Institutionalizing hate: Is it really International balsphemy day?

 
 Shall we Celibrate these guy's right to
blaspheme?

Originally Posted by leyman

September 30 is International Blasphemy Day, where those of us Blasphemers celebrate our human right to blaspheme any and all God(s) without fear.

So, CARMites, in honor of this day, feel free to blaspheme away to your heart's content in this thread here!

On Wickepeida

Blasphemy Rights Day International is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to openly express their criticism of, or even disdain for, religion. It was founded in 2009 by the Center for Inquiry.^[1] A student contacted the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York to present the idea, which CFI put its support behind. Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry said regarding Blasphemy Day, "We think religious beliefs should be subject to examination and criticism just as political beliefs are, but we have a taboo on religion," in an interview with CNN.^[2] The day was set on September 30, to coincide with the anniversary of the publication of satirical drawings of Muhammad in one of Denmark's newspapers, resulting in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
According to USA Today's interview with Justin Trottier, a Toronto coordinator of Blasphemy Day, "We're not seeking to offend, but if in the course of dialogue and debate, people become offended, that's not an issue for us. There is no human right not to be offended."^[3]
Events worldwide on the first annual Blasphemy Day in 2009 included an art exhibit in Washington, DC and a free speech festival in Los Angeles.^[4] Blasphemy Day was also widely discussed across the web and covered by several media outlets.^[5][6][7]

 It's linked to center for Inquiry which we have already seen is a major part of the atheist propaganda machine.

facebook"

International Blasphemy Rights Day, held each year on September 30, is administered by the Center for Inquiry as part of its Campaign for Free Expression.

International Blasphemy Rights Day, held each year on September 30, is administered by the Center for Inquiry as part of its Campaign for Free Expression.

Mission

International Blasphemy Rights Day, held each year on September 30, is a day to promote the rights to freedom of belief and expression and stand up in a show of solidarity for the liberty to challenge reigning religious beliefs without fear of murder, litigation, or reprisal. The event is administered by the Center for Inquiry as part of its Campaign for Free Expression.

Description

Free speech is the foundation on which all other liberties rest. Without having the right to express our opinions, however unpopular, those willing to use political clout, violence, and threats will stifle dissent -- and we will all suffer the consequences of this.

International Blasphemy Rights Day takes place September 30 to commemorate the publishing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. ...See More

The stuff I talk about in this regard is all off the top of my head and without much attention to research. If I really dug into it with a private detericive I bet I could uncover a real conspiracy.

Webster's Online

plural blas·phe·mies

Definition of BLASPHEMY

1

a d : the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God

b : the act of claiming the attributes of deity

2

: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable

See blasphemy defined for English-language learners »

See blasphemy defined for kids »

Examples of BLASPHEMY

1. She was condemned by the church for uttering blasphemies.
2. blasphemies

>

First Known Use of BLASPHEMY

13th century

 These guys are trying to institutionalize their hatred. they are trying to make hate for God seem like a fun pleasant time and one that is expected each year and accepted. Its' a means of squeezing atheism into the society as an accepted part of the pluralism. It should not be accepted. Expressing hate for the beliefs of others is a means of expressing hatred for the people who hold the beliefs. Atheists are 3% they a frenge gruop and their is a hate group element among them. Atheists do not have to blaspheme or inslult or emote hatred toward God to be included in the community as valid participants. these are trying to get their hate accepted too.

this is the work of the atheist propaganda machine it's linked to more than just some fringe group on face book. It's a major enterprise with lots of money. Means there is an atheist conspiracy. there is a movement and an organization aimed at wedging atheist hate into society as an accept elements. The hate group aspect has big money.

Notice, I am all for including atheists in society as a valid element with all right as respect due any group but not their hate wing, not their hate elements, not their blaspheming. those are not necessary to their expression of free speech any more than burning crosses in people's yard would be. Let's be clear now I'm not saying that all atheists believe in blaspheming.

The point of it would seem to raise the issue of free speech. Is it really free speech to insight hatred and vent anger and ridulce toward one's opponents? Is burning a cross in your neighbor's yard free speech?

Atehists Reject Liberal Theology by Resorting to Fundamentalism

 

Atheist criticism of modern liberal theology is to theology as Fancis Shaffer's criticism of art is to art.

Recently I find more and more atheists on CARM going on the offensive against liberal theology. Yet since they refuse to read any they don't know anything about it. They base thier understanding of it on Spinoza becuase that's all know about. this refusal to learn about the things they critize is giong to a mainia. On CARM Magritte says:

Since at least Spinoza and the Enlightenment when it became safer (relatively speaking) to directly criticize the Bible and theism, apologetics has been waging a war of redefinition and redrawing of boundaries. Modern "liberal" Christianity now has boundaries that are practically fractal in their infinite detail. Whenever a threat emerges, apologetics swiftly whisks God to safety with rationalization. Boundaries are redrawn, words redefined.

