Sunday, January 31, 2010

Atheists who say they hate Christians.

 These are just statements I found on the net: since the purpose of atheist watch is to prove that there is a hate group segment of the atheist community, part of it not all atheists of course, it might be time to hear what actual atheists who claim to hate Christians have to say about it.

http://isitnormal.com/story/i-hate-christians-5873/

 crock crazy girl 4 life says:

I hate christians

What a bunch of fools.

They plan out their entire lives, according to rules set by a kooky, ancient book of mythos.

And hey, dontcha just love how they ever-so-conveniently excuse themselves from providing proof, by using crutches like "faith".

Sorry, but just because you believe something, that doesn't make it true.

Moses turned the sea into blood... and then later, parted it?

Yeah... and sweat socks fly south for the winter.

Ask yourself... "If somebody told me such an event had taken place TODAY, would I believe it?". No? Point proven.

Ignorance is a scary thing.


her response to one critic:

Galeni, I don't have to explain myself to you.

You're not a real christian, anyhow. You date a lesbian. No TRUE christian would do such a thing.


another one:
Readdit

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/atdhm/i_admit_it_i_hate_christians_and_i_have_no/
submitted 1 day ago by EddieVanHelsing

That's right. If you're a Christian, I despise you. I despise you because your fundamental beliefs can be used to manipulate you into actions that are inimical to my life and liberty. I despise you because you choose to spend your lives in service to an entity that -- according to your own religious texts -- makes a sociopathic child look like a moral exemplar. I despise you because you want your God to forgive you for having been born human.
However, as much as I hate Christianity and Christians, I will fight for your right to believe this bullshit. Why? Because I am better than you, and I know that you wouldn't fight for my right to be an irreligious asshole.
here's how this person answers someone who asks "I dont' get why you would actually hate them"

Why? Because I am better than you
Please go fuck yourself. Morality is independent of the supernatural and I know plenty of morally upstanding Christians out there and atheism doesn't need another auto-fellating sack of hubris giving merit to the worst of their arguments. The price of intellectual honesty is that we don't get the luxury of availing ourselves of unwarranted confidence in our own inherent superiority.

He's so much better he can say "go fuck yourself."

this next guy is so cool! I mean, this guy,ooo his balls hang low, becuase he can say the f word a lot!

The Angriest Atheist


Jesus fucking Christ, I hate Christians! They’re self-righteous, pompous assholes who believe that the entire world revolves around them. Fucking assholes. But the trait I hate most in Christians is their utter inability to use birth control.
The Duggar Family is a good ol’ family from Arkansas, who, according to the front page of their website, happen to have 18 fucking kids! Yes, they have 18 kids. The thing is, they used to use birth control, but the wife apparently got pregnant, had a miscarriage, and was incredibly upset over it. I have one question: why? If I was a female, I’d be hoping for miscarriages every time I got pregnant (which wouldn’t be frequently, because I’m smart enough to use birth control). I think miscarriages are a blessing. More people should have them. Child birth isn’t a miracle. It happens hundreds of thousands of times per day. The ability to use birth control is a miracle. We have too many people on Earth! Stop fucking!
Of course, being the asshole Christians that they are, they can’t just let their kids grow up and make their own decisions about their religious affiliations, they have to indoctrinate them when they’re young and gullible. It’s incredibly sick. Everyone knows that if you wait until children are older to indoctrinate them, they will take it no more seriously than Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. Here’s a challenge for you Christians: if you have so much faith in your god, why don’t you wait until your children are capable of thinking for themselves before you start indoctrinating them. See how many of them fall for your bullshit then. I’m guessing very few, if any, will convert to the Dark Side.

 there aren't any atheist hate groups hu?

White Power Atheist said...

"I hate Christians. I also hate niggers since they made religion. White Power"

 Netallive.org

Avneill

That's right. I hate christians!!!
Now, I'm not referring to the people that beleive in christ. I'm not talking about the truly faithful...
I'm referring to the lunatics!!! The absolute fanatics!!! I'm talking about the people that think EVERYTHING short of prayer is a fucking sin!!! Those worthless retards that try to speak out against the various forms of entertainment because the words jesus christ don't come up more than once in the fucking chorus. I'm talking about zealots. Those wankers responsible for mindless clamour like this!!!
(S)He makes many of his points based on the doom series. First and foremost the fact that anti-semetic (and or anti-christian) theology is present in the games. You are fucking fighting satan!!! There's going to be demons!!! I mean seriously, jes' because I see a pentagram doesn't mean I'm going to hell!!!
No, of course it's evil. Then he quotes some of ID's advertising slogans related to the game. In no way does it insinuate the devil is good, the game is about taking a BFG and sticking up satan's ass!!! How is that satanic? God, I hate that kind of shit! I mean, can't you do something useful with your miserable life? Like pursue happiness? Or better yet, help somebody else acheive it. Looking for satan's will is fucking heinous and furthermore pointless...


Form Ex Christian.net


"I have grown to hate Christianity with a purple passion."

Back in 2004 I left the Christian Faith after I found out that in reality there is no such thing as a personal and loving God who guides and directs our paths. However, according to these Right Winged Extremist Nuts, it's my fault that my faith did not work. I have grown to hate Christianity with a purple passion, and here is an example of why I have grown to hate Christianity here in the past four years. This is a constant reminder of why I have no desire to return to the cult known as the Christian faith.

 On Ex Christian. net


His opinion is there's no god he didn't "learn" there is no God. I can sympathize with this guy to soem extent. He goes on to recount how he got into a fight with his father over praying for the meal. His father founded really narrow minded and silly. I'm not surprised he rebelled agaisnt a faith he taught to believe in by people who didn't understand it themselves anyway. We do a lot more harm than good by trying to force people into beliefs.


I have a serious problem: I hate Christians.

Triple D 08/30/09
Wow, I can't believe this didn't get downraved once. Well, thank most of you for your answers. They were semi-helpful. But, since I've taken up yoga, I've had much less stress and the hatred has dulled to a numb buzzing. No need to worry. I'm all better.


one of the commenter said:


i hate christians too..they think they have the best religion and throughout history have clearly been the LEAST accepting of all other religions and races. They need to understand there is no man is the sky listening to them, and they dont go to a fairy tale place when they die..they just die.


In each of the contexts where these statements are made there are others who say "I am an atheist but I don't hate Christians and you should not either." Even though it's a useless fart in the wind and Hermit says I shouldn't even try, but to be fair, these guys only represent an aspect of atheism (which I point out every snigle time). Now I'm sure most of you will think I hate these guys back, but actually I don't. I feel sorry for some, sympathize with others. The guy whose father tired to force him to pray, I can well understand why he hate's Christianity. I can sympathize with that, that never works. You can't force people to believe things they don't believe, it's as simple as that. You want to push your kid away from you, tell him he has to believe what you do, when he's a teenager.

I don't hate these guys and I think they are going through phases and they've come to the net to vent. But I don't see the atheist movement doing anything for them. What I see atheist web sites and message boards doing for these guys, minus the sensible people who tell them not to hate (and i am glad to see that, that's part of what I wanted to influence through Atheist Watch) is to foment their hatred. It gives them a place to galvanize, to bond with others who share their anger but rather than healing it by giving  a constructive outlet it nurses it. Now they can hang out on message boards every day and talk about how stupid Christians are, and they can feel superior when mock and ridicule them. I see in these people (especially "cock crazy girl for life") a real need to bolster self esteem. But rather than finding outlets that allow bolstering they are being funneled into a setting where one does that by putting down the hated target group.

This is the essence of what hate groups do, they offer a venue for lonely disaffected angry people to come together and focus their anger on those they hate.





Monday, January 25, 2010

We've heard from Rex

If I remember my attempted brainwashing properly, then all you have to do is to regurgitate something similar to this prayer:


"Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."

