I’ll go for truth in advertising requirements for the religious. Making statements of fact when they are indeed just unsupported opinions ought to be outlawed.
Wow, let’s count the opinions:
1) Jesus – Was he a real person, pure fiction, or perhaps a composite character?
2) Died – Well certainly if there was a human person or multiple humans the story is based on, sure, dead, but did the character Jesus actually die? I’d say sorta. It’s kinda complicated, like Time Lord incarnations or Immortals if you count Highlander II and that whole thing about being aliens.
3) For – What exactly was it for? It makes no sense. A god makes some rules no one can follow so he sacrifices himself to himself to create an out for the rules? What? And you thought the Highlander II plot was a mess!
4) Your Sins – Sins? Are there such things?
Fuck, nearly every word in that opinion statement is itself an opinion. What a quagmire. Giggidty.
Sin is a word that atheists don’t really use. It’s not a sin if somebody punches me, for example, but it sure hurts and I’ll be inclined to fight back of course.
QF:
As I mentioned in this comment, I think that “sin,” stripped of its religious baggage, could still be a useful concept in a secular society. It may be the case, however, that religion has corrupted the word so thoroughly that we’d be better off discarding it completely. I wouldn’t mind discarding the word, as long as we keep hold of the idea that some things that people do are egregiously wrong.
Mark
September 26, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Not only is it just an opinion, but one with no proof.
vjack
September 26, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Yeah, I have yet to be convinced that he lived, much less died for any particular reason.
jim
September 26, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Ha! A bumper sticker for the Christian pedant?
Cephus
September 26, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I’ll go for truth in advertising requirements for the religious. Making statements of fact when they are indeed just unsupported opinions ought to be outlawed.
PhillyChief
September 28, 2009 at 12:01 am
Wow, let’s count the opinions:
1) Jesus – Was he a real person, pure fiction, or perhaps a composite character?
2) Died – Well certainly if there was a human person or multiple humans the story is based on, sure, dead, but did the character Jesus actually die? I’d say sorta. It’s kinda complicated, like Time Lord incarnations or Immortals if you count Highlander II and that whole thing about being aliens.
3) For – What exactly was it for? It makes no sense. A god makes some rules no one can follow so he sacrifices himself to himself to create an out for the rules? What? And you thought the Highlander II plot was a mess!
4) Your Sins – Sins? Are there such things?
Fuck, nearly every word in that opinion statement is itself an opinion. What a quagmire. Giggidty.
quantum_flux
September 28, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Sin is a word that atheists don’t really use. It’s not a sin if somebody punches me, for example, but it sure hurts and I’ll be inclined to fight back of course.
the chaplain
September 29, 2009 at 6:20 am
QF:
As I mentioned in this comment, I think that “sin,” stripped of its religious baggage, could still be a useful concept in a secular society. It may be the case, however, that religion has corrupted the word so thoroughly that we’d be better off discarding it completely. I wouldn’t mind discarding the word, as long as we keep hold of the idea that some things that people do are egregiously wrong.
cl
September 29, 2009 at 7:25 pm
The funny thing is, we all respect the same caution in science.