On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:26:42 -0800, "DGDevin"
wrote:



"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
news

Religious folks can keep their witch burnings, Crusades, Westboros,
etc.

How about their soup kitchens and homeless shelters and rehab programs and
hospices and so on, can they keep those two? You're choosing to see only
one side, and while bigotry and stupidity can certainly be found among
religious people, so can compassion and generosity.

The jerk/nice ratio is about 1,000:6 in my experience. The local soup
kitchen/flop house -demands- that the partakers listen to their
sermons before dinner, say grace, and all but demand (which would be
illegal) work from them for their services. There's not much room for
compassion and generosity with all that need for spouting religion. My
neighbor is a Catholic and says that her church gives away food and
such without asking the needy to listen to their religious views or
for anything in return. That sounds like a lot more compassionate and
generous

Churches could do a lot more for the homeless and hungry if they
didn't spend countless millions on ornate and gaudy church buildings.
$100 million for one church in HelL.A., $25 million for a gold-topped
Mormon temple in Sandy Eggo, etc. That money could have fed, clothed,
and housed a metric ****load of people, huh?


I've known some real
jerks who made a big deal of their religious faith, but some of the nicest
folks I've ever met were also very religious--they're not all looking for
opportunities to burn witches.

Me, too. But, like I've said, the ratio is very wide and the bad guys
are on the big end.


--
Know how to listen, and you will
profit even from those who talk badly.
-- Plutarch