LISTEN, CHRISTIANS!

[Esquilax]

Wait!

In what world is Jesus being sacrificed to cure sin, and animals being sacrificed to cure disease NOT comparable? Keep in mind, you guys don't even believe Jesus even existed....

Oh, just off the top of my head... Jesus was sacrificed for sins others had committed and were guilty of, he was taking the blame for actions rightly attributed to another. In the case of disease, humans are entirely blameless; nobody wants to get sick, and sickness isn't an action that, morally speaking, one should rightfully atone for, but are instead placing that atonement on the animal to take their punishment for them. So in reality there's no "redemption" in animal testing to be experienced "vicariously," because we don't need to be redeemed from getting sick, sickness is not an act that we're guilty of. The comparison is you're making is inappropriate in the very area that we're objecting to in the first place, therefore, there's no hypocrisy involved here.

This is like you going "You say you're against drunk driving, but you drive a car! Aha, hypocrite!" It only takes a little thought to realize that driving is not the part of "drunk driving" that is particularly objectionable. Likewise, curing things is not the objectionable part of the Jesus mythos; it's the nature of the thing being cured as it applies to individuals, the nature of the cure itself, and the mentality behind it, that we're objecting to. Not curing things, or even curing via sacrifice. You're making an accusation of hypocrisy while avoiding entirely the actual content of the claim you're asserting hypocrisy over.

[Rhondazvous]

And why do you think that is you dumb fuck?

It's because you don't see believers of Harry Potter pushing their bullshit on everyone else. It's because they aren't casting genocide spells on droves of people, fucking little children and all the while telling us who we can and cannot sleep with. It's because they don't want the subjects taught in Hogwarts taught in classrooms that my children might one day go to.

Maybe I'm not inclined to join a Harry Potter forum and bash Harry Potter because Harry Potter doesn't threaten me, and tell me what I should and shouldn't do with my life. Maybe it's because, unlike your fucked up religion, it doesn't attempt to give me an ass backwards system of morality and condemn everyone who doesn't adhere to it.

So yes, I'm not a member of a Harry Potter forum, you stupid, stupid little man.

Look here you mental midget, as long as you don't live in Iran, you're free to take part in whatever debauchery you want. Religion doesn't affect you at all and don't even TRY to make that case, because we have a thread about a certain country with a state religion, which you atheists claim has no influence in any way over it's citizens...

So anybody who disapproves of pedophile activities in an organization that claims to be holy is a mental midget? You have a thread where Napoleon said Christianity has no effect on him? Please post it.

[Esquilax]

Do I KNOW with 100% certitude? Heck no. But I read what they write, and they sound pretty pissed off to me - not just the tone or the language...there is some real deep hate in some folks, I think, and it comes across in their posts. That's not normal, is it? Cause I don't hate anybody or anything.

I think you're mistaking rough language and frustration for hate, Randy. Or hell, maybe it is hate, but hate isn't necessarily bad, least of all if it's only leveled at a concept, like religious dogma. There are some things that it's okay to revile, when they cause harm to real people; I hate racism, and I hate the racist past of my country. Why wouldn't I? It's a shameful chapter of history that only caused suffering; what is there to like?

Let's use one of y'all favorite images. Suppose a person who believed in unicorns showed up in the forum like I did, and started posting arguments for the existence of unicorns. Do you think that person would be the recipient of the vile memes, videos, language and blasphemy that were and are thrown at me on a daily basis?

Did you think your religion was the only thing getting ridiculed here? Matey, you need to look around a bit more; we've got political ridicule, pseudoscience ridicule, mythological ridicule of every stripe... you can't just hang around the religion threads and then conclude from that skewed sample size that we only have nasty things to say for religion. Do you know how many anti-vaccine threads have faced the same negative response? How many anti-science threads we've gone through? Just the other day I was giving shit to a bunch of self-styled "ghost hunters" in front of my mother-in-law, who believes in that crap. She managed to understand just fine that I was insulting the concept, not her or any real person. If you think you're the only one catching flack, then I have to say no, that's wrong. All bad ideas are ridiculed here, often in direct proportion to their impact on our lives.

That, by the way, is the area in which your analogy fails completely, because belief in unicorns isn't remotely similar to belief in god, is it? People haven't died in disagreements over belief in unicorns. People don't attempt to curtail the rights of others over their belief in unicorns. I don't have to endure mountains of words written to assert that because I don't believe in unicorns I can't be moral, or I'm somehow a lesser person, or I should be executed... I don't have flocks of unicornists lining up to impugn my character over my lack of belief there. In terms of real world effects, of actual relevance to who we are as people, there's no comparison at all between unicorns and religion, and yet it's such a common tactic from theists: if you wouldn't fight this hard over unicorns, it's inconsistent to do so over gods. As if the two are identical, conceptually.

But they aren't, and the comparison isn't valid no matter how many times I hear it.

Nope. Because no one is mad at unicorns, and they aren't mad at unicornists. But they ARE mad at Theos and theists, aren't they?

