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Xav wrote:He had a complete disguard for my and my friends beliefs.
He had a complete disrespect for other religions.
He's main tactic for converting people was to scare them.

How is this an insult?
I was describing what the majority of Christians i meet are like, most of them ignore what i say and go on with there own rant about God and Jesus (This isnt intended to insult Christians)

But you cant help but make an assumption on a certain faction after meeting so many rude, idiotic ones.

Another thing i dont understand, why do you come round my house at 8am giving me a leaflet about God?
I thinks its pretty pathetic, i understand you wanna spread your message but if i wanna talk and learn about God il go to the Church. (No intended as an insult)

Now I do feel sorry that this is the exposure you have had in terms of other Christians, but that is simply not the case with most. I am an Anglican and I absolutely adore talking about the finer philosophical points of Christendom, God, or theology in general with many people. I also adore reading various philosophers, especially Friedrich Nietzsche and Blaise Pascal. What you experienced is not what Christ or the Bible teaches, and scare tactics are not welcome in my Church. The point of Christianity is to glorify God, not to scare people. I will continue to pray that you find people with whom you can freely and happily discuss God over a pint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wrexasaur wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:What kind of Christians do you have there? Evangelists? An extremist cult?

You don't even want to know man...

Haha, you're funny Wrexasaur.

You know what I believe this, if you have a religion or lack of it then good for you. Don't try to convert others and don't punish them for being different. However if you want to have a good natured ribbing then go for it, everyone's fair game. You can say that I believe in a make believe person and I get to say have fun in hell nonbeliever.

Everyone's fair game, just avoid conversion. Get over it if a christian says jesus and has a christmas tree, or if a jew has a menorah, or if a muslim does some, like, muslim type of decoration, or if an atheist doesn't do a thing.

Simple rules though if you are an atheist then you cannot say the following: What the hell, Sweet Jesus, holy cow, god almighty, holy hell, allah forgive me, lordy lordy, Jesus Joseph and Mary, or any combination of anything tied to religion because you don't believe in them. That is a joke BTW.

ShumaGorath wrote: people like those in the westboro baptist church

Those guys know a bit of stuff.

Fred Phelps, for example, can teach multiplication.

To sum everything up.

We all have different opinions. Everybody just has to deal with it. Rant and rave all you want, refuse to budge all you wish, all you're doing is arguing pointlessly. I'm sick of Religious fanatics claiming that Atheism is harmful to God and I'm sick of Atheists calling all Religious people idiots for believing in "ghosts" None of you are superior, you're all equal.

Can't we just leave it the feth alone?

Yay, we're equal.

halonachos wrote:Yay, we're equal.

What fun!

JEB_Stuart wrote:Should we in the Western World, who consider ourselves to be civilized, tolerant people, allow this blatant disrespect and hatred to continue as a society?

Jesus frickin' Christ on a stick, somebody's not "up with God" and you gotta take it personally?

If you really were tolerant, you'd do what you say and leave it be, rather than to be a Jewish moneychanger in the Temple.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Please stick to the issue at hand, these childish, vitriolic attacks are petty and frankly worthless.

Given that you're showing "blatant disrespect" by calling people "childish", why do you expect such special consideration in return?

Did not some dork tell you to "turn the other cheek"?

JEB_Stuart wrote:http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.cb687fb425ea2bc9d53a15c7e635a94f.3c1&show_article=1

Now I will openly admit upfront that I am a committed Christian. That being said, I have to wonder why people have to go out of their way to bash other people's faiths. Some would say the Christian evangelism is indeed a form of bashing someone's faith, but a Christian who evangelizes properly is not trying to mock other beliefs or exhibit arrogance, rather we are trying to spread what we believe to be a greater Truth to all men and women of this planet.

