This is just an example of what can happen in any society when ANY religion is given dominance over that society. We are just degrees away from having the same thing happen here if we let nut-bags like Clay do for absolutist Christianity what ignorance and stupidity did for fundamentalist Islam in Pakistan. A little bit of religion is like a little bit of syphilis, if allowed to fester, it ALWAYS gets worse.

Littel the festering syphilis you speak of is intolerance and fundamentalist atheists like you spout as much ignorance and stuidity as any other fundamentalist.

(Clay Anonymous) - Atheists have no doctrine, they have no dogma and they have no ultimate answers to fundamental questions. We do have many questions, and foremost among them is, "Why does someone with a highly evolved brain cram it with so much delusional religious rubbish?".

Littel one does not need doctrine, dogma or ultimate answers as you put it to have intolerance and ignorance. You are the best proof of that. You make no logic or reason in your posts but instead rely on insults, personal attacks and ridicule to attempt to bully those you don’t agree with. You show contempt for anyone who doesn’t agree with your views. By the way Atheists do have a dogma and ultimate truth. They deny God’s existence despite the inability to support that ultimate truth. If you were truly using those higher brain cells you would realize that at best you can claim you don’t know and be skeptical. Your intolerance and hate clouds your ability to see things reasonably.

I think we covered the delusional issue before. Show me the indisputable evidence to the contrary and you can call those who believe delusional otherwise it reflects your own ignorance of the meaning of the word. Hate and intolerance tend to foster the lack of reason and intelligent though Littel. Something you should seriously consider before your next outburst of anger and intolerance.

(Clay) Anonymous - It is not my fault that you are terminally infected with the need for made up deities, irrational rationales, and an inability to admit that what you believe has no factual basis, no proof that even the basic premise of god concepts are real, let alone the absurdly complicated pile of ritual you subscribe to, while decrying all other religions as being heretical in nature. You are every bit as irrelevant as our mindless drone Clay, whom you have criticized for being even more radically twisted than you you appear to be, but none the less on the same side of the delusional scale.

We (Atheists) just say "WE DON'T KNOW YET!, and are just unwilling to entertain the handed down codified myths of our less than intellectually developed ancestors, the way you mindless religionists seem to be able to do, despite the 4 or so million years we have been evolving a brain that should have reached a point where simple logic can be comprehended, even by someone as twisted as you and Clay seem to be..

We know you don't know yet Robert. We have always known that you don't know.

Dana - There is a difference. The Atheist is honest enough to admit they don't know all the answers, but the religionist lies to themselves when they claim to be the possessors of ultimate truth, based on the institutionalized codified myths and superstition of their less than enlightened and less than educated (as in not at all) ancestors. Believing you have all the truth precludes having to search any further and is nothing but moribund ideology. Congratulations, you have achieved the delusional state, and curiously enough, you are proud of your limitations.

Littel even if one accepts your first sentence as true that doesn’t make your assertions correct. That has been and will always be the logical flaw in your view. The fact that you resort to insults and ridicule demonstrates you realize it as well. That’s why you attempt to bully with insults and ridicule. You hope that if you make enough noise or offend enough people will simply stop pointing out the obvious As much as you want to prove my beliefs wrong you can not. Your continued use of the word delusional simply shows your own ignorance in the true meaning of the term. It’s a weak attempt at ridicule at best.

If you do not know yet then you can not make absolute statements one way or the other that is fact regardless of what you want to believe. If you could get past your contempt, hate and anger you might actually be able to see that, but somehow I doubt you ever will.

Belief in God hardly means one has all the answers. That is something that either you invented or you picked up from some atheist propaganda somewhere. To be sure there are those believers who think they have all the answers just as there are atheists who despite continued use of the words I don’t know yet post responses as if they do. That certainly sounds like someone deluding themselves to me.

Isn't it interesting that any criticism of religion that is put forward is always rebuffed as if what is being said is a vicious attack, instead of the truth that it represents about the nebulous origins and the flimsy rationale behind religion?
(Clay) Anonymous - Naturally, you are going to have to take into account that since religion is no longer able to kill those who hold heretical and blasphemous positions, that those who express them are still going to respond to religious oppressors, who still wish the old ways were still in effect, with a certain level of contempt. We have earned that right with the blood of the intellectual predecessors your side tried so hard to eradicate.

