Except the proselytizers are not necessarily new converts.
The music idea is funny :^). It would break into schizms just like the other religions. Everyone would think the rappers were heathens, the folkies would be quakers, classic music buffs would be catholics clinging to latin mass. Give em a couple of generations and the wouldn't even realise they were worshipping the same god....
You're just a regular (bleeping) Pollyanna, aren't you Hingehead?
Unfortunately for the music idea to work, you need to figure out a way to scare people into thinking the way that you do. How about shock therapy?
With people like me here, no wonder no one wants to defend religion in this thread.
Easy peasy Fred
If you don't follow the musical commandments you get sent to eternity of listening to Britney....
She'll probably have the voice of Britney with the body of Barbara Bush.
"Oh lighten up. It will only FEEL like an eternity."
-Elaine Benes, Seinfeld
First of all fab617, was a temporary incarnation. I'm back to being Booman, only with a2 this time.
And now you naysayers please stop looking for ways for this positive and peaceful religion to fail. Just enjoy, and spread the word to anyone looking for an uncomplicated, non-threatning religion of love, respect, and tolerance.
I just had a terrible thought: are we trying to foist our nonreligious view upon the world? I don't like thoughts like that, I would rather think that I am just championing the truth rather than playing the same game as everyone else.
We don't foist, we don't preach; we just lay it out there. A person doesn't like it, they can go join the Crips,Bloods, Christians, Muslims or whatever gang they choose.
Fredjones: Unfortunately, yes. However, you can comfort yourself with the thought that we're doing so at the invitation of others, since if someone's on this thread, they must
want to hear others' views. So in a sense, we're teaching others.
Mmmm... delicious rationalization...
im curently alittle unsure what i believe in but iv had my share of people try to push thierreligions on me. Once my friends ant tried to make us study the bible and take a quiz after. i think she was just so sure she was right she thought she was doing us some good.
I have to agree that a good knowledge of the bible can actually increase your agnosticism/atheism.
agreed hingehead, and it has the added bonus of being able to blunt particular attack from the theists.
The Wall of Separation
official weblog of AU.org
«April 20, 2005
Is the Air Force Forcing Fundamentalism? Academy Cadets Complain of Religious Bias
Curtis Weinstein wants to serve his country as a member of the U.S. Air Force, but lately the young cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs feels like an outsider - all because of his religion.
Weinstein, who is Jewish, asserts that an atmosphere of fundamentalist Christianity pervades the Academy. He's not the only one complaining.
Recent media accounts have highlighted instances of religious bias and promotion of conservative Christianity at the Academy. Academy officials, who in 2003 were accused of moving too slowly after some female cadets said they were sexually assaulted, insist they are working to correct this new problem.
Earlier this year, Weinstein told ABC News he was insulted by another cadet on a softball field.
"He knew I was Jewish and referred to myself and my religion using the f-word, calling me, like, an f-ing Jew, blaming me for killing Jesus," Weinstein said.
ABC reported that during a class on the Holocaust, one cadet told a Jewish student that the mass murder occurred because the Jews killed Christ.
Non-believers have also had problems. One former cadet, an atheist who has since graduated, said he posted a poem about atheists in the military on his door but it was constantly torn off. He asserted that cadets were pressured to attend Christian services and that the academy promoted the film "The Passion of the Christ."
When he complained, the former cadet said, an officer told him he was Christian and considered it his duty to "bring him back" to Christianity.
Other complaints include:
The placement of an annual ad in the official academy newspaper that declares Jesus as the only savior. About 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, have signed the ad in years past. It did not run last year.
A statement in June of 2003 by academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, who told cadets that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed the National Day of Prayer.
Officer commission ceremonies being held at off-campus churches.
Complaints that mandatory academy events are often held on Jewish holidays.
Actions by football coach Fisher DeBerry who posted a large Christian banner in a locker room that read, "I am a Christian first and last.... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ." DeBerry was told to remove the banner.
How did the Academy take on such a religious cast? Apparently, the institution has been heavily influenced by Focus on the Family and other high-profile Religious Right groups that proliferate in the Pike's Peak area. Also, fundamentalist groups have for years targeted the military for aggressive proselytism efforts.
Attorneys with Americans United are preparing a letter to Academy officials expressing concern about the atmosphere there, but indications are the Religious Right is ready to fight. Tom Minnery, a vice president at Focus, told the Associated Press "there is an anti-Christian bigotry developing" at the institution. James Gilmore, former governor of Virginia and chairman of the Academy's Board of Visitors, told Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. John Rosa that evangelicals "do not check their religion at the door."
Mikey Weinstein, father of Curtis Weinstein and a 1977 Academy graduate, has accused the Academy of covering up the problem. Now evidence has surfaced to back up that claim.
Last year, a team from Yale Divinity School observed the religious atmosphere at the Academy. The team was alarmed that an Academy chaplain gave a speech to cadets urging them to warn fellow cadets that those not "born again will burn in the fires of hell." The Yale report also notes that the chaplain told cadets Jesus had "called" them to the academy as part of God's plan for their lives.
The Colorado Springs Gazette obtained a copy of the previously undisclosed report. It noted that the Yale team pointed out that the "stridently evangelical themes (observed during basic training) challenged the necessarily pluralistic environment of basic training" and said the "overwhelmingly evangelical tone" of the event "encouraged religious divisions rather than fostering spiritual understanding."
That's putting it mildly. The bottom line here is simple: Young men and women who want to wear their nation's uniform in any branch of the military services should be made welcome no matter what they believe or don't believe about God.
The Air Force Academy belongs to all Americans. It is not the exclusive property of fundamentalist Christians. Academy officials have a legal obligation under the Constitution as well as a moral duty to end the harassment and cease proselytizing through official channels. The Academy's job is to train Air Force officers, not create spiritual warriors.
gustavratzenhofer wrote:All religion is evil.
If you're talking about Religion practiced by the power hungry clergy, you are quite right. I've always appreciated this quote from the man who gave us the greatest fictional detective of all time:
"What would we say if we read in holy writ of our Lord having blessed the battering-rams and catapults of the legions?" - Arthur Conan Doyle
However the excesses of the clergy are not God's fault. I wish you an accurate knowledge of God. (John 17:3)
au1929 wrote:Banks
To believe in religion, Is to have blind faith.
The clergy hope you will accept what they say on blind faith. That doesn't mean there is no true religion. Remember Jesus said "KEEP ON seeking and you will find." Matt 7:7 (Emphasis mine)
Shoeless Jackson said 'Build it and they will come'
When Bush spoke of the axis of evil, he left out one significant element.
Religious fundamentalists 
Of all stripes
au1929 wrote:When Bush spoke of the axis of evil, he left out one significant element.
Religious fundamentalists Of all stripes
The is scarcely any crime which has not been perpetrated on mankind by religious leaders. And no wonder. Here are a few quotes from one of the leaders of the Protestant movement, Martin Luther:
Martin Luther wrote:The hand that wields the secular sword is not a human hand but the hand of God. It is God, not man, Who hangs and breaks on the wheel, and decapitates, and flogs; it is God who wages war.
I know Satan very well.
All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false....Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has.
Does that mean there is no God, or that the Bible is not his word?
