Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify it from another source. Do you understand? No? Then read it again, and repeat this process, until you understand that you cannot sue me for anything you read here. Also, having been sucked into taking part in the mass-murder of more than 3 million Vietnamese people on behalf of U.S. Big Business "interests", I'm as mad as a cut snake (and broke) so it might be a bit silly to try to sue me anyway...

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Free range blogging...

The first person raise a topic gets to own the comment thread.

What are you waiting for?

posted by The Editor at 10:44 PM

8 Comments:

Blogger John Myste said...

What an honor that would be!

Do atheists who denigrate all Christians for the barbaric actions and perspectives of a few realize that they are prejudiced an intolerant?

September 28, 2011 1:13 AM  
Blogger AndrewM said...

Can you offer up an example of such an atheist, John? Most atheists I know about condemn religious belief, but they don't denigrate anyone.

September 28, 2011 8:26 AM  
Blogger The Editor said...

I would say "no", John.

However, that's loaded question if ever I saw one.

You might have gleaned from elsewhere in this blog that I consider atheists to be blind believers also.

I would say that most religions, including atheism, are breeding grounds for ignorance and intolerance.

September 28, 2011 8:38 AM  
Blogger John Myste said...

I know lots of atheists that are very disrespectful to believes, and no I will not name them. They come here if they like, or you can go to Mad Mikes America and start up a conversation, posing as a theist and it will flush them out pretty quickly.

There are other sites also. About half the atheists I know (bloggers) are disrespectful and often very aggressive to Christians. If you have run into none, then you don't know very many atheists.

September 28, 2011 9:32 AM  
Blogger The Editor said...

To all: Comments which are off-topic to this thread have been deleted. The topic for this thread was set by John Myste. If you want your comment published, please stay on-topic.

John Myste, I politely invite you to get off your high horse. On the web I frequently read some pretty vile comments directed at Muslims and I think it would be fair to say that most of those were made by people identifying as Christians.

The internet is a robust place where some pretty robust arguments, discussions, ad hominem, etc, happen. You have three choices:

[1] Try to drag the "offenders" back into a logical discussion. (A move generally doomed to failure]

[2] Forgive them for they know not what they do.

[3] Stop reading discussion sites.

Pontificating from the moral high ground will only get you flames from morons like me and leave you feeling sad but superior (which may be your subconscious intention.)

September 28, 2011 10:17 AM  
Blogger John Myste said...

@Gerry,

John Myste, I politely invite you to get off your high horse. On the web I frequently read some pretty vile comments directed at Muslims and I think it would be fair to say that most of those were made by people identifying as Christians.

Trying to prove that some Christians hate Muslims is pretty pointless. This is obviously true and does nothing to forgive atheist bigotry toward Christians who do not hate Muslims. In fact, the very topic of Christians who hate Muslims is a subject change, one I suggest you don’t try again or I will have to submit a request to you to delete your own off-topic comments.

As for my horse, his stature is no different than that of any other average horse. You ask for a topic and I mentioned the first provocative (and loaded) question that came to mind. Therefore, I suggest that you hop off you little miniature pony before my average, run of the mill horse gobbles it up.

As for feeling sad, it is not that likely. I do not remember having a blog discussion that left me feeling that way. When I am complimented on my performance, and I often am, I appreciate the recognition. When I annoy the other into insanity, and I often do, I feel joyous that I won by virtue of his insanity. I was never more delighted than when I was told I could “go fuck my face,” in rebuttal to my position.

September 28, 2011 10:42 AM  
Blogger John Myste said...

By the way, here is a response I posted to someone who basically said Christianity is trash and should be abolished on that basis:

[Christians] quoted Biblical scripture to justify segregation and slavery. Some still find passages today that insist women be subservient to me.

I agree. There are also bright people who use pillows to smother babies. Religion definitely can be used as a tool for evil as well as a tool for good. There are many churches in neighborhoods who are the only ones who care about those living in squalor among them.

Finding some who do evil and ascribing that to the entire group is a composition fallacy, and is not that different from taking the highly visible acts of some Islamic Terrorists to justify the assumption that all of those in the Middle East are evil.

I am very sympathetic to your position. Religion has been used over and over again to justify evil, not because it is evil, but because when used for evil is extraordinarily powerful. It is the strength of the weapon that inspires evil men to choose it.

Its power to good is also great. People are good or they are not, and the good ones use religion as a tool to help them practice goodness. Evil people use it for the opposite. Hitler did not need God to get people to follow him. If not for religion other malevolent devices would be chosen.

The sacred texts are virtual trash, as they describe in a positive way things all civilized humans now find abhorrent, including the religious ones; but the religions based on them are not trash. And claiming to own the truth is not a vice unique to the devout.

We all have axioms and we all finish our opinions with some kind of faith. The devout do this more often than the atheist. It is merely a thing of degrees. It is impossible to form a conclusion with a mixture of faith without proof mixed with reason. It is the mixture that divides us. We all use the same ingredients.

I have seen plenty of atheists define their best guesses as truth also. We all claim to own it, and none of us do. Everyone who has the answers doesn’t know what he is talking about. Rational people who are just as intelligent as you are, and who have the exact same data you do, come to opposite conclusions all the time, and they are just as certain as you are that they are correct and everyone else is wrong. Reason without faith is an illusion.

I do not believe in any God and I doubt that my “mind” will survive my physical existence. I strongly doubt it. That one doubt is but one piece of my personal mythology. I would tell you the rest, but I don’t recognize it as myth. Just ask me, what I think is the truth and everyone else is confused.

Again, I am an atheist, but I am also very rational.

September 28, 2011 10:45 AM  
Blogger AndrewM said...

@ John Myste:

In response to your original post, if we change the wording of your question very slightly, then there will be an obvious and emphatic answer. " Do those atheists who denigrate all Christians for the barbaric actions and perspectives of a few realize that they are prejudiced and intolerant? "

Answer: of course not.

And in response to your earlier response: while I don't know a vast number of people, the majority of the people I do know would describe themselves as atheists if asked. I don't include people who write the blogs I follow in that because I don't know them.

September 28, 2011 3:54 PM  

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