US Politics 3

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Scott, Shryke -

If you read the article, it's not called nothing because it's an emergency, it's because congress has completely fucked its orignal bill. It was a bill that taxed TARP recipients' bonuses, then for a while it was called "The Aviation Safety and Investment Act of 2010". Yes, it went to being from about TARP to air traffic. Now it's about education and jobs or somesuch bullshit.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DG,

There are a not insignificant number on the (classical liberal part of the) right who agree with legalizing pot and homosexual marriage.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Thor,

Who's saying they killed in the name of atheism? That said Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot's atheism certianluy didn't keep them from shying away from killing.

[TrueMetis]

Thor,

Who's saying they killed in the name of atheism? That said Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot's atheism certianluy didn't keep them from shying away from killing.

Ya but all atheism is is not believing in a god. So I'm wondering how their atheism is relevant when they killed because of their ideology communism?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Thor,

Unless atheists are more peaceable than theists I don't believe the claim that the belief in God or some form of God is why most organized killing takes place is valid. Atheism may not be why Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot killed, but their atheism certianly didn't prevent them from engaging in large scale killing.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

If following sports has taught me one thing, its that people love to root for underdogs and hate favorites who bitch and moan about the lack of respect they get.

FLoW and Tempra are looking too deeply into the bashing Christians v. Muslims thing.

[Ser Reptitious]

So, er, mcbigski, are you gonna enlighten Scot and myself about your cryptic remarks?

Or are you just gonna ignore us because you apparently didn't get the response you were looking for?

Mcbigski,

I'm also curious about your most recent post. Are you implying building the mosque is "odious speech"? If so how is building the mosque in any way "odious speech"?

[TrueMetis]

Thor,

Unless atheists are more peaceable than theists I don't believe the claim that the belief in God or some form of God is why most organized killing takes place is valid. Atheism may not be why Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot killed, but their atheism certianly didn't prevent them from engaging in large scale killing.

And Christianity didn't stop Hitler from starting the holocaust, in fact it may have had a role. As for atheists being more peaceable, Look at the prison stats. Then look at Dawkins, he's a militant atheist. When religious people become militant they kill people and blow shit up, when atheists do it they become pricks. This is because atheism isn't an ideology it can't be used to justify jack shit.

ETA of course Dawkins is a rationalist.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

You are missing my point. Who among the atheists who surrounded Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot stoped them from engaing in their mass killings? The common theme is killings are done by humans convinced the killings are somehow justified. The manner of justification can be religious or secular. All they need is the justification.

[TrueMetis]

You are missing my point. Who among the atheists who surrounded Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot stoped them from engaing in their mass killings? The common theme is killings are done by humans convinced the killings are somehow justified. The manner of justification can be religious or secular. All they need is the justification.

I think your the one missing the point, atheism can't be used to justify anything one way or the other. An atheist won't think killing is wrong because they're an atheist, they will think it because they are a decent human being. I doubt very many decent human beings were around Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. The justification of what they did wasn't their atheism, as I said that can't be used to justify anything, it was their communism. And your forgetting the minute it was convenient Stalin used religion to support his regime, whether this is true of Mao and Pol Pot I don't know.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Thor,

I never said atheism was used to justify their actions. I said they had secular justifications. My point is that they commited their reapective attrocities despite their atheism. In other words their atheism and the atheism of those around them didn't seem to be much of an inhibition against attrocities.

BTW, Stalin didn't make nice with the church until he needed them during WWII. He'd already racked up quite the body count while systematically oppressing the Russian church.

[LindaElane]

Goodness gracious.

Millions of people were killed because they believe in God instead of being atheists.

How disingenuous to claim that atheists are no responsible for killings over religion.

Maybe someday we will have a monarchy run by atheists and we can see if the religious still die (they will) but until the....oh well....blame it on the commies, those dreadful murders :)

[Nymeria Sand]

It's not just here. But ask yourself how often have you seen anyone here on the left mention anti-Christian bigotry, or say that people should stop stereotyping Christians? I can't ever recall it. If it happens, it's rare. It really struck me in the thread about Mormons. I'm not mormon, but damn, that was some serious hostility directed at an entire religion. And when a couple of us said that these overt generalizations weren't fair, we were blasted.

