“Why Are You So Angry?”
15 January 2006 by Bob
We’ve been asked this so many times on this site, it’s as if the xians who asked were looking for some Freudian or psychological explanation for why we don’t believe: “Yes, yes! It’s all clear! I was beaten by my father, and in my rebelling against him, I ended up rebelling against all authority, which included God! It all makes sense now!” Ugh.
As usual, I can’t speak for others. But you wanna know why I’m fucking pissed off? Check this shit out:
Zealotry puts Iran on apocalyptic path:
According to the transcript, Ahmadinejad said a member of his entourage at the UN meeting first told him of the light. “When you began with the words ‘In the name of God’, I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end (of the speech),” the member said.Ahmadinejad confirmed sensing a similar presence. “I felt it myself, too, that suddenly the atmosphere changed and for 27-28 minutes the leaders could not blink … They had their eyes and ears open for the message from the Islamic Republic,” he told Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli.
Ahmadinejad’s “vision” at the UN could be dismissed as political posturing if it weren’t for a string of similar statements and actions that suggest he believes he is destined to bring about the “End Times” — the end of the world — by paving the way for the return of the Shia Muslim messiah.
Nice. Just great.
Now I have to worry about my kid making it to kindergarten, all because some fuck-up had a brainfart.
Clearly, the scope of these attitudes doesn’t limit itself to Iranian leaders. As was already posted, it easily infects so many other (basic) aspects of life. And there are some people who are very proud of how their faith plays an intricate role in their lives, which is fine. But we have to live next door to you, and put up with your bullshit.
So, when you get the urge to ask us why we’re “so angry,” try shutting the fuck up and looking around. Once you actually break out of your solipsistic world, you’ll see (1) that there are other people in the world, and (2) that your beliefs actually do affect these other people.
15 January 2006, on 10:47 am
Well done, Bob. This is also part of my reasoning.
15 January 2006, on 11:37 am
I agree. I dont get mad at a god I do not believe in. What really used to bother me is as you’ve stated above. Other peoples beliefs which are really nothig more than mental illness. If they were presribed the proper medication then they would stop having hallucinations. Sheesh? WTF?
Oh yeah it is MENTAL ILLNESS.
15 January 2006, on 12:21 pm
Why are atheists so angry ? Because theists won’t keep their stupid backward-assed anti-science beliefs to themselves. Theists keep trying to involve everyone else in their damned religions and use a myriad of lies to justify this. Please someone tell me why isn’t it enough for the theists to keep their stupid personal beliefs PERSONAL ?!?
Another reason why atheists are so angry is that theists have seized power (certainly here in the U.S.) and are violating the separation of church and state as specified by the U.S. Constitution. There should be NO mention of anything remotely religious in any government building, legal document, money, oaths, pledges or anything else involving government. While individual members of government can believe whatever crap they like as a whole government should be completely neutral in regards to religion. Also why should religious organizations get a break from paying taxes ?? PAY UP LIKE EVERYONE ELSE !! As it stands now government endorses religion (particularly stupid christianity).
Finally atheists are so angry because the really crazed theists seem to want to destroy the planet with hatred, wars, suffering and death to bring about their absolutely insane end-time scenarios, HOW CRAZY IS THAT ?!?!? These people should be put in straitjackets and thrown in the loony bin to rot.
Suggestion to atheists - get a magic marker and cross out the offensive phrase from every bill of money you get. If enough people does this long enough it will get noticed and send a message to stop involving everyone in what is a very stupid personal belief system.
15 January 2006, on 1:30 pm
I have to agree. Being subjected to dogma that you don’t subscribe to, on a continual basis, can be extremely annoying. I mean, how would Christians feel, if they were the minority in a country of atheists, in which they were seen as lower beings and ridiculed daily?
16 January 2006, on 12:27 am
Isn’t what is happening in our own country analogous to what Iran is proposing? To someone not familiar with the insanity of mankind, they might not see a real difference between the ranting’s of Ahmadinejad and the drivel emanating from George’s oral cavity. It seems quiet probable that the thoughts of these two imbeciles coincide to the point of madness. Obviously their senselessness is predicated on the same biblical wacky predictions. I am afraid the writing is on the wall and they are on the way to accomplishing their self-fulling prophesy. They both profess to be following G–d’s orders and they will end up destroying our civilization just when we are about to reach the singularity.
16 January 2006, on 1:47 am
i’m not an angry, until i start hearing all that self righteous, ridiculous bullshit people call religion.i think if they just kept their stupid notions to themselves we could all live happily, but since it has to spill over into politics and my daily life. no. no. no.
16 January 2006, on 2:33 am
Response to Xian mindless plea: “Why are you so angry?” Answer: “Why aren’t you?”
If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.
16 January 2006, on 12:49 pm
Nice job Bob, now I don’t have to feel guilty for giving a drive by theist only 2 seconds of my patience. …this will be my standard link after I let them have it.
