The one group that isn't protected on that other forum

you sure about minorities?

Go call someone a spic and don't get banned.

I think most of what is traditionally considered American Conservative values are openly mocked on GAF, not just religion.

And I lean super far left so I obviously disagree with a lot of those values as well, but it sometimes can be weird. empty vessel and people like him definitely attack conservatives with a ferocity that would get him banned quickly if he was attacking any other group.

EviLore also seems to have some weird self-hatred thing going on about obesity that seems to be leaking over to the modding I think.

More than anything else, probably because religion is technically a choice. Some people would disagree, but digging deeper into that notion opens a can worms.

Go call someone a spic and don't get banned.

You can't outright insult someone but you can definitely dig all in their ass with every long winded version of a stereotype that you can find.

More than anything else, probably because religion is technically a choice. Some people would disagree, but digging deeper into that notion opens a can worms.

Would getting your penis turned into a vagina not constitute a choice?

More than anything else, probably because religion is technically a choice. Some people would disagree, but digging deeper into that notion opens a can worms.

Would getting your penis turned into a vagina not constitute a choice?

I know where this is going, so let me stop you now.

Would getting your penis turned into a vagina not constitute a choice?

Having sex with someone constitutes a choice as well, but that's not really the point.

More than anything else, probably because religion is technically a choice. Some people would disagree, but digging deeper into that notion opens a can worms.

Would getting your penis turned into a vagina not constitute a choice?

I know where this is going, so let me stop you now.

u have no powers here

Dy I'm not going to hate any group in particular, when It comes to social issues I'm so far left I'd drive into oncoming traffic. I'm accepting of everyone which is why when a forum that tries to do the same it seems so odd to leave a group out. I'm not particularly religious or anything I'm just sayin'

Actually, duki, I am chairman of announcements.

It's a pretty big deal.

Dy I'm not going to hate any group in particular, when It comes to social issues I'm so far left I'd drive into oncoming traffic. I'm accepting of everyone which is why when a forum that tries to do the same it seems so odd to leave a group out. I'm not particularly religious or anything I'm just sayin'

Religion is different from sexual orientation and race. It's closer to being part of a political party, in that you make the decision to adhere to a belief system and thereby leave yourself open to criticism regarding those beliefs. If you think that L. Ron Hubbard was a prophet, or that dinosaurs walked with mankind, or that Native Americans were a lost tribe of Israel, someone is going to laugh at you and they're not necessarily wrong to do it.

Dy I'm not going to hate any group in particular, when It comes to social issues I'm so far left I'd drive into oncoming traffic. I'm accepting of everyone which is why when a forum that tries to do the same it seems so odd to leave a group out. I'm not particularly religious or anything I'm just sayin'

Religion is different from sexual orientation and race. It's closer to being part of a political party, in that you make the decision to adhere to a belief system and thereby leave yourself open to criticism regarding those beliefs. If you think that L. Ron Hubbard was a prophet, or that dinosaurs walked with mankind, or that Native Americans were a lost tribe of Israel, someone is going to laugh at you and they're not really wrong to do it.

except this is a completely myopic view and religion is deeply tied to cultural identity for a lot of people who take it very seriously and if your whole rationale is not offending people and hurting their feelings it makes no sense to arbitrarily differentiate between Things People Take Seriously due to biased perspectives

its a hypocritical stance no matter how you shake it out

ofc if they didnt pretend to give so much of a shit about peoples feelings it wouldnt be hypocritical because who gives a shit, but they made that bed and so should be called out on it shrug

ofc if they didnt pretend to give so much of a shit about peoples feelings it wouldnt be hypocritical because who gives a shit, but they made that bed and so should be called out on it shrug

Can't really argue against that.

Actually, duki, I am chairman of announcements.

It's a pretty big deal.

has this been announced yet

Could've sworn we weren't gonna do this here, but I guess it's better get it out our systems now.

I agree with duki's argument either way.

except this is a completely myopic view and religion is deeply tied to cultural identity for a lot of people who take it very seriously and if your whole rationale is not offending people and hurting their feelings it makes no sense to arbitrarily differentiate between Things People Take Seriously due to biased perspectives

Creationists take their beliefs very seriously indeed. Do you think no one should be allowed to criticize them?