We have a perfect right to classify belief that is derived from fear driven ignorance, even if it has been institutionalized over time, as being delusional for one reason only,........because it is.

It isn’t true that ““any” criticism of religion that is put forward is always rebuffed as if what is being said is a vicious attack,” Robert. No. It is YOUR comments that are taken that way because you resort to ad hominem attacks and childish language.

More than a few times you come up with some brilliant comment like:

“Shove it, you obsequies fanatic troll.”

You have referred to a poster as “the butt end of a donkey.”

“Blow it out your … hole.”

“Someone has to point out that you are an idiot”

“You are an insane blithering idiot.”

Behavior like that earns you the reputation of someone who is prone to what you call rightly “vicious attack.” If you posted using logic and gentlemanly language you would not be considered what you have proven yourself to be.

Dana’s post is one hundred percent correct regarding your comments. Only your posts are regarded that way because that is what they are. They are not logical or intelligent arguments any criticism of religion or belief in God. They are a combination or ridicule, insults and logical fallacies passed off as fact. In essence your own personal atheist dogma which you cling to with as much zeal as the most fundamentalist Christian. You attempt to paint those who point out the flaws with your rants as somehow out to silence the truth. You have earned nothing you were given the right by the founding fathers to speak your mind. You really need to stop talking as though you represent some group. You are one lone person expressing your own opinions and views and nothing more.

I make no bones about my dislike for institutions that are little more than Santa Claus for grown-ups, who have no clue that what they believe is a made-up pile of drek. When they also want to use the coercive power of the state to enforce the peculiar restrictions they have imagined for themselves, on the rest of us, then I get as nasty as necessary to reflect the disgust we all should feel when society is clearly being sold a bad bill of goods, and religion is the biggest pile of bad goods that has ever been sold to Humanity.

Robert, you have used your nasty invective against other readers of this blog, not against "the coercive power of the state."

You are utterly ridiculous. You are just a rude old man who lashes out against his neighbors as decompensation for his flaccidity.

Take a pill.

Dana - You demand respect you do not deserve and when you don't get it, you resort to questioning my virility? Ha, you are a trip. I never vented "against" the coercive power of the state, I said that religion uses the coercive power of the state (meaning the legal system) to try to force their will on the rest of us, with abortion coming to mind, as religion tries to force women, using law, to bear unwanted fetuses to term. Evidently, I am "a rude old man who lashes out against his neighbors as decompensation (sic) for his flaccidity", because I don't respect the delusional pile of crap that is religion, or that I don't let you get away with perpetrating this con on Humanity. This sounds like a personal problem for you because you have every right to believe any colossal pile of crap you may wish to, but I have every right to not only identify it as crap, but to point out how vacuous someone who swallows it actually is. I have been damned to hell by religionists, so in fairness, I feel free to tell you that that is where you can go too. Religion is rubbish.

Littel you have a right to your own views. However, that’s all they are. They are nothing more regardless of how much you want them to be.What really bugs you is that for all your diatribes deep down you realize that. Your nastiness as Dana points out is directed at anyone who doesn’t agree with your jaded view of things. It has absolutely nothing to do with anyone “using the coercive power of the state to enforce the peculiar restrictions they have imagined for themselves, on the rest of us.” I suspect if you had your way you wouldn’t hesitate to use the state for force your own views on everyone. In essence you are exactly what you accuse all believers of being. Something you should consider before your next rant. It’s hate and intolerance of others like what you vent out that should disgust us as a society.

Robert, you imagine yourself significant. You are not. I have never been one to "demand respect" from you or any other person commenting here.

You suggest that you are not familiar with "decompensation" by placing"(sic)" within your quote of my words. For an explanation go here:

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/decompensation

I'm sorry you feel that you "have been damned to hell by religionists" but you can't hold me responsible for that. I have consistently argued that I am more troubled by heretics than by atheists.

God bless and keep you Robert.

Littel no one has ever demanded anything from you. Your respect is not needed or required for anyone’s sake. Any attempt to point out your rude and arrogant behavior is for your own good. You mistake pointing out how you conduct yourself with demanding something. Abortion is more than simply an issue of religion being forced on people. Pro-abortion people like yourself attempt to distort the argument that way to keep from discussing the real issue when does life begin and when should it be protected. It is not simply a question of religion using the coercive power of the state to force anything on anyone. To state otherwise is a misstatement at best, a lie at worst.

