[Saya]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Hey everyone! Saya just made religion TOTALLY LEGITIMATE! Let's all keep allowing religion into our social policies and keep saying that DESPITE us being Atheists, we have to go ahead and say "HEY, You're doing some good every now and then, so you MIGHT be right about this whole religion thing and it's more POSITIVE than it is negative!"

I didn't say that religion should be kept in social policies, I'm very much for the separation of church and state.

Saya, your arguments are dumb. A secular charity is WAY better than a religious one because it's not done to appease superstition. We've covered all that already.

But secular charities are dwarfed by the religious. If the religious ones were to go away, we'd be fucked. Secular charities can also be guilty of keeping more proceeds than they should. And it isn't always to appease superstition, a religion can reason to its followers why its good to be, well, good. In Christianity, particularly Protestantism, as long as you have faith you'll go to heaven, you do not gain salvation by donating to charity. And its already been pointed out that Christian politicians want to cut social programs. So why does it also inspire so much charity? Because most religions incur a sense of community, brotherhood and goodwill. And some are even interested in mimicking the teachings of Jesus, fancy that.

Plus, we've already identified that you're more interested in lifting the teacher because of an emotional outpouring than you are of the actual teachings themselves. I swear, it's like you're more interested in being a Buddhist than you are about being honest and right. Tell me, Saya, I exist and am just as decent as you and have pretty much the same moral code and yet I'm totally atheist. Are you broken or something? If I can exist on these terms with no divinity, why can't you?

There is no divinity in Zen Buddhism, I have no idea what you're talking about. Can I exist without Buddhism? Yes. Would I be as involved socially without Buddhism? I don't know, probably not, but maybe, its hard to say what my exposure to philanthropy would have been without it. I don't need it to function, no, I am not broken, I want it because I want to see something.

And as for this little tid-bit. A secular adoption service doing the same thing couldn't POSSIBLY be doing that out of fear of a social backlash. It would have to be the same kind of bigotry that the catholic adoption service is, right?

Its hard to say without asking, but its also stupid to think that a secular institution can't be cruel and bigoted, just as stupid to assume that any religious institution has to be.

It's MORE likely that a secular adoption service does this from the religious right social stigmas that are in place right now. For fuck's sake, Saya, a candidate for the president of the USA is virtually UNELECTABLE if he were an atheist right now. You mean to tell me that a secular charity wouldn't feel those same pressures to toe the conservative line?

I think in the face of losing income, business and most of all, being a bigot, an adoption agency (not necessarily charity) would simply comply to laws, especially in non-conservative states. What kind of a agency are you if you're willing to allow children to go without parents just to prove that you're just as bigoted as the next redneck? And thats assuming they're doing it just to keep the religious people off their backs and not bigoted themselves. I have seen charities cut off their noses to make a point that they won't back down in the face of backlash, how strongly do they believe in gay rights if they're willing to roll over for only potential backlash, not real?