17 January 2006, on 5:44 pm
This is your whole reason for being angry? Are you just as angry at the scientists that have been working for these powers? Wasn’t the bomb created to destroy a theocracy? (Emperor worshipping Japan) Does it not anger you that scientists from the former soviet union (an athist state) have been found selling these lunatics the technology that enables such diabolical planning? Have we forgotton the cold war? Was that not the brink of world wide human extinction? Was that brought about by thiesm? Were the millions of dead in Cambodia not the byproduct of athiesm? Should I hate athiesm then? Should I seek to destroy the mental illness of athiesm after watching athiestic nations such as the USSR, Cambodia, and Red China atempt to systematically destroy thiesm by murder and torture?
No, of course not. I do not judge athiests by the actions of a few lunatics. Please don’t judge me by the acts of a few lunatics that I have never met. We should as a race attempt to keep the lunatics out of power, not become as equally looney and try to blame billions of folk that have NOTHING to do with such lunacy. We need less emotional reaction and more rational action.
17 January 2006, on 10:35 pm
Danny boy,
Why is a theist posting on an atheist site ?? Do you really think you’re going to convert anyone to your idiot beliefs ?? If so then you’re just proving the point that theists (particularly annoying christians) won’t keep their idiot believes to themselves. Why isn’t it enough to keep your foolish personal beliefs *personal* ?? Why constantly try to push your beliefs upon everyone else and continously make up lies to justify pushing this crap ??
ALL people who believe in religion are fools, it’s just some fanatics are downright dangerous. Really believing in an unseen and unproven deity or deities who can somehow simultaneously see and know the actions of 6 billion people on the planet and actually care is so flabbergastingly ludicrous it’s really very hard to fathom. Also a supposedly perfect being wouldn’t create imperfect homo sapiens and a being which created everything would have also created your devil and therefore would be the creator of evil. All religions were created by primitive humans who had little or no understanding of science and no other way to explain the world around them. Having religious belief in the modern technological world of today is absolutely stupid. If you don’t like the stigma of brainwashed stupidity then you should seriously consider the crap you’re believing in instead of trolling on an atheist board which will get you absolutely nowhere.
Here’s you homework for tonight - http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm
17 January 2006, on 10:45 pm
“Why is a theist posting on an atheist site ?? Do you really think you’re going to convert anyone to your idiot beliefs ?? If so then you’re just proving the point that theists (particularly annoying christians) won’t keep their idiot believes to themselves. Why isn’t it enough to keep your foolish personal beliefs *personal* ?? Why constantly try to push your beliefs upon everyone else and continously make up lies to justify pushing this crap ??”
Wow, dude, you need to chill, obviously you never actually read my posts.
You just pushed athiesm back 100 yrs with that rant, do ya realixe that? I am very glad I met a lot of reasonable, thinking people here, cause dude, your not one of em.
17 January 2006, on 11:38 pm
Danny boy,
Yours is a typical theist response in the face of facts and a world view counter to their own ridiculous fantasy crap. As for reading your posts here is a direct quote from you - “I consider myself a serious christian man. I would dare say, I am more “serious” about my faith than most.”
Like it or not if your believe in religion or any other supernatural nonsense then you are a fool. Anyway here are some questions for use Mr. theist:
- What proof do you have of you religion ? Note you cannot say your bible since that is just a book written by primitive humans thousands of years ago and is no more valid than say the Iliad or Odyssey or for that matter Harry Potter.
- How do you reconcile your religion with all the others in the world ? Clearly they can’t all be right and people who believe in the others will say theirs is right just like you do. Of course they can all be wrong and they are, again all religions were made up by primitive humans with little or no scientific understanding.
- Why do religious people want to push their foolish beliefs on other people especially those who clearly ARE NOT INTERESTED ?!?!?
18 January 2006, on 1:48 am
Another question Danny boy,
- Do you honestly believe that all humanity originated from just one couple ??
18 January 2006, on 6:05 am
- What proof do you have of you religion ?
Not here to prove God’s existance
- How do you reconcile your religion with all the others in the world ?
Most religions come down to the same “truths”
- Why do religious people want to push their foolish beliefs on other people especially those who clearly ARE NOT INTERESTED ?!?!?
I didn’t ask you to believe in anything dude.
- Do you honestly believe that all humanity originated from just one couple ??
No I don’t.
Thanks for the challenge, and thanks for PROVING ya don’t read my posts…your questions bore witness to that very fact.
18 January 2006, on 9:11 am
Bob- you rock the roof off, baby. You read my mind.
DAN
“Does it not anger you that scientists from the former soviet union (an athist state) have been found selling these lunatics the technology that enables such diabolical planning?”
Wow. I haven’t heard this fallacy in a long time. Mining the bottom of the barrell, are we?
” I do not judge athiests by the actions of a few lunatics.”
Which is good since you haven’t listed a single atheist act yet.