Since you can not prove religion to be a con you are pretty much doing the same thing you accuse us religionist of doing. Anyone who damned you to hell doesn’t understand or follow their religion. A sad problem encountered far too often. As for what you think religion is that is strictly your opinion and nothing more unless of course you have something to back it up with (which we both know you don’t). Your continued use of the word delusional despite having had it’s meaning pointed out to you on several occasions simply shows your own blind faith in your own dogma.

The "respect" you are demanding is for the unsupportable institution of religion, based on god concepts that have NEVER been shown to exist. I can understand your reluctance to give any intellectual ground on this issue because of the embarrassing fact that if the vacuous nature of religion becomes accepted for what it is, that society will have little choice but to treat people who still harbor this arcane and shallow crutch, as little more than fools. It is also to be expected that while religion still holds a level of acceptance among the general population, that you would go to great lengths to suppress anyone who has already reached that conclusion, so that their influence cannot hasten the day when society starts to face reality from a rational perspective. Your efforts to try to portray yourselves as the arbiters of reasonableness, while defending the most baseless rational for existence ever created by man, is in itself laughable, and your efforts to portray those who find you laughable as " rude and arrogant " being just a ploy to keep your efforts to delude yourselves somehow seem rational in your tiny closed minds. You are all members of the mythical Clay-nation and the sooner you realize you live in a fairy-tale world, the sooner the world can grow up and get on with the business of dealing with our real problems.

Like I said before Robert, I never demanded anything of you, not respect, not the time, absolutely nothing. Nor have I gone to "great lengths" or even small lengths to suppress anyone, least of all you.

I don't think anyone here has tried to silence you.

Littel well I guess considering the fact that you have no logical argument against the flaws pointed out in your arguments all you can do is distort and try change the issue to paint opponents as out to try and suppress your voicing of what you believe to be the truth. As has been said you place too high a value on your respect and your opinions. You can continue to repeat the same fallacies over and over but that makes no more a fact the hundredth time than it did the first time you said it.
What makes you rude and arrogant isn’t that you choose to disbelieve or disagree. What makes you rude and arrogant is your view that only those who hold the same opinions as you are worthy of your respect, as if that is something anyone needs.
The inescapable fact is that your view on religion and God is nothing more than your opinion. All the appeals to ridicule and personal attacks and trying to claim the role of martyr will never change that. Nor will it change the truth that you can not now or ever support you opinion with anything except the fallacy that because something isn’t proven to your satisfaction it doesn’t exist.
The only one out to silence anyone has always been you. Your views of how the world should deal with its problems is one which will not work because it plays to the worst of human nature.

If this discussion was being conducted as a question of value, according to the rules of argumentation and debate, with an independent moderator, your side would be sucking air. This entire fiasco has been nothing but your trying to discount your opponent because you haven't got a snow ball's chance in hell of winning the argument on the basis of logic and reason. There is no logic behind the superstitionism that is religion, just ignorance and fear driven panaceas, institutionalized to control groups of people and to give individuals a false simple and easily manipulated rationale for existence.

That’s the most ridiculous thing you have written to date, also the most delusional. If this were, as you say, run “according to the rules of argumentation and debate, with an independent moderator,” your ad hominem attacks would have disqualified you from the start and there would have been no further debate.

But this is not a debate Robert. No one is trying to convince you or persuade you, there is no “argument.” There is just a lone man banging his shoe on the table.

Dana - Of course, in your mind there is no argument. You are right and anyone critical of religion and especially yours (because we all know the low regard religionists have for competing "ultimate truths") is wrong on definitional precepts alone. You are no different than any absolutist throughout Human history who defends the status quo, be it the "inerrant word" of a god/Human hybrid absurdity, or in the past that the beneficence of the true gods of that society are the reason why the faithful, if properly dutiful to the faith, can gain the rewards of the pleasures of the temple whores. It is all the same whether you stand before an altar filled with the "spirit" of Jesus, or at the steps of the ancient temple, about to be transported to orgasmic reward by the favors of nubile priestesses , you are all on an evolutionary path that has led from worship of all we did not understand (universal spirituality, both good and bad) toward ever more abstracted concepts of godhood that has led to the second to last abstraction of a universe spanning, all knowing, omnipresent, invisible god that never shows itself to the faithful. I call this the second to last abstraction (if you discount the backward step taken by Christianity in the multi god absurdity of god/Human hybrid creatures that are and are not god entities on their own {Trinity absurdity}, and a step backward toward polytheism) because the next abstraction challenging present god concepts is to do away with them altogether. Like all struggles along the path to true enlightenment (meaning understanding reality), the previous templet holds on as long as they can and by whatever means they can get away with (including massive death if necessary), until the new "realty" gains enough support to replace it. We are now at a place where rationality is about to (it still may take centuries) replace the last vestiges of superstition based rationales for our existence. The Muslims (at least a significant portion of them) are willing to go far enough to kill in the name of their god, and I assure you that there are Catholics here and now, who have said to Atheists that they should be lined up against a wall and shot, so the struggle between the outdated archaic past and a greater understanding of our role in the scheme of things, may very well become a bloody affair, if the intractability of past religions is any indication of the tenacity of ignorance to persist.