Spinoza is not very important to modern liberal theology. They just think that because he's the only alternative view of God they understand. They think primarily that Spinoza is a pantheist which they are willing to tolerate because they see it as a step toward atheism. This guys sees liberal theology as some kind of refuge that fundamentalism takes when it can't stand up to atheism. That is totally ignorant on many levels:

(1) Spinoza has very little to do with modern theology,t hey are ignorant enough to think if it's not the big man in the sky it must be Spinozian deified nature (Spinoza did not deify nature but they don't bother to learn what he really thought).

(2) Liberal theology is much older than fundamentalism. It definately existed about 300 years before inerrency (19th century). Way before any modern athiesm so trying to see ita s a refuage of failed apologetic is just sheer ignorance.

(3) Fundamentalists hate liberal theology. Liberal theologians are not fundamentalists hiding from atheism they are rarely former fundiese. Most fundies see liberal theology as satan infiltrating the faith to steal away the faithful. Most of them wont go near it. Most liberals see fundamentalism and apologetic is country corn pone hick's ville and they wont go near it!

(3) Calling liberal theology a renationalisation is total stupidity. This complety ignores the rich intelletual tradion that is traced back to Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance.

This atheist assault interprets everything it doesn't understand as "rationalization." Here is his answer to one argument I made.

This sometimes gives a strong whiff of desperation and post hoc thinking. I'll give an example: I was asking Metacrock a while back about why God did not heal amputees. His reply was that limb regrowth would be such a strong indication of God's presence that it would take away our free will as to whether or not to believe. How is one to argue with an opponent who pulls such things out of his keister on the spur of the moment?

This is totally taken out of context. Fist of all that's not even my answer. It's only a small part of my answer and it's argued hypothetically anyway. For a more full understanding of my answer on the amputee thing see my essay God and Amputees and also why wont God heal stupidity? The answer he's talking about is based upon a larger argument that is my answer to theodicy: Soteriolgocal Drama. That's my answer. It's unique to me. He's asserting that it's some srot of arche type for all liberal theology when in reality no liberal theologians even know about it and if they did they probalby wouldn't embrace it. That is idea is unique to me. But then CARM atheists are so ignorant of theology they tend to assume that I'm the only liberal. I went I went to seminary with other people. I'm just sure there were other students in those classes. Someone took those degrees on graduation. I doubt if they canceled commencement just becuase i didn't go. I graudated I just didn't feel like doing the cap and gown thing.

I invite other atheists, deists and agnostics to submit their own examples of this sort of thing. It's been going on for many generations and we should at least do it the dignity of understanding it.

He speaks giving it the dignity of understanding which is ironic becuase he has not giving it that himself. He read any theologians. When one mentioned reading them they say "they just make stuff up." This is stupid, it's just lapin stupid anti-intellectual grab age. If they had the gumption to actually read some they would find out its not just making stuff up but they can't even take the obvious step of doing some basic study. The older example was to charge that liberal theology 'enables' fundamentalism. I don't what these people think they are saing. Do they ever think at all? That's like saying socialists are enabling capitalism. How? By opposing it? That logic suggests that atheism is enabling Christianity. They might as well argue that modern art enables old fashioned realism in art.

In that CARM thread I have to hand it to Humble thinker. He usually blocks with atheists even though he claims to be a Christian, but this time he has a cogent comment:

But I think the question is this: is the "strongest possible case" in question merely post hoc rationalizations in an attempt to make the case stronger or is it a prior held belief that, upon questioning, is presented without the intention of artificially making the case stronger? Hopefully that sentence didn't get too convoluted.

"Lance" another atheist poster reiterates and magnifies the original theme. In so doing illustrates more ignorance:

Doesn't it seem strange to you that as our philosophies and sciences have become more and more sophisticated, he concept of God has been shrinking back and becoming more and more abstract? God's become more and more unfalsifiable, more and more difficult to clearly define and theistic language seems to have become more and more obscure when speaking about him. Did not people used to believe that God wanted all people to have a personal relationship with him, to the point of him preforming miracles in front of crowds of people? God used to make a splash. Now modern theologians have changed his nature such that he's hiding from us, not letting us have any very solid reason for believing he's even there because he doesn't want to make his existence obvious.

He asserts that the concept of God is "shrinking back becoming more abstract" because he defines teh true and proper understanding as the big man in the sky. He does this because he privileges fundamentalist as the truth Christianity even though liberalism is must older. Also becuase like a true fundie he's reading the Bible literally so the metaphor of king and father he sees a literal instruction about the nature of God.Atheist are really fundies. The think the reason they are atheists is because they take the Bible super literally and can't think their way through it. They see any problematic nature as contradiction becuase they can't think, they see answering problems as some form of "giving up." He says God has "become more unfalsifiable." When was God ever falsifiable? That's becuase he has to understand problematic nature of God as grounds to see contradiction and give up the faith. that's what makes him an atheist. So he's really privileging atheism and in the final analysis the whining because they can't reduce liberal theology to their frontal of finding trivial contradictions in the bible.

