... nor painting with a broad and bigoted brush.
You wallow in ad hominem attack ignorantly stigmatizing theism as whole based on the attitudes of its more backward elements. I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of theists acknowledge that a person can evolve a robust moral compass without recourse to religion. From personal experience, I would be greatly surprised to find someone within the ranks of Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Judaism claim that atheists are necessarily immoral.
Your petty need to rail against religion has had a cancerous effect on your ability to reason. Bigotry does that to a person.
You seem to have absolutely no understanding of my own theological position so your arguments are simply not applicable to me in the main part, so let me give you an overview of my theological position before you continue your tirade against your perception of a me that does not exist in the first place.
-I believe in a 'god' - I believe that if there is such a thing as a beginning of time (which I do not believe science has proven) then there
must be a 'god' provided that our understanding of the preservation of matter and energy are correct; this god is merely an abstract concept that refers to the event 'the beginning of time' and the contravention of natural laws pertaining to preservation of matter and energy, as such contraventions transcend all natural laws.
-I do not believe attributing ANY further characteristics to 'god' without proof. I do not believe such proof is possible since most theological positions (and attributes that might be attributed) are unfalsible and all are unverifiable (because there exists the possibility I might be delusional and because there exists the possibility that my understanding of the natural laws is flawed).
What's that? I am a theist? I know that - I am a weakly theistic and VERY strongly Agnostic; however I use the ignostic approach to theological positions and my general position is between weakly atheistic agnosticism and atheistic agnosticism (depending on the degree to which the theological position claims to know the characteristics of 'god').
Perhaps you should have inquired a little before you concluded that I must be an atheist or even an anti-theist merely because I was critical of a theistic argument (not even the position, merely the argument!), this seems driven by your petty need to rail against those who are not completely credulous but instead examine things critically, it has had a cancerous effect on your ability to reason. Bigotry does that to a person... Do you notice how such a judgement is uncalled for? That is because it is a cynical belief that one knows the motivations of others and a prejudgement that their positions are fallacious; I would suggest we both refrain from such unpleasant and unfounded lines of reasoning.
Now onto the points that were substantive:
I was using the phrase in a very specific instance if you bothered to read the entire post rather than jump your guns - I was told I only knew how to be moral because of Christian influences on society and I proceeded to refute that with relevant points - a refutation I acknowledge those overly sensitive might call bashing (hence the quotation marks) around the phrase.
I am not saying that theists (yes including those belonging to some of the more traditional Abrahmic traditions such as the Coptics) are immoral - I know and love many theists and have done community work with some in the past to help the less fortunate; many are both moral and intelligent people. I am however asserting most strongly that many religious traditions incorporate gross immorality (by this I do not mean solely gross immorality, merely that there is some in there) by the supposed exemplars or role models within their sacred texts. I used the Abrahamic god (
only because it is the one that I am most familiar with and because it was the example used by the other member as being the supposed origins of my morality) which, within the Torah or Old Testament in particular, is repeatedly shown to engage in incredible immorality.