured!

The second answer I get from Christians is the non-committal answer: “I don’t know; that is for God to decide.” But just a moment ago this same Christian was telling me that non-believers are going to be tortured for all eternity in Hell and now they don’t know if children go to Hell or not? Here we have a case of conscience meeting dogma. Christians like this have no problem telling non-believing adults that they will go to Hell, but even they realize that torturing non-believing children for all eternity is wrong. But they don’t want to take a side. “Children might go to Hell and that might be okay, but that is for God to decide.” Let’s put it in another context. “North Korea might be torturing children and that might be okay, that is up to Kim Jong-un to decide.”

Finally, we have the third answer from the more apologetic camp: “No, children don’t go to Hell. The Bible lists multiple passages which can be vaguely interpreted to tell us that God will not torture children, ever!” Here we have people of conscience and intellect who realize that torturing children is wrong and that morality is not just God’s will (although they won’t admit the latter). So because they know torturing children is wrong, they will re-interpret any verse they can find that vaguely mentions children to show that God wouldn’t torture children. But the fact is that it doesn’t really matter what the Bible actually says, it is the answer of their conscience that tells them that torturing children is wrong.

So how does our conscience know that it is wrong? Because we empathize with a person being tortured and we empathize with children who are defenseless. Based on our empathy, our compassion as human beings tells us that torture is wrong and torturing defenseless children is that much more wrong. Doing it for all eternity is just extra special wrong. It isn’t some vague Bible verse which needs to be understood in the light of some other vague Bible verse that tells them that children shouldn’t tortured for all eternity in Hell, it is a sense of human decency.

The Bible could flat out state that non-believing children go to Hell and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to these apologeticists. “That verse must be interpreted in the light of verse X and only applied to person Y in the special case because of situation Z.” The apologeticist can turn any verse completely on its head if it doesn’t fit with their view.

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God Hired a Hit Man

Published
by
Staks
on April 12, 2012
.

I was reading an article this morning about the mother of one of the Virginia Tech victims five years after the shooting. The mother was extremely religious and when her daughter died, she said that she stopped talking to God for a while but she recently started to talk to God again because God told her that he had a plan.

Apparently, God’s plan was to hire a hit man to have this woman’s daughter brutally murdered. Or maybe that was just the first step in a much larger plan involving world domination… or something. I’m not sure.

Aside from the ridiculousness of people talking to an imaginary deity and claiming that that deity is responding literally, I take issue with this grieving mother’s rationalization. For starters, it shows an obvious contradiction within the belief system. Either everyone has free will or God used this murderer as a pawn in his master plan. Both can’t be true.

More than that, it takes responsibility away from the killer. He had no choice; he was just playing his part in God’s plan. In this sense, God is really the killer and the guy who pulled the trigger was just a hired gun… or worse, he was the actual gun with no choice but to fire when God pulled the trigger.

I feel bad for the mother. I have two small children and I couldn’t imagine what I would be feeling if one or both of them were brutally murdered. It is easy for me to be rational now, but if I were in her situation, I hope someone would help me stay rational instead of allowing me to lose my mind to ridiculous superstitions. This is one of the reasons why therapists exist.

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Where Do We Find Meaning?

Published
by
Staks
on April 11, 2012
.

Yesterday on the Friendly Atheist blog, Hemant posted a a clip from an upcoming Christian film called, “Blue Like Jazz.” The clip posted shows a debate between a Christian and an atheist with an audience member asking a question, “Where do we find meaning?”

Here is the clip:

Now I have a lot of issues with the clip as does Hemant, but let’s focus on the question of meaning. This is how I would have answered the question about meaning in that setting:

It depends on the meaning of the word meaning (laugh). Seriously though, if you are referring to one singular purpose like that of writing for a pencil, then I don’t think you are going to find it. But if you are referring to a purpose greater than yourself, something to strive for, then I see no reason why we should limit our meaning or purpose to just one thing or to allow someone else to tell us what the meaning or purpose in our own lives should be. This is the great existential question of human existence and I for one am glad that we live in a society that gives us the freedom and the tools to answer it as individuals rather than imposing some answer from an invisible deity from on high on us. We have the freedom to create our own meaning in our lives. For me, one of the meanings in my life is my children. But I also find meaning in learning about the world around me and in advancing human knowledge, fighting for human rights, and human dignity. Today, I find meaning in refuting ridiculous beliefs which are detrimental to human well-being and which stifle freedom.

What do you think of my answer? How would you answer this question?

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Open Challenge to Christians

Published
by
Staks
on April 10, 2012
.

