Feel the love :

[beam me up scottie]

Post in a thread about freepers :

These people obviously do not believe in God.
There is no way that this could be called "a Christian act."

I've seen quite a few others like this.
It's really starting to piss me off. :mad:

[Modem Butterfly]

1. Where's this thread anyway?

[beam me up scottie]

2. Here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4365017

I'm still on probation so I have to behave.

[Modem Butterfly]

3. That post makes me so mad I can't see straight right now

I've responded and hit alert.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Thanks.

I thought maybe it was just me.
I've had a rage-on ever since I read it.

[Modem Butterfly]

8. A rage-on.

That's FUNNY!

:evilgrin:

[beam me up scottie]

11. I tried to walk away.

But the pissed-offedness stayed with me.

[beam me up scottie]

7. This might cheer you up:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=11286&mesg_id=11396

[trotsky]

4. Nice.

Silly bmus! When confronted with Xians doing bad things, well obviously they aren't real Xians! Don't you know this by now?

[beam me up scottie]

6. I was SO ANGRY

when I read that.:nuke:

Those comments were all over the place last night.
I'm proud of myself just for not getting ts'd.

[onager]

9. DAMMIT! Here's my contribution...

...to the post about "This person could not believe in God." I was responding to MB and Trotsky's posts:

SUBJ: Remember, we atheists can't be patriots or citizens!

Poopy Bu$h said so, back in 1988. Atheists can't be patriots and shouldn't be citizens.

Odd to see a DU'er agreeing with him, though. Isn't it?

[beam me up scottie]

10. You inspired me to reply.

I never could keep my mouth shut.

[Book Lover]

12. Argh!

Not going to reply ... not going to reply ... can't sleep, christians will eat me ... (well, obviously they wouldn't then be *real* christians, right? Somehow with each sin they commit, they will lose their christian status; their belief that Jesus was divine will just melt away.)

[beam me up scottie]

13. I'd been trying to ignore those

inferences all night and day.
But that one did it for me too.:freak:

[YankeyMCC]

14. Reply to BMUS

Hey...I thought it best to reply here instead of on that original thread in GD.

I posted something essentially saying the OP gave offense to me but that I would give them the benefit of doubt that that was not his or her direct intent. BMUS replied and made the valid point that such ignorance of offense would not be forgiven if offense was given against other groups.

BMUS you're right and I share you offense and frustration. I just remember that there is a difference between an active bigot and ignorance. In some ways the sort of ignorance that leds to the sort of insidious prejudice or insensitivity in that OP is worse but in most ways it's just being human.

You can only lead people where they are ready to be lead to. If you try and move them to far in one step it wont work.

That isn't to say atheist shouldn't speak up at these sorts of offensive. Maybe DU members should be ready to take the step of being as aware of this sort of ignorance as they are for similar comments that would be offensive to women or minority groups. I don't know. :shrug: But if the people who have responded to the atheist objections are representative then perhaps not.

My response certainly wasn't intended to say the stronger atheist reactions should not have been said. I just wanted everyone else reading that thread to take the lesson and maybe move them a little closer to understanding. And I hoped my post would help highlight that lesson.

[beam me up scottie]

15. No, I agree with you.

I didn't think you meant that we shouldn't speak up.
I just wanted to clarify for any jesus-come-lately's that we aren't a bunch of over-sensitive girly-atheists.

I read all of their comments on this last night and this morning ad nauseum and I bit my tongue because people were angry and I tried to be understanding.

But that kind of outright bigotry needs to be brought into the light.

To be honest, this whole feeding frenzy sickens me.
DUers have advocated all kinds of violence against this guy and any freepers who show up.
They are discussing what kinds of guns they are going to bring with them when they join Cindy.
We are becoming what we hate in our enemies.


I hate going into GD. I never leave there feeling good about being part of DU.

