Slashdot Mirror
Ireland's Blasphemy Law Goes Into Effect
stereoroid writes "As of January 1, it is a crime in Ireland to commit Blasphemy. The law was changed in July 2009 to fill a gap in the Irish Constitution, which states that it is a crime but does not define what it is, an omission highlighted in a Supreme Court decision in 1999. To mark the occasion, Atheist Ireland published a list of 25 blasphemous quotations on the blasphemy.ie website, from such controversial figures as Bjork, Frank Zappa, Richard Dawkins, Randy Newman, and Pope Benedict XVI. (The last-mentioned was quoting a 14th Century Byzantine Emperor, but that's no excuse.)"
God damn it!
jesus fucking christ you have got to be kidding me
fuck catholics, fuck protestants, fuck jews, fuck muslims
If atheists in Ireland really want to stir up trouble, a group of them should formally recognize that atheism is itself a form of religion, register with the government (or submit whatever paperwork is necessary to make their beliefs protected under this law), and then ask that the law be used against priests who advocate that those who do not believe will burn in Hell, since it's a pretty abusive thing to say about a person and surely shouldn't be allowed.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Okay, an article about a law against blasphemy. I'm guessing we'll see at least 100 posts of blasphemy in this one article now. I'm going to get out the popcorn. This should be fun. Try and be inventive!
The law was just brought in so that the law matches the constitution (and this was acknowledged by those that passed it). It's written in such a way no one will ever be prosecuted. The only alternative would be a referendum to change the constitution, and what politician wants to seem like they support blasphemy? As well as that, when the law was passed the next referendum was for the Lisbon treaty, and the government wouldn't have wanted to hold the two referendums together (as it'd make the Christian Right more likely to vote, and so possibly sink the Lisbon referendum).
God damn it.
another nail in the coffin of the corrupt and incompetent Fianna Fail government (yes the leading party in Ireland has word fail in its name) who voted this in
never will forget what they have done to this country
Apparently the new "laws" actually just prescribe getting blasphemous sites Slashdotted instead of actively taking them down.
Slashdot... A tool of the oppressor(?)
There is no god, and Mohammed is his prophet.
(Awesome, my captcha is "opiate.")
This is one of occasions where the French have it about right, they have separation of church and state. They do not even allow religion in schools in any form. I don't understand why people think it is ok to force their beliefs on me.
Well, except in theaters, and near funerals, and at political rallies (unless you're in a "free speech zone" some distance away)...
And some art, well, we just can't have people looking at (or even creating) that...
It'd be nice if congress fixed these things. But of course, we have to wait for them to finish their prayers before they can get started. Oh, and the blessing. By a preacher paid for with tax money.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
they banned life of brian making it one of the most pirated films in the 80s in ireland. every body i knew had a copy.
banning something in ireland automatically encourages it.
we'll probably need a blasphemy per comment counting system.
the first person to try and prosecute somebody with this will be the laughing stock of this country for quite a while.
... I don't care about Gods, but this is a weird thing, trepassing the censorship line (in my opinion).
So: Fuck that Irish law and fuck that Irish fucking God (I apologize for the inconvenience, I'm just Breaking the Law ).
As some (very clever) wag has said: If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The server of "blasphemy.ie" has already been smitten by a bolt of lightning, or perhaps it has just been slashdotted. "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition quotes.
Luckily, raping altar boys is arguably nonblasphemous, so this shouldn't affect business as usual too much.
Google cache : http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:http://blasphemy.ie/2010/01/01/atheist-ireland-publishes-25-blasphemous-quotes/
How exactly is this "news for nerds" again, and not "news for atheists?"
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Holy shit!
This ain't rocket surgery.
This is blasphemy !
"I du nut beleeefe-a in releegiun, boot iff I hed tu chuuse-a oone-a it vuoold be-a Booddheesm. It seems mure-a leefeble-a, cluser tu mee I'fe-a beee reedeeng ebuoot reeencerneshun, und zee Booddheests sey ve-a cume-a beck es uneemels und zeey reffer tu zeem es lesser beeengs. Vell, uneemels ereet lesser beeengs, zeey're-a joost leeke-a us. Su I sey foock zee Booddheests. Bork Bork Bork!"
Religious fanatics misusing their powers to moderate...
I don't deny anything. I simply don't believe, because I've never seen anything that has even the slightest weight in favor of the various claims of theism. The only thing I object to is the imposition of religious behaviors upon me by the religious. For instance, if they don't want to drink beer on Sunday, then by George, I think that's just fabulous. However, if I wish to drink beer on Sunday, and they move to stop me - for instance by forcing stores not to sell beer to me - well, now we have a problem, and they have just become my enemy by stepping on my liberties. You'll note this opposition arises without any attempt by me to deny the religious their beliefs, or the truth of them, etc.
Religion, like any other highly personal set of choices, should remain between one's self and other consenting adults. As soon as you force it, or material consequences of it, upon someone else, you're pond scum. And that's being unkind to pond scum. Irish lawmakers have today joined this damp, respect-free group.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
To come to the end: Can I sue any religion-infected idiot out there who dares to insult the holy flying spaghetti-monster? (E.g. by eating spaghetti in a non-ceremonial way.)
Oh boy... oh boy... ready the lawyer army! :D
P.S.: What happens, if all ceremonies in one religion involve actions that are “blasphemous” in another one? Because my religion involves pissing on every religious symbol out there. It’s called a “healthy brain”. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
.... not kill, or rape, or rob people. Stuff pretty much all of us can agree on.
I just don't understand the idea of making laws that are akin to forcing belief in the tooth fairy; or better yet, how it will make the country a better place for everyone. But I'm an American, and so I have a Bill of Rights to protect me from an oppressive majority of faithful people.
The most appropriate story for me to post in, if only for my sig.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Did someone just say "Jehovah"?
The Irish government are behaving like a bunch of medieval idiots.
This law ITSELF is OFFENSIVE to any human being who wants freedom of thought or expression.
*I* am offended that any modern government can be so barbaric.
It's odd, because when it comes to religion, all kidding aside, Ireland had a track-record of being the most progressive and forward thinking of all the mainly Catholic, European countries. For instance, Ireland is one of the only, if not THE ONE AND ONLY Catholic country in Europe which never decided to evict or murder its Jews. And now this. How the open-minded have fallen. I wonder how long this can stand?
Unionists.
