You know that it is within the core of those who follow evangelical forms of Christianity to say and believe those kind of things expressed. So, why let yourself become angry about it? Ignore is your best recourse, IMO. You aren't going to change them or their attitudes/opinions/beliefs with all the "F...K- offs" in the world.

I also find religious believers' use of the "other ways of knowing" the holier than thou, the "we know something you don't know" kind of attitude rather demeaning. They are free to proclaim that THEY THEMSELVES KNOW THE TRUE CHRISTIANITY, as they shout it out over and over, and ignore the threats to our democracy posed by all the OTHER forms of Christianity trying to overthrow everything from Roe v Wade to what is taught to our children in public schools as "science" and by whom it is taught, (see NH bill to require background and political affiliation disclosures of all school teachers teaching evolution).

Religious believers seem to object only to people being angry at their fellow religious believers. They never seem to be really angry at all at attacks upon Muslims, attacks upon an atheist teenager and her family, graffiti upon temples, etc.



The use of the F word seems to piss them off more than anything else, for sure. Use of that word, to them, means someone is angry at them, and they don't like people being angry at good old god-fearing Christians. My observations only.

look at how much more response that thread got than if it had been in the religion forum, where only about a dozen or two people ever post anything, and only about the same half dozen respond to any one thread before it dies from lack of interest.

I had a lot of fun in that thread.

and one thing that pisses me off is that a believer will post something either blatantly inflammatory or clearly imply something inflammatory, and then, when they're called on it, respond with something like, "I never said that. You're just interpreting it that way." There's at least one person over in the Religion forum who pulls that shit all the time and never owns up to it.

"Sure, I may have asked, 'Is it possible to be bigoted against a bigot?' but I never called that person who was being discriminated against--and threatened--a bigot. You atheists and your being able to accurately infer my exact intentions from what I wrote. Pfft. You're all crazy. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to smugly pretending I'm above it all."

Threaten them with loss in belief in their gods. Threaten them with feeling alien to their religion. Threaten them with an identity crisis when religion plays such an important part of their identity.

Oh wait!!! That's EXACTLY what we DO do to them!!

I guess that's why they threaten us with their fairy tale Hell.

and I imagine more people got curious and read your post than would have read it had it not been hidden since it was a long one.

Smug Christians are always hard to take. Besides, I'd love to know how one bows one's knees in the absence of kneecapping. However, my response might have been less an attack against a smug, patronizing nitwit and more along the lines of "Oh really? I tend to think sufficient experience of life on this planet will cause you to stand up against oppression of all types, including institutionalized religious oppression." I might or might not have been testy enough to add a "bless your heart."

None of my posts have been hidden so far but since I just called pRick Santorum's god a schmuck, that is likely to change shortly.

Religious people on DU are at a disadvantage on the subject of atheist versus theist arguments.

Insulting religion without making direct attacks against any person is really easy to do. Terms like "sky daddy" indirectly belittle the believer, but how can a believer indirectly belittle a nonbeliever? There is nothing for them to latch onto.

I think this disadvantage causes frustration, and some lash out more directly to demonstrate their feelings. When jury members read these lash outs, they may feel sympathetic to the disadvantage, and therefore vote to leave some personal attacks.

I am only trying to increase understanding of my perception of what is happening on DU, and if I misrepresented a believer's or juror's motivation and frustration with this post, then I apologize. Please feel free to correct me.

has been on a downhill slide since the 08 Primaries. We have been overwhelmed with republican-lite assholes. The only thing that keeps me around is this group. Living in the bible belt, it is the one place where I can say what I think without fear of reprisal.

you let your emotions take over and got the result you expected and perhaps craved. Your "why" is fine, your "how" is in need of attention if you mean to secure higher ground.

It's not us who have the complete hegemony of a super-majority, and use it like a sledgehammer with no restraint or remorse in every facet of American society.

It's not us forcing our opinions into law and politics.

It's not us who gleefully dream of seeing those who disagree with us burned forever in agony by a "loving" father-figure.

