Atheism kills!

Yeah, Jimi,

You’ve still got your heleecopters! :laughing:

[quote=“zender”]Yeah, Jimi,

You’ve still got your heleecopters! :laughing:[/quote]
I find that helicopters bring me closer to Jesus.
:heart:

Bah, that’s just a theory! :raspberry:
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Condolences and empathy to the family, from this immoral agnostic…

Sad for the kid, but hopefully his parents can see past the desire to blame his “secular” school (or suggest that all Christians need to be pulled from public schools because they’re involved in a “culture war” - scary thought).

If the guy’s faith in God was so strong, why did he crumble so easily? If his family is that religious, his death must have been “God’s will” anyway, right? They should know: Judge not, etc etc…

I haven’t read “the God Delusion”, but I quite enjoyed one of Dawkins’ other books, “The Blind Watchmaker” which details his use of simple computer models & elementary statistical analysis (it actually was interesting - mostly) to show how evolution most likely functions. He makes a convincing case against random creation of particular organisms. (i.e. a 1:10,000 chance of incrementally evolving over time, vs. a 1x10^32 chance of spontaneously poofing out of thin air).

He notes that God could conceivably have been involved in the process, but “His” presence ends up being unnecessary.

If Christians were smart, they’d realize you can have both evolution & God (he wrote the code & set things spinning - far more elegant than ham-handed creationism). Unfortunately, that only works if churches admit their doctrine & dogma is fallible & predominately wrong. Of course they won’t because then they lose all their $$ & power, which is the entire basis for organized religion & churches in the first place.

[quote=“Fortigurn”]
So this makes difference how, exactly?[/quote]

Why would you try to convince someone in the first case? As far as I can see, it can really only be a case of trying to impose your personal morality on another person, which I find reprehensible.

The latter case is a fair intellectual question. How could it be excluded from academic discussion?

Perhaps I could imagine some scenarios, in which a predisposition to cause oneself harm was evident, in which it would be ill-advised to give a person such a book. Assuming that wasn’t the case, which in the absence of evidence to the contrary seems reasonable to me, and in the context of academic discussion, I can’t fault it.

Stupid **** of a father, trying to make a stupid point out of his son’s death. I guess he’s being an arse out of grief, though. Suicide is the most common cause of death, along with traffic accidents, for males between 16-25. While it’s always shitty when a youngster dies, nobody ever ‘causes’ a suicide other than the person who dies.

Kids should read as many books as possible when they are young and have the time; the Bible, all of what’s out there. Good on him for having a faith, but what sort of parent sends a kid out into the world with so few resources, he kills himself over a challenge to a belief?

(I almost got the school trip to Belgium vetoed after an incident with next door’s tortoise. At the time, I thought Tilly was far improved, but in hindsight… If they’d read the book, they’d have known I was also in a ‘travel is bad’ phase anyway.)

Do you know the cartoon about the king who was informed, dead cold, by two scientists in white coats, that he was not a king and that his kingdom, country, and people were imaginary and didn’t really exist, and was merely an experimental setting to study the psychological effects on the individual of being raised a king? Such is the same as those Christians raising their children with these outrageous beliefs. I mean, look at this fragment: “[he] blogged against abortion and for family values”. Programmed set of beliefs, right. The parents themselves are guilty in my opinion.

“Reprehensible”…! Well how dare you try to impose your values on me!

:no-no:

Catcher in the Rye, Helter Skelter, Taxi Driver, and now The God Delusion are all included in the pantheon of killer works of art.

“Reprehensible”…! Well how dare you try to impose your values on me!

:no-no:[/quote]

In the cause of what intellectual argument would you give a book “Preventing Homosexuality” to a homosexual person?

You didn’t provide any evidence that any of those people were motivated by the Bible to kill. You’re better off with the Salem witch hunts and similar examples.[/quote]

Oh, for Christ sake, fortigurrrrrrn, do I have to spell everything out for you again?

