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I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

“Im not judging you” .. i’m pretty sure, that exactly what you are doing.
Why not try to use religion to judge yourself? Rather than others?

If you want to experience more of the thrill of competition, maybe sport is a better idea than perverting religion?

I’m from Holland and this is not normally seen as a very Christian nation. Not that we don’t have christians, or that we even have relatively less christians.

It’s just that our christians tend to actually be christians. Religion is something personal for them, something you have to explicitely ask about.

They use religion to guide them in their choices. They use to judge _themselves_.
Not others.

Any moment somebody says something in the line of ‘god hates XX’ .. they are taking the lord’s name in vain.
Technically.

I really feel that many, thnkfully not all, American christians, use religion in way that reminds me more of dick-measuring that anything else. “I’m the better christian than you”.. That whole line of thinking can’t possibly be part of any religion I know.

Perhaps this has something to do with the ‘competitive nature’ of the american culture?
That you even use religion as a scale? Trying to be beat other at being more religious.

I wonder how many of you realize just how ironic that is.

New Testament
Old Testament
Koran
Tora
Talmud
Upanishads
Veda
Book of Mormon
The Origin of Species
The Scientology
Stupid hippy new age books

First let me clarify in case I didn’t say it enough half a dozen times above. I am a *pagan*. I am a *theist*. I am a *poly*-theist. The treatment I was speaking about was specifically about mono-theists treatment of polytheists/Pagans.

However, regarding your statement about persecution of atheists, ABSOLUTELY it exists. In SOME nations, being an atheist can get you KILLED. In these United States, being an atheist CAN AND WILL get you marginalized in all sorts of manners. Atheists have had their children taken from them, been denied health care, receive unequal treatment in schools and the courts and to this day in most places in these United States are forbidden by law to run for elected office. These are just a few of the ways atheists are marginalized in the west. (Not to mention the marginalization of pagans and other polytheists).

Events like the nonsense of this preacher who is going to burn a Quran are newsworthy because they involve monotheists on all sides of the issue. Should it really come as any surprise that nations (and the world) which are controlled mostly by monotheists are hardly going to see exposure of the marginalization of polytheists and atheists? After all we don’t hardly exist. The fact that you’re unaware of unequal treatment of atheists demonstrates this.

Thaddeus, regarding the Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero my paradigm is that persons should adhere to their own paradigm (morals). On Draw Muhammed Day I was told by Muslims and others that I was an Islamphobe because I made a drawing and said specifically “This is NOT Muhammed”. I was told by every Muslim I spoke to that though I had freedom, I also had the responsibility to not hurt other’s feelings and thus should not participate in this event. So that being the Paradigm of many (not all) Muslims, shouldn’t all of those Muslims who said that (to me and others) be opposed to building said Center (it’s not really a Mosque only…) because they have been informed it hurts people’s feelings?

But the facts are that this not hurting people’s feelings in every single case only goes to not hurting “our” feelings. When I say not hurting our feelings, I mean not Muslims, but specifically that every group wants to not be offended, but just about no group really tries not to offend others when they’ve been told by said others that their actions are offensive. This isn’t a Muslim issue, it is a human issue. We all act the same but we would like to pretend we don’t.

“When the last stone”

Uh huh, says a Mac user *wink*.

Anyway Jesus loves everyone, even the lost and those who commit murders (Sep. 11) attackers. Burning something to try and cause disunity is against what Jesus would do. How is it in love?

Maybe, maybe not. Those that win wars worldwide throughout history have been quite content to rewrite history to make themselves seem most favorable.

“Did you know that over 85% of the world’s population have a religion and that many whom have studied ‘human’ nature acknowledge this (the need to have a religion) as a basic human need”

Well, I am religious, a Pagan. However, those that you claim have “acknowledged this need” are most certainly religious also. You are quite unlikely to find a complete atheist researcher making this claim. Could it be that religious folks like you and I that draw such conclusions have a vested interested in the conclusions we have drawn? Or could it be that we are merely “drawing a predefined” conclusion, regardless of facts?

Mackenzie said ““Family friendly” does not mean no mentioning alternative sexualities. Want to write a blog post about a same-sex wedding you attended? Go ahead! Polyamoury? Fine!”

Fine with you sure. Not fine with a great majority and for having said such things we’ve been marginalized and told DIRECTLY that our lifestyle is not permissible topics for conversation.

“It just means leave the intimate details of what happens in the bedroom on the honeymoon out of it ”

Uh huh cause that’s what we do. This is a common tactic to marginalize those of [so-called] alternate sexualities. Let’s pretend that we’re giving graphic descriptions of our private moments, when all we’re doing is mentioning that we have a boyfriend….

“I have no idea where the notion that hearing about gay people is bad for children came from.”

Don’t know don’t care. Ubuntu claims to be inclusive, it’s not.

“Basically, I think the meaning of “family friendly” is the same for straights and queers. Straights don’t tend to talk about hot bedroom action in front of youngsters, and neither do queers.”

Really? Cause from the claims of some of yens, you would think we queers were talking about sex and intimate details of our lives all the time in front of kids…notice how you have to tell me what is and is not acceptable as if 1…I didn’t know this shite and 2…I and other queers were doing it. We’re NOT. I am telling you from MY experience and the experience of MANY that our language is policed merely for MENTIONING A DINNER DATE with a loved one.

Aaron said “If the same thing was happening to Jews, athiests, Hindus or Buddhists, you would see the same ringing topic. That is, that judgement should be appropriately placed, and prejudice and racism should stop dead cold.”

Um, I am skeptical. We Pagans are marginalized QUITE A BIT and even murdered in the west. And we are murdered in Muslim controlled lands but there are so few of us there that it’s likely not newsworthy to most. (NOTE…most muslims DONT want to harm us, just as most in the west don’t want to harm us. The ones causing the harm are not your average person, Christian, Muslim, whatever. It is rather the Kyriarchy. So if what I just said doesn’t apply to you, don’t make it about you. My comments about Pagan and Queer-Gendered folks like me, and our marginalization ONLY APPLIES to those that marginalize us.)

Nevertheless I am skeptical about what you say because this happens A LOT in the west. I’ve yet to read about it on any of the Ubuntu planet posts.

Mackenzie said “Blaming the victim for someone choosing to be a jerk is putting the blame in the wrong place.”

Right. And the victim is those that are murdered because someone burned a book. The book burner is not the murderer, they are merely a book burner. Rather the murderer is the murderer and blaming the actual victim, or the book burner for their murder instead of the murder is the worst kind of marginalization.

Note: that doesn’t make the book burner not an arse, it just makes them not a murderer.

Sbjaved said “it is good to see some one non-islamic speaking for moderate muslims. most muslims are not soulless terrorists.”

Agreed.

“we respect everyone.”

Some do some don’t. I know that religious works of persons like me (Pagans) have been burned throughout the centuries by Muslims. We’re likely not to see a peep from folks about that because the world is controlled by monotheists and though you will fight each other, generally historically monotheists have willingly set aside their differences to eliminate the “pagan problem”.

http://tinyurl.com/quran-asad-translation

salamat