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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Orange Wizard]

The really ironic thing is that ancient most of history Canaan everywhere was a super racist place too.

[wierd]

Pretty much, yes.

Rome, despite featuring institutionalized slavery, hard-defined class systems, etc-- was one of the first truly cosmopolitan societies, where people of all races could become citizens (If they had the cash).

Prior to that, everyone was too paranoid, eking out a subsistence existence in small villages/towns with agrarian bases, and trying to get a leg up on their neighbors before they could get a leg up on them.  (Citystate warfare was the norm back then, and the paranoia of outsiders was very high.)

Greece had a kind of religiously themed "Hospitality" to outsiders, because they felt their gods tested them about it frequently-- but were still very much racist at the core when it came to other ethnicities. (And even felt bigotry about city-state origins, not just being Greek.)

Likewise in Asia.

The "Everyone is equal, and deserving of equal respect, regardless of race, sex, or national origin" is VERY much a modern thing.

[SirQuiamus]

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

If Twain's mother had been slightly better-educated, her prejudices could equally well have been inspired by mainstream scientific theories of the time. It is also worth noting that Twain himself did not believe in the absolute equality of the "races," as witnessed by his hatred of Native Americans and the prevalence of racist stereotypes in his novels. His bigotry was not based on religious doctrine, however, but upon "experience" and "hard, empirical fact" – he was a product of his culture, just like every human being who ever lived. Nowadays, when I hear New Atheists declaring that "Science exists in a cultural and ideological vacuum," I probably feel a bit like Twain felt during a white-supremacist minister's sermon.

EDIT: And in modern terms one would call Mrs Clemens "genuinely stupid," rather than "genuinely good."     

[origamiscienceguy]

HE IS RISEN!!!

[Rolan7]

"... in bed!" 

(Gosh, if the rapture actually happens today, there'll be so much egg on my face...)

[SirQuiamus]

Wait... J. is in Heaven with his Father, isn't he? If he wants to do the whole judgementy-thing, he has to come down, amirite?

[origamiscienceguy]

Wait... J. is in Heaven with his Father, isn't he? If he wants to do the whole judgementy-thing, he has to come down, amirite?

No, the judgement happens after we die. (or after the rapture, whichever comes first)

[Bohandas]

HE IS RISEN!!!

Jesus or Priapus?

[origamiscienceguy]

HE IS RISEN!!!

Jesus or Priapus?

I'm honestly not sure.

[XXXXYYYY]

... I'm missing something here. Someone care to explain?

[origamiscienceguy]

... I'm missing something here. Someone care to explain?

Friday was good Friday. It was the day that Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven of our sins. Today is Easter, the day he rose from the grave.

[XXXXYYYY]

... I'm missing something here. Someone care to explain?

Friday was good Friday. It was the day that Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven of our sins. Today is Easter, the day he rose from the grave.

Ah. So just Easter stuff, not anything special to this year. Good to know.

[Bohandas]

HE IS RISEN!!!

Jesus or Priapus?

I'm honestly not sure.

... I'm missing something here. Someone care to explain?

Friday was good Friday. It was the day that Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven of our sins. Today is Easter, the day he rose from the grave.

The reference to Priapus on the other hand, refers to an ancient greek demigod who was always depicted with a large erect penis, which in combination with vague pronouns and multiple meanings of the word "risen" allowed me to turn the earlier Jesus reference into a vulgar reference to ancient paganism

[Arx]

I'm pretty sure you'd notice the second coming.

[i2amroy]

I'm pretty sure you'd notice the second coming.

Depends on whose second coming it is. Some religious communities that view themselves as the only "true" religion are pretty small, and for one of them to vanish off the face of the earth might not make that big of a dent in the tens of millions of people who vanish without a trace every year (and that's for the US alone).