Since you’re too lazy to click on the links I posted:

[quote]On 11 May 2003, Laney, an East Texas housewife, locked her sleeping husband in their bedroom and then went to Joshua and Luke’s room. She escorted Luke to a rock garden in the front yard of their home, which is encircled by a white split-rail fence. Laney told her son to lie down with his head on a rock and she took another large rock, raised it over her head and brought it down onto his skull. She then killed Joshua in the same manner. Both children were found dead with large stones lying on their chests. Aaron, the third son, 14 months old, was attacked with a rock in his crib but did not die.

During the investigation, Laney claimed God ordered her to bash in her sons’ heads[/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deanna_Laney_murders

[quote]A woman accused of killing her 10-month-old daughter felt that God was commanding her to cut off the baby’s arms as well as her own limbs, a state psychiatrist testified Monday.

Dena Schlosser saw a TV news story about a boy being mauled by a lion and thought it was a sign of the apocalypse, a delusion that led her to sever the arms of her baby, David Self said.

“She felt she was basically commanded, in essence, to cut Maggie’s arms off and her own arms off, and her legs and her head, and in some way to give them to God”[/quote]
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01197.html

[quote] Andrea told a detective that she had to kill her five children, whom she home-schooled, because she had failed them as a mother. Jurrors saw police photographs of the bathtub where she drowned them one by one. . .

Andrea tried to explain. “It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren’t righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them they could never be saved,” she told the jail psychiatrist. “They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.” . . .

Dietz did not tell the jury that the religious overtones of her delusions — a mother doomed for the fires of Hell — could be linked to what religious influences she did have in her life. She and Rusty had their own Bible study in their home. . . .[/quote]
time.com/time/nation/article … 45,00.html

[quote]Manson was an advid reader of the Bible and often quoted from the Book of Revelation. In December 1968, he and Charles Watson listened to the new Beatle’s album, The White Album, and Manson became obsessed with some of the songs, especially Helter Skelter and Revolution 9. His interpretation of the lyrics, woven in with his view of Revelations, resulted in a philosophy which envisioned an apocalypse brought on by a race war of blacks killing whites.

According to his philosophy, the blacks would win, but would ultimately turn to Manson and The Family to help lead the new world.[/quote]
crime.about.com/od/murder/p/charliemanson2.htm

And, if those are still too remote for you, how about. . .

3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf.

The entire population of the earth, human and non-human (with the exception of one boat full of creatures), KILLLED BY GOD himself in Noah’s flood.

. . . and of course the millions killed in the Crusades (ancient and modern)

[color=#FF0000]SO I ASK OF YE – AGAIN – WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES CHRISTIANITY KILL SO MANY PEOPLE?[/color]

“Reprehensible”…! Well how dare you try to impose your values on me!

:no-no:[/quote]

In the cause of what intellectual argument would you give a book “Preventing Homosexuality” to a homosexual person?[/quote]
That’s like closing the back door after the gerbil’s escaped.

And the Bible. :notworthy: :angel: :discodance: :wanker:

And, why can’t we all be atheists, so the world may live in peace? :rainbow:[/quote]
We should include the Bible and Koran and the Torah.
Was there ever an atheist who killed anybody?

Stalin! (Woo-hoo!) Also the Red Skull!

Well my personal beliefs say that it’s okay to impose my personal beliefs on others. But yours don’t. So I have the right to condemn you, but not you me. Got it?

And when I meet a depraved homosexual, I give them a warm smile–because Jesus loves the sin, not the sinner. Then I ask the Holy Ghost to make whoever it is go with me out of the restroom into a place where we may fellowship more comfortably. Glory!

I’m pretty sure that cartoon was the Far Side, by the way. One of the local papers reprinted it a few months ago.

Mao as well, but were Mao and Stalin also very ideologically driven, or was is just naked greed and lust for power? I don’t know of anyone who actually committed murder in the name of atheism.

PolPot?

[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]How can Dawkins walk around scot-free after what he did to this poor Christian boy?

worldnetdaily.com/index.php? … geId=81459

For shame![/quote]

@Screaming Jesus

What about the poor minds and souls religion had destroyed and desecrated over the years ??

[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“Fortigurn”]
So this makes difference how, exactly?[/quote]

Why would you try to convince someone in the first case? As far as I can see, it can really only be a case of trying to impose your personal morality on another person, which I find reprehensible.[/quote]

Now ask the same question of the alleged professor who allegedly recommended ‘The God Delusion’.

