Though, of course, as I pointed out (and quoted), he goes on to state that molestation in the form of oral sex is “… only an extreme example of what churches ? and also mosques and synagogues ? do to child minds in their care, in the normal course of events”.
I repeat, I’ve posted his actual words. I leave it to others to judge what the fairly obvious implications of them are.
Seems to me that the only possible reason for this essay is to make a rhetorical point - that teaching kids religion is equivalent in to molesting them, in that the damage is effectively the same. He is explicit in this, pointing out that, while litigation over sexual abuse is not about the physical damage it does but about its mental effects, which are in some cases worse with religion, and ending up with:
The point is clear: teaching kids religion is a form of child abuse and it is equivalent to sexual abuse.
How is this not the same as labeling them as bad as child molesters? That’s the obvious rhetorical attack he’s making. Otherwise, why on earth is he bringing it up?
Perhaps he has, but I can see nothing in this particular article to your point. In fact, the whole summation point of this essay - its culmination, if you will - is to introduce another essay on this very topic.
In it, the author strongly argues that parents should be legally prevented from teaching their kids religion:
He develops a proposed test for what parents should be alowed to do:
And determines that only the teaching of science meets the test.
I also don’t see how posting what the man actually wrote is constructing a “fantasy”. Dawkins is here using a vile form or rhetoric, using comparisons with child molestation for its emotional impact, and it is there for anyone to read. His point in doing so is to introduce another essay in which it is argued that parents should be legally and/or morally prohibited from teaching religion to children.
I say this is vile and, ultimately, illiberal - even though, in most particulars, I agree with the pair of them: science is superior qualitatively to any other system.
“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”
H.Clinton
I always thought the primary victims of war were the people that died from a direct result of it.
No, and the fact that you think it is says all I need to know. You’ve made your mind up and your reading comprehension is so badly lacking that I can’t honestly be arsed to school you further. You claim (twice now) that he says something that he simply does not. The article is there for everyone to read and they will search in vain for evidence of your claim. So be it.
I and others (and Dawkins himself) have pointed out errors just like yours on so very many occasions to no avail. You will to read what you want to read. More fool me if I prolong the debate. Thread over for me.
I still wonder how someone had to look outside of America for counterbalance to the most vile thing American conservative politicians said and defended. Having to go overseas for a non American example (that was misrepresented BTW) is really silly.
Does Pat Robertson qualify as a politician? He ran for the GOP nomination, but that was 26 years ago. He says the most vile things over and over. I mean really vile, not just thoughtless, ignorant remarks like Todd Akin, but just real vile shit.
“Many of those people involved in Adolf Hitler were Satanists. Many were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.” (Which explains why gays had it so good during the Third Reich.)
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
And just this year, Robertson’s response to those Facebook users who come across a page for a same-sex couple: “You’ve got a couple of same-sex guys kissing, do you like that? Well that makes me want to throw up,” he said, “To me I would punch ‘Vomit;’ not 'Like.,”
On the Special Olympics one, he called between taping and airing. “Later” is trivially true, since he doesn’t have access to a time machine (that we know of). But I agree it would have been better for him not to have said it in the first place.
The last two are uncited, which suggests apocryphality. I know the last is legit, but mined, in the sense that the actual antecedant of the word “that” is not in this version of the quote.
It amounts to a declaration that the “husbands, fathers and sons” in question who die are not victims; that their deaths don’t count and are only sad at all because they trouble women close to them.
Here’s the full quote:
[QUOTE=Barack Obama]
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
[/QUOTE]
Obama never said that business owners didn’t create their own businesses. He said that business owners didn’t create the system that allowed them to create their own businesses. The only thing he did wrong was to say it in such a way that his opponents could take a single sentence out of context to make it sound like he believes something outrageously anti-capitalistic.
April 2003, so just a smidge out of date. But since we’re on the subject, it’s worth reminding people that what started that campaign wasn’t Santorum complaining about homosexuals. It was this (bolding mine):
Read that again. Santorum is saying that if you have the right to consensual sex - with your *spouse *- in *your own home *- then that is a bad thing. That is indeed pretty vile, even by the standards of Santorum’s usual utterances.
The post you quoted and others similar to it are pathetic. None of those Obama quotes are vile. The Special Olympics one comes closest; it’s callous and unkind towards a marginalised minority. But it’s not vile.
SDMB right wingers - you’re making your own side look bad through these terrible examples.
That one’s true, in the sense that feminism is closely tied to the pro-choice movement (which encourages abortion, which to Robertson is killing children). I would have been more concerned about the witchcraft part.
You’d be wrong, then. Equating the two isn’t vile. It’s a simple disagreement on matters of degree. I think the idea that a foetus is a child is stupid, but that doesn’t make the people who think so evil.
My google dictionary plug in only says “vile” is “extremely unpleasant”. To say that equating removal of a bunch of cells to the killing of children is extremely unpleasant is hardly something that can be wrong. I don’t think you have to be evil to say something vile, and as I said upthread, I don’t think stupidity is an excuse.
