The war on faith.

[madnak]

I hoped I wouldn't have to do this. Probably the wise thing would be to just abandon the thread, but I always have put pride before wisdom. Anything else would be downright un-atheist.

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God is tolerant when the situation warrants tolerance

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According to your opinion? At any rate, this hardly describes tolerance in the general sense of the term.

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The "theme", or one of the main ones, of this thread from the beginning was religion being a proponent of violence. I assumed this meant violence without just cause, otherwise this whole thread is retarded.

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No, I don't think so. Particularly given what you've said about religion. And it's important to say what qualifies as "just cause." You may believe the killing of women and children is just, if their fathers and husbands need to be punished. The fact you believe that is irrelevant. Do you realize that Hitler and Stalin also believe they were justified? Christianity advocates violence very frequently. Less frequently than Islam, perhaps, but it's still one of the most violent religions still practiced. You can debate the justification for that violence all you want, the violence is still there; to me the fact it includes infants is already enough to make it unjustified.

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Of course in the proper circumstances violence is warranted, and I think Jesus/God/Christianity/religion in general would probably advocate it if it was necessary.

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Read up on Buddhism (particularly Tibetan Buddhism and the Chinese occupation of Tibet), among some other Eastern religions. Also you might read Gandhi for an opposing view that's less strictly religious. There are many pacifists in the world, and the idea that I'm being "retarded" because I don't reject them out of hand strikes me as silly (and intolerant).

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I assumed when you spoke about Christianity being a religion of violence, you meant they were being violence WITHOUT just cause. If this isn't want you meant, and you were arguing that Christianity advocated violence in certain cirucmstances, well this debate is pointless and this thread is [censored] stupid.

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I'm arguing that Christianity advocates violence frequently, especially when compared to other religions.

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I really don't think Jesus would have advocated letting the Germans exterminate the Jews without a fight simply because fighting back would be "violent".

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And I really don't think he'd have advocated killing all the German women and males, and taking the girls as slaves.

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I also didn't say "all religions have the same ideals". I said that all major religions are correct, more or less. Meaning that when you get right down to it, the fundamental truths they espouse are equivalent.

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To me "the truths they espouse" are ideals.

I think this is false in general. See Satanism versus Buddhism versus Shinto versus Taoism versus Wicca versus Hindu versus Islam versus Christianity...

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some of their ideals which branch from the "foundation" may vary. But at their core, I believe they all point to some fundamental truth.

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This is what I'm referring to by "ideals."