With that out of the way I have to ask this question: why is blatant obscenity and disrespect largely tolerated by the community? There is a difference between government allowing freedom and the community tolerating something. A community has the right to decide what is acceptable behavior without using law enforcement or the like to police those standards. So why do we tolerate the obvious hatred and disrespect for a faith that touches billions of people the world over? I saddens me deeply to see such anger and hatred over something so wonderfully beautiful. Despite what you say this is not art, this is discrimination displayed and trumpeted on a public scale. Do the rights we believe in so dearly mean freedom of religion as we claim, or rather have we twisted it into freedom from religion? I respect people's beliefs, but angry, disrespectful atheism is just as bad as militant Christians, fundamentalist Muslims or any other extreme. Please, I would love to hear your thoughts, but I ask this: Do not try to debate the merits of religion or try and point out past abuses, such arguments will lead to nowhere and are ineffective on this type of medium. Rather focus on the issue at hand and ask post well thought out ideas over how you feel about this display.

Just on the subject of disrespect, it is a general socially accepted rule that the 'little guy' can pick on the 'big guy' all he wants, but not vice versa. This applies to everything. Examples are all around us. The poor can insult the wealthy all day long. No big deal. Once the wealthy insult the poor, it is considered wrong. Someone who is obese can insult someone who is thin, but not the other way around. It goes on and on. Since Christianity has such a monopoly on everything, you should take this into consideration.

Even 'proper' envangelization (or, to use a better term, ascetylization) will insult people, whether or not that is the evangelist's intention. Even if your entire purpose is to 'spread the word of God', you are insulting the intelligence of someone by telling them to believe as you do. You are right, they are wrong. Since Christianity promotes this to such a high degree, and promotes no real form of acceptance of other beliefs, it is no wonder it catches so many insults in return. If you are following Christianity to the letter, then yes, anyone who's beliefs differ from yours will be punished. It doesn't matter if you point it out or not.

No matter how ignorant I consider Christianity to be, I fully accept other peoples beliefs (as I think they do good for most people) and believe myself that people have the right to live their lives however they choose. But when people try to ascetylize me, I am very quick to point out the fundamental flaws in Christianity, in a very concise and calm manner. I have gotten almost nothing but blatant refusal to accept any of it (which has to be some form of hypocrisy), but at least it gets them to leave me be, and perhaps causes them to re-evaluate things themselves. I won't bring any of that up here, as that's not what you have asked for. But I will leave you with something which conveys some of my strongest feelings about religion in general, in four simple lines, no less.

'Distracting from your deficiencies while you point at others.
Enlightened, you judge and execute.
To be the only one to discover the seven.
Toss open and pass the gates to heaven.'

- Muhammed Suicmez

Chrysaor686 wrote:Someone who is obese can insult someone who is thin, but not the other way around.

Yeah, fat kids got it so easy, no one makes fun of em and all the do all day is tear down the thin kids. I mean for goodness sakes this is gaming board. You can probably find 100 people who were overweight and picked on discriminated against for one who might have felt slighted by being in shape for some reason.

Other than this point I think your argument was right on.

Chrysaor686 wrote:Just on the subject of disrespect, it is a general socially accepted rule that the 'little guy' can pick on the 'big guy' all he wants, but not vice versa. This applies to everything. Examples are all around us. The poor can insult the wealthy all day long. No big deal. Once the wealthy insult the poor, it is considered wrong. Someone who is obese can insult someone who is thin, but not the other way around. It goes on and on. Since Christianity has such a monopoly on everything, you should take this into consideration.

But being insulted constantly then makes them the 'little guy' in a different sense.

And so it goes.

@Ahtman: What I meant by that was, it's generally considered far more insulting and mean for the thin to pick on the obese than the other way around. Less socially acceptable, if you will, in a sense. You can't really offend someone who's in shape on that aspect of them alone, because they hold the bigger stick, so to speak. You won't be considered an arsehole if you insult someone for being skinny, but you will be considered an arsehole if you insult someone for being fat (Unless you're speaking to another arsehole, which is a different point entirely). And that may be a bad example, but you get the idea.

@Orkeosaurus: And that's the entire idea. The smaller presence tries to drag the bigger presence down to their level by any means necessary.

Hordini wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:I feel that it is unfortunate that some people feel the need to play the victim because they are confronted with opinions that they don't like. Some Atheists seem so strident because we have to deal with people "evangelizing" at our front doors early in the morning, leaving flyers and other crap, and constantly barging in on conversations where they are obviously not wanted with their bible quotes. Believe whatever you want, but don't think for a second that you have the right to impose it on others.