Blasphemy and blasphemous libel continue to be illegal under the common law of Northern Ireland. On 5 November 2009 in the House of Lords an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill was moved, which would have abolished these offences in Northern Ireland, but following a brief debate the amendment was withdrawn.
is a victimless crime, in Ireland.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
What? That's like saying if I truly didn't believe in Zeus, I wouldn't deny his existence and object to you demolishing my house to build him a temple.
If the people who believed in foolish things would keep their mouths shut and their hands out of public coffers, there'd be no reason for us to deny their silly fairy tales. They could ramble on in solitude like the people who are properly sent to a shrink when they claim to speak to invisible, imaginary beings.
I figure God must love child molesters, since he made so many of them priests.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Well, no one ever said it was an "organized" religion, but what is a religion anyway? Now, I know I'm going to metaphorically be stoned for saying this, but follow the reasoning...
From Dictionary.com "Religion" is defined as:
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
(The other definitions are quite redundant... "A set of beliefs", "A group of people who share a set of beliefs", etc... So, we'll just skip them. Of course, someone could always craft a definition that is carefully worded to specifically exclude atheism, but that doesn't seem intellectually honest to me.)
Is atheism a "set of beliefs"? Of course. Namely, it is the belief in the non-existence of a god. Does this set of beliefs concern the "cause, nature and purpose" of the universe? The "cause" and "nature" part are given by science and the "purpose" part is simply a negative... there is no "purpose" as theists would understand it. Notice the rest of the definition uses words like "especially", "usually" and "often", which means that those items are typical, but not necessary. So religion does not necessarily require a "superhuman agency" or "ritual observances" or even a "moral code"... most do, but it clearly is not necessary.
Now, I'm not saying that atheism is the same as theism, clearly they are not. But perhaps we are drawing unnecessary distinctions because of a Pavlovian response to the word "religion". Who ever said that religion=theism? It may usually carry that connotation, but must it? When we look at the word "religion" antiseptically, what is there to recoil from?
A religion is nothing more than a set of beliefs and we all have beliefs about a great many things. Religion is merely the set of beliefs about the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe. So? We all have beliefs about that. Atheism is merely the religion that does not choose to rely on "superhuman agency or agencies" to explain the "cause, nature, and purpose" of the universe.
No one can "prove" the origin of the universe. But every single religion is man-made, and contains errors of morality and fact. These religions then use their falsely obtained authority to steal and plunder, and to indoctrinate communities to respect hierarchies for no other reason other than the existence of the hierarchy.
Deism is the assertion that there is a God. It's an enormous leap from there is a God, to the God described in this book is the only real God.
Adeism is a logical fallacy. Atheism is a logical conclusion.
Since so many children starve to death every day, a more logical conclusion would be that God hates children.
Well, it did you know...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
What about when two religions are mutually exclusive? Don't the protestants consider the Pope to be the Antichrist? And wouldn't Catholics chafe at being told their spiritual leader is "the Devil (TM)" ?
Oh gods, when will this silliness end?
... turtles all the way down. And nobody dares say anything different!!!!
Have gnu, will travel.
And all I said was "That piece of halibut was fit for Jehova!"
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
or one of the others in the references section A true believer would know that the proper quote is the "see also" section. How dare you sully the "references section"!
BTW - are there any lawyers out there, who actually have a legal definition of a religion? Seems to me legally defining it borders on the state sanctioning one over the other.
I did not say my post PROVES Zeus exists, only that Christianity CANNOT disprove it and is foolish to assert there is no Zeus. the positive argument/assertion for the existence of Zeus is another post/discussion entirely. this post is merely to point out the fallacy of Christianity as a doctrine.
"We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." – Richard Dawkins
Simple, Mr Photon. They think it's okay because someone told them that someone told THEM that the authors of the Big Book said that the Invisible, Magical Man in the Sky (TM), said they were to ensure everyone agreed and believed in HIM, or HE would cause grave coincidences to come to pass. So you see, that makes it perfectly acceptable.
For the record, I am an evangelical Christian and this strikes me as something that can only end in tears. When will politicians (and, more importantly, voters) realize that trying to protect feelings only undermines free speech and, ultimately, democracy? We need our leaders to tell the cry-babies to grow up.
linquendum tondere
Arguing about words that have no referent is much like creating mathematical proofs that include a division by zero.
That is, it can be fun. It can be hilarious to use in arguments with people who do not understand the concept. Not as funny as listening to people demand proofs of negatives, but still laughable. All in all a stupid waste of time.
Stonewolf
P.S.
Now the fun starts. People will now jump in a tell me that theist and atheist do have referents. Then someone will demand a proof of the non-existence that the words do not have a referent. So, I win if more than 10 idiots argue tell my I am wrong.
If you understand the non-statement "What is the sound of one hand clapping" then you understand what I just said. And, no, it does not require any understanding of, or belief in, Buddhism to understand it.
Well, now we have the laws in place I will start by reporting /. for causing harm to my religious beliefs. Purple is a colour that is an insult to our religious members, so all sites using the colour purple will be assumed as intending to cause harm to our people. Green is a tolerated colour, being Irish and all.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The Irish have earned the derision of all free people everywhere in the world.
Stonewolf
Apologies to Jeff Dunham
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Your are quite correct!
In many Caucasian cases, it is "invisible pink"....
Anyone who says otherwise may be guilty of blasphemy http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu/home.html
HNY!
First and foremost it is AAAAAAAAAALLLLL the people believing in other religions that are blaspheming.
They are actively blaspheming. Every moment of every hour. Cause they believe that the god is actually blue and not yellow or some other pointless shit.
Atheists blaspheme passively. E.g. When you come up to them and start asking them about religious things as if you are serious about it.
Then they will tell you that either they are atheists and as such have no opinion on the color of god(s) (if they are nice) or they will tell you to go fuck yourself upside down with the totem of your choice.
In fact...
Religious people are effectively committing entrapment asking atheists about god(s) and similar nonsense.
And as such, they should be skinned alive and boiled in dog urine. Or whatever it is that their religion proscribes for such a crime.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Pope shits in the woods.
No... wait... that's not it.
Because popes must first take off their hats? Not that one either? DAMN!
Because Allah loves various varieties and since Morgan Freeman IS God and the president of the USA and Irish and a friend of Batman that must be true?
God damn! That sounds crazy enough to be true! It must be so then!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Irish lawmakers have today joined this damp, respect-free group.