18 January 2006, on 10:59 am
I think it might be helpful to make a basic (albeit rough) distinction between two types of issues here: political issues having to do with rights and freedoms, and intellectual issues having to do with the “fact of the matter” or integrity of the belief in question.
For the first, I think anyone can easily see the problems and why people can get pissed off: banning birth control, abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, embracing sexism, starting wars, and so on.
But I’m guessing Strawman doesn’t really care if gay people get married, or if a woman wants an abortion; he doesn’t have oppressive attitudes toward women and minorities, and he’d probably give out birth control without any problems. In this sense, I’d agree that he’s indeed “surrounded by idiot-xians,” and I can easily see why he doesn’t want to be grouped in with them.
But the second type of issue is just as important, and can also get annoying, just as it would for someone who constantly tried faith healing instead of medicine, or tried to read me my fortune, my aura, or my astrological chart to see what’s going to happen to me.
And one should also note that Strawman doesn’t really want to get into those types of things. He’s already claimed that he’s not here to justify his belief (or even really say what it is, exactly), to answer our criticisms of beliefs similar to his, to prove the existence of god in any workable way, and so on. While he may defend xianity against the first type of social issues — i.e., not all xians are against gay marriage — he doesn’t want to start the ball rolling for the second. And that’s fine.
But just keep in mind that, on this site, we deal with both types of issues. We deal with both the social consequences of, and the (lack of) reasoning behind, such beliefs, and both things can become just as annoying as anything else. Even though the social stuff is pissing us off (and my kid might not live to see the age of five), we also happen to be generally tired of the fallacies, tired of the threats when we call people on their shit, and tired of the lack of integrity for these beliefs.
Hope this helps.
18 January 2006, on 11:00 am
Danny boy,
You evaded my first and third questions. Your answer to my second question is illogical nonsense since most religions are inconsistent with one another and therefore cannot come down to the same “truths” unless you are referring to the truth that most religions were made up by primitive humans. As for your answer to my fourth question, this shows you are picking and choosing what parts of christianity to believe in as your bible is alledgedly the word of your fantasy deity. I strongly suggest you read this (if you have the courage) - http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm
Two more questions
- You believe in a heaven and hell right ? If so then where are they ? What are their astronomical locations ? Perhaps NASA can have the Hubble Space Telescope take a look.
- Finally, why do you, a theist bother posting on an atheist site ?? What do you possibly hope to gain by this ??
18 January 2006, on 8:06 pm
“Finally, why do you, a theist bother posting on an atheist site ?? What do you possibly hope to gain by this”
Simply better understanding of what athiests believe, and to have some fun. I am not here to tell you what to believe. I also like to people watch, it kinda goes hand in hand with my profession, something I will not talk about here, as folk will say I am flaunting this or that.
“picking and choosing what parts of christianity to believe in as your bible is alledgedly the word of your fantasy deity”
I know a myth when I see one, and I don’t claim the Bible is historically true, but true in other ways.
“You believe in a heaven and hell right ?”
No, I don’t believe in Hell and I have excellent BIBLICAL reasons for that. Heaven? I’m not quite sure what it even is yet. There are more dimensions out there, who knows? It may not Physically exist at all.
18 January 2006, on 9:03 pm
Bob,
That makes sense here, gotchya.
19 January 2006, on 11:22 am
I got onto this website by a simple mistake, was looking for something else, and jumped on this website. I read a few lines and have to leave this one comment to all.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPIDITY!!!
Nobody this stupid should be allowed to walk on 2 legs!!!
At first, I thought it was a few 4th, maybe 5th graders trying to be so cool, then I realized, there is now a website for all the village idiots to converse.
Well, that is 5 minutes of my life wasted
19 January 2006, on 12:01 pm
“There are more dimensions out there” - WHAT ?!?!? Do you actually believe that ?? You do know that the concept of other dimensions is sci-fi/fantasy stuff (basically parallel universes in those genres) though religion IS fantasy albeit very poorly written. What evidence do you have for the existence of other dimensions ?
“[heaven] may not physically exist at all” - no kidding Sherlock or are you actually implying it exists but somehow isn’t composed of subatomic particles ??? You’re not that stupid and deluded or are you ??
This is one of the problems I have with theists and anyone who believes any supernatural crap, you fools keep spouting completely irrational and illogical crap without the slightest bit of concrete and testable evidence to back it up and want to push it on everyone as fact. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. In a way I pity you, you are so deluded and brainwashed. I strongly suggest you unbury your head from the sand and get it out of the bible and trying reading some science books.
19 January 2006, on 1:04 pm
We’re so stupid that Thomas decided to post and tell us so. Hmm. who’s really the stupid one?
19 January 2006, on 6:58 pm
“You do know that the concept of other dimensions is sci-fi/fantasy stuff (basically parallel universes in those genres)”
Ok, I am going to give ya a link.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/
http://www.superstringtheory.com/basics/index.html
http://tena4.vub.ac.be/beyondstringtheory/extradimensions.html
“What evidence do you have for the existence of other dimensions ?”