You are arguing whether you think so or not, from a position that cannot stand against logic, so you redefine logic, but just like truth, logic (though bendable from time to time) is in the end, immutable.

As I said earlier Robert, No one is trying to convince you or persuade you, there is no “argument.” I challenge you to look back through the archives and find a post where I have tried to persuade or convince you that God exists. It has not happened.

You wrote earlier that I am “trying to discount [my] opponent.”

I don’t see you as an “opponent” Robert. I have consistently argued that I am troubled by heretics, not by atheists. Atheism, as a practical matter, is destructive only when it causes one to ignore the natural law.

I concern myself primarily with heretics. So get over your silly self.

Dana - You only concern yourself with heretics? Ha, how magnanimous of you to only hate those who view things slightly different than you do, but somehow say you have no animosity toward those who call the very thing you believe in a fetid pile of drek.

You have been trying to marginalize the Atheist position by trying to marginalize the outspoken Atheist from the moment I arrived. I don't hate you, I hate religion, and merely hold you in a position of great contempt for reasons outlined in my last post. You have always existed throughout history as the defender of Baal, the protector of Malak, the blind servant of Zeus, or any number of clueless dolts standing as the faithful pillars supporting the rotting core of an increasingly failing "ultimate truth" in the process of being supplanted by the next one. The only thing different this time is that Humanity stands at the edge of a new history, as we prepare to free ourselves from the slavery of superstitional delusionalism altogether. It is not our fault the you do not yet understand that your god (and all the others), are already dead.

I don’t “hate” heretics Robert. The words I used were that I am “troubled by them” and I am “concerned with them.” Your reading comprehension skills are deteriorating more than I thought was possible.

You marginalize yourself Robert; don’t put the blame on me. Atheists are a tiny minority and evangelical atheists like you are a small fraction of that minority. But it is good to see that you are coming around. The mere fact that you claim God to be dead is an acknowledgement of His existence.

Littel you marginalize any atheist position more than Dana or anyone else could ever do. Your inability to make your point without the use of appeals to ridicule, ad hominem attacks is what marginalizes your beliefs and opinions.

That post where you declared victory "If this discussion was being conducted as a question of value, according to the rules of argumentation and debate, with an independent moderator" ranks as on of the most absurd posts ever made.

"You are arguing whether you think so or not, from a position that cannot stand against logic"

I'd really like to hear some of that logic Littel. So far all I've ever heard is ridicule, personal attacks and your view that there is no proof of God's existence therefore He does not exist. If you have a true logical argument by all means make it. The truth is you can’t make that argument because if you try the best you can do is question the existence of God which isn’t what you want. You want to say God doesn’t exist and that is an argument you can not make logically. That’s why you use the tactics you do. In an attempt to bully or otherwise drive away those who question your tirades.

It is plain to see that in your continuing effort to marginalize this one mean little Atheist, that you would stoop to playing with selected words in my posts to make a negative case against me. I could offer the same criticism of your reading skills by your conjecture that I am " coming around" because "The mere fact that you claim God to be dead is an acknowledgement of His existence", because to accomplish that bit of absurdity I would by the same token, have to believe all the gods, as covered in my, " your god (and all the others), are already dead" were once in existence. It would also stand to reason that your perception of my feeling your god once existed is somehow equal in value to the others existing too.

As to your religion's treatment and perceptions about how heretics are felt about and treated, there are reams of instances where death and torture has been liberally dispensed by people who think just like you. Luckily we have secular legal restraints to protect us from people like you now.

