Smooth, BlackKnight. What a good point.
DaLovin’ Dj
[visonary philospher mode] Ahh, but why do we poor mortal care about anythings, since all are ashes?[/visionary philosopher mode]
Well, three reasons: First, and foremost, I saw Lib’s campaign as having the potential to degenerate into a scott evil* situation, with Lib popping into threads to post non sequiturs to “prove a point.” As that experience taught us, such a campaign isn’t good for anybody.
Second, to the extent that Lib is pushing for a ban on dissing deities, I think it is a horrible idea.
Third, I like Lib, or at least what I see of him on the boards. If I see someone I respect making an ass of themselves, I think I should pipe up and point it out.
Sua
- Not to diss scott either - again, I like him and I understand what set him off. His methodology sucked, though.
Oh, I think he’s very serious. On another board where I posted, we had one Wiccan poster, a waitress who took delight in proclaiming how tolerant she was-all the while complaining about the Christians who came into her establishment, and detailing their faults, and she kept emphasizing how they were “Christians” and how “Wiccans” are so abused and so much more enlightened. (And more than a few posts about how black people are notoriously bad tippers.) At the same time, she was always telling us how these “Christians” were always bashing her religion, her boss, her coworkers, they were ALWAYS after her because she was a Wiccan. VERY much running the risk of being a one trick pony.
After awhile, it got annoying. No one is saying that ALL atheists get off on persecution, anymore than all Christians do. BUT, such people DO exist, and it’s annoying, to say the least.
YMMV.
As for Lib’s insinuation, I have to say, I pretty much missed it while I was perusing that thread. When it was brought to my attention, these were my thoughts:
For one thing, I have a habit of saying weird things like Jesus Christ on whole wheat toast! Just for the bizarre randomness of it. It’s not offensive to Jesus, in that Whole Wheat Toast or Extra Cheese or trees or sticks or wheels or whatever are specific examples of things that might offend him.
On the other hand, lynching and nooses were VERY MUCH connected with MLK, in that MLK fought for the civil rights movement, when many blacks where threatened with lynchings-indeed, one of the main images of violence towards blacks includes nooses and lynchings.
If he had said, Martin Luther King on the Selma Bridge! I would not have batted an eye.
Also, he was trying to get a rise out of me, I presume.
If he finds me saying “Jesus Christ!” as offensive, that is up to him. I don’t know what he’s saying. But keep in mind, Jesus was probably a real person, even if he WASN’T the son of God. He’s a historical figure-albeit one we don’t have complete 100 percent proof of, just like, oh, say King Arthur (who may very well have been a Welsh warlord), or something. Or Deep Throat. Whatever.
If Lib is implying that I am trying to mock Christ, I am not. I’m a fairly lapsed Catholic, who has more Unitarian beliefs (if you want my total beliefs on God, that’s another thread). I do admire Jesus, as someone who preached love, peace, and understanding. As someone who was a radical, stood up for his beliefs-even when he was being executed. That takes guts.
However, it’s simply a random phrase. It is NOT me mocking Christianity or Christ, anymore than saying Mohatma Ghandi on a pogo stick! would be mocking Ghandi.
Or Great Buddha with a baseball bat!
I meant it at random.
Very. You can’t honestly tell me you’ve never met the type. I suppose the stereotypical example would be a self centered clove-smoking “intelectual” dressed in all black with a bunch of once read Ayn Rand books on his shelf.
Sua, fair enough, I don’t want to see a non-sequitor campaign or rules on proper speech either. I was just curious as at casual glance I thought it might be a “I’m offended that you’re offended” thread. Glad it isn’t.
BlackKnight, DalovinDJ, if you both have examined and are comfortable with your beliefs, why do you let yourselves be insulted by something like that? (I suppose the question could also be asked of Lib as well) Does the very existence of people who believe differently offend you? There was this street preacher who used to preach outside my old apartment. Apparently, he thinks I’m going to Hell and told me as much. I don’t give a shit what people like that think. Why do you?
Oh hell, was that a “I’m offended that you’re offended” highjack? Nah, just a question.
