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Superheroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church
sv_libertarian writes "They've faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter-protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi, and... kittens?"
Satirical counterprotests of Fred Phelps are getting a bit boring, aren't they? That's basically what everyone does these days when they show up.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He is a retired lawyer, two of his kids are lawyers too. He has this wonderful way of tying the government in knots. For instance his clan/cult have a big house. This is a church. The swimming pool is a baptismal font. All income is tax free due to being a religion. IRS was not pleased, but he beat them.
His views are totally wacko but playing the govt off against itself is just awesome.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess.
Actually, it kind of is. See Occam's Razor. To elaborate, if the universe needed to be created by something, and that something was God, then God also needed to be created by something. If God didn't need to be created by something, then there's no reason why the universe would need to be.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Really? How so? OK, I actually saw this on Pharyngula earlier already, so I knew what it was about, but the summary did mention:
1) Fred Phelps (we all know who he is, right? The "GOD HATES FAGS" guy who will picket the funerals of fallen soldiers and all that.)
2) Counter-protests.
3) Specifically, counter-protests that included cosplay, at Comic-Con.
Yeah, you don't get all the details in TFA from TFS, but it's not actually a bad summary as far as the basics are concerned.
Better to be considered an asshat by someone who is clearly delusional, than being delusional yourself - or enabling their delusions at the cost to society as a whole. Religion needs put down, hard. The best single argument for me against faith has been one posited by Hitchens in part 2 of a debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18&feature=related (part1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHuvErbpd0&NR=1 (part 2). The idea that existence of this sort of god being "compelling" is more absurd than belief in astrology, reading the future in tea-leaves and various other nonsense.
> Buying into any religion does away with trust in your own mind and does away with uncorrupted critical thinking.
I would challenge that. It may be true if you buy into the religion blindly which, of course, many do. But a number of intellectuals, by applying critical thinking, have come to the conclusion that the God of the Bible really does exist. CS Lewis is an obvious example.
I believe that is the case for me. I like to think, and my thinking has led me to the conclusion that there must be something behind the universe, and that of all the religions vying the explain that Something, historic Christianity wins by a mile.
When you're convinced that Christianity is true, there is still a lot of room for critical thought. I like to think about theology and debate various theological positions.
Also, I can trust in my mind because I believe I am made in the image of God. It is God's nature to be rational and He has created us with rational minds. On the other hand, if matter is all there is and we are here only because of chance, how can we trust our minds?
I am a Christian and I love superheroes. I know a lot of people who do too.
In fact, my church's pastor talked about Superman and Spider-Man in his last Sunday's sermon! http://www.evfreefullerton.com/audio/cel/2010/cel_071810.mp3 for the audio sermon recording.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Important note: The Westboro asshats want you to get violent at their protests. That way they can sue you to fund their activities.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Religion has, historically speaking, been the greatest force for good our planet has ever seen.
And the greatest force for evil our planet has ever seen. Witness all the atrocities being perpetrated in the name of religion, from religious terrorism (9/11, the OK City bombing, the "witch hunts" in Africa) to whole wars (the Crusades and the current conflicts in the Middle East). No amount of "good" can ever outweigh the pain and suffering brought by acts like these.
Religion is a tool created by men to control other men by leveraging mankind's innate fear of the unknown and the different. Anyone who believes otherwise is too wrapped up in one's beliefs to see what is real or to think rationally or objectively -- what could be called "not seeing the forest for the trees".
"Again, he's completely ignorant of history. You can conduct natural experiments, as it were, by comparing and contrasting the evolution of societies with and without the Abrahamic God, and also how culture change after missionaries enter their culture. It's a fascinating study, and one that is at complete odds with his theory."
Yup. Abrahamic societies generally become more hateful. Just look at Africa.
Or at Renaissance.
"I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess."
Common Christian misconception. Cosmologists do not claim " the universe created itself", they claim that 13.7 billion years ago it was all squeezed into a singularity and they have very strong evidence to back that claim. They will readily amit they haven't got a clue where the point particle came from, in fact they don't even know what the word "where" means in that context.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>>You do know that the notion that religious people probably shouldn't kill each other over religion... is a Christian idea, don't you? It is typically attributed to atheism, but is the result of a lot of the ostensibly religious wars we had in Europe back in the day.
Right, because the Abrahamic God wasn't a petty, vengeful little dictator who frequently ordered the destruction of races and cultures he didn't like, or who worshipped a stone altar over him. Oh, right, he was! That's some Christian message when the so-called founder of it is basically just saying, don't do as I do, do as I say, apart from when I tell you to ignore what I say and help me do as I do by doing what I now say instead. Kill the infidels over yonder hill, for they worship graven images.
The first 2 commandments are against the worshipping of other gods, in aid of which genocides were enacted. Entire cultures destroyed because they believed in a different spaghetti monster. At least in Christianity's defense, it didn't kill everyone. God did tell them to capture the virgin women and use them as sex slaves. So it's not all bad.
>>As far as I know, all of our presidents have been Christian, and we've yet to turn the rest of the world into a radioactive parking lot. Perhaps you'd like to try a better excuse? When you compare our Christian presidents with, say, Kim Jong Il (who would probably love to nuke South Korea if he could) your argument makes rather the opposite point.
And it's only been very recently that we have as a species had this power. Power in the hands of people who yes, have been religious. No doubt about that. You take what I say out of context however - I don't say that religion always leads people to err, but that it can, and when it does, the results have been horrific. Then to imagine this inevitable error when magnified by the power of modern weaponry.
And far from Kim Jong Il being a representative of a non religious ruler - he's the very definition of one gone wrong. One we should be extremely thankful that went wrong in a culture that isn't capable of destroying the rest of us in their ecstasy.
Atheism cannot be proven.
If you mean to say that "God does not exist," cannot possibly be the conclusion of a sound argument, you're simply wrong. Indeed there are many valid arguments which would serve as candidates (evil, hiddenness, etc.).
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Remove the 'idle' subdomain from the URL. i.e., just slashdot.org: http://slashdot.org/story/10/07/25/0121211/Superheroes-vs-the-Westboro-Baptist-Church
Link #1: http://kanewj.com/wbc/
"Phelps does not believe what he is doing. This is a scam." If you believe this guy (and he makes some telling observations), Phelps is in the business of pushing people's buttons so he can sue them for violating his rights. That's his and his family's living.
Link #2: http://www.robertslevinson.com/gaylesissues/features/collect/phelps/bl_phelpscourt.htm
Addicted to Hate: The Fred Phelps Story is an exposé written by Jon Bell for the Topeka Capital-Journal that was suppressed by the paper because they were too chickenshit to take on Phelps. Bell sued the paper to either publish it or, if they refused, let him have the rights to his work, but he got neither. Instead, the full text was entered in the court record so it is now a public document that anyone can read whether Phelps likes it or not. So it's kinda long, but if you want a portrait of what a twisted gruesome mofo Phelps really is, here's your chance. I pity his children -- they never really had a chance.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
Nazi ideology was based on the master race theory, which had nothing to do with any of the major religions
God's chosen people, complete with tales of racial cleansing right in the bible. "God with us", the Nazis used to say.
You can't take the sky from me...
That's because it is not a "reality show"; it is a documentary.
No he hasn't. He has many objections to religion, but these are well-founded and well-argued. He is also polite to people who don't share his opinion.
Don't complain about people being "dickwads" when your own arguments are nothing but hand waving and ad hominem.
There, Fixed that for you.
The internet filter in Australia exists only in your mind, parliament smacked down the idea twice.
OTOH, how are those free speech zones and TSA searches going.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.