(March 11, 2015 at 11:20 am)QuarkDriven Wrote: As I mentioned in my "New from NJ" post in Intros, I'll bring up how when I'm bored in the car, sometimes (a lot of times) i'll listen to catholic/christian talk tadio... the one I'm im talking about now is called relevant radio (the t is a cross of course) and sometime last week, I heard they were going to be talking about this horrible terrible thing.. Atheism and how it could even be in your family or group of people.. so of course I had to troll... i listned live through their website but I was also at work so I apologize for not having great notes and for them being sporadic... and I'm sure I missed some stuff that was "note worthy"...

Here are some of the points that they talked about:

Anonymous caller.. her bf might be an atheist.. what to do? Their Response: Pray for him… leave it up to the lord…

Pedophile priests… - people turned off by that… despite that, God is at work… ? really? Jesus on the cross.. murdered by the heads of his religion.. that means pedophile priests are okay… because of the Eucharist… in the greatest evil, god is still at work… think of all the good… not the bad..

Pray that they (atheists) open their minds…

We have lost faith because we lost sight of who we are… Seeing atheists as god see’s atheists with tenderness will bring an atheist back to the church…

New atheism. Aggressive zeal

People are atheists because they hate religion and hate the people in religion… Atheists focus on individuals.. like to demonize and ridicule the people…

They (the religious) need to prepare themselves against militant atheists… (they need to be prepared for the pedophile priests scandal)

Secular humanism is just putting a happy face on the word atheism…

Families should be aware that atheism is flourishing on the internet… BE AWARE! Catholic families teach to love and not to hate..

Atheism/secularism seems to be cool on the internet.. that’s why young people are being turned on to it…

Atheists regimes - French revolution/soviet union/china/cuba… disaster and tragedy follow suit…

Distraction is a new part of the atheist movement.. distracting you from the “truth of god” to get you to join their team…

School text books portray religion, especially Christianity as evil… parents need to be preparing their children for the issues to be raised by atheists… many subtle ways.. moral relativism… Help inoculate the kids (indoctrinate) so they don’t lose their way…

and those are the notes I took down from listening in on the Battling Atheism talk.. again, i apolgize for the format of the notes and what not...

and...................... go

I have a real hard time even watching or listening or even reading anything related to those sorts of things. It drives me up the wall!! Some religious sites that throw straight facts like a Wikipedia don't bug me one bit but going to any of there websites just make me sick to my stomach. If not even to the point of being angry.

I kind of wish I could listen to that stuff but it really drives me nuts!

(March 21, 2015 at 12:18 am)Faith No More Wrote:

(March 20, 2015 at 8:46 pm)daver49 Wrote: Circle the wagons Pilgrim, them arrows are sharp and stingy!

Lol, those hardcore Catholics sure do sting.

I prefer "softcore," they leave more to the imagination...

(March 20, 2015 at 9:14 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(March 20, 2015 at 7:38 pm)Delicate Wrote: I gather that when people say "I'll pray for you" it's a noncognitivist way of saying "Here's how I'm expressing that I care about you."

Because surely, if they didn't care about you one iota, they wouldn't even bother praying for you.

So when Christians say they're praying for me, I appreciate it.

It could be seen that way, I suppose. Sometimes a person feels that the only way to express support for someone, when they are powerless to truly help, might be to tell that someone that they're in the person's thoughts. It's another way of saying "I'm here for you"; comforting, perhaps, at least in intention. Something to say when there's nothing to say.

Or it may be that the person truly believes that they're doing some good, something useful, by offering prayer.

Then there are those who want to be thought of as being helpful but don't actually want to do anything. To them, it's more important to be seen to be caring than actually doing the caring. Makes them feel superior, you might say.

There's also the type who offer to pray because the other person doesn't match up to their standards - there's something broken in them that the praying person decided needs fixing.

Finally, of course, we have those who use the offer of prayer as a silver bullet to win an argument by scorched Earth. They would most likely win at boardgames by tipping the board over as soon as it looks like they're losing. It's their way of saying "Yeah?Well, fuck you!"

I wouldn't exactly appreciate most of these offers, personally.

Of course, some use "I'll pray for you" cynically. But I don't like to exaggerate the number of people who do this. That's just assuming a lot of negative things about this set of people. I find most people are quite genuine and sincere, and assuming the best in people usually helps me maintain relationships on all sides of the belief spectrum.

I take people as I find them. How about you?

Oh, you must find a lot of bad people around you then.

No, not really. I tend not to move in religious circles.

(March 21, 2015 at 3:00 pm)Stimbo Wrote: No, not really. I tend not to move in religious circles.

Well, so much for "Will the circle be unbroken..."

(March 21, 2015 at 3:00 pm)Stimbo Wrote: No, not really. I tend not to move in religious circles.

The bitterness in your posts suggest otherwise.

(March 21, 2015 at 7:21 pm)Delicate Wrote:

(March 21, 2015 at 3:00 pm)Stimbo Wrote: No, not really. I tend not to move in religious circles.

The bitterness in your posts suggest otherwise.

Have you ever tried to move in religious circles? People keep stepping on your toes! Call in the choreographer!

(March 20, 2015 at 7:38 pm)Delicate Wrote: I gather that when people say "I'll pray for you" it's a noncognitivist way of saying "Here's how I'm expressing that I care about you."

Because surely, if they didn't care about you one iota, they wouldn't even bother praying for you.

So when Christians say they're praying for me, I appreciate it.

If they actually cared, instead of going through the motions, they might actually do something to help.