This goes both ways though. Talking about your beliefs, or telling someone about your beliefs, even to the point of "evangelizing" is in no way "imposing" your beliefs on others. People can evangelize all they want, and everyone else can ignore them all they want, or argue. Evangelizing is not the same thing as imposing your beliefs on others. In the U.S. at least, no one can force you to believe anything.

Exactly.

There is a difference between politely disagreeing with religion, and deliberately attacking it in a rude and provocative way.

In "TheNaked Gun", Frank Drebin has to protect Queen Elizabeth II on a state visit. At the press conference he makes a short speech saying that no matter how quaint and ridiculous the idea of a Queen may seem to Americans, still it is proper to be polite to a guest.

That's the kind of attitude that atheists should usually take towards religions. The exception is when religious people bring their beliefs into public life, for example, to oppose contraception. Then it becomes a matter of public debate.

Ooooh... Wrex found a new word: NOM NOM NOM ascetylization

Hmmm... did you misspell it? I am not finding the definition here.

Sorry, the 'Y' and 'I' should be switched.

Strangely enough, I'm not finding a definition either. I'd imagine the root word would be ascetic (One who strives to reach a higher physical, intellectual or in this case, theological understanding). Makes enough sense, and I've actually heard it used in many cases to describe an attempt to convert one's beliefs (evangelization, without the christian subtext). May just be an non-existant word that's been floating around (At least not without reason). I'll have to consult another dictionary.

I see this used all the time, I call it the big man theory.

If someone feels so big, they actually convince themselves of supreme intelligence (this could be the first stages of schizophrenia in some cases) meriting them the power to make decisions that they feel are "the hand of god so to speak".

Like fight club kind of, that touches on the subject.

Alex Jones is also a fantastic example, what a self proclaimed drama queen.

Can we just start prohibiting threads on religion?

I can see that this is going to get into a flame war within the next 2 pages.

Keep your personal beliefs to yourself and we're fine.

Anything else, and your personal beliefs are no longer personal, and have become more social.

All religions are of equal value. You believers are all equal - just as us non (or in my case, dis-) believers are as equal as you. There is no more equal or less equal.

Humans are social creatures. It is almost inevitable that some, if not all, of our personal believes will be put into a social context at some point.

Unless someone is suggesting that humans in general start living like hermits. Hey, there's an idea...


Also, we shouldn't prohibit threads of any type in the OT section, unless there's something illegal about it, or it breaks the forum rules. If it turns into a flame war, then so be it. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I don't know how different it is in the US, but in the UK we are far less religious than I am lead to believe you yanks are.

Christianity is actually a shrinking group within the community, with churches being closed left right and centre. It is far more acceptable for people to be non-religious here than I understand it can be in the US, with the majority of people being rather apathetic Christians at the very most.

Though having said that, I have never been bothered on my doorstep by people trying to persuade me the not believe in god, whilst I have, on quite a number of different occasions, been preached to by door to door bible botherers.

I think one of the fundamental reasons that Christians see people insulting them so much is that people who are not Christians resent being preached to, especially using arguments that are a few centuries out of date.

Perhaps if we did not know that the thunder was not god moving his furniture about and that rain is not god crying for the sins of mankind, then people might be more "open" to having their ignorance filled by comforting platitudes.

As it is, the majority of, as you put it, the civilised West, has thankfully achieved a level of education and scientific advance that the bible (and related works) can, for the most part) be seen for what it is... a collected work of fiction used to control those who have the misfortune to be caught (often from a young age) under its spell.

Unfortunately for us all, those within the system cannot see the problems within it, and often do not want to and would prefer instead to convince others of their correctness.

I have no problem with anyone following any instruction of belief that they desire, I have friends of all religions and creeds, but I would rather not be preached to. The moment that occurs, the gloves come off.

And with there being almost anywhere in the West a larger grouping of Christians than any other religion, it is more likley that a non-believer will encounter a preaching Christian and have recourse to disagree with them.

I think that is why you may believe, as a Christian, that people so freely critisize your religion. Simple numbers.

Why do you feel the need to take the gloves off if you feel you are being preached to? Wouldn't it cause less conflict to tell them politely that you are not interested, and leave it at that?