It's not about how seriously someone takes something. It's about being objective.

except this is a completely myopic view and religion is deeply tied to cultural identity for a lot of people who take it very seriously and if your whole rationale is not offending people and hurting their feelings it makes no sense to arbitrarily differentiate between Things People Take Seriously due to biased perspectives

Creationists take their beliefs very seriously indeed. Do you think no one should be allowed to criticize them?

It's not about how seriously someone takes something. It's about being objective.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings. The rules are the rules or they're not, we're here because the rules are supposedly the rules except for when they're not.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings.

What I'm saying is that the comparison isn't even valid. I don't care enough to make a huge deal out of it, but there is a big difference between attacking what a person chooses to believe and attacking what a person was born as and can't help being.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings.

What I'm saying is that the comparison isn't even valid. I don't care enough to make a huge deal out of it, but there is a big difference between attacking what a person chooses to believe and attacking what a person was born as and can't help being.

There's also a difference between criticizing a belief and 'lol knuckle dragging spaghetti monster believing moron'.

except this is a completely myopic view and religion is deeply tied to cultural identity for a lot of people who take it very seriously and if your whole rationale is not offending people and hurting their feelings it makes no sense to arbitrarily differentiate between Things People Take Seriously due to biased perspectives

Creationists take their beliefs very seriously indeed. Do you think no one should be allowed to criticize them?

It's not about how seriously someone takes something. It's about being objective.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings. The rules are the rules or they're not, we're here because the rules are supposedly the rules except for when they're not.

Creationism has been proven false by pretty much everything, however, while scientific determinations for being transgender and homosexual do exist. An argument could also be made that creationism is dangerous because it actually does affect a child's ability to perceive the world in a rational way. This argument against pseudo-science being does sometimes not go all the way to the left on many issues though, as shown by MMT Economics being very pervasive on GAF despite being viewed as a crank by almost all economists.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings.

What I'm saying is that the comparison isn't even valid. I don't care enough to make a huge deal out of it, but there is a big difference between attacking what a person chooses to believe and attacking what a person was born as and can't help being.

There's also a difference between criticizing a belief and 'lol knuckle dragging spaghetti monster believing moron'.

Sure, I agree with that.

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings.

What I'm saying is that the comparison isn't even valid. I don't care enough to make a huge deal out of it, but there is a big difference between attacking what a person chooses to believe and attacking what a person was born as and can't help being.

That's a belief usually held by those who don't share those beliefs :P

But what duki is saying is that it's hypocritical to let people go to town on such believers and then to rain hellfire on people hurting people's feelings.

What I'm saying is that the comparison isn't even valid. I don't care enough to make a huge deal out of it, but there is a big difference between attacking what a person chooses to believe and attacking what a person was born as and can't help being.

youre ignoring what i said though

your view is based upon your culturally formative experiences (im assuming youre american here): religion is separate from culture in the united states, your brand of religious fundamentalists are wacky baptist nutjobs who hate science, creationists are a specific and easy target due to their lack of scientific credibility, etc.

this doesn't epitomise religiosity the world over though, and in fact this separation has not been the norm for thousands of years of human culture

for a devout egyptian muslim, a staunch catholic brazilian, an orthodox jew etc, their religion isnt a just a choice, its a culture and a way of life that can bleed into and colour all their thinking and background information

attacking them personally for being religious period is closer to what youre describing with attacking people for being gay or trans or whatever. im not sure why their culture being a social, human construction, instead of being biological, somehow makes it less real or important to these people themselves. youve decided that this is the most important distinction (and youve decided it for them) but they might not agree, and you havent really stated why you think its the deciding point

and, the point of what i was actually saying is, if your primary objective is not to hurt people, and to be open and understanding, and respect their feelings etc, like they kind of pretend over there, its hypocritical to shit all over such people. every other one of those other protected groups get to decide what they find offensive (or opiate does it for them lol), and theyre given the benefit of the doubt as to what they find offensive. religious people are allowed to be shat on just for being religious.

if you arent pretending that peoples feelings and deeply held emotions and beliefs are all that important on a shitty internet message board originally designed to fellate the sony playstation? no problem!

pretending there isnt a deliberate blind spot there is just dishonest

really the issue is that there is a complete lack of acceptance of cultural relativism. for some reason this has been completely squeezed out modern colloquial liberalism idk why, but thats basically the crux of it. used to be telling people of other cultures that their culture was shitty compared to ours was frowned upon as arrogant and imperialistic. go figure

Could've sworn we weren't gonna do this here, but I guess it's better get it out our systems now.

