This this Compassionate?

[Jocko]

Where is this enlightened area you live in? Despite that my home state (WA) is the least religious state in the country (according to surveys), and despite that I live in the heathen part of the state (near Seattle), religion is still plenty popular. And that's not counting the wiccans!

Sorry, by "here" I meant this forum.

 

[billydkid]

Well, actually...

Wait, wait, wait... are you suggesting there's some kind of movement to encourage violence against athiests? I mean, opinions are opinions, and no one with a pair of working brain cells would silence Limbaugh or Franken just because they get hysterical from time to time.

Are there incidents of "hate crimes" (for lack of a saner term) against athiests? If so, I'm not familiar with them. Just the kind of tsk-tsking athiests just as often flick believers' way.

Not trying to pick a fight, but I'd like to know what leads you to make that statement.

The fact is, if you went around in many places in this country proclaiming your atheism there is a fair chance you would be accosted. If there is a minority in this country that needs to keep a low profile it is atheists. I remember watching an episode of Jackass where the guy went around dressed in a devil suit carrying signs saying God was unfair (or something like that) and he was assaulted numerous times by believers.

 

[jj]

So athiesm is unpopular in your neck of the woods, just as religion is not popular here. While heart-wrenching, your tale is heavy on inference. They wanted to honor a lease, and that translates to harrassment... how? Would you have felt differently if the lessee was a secular group? You would still have no school.

Lease? What does a lease have to do about it, other than perhaps provide them motiviation for their unAmerican behavior?

Sorry, but honoring a lease, or not, has nothing to do with it, except maybe to explain why the various bigots used the arguments they did.

And the lessee was irrelevant, the lease had the usual take-back provision. Perhaps you don't understand the classic bigot manouever of engaging in ad-hominem based, in this case, on religion

Please fully explain and justify your attempt to turn this from the issue of the comments made by the bigots to the lease issue. Until you do so, you are aiding and abetting the bigots by attempting to defend their disgusting behavior.

I notice that you don't address the un-American behavior of the anti-atheist bigots in any fashion, and instead raise a straw man. Was this deliberate? Explain and defend yourself.

 

[jj]

This this or that this? I used to think that this was but I now I believe that that is...or is this that? I get confused.

Ahh, yes, the people who out themselves in a thread like this. One could almost predict.

 

[jj]

"stalking" is replying to you every once in a while? Being a "liar" is reporting what you actually said? You, as usual, are invited to report me to the mods..and get their take on your emotional, exxagerated, and misleading accusations.

Now, are you honest enough to admit there are counterexamples to your universal claim about the religious not using logic?

I predict you're not, and you'll keep dodging it by focusing on me etc.

Anything to protect cherished preconceived beliefs...

That's not what I said, not what I'm doing, and you're still a stalking liar. You have dishonestly taken a comment out of the context it was stated in, and you are engaging in deliberate stalking by using that comment out of context.

Cease and desist.

 

[Thanz]

Lease? What does a lease have to do about it, other than perhaps provide them motiviation for their unAmerican behavior?

I get very nervous when people start labelling behaviour as "unAmerican". Given the most recent election in your country, the "Constitution Restoration Act", the Jackson boob furor, and the comments of Bush Sr., I'd say that religious disdain for athiests may be positively American. Which doesn't make it right, of course.

Sorry, but honoring a lease, or not, has nothing to do with it, except maybe to explain why the various bigots used the arguments they did.

No, bigots don't need a reason to make bigoted remarks other than their own bigotry. I think he was just pointing out that some people may hold the belief that the lease should be adhered to for reasons other than your bigotry accusations.

And the lessee was irrelevant, the lease had the usual take-back provision. Perhaps you don't understand the classic bigot manouever of engaging in ad-hominem based, in this case, on religion

Please fully explain and justify your attempt to turn this from the issue of the comments made by the bigots to the lease issue. Until you do so, you are aiding and abetting the bigots by attempting to defend their disgusting behavior.

I notice that you don't address the un-American behavior of the anti-atheist bigots in any fashion, and instead raise a straw man. Was this deliberate? Explain and defend yourself.

Over the top much? Geeze Louise. For this, and for starting this whole thread to attack Rouser, I think you need some of this to accompany your pastime:

 

[Jocko]

Re: Well, actually...

The fact is, if you went around in many places in this country proclaiming your atheism there is a fair chance you would be accosted. If there is a minority in this country that needs to keep a low profile it is atheists. I remember watching an episode of Jackass where the guy went around dressed in a devil suit carrying signs saying God was unfair (or something like that) and he was assaulted numerous times by believers.