And then, if you really really really mean it, for reals with no finger crossies, Then presto! Miraculously, you are now a Christian!

If you believe in Jesus,
If you believe that he is god,
If you believe that he was resurrected,
If you believe that he dies for your sins,

Then, you are a Christian.





Please notice that he has not said a single thing about any issue I raised. No one single word. But he does do us the favor of saying a lot of hateful twadle that shows us where his head is at.
here is some of it:


"And when you do zany, wacky, crazy shit afterward, you are still a Christian. You get to speak and be judged as a Christian. It remains true even when people want no part of being identified with you."

he's so disingenuous he can't allow people to disagree with his ideology, the atheist ideology says there can only be one idea in the world and atheism is it, the little hate reductionist mocking ridicule fear of other ideas is the only idea that can exist and any attempt to talk about other things must be stamper out by hateful mocking and ridicule. this is what he does because he's a little brain washed mention of the hate group.


"Scott Roeder, (George Tiller's "accused" killer) is a Christian, as is Mark Sanford, Tony Alamo, Ted Haggard, and the current idiot of the week, Pat Robertson. In addition, our beloved ex Nazi pope, the most powerful Christian on the planet, is more concerned with people having unprotected sex than he is concerned with people DYING from having unprotected sex."

where does this little vicious bully get off calling the pope a Nazi? do you really think coward doesn't long to murder Christians look what he's doing? he's just livid tha someone is in disagreement with with his fallacious argument of guilt by association. why is it so important to him that the enemies of his little putrid ideology be labeled as evil murderers? doesn't long to murder them? obviously he does.

Notice how the only the Christian thinkers, if you want to call them that, that he knows about are people like Robertson, it's totally unknown to him that my heroes are Paul  Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr because he doesn't know about books or thinking or the world of thought or the academy. these are foregoing ideas to him.

he probably thinks I like ;Robertson because he doesn't know anything else. he's so illiterate he has no concept that the are liberal academic Christians. so when he says "Christian" he's thinking of something totally alien and different than what I mean by the term, but he doesn't' know that because he's stupid.



"And yes, they all speak for you, and they all reflect on you, because you all believe in the same god in the same way. Sorry.
"

that puts the lie to Hermits little insistence that i don't see clearly. Obviously I am right, these little mentions of hatred are trying to label all Christians with the same brush. they want my grandmother and mother and all the sweet little old ladies making cookies to be murdered in a camp because they dare to disagree with him, and he wants anyone who doesn't make him king or thin he's brilliant to be murdered.

He thinks he can spit in the face of all that is good and decent just becuase his illiterate little feelings are hurt.


what exactly is this guy outraged about? what did I do that was so very horrible in that post hes responding to? I'm not asking have I ever said anything that would make him mad, obviously I have. What did I say in the one about "Is KKK Christian" that deserve that of vitriol and personal attack?  It was reasonable, it was clam, I said nothing of a personal nature about anyone, I commented on the arguments and the logic used by certain atheists.


this is what i find, if you make the mildest criticism of atheists, just their logic nothing else, they see it as a gut wrenching personal attack designed to destroy their self esteem and come at with gut wrenching anger wailing like banshees and trying to crush your self esteem. That's the way a cult acts. I am trying to get people to realize what's going on, but they are so bigoted and so brainwashed it's like trying to wake up sleep walkers. they are in a daze they wont open their eyes and look.

Is KKK Christian? What makes one a "True" Christian?

Photobucket


 Atheists love to label all Christians as guilty of the sins of the extremists such as the KKK by saying that KKK is Christian, Hitler was Christian, so therefore all of Christianity is like this, or Christian teaching makes you a racist, this is basically what the Camel guy in the last post is doing, the old fallacy of guilt by association. Some Christians do bad things, therefore, all of Christianity is bad. Even if they are making the essentialist argument, which I believe the Camel guy is, they are making the guilt by association argument.

What is a Christian?

The basic concepts handed by Jesus himself tell us that it takes more than just membership in  group to be his follower. Following Jesus, the basic job description of a Christian, is a person relationship with Jesus not just membership in a group. But of course atheists who have not had the knowledge of Jesus on a personal level, or controverted Chrsitians who forget that knowledge becuase their hearts are hardened to God, forget what that's like, if they ever really knew to begin with. They can't see the difference in spouting rhetoric and really walking the walk. Jesus tell us not all who acknowledge him as "Lord" really know him or are sincere their profession of faith.


"parable of the sheep and the goats:"
Matt 25:31-37


31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
 40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
 45 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

 
 According to this rendition of Jesus own words there are those who will say "Lord Lord" but do not know Jesus. The point being that just belonging to an organization or  a group is not enough to make you a "real Christian." Of course when atheists hear this they call it the "no true Scotsman fallacy" and of cousre they misusing that fallacy. That fallacy does not say that anytime someone fails to live to the essence of a belief it's a fallacy to say he's not truly a follower of that belief. Jesus says if you don't know me, if you do my teachings, if you don't live the kind of life I'm talking about, you are not truly my follower and I don't know you. There's no way that can be a fallacy because it's the rules of the game. Its' the conditions put down by the founder of Christianity that demarcate membership.

New Covenant

31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
       "when I will make a new covenant
       with the house of Israel
       and with the house of Judah.  32 It will not be like the covenant
       I made with their forefathers
       when I took them by the hand
       to lead them out of Egypt,
       because they broke my covenant,
       though I was a husband to [d] them, [e] "
       declares the LORD.
 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
       after that time," declares the LORD.
       "I will put my law in their minds
       and write it on their hearts.
       I will be their God,
       and they will be my people.
 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
       or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
       because they will all know me,
       from the least of them to the greatest,"
       declares the LORD.
       "For I will forgive their wickedness
       and will remember their sins no more."
This tells us that the new covenant (Christianity--same passage is alluded to in Hebrews 1) is not a matter of following rules, but a personal relationship. "They will all know me." You wont to teach each other to know God, its wont be like the old covenant which was a law, a list of rules it will be a personal relationship, "they will all know me." To be in it you have to have the personal relationship. Saying that a particular group or organization is a "Christian group" does not make it part of Christianity even if it says so itself. Jesus said "by their fruits you shall know them." So you have to look at the fruit of thier lives, the fruit of the lives of KKK are drastically oppossed to everything Jesus taught.

Does the KKK teach one to love one's enemies? to turn the other cheek? You can't turn the other cheek and burn a cross in their yard. No where in Jesus' teachings does he even come close to sanctioning the kinds of things the Klan does. Everything he taught was about crating love, forgiveness, understanding, acceptance of other people.Now you might say "by this way of figuring then a lot of established groups like the 700 club aren't really Christian." Gee really? Imagine that!

What is a Christian Organization?

Presumably it would be an organization ran either for the purpose of spreading the Gospel or for somehow enlightening or otherwise edifying Christians. One would think a "Christian" organization would have some kind of formal ties to a chruch. Anyone can say they believe in something for the purposes of getting what they want. How do we know the KKK is serious about Christianity? Atheists would have us believe that even asking this question is the no true Scotsman fallacy (see link above).

KKK  fails to meet any reasonable criteria for a Christian organization.

*no formal ties to any chruch

*blatantly repudiate teachings of Christ (turn the other cheek, love enemies and so on)

*Their teachings open contradict those of Jesus such as sermon on the mount

they teach the opposite of turn the other cheek, they teach fight and make your enemies pay.

* they don't spread the Gospel

their purpose is not convert people, they do no preaching, they don't contribute to preaching, they don't contribute to mission work or evangelism they do nothing at all to spread the gospel

*They actually work against other chruches

they can't said to exist for the edification of the chruch because they fundamentally opposed to most other churches.

*They were started for the purposes of violence and terror

their mission has grown over the years and evolved from a secret terrorist organization whose aim was to stop reconstruction and prevent blacks from obtaining advantages in the post civil war south, to an ideology of racial conflict and supremacy that even the original clansmen would find odd.