What do you consider preaching? Do you just mean if someone tells you that you are going to hell if you don't repent and change your beliefs, or do you mean anytime someone asks you if they can talk to you about Jesus, or offers you a pamphlet?

Jin wrote:Can we just start prohibiting threads on religion?

I can see that this is going to get into a flame war within the next 2 pages.

The problem isn't discussion of religion (or guns, or politics or any other topic which regularly causes flame wars) it is when people start flinging poo at each other.

Not everyone does it.

Sensible users should not be deprived of a forum because other users can't think twice before pressing the submit button.

There are often just as bad flaming arguments about recasting and rules as there are about religion.

Hordini wrote:Why do you feel the need to take the gloves off if you feel you are being preached to? Wouldn't it cause less conflict to tell them politely that you are not interested, and leave it at that?

What do you consider preaching? Do you just mean if someone tells you that you are going to hell if you don't repent and change your beliefs, or do you mean anytime someone asks you if they can talk to you about Jesus, or offers you a pamphlet?

By "taking the gloves off", I refer more to the act of preparing myself to respond should letting them know that I am not interested not cause them to stop. I have been known to listen politely for quite a while to some of the door to door persons of religion. I enjoy discussing such things, and if they come to me in the attempt to convert me or to get me to listen to them, should they not expect to listen to opposing views in return should a polite "thanks but no thanks" not disuade them?

And as to preaching, it would depend on the circumstances. One of my Christian friends (possibly the nicest guy I know) and I often politely mock each other using the medium of belief. I know he would never preach to me, just as I would never (anti?) preach to him.

A person shouting about fire and brimstone in the street would most probably get nothing more than a sad shake of the head and a quickening of my footsteps.

Someone asking to talk about Jesus and pals I would be more inclined to debate with, depending on what else I was doing at the time. I think it crosses over the line into preaching when they present their views without the expectation of hearing anything in response other than "where do I sign up to your fantastic religion?!?".

At which point I would be more likley to become slightly more hard line in my dealings with them, rather than engaging in a polite, give and take, informative discussion, of the sort that (I hope) the two of us are currently engaged in.

"Christianity" is heavily generalized for purposes of these threads.

I disagree with statements that it is the majority religion in the US. "Christianity" is currently composed of more than 20,000 (and growing) diverse denominations. For comparison, when I was born there were only 2,000. So many groups exist because the members do not agree with the teachings or practices of the other groups.

So when someone complains about the door salesmen, they are talking about 2 of those 20,000+ groups and painting with a very, very broad brush.
The same goes for most of the other rants.

Some "Christians" are against war for any reason, others are for it at the slightest provocation, some consider war on a case-by-case basis. The same applies to all of the socio-political issues. Elected officials (as ever) are nominal "Christians" at best. They pay lip service to whatever will help get them elected.

* Married - Check!
* Christian - Check!
* 2 Children - Check!
* Pet Dog - Whoops! Er, I am going to get one as soon as I get elected!
When it comes out that the Politician is really a gay, sterile atheist who prefers cats everyone (except me) is always surprised. When same politician is caught abusing his power in various ways everyone (except me) is always surprised. I have seen this BS for way too many years

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.


By Emo Phillips

Xav wrote:Im an Atheist i dont agree with Christianty or any other religion. Im 14 at one point an ex-pupil came into my school and started telling all my friends there going to hell, i told him im an Atheist and can he stop it as he was scaring some people, he wouldnt..

Hey, newsflash, that happens with almost everything, and every type of belief! Yes, when I was at senior school, I had a pupil in class who would shout out that God was a 'stupid idea', and that all people who believed in God, or practiced religion (note I draw a difference here, that is important) were 'retards' or 'morons' or (my personal favorite) 'dipsh*ts'. The irony continued, he was the boy with the lowest marks in the year. This stupid, ignorant and ridiculous approach by a person to somebody else's beliefs happens in every facet of life. If you can't deal with that, go back to living in the basement. It is us who can get over it, deal with it, and move on that can develop our ideas and opinion beyond a bigoted minority of a group.

Xav wrote:He had a complete disguard for my and my friends beliefs.
He had a complete disrespect for other religions.
He's main tactic for converting people was to scare them..

What I said before.

Actually, nowadays the people who have the most disrespect for religions are the atheists, go figure.