Most of us were raised Christian, FLOW. Are we not allowed to criticize our own faith? As someone who is only marginally Christian, I've been on the receiving end of the so-called Christians and their bigotry. If you don't believe exactly as they do, you're a godless heathen and are going to burn in Hell for all eternity.

Sorry, but IMO they deserve all the bashing they get.

On the other hand, from the exact same side of the spectrum, complaints about anti-moslem bigotry are not at all uncommon. They're replete in the mosque debate, where the alleged anti-moslem bias is only being inferred. The double-standard is bizarre.

No it isn't.

Can you give me one example of this from the board? If lefties are more willing to accept criticism of their religion and not accept criticism of another, could it be because they're more tolerant of other points of view, and you can't deny that's seriously lacking in the fundies. Hell, to them, even Catholics aren't Christian, never mind the Mormons. I don't think you'd find many people on the left who cared one whit that Romney was a Mormon. The right--his own party--cost him his candidacy, not the left.

That's fine. And people quote the bible for all sorts of stupid things. But somehow, I'm guessing that a litany of quotes from the Koran and particularly the hadith wouldn't go over as well.

I have never heard anyone quote the Koran or the hadith.

There are some generalizations that are true, although it still isn't right to judge individuals via those generalizations.

Well, FLOW, the fundies are great at acting as judge, jury, and executioner, especially in situations they know absolutely nothing about.

A moslem family lived next door to where we used to live -- arranged marriage as well. A few winters ago around Christmas, we got two feet of snow, and they had 4 little kids, none older than 10, trying to shovel their driveway. I'd just gotten a new snowblower, so I did their driveway as well as that of another neighbor who was out of town. The next day, which I think was Christmas Eve, one of the little girls brought over cookies they had baked. Probably the most "Christmas spirit" thing I can recall in years, and that little gesture really made Christmas in our house.

Unfortunately, the father was an unfriendly prick, and he put the clamps down on the whole bunch of them. My wife was friends with the mom, but the mom said she wasn't allowed to talk anymore between yards, etc. I know there are moslem men who aren't like that, but that attitude unfortunately is a lot more prevalent than you'd like to see.

Yes it is, and that's unfortunate. Although my father, who was and still is a sexist jerk, was the same. A southern Christian. My mother wasn't allowed to speak to the neighbors unless he gave her permission to do so.

Thor,

Unless atheists are more peaceable than theists I don't believe the claim that the belief in God or some form of God is why most organized killing takes place is valid. Atheism may not be why Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot killed, but their atheism certianly didn't prevent them from engaging in large scale killing.

Neither did belief in any God.

[awesome possum]

I think it is disingenuous to blame atheism. In the case of Stalin, he didn't kill or suppress his people because they weren't atheist. He did it because the church represented a power that might threaten or rival his. Didn't matter if it was a Christian church, a Muslim mosque, a Jewish temple, a Rastafarian hemp-house, or a Cthulhuan orgy-center. It was a religious institution that threatened his power.

The point I believe Thor is trying to make is that no one has ever committed mass-murder in the name of atheism. There may have been some crackpots and loons who have killed in the name of atheism, but you won't find anything on even remotely the scale of the major religions.

[TrueMetis]

Thor,

I never said atheism was used to justify their actions. I said they had secular justifications. My point is that they commited their reapective attrocities despite their atheism. In other words their atheism and the atheism of those around them didn't seem to be much of an inhibition against attrocities.

BTW, Stalin didn't make nice with the church until he needed them during WWII. He'd already racked up quite the body count while systematically oppressing the Russian church.