Uhm... you misspelled "damned". :-)
The most appropriate story for me to post in, if only for my sig.
For anyone who comes back and reads this when you've changed your sig, here is it as it were on january 2nd 2010 when I read it:
People who need govt to enforce their religion must not have much faith in the power of its message.
Also, well said good sir!
How many adherents does it take to constitute a substantial number?
Who gets to define what that number is?
What is the definition of outrage? How can one tell if an adherent is outraged, pissed off, or simply annoyed?
Who gets to define what level of outrage is appropriate?
Must the outrage last for a specific period of time and, if so, how long must it last?
In a court of law, can the accused challenge each complainant to testify to the level of their outragemitude and to its duration?
Now, I'm not an Irish lawyer, but it seems to me, this law is subject to a number of loose definitions to which a lawyer could shred the case into a million tiny pieces.
There, that's both accurate and not blasphemy.
Anything that is legally blasphemous and arouses public or state ire will be.
Blasphemy was the charge that got Jesus crucified.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Ireland is clearly vying for the honor of being a "climate talks" host nation. I mean, if being a denialist is illegal, why single out god-based denialism?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
There will be atheists begging the Catholic Church to sue them for blasphemy. All of this when the stock of the Catholic Church is at its lowest with recent reports on child abuse by Catholic priests and seminarians and the resignations of four bishops as a result.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
I think the only other place on Earth that is creating or trying to create blasphemy laws in the year 2010 is the Islamic world.
Sparta does not like blasphemy.
...with emphasis on the word "any".
This therefore includes the religion I am creating right now, in which any attempt to silence/condemn blasphemy to any religion is considered blasphemy.
If we're going to leave gaping loopholes in a law, we might as well make infinite loops out of them.
Why do you find it so necessary to differentiate yourself from the salesman?
From TFA:
"Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous."
Can't put it any better than that.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Before you realize there is no God, and no Guinness, in the non-afterlife.
But seriously, "God" is a concept (specifically an abstract
counterfactual hypothetical) which seems to fill several human
psychological and social needs.
"God" gives us hope that the struggle has a purpose
"God" helps us overcome fear of death
"God" gives us some common moral stories and an ethos and
helps align the efforts of groups of us, so we can survive better.
"God" puts some kind of authority behind generally useful advise
passed down from the ancestors and elders, like "do unto others as..."
and "don't covet the neigbour's wife if you know what's good for you"
etc.
This sort of explanation, elaborated into finer detail and specifics,
explains all of the phenomenology of God-worship, God belief, and
religion so well, that there really is no need for and no room left for a supernatural
aspect to it all.
If that be blasphemy, bring it on.
I only wish I were Irish so I could prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt
that a supernatural God does not exist, so therefore the blasphemous statements
are defensible because they are true. If other people cannot handle the truth, that
is their issue. You cannot blame the messenger. That is irrational and immoral and illegal.
Let me ask you this? Can telling the truth ever be a crime? Unless the
truth is a state secret? So is the "non-existence of God" an Irish State Secret?
God does not exist. "God" exists and is a most powerful meme.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
will be the 'church' of scientology
It's all just proof to me that religion is a form of insanity, or mental impairment, inability for objective free thought, or rational analysis, or failure and inability to reach logical conclusions.
How far of a leap is it really, from believing, without proof, of a magic being in the sky, to believing that the dismembered body parts of albinos in Africa possess magic powers? Or that suicide bombing will land you in paradise? Or that getting on your knees and begging a supposed omnipotent being for help, would yield results? The same being, mind you, who impotently, or indifferently observed the extermination of 12,000,000,000 humans in the concentration camps of Europe.
the fundies won't agree, but they are necessarily logically challenged. If a self-contradictory text can be 100% true, then Spock wouldn't have gotten past those androids.
...yet another country.
These religious fanatics are DANGEROUS, and this is evidence how hard they lobby to get their Islamic laws into practice, today Ireland - tomorrow the ENTIRE UK.
If you don't face up to religion now, you'll have no vote in the end. Muslims are the fastest growing religion in the world, if you look at family numbers - the average muslim in eg. France, has 8 children per family, while the average european has 1.5. children per family. Where do YOU think this is going? They're islamists with a mission, Allah says they own the world, and anyone who disputes this are fair game.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
An afterlife. (There are probably more things, but that's what came to mind first.)
HAND.
Vicarious redemption/forgiveness would probably have been a better example -- though there probably are non-Christian belief systems which permit such things.
Anyway, I was just trying to be a smart-ass. The OP's point was that if you define S = {a} where a is any belief then you're obviously going to be hard-pressed to find anything in S which is not a. Atheism isn't such a set S -- it's simply the position that "you need to show that a exists (beyond some reasonable standard) before we discuss the implications of that any further".
Christianity in daily parlance is based on a belief in the divinity of Christ, but it certainly also includes other precepts and guidelines such as "turn the other cheek" (a decidedly amoral guideline if you ask me -- there are times when this is the absolute worst thing you can do, both for yourself, but also for your fellow man) and "treat others as you would like to be treated" (a good one), etc.
HAND.
Such a country should not allowed to be part of the European Union with laws like this. Relgious insanity should be reserved Anyway, I can't see how a 'blasphemy' law could actually be useful, if any case came to court. Facts would surely have to be presented, and given their total absence in religion, I don't see any way that any such law could stand up, in front of any sane people.
My favorite blasphemous statement: "God is incredible."
No notion of equality exists in this blasphemy business. Does blasphemy against Islam count? How about blasphemy against Scientology? Anyone going to jail for suggesting that L. Ron Hubbard was a perverted idiot?
The health of the Catholic church is much more robust than you might think. Many parishes have endowments that will fund them forever. And although young men are not joining the priesthood in large numbers in the US there are numerous nations in which faithful young men are joining the priesthood and serving within the US.
I am not a Catholic but I will say that the Catholic Church in America is doing tremendous good works and spreading the love of Christ as no other church can. I ma very impressed with their org. I have also noticed that atheists have never run a soup kitchen or built a single hospital.
What I don't understand is why do religions get special treatment from any other philosophy? I understand that for a long time you were persecuted for following ones the king didn't like, but why isn't that solved by Freedom of Thought, not Freedom of Religion?
I have also noticed that atheists have never run a soup kitchen or built a single hospital.
Could the reason you haven't noticed be that atheists such as Bill Gates don't add the word "Atheist" to the names of the hospitals they fund?