I'd say that we would have to go far beyond being a bit testily impatient in the very few internet fora where we get a noticeable voice to lose the REAL high-ground when you honestly consider this.

are afraid to ruffle any feathers.

Calling somebody a "pompous ass" is.

I do think that tells us something, though.

.... since everybody REALLY, deep down inside, knows heaven & hell are made up stories (yeah, veryly, even fundies!), condemning atheists to a torment that everyone knows will not happen is not as bad a saying "fuck you".

That's how you can give as good as you get from them. Just smile and say "You know it's a fairytale. You KNOW it."

I'm sorry, but it takes SO MUCH ENERGY for fundies to keep up their "faith". You know when they're lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting to fall asleep, it occurs to them, however briefly, that it's all BS.
For me, being an atheist has never been any kind of effort. I've always been this way, even when I was expected to go to church (which I did to make others happy... and not get demerits at prep-school). I even played with Tarot cards, but to tell the truth, I was more interested in the occult-y artwork and their history than thinking they actually did anything. But now, I just use no energy at all trying to remain atheist. Just look at the energy and $$$$ religion spends keeping reality at bay! I don't worry about anything supernatural. Reality is enough for me... and it's amazing! And science tells me in the most concrete sense that I am made from the cosmos, and related directly to everyone else, and whatever I do, no matter how insignificant to my culture, it will make a huge difference eventually. These things are so concrete, you can back them up with evidence. There's no need for me to force Stone Age myths into relevancy. That effort is just too great and unrewarding. All I have to do is look around at a world without supernatural anything and know I'm literally part of it.

If your dispute is with this awful, nauseating religion, don't get people to ban you for the insignificant shit like puffing your intensity with ditch language.

Madeleine Murray-O'Hare did the same damn thing, she showed a general obnoxiousness as part of her cause, and what happened? It got her and her family murdered by somebody who wasn't even religious, wasn't even involved with the forces she struggled against. After all she did, her name will fall into obscurity because she can't even be held up as a martyr to the cause, but as somebody who died stupidly because she had well-honed arsenal of abusive language and got distracted with her aim.

Moral of the story: if you're fighting against something powerful, don't draw neutral fire, too.

Are you really so clueless as to believe O'Hair was murdered for cussing? Or even for being obnoxious?

And of course she is falling into such obscurity that we all know her name, and she springs to your own mind so readily?

She got killed in response to using her magazine to chase a personal vendetta because she convinced herself she could say whatever she wanted, however way she wanted, no matter who she offended -- and that was, somehow, moral. It turned her very bitter, in which case her judgment and turn of phrase became even worse with time. You can be as obtuse as you want about that lesson, saying that, well, cussing wasn't the only thing involved. Yeah, right. It's still not wise to draw neutral fire, no matter how you do it. It's not smart to get your post taken down for using words that have no meaning and do nothing for your message except color in its emotional tone.

I happen to be contemporary with O'Hair, and talked to her grand daughter, Robin, months before they and Jon were kidnapped and murdered. So, I remember reading the very issue, the very article, that sewed the vendetta. So, of course, I remember her. But secularists of coming generations won't. Secularism, and atheism in particular, stagnated under her influence.

"somebody who died stupidly because she had well-honed arsenal of abusive language"

Your words. Own them or retract them.

You seem to have forgotten that clause, and can't figure out what the whole sentence implies. You think by owning it that it undercuts anything I've said, or that I'm uncomfortable with it? I own it, of course.

If that's all you have to say, then this subject has run its course. Take what you want or can from it.

As a good man and fellow atheist once said in another time on another internet, "I don't hate your god, I hate YOU!"

I've said this before, I said it in that thread and I'll say it now - I was raised an Episcopalian. If you aren't familiar, it is basically Catholic light. A member of the Anglican Union, the Church of England in the US. I was baptized and then confirmed and my confirmation took place in the National Cathedral in Washington DC. I hold many of those memories with great affection. I KNOW the Christian faith. I understand and am familiar with its true roots. I understand how it expanded.

What I find amusing about your post and the others that express a similar sentiment is that I, as an Atheist, am supposed to be polite to people who condemn me to an eternity of torture.

