Crewmannumber6: "Athiests stop prosyletizing You're worse than the farkin fundamentalists!"

First of all, we're not prosyletizing. We're arguing in favor of our position. Argument is free speech and you would apparently deny us that right.

Secondly, in order to be as bad as the fundamentalists we'd need a history of bombing abortion clinics, suppressing abortion rights, gay rights and stem cell research, and trying to insert creationism into public science classrooms by way of subterfuge.

Atheists may annoy you because they don't believe what you believe, but that doesn't make them worse than suicide bombers, 9/11 hijackers, pedophile priests, Creationists or pro-lifers and to suggest that it does is extreme hyperbole.

Crewmannumber6: "Believe what you want and extend the same courtesy to others."

Absolutely, which is what we've been doing. Putting up a billboard does not force anyone to become an atheist. Arguing with a Christian on a messageboard does not force him to become an atheist.

People have the right to believe whatever they want. They do not have the right to forbid others from trying to change their mind.

Crewmannumber6: "Like Jefferson said 'I care not whether my neighbor worships no gods or many. For it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.' Live and let live, Jesus!"

This senator believes the world is 6,000 years old. On those grounds she is holding back mining laws meant to protect the environment. Your initial instinct is to dismiss her as a fluke, but there are many more like her and there have been for decades now. The head of the environmental board during the Reagan administration said "We needn't worry ourselves with the state of the climate past 50 years as Jesus is set to return well before then".

There's also the organized effort to deny reproductive control to women, the Mormon campaign (NOM) to deny gays the right to marry, the WEDGE effort to supplant evolution in public schools that was exposed during the Dover trials....

Yet it's the atheists you're mad at, because they're advancing a position you don't agree with and don't want to hear about. If you want to do something productive instead of hurling bricks from the sidelines, you could help us reinforce the wall of separation, repair the quality of science education, secure marriage rights for gays, and reproductive rights for women.

Zamboro: First of all, we're not prosyletizing. We're arguing in favor of our position. Argument is free speech and you would apparently deny us that right.

wharrarbl. It is proselytizing. Why can't you admit it?


Atheists may annoy you because they don't believe what you believe, but that doesn't make them worse than suicide bombers, 9/11 hijackers, pedophile priests, Creationists or pro-lifers and to suggest that it does is extreme hyperbole.

strawman / red herring atheism has had a history of motivated violence and oppression against religion.

just one example, there's about a century of history of anti-theistic violence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union (pops)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism (pops)

And before you even go there saying communism / socialism / marxism isn't atheism, it is a core tenet, and people see it....



strawman / red herrings
- you think no atheists are pedophiles? you think all theists / Catholicism involves pedophelia? Or that religion exploits it? instead of people with a sickness exploiting a system....

- not all theists/deists are creationists. Do you think there are atheists out there with some really batshiat pseudo science?

- you don't think there are atheist pro-lifers? The debate there is about the rights of life, sanctity of life, differing views of when life is created, etc. (pro-choice btw, just citing your red herring)

- stem cell research, involves many of the same debate issues as pro-life, but also includes concerns over scientific ethics and industrialization. Philosophical, social and cultural risks and impacts on society, harvesting of life, etc. The potential of Human "life" as a commodity similar to the organ black market that exists. Seeking alternatives to harvesting, which have been successful and may not have come about without political pressure. I see the value of the research, but I also see the cultural / ethical risks.

http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Philosophy/Ethics/Applied/Science_and_Technology/ (pops)

Yes, there always will be political and social strife, and yes much of it does touch on religious tenets.

But I see what your saying. All the time. Everywhere you can. But you claim you don't proselytize.


/hey - did you ever bother to look into the details on what Helmuth Nyborg said about the data in his tests and the clustering of the hyperintelligent empiricists and dumb, easily indoctrinated, social outcasts? just curious.