*Their basic mission is murder

*They don't espouse the major Christian doctrines such as the Trinity: no theological mission.

None of these things are in keeping with those of the chruch and they set them fundamentally at odds with the basis of Christianity. Moreover the vast majority of Christians do not accept them as Christian. Even in the time of the deep south and  Jim Crow laws the average southern Christian, while harboring racist views, saw them as extremist and out of line.

Atheist arguments

There are basically three things that atheists try to do with the view that KKK is Christian:

(1) Those who just want justice of an admission that Christians can do wrong.

These are the most rational ones, and I suspect that's where Hermit and Mike and many of the readers of this blog are coming from. They don't really believe that being a Christian is going to turn one into a KKK supporter, they just us to be fair and acknowledge that there are Christians who are in hate groups. Most liberal liberal Christians would agree with them. A lot of liberal and even moderate Christians want to stick the fundamentalists and the extreme sorts of right wing Christians with being ni the KKK style of belief. I think we can all see that there are some confused souls who don't understand the issues, who call themselves "Christians" and might be somehow connected with KKK groups or at least that type of view point. I have long suspected certain televangelists might be mixed up with the KKK. In the rural south of the pre 1960s it was not uncommon to find KKK members in Christian congregations, although their membership was secret and there never any formal ties between groups.

That's not enough to call the KKK a "Christian Group." It's not certainly not, it's not connected to any chruch and have no theological mission. The most we can say is there's an overlap of membership.


(2) Those who try to stick Christianity with guilt (essentialist)

These are atheists who argue that the  evil essence of racism taints anything it touches, thus if there are overlapping members in Christian groups and KKK that makes Christianity guilty of all the KKK stuff. I've actually argued with atheists who didn't know that Martin Luther King was a Christian! The essentialist are strange because as atheists they are supposed to repudiate any sort of metaphysics, but essentialist basic Platonic and can't be much more metaphysical than that. These guys are a contradiction to the entire atheist metaphysics. All the metaphysical assumptions atheists make are contradicted, including their ethical assumptions which otherwise repudiate the idea of guilt and sin; of cousre they are more than willing to say that Christians are guilty of the sins of oppression all the bad things the chruch has done, while telling that sin is a magical thinking outmoded concept and morality is relative and guilt free.

Speaking of those who don't know that King was a Christian (like they can't figure out why he's called "The Reverend Martian Luther King") they also never heard of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and are totally in the dark as its role in the civil rights movement. I've argued "Christianity led the civil rights movement" to have atheists say "that's crazy the Christians were against civil rights they were all KKK." So the evil of the KKK taints all of Christianity and makes all Christians guilty of the Klans actions, but the good done by Christians who led the Civil Rights Movement means nothing!

Why does the bad stuff define Christianity for these people dn the good stuff is totally unimportant?

(3) Those who try to say that Christian teaching if followed "correctly" leads to hate

These guys are at odds to show how following the teachings that put love of God and love of neighbor as numbers 1 and 2 on the hit parade of important laws will result in being a KKK guy. Obviously the charge on its face is mean to confuse and discredit and has nothing to with real thinking. Usually such people have no historical analysis at all. They can't understand that a secret terrorist society that was organized by illiterate veterans of a benighted rural class that just lost a major war, along with their homes and everything they owed were being oppressed by the victors and working themselves into a climate of fear and hysteria took matters into their own hands, and shed the teachings of a belief system they clung to in name only, does not make Christianity responsible for their actions. That these people went to churches as labeled themselves after a belief system they did not understand or live up to is hardly surprising but it should not reflect upon that belief system. Those who saw themselves are Chrsitians were clearly abandoning Christian teachings on not only love and being   good but also on trusting God.

The Atheist Camel guy falls somewhere around these latter two. Me made no attempt to distinguish between any legitimate Christian organization and the KKK. One salient point missed by my critics is the way this guy tried to leverage Christianity out of the way by the guilt by association argument. He says "where are the atheist hate groups?" He sticks KKK as Christian, Christianity is tainted by KKK but there are no atheist hate groups (so he tells us). In saying that he's clearly trying to fault Christianity with producing hate groups and taught the superiority of atheism which is supposedly lacking them. Then we have to play this stupid game, in the reconstruction era after the civil war it was called "waving the bloody shirt." People back then knew it was a shabby tactic and it was looked upon as unfair. Now atheists use it all the time and things its great. In the aftermath of the civil war it meant metaphorically waving blood stained uniform and going "look they killed my brother, look at all we've lost let's punish the south for the war." Now it means going on message boards and going "look at the crusades, Hitler was a Christian," ect ect.

These people have no more sense than to think these are perfectly valid ways to argue. They are just forms of emotionalism designed to work up the hatred of atheists and foment their sense of outrage at things they don't understand. They clearly can't understand it because they don't see how unethical it is to argue that way. So we have to play this stupid game of them going "Christianity has the KKK so Christianity is evil" and Christians going "we don't' have the KKK." There is no reasonable standard by which the KKK can be called Christian. It's clearly part of the goat herd that's put on the left and goes to hell. It's hate, it's murder, it's made up of those who do not know Christ, they are not born again, the wolves in sheep's clothing that Jesus warned us about. He said there would be fake Christians that said the right things but didn't do the right things. since the White supremacy guys fill that bill we can assume that they are part of that group. They don't bear the right fruit and by their fruits we should know them. That means they are not in the kingdom they don't know God, thus they are not in the new covenant so they are not "true" Christians.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Atheist Camel Breaks Irony Meter: where are the atheist hate groups? Under your nose

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Local Atheist Discussion Club


The Atheist Camel 1/15/10

Saturday, November 1, 2008


Where are the Atheist Hate Groups?



Someone calling him/herself (?) "Dromedary Hump" posts this:

Dromedary Hump
a lifelong activist in the culture war between theist demagoguery and freethinkers, and frequent outspoken contributor and guest columnist to various newspapers and periodicals. He is the co-creator of the celebrated post rapture pet rescue website Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA. A New York native, he now lives in New Hampshire with his saintly and much-put-upon Episcopal wife of thirty-nine years and two atheist dogs.
 life long activist of the culture wars, not exactly unbaised. Political activists are not the most objective people. I was one for several years so I know.

Question: What do these groups have in common?
Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church (homophobic hate group); the Christian Identity Movement (anti-Semitic / anti-Black); KKK (anti-Semitic / anti-Black); Neo-Nazis / Aryan Nation / Skinheads (anti-Semitic / anti-Black); Phineas Priesthood (anti- race mixing/ anti-Semitic); Army of God (abortion dr. murderers / clinic bombers); Institute for Historic Review (anti-Semitic / Holocaust deniers).

Answer: They are all Jesus worshipping hate groups. Each inculcates “Christian values” within their group. Each holds the Bible to be the inerrant “Word of God”. Each justifies their hate, violence, discrimination and terror using the scripture. Each recognizes Jesus as their god and savior.

And these are just a sampling. There are many other Christian groups like these whose ignorance, hatred and intolerance cause death, destruction, fear, and intimidation in this country, in this day and age.

Liberal Christians will claim these people are “not True Christians”; that they misuse the scripture for their nefarious purposes; that the hate they profess is not supported by the bible. But they are mistaken, or in denial. They love Jesus, and accept him as their savior. Acts do not determine salvation … belief does. That’s the Christian doctrine.
Of course he's committing one of them most basic fallacies of logic, guilt by association. X calims to love Jesus, and X does bad thing. Y claims to love Jeuss, therefore, Y is guilty of same bad thing of which X is guilty. The claim "I love Jesus" can be uttered by people who have no idea what Jesus is about. It's not Jesus these guys love, the right wing televangelists, but their own power and their own hatred. This guy is just playing with the surface similarities so he can paint all Chrisitans and all pesudo Chritians with the same brush. That's why they invented the "no true Scottsman fallacy" so they can wipe out the distinction between people who people who really follow Jesus teachings and those who don't.

