It seems to me this is still all swinging around Statler's apparent inability to define shades of gray.

We have a judicial system that makes levels out of crimes for a reason. And Dawkins isn't a judge or even a lawyer, but an educated man stating his opinion. You don't have to agree with it. Using Adrian as an example, many atheists don't. He's no christ figure, but he is a victim of the hero worship people place on just about any celebrity. There are fansites to Ben Affleck, for fuck's sake.

(April 14, 2011 at 10:55 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: There are fansites to Ben Affleck, for fuck's sake.

Why would one waste time making a website for an actor? Like they don't have enough people groveling at their feet. Really? Really??

I don't really care if you make a fansite for an actor or a famous person or even make a person famous because of their blog or website. People can argue with me about PZ, for instance, whose blog is quite popular, and which I enjoy highly and I think he makes fantastic points worth spreading to a lot of people. Much like it's fine if an actor makes a particularly good movie that everyone should go watch. Just temper it all with common sense. Many of PZ's followers (or Dawkins') seem to have forgotten that his shit smells after his morning constitutional just like everyone else's. This is where people get the idea that we "worship" any of the new atheists, and its ridiculous. I respect the man, I don't find him or Dawkins to be a christ figure, and I find it hilarious that Statler immediately used Dawkins in his initial response. As it's been pointed out before, the man is a biologist - not a judge, not a psychologist and not the parent of any of those kids. But he did go through a similar experience, and he's stating his opinion. I think Dawkin's mistake was assuming readers could come to that conclusion - that it's his OPINION.

Much like those fuckwits who worship Ayn Rand, who then gets lambasted by people who don't agree with her philosophies.

People, whether it's Christ, Dawkins, Rand, or fucking Harry Potter, it's 99% sure that it's never the body of work itself that's the problem, or even the author. It's the followers who ALWAYS fuck things up. Unless it's Glenn Beck, of course. Then you're fucked from the get-go.

Statler - 1) we don't all agree with everything any of our figureheads say. Something your religion seems to encourage is a cohesion of the type that requires you agree with every point being said by YOUR leaders. In fact, I'd argue that's why there are so many forms of Christianity, and so many churches. "Whoops! I don't agree with that guy...let's make another one so we're only with people who share our opinions!" It's part of what I hate about our Republican-Democrat party system here - I've yet to meet more than a handful of people who truly agree with all the points on one side or the other, yet it's assumed you do if you label yourself as such.

2) Life is NOT as simple as saying "molestation is molestation". Abuse has levels. Reaction to it has levels. If you don't realize this, maybe you've never been abused. I have. The non-sexual physical abuse I endured was more than "embarrassing," but not so much to be more than slightly debilitating in rare circumstances now. In this case it was my own father, who I could have pressed police charges against at the time. I didn't. We are now working to rebuild a relationship after almost a decade. We each have to judge for ourselves how to deal with it. And judges have to decide how to dole out punishment accordingly. The man who diddles a kid once, then realizes he was wrong and never does it again should be punished for that crime only if the kid calls him on it. The repeat offender should be punished more drastically. If you kill a guy in self-defense, is that the same as killing someone out of irritation?

Dawkins was arguing for fairness - I read that section of the book while I was in math class last night. He was right that we make sweeping judgments about all priests based on the crimes of a growing number of them. If you want a more "fair" assessment, many of us are angry not because we think all priests are guilty of abuse, but because others who never lay a hand on a child covered it all up, and that's a different sort of crime.

3) Dawkins cries out against religion on a whole because religion IS a harm. That pope you mentioned continues to tell people not to wear condoms. An entire continent is rampant with disease and bigotry helped by his influence and his minions. A priest fondles one boy. A man continues to keep a nation in the third world rather than trying to help raise it. You tell me how you balance the scales.

Well at least we know that not all atheists are tolerant of differing beliefs lol. I forgot that someone forced you to cllick on this thread and someone forced you to read my posts and someone forced you to click reply. Aww, poor baby.

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Yeah its principle is found throughout the Old Testament which of course pre-dates Christ.

I want to burn those puppets!!!

This is just becoming a game of semantics. Of course there are crimes that are mild in relation to other crimes. Shooting someone in the head could be a far "milder" form of murder than hours of torture and a long drawn-out death. To be honest I don't really care, they would both still be murder and are both terribly wrong. The fact that Dawkins even puts molestation in the same breath as religious teaching is sickening.

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(April 14, 2011 at 7:59 pm)SpatiumTempusque Wrote: I want to burn those puppets!!!

Yeah, those are called Muppets, not puppets.

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(April 14, 2011 at 10:55 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: It seems to me this is still all swinging around Statler's apparent inability to define shades of gray.

We have a judicial system that makes levels out of crimes for a reason. And Dawkins isn't a judge or even a lawyer, but an educated man stating his opinion. You don't have to agree with it. Using Adrian as an example, many atheists don't. He's no christ figure, but he is a victim of the hero worship people place on just about any celebrity. There are fansites to Ben Affleck, for fuck's sake.

Sure blame it all on me :-P That's because I am not morally relavistic because I see the logical problems with it.

(April 14, 2011 at 7:49 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Yeah its principle is found throughout the Old Testament which of course pre-dates Christ.

I was thinking ancient Egyptian texts, which most likely predate Leviticus.

Huh? You say that my religion requires agreement with figure-heads but then you go onto say there are many different forms of Christianity? If Christianity required you to agree completely with its leader(s) (there really are not any leaders in the reformed side of Christanity, besides Chrsit of course) then you should only see one form of it right? Denomonationalism is actually one of Christianity's greatest strenghts, but that's kind of off topic.

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(April 14, 2011 at 12:47 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: The man who diddles a kid once, then realizes he was wrong and never does it again should be punished for that crime only if the kid calls him on it.

According to????? You? That's not the way the law works and for good reason, expecting a 5 or 6 year old child to call out their adult abuser is pretty absurd.

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I think you'll see a lot of revising of Egyptian Chronology in the near future, even secular historians are becoming quite disenchanted by the current Sothic Chronology.

(April 14, 2011 at 7:59 pm)SpatiumTempusque Wrote: I want to burn those puppets!!!

Quote:Yeah, those are called Muppets, not puppets.

I hope you know that I don't take you seriously. Your a pest.

(April 13, 2011 at 3:10 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: I disagree. There is no such thing as a "mild" molestation, it's all a felony and for good reason. The fact that Dawkins does minimize it is apparent by his view that it is less harmful to a child than the teaching of religion (which of course is not a felony because it harms the child in no way). It's disgusting that someone would think that the sexual abuse of a child is better for a child than teaching them that they should love their neighbor and do unto others as they want done to themselves. If you can't see that then I don't know what to tell you.

But it's just "love your neighbour" is it?

It's all the rest of the bullshit, that things like masturbation and homosexuality is a sin.
That the universe is only 6000 thousand years old.
That you should feel guilty just for being alive.
That you should accept things on faith alone and without any evidence, yet reject anything that contradicts the 2000 year old writings of a bunch of unwashed goatfuckers.

Eventually child molestation will stop(which is not to say I don't find it utterly reprehensible), but the poison of religion will last a lifetime.