Quote:PZ Myers: A Heartless Faith
There was an appalling and tragic plane crash in Montana: 14 people were killed, 7 of them children.

Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told The Sacramento Bee that he allowed several children ages 6 to 10 to use the airport bathroom before they boarded the doomed plane.

"There were a lot of kids in the group," he said, "a lot of really cute kids."

Nine of them were members of one family. This was a horrifying and genuinely horrible accident; I can't begin to imagine the grief felt by the survivors, who lost children and grandchildren.

I can feel great anger, though. Here is something that will make you furious and outraged, too. Irving Feldkamp is the father of two and grandfather of five who were killed in that accident; he lost a shocking great swath of his family in that one sad afternoon. Irving Feldkamp is also the owner of Family Planning Associates — a chain of clinics that also does abortions.

You can guess what segment of the Christian community I'm about to highlight.

Choke back your gag reflex and read this hideous, evil article on Christian Newswire. Some moral cretin named Gingi Edmonds wrote a wretched story on this tragedy that makes it sound like divine retribution on Mr Feldkamp.

It begins by telling us that the plane crashed in a cemetery — a Catholic cemetery that has a "memorial to the unborn", dedicated to aborted fetuses. We are apparently supposed to feel some sense of irony at this.

All I can feel is horror at the kinds of monsters who would find grim satisfaction in the death of 6 to 10 year old children, as if it were payback for abortion. At amoral pious hypocrites who would regard this as an opportunity to assault human beings broken-hearted by pain and loss, to proselytize for the bloody-handed god of their death cult, to compound agony with accusations of guilt. There is no humanity left in these sanctimonious creatures, it's been bled out and replaced with fanaticism and dogma.

[Read The Rest Of The Article Here]

What can I say? Christianity, the loving and tolerant religion? Now where have I heard that before?

Kyu

That's pretty fucking sick.

Thanks for pointing out. I'm recording my podcast this Saturday and was going to bring it up and this adds another angle to the discussion.

(March 27, 2009 at 12:08 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: That's pretty fucking sick.

Ain't it just?

Of course now we just have to wait for someone to turn around and say, "Ah, but they weren't real Christians ..."

Kyu

Well a lot of christians would be to differ on that one.

The way I understand it is that there are christians like the one above, who rationalize every evil thing as gods doing, and then there are christians who will sometimes be the first to help the victims. It's ridiculous how some of them seemingly ignore the idea that their god is a god of love and dash any chances they have of rectifying it.

Whether god is real or not is a non-issue at this point - christianity and all manner of other beliefs can use those beliefs for good and for evil. It's a fact of life that everything is misused at some point by some person.

I guess the question we should be asking ourselves is, is atheism well equipped to fill the void that would be made if we got rid of religion? Religion helps some people to do good and would atheism be able to continue that motivation?

Or alternatively, what's the worst thing someone has done in the name of atheism?

(March 27, 2009 at 8:33 pm)athoughtfulman Wrote: Or alternatively, what's the worst thing someone has done in the name of atheism?

Indeed!

[Kyu sits waiting for the usual theist claims of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot to come up]

Kyu

I'll line em up you knock em down Kyu.

(March 28, 2009 at 6:44 am)Demonaura Wrote: I'll line em up you knock em down Kyu.

Deal pardner

Kyu

Confusing at times:

One of the very first groups to arrive in New Orleans after Katrina,who actually helped,were============

The Mormons. I kid you not.

000000000000000000000----------------------------0000000000000000000000000000000000

-and how many Christians of the douchebag variety came out of the woodwork after 9/11 claiming it was God's judgment?----


OF course we don't have people like that (EG Fred Phelps and his diseased spawn) in Australia,at least not for long.We're allowed to shoot them. (season all year,no bag limit)


WOW! REALLY?


Of course,would I lie?

You're in australia too padraic? I'm over in South Sydney.

Fred Phelps was going to come to Australia to interrupt the bushfire memorial service but apparently got detained at customs. Check out this strange but kinda funny video about the whole affair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrgm0WOoIo

And I did hear there was some dude in Melbourne or the area who was saying the same thing about the bushfires.

We're not safe. Yet.