So folks who do believe have as much right to denounce your staements as you do to denounce theirs.  In giving a little ground you offer room for an individual to listen.  Use some tact RK. 

The reason I decided to stop posting in that thread was because I feel that it is an indefensible position to compare religion to child abuse.  I truely thought that I had to stand up and say something and I wasn't sure to what extent Rk meant it to be child abuse.  Refusing to give your child the medicine he needs, I would consider child abuse but I soon realized that in fact he was making an absolute statement that all religion equates to child abuse.  Then I tried arguing that it didn't meet the definition of child abuse but it appeared Rk, did understand the correct meaning of child abuse.  It was at that point that I realized that I could no longer rationally continue this debate with this member.  Hence, "I'm done."

Well I do think that comparing religious parents to child abusers is a bigoted attitude.  Perhaps, though, I should have used indefensible instead of bigoted.  On personal attacks, I did not feel that any of my attacks were personal or ad hominem for that matter.  When it was clear that Roadkill felt this way, I PM'd him to clear that up with him.  I will admit that my last post was laced with a bit of passion but not empty of reason.

 -Black Owl, haven't we been over this before?

Wow. You obviously feel very strongly about this RK, and I suspect that that is part of the reason no one has given what you consider to be a reasonable counter argument.

Let me just say that, I agree with you, religion has all too often, been part of the problem. But it appears to me that you are not willing to acknowledge that there is a baby in that bath water that you want to throw out. Let me give a few examples.

There are many people who are humble, kind, peaceful, and socially productive individuals, who are good community members BECAUSE they converted to a religion. In sum, religion does help some people to overcome other sources of bad behavior, be it secular community forces like crime or gangs, bad parenting, poverty, war, whatever.

Second, I would argue that some sort of "spirituality" is a common element in our human psychological apparatus. In short, we are not emotionless, calculating robots, and we feel connectedness with the world around us that goes beyond simple stimulus-reward associations. While religion, and the baroque institutions that have evolved from religions are a far cry from that basic human sentiment of spirituality, it could also be pointed out that marriage the the baroque institutions that have evolved from customs of betrothal are a far cry from the basic human sentiment of love and devotion, or family. It is on this basis that I think religion must be at least allowed to continue even if in some sort of "probationary" status. While it is true that religion has been guilty of bad behavior, it is also deeply connected to the human heart, and to cut it out would risk cutting out so much a chunk of the human heart that the patient would not survive the operation.

And lastly, you argue against ad hominem attacks, and ask for highly specified rebuttals and argumentation to counter each of your specific points, but have a double standard for your own rhetoric in that you make the sweeping claim that: because religion has been culpable many times, religion is completely indefensible.

I can see that you are a bit defensive about this, and though I have not (and shall not) read much more about this, It would seem that some of your debate partners here have also gotten a bit defensive. My suggestion would be that all of you simply shut up about it. All of you. You guys have been carrying on about your anti-religion, pro-religion stuff for months, and yet the major protagonists are still engaging, and apparently have not changed their positions much at all. From this I think you can all gather that, none of you are getting anywhere with it Sure if some new member chimes in to an existing thread and wants to discuss it, maybe then a continuation or renewal of it would be warranted, but in the absence of that, why not just accept that, none of you are gonna convince the others? At worst, continued acrimonious debates about highly opinionated topics like blanket condemnations of religion are going to harm 1BC membership, scaring away prospective new members. At best, I suppose it gives you guys something to do, but aren't there better things for you to spend your time on!?

In closing, let me anticipate a potential thread of rebuttal to this post, by responding to any impending statements of "why don't you apply the same standards to your perennial debates about Democracy vs. Islamofascism Scipio!?" My involvement in certain threads on this site is motivated by a desire to make a difference in the world by preventing appeasement of totalitarianism, undermining the grip which the media culture of fear holds on our psyches, keeping politicians accountable, and emboldening peaceful democratic citizens not to become complacent and negligent in the political views about potentially malevolent political and ideological forces in far away places (e.g., Iran, Russia, China, Iraq). Perhaps RK feels he can make the same claim; I do recall him starting a number of "anti-religion" threads that referred to a specific incident (e.g., the meth smoking southern preacher thread) in which a religious person, or group, or some religious principle was attributed as being culpable. My only comment on this would be, keep it righteous, and show incontrovertibly how your blanket damning of religion is in each case legitimated by the specific example in question, and I'd say your fine. However, based on your past rhetoric, you have not shown a propensity to do this.

For example, take the meth smoking preacher. The fact that this fellow was an outwardly devout and outspoken religious man who was proven to be a charlatan and a criminal, does not show that religion is intrinsically flawed anymore than a corrupt politician in the U.S. would show that democracy was intrinsically flawed. This argument is conceptual identical to the guilt by association, ad hominem approach for which you condemn Black Owl.

I think it better that you argue that one cannot prove the existence of GOD by actually presenting him on Earth, so to push the ideolgy on others is without merit.  On the other hand you ignore the importance of faith to the religious and attack them for being "Stupid".  That is a personal view, not a factual view.  Faith is something to these folks that is one of the most important factors to them.  Your wrong to approach them as you are.  It would be better in your interests to show the respect of approaching them with consideration.

In this thread we are attempting to find better ways to communicate.  NOT create more rules which is why I got heated over my thread.  It is not an attack on you personaly.  But a examination as to how to best approach things just like this. 

Hey, I said, "I'm done."  We'll see huh?