Really? "Ditch Language"?

But telling me with a wink and a nod that I'll "get it someday" whatever that 'it' is and knowing full well the entire motif behind that idea - the torture for the wicked, the reward of eternal paradise for the 'saved' etc, - is chock full of the most horrific, nasty, terrible, nightmarish atrocities, is all.....well.....perfectly acceptable.

Right?

It is perfectly fine in polite society to tell a COMPLETE stranger that "One day your knees will bow". That is looked upon as being just yummy. Perfectly fine. I am supposed to swallow it completely and noiselessly, as if the person had given me the recipe for the worlds best brownies or something. And I am naughty for pointing out that I find the violence inferred to be a concern! Oh yeah. And I used the word "fuck" too many times.

You're somewhat newer here than I am, so allow me to give you a little perspective;
There was a time on this little corner of DU, waaaay back when....the Admins had to step in and wag a giant finger at the Atheists of DU because they were going over to the Religion forum and calling the believers "deluded" (among other things, and evidence of this finger wagging can still be seen at the top of the old DU Atheism group page - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=263&topic_id=4111&mesg_id=4111). You see, you can't really call a spade a spade. When I found that out, and when it became clear that I might get banned from DU if I and some others (and I don't mean to make it sound like I was the most vocal or some sort of leader - I wasn't. I just threw my shots when I saw opportunity) didn't calm down and leave the godlings alone for a time, I pretty much shut up. As I said in another post on that thread of a few weeks ago, I don't post much at all on this subject on DU anymore because I got the message. I've also had all the arguments before on the internet, going back to the late 1990's. I see much of it as completely pointless. I know I am not going to change any minds.

But dammit, once in a while, one of those deluded, holier than thou, I know what's best for you types need to be taken down a peg.

The constant punishment from Skinner and others because we had to allow the "god Botherers" to come into OUR forum and tell us we were going to "hell", yet were not allowed to do the same in THEIR forum.

6 long years. And I see not a FSM-damn thing has changed. Catwoman is still tombstoned, the mythists still wail and whine about how much they're being "persecuted" by a vocal minority. Indeed, with the coming of the oh-so Just and Fair Kangaroo "Jury" system, I think it's gotten worse.

. . . (That's the way I would put it rather than "condemn&quot all I'm saying is, you can't be surprised or complain if your post is removed. Apparently, you weren't. I misjudged here, being new. I thought that was the tone of your post.

I've boiled-over with ditch language before (my term for it, not "dirty language" but language used in a knock-down, drag out brawl "in a ditch&quot and my messages were removed. I pretty much thought that would likely happen, but being able to express myself that way was satisfying enough.

If they've read it and they turn to the authorities to remove the message, you've taken them down a notch. They had to show you they were in charge, at least as far as customs are concerned.

I think you might find the religion nauseating: "But telling me with a wink and a nod that I'll 'get it someday' whatever that '"it"' is and knowing full well the entire motif behind that idea - the torture for the wicked, the reward of eternal paradise for the '"saved"' etc, - is chock full of the most horrific, nasty, terrible, nightmarish atrocities, is all.....well.....perfectly acceptable."

I'm not trying to gloat here. Since the religion was created by the believers (and mutated over the ages through the work of later believers), not established by God, then if you find the believers nauseating, the religion is nauseating.

I can't really separate the two. The believers and the religion are different, but the religion is more like yesterday's believers. They're both obnoxious and nauseating in different ways according to how customs and interpretations have changed.

That's how Pentecostals and Nazarenes say "Fuck you!"

nice rant. Of course it was hidden. Juries are a collection of random idiots, more often than not, and the subtlety of allowing 'go burn in hell for eternity' to stand while taking down 'go have sex with yourself' is way too much.

By quoting THEIR bible back to them. They say things like "Jesus never said anything to be cruel to your fellow man" and I quote chapter and verse back at them.

They are shocked.

Wait till they find out that Jesus never existed!!!

And they find out he has the same birthday and was born of a virgin like Mithra, Osiris, Apollo, lots of other gods.....