I agree with duki's argument either way.

It'll happen from time to time, whenever we get any decent amount of new members there's gonna be people with questions and gripes. I just hope it isn't very frequent or long lasting.

Pretty much what duki said.

Women, gays, minorities, etc are all pretty much protected from bigots on gaf which is great. But why do you guys think religious people are open to be mocked and shunned at times?

1) Most religious insults/mockings on GAF are directed at institutions and religious books vs individuals and individuals who are religious.

2) No one is born religious. While you are right having sexual reassignment surgery is a choice, not everyone in the transgender community makes changes like this and this choice is not something that determines if you are transgendered or or not. Using your religious comparison in this instance, it's like saying you have to be baptized to be religious.

3) US religious groups attacking other groups in the "defense of marriage", etc... doesn't help foster good will either.

Note that none of this is an excuse for being hostile/not showing good behavior towards religious people on GAF, I'm just clearing up how the groups are different and why you see more open hostility towards one vs the other. A better comparison would be towards other "choice" groups, like your political affiliation.

Yep. I'm not involved in any kind of church/temple/what have you, but I still think the snarky atheists are just about the worst part of that site after the various creepers (bronies, furries, etc). The mods make zero effort to induce any kind of tolerance, and 99% of the bitter atheist crowd have no knowledge of the hermetic or mystical traditions of various religions, or their ontological or psychological foundations. They're just insecure middle-brow nerds who want to puff up their own egos by pretending to be intellectual giants lording over fundamentalist straw men. Statements like "religion is a cancer" and "religion should be banned" are thrown around constantly without any kind of check on them. It's like dude, put the fedora and the Hitchens quote url away, you and your I Fucking Love Science memes don't have life figured out better than the Dalai Lama does.

/pet peeve rant

Women, gays, minorities, etc are all pretty much protected from bigots on gaf which is great. But why do you guys think religious people are open to be mocked and shunned at times?

1) Most religious insults/mockings on GAF are directed at institutions and religious books vs individuals and individuals who are religious.

2) No one is born religious. While you are right having sexual reassignment surgery is a choice, not everyone in the transgender community makes changes like this and this choice is not something that determines if you are transgendered or or not. Using your religious comparison in this instance, it's like saying you have to be baptized to be religious.

3) US religious groups attacking other groups in the "defense of marriage", etc… doesn't help foster good will either.

Note that none of this is an excuse for being hostile/not showing good behavior towards religious people on GAF, I'm just clearing up how the groups are different and why you see more open hostility towards one vs the other. A better comparison would be towards other "choice" groups, like your political affiliation.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

Bullshit. I got my second ban for dismissing religion as foolishness. Didn't even go in all that hard either. If I had known it was going to get me a ban I would have been way more blunt about my disdain for religion.
Religion is a choice, and like any other choice you make you are not protected from being called out on the stupidity of that choice. If I decide to believe that sticking pumpkins up my ass will bring me closer to the tree gods of old, I am free to think that, but to not expect people to call me out on how fucking stupid that belief is would be naive.

Because EL isn't religious.

Yep. I'm not involved in any kind of church/temple/what have you, but I still think the snarky atheists are just about the worst part of that site after the various creepers (bronies, furries, etc). The mods make zero effort to induce any kind of tolerance, and 99% of the bitter atheist crowd have no knowledge of the hermetic or mystical traditions of various religions, or their ontological or psychological foundations. They're just insecure middle-brow nerds who want to puff up their own egos by pretending to be intellectual giants lording over fundamentalist straw men. Statements like "religion is a cancer" and "religion should be banned" are thrown around constantly without any kind of check on them. It's like dude, put the fedora and the Hitchens quote url away, you and your I Fucking Love Science memes don't have life figured out better than the Dalai Lama does.

/pet peeve rant

the science worshipping atheist crowd is pretty bad there, but i think that speaks to innernette-demographics more than anything

Yep. I'm not involved in any kind of church/temple/what have you, but I still think the snarky atheists are just about the worst part of that site after the various creepers (bronies, furries, etc). The mods make zero effort to induce any kind of tolerance, and 99% of the bitter atheist crowd have no knowledge of the hermetic or mystical traditions of various religions, or their ontological or psychological foundations. They're just insecure middle-brow nerds who want to puff up their own egos by pretending to be intellectual giants lording over fundamentalist straw men. Statements like "religion is a cancer" and "religion should be banned" are thrown around constantly without any kind of check on them. It's like dude, put the fedora and the Hitchens quote url away, you and your I Fucking Love Science memes don't have life figured out better than the Dalai Lama does.

