Nilufer,

Re. your “shall I launch into why my understanding of Islam and your (perceived) Atheism may have more in common that you would want to accept?”, my response is: suit yourself. Yet,

1) Having spent many years studying Islam, I very much doubt your suggestion (actually, I find it to be ridiculous), and

2) Don’t strain yourself on my account, given that (as you suggested) your available time is constrained.

Re. your “can we get back to respecting each other for our differences?”, I’d suggest that such is a very poor – even atrocious – basis for “respect”! I claim to be different from a thief, rapist, or murderer, and I don’t (and won’t) respect people who are.

In my view, what deserves “respect” (besides Mother Nature and stimulating works of art, of course including music) includes: reliable data, decisions based on reliable data rather than wild speculations (e.g., about the existence of any god), hypotheses that have survived all experimental tests thrown at them, and people who work hard to help others, especially to help intelligence continue to evolve.

As for people who have succumbed to living in the dream-worlds peddled by ignorant but conniving clerics of any of the organized religions of the world, I don’t have respect for them – only pity for the children and those adults whose intelligence is marginal, and contempt for the more intelligent adults, for failure to think critically and for being so dishonest (even with themselves).

Put differently, in my view, adults aren’t to be given respect; they need to earn it.

Well, Ramey, as is said: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” – or for those who prefer a French version, “One man’s poisson is another man’s poison”.

Thus, the first point in my response is that, from a logical perspective, you “poison the well” with your unacceptable claim that the poison comes from “people[']s self made decision to live their lives how they want to.” You call that “poison”; meanwhile, I (and I expect most people in the West) call it “adulthood” or “freedom”.

My second point is that the rest of your imagined family is what I would describe as immoral. In my view (described in my free, online book at http://zenofzero.net/ in chapters dealing with “morality”), the fundamental interpersonal moral principle is to recognize that “everyone has an equal right to claim one’s own existence.” As a result, my view is that the poison in the family you describe is from other members of the family not recognizing each member as an individual, with his or her equal rights.

My third point is that your final sentence is nonsensical. You state: “the poison is in disagreeing with someone[']s PERSONAL choice – that my friend is the poison [,] the intolerance to ones own decisions.” But in that case, in your scenario, it’s the rest of the family that’s spewing what you define as ‘poison’, since they were intolerant to the first person’s choice of a “pink donut”!

And my fourth and final point is to support Steve’s original point, “Religion, poisoning families for 1000s of years.” In my book (already referenced) I’ve written multiple chapters (see the “P chapters”) on how religions poison interactions within groups, including families and whole societies. In the case of Christianity, Jesus reportedly knew the problems he would cause, allegedly saying (e.g., at Matthew 10: 34):

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a son’s wife against her mother-in-law…”

Similar is in the Gospel of Thomas (at 16):

“Jesus said, ‘Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. For there will be five in a house: there’ll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone.”

Similar is the case in all the Abrahamic religions: ignorant, arrogant claims that imagined benefits of the religion are more important that real benefits available from cooperation within groups (including families), with full recognition of other people’s equal rights. That, my non-friend, is what I (and apparently Steve) would submit as an example of (religious) ‘poison’.

Nick,

It is not Religion that is poisoning families- it is peoples self made decision to live their lives how they want to- the poison comes from the disagreement from within those families. It’s like saying “I want to eat a pink donut” whilst the entire family eats a chocolate one- the poison is in disagreeing with someones PERSONAL choice- that my friend is the poison the intolerance to ones own decisions.

Poor girls, no one should be beaten over hate

@John Well said. Also to mention these idiots cannot distinguish religion from ideology which isn’t always mutually exclusive with religion. Furthermore, if religion truly is responsible for all that is bad in this world, then why are there so many non-profit charity and welfare groups out there who say they do that because their religion tells them to. In doing so, idiot atheists out there have really given a bad name to the atheism because they do not have an intellectual reasoning behind their affiliation. They are posers and will go with whatever is trending these days.

@Steve,
I remember back in ’04, in high school, a kid was beaten up for disagreeing with another kid in politics. Religion, eh?

@Emperor

People running sites like “Religion of Peace” and “Jihad Watch” not only won’t bring this up, they’ll flat out deny it if anyone brings it up. To them it really is only Muslims who do thing like this. They give such a distorted view of reality.