to think that Christians do not want equal treatment, they want their views to be given a privileged in public life.

[seeker]

and that the discrimination that some Christians claim they are suggering is actually just the withdrawing of that privileged position, and the levelling of the playing fiels for people of faith and people without faith.

I think every faith wants to be given better treatment than another bar Buddism perhaps which teaches a very open minded tolerance of all faiths (someone correct me if I am wrong).

So in that sense, all faiths are equal in their arrogance in my eyes.

sieglinde - no of course not. The existence of God wouldn't even validate any particular religion in and of itself. But in discussions of religion and it's place in society etc. certain people will deliberatly make arguments that rely on religion to pull people into the argument about the existence or otherwise of god in order to make people from a faith position feel that they are being attacked in order to equate secularism with atheism.

Religion doesn't need to be homophobic, but ALL the justifications I have ever come across for homophobia have been at heart religious.

And no, there is nothing in Islam about the hijab, it is a cultural thing in some countries that many have skewed into becoming part of the faith.

I have no religion myself but my father is an Arabic Sunni Muslim and the patriarch of my family. He disaproves of women wearing a hijab and discourages it in his daughters or the other women of my family. No one in my family dresses like that.

NestaFiesta wrote ?One example would be calling Christmas "Winterval" or the "festive holidays" when it has for the last 2000 years been a celebration of the day Christ was born.?
This simply isn't true! There was already an existing Winter Festival celebrated in Britain BEFORE Christmas celebrations were even established. In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar in his Julian calendar established December 25 as the date of the winter solstice of Europe. The 'Christian Church' adopted this date because it was easier for it to convert the people. So really it was Christians who stole December 25th from the existing festival and any attempt to ridicule Pagans celebrating the Winter Solstice and trying to 'steal' Christmas is just showing your ignorance of your own religion's history. For those who say we are a Christian country you too are wrong. What makes up a country? It is it's people and in Britain we have had various peoples from all over and with various beliefs: Celts; Angles; Saxons; Norman; Romans etc and Great Britain has NOT been a so-called Christian country for far much longer than it has had Christianity!! Christianity was very successful in gaining a powerful hold over the people, usually through violent and scaremongering means of it's leaders and representatives, just like most other religions. Religion is just another ideology and so we should therefore not put any Religion on a pedestal above challenge or criticism or above anything else or we do so at our peril.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou, I know what you mean by "anything that isn't logically impossible isn't entirely impossible", but how would you apply that in everyday situations?

If someone says "of course the moon isn't that shape because it's being eaten by a giant mutant star goat" I doubt you would object and say "hang on. You can't prove that?"

Most of us would say that unless someone has some actual reason/evidence (even flimsy evidence would do for this purpose) we can reasonably say "there's no such thing"

only 2 bank holidays are now related to christian holidays as said before christmas day and good friday, easter monday was added on by government to make long weekend

Pentecost is 42 days after easter and used to be a holiday on whit monday so was mostly in may but like easter varied in a 6 week period I think this holiday was fixed to last monday in may several years ago so was of christian origin but now only on right day about once every 50 years

Different branches of christians like different branches of muslims interpret scriptures differently so 1 muslim thimnks hijab or evan niqab essential NOTHER SEES NOTHING WRONG SO LONG AS MODEST AND COVERED FROM SHOULDERS TO KNEES sorry re caps, some orthodox jewish women always cover their hair too

also some reformed christians would never wear a crucifix as they see portrayal of jesus in any physical form as wrong ( no graven image) however catholics and many others would see wearing a crucifix as almost essential

So I do not think you can logically come to the conclusion that a muslim woman who feels she must wear hijab to be true to her faith has to be allowed whilst a christian woman who feels she must wear a crucifix to be true to her faith can be banned, same with turbans etc, it is extremely difficult to enshrine this right in law when not everyone in the religion thinks it is a requirement

otherwise you could demand she removes hijab as some muslim women never wear one or else insist that as she is a muslim she must wear the muslim version of staff uniform

WHile I am a christian I do not approve of critising people for being different or for being gay etc but I do think that some of test cases for discrimination would have been quietly dropped if a different religion, I doubt when there is such a huge shortage of muslims parents willing to adopt or foster that they refuse because of their religious views on sexual morals or it maybe that no muslims apply because they can not square their religious views with the tolerant views expected by councils. I am not saying the councils are wrong because I think they are right I just wonder if they apply the rules so rigorously to groups whether muslim or any other minority which they find so very difficult to find any placements with

sorry that's very long

A lot of the whining about the persecution of poor little powerless christians is generally coming from pressure groups like Christian Voice, Stephen Green and his ilk (he's another buckethead who I mopped up the set with on a talkshow years ago (dusts off knuckles)). And it's an excellent example of the undue privilege given to Christian mythology that this fuckwit is taken seriously rather than given the David Icke treatment.

I am happy to say that Christianity is a crock of shit, but I am also happy to say that so is Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, SHinto, Zoroastrianism, Scientology, Santeria, Vaudun... and if I haven;t incuded your particular set of myths and imaginary friends, please take my word fo it that it's a crock of shit as well.

Onagar - It depends how pedantic you are generally ;) In the case of the mutant space goat we have a better explanation for the shape of the moon. So I'd say "Well yes, I suppose that is possible, but THIS theory (that it's that shadow of the earth) also makes these other predictions about a) Artillery shells and b) how to make hydro-electric power plants that the mutant goat theory doesn't so I'm going to stick with the Newtons laws of motion, taking into account General Relativity thanks"

And the 'privilege' that people are complaining about is people saying 'Well I want the right to disobey the law because my imaginary friend says I'm allowed to consider other people as less than human and ignore their rights.' Because the main purpose of religions is always to give some groups privileged status and convince the unprivileged that they have no option but to accept lower status because the Great Dogshit In The Sky says so.

OK - that's the end of this thread then.

It's really, really irritating that it always ends up with one side or the other getting het up and offensive.

Straw armies, anyone?