Atheists et al., other than for entertainment, is there a reason why you speak as you do to the poor Fundies?

Question

A poster said I shouldn't spend valuable time playing catch with the R&S Fundies, and I'm wondering if he, or she, isn't right on the mark? Gosh, I'm such a 'forgiving' chap with most of the human folk I come upon. Maybe I should join up with fellow atheists here who carry on amongst the Fundy babblers and their verbal assaults with merely a shrug or a sigh. I admit that there are more important questions to ask and answers to give. Doubters, skeptics, agnostics, and atheists only: your advice, please.

Answer 1

It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Answer 2

I answer truthfully when the fundies ask a question .When a person answers and it is not what they wanted to hear ,they are gang up on the answerer and either FLAG them or give them a THUMBS DOWN.
Why ask questions if you don`t want intelligent answers.I think the fundies should have their Own Site with the ability to Screen out any non-religious people .This way they can all agree and BORE themselves to death.

Answer 3

There's a lot of full on debate goes on here.

It can't hurt to be a bit light hearted sometimes

Answer 4

I speak that way because they won't let us alone and I am sick of it. If I change my mind I know where to go so leave me alone!! Staying on my case is just driving me farther away.

Answer 5

We live small shallow lives and regularly get beat up on by those with more power than us, it's fun to come and condescend those that are below us, in order to bring ourselves up.

Answer 6

Their goal is to be laughed at and ridiculed. Shouldn't we give them at least that much respect and fulfill this wish of theirs?

Answer 7

I've been very nice today. I haven't drank at all.

Answer 8

You are pompous so you'll fit right in...

Answer 9

since this is religion we should address everyone
i need respect more than sympathy

Answer 10

I like to think of it as a Public Service.

It is the moral responsibility and ethical duty of rational people to protect vulnerable minds from being contaminated by Bronze Age myths and willful ignorance. Beyond that, Christianity and Islam represent a HUGE THREAT to the well-being and survival of our country and to the whole world... and so it must be confronted.

I prefer the term 'rationalist', or 'free thinker', as opposed to 'atheist', 'agnostic', or 'unbeliever', since the former capture more of the people who think that religious beliefs are stupid and irrelevant than do the latter. Those terms capture the main reason that people BECOME rationalists... i.e., they have learned how to THINK properly. Once someone learns how to think properly, religious belief is one of the first casualties. Religious belief... particularly the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)... simply cannot withstand the glaring light of reason and critical thought. It just evaporates. Poof. The fact that Christians assert and promote such ridiculous beliefs is a clear indication that they CAN'T (or WON'T) think properly.

Rational people recognize that SOME of the people (a few) who visit this forum are truly, sincerely seeking answers... with an open mind (willing to honestly consider alternative possibilities), and with intellectual honesty (willingness to freely question and doubt their own presumptions). That being the case, it is the MORAL OBLIGATION of rational people to HELP them keep their minds open, and to make them aware of some of those alternative possibilities. Inevitably, those alternative possibilities DO NOT include things like a 6,000 year-old earth and heaven, a solid 'firmament' structure (the sky) separating the earth from heaven (terrarium earth), talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys, a shepherd staff that turns into an asp, demons chased out of people and into pigs, friendly spirits, evil spirits, walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, food falling from the sky, conception by a ghost, people raised from the dead, the sun stopping in its tracks, parting seas, people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky), world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain, creating people from a dust bunny and a rib, a magical tree of knowledge, god speaking from a burning bush... and ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker.

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"A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism” ~ Donald Morgan
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So, when someone comes along in a PUBLIC VENUE such as this one, regurgitating dogmatic slogans and bible verses, and the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant gaggle of Bronze Age fishermen and peripatetic goat herders, and declares them to represent some kind of cosmic 'TRUTH' (without the least bit of credible evidence)... well, by golly, that just HAS TO BE confronted... and scorned... and ridiculed.