Every time I get an e-mail or a message from a Christian and almost every time I get into a religious conversation with a Christian, they almost always have the same old arguments which a quick google search can easily refute. So, I have a challenge for Christians. Don’t worry I’m not going to ask Christians to actually prove their God (that would be expecting way too much). No, I just want Christians to present a new fucking argument.

That’s right I just want Christians to present a new argument in support of their claims. If a Christian can present a new argument I will be very impressed. I will dedicate a blog post and possibly an Examiner article to the new argument and name the Christian who presented it to me directly. More than that, I will even post a link to the website of the Christian’s choice.

The argument doesn’t even really have to be that good although, I would recommend that it be the best argument you can possibly put forward since I will be making it very public and if you put forward a ridiculously stupid argument, it will just reflect poorly on you and your alleged deity.

Who knows, maybe if the argument is good enough, I might even convert to Christianity… but I doubt it. Still, I am certainly open to new arguments to sway me. So where are the great Christian thinkers of our time? Come forward in the name of your deity of choice and present your best original argument. You can contact me through any social network or through email (DangerousTalk@gmail.com). Let the challenge begin!

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The Hunger Games and Jesus… Not Quite

Published
by
Staks
on April 9, 2012
.

Over the weekend, I finally got to watch the film “The Hunger Games.” Don’t worry I don’t think I will say anything that would be considered a spoiler. There was one part early in the movie that I thought Christians might claim as proof that the film has Christian themes in it. After watching the movie, I did a little googling and sure enough that is exactly what the Christian spin was.

First, I should point out that the author, Suzanne Collins, is a Catholic. However, that really didn’t play into her writing of the book or the screenplay. Her focus was on politics, economic, and government, not on religion.

So the claim being made by Christians is that early in the film, when Primrose Evergreen was called to the hunger games, her sister Katniss sacrificed herself in the same way Jesus sacrificed himself for the sins of humanity… Except that Katniss wasn’t on a cross, didn’t die for three days, wasn’t resurrected, etc. In other words, there are no similarities at all. In fact, the sacrifice itself is entirely different.

Or starters, Primrose didn’t commit any crimes nor was she even accused on any crimes. According to Christianity, the Jesus sacrificed himself to pay for the crimes of all humanity. Katniss sacrificed herself to save her sister from being called to the hunger games where she would have almost certainly died.

Not all sacrifices are like Jesus. If Primrose had murdered someone and was found guilty and sentenced to death and then innocent Katniss told the judge that she would accept the death sentence so that Primrose could get away with murder, then we would be having a serious conversation about Christian themes in The Hunger Games.

That, after all is the theme of Christianity. All human beings are wretchedly evil and guilty of breaking God’s laws. God, acts as judge, jury, and executioner and has found us guilty. But then along comes Jesus (the only innocent person) to take our place in Hell… except that he doesn’t actually take our place at all, but I digress.

The Hunger Games was a good movie, but it has nothing at all to do with religion. Religion isn’t mentioned at all and the film has no religious themes in it at all. It simply doesn’t pertain to that subject matter.

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Passover and Easter: Great fun for atheists

Published
by
Staks
on April 8, 2012
.

A Very Special Dangerous Talk:

Many atheists really love this time of year because it is just too easy to criticize two of the three Abrahamic religions without much effort at all. Jews and Christians just make it so easy; it is like they are handing atheists the logical death blow to their own beliefs.

First, let’s start with Passover. There is this great Huffington Post article (if I do say so myself) that talks about the fact that the Jewish Exodus never actually happened. What this means of course is that the Jewish religion is built on a proven fictional story. Down goes Judaism!

Next comes Easter, which most Christians consider the holiest of holy holidays. The problem is that Easter is NOT a Christian holiday! I know Christians hate to hear that, but it’s true. I don’t recall reading in the Bible about Jesus ever owning a hare. And what is the deal with Easter Eggs? Where does the Bible talk about egg hunts, in the gospel of Luke perhaps? The Bible doesn’t mention anything at all about Easter and Jesus didn’t even own a pet bunny. All the stuff about Jesus being needlessly tortured to death and rising from the dead has nothing to do with Easter. Christians should call their holiday Zombie Sunday or Zombie Jesus Day or something, but it is not Easter.

Easter is actually a combination of various Pagan beliefs mostly centering on the goddess Eostre (who the holiday is actually named after). I’ll get to the Goddess Eostre shortly but first I want to focus on the half-god Attis who like Jesus was born of a virgin, died on March 23nd and resurrected on March 25th. Let’s count that one out. How many days was he dead for again? One, two, three day? Just like Jesus. What a coincidence.

