Der Trihs: the stomach ulcer of atheism

[Liberal]

From Why Do People Get Defensive About God? in […sigh…] Great Debates:

@Me

After only a couple of posts, you’ve managed to call me (and other believers) diseased, mentally ill, infectuous, subversive, obsessive, and now delusional. I’m just curious what you people expect in response to that sort of thing. Gratitude?

@You

I expect that I will be hated by the religious regardless of how I address them. So I don’t bother sucking up to them and pretending to respect their delusions.

@You

I’m not persecuted, because almost no one knows that I’m an atheist. That doesn’t keep me from being hated by people who don’t even know I’m alive.

So what happens when you strike up a great conversation with a stranger, only to discover after an hour or so that he believes in God? Which of the following most closely resembles your reaction?

A. Why you fucking diseased and retarded whore! Why didn’t you tell me what you were and save us both the time and bother of having this fight I am about to start with you!

B. Oh my god, that means you hate me! Why have you been fooling me all this time with your candy coated attempts to subvert and oppress me?

C. I knew there was something horrible about you, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I know that you are responsible for starving children in Darfur. I mean, not that I’ve done anything to help them, but still.

D. I recoil in horror because you are paranoid and delusional about me! Leave me alone! Stop thinking in my direction! Your thoughts are poisoning me. Acccckkkk!

[Sapo]

:d

[VarlosZ]

He drives me crazy, too.

I’m sure this goes without saying, but be please be careful not to think of his behavior as that of an atheist. It’s not about atheism, it’s about Der Trihs: the guy’s just an asshole.

[mr.jp]

lib If you are having a discussion about, say, Pol Pot, and someone believes he was right, and defends him, would you refrain from using bad terms about the Red Khmer?

[Liberal]

@mr. jp

lib If you are having a discussion about, say, Pol Pot, and someone believes he was right, and defends him, would you refrain from using bad terms about the Red Khmer?

Funnily enough, one atheist has protested the use of such analogies when they’re on our behalf. But since you aren’t Czarcasm, I’ll respond by saying it would depend on what the defense was. If in the course of discussion, I learned that the Khmer Rouge has for centuries fed the hungry, helped the sick, freed the slaves, and cared for the poor while helping civilization to emerge from a dark age and produce everything from musical notation to the Sistine Chapel, and then learned that Pol Pot was one errant ruthless asshole who used the Khmer principles for his own particular political gain, then I would certainly modify my own views about the Red Khmer.

[Liberal]

@VarlosZ

He drives me crazy, too.

I’m sure this goes without saying, but be please be careful not to think of his behavior as that of an atheist. It’s not about atheism, it’s about Der Trihs: the guy’s just an asshole.

I know. I’ve seen plenty of atheists tell him to shut up (including in the linked thread). But he won’t. And if I were to call him the names in GD that he calls us, I might find myself running afoul of the rules. So I came here to vent.

ETA:

And note that it is the (D) option in the OP that’s so ironic. Der Trihs is like the madman running up and down the streets shouting, “You’re all suffering from paranoid delusions and you’re out to get me!”

[Revenant_Threshold]

**Der Trihs’ ** often comeback to these things is that he isn’t half as bad as Phelps and the like. He seems to fail to get that if you can only look good by being compared to such people it doesn’t really reflect that well on you.

The irony of someone who literally believes he will be hated by the religious types on this board simply for being an athiest lecturing people about delusional thoughts is a fun one, though.

[Zoe]

I did think about Der Trihs when I heard about the message sent by the young man who shot up the two religious groups recently. One thing that he said was (I paraphrase) that Christians are the cause of most of the evil in the world.

But Der Trihs told us at one time that he has Asberger’s Syndrome, if I am not mistaken. I do see him try from time to time to adjust his thinking, but just like some of the rest of us, he slips back into old patterns. I don’t know how much of this he has control over.

Liberal, if you are blessed when men shall revile you for his sake, then you surely have stored up many blessings by now! It just doesn’t feel like it sometimes, does it?

Ye shall find the babe trapped in damaged thinking posting on a message board.

[ParentalAdvisory]

@Liberal

And if I were to call him the names in GD that he calls us, I might find myself running afoul of the rules. So I came here to vent.

He does have some balls, I’ll give him that. You could call him those names you desire to call him though, just not directly. You just have to phrase it in a way so a mod will over look it…

Acceptable thread:
Why Do People Get Defensive About God?
Der Trihs: IMHO, Religion = Disease
You: Hey, I believe in a branch of religion, therefore, I am diseased!? (takes offense)
Der Trihs: Religious people hate me.
Not acceptable:

Theoretical thread
Der Trihs: Liberal is diseased because he’s a believer.
You: You bastard.
Mod: Der Trihs - BANNED.