Imagine the following scenario: you are sitting outside on a log in the snow. There is a nice January sun shining down on you, the temperature is a crisp -8 and you are minding your own business. Suddenly someone comes along and shouts out loud 'YOU DO NOT EXIST'. What would your reaction be?
The most likely reaction would be one of scorn and ridicule, right? Being secure in the fact of your existence you would not feel the need for others around you to confirm your existence. You KNOW you exist so what do you care what others say?
Now imagine you are..... GOD. Big Capital Letter GOD, creator of the universe (or at least separator of light and darkness if you want to follow the most recent translations) and everything that moves and lives and breathes. Your denizens are like microbes on a human's skin, so many of your creation walks and crawls and creeps and slithers around that blue planet. What would you care if one of those creatures, one of those microbes, proclaims you non-existence? Would you clamor for confirmation of it to those other creatures, those other microbes? Of course not. You are GOD! You don't need confirmation of anything! You are the past, the present and the future, everything moves only by your grace, you are omnipotent and omniscient.
Why, then, do these religious nutcases claim that it is a criminal act to claim the aformentioned?
The only possible explanation is that they are not sure at all that this deity they proclaim to believe in actually exists. They will do anything to keep up appearances, anything to keep their mind-construct from failing. Anyone who shakes the tree has to be stopped before they fall out. Anyone who points out that the book they read is actually an allegorical work of fiction has to be punished.
By trying to stop anyone from claiming god does not exist they prove that god does, in fact, not exist.
--frank[at]unternet.org
I'd like to give a little background on whats going on over here. The governing party, Fianna Fáil (soldiers of destiny if you don't mind) have managed to run the country into one of the worst recessions in Europe by a fairly spectacular series of bad decisions, coasting through into a coalition with the greens mainly on inertia. The leader of that party, Bertie Ahern, was run out of office under a storm of corruption accustations, and his finance minister (the same one that ran the country into the ground) took over.
This mandateless buffoon is one of the least popular leaders the country has ever seen, a morbidly obese fellow by the name of Brian Cowen. This stellar example of why sons shouldn't be allowed to run for office in the same constituency as their father was last seen jetting off to Rome to kow-tow to the Pope over the massive child abuse rings that were operated by Catholic priests in Catholic industrial schools in the 50s and 60s. Thats right, the Clowen apologised to a religious leader for abuse carried out by religious officials.
I and the vast majority of Irish people feel sick to our cores at this new law, but the fact remains at this point that we have no real voice or means to overthrow the government - we can't force a general election so these yahoos have free reign to blacken the name of the nation internationally until 2012 at least. Its a monstrous situation and I sincerely ask that people hearing about this dont' use it to judge the Irish people as a whole. The government hasn't really represented us for quite some time.
If you want to help out to fight this problem, there are some small groups struggling to get traction politicially, although the media doesn't really want to let them in. One of the most promising is Amhrán Nua, the new tune party, so send help if you can, well wishes, whatever to give these few the chance to be heard. The people of Ireland will thank you for it.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The Vatican® has stated that the rape© of children by Catholic priests is protected by a "special and unique" copyright, and anyone attempting to discuss the matter will be sued, excommunicated and declared a Suppressive Person.
"Recent years have witnessed a great increase of affection and esteem for the person of the Holy Father, L. Benedict Ratzinger®," said the statement. "As such, any person or organisation seeking to name, defame or allude to His Holiness®, any of his Bishops or Priests, or any activities of any of said persons in any capacity, shall be deemed to have violated the Sacred Covenant of Berne, to be a 'no case gain' Suppressive Person and to be duly excommunicated and sued into atomic dust. ALWAYS ATTACK, NEVER DEFEND."
Evidence only recently brought to light, "which we can't show you, it's copyright," apparently demonstrates that playwright William Shakespeare was secretly Catholic. "So we're claiming copyright in everything he did too. And Francis Bacon. And the Earl of Oxford."
The Church's lawyers have worked hard to defend their intellectual property rights on such creative works as those of the Irish priests upon their young charges that only recently came to light. "Our determination to protect and preserve the rights to view, discuss or know about these three-dimensional kinetic performance works, and our tour support for the priests to take these works 'on the road' to new parishes, demonstrates the unimpeachable sincerity of our stance — firmly behind the artists. Legs wide, of course."
The Pope himself has been appalled at the reaction to his recent decision to beatify Adolf Hitler, and described his visit to the Pius XII memorial as "an upsetting encounter with cruelty and senseless hatred. I didn't like it much either."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
> Only the Agnostics take a logical stance when it comes to god, and simply state "I dunno"
> and go on with their lives.
Nitpick: logical, if you _believe_ that the failure to choose is a safe, neutral option.
"Would you like carrots or broccoli with your meal?"
"I dunno."
Is a neutral option choice.
"Here comes a truck heading straight for me! Should I dodge left or dodge right?"
"I dunno."
SPLAT!
Is a case where failing to choose is a choice, with consequences.
Imagine you're in Germany in the 1930s. Someone asks what your opinion is of these brown-shirted guys and their leader, Adolph somebody, with the Charlie Chaplin mustache.
"I dunno" is fine; but history shows that trying to learn what these guys are all about would be much safer than just moving on with your life in blissful ignorance.
Is it enough to say "I dunno" and move on, or do you need to proceed to "I'll take time to study, so I can make a decision."
> I'm also careful not to commit the fallicist's fallacy - that is, just because an argument
> is fallacious does not mean the conclusion itself is false
Or phrased differently, lack or scientific proof for or against an assertion/theory/belief doesn't make it untrue, just unproven/unprovable.
Good comment.
111 posts needed.
Would you call "theism" a religion? Of course not, and neither is atheism. Those terms are only used to describe a position on the subject of make believe beings.
Atheism has no dogmas, no holy texts, no shared morals or ethics, no preachers and no recognised leaders. The only thing it has is a position in the disbelief of gods. THAT IS ALL, there is nothing else. Why do people continue to spread false information on what they think atheism is.
But if you want to get technical, the proof for atheism is found in the lack of proof that absolutely any make believe being exists.
I knew a guy who was an athiest. He refused to believe there was a Dog.
He was killed by a pit bull.
