That describes two old friends of mine. Both became alcoholics, lost their spouses, lost their jobs and were in a really bad place. Then, they say, Jimmy Swaggart threw them a rope when they were drowning and saved them. Now they are addicted to Jesus. I told one of them that it is very good when someone throws you a rope and saves you from drowning. But then you coil up that rope, return it and say thank you. You don't let them tie you up with it and keep you on a leash. Mostly I just politely say "I'm not interested in whatever you are selling". If they persist I say "Try to imagine how little I care." They rarely hang around for "Fuck off".
This sounds to me like you are being intellectually lazy. What if you ran into a bunch of lowlife LSU fans? Would you make some judgement regarding LSU because of that? Stick to the facts, it helps clarify things....either there is a God or there isn't. His existence is not dependent on people's behavior. His existence is a totally different question.
Im not talking about the existence of god. Im talking about the people who use god/religion because they have no balance so they force it upon you. i generalized because i didnt have time to reword it.
Bible-thumpers are obnoxious...but so was martin. I think it is more about the person, which brings me to Stephen Hawking. I have never understood why his opinion should mean so much. The existence of God is outside his area of expertise....he should stick to black holes and quarks, etc.
He was funny...what ever happened to him? And regarding Hawking, I couldn't care less if he agreed with me about God. I couldn't care less if my tax attorney believed in God either. They are totally unrelated subjects. Science deals with matter and God isn't matter. Case closed.
Anything is open to discussion but it seems odd to me that because a person is a scientist people somehow think his opinion on religion is so informative. It doesn't matter any more than a doctor's opinion. In fact, I would be more influenced by a doctor's opinion because he deals with life and death and human beings. Hawking is looking through a telescope and doing equations. I think people just assume he is smarter than they are....Charlie Weiss was supposed to have "schematic advantage" too. Intelligence is not equally applicable to every situation.