@Der Trihs

On the religious side, IMHO it’s because religion is a disease, an infectious mental disorder that subverts people into being vehicles for itself. The believers obsessively defend their belief in God because serving as a host for that belief is what they exist for; they are an extension of the religion that has infected them.

[Sapo]

How many verses in Deuteronomy?
DT: God is a monster

Did the three wise men ride on horses or other animals?
DT: Christians are diseased

Did Jesus cure lepers on Judea?
DT: Religion is evil

:yawn: We get it, dude, you don’t like religion. Can’t you just skip over those threads instead of running to be the first to shit on them? DT’s response to the linked thread had simply nothing to do with the OP. How is that not being a jerk?

[Windwalker]

Der Trihs often makes me cringe in the way that only those who share a lot of your viewpoints can. Please tone it the fuck down, dude.

[Linty_Fresh]

Why does this guy continue to rile people up? Why is he not yet on everyone’s ignore list?

Lib, I feel your pain, I really do, but come on! Der Trihs is not worthy of your anger, OK? He’s not evil or a firebrand or anything like that. He’s pathetic. Right? I mean, we’re basically talking about everyone’s idea of a pathetic person.

Do you really think that Trihs leads a good life, hmmm? Do you think he has a good job that let’s him support himself in anything above substinence level? Do you think he has a girlfriend? That he’s ever even kissed a girl, much less been laid? He’s older than I am (almost 40), and if he didn’t still live in his mom’s basement, I would be amazed. He’s pathetic! What could you say about or do to him anything that hasn’t already been done to turn him into this . . . this creature. Forget it, man! You might as well be ranting about the homeless person down the street who keeps on about the aliens stealing his valuable dogshit collection.

Oh, and by the way, Trihs doesn’t have guts. He’s not even better than Phred Phelps, who does have guts. Phred might be an evil phuckhead and crazy as all get out, but at least he’ll get out there with a picket sign and say to your face what he says on a message board. Trihs doesn’t even have the guts to defend himself in a pit thread. I cannot imagine him actually having the courage of his convictions to tell a marine that he should get killed in Iraq. Not only is he pathetic, he’s a coward as well, though I guess there’s quite a bit of overlap between the two. No, Phelps is better than Trihs, and if there’s a truer measure of how fucked up you are, I don’t know what it is.

Asperger’s? Give me a break! I’m a librarian who used to go to computer school, so I’ve seen my share of Asperger’s. It’s not Asperger’s driving Trihs, although I’m not saying that he doesn’t have that too. Trihs also claims that he is the way he is because of getting the living shit beaten out of him. Trihs, those mutants in high school didn’t beat you enough. You haven’t learned a goddamned thing in life, and at this stage, it’s probably too late.

Relax, lib. Think of the homeless person and relax. And then go thank whatever god you believe in that you’re you.

[Sapo]

Linty Fresh, the problem with DT is not his loony rants in themselves. It is that they invariably derail the threads into the same theists vs atheists name calling swamp. This probably says more about the idiocy of those who respond to him than about DT’s own idiocy, but the end result is the same. Thread about anything religious starts, DT comes to pee on it, someone bites, thread is derailed, intelligent debate ends.

[George_Kaplin]

@Liberal

After only a couple of posts, you’ve managed to call me (and other believers) diseased, mentally ill, infectuous, subversive, obsessive, and now delusional. I’m just curious what you people expect in response to that sort of thing. Gratitude?

Yeah, but let’s be fair to Der Trihs here. Most people’s religious beliefs are stupid. And I mean really fucking stupid. Stupid as in having absolutely no connection whatsoever to observable reality. Stupid as in being little more than an arcane agglomeration of goatherding folk tales, diluted iron age philosophy, outright ignorance and, occasionally, a healthy dose of pre-modern barbarism. Stupid as in “Like a fairy tale which would be cute and endearing if believed by a four year old, but which is frightening and dangerous when believed by an adult”.

I am so sick and fucking tired of the deference with which religious beliefs are treated in public discourse. I am sick of the anaphylactic reaction of so many believers to even the mildest criticism (not that Der Trihs and I are especially mild). I’m fed up to the back fucking teeth of couching statements critical of religion in weasel words and unctuous, sycophantic fluff to ensure I don’t set off the hair trigger tempers of those all too eager to take offence for God.

You people need a reality check and an attitude adjustment.

