There was an appalling and tragic plane crash in Montana: 14 people were killed, 7 of them children.
Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told The Sacramento Bee that he allowed several children ages 6 to 10 to use the airport bathroom before they boarded the doomed plane.
“There were a lot of kids in the group,” he said, “a lot of really cute kids.”
Nine of them were members of one family. This was a horrifying and genuinely horrible accident; I can’t begin to imagine the grief felt by the survivors, who lost children and grandchildren.
I can feel great anger, though. Here is something that will make you furious and outraged, too. Irving Feldkamp is the father of two and grandfather of five who were killed in that accident; he lost a shocking great swath of his family in that one sad afternoon. Irving Feldkamp is also the owner of Family Planning Associates — a chain of clinics that also does abortions.
You can guess what segment of the Christian community I’m about to highlight.
Choke back your gag reflex and read this hideous, evil article on Christian Newswire. Some moral cretin named Gingi Edmonds wrote a wretched story on this tragedy that makes it sound like divine retribution on Mr Feldkamp.
It begins by telling us that the plane crashed in a cemetery — a Catholic cemetery that has a “memorial to the unborn”, dedicated to aborted fetuses. We are apparently supposed to feel some sense of irony at this.
All I can feel is horror at the kinds of monsters who would find grim satisfaction in the death of 6 to 10 year old children, as if it were payback for abortion. At amoral pious hypocrites who would regard this as an opportunity to assault human beings broken-hearted by pain and loss, to proselytize for the bloody-handed god of their death cult, to compound agony with accusations of guilt. There is no humanity left in these sanctimonious creatures, it’s been bled out and replaced with fanaticism and dogma.
This is loathsome.
In my time working for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, I helped organize and conduct a weekly campaign where youth activists stood outside of Feldkamp’s mini-mansion in Redlands holding fetal development signs and raising community awareness regarding Feldkamp’s dealings in child murder for profit. Every Thursday afternoon we called upon Bud and his wife Pam to repent, seek God’s blessing and separate themselves from the practice of child killing.
We warned him, for his children’s sake, to wash his hands of the innocent blood he assisted in spilling because, as Scripture warns, if “you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you”. (Ezekiel 35:6)
A news source states that Bud Feldkamp visited the site of the crash with his wife and their two surviving children on Monday. As they stood near the twisted and charred debris talking with investigators, light snow fell on the tarps that covered the remains of their children.
I don’t want to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual ‘I told you so’ moment, but I think of the time spent outside of Feldkamp’s – Pam Feldkamp laughing at the fetal development signs, Bud Feldkamp trying not to make eye contact as he got into his car with a small child in tow – and I think of the haunting words, ‘Think of your children.’ I wonder if those words were haunting Feldkamp as well as he stood in the snow among the remains of loved ones, just feet from the ‘Tomb of the Unborn’?
I only hope and pray that in the face of this tragedy, Feldkamp recognizes his need for repentance and reformation. I pray that God will use this unfortunate catastrophe to soften the hearts of Bud and Pam and that they will draw close to the Lord and wash their hands of the blood of thousands of innocent children, each as precious and irreplaceable as their own.
Has Gingi Edmonds considered the possibility that that “small child in tow” that she ignored to shout slogans and wave signs at Feldkamp might now be one of the shattered dead lying in that field? Is she aware that the Feldkamp family is probably haunted more by the good memories, the loss of ones they loved, than the hate shouted at them by religious fanatics? I doubt it. It’s a piece that reveals so much about the author: her own unconcern for human life, and her smug obliviousness of the fact that she is taking advantage of a tragedy to say her petty “I told you so”.
Once again, I am confirmed in my opinion that Christianity is a breeder of evil, a cesspit in which the most hateful and inhuman commitment to lies and delusions can ferment. Don’t ever preach at me about Christian morality: I’ve seen it, and it is empty of love for humanity, replaced with sanctimonious idolatry and commitment to dead, dumb superstition.
“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'” MAT 9:47,48
This hell you imagine sounds pretty badly to me …
JBlilie
Well I’m glad you think so.
As for the rest of your comment–didn’t you post the same tome earlier?
Slightly OT :
A woman who thought she was the devil killed her elderly mother with a crucifix and other objects in the French Catholic pilgrimage town Lourdes, officials and press reports said Wednesday.
The 34-year-old beat her 81-year-old mother with “objects that were within her reach, a bedside lamp, slats from her bed,”
“I had to share the good news that we’re number 3!”
And in my book you’ll always be number two. And now, back to potty training my three year old.
Re that last sentence: – More a question for them of getting their heads out of their own asses, isn’t it?
Will still maintain that religion is lobotomy without the physical atrocities.
Well, one difference is that baggage doesn’t move around and change the plane’s center of gravity, which might have been a factor if there were more kids than seats, on that smallish plane.
Look at it on the bright side. The next time a tornado or hurricane hits the fundie lands of the south or central USA, everyone who wants to can play xian ghoul and feed on the dead by claiming god hates fundies. There are always some dead people and sometimes a lot.
I’m too busy. And besides I would rather eat fresh fruits, vegetables, and turkey.
So? Who cares what the fuck you and the rest of those false Christians believe?
It makes about as much sense to argue how many hit dice a green dragon should have as it would the details of your mythology.
Brownian, The World’s Only True Christian
I hope no one took my “comment” @ #429 as taking any pleasure in the car accident that PZ was involved in this morning. While I was searching archives for instances where PZ was in my opinion insensitive to the tragedies and misfortunes of others I was not keeping up with the comments. I was unaware of the car accident until after I had posted. The point of #429 was to point out that it is heartless and mean spirited no matter who uses this tactic on the Internet to score some kind of points.
I had my own car accident on icy I-25 once and am glad that PZ survived his close call.
Was it not human before the brain developed?
On my personal scale, no. It’s a POTENTIAL human. Sorry, no rights.
(And can we agree that “pro-lifers” that do not bomb/picket IVF clinics for the millions of potentially viable embryos they toss out every year are disgusting hypocrites — especially when coupled with opposition to embryonic stem-cell research?)
Because that unquestioning belief in one’s own point of view, that sense of unwavering certainty – that’s what we atheists are know for. Being openminded and able to re-examine our position would only make us like, um, religionists
But not you, right? You, you are just so above the fray…
Concern troll is concerned.
Louise Van Court,
I’m still glad Falwell is dead. It’s the Christian thing to be.
I too emailed the dipshit site publisher and received the “you must be pro-choice” and “unreported irony” boilerplate. My response:
You assume much sir. Although my (or anyone else’s) personal opinion about abortion wasn’t the subject of my previous email, I will tell you I find the practice to be abhorrent. Though, unlike you, I’ve accepted the idea in a free society my personal view of morality can’t (and shouldn’t) be applied universally.
Too, your comparison to Nazis of those who believe their individual rights take precedence over others’ obviously debatable morals is telling. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised that such extreme attitudes exist at an organization willing to publish what you have.
Since you asked one of me, I have a couple of questions for you: Is the irony you and Ms. Edmonds find in this tragedy “significant” enough to be worth debasing your cause and publication as you have? Have you considered that no other media outlet chose to comment about it because dignity and class are valued higher outside your organization?
There is no need to repond — I’m sure you recognize rhetoric when you see it. All further correspondence from you or your organization will find it’s way into my “junk” mail folder.
Good day.
From the article:
“before time’s dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision”
As I have before, I have to ask again — if one genuinely believes this, what is the point of having any religious practices around that belief? If there is literally absolutely nothing you can do to change your fate, why bother to engage in any rituals or services or even congregations? Why should your behaviour differ at all from an atheist’s, since the atheist presumably literally has exactly the same chance of being saved as you do? Indeed, why do you even care that Calvinism is receiving more attention, since that fact itself should matter not one whit in terms of who will be saved?
This is an honest question — I can understand religions built around the notion of works or faith leading to salvation, since the believers’ actions actually have consequences, but if one believes everything is predestined, what is the point of religion?
Oh, that’s so fucking awesome! I’m gonna go do the same. :)
Is this guy serious? Even if one did have the absurd position that a fetus was a living, breathing, conscious individual, an abortion would be more akin to euthanasia than murder, and certainly not a matter of systematic extermination (like say the holocaust). How can even the most deranged mind link the termination of an unwanted pregnancy, to systematic genocide? They can’t really be that fucking stupid?
I’m going to have to go with the late Bill Hicks here. If you’re so pro-life, and you’re so pro-child, then adopt one that’s already here, that’s very unwanted and very alone, and needs someone to take care of it, to get it out of a horrible situation.
frog #477 wrote:
I think you are grossly underestimating people’s ability to rationalize and interpret their religious texts to fit their pre-existing values.
If you start out with the given that God is loving; if you recognize that the Bible as document was a human product which reflected the views of the times; if you are comfortable with filtering stories in the Bible through poetic metaphor or analogies with similar, less disturbing secular messages; and if you have a rather open understanding of what it means to be “inspired by God” — then the ideology you have “derived” from the Bible can be fairly reasonable and gentle.
Liberal Christians will often allow that, if you read the Bible “unsympathetically” and look for the worst interpretation — oh sure, you will find it. But they apparently feel that true Christian charity must start with a charitable exegesis. Just as they search for ways to discover that the Bible has no conflicts with science, they search for ways to discover that it doesn’t have any conflicts with humanist ethics, either.
The problem, of course, is that once you’ve endorsed the value of having faith that God exists, it’s hard to draw lines between good faith, and bad faith. Absent a God which reveals itself clearly, the only real measure is sincerity.
Okay, well, people are disgusted that Gingi used this opportunity to make a point – that God will punish those who support abortion (or something similar). And they should be – it was insensitive (and on top of that her beliefs are irrational and freaking crazy).
You call this ghoulish sociopathic driveling lunacy “insensitive”? Are you fucking serious?
Tulse, #513
It’s a good question. The article (which isn’t that great, but they can’t do justice to any topic in a few paragraphs) hints at the answer.
Or, from the very first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Both parts of the answer being, I would say, equally important.
I’m so relieved to learn that there are no true Christians who think like this about hell, and those who roast for eternity to make a nightlight for those who sleep smugly in heaven.
From St. Thomas Aquinas, Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned
heddle:
“JBlilie
The doctrine of damnation is my second most important reason for rejecting Christianity:
Well I’m glad you think so.”
I am glad to bring joy to your day.
Now you’ve done it. I was doing everything in my power to keep Heddle from reading Module #36 from his DM’s Guide to Campaigning in the Calvinist Plane, but you’ve just asked him to open the floodgates on the physiological differences between hobbits and dwarves.
Stu @#516 “You call this ghoulish sociopathic driveling lunacy “insensitive”? Are you fucking serious?
No, I wasn’t talking about WHAT she was saying. You were mistaken. What she was saying was stupid, idiotic, disgusting and awful. The manner in which she said it was insensitive.
This pretty well encapsulates all the reasons I hate religion. At the end of the day, it’s all ugly, petty, inhumane tripe.
Words cannot describe how evil the author of that article is. Its despicable!
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Both parts of the answer being, I would say, equally important.
Which is to say, of no importance whatsoever. One may argue every bit as reasonably and with every bit as much relation to reality and one’s future well-being, that the highest goal of any sensible being is to make sure that Frodo and Bilbo always always have more fresh pipeweed than they could possibly smoke. Oh, and smiting anybody who disagrees with me, and gloating when they get what’s coming to them, forever.
Brownian,
Heh. You have the virtue of a good sense of humor. But no, I promise not to go on a Calvinistic rant. Besides–I have to go teach E&M. I’m giving a test on Monday and they need their review. I do have to tell them not to be Calvinistic when it comes to studying the multipole expansion.
Glad PZ is OK from this morning’s accident. While reading that article I noticed this one:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03/25/2009-03-25_new_york_palace_hotel_boss_niklaus_leuen.html
Shouldn’t we have laws like in France against wearing religious symbols at work or school?
I understand the guy was quite rude with his remarks but that particular ash Wednesday symbol is particularly unnerving. I am a surgeon and I just can’t keep my eyes out of patients foreheads on that day. It really keeps me from concentrating in what I am doing.
heddle, “As for the rest of your comment–didn’t you post the same tome earlier?”
As if you have offered anything new in,… ever.
BTW, you still haven’t addressed the question of how you know the original scriptures (autographs) are true if none have ever survived. How can you believe something to be true which doesn’t exist for us to base a judgement on?
You can continue to ignore this flaw in your ideological construct. I wouldn’t expect you to examine this point too closely as it might provoke too much dissonance for your fragile mind. It might be much easier to continue to throw out the same repetitive crap comments from time to time as you are want to do.
heddle #517 wrote:
Q. 2. What is the chief end of God?
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Both parts of the answer being, I would say, equally important.
Up until the moment god condemns you to suffer for eternity, sweetheart that he is.
Yet more proof that religion is life- and humananity-denying.
But none of that matters to your salvation. God has already decided whether you will be saved regardless of what you do. It makes as much sense to pray and “glorify” god as it does to pray and glorify an asteroid that may be on a path to strike the earth — both will, according to your own beliefs, have exactly as much influence on the outcome. You presume that God has already determined whether you will “enjoy him forever” or not, so what’s the point of religious practice? How is predestination not just a brute fact of the world like gravity?
(And sorry, Brownian — I also like to poke holes in the logic of D&D spells. Ask me sometime about using a continual darkness spell cast on an object in a tube to produce the incredibly handy device I called a “flashdark”…)
Amanda @500
Sastra: I think you are grossly underestimating people’s ability to rationalize and interpret their religious texts to fit their pre-existing values.
That’s why there are good Christian despite their Christianity. There’s no objective way to argue that they’re not grossly distorting their intellectual heritage: the Bible, the church fathers, the scholasts, Calvin and Luther, and so on and so forth. In order to create a facsimile of decency, they have to rationalize away the trivial facts of their religion, like a decent person who happened to be a Stalinist.
The facts are simple — they have an all-powerful God that creates a world of evil. There are only a couple ways around this: the original Christian (neo-Platonic) position that God wasn’t really all-powerful, that as soon as he “touched” the world, his own failure became apparent (thereby require self-sacrific); or that God is evil; or to handwave about “freedom” without making any sensible definition of freedom; or to simply declare that evil is good (“God is inscrutable, a mystery”).
The first one was eliminated since orthodox Christianity arose, since it basically makes anykind of “orthodoxy” impossible, since by definition orthodoxy is the failure of creation.
The second is a recurring theme in the practice of unofficial Christian theodicy, with it’s waves antinomian rebellion and secret rejection of doctrine by inner circles. The third is particularly destructive, since it requires a constant self-delusion that is inevitably corrosive (Liberal Christianity). The last is standard doctrine for most sects — “Slavery is Freedom” — and is a senseless abdication of responsibility for a moral code, which creates the seeds for abdicating morality itself (see Fundamentalism).
As I said, the core of the doctrine is bad, evil, dirty, destructive and below human dignity. The fact that a decent artist can create a beautiful work with dung doesn’t mean that it’s good to cover one’s walls with feces.
“Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?”
From the holy book of pastafarian incantations and oaths:
“A: To always boil the pasta with veneration and to eat it for the glory of the great FSM [whose name must not be spoken.]
Q. 2. What is the chief end of God?
So far as I can tell, it’s where they stick the nozzle if the universe needs an enema, which means no matter what, if there is a god, humans are hosed.
Try to e-mail her, but the e-mail bounce back, she must be bombarded by messages.
“I pray that God will use this unfortunate catastrophe to soften the hearts of Bud and Pam (AND GINGI) and that they/SHE will draw close to the Lord and wash their/HER hands of the blood of thousands of innocent children/(FELDKAMP’S INNOCENT CHILDREN) each as precious and irreplaceable as their own.”
Dear Gingi
I think you need to pray for yourself. You have lost track of what Christianity is “suppose” to be all about. Try to love and forgive first (God’s main message) and then be a politician if you must, not the other way around.
Amanda,
No, I wasn’t talking about WHAT she was saying.
Phew.
The manner in which she said it was insensitive.
Considering WHAT she was saying, who cares about the HOW? I mean, really…
Apparently Gingi has been getting lots of mail. Her emailbox is full. A pity. I have also arranged to donate money to Planned Parenthood in her name.
I thought the Christian idea was to rejoice in your OWN sufferings, not the sufferings of others. Apparently she didn’t get the memo.
After reading heddle’s blog, I can only say that heddle is a lunatic.
Brownian is my new hero.
As the world’s only True Christian, I hate to inform you that, despite Calvin’s claim that nowhere does the Bible forbid laughter, a sense of humour is not a virtue.
As the world’s only true christian, I can only assume that everything you say is true, sir.
Wow, so that’s what a pious smirk looks like in text form. Disgusting.
After reading heddle’s blog, I can only say that heddle is a lunatic.
Almost, but not quite. That’s the scary part.
Not only is she nasty and deluded: She’s an idiot as well. The article shows ignorance and a complete ack of research:
“The plane, a single-engine turboprop flown by Bud Summerfield of Highland, crashed into the Catholic cemetery and burst into flames, only 500 ft. from its landing destination.”
Butte was not the intended destination, Bozeman was.
The cause of the crash is a mystery. The pilot, who was a former military flier who logged over 2,000 miles, gave no indication to air traffic controllers that the aircraft was experiencing difficulty when he asked to divert to an airport in Butte.”
Pilots do not log miles, they log hours.
“Some speculate that the crash was due to ice on the wings, but this particular plane model has been tested for icy weather and experts have stated that ice being the cause is unlikely.”
All airplanes that are certified to fly in icing conditions are tested for icing. They regularly crash due to icing anyway. Icing is always a likely cause when icing conditions exist. In particular when the pilot does not report an emergency.
These brilliant quotes come for just a couple of paragraphs. Not that any of this is a surprise. There’s nothing about airplane design or certification or pilot procedures in the Bible.
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/646579835.html
Yesterday, people called Gary McCullough shameless. Today, however, we have changed our minds and decided he’s just an asshole.
Sometimes we just need to rethink things.
Gary McCullough, you’re dancing on people’s graves. Is this what your Jesus meant when he said to turn the other cheek? Really, this is how you interpret things? Hmmm. Glad I left the religion. Feels better every day.
(In reference to this comment).
I was about 8 when I realized that inXanity was utterly empty of humanity. Everyone who belonged to my church passed around rumors and secrets like a dead rabbit between wolves. Religion really is the lifestyle of the delusional and sociopath.
I don’t get it. These people want me to believe.. Well if their God is real and does this, FUCK HIM! He doesn’t get the honor of me worshiping him.
Check this out!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03/25/2009-03-25_new_york_palace_hotel_boss_niklaus_leuen.html
Thou shalt not criticize religion. Your job is on the line …
Well, let’s not go off all half-cracked, Uppity. While you may safely assume that, as the world’s only True Christian, whatever I say about the nature of True Christianity is more true than anything anyone else says about it (unless they’re agreeing with me, I am certainly fallible in other areas of knowledge. Further, it should be noted that I remain an atheist, as True Christianity doesn’t actually require belief in a deity. You and everyone else would know this if you only opened your hearts, though I recognise that this is difficult for most, not least due to the difficulty in acquiring rib spreaders and steady sources of lactated Ringer’s.
“you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you”. (Ezekiel 35:6) —
The quote in the catholic “Abortion section” in the graveyard, I wonder if they have a section for all the children killed in the biblical tale of Jerico? How about all the girls captured and raped by the edict of god?
One of the most horrid things about inXanity is their biblical multiple personality disorders.
To Bill Dauphin@455:
I think the fact that religionists feel they have no choice but to obey the laws of the land is one instance where they make sense. I really don’t believe that killing people who don’t ascribe to one’s own view of morality is the right thing to do, even if they’re Nazis. Slaves were routinely killed (ok, maybe not “routinely”, but if one was beaten to death then “oops”. After all, it was your own property. Exodus 21:21), but I really can’t see that it would have been right for abolitionists to kill these slaveowners in cold blood. There’s a reason there are laws against vigilantism.
Also, inconsistency with their own beliefs are one thing religionists are pretty consistent about (I say religionists because they’re all – observant jews, christians, muslems, etc. – more similar than alike, and all pretty batty). Once you start off with the imaginary friend, can the end result of the thought process make much sense?
I guess my larger point is that too many people, from both the pro-choice and anti-choice position, see abortion as a religious issue. I think it can and should be discussed as an ethical one, but it isn’t – partly because of the baggage of the mysogynisitic, sexually-obsessed prudery of the anti-choice camp. I try not to react to abortion questions from my dislike of the anti-choice messenger, but from the point of view of respect for the life of the women and children(?) involved. Meanwhile it’s pro-choice, liberal organizations (and administrations) that do more to make fewer abortions necessary – another proof that ethics without religion is so much better than “religious morality”.
“We warned him…” ?
Gee, should somebody be investigating this crash as sabotage?
RG: I don’t get it. These people want me to believe.. Well if their God is real and does this, FUCK HIM! He doesn’t get the honor of me worshiping him.
I don’t see how you can have any other response, if you’re both decent and honest. That’s the crux — Christianity keeps you from being both simultaneously.
“Once you start off with the imaginary friend, can the end result of the thought process make much sense?”
Of course not. Magic explains nothing. In fact it prevents explanation. If magic is invoked, then any effect can equally well be asserted to follow any cause and the rules of logic and evidence fail, by necessity. Nothing can be learned, no conclusions can be draw. Which explains the “results” of ID “science” …
heddle:
I’m disappointed: You haven’t called bullshit on Thomas Aquinas @518.
Brownian-
As a former “christian” (I use quotes because I now see that my former christianity was but a hollow bastardization of your true christianity) I am fascinated by your miraculous appointment from God Almighty to have your heart used as the holy hiding place of the ultimate truth. We should start a cult. We could get soooooo much ‘tang.
SimoN at #249?
What a disgusting pile of crap you prove yourself to be with each post. Why are you still here, you little weasel? Don’t you get that no one wants to read your mindless, moronic ravings!
PZ is OK?
Saxon and Gingi. When can we expect to see you and your fellow pro-fetus sign- and aborted fetus jar-wielding zombies in front of the Feldkamp’s home again? Don’t wait! You have to strike now or you are going to seem like a couple of cowards and
anti-choicepro-life lightweights. You can also show your concern for the unborn by sending your crew to protest at the cemetery too! If you pass up on these protest opportunities, then the darwinist, baby-eating, satan’s taint-licking, faggot, commie, pharyngula-posting, terrorist-coddling, masturabator atheists win. Remember, “abortion stops a beating heart!”Not sure if this will get read this far in (or maybe someone has already pointed this out and I missed it), but Christian Newswire has a new article today, specifically in response to all of your responses.
Dead Children Bring out the Worst in Us (what a title).