What he says here directly contradicts the way Jesus told us to look at it. "Acts do not determine Salvation, beliefs do, that's Christian doctrine." He's assertion that all who say "Lord Lord" have salvation Jesus told us in the parable of the sheep and the goats that's not true. Jesus said their would be tears with the wheat, wolves in sheep's clothing, he said a tree is judged by its fruit. Not that works save you, yes that is doctrine, but this DH guy is perverting the doctrine by twisting what it says. Jesus said actions are a sign of intent, that's what the fruit thing means, not doing works saves you but it is an indication of what you are really believe. "A tree is known by its fruit." DH loses the distinction between the agency of salvation and sign of having been saved. It's as hes' saying 'I it something to do with works and not working I don't it's all stupid."he can't be bothered to ge it right.

Now, one doesn’t have to be Christian to be a hate group. The Muslims have plenty, and they cause thousands of deaths. But these Christian hate groups are our own home grown, flag waving, God fearing Americans. Oh, I’d love to say they “aren’t True Americans”, but by birth and by our constitution they are.

Irony meter running.

I did a search for “atheist hate groups”. Guess what… there aren’t any. Free Thinkers, those Godless heathens, don’t band together and picket gay funerals or bomb abortion clinics. They don’t create/join groups that burn down African American churches, paint swastikas on synagogues, or threaten to kill minorities and presidential candidates and claim it to be the will of some unseen entity. To do those things one seems to need a belief in God.
There aren't any! so becasue no athist group is stupid to say "let's have a hate group" then there aren't any. Guess what man, DH is running a hate group. It's obvious anyone with half a brain can see that. Look how he:

(1) lumps all Christians togather

(2) can't acknowledge a single good thing any Christians have done

(3) twists points of doctirne to make all Christians seem the same

(4) Fumes and fusses and derides everything connected with Christianity.

Last question: Why is that?

 But course this is laughable I would be doubled over if it wasn't also so pathetic. The Irony meters are all busted as result of this supreme irony becuase in writing this this person makes himself/herself a part of the hate group mentality, and thus answers his/her own question: the atheist hate group is in front of your face, anytime atheist resort to mocking and ridicule which is almost all the time for some (with proper caveats for all friendly atheists).

get this: a guy called  "Reverend Donald Spitz" (Ima Hooker, right) sends a comment that is an atheist shill if every I've heard one (considering Christian miniter has Jewish name). So Hummpy says:

DromedaryHump said... Thanks for your input, Rev (heheh "Rev."). But, actually, donald, real world fact and statistics prove otherwise... and thus attest to your ignorance.
This blog deals with fact and reality, Donald...to that end:

From a historic perspective, religion far exceeds any secular causes for inhumanity toward mankind. The history of theist murder, war, genocide, persecution and destruction are legion. But if you read, you know this.

He's so delighted with his witty little wit that to point out how clever he is, and he is so taken with calling a Reverend Rev. woe! I bet he would be floored by the Chicken crossing the road.


Of course the ahistorical ranting and raving about "religious murder" makes he think he's never heard of world war II or communism. Communist murered 100 million people, atheists murdered 100 million people. That's more than died in all war prior to the 20th century. WWII cannot be construed as caused by religious considerations of any kind, nor can WWI. Both of these wars were inflamed by communists and occultist concerns (Nazi) but they did not have religious causes at all but where economic or dealt with the balance of power (geopolitical). There were not 100 million people on earth when most reglious wars took place. Add to that 100 million the millions who died in WWII and WWI.

Latter in answering another fake letter Humppy says:

You seemed to have failed to address the question of why they are virtually all Christian hate organizations. Infact, I wouldnt be surpirsed if you are a member of one of them, eh? Lemme guess...
KKK?

HERE SAY THIS MANTRA:
"PLEASE SOMEONE MAKE ME READ A BOOK; UNDERSTAND THE REALITY OF THE RELIGIOUS MEME; ACCEPT SCIENCE AND 21ST CENTURY LOGIC SO I CAN STOP BELIEVING IN SKY FAIRIES AND LIVE LIKE A GENUINE PERSON WITH NO EXCUSES FOR MY IGNORANCE and NO JUSTIFICATION FOR MY ANTISOCIAL AND INTOLERANT ACTS."

there donald...doesn't that feel better? November 1, 2008 8:57 PM

that old Irony meter is just spinning like a weather vein. How much more do we have to quote to understand that this website is dripping with hate, that Humppy has no intention of ever thinking fairly but has a large gaping wound perhaps caused by a religious person or not, but is trying to heal that wound by inflicting similar wounds on other people? There's no way to even post a comment, even there is a link it doesn't work. So this guy is ot concerned with answers, not concentrated truth or fairness or thinking. As a super irony wants others to read a book but of course i truly doubt he has read one himself.

It's clear this is an atheist hate group. In even asking the question he sets up the answer that he's part of the atheist hate group. This is just one site but I can point thousands of them. They are everywhere. I want to develop some form of scale to measure what percentage of atheism is actually the hate group. It looks like on the net anyway over 60%.

That's a good question. Where are the rational atheist sties that don't call religious people fools or idiots and don't try to say that all religious organizations are on a par with the KKK, just rationally and fairly with intellectual issues? How many an we find? Can we find any?

that's silly and hateful.n You are obviously not prepared to discuss seriously you try to reduce all of religion to just the small examples of evil and totally ignore the vast majority of things religious people have done, then you are just a perfect example of hate group.

the extremists in the hate group work up their little brian washed meninges to a frenzy so that they can't see their noses in front of their faces then religions just become object of evil, the evil "other" the "enemy" the bad guys those we must destroy you are blind to the good that it's done.

what is the point of trying to talk with someone like that someone so deeply brainwashed they can't remember that Christianity has done a huge amount of good.


the red cross invented by Christians
hospitals invented by Christians
all manor of charity groups
civil rights movement
the abolition movement
woman's suffrage movement
Peasant revolts in Germany

in every age for every act of evil there have some Christians who stood up against it.

Christianity and Western Civilization:

http://www.doxa.ws/Theology/civ.html _____

Christianity as a force for liberation!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

DP's answer

I put up the answers to the questions that posted here over on carm here's DP's answer: #39 (scroll down)

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper View Post

What is there to discuss? Do you have evidence that any God is involved in anything humans are saying and doing? Personal experience, feelings and thoughts don't matter in this regard.

he was real serious about answers wasn't he? when you give them to him he says "what's there to discuss?"

Answers for Rex

 These the questions I wrote about a couple of days ago. They were put up by Dr.Pepper on CARM and I criticized hem as being loaded and rhetorical, I also showed that since then he's given answers that prove my point. But Rex (an atheist reader of this blog) became angry and wanted me to answer them. So I will so do now just for him.




I would love to be able to ask these questions in a forum where the majority of Christians might be able to read them and give answers but that is not possible. Maybe a Christian frequenting this sub forum can pass them on to others and report back.

1. Where did the words used in the bible come from? God, man or both? If both how much is God and how much is man?

This is a loaded biased question because no Christian theologian ague that God wrote the Bible in same sense that he wrote the tablets of stone wit the 10 commandments on them. We all know the Bible was written by humans (mostly men with a couple of possible female authors in Genesis, Proverbs and maybe Hebrews). Does that mean the words are from humans? It means that the expression is human but the inspiration divine. Now I think there may be instances where the words are actually prompted by God and arguably those might be where it says "thus says the Lord." Even in those cases it could be that the general idea was of God but the exact expressions used were human.

Even if God dictated letters like a business man speaking to a secretary he would still have to filter it through the secretary's understanding. That will obviously color the meaning and the way it's expressed.