The smarm I get sometimes saying that I believe in God.. jeez. The whole "Oh this is just a childrens' tale *titter*, go and talk to your imaginary friend *titter*" is something that I get most days, either at work, I had it at school etc.

Xav wrote:This saturday i walked into a church in swansea (They sell really good tea) It's full of OLD people.
I've seen so many religious old people: why? Because they're scared of dying and want to think they're going to live forever in paradise, its a rather pathetic tactic, as they convert their young granchildren and further the taint of religion spreads..

Jesus, if I want to respect your argument more you've just fethed over any chance, congratulations. You wouldn't even know you attend school with the amount of tusche that's coming out of your keyboard.

No. The amount of Religious old people is there because this generation has forgotten their roots in religion, either through being laxadaisical, or just not caring. The point is that these old people believed strongly in religion from a time way before you or I were born, it was taught by their parents, by their Parish Ministers as children. They've most probably been there all of their lives, in faith.

And how on Earth is religion a 'taint'? I've refrained from saying this but FOR GOD'S SAKE, grow up.

Xav wrote:IMO From what ive seen Christians have a complete disreguard of other people's opinions/beliefs and basicaly use the scare tactic to convert people.

Im pretty sure in the middle ages the church was dominant. Farmers/ peasants had to give the Church some of there money/bread/cheese/milk or there go to hell. The same tactic is used today but in a more modernised form.

That realy sums it up, hope you understand.

Sorry, I've said what I needed to say before. I'll highlight the BS instead of another verbal ramming.

Xav wrote:PS When you called Christianty something amazing etc. I achualy face palmed.

For feth's sake.

That's all I've got.

sA

"Christianity", no matter the grouping, almost universially uses the same source material. Vis "The Bible" (even if they chop and change it to their hearts content, perhaps another indication that it is in fact somewhat less than the word of god).

Whilst "some" Christians may sit at home and not bother anyone with their beliefs, "others" may go out and kill people, steal all their stuff and wee over the American flag.

As with anything, you can't say "all x do z", because there will always be some x's that go off and do y instead. You have to generalise, otherwise the whole effort of communication is wasted on clarifying and re-clarifying and trying to debate so many different things that the whole thing becomes a farce.

For example, Fred and John belong to the same church, but Fred is happy to mix with anyone, he goes to the pup with friends from work and plays sports with the other dads when it comes to Teacher vs Parents sorts day.

However, John only ever goes out to Chruch and believes that associating anyone not "of the faith" will lead to corruption and to hell. He schools his children at home to keep them pure and devotes every hour outside of work (where he speaks to no one other than other believers) going door to door trying to "save" his fellow man.

At some point, the beliefs of these two men is the same. How they interpret this in relation to their own lives and their relation with others differs (perhaps dramatically, perhaps not). However, they are both "christian" and in this instance, attend the same grouping of christians.

You can't specialise too much with the label of "christian" any more than you can say "all people who drive pick up trucks have big hands" or "all people who drive sports cars have small feet". All you can do is generalise based on the group that people propose to belong to and represent.

You also have to realise that to (I would imagine) the vast majority of non-christians, the inter christian groupings are largely irrelevant. What does someone outside the system care if this group think that Jesus died in a red robe and this other group think Jesus died in a blue robe.

To anyone outside looking in, most will just be "christians". Again, something that I do not think people within the Christian camp understand.

Edits: Argh god the typing!

JEB_Stuart wrote:...I have to wonder why people have to go out of their way to bash other people's faiths.

Welcome to the nature of religion, my friend. If your God and my God aren't the same, and we both think our God is the "one, true God" then you and I are bound to be at each others' throats at some point.

I'm agnostic, incidentally...so I'm neither at anyone's throat nor is anyone else coming for mine, hopefully.

JEB_Stuart wrote:a Christian who evangelizes properly is not trying to mock other beliefs or exhibit arrogance, rather we are trying to spread what we believe to be a greater Truth to all men and women of this planet.

In reference to Evangelicalism specifically, this is what gets y'all into trouble. Generally-speaking, religion and spirituality are very private matters. Most people I know have no desire whatsoever to have anyone proselytize them for even a millisecond.

