My Unpopular Opinion

People who smoke anything should be required to do community service once a year, spending a day picking up cigarette butts.

What if you smoke weed out of a bong but loathe cigs?

That doesn't make you any smarter.

I think that if there is an unplanned pregnancy and the father does not want the child, before the baby is born, he should be able to write off his parental rights and not have to pay child support. I think the system is crazy that the males have no rights at all. If the woman does not want the child, she does not have to keep it, but if the father does not want the child, he is still forced to pay for that child, and I think that is crap.

I used to have a tee shirt that said

Look at Mary, exercising her right not to be a parent, she had an abortion.

Look at ****, exercising his right not to be a parent, we call him a deadbeat dad.

How is that equal rights?

**********

Now, just to be clear, I am not talking about people that were married and had kids or whatever and then they break up when the kid is like five or something. I mean, if she gets pregnant, and right from the get go, this guy is like, no no no, then he should have an out, same as she does.

I really dislike children. Their voices are like nails on a blackboard to me. I don't like how they are always running, screeching, snotting, and getting filthy.

I think too many people ruin their lives by having kids that they should have known better than to have. I find it hard to feel sorry for them though, because these are the people who like to look down on me and tell me I lead an empty life because I don't want kids. They turn their wrath to me because it's kind of a social taboo to dislike the children you've already had and it might feel icky to say, "Gee, why didn't I think this through?"

I don't care how "pro life" you claim to be. If you aren't in favor of healthcare for all then you are really just pro-fetus. If you cared about life you'd care about every aspect of it not just making sure it's born and making sure it can't choose how it dies (euthanasia).

I don't understand how an intelligent person who isn't filthy rich and/or wants to live in a Theocracy could vote for Romney. I'm not a big Obama fan but when it comes to the lesser of 2 evils it's no contest.

When there are no 5+ year old kids waiting to be adopted then your argument about "all those poor families who want to adopt a baby" as a rebuttal against abortion will hold water. Until then those "poor, childless couples" are nothing more than selfish jerks who are ignoring all those slightly older kids.

Tolerance means allowing you to live as you choose. It does not mean I have to like it or lay down and let you try to force everyone else to live the way you think they should. I'm sick of "Christians" who cry that others aren't tolerant of them simply because they disagree. In the words of Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Sorry, but that is the No True Scotsman fallacy. Hitler was a Catholic. He was raised a Catholic and never disavowed his belief in Jesus Christ. You may not like what he did (who does?) but he was a Christian.

Although raised a Christian he did disavow his belief.

http://answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html

Very much in dispute. But, really, an Evangelical Christian Apologetics website is your source for this? Swing and a miss! : )

to the disabled vet... I am PROUD of our soldiers and our vets. I feel that our "freedoms" are being slowly stripped away by both the right and left wing. I am not proud to be an american. I am proud of my family, I am proud when I see someone do what is right. England, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, these countries are doing a better job than we are at the moment.

"westboro church isn't christian"



Okay, but then you're naming yourself the judge of who is "christian enough" for you to consider a christian. Isn't the bible pretty clear about who is the only one who can know what is in a person's heart? The bible is also very clear that christians aren't identified by what they DO but what beliefs they hold in their heart. Who are you to say what is in people's heart? They may not act in a way that YOU think a christian should act (or that a normal person thinks ANYONE should ask) but isn't it a little prideful to think that you know a person's heart better than they do? And isn't pride one of the 7 deadlies?

(Sorry--long, thorough religious education over here).

First of all I am not Catholic and I do not subscribe to the "7 deadly sins". Sin is sin.

Second, Who am I to say what is in the heart of the Westboro Baptist people? I am a Christian, that's who I am! I can judge their "fruit of the spirit" which is non existent. I can judge them by the horrible signs they hold up that scream out obscenities and hate towards gays, soliders and others their PASTOR deems unworthy. I am a Christian who knows my Bible and I know what I'm talking about. I don't judge them as unredeemable in any way. I judge them as fruitless. And Jesus Himself said that a barren, fruitless tree should be thrown into the fire.

