Atheists destroy churches, attack the faithful

[dann]

Is there a tutorial?

Based on the little I know, you should start with heavy metal! (Wikipedia) Being a Nazi may also help ...

 

[kellyb]

If Squeegee is so bothered by having his fond memories of a grandfather tainted by a little logical thinking, it's his problem, not mine. I have already stressed several times that I have no problem empathizing with believers.

It sounds to me like the most accurate way to describe him is as someone who spent most of his life as an atheist and some of it as a theist. In the moments at the end when he was scared of god existing and judging him, he was not exactly an atheist. A lot of people shift around a bit like that. I think it's common.

 

[David Mo]

FWIW, my granddad was Catholic until the horrors he experienced in WWI made him an atheist in his early 20s. He was in his mid-90s when he died and the one thing he was terrified of was that God was angry with him for abandoning his faith.

Obviously your grandfather was afraid of not being a good Catholic. Catholicism is a religion. Therefore you grandfather is not an example of theism without religion which was what I was speaking.

 

[David Mo]

****, the inquistion is a no brainer, under your logic, because it flourished in roman catholic Country under strong Monarchs who were worried about the spread of Protestantism undermining their rule.

Inquistion? Nothing to do with Religion, just authoritarians.

say a fella could get to like using atheist "logic."

This example was refuted in a previous comment. You have the astonishing ---not so much astonishing-- ability to return again and again to previously refuted ideas. Your goebbelsian method of propaganda is not very useful here, brother.

 

[David Mo]

No, Communism as proclaimed is the state religion. It is a religion that has prophets but no deity.

It would be preferable to say that it is like a religion. Some features are coincident others not.

 

[David Mo]

Authoritarian + atheist = anti religious suppression.

Authoritarian + religious = anti religious suppression of all but the approved religion.

The key is the authoritarianism.

Tolerant + atheist = religious tolerance
Tolerant + religious = religious tolerance

Bingo! Exactly what I have been explaining all along.

I can't fathom why atheists are having such a hard time with this.

Not so exact, brother.

What we are discussing it is not the theoretical possibility of an authoritarian atheism but a factual question: Is atheism the main cause of the closure of clandestine churches in China?

A similar case: President Duterte has launched a big campaign of extralegal executions in the Philippines. President Duterte is deist. Therefore is “Criminal Deism is killing people without legal procedure in the Philippines” a good way to describe the event?

We have other similar events in the past. Tokugawa’s politics against Catholicism in Japan in the seventeenth century and the imperial support to the boxers’ rebellion in China at the end of the 19th century. . In both cases an authoritarian government takes measures against what it considers stranger intervention that obviously is a menace to its political power.

Both examples show that the present crackdown of “clandestine” churches in China is not made in the name of atheism —never mentioned by authorities in this conflict—but in the name of nationalism by an authoritarian government. This is corroborated by the politics of tolerance regarding other “national” and not political religions that I have mentioned in a previous comment. This is not atheism, but nationalism.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

No way! The official propaganda outlet of the communist party does not mention the crackdown nor human rights abuses? Well that settles that i guess!

Such glorious "facts."

Oh man.

Naughty, naughty.
My post was in reponse to your claim that there was an internet crackdown on every single religious person in China. I showed that this is just not true.

State-sanctioned religions are doing just fine: those which, by their independence threaten state control, are attacked.
As we have told you, over and over and over again.

Your post is yet another lame attempt at a dodge.
Try again.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'm sorry, but an atheist who is afraid of God is a contradiction in terms[...]

No it's not, unless you really are contending that even a tiny amount of doubt makes someone a theist. It's not a contradiction to be afraid of something happening yet still think the possibility of it happening are vanishingly small. Plenty of non-Australians are terrified of spiders, even though they know that the possibility that the spider they're afraid of is one that can hurt them is almost zero. It doesn't matter how many statistics people can learn about how rare it is to be attacked by a stranger when you're out and about, plenty of people are still terrified of the idea of being raped.

If you don't think that people can have fears that they know to be irrational, or cannot be afraid of things that they know are exceedingly unlikely because of how horrible it would be if that exceedingly unlikely thing were to actually be true, then you cannot have spent much time interacting with people.