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"Myth has been needed precisely because we were not in a position to understand the universe on its own terms, through the language of natural law and direct examination of its workings on a material, rational level. Once that process of understanding is completed—and we are well on our way to achieving that—the use of myth can be discarded. Its continuing retention is already proving to be counter-productive." - Earl Doherty

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"I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do."  ~ D. Dale Gulledge
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In order to have a rational view of the universe, it is necessary that one possess the mental faculties that facilitate reason, logic and critical thought. The things that are entailed by Christian beliefs demonstrate, beyond any doubt, a LACK of those faculties. Christians do serve a useful purpose in this forum, though... as a classic 'bad example'. They obligingly trot out assertions about impossible happenings and circumstances, and magical delusions, and glaring misconceptions about science and nature and the universe... which can then be rationally confronted and exposed, and their preposterousness revealed.

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"A country without village idiots is not worth living in. Without them there is no way of knowing who are sane. ~ Oliver St. John Gogarty
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"The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby.  Let us be duly thankful for our blessings."  ~ Garrett Hardin
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Rational people are NOT trying to CONVERT Christians; we are trying to protect people FROM Christians, and the insidious mind killing delusions and willful ignorance which they seek to spread, as if they were some kind of organized, dogmatic insanity virus.

However, rational people generally DO respect everyone's right (in the privacy of their own minds) to delude themselves in whatever fashion they may deem fit.

Science, logic, reason, and critical thought have long been regarded (by religious people) as the enemies of religion. Considering that those are the tools of highly intelligent people, it should not come as a huge shock to learn that intelligence (or lack of it) has some connection to religious belief. In fact, there are about 40 studies, conducted over the past 80 years or so, that reveal a statistically significant NEGATIVE CORRELATION between intelligence and religiosity. In plainer language, that means that they found that the more intelligent a person is, the LESS likely that person is to be religious... or, conversely, the LESS intelligent a person is, the MORE likely that person is to be religious.

If you think about it, those findings make a lot of sense. Intelligence tests mainly provide an indication of reasoning ability and problem solving ability... logic, reason and critical thought. These are the very qualities that see through religion, and recognize it for what it is; i.e., religion cannot survive the glaring light of reason and critical thought. This was well understood by important figures in religious history. This is why the early church destroyed all the 'tainted' (non-canonical) writings, which were in conflict with dogma... Greek philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, engineering... all the good stuff. By this means, Christianity dragged humanity directly into the Dark Ages, and set back human progress between 800 - to - 1,000 years. (If it hadn't have been for Christianity, Christopher Columbus would probably have been going on a mission to set up a mining colony in the asteroid belt, or something like that, rather than trying to prove that the world was a sphere, and find a shortcut to the Orient.)

Just to illustrate the point, let's see what Martin Luther, the 'father' of protestantism, had to say about 'reason' and secular knowledge:

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." ~ Martin Luther

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason... Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." ~ Martin Luther

Christianity is essentially a criminal business enterprise... in fact, it is the world's longest running and most successful Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scam. The product they are selling is the illusion of 'salvation'... and the 'pay plan' doesn't kick in until after you're dead, and there's nobody there with whom you can register your complaint about having been scammed. Meanwhile the VICTIMS (having been deceived into believing that it is their God-given duty) are out there busily recruiting MORE victims. What a racket! FORTUNATELY, it only works on those who are gullible enough, and sufficiently lacking in critical thinking skills, to fall for it, and buy in to the prepackaged delusion. UNfortunately, THAT seems to account for about 75% of the population of the USA. (There are a lot more people who DON'T know how to think properly than there are people who DO know how to think properly.) That is why there are a lot more religious people in the USA than there are 'Free-thinkers'... including Atheists. Also, Christians are generally too dense to realize that proselytizing (spreading the 'good news') is a key element of the Christian MLM MARKETING PLAN, which was instituted after Christianity lost the political power that had previously allowed them to simply torture and kill anybody who did not comply. Now, they just try to pester and annoy people to death, through persistent obnoxiousness. If you stop to think about it, you will realize that Christians are very much like the Borg, on Star Trek Next Generation: "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." I would not be surprised to learn that thoughts of Christianity provided the 'creative spark' for the Borg concept.

Interestingly, statistics on supernatural beliefs count the USA on a par with backward, developing Third World nations, rather than among modern, advanced industrial powers.

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"Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered." ~ Victor J. Stenger

"Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure."  ~ Harvard Lampoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm
http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/home.htm