I'm breaking the rules here. The religion hosts just locked a thread and I think that is bullshit.

[Warren Stupidity]

This: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=170234

The thread about Satan and God. An OP that was attacked by the self appointed forum hall monitor as flame bait. The religion hosts locked that thread? Seriously?

[cleanhippie]

1. What. The. Fuck.

Not on-topic?


Wow, just wow.

[Heddi]

2. Well it *was* divisive. And we know how often they lock threads that are divisive

especially threads that are flame-bait about Atheists. Those are locked before they're even posted, even.

SO STOP SAYING THEY'RE BIASED

[Curmudgeoness]

3. I am confused.

Seems to me that every post in that group is divisive. What makes this one worse than the rest of them???

[Warren Stupidity]

4. I'd like confirmation from each host that they agreed to lock that thread.

I'm going to guess that unanimity didn't happen.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. Don't hold your breath.

The wrong person gets their ass handed to them, and they decided to lock? (Wrong person = not an atheist?)

[Warren Stupidity]

8. There is already confirmation that longship did not participate.

[jeff47]

5. Confronting the horrors in the Bible are quite difficult to modern believers.

Back in the bronze age, the atrocities committed by God in the bible are closer to everyday occurrences. So they weren't nearly as "bad" to them.

Today, the atrocities are (at least supposed to be) rare. That requires people to ask pesky questions like, "Why'd he have to torture his own son to death? He's god. If he wanted to absolve sin, he could just will it"

When confronted with that contrast between their religion and their beliefs, "Shut up and go away" is the most common response.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. OMG! Stop being logical.

Don't you know the rules?

[Heddi]

10. HOSTS LOCK THIS THREAD FOR DIVISVE

THIS IS TOo DIVSEVE. NOT CONDACTIVE TO CONVERSASHUN!

[Warren Stupidity]

15. I POLOGIZE FOR SOMETHING I MAY AHVE DON@!

[Heddi]

17. Warren, I want to let you know

[AtheistCrusader]

23. POSTIN IN AN ALL CAPS THREAD

NEVER STOP POSTING

[Heddi]

11. Pinto did the right thing and unlocked the thread

I still agree, though, that a discussion should be had about this, the role of hosts, and why they should and shouldn't lock threads.

We were assured, when these hosts were voted on each time, that there would be no need for fear from Atheists, that despite the close relationship that, well, all of those hosts have with certain posters, that there would be no preferential treatment to certain posters, their belief status, or topics regarding belief.

We now see that was, in fact, a lie. There is much basis in our trepidation of certain people being hosts and their overly chummy relationship with some posters, and outwardly hostile attitude towards others. The bias is there, and this was a clear example of certain posters being given protection by the hosts when the heat gets too hot. Meanwhile, posters who frequent both A/A and religion are left with their proverbial dicks hanging in the wind when shit gets hot, and we have no protection. no locked threads. no finger wagging.

We knew that, and everyone was surprised and frankly OFFENDED when it was brought up. Now there's proof, adn everyone is still surprised and frankly OFFENDED when it's brought up again

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Yes and that was a stand up thing to do.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Or not.

[JDDavis]

13. I'm so happy that I miss half this stuff because

I seldom go to a place like that, filled with hypocrisy and a few posts by other believers that seem okay with the contradictions within their very own faith.

I got the basic message with a couple hours of reviewing that forum back a month or so ago. They defend the right to believe, they post 10-20 threads a day about atheism, they avoid all direct questions about their thinking process and the lack of logic therein.

I browse to see if Pope Frank said something somewhere, or if some one of hundreds of big business protestant TV heroes did something special in the last week...not to read pages and pages of garbage from former clerics, current clerics, students of clerics, followers of the history of "religion", (Christianity, 99% of the time). I just don't do well when people argue about stuff that could never have happened and was in the minds of their 28th great grandfathers.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. You are very astute.

Your description of that group is right on the money.....I especially like the comment "they post 10-20 threads a day about atheism", which I have always found hilarious. Such an obsession....or flamebait. I am never sure which.

[Rob H.]

18. I hope some of the hosts over there

have a better understanding of why some posters think that group would be better off with no hosts at all, but probably not.

[DetlefK]

19. Frankly, I didn't expect that shitstorm when posting this OP.

I had skimmed an article about a republican saying, that if a nativity-scene gets taken down each time for the night, Satan will win. So, I wondered: How bad is Satan really? What bad things has he done, according to christian scripture?

