The entirety of Europe has that problem, not just the UK. And oddly enough Muslims are causing the exact same problems in all European countries. Guess Europe is just one big racist continent because that's just too much of a coincidence :happy:

Difference being that the religious are the equivalent of trying to convince you that 7 x 2 = 9. And the non-religious are going 'the fuck? Here's a calculator.'. Which, of course, prompts the religious people to reprogram the calculator you provided them so it says 7 x 2 = 9.

If the internet taught me one thing it's that religious people can not be debated with, period. And I've debated with a lot of them. Never once have I heard someone say 'hm, you might have a point there' (except for our very own STM). You can throw a metric fuck ton of facts at them and they will just respond with even more nonsense.

It's like discussing nuclear physics with a 2 year old.

That was maybe the best description of a religious conversation that I've ever seen.

We are in Europe and we don't have many of those. I personally have never seen any here.

I'm guessing the more north-western countries are more popular because they have better economies and more social welfare. God knows they use a lot of that.

Aside from Muslims we also get a lot of Polish people doing cheap (illegal) labor here. So I'm guessing their reason for working here is the same reason for Muslims choosing the Netherlands or the UK over Poland.

There are a lot of Polish people abroad. There is like 2,7% of Polish people among Ireland's whole population. You can earn more by just gathering strawberries and returning to Poland than doing a normal job.

It's not enough to know that you're right and they're wrong, and to say so. And certainly not to do so with that belligerent, devil-may-care attitude. If this is a problem that needs to be fixed, and that's not quite the phrasing I would use but I'm effectively on board, then you need a tactic that will actually work. And your plan is crap. At once we're saying that we have to object all the time, and also that debating them doesn't work, and also here's an example of debating them actually working. That tells me that we've got some home turf issues to sort out before we start worrying about anyone else's.

Exceptions prove the rule, yes. They prove the rule wrong. I know people who used to be religious. They tell me that being rude and condescending does not convince people, and I think I knew that already. They also tell me that they think they were worth talking to.

STM is an exception because she's weird and wears woman's clothes. No catholic male would wear that to begin with.

I gotta know at this point, is this a joke we're doing, or an important identity issue that I missed? I don't want to get that wrong.

It's a joke that we're doing, although not gonna lie wearing women's clothes didn't feel wrong. I'm such a bender it's terrible.

Also also, lol at all the stereotypical bull shit generalisations about Muslims guys.

People have a habit of faking that shit up. Nothing real has been found so far.

That's news to me. Citation?

Not really. The number of documents from that era, from that part of the world, that have survived and been discovered could fit on a very small bookshelf.

I've seen you try and debate religious people. The reason why you fail to convince them of anything is that you're really shit at it. If you want to debate anyone, you have to start off with knocking down the prepositions of their belief system, and you don't know near enough about any organised religion to do that.

Debating religious people is easy. Most of them don't even know their own religion.

Richard Carrier is one historian who doesn't believe Jesus existed, certainly not in any way we could recognise. I don't know if he's right about that, but I have enjoyed presentations on the Bayesian analysis of biblical and historical claims.

Some British people are very quick to condemn foreign people such as muslims and polish people for coming to the country for "stealing our jobs" when in fact, many immigrants will take work that some Brits believe they are too good for. The same ignorant and lazy citizens who say things like that will refuse those kinds of jobs and it always comes off as extremely hypocritical.

I would much rather have a hard-working immigrant that contributes towards society than a fat, useless turd who obsesses over "British Pride".

There's also a lot of ignorance regarding muslims. Apparently all muslims are terrorists.

But that's usually true to the immigrants as well. There are people in Poland who work as I dunno, graphics designers or welders who travel to foreign countries like France etc. just to pick up fruits from bushes with other laborers and it's stil profitable. You'd think that it shouldn't be, but hey, our country isn't incredibly rich and the politicians actively try to rip us off of whatever we've got.

I'm not talking about us never finding any writings made by Jesus, I'm talking about christians claiming that he never wrote any, he only taught people by talk and action

I heard a saying recently that seemed, unfortunately, common enough to ring true. It goes: "When an atheist criticises Christianity, he turns into a bible scholar. When an atheist criticises Islam, he turns into a Fox News anchor."

Still not entirely surprising. Scholars in those days weren't monks living in monasteries, carefully scribing manuscripts. They were... like Jesus. They had followings of other scholars, discussed things in groups, and most knowledge was passed on orally. It's actually a fundamental fact of Judaism pre-200AD that the religious thought was memorised and taught on, rather than written down.

I just spent half an hour looking for the study I read, and now I can't find it. At any rate, it doesn't really matter to me if a person named Jesus went around telling people that he was god. We all know he wasn't, and since there is no historical documentation of his existence, only stories told, and passed down that eventually ended up in a crazy, poorly written book, well, I don't think it's a point even worth arguing.

Thing is that I'm not out to convince anyone. I just question things people bring up and leave it up to them to figure out an answer. Many a religious debate I've participated in, regardless of method or behavior, has ended in 'well you can't prove he doesn't exist' or 'it's a belief, it works for me and that's all that matters' or even 'you are right about everything, god did all that'. Which is the equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and yelling because they ran out of counter arguments. Which brings me back to the 2 year old.

