Atheism

Who can forget the charitable threads, "ATheists, Your Life is Meaningless", or "Why re Atheists so Scary".
As is always the case, evidence rarely seems to comport with accusations.

I'd reply . . . but what's the point . . . think i'll go hang myself . . . or make a sammich . . . one of the two.

set wrote:
In fact, i'd say the only instances of what the christians here are whining about took place years ago in the "Mama Angel" wars, which were started by someone who quickly came to admit that she had lied and that she had attempted to flood the site with like-thinking christians (apparently not realizing the size of the site). I am reminded of the comments on page one about how christians love to see themselves as persecuted. In fact, most of the disruption being caused in this thread is from the two fools who attempted to play white knights in the Mama Angel wars. Wonderful christian charity, humility and kindness they display . . .

That thread was long ago, in a faraway galaxy - All factions were irate. It was identical to many Abuzz threads when that site was in the last throes - Much of what I wrote there I did not believe myself, but gratuitously tossed in garbage because the garbage was flying like a food fight in a three stooges film. I am not proud of my part there, but I believe a person ought to be allowed to live down something that long ago.

I agree with that EB, and i'd say the the claims made against atheists for interference with religioius discussions are almost all referential to that unfortunate time.

I don't know how you manage a thing like that osso because Setanta has not only no grasp of my "modus" but no chance of ever arriving at one. Structural functionalism is way beyond his intellectual capacity.

All you have got with Setanta is a temptation applied to individuals with respect to sexual promiscuity, divorce, male homosexuality, abortion and general indiscipline. A sort of dangling glass bead arrangement illuminated by experts in the art to glisten and hypnotise--just sign here--$13 trillion of debt is nothing to get excited about--let it all hang out--you'll all be dead before the invoice arrives. And the big joke is that he is as puritannical and bourgeois as Mrs Mary Whitehouse was. Slack-jawed self indulgence. And a very easy coalition to stitch togethere.

He couldn't understand Oswald Spengler if he tried. His intelligence, his objectivity and his attention coefficient are completely inadequate for such a task. His demonstrated vocabulary is too much of the common run.

He has no idea how Darwinian evolution is applied to human social structures and he doesn't care that he hasn't. There is no sense in anything he writes that we each inhabit a range of social roles and are "composites". His range is narrowed down to his crutch and to attacks on any inhibitions to its satisfactions. He is a destabilising influence and his spiels are aimed at ingratiating himself with the stupid who think his assertions about me and others are facts on the sole evidence that his rage has motivated him to type them out.

George has called him out on one of my posts and he has reluctantly admitted its value but, as usual, he has refrained from dealing with it and contented himself with a few more lines of repetitive insults none of which have the slightest value or even meaning.

If you "grasp" that osso more's the pity. His atheism is skin deep. At best.

And he doesn't read my posts because he can't answer them. The reasons he gives to excuse himself that duty, and it is a duty in a public debate, are fatuous. One might excuse onself from responding to anything by declaring it "gobshite", "attention seeking" and "spurious".

I dont recall the Mama ANgel threads. Was this on A2K or Abuzz?.
There were some real pillpoppers on Abuzz.

Frank Harris, in a letter to Bernard Shaw discussing the play Mr. and Mrs. Daventry ( aka Love is Law) which Harris had adapted from an idea of Oscar Wilde's and which ran at the Royalty Theatre from Oct. 25th 1900 up to the death of Queen Victoria on Jan. 22 1901, and resumed later, wrote--



It is impossible to see that the promotion of atheism has any other function than to hasten the decline of Christianity and thus also hasten the rise of socialism and the fortunes of the "new woman" or Ibsen Woman which is the essential inspiration of Molly Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses.

Of course New Woman is upper middle class and those who know their Schopenauer will be aware that her fortunes are at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary women who do not get to appear in media productions.

In regard to this socialite New Woman it was written at the time--



Socialism indeed. What an economic miracle. Can it be sustained? Can it be prevented from burgeoning forth until the whole economy is embraced? Will the ordinary woman be the ultimate victim? And does the ordinary woman have a voice? She is the one being squeezed by the austerity measures and with little to squeeze.

Are atheists talking us into economic catastrophe? Does the pleasure of the New Woman know any limits? She now has tattoos and body piercing and beauty salons and wrinkle cream and luxurious domestic stages (many now For Sale at knockdown prices) and risk free sex to exploit. And she wants to parade it all too.

And I am quite ready to listen to justifications and some arguments that it can carry on expanding and, if Christianity vanishes, become the driving force of our social systems with China and India doing the heavy lifting with women and children in sweatshops at a dollar a week. What price those women?

spendi wrote:

Where did you dig up this idea from? Your brain is working on over-drive to make such claims that you cannot provide evidence for.

But, this is what you do on a2k; bring up issues that are non-issues to direct attention to yourself. It hasn't worked very well from all the challenges you have been the butt end of, but that doesn't seem to slow you down.

What's next, spendi?

Well ci.--we know you think the recent near meltdown was caused by bankers and by regulators. Thinking such silly and preposterous things like that is why you can't or won't understand my post which was stated in nowhere near the stark and crude terms I might have chosen to use in more intellectual company.

There's no need for any brain to be in overdrive to see which way the wind is blowing. Honesty is sufficient.

What you don't provide is any credible evidence that proves otherwise from I've said. Bankers and regulators were part and parcel of the last meltdown - but not 100% of it.

Here spendi. Read Ben Bernanke's explanation of the causes of the near meltdown

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20090414a.htm

Do you have some other information we're not privy to.?

