Dann said:
I bet that you yourself did so, but I'll spare myself the effort of reading it since I find your screeds extremely boring. (Yes, that's how "callous" etc.
I am!)
What a shame, Eh?
He finds my "screeds" boring, and yet he will insist again, again and again on provoking more of them!
Could it be that he's not very conversant with the scientific process of cause-and-effect? I dunno! All his insistence on how nothing that hasn't been scientifically tested can have validity, and yet his own behaviour is as glaringly unscientific as that! Will he repent and resort to more scientific behaviour in the future? That remains to be seen.
I don't know about you, Dann, but I'm finding this thread increasingly amusing. If you're not, then maybe you should take the advice I once gave you before? It served you well for months!:
The wisdom of the ages oh no, it's actually just me who says:
He who does not want his opponent to comment on what he says ... would be better off not saying it/keeping quiet.
After all, just look at how verbosely I'm capable of responding to a mere one line of a post of yours!:
Dann said:
You do know that you are not the first fundie to confuse ridicule with intolerance, don't you? Why is it that they don't seem to understand the difference?
Bwahahahahahahaha! I point out several times in this thread that you habitually simplify what your opponent has said in your mind and then condemn it, looking at things in black-and-white terms - i.e. one is either a militant atheist fighting the good fight, or one is a destructive Fundie whose views must be crushed - no in between, and as if to oblige me by illustrating my point, you continue to do just that. Despite your protest that what I said was a "straw man", you conveniently endeavour to prove my point for me.
How close do you think this characterisation of Communists mirrors your own mind-set? I'll quote what I said in the thread where an atheist complained about a Christian raising the issue of Communist atrocities to criticize atheism the other day.
Here's my post:
Baby Nemesis said:
It would be simplistic indeed to attribute the mass murderous inclinations of people like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedong to their atheism. Obviously they
would all have had multiple motives, and a number of things about their personalities would have inclined them to be like that.
But here are a few thoughts.
From a web page arguing that it wasn't their atheism that made them mass murderers:
Code:
One could make a valid claim that since Stalin attended a Russian orthodox seminary (from 1894 to 1899) as a teenager in Tiflis, the dogmatic black or white outlook of the world influenced his subsequent actions. As the historian Alan Bullock in his book [i]Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives[/i] (1991) explained:
The fact that it was a Church education helped to form the mind of a man who was to become known for his dogmatism and his propensity for seeing issues in absolute terms, in black and white. Anyone reading Stalin's speeches and writings will notice their catechistic structure, the use of question and answer, the reduction of complex questions to a set of simplified formulas, the quoting of text to support his arguments. The same Church influence has been noted
by biographers in his style of speaking or writing Russian: 'declamatory and repetitive, with liturgical overtones.'
[i]However[/i] the main influence on all these three men were dogmatic Marxism-Communism. Joseph M. Bochenski in his essay "A Critique of Communism" in the book [i]Outline of Communism[/i] clearly showed what the shortcomings of this system are.
Firstly, communists are prone to oversimplification. Complex problems of the real world are explained in simplistic terms. Thus the communist eschatology of a classless society leads them to believe that collectivization is the main source of human happiness. Never mind the fact that each human beings have
different - and opposing - dreams, goals and desires. They also believe that all problems of labor can be resolved by nationalization of all industries
and the banning of private ownership. This saps the human spirit of the will to excel. This simplistic outlook spills into their belief about moral issues. Since communism is the ultimate good, anyone who is opposed to it must necessarily be evil. Like religious fundamentalists, to the communists everything is in black and white. "You are either with us or against us."
If you can try to make a cool assessment of the issue, how much of that mirrors your own experiences and mind-set?
Funnily enough - and you might be horribly shocked by this, the article goes on to say that Marx was just as dismissive of atheism as he was of religion!!
Indeed to the founder of communist doctrines, Karl Marx (1818-1883), atheism, was just a stage on the path to communism, and it was ultimately "unreal" and "no longer needed" by socialism and communism. This is what Karl Marx himself said about atheism:
Code:
Atheism as a denial of this unreality; has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a denial of God and tries to assert through this negation the existence of man; but socialism as such no longer needs this mediation...
Shocking! Now you know that, are you going to give up your atheism in furtherance of your discipleship of Karl Marx, or are you going to defy Marx and his doctrines by clinging to your atheism regardless of the fact that he said it's meaningless and no longer needed? Oh, the dilemma!
And oh yes, the difference between intolerance and ridicule: The reason there doesn't seem to be a difference in your own case is that you use ridicule as a
first resort, with the seeming aim of shaming your opponent into silence, rather than using it to show up errors in specific things they actually said. ... Well that tactic backfired, didn't it.
Of course, it might simply be that you use it because you have no valid arguments so it's the only thing you feel capable of resorting to. But though that may well be a factor, your intolerance of disagreement can be seen in that without even assessing your opponent's position enough to even have a clear idea of what it is, you use phrases like "insufferable drivel" to describe anything they say with any religious overtones at all.
If you could only try to look at things objectively instead of having them first filtered through the near-pathological hatred of religion you appear to have, your responses could probably be more intelligent.
Of course, I'm not accusing you of the gross intolerance the Communists who led Russia were guilty of. It remains to be seen whether you'd endorse that kind of cruelty. ...
Hey! That reminds me of yet
another Christian testimony.
I know what: I'll tell you about it:
Actually, this is quite gruesome and may be upsetting to some.
First, a quote from Wikipedia:
... In any case, religious beliefs and practices did persist, in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognized its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war. The result of this militant atheism was to transform the Church into a persecuted and martyred Church. According to the Soviet government's own statistics, there have been over 20 million new Christian martyrs who have died for the Orthodox Christian Church. ...