The question of God's falsifiability is a complex one and deserves a lot more attention then these guys are willing to give it. I've written on the question of God's falsifiability on this blog in the 2007, and also more recently in 2011. Modern theologians have changed it so that God is now hiding form us. This is just sheer ignorance of a group of ideologues who refuse to study their opponents views but reduce them to a set of slogans. Modern liberal theologians deny that God is hidden. When they give answers atheists do not listen. I've repeated Hartshorne's answer many times:

quoting myself from my Thomas Reid argument (no 8 on the god arguemnt list--see page 2)

According to Hartshorne, "[o]nly God can be so universally important that no subject can ever wholly fail or ever have failed to be aware of him (in however dim or unreflective fashion)." Now the issue of why God doesn't hold a "press conference" has do do with the fact that God does not communicate by violating normal causal principles. In process terms, the "communication" of God must be understood as the prehension of God by human beings. A "prehension" is the response of an occasion to the entire past world (both the contiguous past and the remote past.) As God is in every occasion's past actual world, every occasion must "prehend" or take account of God.

It should be noted that "prehension" is a generic mode of perception that does not necessarily entail consciousness or sensory experience. Impervious postings I explained that there a two modes of pure perception --"perception in the mode of causal efficacy" and "perception in the mode of presentational immediacy." If God is present to us, then it is in the presensory perceptual mode of causal efficacy as opposed to the sensory and conscious perceptual mode of presentational immediacy. That is why God is "invisible", i.e. invisible to sense perception. The foundation for experience of God lies in the nonsesnory non-conscious mode of prehension. So now, there is the further question: Why is there variability in our experience of God?. Or, why are some of us atheists, pantheists, theists, etc.? Every prehension has an initial datum derived from God, yet there are a multiplicity of ways in which this datum is prehended from diverse perspectives.

I agreed with Hume that sense perception tells us nothing about efficient causation (or final causation for that matter). Hume was actually presupposing causal efficacy in his attempt to deny it (i.e., in his relating of sense impressions to awareness). Causation could be described as an element of experience, but as Whitehead explains, this experience is not sensory experience. From Hume's own analysis Whitehead derives at least two forms of nonsensory perception: the perception of our own body and the nonsensory perception of one's past.

I will make it more simple than that. Being is hidden. A basic reading of Heidegger will tell us this. God is being itself, the basic hiddenness of being is the hiddenness of God. But being is not hidden it's mere ready-to-hand. This phrase refers to the nature of being that is so familiar we take it for granted and don't notice it. It's like a carpenter who so familiar with his tools that usin them is such second nature he doesn't even have to think about it. Saint Augustine says God is nearer than my inmost being. I used to use a whimsical example: suppose a fish could be scientist and a fishy committee assigns him to find this substance humans talk about, water. He studies every aspect of the world around him and never finds water becuase it never occurs to him he's looking through it.

Atheist Movment and It's Orgnaization

It's so amusing! I tell atheists "you are in a movement." They react like I've said "you are child molesters." O we are not either no no no not a movement O ononononn! never!

they steadfast everyone every single time recite that party line, it's just the absence of a belief. It doesn't dawn on them:

(1) you are angry because I say it's a movement.

the anger is palpable. Why should it make them angry that I say they have a movement? I say I have a movement. I've been in movements all my life. i was in the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement (2 different wars--two different movements) and many others. I don't care. it doesn't make me angry to say I am in a movement. i don't even are if they say Christianity is a movement. I as in a movement and it had an ideology (communism) I was a commie!

I know what movements look like. I know what ideology looks like. I have trianed all my life to spo this. I've been in movements, been a communist, (the paradigm of all movements and father of all ideologies) and I'm a historian of ideas. I was also an atheist. I nkow a movment when I see one. I also know that' it's not normal for people to become angry when you say they are in a movement. Why would they ? Atheists ract as though I've said theya re drugs adicts or soemthing.


(2) they all give the same answer

they all answer in exactly the same way. they never very there's no individuality. Its' always "the absence of any god or gods." There's never any individualist variation as though they have all read the same thing and all been told to say this phrase. I know they have probalby been told to say the phrase, but somehow in the way they process the information when they convence themselves to follow this movement they just learn it by wrote like the phrase really matters.

I am still looking fo all this individuality they claim to have. I can't find it. I see them saying the same things and marching in lock step. last week I had a hesitation where atheists would not admit that appeal to popularity was wrong. some of them even warned to say it wasn't wrong unless was in favor of Christianity. One of them argued form populaity saying that I could not right becuase I'm a member of a tiny minority (the minority being people with my exact outlook thus confessing the idea of group membership with the opinion one holds).