I gotta know…your not really an atheist are you? Is it possible you are a Xian plant designed to make atheists look bad?
But I will say this, you have proven to me that there is absolutely no way to bridge the gap between Theists and Atheists on the internet. Thank you very much, I need not come to this blog anymore.
I think I will take up the debate with my colleagues, now that I understand the argument a little better
19 January 2006, on 8:17 pm
I see. If the “many worlds” view or multi-dimensional string-theory is the right physics, then that should be taken as supporting God, because God is, what, in one of those?
How many times have we heard this: “Ooh, X is spooky-strange stuff in science. That’s where God is.”
19 January 2006, on 8:20 pm
In all seriousness, I’ve come to believe Dan isn’t really a theist or a Xian — he just thinks he is. But no heaven or hell, likes the Moral Therapeutic Deism, etc. — he doesn’t believe anything much that’s central to Xianity. So, just change the name of what you believe, Dan, Trust me, you’ll feel better. Cleaner.
19 January 2006, on 8:49 pm
Wow! The denial!! Dan didn’t list atheist acts? Your crazy! Do you live in a test tube?
Let’s see…Stalin CONFIRMED atheist. You know what he was like.
Cambodia? Holy shit! let’s read WTF wikipedia says on that issue..
“In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, OUTLAWING ALL RELIGIONS, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread.”(caps mine)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Political_ideology
Need more?
http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/toll.htm
And you say they were not atheists? Some Utopia. I can’t wait till you social deviants get in power..Holy Testicles!
19 January 2006, on 10:30 pm
I’m surprised Danny boy even has a concept of quantum physics. Anyway the extra dimensions in superstring theory are supposedly curled up on the quantum level and of course when he referred to “heaven” being in another dimension he certainly wasn’t talking about theoretical quantum physics. Turning stuff around is another typical ploy of the theists.
Clearly he is quite confused because he’s trying to reconcile religion with science and that’s not just possible in any sane way.
He is right about one thing, there is just no bridging the gap between atheists and theists. The two world views are diametrically opposed, one being based on science, logic, reason and humanity while the other is based on fantasy, superstition, dogma and deities. If the theists would just keep their damned stupid crap to themselves then they generally wouldn’t have to deal with atheists.
19 January 2006, on 10:44 pm
Dark Forces,
Wow!!!!! A “your group is worse than my group” game!!!! Can I play!!!!
http://skeptically.org/enlightenment/id7.html
So there were a few crazy atheists- I’d call that a far stretch from the psycopaths that constantly tout religion.
20 January 2006, on 12:50 am
Oh great Danny boy left only to be replaced by one of his crazed buddies. Out of billions of people clearly there will be a few bad atheists and a few good theists though the tendency is that theists are the crackpots. Just look at dubya dumbass and bInsane laden, they are flip sides of the same flawed coin, both religious fanatic nutjobs. Consider the vile hypocrite priests who molest children and equally vile church bastards who cover their disgusting actions up to protect “the good name of the church” yet will gladly oust a priest for having a normal relationship with a woman. Consider the fact that there are no female priests. Heck the previous dope, I mean pope even said that “women have their place in the church hierarchy” which is an incredibly sexist statement. He also crowed how he never used a computer which is nothing to be proud of in today’s world, frankly it made him sound like a stupid idiot. Consider the hateful ignorant spoutings of the likes of pat robertson and jerry failwell. As a final example who can forget the religious fanaticism of the 9/11 terrorists, killing thousands of people in the insane twisted belief that their fantasy war god would give them a garden with 72 virgins for their crimes.
P.S. Someone who allies themselves with such a group, uses the handle “dark forces” and yammers on about testicles definitely should NOT talk about social deviants.
20 January 2006, on 7:02 am
You had to go back 1000 yrs to find numbers to match what atheists have done in a span of 60 years? Nice try fuckhead. I will take my chances with guys like UBL and GWB over your twisted murderous lot. I didn’t even mention other atheist murderers, such as KIM IL SUNG, and FIDEL CASTRO and MAO TSE-TUNG!!!!!!!!!
A few bad atheists. Show me a good atheist leader….JUST ONE!
20 January 2006, on 8:53 am
So there were a few crazy atheists- I’d call that a far stretch from the psycopaths that constantly tout religion.
Well, I think it’s even worse, because I don’t know how it’s plausible to claim that these leaders did their deeds in the name of atheism. But I think it’s relatively easy, given various holy books, to claim that the bad stuff from religious leaders was indeed done in the name of god or their religion or whatever. This difference is pretty important.
Show me a good atheist leader….JUST ONE!
I think there’s something loaded, or at least assuming, in a question like this. It’s like asking someone, “Show me a good gay leader.” If you’re historically excluded, then the absence doesn’t mean much.
