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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?"
I rather liked the guy dressed as bender with a sign that said kill all humans. Honestly people should get together and do stuff like this more often it makes for some rather amusing pictures. perhaps even the people who are serious protesters will realize how crazy out their they are.
I'm a Christian, and am not embarrassed to admit it. I'm embarrassed by these assholes, though. (Atheists often think that Christian == fundamentalist, which simply isn't true.)
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.
I actually saw them today at the con, holding up a Jesus Is Lord sign, as a bunch of cosplaying executioners paraded around. I didn't know it was the Westborough asshats, or I'd have had words with them, like my pastor did with some similar guys protesting outside the Percy Jackson and the Harry Potter Ripoffs movie.
God Hates Haters.
>>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
Only if it is necessary that both the universe and God be created. The universe with its one-dimensional timeline is pretty clear to have had an origin (with the big bang), it's unclear if it is necessary for an entity existing outside of time to be created.
In other words, it's not an especially compelling analogy between the two.
Funny how you can contradict yourself in two sentences.
It's always simpler to say the universe created itself than to say something else first created itself and later created the universe.
I consider myself a Christian in the sense that I've read the Bible and believe Jesus taught the right lessons in ethics. But I'm perfectly able to separate the Genesis from Jesus. I refuse to accept a Middle Age transcript of a Bronze Age legend as some kind of fundamental truth in the same way I accept "love thy neighbor" as fundamental truth.
I doubt that an anthropomorphic god such as postulated by the Christian churches exist. i even doubt that the man Jesus was someone who actually lived on earth. Call me an Atheist Christian if you wish.
I believe the New Testament was a compilation of teachings by some Jewish scholars somewhere in Israel two thousand years ago but, no matter where those ideas came from, there's good value in them, if you can interpret them right.
I could also have used "lack of evidence for any gods". Or even "you are atheist too, you disbelieve in thousand of gods, I disbelieve in just 1 more than you". Basically the GP had it right. There is no rationality in having faith. None whatsover. Which is fine as a personal choice, as long as it STAYS personal, and don't try to ruin the life of others, or refuse them equal SECULAR rights. Just don't claim to have done a rational choice, it is a terrible lie.
You'd have to get all of them at once for that tactic to work. Lots of lawyers in that family, which is doubtless related to their fundraising tactics.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Nor should one assume they are not, or that the typical superstitionist dodge of disowning inconvenient followers is anything but that.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
it's unclear if it is necessary for an entity existing outside of time to be created.
You don't understand the Big Bang. If any event precipitated it, it must have happened — by definition — outside of our time. So your same argument, that whatever spawned out universe might exist outside of our notion of time, works in both cases.
They don't even care about that - because Phelps and his gang aren't True Believers who want other people to agree with them, they're sociopaths and professional trolls who want attention, and negative attention is the best kind because it might give them another lawsuit. The best case they can get is a town trying to ban them, but if they can't get that, then having somebody punch them when there's a cop around means they can sue the guy who did it and also sue the cops for not protecting them would work.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I doubt he does that.
He'd be much likelier to make arguments against theology. Essentially, to an atheist, the whole subject is about as relevant to the real world as literary criticism.
Indeed, the only difference is the books it's based on.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I agree completely. Frankly I think these idiots have done a lot to help the gay community. I remember back when they were picketing the funerals of dead soldiers, ranting about how they went to hell since they defended an allegedly gay-loving country. The best part was seeing marines going up to them and just glaring at them with pure hatred, clearly on the verge of beating the shit out of them. I have a lot of respect for our soldiers (regardless of what our leaders are telling them to do) and that just really struck me as a symbol of patriotism standing up against these people. It's because of stuff like that that no one takes them seriously. We all know they're total scum so we don't need to talk about it every time these people stage yet another silly protest.
In short, they've essentially made it fun and cool to hate people who hate gays. Keep up the good work Westboro!
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
No, the potential for harm has to be likely. Likely as in probably. With the police providing security, it's not likely one of them will be harmed.
That's fine and all, but can you show where the kids were in real danger and that danger was any more likely then getting hit by a car crossing the street or any other normal activity that society sees as normal? Something being dangerous isn't really enough. You also have to remember that the cops were more or less allowing an adult get what's coming for something they probably didn't agree with. They failed in their expected duties (probably on purpose too). However, a failure in something is an acceptable risk as the expectation of failure isn't there until it becomes obvious, otherwise you could get charged for endangerment for letting your kid walk down the street with his shoe laces untied.
Well, for common folk like us, yes. But for people attempting to remain high profile with politically unfriendly views that have already stood the tests of courts, no. The first thing they would do is probably file a federal lawsuit claiming the CPS action is retaliatory to speech which is automatically a violation of the First amendment. This will tie the CPS's hands considerably, move a federal jurisdiction into it requiring less snarling in the first place and probably get the ACLU on their side as well as several international "human rights" organizations. This quickly turns into a career ender for whoever made the call at the CPS to get involved and whoever supports the call at the CPS.
You can't use the government to abuse someone's free speech rights. It's that simple, attempting to corrupt different laws to do so or punish people for holding unpopular beliefs is exactly what the First Amendment is supposed to prevent. Selectively interpreting laws will not come out favorable for anyone attempting to do so because you are entitle to equal protection under the law and are guaranteed not to be prosecuted for a post facto law or after the fact interpretation which would be the same if they are twisting an existing law in order to stop someone's speech.