The Church officially condemns torture Robert. Benedict XVI has spoken and written about the excesses of the past with far more eloquence than you can muster. You want to judge the church based on events that occurred centuries ago as though it proves something about your argument. While it is regrettable it proves nothing. I did not write about my Church’s attitude toward heretics, I wrote about my personal beliefs. So drawing broad inferences from my statement is an error.

So you are saying that multiple Gods are dead. What’s your point?

That makes you a Deist. Plurality doesn’t alter what you are acknowledging. Dead is not synonymous with nonexistent Robert.

Littel why do you keep insisting people are trying to marginalize you? It’s how you present your views that marginalizes you. It always has been. Considering the effort you’ve made to marginalize faith with appeals to ridicule for you to now talk about being marginalized is a bit hypocritical don’t you think?. Dana’s point regarding the church and torture is a valid one. You stereotype all believers based on the actions of a few and in this case that few was centuries ago. You use bad messengers of the past to try and condemn the message. We religious folk are also lucky because the same legal restraints protect us from those who would force their views on us. Faith is a question of making a choice. If you choose not to that’s your right and no one wants to take it from you or see you persecuted for the choices you have made regarding God.

Dana - It is not hard for your church to outlaw something that the rest of secular societies they infect, have already told them they are not going to be allowed to do anymore. Had they won and persisted, I wonder how long before we would have forgotten the deeds of the past caused by the Nazis, and embraced what they might have become in the future?

Dana - Founded by a small sect of cultists in a superstitious ignorant society, imposed at the pain of death on the Roman Empire, co-opting the framework of the old Roman religion, by adopting its format and substituting new figures for the old gods (right down to the old household gods replaced by a bevy of saints), and ruthlessly imposing its will for hundreds of years until challenged by equally vacuous "heretics" that proved to be every bit a vicious as the "TRUE CHURCH", until societies outgrew the absurdities and abuses of religious rule, in favor of the secular templet, is what makes your absolutist doctrinaire support for your church so pathetic. Perhaps you can pinpoint for us, the exact point in time when your religion went from being an absolute dictatorial embodiment of evil and turned into the absolute arbiter of all that is pure and true?

Robert, we still wait for the promised rhetoric based on what you call "according to the rules of argumentation and debate."

Thanks for the laughs.

In a formalized debate that follows the rules, your last response wins no points. You would be booed off the stage for a flippant dismissal in response to my previous points, which have been so well documented that to deny them would be (dare I say it?) delusional.

You made a point?

Littel you made no points. SImply expoused your own opinions mixed in was more appeals to ridicule and irrelevant conclusions. You attempt to attack the message by focusing on structure of an organization or its representatives. Using that logic I could condem democracy because of past failings throughout this country's existence.

Is it your claim that all secular societies outlawed torture before the church? To try and make a connection to the Nazis is stretching even by your standards.

Tell me when exactly what part of Christ's message has your secular society improved on? If you want to say that organized religion especially the Catholic Church strayed from that message at various times in history you would have a valid point. If you were saying that Christians haven't always followed the teachings of Christ that too would be a valid statement. Your false dichotomy however makes your arguement quite easy to refute.

(Clay) Anonymous - Throughout the entire history of your church, even when they were murdering entire cities to root out heretics (see Beziers, France), there were the faithful, who acted every bit as devoted to the "one true faith" and stood up for it exactly the way you are doing today. You think your church is now the apex of goodness and light, just as they did so long ago, but the strange thing is that you completely discount the suffering and death that is ongoing as we type. As a matter of fact, you will no doubt defend these actions even after they have been pointed out to you.

An example of the hypocrisy of the Church today would be the topic now on this blog about the impending sainthood of the recently dead pope, who traveled to the poorest countries on the planet and told ignorant superstitious and massively poor believers, that the use of birth control was a sin that would damn them to hell. Not only did this undermine the secular attempt to actually do something about the bone-crushing poverty in these areas (your demanded secular action to do a better job than your Jesus hybrid abomination does), but also increased the suffering and resulting death of many of the produced children, due to the abominable infant mortality rate. Should a man who promised hope and deliverance and then delivered more suffering, death and misery, be rewarded with sainthood? There are many who think not and that if in the unlikely happenstance that an afterlife might exist, that there would be a special place for such a person in the lowest level of whatever hell there might be. Your complicity in his crime might also give you some reason to take stock in your actions, but I suspect not, blind zealots are just that, .......BLIND!