The atheist is clearly missing the meaning or the point of inspiration if he/she thinks this is a big deal. The point of it is not words on paper, the point is experiencing God first hand through your own psyche. Any understanding we have is going to have to be filtered through our cultural constructs.

There are many theories of Biblical inspiration it's a great mistake to think they are all involved with inerrency. I've written about this at length. Read my essay on "The Nature of Biblical Inspiration" on Doxa.


2. If the words are primarily from god why are there contradictions and different interpretations of those words?
Because they have to be filtered through our own understanding for us to understand them. We don't always understand each other. The most "objective" "factual" human information (science? math?) has its controversies. It's always possible to have more than one interpretation of any sort of data. If you think not they are either totally ignorant of scinece or just plain dishonest. You would think Mathematics is totally objective and cut and dried right? you can't just argue about math can you? Wrong! One time I live in Albuquerque New Mexico and I was visiting my parents in Dallas for Christmas. I met up with an old friend from Austin who was traveling two other friends on their way to Albuquerque for a math conference at UNM. I offered them a ride for free so they took it. That whole ride--600 miles--was the most argumentative ride I was ever on. They did nothing but argue! They argued a lot about math. One can argue a great deal even about the most "objective" and hard wired ideas. Obviously they don't sit around gong "two plus two is not four" yet they definitely argue about math and about things hat the average person would think were rock solid. One of those guys exposed an answer on the SAT as wrong! Pretty disillusioning hu? You can't trust the answers on the SAT to be written in stone what can you trust be written in stone? Even the original 10 commandments got smashed.

There aren't that many places where the Bible says "This is what God says." There are several but it's not on every page. There are many more that don't' say it. The point of the Bilbe is not words on paper. The mode of inspiration that sees it as a memo from the boss is totally inadequacy. Read the link about about the nature of inspiration because that shows many different models other than inerrency or that "memo from the boss" mentality.



3. Are there any ORIGINAL ideas in the bible that can only be found in the Jewish culture? For example creation in a short period of time, resurrection, the golden rule, the idea of sin and sacrifice, everlasting life, honor your father and mother, etc.

Well actually mono-theism. There are people who point out that the Egyptians had a Monotheistic pharaoh but that shouldn't really count because it's not clear that he said there actually is only one god and all the others are just dead stone. He may have been saying there's only one that's worthy paying attention to. One might argue perhaps the rule of law applied to religion rather than civil jurisprudence. But be that as it may why is that necessary? You are assuming the exclusivity of the fundie view point as universal to the faith and it is not. There are many passages where the Bible says God works in all cultures. Paul says God put the moral law on the heart and gentiles can follow it and they do sometimes and when they do they show that God is working among them (see Romans 2:6-14). Paul even says their hearts may excuse them in the final judgment. He says that God put people where they live so they will seek him and find him (Acts 17:21-29). I can only assume that means God is working in all cultures.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

For Rex: Do Atheists Want Answers?

Remember yesterday I gave the example of DP from CARM board who come on with an insulting air and asked a lot of loaded Questions. Then Rex got because I didn't treat the loaded question like serious inquirrires and answer them. That's because the purpose of this blog is not to disprove the atheist world view or answer their questions ( I do that on the other blog: Metacrock's Blog). The purpose of this blog is to show that there is such a thing as hate group atheism.

But meanwhile back on CARM DP comes back and asked why I think his questions are loaded. Here's what I said:


Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
your questions are loaded. how hard is that to understand?

take two examples:

you:
Why do they accept these unlikely events as fact and all other religious claims as false?

Look at the way you describe it?you might as well say "why do you believe these false ideas?" how could possibly pretend you want a real answer when it clear your mind is made up you see things a certain way and you don't care what anyone says. what answer could possibly change your mind? It's not even certain that seeing an miracle change your mind.



you
What evidence is there that God actually communicated with these individuals other than their own written word?

gee I just don't know. We have the long elaborate arguments about evidence of the resurrection. but no that's no good because if it's written it can't be true, but when it's oral it can't be true either. so it can't be true ever not any time.

what have i been talking about on these 300 studies fora bout four years now? I've talked about them and posted them and put up links to the bibs over and over again no one has looked up a single study. Its' so obvious you have no intention at all of listening to any answers.

look that Rorian's approach to God arugments. the fact that he can't beat one just doesn't' come into it. they must be wrong a prori it doesn't matter that they are logic and he can't beat them. now atheist have gotten to where they argue that just be arguments in themselves proves they are wrong . so that winning a God argument proves that there is no God because you have to argue about it. that's hard core narrow minded.

you-get-answers-every-single-day! you never accept them, you pretend they don't mean anything, you usually can't beat them and you proclaim victory over them a priori just because they come to conclusions you don't want and then go on your saying "how can they believe these things!"

it's because you answer the arguments! Its' more than obvious you want answers. It's so bleeding totally obvious.

 Then here is his response:

I hope you didn't spend too much time on this because after reading the first sentence I skipped the rest.
Yea he was so serious about those questions! He was really interested in searching for truth. That's why when I give two examples as answers to a question he asked he doesn't even bother to read them and then runs away. Isn't this just an admission on his part that his questions were loaded? I can give you many many other examples of times when I've presented good solid evidence and they refuse to even consider it. One such example is the lungs of Charles Anne. I have evidence from the Catholic saint making committee, a young seminarian in the early 1920's had a form of TB that's much like black lung. He was on the verge of death. He was prayed for by someone who prayed to St.Teresa of Lenoux and that put her over the top as a saint, because the next morning the man' lungs were like new. This is proved by Xrays (they did have xrays in the early 20s, they were just coming into wide scale use).

First the atheists refused to accept that the Xrays even exist. I emailed a member of the medical committee who said they did. Then the refused to believe that they show that because I don't have the Xrays myself. they also complained because I used evidence from a devotional site dedicated to taht saint. they said anyone who would put up a site to that saint would be crazy and fanatical and would just make things up. But I argued that they can't do that because the medical committee documents it and this person with his own site can't make up what the evidence because it' has to be officially accepted by the committee. Then of course some of them argued that well the committee is made up of religious people, and thus they are lying. But that's just poisoning the well, no evidence ever be gathered because anything that supports religious view is automatically a lie then why ask  for evidence?

Then the issue became I don't have the evidence in my home. they want me to actually have the medical xrays myself at home and send them to them. So is that fair? Do you think I'm a library or something? how could I get them? Unless they hold them in their hands, that's so nutsie! Someone I know who used to be an atheist and whose main occupation in life was arguing with creationists pointed out to me that those atheists were arguing just the way creationists do! then I realized these guys are just ideologues, they are nothing more than fundies themselves! That's when I coined the term "Dawkies" (Dawkamentalist).

Even so, I still hate to see a reader of my blog in such a dither. Rex really wants to see those answers so I gess there are those who do actually want answers, or they feel they do. I can't supposse that they are all the same. So I will give Rex some answers on those questions.

I'll put them up tomorrow.

Friday, January 15, 2010

MLK vs KKK: Answer to REX

 Rex is angry that I didn't waste a lot of time giving answers he doesn't want.

I see his 5 bullets points, and I happen to agree with them all in varying degrees. I see you rant and dodge and dissemble, and while you are exhibiting evidence of all 5 of his points in your answer, I see that you don't directly address any single one of them. That is exactly why I don't spend too much time here anymore. There is no real discussion. Someone presents you with jumbo sized holes in your delusions, and you whine and rant about how that is hate speech, and how you have a biblical education, and how ignorant we are because we haven't wasted years of our lives wallowing in the guilt and shame and judgment and irrational fear of god's word.
It's more than stupid to say that some generalized veg loaded biased crap like "how can you believe something that's 2000 years old?" or "what goes on in their stupid delusional sick little minds" (the emphasis mine but implied) more that stupid to say that that is "blowing a hole in my "delusions." Nothing that guy postures with has in any way damaged my beliefs. The things he says I have answered in my sleep every say for 12 years (and even back 40 years ago as a child and as an atheist in early manhood on and on) none of it presents any kind of challenge, you don't' want answers. If I undertook to answer it you would not listen. you didn't before when I've answered.


why didn't Martin Luther King sit down with the KKK? Because they were not worth it, they weren't going to listen to reason they were a hate groiup!

