Crusading atheists/antitheists…just, stop it. Please.
“People are killed in the name of religion” is a popular refrain from them.
Well, I think insane people kill people because they’re insane. You know, like in ‘Seven’. John Doe, if you’ll notice, is insane. He also *identifies* as Christian. But he’s not, obviously. He’s a lunatic. People aren’t killed by John Doe because he is or is not Christian. People are killed by John Doe because he’s a lunatic. The fact that he identifies himself (falsely) as a Christian is completely unrelated.
If he were a devout atheist, and killed people for *believing*…would that mean that atheism is dangerous? I mean, by the logic of “if anyone of X does something, it applies to all” that you like to (try to) use, it goes both ways. Assuming character was atheist and killed people for not believing, according to the CA/A argument that “religion is harmful” because a miniscule minority of people that identify as religious do harmful things, therefore (according to your own argument) atheism would be proven dangerous. So therefore it must be campaigned against.
Which is utterly absurd. And illogical. And ridiculous.
I mean, don’t quote the fcken Crusades as “an example”…a lot of things happened CENTURIES ago. Gimme a fcken break. Read Paul Feyerabend’s reponse to that piece of BS.
The reason people do harm (where applicable) is this alone: people choose to do harm (where applicable).
You can assign any “reasoning” you want to it, but (to use the ‘Seven’ example) John Doe’s behavior is not because (and therefore the following groups are DANGEROUS!…*SATIRE…SATIRE…SATIRE*) he is:
– Male
– Over age 30
– Under age 90
– Thin
– Soft-spoken
– Owns a glowing cross night light
– Urinates when necessary
– Defecates when necessary
– Eats
– Walks
– Talks
– Breathes
– Exists
– Identifies himself (incorrectly) as Christian
He’s a lunatic. The above groups should not be maligned because of that.
Here’s a question for CA/A’s: Do/did you ever watch ‘The Daily Show’? Or ‘The Colbert Report’? MST3K? ‘Cheers’?
And did you not do so (in part, at least) because it was comforting in a way? You were “part of the crowd”, “one of the guys”, etc? It was company, in a way? Friendly company when you wanted it?
How would you feel if someone went out of their way to invade your personal space to tell you “It’s not real! You’re not really part of that!”?
Assuming (and I am not saying this is TRUE, or that I BELIEVE it, but CA/A’s do) that religion is false, “unreal” (like the above)…so what?
Assuming that people take comfort in their religion, that it helps them in times of trouble, that it makes their lives happier, that they enjoy the sense of community…
Just leave ’em alone, man. I mean…get over it.
There is no causation between religion and ANYTHING harmful. So please, again…(I think M. Palin said it best):
(3:49 – 4:20)
FAIR USE: CRITICISM – The above is a good clip from a Monty Python sketch, and also is a great example of someone going ON, and ON, and ON…