/pet peeve rant

gud post

Defining the culture that you're raised in as not as choice either definitely does show that GAF is not just against religious groups though. I don't think there's a difference between a wealthy person saying "poor people are inferior" or "I shouldn't be taxed to pay for food stamps" and a religious person saying "transgender individuals are a disease" and "Gays shouldn't be allowed to marry." Both people pull from their culture some parts of those beliefs ("If you work hard, you can make money" "If you don't follow the Bible, you're a sinner") and combine them with general insanity to come up with a terrible view of the world...And both of their groups will get crucified by NeoGAF members without bans. A thread about the wealthy saying something about the rich working harder will almost always involve tons of "the rich are psychopaths" posts that label an entire group as much as threads about religion. And this is despite several prominent members (IIRC, EviLore, Opiate, Aqua) being wealthy or coming from wealthy families. The forum has an ethos of protecting those at or in a lower class than its median members as well protecting those at or to the left politically of its median members. There is not protection given to those with political power or those to the far right There is an argument to be made for this (IRL, Protestants and Catholics are rarely persecuted in America, the wealthy have great amounts of political power, the poor have little political power, LGBT individuals are persecuted enough to be frequently driven to suicide, abuse rates for women around the world are still outrageously high) as a counter to what can occur in general life, but there are certainly arguments that this is a flawed way of running a forum as well. I definitely have issues with GAF, but I don't think it's inconsistent in this regard.

Duki/LFK hit it right on the head.

really the issue is that there is a complete lack of acceptance of cultural relativism. for some reason this has been completely squeezed out modern colloquial liberalism idk why, but thats basically the crux of it. used to be telling people of other cultures that their culture was shitty compared to ours was frowned upon as arrogant and imperialistic. go figure

Excellent comment. Which is why I don't really consider the group at NeoGAF truly liberal. They may hit all the left "checkboxes", but the underlying philosophy can be just as militant as right-wingers.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

I think his point was that children are born without religious beliefs, which is undeniably true. Children are inculcated with cultural ideas (including religious beliefs) by their parents or other authority figures. It's also true that your specific religious beliefs are most influenced by where you're born.

I'm an atheist, but I agree that religion and "spirituality" (whatever that means) are probably intrinsic and ultimately inseparable from human nature, for better or worse. I'm at peace with that as long as fundamentalism and extremism remain marginalized.

FWIW, I think that both sides can afford to take a step back and have some perspective. Those who are religious should be less sensitive when their beliefs are criticized, and those who want to criticize the religious beliefs of others should maintain a respectful and adult tone.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

I think his point was that children are born without religious beliefs, which is undeniably true. Children are inculcated with cultural ideas (including religious beliefs) by their parents or other authority figures. It's also true that your specific religious beliefs are most influenced by where you're born.

I'm an atheist, but I agree that religion and "spirituality" (whatever that means) are probably intrinsic and ultimately inseparable from human nature, for better or worse. I'm at peace with that as long as fundamentalism and extremism remain marginalized.

FWIW, I think that both sides can afford to take a step back and have some perspective. Those who are religious should be less sensitive when their beliefs are criticized, and those who want to criticize the religious beliefs of others should maintain a respectful and adult tone.

Sure. I just mostly disagreed because I've known and worked with a lot of people who were from the Middle East, and that stuff is in their blood just as deep as the idea that you should be free to have your own ideas is in the West. It's not something you could decide to change about yourself even if you wanted to. That doesn't mean that everyone's a fundamentalist there or that there are no atheists, but there's a lot of preconceptions that are just base level programming, even if they're not conscious.

In the modern West, religion has been absorbed into the consumerist ethos - it's a shopping market, and you pick the one you like best. But most of the world doesn't play pick-your-own-ontology the way we do, it's a testament to a post enlightenment egocentrism that we take for granted here, the idea that the world can be what shape I personally feel like it should be, whether by my reason or my desire.