Isn't a dead give away, think about it. They actually believe that if you hold single idea differently from the group you are in a different group. Then on what basis can they claim that atheist are all different and that they have individualist opinions? As if that isn't frighting enough, they would not bring themselves to dennounce argument from popularity, but then actualy tried to say that I had argued that! They tried to attribute their comrade's statement to me! Now is that for confused?

I've demonstrate that its' a movement and only an idiot could fail to see it. I've shown that they have a concerted effort for court cases involving 30 major law suits (which would cost millions, who is paying for it)? They have a vast propaganda machine. They work on the destruction of Christian academic credibility at the expense of academic learning. They have a vast propaganda organziation in the form of several publications, think tanks and a scam pretending to be a convocations of schoalrs who are actually just Jesus mythers with no real academic standing.


Freedom From Religion Foundation:

• Won the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of a faith-based agency
• Overturned a state Good Friday holiday
• Won a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools
• Removed Ten Commandments monuments from public lands
• Ended bible instruction in public schools after 51 year practice
• Halted prayer at public institutions
• Stopped direct subsidy to religious schools
• Ended commencement prayers at a Top Ten University after 122 years of practice
• Ended distribution of Gideon bibles in public schools.
• Brought nearly 30 First Amendment lawsuits since 1977, and keeps several Establishment law challenges in the courts at all times.

<http://www.ffrf.org/legal> (18 Feb. 2007).

Approach Used to Spread Agenda

• Files lawsuits!
• Publishes Freethought Today
• Sponsors annual high school and college atheist based essay competitions with cash awards
• Conducts, annual national conventions, honoring the "Freethinker of the Year" for state/church activism, a "Freethought Heroine" and student activists
• Bestows "The Emperor Has No Clothes" Award to public figures for their criticism of religion
• Promotes freedom from religion with educational products, bumperstickers, music CDs, winter solstice greeting cards and literature
• Publishes useful atheist books
• Provides speakers for events and debates
• Established a freethought book collection at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library as well as a 2,000-volume office collection

OTHER SUCCESSES

- University Graduation Invocations Ended at Top Ten University
- Prayers Stopped at Public Institutions
- Public Sponsorship of Nativity Pageant Halted
- Crosses Downed from Public Land
- Abuse by Preacher Exposed
- City Sponsorship of Knights of Columbus Signs Ended
- Ethics Probe Called for Preaching Governor
- Proselytizing Crossing Guard Fired
- Post Office/Catholic Entanglement Ended
- De Facto Sports Chaplaincy Stopped
- School Boy Scout Subsidy Stopped
- Bible Proclamation Rescinded
- Illegal Public Help Halted for "Our Lady of the Rockies"
- Creationism Removed from City Zoo
- Discount for Catholics Ended
- Red Rocks Easter Service Subsidy Ended
- Nativity Scene Moved Off Government Land
- Ten Commandments Monuments Moved from Public Property
- Religion Removed at Playground

Who has time to work on this? All of these struggle take big money and big legal talent. These are not things pulled off by a diverse group who share nothing more than the lack of a belief. This is clearly a vast political organization it has to be.

Analogy between DC's Bizarro world and CARM Atheist's understanding of Social Sciences

 
 Yes Bizarros do it backwards.This is an apt analogy for
the way most CARM atheists understand social scinece research
methods.

The shameful example of guilt by association and the other fallacies in the previous post are compounded by the bizarro world fire drill* the atheists use to cover up their lousy logic. Backup tried to find stats to prove the a lot of children die from prayer and neglect by parents who believe God will heal them.

Originally Posted by backup

Check out some of these shocking stats:

Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse or neglect

Seventeen states have religious defenses to felony crimes against children

Maryland exemptes believers in spiritual healing from all civil and criminal charges regardless of the harm to the child

Pediatrician Seth Asser and CHILD president Rita Swan have published a study of 172 deaths of children when medical care was withheld on religious grounds. They found that 140 of the children would have had at least a 90% likelihood of survival with medical care.

Between 1973 and 1990, 65 Faith Assembly children are known to have died of treatable illnesses without medical care.

he Oregonian reported that 78 children died between 1955 and 1998 in the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, a church opposed to medical care.

Sects claiming a religious exemption from immunizations have had outbreaks of polio, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria. In 1991 there were 492 measles cases in Philadelphia among children associated with Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel Church, which refuse immunizations. Six children died.

Oregon and Pennsylvania have religious exemptions from bicycle helmets.

http://childrenshealthcare.org/?page_id=24

 DL put up hysterical thread drawing sweeping conclusions form one episode. Backup tries to support her by supposedly documenting that Christian bleief "causes" child endangerment on a regular basis.

Let me say first of all that there are problems and they are more than one example. They are not the norm, they not often produced by mainstream Christianity even using that term in a broad sense. they are usually associated with small extremist groups and if we total them they are not even 1% of the whole. they are much less than 0.1%.

