This Has to Stop

[emjay]

Thanks Losty I just wish I'd never posted in this thread... all it's brought out is negativity

I really don't know what I can say about this whole situation. I can't deny I admire outspoken anti-theists because they have more confidence than I could ever have... except on a really bad day. I didn't see much difference between Astonished and other swear-every-other-word anti-theists like Minimalist, but yeah there is a difference if he's making it personal and wishing violence on everyone. But I still think he's made a lot of good points since he came here... it's just that delivery could be improved... but I'm in no hurry to ask him, or Minimalist for that matter, to be more polite without expecting a shit-load of f-bombs to be coming my way It's not my way of talking but each to their own on that... that's the only way it can be.

I'd have actually held back quite a bit since I joined the site if I hadn't seen Min so wild and freely throwing the well-deserved middle fingers around so I just enjoyed the freedom that seemed to prompt. Perhaps some more restrictive rules on content would have encouraged more docile discussions. But they'd be less fun.

Bottom line, I see this kind of predatory infection of young minds as harmful in the extreme and would not bat an eye to see someone willfully and malignantly doing that being hit by lightning if that meant stopping them from inflicting a lifelong impediment to rational thinking (among other things) on an unwitting innocent. Because the consequences of that harm inevitably reaches beyond the singular mind of their victims and perpetuates this madness across the globe and across generations like the most pernicious virus we've ever discovered, it's more than just a matter of one person being victimized. If there was some innocuous and harmless way of preventing this indoctrination from affecting children, then whatever, again, I'll just point and laugh at the brainwashers' fruitless efforts while they tear their hair out as their threats of hell and guilt trips about sin fall on deaf ears. But since that's not realistic (there's no chemical vaccine against that kind of psychological poison), and none of the agents of indoctrination seem to even consider that they might be doing wrong in any way, and no legislators are going to do shit to protect the rights of these kids from being violated, it's impossible not to feel like this injustice deserves to be remedied by some force of nature, whatever form that might take. It's just too bad some actual cosmic justice system doesn't exist. I wouldn't approve of something like hell, since punishment after the fact is not going to fix the damn problem, just something that stays the hands (or mouths) of anyone trying to make children believe in the worst sort of lies imaginable.

I don't know what to say. I'm as frustrated as you are over the issue of indoctrination... and it's lesser but similar equivalents. In my own case, ultimately this Christian education has robbed me of the peace of mind that would come from being an atheist with all the same views I have but starting from a completely neutral standpoint. So I can only look at some of the atheists on this site with envy for having never been exposed to it in the first place, and thus being able to consider all their beliefs their own.

And I'm frustrated that my own points on this have gone unaddressed. So tbh I don't know how cynical I should be about the motivations of theists in ignoring these points... ie simply do they care or not if their child grows up and feels like I do? Do they care if their child grows up with bias? Do they understand it? Does it figure in any way into their understanding of what it means to accept something as true, and the subject's part/responsibility in that belief and therefore how much credit should be given to the subject for that belief (by God for instance)? Is all belief equal in their eyes... both for themselves and for how they perceive god to be judging... such that beliefs under brain damage, the influence of drugs, hypnosis/suggestion, bias, or purely rational thought are all the same thing? Basically, I do not know whether the consensus among theists that have read what I've wrote, is basically happiness or sadness that I'm lumbered with Christian bias against my will. If it's care for me, or for the person in my hypothetical position... ie their child..., then that's a step in the right direction, but if it's gladness that I've got the bug as it were, 'for my own good'... then that's where the problem lies. I fear it is the latter.

But anyway, that's how I feel about it. As to what to do about it, there's not much that can be done. It is the way it is, and destructive or no, clearly raging about it makes no difference; and when has it ever? All it does is make everyone double down, and any receptivity to ideas is lost. You said yourself that I was being heard when I was being 'eloquent' so surely one hearing is better than a hundred unheard and therefore pointless rants? Honestly, how many people are going to go away from being yelled at and be inspired to listen to the yeller's arguments, let alone change their approach. Answer. No one. So free advice, tone it down, keep it abstract, talk about it, don't yell about it. That's all I can say really, but obviously it's entirely up to you whether you listen to me or not.