20 January 2006, on 8:55 am
“And you say they were not atheists? Some Utopia. I can’t wait till you social deviants get in power..Holy Testicles! ”
*LOL* I’ve seen this all before. I suppose Hitler was an atheist too.
“You had to go back 1000 yrs to find numbers to match what atheists have done in a span of 60 years? Nice try fuckhead. ”
OH SPARE ME. We get it- you’re a worthless panty waste who apparently doesn’t read the fucking newspapers. That’s ONE example of the death and destruction the religious cause. ONE example. Look around the current world - you dipshits are killing each other in every corner of it. We’ve seen this stupid game before. It’s all been debunked before. I’ve love for the posters at the AN to see this shit, they’d get a big kick out of it.
20 January 2006, on 11:37 am
Dumb dark forces,
“I will take my chances with guys like UBL and GWB”
Tell that to the families of the victims of 9/11, the suicide bombings in Israel, the transit system bombings in Europe and the war in Iraq. Note these are all recent events as was everything I mentioned. The fact that you have closed your eyes to the evil of these men and would gladly ally yourself with such obviously evil fanatical madmen simply because they are religious goes to show that you are quite thoroughly brainwashed.
I *strongly* suggest you read this (if you have the courage) - http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm
Also some questions:
- What proof do you have of your religion ? Note you cannot simply say your bible since that is just a book written by primitive humans thousands of years ago and is no more valid than say the Iliad or Odyssey or for that matter Harry Potter without some proof.
- How do you reconcile your religion with all of the other religions in the world ? Clearly they can’t all be right and people who believe in the others will say theirs is right just like you do. Of course they can all be wrong.
- Do you honestly believe that all humanity originated from just one couple ??
- You believe in a heaven and hell right ? If so then where are they ? What are their astronomical locations ? Note you cannot say “another dimension” or “plane of reality” without providing some evidence for the existence such a thing.
- Do you believe everything written in your bible is fact or do you pick and choose parts to believe ? If you believe your bible is fact as written then how do you reconcile this with known science (e.g. Earth is only ~6000 years old despite carbon-dating of fossils and observation of galaxies millions of light-years away ?) If you pick and choose parts to believe then how do you decide what parts to believe and what parts not to believe ?
- Why do religious people want to push their foolish beliefs on other people especially those who clearly ARE NOT INTERESTED ?!?!?
- Finally, why do you, a theist bother posting on an atheist site ?? What do you possibly hope to gain by this ??
Note: Please give sensible answers without emotion, spin or foul language.
20 January 2006, on 12:13 pm
” I don’t know how it’s plausible to claim that these leaders did their deeds in the name of atheism.”
It isn’t. NOT ONE of those who committed the atrocities Dipshit Forces mentioned did so in the name of atheism. And yet, religious psychos never fail to mention god as the reason for their committing atrocities.
20 January 2006, on 4:50 pm
Dark Forces,
Go back to playing Star Wars games, silly troll.
20 January 2006, on 5:29 pm
E O R
You crack me up. You had no clue what string theory was. Your the one that asked for proof of the possibility of other dimensions. Oh and by the way, your link to the dark bible is nothing new. There was a group in europe that decided that Yawheh was actually Satan and caused a big stir for the church in the 1400’s or 1500’s I think. Any way, it’s nothing new, but thanks for the “enlightment”.
Dark Forces
“I will take my chances with guys like UBL and GWB over your twisted murderous lot”
Huh? Your as crazy as EOR. You both ought to go into a padded room and hate each other to death.
I must be addicted to this stuff
20 January 2006, on 7:10 pm
Danny boy
I thought you were going away, just goes to show you can’t believe anything a theist says. I didn’t mention string theory because I didn’t think a theist would know anything about quantum physics. Current string theory basically says that “strings” are the constituents of all matter and different elementary particles are different vibrations of strings. There’s nothing in string theory or any other scientific theory regarding heaven and hell being in an higher dimension, parallel universe or anything like that. No scientific theory mentions anything from religion. I’ve heard the heaven and hell are in another dimension argument before and the fools saying this definitely aren’t talking about string theory or any other scientific theory but you already know this and again you are working to divert the subject from the fallacies of your beliefs.
20 January 2006, on 7:34 pm
Danny boy,
As for the “dark bible” you completely miss the point which is to illustrate that the christian bible is definitely not a “good book” but is in fact a book written by primitive humans and filled with all manner of immoral and unethical crap. This is definitely not something that people should base their world view upon. The muslim book is even worse than the christian book. Is there any wonder why there is so much unrest in the world today with so many people believing in this insane crap ?
20 January 2006, on 8:55 pm
“There’s nothing in string theory or any other scientific theory regarding heaven and hell being in an higher dimension, parallel universe or anything like that.”
I did not say it did, I said something completely different. I said “I’m not quite sure what it even is yet. There are more dimensions out there, who knows?” In other words…I haven’t a clue. I do not claim to be a know-it-all. How you translated that to mean I claimed science found it in the ______ dimension, I don’t understand at all. You can call it a diversion if you like, it’s your call.