Wondering about its contents? Here’s a hint: more benighted, smirking, sanctimonious bullshit.
My bad, the correct title is Dead Children Expose the Worst in Us. Whatever. To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to, BULL-shit, BOOL-shit, etc.
I tried to sent an email but got a failure notice.
^ blockquote malfunction ^
I am disgusted by anybody that says ‘well, I am a christian, and I don’t agree with what she is saying.’
Why are you posting on an atheist blog to say you disagree with her? Why do you not send a letter to the Christ-stain Newswire? Then you could tell us that you don’t agree with them and I’ll believe you.
Or maybe you can start a blog to go against these scumbags, you can post a link here to us just how many of your readers disagree with people like Edwards, McCullough, Dobson.
Until then, you will are guilty by association by associating with the same group as Edwards and McCullough.
The atheists loudly and vociferously disagree with other atheists all the time, mostly because they are not a herd.
A few examples:
Nat Hentoff abortion disagrees about abortion and death with dignity in his column.
Christopher Hitchens on the Iraq II, he (and others)loudly support.
There are some examples of this on the comments on PZ’s blog.
JBLilie,
That’s because it is irrelevant. Susan and Endor (and maybe others) were spreading the nonsense that living Christians take pleasure in contemplating the eternal torment of unbelievers, say like PZ. We don’t. Aquinas is talking about the fact that in heaven we will have no pity and no sorrow over the lost, and will view it as just. Apples and oranges.
Most Christians will say this about Aquinas’ point–for it is one that comes up fairly often: we understand theoretically that we will not be sad in heaven, but we cannot comprehend it this side of glory. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a Christian say: “I don’t see how I’ll be happy in heaven when considering those who aren’t there.”
Personally I am in a minority-I think we will be sad at times. The fact that God will wipe away our tears means, to me, that we have been crying. But that’s just a guess.
Tulse,
Exactly! Welcome to Calvinism. We do all the churchy stuff because we like it, not because it will save us.
The weirdest thing about heddle is that he really, truly doesn’t seem to realize how cruel and insane he sounds. Wow.
As someone who does believe in God, I am absolutley apalled by the sheer iniquity of this cruel and heartless woman. If indeed she does want to get more people to see the love and grace of her deity and religious kin, making it seem bloodthirsty and vile is NOT a step in the right direction. Not that I wish it on her person, but if something this horrible ever happens to her, perhaps it’ll be her “comeuppance” for this truly discraceful behavior.
heddle #562
You personally may not take pleasure in the endless torments awaiting unbelievers and sinners. However I can assure you, from personal knowledge, that there are some of your fellow Christians who are eagerly and anxiously awaiting being seated in the dress circle of Hell and watching the suffering of the damned. Which is not surprising, considering how sadistic your god shows itself to be.
Aquinas is talking about the fact that in heaven we will have no pity and no sorrow over the lost, and will view it as just. Apples and oranges.
Most Christians will say this about Aquinas’ point–for it is one that comes up fairly often: we understand theoretically that we will not be sad in heaven, but we cannot comprehend it this side of glory.
This is why I drive defensively, because I have to share the road with people who are even more crazy than heddle, and heddle is crazier than a shithouse rat.
I don’t mean to slight anyone, but if Sastra does not write a book, there is no G… – wait a minute…
Heddle: a little hint; you won’t be aware of any sorry nor crying, neither shall you feel anymore pain because you will have no brain activity. (Cue obvious snarky rejoinder)
Uerba, see post #561.
Maargen:
I grok that we have some broad areas of agreement. Since debate is more entertaining than agreement, though…
Resistance fighters throughout Nazi-occupied Europe routinely broke “the law of the land” (and I suspect they killed Nazis whenever they could). Abolitionists in pre-Emancipation America routinely broke “the law of the land” (if not by killing slaveholders, then by giving aid and comfort to runaway and escaped slaves). Throughout human history there have been times when a powerful moral imperative has trumped established law; one would think the systematic and ongoing slaughter of innocent babies would be such an occasion… if anyone actually believed that was what was going on.
I’m normally quick (too quick, according to some of my friends on the left) to embrace a pragmatic compromise position, but it doesn’t seem to me that any such position is possible WRT to “pro-life” opposition to abortion: The only even arguably defensible justification for forcing a woman to continue an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy is the assertion that the fetus is a person with full rights. If that’s not so (as I believe to be the case), then there’s no justification for invasive meddling in an individual’s reproductive choices… but if it is so (as pro-lifers claim to believe), there’s really no possible justification for half-measures such as trivial restrictions/sentences or rape-and-incest exceptions.
The fact that pro-life advocacy is so out of sync with pro-life rhetoric (by which I mean the solutions they seek, and the fervor with which they seek them, do not match the harm they claim to believe in) suggests to me that they don’t believe what they say they believe, and instead oppose abortion for some other, unspoken, reason.
As I’ve said before, I believe that reason is that they want to control sexual expression and generally discourage the enjoyment of sex, because that, along with other earthly pleasures, tends to distract people from the imaginary god they’re committed to promoting. This, BTW, explains why “pro-lifers” are more likely to align politically with opponents of contraception, pornography, and gay rights than they are with opponents of the death penalty, genocide, and world hunger and disease (which is to say, real pro-life positions).
I don’t think it’s that simple: I think the anti-abortion position is a religious issue, but (as I’ve just described) not the same religious issue pro-lifers claim it is; I think the pro-choice position is a human rights issue, not necessarily connected with religion in any way other than through the identity of its antagonists.
Heddle is clearly not trying to persuade anybody when he tries to defend his position by reassuring us that people in heaven will turn into people who will somehow no longer have to experience empathy, who won’t be bothered by the miraculous perpetual torture of fellow human beings, and who refer to such a state as “glory.”
Heddle here sounds as reassuring as Coraline’s Other Mother (in Neil Gaiman’s book and its animated adaptation), reassuring her that she’ll be so happy when Coraline lets her replace her real eyes with black, sewn-on button eyes. Any child can recognize such wrongness, but heddle is cheerfully looking forward to being an animated corpse with any moral qualms scooped out of his brain, concerned only for the happiness of the monster he wants the rest of us to swoon over.
TisHimself,
Yes of course, because everyone on here is personally acquainted with the craziest Christians who actually comprise the majority. In fact, it’s why they left the faith! One day their pastor preached against the evils of miscegenation, or evilution, or fags and Sodomites, or the Whore O’ Babylon, or libruls, or MTV, or hellfire, or the gubment schools, or pointy headed godless scientists, or vegans and environmentalists, or illegal immigrants, or about how the negroes were happy when they were slaves–and they got up and walked right out of that church never to return again. Yes sir. You all surely have us pegged. No stereotypes here, nosiree.
No, I think he’s fully aware of how cruel and insane he sounds – he just believes that the pleasure he gets from expressing himself in such a way isn’t the result of insane cruelty; rather, he sees it as righteous piety.
Such is the gift of religion.
Sastra asks:
2. What is the chief end of God?
It’s the part we’re supposed to kiss, eternally.
heddle #517 proclaims:
“Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. Both parts of the answer being, I would say, equally important.”
You don’t even understand the inconsistency between your use of the words “end” and “forever”.
Together with your estimation of what constitutes “importance” your statement rates you as an imbecile.
I don’t know if any of you are aware, or if it’s already been mentioned, that dear Gingi has a facebook page with a photo. The little twerp is 23 years old … she REALLY knows about life, doesn’t she?
heddle,
You yourself, in your shameless worship of infinite evil, are a far more disgusting example of the dark side of Christianity than any of the preachers you describe@571.
For the big sky daddy is so insecure, he needs eternal sycophants. As for the second part, that is not a state of existence, it is not being alive; it is being reduced to an emotion.
I would rather have the reason for humanity as explained in Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan.
astrounit,
Um,
1) I didn’t write it, it was written the 1640’s by the Westminster divines. Say what you want about them, but they were the educated elite of that era, and the boys knew how to write.
2) There is no inconsistency between their use of the words man’s chief end (purpose) and the fact that he would be engaging in said activity forever. None.
3) That kind of makes you the imbecile, I’m afraid.
Knockgoats,
Really, Wow. Whodathunkit?
I quite agree Janine, just think of the fate of that poor little robot, stranded and waiting for a missing part on a frozen methane beach, watching the waves on an ethane ocean. We’ll know our lives had purpose when that little guy gets repaired.
Heddle’s god sounds as mature as the Billy Mumy character who got an ugly look in his eyes when anybody forgot to say how good, how good it was for him to have wished so and so into the cornfield.
C.M. Baxter, this is a Scienceblog(tm) that happens to be maintained by an atheist, not an “atheist blog”. I’ve been in debates with belligerently fundamentalist believers, and if that’s taught me anything, it’s that no matter how much reason you use or evidence you present, nothing will change thier minds. We’re not talking a reasonable person here, but a pious “Christian” who cares about little more than being right, so I can write my letters or email her, and it’s going to be seen by blind eyes, IF it’s seen at all. I’m not trying to covert anyone, and I’ve been following this blog for a while. Just chill out, man.
To everyone bitching “did any of you read the article? She didn’t mean what you think she meant!”:
Perhaps it might be inferred that we assume too much.
However, Gingi’s behavior in her replies to e-mails has very much proven that the assumptions about the purpose of the article were spot-on. She has mentioned “the American holocaust of children” in almost every reply.
Do you really want to try to convince me that the article wasn’t a “told you so” finger-wagging on the issue of abortion?
Really?
Then we have nothing to talk about, because you have blinders on.
Heddle,
Whether you and those you agree with or those who you disagree with are in the majority is not the issue. Neither revelation nor democracy decide the truth of your religious claims or those of any other. Stereotypes or not, the point stands: neither Christianity nor religion in general encourage or enforce any sort of objective morality other than allegiance to authority. No matter your expertise in Calvinistic theology, you must recognise that the only argument you can make with any conviction is that at least you and some set of those who self-describe as Christians don’t act in the manner PZ and others describe. But in the end, if God exists and Christianity is true and belief vs. non-belief have any bearing on our lives in the here and now whatsoever, we could at least expect to see much more consistency among the beliefs of Christians than of Muslims, Hindus, atheists, Dogonists, or neo-Aztecs. We don’t. This is the very reason why the No True Scotsman Fallacy is so problematic, at least for those who believe in a God that wants people to be saved.
As a predestinationist, I suspect this means little to you. You believe because God willed you to, and that’s good enough for you. But as a predestinationist, I’m often surprised at your lack of understanding as to why your arguments as to the nature and truth value of your version of Christianity are so unconvincing to the majority of us here.
Uerba @ #564:
Then fucking do something about it. Tell those asshats dancing on the graves of children what a horrible example they’re setting. Don’t tell us. Tell THEM, to their vile fucking faces. And tell their sponsors too. Tell the media outlets that these vultures get their money from that you, as a christian, denounce this evil, and will not tolerate it. Cut off every fucking penny to your church until your pastor publicly denounces the use of such tragedies to spread hate in the name of jebus. Make it clear to the entire congregation what monstrous bastards these people are, and get THEM to do something about it. If you don’t like what the kind of hateful sons of bitches who pass for christian leaders in this country do in your name, make yourself heard, and get some better fucking leaders. As long as people of faith like yourself tolerate this, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
Brownian asked (of heddle):
I think the bigger question is why heddle argues, since part of the idea of the predestination he believes in is the concept of unconditional election – that his god decides whether or not you believe. If you don’t believe it’s because god doesn’t want you to.
But if faith in his god can only be granted by an act of said god, we can’t choose to be Christians. So, heddle shouldn’t be asking us to believe in his god; he should be asking his god to believe in us.
I guess he doesn’t have as much faith as he claims.
phantomreader42, dude, chill out! Did you even read my reply? I can email her, her sponsors, and her kin all I want, but pious ears are deaf, and pious eyes are blind; IT WON’T MATTER. I don’t tolerate this disgraceful behavior, and I don’t belong to a church, OR religion.
By the way, fear not; I may be a believer, but I’m not here to convertcondemn anyone, or spam the blog. I’ve been following this blog for a while, and as a biology student in college, I find it has its uses.
Heddle; It’s in Calvinism that Christianty loses it completely.
Get your bible out boy; mine’s bigger! And I recognise it for what it really is: something to get fucked over with.
SueinNM #575 reveals, “The little twerp [Gingi] is 23 years old … she REALLY knows about life, doesn’t she?”
Very interesting. Now we know more. Obviously she’s gotten the bulk of her “life experience” from what’s been drummed into her very little head.
What gets drummed in also removes: like any natural and authentic sense of compassion that would at the very least recognize IMMEDIATELY that there is a gigantic chasm between fretting over embryos without any brains to feel any discomfort, let alone an awareness of being alive, and 7 kids (according to the account I read) aged 2 through 8, as well as 7 adults. Add a little flair for writing (and, no doubt, a thick dose of encouragement from her Christian Newswire “handlers”, who of course never bothered in the slightest to moderate her message of utter contempt and hatred of completely inocent men, women and children) and we are confronted by that transitionary creature between a “brat” and a “bitch”.
This is the kind of monster that religion nurtures.
Calvinism: Blaming God for Atheists Since 1536.
heddle #578 wrote:
I think the inconsistency might be that, when they ask “what is the chief end of Man?” — their answer does not include the damned (“vessels made for destruction”) as part of “Man.”
Heddle is not a more disgusting example of the dark side of Christianity than any of the preachers he described @571. He’s merely an example of how crazy you’d have to be to think that his faith has any attraction to people who aren’t insane.
When heddle wrote about …the fact that in heaven we will have no pity and no sorrow over the lost, and will view it as just, he’s such a complete sociopath that he can’t imagine our disgust at the way he looks forward to experiencing a hollow space where a human heart would be in heddle heaven.
Heddle is a perfect specimen of what PZ was writing about when he titled his post, “a heartless faith.” Heddle distinguishes between heartlessness, and the glory of blessed post-death heartlessness bestowed by a cosmic monster who’ll scoop your heart out so you won’t have to care about suffering. At least heddle’s not an atheist, even he has to draw the line somewhere.
Whatever. I’m actually totally cool with non-proselytising religions.
Brownian,
But many atheists say, do they not, that morality does not come from God and that Christianity in fact is an impediment. That means that they, in effect, should have a better track record than Christians.
I am not going to claim a scorecard. The point is that you ask a fair question, if I understand you: why aren’t Christians better models of moral living? The question is fair because we make the claim that morality comes from our God.
But, as I pointed out, atheists also make claims about morality that would predict a better grade if for no other reason than Christians will lower the average.
Again, I won’t try to tally score—but I will say that I see no evidence that atheists behave better than Christians. In this post we have the example of the Christian gal writing an insensitive and self-serving article. We also have a few people calling for such things Simon’s death by fire—and other incredibly vile posts concerning this woman—things that go way beyond pointing out legitimate concerns over what she wrote. Personally, I’d call it a wash.
Furthermore Christians have the concept of the visible and invisible church. There is really no way of assessing whether the invisible church has a better track record than the visible—but the possibility is open.
Why would you be surprised? I suffer no such lack of understanding—rather I expect to be unconvincing.
Wobagger, OM,
I do. (Well, not believe, but close enough.)
I especialy like how their pointless poll doesn’t have an “Niklaus Leuenberger is my new hero!” option. I think its inappropriate that people who work at a luxury hotel, run around with filth on their foreheads.
I read the whole article and contrary to her saying it isn’t an “I told you so” It really is. The entire article underscores the exact statement intending to be an “I Told You So”. Why bring up the issue of abortion at all if it was really a virtuos condolences at this terrible tragedy.
Saxon
We do know how christians believe and feel. Most of us feel the very same way when we hear of such a tragedy. It takes the wind out of us and we feel stunned at the terrible loss that any man or woman must feel. However we accept that this is all there is for those who have died and there is no afterlife. Which makes life to us even more precious than someone like you can believe.
We also know what you believe and we just disagree. And you will never acknowledge that. We know what you believe because you keep telling us and forcing us to defend our rights to be free from your beliefs. Also note that while you are groveling on the ground on both knees we have chosen to stand up be counted among those who have chosen true freedom in all its aspects.
And thanks for taking the time to comment.
simoN
fuck ofF
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
Me too. I hate the scorecard approach, but I will say that there are many Abrahamic theologies that claim religion is either necessary, sufficient, or both for morality. Yours apparently doesn’t, so I see why you’d fail to appreciate why so many atheists point out examples of non-ethical or non-moral behaviour among theists.
As for why some atheists would make such a claim, I’d suggest that, at least among the more thoughtful ones, it’s a sloppy shorthand. Humanists who adhere to humanist principles should avoid dehumanising behaviours more so that theists whose theologies are dehumanising, but atheism itself should make no such claims about behaviour. The two are often conflated as many atheists claim humanism as an ethical stance, but the two are by no means synonymous.
I’m sorry I can’t continue this, but I’m going to watch Watchmen with some friends.
I do. (Well, not believe, but close enough.)
Like this?
Oh Lord please don’t burn us
don’t kill or toast your flock
Don’t put us on the barbecue
or simmer us in stock,
Don’t bake or baste or boil us
or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please don’t lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Don’t fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please don’t stick thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat
Once heddle goes to heaven, he expects to be asking God to pass the long pork, please. It’s only while he’s stuck in mortal mode with us hell-bound atheists that he tries to be perceived as having something resembling a conscience and compassion. Passing for nearly normal is a survival skill, after all.
#593 Using that as your moniker is an asshole move.
Brownian wrote:
Calvinism: Blaming God for Atheists Since 1536.
Oooh, I know what I’m asking for on my next trip to the custom t-shirt store…
heddle wrote:
I agree that that’s a pretty silly claim, in and of itself – and nigh on impossible to verify.
Okay, explain why Alaric Skatje Conlann, who links to a Christian site, feels the need to impersonate PZ’s children?
Again, poor quality control on the part of God. Doesn’t he ask for at least a shred of integrity from his followers?
Thanks, ASC, for another reminder of the wholesale assholism that comes with your political and religious convictions.
Thanks, ASC, for another reminder of the wholesale assholism that comes with your political and religious convictions.
It’s not just an asshole move to name PZ’s children along with a link, it reads like a death threat. The FBI doesn’t take kindly to such behavior, now matter how Christian it may be.
The idea that fetuses are equivalent to children is a faulty premise, but for those who use that as a starting point for their reasoning, wouldn’t the tragedy demonstrate the opposite of what they’re claiming? I mean, if you think that a fetus is a child and that you can ascertain their evil god’s wishes from this incident, he apparently wants all of the little children to be dead and buried in the abortion cemetery. God’s not condemning abortions; he’s complaining that there haven’t been enough of them.
we understand theoretically that we will not be sad in heaven, but we cannot comprehend it this side of glory
As I said, define evil as good, and call it a day.
How lovely for them!
But tell me – which one of them is full of hatefilled morons? It must be the invisible one…mustn’t it?
To heddle #578:
Ah, but a “PURPOSE”, a “GOAL”, a PRECONCIEVED whether strived for or acheived, is an END to the “quest”. There’s no QUESTING involved at all when one is already convinced of the “answer”. You puke forth your falsehoods and expect everybody to be wowed by your tremendous powers of ignorance. People who already have there own sense of what constitutes importance and sincerity don’t like getting vomited on by rank imbeciles.
When you display the audacity of an imbecile, if you can’t get it through your impenetrably thick imbecile skull that there are people who have thought all of this stuff through thoroughly and have far surpassed your imbecilically dull and static views, when you actually make statements that easily demonstrates your imbecility, it doesn’t surprise me an iota that you cast that label back on those who see right through your sorry imbecilic ass.
You are a consummate imbecile of the first order. It’s quite obvious that “God” ordained it. You just don’t get it. Imbeciles don’t get it. Everybody with an ounce of brains here knows it. You don’t. You must be an imbecile.
If Christians would just openly admit that the being they worshipped and revered is a vile, vengeful, human-hating monster then I might begin to respect them.
But these pathetic attempts to rationalise that an all-powerful, benevolent god would strike down the innocent in order to punish the (perceived) guilty illustrates just how much they must be either lying to themselves or dead inside whenever they ‘praise’ their sick ‘lord’.
If their god doesn’t like abortions, why doesn’t he just make people unable to perform them?
Wowbagger: I agree that that’s a pretty silly claim, in and of itself – and nigh on impossible to verify.
So off the mark, it’s not even wrong.
Culture (morality) isn’t a scientific discipline, subject to Popperian verification. It’s inherently subjective, and thereby subject to the standards of the arts.
Trying to fit everything into the same box is insane. If we judge an ideology, we can not primarily look at some mythical “track record”, as if a culture were a statistically analyzable series of experiments, any more than you would judge a book by it’s “track record”. You have to critically analyze it like a sculpture, a painting, choreography, prose, poetry, and such.
Under those conditions, you can come up to a critical appraisal that the structure of Christian morality is fuggin ugly, ill-conceived, lacks grace or realism, and is a modern hack on a medieval hack on an Imperial hack, on a set of Roman and Middle-Eastern hacks, on a Greek hack on a whole series of Iron Age hacks; as if someone had tried some kind of postmodern integration of random paragraphs, tied together by a celebration of death and suffering.
You don’t have to ask the question about whether “Christians” or “Humanists” have a better track record — you have to ask whether Christianity as a body of literature celebrates ugliness and evil.
I don’t need to ask whether, sociologically speaking, those who watch child-porn are more or less likely to commit pedophiliac crimes in order to reject child-porn as a blot and a stain, and personally judge those who indulge. Sociological research may be interesting to answer the question of what our legal response should be; but no one is suggesting some kind of legal censuring of Christianity is necessary — we can morally censure purely on the basis of the structured, concensus subjective reality of the art form.
Wowbagger, OM #584: THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. OUTSTANDING!
My conception of heddle in heaven: “Th-th-th-that’s all, Ethel!
I think that Gingi’s mother, who posted as Saxon, has an email address on the donation page of Gingi’s website:
http://tinyurl.com/c5xcru
Windy at #597 reminded me of this one:
Aquinas is talking about the fact that in heaven we will have no pity and no sorrow over the lost, and will view it as just.
Mr. Helpmann: He’s got away from us, Jack.
Jack Lint: ‘Fraid you’re right, Mr. Helpmann. He’s gone.
So all those unborn babies that Gingi et al. are saving from “the American holocaust of children”–what if all those fetuses turn out to be godless liberals?
I am always shocked and confused at how these religious types manage to make connections to things that are totally irrelevant.
Children of a man who protects the right of women to an abortion die in a plane crash? Clearly these events are related. For people who are supposed to rely on faith, they sure pretend to know a hell of a lot about the mind of their God.