I think John Paul would have told you that in a more moral (and Catholic) world people would not have children that they cannot afford to feed. You blame the church for the idolatry of self worship that is destroying our culture

Neither the pope nor the church teaches “that the use of birth control was a sin that would damn them to hell.” You are like Clay, pretending to know what the church teaches while being totally ignorant of it.

Paul VI wrote:

“… a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. “

Catholics do not see chastity as a bad thing Robert; we see it as a virtue and as a gift from God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says “Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.”

Nowhere does the church teach that those who have not embraced this joy are damned to hell.

Dana & (Clay) Anonymous - Real Humans look at the sex act as something to be embraced as a reinforcement of the bond between two people, that should not have to result in an unwanted pregnancy. The Catholic view is that chastity in marriage as a means of limiting the numbers of births is a virtue, that by the size of many Catholic families seems to be proving to be an unworkable proposition. In fact, your semi-celibate priesthood is using that bit of absurdity to hide the real reason behind the Catholic position on sex, which is solely to increase the number of Catholics. The edict to not have sex before marriage is meant to insure marriage occurs early and the prohibition (however you paint it) to use artificial (effective) birth control, once married, is nothing more than an effort to force the faithful to have as many children as is humanly possible. Like good little pawns, you are being psychologically screwed up by a line of guilt ridden pious bull, whose only hope of correcting within the framework they have established, is to go along with their plan to populate the world with primarily Catholics.

My disdain for your religion ( and all others for similar reasons), and my disdain for those who willingly submit to this type of control, is based on the knowledge that Humans are far more important than to be used like hive animals to build an artificial reality, especially when it is their driven command to envelop the rest of us into the endeavor. It is not my fault that you have allowed yourself to be imprisoned within the confines of such an intellectually vacuous rationale, and I have no intention of allowing you, or anyone to try to expand it into the real world (of ideas) without being soundly challenged at every turn. Truth is gunning for religion, because religion is the antithesis of truth.

You miss the point Robert.

Catholics actually enjoy trying to live virtuous lives. It isn’t a burden for us. We don’t feel guilty about sex or any other aspect of our humanity.

We offer ourselves to our spouses or partners in a spirit of service and sacrifice. To you I’m sure it would be a burden. For us it is a joy.

Dana - Please spare me the depth to which you have deluded yourself. The spiritual orgasm doesn't hold a candle to the real thing, done for the proper reasons. That you have to couch your actions in service to your institutionalized superstitious beliefs, any pleasure you derive has to be paid for in self imposed "virtuous" periods of chastity, is the definition of the guilt/reward imposed conditions you have willingly swallowed in service to something that has NEVER been shown to exist. I have met many Catholics so inhibited that some of them will not even appear naked before their spouse unless it is totally dark, and on the other hand, others in so much rebellion that they exhibit so much abandon that they are always in demand.

CHASTE MAKES WASTE!

I think you make this stuff up Robert. If these Catholics you supposedly met were “so inhibited that some of them will not even appear naked before their spouse unless it is totally dark,” then how is these inhibited Catholics were willing to share this intimate fact with you. Fiction is supposed to suspend disbelief Robert. You didn’t.

If you take a look at the size of our families it should be obvious that Catholics are having a lot of sex. The term “Latin lover” is synonymous with sexual prowess. We love in Latin and we pray in Latin; the best of both worlds. Indeed, the most popular sex act is even named “missionary” out of deference to the true Faith. “Worship” and “adoration” are not accidentally associated with both religious and sexual ecstasy.

You cheapen sex like a drunk cheapens cognac, guzzling it like rail brandy for a quick fix. You really don’t get it and that’s o.k. because the loss is all yours.

Having dated an inhibited Catholic who behaved exactly that way (perhaps she thought that what god couldn't see was somehow allowable), I do have some first hand experience in the matter of church inspired guilt about sex . Also, because guys will talk about their frigid wife's inhibitions, it is easy to see why they eventually end up on the prowl, after complaining to their male buddies to get validation. A couple of drinks will usually loosen their tongues.

Your resorting to touting the more flamboyant examples of Catholics acting in defiance of Church teachings regarding sex, as your defense of Catholic sex, is pretty pathetic at best. As to the "missionary position" being so popular that it was named after clergy, you could not be more wrong. In an effort to narrow the sex act to an unfortunate mechanical necessity, the Church (most notably the Protestant Church) mandated the limits of sexual contact to just the face to face variety, perhaps thinking that the disgust exhibited on the face of one of the participants might shorten the act to only its reproductive parameters. The term missionary position (though very pleasant itself), has come to mean the barest essence of the potentiality of the sex act, which is right in line with the understanding your (semi) celibate clergy seems to think should be the limits.