So please, don't come at me because you are thoroughly religiously educated. Book knowledge means nothing without a heart centered on Christ - in regards to quoting the Bible and issues of Christian faith.

Wait, just to be clear, you can't judge what's in the heart of the Westboro nutcases but you can judge what was in the heart of Hitler? This is inconsistent.

I think anyone that advocates the killing of people who are different, rejoices in other people's pain, and seeks only to spread hate or tread on others to gain power is wrong. Jesus taught to love one another, be kind, and lead by example. Not mass murder or torment people. People who do that and try to say they are christian are simply wolves in sheeps clothing because that's not what Christ taught at all.

The Koran and most other "holy books" also instruct their followers to go out an proselytize. That isn't unique to the Bible. I respect others' right to believe in and preach about what they want. Likewise, you should respect my right to not believe in god(s). It doesn't take faith to hold no belief. I don't believe in unicorns, faeries, or elves either. Does that take faith? No. Atheists aren't forcing you not to believe in gods. There's a reason, however, why atheists and other non-believers (theological noncognivitists, agnostics, ignosticts, etc.) engage with believers. Most of the atheists I know know more about religion and theology than most believers. We've studied and through logic and reason have come to the conclusion that there is no credible evidence for belief in gods. We also are acutely aware of the harm that organized religion and faith have caused in the world. Other posters have detailed those harms (Inquisition, Pogroms, anti-gay laws, wars, discrimination, etc.) on this thread so I don't need to provide the specifics. Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves what they believe or don't believe. I just think it's important that people are informed. I sent my kids to parochial schools but I also told them that when they were old enough they were free to make their own decisions about god. My son turned 19 last week. He is a self-professed atheist. My daughter is 14 and she is a believer, like my wife, but I don't worry because she has an open mind and questions everything.


Cheers!

Quoted from part 1

Death tolls

Pol Pot >2 million
Hitler > 6 million
Stalin at least 20 million (some sources say 50 million)
None of these men believed in God

Not an argument for the presence of God, but irritates me when people blame all major genocides etc on religion.

Not meaning to carry on this discussion about religion, but just to clarify a mistake in fact - I'm pretty sure Hitler was a Christian :ohwell:

Though he wasn't massacring Jews in the name of God, so I guess that's something.

Woah....let's not go there at all. Hitler was NOT a Christian. I dont care if he used the name of God or not.........Hitler was also very curious about the occult, should we call him a Wiccan? Heck no because then the Wiccan's would freak out. Hitler was a monster.....not a Christian.

Hitler was raised by a skeptic Catholic father and a devout Catholic mother, Adolf Hitler ceased to participate in the sacraments after childhood. In his book Mein Kampf and in public speeches he often made statements that affirmed a belief in Christianity. Prior to World War II Hitler had promoted "positive Christianity", a movement which purged Christianity of its Jewish elements and instilled it with Nazi philosophy.

Here's an excerpt from a speech he gave to a crowd in Munich just prior to his ascension to power:

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."

He may not be the kind of Xtian you are or the kind of person you associate with Xtianity, but he never disavowed his Xtian faith.

See my previous posts about his writing.
He used the church to gain power.

That is true, but that doesn't obviate the fact that he believed that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior and he never disavowed that belief.

I get what you are trying to say however I kindly disagree because he could not have possibly had a relationship with Jesus Christ, a Jew. A relationship with Christ is far beyond just being religious and saying HEY I"M A CHRISTIAN!! Yeahhhh!

How could he believe that Jesus Christ was his Savior if he hated and despised the Jewish people? If he decided that Jesus must have been white, as the catholic/protestant church history also shows, he can't possibly be worshipping the real Jesus! Jesus was a Jewish man. He came from a rugged life in Israel. He wasn't an anglo-saxon blue eyed, blonde haired model. Therefore, just in those things along Hitler could not have been a true christian - - - it doesn't matter if he disavowed catholicism or not.