Buddhism is most certainly not athiestic. It holds that while there may be, and actually some texts go so far as to suggest that there are likely to be gods, gods are themselves irrelavent to the eight fold path. Buddhism can go right alongside any religion in the world, because it does not in any way hold that other religions are false. Buddhism does recognize the spirit, as well as many gods and planes of existance defined in the Hindu religion, including forms of heaven and hell. Buddhism is a path to another state of being (extinguished or non-being), not another plane of existance.
You can have ethics, you can even have morals, but certain kinds of moral truths require the existence of something vaguely supernatural. Suppose you are the sort of atheist who expresses a general disbelief in the supernatural. We might better describe you as a philosophical materialist or physicalist (major premise: the physical is all that exists), but atheism is a logical consequence of that position (minor premise: God is not physical; conclusion: God does not exist). This constrains your views on morality, since you can not appeal to a non-physical moral truth. Suppose you believe that slavery is morally wrong, for example. You would need to demonstrate the validity of this assertion by reference to something physical. You might point to the misery suffered by the enslaved, but that simply raises the need to prove that inflicting misery on others is morally wrong. If you find yourself reaching a point where you say, "it's self-evident", or "it's just wrong", then you are either appealing to your own judgement -- a mere opinion -- or a non-physical, supernatural truth, which you claim to observe somehow. Don't underestimate the difficulty of this position: what kind of evidence could you even present to decide between "it's morally wrong to inflict misery on others" and its contradiction?
So, in short, it's possible to have ethics without believing in a faerie, but you'll have a dickens of a time trying to give that ethical framework more significance than your personal taste in music without invoking the existence of some kind of faerie. If your ethics simply amounts to your own personal code of conduct, then no faeries are required. If you think it applies more generally, then there's a faerie in your framework somewhere.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
25,000 euro fine? TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND EUROS? That would make anybody say "God damn!" You can buy an old house in much of rural America for 25,000 euros. And not necessarily a fixer-upper.
Ah, I wondered how long it would be before someone (a Christian) decided to tell atheists what they believe! Let's have a look at your own ref, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism :
See, you conveniently ignored "a : a disbelief in the existence of deity", which is in fact listed before "b : the doctrine that there is no deity".
There are at least three definitions of atheism, of which a positive assertion is only one of them. There's lack of belief. You also missed a rejection of belief (sometimes referred to as explicit atheism). Sometimes terms like "disbelief" are used, which could refer to a range of these. (If you want references, see those given at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism .)
Even if we accepted your cherry-picked (not Merriam Webster's) definitions, what does that make me? I don't assert God doesn't exist, but I also don't claim God is unknowable. So what label do I identifgy as? A "skeptic" is a useless term here, as that could apply to anything, not just God! (Even for MW's number 3 definition, it refers to certain religious principles, and not specifically God. Indeed, many people who are skeptics in this sense may still believe in God.)
therefore, atheism != agnosticism && atheism != skepticism.
Who said otherwise? But the terms are not mutually exclusive, either.
such an assertion is both unproven and unprovable. therefore, atheism is a religion
Really? So if I say unicorns don't exist, that's a religion too? You are conflating definitions - MW's 4 definition is the broader sense of the word, e.g., we might say that a football fanatic's devotion is "religious", but clearly this doesn't mean it's a religion in the sense of Christianity etc!
The rest of your post is just a load of straw men. Can you point to an atheist who actually has these views? Even famous atheists like Dawkins word their views with statements like "There is almost certainly no God".
But leaving aside your straw men, I have to laugh - you're a Christian, who are you to criticise people for having faith? I'm confused: do you believe faith is a good thing, or a bad thing?
In summary, your post is just the tired argument where a Christian tells atheists what they believe just so you can knock the straw man down; it uses citations from a quick Google that you evidently haven't read properly; and we end with the hypocrisy that you criticise people for something that actually applies to you.
There is no god, and Mohammed is his prophet.
Heresy! Richard Dawkins is his prophet.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Would you call "theism" a religion? Of course not, and neither is atheism. Those terms are only used to describe a position on the subject of make believe beings. Atheism has no dogmas, no holy texts, no shared morals or ethics, no preachers and no recognised leaders. The only thing it has is a position in the disbelief of gods. THAT IS ALL, there is nothing else. Why do people continue to spread false information on what they think atheism is. But if you want to get technical, the proof for atheism is found in the lack of proof that absolutely any make believe being exists.
No Dogmas? "nothing exists beyond the material"
No holy texts? "The God Delusion"
No morals or ethics? Got me there, philosophy has so far proven incapable of justifying ethics or morality on atheist assumptions.
No recognised leaders? Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.
As for false information, every time you refer to the subject of "religion" as "make believe things", you do exactly the same thing. Religions have as their subject immaterial things, which are not the same as "make believe things". Truth and melancholy are distinct from Peter Pan. Of course, charging you with hypocrisy would be meaningless, since atheism is incapable of enforcing even a code of courteous discourse.
There are enough primitives there already, we don't need more who believe in unprovable supernatural beings.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
That provoke discussion of religion or, rather, the mockery of it, just shows how grossly ignorant of the subject slashdot's pretentious "atheist" community really is.
Skimming through the bible you can learn that:
Heaven was an idea, not an afterlife.
Hell is never mentioned.
Jesus never walked on water, never magically turned water to wine, never fed a thousand people with a loaf of bread.
The book of Genesis is made entirely up of parables.
God was probably a reference to our leaders, and theirs back then.
Etc.
But I can't expect slashdotter's to RTFB when they can't even RTFA. Still, I guess you can pride yourselves on being less naive (see also, retarded) than the followers who believe all kinds of ridiculous shit.
No Dogma: First of all, dogma is a doctrine established by a religion, as atheism is not a religion, it has no dogma.
No Holy Texts: you just gave a title of a book that talks about Dawkins views on the subject of atheism. That is not a holy text. Many atheists have never even read it.
No recognised leaders: Dawkins and Hitchens may be people outspoken on the subject of atheism but they are hardly leaders of atheists. As an atheist myself, while I respect their words, I do not recognise either of those as my "leaders", and I am willing to bet many other atheists feel the same way.
So it seems your examples still show that atheism has no dogmas, no holy texts, no shared morals or ethics, no preachers and no recognised leaders.
The fact is that there is just enough proof for fairies or the flying spaghetti monster as there is for a god. No matter how you try to spin it, atheism is not a religion, so stop spreading false information that it is.