To a point, Evangelicals bring some anger upon themselves because the nature of their belief requires them NOT to be quiet about it, so I don't know what's to be done about it. Either they change the nature of their belief, or they're going to have people angry at them pretty consistently.

JEB_Stuart wrote:why is blatant obscenity and disrespect largely tolerated by the community?...why do we tolerate the obvious hatred and disrespect for a faith that touches billions of people the world over?

One might ask why Islam has been getting bashed in some circles for decades, even before 9/11...the behavior of an unruly few easily tarnishes the reputation of the many...

JEB_Stuart wrote:Despite what you say this is not art, this is discrimination displayed and trumpeted on a public scale.

The fact is that some of the sentiments expressed as written on that Bible are things I and others, who are not hateful but educated about the history of Christianity, find perfectly legitimate.

The King James Bible is a heavily-edited document. Most Bibles are. If you go prior the Council of Nicea, which IMHO raped the Christian religion of tremendously-valuable portions of their spiritual inheritance, you will find many different descriptions of Jesus which only survive today in the hearts and minds of people who seek out apocryphal scripture.

If one reads ALL of the original record and documents of Christianity, it certainly seems that Christ never called himself the Son of God and did not believe himself to be; rather, he meant that every human being is a Son or Daughter of God, all equal in His eyes.

There are questions of translation...I was taught that the word for "young woman" was mis-translated into "virgin" and that this was a myth perpetrated by the Church in order to establish Christs' divinity.

Therefore, it is not entirely inaccurate to call the Bible a "lie," either through mistranslations, omission of materials, or outright mythologies perpetrated by the Church.

Taken as a document, the Bible is also horribly contradictory of itself. Leviticus is particularly problematic in parts...it outright clashes with the word of Christ such that one has to wonder how it survived the Council's editing process...

There's good reason for people to disrespect the Bible considering how many people accept it word-for-word and never learn its history or seek to question any of its dictums.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Do the rights we believe in so dearly mean freedom of religion as we claim, or rather have we twisted it into freedom from religion?

In the United States, anyway, you could say that one has the former by enforcement of the latter. The founders didn't elucidate on the "establishment clause" probably because in their time they didn't need to...but while God was a very important part of many of their lives (though the majority of the founders were Deists, which is a very interesting faith to look into, God evinced by science is how I usually describe it) freedom from State-prescribed religion was already an established, deeply-woven part of America's cultural heritage.

If we are all free to approach religion however we like by the law of the land, then in essence the State has nothing to say about it other than defending this freedom.

JEB_Stuart wrote:angry, disrespectful atheism is just as bad as militant Christians, fundamentalist Muslims or any other extreme.

I agree 100% with this.

The great irony of atheism is that this belief is predicated on the same principles that atheists generally take issue with, namely a claim to knowledge of that which is completely and entirely beyond the human realm of perception and understanding. Definitively saying that there is no God operates on the same logic as saying there is a God.

Cairnius wrote:
The great irony of atheism is that this belief is predicated on the same principles that atheists generally take issue with, namely a claim to knowledge of that which is completely and entirely beyond the human realm of perception and understanding. Definitively saying that there is no God operates on the same logic as saying there is a God.

I feel like I've said this at least a thousand times now, but that's not what atheism is. Atheism is, in its minimal form, a lack of belief in God/god/s. This is not the same as holding an active belief in the absence of God/god/s. The latter is a form of atheism (strong atheism), but not the whole of atheism.

Most people know my beliefs, and that I am Christian. Personally I believe in free speech, even offensive speech. As long as the speech isn't offensively being launched at me personally. I think when it gets personal that's where the line is crossed.

There are of course other lines, like swearing in front of children. Which I believe can get you fined in some places.

To be honest that lady should have known better than to put her Bible on Public display like that, when we all know full well that there is a subset in society that do not have restraint, and enjoy being "shocking"

As far as the Anti-Christian insulting attacks that I see on this forum, it's interesting that the most vitriolic attacks seem to come from children, or at the very least some of the younger less "experienced" people. I think that is saying more about rebellious youth than people wanting freedom from religion. Plus don't forget the power that the internet grants to normally passive people, who now feel empowered or more aggressive when sitting behind a keyboard.

GG

Generalizations and stereotypes are for lazy thinkers.