Dark Moth

If you want your argument to be more valid, don't make generalizations. That'd be like me saying the entire left wouldn't stand for a public expression of Christmas. Maybe they would. But at the same time, Ramadan is a month-long thing ,and celebrated by a tiny minority. Population size is the only differing factor here. So many people, including non-Christians, celebrate Christmas it's just more convenient to make it a national holiday. But national holidays aren't the issue here, it's expression of a holiday. And now we're back to square one; it's fine and dandy they let us worship in private. Yay. Out of sight, out of mind, right? :D But when they attack us for expressing it publicly, then they are violating our personal freedoms. And I'm not talking about the expression of religion in governmental institutions, but public places like stores, schools, etc.

Another fact for ye: when Vin Diesel does push-ups, his body never moves, but the entire earth moves up and down from the exertion.

How do you know that? Now you're just making a broad generalization of those offended by the removal of "Christmas". I sure wouldn't feel offended. Although we are a predominantly Christian nation, so naturally you'll find more expression of Christmas than Hannukah.

I don't have a picture of myself. I'm invisible!

Again, attacking it in stores and public buildings is attacking public expression of it. If you prohibit a teacher from wishing students "Merry Christmas" in school, then you are attacking public expression of it. It goes against our very constitution. If people are offended with Christians expressing their faith, then feel free to express the celebration of your holiday, but don't restrict us from expressing it, dang it. If you're Jewish, feel free to hang a "Happy Hanukkah" sign in your business, but don't try to get the expression of Christmas removed. Fahrenheit 451 dealt with the notion of censorship like this. In the book, so many people were offended by differing viewpoints that they just banned expression of ideas altogether so everyone would live in a nice, happy, repressive society.

Islam recognizes all the prophets and their birthplaces and as the above have said, has its roots in Judaism and Christianity. However, Islam also teaches the notion that all the prophets were inheritently Muslim, not Jewish.

It doesn't matter. I should be allowed to express my faith publicly if I want to. It's hypocritical to claim you don't have any problem with a faith, yet restrict any free expression of it. Prohibiting someone to express religion publicly goes against freedom of speech and religion, and I will never stand for it.

"king"? I believe you mean kin. For those of you in America, you're misinformed though if you think there's no war on "Christmas" whatsoever. For example: at a town's Christmas parade they invited lots of different organizations to participate except Christian ones. In my own hometown even, a school forbid its teachers and students to display red or green during the season. They were allowed to display blue and white only. They weren't allowed to call it a Christmas season, but a "winter celebration." But here's the kicker: earlier that month, they allowed a Jewish woman to come in and explain Hanukkah to the children and even pass out dradles. Or how about stores forbidden to display the word Christmas, or teachers being forbidden to utter the phrase "Merry Christmas"? You don't think that sounds a bit harsh? For starters, people want to take the "Christ" part out of the season in hopes of not offending people. But what left does't realize is that they're offending those who still icorporate the religious part into the holiday as well. Not to mention that more than just Christians celebrate Christmas anyway. And for the record, I'm not offended by someone saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". But when I see double standards or an imposed censorship on the word "Christmas", that's when I'm offended.

Curse Namco for not releasing SC3 for X-Box... Carry on.

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It kind of reminds me of myself...

LOL More crap. How can she be a virgin when she was pregnant? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hence, the leap of faith.

Stop picking on me! :'(

Play nice, children. *+1 nanny points.*

NEVAR!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously doubt it. If anything, religion seems to be still going strong everywhere, in one form or another.

Or maybe people stopped misinterpreting it, thank you. If you're referring to the Crusades, witch burnings, the Inquisition, repression of women, etc., then none of that stuff is what Christianity condones.

Bah. Gaia let Zeus and the Gods take over. She isn't so great. <_<

Yup, Christianity is evil. Look, here's my proof.