Carlie, classic scene from Brazil is what I have in mind when I quote one of my favorite lines from Pratchett (as I already have upthread):
“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”
I wrote:
frog wrote, responding to that:
I think you’ve got your wires crossed, frog. What I was trying to say (and didn’t think was ambiguous in the least) is that it would be difficult to show, definitively, that adherence to Christianity made one consistently ‘less moral’ than a lack of adherence to Christianity – which is what heddle said atheists on occasion claim.
So, I think we’re actually in agreement. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve gleaned from the rest of your post.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Ok, there’s a thought…
If the fetuses are not born, then they cannot sin. If they cannot sin, aren’t they guaranteed a place in heaven? Shouldn’t she be happy for them and even encourage abortion? This should be a direct path to eternal bliss with Jesus, right?
C
Wowbagger:
You’re right, I misread you. You were responding to a heddlian straw man, and I thought you were acting as the straw man.
I thought you were singing “If I only had a brain” — and it turns out I was getting on the yellow brick road instead.
But I like the rest of my post, even if the impetus was only my own foolishness.
Astrounit #607,
Well, you used capital letters, some even in double quotes (always the sign of a rational mind) and you used the words puke and vomit and variants of imbecile at least eight times so I’m sure whatever you posted is correct.
you used the words puke and vomit and variants of imbecile at least eight times
Astrounit must’ve been referring to heddle droppings.
Here’s the brilliant, sensitive response from the website owner to people who complained about this piece.
http://www.earnedmedia.org/cnw0325.htm
I know a horrible, little fundamentalist brat who deserves a spanking. (They believe in corporal punishment, don’t they? That’s what I thought.) And since this is such an extreme case of naughtiness, I suggest using the paddle.
frog,
No problem – that’s pretty much what I thought was the case, though (as it may have implied) that does mean we’re both agreeing with heddle in the impossibility of measuring the difference between Christians and non-Christians.
And I liked your post, too – so I guess I’m happy in a way that I contributed to inspiring your writing of it :)
Actually, given her viewpoint it was an entirely reasonable post. If you take as a given (I don’t) that the man was as guilty of atrocities as any Nazi, then hers was actually a rather civilized response. And that’s the scary part for me. When you take such a distorted view of the world it is very easy to become the monster you abhor. Should some evidence of foul play come to light, I do hope she is considered as a person of interest.
@zonotrichia
Oh dear, does that happen to be this Gary McCullough?
http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/03/24.html
In retrospect, Gingi is tame compared to the previous cuthroats and murderers Gary’s defended in the past.
Heddle, I’m a bit late to the fold, but I like how when you rise to heaven your god allows you to watch those deemed unworthy suffer, yet makes the suffering largely irrelevant by removing your ability to feel anything but that it is just that we suffer for not having been picked as worthy by your god. And this is moral how?
To quote Lewis Black, you are “Stone-cold-fuck-nuts!”
And this is moral how?
Morality is what heddle says heddle’s god says it is. The little monster that heddle worships will now wish you either into the cornfield, or cartoonland, depending on whether you watched Twilight Zone in glorious black and white, or watched the movie with Sally Cruikshank’s animated homage to the Betty Boop cartoon, Bimbo’s Initiation. Remember kids, when heddle or his pals walk up to you and ask if you “Wanna be a member? Wanna be a member?” say, “NO” like Bimbo did.
I sent the following to Gingi:
Deut 7:1 …many nations–the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations….you must destroy them totally….show them no mercy….For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth….
[genocide n.
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. –Am Herit. Dict. 3rd Ed, 1994]
Numbers 31:17: “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones.”
Deut. 2:34: “. . . utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones.”
Deut 20:10-16 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
Wowbagger: that does mean we’re both agreeing with heddle in the impossibility of measuring the difference between Christians and non-Christians.
Yup, we’re talking about two different levels of description. Individuals have to be judged on an individual basis — Christians, as individuals, continue to be individuals. The evilness/ugliness of the core of their ideology is distinct from their personality and real personal beliefs.
Another way to separate the levels is to see Christianity as a language. You can say anything you want in any human language if you just try hard enough — but some things are much easier to say (and think) in some languages than others.
Cuttlefish @ 193
That almost brought me to tears.
Ashley and Gingi
Just two words: douche nozzle.
I’m appalled at the behavior of some Christians, I maintain my disdain for religion in general, but one has to be CLEAR in making that distinction rather than to say “Christians are x”.
If I’ve learned anything it is that Christians are comprised of a diverse group of people, and within denominations it is no less true. Respect the person if you don’t respect the religion.
frog wrote:
I think a lot of it’s to do with how little is actually required of Christians to qualify as such – i.e. they just have to be able to answer in the affirmative when asked what their religious beliefs are.
Should Christians have to qualify through study and show they actually understand the philosophy and ideology of the faith they wish to be part of then we’d have fewer Christian scumbags like the odious ‘Gingi’ revelling in the deaths of these people.
Admittedly, if Christians had to study and understand their religion there’d be far fewer Christians; too many of would go ‘hang on – it means I have to believe in what? Oh, that’s just stupid! I’m outta here.’
I’m sorry that this was written,but you cannot judge every Christian or Christianity on this article. Jesus says many beautiful things and because of whatever we see as bad…abortion or writing a hurtful letter of emotion, that is why Jesus came. Not to condemn but to save us. We are not to judge but love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us. I felt the families pain today but I also feel the ongoing pain of what abortion brings to lives. I have friends who are still trying to get over the decision of getting rid of their babies. The babies of abortion are in heaven and so are those precious children from the crash. It is all bad but though love all things can be healed. Please consider Christianlity and having a relationship with Christ. Again, I feel so badly for the hatred toward our Creator because of what people say and do. I pray for the family and that this article doesn’t cause them to judge our God on what one woman has written.
They have, at various different times – especially the Catholics – but it has inevitably led to heresy and schism.
Those were different times, however. But in our own age, Muslims have tried just this trick, sometimes with very unpleasant results.
Most religious people, I think, just practice their faith without too much thought, and without harming others. I think it is the doctrinaire faiths and individuals who do the real damage.
tammi wrote:
Then why didn’t it work? If your Jesus existed, tammi, he was a failure; he achieved nothing. He was tortured for nothing and he died for nothing. That a person like ‘Gingi’ can claim to be a Christian and yet act the way she does illustrates this.
Of course, that the vile monster-god required that his own son be tortured and executed in order to achieve something (the forgiveness of humanity’s sins, whatever that means) that he could have just willed to happen – or, better yet, created us in such a way we couldn’t choose to do it – just makes it all that more pathetic.
Why?
Would it be sick if somehow this creepy lady had a connection with the plane crash, sabatoge, I would not put it past these crazies…
Your prayers are unanswered. This letter does indeed bring shame oh her and her god, or rather, we would say, the church that encourages her to do such things.
The enforced birth organisation you support is an evil thing in itself – insisting on birth as a punishment, or that severely damaged children be born to a life of pain.
The letter just shows how heartless and inhumane the enforced birth crowd really are beneath their “christian” trappings.
Please hurry up and join them.
You pitiable sow.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Christard troll tammi will you please go now!
You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But
Please go.
Please!
I don’t care.
You can go
By bike.
You can go
On a Zike-Bike
If you like.
If you like
You can go
In an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!
Please do, do, do, DO!
(with apologies to Dr. Seuss and Marvin K. Mooney, reputedly a standin for Richard M. Nixon)
@Maria
I’d imagine that aside from Gingi, there was a massive outpouring of sympathy and compassion from other Christians who may have heard of this tragedy. That latters sort – those who understood this incident for what it is, don’t deserve ire imho.
Those who’ve tossed it into the political agenda bandwagon, like Gingi, are literally asking for it.
Great article. I just stumbled upon this blog and so far I’m loving what I see. I admit that religious does have a few (very few) good intentions, but not enough to make up for the incredible about of evil they cause. This is a great example of where they become so deluded in thinking they know what is right, while ignoring the blatant ironic and disgusting statement they make. Keep up the good work!
I’m sure it won’t be posted because I don’t agree, but this string is not worth my time to read. 90% plus of what I did read was pure hate. You know, that stuff that only Christians are supposed to be capable of!! It’s clear that either most intelligent people aren’t wasting their time reading this string and/or the moderator is deleting most of the posts he disagrees with.
“I’m sure it won’t be posted because I don’t agree[…]”
I think you may harboring some misconceptions about the administration of this blog.
The babies of abortion are in heaven and so are those precious children from the crash.
What an emotional cripple you must be, “tammi.”
That isn’t my idea of Heaven. The place must be swarming with so many billions of miscarriages and stillbirths that intentionally aborted pregnancies are way outnumbered. To equate children who died tragically with “the babies of abortion” is an ugly equivocation.
As a Calvinist, heddle believes in TULIP:
Total Depravity – We’re scum
Unconditional Election – God doesn’t care that we’re scum
Limited Atonement – Jesus died to redeem only some of us, the rest are going to Hell.
Irresistible Grace – We’re going to Heaven or Hell even if we’re dragged there by the scruff of our necks.
Perseverance of the Saints – It doesn’t matter what we do, those of us going to Heaven are going there even if we were concentration camp guards, those of us going to Hell can be the nicest, most moral people.
Calvinists are more wackaloon than many Christians and their god is an even bigger sadist than many Christians’ god.
disgusted, I just love it when a person make a comment when that person does not know what they are talking about. PZ does not engage in deleting posts he disagrees with. Try a new complaint.
Try reading for comprehension, douchebag.
PZ only deletes those comments of habitually unpleasant trolls, and almost always gives them warnings in advance. One-off drive-by morons like your incompetent self are safe, unless you make a habit of it.
There are plenty worse than you who survive.
This isn’t a Christian blog, you can post what you want and it won’t be censored.
I’m getting a little tired of the “fundies will always be fundies and nothing will change them and they won’t listen to reason” , etc. etc. It’s just not true. I am living proof of that. I was pretty fundie all my life up until a few years ago. It IS possible and there IS hope, people. Just check out EXChristian.net. There are “deconverters” contributing their story of deconversion just about every day. Keep fighting with the voice of reason, it works more than you think.
I did. I passed on it. But thank you for being the 11,896th person to tell me to do so.
I was going to send the young lady a nice email but I couldn’t for this reason: “The e-mail message could not be delivered because the user’s mailfolder is full.”
Sounds like you’ve all been doing a nice job, congratulations.
– a “pro-abort”
and/or the moderator is deleting most of the posts he disagrees with.
Besides the fact that he has a very clear commenting policy that only bans certain overly repetitive actions after many public warnings, he’s spent the day being in a car wreck and then flying somewhere else to give a lecture tonight, so understanding how this blog works FAIL on your part.
I’m getting a little tired of the “fundies will always be fundies and nothing will change them and they won’t listen to reason” , etc. etc. It’s just not true
What, you think you’re the very first apostate to post here? Go to the end of the line, you strawman-spewing concern troll.
You know heddle is as obnoxious as he is because the more people he drives away from Christianity the more likely it is he gets his pie in the sky. He does it out of pure selfishness.
An email today from Matt Trewhella of “Missionaries to the Preborn”, promoting the Edmonds screed, endorses the goddidit perspective on the plane crash:
I have no problems with the Red Giant stars that created the heavy elements in our bodies.
Oh, you meant the invisible sky fairy you cultists worship?
Ranson at #160, way back up thread, just now getting back to this thread after a trying day (I had a few brief moments to post in PZ’s car wreck thread earlier), and just wanted to say thank you for your kind words.
Does Calvinism remind anyone else of Boxer from Orwell’s Animal Farm? “I will work harder,” even though, no matter the extent of the effort, no matter the dedication to the work, no matter the allegiance to the “party,” the poor bastard’s going to end up at the glue factory.
I guess the difference would be that some people revel in the role.
“It’s a crazy world.”
“Someone should sell tickets.”
“Hell, I’d buy one.”
–Raising Arizona
No kings,
Robert
WowBagger: Of course, that the vile monster-god required that his own son be tortured and executed in order to achieve something (the forgiveness of humanity’s sins, whatever that means) that he could have just willed to happen – or, better yet, created us in such a way we couldn’t choose to do it – just makes it all that more pathetic.
I always wonder at the lack of wonder that Christians have over that particular article of faith.
Now, where would the sacrifice of the first-born have a parallel in the history of the Middle-East… Let see…
We have the sacrifice of Abraham, the culling of the Egyptians, the banning of the Molochian sacrifice, Cain and Abel (the first fruits), Passover and the ban on bloody sandwich bread, the redemption of the first-born by paying off the Levites… but most importantly, the widespread and well-attested Levantine custom of sacrificing children (loved children in particular) to God for his protection.
Yup, contact with God requires a reparation of the murder of children. Now, what kind of world view is this one? Well, it has to be one where God is basically an alien force, not an immanent all powerful force, but a dangerous force incompatible with the world.
If that’s the worldview of the original Christians, which makes the cross make sense rather than just be sadism, then current Christian ideology of a loving God, closer than your own heart, must be the exact opposite of what was originally believed.
So, at least we don’t have the Christians to blame for the Christians!
#644 Disgusted wrote: “this string is not worth my time to read. 90% plus of what I did read was pure hate. You know, that stuff that only Christians are supposed to be capable of!!”
Where was it stated that “hate” is the exclusive domain of Chrisianity? All human beings are capable of having this engagement with the world regardless of religious affiliation, or lack thereof.
Also, if a passionate reaction to the goulish musings of Gingi Edmonds bothers you, then by all means stop reading this thread.
Tammi: Jesus says many beautiful things and because of whatever we see as bad…abortion or writing a hurtful letter of emotion, that is why Jesus came. Not to condemn but to save us.
It looks like Tammi doesn’t read her Bible very closely. What did that poor fig tree ever do to Jesus? And I guess he never condemned the rich, or conservative investors (Ha!), or those who pray on street corners, or….
It’s just so rich to watch people just dump out the parts they don’t like, ignore the esoteric reality clearly implied by the stories (and said explicitly several times), and pretend that their own kindness actually comes from their tradition, instead of being a direct defiance of it.
Now, I can condemn — I never claimed to hold ‘non-condemnation’ as a moral value. Maybe I am The One True Christian ™ as well!
Shoot, just realized I should’ve put a spoiler warning in my post at #659, in case some folks were planning on reading Animal Farm who hadn’t yet.
Sorry about that. So, yeah, uh . . . spoilers . . . previously.
Great Cthluhu, I’m tired. Gotta go to bed.
No kings,
Robert
This story is just a shining example of what not to do. It’s the worst kind of human low – to take the suffering of another person and twist it for your own personal agenda. I did my time in organized religion and eventually I politely took my leave. To say that all Christians are like this disgusting zealot is unfair to the precious few in my life who have been supportive and loving despite my personal choice to disagree with their beliefs. And they are just as appalled at this as most of us posting here are. It’s just a sad thing all around. No one deserves that kind of pain. No one.
Those complaining about unfairly demonising the religion by way of the extremists then at the same time saying these people aren’t “true” Christians are hypocrites.
To you Christians who complain that we deride your fellow believers when they’re immoral and lack of compassion, I will retort that such examples as this are evidence that Christian belief or piety does not engender morality in at least some of its followers.
Oh ffs! disgusted is back to tell us all off again for being conspirative thought police.
I wrote quite a lengthy e-mail to this Gingi person:
“I was completely and utterly disgusted when I read your article about the loss of Mr. Feldkamp’s family members. You say in your article that you don’t want to turn it into “some creepy spiritual ‘I told you so'” well too late, by writing that you already did, and you know what I think? I think you DID want to turn it into an “I told you so” and let me tell you something, that is just sick.
You insinuate that a cluster of cells, that as not yet become a living breathing human being, is worth the same, maybe more, then the lives of the daughters, sons, and grandchildren lost in that terrible accident who were actually living independent beings with lives and people who cared about them.
I hope the family affected by this tragedy never has to hear or even think about your insulting and hideous article. They don’t deserve that, no one does – except maybe you since you seem to be an extremely pathetic excuse for a human being.
If you have truly ever lived through a tragedy as great as the Feldkamp’s, which I suspect you have not, then you might have thought twice about publishing your “work.” Are you aware that the Feldkamp family is probably haunted more by the good memories, the loss of ones they loved, than the hate shouted at them by you and others? No which shows your absolute unconcern for human life. HUMAN life not FETUS life. Fetuses are not independent beings like young children whose lives were cut short by this terrible accident.
I do not care that you are anti-choice, that is the farthest thing from my mind right now, I DO care however that you show a lack of resepct to lives of previously LIVING people and their families whose world is probably crumbling around them since they have lost the ones they love.
Megan, 18-years-old and pro-choice
P.S. If you have actually read this all the way through, do not bother to contact me about this matter. I’ve spoken my opinion and it CANNOT be changed.”
I don’t expect a reply but having dealt with my own family tragedies I felt compelled to give her my 2 cents.
#593, posted under the names of PZ’s children.
This is a THREAT, is what it is.
The asshole’s name and contact info:
John Pacheco
Vigil Co-ordinator
40 Days for Life
Ottawa Campaign
pacheco377@gmail.com
John Pancheco, I see what you did there!
I sent ole’ John the following email:
———————————————–
Subject: Thanks for visiting Pharyngula
Thanks for dropping by PZ Myers’ blog today. Since you saw fit to threaten PZ’s children, I’ve noted your contact info in the thread you visited for future reference. If anything untoward should happen to his family, I’m sure the authorities will be paying you a visit.
I only mention this to document your threatening activity. Truth be told, I’m sure you’re so ineffectual in all areas that you pose no real danger.
By the way, your theology and politics are both ridiculous and wrong. I thank God that you and your ilk are becoming more and more irrelevant by the day, though I deplore the shrillness the resulting desperation engenders.
Have a nice day!
Leigh Williams
Austin, Texas
Simple Simon the religitard Lieman saying love: Breaking into another persons blog to post inanities and lies.
As per usual, you are so far off the pulse that I must conclude that you are either mentally defective or have the mind of a juvenile. You have no clue, and I defy you to find anyone on here who believes that pedophaelia is acceptable.
Ah, Simon the fool; Simon the anti-Christian; Simon the ignorant; Simon, who can neither reason nor borrow reason from anyone else.
What a childish twerp you are, Simon. Without intelligence, without creativity, without faith, hope, or anything much beyond your capacity to be dull.
You do realize that you are a great laughingstock here, don’t you? You do realize that you’re considered a joke, don’t you?
Do you actually think that you’re doing anything at all here? Heddle at least uses reason to back his hateful, irrational, loathsome faith.
You’re just a frackin’ moron with the education of a rock.
Simon-
If you’re going to bother to post, why don’t you post something constructive: let me suggest a comparison between the hateful gingi edwards and the also hateful esther. I’d be interested in studying your delusional thoughts.
However if you don’t bother to come up with anything more useful, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Funny thing. This douchebag’s mailbox is now full. What a surprise!
Hey, first time poster and relatively new to the site. Had to respond on that idiot Gingi. She should take a lesson from a 6 year old that has a better sense of compassion than she’ll ever have in her twisted little mind.
‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,’
Nikka – age 6
I’ve been outraged at the antics of so-called “loving” Christians for some time, and this is but another unsurprising example of what they do.
As for Simon, nice post. I see you’ve learned that when logic and reason fail resort to slurring those that don’t agree with you (i.e. anyone who thinks rationally). As for the use of the word fuck all the time, well, I won’t use the word, but what I will say is “Doom on you!”
@jrock
“Doom on you” = transliteration of Vietnamese phrase “Du Mhan Yhu” = “Go fuck yourself”
Nicely said man – I’m assuming you’re either a ‘Nam vet, a military man, or read Dick Marcinko’s books. In any case, welcome aboard!
Amen, PZ. A-fucking-men.
@Leigh
#593’s moniker was the names of all three of PZ’s kids?
Yes, Twin-Skies. That, and the biblical injunction about the sins of the fathers passed on to the children, can be interpreted as nothing other than a death threat. There are some assholes who need to learn that it isn’t Dick Cheney’s FBI any more.
Well we have all seen the face of raw, utter evil face to face. Gingi Edmonds and her gang of ghouls, death cult fundie xians all. Worshipping hate and lies and killing and calling it god. Even I’m shocked and I’ve seen everything and then some.
It isn’t all bad though. Virtually all normal people including most other xians are repulsed by these living demons.
They are creating atheists and anti-xians by the trainload. My guess, more than half of the posters on this board are ex-xians and many of them were xians for decades or more. And the Gingis, Barbs, and Simons of the world woke them up and drove them out of the religion.
Death threats over the internet are felonies. And the FBI has a cybercrimes division. Report them to the FBI. They will investigate and prosecute. There are a lot of people doing multi-year sentences for death threats.
Been there, done that. And two slime molds ended up charged with federal felonies and explaining the unexplainable in court to a judge.
Wow. Sounds like a really cool girl band….I wanna be in it. ‘cept, maybe I’m too old, being her mom and all.
raven….a black bird, usually associated with death…hmmmm
gingi…a christian girl, usually assoicated with LIFE and saving babies.
one of these things is not like the other.
saxon wrote:
[checking dictionary] Nope, got nothing matching that definition.
I do have ‘gingi – clueless, repellent, attention-desperate, forced-birth anti-choice sociopathic embarrassment-even-to-other-Christians* scumbag who might have turned out differently had her equally odious scumbag of a mother exercised common sense and/or critical thinking skills at key points in her or her daughter’s life.’
PS Go fuck yourself, turd.
*Read some of the posts here, dipshit; we have Christians calling your daughter out for her immoral repugnanace.
Report them to the FBI. They will investigate and prosecute. There are a lot of people doing multi-year sentences for death threats.
They’re not the first death threats or attempts to intimidate PZ and his family seen here. Usually, in the wake of Crackergate, by the time we’ve seen the contents of PZ’s email, so has the FBI. Unlike his theist stalkers, PZ is no fool. If it weren’t for Michigan weather and too much excitement, PZ would probably have excised the post by now and had a few choice remarks to share.
@saxon
It depends on whicch culture you follow. Ravens in western mythology tend to get a bad rep, unfortunately. In my country for example, ravens (or at least their relative, the maya bird) is respected for its cleverness and affection as a pet.
Quit the stereotyping baseless generalizations – all you’re showing is your ignorance
@ Twin-Skies
Not a ‘Nam vet, but I am a former Navy man and I have read Marcinko’s books as well. Thanks for the welcome. I’m glad somebody caught the reference.
As for Saxon, thanks for the post. I see you studied under the same masters that taught Simon. In case you didn’t see it I said that when logic and reason fail, resort to slurring those that don’t agree. A raven is just a bird. Attaching a human created superstitious association means nothing(I’m sure there’s an argument against religion there somewhere.)The raven who posted actually seems to be against killing and using someone’s tragedy for a chance at a smug, self-righteous I told you so.