That's still a long way from identifying "hate speech to encourage harm against athiests." I'm not surprised people might look sideways at someone who professes athiesm - but aren't they entitled to their opinions as well? Since all we really have established here is opinion - and not violence/harm/etc. - I see it as a non-issue.

I don't see what your jackass reference has to do with anything, since addressing God implies a belief. It's really not the same thing at all, IMHO.

 

[Jocko]

Lease? What does a lease have to do about it, other than perhaps provide them motiviation for their unAmerican behavior?

Calm down, sparky, it was just a simple question. No need to blow a vessel over it.

Sorry, but honoring a lease, or not, has nothing to do with it, except maybe to explain why the various bigots used the arguments they did.

Yeah... MAYBE. Then again, maybe not. If there's a lease, the parties are free to exercise the terms as they see fit. It's legal, ain't it?

And the lessee was irrelevant, the lease had the usual take-back provision. Perhaps you don't understand the classic bigot manouever of engaging in ad-hominem based, in this case, on religion

Is it completely impossible that the lease was maintained independent of someone calling you names? You seem to think it is. If that's the case, then I don't see why you had a problem with my calling this nefarious cabal a "movement" up there, since you seem convinced there is some kind of conspiracy afoot.

I'm not saying you're wrong - I wasn't there - but you seem easily convinced when the conclusion is one that you agree with.

Please fully explain and justify your attempt to turn this from the issue of the comments made by the bigots to the lease issue. Until you do so, you are aiding and abetting the bigots by attempting to defend their disgusting behavior.

I have done no such thing. And if you project your insecurities on your neighbors the way you've just demonstrated here, I think I know the real source of your problem, and it ain't atheism.

I notice that you don't address the un-American behavior of the anti-atheist bigots in any fashion, and instead raise a straw man. Was this deliberate? Explain and defend yourself.

I don't address them because I don't take as a given the way you do. As far as I can see, complying with a legal lease doesn't add up to un-American behavior. Un-JJ behavior, perhaps, but that's life, kid. I don't see that I have anything to defend.

 

[Snide]

Sorry, by "here" I meant this forum.

Dang. I gotta call my real estate agent and tell her the house is no longer for sale.

 

[jj]

Calm down, sparky, it was just a simple question. No need to blow a vessel over it.

Stop lying about what I am saying, then.

Yeah... MAYBE. Then again, maybe not. If there's a lease, the parties are free to exercise the terms as they see fit. It's legal, ain't it?

How do I know, your question makes no sense. What's legal?

Is it completely impossible that the lease was maintained independent of someone calling you names?

I neither said nor imnplied any such thing.

The issue at hand is the dishonest, un-American name-calling that some individuals at a meeting engaged in, a kind of dishonest, un-American name-calling that stereotypes atheists in the same way that anti-black bigots stereotype blacks, anti-Jewish bigots stereotype Jews, etc.

Why do you continue to attempt to deflect the issue away from their asserting a false, hurtful stereotype? Why are you trying to defend these un-American bigots?

I don't address them because I don't take as a given the way you do. As far as I can see, complying with a legal lease doesn't add up to un-American behavior. Un-JJ behavior, perhaps, but that's life, kid. I don't see that I have anything to defend.

What's your point? What legal lease? The "legal lease" had a take-back provision in it, no matter who rented the building, and hence your entire straw man series about the lease is nothing but an attempt at apologia for the bigoted, un-American behavior of some bigots who happen to be religious.

 

[Jocko]

Stop lying about what I am saying, then.

Trust me, JJ. I couldn't make this up. George Carlin couldn't make this up.

What's your point? What legal lease? The "legal lease" had a take-back provision in it, no matter who rented the building, and hence your entire straw man series about the lease is nothing but an attempt at apologia for the bigoted, un-American behavior of some bigots who happen to be religious.

Apparently you feel it's un-American for two contracted parties to execute the terms of a contract as they see fit. News flash, tough guy, a provision doesn't HAVE to be invoked. That's between the contracted parties, not borderline paranoid outside nonentities like you.

That is no straw man, that is the very crux of your problem - and it IS your problem.

Oh, thanks for the sig line. Really appreciate it. Good luck with the windmills, Don.

 

[jj]

Apparently you feel it's un-American for two contracted parties to execute the terms of a contract as they see fit. News flash, tough guy, a provision doesn't HAVE to be invoked. That's between the contracted parties, not borderline paranoid outside nonentities like you.

That's your own straw man. I haven't taken any position on this lease other than to state its existance and mention some of the terms. You're no better or worse than jzs. You're making up absolute, dishonest, complete nonsense and attributing those made up positions to me.