Rex complains because I don't go to the trobule to give a bunch of answers he doesn't want and wont listen to to the loaded garbage that DP postured with, why is that? I just told you.

MLK did not sit down with the Klan. why waste my time?

I have proved that atheist is hate group by quoting their hate. that's all I'm up to here. I don't need to disprove hate stuff.


What I don't see is you having a well thought out discussion about anything. You say that you have arguments and studies proving god, and yet I have never seen a single one of those things here.






The purpose of this sight is to prove that there is an atheist segment that is a hate group. The purpose of this site is not to answer atheist issues. If you want that go to my website Doxa, my message board, my other blog, find me on CARM.


What I do see is you calling everyone who you come into contact with and endless number of names. I see you calling the kettle black by talking about how stupid we all are,and how we don't know how to carry on a reasonable debate.
such a typical hate group ploy, the names they call us are understandable and wise, what's going in our sick stupid little minds? That's so prefectly fair for them to say, but answer them back and treat them as they treat us and we are total villans.


What I don't see is you taking the high road to show by example that there is a better way to live and interact. I don't see any positive results from your supposed superior moral code in your interactions. I also don't see you behaving in any way that would separate you from the actions of the "hate group" that you are always frothing about. You exhibit all of the same attributes that you despise so much.
You are certainly not on any kind of high road. You are just itching to mock and ridicule. you think mocking and ridiculing is fine. you think that's the way until it's done to you. you don't' answer answers you want a privileged position. Walt is one of the most reasonable people on CARM The things he says are never insulting and he's a nice guy. That guy just mocked and ridiculed him and didn't listen to any of his answers. Where is your sense of fair play and good discussion? If you really had any you would be able to see the good in Walt's answers.



The truth is Rex you are a hate filled minion of a brain washed sect.


It's obvious from DP's statments that he is not the least bit interested in answers. He didn't ask fact related questions. When atheists say "fact" they don't mean facts they man selling points for their ideology. That which does not agree wtiht he ideology is not an fact no matter how well it's estabished.

When you set up a set of loaded questions designed to brow beat your opponent ("are you still beating your wife" find of questions) which DP did, then it's obvious you don't want answers.


here is a link to my page on Doxa concerning the nature of Biblical revolutionary. "The Nature Biblical Inspiration"

It's been on my site for 10 years, I've posted it on CARM countless times, way over a thousand. it's been disused on my other blog.

It answers all the questions DP asked about the Bible in that Op.

if you really want answers read it!

More Examples of the Hate Group in Action: The Need to Mock and Ridicule

CARM,  1/15/10 Poster named "Dr. Petter" "Important Questions for Christians"



I would love to be able to ask these questions in a forum where the majority of Christians might be able to read them and give answers but that is not possible. Maybe a Christian frequenting this sub forum can pass them on to others and report back.

1. Where did the words used in the bible come from? God, man or both? If both how much is God and how much is man?

2. If the words are primarily from god why are there contradictions and different interpretations of those words?

3. Are there any ORIGINAL ideas in the bible that can only be found in the Jewish culture? For example creation in a short period of time, resurrection, the golden rule, the idea of sin and sacrifice, everlasting life, honor your father and mother, etc.


Walt give reasonable answer:

Uniquely Christian

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Pepper
1. Where did the words used in the bible come from? God, man or both?
Man.

Quote:
2. If the words are primarily from god ...
N/A

Quote:
3. Are there any ORIGINAL ideas in the bible that can only be found in the Jewish culture?
Chrisitianity teaches that the definitive revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, is the Crucified and Risen son of Mary, Jesus.

The UNIQUE teaching of Christianity is that the Holy One, blessed be He, came into this world between the knees of a Jewish girl, was killed, and was buried in a borrowed tomb.

The Apostle (1 Corinthians 1:23) says this is a "stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles."

walt
DP comes back:

So God presented the ideas and man wrote the words. Is this how you get an unambiguous message to those you want to believe. How do you know all the ideas are original and some of them are not borrowed from earlier times. Stories like the Creation and Flood are found in other religions. Resurrection stories are not unique to the Christian religion.

Now that's not a question seeking information or belief, it's an attempt at brow beating copied after Hamilton Berger on Perry Mason. It's an attempt to scorn. It's a rhetorical question. So what he means by "important questions" is brow beating and scorn. So this pattern holds up. Walt gives serious answers and DP gives more brow beating and scorn.

DP:
You said the words were Man's words. Not Gods. Therefore, we are talking about ideas. Words are man made and mean different things to different men.That is the problem with the bible and why we have so many religions and sub religions and sub sub religions.

Quote:
In another thread, I said, as I have often said before:'
I infer the characteristics of "God" from the life and death of the crucified Jesus, as his life and death are remembered in the community which acclaims him as LORD.
You are going on "words" written by men. You don't have any direct input from God. That is the problem. You take on faith that these men are communicating directly with God. That is too common a situation in human history that turns out wrong.


Quote:
There is nothing "unambiguous" about a God who discloses himself through a particular crucified Jew, rather than in a catechism.
Again if it wasn't ambiguous then why do not all peoples get the same message. Some do not even recognize Jesus as divine. Others do not even accept that he lived. Even you say you have more questions than answers.



Quote:
You began a thread "What is going on here"? and I responded with a post with the title "Impossible events"?

If you are not interested in the responses to the threads you begin, just say so; then we won't have to waste our time answering your questions.

Your answers don't make sense in the light of the facts. Which are few and depend on emotion and knowledge from authority.

The most valuable gift Matt has given a-theists by hosting these Forums is not the gift of faith -- as far as I can see, most a-theists who come to these Forums remain a-theists. I don't expect you to become a Christian -- in any sense of the word -- as a result of my conversations with you.

My only hope is, that as a result of your conversations here, you would have a broader understanding of Christianity and Christians. The most valuable gift Matt has given a-theists by hosting these Forums is an opportunity to see the diversity of those are 'not ashamed of the Gospel."

[Disclaimer: It is only fair to note that Matt has, in the past, said that I am a danger to Christianity, and it is equally fair to note that I have received far more abuse in these Forums from Christians than I ever have received from a-thheists.

[But up to now, I am the only Christian who has responded to this thread. Perhaps Matt and/or his acolytes will join in later with their point of view.

Or perhaps they won't.]

It is not easy for a Christian such as me to be a Christian in the 21st century, as my .sig file shows.

It would be a lot easier if I could content myself with cliched rhetorical questions, such as you have offered in this thread.

But I can't do that, and still be honest with myself; sophomoric bull sessions were for when I was last literally a sophomore, a half a century ago.

walt
What has this to do with any thing I have said. I am sorry if I upset you in any way. I didn't mean too. I am also sorry I am an atheist, I can't help it. I simply asked questions to see if any theist could come up with something other than I have faith. Which is about the only thing that makes sense.

 Walt's answers essentually amount to saying "it's my faith and i don't mind that the words are human interpritation of what God told them." Here is DP's answer to what I see a reasonable reply to this loaded rhetorical questions:

But you haven't come up with anything factual all you have is the word of others and you don't know if those words came from God so you must have faith. You don't say you have but you must. I do not understand why you are going on and on about you and your position and how I don't read what you wrote.
Quote:
There is nothing "unambiguous" about a God who discloses himself through a particular crucified Jew, rather than in a catechism.
This disclosure was written 2000 years ago well after the fact by some people you never met. You do not know for certain if any God had anything to do with what they wrote. Therefore, you must have FAITH that what they wrote was factual. Problem is that others have written similar stories about resurrections and divine individuals that you do not believe are factual. Why do you believe this one is?
__________________
He's defending brow beating and ridiculing with in sincere questions not taking the answers on face value but insisting that they over objections he has yet to state.