I think most people don't know that the word 'religion' didn't even exist (in its current usage) until 2-300 years ago. There are several cultures we've come into contact with, like Japan, that didn't even have a word for the concept until we told them there was one. There was just the world, and of course this spiritual stuff was in it to some degree - though of course there was debate about who was right about it. There have been skeptics and materialists since at least Plato's time, but the notion that rationality and religion are two opposing fields is very recent in human history.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

I think his point was that children are born without religious beliefs, which is undeniably true. Children are inculcated with cultural ideas (including religious beliefs) by their parents or other authority figures. It's also true that your specific religious beliefs are most influenced by where you're born.

I'm an atheist, but I agree that religion and "spirituality" (whatever that means) are probably intrinsic and ultimately inseparable from human nature, for better or worse. I'm at peace with that as long as fundamentalism and extremism remain marginalized.

FWIW, I think that both sides can afford to take a step back and have some perspective. Those who are religious should be less sensitive when their beliefs are criticized, and those who want to criticize the religious beliefs of others should maintain a respectful and adult tone.

Sure. I just mostly disagreed because I've known and worked with a lot of people who were from the Middle East, and that stuff is in their blood just as deep as the idea that you should be free to have your own ideas is in the West. It's not something you could decide to change about yourself even if you wanted to. That doesn't mean that everyone's a fundamentalist there or that there are no atheists, but there's a lot of preconceptions that are just base level programming, even if they're not conscious.

In the modern West, religion has been absorbed into the consumerist ethos - it's a shopping market, and you pick the one you like best. But most of the world doesn't play pick-your-own-ontology the way we do, it's a testament to a post enlightenment egocentrism that we take for granted here, the idea that the world can be what shape I personally feel like it should be, whether by my reason or my desire.

I think most people don't know that the word 'religion' didn't even exist (in its current usage) until 2-300 years ago. There are several cultures we've come into contact with, like Japan, that didn't even have a word for the concept until we told them there was one. There was just the world, and of course this spiritual stuff was in it to some degree - though of course there was debate about who was right about it. There have been skeptics and materialists since at least Plato's time, but the notion that rationality and religion are two opposing fields is very recent in human history.

Good post.

I get that religion is often wrapped up in family, culture, personal relationships, and the lens of personal experience. My wife is Christian and we've gradually learned to understand each others' perspective.

I think we can all agree that it's unhelpful when extremists on either side come in and generalize without listening to the other side.

What really gets my goat, however, is when you have fundamentalists like Dunk#7 and Game Analyst who are completely unwilling to listen to reason or to even attempt to reconcile their faith with the fact that it's 2014 and we understand the world a lot better than we used to. Most religion threads on That Other Forum eventually devolve into shouting matches between a few neckbeard/fedora atheists and devout fundamentalists.

The forum format really isn't conducive to constructive conversations in most cases, IMO.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

I recognize the site isn't a US site, but most of the hostility you see is coming from US citizens. Also when I say you are born a certain way first and foremost I am talking on a biological level. As in this is part of who you are scientifically, not culturally/socially. I won't argue with you about spirituality as that is getting into your own beliefs vs the issue with GAF, but a religious group (Christianity, Judaism) are not part of who you are as a human being physically vs how you choose to behave socially and that makes a big difference in the defense of a religious group vs the other groups cuevas referenced.

In your later post you argue about people from the Middle East you work with and how their beliefs are in their blood, so allow me to use that as an example to clarify the difference. If you took a new born child from that part of the Middle East for adoption, gave him to Japanese parents in Kyoto and allowed them to raise the child as their own and as a Kyoto citizen without any outside interference/influences from his country of origin, do you agree that this child would act and behave like a Kyoto citizen vs a citizen from his country of birth? If so, then that's the difference. No matter how a woman, gay person, or person in a non Caucasian ethnic group is raised, they will still be part of that group because it isn't influenced by social interaction/upbringing.

Nah. Keep in mind that's not just a US site. There are a lot of places in the world where you absolutely are born religious. It's also a calling for many, and frankly I think the entire history of humanity would disagree that spirituality not something inherent to who we are, in some form or another.

I recognize the site isn't a US site, but most of the hostility you see is coming from US citizens. Also when I say you are born a certain way first and foremost I am talking on a biological level. As in this is part of who you are scientifically, not culturally/socially. I won't argue with you about spirituality as that is getting into your own beliefs vs the issue with GAF, but a religious group (Christianity, Judaism) are not part of who you are as a human being physically vs how you choose to behave socially and that makes a big difference in the defense of a religious group vs the other groups cuevas referenced.