The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.
Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture, being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals.
Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in order to force them to give up their religious convictions. ...
However, among the general population, large numbers remained religious. In 1987 in the Russian SFSR, between 40% and 50% of newborn babies (depending on the region) were baptized and over 60% of all deceased received Christian funeral services. ...
I once heard a story about a man who was part of a squad raiding underground churches and trying to bully them into giving up Christianity. He said he went in with a whip like the others, and attacked the believers. There was one girl in particular he bullied. But when he went back the next week, she was still there and the meeting was still taking place! He whipped her till her back was seriously bleeding, and they grabbed the New Testaments the believers were using and ripped them up. The people left, but he stayed after they'd gone. He picked up a page of one of the New Testaments that had been ripped up, and read it. And when he did, he wondered why on earth they would be persecuting people for reading things like that! He thought it was beautiful, and ended up becoming a Christian.
Dann said:
OK, I'll have a go at it then: I think it's probably because of the cake! If I strain my empathic faculties to the breaking point that is the only real value I am able to detect in your attempts at presenting Christianity as the remedy for "all matters of human suffering".
Bwahahahahahahahaha! If you spend weeks and weeks trawling this thread and any other on any other forum I've ever posted on, you will
not find one place where I have ever said any such thing. I've said following Christian doctrine could make a lot of people behave more ethically so the world would be a better place; but that is not the same at all. Again, you are proving my point about how you simplify your opponent's views. Is it the old Communist mind-set kicking in again?
Dann said:
Again the religious fervour of the Christian zealot makes you present reality as if ridicule of a cure that has no basis in either scientific research of properly conducted tests is a crime against human compassion and all things appropriate.
On the contrary, I'm simply displaying the common human response, probably common to most people who've read the posts in question, whether Christian or atheist, of revulsion towards the attitude of someone who can apparently read about people involved in gang violence who gave up their violent lifestyles, thieves who did likewise, someone talking about how his cruel mother's rejection made him bitter and lonely finding new hope when he became a Christian, and so on, merely responding with crass unthinking dismissal of those people and their struggles, as if they're worthy of no more than contempt.
You are seriously, seriously losing the propaganda war here! The sooner you realise that, the better for you.
... Oh, and wha'd'you know! There's that simplification of your opponent's position again!
Dann said:
Won't you please stop telling us what "cool-headed people" would do? Please restrict yourself to telling us what Jesus would do. You are much more reliable when you stick to that.
Ah, but I suspect I'm more reliable still at telling everybody what
you would do. No, you wouldn't be one of the cool-headed ones who could discuss the details of the reasons why anyone might find value in alternative medicine and put forward ideas on ways of providing those same benefits through more efficacious means. No. ...
Oh no hang on, let's have an illustration of what you would do in your own words! Yes! Great idea.
Here's one I came across only the other day. It doesn't quite fit, but it'll do for now. If you want a more appropriate one, just say so, and I'll gladly find several. But for now: Here's part of a conversation I found where people were disputing with you over your mockery of a million dollar challenge applicant, and Chillzero was condemning you in strong terms for seeming to think intimidation tactics are the way to deal with such people, while Cran was rebuking you for the general personality traits of yours that seem to lead you to take such attitudes: ...
Oh no, actually, since this post is so horribly long already, I'll save it for my next response to you, should you be so unwise as to provoke one.
Dann said:
People don’t go to scam healers to support science. Most of the time they are not only ignorant of what science has discovered about homeopathy etc; they don't want to know the truth about their favourite health delusions! They go there to be cured of their ailments, and when they go, they have the feeling that they have done something to take control of their own health. And people tend to like that. That the fulfilment of this need may kill them, doesn't occur to most of them. And if it does, it's quickly brushed aside.
Right now hundreds of Danish terminal cancer patients are wasting money, often borrowed, going to China for alleged life-prolonging treatments that science "has proven totally ineffective" – as far as the prolongation of life is concerned, which is what science deals with.
Well, that was the first semi-sensible thing you've said for weeks.
Dann said:
And that is what science and cool-headed skeptics should tell potential victims of the scammers.
And I never suggested otherwise. Again, you illustrate your advanced ability to miss points. If you had actually read much at all of what I've posted, instead of jumping to extreme ill-informed conclusions which you admit by implication - having admitted to skipping over important bits - that you do, you'd be very well aware that nowhere have I ever suggested one shouldn't make people aware of the scams involved in such things as alternative medicine - and in fact my take on similar things is well-known here and will make your position seem absurd to anyone who has actually paid attention to several of the things I've written. Anyone who actually did read what I wrote will know I was advocating that people learn from the things that attract people to alternative healers to provide a better mainstream service so a percentage of people won't feel such a need to go to alternative therapists! Just as I was advocating near the end of the previous page that Atheist psychologists can learn from the needs people say were fulfilled in their lives when they became Christians to inform their atheist therapy! What a crashing way to miss a point! You've made a fool of yourself.
Blimey, I'm even boring
myself now!
... Now, are you going to greet this post with ... ahem, a
"scientific" reaction, ... or are you going to fly in the face of the science you profess to be so all-important and respond by provoking me some more, which will inevitably lead to me responding some more - something you appear not to want? Think about it:
Science or temporary ego-gratification doomed to be short-lived? Science or temporary ego-gratification doomed to be short-lived? Science or temporary ego-gratification doomed to be short-lived? ... [The refrain slowly fades away into the mists.]
given what I've just cited, that's hardly a surprise! But Wait! Look at This! 