You seem to be flinging everything that comes to mind in the air, which only works if the person you are trying to bury in what you are flinging, is a complete idiot. Better luck next time.

Sorry you dated a woman who didn’t want you to see her naked, but I don’t blame her. If you hang around the kind of men who talk about their wives’ sex lives they are pretty obviously scum to begin with. Married men “on the prowl” as you put it don’t deserve good sex and if their wives deprive them of it they are doing the right thing.

I really don’t know anything about protestant sex so I can’t address your comments in that regard. But the Catholic Church does not “mandate the limits of sexual contact” in any way.

The Catechism teaches that "conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul.”

Catholics are the sexiest people on the planet Robert. If you and your drinking buddies couldn’t bed or keep a Catholic woman it is probably because you were not worthy.

Dana - Quite the contrary, Back in my younger days, (when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous, I'm old by the way), I had the pleasure to know (in the biblical sense I believe is the proper term) many Catholic women. That I ended up with life partners (two of whom I have already survived) that were not Catholic is only a function of having to deal with the baggage that was the accumulated crap, spoon fed them by your silly religion. Any woman you deliberately uses sex, and most expressly the denial of sex, as a weapon to control the behavior of their husbands to achieve their own ends, is in a very meaningful way a prostitute. Oh, by the way, I would like you to tell me the official Catholic position regarding oral sex....? That should be interesting.

The Church does not have an “official Catholic position regarding oral sex.”

One Catholic woman whose opinion I respect wrote: “… we should look at the unifying aspect of the marital act. Whatever happens along the way, the final act is two equals coming together as such…”

For Catholics the family and the church are all a part of the same thing. It is often referred to as the “domestic church.” The conjugal act is sacred. There is nothing “dirty” about giving oneself to one’s spouse.

I think you misunderstood what I said Robert. I wasn’t talking about a woman who “deliberately uses sex, and most expressly the denial of sex, as a weapon to control the behavior of their husbands.” I was talking about a woman who respects her own dignity and denies the advances of the scumbag husband whom you say is “on the prowl,” and talking with you and your buddies about her sex life in a bar.

That’s the scenario you painted Robert, not me.

What kind of woman would want that kind of trash panting his foul ethanol all over her?

Littel you did not answer my question. You’d make a good politician. My question had nothing to do with the church then or now. My question was “What part of Christ's message has your secular society improved on?” I already conceded the church’s actions have not always been in conformity with that message. That said the message you speak of was more than the simple little select piece you locked in on. You simply cherry pick what you want to try and make your point. Unfortunately that did not answer the specific question I asked. I suspect that’s because you have no answer for the actual question. After that you simply went to your old standards of appealing to ridicule and ad hominem attacks.

How about you answer the actual question I asked if you can.

(Clay) Anonymous - The secular effort (through the use of secular government) has alleviated more suffering and hunger in this country than Christian based religion has, over the last 60 years, and done it without the underlying requirement that that the recipients pay homage to an organization selling them a pile of made-up fairy-tales, is the example you demand, not to say you will accept, because we all know how absolutists hate to be proven incorrect.

Dana - If you think your sex life is somehow superior to mine because you have a god that likes to watch (how else would it know that you are doing it correctly), then you have no idea what you are talking about. As to the husband "on the prowl", you are putting the cart before the horse. It is the clenched butt attitude about sex the church teaches the young, that it is evil and dirty until sanctified by a god (actually sex is only dirty if you are doing it right), that leads so many women (and no doubt a few Clay like men) to be so inhibited that they drive their spouses to prowl. All you are doing is validating the actions of an already inhibited woman to justify continuing the behavior that drove her husband to wander, and thereby exacerbate the problem. They could of course, take their problem to be addressed by a celibate priest, but we all know how ridiculous that would be.