Much safer in here with you guys.:hug:

[Bill McBlueState]

16. you guys are good, though

Immediately after that post, there are four replies, each from a unique member of the A&A usual suspects. I showed up late to the defense and could only get a few words in further down-thread. :evilfrown:

[beam me up scottie]

17. It's brutal out there.

If they corner you, you're finished.:scared:

I needed to find out if I was the only one whose blood pressure went through the roof when I read that.
I was tired and cranky and wasn't sure if I was "pre-offended".

This time I didn't get myself in trouble because I had back-up.:evilgrin:

[Modem Butterfly]

18. Tell me about it. Some very vicious flames are coming my way

Good thing I'm an atheist. Yikes!

[beam me up scottie]

19. Well,

we do have an image to uphold...

Got your asbestos underwear on?:evilgrin:

[Modem Butterfly]

20. Always!

Anyway, it's still not as bad as refusing to say the words "under God" during the Pledge of Allegance in Mrs. Lee's 6th Grade Language Arts class...

[beam me up scottie]

21. Right! Or refusing to go to church

in Marine Corps boot camp.

owie

[Modem Butterfly]

22. My partner was Army, he said his drills used to call it..

"The magic show"

[trotsky]

23. This is still pissing me off.

I alerted on that post (the one you directly pointed out) right away, several of people commented on it, and yet:

1) The post remains.

2) The person who wrote it didn't directly address ANY of the people who took offense, but instead agreed with someone who tried to guess at what they "really" meant.

As others have pointed out, imagine if that sentence had been written in some other way or in some other context:

"These people obviously believe in the vengeful Christian god."

"These people are obviously Jews."

"These people are obviously homosexuals."

Not only would it have been deleted, it probably would have garnered a warning for bigotry. But no, we don't even warrant a direct apology from the person who wrote it.

[beam me up scottie]

24. Me too.

I couldn't ignore it.
I know we're supposed to pick our battles and all but that post went WAY over the line.

If it was a misunderstanding it should have been rectified.
FSM knows I've had to apologize enough times.

[Modem Butterfly]

25. We need to PM Skinner

Skinner told me that I should let him know if anyone is exhibiting bigotry toward atheists. I think this qualifies. What do you all think?

[beam me up scottie]

27. I don't think

we should make a stink about just this one post because we'd be "whining".

BUT I think that the two threads where you were attacked along with this one could make a case for tweaking the tolerance rules.

The christians had the rules changed so that anything that offended them could be deleted.

I think it's our turn.

If that rule doesn't apply to all then it needs to be changed.

Maybe Skinner could post a thread reminding people that we have the same right as anyone else not to be the target of slurs and intolerance.

What do you think?

[Modem Butterfly]

33. That would suit me!

Hopefully it will suit Skinner as well.

[Jokerman]

26. The "alert" link is gone from that thread.

I guess they don't even want to hear about it anymore.

[beam me up scottie]

28. I think that's because it's archived.

But I could be wrong.
I'm wrong a lot.
But I don't let it stop me.
:evilgrin:

[salvorhardin]

29. You're not wrong

You just refuse to accept that boring old "conventional" reality. :evilgrin:

[beam me up scottie]

30. Well, I'm not like those

closed-minded science worshipers.
You know, the ones that blindly follow scientific dogma.

[salvorhardin]

31. No, nothing like them or

those strident militant atheists. They're no fun at all.

[beam me up scottie]

32. Uppity.

That's what they are.
And they want special rights.

[Skinner]

34. I've been asked to make an appearance in this thread.

It is obvious that the post was poorly worded. I can see how it could be read in the way that you all are reading it. I was trying to delete the post, but there seems to be a glitch in the software so it wasn't letting me or the mods delete posts in archived threads. Elad says he's working on it.

Still, I gotta say... It looks pretty obvious to me that the post is not a slam on people who don't believe in God. The post in question seems to be a poorly-worded way of pointing out the hypocrisy among certain conservative Christians. It seems to me most people on DU -- believers and non-believers alike -- would agree that they are hypocrites.

To be honest, I think that many of you probably understand what the person meant when he posted his message. Based on many of the posts here, it sounds like this has more to do with payback than with anything else.