See, now we have another quagmire. How do you know you're right? How do you know you're God exists, or that it's even a she? What evidence do you have of it's existance? It's more faith on your part, just as it is on mine. And I of course will politely insist that you don't believe in God and I do, because my God exists. And my God can beat up your God.

I believe God want's us to learn to take care of ourselves, but at the same time I don't think he has a problem with us asking him for guidance. He encourages it, in fact. I think God wants us to remember him and glorify him of course. Would you be a little sad if you created a world and nobody there respected or remembered you? But at the same time, I think God wants us to learn ourselves, to understand things, and to be able to better ourselves and the world around us.

What I mean is that when a child matures it finds it's own path and parents are generally proud of this. The anology of a christian in this context would be someone who lives in their parents basement and bothers them every time they have a problem. You believe got is all powerful ? Does he control the weather ? Ask those 120,000 Tsunami victims. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> First of all, it's not really like that. And even a parent would want to offer advice and guidance to a child who is lost or suffering. Maybe he can, but chooses not too. Every think about that? And I know you'd say "Well, why didn't he stop the tsunami?" First, if God controlled the weather, how would we know he wasn't controlling us? Secondly, if we could say he was controlling the weather, what would stop people from coming out and accusing God of being partial for giving some people bad weather and others good weather. God, I'm sure, was deeply saddened by the Tsunami. But at the same time, he can't treat the earth and humanity as his pawns.

A child might not but an adult does dont they ? That would Aethiests the adults I guess. While we are at it. Does a parent have a right to abuse and threaten their child ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not sure what you mean in your first part, but... No, of course not. Do you believe God abuses you? Has it harmed you in any way?

Why do you assume he is lying about it? Besides, if you believe in God (at least the Christian God), you accept he was here before humanity. We are like children in that manner. If you believe that there is a being with vastly superior intelligence and consciousness, why would you assume you would automatically know better than it? Why do you believe he/she/it doesn't have the right? Who called you into existance? Does a toddler have a right to disobey his parents? For that matter, would a parent not have any right to issue commands to his/her child? Yes, it would. And once again, you have to look at this from the Christian perspective, which assumes the Bible is divinely inspired. But you see, that's where you have to take the leap of faith. The Bible teaches God's inability to lie. So you either have to accept the fact the Bible is lying, God is lying, the people who wrote it are lying (and subsequently a lot died for a lie), and all of Christianity is a sham, which many here tend to think. Okay, I hate monarchies, so I'll give you this one. But to stress a point: God does not control your life. You do. That's one thing Hades tends to overlook. He likes to blame God, not humanity. What makes you think he'll be a tyrant? In heaven, supposedly God would not really have to control us, cause there'd be no reason for him too. It'd be a paradise, where we live as humanity should. Do you realize what you said is a quagmire? If God is not omniscient, then he/she might be wrong. (also, I notice you refer to God as a she. Interesting.) And if she is wrong, then she could be giving you wrong guidance, then you yourself would be wrong. Likewise, you couldn't really trust your God, could you? You wouldn't even be able to trust the advice she gives you. Another quagmire. Of course you deny God by not believing in him/her/it. If God were capable, and you didn't believe in it, then you would of course be denying it. And remember Peter's denial of Jesus if you want to see what I'm driving at. BTW, I believe God also wants more than blind obedience. There is ample evidence in the Bible that God wants understanding from us, too. A person with blind, unjustified faith would be useless to it. That's not true faith, and that wouldn't benefit God in any way. And as you said, I too believe God wants us to enjoy life as well. For one thing, I believe a lot of God's commands were not merely for obedience, but advice on how we should live to survive. The 10 Commandments contain a lot of teachings we as humans agree with anyway, such as not killing, lying, coveting, etc. You of course could say we don't need God to tell us that, but if you look at human history, you can tell that there countless events that prove many humans don't always abide by those. Theoretically, if there was nobody saying that killing was wrong, then there'd be no reason not to kill, right? Besides, is it too much to ask that we give a little to God in return, such as thanking it and trying to live as it advises? I don't think so.