Trade Your Bible For Porn

An anonymous reader writes "Atheist students at the University of Texas at San Antonio announced that any student over the age of 18 will receive pornographic materials if they trade in religious materials. From the article: 'Leaders of this atheist campaign allege that porn is no worse than what's written in religious texts. A university spokesman says that this controversial cause is completely legal, though he admits a majority of the students on campus do not agree with it.'"

Comments

Stunts

[pudge]

I find that people who feel the need to perform stunts like this to make a point usually have trouble making a point in any other way, and a need for attention for themselves and their "cause." Yes, we get it, you hate the Bible. But you have no actual arguments against it beyond your dislike, and you're boring.

Re:Stunts

[ElectricTurtle]

Well, you're right, they probably do have "trouble making a point in any other way" since religious people are dogmatic by design. It's like Dr. House said, "If religious people could be reasoned with there would be no religious people."

So when rational argument is ignored or avoided, I wholly support doing high profile things that provoke a response.

Re:Stunts

[ElectricTurtle]

That makes no sense. You literally can't back that up so it's meaningful.

Done. For chrissake, every dictionary definition of dogma even says it's a synonym for religious doctrine. How can that not make sense?

it's easy to rattle off many, many rational religious people throughout history

Who said anything about rational? Any sane person is rational to some degree. The phrase is 'reasoned with'. You can't reason with people who exclude evidence because some book tells them to exclude it.

They don't want rational argument

We know only about this present escapade, not about any previous efforts they may or may not have made. You may be willing to judge them out of ignorant assumptions in absentia, but that only makes you unreasonable and subjective, the worst foundation from which to make judgement. Unless you can point me to evidence that this group has done nothing else, made no other efforts, then I reject the validity of your judgement.

Re:Stunts

[ElectricTurtle]

There is no strawman. You made no argument besides 'nuh UH!' It is not possible to create a similar but deliberately weaker argument than that for the purpose of deliberately dismantling it. You clearly don't know what a strawman is.

I'll grant that there may be some dictionaries that do not list religious doctrine as one of the definitions of dogma. So, in a absolute sense, yes, not 'every' dictionary, but that is simply deliberate obtuseness on your part about a rhetorical device. Most dictionaries of the English language have the aforementioned as part of the definition, including but not limited to: Random House Dictionary; The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition; Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition; Cambridge Dictionary of American English; etc. Stop being disingenuous.

And now the ethnocentrism comes out. Where previously we were talking about religion, suddenly we're talking about Christianity. Of course, why wouldn't we, after all, Christianity is the exception, it's not like all those other religions. Pardon me while I roll my eyes so hard they could put a smooth surface on fresh asphalt.

You want to play that game? Fine. The resurrection of Christ. All Christians must believe it, and the only evidence for it is in religious text, all scientific evidence to the contrary is ignored. That is the very essence of the denotation of dogma.

I think you're being deliberately dense about the difference between rational and reasonable. Do you notice how those are both adjectives? They are not the same word. You don't know much about the definitions, much less connotations, of words do you? A rational person connects causes to effects, learns from experience, etc. etc. A reasonable person is one who is objective, less closed-minded. These are connotations of context. If you just say 'reason' out of nowhere it does not have the same feeling or background of meaning (connotation) as when you talk of 'reasonable people'. In this sense, to use the language fully, it is necessary to look beyond the straight definitions of rational vs. reasonable.

You're incapable of demonstrating a single thing in the Bible that tells anyone to exclude any evidence. You're just inventing something that doesn't exist.

2 Peter 3:5. If you don't believe in creation, you're wrong.
Galatians 1:8. If anybody says something different from the Bible, they are cursed.
2 Corinthians 10:5. This one is so good, it can speak for itself:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

If that's not clear enough I don't know what is.

That's what YOU were doing to "religious people." I was just playing along in the game you started.

Key word there is ignorant. I know a lot about history and where religion fits into it, including Christianity. I judge religion on the facts, the purges of heretics, the slaughter of infidels, the suppression of dissent, the continuance of misogyny, the tacit acceptance of racism and slavery, etc. etc. What I said is you don't know anything about these people beyond this story. Until you do, your judgement is weaker than my judgement of religion.

Also, 'judgement' is an accepted alternate spelling. But you wouldn't know that, since you have some strange aversion to dictionaries.

We aren't laughing with you, we're laughing at you

[spun]

Thanks, pudge. There's nothing I quite enjoy more than watching you get smacked down repeatedly, only to come back swinging with arguments that work only in your own mind. I bet you think you're winning this argument, don't you? Hilarious.