** Beeblebrox, ** the part that amazed me was your implication that atheists are atheists * because * they think of atheism as persecuted, and would otherwise probably not be atheists which is ludicrous and illogical. Further, atheism itself is not a belief system, it is the absence of one…at least, one relating to any deity. Atheism is the simple lack of belief in a god or gods, it has no structure, no rules, no philosphy, no principles…it simply describes an absence of belief. Atheists come in a million flavors.
The part I will concede is that most atheists…maybe even all (vs. agnostics) believe themselves to be enlightened. But that’s just another way of saying they think they’re right. So do the faithful, everyone just thinks they are right about different things. The faithful believe they are enlightened spiritually, atheists believe they are enlightened intellectually.
I think agnostics deserve the most respect of all, because they are enlightened enough to recognize that they cannot know for sure the truth of these matters, which are really beyond knowing, by their very nature.
As to the last bit of your post, that’s a nail you’ve driven squarely home. If one is ** truly certain ** of what one believes, the random snipes of others should bounce off with no more impact than a leaf glancing off as it falls.
For better alliteration, I prefer “by blessed Buddha’s beggar bowl!”
For maximum effect, this should be done in something like Sylvester the Cat’s voice. “Sufferin’ Siddhartha!” may be prepended as an optional step.
But you will now if I have anything to do with it! I’m still laughing at that ten minutes later. 
It isn’t illogical, nor is it ludicrous. Think of it this way, some people will adopt a belief system* not so much for what is contained within the system, but for the idea of being a person with that belief system. A teenage girl may adopt a half-assed form of paganism because she thinks Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is really cool, and wants to emulate her. The teenager isn’t so much enthralled with Wicca - just the idea of being a Wiccan. Some atheists are like that as well and have adopted their, um, worldview?, because they think that others will view them as enlightened when they tell them they are atheist. It is not so much a religous belief (or lack of one, whatever), but an affectation of an image they wish to project. Many times they don’t even realize this themselves. Of course, this doesn’t apply to all atheists, just some I’ve met in life. The phenomenon was especially prevalent in college.
Drastic, how’s about “quiverin’ Quixocotl!”
*I didn’t mean to imply anything by describing atheism as a “belief system”, I was just searching for a sort of general descriptor and ran into a dearth of synonyms. Perhaps “world view” is more apt?
But that isn’t a real world view, it is an affectation. Either one believes in a diety or one does not, or one is not sure. It is difficult to imagine that someone might actually be capable of deciding these things based on fashion, rather than real conviction. It’s not as though one could pick up a philosophy as easily as one could pick up smoking.
But I can imagine certain young college types putting on behavior for effect, definitely.
If religion had a history of being harmless then I wouldn’t care. I would just ignore it and move on. As it stands some of the bloodiest and most cruel moments in the history of humanity have been a result of “belief” in unprovable religious theories. Religious zealots threaten to rip our world apart these days, as I see things. I think that this ignorance that people call “faith” is dangerous and foolish. I would like to see it go the way of the dinosaur (through enlightenment and reason - not violence or tyranny)
Also, BlackKnight illustrated that Lib is engaging in a bit of “a pot dissing a kettle” in this case, which I hadn’t really noticed.
DaLovin’ Dj
I have a bit of a different take on the issue of respect – it’s largely irrelevant.
I seldom find gratuitous profanity or obscenity either amusing or shocking. It’s simply noise. While I can see some point in omitting them out of “respect” for posters who find them disturbing, that same logic would extend to a virutally infinite number of topics and references. As I say, I don’t usually make use of them myself but that’s just me. Bowdlerizing the board out of “respect” for people’s beliefs is unduly repressive.
It’s also silly. Anyone who is really concerned about these references ought to be worried about what people think, not what they say. An artificial, enforced politeness that prohibits derogatory references to MLK isn’t going to do anything to combat racism.
Non-gratuitousreferences to “Magical Sky Pixies” and “Invisible Pink Unicorns” are another thing entirely. The SDMB isn’t here to validate anyone’s beliefs, it’s here to tear them down, if they can be torn down. I don’t “respect” anyone’s beliefs on the SDMB, I examine them and as critically as possible. I might very well respect your personal right to hold some particular belief, but that’s a different matter. If you offer up your beliefs in this board, be prepared to defend them against all comers. If you’re not up to seeing your beliefs potentially derided, you’d better keep them to yourself. If you’re going to be injured by rhetorical shrapnel from a headlong clash of opposing viewpoints, stay out of these threads completely.