“christian bible is definitely not a “good book” but is in fact a book written by primitive humans and filled with all manner of immoral and unethical crap.”
Yep, it is filled with evil. It is a book of war, from beginning to end. What do you expect? And you also realize that it was written by human hands…this is good. It is filled with archetypes, imagery, and symbols by humans trying to understand their Universe, the unknowable universe. It is about a civilization of humans that began to take a legalistic view of their God, in other words, they were exercising the knowledge of good and evil. Exactly what their first myths warned them about. That is why they failed to understand, and the old testament bears witness to this fact. What do you expect?
If you take this book as literal, then you are a fool. If you examine it in pieces, you are missing the whole war. You expect it all to be literal, thus avoiding the fact it is filled with myths and legends mixed in with some near historical stuff. It is a book of war, the kind of war your mind could never ever understand. In other words, let me illustrate this whole concept with one simple painting.
http://web.rollins.edu/~bbalak/images/the-treachery-of-images.jpg
20 January 2006, on 10:36 pm
Danny boy,
Frankly talking to you is getting quite tiresome, all you do is turn stuff around and talk nonsense. I nor any other atheist takes your stupid bible literally, *you* are as you are the christian, we don’t believe this crap remember ? We just point out that is fantasy and filled with evil hateful crap and that it makes no sense to base one’s world view upon this. Whether you choose to believe only parts of your bible doesn’t negate the fact that it is a cornerstone of christianity. The fact that you admit your bible is filled with myths, legends and evil crap and you still call yourself a christian is incomprehensible to me.
As for me supposedly not understanding war, war is about humans killing other humans plain and simple. If there is a somehow more extreme kind of war then frankly I don’t want to understand it since I’m not into violence and have no desire to harm anyone.
Listen if all you can do is constantly try and turn stuff around as theists usually do then please begone as there is no point in continuing this.
20 January 2006, on 10:42 pm
AMEN!
21 January 2006, on 12:50 am
EoR, I think Dan’s point is that taken metaphorically the bible provides a reflection of the various internal and external struggles people experience the way a work of literature, poetry, artwork, or music might. While I’ve harangued my share of xians on here, Dan is generally one of the easier ones to communicate with. While he and I don’t share the same spiritual beliefs, I wouldn’t lump him in with the same category as Dark Forces, just because DF agreed with him. Furthermore, I can generally see where he’s coming from, point of view wise, a lot easier than most xians. My point, be more an enemy of relgion than an enemy of religious people. You’ll get your point across a lot better.
21 January 2006, on 12:12 pm
KR
Here’s the problem with that, if enough religious people would wake up and stop believing this garbage then religion would ultimately die. Religious people need to be ridiculed and exposed as fools along with their stupid religions.
21 January 2006, on 12:39 pm
“Here’s the problem with that, if enough religious people would wake up and stop believing this garbage then religion would ultimately die. Religious people need to be ridiculed and exposed as fools along with their stupid religions.”
Well, here’s the problem with that: ridicule, especially when it amounts to little more than that, often does nothing more than stregthen and radicalize previously held views. Frankly, you’re taking the Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh approach. You’re making some broad and unrealistic generalizations (”if enough religious people would wake up and stop believing this garbage then religion would ultimately die”) and then jumping down the throat of a dissenting view and demonizing them.
I have friends from all walks of life. My best friend is a Xian. While we don’t see eye to eye on philosophical or spiritual matters (and that is a MAJOR understatement) we take a live and let live approach with each other. Neither of us tries to convince the other through belittlement or ridicule. As an atheist, I’ve been ridiculed by Xians for my beliefs and know that that approach gets you nowhere. Dan’s brand of xianity is not one that hurts anybody. He’s not here telling us we’re all sinners going to hell. He’s not telling us that we should use the bible as a manual of hate. He’s just stating his belief that certain things point him to the existence of god and that the bible gives him a metaphor for the world. Do I share his views? No. Do I feel any need to see him and others like him “ridiculed and exposed as fools along with their stupid religions?” No. Obviously, you do, and if that works for you, cool. I admire your strength of conviction although I disagree with your methods. My main concern is that you’ll reinforce people’s beliefs in xianity or about atheists by demonstrating the anger that the original post is about.
21 January 2006, on 1:16 pm
I have friends from all walks of life. My best friend is a Xian. While we don’t see eye to eye on philosophical or spiritual matters (and that is a MAJOR understatement) we take a live and let live approach with each other. Neither of us tries to convince the other through belittlement or ridicule.
Once again, I think one should make a distinction between intellectual and political matters. Politically, I would never want to block people from going to church, or wearing crosses or t-shirts, or standing on the corner soapbox telling me about how I’m going to hell, or whatever. If you think pluralism, liberty, and self-expression have any value or make any sense at all (and I think they kinda do), then those kind of freedoms tend to follow from that. There are limits, obviously (and we’ve been trying to figure out where those limits might be), but the basic assumption seems to follow.