Why isn’t the former a fair intellectual question?

I haven’t faulted it either. I’m just surprised that the clear acknowledgment that if this were a gay guy who had killed himself with some Fundamentalist Christian homosexual ‘conversion’ literature under his bed, that there would have been a righteous outcry.

Since plenty of atheists believe they’re also involved in this culture war, that concept isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Perhaps his capacity for free thought was sufficient to overcome his faith. I’m sure the average atheist would applaud this.

This is a lot more complex than you think. Quite apart from the fact that only the minority of Christians are predeterminists, there’s a theological distinction between God’s decretal will and His volitional will (sometimes other terms are used for the same concepts). Without hard and fast definitions, it’s not very meaningful to say what is or isn’t ‘God’s will’. As for ‘judge not’, I don’t see his parents judging him.

[quote]I haven’t read “the God Delusion”, but I quite enjoyed one of Dawkins’ other books, “The Blind Watchmaker” which details his use of simple computer models & elementary statistical analysis (it actually was interesting - mostly) to show how evolution most likely functions. He makes a convincing case against random creation of particular organisms. (i.e. a 1:10,000 chance of incrementally evolving over time, vs. a 1x10^32 chance of spontaneously poofing out of thin air).

He notes that God could conceivably have been involved in the process, but “His” presence ends up being unnecessary.[/quote]

I’ve read it twice, definitely one of his best. This is why authors should stay with their core competencies when writing.

I hate to break it to you, but plenty of Christians (and entire churches), have already decided to have both evolution and God. In fact that process started well over 100 years ago. Are you aware that the concept of pre-Adamic humans was first proposed by Christians? And around 200 years before Darwin? Are you aware that the concept of animals and men developing gradually through a series of biological changes and various different species was first proposed by a Christian in a Christian work (‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’, 1844), to which Darwin later acknowledged an intellectual debt? I have an electronic facsimile if you want a copy. You will be interested to note that it proposed that God’s active involvement in the process of this development was unnecessary (as Darwin would later argue).

Furthermore, the vast majority of Christians and churches are fully prepared to admit their doctrines are fallible (as opposed to false), and only those who claim to have received ‘infallible’ dogmas (such as the Roman Catholics, Mormons, SDAs and JWs), have any problem with it. As it happens, the Catholics were one of the first of the big churches to agree with evolution, which they found easy specifically because it conflicted with no dogma which had previously been declared infallible.

So much for what churches wouldn’t do ‘because then they lose all their $$ & power, which is the entire basis for organized religion & churches in the first place’. That’s on a par with saying atheists won’t admit that there’s a God because then they’d have to start behaving morally.

Every atheist state which has ever been instituted has sought to suppress religion violently, and every one of them has blood on their hands as a result. Atheists establish an atheist state (which is different to a secular state), on the grounds that religion is a threat to atheism, which they believe is the ideology to which people must adhere. Religious people are killed specifically because they are religious.

You didn’t provide any evidence that any of those people were motivated by the Bible to kill. You’re better off with the Salem witch hunts and similar examples.

I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. If you had said “If an atheist had been given religious literature, after reading which he committed suicide, there would have been an outcry…” I wouldn’t argue with you. I would note that religious groups hand out such literature like popcorn, though admittedly that is not the question at hand.

The existence or non-existence of God is a fair intellectual question. God either exists, or he doesn’t.

I can’t see the comparison to whether someone is homosexual or not. I can’t envision any scenario where someone would try to dissuade someone from their sexual orientation, unless it was based on the rules of their personal system of morality. it’s not as if the book would be called “The Homosexual Delusion” and would imply that homosexuality did not in fact exist. It was called “Preventing Homosexuality” I believe, with all that implies.

Of course, within reason anyone has the right to say anything to anyone else, or convince them of any position. I however don’t see a moral or intellectual equivalency between the two acts in question.