I also live in a place which has such law, and for quite some time; about "hurting religious feelings" (I kid you not, it's worded like that)
The only cases when it was uphold dealt with, for all intents and purposes, our state religion. Accidentally, it's also Roman Catholicism; perhaps their excessive fear of secularization and preferring central authority pushes them in this direction, I don't know...
But such law is really about trying to suppress one kind of religious freedom; only thinly disguised in "we want all religions to have a respect they deserve".
It doesn't really deal with religions. There's no way around that. Religions are simply incompatible with each other. What one preaches is blasphemous to others. If such law was uphold as worded, no preaching would be possible.
No, this is only about limiting freedom of irreligious people. They are the only ones not protected by the same law (in case of religions it's a kind of MAD). "Understandable", in a way - irreligious folks scare most religions much more than adherents of other religions.
One that hath name thou can not otter
With all the people coming forward about the abuses and rapes that the Church has perpetrated, to me this law is to protect the Church. The people coming forward were getting too close to the higher ups, and people in high positions were being implicated in this. Now, they can come into your home in Ireland for anything they want under the pretense of this law. I think their tourism is going to take a hit on this one, eh?
Could you reason more circularly?
Many Christians have never read the Bible, and don't hold it up to nearly the pedestal that your typical western Atheist holds Dawkins.
There are thousands of Christians around the world who don't give a second thought to the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or whoever that guy who wrote "The Purpose Driven Life" is. It doesn't matter, because you'll just turn around and say "aha, but there are many Christians who do!" I do the same to you - a large number of self-proclaimed atheists acknowledge Dawkins, Hitchens and others as "leaders" of atheism, therefore they are.
So far you have given me nothing but circular reasoning, why is anyone supposed to believe that atheism is even remotely rational? You can't even get past introductory logic.
The pronouncements are invariably in the name of God/Allah/Whomever but it is also invariably a human nut job who takes upon himself (usually a bloke) to send the accursed on his way. Hence the Islamic nut jobs stabbing and otherwise murdering those they disagree with.
Atheists have everything to fear from religious nutcrackers and the irrational pronouncements the make.
You say that atheism is a religion, yet you have no proof.
As atheism is not a religion, therefore it has no dogma. How is that circular? It was you who was implying it has dogma, yet you have no proof.
No holy texts: Many atheists can completely discount Dawkin's writings and still count themselves as atheists, but Christians can not discount the entire bible and still call themselves Christian.
No recognised leaders: Many atheists can completely discount Dawkin's, etc. and still count themselves as atheists, but Christians can not discount the Pope, their pastors/priests, etc. and still call themselves Christian.
I actually find it funny that you are comparing both books as equal, I am sure Dawkins would find that thought wonderful!
This discussion is pointless, and I will refrain to comment again until someone, anyone can show how atheism is a religion.
Wildebeest have no 'rules' on how to conduct their lives but - no doubt strangely in your eyes - they do, as a group, conduct their lives in a very similar manner. Like so with lions, elephants, Paramecium, hydra, dolphins and so on. Even humans. No need for religion to account for any of it.
Atheist are motivated by much the same drives as religious people. They enjoy praise, want to have sex, don't want to die, would rather live in comfort etc. They resist temptation in some areas in order to benefit in others.
I have never met a person who has lived their life according to a religious set of rules - though I have met any number who have benefited in material or reputation from belonging to a favoured group. Hypocrisy is the one quality which unites religious and non religious alike.
Atheism might not be a religion but then the worlds 'religions' aren't religions either: they are just rival clubs competing for resources and influence.
This law basically makes it criminal to have two religions that have opposing beliefs.
For example, any religion that believes that Jesus Christ was the son of God and speaks about it will be "blasphemous" to any religion that does not believe the same thing.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe Mohammed was a prophet of God, it can't say that any more. Likewise, one that does believe it can't say it.
...
The question is, how "grossly abusive" does the "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion" have to be? Are restaurants that serve pork/beef/whatever guilty? How about stores that are open on Saturday/Sunday/etc.? What about people who work on Saturday/Sunday/etc.?
yet another person over-reacting.....of course you can believe what you want, and say what you want to people you don't offend. If what you say is limited legally by things that "intentionally" offend other people's religions in a "grossly abusive" way, then I think that's a good thing... I think ./ is overreacting by the word "blaspheme" in the law, I doubt most people would think it bad to outlaw offending others by offending their religions in a "grossly abusive" way "intentionally".
Freedom of thought (especially if expressed, and more especially if some wacky new idea is organized around),
is supremely dangerous to the existing hierarchical order of governance (whatever/whomever that may be.)
You may or may not have realized it, but even in your so-called liberal democratic nations, you only have
freedom to the extent that you are unable to effectively exercise it against the prevailing order.
There is a cleverness of statecraft, however, in giving citizens the "impression" of free expression rights.
Because then you set up a din of clamouring voices effectively drowning each other out, so that no one
dangerous idea can really grab hold of enough peoples' attention to do much harm.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
"child abuse by Catholic priests and seminarians and the resignations of four bishops as a result." ...
And, as far as I know, no law enforcement at all in these hundreds, maybe thousands of cases, on the state's side.
Rape (the victims may be infants, minors or grown-ups) is a criminal offense in all civilized countries.
Obviously and unfortunately, this does not apply to Ireland, at least not to all rapists alike.
"This is the death knell of Catholicism in Ireland"
Instead of "this is", I'd rather read "this should be" here. But I won't hold my breath.
Thanks editors for helping take down the blasphemy.ie website! For everyone interested in reading the quotations here's the coral cache link:
http://blasphemy.ie.nyud.net/2010/01/01/atheist-ireland-publishes-25-blasphemous-quotes/
The first quotes are from Jesus Christ himself.
And btw, if you're planning on building a high traffic website don't use Wordpress...
From the blasphemy.ie source:
<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.7.1" />
(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
Whats to believe?
Quoting something found on the internet.
"What is the point of Jesus' grim story about a vacant house being occupied by an evil force? It is not enough to banish evil thoughts and habits. We must also fill the void with God who is the source of all that is good and upright. Augustine said that our lives have a God-shaped void which only God can fill satisfactory. If we attempt to leave it vacant or to fill it with something else, we will be worse in the end. What do you fill the void in your life with? Jesus makes it clear that there are no neutral parties. We are either for Jesus or against him, for the kingdom of God or against it. There are two kingdoms in opposition to one anotherâ" the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness under the rule of Satan. If we disobey God's word, we open to door to the power of sin and Satan. If we want to live in freedom from sin and Satan, then our house must be occupied by Jesus where he is enthroned as Lord and Savior. Do you know the peace and security of a life submitted to God and his word?"