Then an atheist ally pipes in to get in on the fun:


this is another post by Walt "What's going on?"


In the minds of those who believe in a personal God?

After being involved with CARM for a number of years and having read the thoughts of theists and atheists a question comes to mind. Why do some insist that they know God exists and feel that they have a personal relationship with said god? These folk are convinced they are right and cannot understand why other people do not see what they see is so obvious. They point to the scriptures and how these writings are the word of God and are convinced that God was actually involved in the transmission of information to a handful of Jewish men some 2000 years ago in the Middle East.

Why do they accept these unlikely events as fact and all other religious claims as false? What evidence is there that God actually communicated with these individuals other than their own written word? Is it not fair to say that the bible was written during a time when superstition and myth were common and extraordinary claims were accepted as truth?

What is it that causes people today to accept these extraordinary claims from people they do not know who lived and died so long ago? They will not accept similar claims made by someone still alive today.

Believers will insist the non believers are simply blind when it comes to seeing the obvious; there must be something wrong with them. Many actually become hostile and angry at nonbelievers who do not share their views. Can not any believer here understand why unbelievers may not believe that the scriptures are fact and not myth and that all Gods are imaginary? Do they not feel this way about the hundreds of other gods conjured by humans in the past and even present?

What's going on in their minds, the implication being it's either stupidly or delusion. Of course he spins it all to make it sound as stupid as he  can. This is all the kind of thing that atheists will never understand is slap in the face. They will go "you are being insulting" when I answer this by saying 'you are an idiot" that's becuase you calling me an idiotic, you re calling my father mother idiots you calling my grand mother an idiot you are spitting on everything I've ever cared about and all because you are stupid to understand it. These guys are so stupid they can't see that we know that they are not representing our beliefs but their beliefs about our beliefs. so we are insulted!
__________________

On this one he's joined by an ally who thinks the mocking and ridiculoing looks like fun and wants to give it a try too:

Roundearth, (reflect upon that screen name)

I see each of these factors at work in some theists some of the time:

1. Failure to seriously engage the case for atheism, e.g. most new theist posters here.
2. Dogmatic reliance on an argument(s) for God to the point of blindness to all objections, e.g. Metacrock, Matt Slick.
3. Mistaking emotion for evidence.
4. Inability to grasp the law of large numbers.
5. Some simply do not have a concept of evidence, e.g. Mark Dreher.

Here's my answer to him

I was an atheist big man. you are unwilling to think seriously about logic, or about philosophical issues. you are brain washed by an ideology of hate and you are not willing to open your little mind and try to understand the position those who don't subscribe because that;s what ideologues do. they rationalize the superiority of their own position and the unworthiness of those who don't subscribe to it.

you don't know anything about my God arguments. you are not wiling to think about them seriously because you know that they would destroy your ideology that you need psychologically to feel whole, you apparently need to put other people down to feel good about yourself.

you make this little list of what you see the non subscribers doing that makes them inferior but you just forget that I can show you exampel where do everything thing on there you say we do, and where most atheists on this board do that.

when the board comes on line go look at my exchanges with so called "Big thinker" and see how totally confused he is about the nature of logic and arrangement. I dare you would fair no better, if you understand logic and argument you would not rely on the need to make and ridicule arguments rather than arguing them.

if you think you have an objection to any of my arguments that are not just refusal to think, then debate me 1x1 where you can't hide behind a bevy of ridicule artists to detract from the fact that you can't answer the arguments.

if you really believe you have those answers you will debate me. how come when I make this challenge every single atheist shuts up and stops saying it and wont debate? if you really thought you could beat the argument you would debate.

the truth is you don't really mean things like "logic" and "objections" your only real objection is "that's not my ideology that doesn't make me special." __________________

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Hermit's Ideological Commetments Determine Truth Content for Him

I have proven that the Boyd Swift data on Christians being more likely to go to prison are wrong. He denies changing the numbers and I said I would not accuse him until I have positive proof, but someone did. Either he did or the guy who sent him the data did. It could be that the guys who sent the data to adherents did, but I don't see what their motive would be. Neither the Bearu of prisons nor Adherents.com have a motive, but an atheist would.



the real data sent to Adherents.com

Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
None/Atheist/Unknown 18,537
Muslim

the data sent to Swift


Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%
Hindu


So the actual letter sent by Bureau of prisons to adherents.com shows a totally different set of numbers. the entries above and below the column with atheists in it are different and the numbers of atheists are totally different.

see thew full tables here if you are willing to actually look at a link which most athesits are not.


Hermit continues to insist that there's nothing fishy here. The two tables are substantially different but they supposed to be the same table. Either Swift fabricated, the Adherent's guys fabricated, or the Bureau of prisons fabricated. Why that would be who can say. But Hermits wants me to automatically assume it could not be atheists, but he can't give me a reason to assume that.


Hermit seems to have not even a theoretical problem with an atheist fabricating numbers, he seems to think this is trivial and not obvious.

Hermit demonstrates his true biases:


Adherents.com appears to have erroneously added together a large number of no-responses to the non-theist category.

But that doesn't make any sense since they are saying their stats come from the original source and that's the letter sent them. You could only say that if you assume the letter sent Swift is true stats, but how do we know that? Apparently he's just assuming it becuase it's something an atheist says. It confirms his biases.

And I have to wonder about the ideological biases at work at adherents when they cite numbers from the loony conspiracy theorists at World Net Daily and push the bogus idea that gays are more likely to be pedophiles...http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html#dichotomy
So there it really comes out, his true reason is that he has an ideological motive for automatically accepting that Swift is right and denying what Adherent's says.

here's what the link he quotes says:

One problem faced by some religious writers as well as some atheist writers who have tried to equate religious belief or atheism with criminal behavior (and probably a major reason why there is no empirical data to support either contention) is that a person's philosophical position on this one point is not the major factor in determining criminal behavior. Factors such as level of income, employment/non-employment, level of education, race, geographical region, age, sex, etc. are all tracked by the government and other organizations. All of these characteristics correlate more readily to criminal behavior. (GLBT status, on the other hand, has not been shown to correlate generally to incarceration rate, although it is highly correlated with pedophilia. According to gay researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, 73 percent of the gay men they report having engaged in sex with boys 16 to 19 years of age or younger; 86 percent of convicted child molesters who molested boys describe themselves as homosexual or bisexual. See also: World Net Daily article; More)
the article that articles quotes says:

Child molestation and pedophilia occur far more commonly among homosexuals than among heterosexuals on a per capita basis, according to a new study.
"Overwhelming evidence supports the belief that homosexuality is a sexual deviancy often accompanied by disorders that have dire consequences for our culture," wrote Steve Baldwin in, "Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement," soon to be published by the Regent University Law Review.

That's looks to me like some pretty right-wing oriented stuff, but what' Hermit is saying is that the extent to which he's willing to believe who fabricated the stats depends upon who supports gay rights and who doesn't. His positron on the issue is not "yes it's bad if the atheist fabricated" but rather we should believe he didn't on the principle that we hate right wingers and we support gay rights. I content that has noting do with the prison statistics and he's showing how bigoted his thinking is that everything he looks is colored by his ideological perspective so that he doesn't care what is true. the Idea that 'well they quoted one bad article so we can trust anything they say" is pretty stupid.


But any way you look at these numbers though it's clear that being an atheist doesn't correlate with a greater likelihood of being in prison; so the oft heard Christian charge that being atheist leaves one with no reason to not rob and murder people is plainly untrue...which was Swift's whole point to begin with.

Look at what he's not even willing to think about:

(1) that no sociologist would agree to understanding religious belief as a cause of crime

(2) totally ignores the parole argument which kill sthe entire arguemnt point blank before it ever get's started.

