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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 think there may be hope for the middle east.
So what? Freedom needs to be continually fought for; if you ignore Phelps and give him no opposition, his viewpoint will gradually become more and more accepted; people will think him "normal" even if they don't agree with him. And good humoured satire seems to me the very best way to deal with him. Amusing, photogenic to spread the word, and non-confrontational. Freedom of speed (correctly) allows him to express his loathsome opinions - it should be used to provide the counterbalance.
I particularly liked "Odin is God - read The Mighty Thor #5". It beautifully encapsulates the curcularity of the bible bashers arguments.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
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.
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
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 consider myself a Christian in the sense that I've read the Bible and believe Jesus taught the right lessons in ethics.
By that logic I'm a christian. Personally I think this is the worst case of selective doctrine I've ever seen.
How we know is more important than what we know.
As someone's sig says "taxes buy civilisation". Phelps wants it both ways: he wants the Government to let him sue anyone who crosses him, and he doesn't want to pay for it. This, in my book, makes him a leech.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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.
Just imagine how much less national debt we would have if religions had to pay taxes. Why do we continue to give religion special status that they earned when belief was compulsory and religion controlled politics? Oh wait, in the US, religion still does control politics. Any politician who is willing to demonstrate that he is a reasonable thinking person by publicly professing non-belief in the supernatural will likely lose elections.
Just imagine how much less national debt we would have if religions had to pay taxes.
Just imagine how much less national debt we would have if corporations had to pay taxes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
However, we do think you are all delusional.
Fellow atheist here. Although, I prefer to say "I don't believe in God." instead. Yeah, I'm an atheist but atheism is developing its own dogmatism and I'm not interested, so I'm trying to distance myself from it.
Anyway, getting in people's faces about their religion is as bad as when religious folks get in ours about our lack of belief. If we show more respect for one another,maybe,just maybe most folks will chill.
Sure, there still will be the Phelps crowd and others who will have a problem, but if you'll notice, even folks of the same faith consider them (Phelps' crowd) to be kooks.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The problem with religion is this.
Let's say that we accept the theory that something needed to jumpstart the universe, and that thing does not necessarily have to follow the same rules the universe does (and thus doesn't need a creator of it's own).
What reason exactly do we have to believe that thing is the biblical god?
Couldn't it just aswell have been Zeus? Odin?
Are the Muslims right? Jews? Christians? Buddhists? Tao?
The only sane position to take is that they're all wrong, and while there might exist an omnipotent entity, it's insane to think he gives a fuck about you following a religion.
>>Religion has, historically speaking, been the greatest force for good our planet has ever seen.
The one thing religion is good at is getting otherwise good people to do, enable those that do, and believe in, terrible acts. That's it. You don't need to be religious to be charitable, as the existence of secular aid organisations around the world will attest to. But this dick measuring contest between theist vs atheist "good works" is ridiculous and belittles that same work on both sides, so I'll avoid that as much as possible. What I will say to this though is on a different aspect of the same point. You will accept, I hope, that humanity seems naturally predisposed to the belief in a God. And I imagine you will also accept the obvious statement that for a large portion of our history, religion exerted a far greater force on our lives than it does now. So when you say that, historically speaking, religion has been the greatest force of good, you must also accept that historically speaking, religion mandated that it be the only allowable force. The difference between now and then is that now it no longer has the power to enforce that mandate. In the lifetime of human society, it is only last week that you would have to be almost suicidal to admit that you did not believe in a God, when the church of that God had power over the course of your life. It is only last week that Christians were burning the philosophies of ancient Greece in the belief that any morality before Jesus was devoid of value. Religion had a stranglehold as the only acceptable front for morality - so of course, if you look back over history and notice the good things it does, you will see some religious involvement.
Religion does however retard humanity's progress. It does not do it sufficiently that we stall or move backwards, but this is something that the modern world is changing. In history, when religiosity was a problem, it killed people. It burned books. It maybe wiped out a town or village. Started a jihad that ended in the death of a tribe or culture. Maybe even instigated the odd war, leading to the deaths of thousands. Terrible as these things no doubt were, they were not enough to halt human progress. It continued inexorably upwards - I posit, without the need for religion at all. Today, when religion makes a mistake, it can take a mere modern convenience, slam it into another and kill thousands. Imagine for a moment what would happen if religion today got its hands on a real weapon. In the last hour of human history, we gained the capability for mass destruction, the likes of which would only take one more religious mistake, to not just retard human progress - or set it back - but to wipe it out completely. You can of course say, it doesn't have to be a religious mistake that does this. You're right, it doesn't. But having another finger on the trigger is not ideal, and whereas a non religious person will not want to destroy the world - the 3 great monotheisms positively look forward to it.
