I agree, schwantz: the format of the news is terrible in most places. There are decent sources, but not a great many people who actively seek them out. Wonder whether there's room for a thread on this (I dunno whether there has been one already, I remember one called News Sources).
Thanks for reading anyway, and I apologise for the snarkiness of my original post to this thread. To understand my reaction (and that of many of the regular posters) you have to realise that we've had this debate a lot, particularly post 911. I'd been getting increasingly upset by the attitude of many people on the site to religion, particularly christianity. I'm a christian: when I tell people that they mostly treat me as though I'm stupid and gullible regardless of anything I say or do. I get judged and pigeonholed before I've even opened my mouth, and people never seem to tire of telling me what I believe, and indicate that they know more about christianity than me when I let them know what I actually believe, as if I've somehow answered wrongly (I guess in a way I just answer wrongly according to their prejudice and assumptions).
That's no request for sympathy, BTW. The church is responsible for the reactions of most of the people who react against it. Our history stands on dodgy ground, to say the least. I can understand people's grievances (and a great many on this thread understand yours, schwantz), I just believe there are better ways of coming to terms with the broader issues.
So my initial response to you was informed by the frustration of having to read people's comments, or even the tone of their posts, in other forums. You'd be amazed at how often some little remark gets dropped into an otherwise great post that betrays someone's inate prejudice. Nevertheless, I'm sorry that I flamed you without thinking. It's a lot easier to drop into a thread like this and throw off random remarks, especially if you're tired of having the debate.
My last comment is if a christian can relate to an atheist in such a heated debate and make a case against people who exhibit prejudice and intolerance whether they're a part of religion or not, it proves that religion doesn't always fit the popularly percieved pattern. It doesn't take much more digging to see that there's nothing special about me, and that religion is an amazingly complex beast made up of a huge variety of people and ideas (positive and negative), and one which will shirk most generalisations aimed towards it. |