(3) totally ignores the issue that a chnck of raw data is not a study and tells us nothing.

(4) expecting all the stats to line up accruatly is idiotic, so you can't expect 3% of prisioners to be atheist on the assumption that 3% of society is atheist.

(5) he's basing his incredulity about the fabrication fo statistics on the good that it his side to not believe they could do wrong rather than concern with what really happened or what's really the truth.

(6) totally misses the poin that under rating the percentage of atheists by 25% or so completely destroys the original argument.
As usual when an atheist tries to counter the lies and slander of Christians he gets accused of being a liar himself.


(7) He ignores the other arguments made on Adherent.com such as this:

There is no sociologically valid basis for comparing "theists to nontheists" with regards to incarceration rates (or any other sociological measure) because "theists" do not constitute an identifiable social group. The fact that non-practicing (functionally nonreligious) people are highly over-represented among prisoners is a separate issue, apart from questions relating to belief and philosophical position. To consider incarceration rates of "atheists" vs. "theists" is like comparing Hispanics to non-Hispanics. While it may be possible to group figures that way, it doesn't make a lot of sense to do so. Non-Hispanics are better broken down into Asians, African-Americans and Whites (if one doesn't further break them down by other factors such as age, education, etc.) Likewise, it makes no sense to group all non-atheists together, as if Amish
, Muslims, Quakers, Baha'is, Hindus, Presbyterians, Orthodox Jews, Baptists, Deists, Lutherans, Unitarians, Rastafarians, Wiccans, etc., all exhibited similar behavior. Obviously some of these groups exhibit relatively little criminal behavior, while others would exhibit relatively more criminal behavior. Certain crimes are more prevalent among certain groups. 85% of Americans cite a specific religious affiliation. So if you combine figures for people of all religious affiliations you get essentially the same figure that you would get for the whole U.S. population. The figure would only be different if essentially all religious groups were skewed in one direction, which they are not.

Adherents used to get a lot of respect from atheists when they just showed the percentages of different groups and summarized Zuckerman's findings. Now they have actually published some articles showing that Zuerman's stats are not reliable and also attached this stupid prison argument they are being treated like scum by atheists. More proof hate group atheism can't think and only reacts in knee jerk fashion to whatever supports its ideology.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Cambridge Institute Investigating Atheism

There's a group of academics at Cambridge who make it their research interest to keep an eye on the development of this "new atheism." Most of them have backgrounds in research dealing with religion and psychology. I've also linked to them on the blog roll on the side bar they make up one of them most important and interesting links.

The Investigating Atheism project is designed to stimulate interest, thought and debate on this important topic (one that has rapidly gained a whole new audience in recent years). The website has been put together by a group of academics and researchers at the faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and at the University of Oxford. The team have no set view on the subject, and aim to give a fully independent, but informed statement about this important subject.

Many of the team are also members, or former members, of the Psychology and Religion Research Group (PRRG) , based at the Margaret Beaufort Institute in Cambridge. In 2001, the PRRG began empirical research, on the experimental study of religious cognition. We now do scientific research on various aspects of the psychology of religion, but religious cognition has remained the central focus. Two important strands are the use of experimental paradigms, such as memory tasks, to study religious cognition, and the measurement of 'integrative complexity' in religious thinking, especially in atheism and fundamentalism.

More recently we have developed theological projects, mostly theology in dialogue with psychology, but also in dialogue with science more broadly. Theological anthropology and natural theology have been the two main strands in our theological work. There has also been a strand of work on public information and education - and the Investigating Atheism project is about opening up the subject to a new interested audience in a non judgmental and interesting way.

Be sure and check out their site.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

No True Scotsman: No true Atheist

There is a ploy practiced by many atheist of the type who inhabit places such as the Secular Web and Infidel guy. It's been so institutionalized it's almost a mortar. In fact I've seen this kind of things so many times now, when the Christian apologists get together they can stamp it out, but no soon will they rid the net of one institutionalized atheist fallacy, than another will rear its ugly head.

The fallacy to which I reefer here is the "No true Scotsman," fallacy (NSF). I dot' know the etymology exactly, but the general idea is that in the heat of argument one is likely to say something like "no true American would ever (do whatever)" The way it's used is this:

Atheist claims something like "Hitler was a Christian." The Christian makes the mistake of saying "O but he wasn't a true Christian because bah, so the atheist says 'that's the NTSF So without even thinking about it, they just dogmatically declare anyone was ever a Christian of any kind to have always been one. Once a Christian always a Christian (unless you become an atheist a post on the secular we) and then anything you do that's negative pertains to Christianity as the upshot of being a chrisiatn. So Mao was a Christian because he heard a Bible verse once, therefore, Christianity makes you become the Chairman of the Chinese communist party and write little red books.

This has become such a mantra that it cancels any kind of critical thought. Anytime any apologist comes near any sort of questioning as to one's Christian credentials the atheist says something like "I hear bag pipes playing." We need to make up a Nam for the fallacy of calling everything the no true Scotsman fallacy. What really amusing is that they are using the fallacy in the wrong way, as though they dot' really know what it means! The true fallacy is aimed at people who try to use patriotism to win arguments. No true American would call for pulling out of Irk (or Vietnam or whatever hopeless mess we've gotten ourselves into this decade). But that is not the same saying that any time one says "so and so Is not a Christian" it's the fallacy. That fallacy has nothing to do with the commitment level of a particular individual. It has to do with the way in which I construct another perinea's commitment level. If the commitment level of an individual can be demonstrated toward some affiliation then obviously that person can be said to be or not to be "a true so and so" (whatever it is). The only requisite criteria would be that there must be clear guidelines as to what a true so and so is about. That's why the no true Scotsman thing is a fallacy, because there is no way to know what a true Scotsman would say about any given issue, since being a Scotsman (or an American) is rarely a voluntary affiliation. Of course there are cases in which we CNA say no true Scotsman would do X and it not be fallacious. Fore example; no true Scotsman is born in China of Chinese patrons who no relation of any kind of with Scotland and who have never been to Scotland. Such a person hardly had any claim to being a Scotsman, but even in such a case the idea of being a Scotsman is still rather vel. Perhaps one coulee be a true Scotsman if one pinched pennies, played golf, kept sheep, ate fried Mars bars, and wore lad, even if one had never been to Scotland and was not Celtic origin.

The idea of being a Christian is a bit more voluntary than being a Scotsman, thus it is a big less difficult to pin down. This is true, moreover, because Jesus did says something about what is followers would do and would not do. We can say "no true Christian would be anti-Semitic" since Christ was Semitic. Since worshiping Jesus of Nazareth as the son of God is part of being a true Christian, and this is stated in the manifesto (the Bible) then we just might conclude that one who doesn't' do that is not a Christian. Moreover, the church itself laid down guidelines for being member of the Christian community (the church invented the word "Christian" not Jesus). Those guidelines are embodied in the creeds. So in fact yes we can exactly say with no fear of contradiction or of fallacy that no true Christian would ever say anything contrary to the creeds. Because to say that is to be an untrue Christian. Paul said no one by can say by the power of the Spirit "Jesus be cursed" (1 OCR). He was not committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. He was laying down a statement of spiritual fact. So we can say based upon this fact, "no true Christian prophet can say by the power of God that Jesus is cursed." This is a factual statement, given the assumptions of Christian belief. and not the NSF.

It would not be smart to concentrate too hard on stamping out this silly mortar of the atheists. They will only replace it with another. In the mean time, we know to deal with it, we can always use it to our advantage. If it is a fallacy to argue that so and so wasn't' a Christian, because Christianity is very diverse and we can't say who is and who is not and the attempt to try is always a fallacy, then it must also be the same fallacy to say "all Christians do x." The idea that Christianity causes all these social harms and leads people to be right winners is also the same fallacy.