But, to be clear: sure, the beliefs are stupid. Of course, they’re stupid. And, further, we can show you how they’re stupid. But you don’t have to listen. Of course you don’t. There’s no law that says you have to.
But if you don’t want to listen, that doesn’t mean you’re right, or that you have a point. It just means you don’t want to listen — any more than the person who believes in psychics, or astrology, or whatever. Intellectually, you have one wheel stuck in the sand. And that’s fine. Not a problem for me.
And as long as you don’t hurt anyone else (granting the slippery and difficult nature of that concept), have fun. Go to church. Go nuts. Just leave me alone (for exactly the same political reasons).
21 January 2006, on 3:04 pm
Bob, exactly brudda! My problems with religion generally don’t stem from the idea of a personal relationship with a deity but with attempts to legislate the morality of a particular faith or to impose that faith or it precepts on other people. If someone would rather have a burger than pizza because god told them to, fine. If someone wants to force the teaching of ID, outlaw abortion, or prevent gay marriage, then I have a problem.
21 January 2006, on 4:10 pm
Consider that there are religious nuts out there would gladly make laws against atheists and even resort to violence against and others they perceive as “infidels”. I only want them and their believes to be ridiculed to the point that the majority of people reject them so that humanity will finally move beyond religion. How else do you propose to get rid of this crap ?
Also while it’s true that some religious people are content to keep their dumb beliefs to themselves there are definitely too many who don’t and these people tend to gain power and attempt to push their beliefs on everyone with highly questionable laws and marginalize atheists plus they use religion as a political tool for crowd control and to drum up support for their dubious goals. Religion is one of humanity’s biggest problems, something needs to be done to address this as it isn’t going away by itself despite scientific and technological advancement. If anyone has any other non-violent ideas as to how to decrease religion’s influence on the world then let’s hear them.
21 January 2006, on 6:29 pm
I agree with your last post to the extent that there are many problems with religion. I just don’t believe that ridicule and insults will produce any real positive affects. I also don’t believe the goal of eliminating religion is acheivable. I will leave the merits of the goal to further discussion, but I fear that there will always be a segment of society that needs a sky-daddy to feel important.
22 January 2006, on 5:54 pm
I just don’t believe that ridicule and insults will produce any real positive affects.
Well, in general, sure, obviously.
But, to be fair, the comments were made (1) on a blog, and (2) on a blog called “God is for Suckers.” I’m assuming that EoR doesn’t make these comments when he’s walking down the street or anything — and I don’t think that any of us would be speaking like this at a town meeting.
And, speaking for myself (and maybe Sean — YO SEAN! SHOUT-OUT-MY-BROTHA!), there are definitely times when getting on GiFS and venting is incredibly cathartic — especially when (as a random example, of course) a student tells you that she was brought up with a literal reading of A&E, the garden, and the fall, and about how their parents don’t like to talk about the dinosaurs.
Granted, comments like that don’t deserve to be ridiculed in any political forum. But it’s crazy to think they don’t deserve any ridicule at all. Given what we know (I mean, come on already), stuff like that is just stupid, plain and simple. And it shouldn’t be all that bad to say something about it here. (And, if you can’t come here for stuff like that, where can ya go?)
Does it show intolerance? Maybe. But in cases like that, unless you find yourself embracing relativism, it’s not clear how comments like that deserve that kind of tolerance, i.e., tolerance that makes it seem as though it’s like any other neutral claim about the world. It’s not, and it’s stupid.
I also don’t believe the goal of eliminating religion is acheivable.
Hey, who knows. No one has the crystal ball around here, so I can’t comment on the final outcome.
But, aside from that, I’ve always been somewhat resistant to generally fatalistic, why-even-bother-to-try types of comments about human behavior. And if I really embraced that kind of attitude, I don’t think I would have gotten into education in the first place. So maybe I’m biased. But I have seen some converts, and some pretty radical ones at that. So, who knows. I guess I’ll just keep trying.
22 January 2006, on 8:15 pm
Any other suggestions as to how to diminish religion ??
My reasoning behind ridiculing it is that people generally don’t want to look foolish or stupid and if religion and all of its garbage was ridiculed to the point that it became a stupid belief to the masses at large then maybe it would diminish. Consider if someone said the earth was flat or the earth was the center of the universe today they would be ridiculed so why not ridicule religion which is equally primitive and stupid ? Religion has been given too much special consideration and handled with kid gloves for *much* too long and it’s definitely time for the gloves to come off.
Keep in mind that the theists will *gladly* ridicule and insult atheists at every possible turn and they will continue to try and push their load of crap upon everyone with garbage like “intelligent design”. Heck I remember bush sr. once said that atheists aren’t real Americans ! I’m certainly not advocating making assinine statements like that towards theists, I’m only saying that religion should be shown up as the stupid crap it is and that anyone believing it is stupid for doing so.
