# Der Trihs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 3, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150 "2009-11-03T08:22:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/341 "2009-11-07T00:51:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > In what way? Anyone who continually makes broad generalizations in the manner that you do can’t be trusted to make a distinction when it matters. I’m not just talking about your usual anti-theist rants, but your rhetoric on just about everything not sci-fi related. “All theists are stupid.” “All Republicans are evil.” “All servicemen and women deserve to die.” You spew utterly worthless garbage like the above onto this board that does nothing to further discussion or debate and people commend you for it. It’s sad, really. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And of course, the population in general distrusts atheists simply because they are atheists. After all, you can’t be moral without believing in God. :rolleyes: If the only “out” atheist someone encountered was someone like you, I certainly wouldn’t blame them. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/342 "2009-11-07T01:03:05Z")
Well now, I wouldn’t compare him to Fred Phelps. But I HAVE said before, and I stand behind this, that he IS comparable to Jerry Falwell. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/343 "2009-11-07T01:09:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Being a hypocrite about that is better; not admirable, but better. At least the hypocrite is rational; that makes them less dangerous. More likely to recognize the actual consequences of their actions. Wasn’t there a thread awhile back where you respected unwavering believers more than hypocrites because hypocrites are fakers, therefore dangerous, and that they are the ones that are perpetuating the problems in this world? I’ve searched, but was unable to find. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/344 "2009-11-07T01:12:41Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Honestly, I see no actual hatred in that post you linked to. I see _contempt_, but not the foaming-at-the-mouth frothing spittle-flecked hatred he would need to even be considered Phelps-like. I think your sensitivity is turned up pretty high here. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > Well now, I wouldn’t compare him to Fred Phelps. But I HAVE said before, and I stand behind this, that he IS comparable to Jerry Falwell. Hmmmmm…I am reconsidering my Phelps comparison. I forgot about Falwell. Ok…I got to leave the office and get home to the kiddos. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/345 "2009-11-07T01:13:47Z")
Well, he hasn’t posted to the MPSIMS thread on the Fort Hood shootings, so there’s some sense of restraint there. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/346 "2009-11-07T01:14:09Z")
> [@Yeticus\_Rex](#): > > You realize that I can’t link a search That’s your problem. I’ve read plenty of **DT** posts. I also know plenty about Phelps. If you want to make a comparison between **DT** ’s hate and Phelps’, it’s up to you to provide the evidence. > [@](#): > > [One selection from those 497 threads.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8352827&postcount=16) I find that that quote pure Phlepsian (not in belief, but in delivery), pretty much says it all. Here’s the quote you linked to: > [@](#): > > That means you don’t shoot people or set them on fire or rob people because of their religion ( leave that to the religious people to do to each other ); it doesn’t mean you have to be polite about stupid beliefs. > > As for me, I obviously have no moral problems with mocking religious beliefs. I advise against doing so in person, as religious people are by definition irrational, generally amoral and often violent. The reader can decide for himself if that compares to my cite for Phelps. This reader thinks you’ve made an irrational comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/347 "2009-11-07T03:36:20Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > **DT** : Yes, you would! You demonstrate that with your other votes every day! If you weren’t so religiously deluded, you’d see that! Well, up until a few years ago he would have been absolutely correct. The spirit that put them in asylums is still alive and still wants to deny them basic rights like others have. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/348 "2009-11-07T03:49:14Z")
[QUOTE=Latro] But, barring a fall on the road to Damascus, what could prompt someone to start believing, where before they were level-headed. [/QUOTE] > [@Bricker](#): > > Then I had an experience which caused me to believe, to KNOW, that God was there. “Medical conditions for 400” “Cardiovascular condition that can cause changes in personality” “What is a Stroke, Alex?” ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/349 "2009-11-07T03:49:15Z")
Having just looked up hatred to try honing down the distinction between it and other intense emotions, I find that hate has got a bad rap. American Heritage says: To feel hostility or animosity toward. To detest. [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com): to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward. Merriam-Webster: a: intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury b : extreme dislike or antipathy Yes, I would say religion is worthy of all that. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/350 "2009-11-07T04:24:24Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Guys, guys, the world was never flat. As far back as humanity had enough free time to observe and experiment on the world, people have known that the Earth is a sphere. [Eratosthenes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) managed to calculate the circumference of the Earth to a pretty accurate value, considering the times, thousands of years ago. Give us humans a little more credit! The concepts and the math were there, but it wasn’t a highly accepted belief at that time, or even many centuries afterward, which is kind of the point. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/351 "2009-11-07T05:03:44Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > The concepts and the math were there, but it wasn’t a highly accepted belief at that time, or even many centuries afterward, which is kind of the point. Do you have a cite for that? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/352 "2009-11-07T05:46:54Z")
