Comments on: Atheists, Secularists, Liberals, Darwinists

By: Hani Obaid

Hani Obaid — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:15:58 +0000

Sorry for the late comment.

I’m an atheist myself, and I happen to agree with Craig in that the poster negatively emphasizes Christians evangilism.

I also am not sure how Craig characterised Bam-bam as a militant in your face atheist and decided that atheist propoganda exceeds Christian evangelism even on the internet.

An old teacher of mine was trying to prove that in the west, women have become dominant, and that male power was a myth. One trick was to do a computerised search the on the largest public library in the country for
several words representing men and women. Inevitably the conclusion was that there was far more literature ever written about women and women’s issues.

Of course what he missed was that this does not mean people are more interested in women’s rights, but rather that it is women’s rights that are often lacking and requiring action. Yet the method has some merit, so I will apply it to test Craig’s claim.

Google Jesus – 104 million results
Google Atheist – 2.4 million result
A ratio of 43:1, that is 43 times more mentions of jesus than atheist.

So I’d say Craig was mistaken, at least 40 times mistaken. Moreover characterising anyone who disagrees with your religion and doesn’t keep it to themselves as a bigot is rediculous. What happened to exchange of ideas ? Who put it on mute ?

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 02:28:47 +0000

Bambam, your opinions about Christians are very ignorant. I suggest you keep them to yourself. But it’s your call. If you like to sound like somebody who plays an exan expert on issues he has no real knowledge of, it’s up to you. I won’t e interacting with you any further. I said what I have to say, and I could have a more enlightening conversation with my cat.

By: bambam

bambam — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:45:57 +0000

tololy whenver things start getting on you nerves because of my comments please tell me and i’ll stop, but so far i find this too amusing…

Craig you are my stereotype and you are proving that it requires little revision when speaking in the general sense.

You claim to be a liberal and secularist and regardless of micromanaging its stances, the ACLU did the most to further those 2 ideals and is worthy of admiration, but you as i expected see it as a socialist and leftist (translates to dispicable in your language).

moving on, chrsitians common message is love. practically i view all chrisitans in the same light, but christians don’t view other christians in that light (think of mormons, protestants,JW, eastern orthodox, evangelicals, catholic and all the hate they spew at each other and how they discredit all other denominations)

OK i’ll go with the flow of the old testemant is not part of christianity, so i guess its inclusion in the bible is a clerical error, so why do you follow the ten comandments ? I guess we should scratch that out of the church’s teaching according to your reasoning. I mentioned it since if you believe in evolution that would disable a big chunk of your belief, unless you go about twisting and mangling "god’s word"

I don’t need to confirm to any label to please your whims, and i don’t shove my belief in your face that is exactly what you are doing (actually not just yours but a whole bunch of beliefs, athiest muslim judeisim & christianity) but alas you are too oblivious to know the difference

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:11:39 +0000

bambam,

ok craig; I got a kick out of you saying you are all of those and still a christian (and it got kicked up another notch when u added libartarian)

But I am a secularits, a firm believer in the validity of evolution, and a libertarian.

And I’m a Christian.

Let me ask you, when you have an invalid and offensive stereotype of Christians, whose fault is it? Yours, or mine?

how
the christians view the ACLU, other moderate moderate christians
(united methodists comes to mind)

What does the ACLU have to do with anything? The ACLU is a front group for socialsist and leftists.

Your comment about how "Christians" view "moderate" Christians is mind boggling. Do you not consider Methodists to be Christian? Are you critcizing Methodists for how they view themselves? I don’t have anywhere to plug that in. Does not compute. You assume anyone who admits to being Christian is a right wing evangelical? And then you accuse Christains of being hypocritical towards Christians for viewing Christians poorl? Or something?

 the book of genesis ? 

The book of Genesis is in the Old Testament. That’s Judaism. Christianity is in the New Testament.

By the way, Muslims also believe in the book of Genesis, do they not?

Oh, wait, this is the part where you tell me it’s part of Judaism. Right?

so … can you
see what i see as hypocritical ? 

Nope. What I see, is you slinging a bunhc of offensive stereotypes.

think not. when you drive your belief
in the public sphere you better expect the same from others.

No idea what this means. But this topic was about Christians, and as far as I can see I’m the only Christian commenting. So, why are you shoving YOUR beliefs and your religious bigotry on me?

For
the record am a muslim (my ID card says so:P) from the middle east …
now how accurate does the label fit i would think it fits me slightly
better than a western athiest dontcha think 

So, you aren’t an atheist? But everything you know about Christians, comes from Western Atheists?

Why don’t you just come out of the closet and admit to being a Muslim who has a very low opinion of Christians? Is that too much work for you?

By: bambam

bambam — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:51:03 +0000

hey tololy thanks for sharing, and the last line was mint ! " I do hope that this clears my stand on
Christianity, and if it doesn’t let it be known that I think the same of all
religions; that they are systems created by visionary men and built to control society in the hopes of
making it better and yet, all have made it a lot worse at one point or the
other." in the end religion is a matter that you have little choice in. You certainly confuse me when it comes to your religious views…

ok craig; I got a kick out of you saying you are all of those and still a christian (and it got kicked up another notch when u added libartarian)
how the christians view the ACLU, other moderate moderate christians (united methodists comes to mind) , the book of genesis ? so … can you see what i see as hypocritical ? think not. when you drive your belief in the public sphere you better expect the same from others.

