I do not understand why this thread was not locked:

[struggle4progress]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x295194

The OP links to this webpage:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/10-reasons-you-should-never-have-a-religion/

On the linked webpage, one finds assertions such as:

"... If you have the awareness level of a snail, and your thinking is mired in shame and guilt (with perhaps a twist of drug abuse or suicidal thinking), then subscribing to a religion can help you climb to a higher level of awareness ... For reasonably intelligent people who aren’t suffering from major issues with low self-esteem, religion is ridiculously consciousness-lowering ... If you devote serious time to the practice of religion, it’s safe to say you practice toilet-bowl time management, flushing much of your precious life down the drain with little or nothing to show for it ... When you donate money to a religious organization, you’re doing much worse than throwing your money away. You’re actively funding evil ... When you join a religion, your fellow mind-slaves will help to keep you in line, socially rewarding your continued obedience while punishing your disloyalty ... When you subscribe to an established religion, you have only two options. You can become an idiot, or you can become a hypocrite ..."

I alerted on this, including quotes from the linked webpage, waited over 24 hours, then alerted on it a second time, again including quotes from the linked webpage. The thread remains open.

It seems clear to me that it is just ugly stereotyping to claim: that religion is useful only for people with the "awareness level of a snail," that people who donate to religious organizations are "actively funding evil," and that if you join a religious group, "you have only two options -- you can become an idiot, or you can become a hypocrite"

[Skinner]

1. We do not have a consistent policy regarding content of linked pages.

In this case, the portion that was posted here on DU was permitted. I don't think the moderators gave any consideration to the content that was available on the other website.

[struggle4progress]

2. The OP approvingly linked an article that was chock-full of bigoted remarks. The

sole purpose of the post was to draw attention to that article

I should think the rule

Restrictions on Linking to Other Websites
... Do not quote or link to bigoted websites ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules_detailed.html

would apply

[Skinner]

3. Isn't this how all the believers-vs-nonbelievers discussions go?

It seems like all these discussions eventually end up arguing over who are the bigots.

The moderators do a heroic job trying to sort through all of it. But sometimes, they're going to make a call that people disagree with. It's a minefield.

[struggle4progress]

4. No, actually, I don't this is how all such discussions go, though I do think there are

some individuals and organizations that promote some noisy shouting matches to further their own psychological or political ends

There was, for example, in post-WWII Eastern Europe, a very robust dialogue (with origins in anti-Nazi resistance organizations during the War) between various Marxists (who in both practice and theory were almost entirely atheists) and various Christians. Such conversation perhaps seems bizarre and irrelevant to many Americans, since here there are almost no Marxists and since "Christianity" in the public sphere is largely dominated by media coverage of certain conservative organizational postures. But the conversation received a rather different hearing in much of the rest of the world, as I have repeatedly indicated in various posts in R/T: you can search there for my references (say) to the atheists Vítezslav Gardavský, Milan Machovec, or Ernst Bloch. The increasingly successful political coalitions in the liberation struggles against the Latin American dictatorships, from the 1970s on, as I have also indicated in various R/T posts: you can search there for (say) reference to The Gospel in Solentiname

Nor do I consider "believer" and "nonbeliever" particularly well-defined sociological categories or particularly useful descriptive terms: I think you would find on closer examination that people you would lump together as "believers" do not uniformly "believe" the same things and actually differ in what they meant by "believe," in addition to which you would find that they do not all call themselves "believers," many preferring other terms -- and similarly for the people you would lump together as "nonbelievers"

There are, in fact, a variety of positions which do not much accord with our current cultural stereotypes

Earlier this year in R/T I posted reference to the ancient Roman view that the Jews were atheists -- based on the lack of an idol in their temple. More recently, I pointed a poster in R/T towards Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, which entertainingly expounds a certain Enlightment era anti-religious deism; Paine is a brilliant rhetorician, and part of his criticism of Christianity is that it is simply atheistic to worship a man. Bloch, mentioned above, wants an atheist Marxist utopian reading of the Bible

There is actually no shortage of unexpected stances from unexpected quarters -- I have a book "Atheism and Liberation," written by a Jesuit and published by the Catholic Foreign Missionary Society: If God is Justice and Love, who are the contemporary atheists? Those who wear the label but fight for a civilization based on equality and love? Or those who believe in God but as an idol who blesses and protects their power and possessions in a world divided into rich and poor? From that point of view, what someone claims to believe is entirely uninformative: this Christian and that atheist might actually have more similar beliefs than this Christian and that Christian, or than that atheist and this atheist

So again: no, I don't this is how all such discussions go, though it is how many discussions in R/T go

[Skinner]

5. My bad. I meant to say "in the DU Religion/Theology" forum.

I guess my point is this: There's a point where this stuff is out of my hands.

[struggle4progress]

6. I'll look forward to experiencing DU3