If only one person believed what the average Christian, Muslim, or Jew believed, he would be regarded as mentally ill. Some might hypothesise that his illness was catalysed by an infection of some sort, viral encephalitis perhaps. If he tried teaching his unique metaphysical beliefs to children, he would be regarded as subversive. That he would be both obsessive and delusional goes without saying. My point, in a nutshell, is that what is thought sacred today is only held in such esteem because it was thought sacred yesterday. Religious beliefs have been consecrated by time and tradition and not a damn thing more. For fuck’s sake, what possible reason do we have to treat these mindbogglingly ludicrous beliefs as anything more substantial than fantasies? And why should those speaking plainly about their idiocy and obvious incongruity with observable reality be met with censure and ostracism?

I’m sorry to rant, but there’s only so much of this crap I can take.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Liberal

Funnily enough, one atheist has protested the use of such analogies when they’re on our behalf. But since you aren’t Czarcasm, I’ll respond by saying it would depend on what the defense was. If in the course of discussion, I learned that the Khmer Rouge has for centuries fed the hungry, helped the sick, freed the slaves, and cared for the poor while helping civilization to emerge from a dark age and produce everything from musical notation to the Sistine Chapel, and then learned that Pol Pot was one errant ruthless asshole who used the Khmer principles for his own particular political gain, then I would certainly modify my own views about the Red Khmer.

I totally agree that analogies to the Khmer Rouge are totally off: religion is much bigger and more varied than that. Suggesting that it’s equivalent to a situation in which Pol Pot was “one errant asshole,” however, is also missing the point: there have been a helluva lot more than one religious leader who have been assholes.

Disparaging the religious strikes me as much more akin to disparaging politicians. It fails to take into account the tremendous variety of reasons that people engage in that social activity, and paints with far too broad a brush.

Daniel

[Linty_Fresh]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Disparaging the religious strikes me as much more akin to disparaging politicians. It fails to take into account the tremendous variety of reasons that people engage in that social activity, and paints with far too broad a brush.

Very well said. I’m an atheist, and I was trying to add something to describe my view that while I view religion as false that calling everyone who practices it stupid or delusional is just as far off. You summed it up nicely, thank you.

[What_Exit]

@Sapo

How many verses in Deuteronomy?
DT: God is a monster

Did the three wise men ride on horses or other animals?
DT: Christians are diseased

Did Jesus cure lepers on Judea?
DT: Religion is evil

:yawn: We get it, dude, you don’t like religion. Can’t you just skip over those threads instead of running to be the first to shit on them? DT’s response to the linked thread had simply nothing to do with the OP. How is that not being a jerk?

Der Trihs can no more ignore a thread that mentions God or religion than I can ignore one that mentions Tolkien or the Yankees. My predilections simply makes me a geek among many other geeks or an object of some derision by other baseball fans. **Der Trihs’ ** predilection tends to make him an ass that upsets a lot of people. Personally, it is his “Death to American Service People” posts that used to make me see red. I can pretty much predict what he will post in a given thread and I glance and gloss over his assine fuck up beyond statements in those threads.

The religious could give this a try in your threads.

I think **Der Trihs ** is to Atheists and/or Anti-War activists what PETA is to the vast majority of Greens. A grave embarressment that others would be happier if he just shut up.

Jim

[Clothahump]

Liberal, I have to ask this: granted, DT is obnoxious in his posting style. But have you ever considered that he might be right?

In one of your posts in that thread, you said:

Especially given that evidence of God is clear and ubiquitous.

Really? If it is, please post proof of the existence of a god of any kind. Not theology, not wishful thinking - proof. Hard facts that will lead to a personal encounter with said deity in the flesh (so to speak).

If you can’t do that, it’s a point in DT’s favor.

[Fear_Itself]

@Liberal

I know. I’ve seen plenty of atheists tell him to shut up (including in the linked thread). But he won’t. And if I were to call him the names in GD that he calls us, I might find myself running afoul of the rules. So I came here to vent.

There is an alternative, or so I have been told.

[Liberal]

@Clothahump

Liberal, I have to ask this: granted, DT is obnoxious in his posting style. But have you ever considered that he might be right?

In one of your posts in that thread, you said:
Really? If it is, please post proof of the existence of a god of any kind. Not theology, not wishful thinking - proof. Hard facts that will lead to a personal encounter with said deity in the flesh (so to speak).

If you can’t do that, it’s a point in DT’s favor.

Not theology? Am I to understand Der Trihs wants scientific “proof” (setting aside that science proves nothing about anything) of a supernatural thing? If so, then his severe ignorance of both science and theology are revealed. That’s like my asking you to prove you’re a good singer by showing me a science experiment and pointing at a reading on a meter.