 

[wareyin]

No it's not, unless you really are contending that even a tiny amount of doubt makes someone a theist. It's not a contradiction to be afraid of something happening yet still think the possibility of it happening are vanishingly small. Plenty of non-Australians are terrified of spiders, even though they know that the possibility that the spider they're afraid of is one that can hurt them is almost zero. It doesn't matter how many statistics people can learn about how rare it is to be attacked by a stranger when you're out and about, plenty of people are still terrified of the idea of being raped.

Indeed. How many people are afraid of scary movie events happening, even though they know they are fiction?

If you don't think that people can have fears that they know to be irrational, or cannot be afraid of things that they know are exceedingly unlikely because of how horrible it would be if that exceedingly unlikely thing were to actually be true, then you cannot have spent much time interacting with people.

Careful, dann doesn't like it when people question his familiarity with the stuff he is confidently declaring superior knowledge of.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Obviously your grandfather was afraid of not being a good Catholic. Catholicism is a religion. Therefore you grandfather is not an example of theism without religion which was what I was speaking.

See, this is exactly the kind of dishonesty that you participate in - nothing in the entire conversation that that post was part of was connected to you at all, yet here you are posting as if by posting it I was somehow trying and failing to address your claims.

 

[wareyin]

So you're regressing to your initial mistake of accusing me of a "general lack of familiarity with people who have (or in this case had) faith." Good luck with that!

I did read Aridas's post about you, but I don't have his patience:




When it becomes as obvious as in your case that you aren't even trying to understand, I give up.

Didn't click on the link to see which post I was referring to? Tried to dishonestly pretend I was talking about Aridas' overconfident crowing about his failure to understand how your term is commonly understood to be used? Yep, a TBD acolyte.

In the case of what Aridas has to say about Squeegee's grandpa, I agree with the part about indoctrination: You don't just go from fearing God to not doing so in a day or two:"that can take years of pointed effort," in particular, when you have been trained to fear Him. You may have nightmares about your abusive father - even twenty years after he died. The memory of the fear you experienced in childhood lives on on an emotional level. (The nightmares from my own childhood didn't stop until I was in my late 30s, and my psycho mother died when I was 18.)

But in this case, I don't think that Aridas takes Sqeegee at his word: "the one thing he was terrified of was that God was angry with him for abandoning his faith."What Sqeegee described was not a "general fear of the unknown." It was a fear of God specifically, and that's why I think that Squeegee's grandfather's change of attitude wasn't the realization that there is no god - that would sink in in the course of 70 years - but rather the spiteful defiance against the God that allowed WWI to happen (or maybe even: made it happen).

I could easily imagine other scenarios: dementia eating its way into the rational layers of the mind of a 90-year-old, for instance, but that is also not what Sqeegee described, and I would rather respect Squeegee's description of what happened than begin to make things up, even though Sqeegee doesn't think that I do.

You knew that your abusive mother had died decades ago (ergo did not exist at that time) and you still had nightmares of her. You were terrified of something you knew did not exist. Does this mean you secretly believed your mother was actually alive? Of course not. So why then do you not allow Squeegee's grandfather could similarly be terrified of something he had been terrified of in his youth, even if he did not believe that it existed?

 

[The Big Dog]

Naughty, naughty.
My post was in reponse to your claim that there was an internet crackdown on every single religious person in China. I showed that this is just not true.

State-sanctioned religions are doing just fine: those which, by their independence threaten state control, are attacked.
As we have told you, over and over and over again.

Your post is yet another lame attempt at a dodge.
Try again.

yawn. false

Oh man, I just remembered! You posted a link to official Chinese Communist Propaganda from China Today! that was Amazing!

Oh man, talk about naughty naughty...

 

[David Mo]

See, this is exactly the kind of dishonesty that you participate in - nothing in the entire conversation that that post was part of was connected to you at all, yet here you are posting as if by posting it I was somehow trying and failing to address your claims.

Frankly, you are obsessed with dishonesty. Why don't you just discuss things instead of distributing moral certificates for which you don't seem qualified?