Here is Backup's big proof.

Originally Posted by backup View Post
Check out some of these shocking stats:

Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse or neglect 

Meta:

(1) those are made for the extremists groups to they don't quash religious freedom they are not made to accommodate the mainstream.

(2) they are not proof the problem is more than a handful of kids. granted too many not to write them off but it's not indicative of Christianity as a whole.


Backup

Seventeen states have religious defenses to felony crimes against children 

 Meta:

(1) same deal, not proof they didn't make the law to accommodate a small group of extremists.

(2) not proof the problem is widespread.


Backup

Maryland exemptes believers in spiritual healing from all civil and criminal charges regardless of the harm to the child

Meta:
Of cousre that is not proof it's wide spread and it's not proof that they don't have loop holes. I bet you he hasn't examined them.

Backup

Pediatrician Seth Asser and CHILD president Rita Swan have published a study of 172 deaths of children when medical care was withheld on religious grounds. They found that 140 of the children would have had at least a 90% likelihood of survival with medical care.

90% sounds like a lot but it's of 140 children. So while that's bad it's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to how many children are in Christian education, Christan ay care orphans home live with Christian parents and so on. only a tiny tiny segment come to harm those are probalby connected to fringe groups. 80% of the country is Christian. 80% of the country is not be charged with child endangerment.

Between 1973 and 1990, 65 Faith Assembly children are known to have died of treatable illnesses without medical care. 

 Meta

(1) what do they mean by faith assembly? Is that a certain group or are trying to say "religious people in general?" It sounds to me like a frenge group like the one in the original example.

(2) that's almost a 20 year period. 65 deaths in 20 years is pathetically small. not to write off the children's lives. as an inducement of all religion it's pathetic.

(3) it doesn't' say where/ are these one state the whole country? makes a huge difference.

can you imagine a protest saying "stop the Vietnam war, 65 people have died over the last 20 years."


Backup

The Oregonian reported that 78 children died between 1955 and 1998 in the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, a church opposed to medical care.

 Meta:

(1) Even a broader time period and not many more deaths.

(2) they could include the 65 mentioned above.

(3) even assuming state by state a comparable number from every state is not enough to prove that Christianity as a general rule causes abuse.

Backup

Sects claiming a religious exemption from immunizations have had outbreaks of polio, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria. In 1991 there were 492 measles cases in Philadelphia among children associated with Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel Church, which refuse immunizations. Six children died.

 Meta:

"sects!" usually a group is not called a "sect" by the media unless it's a small fringe group. So this is talking about extremists not the main stream. the allowances they get are to prevent squashing freedom not because the main stream of Christianity is regularity hurting kids.

How many states? what is the rate per state?

Backup

Oregon and Pennsylvania have religious exemptions from bicycle helmets.

http://childrenshealthcare.org/?page_id=24

Meta:
 

(1) that could be based upon 2 people. They passed the law because 2 people died.

(2) may have been passed by secular legislators who just used that as a loop hole.

(3) how many religious sects have taboos against wearing helmets?

"ney brother, Mercury and the original flash wore helmets therefore we dare not wear one!"

If we total all the deaths sites over 20 year period it's hardly 300 people. If we even grant 65 per state per year it's not enough to conclude that religion as whole is to blame.


Now Steve wants to connect this to the belief in healing. how many Christians in America believe God heals today? the stats on harm do not keep pace with stats on belief.



this is a quote from an article: AARP had poll done

http://www.aarp.org/personal-growth/...racles_08.html

"The purpose of this study was to understand what Americans age 45 and older think about miracles and miraculous events, including what they believe about divine healings, guardian angels, the circumstances under which someone may receive a miracle, and how miraculous events have changed their outlook on life. The information was gathered to inform articles for AARP The Magazine and AARP Viva.


The July 2008 telephone survey included a Hispanic oversample. Key findings include:

Four in five survey respondents (80%) say they believe that miracles occur today as in ancient times, while 67% say they believe that illnesses and injuries can be divinely healed.
Respondents age 45-54 were more likely to believe in miracles (85%) than those age 55 and older (77%).
Over a third (37%) say they have witnessed a miracle, 29% have witnessed a divine healing, and 11% have seen an angel.
When asked what makes someone worthy of receiving a miracle, having faith (73%), prayer (67%), and strength of desire (55%) are seen by the majority to be determining factors.
Unsurprisingly, God (84%) and Jesus (75%) were the two figures respondents rated highest in bestowing miracles. Only 47% thought angels bestowed miracles.
A strong majority of Hispanics report believing in miracles (86%), spirits and angels (86%), and divine healings (82%), significantly more than white non-Hispanics.
Hispanics are just as likely as white non-Hispanics to say they are religious or spiritual. However, when asked about the frequency in which they engage in religious activities, Hispanics are more likely to say they pray, share their faith with others, and watch or listen to religious programming on a weekly basis than white non-Hispanics.