However, I have to agree with you on one thing. One of those things is not like the other. Raven uses her brain for thinking and by her outrage at Gingi shows her empathy for a man that is going through a terrible tragedy. Saxon: “Doom on you!”
saxon @683, why do you evade the issue by irrelevant comparisons with user names?
Despite her protestation, your daughter used the grief of others to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual ‘I told you so’ moment, in her own words.
You’re no better:
When will you sober up? Hypocrite.
Are we even sure Saxon is in any way blood-related to Gingi? The latter has at least proven her capacity for coherent writing, whilst the former is only attempting said endeavor.
@669 Simon:
Good point, I would LOVE a fuck as breakfast.
I’ll be working on making that happen.
Saxon, I’m a medical researcher. My job is to keep people from dying. With more than a little success. One treatment we developed turned a not uncommon incurable form of cancer into a treatable and sometimes curable one. Maybe you will need it some day. I may have to care for your case, but I don’t have to care about it.
And I won’t, for sure. And BTW, you are lying like all living demons. Ravens are considered smart birds in most mythologies and in real life. And what is wrong with being black? You and your Death Cultists are creating atheists and nonxians by the boatload full. It is all about the evil and hate and killing isn’t it? I was a xian for 50 years. People like you drove me out of it and not that long ago, it’s only been a few months.
If there is a hell, that isn’t where you are going. That is where you are from.
Ken @ #655,
Get a grip, man.What the hell makes me a concern troll? My comment was meant as an encouragement to those who think all Christians are hopelessly delusional. I was and no longer am due to the efforts of those contributing to sites such as this. Chill the hell out. This is why I rarely comment on this site. People like you jump down throats without first understanding what was meant.
@ Raven
By the way, I just realized I used the feminine her without actually knowing if your female. If you aren’t I apologize for the error. No offense intended on my part.
My comment was meant as an encouragement to those who think all Christians are hopelessly delusional.
Strawman. Look up the word apostate. Few here could even imagine such a thing, with so many of us having been formerly fundies.
Twin-Skies,
No, not at all.
I’m taking the poster at face value, but if it’s not, it’s yet another pious lie.
The sentiment remains the same.
People like you jump down throats without first understanding what was meant.
Nobody can be expected to know what you meant, unless it is accurately reflected in what you write. A lesson heddle needs to learn also, is to never write more clearly than you can think.
Saxon the Demon-Queen:
So, nevermind that 7 people died other than Feldkamp’s young family members? Collateral damage is just peachy-keen? Just like Katrina indiscriminately destroying churches as well as “depraved homosexuals”?
The Blood-God with the bad aim: when it thirsts, we are all fair game.
Sigh. Ken. Let me try this again. What I mean is, some can see the light of reason and throw off the shackles of Christianity. I did. I no longer am a Christian after research and listening to reason. I’m saying there is hope. With the right tools some people can overcome the delusion in which they were raised. That’s all. My reason for posting in the first place was that I fear people giving up fighting people like Gingli with reason. I would have thought similar things as her once upon a time. What is wrong with saying there’s hope?
I’m on your side, Ken. Are you purposely trying to alienate me? I just think there’s a misunderstanding. Geez.
Since when is being female an insult? No offense meant or taken. I’m a lot more concerned about saxon, gingi, and the hordes of similar. A lot of the evil I’ve seen in the past has been mostly just psychotics who really aren’t evil, just crazy, bad genetics and bad brain chemistry.
These people are in a class by themselves. I think it takes a seriously defective personality backed up by faith in a monstrous, sadistic god to produce moslem suicide bombers, witch killers, or gingis, saxons, and the multitude of the same.
“It takes religion for good people to do bad things.” Imagine what religion does for people who start out bad.
Ironically (Sorry Raven :) ) but a Raven in Celtic (Welsh) mythology was revered as a spiritual figure or god and the actual Raven is one of the most intelligent birds around. Seems appropriate for our Raven :)
Gingivitis (as she did leave a very nasty taste in the mouth) not so much, i.e. spirituality or intelligence. Sorry you couldn’t have done better by your daughter saxon. So tell us. Was it nature or nurture that she turned out as such a sad compassionless crone?
CocoLoco, relax. With good reason, regulars here have very sensitive troll sniffers and itchy trigger-fingers :)
Nothing. It’s more the way you said it:
Regarding
take heart, this is Pharyngula. No fear of that, here.
After reading PZ’s account of his car wreck, and then seeing the threat in #593, I am quite disturbed.
No brakes. No steering. That strikes me as odd. Yes, the road was icy, but his description of the way he applied the brakes seems prudent to me from what little I remember about driving on ice. He says he had plenty of time to stop, even in those conditions.
I hope his car will be carefully examined by a qualified mechanic to determine what went wrong.
@ raven
Being female isn’t an insult(as I’m sure my wife would agree). As for the defective personality backed by faith, I think that faith causes the defective personality. Religion, I’m sure we’ll all agree, is propagated by brainwashing the young and the superstitious. By focusing on the young, who don’t really have a chance at developing a personality, religions can shape and mold them however they want. While I agree about brain chemistry for some, I think the sad truth is that people like Gingi were twisted by their parents into sad caricatures of actual human beings that mistake fantasy for reality.
The really scary thing is in her twisted fantsy world, she probably truly believes she was expressing some sympathy for the doctor. Why religion hasn’t been classified as a mental disorder is beyond me.
Thanks Mr. Morales. I’m brand new here. Didn’t think I’d get wigged out on after only my 2nd post. I do get tired of people often posting about how hopeless this all is. When we’ve got PZ, Dawkins, Harris, and the like traveling all over and giving talks and lectures, I feel quite optimistic. It will take time, but I think reason will win out. Perhaps I’m naive?
Perhaps I’m naive?
We’ll turn you into a steely-eyed, flint-skinned athier-than-thou atheist in no time. Buck up. We have the upper hand and the moral authority. After all, we don’t have to imagine there’s no heaven. We’re all here just doing the best we can. Sorry about the stubbed toes, but I’m sure you’ve noticed there are flaming bags of poo all over the place today.
@CocoLoco
Hey, I’m new here as well. I don’t feel that its hopeless at all. In fact, with every evangalist or talking head decrying the way secularists and godless liberals are taking over my hopes raise. If reason wasn’t having an effect or posed a threat to these people, they wouldn’t acknowledge it. It will take time(probably more time than I have on this world) but reason will win out. We know it and they know it, which is why they fight so hard to discredit atheists. If you don’t mind the expression “Keep the faith”.
As for Gingi, Coulter, O’Reilly, the Pope, and any other person out there that tries to twist words and force your beliefs where they have no business being: “Doom on You!”
CocoLoco, stick in there, we can be a bit abrasive at times, to say the least :) especially if we have just had a lot of trolling or a run of inane god botherers with circular arguments so that even seemingly innocent posts can get someones spidey senses tingling. But it can be fun and educational, for I don’t think a day has gone by that I haven’t learnt something of value here, either from PZ or from one of the mountain of superb posters.
:o) Aww shucks. Thanks guys. I’ve witnessed your pitbullesque attacks on godbotherers and it does get bloody in here. But, yes, I do learn so much on this site and I’m glad to have stumbled across it.
CocoLoco, I don’t think you’re naive, but some of us are somewhat jaded. Hang around a while and you’ll see godbots whose insouciant yet wilful ignoring of reason and evidence over a period of time is remarkably predictable.
What’s wrong with all of you people? People died, so you decide to fight? That it was the hand of God, or that God doesn’t exist and Christians are evil?! About Pro life or Pro Choice?! You all yell your hate at each other and forget to be human, on both sides. You forget the love that makes you human. A true measure of a man isn’t whether they can love those that agree with him. It’s if they can face someone who doesn’t, and love them regardless. Judging from what I’ve seen, very few of you can honestly say that.
This is heinous. But it does not accurately represent the majority of those who profess Christian faith. My guess is that it may represent many of the folks who claim to be Christian…
Bullshit. The only thing about this is it perhaps more starkly shows the udnerlying theme of Christianity than most usually dare to.
Almost universal among all but those who most casually call themselves Christian is the feeling that if they have avoided a fatality, God saved them, and if they die, God has “called them home.”
God decides when and why you die. That is the essence of Christianity. You will be judged. You will be rewarded or punished. That’s Christianity in a nutshell. Add varying degrees of “you’re inherently nasty, dirty, bad, sinful and you have some major sucking up to do or your ass is going to be tortured” for most if not all Christian sects.
It’s almost impossible to believe in any god without being delusional (those who have no access to any scrap of information learned since about 5000 years ago get a pass)
It’s almost impossible to believe in and worship rather than detest the Christian god (as commonly represented) without being at least to some degree immoral.
Human morality comes from empathy. The Christian god cannot be revered without an empathy deficiency.
Christain faith is a form of sociopathy.
Truelove said
Say what? Says Who? Sorry, I think you have got your wires crossed. For while I find it difficult to hate just about anyone I find it just as difficult to love someone like the turd who wrote the article referred to in this post. I think you are mixing us up with xians who are supposed to love their enemies and not gloat about their misfortunes.
As an atheist? Not so much. For initially I will treat all people with respect but when they show me that they don’t deserve it, as gingivitis doesn’t, then they are fair game for whatever level of criticism I feel appropriate.
Uhhh…Truelove, judge not lest ye be judged. Seems appropriate since judging by your post you just did the exact same thing everyone else has been doing.
Besides love is not what makes us human. It’s a part of what makes us human, along with hate, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, and all other emotions.
As for the true measure of man being loving those that don’t agree with you, well, no that isn’t the true measure of a man. I love plenty of people who don’t agree with me (for instance, my wife happens to be a preacher’s daughter). If you want to use love as the measure of men, feel free because that’s not really germane to the discussion at hand. This discussion is actually more analogous to “The only requirement for evil to triumph is for good people to sit back and do nothing.” Standing up for what you believe in is the true measure of any person.
“What’s wrong with all of you people? People died, so you decide to fight? That it was the hand of God, or that God doesn’t exist and Christians are evil?! About Pro life or Pro Choice?! You all yell your hate at each other and forget to be human, on both sides. You forget the love that makes you human. A true measure of a man isn’t whether they can love those that agree with him. It’s if they can face someone who doesn’t, and love them regardless. Judging from what I’ve seen, very few of you can honestly say that.”
Yes. From now on when faced with the Phelpses, we should smile, say “gosh aren’t then cute,” and feel the love for them.
NO person can honestly say they love everyone with whom they disagree…
A person can honestly say they love humanity as a whole.
A person can honestly say they don’t have any person in the whole world – me for example. I don’t hate ANYONE, I don’t have room in my life for that, though I certainly can hate actions and effects of people.
But NOBODY can honestly say they love everyone, as individuals. If you do say that you’re just blowing smoke up your own ass. It proves only that you love one person – yourself, and you’re happy to flatter yourself to a preposterous degree as a consequencen of your excessive self-regard.
Typo correction: a person can say they dont HATE anyone.
@Jafafa Hots
That’s actually a brilliant idea. Smother your enemies with love, compassion and friendliness. You’d be surprised how badly this throws a lot of hateful people off guard.
“Standing up for what you believe in is the true measure of any person.”
Gentle disagreement. I would actually depreciate that a bit. WHAT you believe in is the true measure of a person. After that standing up for it is good, as long as what you believe in isn’t bullshit.
Godwin alert – Hitler did a damned fine job of standing up for what he believed in. The measure of him as a person? Not so fucking great.
I am humbled by the infinitie wisdom of your words, and my heart leaps with joy and appreciation at finding my humble self the recipient of this precious gift of your superior level of compassion and human understanding.
aqhhh fuck. quote didnt work. I give up. No more commenting on a 15 year old pc with a malware-ridden copy of windows 95 via dialup on a noisy trailer phone line.
No more internet til im back incivilization.
The Klan rally scene was the best part, but I can’t find it on YouTube.
@Jaffa Hots
Thank you for that clarification. You’re right, I should have been more careful when I made that statement. Although it seems that there is an assumption that the true measure of a person has to be inherently good. You nailed it right on the head when you said the measure of Hitler was “not so fucking great”.
However, tossing out the assumption that the measure of a person is a good thing, and realizing that it simply reflects the person for better or for worse, and given the fact that the only way to know what someone believes is by them standing up for it, I think my statement still has validity.
Gingi stood up for what she believed and we have taken her measure. She is cruel, venal, and twisted and definitely found wanting.
Browsing through the enormous number of comments on this thread it is gratifying to see that the vast majority of posters have, often with great eloquence, expressed their disgust over Gingi’s bone-chilling article. Even her mother has turned up (if Saxon really is who she claims to be) and has made a good attempt to support the truth of the saying “like mother like daughter.” What irritates me most are not the predictable reactions of the fundie godbots who somehow condone Gingi’s evident glee over the death of so many innocent people. This is to be expected from god-fearing zombies. I can even laugh at them, like you can laugh at some silly monster in a cheap horror movie. No, what irritates me most are the reactions of the Christians who begin by stating that of course they abhor the likes of Gingi but then go on explaining that Gingi is not a True Christian (TM), that what Jesus actually taught was… etc., etc.
I reiterate what I have said way up here: Gingi is acting in exact conformity with the teachings of the Bible, she is a True Christian (TM) if ever there was one. If you ‘moderate Christians’ do not agree with her than you should consider burning your Bible, a book that should really be called Genocide for Dummies, and stop calling yourselves Christians.
If you ‘moderate Christians’ do not agree with her then you should consider burning your Bible, a book that should really be called Genocide for Dummies, and stop calling yourselves Christians.
Drosera. Your Genocide for Dummies is so much better than my usual favoured label of the wholly babble. May I borrow it? Pretty please :)
John, feel free to spread the word.
Drosera, thank you, I shall relish deploying it at opportune and even not so opportune moments :)
#711 Truelove: “You all yell your hate at each other and forget to be human, on both sides. You forget the love that makes you human.”
Nobody would “forget to be human” by expressing hatred on this board. Hatred, if it is indeed present in this thread, is an engagement with the world. It is very much a part of being human.
“You forget the love that makes you human. A true measure of a man isn’t whether they can love those that agree with him. It’s if they can face someone who doesn’t, and love them regardless.”
What sort of drivel is this? I don’t have to “love” anyone I disagree with. I will do what I can to protect their right to free speech but there is no need to “love” them.
John Phillips, FCD
I’m sure it will be very effective. It will certainly lead to one of those climactic show-stopper moments so often reported here. It’ll be something like this:
“This religio-tard was talking to me, spouting off about his precious bible, and I said to him: ‘You know what your bible should be called, it should be called Genocide for Dummies!’ Ha ha, you should have seen his jaw drop. He was totally speechless! Then spittle started spraying from his mouth. I walked away LMAO. For all I know he eventually collapsed. Hee hee! I can’t wait to use it again and make another godbotter go catatonic. Hee hee!”
Folks, I just did the dumbest thing ever and went to that rancid witch Gingi Edmond’s site and read another of her “enlightened” opinions on how extremist, violent, pro-aborts(her term)are fooling the youth of America through lies and semantic word games.
“Mass idiocy persists because complacent people allow it to. If anti-slavery activists insisted on the coddling of slave traders, slave owners and dehumanizing rhetoric that many pro-lifers seem keen on adopting for pro-choicers, we would still have slavery in our midst. We are fighting for victims who do not have voices of their own.” Gingi Edmonds
She’s right about one thing, mass idiocy does persist because complacent people allow it. However, at least Pharyngula seems to be working against this mass idiocy. Atheists are also fighting for those who do not have voices of their own(the young children being brainwashed by religion) , and are actual people to boot! With no sense of irony at all she attributes Christian practices, i.e. brainwashing, ridicule, violence, onto the pro-choice side. Anybody want to get a petition going suggesting a law that children can’t be exposed to religion until…oh say 18!
Heddle, much better if I just point them at some of your posts. Much less work and we still get a good laugh at a display of teh stoopid.
This is totally in line with the bible, though. Think of the story of Job, those of you with scriptural knowledge. God allows Satan to kill off all of Job’s family in one fatal moment, and the moral of the story ends up being something like “never question God, he made you too stupid to know his desires, and even if they are silly, petty things like bets with Satan, you shouldn’t ever doubt or question his goodness to and love for you.” God of course likes heartless, logical, and unquestioning people like himself, who can look past the fragile emotions like love, loss, pain, mourning, and fear, and instead see the big picture, the portrait he is painting that may look ugly up close, but is a beautiful painting when viewed from afar. Human tragedy must mean nothing to those who think that an all-powerful God is trying to change your mind by killing off your family. If this is God’s way, then surely this is the morality we should all hold to as good values, right?
By the way, if anyone reads this and is struck by the idea that I may just be a crazy fundie defending this heartless “faith” called Christianity, know that my meanings are more subtle than they seem, and satire is a glass best served dry.
It’s stories like this that caused me to split with the Mormon church and ultimately walk away from religion altogether. It only breads unecessary division and just gives people another reason to be dicks to each other. No thanks.
No doubt the author of this column supported the Iraq war. Not all life is sacrid to these people. It never has been, it never will be.
jrock, agreed. Religion should definitely be X-rated.
Drosera and jrock, a while ago ICANN suggested having a .XXX domain for porn. They should have proposed it for religion instead.
Even better would be an invisible domain.
I mean for religion.
heddle: “…I’m sure whatever you posted is correct.”
So am I.
All you bother to do is nitpick at the punctuation and capitalization. Evidently the words themselves presented an impossioble challenge for an imbecile.
An invisible domain, I like it. If only, he sighs wistfully. Ah well, one day.
Astrounit #738,
Yes, your exposé in #607 on how man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever contains an inconsistency involving the words end and is beyond refute. In fact, your explanation:
is an instant classic in the rhetorical arts. You are correct; I do not know how to respond to such an argument.
Ken @ #621: Yeah, it was everywhere. You think maybe the repetition sunk in to his thick skull? Nah, I don’t think so either. Evidence that an imbecile is as blissfully unaware of subtle hints in the art of hammering as well as the overpowering stench of his own droppings.
Simple Simon, do you have a real point? Your questions are stupid, inane, and irrelevant. Just like you. And you are a bad christian for breaking into Pharyngula. Your god is angry at you for doing so.
An atheist mourns because someone they care about has died and they know there will be no more time to spend with them. We know that this is the only time we have.
The better question would be: Why do the religious mourn? Apparently you all go to Heaven and dance endlessly with your loved ones as your invisible friend watches over you to make sure you don’t fornicate. Idiot.
Simon: “Doom on You!”
Despicable.
Anyway, not preaching, just pointing out irony:
Ezekiel 35 (New American Standard Bible):
5 “Because you have had everlasting enmity and have delivered the sons of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of the punishment of the end,
6 therefore as I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will give you over to bloodshed, and bloodshed will pursue you; since you have not hated bloodshed, therefore bloodshed will pursue you.
…
11 therefore as I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will deal with you according to your anger and according to your envy which you showed because of your hatred against them; so I will make Myself known among them when I judge you.
12 “Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard all your revilings which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel saying, ‘They are laid desolate; they are given to us for food.’
Matt, yeah, you are right, she is despicable and it seems from your posted verses that her own god will deal with her in his own good time. It is at times likes this I almost wish there really was a god complete with heaven and hell so sociopaths like gingivitis could get their just deserts according to their own cults ramblings.
I’m not condoning anyone’s “behavior” as I don’t know the author of the article or even what the website is that it is posted on. However, I find it odd that you all seem to quickly find such great fault with someone’s writings yet see nothing wrong with killing millions of unborn children.
I’m sure not on any Christian bandwagons, nor am I here to “convert” anyone to anything. It’s just troubling to me to see such outraged responses to someone’s words, yet the actions of killing human beings is a non-issue completely.
Everyone shouts about the rights of the mother… who stands up for the rights of the child that is destroyed before even having a voice?
Getting back on point, everyone is so harsh on “Christians”… they’re this, they’re that. You know what though, they’re just like you. Herein lies the problem – they lie, they cheat, they steal, they speak out of their own carnal minds… just like you. Yet somehow THEY are the ones called “vile” or “evil”. Until Christians understand what it means to live set apart (as it was really meant to be), they will continue to be a mockery and laughable religion with no affect. Everyone shouts “Stop judging me!” as they turn and then judge someone else… everyone.
So… everybody just calm down and do your part to better this world that is choosing to go the way of self-indulgence and destruction.
Only a moment to pop in, but first things first: Congratulations to Dr. MAJeff!
wOOt! wOOt! wOOt!
heddle’s really gone overboard on this thread with his evasive sarcasm. Here’s a hint, heddle: your use of it as a defense meachanism is entirely transparent to everyone but you, and so pathetic it makes some of us cringe. #571 reads as almost deranged.
I fully agree with Brownian’s response to your stupid “moral comparison” post and the claims about what atheists are arguing made therein, but I’d add that, while Christianity is often an impediment, that does not make it the only possible impediment, so the reasoning on which your comparison is based goes awry there as well. Remaining in the ideological realm, political religion, for example, often has similar effects.
Speaking of morality, I think I saw some response to Owlmirror on another recent thread, but I don’t believe you’ve responded to other comments on this thread:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/those_who_believe_in_heaven_ar.php
Joel, the link to the original article is the second one second blue underlined one (in case you don’t know what a link looks like) in PZ’s post at the top. Go read it then come back and pontificate. Otherwise, be my guest and cnecha bant.
please, for the love of god, ban siMon. at least other crazy religio-bots tend to speak decent english.
p.s. — no pun intended.
WOOT! Congratulations to Dr. MAJeff.
Joel Spencer, a great fool, wrote:
Possibly because they’re no more ‘unborn children’ than the millions of sperm and eggs that don’t become children. If they’re unborn, they aren’t children.
Human biological material, not human beings. There’s a difference. A cancer cell has everything an early stage blastocyst does; do you demand it has rights?
Why should the rights of the growth (not a child; it has to be born to be a child) outweigh that of the mother? Do you have any idea how many pregnancies don’t carry to term? The Christian god, if he exists, aborts millions every year.
Yes, in some ways they are*. Except they claim they aren’t. They claim their religion makes them more moral than those who don’t share it.
Pointing out their hypocrisy reminds them of it.
If I’m reading this right, you’re coming to PZ’s blog and you’re telling us what to do. You know what I think of that?
Fuck you. Take your demands and cram them in your ass. With walnuts.
*The difference would be the delusional belief in an unfounded, archaic superstition.
@747
Monkeys don’t mourn? Really?