22 January 2006, on 11:04 pm
Bob:
I agree that there are PLENTY of parts of religion that deliver ridicule. My point was, and forgive me if it was poorly made, that ridicule won’t work as a serious or realistic antidote to religion.
Also, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive for a world without religion, but I might just be pessimistic.
EoR:
I understand what you’re saying and where you’re coming from. However, I just can’t help but feel that ridicule as a tool will only help to strengthen beliefs. I agree with you wholeheartedly that religion doesn’t hold up under any real scrutiny.
24 January 2006, on 10:30 pm
Here’s more reason why atheists are so angry, at least here in the U.S. we’re sick and tired of stupid religious fundie-bundie bastards ignoring the U.S. Constitution and trying to turn the U.S. into a fascist regime to further their own stupid backward-assed religion and power mad goals.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_20801.shtml
25 January 2006, on 12:17 am
Good link there, EoR. That pretty much sums up my anger.
25 January 2006, on 9:26 am
Thank you so much for that link. Excellent article.
26 January 2006, on 1:29 am
Here’s a very good site though people here may know about it already - http://www.nobeliefs.com/
It is updated with news daily and some of it is political. Of course here in the U.S. religion and politics are unfortunately very much linked because the dumbass megalomaniac religious fanatic running things (into the ground) couldn’t care less about the Constitutional separation of church and state.
Another thing I noticed is there is often news listed there about priest after priest being accused of having molested kids. What’s that about religion providing a “moral center” ?? With “morals” like that and the religious based “morals” of dubya dumbass and binsane laden who needs evil ?
26 January 2006, on 10:24 am
EoR
How can a website declare that no beliefs are needed in life, isn’t that a belief in itself? Isn’t that circular reasoning?
26 January 2006, on 10:32 am
“How can a website declare that no beliefs are needed in life, isn’t that a belief in itself? Isn’t that circular reasoning?”
No, that’s a strawman.
26 January 2006, on 10:37 am
“How can a website declare that no beliefs are needed in life, isn’t that a belief in itself? Isn’t that circular reasoning?”
No living thing on Earth save humans has been shown to have a belief system- there are far more of them than us and they seem pretty content with life.
Duh.
26 January 2006, on 10:54 am
How can a website declare that no beliefs are needed in life, isn’t that a belief in itself? Isn’t that circular reasoning?
Ummm, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think the site is advocating not believing in anything at all (unless it’s specifically set-up that way, I don’t know).
I mean, I’d assume the people who built that site think it’s perfectly fine to have beliefs about water being good to drink, or about music and art and science and knowledge and relationships and humor being good things.
I think they’re advocating the freethinking type of nobelief, i.e., getting rid of all the supernatural and transcendental bullshit.
26 January 2006, on 11:32 am
I guess I misunderstood it then, my bad.
26 January 2006, on 12:02 pm
got to give Dan respect for weathering missteps so well.
26 January 2006, on 12:30 pm
Danny boy,
The link wasn’t for you but since you piped up have you considered giving the site a thorough reading ?? You might learn something.
26 January 2006, on 1:35 pm
EoR
Will do.
28 January 2006, on 9:06 am
[...] Once again, I think we have a good companion to the “Why Are You So Angry?” post… [...]
23 July 2006, on 11:31 am
I just deleted another message from the spam folder that simply said “Why are you so angry?”
I just… I mean… It’s just spam to us at this point.
9 August 2006, on 4:44 pm
5 TonyD
So you’ve read Kurzweil? Cool! I sometimes talk to people about his stuff, but I don’t get a lot of comprehension. It’s pretty disappointing.
9 Dan the Strawman
Does it not anger you that scientists from the former soviet union (an athist state) have been found selling these lunatics the technology that enables such diabolical planning?
It’s been said, but it bears repeating: Communism is a secular religion. Thus, the communists weren’t replacing theism with atheism, they were just engaged in a religious war.
Seriously though, why, after Beslan, after Afghanistan, after Chechnya, why would they help the jihadists?
9 August 2006, on 5:05 pm
24 John
Supposedly:
1) There are gaps in science.
2) God lives there.
The problem for the “god of the gaps” “theory” is a supposedly infinite god has to be confined in those rapidly closing gaps.
So the theist who bounces back and forth between knowing science and faith runs the risk of what happens to any substance that vibrates fast enough.
KA-BOOM!
9 August 2006, on 5:14 pm
30 Dark Forces
Okay, I’ll bite.
Albert Einstein.
Carl Sagan.
Ray Kurzweil.
Stephen Hawking.
Not leaders of nations, true. But giants in their fields.
16 October 2007, on 11:25 am
[...] As a follow-up to my previous post, I found this little ditty from Pharyngula: I’m angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President. [...]
8 May 2008, on 12:03 pm
[...] Uh-Oh By Bob Jeez, all this hostility on this blog. Why are atheists so angry?… [...]