>>Hitchens is a frothing moron who doesn't know the first thing about what he's talking about - his sole tactic is to sound British and snotty when talking about religion. I've watched several dozens of his debates online, especially with Dinesh D'Souza (who doesn't do an especially good job defending Christianity), and I've yet to see him put together a single cogent argument. Other than, I suppose, the fact that he'll sneer at you if you believe.
Ad homimum.
one shouldn't assume that WBC are Christian
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
300 years ago, England sent all their convicts to Australia. America got all their religious nuts.
Australia got a better deal.
This shouldn't even be a story. Not even on idle.
Fred Phelps and his followers should be dragged out behind the barn, and put out of everyone's misery.
People claim that violence has never solved anything - but a good, solid dose lead in his ear would solve all of Phelp's problems.
And what good would that do? Isn't free speech protected in America? Or is it only agreed speech?
These morons have no followers other than their own "congregation" which are all related. Just how much more pathetic can they get?
They have no ability to spread their views, because they are so extreme, they even force people to question their own prejudices.
In spite of themselves, they may actually do some good.
Raise a finger against them, and they have won. Kill them and they have won. Stop them, and you become them.
Laugh at them, and nothing they do can make any difference.
Put Lookalikes on a float in a gay pride march. Use them in advertising with a slogan to the effect of "Phelps picketed, so it must be good.." Make them into a tourist attraction, do like the comic convention people did and make them look even more bat shit crazy.
Make Phelps dildos. Do what ever daft and disrespectful thing you can think of to ridicule them. And hope they never stop, because they are what you become when you try to force your views on those who don't think like you do.
These people are a joke. Treat them as such. But remember, the best comedy has a social commentary undercurrent hidden in it.
The comic con people handled it perfectly. You on the other hand, allowed them to get under your skin. You lost.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I love fundamentalist atheists. They reassure me that hatred and intolerance of others' beliefs are found in all humans, not just those who believe in one or more deities.
"Freedom of speech also means that you are to respect your fellow man's views"
NO IT FUCKING DOESN'T. Read the fucking constitution, from the goddamned Declaration of Independence all the way through the bill of rights. Freedom of speech is the GOVERNMENT being unable to silence our thoughts about the government or speaking our minds. Respect is earned, not inherently given.
And your views right now get absolutely NO respect from me with that sort of ignorance.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The man who kills any member of Phelps' crew has done something far worse than any member of WBC. He is a murderer.
He is for killing people based on their unpalatable opinions.
In particular, he is for killing someone who is a fairly good test of an American's freedom to express unpalatable opinions.
Someone who also fairly accurately represents a fundamentalist religious message ("God hates fags" - not "humans should hate fags") and exposes the angry roots of Abrahamic religion.
Someone who reminds us of several millennia of thinking about homosexuality, tweaked only in the past 40 years and extant in many parts of the world. An argument cannot be fought if its defenders are simply oppressed.
Someone, finally, whose messages are more complex than simple gay-bashing. I can guarantee you that every man you respect has at least one opinion which would make your blood boil, but you're happy to listen to everything else they say. Is it good to speak out against pedophilia in the Catholic church? To question the military's idolatrous respect of the US flag? To point out that Iraq was quite secular for an Arab nation while Bush was on a warmongering anti-Muslim campaign? To protest hate speech laws? Phelps has done all these things. And does his politically incorrect, courage-of-convictions straight talking have a place in modern debate? Certainly. If a mad cunt from the middle of nowhere can achieve that sort of international public recognition over such a long period, we all have something to learn from him.
Even if all you learn is that "God hates fags". Which is true. Abrahamic God as described in the OT hates fags.
And if this makes you not respect Abrahamic God because Abrahamic God sounds like a bit of a douche, well, all's the better.
What is there to lose by allowing Phelps to speak? He's not even wrong.
If people like Phelps cannot protest at military funerals any more, then America has lost and the American military's missions are yet more futile and other than in the spirit of defending America's freedom. If that's even possible.