Every equation has two sides.
According to the equation above you can farm evil forces, make them grow.
Its really quite simple you see, just banish evil and leave a void.
Its actually easier. lazier than otherwise, as its at least one step less.
You should know this, perhaps not, for to believe you are a self professed sinner, in part, not whole, how would you fully know?
But there is also something else made clear in this line of thought and regardless of where you read it. Perhaps something of a contradiction of god, something not hidden, but just not ever seen.
Expel an evil and leave a void, don't fill it at all.
If the void is evil, then you failed to expel.
So try again, again and again, until you have nothing left at all.
You will be void, forever evil yourself if you believe evil is void.
The void contains not good nor evil, no light or darkness, its not even neutral, not for or against anything, there is not even emptiness, its just void, absent of anything and all. That's why its called "void".
Imagine yourself inside a translucent sphere, look around, try to see the whole, though you never will. But outside the sphere and from far enough away, you can see the whole sphere.
And so it is from the void POV regarding it's child named god.
For those who'd like to farm evil, via leaving a void, you have no guarantee you will succeed.
You may instead, from a void POV, be fully seen for what you are, just a blind judgmental fool or perhaps that's just a child named god.
Wanna know what I see?
You don't really believe!
You're just making stuff up now.
As for your comment on morality, theism has the Euthyphro dilemma which really destroys any argument that morality comes from god.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
A worthy parable isThe Passion of St Tibulus.
Down with that sort of thing.
Stick Men
Impossible law, since there is no God.
If you say there is - PROVE IT.
Only because they decided to change the definition a century ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number#Primality_of_one
I like the original definition, which is shorter and less complicated: any number evenly divisible by 1 and itself, rather than having 2 distinct divisors, 1 and itself.
I was going to add:
"so, 4 isn't prime?" ... I see the pattern now ... so 15 isn't prime, but 17 and 19 are."
"no, but 5 is, and so is 7."
"oh, I get it now - so 9 is also prime!"
"no, but ll and 13 are."
"oh
"yes."
"and 21 isn't prime, but 23 and 25 are!"
"25 isn't prime."
"you're just making ths up!"
Since atheists are strict materialists, then they are unable to accept non-empirical proofs or methods for anything, and thus must accept on faith that nothing beyond the material exists.
You are the one who claimed that atheism is not a religion because it has no dogmas, and then claimed that atheism has no dogmas because it is not a religion. There is no clearer example of circular reasoning.
Your comment about Christians being unable to discount their pastors is totally ignorant - there are thousands of people running about who call themselves Christian yet act in complete independence, with loyalty to any pope or pastor. The fact that you think otherwise demonstrates only how little you know about religion in general and religious people in particular.
As for comparing the two texts as equal, please don't make the mistake of putting words into my mouth. Comparable is the attitude held towards the texts by their adherents (to speak logically, there exist atheists who hold "The God Delusion" in as high regard as Christians do The Bible).
We do seem to agree on your last point, however. You seem incapable of rationally considering two of atheism's dogmatic claims - that the universe is exclusively material, and that atheism is not a religion.
baaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrffffffffffffffff. okay, I'm being funny. But not that funny. Isn't guv and religin suppost to be seprat?
Yes, because being outside the physics of this universe means that there is no possibility of interaction. If there were the possibility of interaction, then god would NOT be outside the laws of this universe.
God cannot exist in our universe. The concept of god can, but that's not the same, just as a picture of a pizza isn't the same as a pizza.
As for prayer - controlled studies showed that there was no difference in medical outcomes among believers and non-believers. Not even a placebo effect. It's a waste of energy. "Oh, but it makes them feel better." Sure, the same way that if I scam someone, they feel better because they thought they were the ones who came out ahead in the deal. Substitute religion, and it's the same deal. Sorry, but religion is a fraud and deserves to be exposed as mean-spirited and dumb.
Take a look at the latest battle-front between religion and the masses - gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. It wasn't too long ago that interracial marriage was also banned, with the enthusiastic support of religious types. Nowadays those same "religious people" spout nonsense about how gays and lesbians "choose to sin" and "shouldn't be allowed to marry like everyone else", and that transsexuals are just men in dresses when we know better.
Religion without practical effects is useless - James wrote that. Are you going to stand up and condemn religious types for treating gays, lesbians, the transgendered and transsexuals as less than equal, and for falsely, ignorantly, and hypocritically judging, condemning, and treating them as so-called "sinners"? Or is your belief hollow, of no practical effect?
What a silly law. This law is in breach of the human right to the freedom of speech (and religious choice as well I might add).
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
its a blaspheme!
-
And herein lies your own gotcha - you insist that "true or false" must be provable, established independently through infallible logic.
This in spite of your own "faith".
But after studying "Logic", most will point out the assumption of axioms means that no such absolute truth exists, and "little" complications like Gödel's incompleteness theorem, non-modal logics, tense logics, infinitary logics and so forth mean that you are as a "logician" operating from a point of faith in your axioms and/or your logic.
All lines of reasoning are fallacious. Fixed that for you. It is impossible to *prove* anything in an absolute sense, and the theist is quite accurate to point out these inconsistencies in the atheist or agnostic points of view. There is no amount of evidence that will ever convince the "true believer".
To be fair, you might consider allowing the Theists, the Pantheists, the Atheists and others to think as they will and wish. They allow you, for the most part, to think what you wish, you're not forced into church, and if you keep your opinions to your own clan of "adherents", everyone pretty much goes home happy.
For many other "groups", the Agnostics are simply the "weak in spirit" who have meaningless, unexamined lives, inconsiderate of many of their fellow human beings and our motivations.
There is no right or wrong, absolutely, but there is undoubtedly a personal right and wrong, which changes over time like the very real seasons and world we live in. If that's too complicated for you, you should stay home during civics lessons and leave conversations about deities to those professionally trained to do so. I don't believe the "books" that the majority of established religions claim as "divinely inspired". Not a one of them. I claim to be one of these ignostics, in that I don't claim to understand what you're actually talking about, other than telling me a fancy fairytale, much like the fairytales of unicorns and ancient Maori gods.
Your arrogance in *defining* what an atheist or agnostic actually believes is in astoundingly poor taste.