The SUBJECT of this converation is the abuse that some people handed out to atheists, no more, no less. The fact that they used this contract as excuse doesn't justify your making up a position on my part.

Like JZS, you make it all up.

***plonk*** to you.

 

[Jocko]

That's your own straw man. I haven't taken any position on this lease other than to state its existance and mention some of the terms. You're no better or worse than jzs. You're making up absolute, dishonest, complete nonsense and attributing those made up positions to me.

Dishonest? Nonsense? No argument here, buddy, but you've got the source wrong.

Very simply, I've had people, for instance at a schoolboard meeting, get up and shout things like "shut up you commie atheist" and "atheists have no use for life, why don't they kill themselves". Yes, really. And in a town 8 miles down the road from Bell Labs, Murray Hill. A town where somebody called me out for not uttering "Under god" in the pledge of religion, err, allegance, that was expected of everyone before the meeting. And the discussion was not about religion or creationism, but about the need (or not) for new schools in a town that had 900 new housing units of 3 bedrooms or more go up in one year. (The claim was that the need for new schools was "alarmist" and that it was unfair to cancel the lease on a spare school to a right-wing religious group in order to use the school for public students... That may have brought up the religious aspect, but not from my end. In the end, they had to rebuild and reopen that school, build additions on to three others, and they're still building today, 8 years later.)

See, it's the "for instance" that ties your paranoid delusions of persecution to the grander issue. You said that, not me. I simply responded to it.

Unless... unless... I'm actually working for... [whisper]THEM?!![/whisper]

The SUBJECT of this converation is the abuse that some people handed out to atheists, no more, no less. The fact that they used this contract as excuse doesn't justify your making up a position on my part.

Yeah, and your long-winded and not particularly interesting school story was offered as an example... a "for instance"... of this very theory. It just turned out to be more a commentary on your sanity than on public sentiment toward athiests.

Like JZS, you make it all up.

You know, I like athiests a little less now than I did just this morning. You've truly got the gift, JJ. I've never seen anyone get tangled in their own doubletalk on a one-page thread quite like you have here.

***plonk*** to you.

"Plonk"? Is that the sound the Haldol makes in the plastic dosage cup at 10, 2 and 8?

 

[Tony]

Re: Well, actually...

The fact is, if you went around in many places in this country proclaiming your atheism there is a fair chance you would be accosted. If there is a minority in this country that needs to keep a low profile it is atheists. I remember watching an episode of Jackass where the guy went around dressed in a devil suit carrying signs saying God was unfair (or something like that) and he was assaulted numerous times by believers.

The sign said "Keep God Out of California"

 

[Tony]

Very simply, I've had people, for instance at a schoolboard meeting, get up and shout things like "shut up you commie atheist" and "atheists have no use for life, why don't they kill themselves".

How did you respond?

 

[jj]

How did you respond?

Ignore it. Duh.

At the time they weren't shouting at me, but rather at a rather conservative Jewish fellow, oddly enough. I did ask the chair to call the meeting back to order, which he did.

Assuming they were shouting at me, I'd still ignore them, and ask the chair to restore order if I couldn't talk over them.

 

[Jocko]

Ignore it. Duh.

At the time they weren't shouting at me, but rather at a rather conservative Jewish fellow, oddly enough.

Obviously one of those athiest jews. Odd indeed.

 

[T'ai Chi]

That's not what I said,

You said, and I quote

"Well, the religious don't use logic, and logic doesn't support the religious."

Are you going to deny that you said that?

It is difficult to interpret "the religious don't use logic" in any other way, jj, so please, if you will, inform me how I took that out of context.

As far as stalking, etc., AGAIN, you are free to report me, to the JREF admins, to the police, your mommy, anybody. OR, continue whining.

Cease and desist.

As I predicted... you ran.

 

[jj]

You said, and I quote

"Well, the religious don't use logic, and logic doesn't support the religious."

Are you going to deny that you said that? [/B]

Your omission of the context is once again evident.

End of discussion. Cease and desist.

 

[T'ai Chi]

You're no better or worse than jzs.

...

Like JZS, you make it all up.

I'm "stalking", yet you can't stop mentioning me. Way to go!

You're making up absolute, dishonest, complete nonsense and attributing those made up positions to me.

You typed "Well, the religious don't use logic, and logic doesn't support the religious.", so your position is that you believe the religious, as you typed, don't use logic, as you typed.

The SUBJECT of this converation is the abuse that some people handed out to atheists, no more, no less.

Or some poeple saying the religious don't use logic, thereby trying to convince people to not pay any attention to the religious because they are illogical.

Was Newton religious?
Did Newton use logic?

Simple answers will suffice.