Hmm...well, again, Jorgey and the other mods here don't really like big religious debates and stuff. If they want me to shut up, I'll happily do so, and I apologize for skirting the rules. If not, though, I hope I haven't said anything too out of the way, and given the reactions of the other people in the thread I think it's safe to assume I haven't...
"It's just not. The same. At all."
It's not exactly the same, it's just irrational for different reasons.
"And people always say the same thing: "Well, not ALL (insert religion here) people are like that." So really there is no such thing as a xtian, or a muslim for that matter, because they all cherry pick which rules they want to deem as viable and which ones to ignore."
Arguably true, but this makes "hating xtians" or whatever irrational. If there's really no such thing as True Christian or True Muslim, how and why could you hate them? You can't hate something that doesn't exist.
More pertinently, though, and perhaps less flippantly, you also prove why hating people because of their religious identification is futile and irrational. The point you make here undermines the point you make later, that "bad" religious people are the only "true" ones, that they're the only ones who are "really" following their religious texts. The contradictory nature of those texts, however, makes this a spurious accusation. You're correct in that "good" religious people pick and choose which parts of the text they worship, but "bad" religious people do the exact same thing. They focus on the "bad" parts of the text while ignoring those which explicitly state to show love, forgiveness, mercy, and all that. A Christian homophobe cannot point to some verse in Leviticus as proof that "homosexuals deserve to die" without simultaneously ignoring the verses in the New Testament which are all about "judge not, lest ye be judged," and all that.
"It's no coincidence that visions of a utopian future always show mankind having moved past religious beliefs."
Not really. Aside from the fact that many utopian visions are explicitly religious themselves (the 1000 years of Christ's reign some Christians believe in, for instance), even in sci-fi you have nearly-utopian worlds in which religion is still present; the lovely Starways Congress of Orson Scott Card, for instance, is one in which Catholicism and traditional Asian religions are still present.
"They are delusions which people have used to justify the most heinous acts that have ever been committed in our history. Why anyone would want to identify with one of those groups AT ALL, even if it's only half-assed, is beyond me."
Indisputably true, but it is also true that these "delusions" have been used to justify the most glorious acts in our history as well. The same Catholicism which gave us the Crusades and the Inquisition also gave us the Sistine Chapel and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The same Catholicism which encouraged warfare against Muslims and Protestants is the some one which discouraged it among Europeans--the Peace and Truce of God (look it up on Wikipedia) was one of the only ways to get European knights to stop killing each other every day of the week. This is to take only one example.
"But, even supporting it half-assed is still supporting it. One can make donations to a neo nazi group all day long and claim to not be racist, but they're still supporting the hatred."
The problem is, these groups don't support the hate *at all.* It's possible to be a Christian without supporting everything other Christians do, just like it's possible to be a capitalist without supporting everything corrupt businesspeople or whoever do, or it's possible to be a libertarian without supporting the more outlandish theories of Ayn Rand. As I said above, much of the "bad stuff" in the bible has to be cherry-picked or interpreted themselves as well--the "bad christians" or "bad muslims" are hardly exegetical savants. A Quaker who says Fred Phelps is interpreting the Bible wrong is no less correct than he is when he says a Quaker is in the wrong.
"Truthfully, the xtians and muslims who advocate the extermination of peoples are not radical at all. They are the ones that are actually following their holy texts. It's the xtians who say they are accepting and tolerant that make ZERO sense, because that is not what their bible says to do. Jesus said it a couple of times, but he also said a lot of violent and intolerant things, and plus he's in a tiny part of the book. This is the cherry-picking that I was talking about. "
Again, read what I said above. Now, you can argue that the "good" parts of the bible are just a "tiny tiny" part of it, but this is simply untrue. You can find exhortations for love and tolerance all over it, including the Old Testament. The quote from my sig is from Leviticus, for instance (19:33-34). There's the lovely story of filial affection in the Book of Ruth, and the wonderful description of the Lord's mercy to the people of Nineveh in Jonah's story. You simply can't say "there's more bad than good" in the Bible or Koran or whatever and expect people to take it on faith. Many of read both those books and still disagree.
"I'm reminded of a saying: "If you want to make someone an atheist, just hand them a bible." Most religious people have no idea what their religion is even about. A Pew study last year made national headlines when it was determined that atheists knew more about the major religions of the world than religious people did. Catholics actually scored the lowest, even when the questions were about xtianity. "
I've read that study--it's not as favorable towards atheists as you might like to make it out to be. That study had some questions about Asian religions such Buddhism and Hinduism. Since atheists come from all religious groups, i.e you have ex-Christians/Jews/Muslims *and* ex-Buddhists and Hindus and what not, the fact that many scored a bit higher on tests of general religious knowledge isn't surprising. When it comes to specifics, you're right that Catholics don't do well, but Christians (Evangelicals and Mormons in particular) still did better than atheists in regards to the Bible:
http://pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What-About-Religion.aspxThough white evangelicals have lower scores than Jews and atheists/agnostics overall, they do significantly better on questions about the Bible. White evangelicals correctly answer an average of 5.1 out of seven Bible questions, compared with 4.4 among atheists and agnostics and 4.3 among Jews. Mormons answer almost six of the seven Bible questions correctly on average.
(emphasis added)
"I challenge anyone to read the bible, or the koran, and say that they have ever met ANYONE who actually follows the tenets of those texts."
I've read the NIV front-to-back. While I certainly don't follow its tenets to such a great extent, I've met a few people who do.
"Many of the prejudices we have today simply would not exist if religion went away, since people have no other reason to feel the way they do other than 'because my church says so'."
Debatable, and even if this were true (a dubious assumption), there are just as many prejudices which would "go away" if other things besides religion were to disappear. People are prejudiced against those of other countries (and you choose to be a citizen of any given country--national hatred is more similar to religious hatred than ethnic hatred), fans of different sports teams (or videogames), adherents of other political parties, and so on, and so forth. If hating people simply because of...not how they act, or even what they believe, but because of what particular ideological group they say they belong to, is legitimate, you'll find yourself hating far more than just "xtians" and muslims. And you may find yourself spewing as much hate as the worst of them, in that case.
...
Phew! Quite a long spiel. I suppose it was a bit foolish of me, given what I've said about the problems of religious debate on forums like these, but I thought it might be disrespectful to simply ignore your post, Ms. Opium. As I said, though, if Jorgey or the other mods wants me to lay off this discussion, I will most happily do so. <3 <3 <3 Jorgey-sama~!