Simon, WTF! Are you deliberately stupid? What in the world would be the point of mourning someone you thought would live again, Jackass! The monkey remark doesn’t even dignify a response (although judging from your post I would bet you’re not quite as evolved as the rest of us.)Of course I love my family, most people would have inferred that even if I didn’t use the word. Somehow, from your posts I don’t think you know what love is. (Hint: It’s not the unquestioning belief of some mythic god, but actually caring about another human being.)
Heddle #740 – I’m dreadfully sorry to see you back so soon – and I apologize to all if I’ve lured this prick back. I’m very sorry.
But, my dear heddle, now that your here again, let me ask you one simple question: why are you using this thread, on PZ’s post of this horrible tragedy, upon the dead bodies of men, women and children who were totally innocent of the kind of dispicable charges voiced by this horrible Gingi Edmonds, in complete contempt for the surviving family members, to push your way into this thread to score points?
I’ll tell YOU: you do it just because you are selfish, inconsiderate asshole who can’t handle the fact that the face of “Christian Love” is nakedly exposed for what it in fact is for all to see, and the sight of it is so gruesome that you perform a little dance of misdirection in order to distract as many respondents as possible in the thread into making unkind remarks about you. Very well done. You deserved every single one of them, and unfortunately several new readers come on this site and see the battle you’ve managed to kindle, and I’m sure you are proud of it, but the worst part of it is that you and that idiot Gingi Edmonds don’t give a flying shit about the people and the kids who perished in that terrible crash. You imbeciles would rather USE this horrible tragedy as an opportunity to push your morally degenerate views on people.
You and Edmonds have absolutely no sense of empathy or humanity. What the HELL is wrong with you?
Flea, thanks for that link. I knew monkey’s actually did mourn, but didn’t have anything off-hand to refute that idiot’s insanity.
Only a moment to pop in, but first things first: Congratulations to Dr. MAJeff!
wOOt! wOOt! wOOt!
Thanks.
Now, where’s my fetus sashimi?! We could also blend a few of ’em up for mighty good martinis.
C’mon, ladies, get started on those abortion parties. I need food and drink for my celebration!
Simon has been banned. What he’s doing now is intentionally morphing his email address with every post to avoid the filters — and no, I can’t simply ban on the word “simon”. I’m reduced to simply cleaning up his garbage every morning.
No, they are not like ‘us’. “We” can tell the difference between a 28 week old fetus and a child. Moran.
Congrats Doctor MAJeff :)
The grog is almost 4 days old by now. I suspect one tankard and you will be under the table. Let’s get started.
MAJeff, you have been through a long ordeal, which in the middle felt like a long tunnel with no end in sight and the walls closing in on you. You have successfully come out the other side to sunshine, blue skies, and greenery. May your days be happy and productive. To Dr. MAJeff (raises fuming tankard).
That was supposed to be a surprise for tomorrow! Damn! Who spilled the beans?
I grew up with the families who were killed in this plane crash. We went to the same schools and our parents were friends. We went to the same college and university for medical school and dental school. They were wonderful, loving human beings.
I saw the loonies like Gingi picketing the Feldkamp house. This is but one reason I no longer am a theist.
The families who died were Christians. They were Seventh-day Adventist, the church I was brought up in. I never heard them ever utter a harsh word about others because of their beliefs. They had true friendships with many of us who are no longer theists, our deconversions didn’t bother them.
I just want to share some information about them and some pictures of them that are on an SDA website. If you would like to see their faces and read a little about them, here is one place:
http://news.adventist.org/2009/03/in-us-three-adventis.html
It is despicable that someone would use this as “proof of God’s punishment”.
i say we nail every christian on a cross if he refuses to denounce his god and religion.
after all, this how Christianity was dealing with their “enemies”. so it must be a language they understand. all religion should be banned. dont give me that “but we live in a free country”-crap. its dangerous and offensive. its an insult to human civilization. clearly trying to treat these subjects with fairness and decency doesnt work. this is a language they do not understand.
so. hunt them down. one by one. nail them on a cross. burn them. lets get this crap over with. i am sick and tired of all this.
better an end with pain, then endless pain. and these christian freaks ARE an endless pain in everybody’s butt.
If feel sorry for you, PZ, having to mop up the filthy ejaculations of Simon the Banned. It’s a pity though that in this way the numbering of the posts keeps changing all the time. Can’t you just replace his drivel with something like Comment deleted?
By the way, I’m happy that you survived the crash relatively unharmed. Must have been scary, even if you don’t fear God.
Shonny asked:
At least by now they know their heads will actually fit into the recommended respective orifices.
Thank you for the link, storkdok. My condolences.
My condolence storkdok and you’re right, it is enough of a tragedy without the ghouls trying to profit from it and making it worse.
Raven: A lot of the evil I’ve seen in the past has been mostly just psychotics who really aren’t evil, just crazy, bad genetics and bad brain chemistry.
What’s the difference? Don’t fall into monotheism’s keenest trap, believing that the difference between “mind” and “brain” is one of substance, rather than level of analysis.
Joel Spencer @ #745:
Bullshit. This is a lie. I bet the very next sentence is going to be the start of some screed in favor of forced birth, trampling the fresh corpses of children carrying your “pro-life” banner.
Joel’s very next sentence:
Do I know how to call ’em or what? :P
Joel, the forced-birth movement doesn’t give a flying fuck about “unborn children”. That’s just an excuse. All your sick cult wants with this is to control other people’s lives. And as the despicable Gingi makes clear, you’re willing to sink to any depths of depravity to do it.
More of Joel’s lies:
Yes, you ARE on a “christian bandwagon”. The entire forced-birth lobby is nothing more than that.
An embryo is not a human being. A blastocyst is not a human being. A brainless (literally) clump of tissue is not a human being. There is nothing that could be reasonably called a human being by any sane definition until months into the pregnancy.
But you have no interest in sane definitions. And you have no interest in human beings. All you care about is controlling other people. You want to force women to carry unwanted fetuses to term as a punishment for not being like you. Can you imagine the kind of life a child would have, if its entire existence was treated as having no more meaning than a PUNISHMENT for its mother? What kind of hartless devil are you to want to inflict that on a generation?
Joel, if you actually give a flying fuck about “unborn children”, here’s a challenge for you. Do something for the children that are already here. Sell everything you own, and donate it to poor mothers who can’t afford to take care of their own kids, much less the others you want to FORCE them to have. Make birth control freely available, so there won’t be as many unwanted embryos in the first place. Fund research to remove unborn fetuses intact from mothers who can’t support them, and implant those “unborn children” you care so much about into forced-birth advocates like yourself. Yes, even the men, it’s just a matter of developing the technology. If self-proclaimed “pro-life” people had to put their own bodies and assets on the line and carry the unborn children they whine about to term, your movement would be dead inside of nine months.
Joel whining:
What you complain about being destroyed is not a “child” by any sane definition of the term.
Joel, when does a woman cease to be a human being? you are acting like there is only one human being involved. At what point in a pregnancy does a woman lose all human rights and become nothing more than an incubator? The official position of the forced-birth movement is that this happens at conception. I bet you’re too much of a coward to admit that.
Joel the lying cheating thief, whining again:
Speak for yourself, lying cheating thief Joel. I don’t use fresh corpses as ammunition. You and your cult do.
Christians are a politically active group. They have an effect on the world. Gingi’s article was published in, and defended by, “the nation’s leading distributor of religious press releases“. That’s their own words. This is where CNN, The AP, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal get their religous news. This is the public face of christianity. And it is ugly.
If you, as a christian, have a problem with what christian leaders do in your name, get some better fucking leaders! But you really don’t. Because you, Joel Spencer, defend this evil, even as you lie and say you don’t.
raven @ #681:
Raven, these aren’t demons. Check your Monster Manual. They’re clearly devils.
There’s an important distinction, and it’s a matter of alignment. Demons are defined as Chaotic Evil. That alignment is characterized by a disdain for both social order and the well-being of others. A Chaotic Evil villain revels in random destruction, spreading pain and suffering with no rhyme or reason. The kind of monster who would set fire to an orphanage just to watch it burn.
Devils, on the other hand, are Lawful Evil. This alignment values law and order, but cares nothing for freedom or compassion. A Lawful Evil villain is a classic tyrant, seeking to force others into slavery, enforcing order through fear and cruelty. This is the type that would brutally murder a man’s family for the slightest imagined transgression. Trying to rewrite the law to force their beliefs on others is clearly LE, not CE.
It’s quite obvious, the christian god has an alignment of Lawful Evil. Domains would probably include Evil, Law, Death, Domination, Destiny, Hatred, and Greed. Planar allies might include Mind Flayers (something has to extract the brains from followers). Probably has an alliance with Hextor.
Hey Joel? As a believer, I lied stole and cheated. When I deconverted, I quit behaving like that. I may not be perfect, but I try, which is more than “God forgives me” types ever do.
KI: Wasn’t it Gandhi who said he wasn’t a Christian because he didn’t want to be forgiven for his sins, he wanted to stop sinning?
Frog, haven’t heard that before, must file in useable quotes file, thanks.
Storkdok, I’m sorry for your loss. It makes no difference what their beliefs were, it was a horrible tragedy, which compels me to respond to Silvio Guspini–I mean Pastor Chris Fox, who posted a most heinous diatribe after you.
You’re not fooling anyone Fox (and I don’t care if you really are Pastor Fox or not, you’re still a dangerously blithe imbecile for posting comment #763). Atheists like me don’t believe in gods, but we aren’t trying to force anyone to stop believing. What we are doing is pointing out that atheism is a valid position to live by, trying to get others to think more critically about their religious and supernatural beliefs, and trying to eviscerate the political power that religious and superstitious beliefs hold over human societies. So I don’t agree one bit with anything Silvio posted and I hope Silvio apologizes for posting it on this thread or gets paid a visit from the FBI as mentioned by others above.
KI: I believe it’s from his autobiography, mostly meant as a teaching book for young people. He was in England in this episode getting his law degree, and lived with a Christian family that keep trying to convert him.
He finally gets fed up with the arrogance, ignorance and explicit belief in their cultural superiority — and particularly the principle of salvation by faith alone as they continue to be pricks and hypocrites yet proclaim the superiority of their faith.
joel, thank for being so clear about being a misogynist. it helps to make clear that you and your imaginary-baby-obesses cohorts are just busybody bigots. FOAD, kthxbai!
Hey, “Silvo”, aka pastor Fox or one of his imitators! Isn’t your imaginary god supposed to have some sort of problem with bearing false witness? Amazing how godbots can’t bring themselves to see anything wrong with Lying For Jesus™. Just another sign of what worship of an imaginary tryant does to the conscience.
“Silvio Guspini”, #763, wrote:
It’s telling, isn’t it, that we can immediately tell that this was written by someone religious.
This is tragic. I can’t believe that someone would actually spin this story for their own pety pursuits. As a Christian (a very non-traditional Christian) I can say that I completely agree with this quote:
Don’t ever preach at me about Christian morality: I’ve seen it, and it is empty of love for humanity, replaced with sanctimonious idolatry and commitment to dead, dumb superstition.
As a Christian with different thoughts on the bible, “creation,” and much more, I have yet to be welcomed with open arms and doors, nay, I have been shunned and kicked out of many churches. Christian morality and humanity is a joke, thank you for exposing more and more of it each day.
guys, i am NOT the pastor person. nor am i religious. i really am NOT this guy. i use my real name, and i live in italy.
and everything i said, i stand behind 100%.
so go, try sending the fbi to me. that’ll be fun :D
seriously. the christian churches have been killing people for centuries over crap nobody with a sane mind believes in. time for payback. give them their own medicine. judge these lowlifes with their own standards.
its also very interesting that you have this kind of nonsense behavior only in the US. in countries like italy, where the damn thing comes from (talking about christian church as we know it today) you wont find lunatics attacking abortion and defending double standards. thats an american thing apparently.
anyway. one more time geniuses: i am not pastor pete or whatever his name his. and i did not post the above play a weird double agent game. this is what i think.
religion has to be banned from question regarding everything worldly. everything. schools, government, public debate regarding moral issues.
and if i am not wrong, your founding fathers specifically pointed that out in your constitution, right?
Silvio, you are wrong. Goodbye.
Wow! Nearly 800 comments, most of them from those purporting to be atheists. I have to say, that if the level of self-righteous indignation expressed on this thread is the current status of atheistic morality, then we have a long, heavy slog in front of us.
There is very little that triggers the hyper-emotional reaction of “holier-than-thou” superiority of my fellow atheists than a bone-to-the-dogs thrown by PZ Myers.
I don’t think there is anyone as effective at stirring up the atheistic “root of all evil” ditto-heads than our “godless liberal” host. All PZ has to post is something along the lines of “I hate Xtians” and the wanna-bees fall all over themselves proclaiming “I hate ’em more!,” “No! I hate ’em even more,” “No! No! You’re wrong *I* hate ’em more than all of you combined!” each one trying to outdo the last, perhaps in some quest to be “blessed” by Saint Myers.
The irony of atheists calling for Gingi to be banished to a lake of eternal hellfire seems to be lost in the spittle-flecked feeding frenzy of moral rectitude spewing forth from those on this thread who – through some convoluted version of reasoning I have yet to decipher – claim to be atheist, like me.
Other than their purported godlessness, I have no idea what makes the PZ-minion-style atheists similar to the rest of us who build our atheistic morality on a clear-headed rationalism. I hope someone can show me why it is wrong for Gingi and her ilk to take joy in the sorrow of the surviving families of the crash victims, but it is OK for “atheists” to wish for eternal torture for Gingi and her cohorts.
I predict four main reactions to my post:
1. Willful ignorance, in the chest-puffing “whatchu talkin’ ’bout?” sort of way.
2. Those who will claim that I am being ironic for pointing out their touted moral superiority – saying that I am, therefore, acting morally superior.
3. Those who will “pooh-pooh” the overreactions of other “atheists” as being emotionally justified, considering the circumstances.
4. Personal attacks of some sort or other.
There is another response, that of the very few people who tried to be the “voice in the wilderness” and call for calm, reason, and toning-down of the hate-spewed rhetoric, but they were met with one of the four reactions listed above.
To #1 I say: Even if this post is the only one in this thread,
The fact is that there is no moral difference between an atheist making this wish for a theist than the other way around. Also, that there are very few commentators on this thread condemning post #19 and the other posts like it, shows how little self-restraint some atheists practice when the mob starts waving its pitchforks.
#2 is just a form of sophistry.
#3 are the enablers, who deserve no more consideration than the “moderate” Xtians that ignore the freaky-fringe types like Gingi.
#4 merits no further discussion.
The only posters on this thread who deserve any kind of praise are the other atheists who have been trying to throw some water on this overheated orgy of Xtian bashing, trying to remind their cohort atheists that slathering at the mouth over some deranged comments from a nut like Gingi really does nothing to advance whatever it is that amounts to an “atheist cause,” a cause that one would hope is founded on the virtues of reason, self-control, compassion, honesty, humility, and justice.
All we can do is keep trying, I suppose.
No aratina, i am not. just because you dont like to hear it, doesnt make it wrong.
but goodbye to you, if you are leaving that is.
But Oz never gave nothing to the Tinman
That he didn’t
Didn’t already have.
Concern troll@782 is concerned. Yaaaaawn.
Tinman — I think you’re full of shit. That’s both a personal attack, and a rational analysis.
A) Super-rationality in the face of evil is just a sophistic avoidance of the reality of those who wish to organize a theocratic state. It’s an arrogance that hides a mealy-mouthed acquiesence to these real, organized and powerful groups. Morality is real, get used to it.
B) Setting up strawmen and then knocking them down as 1) 2) 3) 4) is just a completely dishonest, unintellectual and pathetic. Instead of taking a series of specific posts and arguing them, you simply create a series of caricatures, knock them down, and now you will proceed to say “Oh, every response falls into 1, 2, 3 or 4”. It’s a perfectly appropriate response to such blatant bad-faith arguing to simply insult the poster, preferably in rhyme.
C) Did you bother to distinguish between Christian-bashing, as an individual bashing, Gingi bashing, as an individual who has full responsibility for her claims and beliefs, and Christianity bashing, the reasoned critique of an ideology? I guess that wouldn’t fit with B), which is that you are simply creating false dichotomies to argue in bad-faith.
Tinman, if anything you act as an enabler by refusing to take on the greater evil, pusillanimously attacking non-existent enemies. You’re not the Tinman — I just can’t decide whether you’re the Lion or the Scarecrow.
OK Guspini, if you do really mean what you said@763 you are an evil, disgusting, psychopathic sadist. Fuck off.
Knockgoats: thank you. apparently i am on the right track then :D
@storkdok #762
Thanks for the post. I’m sort of suprised that it took almost 800 comments before anyone mentioned the fact that the Feldkamps were Christians. I too share the SDA upbringing. A large number of my wife’s friends know the family and will be attending the funeral.
I’m sure that if this Gingi person actually knew these people they would have many beliefs in common. It is proof of her fanatism and sociopathy that it only take a single thing to trigger this amount of hate.
Geek @ #778, on “silvio”:
It’s pretty much a dead givaway.
“Silvio’s” bullshit is just tailor-made to fit into the fundies’ persecution fantasies. It reads EXACTLY like the kind of strawman atheist that godbots conjure up in their own diseased minds. It’s possible there could be an atheist out there who really does fantasize about mass murder, but such a person would likely end up in a psych ward, religion gives sociopathy a free pass. Since christian sociopaths vastly outnumber atheist ones, it’s simple probablility. Especially given that it’s already known that at least one christian has been trolling atheist forums with these kinds of strawmen. So it’s just a matter of noting the difference between an explanation that’s possible but highly unlikely, and something known to happen on a regular basis.
Knockgoats @ #787:
I’d say he’s an evil, disgusting, psychopathic sadist even if he’s just a christian troll posing as an atheist strawman and DIDN’T mean it.
hey, buddy. is that the world you live in? you imagine things, and thats a fact for you then? who is the foundie here, you or me?
again: not religious. never was, never will be. if you doubt that, why dont you contact me on gmail, guspini@gmail.com and we both discuss this paranoia thing of yours, ok? (i will probably get hate mail now, but i dont care)
but stop calling me christian or strawman. i am neither, and in my world thats fucking insulting. trust me, you wont find anyone more anti-religous then me.
what’s maybe true , that i seem to be a little bit more aggressive when it comes to religion.
so please, stop this “dead give away” BS. judgmental, brainless prick. i start to think i am the only one here you is actually NOT a religious person.
“Silvio Guspini”, #792:
That sounded quite threatening. I’m upgrading my diagnosis to “devoutly religious”.
We can’t deny the facts. They relate to each other and it seems almost unreal – like something from a movie. Regardless, people died and anyone’s death is a tragedy – born/unborn, child/adult. My heart does go out to the dead.
———
OliviaB.
Seattle DUI lawyer
actually, i am just kidding with you.
i am of course a christian straw man who infiltrated this secret hide-out of non-christian fundamentalists, who fight the lonely fight for their right to total idiocy outside any church.
is that better? happy now.
you guys actually proved that its not imperative to be christian in order to be a completely lose your mind.
and famous last words, before i walk away and find a sane discussion somewhere else, that is not filled with morons pretending to be something and accusing each other of whatnot:
arguing on the internet is like participating in the special olympics. even if you win, you are still retarded.
i have been part of discussions like this for quite some time now, but this bunch here beats everything. its idiots like you people here, who give us a bad name, seriously.
so long, morons.
Tammi the troll @ #636:
Yes, you can judge christianity on this article. A christian wrote it. A nationally recognized christian media service defended and celebrated it. And worst of all, no christian organization of comparable size has come out against it. If this vile exploitation of a tragedy were in some way incompatible with christianity, christian leaders would be saying so. They aren’t. If you, as a christian, object to that, get some better leaders.
Face it, people like Gingi Edmonds are the public face of American christianity. The people who make their living claiming to be doing your god’s work, spreading your god’s word across the nation, are the same kind of people who used the 9/11 attacks as ammunition against anyone they didn’t like. The same kind of people who condone and celebrate abortion clinic bombings. The same kind of people who lie about science to children. The same kind of people who use gays or atheists or blacks or jews as scapegoats to gain political power. That’s the kind of people who represent you, tammi. If you don’t like it, do something about it. Get your congregation together, and make it clear that these people do not speak for you, and they and their campaigns will not get one penny of support from any of you so long as you live. Until you do this, until you at least TRY to stem the tide of foul refuse that passes for christian discourse in this country, you, YOU TAMMI, are part of the problem. You give shelter to the radicals by demanding underserved respect for your faith.
tammi shows how jesus failed:
Then he did a pretty shitty job of saving us, didn’t he? Since this evil he supposedly came to save us from goes on, often committed in his name.
tammi outlines the utter failure of christianity:
Then get back to us when even 1% of christians with public platforms actually use them to do those things. You’ve got a lot of work to do.
tammi shows her arrogance:
Yes, it can be a very difficult, heart-rending decision. What the fuck makes you think YOU are qualified to make that decision for every woman on the fucking planet?
tammi makes an idiotic request:
Why? Your imaginary friend has done nothing, absolutely NOTHING, to stop the evil that is perpetrated by his followers, in his name. Given this, he must be either nonexistent, indifferent, powerless, or evil. None of those are qualities I want in a relationship.
“Silvio Guspini”, #795:
Hypocrisy too! Updating the diagnosis to “clergy with suspected papacy”.
Tonight I shall raise a glass to your meteoric rise through the league table of Most Amusing Religious Trolls. Cheers!
What a magnificently bad-tempered thread!
Fuckwit. Bye bye! *Waves slowly, a tear in his eye*
Number 4, I believe.
You are hardly likely to find the caring, sharing side of atheism on a thread about an anti-abortionist gloating over the death of some real, live children.
As for the fucking tone of our replies generally (and I am an unrepentant PZ sycophant – though only when he agrees with me) – if you don’t like it – or can’t handle it – then fuck right off.
This thread has already been invaded by religious apologists who deserve everything we throw at them. You’re on the bus, or you’re off the bus – but in neither sense do any of us care one teeny bit.
Moral Coward.
Bill Dauphin@569:
You’re right, Bill, I do agree with you for the most part, but for the sake of entertainment I’ll try to find an area of disagreement.
I can’t disagree with what you say about the motivation of the majority of the anti-choice crowd. They certainly do want to force their irrational views of “morality” on everyone. Even when they end up advocating behavior that actually makes ethical sense I see this as an accident – and an aberration. This, I think is why so many pro-choicers argue with the motivation, rather than the main argument, which you state so well:
First of all, I don’t think it’s right to equate a “dangerous” pregnancy to an “unwanted” pregnancy. If I shoot a spouse who is in the act of beating me to the point of endangering my health/life, it isn’t viewed the same as shooting one who is endangering my income level.