Also, I've spent 10 years on a Christian elementary school. Being forced to read the bible and being forced to pray every morning. I won't say I know everything, but I know at least as much as the average Christian. Which, like you pointed out, isn't all that much.

Actually, I was agreeing with OANST: I object to the idea that if someone is pleasant, you should avoid challenging them. Illogical beliefs are difficult to maintain (there's a reason why you have to go to church every week), take up time and energy, and generally make life difficult whenever reality conflicts with those outdated views. It's not a nice situation to be in, and it doesn't just apply to religion - any form of bigotry is a burden to the intellect, and it's only going to get harder to protect as time goes on. If I respect a person, I'd rather they weren't in that situation.

Jerks aren't helpful, whatever they believe, and aren't worth the effort. But good people will fight for whatever they consider to be important, and don't deserve to be wrong.

Way to answer a question not adressed at you, speak for a country you don't live in and come off as racist, all in one breath. High five.

There certainly is some xenophobia in the UK, but I don't think it's any more than you get in the rest of the world. It's linked more to the constant scapegoating of right-wing politics than any actual cultural conflict.

Also, what's the difference between a country with "too many" Muslims and one that just has a lot of Muslims? I genuinely don't know.

Wow. You must really suck at debating.

I can't honestly begrudge anyone for working overseas to make more money. Frankly, I'm surprised more UK citizens don't do the same.

That sure sounds like an attempt to encourage critical thought to me.

The only reasons to encourage someone to think critically are 1) you care about them and you want them to do well in life, 2) you agree with them and you want them to better represent your mutual views, or 3) you disagree with them and you want them to reconsider their position.

You're either very compassionate, a closet theist or a liar.

I just read (sceptically) the historicity of Jesus article on Wikipedia and the section, 'Accepted Historic Facts' are not fucking accepted by me. A lot of the information is referenced from James Dunn, a religious theologian with a bias to his beliefs. Supposedly it is accepted that Jesus existed, was baptised by John and was crucified but there are not first hand accounts to back these claims up in the references.

It's like the whole period has been erased from history. There's no mention of Herod's massacre of the first born for instance.

Keep in mind the page is heavily disputed in terms of neutrality

Yeah I was actually thinking I'd give it a whack at editing it to be more neutral...but how to you neutralise an article with a subheading entitled 'Accepted historic facts'. It's false and it's grammatically incorrect. :B

I've just tried to read the dispute about the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
(which is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hi...y_of_Jesus#.23 )
But I just can't stand the amount of bullshit in both the article and the dispute. I also can't stand that in "Accepted historic facts" (whether it's gramatically correct or not) there are statements, but there is almost no explanation behind them (why they are accepted), except of what scholar said it's true

We need BM, to put into words what we're all thinking.

What, that just about every scholar on the historicity of Jesus has a vested personal interest one way or the other that explicitly colours their work?

Honestly I couldn't give two shits if is real or not, I'd just like to see an impartial, well informed answer. Maybe this is one for the agnostics to work out.

Are there really any people truly neutral about this?

I know of a few people who started, but they all became atheists and lost interest as a result of their studies.

*shrug*

Perhaps your approach in debating religious people is different in real life than online, but every time I've seen you attempt it here you end up being super-agressive and don't/can't understand where they're coming from. And then the other person just shuts off and stops listening. It's not a winning strategy.

The way I read that article was 'If anything is true, it's these things.' I think even the scholars who expressed that view would agree that it's an imperfect system.


There's a reason for that, you know...

Scapegoating, in this case, is a consequence of an action. Not the other way around. No, I can not speak for other countries but I do follow international news. And that tells me that right wing parties are gaining a massive following all over western Europe, that's no coincidence.

I'm not being racist, I'm being realistic. Teenagers with an Islamic background, mostly Moroccan, represent the vast majority of crime records in my country. We have a TV show here that helps solve unsolved crimes by showing camera footage and providing details so people can call in if they have useful information. I watch this show from time to time and more than half the people who appear in the shown camera footage are Moroccan teenagers and a good 9 out of 10 people are foreign immigrants. The moments where an actual native Dutchman appears on that show are extremely few and far between.

And it would be too easy to say the TV show is doing it on purpose. It's a mixture of culture clash, bad upbringing and immigrants who simply don't give a flying fuck about the rules and customs of the country they are a guest in. All of which is ignored by the left wing parties who would have you believe that everything is fine. They stick their heads in the sand and call other parties racist before someone else calls them racist for ignoring the matter completely.

Life is difficult in Europe at the moment. The economy is going downhill, lots of people are unemployed, and quality of living is getting worse. At times like this, it's common behaviour for people to search out easy solutions for complex problems. And that's what right-wing parties specialise in. Blaming the 'other' is so much simpler than actually dealing with shit, after all.

It's behaviour that has been seen over-and-over again in history. When economies go down, racist right-wing parties gain power.