Questions were included on an omnibus survey on July 17-21, 2008, a weekly national telephone survey of U.S. households, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). The survey was conducted with 1,315 respondents age 45 and older. In addition to the general population survey, ORC conducted a Hispanic oversample July 16-23, 2008, with 251 respondents age 45 and older. (47 pages)

way more people believe in healing than ever come to harm. We are talking about mass numbers of people in the millions and only about 300 harmed in 20 year period.

 Originally Posted by leyman

Regardless of the numbers, it's the cause, Meta, the cause.

Yes, religious conversion results in positive outcomes in certain individuals, such as yourself.

In other individuals it results in the needless deaths of innocent children.

Without religion you probably would have worked through your own issues in time all on your own.

And those dead children would not have been killed for the sake of their parent's faith in their religion.

Meta:

this is a crime against reason. you cannot pretend to think scientifically then throw out the evidence and act emotion. you hate religion so you are willing to believe it' bad most of them. the numbers prove you are wrong but you make an arbitrary dogmatic appeal to throw them out. 

*that source may not actually explain how the bizarros do fire drills they may never have had one but it's obvious they would run back into the burning building, or perhaps even add fuel to the fire. Thee joke of the Bizarro world (which I was never that amused by) was that they do everything backwards. See and read an actual bizzaro story.

Shameful Display of Athiest Emotional Blackmail and Fallacous Reasoning

 



Here's a great example from CARM of how the atheist ideology and brain washing function to produce seamless team work in using fallacious reasoning and emotional blackmail. Notice how the atheist arguemnt fit together they say the same stuff without having to explain to each other the nature of a battle plan. This is second naturer to them becuase they've learned to think this way thorugh those long windeed sessions of agreeing with mocking and rieicle.

The objective they are going for here is to further the stereotype that people who believe God will heal people are insane nut cases who always wind up hurting people. In order to make this point they are going to use one example, that's all they ever document. they will assert that it represents many cases and they will not actually say it but they strongly imply this is the logical conclusion that results from prayer.

A certain poster on CARM (DARKLADY) who every single day of the world comes out with some tear jerking horror story about how evil God is, how cruel the God fo the bible the Bible is a big pile of crap. I finally faced them down with liberal theology to stop the hysteria over the OT so she shifts to modern examples. The title is "So pray for the sick and this is what happens" as though it happens all the time. This is always the result. It's documented in NY "the Daily News.Thursday, September 20, 2012. A boy in Oregon died in agony because his parents didn't believe in modern medicine. The couple were part of a group called General Assembly and Church of the First Born, This group may be a Pentecostal offshoot it's clearly considered a cult. There are sites warning about it.. It's a little over 100 churches in 20 states. Yet Darklady wants us to think this is the typical result of belief in prayer. She quotes several passages from the NT claiming that God will answer prayer:

Mark 9:29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

John 14:13-14 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it





 then adds petulantly:

"the bible lies"

The implication is clearly that if you bleieve the Bible this is what will happen to you. her atheist comrades don't mis a beat in taking up the call:

Mark UK:

My first question: did the family abandon their faith as a result of this? Or did they go with "god must have had a purpose, and he's in heaven now, anyway" and dig themselves even deeper?

They should be prosecuted - he's a minor, and they're idiots (which isn't illegal, I know, but it bloody well should be).

Boneso:

Disgusting, absolutely disgusting! Having a son myself i dont know how anyone in this day and age can see their own child in agony and not seek professional medical care.

If they have not abandoned their faith after this then they should not be allowed to have anymore children!

Those sentiments of reproach are to be expected, even seconded. Then they don't waste any time getting to the point:

Boneso:

Even more disturbing to me is what is also in the article:

"In Oregon, faith-based healing isn’t a defense against manslaughter charges. The District Attorney’s office is working with churches to explain the law."

This tells me that there are states or regions in America where faith-based healing IS a defense against manslaughter, WTF?

now Christians are all Criminals using faith healing to commit crimes.

MarkUK

I searched for "USA faith-healing defense" and came up with an article titled "Oregon Senate votes to end faith healing murder defense", and many more on that theme. That means the defence must have been valid at some point. Appalling. If it's not a valid defence for first degree murder (in cases of human sacrifice), why does the parents' stupidity and credulity get them off the hook?

 Wait for it they start implying that this happens a lot.


 MFFJM2

 It is in fact the theists, especially Christians like the boy's parents, who must take the position thhat God has a plan, and that the boy's death though unfortunate is according to God's plan. The problem from a humanitarian perspective, regardless of your faith or lack of it, is that children need to be protected from parents that would harm them, even if the harm caused is due to fringe religious beliefs.

by the end of the thread Darklady has it worked out to a little formulation:

 Originally Posted by darklady

faith in the bible / faith in god / faith in prayer = dead child

the bible lies

as though  it's not a rarity it happens every  time.