In your later post you argue about people from the Middle East you work with and how their beliefs are in their blood, so allow me to use that as an example to clarify the difference. If you took a new born child from that part of the Middle East for adoption, gave him to Japanese parents in Kyoto and allowed them to raise the child as their own and as a Kyoto citizen without any outside interference/influences from his country of origin, do you agree that this child would act and behave like a Kyoto citizen vs a citizen from his country of birth? If so, then that's the difference. No matter how a woman, gay person, or person in a non Caucasian ethnic group is raised, they will still be part of that group because it isn't influenced by social interaction/upbringing.

you keep stating the mere existence of the difference and then asserting that it matters without ever arguing as to why the difference should matter once the person has been raised in such a way

why is the fact that cultural heritage is a social construction make said heritage less meaningful or important to that person or people once they have been exposed to it

esp. if you want to pretend that feelings and shit are the most important thing in the world and you have to be inclusive of everyone

you keep stating the mere existence of the difference and then asserting that it matters without ever arguing as to why the difference should matter once the person has been raised in such a way

why is the fact that cultural heritage is a social construction make said heritage less meaningful or important to that person or people once they have been exposed to it

esp. if you want to pretend that feelings and shit are the most important thing in the world and you have to be inclusive of everyone

Again, I don't want my posts to give the impression that I agree that people in religious groups should be mocked or disrespected on GAF. I just want to clarify the differences between the "protected" groups and why there is a difference in how they are protected in the first place. Because while I see lots of religious people complain about this behavior, I also see the same complaints coming from US political conservatives on the forum who are openly mocked by liberal posters and the moderation does nothing when they complain, as well as groups who are fans of certain forms of media/products and rival product groups. And the difference between those groups is, like you said, social construction. So it's not that the GAF rules are "out of the ordinary" with one group, it's that they offer no "ridicule protection" for social construct groups.

The pure hate that it gets on that forum does get a little overbearing. But I think a lot of it in general comes from (speaking in terms of the US here) politics. Politicians are (unfortunately) very successful in tying religion to their ideologies and those issues become front and center and the primary focus of media and news in general and therefore the primary exposure for non religious people.

When you have, for example, a state like Arizona not only managing to get legislators to draft a discriminatory bill but get it all the way to the governor's desk, the reaction to that is going to be much more visceral. And it's all done under the guise of 'religious freedom'. As such, reactions to 'religion' become increasingly more toxic.

This is a beautiful thread. "That other forum" is borderline fascist when it comes to this stuff. It reminds me of Big Brother in 1984. So "progressive" that it bexomes reactionary like reformation England.

More than anything else, probably because religion is technically a choice. Some people would disagree, but digging deeper into that notion opens a can worms.

Would getting your penis turned into a vagina not constitute a choice?

I know where this is going, so let me stop you now.

u have no powers here

:lol:

Actually, duki, I am chairman of announcements.

It's a pretty big deal.

i see you as this dude.

There have been skeptics and materialists since at least Plato's time, but the notion that rationality and religion are two opposing fields is very recent in human history.

Yes, and in fact the very first greek philosophical texts were often named 'on nature'. These works might range from the logic of aristotle to poiesis which owed its legacy to the oral spiritual tradition. Philosophy, including 'rationality', whatever that is, is born from socio-spiritual sharing between peoples.

To add some nuance to this point, the tradition of what we might called religious ontology and philosophical discourse has been carried into the modern age by 20th century german philosophers like schelling and heidegger who owe much of their thinking to a celebration of ancient greek music (which includes poetry, dance, and the arts) and philosophy with a sprinkling of eastern kyoto school spiritualism to boot.

This shit is too heavy for me. I think I am going to watch some basketball.

Because EL isn't religious.

But he was fat and its okay to make fun of fatties on Neogaf.

Yeah religion bashing was the rage for a bit

Yeah religion bashing was the rage for a bit

it is never out of season over there. the so-called enlightened view religion like yoga. Its something that's considered Noble or adorable or even trendy rather than an intrinsic way that someone with live their life.

Because EL isn't religious.

But he was fat and its okay to make fun of fatties on Neogaf.

EL hates himself for being fat once, and thus allows fat shaming.