Thanks pan. I read a few paragraphs but I soon get impatient with tales for tiny tots.

No--I don't have any information that is not available to you. Possibly I interpret it differently than you do.

Like most things, spendi. Glad you're "man enough" to admit it. LOL

Mama Angel is still with us, but with a different user name. I'm not going to mention it here, because i've no grudge against her since she "fessed up." When she first arrived, she acted as though she were god's gift to inquiring religious minds, and meanwhile went to at least one (and possibly more) christian sites to recruit people to come here. Another of our members, whom i also won't name, tracked her down, and published a link to one (or more, i don't recall) of the sites where she was attempting to recruit people to come here to attack the site. A few people responded, but everyone involved had really badly underestimated the size of this site, and the number of members they'd have to deal with.

Additonally, MA attempted to enlist my personal sympathy by claiming she had been bitten by a brown recluse spider. I responded by telling her to get her ass to an ER. She then said it was all OK, but it sounded suspicious (she said she had been given antibiotics, which is not needed for such a spider bite). The same member who outed her for recruiting people to come here while lying about it, pointed out that i had once posted about being bitten by a brown recluse, and that MA was probably just trying to enlist my sympathy, because otherwise, i was her worst nightmare. The nickel dropped then. When i had been bitten, i was originally given antibiotics because i couldn't convince the idiot doctor that i'd been bitten by a spider until i found the spider corpse and brought it in. So she was just describing back to me the course of treatment i had described in the earlier post.

Through out all of this Intrepid and Snood played white knight, and followed me around taking pot shots at me. Snood eventually admitted that he'd been following me around, and said he would desist, which he did. Now, in this thread, he denies that he either ever followed me around or that he ever admitted to it. Intrepid continues to be dishonest about the entire episode, and to play the righteously indignant white knight.

The entire Mama Angel episode ended (more or less, although it took a while for the righteous crusaders to chill out) when she admitted that she had lied. Shortly thereafter, she changed her screen name, and although i was pissed, and gave her hell for a long time afterward, i have now simmered down, too.

It was in that period, which more or less coincided with Frank Apisa's "agnostics are morally superior and atheists are cowardly children" crusade, that the entire subject of religion and belief or non-belief became so acrimonious here. Apparently, Intrepid and Snood still have chips on their respective shoulders, and would be willing to start it all up again. I just need to remember that they're turd stirrers, and the best response is no response at all. Sort of like you with Spurious . . . if you know what i mean--and i think that you do.

Gee, and you had to bring up Frank's agnostics is better challenge.

We all had battle with him, but that was many years ago.

Apologies to littlek, osso and edgar. I don't want your thread to end behind this mess, but I also will not be lied about and smeared without replying.


Setanta is a liar. He probably believes his own lies, which makes him both a fool and a liar. He is without peer the nastiest, most thin skinned egomaniacal bastard on A2K.

Now he's trying to pretend to have moral high ground on all those who dare stand up to him.

Well, shame on any gullible soul he gets to believe his fantasy - where Setanta is the stern arbiter of truth and ethical behavior, unjustly attacked by michievious boors - instead of the reality that he is just a cowardly foul mouthed old cyber bully who spews his bile in ways he'd never do out from behind his keyboard in the light of day.

He's smart and well read, which is why I had tried for quite a while to ignore his constant ugliness toward anyone who doesn't toe his line. I enjoy talking to smart people. But "to thine own self be true"...
I could simply no longer idly sit by and watch him shyt on people without comment - especially when he tries to come off like he is spotless and above his detractors.

I got bit by a brown recluse spider - but I didn't know it because it started out on my outside left thigh as this tiny little red dot and then it got bigger and starting itching and when I finally went to the doctor he said, 'This looks like a brown recluse spider bite.'
I said, 'So what should I do?'
He said, 'It's too late to do anything now - it'll either go away or it'll keep getting bigger and worse until it infects the bone and you'll have to have your leg amputated.'
I'm not kidding - that's what he said...

So I was like, 'Holy ****! Why didn't I take this more seriously?!

It did clear up on its own, but not before it got to the point that I had such a big, seeping sore on my thigh that people thought I had gotten some sort of horrible burn on my leg (it was summer and luckily I could wear shorts).

So Jesus, Buddha, Allah, God was with me.

I write this to let people know that if they do get bit by one of these little innocuous looking brown spiders that has what looks to be a darker colored violin shaped pigmentation on it's back they should go to the hospital - IMMEDIATELY!
I can't remember what they do - because I didn't get it done - but there is a time limit and it is rather important if you want to keep the affected limb and stay alive.

I had no idea and this was in 2003 - before I joined a2k.

I'm putting this here because I care about everyone - theists and atheists alike- no one should have to lose a leg to a spider bite.

I have to agree with what Snood said. Fortunately, Setanta is not representative of atheists. I certainly do not have any beef with atheists. Some of my best friends are atheists. It is what you are as a man or woman.....not whether you believe in God. That is your personal business. Setanta is what he is because he is what he is. Not because he is an atheist.

Both Intrepid and Snood rise to the bait with vicious remarks. That is no surprise. They both behaved deplorably, and can't admit it. I've admitted that i behaved badly, and that it took me some time to lay off MA after the ugly incidents were resolved by her admission of what she had done. Neither of these two are capable of admitting that they were wrong, too, that they behaved badly. This is the end of it for me, i'll not mention it again, and would not have done had FM not been unaware of the episode to which i referred. I advise other members here not to respond to these two prime examples of christian hatefulness, either. I'll not derail the thread further with this subject.