Littel besides the fact that you failed to support your claims about the use of secular governments accomplishments it still doesn’t answer the question. You are still framing your criticism at an institution organized religion. Even if I accept your comment about what secular government has done, which I don’t, that would pretty much be in line with the message of Christ. Christians were called to do those very things almost 2,000 years ago so at best all you can say is secular government is acting on part of that message. I have no issue being proven incorrect. The problem is you declare that accomplishment without actually doing it. By the way any homage that we religionist as you call us are called to pay is not to any religious institution. At times you can be as narrow of vision as the most hard core fundamentalist Christians I’ve ever encountered. Since you can’t prove your belief that what we believe is made up fairy-tales you really haven’t proven anything. In fact on more than one occasion you’ve had to admit that using pure logic you can’t deny the possibility of God’s existence.

Robert, it isn’t the Church that told all those women not to have sex with scumbag drunks. It was their own good sense.

When you state, " In fact on more than one occasion you’ve had to admit that using pure logic you can’t deny the possibility of God’s existence.", I have to be the first to say that statement is true, just like your not being able to disprove the absurd contention that I made that the third moon of the forth planet in the Alpha Proxima star system is covered with a three foot layer of French brie. The rules of logic do not allow for the disproval of a negative assertion, ANY NEGATIVE ASSERTION. Your using that fact as your argument in supporting the equally absurd notion behind your highly structured beliefs, is at best, very childish and unbecoming of someone who throws the word logic around as if they actually understood the concept.

Robert, a “negative assertion,” a statement that something is not true, is still either true or false.

“Robert is not a frog” is a negative assertion, so is “Robert is not a man.” One of those statements is true. We can’t say that such assertions are all suspect, obviously one of these examples is true and one is false.

If Robert were to walk into the room we could probably, but not necessarily, agree that he is a man based on the absence of greenness and the existence of opposable thumbs. We have a pretty good idea of what constitutes a man and what constitutes a frog.

With the “no God” vs “God” assertions if you could show convincing evidence for the former assertion, just like the “Robert is not a frog” assertion it would just be wondering what it is until the encounter. All that would be negated would be “no God,”

The other side of the equation, “God,” would just sit there, waiting as it were, until the recognized encounter. That encounter happens with Christians because we have come to recognize God just as in the other example we recognized the absence of greenness and the existence of opposable thumbs. Since you can’t recognize Him you remain in disbelief for lack of evidence.

We don’t need “proof” to satisfy you because (guess what!) it isn’t about you.

Dana - As long as religion represents a threat to society and means to exercise control anytime it finds an opening, you are going to be held to the rules of logic by people who recognize that threat. If you do not understand the rules of logic, then I suggest you get in touch with a professor of logic, so it can be explained to you. You can even find one in a Catholic institution that is not only a PhD. in that subject, but could also be a priest.

What you personally believe is of little interest to me, and is your right to believe it until you shove it in my face like second hand smoke. The tendency of religion to force its way into our political system is becoming more intrusive since the Republican party signed on to controlling the voting block made up of mostly the ignorant, who coincidentally are the most fervently religious segment of our population, and is pandering to them much to the denigration of the Separation Principle of the Establishment Clause of The Constitution.

Epistemology is my forte. I did not come here to engage you in logic because you have shown none. I came here because you entertain me.

Littel there is one significant difference between your package deal fallacy between belief in God and your planet covered in brie. That would be the external documents referencing God which do not exist in your example. It’s an attempt to minimize what you can not deny by using a overly ridiculous example. Dana’s response to your negative assertion argument is as good as anything I could say in response. Since you know nothing of my educational background for you to comment on my understanding the concept of logic is nothing more than another ad hominem attack designed to get me concerned with countering that as opposed to discussing the topic. No how about you stay on topic and back up some of your comments like the one about “secular government) has alleviated more suffering and hunger in this country than Christian based religion has”

The threat to society is from intolerant groups and individuals. How exactly is the message of Christ any threat to society? If you are going to respond try answering the question I actually asked. Don’t substitute you any religious organization or group. Nothing you have said follows the rules of logic. You make accusations fro which you provide no credible support then attack anyone who questions your views on religion and politics.

You seem perfectly willing to shove your beliefs down others throats. Then get cry about it being done to you. True Christians shouldn’t be doing that to anyone. Something you ignore time and time again. Your far left ideology makes you unable to accept the fact that you are in the minority. The far right scares me just as much. One can only hope that both sides cancel each other out and those willing to use reason, logic, compassion and charity prevail. Maybe you could site some examples of the denigration of the Separation Principle of the Establishment Clause of The Constitution. As with most of your posts you were long in accusations and short of substance. Maybe I should have my logics professor contact you.