Some students got suspended from Tufts University for offending Islam in the conservative student magazine. The offensive remarks were all quotes from the Koran.
I got banned from posting comments on the web site of a conservative newspaper for mentioning that the Koran says that virtuous men go to heaven and get waited on by naked little boys.
Free speech is under attack from both sides of the political spectrum in the US.
(BTW, I am a theofalliblist. We believe that God is all-powerful and all-good, and the only reason there is evil and suffering in the world is because he makes a lot of mistakes. E.g., he created AIDS accidentally when he tried to stop a drought in Africa.)
"Yes, because being outside the physics of this universe means that there is no possibility of interaction. If there were the possibility of interaction, then god would NOT be outside the laws of this universe." Interesting - but that reiterates what you already wrote. I can't see how you know whether the possibility of a one way interaction is possible or not.
"As for prayer - controlled studies showed that there was no difference..." there are studies where it does make a difference - both positively and negatively. This Cochrane review will point you to some http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000368.html the overall result is neutral.
"...the latest battle-front between religion and the masses - gays, lesbians, and transsexuals." Between what particular religions and the masses do you refer to? Unless you can elaborate you are stereotyping.
"Are you going to stand up and condemn ......... is your belief hollow, of no practical effect?" My belief? I haven't said or hinted at what my beliefs are. Just because I argue against your sweeping statements doesn't mean squat. I do profess to not knowing everything and that my knowledge is and always will be limited and tainted. How about you?
Your brain is obviously rotted because you sucked your mothers clith for too long, while your Dad raped you in the ass.
Tao came in your and your sister's mouth, and she even swallowed it while you couldn't stand the stench.
She's now whoring around with dogs, sheep and horses.
And oh yeah, you're a fucking moron.
Saw your brother in the gay sauna getting fucked by three guys.
One preteen, one middle aged and one old, so sick and perverted this brother of yours.
Never seen anyone smile so much in one evening.
He's such a fucked up boy now.
And oh yeah, you're still a fucking moron.
God is not Christian..
There are some absolutes that we CAN be sure of. 1+1=2, not 1.234 today, and 42 tomorrow, and "CAT" the day after.
You believe otherwise, that everything is grey.
You believe you can never know anything for sure. So how do you know that you exist?
I don't need to prove that *I* exist to you, just to me. ""Je pense donc je suis", (Rene Descartes - more familiar in the latin Cogito, ergo sum, but I don't speak latin, I do speak french :-) is sufficient for me to say that "Yes, I exist." That is an absolute certainty, as opposed to what form my existence takes, which is another matter entirely. So, for myself, I can start with that as one absolute, black+white-no_shades_of_grey certainty. My knowledge of the fact that I exist is not limited or tainted - it is a foundational truth.
As for the rest - ""...the latest battle-front between religion and the masses - gays, lesbians, and transsexuals." Between what particular religions and the masses do you refer to? Unless you can elaborate you are stereotyping." - quit hiding behind that lame excuse for willfull ignorance. You know full well what I'm referring to - it's not like the statement was made in a social vacuum.
I don't profess to knowing everything - but I *do* know that god does not exist. This is another absolute truth, same as my existence. Heck, with a few axioms thrown in, I could probably prove that my existence is sufficient to disprove any gods existence - but I don't have to. The concept of god is such that any such god cannot impinge on this universe, and that's sufficient - since this is the universe we live in. After all, the chief argument is that it "needs" a "creator" - so who created god if that's the way it works (he universe doesn't need a creator, btw - that's another flawed extrapolation from common-day experience).
The pope is a troll. He's also now a copyright Nazi. I guess he needs to find new ways to make $$$ to pay off the yet another billion $$$ in child abuse claims.
You're show of ignorance is fantastic.
"You believe otherwise, that everything is grey. You believe you can never know anything for sure. So how do you know that you exist?"
I never wrote or suggested I believe everything is grey. I never wrote or suggested that you can never know anything for sure. Stop trying to put words into my mouth. And to answer your question - I don't need to know whether I exist or not past the fact that I'm here typing on a keyboard - it's real enough for me to know I exist.
Stop taking my statements out of context as well - it shows only bad things about your character.
"quit hiding behind that lame excuse for willfull ignorance. You know full well what I'm referring to - it's not like the statement was made in a social vacuum."
You're being a complete wanker. I seriously don't know who you are referring to yet you say I do. Your statement that I "know full well" is a dumb assumption that is erroneous. You are stereotyping all religions and you should be ashamed of it. Instead you try to shift focus onto me with a blatant lie (that I know what or who you are referring).
On top of this you still fail to answer a significant amount of my questions (throughout this thread). Why? I think it is because you can't.
You can write whatever you like from this point onwards - you're just embarrassing yourself. You don't look good at this stage and my advice is to keep quiet. Don't worry I won't reply.
You bore me.
Let's get back on-topic, since you keep refusing to address the real issues. The Irish passed a law against "blasphemy"? Is this "blasphemous" enough for you?
The idea that any public event is a one-way communication is abhorrent. Further, if you can't defend your views, you deserve to have the objections to them put right in your face (verbally, on signs, etc.) Such defense should be an inherent part of any stance; and taking the time to do it right is how you get a reputation of knowing what you're about instead of becoming a laughingstock when someone points out a serious flaw in your position.
Your idea of "free speech" is dictating a position to a silent crowd of like-minded (or utterly silent) pairs of ears. You shouldn't get to suppress other people's opinions just because you're standing in front of them. Debate - not lecturing - is one of the most powerful tools for getting at the truth there is; people who want to suppress debate usually don't have their ducks lined up worth a damn anyway.
You want to have a private, your-mouth to their-ears event? A nice lecture? Fine. Rent a private venue. You want to have a speaking event in a public space? Then the public should have as much right as you do to say anything, any way they want. Sure, it'd be nice if this was done in a reasonable fashion, but on the other hand, if you repress the objectors, they're going to come at you harder... and you deserve it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...
I'm having a no hair day!
"The Christian conception of sin as the will of the natural man ... is the basis of all internal conflict -- of moral insanity." -- Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley's 25 blasphemous quotations:
http://ac2012.com/2010/01/05/against-all-gods-of-men/
"We realize that Aleister Crowley is dead. And British. And, moreover, not running for office. Nevertheless, we believe that the most effective vote you can cast in 2012 is one for Aleister Crowley."
Vote Aleister Crowley 2012:
http://ac2012.com/about-aleister-crowley-2012/