By the way, I haven’t made any “clear acknowledgment” that there would be a “righteous outcry”, if that’s what you were implying. The wording there is not clear, I think you mistyped a bit. I was simply answering your query as to why the two situations were different. FWIW I doubt there would be. I think the broad reaction would probably be similar–questioning the actual reasons for the tragedy. However assuming this was a normal university, there would surely be a local reaction there, or even on a broader scale, questioning the academic basis for giving the book, which would seem to me to be justified.

I can only think of the communist states in this regard, and I believe they assault religion on the grounds that it is a threat to their political power. They have tried to subordinate it when possible, so as to eliminate that possibility, while allowing it to exist in some form.

I’m sure oppression on the basis of religion has often taken a purer form, though I don’t think either issue really has much bearing on the philosophical questions at issue here. I will say that in 2008 believing in no or the wrong religion is far more likely to cause you a problem from religious fanatics than from atheists of any stripe.

You didn’t provide any evidence that any of those people were motivated by the Bible to kill. You’re better off with the Salem witch hunts and similar examples.[/quote]

Oh, for Christ sake, fortigurrrrrrn, do I have to spell everything out for you again?

Since you’re too lazy to click on the links I posted:

[quote]On 11 May 2003, Laney, an East Texas housewife, locked her sleeping husband in their bedroom and then went to Joshua and Luke’s room. She escorted Luke to a rock garden in the front yard of their home, which is encircled by a white split-rail fence. Laney told her son to lie down with his head on a rock and she took another large rock, raised it over her head and brought it down onto his skull. She then killed Joshua in the same manner. Both children were found dead with large stones lying on their chests. Aaron, the third son, 14 months old, was attacked with a rock in his crib but did not die.

During the investigation, Laney claimed God ordered her to bash in her sons’ heads[/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deanna_Laney_murders

[quote]A woman accused of killing her 10-month-old daughter felt that God was commanding her to cut off the baby’s arms as well as her own limbs, a state psychiatrist testified Monday.

Dena Schlosser saw a TV news story about a boy being mauled by a lion and thought it was a sign of the apocalypse, a delusion that led her to sever the arms of her baby, David Self said.

“She felt she was basically commanded, in essence, to cut Maggie’s arms off and her own arms off, and her legs and her head, and in some way to give them to God”[/quote]
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01197.html

[quote] Andrea told a detective that she had to kill her five children, whom she home-schooled, because she had failed them as a mother. Jurrors saw police photographs of the bathtub where she drowned them one by one. . .

Andrea tried to explain. “It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren’t righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them they could never be saved,” she told the jail psychiatrist. “They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.” . . .

Dietz did not tell the jury that the religious overtones of her delusions — a mother doomed for the fires of Hell — could be linked to what religious influences she did have in her life. She and Rusty had their own Bible study in their home. . . .[/quote]
time.com/time/nation/article … 45,00.html

[quote]Manson was an advid reader of the Bible and often quoted from the Book of Revelation. In December 1968, he and Charles Watson listened to the new Beatle’s album, The White Album, and Manson became obsessed with some of the songs, especially Helter Skelter and Revolution 9. His interpretation of the lyrics, woven in with his view of Revelations, resulted in a philosophy which envisioned an apocalypse brought on by a race war of blacks killing whites.

According to his philosophy, the blacks would win, but would ultimately turn to Manson and The Family to help lead the new world.[/quote]
crime.about.com/od/murder/p/charliemanson2.htm

And, if those are still too remote for you, how about. . .

3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf.

The entire population of the earth, human and non-human (with the exception of one boat full of creatures), KILLLED BY GOD himself in Noah’s flood.

. . . and of course the millions killed in the Crusades (ancient and modern)

[color=#FF0000]SO I ASK OF YE – AGAIN – WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES CHRISTIANITY KILL SO MANY PEOPLE?[/color]

I’ll take a stab at that.

You’re pulling examples of whacko murders from a culture which is predominantly Christian. Since a large proportion (something like a quarter*) of schizophrenics have religious delusions, it’s not surprising that the contents of the delusions would be Christian in such a culture.

Schizophrenia made them kill. Living in a Christian culture gave Christian-themed content to their delusions, but Christianity didn’t ‘make them kill’. Mental illness did.