“I’m not Christian but I have a soft spot for Roman Catholics cos I have not come across any of their members delivering pampthlets at public places or knocking on doors to proselytise.”

That’s a pretty low bar to set.

I wouldn’t play up Teresa’s character if I were you. Read “The Missionary Position” (Christopher Hitchens, a writer of note).

For starters, she was against condom use in a country rife with Aids. Also she spent more donations on religious institutions than hospices for the sickly. She reveled in suffering because she thought it brought her closer to Christ…

Birds and bees also don’t impose their absolutist religious views on other people… isn’t that the natural state of things? Can I then conclude that you are an abomination of nature?

Think about your logic here.

Peace – that is where you are wrong. Very wrong.

Birds, bees, and animals do engage in homosexual activities – and these are all God’s creatures.

” Homosexuality is quite common in the animal kingdom, especially among herding animals. Many animals solve conflicts by practicing same gender sex.”

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=20718

“This list includes animals (birds, mammals, insects, fish etc.) for which there is documented evidence of homosexual or transgender behavior …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior

So, there is nothing wrong with the human race. And if there is something wrong with the human race, who made them that way?

// you can teach your own kids that birds and bees do not engage in anal sex, and if they do it is non negotiable hell brimstone and fire!//

strange, eh? birds and bees don’t engage in anal sex but why this big hooha about humans having anal sex and oral sex? I am confused. There is something wrong with the human race, right? Your son may ask.
Evolution may be the cause. Men and women are ‘changing role’.
About brimstone and fire, that is what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah .Does the word ’sodom’ ring your bell? It has surfaced again, across the causeway.. No, not the crooked bridge. Something more crooked.

zefly, can i join u guys under ur rainbow color tree with hello kitty?

No disagreements. Very nicely done.

Like I said, I takeyour larger point that atheism should be construed as “religion” for political utility. I just wanted to go on about it being illogical for the benefit of religious onlookers for whom every event is an occasion for affirmation i.e. evidence. For “practical consequences”, if you like. It wouldn’t have escaped you that some of them earnestly think Atheism is a competing brand of God.

Cheers

Though I do not subscribe to Josie’s action, I do admire her courage for putting her job on the firing line. She is definitely not a “yes man” that is why she climbed that high. I think she can easily find another job if DBS do not want her. The problem is someone in DBS was kiasu and make statement to the media for what is an internal issue which unfortunately have drag DBS into the fray.

I admit that the ‘empirical evidence’ cited by many religious devotees for the existence of god is (1) unreliable hearsay; and (2) does not prove quite nearly enough (e.g. the fact that certain persons referred to in the religious text did exist in history does not in itself show that a certain god exists).

“It is completely irrational to say that just because science cannot answer all the questions right here right now, scripture can. The course of history and science has taught us otherwise.”

We’re really using inductive reasoning here: out of Y number of questions, science has settled X of them; so the probability of science settling the remainder is high ((X / Y) x 100%) (I’m simplifying here.) But inductive reasoning has been criticized as not completely logical — in particular, in the formulation above, we cannot know the value of Y, so we don’t know how successful the scientific method is.

But as TJ pointed out, this is a ‘god of the gaps’ line of argument.

An even more powerful response is that the scientific method (verifying the truth of a hypothesis through observation) is the only way we have to learn about the physical universe. Even if it were flawed, it’s the only mode of inquiry we have, something we use constantly, e.g., when we look at the sky to predict the weather. Tellingly, even the religions try to establish their truth by recourse to the scientific method (as mentioned above).

As for the last point, whilst I acknowledge that science can explain the biochemistry behind our moral judgments, I do not think it can account for our moral universe (taking the moral realist’s view that propositions like “X is right” or “Y is evil” can be true or false). This point was addressed to WeiHan’s assumption that empirical proof is the only way to think about our world. That is true for the physical universe, but not the moral one (assuming, of course, that moral reasoning is not purely nonsensical).

Even so, I do not think that we have to rely on a religious text in order to determine what is right or wrong, good or evil. The opposite is often true: we frequently interpret a religious text in light of our deeply-felt moral convictions. Hence, what is good is good regardless of whether it is loved by the gods, and vice versa.

P.S. I think our parallel discussion on whether or not atheism is a ‘religion’ has sort of stalemated. But I’d just like to emphasize again that my argument that atheism should be regarded as a ‘religion’ was from practical consequences, rather than from strict logic.

I don’t think there is a church of scientology in Singapore after all, so I am free to bring Xenu, their evil intergalactic warlord. I hope his death glares don’t make conversation awkward.

(1) they all joined AWARE for less than 5 months
(2) was silent about their ‘disagreement’ with the old exco’s neutral stand on homosexualty subject
(3) but seized power at the recent AGM, kicked the old guards out
(4) initially lied that they did not know each other, till their ‘feminist mentor’ surfaced
(5) dragged the church into it. or should i say the pastors in that church gladly supported their movement

that to me is ’sneaky’ and giving the faith a bad name.

i have never joined a civil group all my life, but this time i intend to join AWARE before the EGM this Sat.

Josie and her team cried out that why they are so much hatred towards them. matter of fact is, i dont hate them, i just despise them.

I am a Christian. I worship the Lord, the one and only God, but that doesnt mean i dont have greed, hatred, desire and urges. dont we all have that? dont you?

whichever faith we embrace, we all have those flaws. so i really dont understand when you wrote “They are gods and you worship them and they cause you to have greed, hatred, desire, urges, same sex desires and so forth.”

come up peace the topic is about AWARE being hijack by the new exco, please be focus and not going to religion bashing. dont you have enough from gay/lesbian bashing. so much for peace.

think one hug is not enough, lots and lots of hugs.

His main argument is that the 3rd type of response, “warning against ‘playing the religious card’ is but a disingenuous attempt to pretend that such Christian activism does not exist in multi-religious Singapore.” is not helpful and should be rebunked.

Go read at: http://www.opinionasia.org/SingaporeAWARESaga

I have to say I agree with you right down to the last letter – again.

I am hopeful that everyone is able clear away the garbage been thrown about and see the real reason behind all this. There can be no justification for the manner of takeover by the new exco, neither can there be any justification for the “too trustful nature” of the old guards, an excuse given by Kalwanjit Soin.

It is frightening to think the possibility of these women being manupilated by one man working behind the scene. I am now beginning to see the doctrine of COOS at play especially the part about their women sujecting themselves to their husbands. Is the team of women helming the new exco working on their own discretions or are they working along the doctrine of someone behind the scene -a man?

Lest anyone think I am throwing my weight behind the old guards, I must make it clear that I have drawn away from the new exco for the simple fact that they have shown themselves to be untruthful, and anything that comes out after this revelation, is meaningless and useless, to say the least.

No one worth his/her grain of salt and in his/her right frame of mind should throw their weight behind untruthful characters, never mind what they are fighting for, because you can never ever know whether they are truthfully fighting for that cause or not.

However, neither am I standing on the old guards side for the other fact that their complacency (even though they have explained it away as ‘trust’) has resulted in this saga and thus have let its supporters down by their negligence.

Mock the devil and he will flee from thee.