Further response to a video

[AlexBP]

I understand too, that not every Christian is alike, many follow the 'nice' teachings and completely ignore that dark, horrible and bloody side of the bible, probably because they have the capacity to reason that such things are wrong or simply are ignorant that they even exist (not every Christian has read the bible). I say I am happy for a person to believe what they believe so long as it isn't harmful of another person. I have Christian friends, who think although I'm an atheist, I'll go to heaven. They believe their God doesn't only reward the loyal, but also the good. I could probably find fault with that by quoting the bible, but hey, I'd rather encourage Christians to think about morality in terms of reason and not in terms of scripture. I know Christians who love having people, like me, who can challenge their faith, because they believe Christians ought to have a level of reason and of course, it's difficult to start picking faults with your own beliefs if nobody's there to challenge them. Of course, in the experience of this forum, such Christians are rarity.

However, I'll probably say this. I don't expect you'll respond, because it's common place here from theists, but I hope at least you've read what I've had to say.

Well it does raise an obvious question, given your claim to have Christian friends, and another posted claimed to have a Christian grandmother and so forth.  Why do you hang out on a message board where many time a day you'll see your friends (or grandmother) referred to as "idiots", "insane", and so forth?  Why are you here when the site and videos that inspired this forum says that your friends (or grandmother) are "hateful", "racist", etc... and implies that they're going around arresting and beating people?  (Yes, of course the particular video mentioned in this thread is full of weasel words like 'might', but in other videos this Brain guy makes clear that his attack is against all Christians without exception.)  How can you sit here peacefully and watch so much hatred getting hurled at your friends or family?

[screwtape]

Hi all,

This thread, which did not exactly get off on the right foot, has degenerated to a point where there is no useful discussion.  I do not see any chance of it recovering relevance.  So, to the Pit with it.

Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape

[AlexBP]

Of course you conveniently neglect to mention that neither you nor ParkingPlaces have provided any citation to back up this claim. 

I must say I found it rather amusing that you'd ask for citations when you continue to claim again and again "atheist dictators killed all these people" but you avoid the question "Who did the killing?" like the devil avoids holy water.

Actually I have tackled that question.  As I already mentioned, Tito purged his government of all religious believers: Serbian Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim, or other.  Milosevic continued the policy.  I have given a citation for this: The Black Book of Communism.  So obviously it is not true that there was an overwhleming majority of Orthodox in Serbia throughout their reigns.  Obviously they found plentiful non-believers to do their dirty work.  On the question of what the exact religious makeup of the army during the Bosnian War was, I have no figures, but I presume you don't either.  I do know that Randy Sullivan, journalist for Rolling Stone and other sources, gave firsthand accounts of the war, and recorded many instances in which the armies attacks against Catholics were particularly motivated by how the Catholics had held out against the atheist policies of Milosevic.

In 1993 the Archbishop Seraphim of Athens had invited Radovan Karadzic where Karadzic proclaimed in a public event: "We have only God and the Greeks on our side."

And the relevance is what?

[AlexBP]

Well if the mods say that the debate is over, I'll take their word for it.  In any case I got what I asked for.  I wanted to know if there was any justification for what the video said.  Now I know there isn't.  Good day.

[Seppuku]

I hate to keep on using him as an example, ex-member here, Goodkat. Beaten by his Christian father because he discovered he was an atheist. The bible would encourage Goodkat's father to murder him, so in terms of biblical values, he got off lightly.

And the evidence which makes this claim more reliable than any other anonymous internet claim is what?

He was a trusted member of the forum who engage positively and was a regular. People do lie on the internet, but he showed no signs of being a liar, but of course we only have his word to rely on. I'd argue that it's likely he was telling the truth, but obviously I don't have the hard evidence to put to the table.

I think you are blissfully ignorant of what happens in the Christian world. India: Christian extremists violently attacking Hindus.

There's certainly evidence of Hindu extremists violently attacking Christians.  What evidence do you have that it actually happens the other way around?

With pleasure:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/717775.stm

Nigeria: Christian churches accusing people of witchcraft, thus beating children, torturing them and even burning them because they think they're witches.

Citation please?

With pleasure:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver

USA: many individuals and
groups are anti-atheist and persecute atheists for not believing, cases of harassment and even violence, double standards all over the place favouring Christians and discriminating against atheists, e.g. the double standard that it's okay to put up a Christian billboard telling people they'll go to hell if they don't accept Jesus, but as soon as an atheist billboard is put up saying, "There might be no God", it has to be taken down.

Atheist billboards do not have to be taken down.  That's an absurd claim.  Other than, please provide citations to back up what you're saying.

