Krystal is onto something...

Please continue.

I suppose you'd have to believe irrationally in the absence of God, even though no science works without God, and atheists, like everyone else, depend on God for the sun to rise, for enzymes to catalyze their appropriate reactions, and, of course, to roll the quantum dice for every elementary particle in the universe. I mean, who else could do it? Could YOU do it?

I REALLY hope the is redundant.


I wouldn't go so far as to call the article boring, but it's close. Factual, newsy, and really quiet in its opinions. I'm not surprised it gets generally civil reactions. As a writer, she's definitely a student of government.

And not collecting coins is a hobby.

Let's use Christianity as an example.

Dogma - check
Prescribed text - check
Liturgy - check

Atheism

Dogma - "there is no God"
Prescribed text - none
Liturgy - none

If someone is compensated for being discriminated over being black, or female, or gay, or a Democrat, does that make being black or female, or gay, or a Democrat a religion?

It's simply something that you desperately need to convince yourself or others of, and so you cling like a life preserver to anything that seems to validate it, regardless of its intellectual support.

Imagine that.

get the true believers all upset.

MarkCharles is no longer with us.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=277127&sub=trans

He should have called defenders of women rights "pro-deathers." That'd grant him immunity.

Alternatively, he could have called an accused murderer an "evil c*nt" and still won the immunity idol.

Too bad. He made some good points in his short time here. Ruffled a few of the wrong feathers and then got out of hand it seems.. Oh well. I've seem people tombstoned for less than that..

and unfair.

I had no personal beef with this member and the decision to ban him was a group decision by the MIRT.

You have no idea what went on regarding the decision and the final action, and your making this a personal attack against me is really out of line.

Continue to pontificate on things about which you know virtually nothing and engage in petty snarkfests that completely lack content. I don't really care. But to impugn my character and judgement in this case is just uncalled for.

You want to avoid me? Ignore is your solution. I will continue to pontificate on whatever I choose, and I could care less how you feel about it.

You pick and choose what you want to see and respond to, seemingly ignoring what I actually said, instead feigning outrage at some perceived personal attack. I feel that in light of the recent events in Religion, it was inappropriate for YOU to be the one to write his eulogy. THAT'S what I said. THAT is not a personal attack. THAT is my opinion.


Lets look at YOUR words.

He did some things that were WAY over the line. They went beyond dickish into threats and stalking and harassment. Just because he was an atheist doesn't make him beyond reproach. He fucked up in a big way, multiple times, to multiple people, and he paid the ultimate price, his DU life.

Whatever cbayer's faults, she did the right thing here, and it sounds like it was done after some good discussion by the MIR team. I wasn't privy to those conversations, but I know they were had because of MIR team members who posted in the hosts forum, which I am privy to. Reading through the post in the hosts forum, it became pretty obvious that MC had caused problems in several groups and forums for several different hosts.

It was a tough decision all the way around and the team worked very hard on it. We had a time limit to make a final decision (that's how the system works) and I would have preferred not to have been the one to pull the trigger because I knew there were some who would use it as a tool to personally attack me. But when it came down to the wire, I did it because he was continuing to relentlessly attack one of the hosts.

that it was a MIRT decision. That might have helped make it look like it wasn't just you.

MIRT works by consensus, particularly in difficult situations such as this, and a statement to that effect may have helped.

What I took exception to was the fact that out of ALL of the Hosts, cbayer was the one to PPR him, and the words she used in the explanation on his transparency page reek of personal payback.

I know that there's been personal animosity between the two, but this was definitely the right decision. If I thought otherwise, I'd be right there with you.

She tried to make it obvious why he was ppr'd, not as a personal payback but for behavior that deserved ppr'ing. Admin agreed with us.

Percentage of posts hidden: 0.59%

and he's classified as a malicious intruder...

I can't link to the relevant thread because it's in the Host forum, but here's what happened.

He posted a press release from a questionable source in LBN. When his thread was locked, he started PMing the locking host legitimately threatening messages and accusing her of being a racist homophobe for locking his thread. When the host blocked him from sending her PMs, he started trolling active threads to continue his tirade. This wasn't the first time he had gone on the same 'everyone who disagrees with me or does something I don't like is a racist homophobe' tirade, hence the malicious intruder label.

He had some pretty good ones.

Then again there was that time that he advocated the totalitarian banning of all religions under pain of law or death or something... I remember all the sane folks had to talk him out of his compound and ask him to put the gun down that day. Still, it's sad to see him go.