Not far enough if they are armed. And quite a few of these idiots are. Heavily.

Hahahahaha, you really are awesome. Just two sentences, and you’ve proven all my points.

Sorry (not really), I’m not playing your game. You cannot be convinced, so there’s no point having an educated discussion. No matter how much evidence is presented, no matter how often your terrible, illogical belief system/worldview/”philosophy” is refuted, you won’t accept it, because what must…

“[...] we are literally starting to make literature into reality...”

The good on which you expound is inextricably tied to a mountain of bad that, at least in my mind, greatly outweighs the good by a wide margin. And even if religion were entirely benign, there would still be the aspect that is to me the most insidious: the abdication of reason in favor of faith.…

I’ve read that there’s a local atheist group in Germany which has a public showing of The Life of Brian every year around Easter. Apparently, every year they are fined for that because there’s a law that forbids the public display of, well, anything that defames religion and therefore might disturb the public peace…

That’s the reason why The Life of Brian was and is so despised: There’s a lot more truth in there than many people can stomach (even though Monty Python backpedaled a lot...). And if Jesus were an Instagramer today, he’d probably have lots more haters than followers. Although standing in a poppy field with bleeding…

“Because a lot of Christians are doing their works under the radar, as the Bible commands. It’s a double-edged sword in a world of self-promotion.”

I’ve never said people can’t or mustn’t like these things (they shouldn’t, but that’s a different story).

Oh, but Judeo-Christian beliefs (like all religious beliefs) are nuts. You can call them parables all you like, but for the longest time people believed them literally. And many still believe their literal truth even today. And if they are all parables, how can you determine what’s real or not?

Same here. I used to think I’m immortal and that age is something that happens to others.

With due respect to your attitude towards age, but with regards to “age is just a number”, biology would like to have a word with you.

Not ideal, but to his credit, Hitler was a vegetarian and the Nazis condemned the use of tobacco.

“[...] and that live dolphins fetch substantially more money than dead ones ($1,500 to $11,000 for those intended for captivity versus $40 to $110 for those made into meat).”

But the ban is a start. Gotta start somewhere. And maybe it generates momentum. It certainly generates attention, and people who’ve never thought about plastic pollution might notice, and start changing their ways, big and small.

No, I don’t. But psychologists have not determined that this works all the time. Nothing works all the time. The examples in my post are from personal experience using Pascal’s method, and it simply did not work. Not everybody can be convinced.

That’s on a state level. As a whole, you are right, things get better, because a majority of people, given enough time and a generational change, can do the right thing. On an individual level, things are a bit different.

I want religion out of everything.

I feel the same way about religion.

Victim blaming. Outstanding! I’m sure you’d say the same about the Scholl siblings.