 

[wareyin]

Is this the club that the op mentions where we get to destroy churches? I've never done that before and I wouldn't know where to begin. Is there a tutorial?

It does get frustrating to not get invited to all the cool church demolitions the OP claims we atheists are having. What's the point of being in the club if you can't take part in the activities?

 

[Nay_Sayer]

It does get frustrating to not get invited to all the cool church demolitions the OP claims we atheists are having. What's the point of being in the club if you can't take part in the activities?

VVVV

13th of October.

The event starts at 10 am. Schedule below:

10:00 am Meet and greet

10:30 am The Marxist Oath, Satan Oath and finally Darwin oath [Mandatory]

11:00-12:00 pm bible burning

1:00 pm: Church burning, Bus will leave at 1:15. Brown shirts are mandatory.

2:00 pm Complimentary buffet including fried aborted fetuses, BBQ infants, caesar salad, taco bar and more

2:30 pm Movie [Group vote on the movie]

3:00 pm Skeptic pannel

3:30 pm Raffle winners announced.

4:00 pm final event; Future plans for sinning, church burnings and whether we should organize a bowling event.

[Entry fee of 5.00$ Or equivalent currency. (Bitcoin, souls, and most major credit cards also accepted) {Donations appreciated}

Save the date! [ Event now has goat sacrifices, Baphomet cake and we had a nifty abortion clinic bombing planned, However, the christians beat us to it ]

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Frankly, you are obsessed with dishonesty.

If you don't like it being pointed out when you're being dishonest, stop being dishonest.

 

[Steve]

VVVV



Save the date! [ Event now has goat sacrifices, Baphomet cake and we had a nifty abortion clinic bombing planned, However, the christians beat us to it ]

Well yeah. But what about my membership card? Is it members only or can anyone come? Do I qualify for membership afterwards? I would feel really awkward and embarrassed not knowing the correct rituals and procedures. Perhaps there is a beginners group I could hang with? This is all sooo exciting!!!

 

[Cosmic Yak]

yawn. false

Let's see, shall we?

Naughty, naughty.
My post was in response to your claim that there was an internet crackdown on every single religious person in China.

This is true.

I showed that this is just not true.

Also true, with evidence.

State-sanctioned religions are doing just fine: those which, by their independence threaten state control, are attacked.

Again, true: even your own links support this.

As we have told you, over and over and over again.

Palpably true: just read the thread.

Your post is yet another lame attempt at a dodge.

You may dispute the word 'lame', but you clearly tried to dodge the question by not answering my original point. True.

Try again.

Request, therefore neither true nor false.
So, TBD, is any of this really false, or are you just saying so, without any reason or justification, as a bald and unsupported assertion?
(That question was rhetorical, btw).

Oh man, I just remembered! You posted a link to official Chinese Communist Propaganda from China Today! that was Amazing!

Oh man, talk about naughty naughty...

Yes, because you said that every single religious believer was subject to an internet crackdown. Quite clearly, this is not true, as my link showed.
I'd like to hope this was a simple misunderstanding, but I doubt it....
Do please explain what you think is naughty about this.

 

[The Big Dog]

Yes, because you said that every single religious believer was subject to an internet crackdown. Quite clearly, this is not true, as my link showed.
I'd like to hope this was a simple misunderstanding, but I doubt it....
Do please explain what you think is naughty about this.

Your "link." To the propaganda site of the Chinese Communist Party?

Fantastic!

If it says Goebbels Goebbels Goebbels
on the Label label label
You can cite it cite it cite it
to support your fables fables fables!

 

[MRC_Hans]

Your "link." To the propaganda site of the Chinese Communist Party?

Fantastic!

If it says Goebbels Goebbels Goebbels
on the Label label label
You can cite it cite it cite it
to support your fables fables fables!

I agree that official Chinese declarations are about as unreliable as those from the president of the United States, but it is a fact that it is entirely possible to be religious in China. Not extensive freedom like e.g. in Europe, but within limits.

You will probably have to collect various information about the real situation in China, if you don't wanna take my word for it.

Hans