I only know 3 instances of him showing up:
- He may or may not be the snake in the Garden of Eden. (depends on literary viewpoint)
- He teases God into testing Job's strength of belief.
- He challenges Jesus to a duel of religious arguments and Jesus weasels his way out with evasive non-answers.

All of this doesn't seem so bad to me, so I made that OP, asking for the most evil thing Satan has ever done according to scripture. For good measure, I half-jokingly mentioned some bad things that come up in the Bible, without mentioning who did them.
I figured, I would get maybe 5-10 responses, maybe 2 additional chapters in the Bible, that's it.

Wrong.

First, I got the usual atheist and anti-republican jokes.

Then some theists got their panties in a twist and alleged that I wasn't REALLY interested in being provided with literary knowledge about the Bible. No. That question was just an excuse to mention bad things God did and to claim that there is no real difference between Satan and God.

It took some time, but I finally got an answer:
Satan's biggest crime is being in opposition to God. (As Mephisto said in Goethe's "Faust": "Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint.", "I am the spirit who always negates.&quot And actively resisting God is obviously the biggest no-no imaginable.

And then, finally, some real discussion got going.
For example, I didn't know that Satanists explicitly regard God as a malevolent, violent liar and Satan as an oppressed, badmouthed Prometheus-like enlightenment-figure.

(Wow, it just came to my mind that the part with Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac would fit perfectly in a "Saw"-movie. Why is Moses getting all the movies? Why no movies about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?)

[Goblinmonger]

20. I was shocked it went the way it did.

And it was uncalled for the way you were jumped on by one poster and then the cronies hopped on, too.

For my part, I'm sorry I jumped on and added to the derailment but I couldn't just let that BS stand.

I think it is an interesting discussion that believers have to have thought of at some point.

[onager]

21. Yep, that was an epic...something.

I just read thru the main thread and all the other threads related to the locking/unlocking imbroglio. Jebus! It reminded me once again of why I don't participate much in that group any more.

Everything follows a depressingly similar pattern. And we saw it played out again in the derails you mention. Complete with the usual enlightening sermonettes from She Who Must Be Obeyed and her buddy, Amen Charlene.

Put me in the group who calls BS on claims of ignorance about certain religious subjects. Especially from a preacher's daughter. I know Southern Baptists are considered ignorant Fundamentalist Assholes by some of the enlightened Lib'rul Xians over there. But that discussion was stuff we SoBs learned in our first Sunday School classes. Not even Xianity 101 - more like Kindergarten Xianity.

My own derail - religious angle aside, the whole Garden Of Eden story can be seen as we humans doing one of the things we do best: pining for a wonderful, glorious past that never existed.

In this case, our ancestors were moving from a nomadic hunter/gatherer society to a more settled agricultural society. Everybody forgot the danger and hardship of the old days - they suddenly looked a lot better than the backbreaking work of planting and harvesting.

We went thru the same thing during the Industrial Revolution. Compared to 18/6 labor in a mill or coal mine, farming looked pretty good in hindsight.

Irony Meter Breakage - for a living example of this fake nostalgia, visit Deerfield Village in Michigan. It's a living, frozen-in-time homage to the good old days of rural American life. Created and built by the man who did the most to destroy that way of life - Henry Ford.

[Heddi]

24. That's the silly part

I did NOT grow up with a pastor as a father
I did NOT grow up in a parsonage
I was NOT steeped in the church from birth until...?

I went to a united methodist church on Sundays starting at about age 8 or 9 or maybe earlier or later, I don't know. My family was generally irreligious, Christian but not a lot of Jesus talk. CHurch was a social thing, and I stopped going to church around age 14 or so, maybe earlier, maybe not. I don't know.

And despite NOT having a pastor and world-renowned theologian as a father, and despite NOT growing up in a parsonage, and despite NOT living in a religious household and despite church being mainly a SOCIAL thing, I knew who Satan was from an early age. He was talked about in Church. He was talked about in Sunday School. He was not as much a part of Church as Jesus and God were, but he was there---the dastardly foil to all of God's Good Graces.

So to say that yeah, my dad is a world renowned theologian author speaker preacher, and I lived in a parsonage and I grew up in church my whole youth and my family was very religious but Satan...how do you pronounce that? Is he someone I should know? Is that the guy that was just promoted to manager at the Qdoba down the street?????

Its disingenuous historical revision at its best and outright lies at its worst.

Whatever it is, it's 100% pure bullshit.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. You were attacked per a template of disruption that has been followed meticulously whenever

certain posters encounter new people in said folder.

The tired use of it on people like you is starting to vex me. The pattern is obvious and easy to demonstrate. I am collecting a body of evidence for handy presentation to future juries.