Also, one doesn’t become a person with “full rights” until the age of 21 in this country. Before that, rights are doled out according to age. So we’re not talking about “full rights”, we’re talking about the right to be alive. By virtue of what is that right accorded or withheld? If both the fetus and host are human, then how does one human justify ending the life of another? Obviously, if one human is endangering the life of another, then self-defense is fully justified (unfortunately for the fetus, this only works one way). As a humanist, I don’t feel that parents have the right to abuse or kill their children. Maybe the state doesn’t have the right to force a woman to take care of her child. But if the woman, knowing that she can’t afford a child, kills it at birth, there’s no talk about the treatment of the child being left up to the conscience of the woman. The state feels it has the right to punish the woman for the harm done to one of its citizens. If on Sunday it’s a fetus and on Monday it’s a baby I can see the practical difference, but what exactly is the difference from an ethical point of view? Is the fetus human or not? Should the state have laws in place to protect it from harm or not? Does it only become human after birth, or should we not protect fetuses because it’s too inconvenient or difficult to do so? These, to me, are ethical issues, but all I hear from the religionists is some hogwash about a “soul”, and all I hear from pro-choicers are about how crazy and meddling the religionists are.
What’s wierd is that if I believed that at some point, the fetus acquires some “magical” or supernatural element that turns it from a lump of tissue into a human being, then it would make sense to me that until that point I don’t have to treat it as human. But I don’t believe this. So based on what do we determine when the mother is allowed to end life, and when she isn’t? Is it preposterous to feel that a fetus whose brain hasn’t developed yet is still a human, just at an earlier stage of development? If this is a matter of conscience, why should people who feel that their conscience calls for them to protect the unborn human from the human carrying it be attacked, reviled or ridiculed for that argument (as opposed to ignoring the argument and attacking their motivation)?
Many Nazis killed Jews (or allowed them to be killed) because their consciences told them that Jews were sub-human. Their arguments for this claim didn’t hold water. If I’m being told that it’s okay to kill fetuses because they’re sub-human, I need to hear the arguments for that claim. After all, some of my best friends used to be fetuses.
If I’m being told that it’s okay to kill fetuses because they’re sub-human, I need to hear the arguments for that claim.
Take blastocyst out of womb. Put blastocyst on table. Attempt conversation with blastocyst. Attemt to breast-feed blastocyst. Dress blastocyst. Burp blastocyst.
Also, look up Godwin’s Law.
At least we now know who to collectively scold when Boteach, Durston, and D’Souza raise the Stalin/Pol Pot/Mao anti-religious genocides–>Silvio Guspini of Italy.
Storkdok, my sincerest condolences for your loss. People all over the country are deeply saddened by this tragedy. And we’re all just appalled that, in this worst of all possible times, human vermin like Gingi Edmonds come crawling out from under their rocks to intrude on Dr. and Mrs. Feldcamp’s grief.
If I’m being told that it’s okay to kill fetuses because they’re sub-human
But you’re not. You’re being told that the determination of whether it’s “okay” should be made by one person and one person only: the woman concerned, who has the inviolable right to control her own body and to direct her own medical care.
“and having a relationship with Christ.”
Who gets to be the top, and who gets to be the bottom?
** Christianity is the practice of nihilism — Nietzsche **
For 2,000 years one vile hallmark of xianity has remained its hatred of natural science (world) and of skeptical philosophy (reason). The Stoics and Epicureans of Athens laughed at Paul of Tarsus when he spoke to them (50-60 CE). Paul’s anti-intellectual rejoinder is still holy writ:
20-Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21-For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22-Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23-but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles . . . . 1Cor1 20-23 NIV
In short, Paul and his fellow slum dwellers created a god glorifying their nihilistic valuations.
27-But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28-He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are . . . . 1Cor1:26-28 NIV
Xianity still appeals to those who believe themselves mistreated. To those in whom resentment surges. To those who must punish their guilty selves.
“Xianity is the practice of nihilism.” Directed inward, hatred of self. Directed outward, hatred of others and of nature.
Unquenchable hatred arises not from some peripheral ideological source — it spews from Paul’s life-negating worldview, tarted up as the religion of “love”.
anti-supernaturalist
Who gets to be the top, and who gets to be the bottom?
Everyone knows Jesus is a cannibalism bottom: “This is my body. Take. Eat.” I mean, c’mon.
The accident was tragic and is not a lesson from God for anyone to learn from, but abortion is the termination of a developing human life, and is just as horrid.
** social control in the name of dead gods
• the concept of a person is not a biological one
‘Person’ won’t be found in a medical dictionary. A human being becomes a person when a culture bestows “membership” on someone formerly outside the group. Considering newborns in traditional cultures, not all who are born get chosen to be persons.
• The real issue is control —
male domination of women, including dismissing their rights over their own bodies. By trying to extend the concept of a person backward to cover fertilized human eggs and zygotes, male legislators hope to return control to the paternalistic “norm” promoted by so-called great monotheisms — judaism, xianity, and islam.
anti-supernaturalist
but abortion is the termination of a developing human life, and is just as horrid.
Let me get this straight: to you, the death of a bunch of living, breating individuals, some of them children, is on the same level as removing a clump of unwanted cells that maybe, someday MIGHT become a person?
This makes sense to you?
Rick at #807:
Then why does god (if you believe in one or any) or nature (if you don’t believe in gods) do it all the time, every day, across every group of people, by failing, as cervantes pointed out in post #2 of the “God, abortionist” thread (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/god_abortionist.php) to implant nearly half of all gametes, subsequently flushing them out with a woman’s regular menstrual cycle?
Also, MAJeff, OM, PhD at #806:
Paging Spinal Tap. Paging Spinal Tap, white courtesy phone. If you’re looking for a new album title . . . .
No kings,
Robert
… I often lurk, ’round these parts. That said:
I’ve read most of the thread – and it intrigues me that most of those coming here to defend G. immediately assume that every single person here stands against their pro-life creed, and that in fact the negative comments directed her way have something to do with that.
It’s likely most here /do/ stand against it – but no, I think the comments directed her way are directed as they are because, frankly, what she said was reprehensible. “God is punishing him, see, we’re right!” went the mantra. And you all nodded along, you defenders, and you say, “Yup! God’s awesome like that – ” … only using platitudes that show how /sorry/ you are.
And you’re not. Your real sympathy is nonexistent. You no more care about that man’s children than you actually do about all of those aborted children you protest.
You see, if you /cared/, you wouldn’t be standing out front waving bloody signs. You’d be adopting unwanted children. You’d give money to adoption centers and causes. You’d make a point of filling your home and your lives to the limits of your financial capacity to take care of those apparently unwanted children, and you’d offer a nonjudgemental alternative to those confused and scared young girls you like to yell at as they walk down the sidewalk.
According to http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib_0599.html – a quickly looked up source, that may or may not even be accurate – 40 in 1000 pregnancies are aborted /for some reason/. There’s no indication as to what percentage of those are medically necessary – it simply includes all procedures, from fallopian tube pregnancies to last-trimester D&C.
Even so – 40 in 1000. How easy would it be to offer every one of those children a home if every pro-lifer opened their doors to /one/ of these children? How much spare capacity would you have? How many children could you save then?
But how many have you? How many adopted little ones are in your household? How many times have you gone in front of a judge and taken responsibility for your own beliefs by giving one of these unwanted kids a home?
I’ll go out on a limb and say you haven’t. So how is what you’re doing – yelling, preaching rage, frightening these girls, picketing a man’s house – how is that /Christian/? Opening your home is. Giving those kids a shot by being a family to them is.
You’re not doing that.
I’ve been security for a planned parenthood clinic. I”ve been attacked, I’ve fought back. I’ve watched twenty-year-olds be mandhandled and intimidated by protestors, called ‘whores’ and worse. I’ve watched couples who came for /fertility advice/ have posters of foetuses shoved in their face.
You’re fighting a crusade against a percieved wrong.. that would simply go away if every one who supposedly felt so strongly simply opened their homes.
Make a real difference. Or do you just need a cause to feel good about?
Janine:
But Oz never gave nothing to the Tinman
That he didn’t
Didn’t already have.
Janine is old. (Alas, so I am, as I recognize the reference.)
Rick:
About 50% of fertilized eggs end up “killed” because they fail to implant or miscarry. Do you think that this is “just as horrid”? Should women who have a history of miscarriages be prohibited from becoming pregnant? IVF clinics routinely fertilize more eggs than they can implant, and implant more eggs than will come to term — are they also “horrid”?
phantomreader42 Thank you for responding to Tammi the troll.
And tammi, pay attention: praying for Gingi and Saxon does not count as “doing something about it.”
I haven’t read through all of the comments (I can see that that will take years and cost millions of lives yet, but, at the risk of volunteering to be hit with a stick, or told that my concern is noted….
….from somewhere up-stream (with SimoN barfing all over the thread, and the numbering going to “subject to change without notice” on his account, it seems pointless to put the comment number):
I have to protest that Christians are not necessarily stupid and/or assholes. Most of the people I know are Christians (probably the experience of most people in the US, if you can believe the polls), and while they are, IMNSVHO, mistaken, miseducated, deceived (and intellectually a bit lazy), they are by and large not the evil/stupid/assholish people of the strawman theist stereotype; their Christianity is some combination of crutch/security blanket/social club/the common cultural backdrop against which they live their lives without giving it much thought. The majority are not generally malicious people.
I’m sure this will get me a “well, duh!” response from some quarters, but I wanted to get it out there for the lurkers’ benefit.
(For clarification, I join the majority here in being appalled by the….well, pretty much everything about what Ms. Edwards wrote. I particularly get the sense that she seems to feel that Dr. Feldkamp ‘had it coming’. Lacking compassion, inhumane….yeah, all of that. May she never have to be on the receiving end, is all I can say.)
their Christianity is some combination of crutch/security blanket/social club/the common cultural backdrop against which they live their lives without giving it much thought.
All too true. For those, the problem is not stupidity, it is weakness and cowardice.
So Silvio is a blatant theist liar, eh? That was clear from the beginning.
Gingi Edmonds makes me feel like I should support 279th trimester abortions.
Amazing the Gall of Many Christians and how ignorantly rationalize things in their world of Nothing but “once upon a time…” world they live in
I’ve always had a feeling that if the government can force a woman to have a baby, the government can also force a woman NOT to have a baby. To me, that is part of the reason I am so firmly pro-choice.
Does anyone else ever think along these lines too?
Or does that make me a libertarian? (please no)
Sherry: okay, let’s test you. Mandatory vaccinations, yes or no?
I have to agree with those who have said the problem with Gingivitis is not that she is anti-abortion. Not even close.
Sherry, #819: I’ve always had a feeling that if the government can force a woman to have a baby, the government can also force a woman NOT to have a baby.
Well, yes. And a government which doesn’t force a woman to have a baby can also force a woman to not have a baby. I doubt that women would be more likely to be forced to not have babies under a government that forbids abortions than one that allows it.
Maargen (@799):
I’ve been busy bloviating (and getting my ass handed to me) on another thread, and lost track of this one. Sorry.
As agreed, just for fun…
I wasn’t equating them, I was attempting to encompass all the conditions under which one might want to terminate a pregnancy.
It seems to me that any pregnancy is either wanted, unwanted, or wanted-but-perilous (aka dangerous). In the first case, no abortion will be desired; it’s the last two that would motivate a woman (or her doctors) to consider abortion. (Obviously, some unwanted pregnancies may also be dangerous, but in that case the danger is moot, since unwantedness is sufficient to motivate termination.) I did not mean to be denying the obvious philosophical distinction between unwanted and dangerous.
Sure. I’m on record (many times) as noting that even if the pro-lifers were correct in their assertion that a fetus is a person (quoteminers take note: they’re not correct!), life-of-the-mother would be the only exception logically consistent with their position (because we generally recognize the right to kill in order to save one’s own life)… and that, therefore, their willingness to accept rape-and-incest exceptions undercuts their own position.
Fair enough: I should’ve said “human” rights, to distinguish the fundamental right to life from the “full legal rights” that we defer ’til majority. I suspect you knew what I meant! ;^)
Nobody claims that fetuses are “subhuman,” in the sense of being inferior people (as Nazis and other anti-Semites argued with the Jews); instead, the claim is that they’re not people yet at all.
Jews (born ones, in any case) meet any reasonable definition of human person in every particular; fetuses fail to meet such definition in several important particulars… chief among them the fact of not having been born yet. Notwithstanding all arguments based on stages of development, birth is the archetypal, nearly universally accepted beginning of personhood: Do you know of any cultures in which people celebrate the anniversary of their conception? Quickening? First brain activity? Viability? Nah. It’s easy to discount this point by arguing that we’ve only recently been able to discern those milestones, but I think there’s something more fundamental at work: Regardless of biological potentialities, birth marks the moment when a (former) fetus actually becomes an independent actor in the world.
You said…
…but the parallel cliche’ you’re goofing on is not “some of my best friends used to be Jews,” but “some of my best friends are Jews.” Your modification of the syntax reflects a transition of kind that takes place in one case but not the other: Jews are Jews; people (whether jewish or otherwise) are not fetuses (at least, not anymore).
Oops. Sorry ’bout the bold FAIL (@823). Didn’t mean to hurt y’all’s eyes.
anti-supernaturalist@808:
I’m not sure I get your post. When you say:
How is this relevant? If a culture decides that someone is 3/5 of a person, is this ethically justified? If a culture decides that male babies are persons but female babies aren’t, should that be accepted as right?
When you talk about male domination of women, this is again arguing motivation rather than the central argument. Do humans have a basic right to live? Does a woman have the right to kill another human that is not threatening her life or health if it’s inconvenient for her to let it live?
Since a human can die naturally (from crib death, for instance) does that make it okay for it to be deliberately killed?
If I’m told that a fetus’ right to live should supercede the mother’s, I would certainly be in the streets protesting that in a heartbeat. But if the mother’s life or health isn’t in danger, those who feel that fetuses should have their basic human right to be alive protected act as they see fit. Those who feel that fetuses have no human right to be alive should also act as they see fit. There are those who feel that a human’s right to life is forfeit by certain behavior. But what about one who’s done nothing wrong?
So it comes down to whether or not a fetus is human. If it is human when it is born, at what point did it become so? Since I don’t know the answer to these questions, how can I judge the way other people choose to answer them as being right or wrong?
Am I the only atheist who sees abortion as a human rights issue with two humans involved?
Maargen, #825: Am I the only atheist who sees abortion as a human rights issue with two humans involved?
I know of at least one other. But even he still maintains the right of the mother to terminate the pregnancy always outweighs the right of the fetus to live.
Does a woman have the right to kill another human that is not threatening her life or health if it’s inconvenient for her to let it live?
You’re buying into forced birth rhetoric, here. By “another human” you mean “another person,” and while a fetus is certainly made of human tissue, it isn’t a person by what I would consider any reasonable definition, but: “person” has no rigorous biological definition, so individual consciences may differ on this point.
Regardless, it’s that “inconvenient” that really shows you need to get beyond the straw man arguments of the forced birth lobby. Get this straight: Pregnancy is a medical condition. It can be a life-threatening medical condition. Acting as if women approach the decisions surrounding contraception, pregnancy and abortion as matters of “convenience” trivializes the stone-cold literally life-and-death nature of those decisions and only helps prop up a corrosive right wing cariacature of women who seek abortions as shallow and affluent, willing to murder a child for the sake of their figures or their friday martini lunches. It’s propoganda, and it pisses me off, moreso when it works, which it seems to have, on you.
Do humans have a basic right to live? Does a woman have the right to kill another human that is not threatening her life or health if it’s inconvenient for her to let it live?
This is getting old. Knock it off.
It’s not a human being, it’s a clump of cells. It is a “might one day become a human being” blob of organic matter.
Thanks to those who came over to Jill’s blog!
I almost had to quit reading, because these hateful people make me so sick to my stomach. Thanks for highlighting this ignorance and hypocrisy. I grew up in a cult know as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and I saw first hand the delight people could take in the misfortune of others that were outside their belief system. It’s sickening.
anti-supernaturalist @805:
Let’s hear more of Nietzsche’s words, shall we?
“What is good? – Whatever increasing the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.
What is evil? – Whatever springs from weakness.
What is happiness? – The feeling that power increases – that resistance is overcome.
Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, ‘virtu’, virtue free of moralic acid).
The weak and the ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
What is more harmful than any vice? – Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak – Christianity …”
Good poster boy for atheism. Here he is on the Laws of Manu:
“The third edict, for example (Avadana-Shastra I), “on impure vegetables,” ordains that the only nourishment permitted to the chandala shall be garlic and onions, seeing that the holy scripture prohibits giving them grain or fruit with grains, or water or fire. The same edict orders that the water they need may not be taken from rivers or wells, nor from ponds, but only from the approaches to swamps and from holes made by the footsteps of animals. They are also prohibited from washing their laundry and from washing themselves, since the water they are conceded as an act of grace may be used only to quench thirst. Finally, a prohibition that Sudra women may not assist chandala women in childbirth, and a prohibition that the latter may not assist each other in this condition. The success of such sanitary police measures was inevitable: murderous epidemics, ghastly venereal diseases, and thereupon again “the law of the knife, ordaining circumcision for male children and the removal of the internal labia for female children. Manu himself says: ‘The chandalas are the fruit of adultery, incest, and crime (these, the necessary consequences of the concept of breeding). For clothing they shall have only rags from corpses; for dishes, broken pots; for adornment, old iron; for divine services, only evil spirits. They shall wander without rest from place to place. They are prohibited from writing from left to right, and from using the right hand in writing: the use of the right hand and of from-left-to-right is reserved for the virtuous, for the people of race.'”
“These regulations are instructive enough: here we encounter for once Aryan humanity, quite pure, quite primordial – we learn that the concept of “pure blood is the opposite of a harmless concept. On the other hand it becomes clear in which people the hatred, the chandala hatred, against this ‘humaneness’ has eternalized itself, where it has become religion, where it has be come genius. … Christianity, sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only as a growth on this soil, represents the counter-movement to any morality of breeding, of race, of privilege: it is the anti-Aryan religion par excellence. Christianity – the revaluation of all Aryan values, the victory of chandala values, the gospel preached to the poor and base, the general revolt of all the downtrodden, the wretched, the failures, the less favored, against “race”: the undying chandala hatred as the religion of love.”
The Church gave us hospitals and almshouses. Nietzsche has given us several generations of black-clad adolescents convinced they’re Supermen. ‘Nuff said.
anti-supernaturalist @808:
Amusing to see a Pharyngulite extolling the virtues of “traditional cultures”. Of course Pharyngulites will extol the virtues of anything that isn’t Christian – even, judging from your words, infanticide.
“You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!” – Friedrich Nietzsche.
Shorter piltdown:
blah blah blah blah blah
He’s Baaaaaaack!
And has Pilty to a tee.
Leigh Williams (No True Christian) @ 802:
You have just committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Possibly two.
Repent.
CJO, #827: Acting as if women approach the decisions surrounding contraception, pregnancy and abortion as matters of “convenience” trivializes the stone-cold literally life-and-death nature of those decisions and only helps prop up a corrosive right wing cariacature of women who seek abortions as shallow and affluent, willing to murder a child for the sake of their figures or their friday martini lunches.
Me, I don’t know what motivates women to terminate their pregnancy or how they feel about it, but it really doesn’t matter. If a woman did just have an abortion on a whim, just for the sake of her figure, then that too would be perfectly fine. There is no problem with this whatsoever.
If this did somehow give ammunition to the anti-choice side, then so be it. Because it is the truth. A fetus is just a bit of tissue, and there is no reason to prefer saving the bit of tissue over any other priority a woman may have, whether it is her health, or the opportunity to further her education, or to save her figure. Any and all reasons to terminate a pregnancy are equally valid — all that is required is that the woman choose to not be pregnant.
If there’s one thing shittier than a post by Piltdown Man, it’s a post where he quotes Nietzche.
Face it Pilty, he’s with Jesus now.
AnthonyK:
According to one school of theology, the fire of hell is merely the radiance of divine love as experienced by those souls who reject that love.
I’m guessing Piltdown Man misread the heading as ‘A clueless faith’ and came a-running, thinking it was an invitation.
Pilty, the bible tells us what the penalty for abortion is – care to give us your thought on that? Also, can you remind us what the bible has to say about when a child begins to have value in the eyes of your God?
Or are you saying the bible is wrong? Or your god was mistaken?
Sleepy and Bashful? Sneezy and Grumpy? Bashful and Doc?
Oh, Seven Deadly Sins – not Seven Dwarfs. Sorry, I get my fictional constructs mixed up all the time. Next thing I’ll be doing is believing in an intellectually honest Christian.
Nah – suspension of disbelief will only go so far.
Just like Pilty, quoting theology at an atheist blog. He just doesn’t grasp the concept…
AnthonyK:
Speaking of shit, in his later years (when he was confined to the asylum) poor little Friedrich used to consume his own excrement. A case of eating his words perhaps?
Pilty, Fuck repenting. *smiles*
There, got that off my chest.
Fuck repenting
Just fuck. It’s good for the body and the soul.
Is that a metaphor for a late-in-life conversion to Catholicism?
Wowbagger @ 838:
You’ll have to forgive me — we Catholics are notoriously ignorant of Holy Writ. But since you obviously have particular passages in mind, perhaps you’d care to share them …?
There is a third possibility that you haven’t considered – that you are mistaken in your understanding of the Bible.
You have just committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Possibly two.
ooh, ooh!
can I try:
“…human excrement like Piltdown Man and Gingi.”
or does it have to be vermin?
how many sins would I be committing if I made a mad-lib out of it?
we’re all just appalled that, in this worst of all possible times, _______ like Gingi Edmonds come ________ to ______ on Dr. and Mrs. Feldcamp’s grief.
Repent.
to what?
Am I the only atheist who sees abortion as a human rights issue with two humans involved?
You have demonstrated that you don’t view women as human, so not so much. Argue all you want about the humanity of the fetus, but until you can demonstrate that one person/potential person should have the absolute right to use another’s body for sustenance, you’re just wasting time.
Pilty, you’re committing two sins yourself, being boring and being an asshole.
http://www.instantrimshot.com
@Maargen #825
to be fair, you post a valid point. I’m afraid I can’t answer this question, but this essay might: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Abortion
Piltdown – from the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible page on abortion:
Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. Exodus 21:22-23
The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.
And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. Leviticus 27:6
No, no thanks necessary. All part of the service.
First post on this site.
This is the most appalling, depressing, revolting story I have EVER read. Shame on Gingi Edmonds, SHAME.
