In all honesty, a person who is stating their opinion to me but is unwilling to listen to my own opinion is "forcing their opinion" upon me (in all honesty, CycloWizard, your early posts reminded me of this, hence my stance toward your "religion" which at that point in time I thought was evangelism).
It's similar to someone standing at a busy urban streetcorner with a megaphone subjecting everyone to their nonsense. I understand that it falls under free speech, but I personally don't appreciate it and neither do most people in my experience. I have a very close friend who I've known since I was 5 years old, and he's this way. I also worked in a small office where the boss was like this. I can tell you that it's extremely frustrating, and it completely sours my opinion on their religion(s). The funny part is that neither one of them respects the other's church. According to my old boss, my friend's church is a "rebel church" because guitars, pianos, and drums are used for the church band. In his view this is "rock and roll", and his definition of the meaning of those three words was interesting to say the least.
Yes. Faith. I have faith but I also have the abilities to rationalize and evaluate things for myself, which I feel are gifts God gave to humans. If God gave us this mental capacity, why shouldn't we question religion, and why shouldn't we evaluate things for ourselves? I refuse to take the word of 30 people 2,000 years ago and the countless others who revised and re-wrote what they first said. I simply can't bring myself to take it literally.
Well, the fact of the matter is that most people aren't religious. 25% of people go to church every Sunday if that. I already outlined why people take issue with zealots who take the Bible literally and force their views upon others. People who preach liberalism on the neocons without considering the opposite point of view are just as bad, and are probably considered just as offensive by the neocons (sorry, neocon is the easiest term; I'm not trying to degrade anyone). People don't debate religion in person because it's a touchy subject and has much more serious personal consequences if not followed (or so the zealots tell me).Ah, so we're to the crux of the matter. Here you make a very good analgoy - comparing the premise of liberalism and Christianity. Why is it so different for someone to tell you about their religion than it is for people on this forum to tell me about liberalism? Many people discuss and debate politics in person, why not religion? I have one answer to this, but I want to see if you arrive at the same conclusion before I give you my thoughts.
I suppose I could guess that people generally share a distrust for the government, so discussing politics can be lighthearted, and people from all sides can agree that politicians are a bunch of crooks for the most part. Religion, well, most of the time people are damning people to hell, and this is much more serious. :evil:
Thanks, I enjoyed yours too. I don't think you're even close to the troll that some people on here seem to think you are. I took issue with your vacation, and honestly I think you're well informed and bring alot to the discussion here at AT. :beer:
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