@Francis,
Quote:Ponder, be impartial and you will see that most religions are hypocrite..
That's the point of them. Not pretending that things are animalistic is a hopeless way to build a civilisation. Hypocrisy is a necessary feature of civilised life. The tuxedo that you're wearing, the flower in your lapel, are hypocrisies.
Quote:You perfectly know that you are just throwing dust in the eyes of some viewers.
Do you want to talk about the weather?
Quote:Around most countries of Europe, pre-marital sex in endemic as more than ninety percent of people indulge in it.
Once again, what is "sex"? Your remark is meaningless without a scientific definition.
Quote:"British men and women are the most adulterous in Europe, but Americans top the list… The study in 14 countries found that 42 percent of Britons, compared to 22 percent of Spaniards, 36 percent of French and 38 percent of Italians, admitted to having more than one relationship at a time. But… half of the Americans questioned said they were unfaithful." Half of the Americans interviewed admitted to adultery!
Which rather proves my point. The battle over evolution in schools is harder fought in America. It is taking place to a lesser extent in Britain and, as far as I can see, hardly at all in Spain, France and Italy. Which doesn't mean it is not taking place at all in those three.
That I can hardly ask atheists questions about their personal lives is a difficulty I have to put up with. Particularly about abortion.
I presume you are aware that well off people tend to be conservative and hard up people tend to be socialists and each make their arguments with hardly a mention of the circumstances.
I'm a convinced believer in the subjectivity of principles but I allow there may be the odd exception.
I am not trying to make atheists feel guilty but you saying that raises a suspicion of your thin skin on the matter. I am not concerned with atheists at all. I am focussed on the promotion of atheism and on nothing else. Preaching atheism
requires some justification outside of the personal to show the benefits to society of it being successful. I am happy to preach the benefits of Christianity providing the hypocrisies inhibit its more extreme and dogmatic forms. Which is what we more or less have.
The status quo is essentially Christian. An atheist status quo can only be what a preacher of atheism is aiming at. And I will readily admit that such a status quo may now be necessary in modern conditions and it is not unreasonable for me to expect atheists to make the case accordingly. Preaching has sociological and psychological implications.
Malinowski showed the hypocrisies involved in mourning in primitive tribes. The more a person is benefitting from the death the more he/she is expected to weep and tear their hair. Someone else, whose name I forget, studied Irish farmers helping each other in their rural idyll. He found that at the end of the year it all balanced out as neat as even the most expert accountant could have done it.
Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing Francis and you should not be as ashamed of it as you present yourself as being. I'll bet it was rife at the Chicago A2K meet. It was rife cubed, and more, at the Oscars. Social life is possible without it but it is bloody.
Everybody knows that in the House of Commons the expression "the honourable and learned member" means that gobshiteing asshole opposite.