@Wowbagger #838
Your argument wouldn’t be coming from the Old Testament would it? Catholics are taught not to follow the teachings in that book, and hence won’t have the potency for your argument as it would if you used it against Evangelicals. Just reminding you in case Pilty tries sidestepping your attacks.
The Nietzsche quotes by the Piltdown hoax are mostly if not entirely from the Will to Power, a late compilation of Nietzsche’s sayings compiled and “edited” by his proto-Fascist sister when he had already gone mad. Moreover, I would hardly consider even the earlier Nietzsche a paragon of rationality: myth-obsessed would be nearer to the mark.
Twin-Skies
That’s Piltdown’s problem to dodge, not mine. If they want to exclude the OT then they undermine any claims for anything in the NT being relevant by virtue of Jesus’ dependence on prophecy in calling himself Messiah.
Besides, Pilty loves the OT. He’s all for fire and brimstone.
Wowbagger @ 850:
Thanks anyway.
In the Exodus passage, there is no suggestion that the miscarriage was deliberately induced – on the contrary, it’s clearly an unintentional (albeit culpable) consequence of the men’s brawling.
In the Leviticus passage, there is no suggestion that the monetary values assigned to different age groups are intended to indicate their absolute value as human beings – on the contrary, the valuation relates to the dedication of individuals to service in the holy sanctuary.
Hope that clears things up.
Pilty, we don’t give a shit about catholic theology.
Hope that clears things up.
@ Wowbagger, OM #854
Jesus did call himself the messiah based on OT prophecies, but he the biblical accounts also describe him as God’s new covenant with his chosen people, thus nullifying their older Jewish laws.
Invigilator @ 850:
They’re not from “The Will to Power”; they’re from “Twilight of the Idols” and “The Anti-Christ”.
ÜBERFAIL
+++
Twin-Skies & 852:
Incorrect. We do believe that the ritual and legal prescriptions in Leviticus etc were mandated by God for a particular people at a particular time. They were never intended to be permanent and have no longer been in force since Christ instituted the New Covenant. However, certain of them articulated permanent moral precepts which remain valid even though the specific legal and ritual prescriptions laid down in the Old Testament are no longer binding. Hence, adultery remains a sin despite the fact that adulterers are no longer executed by stoning.
In short – we draw a distinction between those parts of the Mosaic law that detail ephemeral ritual injunctions and those which embody enduring moral principles. And in the case of the latter, we draw a further distinction between the moral principle itself and the specific legal sanction laid down in the OT law.
(And of course we also also believe that much of the OT ritualia is a mystical & typological forerunner of Christ. Eg, leper-cleansing as a foreshadowing of Christian baptism.)
Twin-Skies:
We know the doctrine quite well thank you. What you say is simplistic.
Please explain the mechanism by which the older Jewish laws are nullified. This is such an important thing for a Jew to have done, please use quotes attributed to Jesus, rather than explanations by Paul, who had never met Jesus. If you are going to use the quote “I come to fulfill the law” – fulfill does not mean nullify.
I agree with that as well Chiroptera. Somebody else’s medical decisions are none of my,your, or anybody else’s business. But it just pisses me off that the grave consequences of any such state regulation (which would be an outrage if it were any other medical procedure) are so easy for people to trivialize with that word ‘convenient’.
It’s not comparable in importance to easy access to laundry facilities.
Piltdown, with his tap shoes on:
But your claim is that your God loves the unborn even more than actual living people. Surely if that were the case he would impress upon such unruly men the need to be more careful around pregnant women? Remember, this is a being that wants people put to death for collecting sticks on the wrong day of the week; why would he be so gentle with someone who’s harmed, accidentally or deliberately, of his ickle darlings waiting in the womb?
Which leads to another point – he made a point of imparting his feelings on such vitally important things as not picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week; if abortion is such a heinous crime, why doesn’t he specify that we shouldn’t do it?
Did he just forget? Or maybe someone forgot to write it down; they were a little careless in those days, weren’t they? Just like when no-one bothered to check God’s maths and they went ahead and accepted that π = 3.
Act 2 of the dance extravaganza
Ooooh, absolute value and holy sanctuary. Is that supposed to impress me? Whatever the values pertain to is irrelevant; what is important is that the time at which the value commences is at one month. It’s not even at birth; it it were, you might have a point. But it doesn’t – and you don’t.
No gold star for you today, Pilty. Your god doesn’t value human life in any consistent way; he is, however, pretty clear on where he might start caring, though – one month after birth.
The only thing it clears up is that your hot-shoe-shuffle needs a bit more work. Maybe you should have a word to your choreographer.
@Felt-for-brains Man
Please, fraudulent one, share with us what “service in the holy sanctuary” a two month old might perform besides breastfeeding and shitting?
Catholic doctrine’s fascinating isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be great if they all decided to torture and kill each other over a few minor points?
No. That would be silly wouldn’t it? Insane, even!
The main thing is…the catholic church is totally right…nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnow! Starting in 3,2,1 nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnow! No now! Now!
Ah fuck it, it’s all bollocks.
Parsimony win, again!
2 o’clock in the morning … need sleep. Later.
PS
Nerd of Redhead:
If people don’t give a shit about Catholic theology, that’s their own business.
But if people talk shit about Catholic theology, I think I have reasonable justification for correcting & clarifying as far as I’m able.
Clarifying and theology – you know, I don’t think those two terms can actually go together. What’s the word I’m looking for to describe such a mismatch?
Oh, that’s right – oxymoron.
Isn’t it mostly just about the time of month when it’s permissable to wank over the Virgin Mary?
No, I kid! Where do you stand on Jansenism vs Jesuitism? And who won? ‘Cos theology, especially the catholic sort is way cooler than science.
And truer! Eh Pilty? Incidentally are you going to heaven or hell or limbo? I’m finding it difficult to tell from some of your posts, which, I have to warn you, do contain small sins. But where are going where you die?
Unless of course you’re dead already, and this is hell?
I don’t think someone who believes in demonic possession has the mental capacity to understand the difference between “talking shit” and “legitimate criticisms”
@echidna
I stand corrected. It seems I’m long overdue to reading my dusty old tome again
SillyWabbit @ 804- “and having a relationship with Christ.
Who gets to be the top, and who gets to be the bottom?”
I’ve heard it said that, in relation to god, we’re all feminine.
So bend over, boys.
Shannon @ 811- “I’ve been security for a planned parenthood clinic. I”ve been attacked, I’ve fought back. I’ve watched twenty-year-olds be mandhandled and intimidated by protestors, called ‘whores’ and worse.”
Whores. Not killers. Whores.
Yeah, it’s allllllll about those poor unborn babies.
AnthonyK, are you by any chance a Brian Regan fan?
Piltdown’s not very bright, is he.
Both from “Also sprach Zarathustra”
NOT “Twilight of the Idols” or “Anti-Christ”
Moron.
That’s what I get for posting too fast. Part of my problem with those who misquote Nietzsche.
Pilty, you might want to try reading the man, rather than just quote-mining. It’s a nasty habit.
Another passage concerning abortion from the Old Testament:
Living in a country where abortion is illegal (Argentina) and where 100,000 women die every year in back-alley abortions, I simply can’t understand the whole “American Holocaust” drama.
I am not even going to dignify this excuse of a person by insulting her, but I would like to point out some things I noticed while reading her other “articles.”
For example, she loves saying “I told you so”. In the article “Obama the abortion president” (wtf, seriously, what’s wrong with Christians in America?):
Well, we hate to say “I told you so”, but it’s quickly becoming apparent that the only thing pro-life about Obama is his two daughters who somehow managed to escape Michelle alive and intact.
Nice. Classy writer, eh?
Oh, and another thing, this whole article -ingeniously called “Vote because, um, God says so”- is based on a fucking urban legend, the “one vote” argument:
In 1916 ONE VOTE won Woodrow Wilson the Presidency by carrying California by less than one vote per precinct.
In 1948 ONE VOTE gave Harry Truman the Presidency by carrying California by less than one vote per precinct.
In 1960 ONE VOTE per precinct in Illinois would have given Richard Nixon the Presidency over John Kennedy. –> aww, she wanted Richie to win ^_^
From Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/onevote.asp
That’s about it. I am also not going to say “omg xtians are evil becuz this bitch is gloating about someone’s death.” I was raised Catholic (the predominant religion in most South America) and have many religious friends who believe abortion should be legalized because -women are dying.- I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to go to a gynecologist and take the pill. Many women in Argentina don’t have the chance. However, I cringe at the thought of having to get an abortion and paying like 2000 dollars, and maybe not coming out alive of it.
I don’t LIKE the idea of abortion, it’s not something a woman should go through. It IS traumatic, you really can’t be sure of what you’re killing, and it shouldn’t be even an option. That, in an ideal world, where sex ed and contraceptives are available. We don’t live in an ideal world. So we have to deal with what we have and make the best of it. Legalizing abortion and KEEPING IT LEGAL is the way.
tl;dr This bitch’s crazy. As George Carlin said, “Conservatives want live babies so they can grow up to be dead soldiers.” I would add, “or blind followers.”
Where were we?
Kel @ 867:
Is it too much to ask that criticisms be based on facts rather than misconceptions and falsehoods? Elementary courtesy apart, it’s surely a matter of intellectual self-respect. The atheist who burbles on about the Pope “abolishing Limbo”, or who confuses the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth, is no different to the creationist who triumphantly demands to know why there are still apes.
+++
Rilke’s RIlke’s Granddaughter @ 872:
That passage is from “Zarathustra”.
It’s also from “The Anti-Christ” – you’ll find it on page 125 of the 1990 Penguin Classics edition (trans. RJ Hollingdale).
Pilty, how do you tell truth from fantasy? Demon-possession? The RCC does not wrong? You can’t even prove your god exists. We prefer saner methods of learning about your morally bankrupt dogma than from delusions fools.
You mean like believing that someone who desecrates a host is possessed by demons?
Gingi Edmonds is psychotic. Seriously. I had to file a police report against her for harrassment. Good to know that people are starting to see her for the foul mouth, crazy bitch she is. Want to see how pathetically she tries to defend herself? Check out the link below; how can you ever have a productive arguement with someone who refers to themselves as a prostitute?
http://24yearsexperience.blogspot.com/2009/01/ha-ha-she-called-herself-whore.html
Piltdown Man:
Catholic theology: On the premise that the moon is made of cheese, arguing over which kind of cheese it is.
Wowbagger @ 861:
I would say “as much as” rather than “even more than”, but never mind …
Well he he did make a law against it – which we’re discussing.
Maybe because there could be a myriad of mitigating circumstances – for example, it may not have been obvious that the woman in question was pregnant; or maybe she recklessly tried to intervene in the men’s brawl.
I think “Thou shalt not kill” covers it pretty well.
No, just to enlighten you.
Oh come on – of course what the values pertain to is relevant. An employer might feel that an experienced employee who has given decades of loyal service deserves a higher wage than someone who’s just started work at his company. That doesn’t imply he regards the latter as being less than human.
Evangeltheist @ 822:
Well if it had been the sanctuary of some evil heathen cult (aka “indigenous native religion”), that service would probably have involved this. But we know the God of Israel frowned on such practices, so I’m guessing the child was probably cared for by the priests (or more likely their servants) until it was old enough to serve in the various rituals. Presumably, the low shekel-value of the infant was intended to offset this not inconsiderable investment.
99.9% of “Christians” are a bunch of self-serving douchebags with the moral sense of slime mold. They twist their little religious fantasy into whatever shape currently suits their purpose, and then claim that people who _don’t_ do it have no “moral compass”. I’ve tried to be “tolerant” and all that bullshit all my life (I’m 46 now), but I’m pretty much done with that. I’ve started telling any Christian who gets in my face exactly what a useless bag of shit their religion is, and what mindless sheep they are for following it. Screw the “Christians”, screw the Pope, screw the Jews and the Muslims and the rest of them. They’ve killed enough people and destroyed the planet long enough in the names of their various religions. This is just one more example of the heartless, mindless, gutless wonders they truly are.
Yawn Pilty, who cares what a cat-o-lick like you thinks on abortion? We already know your belief. You’re again it. So we don’t need repeated boring posts by you on the subject.
Her stupidity is only surpassed by her own pride and lack of compassion. The bible clearly condemns her actions: Proverbs 17:5 – Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.
Leigh Williams @ 874:
Presumably because the passage doesn’t actually specify that the woman in question was pregnant.
Yassa Massa Myers, dem fundies sure is BAD folks! Ain’t never going to be one of them, no sir!
This post is in response to an error made by a few of you in responding to me, but most glaringly by CJO@827:
1. Since it’s so easy to argue that a fetus isn’t a person, you choose to say that I don’t mean “human”, I mean “person”. But I don’t mean person. I mean what I said: human. I said “human” because I am not questioning here when a human has the right to kill an unborn (or even born) ape, or a pig, or a roach, but another human. So if you want to argue that a fetus isn’t human, go ahead and make your case. If you want to say that humans don’t have the right to live simply by virtue of being human, or that right is forfeit not only by criminal behavior but also by being unborn, or that right is only attained at birth, those would be relevant arguments, and I hope you recognize that there are rational reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with you. But why change my words and then argue what I deliberately didn’t say?
2. What part of “another human that is not threatening to her life or health if it’s inconvenient for her to let it live” isn’t clear? I’m not questioning the right of a woman to end a life threatening medical condition. However, not all pregnancies are life threatening. I guess you didn’t read where I said @825 “If I’m told that a fetus’ right to live should supercede the mother’s, I would certainly be in the streets protesting that in a heartbeat.” I certainly understand that it’s a lot easier to argue that “pregnancy can be a life threatening condition” than what I actually said, but I’m clearly not discussing pregnancies that threaten a woman’s life, or even her health! If you want to argue that all pregnancies are threatening to a woman’s health, that would at least be a logical argument.
Also, the conditional clause “if it’s inconvenient” further indicates that I’m not questioning all abortions, just the ones that are done for the sake of convenience. If you want to argue that no abortions are done for the sake of convenience, or what’s “convenience” or what’s not, again that would be relevant.
It seems to me that you’re the one offering three strawman arguments: That fetuses aren’t people (when I never said they were), that abortions aren’t simply matters of convenience (when I also never said they were), and that the mother’s life and health are more important than the fetus’s (which I had stipulated all along).
To Stu@828: Now that we’ve finally, after so many eons, found the infallible arbiter of when a human fetus becomes a human being, can you please let everyone else in on when that happens? All you have to do is tell us why everyone should accept your verdict, and this difficult issue can finally be put to rest for all time. Why have you been holding out on us??
To Bill Dauphin@823:
and To Chiroptera@826:
I think the fact that few countries permit abortion after 24 weeks, except in cases of clear risk to the life of the mother, is reasonable, despite that fact that a six month old fetus is not “an independent actor in the world”. And although I can’t help struggling with the word “always” in your statement, Chiroptera (seriously? Even at 8.5 months, with a fetus representing little danger to the mother’s life or health?), I agree more than disagree with this position. I just don’t feel that I can dogmatically proclaim that those who disagree with me are wrong, and should just shut up and stop meddling. (Actually, in re-reading the statement, it seems the whole abortion argument centers around whether the word “always”, “never” or “sometimes” is used in that sentence)
To Twinshirts@849: Thanks – your link was helpful. Although both the argument against abortion mentions a “soul”, and both arguments for and against mention “God”, two concepts that I find ridiculous and therefore irrelevant to the discussion. The part where it says “a woman’s freedom ends when its exercise would end a [human] life” seems to me reasonably arguable.
I don’t have anything more to add, so I’ll respond only if someone addresses something to me that’s helpful, relevant, and refers to stuff I actually said (rather than stuff you changed for the sake of arguing what I didn’t say). For those of you who understand the difference between “arguing” and “questioning”, I thank you for your help in thinking this stuff through. For those of you who feel you know what it is to be human, and whether a human being has a right to its life by virtue of being alive, and which humans deserve to have that right protected from abuse by other humans, and at what age that protection should kick in, all I can say is that I envy your certainty. If you don’t recognize the reasons for rational disagreement on these issues, then so be it.
To Sniper@846
Thanks for the laugh – that was hilarious!!
If you don’t recognize the reasons for rational disagreement on these issues, then so be it.
I have acknowledged them in every comment I’ve made here on the subject, and stressed that it is exactly because rational persons can disagree on the ethical questions surrounding human life and personhood that the individual’s right to make the choice for herself is the paramount concern.
It seems to me that you’re the one offering three strawman arguments: That fetuses aren’t people (when I never said they were)
Look, the point is, if being comprised of human tissue is the sole identifier of “human,” then it’s trivially true that a fetus is human, but then, so is a tumor. We don’t protect human tissue, we protect persons. If there is nothing of personhood to consider here, what’s the argument? The rights of persons trump any rights we might wish non-persons had.
that abortions aren’t simply matters of convenience (when I also never said they were),
But it bothers you that some might be. Why do you consider another person’s medical decisions to be any of your business?
If you want to argue that all pregnancies are threatening to a woman’s health, that would at least be a logical argument.
I pretty much did make that argument, at least to the extent that they are all potentially so, and so the determination of whether a given pregnancy should be considered life- or health- threatening is not yours, or the state’s, to make. Imagine the outcry if these sorts of intrusive assessments of motivation were made mandatory for any other medical procedure.
and that the mother’s life and health are more important than the fetus’s (which I had stipulated all along).
So, abortion should be safe and legal for any woman who wants one. Simple enough.
As a public service, I’d like to point out that the young lady Gingi has apparently cleaned out her inbox and can receive email once again, as of approximately 01h00 UT March 28 (=9pm EST Friday evening March 27).
The evil on this blog is palpable. I guess most everyone here is used to the demonic, though, so you don’t even notice or know the demons are around you, in you, on your shoulders, everywhere, but they are. DELIVERANCE!! That’s what this blog needs!
To CJO@887:
Okay, okay…you’ve incited me to break my rule of only responding to those who argue what I do say, rather than change my argument, then argue against what I didn’t say.
Whatthe..?? Who said that the sole identifier of “human” is “being comprised of human tissue”?? Are you making up some silly definition then pointing out that it’s silly, or were you taught biology by creationists? I really don’t see what the point is for the first instance, but if the second is the case, I understand your confusion and will redouble my efforts to keep creationism out of biology class – if you can’t tell the difference between a fetus and a tumor things are worse than I thought!
This might help you figure it out:
From Merriam-Webster.com:
“Fetus: an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind ; specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth”
So for the sake of argument, let’s agree that I’m talking about “a developing human”, not “anything comprised of human tissue”. Does that sound reasonable to you?
And no – I don’t limit my questions to fetuses and older. A human zygote is a developing human – a human egg is not. Nor is a tumor. Nor is human sperm.
Also, a human isn’t even fully developed at birth. So an infant is still a developing human. If a human doesn’t die while a zygote, or blastycyst, or fetus, or infant, or baby, or toddler, or child, or teenager, it will eventually develop into an adult human (then a dead human). And dying by accident, or sickness, or act of nature at any point along this path isn’t the same as being deliberately killed by another human (this is one of the stupidest arguments I keep hearing. And from people who consider themselves intelligent, too!)
I never said abortion shouldn’t be safe, or legal. What I am saying is that those who feel that human life should be protected by law aren’t being unreasonable. If they feel that a woman’s right to kill another human should be limited to self defense, they’re not being irrational. If you feel that deliberately ending a human life is the same as “any other medical procedure”, then I guess for you the case is pretty simple. Good for you!
prayerwarrior4Jesus: You’re fucking bugnuts. We only deal with rational (or at least semi-rational) arguments here. Your little insane rant doesn’t qualify.
Furthermore, you profane the name of Christ with your foolishness.
Repent. Then go the hell away.
That would be the demons of foul language, hatred, bigotry, and heresy. God deliver you!
Wow. Got a looney.
Demons? really? what is this the 12th century?
That would be the demon of ignorance and masking.
Nah, the only demons we get are religious trolls. They are the ignorant and deluded ones.
I’m gonna call Poe on PrayerWarrior. No *real* fundie would even know what masking is, let alone use it in a sentence… unless it involved tape.
My most heartfelt apology to those who suffered this loss and to those who have been negatively affected by statements of retribution.
I read the first 150 or so; also the last couple. It hurts to have the faith twisted, hated, packaged up in profanity. Please re-consider at some point that true Christianity is love. The giving kind. And most of us believe that Love is the best hope for humanity.
Ha ha, are you kidding me? Every one of your rights in this country that allows for freedom, including of speech and movement, etc, are based on the Judeo-Christian tenents of our ancestors. You are a bunch of nasty phonies, who misrepresent the truth and agitate for evil.
You do not understand history, the truth or anything relevant. Your sense of your own intelligence and the world around you lacks depth, context and fidelity. If you believe that there is no God, that there is not soul, then your words, actions and efforts are useless and people can ignore them – and they will disappear in the air.
GG = Giggle Generator.
Hey there, troll.
Hi, GG? Fresh from reading Wallbuilders, are you? That David Barton, what a kidder! (and by that I mean “notorious lying weasel”, of course)
But perhaps you’re just a Poe trying to amuse us. Alas, it’s so very hard to tell. Can’t you people get a new script, for pete’s sake?
Nope – “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”
And as for fredom of religion, another right in western countries – “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; Do not have any other gods before me.”
Fail troll is failz
Leigh Williams @ 891 (responding to prayerwarrior4Jesus @ 889):
Christ believed in demons, so you must think He was “fucking bugnuts” too.
It is you who are profaning the Holy Name.
Perhaps you are suffering from demonic oppression. Do you feel comfortable in the presence of crucifixes, holy pictures etc?
Pilty wrote:
Sectarian throwdown!
Hmm, I think my money’s on the one who doesn’t endorse kid-raping priests. Plus the schismatics have a far more refined sense of aesthetics; I’ve never gone in for all the tacky saint-statuary.
Piltdown:
Was that meant to be a joke?
Holy symbols, oh my!
You know what the possessed girl did with one of those in the movie, right?
Pilty probably thought it was a documentary.
Silly and sensationalised in places, but still a great film (particularly the director’s cut).
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is superior in many ways & more realistic.
Don’t try this at home.
As an Atheist I am not for abortion, but by the same token, I am certainly against the government or any religious group making that decision for me because I feel comfortable in my choices in life. Enough said.
“Holy pictures”? What on earth is a holy picture, Pilty? One of those cheesy daubs of an effeminate Aryan Jesus smeared on black velvet, I guess . . . Holy swishy Savior, Batman!
Yes, I’m acutely uncomfortable in the presence of one of those. Everyone knows that only the King of Rock n’ Roll is supposed to be on velvet.
The cross doesn’t bother me at all. I’m wearing one right now, as a matter of fact.