Lib, you’d suck at The Dozens. 
I understand what you’re saying but, to quote a phrase, it sounds like a personal problem to me. Neither God, nor MLK, nor Krishna nor George Bush, for that matter, really need you to defend them. I do not concede that any of these necessarily exist but I am quite certain that none of them are the least bit worried about what is said about them on the SDMB.
When you think about it, neither does your wife. If a mentally deranged homeless person starts yelling obscenities at her as you walk down the street, are you going to go and beat him up? Of course not. At most, you’d roll your eyes a bit and move on. you might even laugh, depending on how colorful and absurd the language is.
You know, DJ, John Lennon’s Imagine isn’t really good source material for developing an intelectually rigorous worldview.
First of all, I agree with BlackKnight. I long ago stopped telling other people that they need salvation. I say only that I need salvation.
Second
What a funny (if poignant) analogy!
And this:
is?
Homebrew
Shouldn’t you change your monicker to Homerun? 
You got a point there, Homebrew, or is this just an ill-thought out pot shot from the intelectually lazy? I’m not a creationist, but I do think the Christian creation myth is pretty interesting and was important in arming man with some of the ideas he used to build civilization (“God told me to rule over the animals - that’s why I domesticated this cow and that horse”). It put down some of the basic ideas man needed to survive. Other things in the Bible such as “God says don’t eat pork” may seem ridiculous now, but we aren’t dying left and right from trichynosis. Remember, this thing was written some four thousand years ago when the world seemed far more mysterious. At the very least it deserves to be thought about. That it has survived so long is a testament to its power.
The John Lennonesque idea of peace on earth through abolition of religon is extremely short sited and addle brained in comparison. Man will continue harming man, he’ll just have a different reason for it.
“Homerun” indeed
Y’know, there’s more verses after that, Homebrew. (Really; I looked.) It goes on and on for a good while, and most of the important stuff is in between all the “begats” and "came to pass"es. In fact, it’s not until you get to the back part of the book that you learn all the other stuff was just a drea—
Whoops! Almost gave away the ending.
(IOW, I think it’s got to be a very small percentage of Christians who base their worldview on a literal reading of the first verses of Genesis.)
Actually, Lennon later explained that what he meant was that there would be none of this, “My religion is the TRUE religion, your’s is false and evil!” Or something like that.
Either way, even without religion, there’d still be assholes around.
Religion is sometimes the excuse people use.
You are actually serious about this? Are you arguing that the bible predates domestication?
Please. I never said abolition of religion would lead to world peace. It may make the world a better place (one filled with less ignorance), but we have many problems other than religion. Way to put words in my mouth.
John Lennon’s song is great. Still, I don’t want people to just imagine things as being one way or the other. I want them to test reality until we find out what the Straight Dope on the origin of everything is. To call that issue resolved is idiotic to me. Best as I can tell, there aint been a human yet with the scope, tools, and information to reliably conclude one way or the other where we came from. I suspect, however, that we may just be able to figure it out. Given enough time, and enough folks who aren’t afraid to admit that these grand questions are for the time being unaswered, we may just find out the real truth. It’s the old pepsi in the glass thing:
If water is ultimate truth, and pepsi is misguided belief based on “feelings” and mythology, then we can’t have pepsi in the glass (us) when we’re trying to fill it with water. We must first empty the pepsi (what we think we know) to fill the glass with water (truth). These silly folks who are so busy preaching that what they cannot know for sure MUST be true may just end up getting in the way of the real truth.
I’m willing to accept there may be a creator. I’m also willing to accept that there isn’t one. I’ll wait for a reasonable amount of evidence to make the decision, which neither side has presented so far. For the record, I think Atheists who swear (with just as much certainty) that there is no god are equally foolish. There simply isn’t enough data. We barely even understand this rock we live on, never mind the Universe which makes our home look like a grain of sand on an infinite beach.
But thanks for insulting my thought processes anyway, dipshit. Nice strawman.
DaLovin’ Dj