Hey, lemme know when unicornists start banding together to curtail yours or my freedoms: I'll be right beside you in your anger at that.

Has that ever happened, by the way? Has there ever been an objectionable social cause- hell, a social cause period- that unicornists have attempted to enshrine into law?

There are people here who can't even bring themselves to type the word "Bible" - it has to be "buy-bull". And it's not God - it's "sky-daddy". And those are the family-friendly examples. Or look at the subjects of some of the threads that have been started in the forum in the past few days. Do these sound like the kinds of things that healthy, happy and well-balanced people normally say? The kind of rage that causes people to go out to YouTube and look for some of the sick, twisted stuff that is posted here is something I cannot fathom. But I know its source. And you know what I mean.

Kinda hard to respond without examples, because what I see isn't anger. I just see my peeps: sure, their language might be rougher than you're used to, but not every country has the same aversions to swearing and dark humor that yours might. I'm Australian, for example, and the kind of stuff I would hear and say routinely in public in my hometown simply would not fly in the States. My wife is American, and the number of things I've had to stop saying around her, that sounded completely innocuous to my ears, but carried additional significance to hers, were quire surprising.

My point is, people are different, and they act in different manners. You might read this stuff and, because of how you're geared to react to this language, add an inflection that simply isn't there. My wife would think the world was ending every time I said "goddamn," even though to me it was just a fairly mild curse, not even an actual swear; two different reactions to the same piece of language. When I read these threads, I don't see the sort of frothing rage that you seem to; I just see people I've known for years, people I know to be kind and caring for the most part, doing what they do. If you see malice behind it, if you truly think that it's directed at your religion and nowhere else, then I'd encourage you to look up some of the nicer theists we've had; the Rayaans and Jacobsmooths, who actually interacted with us rather than treading through the same old apologetics ground and then speculating as to our evil motives when we didn't play along. Rayaan was even an administrator here, for a time.

You see hatred against religion in these posts. I say you should look a little deeper before you make those assumptions about the people here. Because every time we have discussions in the staff room about adding on new staff, every single time I've been privy to those discussions, we have a specific discussion about adding some more theists, some more christians, to our staff. More than a few times those theists even make it into the nominations. You talk about how much Stimbo and Becca and I hate you and your god, but that still happens, every time, and I can tell you that none of these people have ever so much as disagreed vocally with that notion.

So hey, maybe just consider the possibility that you're adding an inflection to the words that wasn't intended by their writers?

Why do you think this is a common talking point among Christians about atheists? Personally, I've never spoken to another Christian about this subject, so you must be getting that from somewhere else.

You're not the only christian to have used the "angry at god" line to us. Maybe it's not so common between christians, but you hear it a lot from the less sophisticated apologists- the Ray Comforts and Ken Hams- from the presuppositionalist camp, and from certain stripes of theists from all proselytizing religions, too. There's a reason almost every counter-apologetics resource will contain a (short, since there's not a lot to address there) response to the "you're just angry at god!" contention.

[Rhondazvous]

We're hypocrites because we haven't compiled a list of heinous things aside from religion for you to peruse?  Because we stay on-theme with what we do write here?  Because, like everyone else, we have our own pet interests/issues/causes?

If you're going to be against atrocities than be against ALL atrocities. What makes you a hypocrite is being selective. Science is your God / Absolute, yet we won't hear a peep from you about atrocities committed in the name of science.

So the hypocrite who claims there is only one god says that science is a god with a capital G. There's nothing you won't say to prove your point. This forum is titled Christianity. You find it hypocritical that we're not in here talking about Islam and Darwin.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Jesus please us, Huggy and GC in one thread? I've been sucked into a gravitational well of stupidity, heeeelllllllpppppppppppp

[Redbeard The Pink]

Look here you mental midget

Ok, the Muppet thing was a joke, but seriously, what the fuck? My dear cousin is a little person, and she just got married to the love of her life this weekend, and he is also a little person. Using the word "midget" as a slur in any sense is ignorant and backward. You think Jesus would call someone a mental midget? Do you say retard, too? Fuck. Grow up.

[KevinM1]

I see Esq has already addressed Huggy with the point I was going to make.  More succinct than I would've, too.  Typical.  

Look here you mental midget

Ok, the Muppet thing was a joke, but seriously, what the fuck? My dear cousin is a little person, and she just got married to the love of her life this weekend, and he is also a little person. Using the word "midget" as a slur in any sense is ignorant and backward. You think Jesus would call someone a mental midget? Do you say retard, too? Fuck. Grow up.

Huggy is just trying to, in his mind, insult us like we insult him.  Thing is, we insult him after poking holes in his bullshit, or in response to his insufferable twatery (it's a word now!).  He does it at the start in an attempt to... I don't know, actually.  Be edgy or something.

Maybe if he had a cogent argument he would be able to let it stand on its own merits rather than his current tactic of preemptively poisoning the well with ad homs while throwing all manner of shit against the wall in the hopes that something sticks or, perhaps, hoping we won't notice how specious that shit is while we're dealing with his insults.

