How can Dawkins walk around scot-free after what he did to this poor Christian boy?
worldnetdaily.com/index.php? … geId=81459
For shame!
Sorry for the kid, but it’s the dad’s fault, not Dawkins’. If the boy hadn’t been raised in a fantasy world, he might have had an easier time accepting reality.
But, of course, one wouldn’t expect the father to recognize that. As the dad admits, he’s early in the grieving process. First comes anger then denial. Seems to me he’s midway between them.
Well, it’s sad the young man killed himself, of course.
Had he been properly raised with a faith in himself, his family, community and the world we live in (rather than just faith in a particular god), and with an understanding that the value of life is inherent rather than grounded in a particular religion, do you think the outcome would have been different?
His relative’s words are quite irritating, though:
Idiot. Typical, though. “If there’s no faith, there’s no morality.” 
Typical misunderstanding. It’s amazing how many idiots out there think atheists don’t have morality, how many believe that there is no basis for morality except in religion. It’s mind-numbing.
One has to place the blame somewhere. Perhaps the young man wanted to test the hypothesis.
what a stunningly loaded website that WND is!
thanks for sharing.
Just where does this (woooo!) “college professor” get off trying to undermine his students’ faith in Intelligent Design and the Rapture? Too bad this boy didn’t go to a real Bible-believing college, that takes seriously its responsibility to prepare the leaders of tomorrow.
And sorry, I don’t buy the idea that atheists have any morals. Suppose there’s this guy about to jump off a ledge. And the police say “Don’t do it!”
“Why not? There is no God, so everything is permitted.”
So the cops look at each other, then pick up the bullhorn and say
(a) “Why that doesn’t follow at all! In fact the major ethical theories–whether Aristotelian, Utilitarian, or Kantian–do not assume theism, and certainly do not cling to the ‘divine command’ theory.”
–or–
(b) “That’s what you think, foolish lad. But if you jump, be prepared to find yourself in hell a few minutes later.”
Ah yes–that’s why the father here is in so much grief. He knows that right now, his son is…in the bad place, being subjected to who knows what horrible punishment.
[quote=“Dragonbones”]His relative’s words are quite irritating, though:
Idiot. Typical, though. “If there’s no faith, there’s no morality.”
Typical misunderstanding. It’s amazing how many idiots out there think atheists don’t have morality, how many believe that there is no basis for morality except in religion. It’s mind-numbing.[/quote]
It seems that isn’t the judgment of the relative, that’s what the boy actually believed. He believed that there was no God, no afterlife, and no concept of right or wrong, merely social consequences. These are not irrational beliefs, though they may be reached by an irrational process of reasoning.
These comments from the father were rather odd:
[quote]“Here’s another thing,” he continued. "If my son was a professing homosexual, and a professor challenged him to read [a book called] ‘Preventing Homosexuality’… If my son was gay and [the book] made him feel bad, hopeless, and he killed himself, and that came out in the press, there would be an outcry.
"He would have been a victim of a hate crime and the professor would have been forced to undergo sensitivity training, and there may have even been a wrongful death lawsuit.
“But because he’s a Christian, I don’t even get a return telephone call,” the father told WND.[/quote]
Would there really be an outcry if such a book was given to a ‘professing homosexual’, and they killed themselves as a result?
Definitely.
The backlash would be huge.
Hey, I’d like to read that book, but I don’t want to buy/own it. Anyone have a copy they can lend me? 
The God Delusion? I have a copy. You’re welcome to it. I try to spread the Good News.
Definitely.
The backlash would be huge.[/quote]
Ok, that’s strange. Why? Why is it any different to the Christian kid?
Definitely.
The backlash would be huge.[/quote]
Ok, that’s strange. Why? Why is it any different to the Christian kid?[/quote]
One involves sexual orientation, which in turn involves primal feelings a person has limited or no control over, and which a person may easily have deep seated fears of being exposed, due to common social mores. The other is purely an intellectual and moral question, which could hardly be excluded from academic discussion.
With all sympathy to the family, it seems clear to me that the issues which caused his suicide could not reasonably be attributed to his reading the book in question.
Orwell was right.
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]How can Dawkins walk around scot-free after what he did to this poor Christian boy? :blah: :loco: :liar:
worldnetdaily.com/index.php? … geId=81459
For shame![/quote]
First, you consider WingNutDaily to be credible? That doesn’t speak well for yourself.
Second, only the surviving genetic relative is around to talk. How do we know the suicide wasn’t drivern by an abusive parent brow-beating and destroying the boy emotionally? Or perhaps if the “father” didn’t have a gun in the house, the boy might not have tried suicide by that or another method.
Since you seem intent on falsely blaming a book, I can play that game too: the boy killed himself because he realized he had wasted his life reading the bible, or maybe the bible made him kill himself - the boy decided to hurry up and meet jesus.
If you find that tasteless, so are canards and weak attempts to shift blame and avoid finding the root cause. Try to find facts before you jump to conclusions.
That’s all that needs to be seen.
So this makes difference how, exactly?
Not having been a first hand witness myself, and not having any personal knowledge of the family, the boy, or the situation, I concur entirely with your well reasoned and evidence based judgment.
And so on, and so forth. When you’ve been here a while, you’ll get the hang of ScreamingJesus. You’ll understand when he’s being serious and when he’s being sarcastic. Most of the time. In this case you’ve wasted your spleen, since he doesn’t hold the views you’ve attributed to him.
For the love of god! The kid read a book and went and topped himself. This suggests to me that he had problems that FAR exeeded what most folk would consider “normal.” The boy was suffering from serious mental illness.
Call it a result of deep-seated religious conviction turned upside down if you like. But killing yourself because some total stranger says your conviction is a crock of shit? I call it Darwinism.
It’s a shame no one detected this serious mental illness before he killed himself.
By all accounts he was already an atheist by the time he killed himself, and had been for some time. So it seems to me that he didn’t kill himself because some total stranger said his conviction was ‘a crock of shit’.
The fact that most of the world isn’t atheist makes me want to kill myself.
Hang in there, jimi !!!