> [@](#): > > **Der Trihs** : Nothing I do will win their trust. It’s not my rhetoric that makes them distrust me. Well of course it’s your rhetoric that we use to form our opinions of your character. We have nothing else to go by, do we? But nothing _makes_ us distrust you. We choose our own reactions to you. I’ve come to trust that you cannot be reasoned with on the subject of religious matters. In your eyes it is all bad all the time and worthy of the hatred in which you obsessively rejoice. You mistakenly think that all Christians are as obsessed about atheists as you are about Christians. That’s no more true than thinking that all atheists are like you. You project your hate-filled life onto everyone. Is it possible that you get a little high from your anger? It’s easy to become addicted to that rush of chemicals in your body when your are poised for a fight. If your scheme is to out-live us, you may be taking the wrong path. Calm yourself. ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/353 "2009-11-07T07:06:37Z")
I don’t think he’s LITERALLY angry when he posts here guys. I’m sure he’s frustrated, or maybe even enjoys fighting the good fight, but I doubt that DT is just bristling with rage at his computer, moments away from a Stroke or something just because of the fact that there are people out there debating him on religion. His tone or posting style may be FILLED with hateful words but I don’t think he’s that emotionally invested- your thoughts, **Der**? Am I wrong (as I recall seeing a picture of you from a Doperfest or something once- you seemed like a nice jolly man). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/354 "2009-11-07T07:19:06Z")
Each and every one of the Christians on this board could be kind, courteous, and loving to people they know to be atheists, and it wouldn’t make a fuck’s worth of difference in the grand scheme of things _because they cannot be heard over the screaming zealots that own the politicians and overwhelmingly influence the media._ The government we have is majority rule, and if the far right, which has the money to do so, wants to get across their point of view, that is the point of view that the public will eventually accept because advertising works. Let me repeat: _Advertising Works_. To deny this, to deny that spending millions to influence laws and the public is effective, which is exactly what is being done by religions, is to deny reality. The individual nice guys that have been used as examples are appreciated, but right now it’s like offering a glass of ice water to a person that has been staked out and lit on fire. Again I ask: Overall(NOT in individual isolated cases), what has being meek and mild done for atheists over the last three thousand years? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/355 "2009-11-07T09:00:12Z")
It’s not just regular advertising anymore. It’s innuendo by the marginally decent and outright lies by the corrupt. Our country is not just about majority rule. It’s also supposed to protect minority rights. We would never have had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if the majority had ruled. I was raised in the rural South in a Presbyterian Church. I was never taught to hate or fear atheists. I just felt sorry for them. When I grew up, I didn’t feel so sorry for them anymore. I do have friends who are atheists and some of them – the Yanks mostly – were uneasy about telling me. They shouldn’t have been. It didn’t matter one way or the other. My friends are about evenly divided. (And yes, this is Nashville.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/356 "2009-11-07T11:18:53Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Their beliefs are stupid. Calling their beliefs stupid, and them fools for believing in such things IS giving them the respect they deserve. But your premise and your conclusion are one and the same. You postulate that our beliefs are stupid, and then conclude that our beliefs are stupid. What you don’t understand is that your reasoning is stupid. > [@](#): > > Ah. So basically someone who goes around harassing people at funerals is morally superior to someone who argues with people in a medium meant for that purpose. And I’d be a better person if I went around to funerals screaming insults at people. No. You’d be a better person if you’d shut up. Or at the very least, be civil. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/357 "2009-11-07T14:11:52Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > No. You’d be a better person if you’d shut up. Or at the very least, be civil. At what point, at what level of repression should we atheists become _un_civil? Or is the only good atheist the one that “goes with the flow”? ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/358 "2009-11-07T14:55:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Their beliefs are stupid. Calling their beliefs stupid, and them fools for believing in such things IS giving them the respect they deserve. > [@Liberal](#): > > But your premise and your conclusion are one and the same. You postulate that our beliefs are stupid, and then conclude that our beliefs are stupid. What you don’t understand is that your reasoning is stupid. Nice straw man. The quote by **DT** above is not his reasoning why believing in sky gods is stupid. He’s given his reasoning plenty of times. I can link to some posts for you if you like. > [@](#): > > No. You’d be a better person if you’d shut up. Of course. That’s exactly what this thread is about. It’s not about some phony heart felt concern about what hate is doing to him. It’s about shutting atheists up when they don’t argue nicely and don’t give religion respect it doesn’t deserve. > [@](#): > > Or at the very least, be civil. I’m not seeing all of this incivility by **DT**. He argues hard and pulls no punches; but he’s civil as far as I have seen. Is his level of incivility anything like the example **Yeticus Rex** posted for how much hate **DT** spews that makes him comparable to Phelps? Because that was a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/359 "2009-11-07T15:31:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > At what point, at what level of repression should we atheists become _un_civil? > Or is the only good atheist the one that “goes with the flow”? :rolleyes: You have a measure of sympathy from me. Open atheists rarely get elected to office, they are demeaned for standing up for the Establishment clause, and there are many who looked down on by believers. But “repression”? Child, please. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150/360 "2009-11-07T16:20:56Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > You’d be a better person if you’d shut up. Or at the very least, be civil. Hah, you think you can fry my irony meter just like that? I’ll have you know that I installed state-of-the-art surge protectors for just such an eventuality. I’ll just power down, restart and… #&(\*#@(^\*@()!!! Rats. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/der-trihs/516150.md?page=19)