It is shocking to see so many posts blaspheming Our Lord and attacking Miss Edmonds. She is not heartless and she doesn’t feel satisfaction or pleasure in the deaths of the families involved. She was pointing out in her article the interesting coincidence that the Mr. Feldkamp who owned the plane and whose family tragically perished in the crash is the same Mr. Feldkamp who also owns a chain of abortuaries. Although as a mother and grandmother I am grieved by the loss of life, especially the little ones, I believe one cannot discount the possibility of divine intervention. God can use his own creation to reward man for his faith and good deeds, or to punish man for sins. He permits tragedies such as this to occur so we will turn back to Him. It may seem strange and archaic to you that God would punish children/descendants of an unrepentant sinner, but would you complain as loudly for rewards given to the children/descendants of a good and saintly person? Miss Edmonds is not evil or disgusting. She is merely being observant. As a Catholic teacher, I love my family, friends, neighbors, students, coworkers with the true Christian love (correctly called charity) for their souls. I pray and strive for what is best for all in the long run. If my child or student for example lies to me, I have the obligation to punish him according to the severity of the sin. I will, of course forgive him, but punishment is justly required. When God intervenes and punishes the sinner by allowing hardships, adversities, and even overwhelming catastrophes it’s called Divine Justice. If you choose not to believe in a just God Who rewards and punishes (or choose not to believe in God at all), that it is your right. I will not attack you, but I will pray for you.
Chris52, your belief is primitive and your morality is medieval. Strange and archaic is quite right.
Just wow. You see your god as a standover merchant running a protection racket, and think it’s good.
So Chris52
What is your take on the cover up of child rape by the Vatican?
Well, I imagine she will think the children deserved it – why else would God let it happen and not communicate in any way to us that what they did was wrong? The Church certainly doesn’t think so, otherwise they wouldn’t have protected them from justice – and moved them to places where they could rape more children.
Leigh Williams @ 908:
As the name suggests, it’s a picture of a holy subject.
It could be a sweetly sentimental piece of 19th-century Saint-Sulpice art. Or a Byzantine icon if that’s more to your taste. Or a reproduction of one of the Old Masters. The style doesn’t matter.
Is it a crucifix?
And if you’re really extra special double obsequious, maybe you’ll get a chance to crank the dial up just a little bit and zot the sinner yourself until the screams of the unrighteous hit exact note of remorse, else you’ll up the voltage, reluctantly, but in service of divine justice and retribution? Is your name not heddle then?
“It may seem strange and archaic to you that God would punish children/descendants of an unrepentant sinner”
I believe “monstrous” is the word I’d use.
Children don’t deserve to be raped any more than you or I do. It’s an appallingly hideous sin and covering up such an offense is equally abhorrent. It is heartbreaking to see some of the leaders in the current hierarchy falling into sin and harming innocents. Moving clerics to another location doesn’t solve their problems. They should be removed from positions that put them in contact with youngsters and jailed if convicted of the crime. If the perpetrators are not punished in this life, they certainly will be in the next.
And by the way, it’s not “monstrous” of God to punish or reward a person’s descendants. There are examples of both in the Bible and in Catholic tradition. I believe it. However, if choose not to I won’t throw sarcastic comments your way, but again, I will pray for you…
And by the way, it’s not “monstrous” of God to punish or reward a person’s descendants.
It’s monstrous of you to think so.
There are examples of both in the Bible and in Catholic tradition.
Which makes it a tradition that makes monstrosity a virtue.
I believe it.
I believe you.
However, if choose not to I won’t throw sarcastic comments your way,
Why be sarcastic? Your god is a monster, which makes you ugly and pathetic. I hope you learn some day what it means to be human and compassionate.
but again, I will pray for you…
Returning your sentiment in the exactly the sense in which you offered it, fuck you, too. Shit in one hand, pray in the other. I’ll make bank betting on which one fills up first. Just do it somewhere else.
I am one of those people whom God has condemned for the crimes of an ancestor–no, not old Adam, like the majority of the human race, but a recent, personal male-line ancestor a few generations up. I was doomed to hell before I was born, according to the Bible, because of a man I never met, and no amount of repenting on anyone’s part will do any good at all.
It’s monstrous.
Now fuck off.
Mikewot #49 says, “It was, without question, the most hideous and evil thing I have ever read.” You must not be very old, Mikewot, or perhaps not very well-read.
I think it is more hideous and evil to deliberately twist and cut limbs off of “nonpersons” while they silently scream (no anesthetic, you see). Or to wait until they’re older, then burn their skin off with hypertonic saline. They thrash for hours when you do that. Or to wait until they are seconds/inches from being born before jabbing scissors in the base of their skulls and sucking their brains out.
Have you read about that, Mikewot? Sorry if that was too graphic but nurses are sometimes exposed to pretty gruesome stuff that needs to be exposed. But it’s difficult. People don’t want to hear it.
What? Don’t care since they’re nonpersons? But there’s the rub, isn’t it? When it’s convenient and you want “a baby” it’s no longer a nonperson, but a “baby”. Or “my baby”. How sweetly hypocritical.
Don’t want it? Then off with its head – literally. Oops, forgot the pain medicine. Oh, that’s right, nonpersons don’t need it.
Don’t talk to me about compassion.
Itsallverysad, you suck at propaganda.
This is the internet generation.
Menyambal # 918 seems to think God has condemned him for the sin of others. This is not the case. Any person can repent and turn to Jesus.
Itsallverysad, trolling some more?
Do you realise “silently scream” is an epitome of the oxymoron?
Idiot.
Even as an allegory it fails, there’s no there, there, that screams in any sense.
itsallverysad:
Menyambal # 918 seems to think
GodWotan has condemned him for the sin of others. This is not the case. Any person can repent and turn toJesusWotan.Fixed it for you. No, that’s okay. All part of the service.
John 920, you puzzle me. Is this a propaganda contest? I thought some of us were analyzing viewpoints, examining the credibility of comments, presenting information, drawing conclusions, and giving opinions.
Or does the internet generation just prefer to sling insults?
Since propaganda can be considered any information used to influence opinion, are you saying that my analysis was faulty, or that my credibility is lacking, or my information is incorrect, or my conclusions are erroneous? Or does your opinion just differ from mine?
Thanks, John, for the vocabulary lesson. It’s like trying to spit with a dry mouth. You’re going through the motions without actually spitting. Likewise, the scream. Technically, you are correct. But somewhat angry. What is that all about?
And what’s trolling? Hanging out with trolls?
Itsallverysad:
At your request.
1. I’m just the first to respond. Your status is obvious, you’d be just as puzzled by others.
2. No.
3. Some of us were.
4. Yours, prima facie, are not credible.
5. I missed that part. All I got is rhetoric and opinion.
6. You need an argument from which you can draw a conclusion.
7. Yours is given, mine is implicit.
Got anything of substance to add?
It’s like trying to spit with a dry mouth. You’re going through the motions without actually spitting. Likewise, the scream. Technically, you are correct. But somewhat angry. What is that all about?
Do you expect us to give a name also to each placenta, and put it in a little coffin and bury it with a service in slavish homage to the imaginary gods to whom you pray for vengeance upon the women who would not yield to you? How much less alive can it possibly be?
Itsallverysad? Oh, boo fucking hoo. Piss off.
Itsallverysad:
[1] What analysis? What was your thesis, and how did you present evidence and reach a reasoned conclusion? FAIL
[2] Credibility. I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox, so I have no idea who or what you are. You imply that you might be a nurse. But are you present at abortions? I doubt it very much. The “baby” you see at an early abortion looks like a slightly bigger glob of a monthly mense. But since you lifted your descriptions from anti-woman propaganda and offer no other evidence, I think I conclude you’re not too credible. FAIL
[3] Yes, your information is incorrect. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the UK say that a fetus can feel pain at 26 weeks (2001). A metastudy published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that the fetus does not feel pain until 28 weeks (2005). Since the vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester, and late-term abortions are now done under anesthetic, your “silent scream” rhetoric is false. FAIL
[4] Given that your information is incorrect and you offer no analysis, your conclusions, such as they are, are also incorrect. FAIL
John, my argument is backed by science and personal experience.”It” is alive and “it” is a unique human being, although less developed than some of you are. “It” feels pain. Abortion inflicts pain. YOU are the one who has given nothing but rhetoric. Where are your facts? What is your experience?
Ken, I help women who want to have their babies and counsel those who suffer the aftermath of abortion. No one “yields” to me and I don’t pray for vengeance on anyone. Your placenta talk is gibberish. Talk about rhetoric! You have more serious anger issues than John, I think.
It’s late, I’m going to sleep. Just want to say that this has to be the most irrational and hateful website I’ve ever visited. Your arguments are mostly emotional so you resort to insults and personal attack. You don’t want to examine, don’t want to learn. As a result, you probably won’t.
You’ve been aborted? Damn!
You should get out more.
Leigh, do you feel comfortable in the presence of crucifixes?
For anyone (weirdos, all of ya!) wondering, a cross is, well, a cross. A crucifix is a cross with a little man on it.
On such a basis does the Piltdown snipe.
… (Yeah, I know.)
Pilty, no, I don’t feel uncomfortable in the presence of crucifixes. I think they’re kind of tacky, but hey, go for it. I won’t break a sweat if I see you wearing one. But since I’m a liberal Protestant, you won’t see me with one; that’s just not our style.
Was that really worth two comments?
do you feel comfortable in the presence of crucifixes?
I would imagine silicone is the best for comfort. Can you recommend the Jackhammer Jesus?
Ecce Crucem Domini,
Fugite, partes adversae,
Vicit Leo de Tribu Juda,
Radix David, alleluia.
Jackhammer Jesus? No, Pilty strikes me more as the type to walk around with a big smile because he’s secretly wearing a Baby Jesus Buttplug.
Ken, I help women who want to have their babies and counsel those who suffer the aftermath of abortion.
A heartless ghoul type, preying on women whose reproductive choices Itsallverysad would prefer be eliminated altogether? Shock horror. Who could’ve guessed.
these so called christians think their heartlessness is approved of by God ..personally, i think they think like sociopaths
im a christian , and ive left many churches because of behavior like that
thank God, we have separation of church and state here in the USA
@ Silvio Guspini #795
Fuck you. You don’t get to use the r-word, and you don’t get to make that fucking arguing on the internet joke. Not only because http://www.xkcd.com/438/ says it so much better, but because its not particularly fucking funny. As someone who has aspergers syndrome, fuck fucking off. (shouldn’t there be a godwin-type law for that?)
And as for the OP – frankly, if there was some kind of purpose for stuff like that, then it wouldn’t be a pretty one. In a way, I find it more comforting to believe that there’s no purpose (although thats not exactly why I’m an athiest).
Brightmoon, do you post on the evo vs. creo thread at Beliefnet? If so, you know me as Colossians3_12.
My heart does go out to the surviving Feldkamps for their terrible, tragic loss. I do not for a second believe that it was Gingi’s intention to cause Mr Feldkamp any additional suffering, nor is it mine. Surely though she is entitled, as a citizen in what was established as a Christian country, to air views which coincide with that Christian tradition.
It is a fact that Mr Feldkamp’s family members lost their lives within metres of the “Tomb of the Unborn” [NOT “memorial to the unborn”, as pz myers inaccurately quoted]. These bizarre circumstances are a horrible irony for which science, such as it is, has no answer. So it is surely only reasonable that Mr Feldkamp might feel the need to direct questions such as he might have to God, in prayer. That, surely, is his choice. Now I appreciate that many of you hard-core scientists out there have seen no proof of God, and therefore deny that He exists, but you must accept that a grieving survivor may hold a different view. If a person seeks answers, or comfort in prayer, then by all means let them pray! Is there a God who hears, and sometimes answer prayers, or is it just the person’s own conscience answering back? I call it prayer, but you atheists out there (God bless you!) may see it, rather, as soul-searching, a quest for a wiser, healing voice within. We each have a right to the belief system that works for us.
Speaking of belief systems, many scientists believe in the existence of so-called “dark matter”. Now this “dark matter” is completely undetectable, but still its believed in by many, as fact. Now I’m no expert, but it seems, from my admittedly limited reading on the subject, that if there is no compelling evidence to support a belief in “dark matter”, then the whole “Big Bang” theory might just be looking shaky and in danger of disappearing, so to speak, up its own black-hole! And we can’t have that, can we!? Haha!! Just kidding. If you want to believe in “dark matter” then sure, knock yourselves out; its still a free planet, more or less. But I digress…
One other question Mr Feldkamp might decide to ask, in prayer (or, if he prefers – during a session of quiet, non-denominational soul-searching) is why it is that a pregnant woman is said to be “with child”. The term is pretty clear. Could it be because that growing lump in a Mum’s tum is not just some lifeless assemblage of cells and other goo, as some would prefer we believe, but a healthy, *living*, rapidly developing *child*? That would certainly explain it! This is not a uniquely Christian viewpoint. I am sure a great many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Pastafarians and assorted others would also have to agree. The lady is said to be “with child”, because she has a human child living and growing in her lovely round tum tum! So accepting this common usage as factual, one must seriously question the morality of any deliberate action which results in the death of said human child “in utero”. Many would feel justified in asking why such an action should not be viewed as murder.
Contrary to the insinuations of Mr PZ Myers and his vociferous ilk, true Christianity is a religion of love, tolerance and forgiveness – always has been, always will be. It teaches its followers to seek not judgement, but repentance. True Christians do not pray for wrong-doers to be punished, but rather that they recognise the error of their ways, cease committing the wrongful acts, and hopefully make amends.
If that spirit were more widely practised, this world could be a much better place.
My heart does go out to the surviving Feldkamps for their terrible, tragic loss. I do not for a second believe that it was Gingi’s intention to cause Mr Feldkamp any additional suffering, nor is it mine. Surely though she is entitled, as a citizen in what was established as a Christian country, to air views which coincide with that Christian tradition.
It is a fact that Mr Feldkamp’s family members lost their lives within metres of the “Tomb of the Unborn” [NOT “memorial to the unborn”, as pz myers inaccurately quoted]. These bizarre circumstances are a horrible irony for which science, such as it is, has no answer. So it is surely only reasonable that Mr Feldkamp might feel the need to direct questions such as he might have to God, in prayer. That, surely, is his choice. Now I appreciate that many of you hard-core scientists out there have seen no proof of God, and therefore deny that He exists, but you must accept that a grieving survivor may hold a different view. If a person seeks answers, or comfort in prayer, then by all means let them pray! Is there a God who hears, and sometimes answer prayers, or is it just the person’s own conscience answering back? I call it prayer, but you atheists out there (God bless you!) may see it, rather, as soul-searching, a quest for a wiser, healing voice within. We each have a right to the belief system that works for us.
Speaking of belief systems, many scientists believe in the existence of so-called “dark matter”. Now this “dark matter” is completely undetectable, but still its believed in by many, as fact. Now I’m no expert, but it seems, from my admittedly limited reading on the subject, that if there is no compelling evidence to support a belief in “dark matter”, then the whole “Big Bang” theory might just be looking shaky and in danger of disappearing, so to speak, up its own black-hole! And we can’t have that, can we!? Haha!! Just kidding. If you want to believe in “dark matter” then sure, knock yourselves out; its still a free planet, more or less. But I digress…
One other question Mr Feldkamp might decide to ask, in prayer (or, if he prefers – during a session of quiet, non-denominational soul-searching) is why it is that a pregnant woman is said to be “with child”. The term is pretty clear. Could it be because that growing lump in a Mum’s tum is not just some lifeless assemblage of cells and other goo, as some would prefer we believe, but a healthy, *living*, rapidly developing *child*? That would certainly explain it! This is not a uniquely Christian viewpoint. I am sure a great many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Pastafarians and assorted others would also have to agree. The lady is said to be “with child”, because she has a human child living and growing in her lovely round tum tum! So accepting this common usage as factual, one must seriously question the morality of any deliberate action which results in the death of said human child “in utero”. Many would feel justified in asking why such an action should not be viewed as murder.
Contrary to the insinuations of Mr PZ Myers and his vociferous ilk, true Christianity is a religion of love, tolerance and forgiveness – always has been, always will be. It teaches its followers to seek not judgement, but repentance. True Christians do not pray for wrong-doers to be punished, but rather that they recognise the error of their ways, cease committing the wrongful acts, and hopefully make amends.
If that spirit were more widely practised, this world could be a much better place.
Andrew, you can shove your “Christian country” bullshit right up your ass. Treaty of Tripoli, 1795, (expletive deleted).
Horseshit. Christianity is the religion of intolerence, hate, and genocide. Failure to see this means you have no idea of religious history.
Andrew Magee, your comment on dark matter is so off base that it’s almost funny.
We only talk about dark matter BECAUSE WE CAN DETECT IT. We see its gravitational effects everywhere we look.
We don’t know what dark matter is, but the phenomenon of it is very real, and was detected before we gave it a name. If fact, we would not have named it at all if we had not already detected it.
Now the name itself, “dark matter”, reflects the current favored hypothesis as to what it is, namely, some kind of matter. This hypothesis follows from our current understanding of gravity, which is primarily general relativity.
So currently, physicists are doing what science is supposed to be doing, they are testing this hypothesis by trying to detect dark matter BY A SECOND METHOD. We have already detected it by one method, measurement of gravitational effect, but if we can detect it using a second method, we will get a better picture of what it really is.
It is possible that dark matter is not matter at all, but a phenomenon caused by a the way gravity itself works. If this is true, then our current understanding of gravity (ie general relativity) is incomplete. This is NOT A BIG DEAL. It is accepted by all scientists that our current understanding of everything is incomplete in some fashion or another.
Note that the existence of dark matter is one of the reasons why we say that the Theory of Evolution is on more solid ground than the Theory of Gravity. There are no anomalous biological phenomenon that evolutionary theory as thus fair been unable to satisfactorily explain in the manner that the theory of gravity struggles to explain the observation of dark matter.
Okay, without reference to dark matter, explain the behaviour of bayrionic matter in the Bullet Cluster.
Undectectable? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Christianity is as christians do.
The same is true for all groups.
There is no such thing as “true X” that behaves in some theoretical fashion differing from X in reality.
The rest is sophistry.
Okay, now I’m not sure that word means what I think it means.
I note that many of you were quick to jump on my throwaway statements about dark matter, a subject in which I clearly conceded my lack of knowledge. So thank you for picking up my scraps and running with them! Of course I could have read up on “dark matter” before posting, if I had so desired, but frankly it is a field in which I have no significant interest. None of it has the slightest direct relevance to the issues I raised of tolerance and respect for opposing believe systems, nor is it germane to the far more immediate and urgent topics, that is, the deliberate killing, for profit, of unborn children, AND the right of concerned individuals, such as Ms Gingi Edmonds to raise this important issue whenever, and in whatever manner, she sees fit.
When the tragedy that befell Mr Feldkamp, a man deeply involved in this sorry trade, occurred so very close to the long established “Tomb of the Unborn” it is only reasonable that the subject is going to be raised, and there is no “easy” way to discuss such a topic, and no truthful way to avoid commenting upon the irony of the circumstances. The death of ANY child is a human tragedy. This was never in dispute. But what many posters still fail to acknowledge is the fact that a woman who is “with child” is actually carrying a living child “in utero”, hence the use of the word “child”. Must it be spelt out? “C H I L D”!! Please accept that many people, whatever their faith, might reasonably wish to see said unborn CHILDREN afforded a much greater level of protection under law than is currently the case.
As for posters who would deny the real nature of true Christianity, I can only say that I know them to be wrong. Many of my friends and extended family are Christians. I also happen to live right next door to a Church, so I have met quite a few, and have never encountered a harsh word from a single one! Please note that there are many Americans (& Aussies) who call themselves Christians, but whose actions identify them as anything but. I include in this category your former Idiot-In-Chief “W” and his so called Crusade into Iraq. WMD indeed!! I never bought that stupid lie, nor did hundreds of millions of others. So just because your former Puppet-POTUS dropped the “C” word a few times in justifying the invasion of a non-threatening and overwhelmingly compliant country does not in anyway imply that he was speaking or acting for true Christians, all of whom are commanded that “Thou shalt not kill”!
I must thank the poster “KI” who, despite his puerile and insulting language, actually alerted me to something interesting, an obscure (at least to me) piece of U.S. history, the Treaty of Tripoli. Now there is, it would seem, a controversy, as KI should know, over differences between the English version of Article 11 in said Treaty, as ratified by your U.S. Congress, and the Arabic translation. But the purpose of the document appears clearly to have been to offer a bridge of understanding between the overwhelmingly Christian United States, and the Islamic Ottoman Empire:
“Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” (wikipedia)
So that treaty is still valid then is it, KI? I would have to undertake much more reading to understand this issue in detail – maybe one day. But until then I remain to be convinced that this relatively obscure treaty somehow supersedes and/or invalidates the fine words of your Founding Fathers such as George Washington in your country’s First Thanksgiving Proclamation” of 1789:
‘Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”‘
‘And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.’
‘Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.’
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=3584
THAT was surely, I’d have thought, a far more significant document in YOUR country’s history, KI, than your Treaty of Tripoli. or is it that you are as ignorant of your own nation’s history as you are of good manners? You told me in no uncertain terms where I should shove that which you refer to as my ‘”Christian country” bullshit’. Can we assume that you intend the same level of rude, gross, boorish, discourtesy to your first President Mr George Washington whose wise, Christian words you have chosen to not even acknowledge? Can you remove your foot from your mouth, and your mind from the sewer for long enough to answer me that one!? Or would you concede that the USA was indeed founded as a Christian country, exactly as I said?
When you’ve got that one sorted out, you might then like to get back ON TOPIC, and explain why a decent and thoughtful person such as Gingi Edmonds should not raise, at every opportunity, and in whatever manner she deems fit, the very real and urgent moral issue of the deliberate killing of unborn children!? The ball’s back in your court, “Team Brainiac”. Either try a bit harder this time to get it back over the net, or maybe just quit while you’re behind! :-p
Andrew Magee:
Read this very thread.
It’s clearly explained therein.
Next?
@ 948,
Behold !! Andrew Magee is the one !! He who knows the nature of true Christianity !!
Mate,
please address the fact that your god aborts 10-15% of fetuses (children in utero,as you call them)himself,than get back to us.
Sounds like God is just into recycling babies.
Gigi is right too bad most of you possess such small intellect to understand her point. No Christian is happy for people to die and she voiced her sympathy for the families, she goes further by asking this for-profit killer the chance to ask for forgiveness and be back in Grace. I hope many of you do as well, God loves you all. Remember that our body is only a shell of our spirit and our spirit doesn’t die when this body dies.
The exploitation of a tragedy to make a religious point is reprehensible. But what is this article and discussion thread if not an exploitation of a tragedy to criticize a religious belief?