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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 07:02 AM
Original message
The terrorist in our midsts
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trotsky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 08:10 AM
Response to Original message
1. If Pat weren't a greedy selfish asshole...
it wouldn't take much cajoling to get him to pilot a plane into a building to do it himself. Violent religious extremists have far more in common than they can imagine.
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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 08:56 AM
Response to Original message
2. I love the first few responses.
The usual "they're NOT xtians! Not! Not! Not!"

Handled very well by resident DU atheists, I might add.
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CarbonDate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 03:56 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Really, we should try that when they bring up Stalin....
"Stalin wasn't a *true* atheist!"
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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 04:06 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. We'll have to try that.
:rofl:

I doubt it would work as well for us, though.
We don't have that whole self-righteous indignation thing going on.
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CarbonDate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 09:53 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. It wouldn't work because they wouldn't get it....
...they would think we were honestly attempting that line of argument.
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jonnyblitz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 11:25 PM
Response to Reply #3
12. he didn't do his bad stuff in the name of atheism though
you must also tell them. he did it in the name of communist revolution. he just happened to be atheist too..

and don't forget all the rignt wing atheists who consider themselves libertarian..
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Zenlitened Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. Amazing, isn't it? Robertson is one of the most prominent...
... christian preachers in the US, if not the world. He is wealthy, politically-connected and influential in ways and to a degree just about no one else is. He IS the mainstream, whether people want to admit it or not. Those trotting out the "not a real christian!" line have to realize at some point that they themselves are the fringe.
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CarbonDate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 04:01 PM
Response to Original message
4. Ugh, these people don't get it.....
They really need to look at the Old/New Testament dichotomy:

Old Testament: tool for tyrants and bullies to justify their actions or whip up irrational hatreds.

New Testament: tool for tyrants and bullies to convince the mongrels of the world to submit to their beatings.
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onager Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 06:17 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. But...but Jesus was a liberal! W-A-A-A-H....!
Edited on Tue Aug-23-05 06:18 PM by onager
Except maybe for the time he cursed that fig tree for refusing to bear fruit at the wrong time of year. (I've never understood why, of all the crap to choose from, the editors left that bit of nonsense in the New Testament. It not only makes ol' Jesus look childish, but pretty damn stupid.)

And the times he dissed his Mom in public. ("Woman, what have you to do with me?" If I had ever said that to my mother, she would have snatched me bald-headed. Heck, she STILL would.)

And his warnings about sending a sword, not peace. Along with one of his few "prophecies" that has come true: that families would be divided because of his teachings.

And his throwing a hissy-fit about those moneychangers in the Temple. Xian DU'ers love to use this one, comparing the finance guys to the Republicans.

Actually, in a modern context, it was more like Jesus suddenly went bonkers and started beating up those folks who change your foreign money at the airport.

The moneychangers in the Temple provided a necessary service. Most coins of the time had the Roman Emperor, or other pagan symbols on them, and absolutely could not be used as offerings in the Temple.

That was blasphemy and could get you stoned to death. No, smartass, REALLY stoned. See the historically accurate documentary, "Life Of Brian."

If you wanted to perform the One Essential Service Of All Religions Since Time began...i.e., giving your money...it had to be changed into currency approved for offerings. With no pagan symbols.

Ditto for the people selling birds and other stuff in the Temple courtyard. Those were religious sacrifices and had to be ritually pure, which was guaranteed if you bought them from the Temple vendors.

BTW, the courtyard of that Temple in Jerusalem was about the size of 4 football fields. So one religious fanatic throwing a temper-tantrum probably didn't even disturb most of the moneychangers.

End of rant. I don't why I wander off into these bizarre fugues...History Geekiness, I guess.
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CarbonDate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #7
11. Jesus was a cult leader.
And Chrisitianity is a cult.

It started out as a small group of guys following a charismatic leader to whom they ascribed divine qualities. In its full blossom, their morbid fixation on death is very cult-like. To them, life is simply a preparatory stage for death, so why worry about what their life is like? Suffering makes them holy, especially when they are persecuted for Jesus.

Seriously, how can they not see Christianity for what it is? It's a means of controlling people, no more, no less.

Patton talked of how getting soldiers to agree to what leadership tells them to wear and how to wear it is an important step toward getting them to fall in line on the battle field. Christianity tells people who they can fuck and how they can fuck them. If you can get people to submit to your will as it pertains to their sexuality, you have full control of them.
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onager Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 05:21 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. History Geekiness Redux...
Patton talked of how getting soldiers to agree to what leadership tells them to wear and how to wear it is an important step toward getting them to fall in line on the battle field. Christianity tells people who they can fuck and how they can fuck them.

One of my favorite Patton quotes: "When morality goes down, morale goes up."

That was his printable response to one of the stupidest orders in history--the "non-fraternization" policy right after WWII, when the Pentagon ordered GI's in Europe not to have any contact with the defeated Germans. At a time when they were, uh, in Germany.

The order applied not only to amateur and professional German hookers, but to their starving children as well.

Even the rigidly conservative and notoriously tight-assed Gen. MacArthur also refused to issue that order, in Japan. He rather wryly said: "My father taught me to never give an order that was unenforceable."

(Well, MacArthur wasn't THAT tight-assed, I guess. Like all good conservatives, he had kinky private side. During the 1930's he moved a half-Filipino "dancer" (stripper) into an apartment in Washington. Until his mother heard about the affair and put an end to it.)
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Synnical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 09:26 PM
Response to Original message
8. Council for Secular Humanism responds:
COUNCIL FOR SECULAR HUMANISM CONDEMNS PAT ROBERTSON'S CALL FOR ASSASSINATION OF VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ

The Council for Secular Humanism wishes to add its voice to those condemning the call by religious right-wing television preacher, Pat Robertson, for the United States to assassinate Hugo Chavez (Robertson made the comments on an August 22nd broadcast of his "700 Club"). However, the Council takes our criticism one step further.

As the largest organization in the country representing the views of millions of non-religious American citizens, we deplore the accusation that only those who profess a belief in a deity can be morally upright. The indefensible call for the assassination of a foreign leader who poses no threat to the United States, by the former leader of the Christian Coalition, eloquently demonstrates that religious believers have no monopoly on moral virtue.

Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of the Council for Secular Humanism, commented that "Hugo Chavez was duly elected as president by the people of Venezuela. For the United States to abrogate to itself the right to determine who should lead Venezuela betrays our commitment to democracy."

Kurtz continued, "Robertson’s comments are shocking and reprehensible, we urge our fellow citizens and the Bush administration to censure Robertson in the strongest terms."
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Synnical Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 09:30 PM
Response to Original message
9. Hiya, YankeyMCC - I kinda dislike your OP title
There are no "terrorists in our midsts" in this forum, ya know? Just pointing that out, no hard feelings.

;)

Cheers,
Cindy in Fort Lauderdale
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 08:27 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. You right
I little insanity there on my part thinking we atheists were considered "Americans" by the rest of the country.

;)
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Brewman_Jax Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 07:45 AM
Response to Original message
13. He's not a terrorist
Don't you know that white Christian males can't be terrorists? :sarcasm:
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