A friend of mine just sent me a link to this.
Almost certainly not likely to happen and it is very biased against believers, but it is funny.
It’s worth the price of admission just to see “atheist” pluralised as
. The pride of self-appointed intellectual superiority goeth before a fall, indeed.
The rest? Meh.
Yeah, but faced with a choice between:
-Travelling on a plane with religious zealots who intend to blow it up, killing me
and
-Travelling on a plane filled with vociferous, hand-stabbing atheists
I’m not able to make an instant choice. Is it a long-haul flight?
Well, not once the plane full of blasphemers runs into a lightning storm it isn’t, no. 
How is “hand-stabbing atheist” any less offensive than “child-fucking priest” - or “chicken-eating coon”, for that matter - and why does it always get a free pass around here? It’s an anecdotal tale about one of the most extreme acts by one of the most extreme atheists that may or may not have ever even happened. Hardly any way to classify every person who holds a remotely similar viewpoint.
Which is exactly why the term is not used to classify ‘every person who holds a remotely similar viewpoint’. Just the same as ‘religious zealot’ is not used to classify all religious people.
Or - if you prefer - similar to the way that the term ‘man-eating sharks’ does not imply that all sharks eat men (or humans).
Right . . . it’s just that, atheists were brought up and you went ahead and added the hand-stabbing part yourself, unprovoked and unexplained.
I mean, not all Jews are complainers but Oy Vey! - the ones that *are . . . *
Yes - as a contrast to people blowing me up and killing me - which not all religious zealots do every day either.
Otherwise it would have been a choice between:
-A plane on which there are quiet religious folks making their way peacefully to a seminar
or
-A plane on which there are atheists with laryngitis, remaining silent for the whole flight.
In other words, kinda pointless - which on reflection, maybe it was anyway. But hey, let’s pick it all to death.
I’d go with the hand stabbers every time. Especially if I could invite Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. What a flight that would be.
hand stabbing? Did I not get a memo? I’m supposed to hand stab?
Maybe it’s like a secret signal for non-believers.
For a secret sign, it’s not very subtle.
Apparently so. All atheists are hand-stabbing atheists, or else nobody would ever use the term. All woodpeckers are ivory-billed woodpeckers, or else nobody would ever use the term.
True, I should have put a smiley on the end of that sentence.
:dubious: I thought you backed off that, Mangetout?
See, what you’re saying sounds a lot like - and a thousand pardons for using the term, but anyone who lives in the US has heard this and thus can immediately recognize the parallels in the bullshit - it sounds like when people say, *see, not all black people are niggers . . . there’s a difference . . . * [implied: a difference that I am the soul judge of, and apply when and where I feel necessary.]
I really don’t understand where you’re going with that. Seriously, I had absolutely no intention of painting all atheists as hand-stabbers and I’m actually quite astonished that you read that into my post - which you surely must understand was tongue in cheek anyway (or do you really think I’d prefer being blown up to being forced to listen to someone rant for an hour or two?) -which is why, in post #14, I’m still not taking it seriously.
But ‘backed off’? No. You misunderstood me. There’s nothing for me to retract.
I sure didn’t get the memo. I mean, sure, I’ve heard about this from believers, but I also hear that I’m going to hell from believers, too.
If I’m supposed to be stabbing hands, I guess I’d better get busy. I shall take down my sharpest, shiniest knife from my wall, and strap on the sheath, and go forth and Stab all who deserve it. And, believe me, there are plenty who Deserve It.
I guess if you’re viewing religionists from the point of view that they’re all zealots, you would naturally assume that any reference to “hand-stabbing atheists” means that they’re all like that; but from where I was sitting, it sure looked like Mangetout was remarking that there are extremists on both sides of the fence, and they’re each as unbearable as the other, and this wasn’t to imply that everyone was an extremist.
Like the man says, the use of a qualifying adjective tends to imply a subset of the whole, not an attribute applicable to the whole. The woodpeckers analogy was spot on.
I’m just going to keep on the lookout for all those “Wickins.” He doesn’t have a way to screen them out yet.
“Hand-stabbing?” Did I miss something? Why do all atheists everywhere under the sun that ever existed stab their hands?
I have honestly never heard of this.