Now let’s look at the story of the Goddess Eostre. While there are actually many different versions of the Eostre story, the most prominent story claims that the Goddess came upon a little girl who had found a dying bird. The girl asked Eostre for help because the bird was not use to the cold weather. Eostre then melted the snow and brought about the spring. She then turned the bird into a hare that laid rainbow eggs and told the young girl to watch every year for the hare as a sign of the spring season. Traditionally, the Eostre Festival had focused on fertility to mirror the new life of nature and change to mirror the changing of the seasons from winter to spring.

Atheists should celebrate Easter even though we know that Attis, Eostre, and the Easter Bunny aren’t real. We also know that Mickey Mouse isn’t real, but we can still go to Disneyland and have a good time. Atheists should celebrate Easter because it is fun, symbolizes human sexuality, the changing of the seasons, and because Jews and Christians have made this time of year really fun for us with their ridiculous beliefs in obviously ridiculous stories, which are so easily refuted.

Happy Easter!

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Patrick Greene Sold Me on God

Published
by
Staks
on April 6, 2012
.

So the big news of the week is that some atheist few have ever heard of has converted to Christianity. While researching my Examiner article on the topic, I decided to go right to the source. I e-mailed Patrick Greene and asked him, what’s up?

I read quite a few articles about Greene’s conversion and they all said about the same thing. Greene converted because Christians paid him $400 and because evolution can’t explain the huge, massive differences between humans and other animals. So I asked Greene what he meant by the huge differences in human and other animals. He told me that he was referring to brain size and physical characteristics.

This was pretty shocking because humans don’t have the largest brains… not even proportionally. But, I told him, even if we did, that wouldn’t disprove evolution and it certainly wouldn’t prove God. More than that, it wouldn’t get you to Jesus either. So what convinced him?

“What got me to Jesus was very simple.  With the education levels and knowledge of the societies back 2,000 years ago, Jesus had to be the son of God, because the people there would not have the imagination to make up stories like walking on water, rising from the dead, and changing water into wine.”

Wow, I never heard that argument before and I thought I had heard them all. Congratulation Patrick Greene wins a prize. You have to admit that is a pretty solid argument (snicker, snicker). Jesus has to be real because Christians lack the imagination to make this shit up.

Holy shit, I am sold!

Oh, there is of course the fact that people 2000 + years ago had awesome imaginations a while Greene might be correct that Christians back then might not have had great imaginations, they could just steal their stories from everyone else. Oh look, that seems to be exactly what happened… either that, or the Greek gods must be real too.

I always said Zeus was real. I knew it; the ancient Greeks didn’t have the imagination to make that shit up.

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Christian Abuse on Facebook

Published
by
Staks
on April 5, 2012
.

Yesterday, I posted a status update on facebook and one of the comments that was left was from a friend of a friend. It was overly religious and basically said that someday I will be tortured for all eternity, but that as a Christian they wouldn’t say, ‘I told you so’ but instead say, ‘ha ha, you were warned’ or something of that nature. It didn’t even really address my status update, but was just an excuse to proselytize.

Now, I couldn’t care less about the comment itself; my inbox is filled with such nonsense and I obviously take it as seriously as I do threats that Voldemort is coming. However, what bothers me is that this person isn’t even my friend and yet he or she felt the need to go onto my page and tell me (a complete stranger) that I will be and ought to be tortured for all eternity.

Sure, I could change my privacy settings, but that isn’t my point. The point is that he or she felt it was okay to tell someone they don’t know that they should be tortured for all eternity. I want to send a message that this type of crap is not okay. It is not civil and it is in fact immoral. I guarantee that if an atheist left a comment critical to religion on a Christian’s page that they were not friends with (or even friends with), they would be reported and it would be considered an instance of angry atheists pushing our non-belief.

For the most part however, atheists don’t do that. We tend to keep our non-belief confined to our own page or that of our friends. We tend to be polite and we would never tell anyone that they should be tortured for all eternity. That’s beyond just rude, it is downright immoral.

We shouldn’t accept that kind of crap from religious believers and we should let them know it. Their beliefs are not just wrong they are rude, hateful, and immoral. If they come to your page, you should let them know that and then report them!

I’m not a fan of reporting people for exercising their free speech, but I think we should start doing it. They won’t think twice before reporting us for less and we have to start sending a message.

The problem is that they don’t think what they are saying or doing is hateful. They don’t understand that when they are telling people that they should be tortured for all eternity, that that could possibly be considered rude, hateful, or violent. It seems like such a no-brainer to me, but religious faith has a way of warping people’s minds.

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