[Huggy Bear]

Wait!

In what world is Jesus being sacrificed to cure sin, and animals being sacrificed to cure disease NOT comparable? Keep in mind, you guys don't even believe Jesus even existed....

Oh, just off the top of my head... Jesus was sacrificed for sins others had committed and were guilty of, he was taking the blame for actions rightly attributed to another. In the case of disease, humans are entirely blameless; nobody wants to get sick, and sickness isn't an action that, morally speaking, one should rightfully atone for, but are instead placing that atonement on the animal to take their punishment for them. So in reality there's no "redemption" in animal testing to be experienced "vicariously," because we don't need to be redeemed from getting sick, sickness is not an act that we're guilty of. The comparison is you're making is inappropriate in the very area that we're objecting to in the first place, therefore, there's no hypocrisy involved here.

This is like you going "You say you're against drunk driving, but you drive a car! Aha, hypocrite!" It only takes a little thought to realize that driving is not the part of "drunk driving" that is particularly objectionable. Likewise, curing things is not the objectionable part of the Jesus mythos; it's the nature of the thing being cured as it applies to individuals, the nature of the cure itself, and the mentality behind it, that we're objecting to. Not curing things, or even curing via sacrifice. You're making an accusation of hypocrisy while avoiding entirely the actual content of the claim you're asserting hypocrisy over.

Not accurate.
Jesus' death was a cure for sin (the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world), Not just for sins that had been committed, for there were future generations to benefit that didn't yet exist to commit sin.

In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. - Zechariah 13:1

Jesus made the choice to sacrifice his life, he didn't have to do it, yet you guys seem to think that  to be immoral.

Now compare that to the earlier example of syphilis I gave. syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, so wouldn't you say that if a person contracts it, it's their own fault? Yet you can be cured of syphilis thanks to the 40 years of African-American men being (unbeknownst to them) infected with the disease in the name of scientific progress..

These men died to provide a cure for a disease of people that were sexually irresponsible.....vicarious redemption.

Again, how are they not comparable?

Do you consider the latter immoral?

*edit*
I should add on the subject of vicarious redemption, you believe a person should be responsible and pay for his own sins, right? Then if a person contracts syphilis through sexual irresponsibility he should take the punishment for his actions and be given no cure, right?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Oh, just off the top of my head... Jesus was sacrificed for sins others had committed and were guilty of, he was taking the blame for actions rightly attributed to another. In the case of disease, humans are entirely blameless; nobody wants to get sick, and sickness isn't an action that, morally speaking, one should rightfully atone for, but are instead placing that atonement on the animal to take their punishment for them. So in reality there's no "redemption" in animal testing to be experienced "vicariously," because we don't need to be redeemed from getting sick, sickness is not an act that we're guilty of. The comparison is you're making is inappropriate in the very area that we're objecting to in the first place, therefore, there's no hypocrisy involved here.

This is like you going "You say you're against drunk driving, but you drive a car! Aha, hypocrite!" It only takes a little thought to realize that driving is not the part of "drunk driving" that is particularly objectionable. Likewise, curing things is not the objectionable part of the Jesus mythos; it's the nature of the thing being cured as it applies to individuals, the nature of the cure itself, and the mentality behind it, that we're objecting to. Not curing things, or even curing via sacrifice. You're making an accusation of hypocrisy while avoiding entirely the actual content of the claim you're asserting hypocrisy over.

Not accurate.
Jesus' death was a cure for sin (the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world), Not just for sins that had been committed, for there were future generations to benefit that didn't yet exist to commit sin.

In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. - Zechariah 13:1

Jesus made the choice to sacrifice his life, he didn't have to do it, yet you guys seem to think that  to be immoral.

Now compare that to the earlier example of syphilis I gave. syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, so wouldn't you say that if a person contracts it, it's their own fault? Yet you can be cured of syphilis thanks to the 40 years of African-American men being (unbeknownst to them) infected with the disease in the name of scientific progress..

These men died to provide a cure for a disease of people that were sexually irresponsible.....vicarious redemption.

Again, how are they not comparable?

Do you consider the latter immoral?

What is the fundamental disconnect between theist thought and informed consent?

They are not comparable because of the phrase "unbeknownst to them."

Jesus knew what was being asked of him and went along with it. The real people in your example did not. They did not sacrifice themselves willingly. Someone else decided to sacrifice them for what those people deemed to be the "greater good." Yes this is immoral, and this is why.

For the record though, it's also immoral to sacrifice your child to save someone else from accountability, even if the child volunteers for it. Your god is a sadistic monster. If sin has to be atoned for with blood, death, and pain, it's because he made those rules. If he didn't make those rules, he is not all-powerful.

[Huggy Bear]

The mistake you make is separating Jesus from God, they are one and the same.

A child is born into this world through blood, and pain, do you consider that to be sadistic?