 Diest:

 These people take the bible literally. They really are the honest ones. We see the result of believing the bible. 99.9% of Christians don't really believe the bible, and as Howard Homes said (where is he) are liars. They don't believe the bible because they take their dying and sick to hospitals and hope that HUMANS will heal them. Then, they have the unmitigated gall to say God worked through the doctor to cure their loved one, while the guy in the bed next to them had a prayer vigil and died a young man. Sick, sick thinking and humans are infected with this mental virus that I want wiped off the planet. That's why I post here.

 my emphasis. That's quite an endorsement for his objectivity hu? But atheists aren't a movement or anything. they are not a hate group now. they just want to wipe Christianity off the planet becuase they equate it with disease. That's at least that one guy (he's not the sharpest tool they have I'll grant you that I'm sure he doesn't speak for them all).



Originally Posted by JRT

So hold true to your faith and pray but hedge your bets with the best medical care available. Perhaps that is the way God will work her miracle. Instead of probationthey should have been sentence to be hospital volunteers for a year or two. The jails are two crowded.

 Notice how he tries to work up cognitive dissonance. To produce a sense of shame. "why do you use medicine if you believe in prayer?" Why do they want us to stop praying? I Gee I wonder!


 Such shotty reasoning. First of all he has no evidence of any kind that 99% don't believe the Bible. he's assuming so becuase he makes the idiotic assumption that if they believed the bible they would avoid modern medicine. of cousre there is no passage that says don't use medicine. No indications that most Christians understand the bible that way. No indication Luke gave up being a physician.

Look how seamlessly they take up the innuendo and imply the guilt by association without having to say to each other "let's do it this way." they just know becuase it's the natural outgrowth of the ideology then have indoctrinated with.

 A ridiculous and shameful display of the ind of pandering and emotional blackmail and fallacious reasoning that I associate with the right wing and the kkk .

The argument that God will guide the surgeon's skill or help the medicine work is a valid concept. That is not a matter of doubting the bible.

all of this is the result of the atheist straw man. We see at work here the atheist straw man to insist upon the most extreme most absurd cultist understanding o the most strident undies as quintessential Christianity.

emotional blackmail
argument from sign
guilt by association
straw man arguments.

The Dawkamentalist mentality shows itself.

There's an atheist on CARM, his real name is Steve Smith. His screen names have been parallax, Blondie, and Backup. Every time he get's banned he blames me and sends me hate mail. Sometimes he sends to the blog and sometimes to the email. He was banned recently. Oddly enough I had nothing to do with it but he assume I did. why? because he said a bunch of things that he deserves to be banned for about me so he assumes I'm the one. Here's his lattest sent ot my email.

Pussy tattletale strikes again.

I swear you are seriously retarded. No wonder you are so hung up on you parents. You should have discovered girls like everyone else when you were a teenager.

asshole

first of all, I took care of my parents as they died for the last three years of their lives. That must be what he means by "being hung up on your parents." If you are care for your parents you are some kind of freak. when he was banned as Parallax he said my mother was a whore and I was born a heroin addict. What dose this mean but he's projecting? He resents me because I had a good relationship with my parents he didn't have one with his? Who cares? That's his problem and he needs to keep his indecent little gutter mind silent. He has no right to mention my parents at all period.

Secondly this is the mentality of a criminal. He did sometime wrong not me. I have to fear for getting the rule to work on my side when he violates them because like most criminals he doesn't care about anything but himself. He has no compunction about lying. When he was proved to lie he say "so what Chrsitians like all the time." He's just using extortion to try to get what he wants regardless he deserves it, and he tries to make decent people who follow the rules fear to follow the rules. The reporting system is there to be used. The rules are there to protect us and I should not have to fear to evoke them. I don't. I'm not afraid of this punk.

Thirdly, he's a childish criminal. He has a big mouth but he's a little child. "tattle?" really? like a school yard bully.

He's done this to himself before. he sent hate mail which I made public he kept getting more an angry and sending more hate mail which I also made public so each new attempt at extortion just made feel more like a fool.

Here's another one that is revealing:

Originally Posted by MFFJM2

No, you don't have an obligation to thank your parents. They have a social, legal, and ethical obligation to provide for you, their children, because they brought you into this world, not of your choosing. You should love and honor your parents for their sacrifices, if indeed they made sacrifices, but thank them for doing what they're supposed to do as parents..? I think not.

I think this ranks as one of the most ridiculous selfish things I've ever seen anyone say. he's saying "if is an evil burden God thrust upon me without asking and he'd better pay up and make it up to me. that makes me entitled to everything.''

Monstrously selfish and stupid. Totally ungrateful.

The Couriter's Reply and the Fool's Gambit.