Well why would it be? As I've said all atheism is is a non-belief in gods. It had no affect on what it does, in the end it has no effect on what anyone does. It's there ideologies that cause people to do things, not their belief or lack of belief in a god. To lay the cause of whether someone did someone based on their belief or lack of belief is stupid. Theism and Atheism are just whether you believe or do not believe in a god, it is the ideologies that accompany them that cause them to do things. Saying atheists are responsible for these atrocities is like saying theists are responsible, it wasn't the responsibility falls upon there ideology, their Christianity, Judaism, Rationalism, Communism, etc. Calling them atheist tragedies would be like calling something an agnostic tragedy. It doesn't make any sense.

Look at Dawkins, his beef with religion isn't because he's an atheist, it's because he's rationalist.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Nymeria,

That depends on the individual. Same as with atheism. The key is individuals will disagree what is justified and what is not.

Ser Poss.,

I'm not saying Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot killed in the "name of atheism". I'm saying they killed despite it just like theists killed despite their religious beliefs and occasianly because of it.

[BloodRider]

The point is that criticism of Christianity is far more acceptable despite the grossly disproportionate terrorism actions engaged in by moslems. People talk about Fred Phelps. Okay, clearly a nut job. But the fact that he's the one guy who is always mentioned tells you how incredibly rare his POV is. And as much of a scumbag as he is, he's still not sponsoring suicide bombers and other civilian murders. You've got a couple of abortion-bombing freaks, but again, those are incredibly rare occurances. Compared to the violence committed in the name of islam, it's a drop in the bucket.

Does that mean that all moslems are terrorists, or support terrorists? Of course not. But as false as that generalization would be, it is exponentially even more false when applied to Christians. And in terms of tolerance, etc., Christianity in general has it all over islam at this point in history. And yet, I think it's quite evident that criticism of Christianity is far more acceptable among much of the left than criticism of islam. Or am I the only one that remembers the discussion about Mormons in that other thread. There'd be outrage here if you applied even a smattering of the generalizations against Mormons in that thread to moslems.

Imagine if moslems were described in threads here as "Koran Thumpers", compared to the perfectly acceptable "bible thumpers" label applied to Christians. Can you imagine the reaction? Bill Maher makes "Religulous", which is overwhelmingly a bash on Christians/Christianity and Judaism, and barely touches islam. A big hit for lefties -- why is that? And if someone comes out with an equivalent movie pointing out the freaks in islam, they'd be tagged as a racist/religious bigot.

Does it ever bother you that your worldview has no internal consistency? At least I get a laugh out of the irony here. I mean you clearly associate Islam with terrorism. When your whole thesis of the post is that Muslims deserve criticism they get because.... Well because apparently Islam of FLoWs mind is made up of terrorists.

Then in the same breath you say that the Christian fundies are not really representative of the group. A standard tactic of yours, to be sure. No one is ever guilty by association - save those terrible loathesome others.

Finally - you keep saying that the left loves fundies if they are Muslim. Yet I see no proof of this. Even though you have been repeatedly asked to back up your slander. Not for nothin' though. I am sure the likes of "Everybody Draw Mohammed" and "Boobquake" were right out of the Fox News belief tank.

[Nymeria Sand]

Nymeria,

That depends on the individual. Same as with atheism. The key is individuals will disagree what is justified and what is not.

Well, as Thor said, no one has committed mass atrocities in the name of atheism. In fact, I know several atheists and they're better Christians than people who go to church regularly. Going to church once a week doesn't absolve you from being an ass the other six days as they seem to think. But we've seen plenty of examples of people willing to kill in the name of God, Allah, Yahweh.

If anything, this just goes to show that our "moral compass" doesn't come from religion, despite the right's insistence that the reason the country has gone to hell in a handbasket is because no one goes to church anymore.

[Nymeria Sand]

Does it ever bother you that your worldview has no internal consistency? At least I get a laugh out of the irony here. I mean you clearly associate Islam with terrorism. When your whole thesis of the post is that Muslims deserve criticism they get because.... Well because apparently Islam of FLoWs mind is made up of terrorists.

Yes, meanwhile, who blew up the building in Oklahoma City? Abortion clinics?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Nymeria,

Well it must be nice to be so morally superior. I make no claim to have cornered the maket on truth. I simply believe what I believe. I have no desire to force my beleifs on anyone else.