I only support ANY institution's continued existence as long as it's not doing more harm than good, and both religion as a whole and any number of individual faiths are, at best, tiptoeing on the edge of that line. While you're at it, why not insist that I should unequivocably and without reservation LIKE for there always to be Republicans, or Mormons, or Tea Partiers, or Scientologists? It all makes as much sense to me, because I see ALL of them as being similarly bullshit that I shouldn't have to be forced to deal with.
So no, I WON'T endorse the "correct" statement that you were trying to shepherd me toward all along, because as far as I'm concerned, it's MORALLY wrong to demand that I actively DESIRE the continued existence of ANY ideological group whose views I don't subscribe to, no matter how much you preemptively invoked Godwin to try and BULLY me into doing so by implying that anyone who DOESN'T repeat your contemptible fucking Shibboleth is an anti-Semite.
I want the Jews, and the Christians, and the Muslims, and every other religion to LEAVE ME AND EVERYONE ELSE THE FUCK ALONE. THAT is my criterion for determining whether or not ANY of them deserve to exist. If they CAN'T do me and everyone else that very basic courtesy, then no, as far as I'm concerned, they DON'T deserve to exist.
Fortunately, I've known quite a few religious folks who actually ARE capable of extending that simple decency to others, but then again, we still have global political policies being determined by people who, in spite of being deeply anti-Semitic, actively support the state of Israel because, by their own explicitly stated admission, they're attempting to fulfill Biblical prophecies about Armageddon, which would constitute the exact opposite of "NOT shoving their own religion into everyone else's faces."
If the live-and-let-live folks can wrest control of their own religions out of the hands of those who have forced their religions into countless aspects of secular governance, education, military operations and society as a whole where they do not belong, then yes, I'll be able to get along with those religions' continued existence. Otherwise, FUCK 'em.
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So no, I WON'T endorse the "correct" statement that you were trying to shepherd me toward all along, because as far as I'm concerned, it's MORALLY wrong to demand that I actively DESIRE the continued existence of ANY ideological group whose views I don't subscribe to, no matter how much you preemptively invoked Godwin to try and BULLY me into doing so by implying that anyone who DOESN'T repeat your contemptible fucking Shibboleth is an anti-Semite.
I want the Jews, and the Christians, and the Muslims, and every other religion to LEAVE ME AND EVERYONE ELSE THE FUCK ALONE. THAT is my criterion for determining whether or not ANY of them deserve to exist. If they CAN'T do me and everyone else that very basic courtesy, then no, as far as I'm concerned, they DON'T deserve to exist.
Fortunately, I've known quite a few religious folks who actually ARE capable of extending that simple decency to others, but then again, we still have global political policies being determined by people who, in spite of being deeply anti-Semitic, actively support the state of Israel because, by their own explicitly stated admission, they're attempting to fulfill Biblical prophecies about Armageddon, which would constitute the exact opposite of "NOT shoving their own religion into everyone else's faces."
If the live-and-let-live folks can wrest control of their own religions out of the hands of those who have forced their religions into countless aspects of secular governance, education, military operations and society as a whole where they do not belong, then yes, I'll be able to get along with those religions' continued existence. Otherwise, FUCK 'em.