I was off line for a week due to loss of A/C . Too hot to get on. Coming back I found a bit of hate mail in the comment box. It was an atheist atheist idiot who can't understand the problem with moronic gimmick known as the "courtier's reply." This is otherwise known as "bully and brow beating." It's a fools gambit, the attempt to force the other person into acquiesce by merely demanding something must be the case and any anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot. This allows the Dawkametnalists who say anything they wish to say about theology, and dodge the bullet of ignorance because they have not read any. So evoking the gimmick know as the courtier's replay is about the stupidest thing one can do.

this little hate monger was loaded with insult. I'm so stupid. i am the "stupidest" person ever, why? becasue his little ideology says anyone who disagrees with the ideology must be "stupid." They way they sling epithets about and refuse to learn anything is proof in and of itself that their "movement" which they can't even admit is a movement is about the stupidest thing no earth.

Atheists are always coming up with little gimmicks. Anytime you trump them with real knowledge they get up set and find a gimmick. The Jesus myth theory was such a gimmick. Jesus was such a compelling figure and there is some decent evidence he rose from the dead, so to counter that they just pretend he never existed, and give it a little name and make up some pseudo intelligent sounding crap pertaining to it. The "default" and the "extraordinary evidence credo" these are all gimmicks atheists made up and they are passed off as pseudo official sounding quasi logical tactics that in actuality mean nothing.


The latest is the Courtier's reply. This is it:

I recently referred to the "Courtier's Reply", a term invented by PZ Myers to rebut the claims of believers who insist that their superstitious beliefs are ever so much more sophisticated than the simple version that Dawkins attacks.


PZ's response deserves much more publicity because it goes to the heart of the debate between rationalism and supersition. I'm going to post his original Courtier's Reply below (without permission, but I'm sure he'll understand) but before doing so I need to remind everyone about the original fairy tale [The Emperor's New Clothes].

This is a statement by a reductionist scientism king Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. He's on a blog called Sand Walk.

So what this courtier's reply is saying is that if the skeptic says stupid things about theology and demonstrates that he knows nothing about it and the theist says "O your criticism is invalid because you don't understand what you are criticizing" then all the atheist has to do is say "that's the courtiers reply" and the theist is supposed to go "O my God, I've violated a law of logic!" and give up and stop believing in God. But in realty it's not a log of logic, I never heard it in a logic class.It's not in a lgoic text book, and the meaning of it is silly. It's just saying 'You can't point out my ignorance of theology because I will not allow theology to have any kind of validity or importance and religious people may not not any sort of human dignity." That's all it's saying. It's nothing more than anti-intellectual stupidity.


Here is Myers statement about it:


The Courtier's Reply
by PZ Myers

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.


Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.


Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.


Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

In other words, knowledge of theological subjects is just plain bull shit and it doesn't matter if Dawkins doesn't understand it because it's not worth understanding. So it's not valid criticism of him to say that. Except the problem is, if he understood theology he would see that his criticisms are wrong. The criticisms he makes are almost always about fundamentalists views. Since he refuses to accept that there are other non fundamentalist types of theology, when you point it out he just says O that's ridiculous because all theology is crap so it doesn't matter--but if he knew that he might not make the criticisms becasue they don't apply. But it's not worth knowing that. he's just reasoning in a circle.

Here's his logic:

Him: religion is evil superstition because fundies believe X

Liberal: we don't believe x

him: that doesn't matter becasue religion is all crap no matter what. so even if you don't believe the thing I say is crap you still your own crap that must be stupid because you are religious. I know it's stupid because religion is stupid. Of course that's based on the stuff that you don't believe but that doesn't matter.

Narrow minded anti-intellectual brinkmanship in a most unsophisticated manner.

A very emotionally immature atheist tried this on me recently. Here's how it went.

Brent: All religious people believe in big man in the sky.

Me: process theology doesn't believe in big man in the sky

Brent: that's nonsense all religious people do so they must.

Me; you clearly don't know enough about theology to say that

Brent: Courtiers reply! Courtiers' replay!

Like some magic king's X that's supposed to mean something. Clearly it's stupid because they are only trying to dodge the fact that their criticisms are based upon things they don't understand and that don't apply. Its' an attempt to hide their ignorance. They are committing an informal fallacy with the use of this gimmick. It's called "ipsie dixit." It means "truth by stipulation." They are saying in effect "I simply stipulate that I will not allow you to have knowledge. AT this point on your knowledge is now void becasue I declare to be so, since it's religion and religion is stupid."

Again their reasoning is quite circular since the reasons they would give for reducing religion to superstition don't' apply to modern sophisticated theology, but the fact that it can be labeled "theology" and they don't even know what that means, they stipulate that it must be stupid. So even though their reasons don't apply they just demand that they must do so any way.

Again they are merely stipulating truth and insisting they are right without any just reasons. It's idiotic to try and criticize a whole field you know nothing about. To make up for appalling ignorance they imply a third rate gimmick that is actually made up of two informal fallacies: ipsie dixit and circular reasoning.