For the record am a muslim (my ID card says so:P) from the middle east … now how accurate does the label fit i would think it fits me slightly better than a western athiest dontcha think

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:53:04 +0000

Hi Tololy, thanks for giving us your opinion.

atheists,
secularists, liberals, and Darwinists

That was my original point. All of those apply to me, except the "atheist" one. And yet I am a Christian. That poster is not how Christians see themselves. It’s how western atheists see Christians. It’s a parody. That’s why bambam gets such a kick out of it, and why I’m so offended by it. I’m suprised you don’t understand this, it seems pretty blatant to me. Perhaps you haven’t spent much time around western atheists. I grew up with them. In my view, there isn’t anybody more obnoxious than a militant atheist. They seem to believe it’s their mission in life to destroy other people’s faith. I don’t really care what people choose to believe, but I’d prefer it if they keep it to themselevs when they aren’t around like minded folks.

By: Tololy

Tololy — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:54:43 +0000

Let’s
all relax so we can better discuss this. I propose a cyber group hug.

Craig, I do not know how exactly you guessed that Bambam was atheist. I
wouldn’t have guessed it myself based on the comments posted here and I
generally try not to guess people’s beliefs because it is tricky business that
does not interest me much, at least most of the time.

I think the comments posted here were misunderstood as attacks when they were
merely an expression of opinion, and that goes for both Craig’s and Bambam’s input.
I read them time and again and I didn’t really feel any intentional hostility
in the beginning, until there was a misunderstanding and hostility started to
surface.

At any rate, I promised I would share my own opinion and I am mostly a woman of
my word, so here goes:

When I first saw the poster I was in a ticklish state of shock. "Do people
still use these ridiculous methods to advertise faith?" – that’s what I
asked myself. I personally believe that faith or the lack thereof is an
extremely personal matter that should not be commercialized and tossed around
and fought over like it is nowadays and like it has been for centuries in most
parts of the world.

I am of the opinion that holds that heaven and hell are subjective terms
conditioned by a person’s perception of these terms. Therefore, I think that
religious propaganda promising heaven or threatening with Eternal Fire is
outrageously childish and yet quite popular because it is easy to understand.
Exactly like McDonalds and Britney Spears and T-shirts. I do not buy it (but I do
buy McDonald’s and T-shirts, Spears not so much).

I think each one of us lives according to certain rules and limitations that
set that person in a cage; be these limitations religious rules or the lack of
these rules and semi-complete liberation. So I do not see how atheists,
secularists, liberals, and Darwinists are a threat to society and how they are
"unclean." They are no different than religious people and
creationists who also live according to their own set of rules. It depends how
you choose to look at the issue.

Personally, I would not care if a person worshipped a virus as long as they do
not interfere with my individuality and personal liberties. So I really am
against this whole "the other is bad, we are good" argument unless
there is this intrusion and invasion that I just mentioned. Anyone who tries to
cage me into subscribing to their system of faith will not be happy with the
results, and I don’t care if they’re god fearing or godless.

I
had wanted to crop that last sentence from the poster, the one about Jesus,
because I have nothing against the man or against Christianity and I did not
wish to be misunderstood. I published the poster only because it struck me as a
blunt, yet ludicrous, piece of religious psychological manipulation crossed
with some marketing and graphic design. I do hope that this clears my stand on
Christianity, and if it doesn’t let it be known that I think the same of all
religions; that they are systems created by visionary men and built to control society in the hopes of
making it better and yet, all have made it a lot worse at one point or the
other.

I hope this was a satisfying piece of my mind, feel free to leave your own.

By: Both Sides Now « Made in Jordan

Both Sides Now « Made in Jordan — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:53:05 +0000

[...] One of the most precious values that Jordan has taught me, is to cherish uncertainty and doubt as a birthright. I realize that the lyrics, or even Mitchell’s score has little to do with uncertainty, but that’s how I relate to the song. Uncertainty, doubt, skepticism and cynicism have all taught me to not only take whatever judgment or statement handed to me with a grain of salt, but to actually question issues and topics, that have long been dismissed on the shelf of taboo. I’m not saying that I want to convert our fairly conservative society into a bunch of existentialist enthusiasts. But I’d like to see people taking a moment before dropping any judgments, and look at both sides of everything. [...]

By: bambam

bambam — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:19:33 +0000

and thanks tololy, you promised us ur take on which is why i keep checking back here

By: bambam

bambam — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:17:12 +0000

man I was not even trying anything there, i didn’t even put my gloves on and i won’t since it is not my own space.
how the hell you find it offensive to christians is just as baffling as the way you consider me a bigot and an athiest.
go be jolly in your little bubble since i wouldn’t want to burst it for u