With pleasure:

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/11/12/cincinnati-atheist-billboard-taken-down/
http://www2.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/Godless-Billboard-Moved-After-Threats

So will you accept that Christians dish out their own level of shit?

I understand too, that not every Christian is alike, many follow the 'nice' teachings and completely ignore that dark, horrible and bloody side of the bible, probably because they have the capacity to reason that such things are wrong or simply are ignorant that they even exist (not every Christian has read the bible). I say I am happy for a person to believe what they believe so long as it isn't harmful of another person. I have Christian friends, who think although I'm an atheist, I'll go to heaven. They believe their God doesn't only reward the loyal, but also the good. I could probably find fault with that by quoting the bible, but hey, I'd rather encourage Christians to think about morality in terms of reason and not in terms of scripture. I know Christians who love having people, like me, who can challenge their faith, because they believe Christians ought to have a level of reason and of course, it's difficult to start picking faults with your own beliefs if nobody's there to challenge them. Of course, in the experience of this forum, such Christians are rarity.

However, I'll probably say this. I don't expect you'll respond, because it's common place here from theists, but I hope at least you've read what I've had to say.

Well it does raise an obvious question, given your claim to have Christian friends, and another posted claimed to have a Christian grandmother and so forth.  Why do you hang out on a message board where many time a day you'll see your friends (or grandmother) referred to as "idiots", "insane", and so forth?  Why are you here when the site and videos that inspired this forum says that your friends (or grandmother) are "hateful", "racist", etc... and implies that they're going around arresting and beating people?  (Yes, of course the particular video mentioned in this thread is full of weasel words like 'might', but in other videos this Brain guy makes clear that his attack is against all Christians without exception.)  How can you sit here peacefully and watch so much hatred getting hurled at your friends or family?

To answer your question:

1) I respect other people's views. I disagree that all Christians are idiotic for their beliefs, but that's because I respect their beliefs also. If a person deems such beliefs as idiotic, then that's up to them, I'll may argue against it, but ultimately, respect they're different. They're not actively going out their way to insult my friends and family nor are they acting against their rights. My sentimentality stands, I have no problem with what people believe so long as they're not hurting anybody.
2) People make generalisations. It's no use trying to fight them. When Christians are called hateful, racist etc. then I use my head, "well obviously not every Christian is racist or hateful and this person is intelligent enough to realise that".

Well if the mods say that the debate is over, I'll take their word for it.  In any case I got what I asked for.  I wanted to know if there was any justification for what the video said.  Now I know there isn't.  Good day.

This is the 'Bottomless Pit', it doesn't necessarily mean debate is over, it just means, it's out of the way and threads here can go on for pages and pages. But that last comment strikes me as arrogant.

[Azdgari]

It is telling that AlexBP considers everyone on this forum to be a liar about his or her personal life unless he or she is able to prove otherwise.  Since this is the internet, and people on this forum are generally not public figures, such proof is nigh-impossible to provide.  And so AlexBP is able to continue to believe that everyone else on here is a liar.

Very convenient, that.  Not condusive to any sort of respectful dialogue, but then that's not his aim.

[Gnu Ordure]

Alex:

Well if the mods say that the debate is over, I'll take their word for it.

They didn't say it's over, they've merely moved it to a different section.

[LadyLucy]

I am glad that you agree that persecution of Christians in China is taking place.  I've never said that it implies that atheists are evil, or anything of that sort.  I merely pointed to China as an example to disprove the video's claims.  According to the video, Christians need to consider that we're only Christians because we're afraid of being beaten and arrested.  Yet in China there are 100,000,000 Christians who risk being beaten and arrested because they are Christians.  If they converted from Christianity to atheism they would no longer be at that risk, since they'd be following the religious viewpoint of the government.  So where's the logic of saying that fear of arrest and beatings causes people to be Christians in this case?

I knew this was going on; it's horrible. I don't like it. Everyone is free to think what they think. Communism is against that. And like I stated earlier, the reason as to why China is largely bereft of faith is due to their ideals. Confucianism is a philosophical stance as well as Taoism. These people majorly don't believe in deities; it has been this way for a couple of centuries (before, they were kinda religious; the Emperor was the mandate of heaven, he was the connection to the heavens, etc.). So, they are pretty much atheists. However, Communism in China has allowed religions and any strong ideal alike to be persecuted (this goes for any religion that is capable of giving the people power and hold group meetings, which is completely unacceptable in Communism, as you well know). I wanted to add that it doesn't make atheism/atheists evil because some Theists like to make the claim "OH, Atheists ARE evil! Look at Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot/Hitler!" when in reality, it is the horrible idea of Communism that puts these people at risk, not atheism. Crimes against humanity, we both agree, are unacceptable, and that everyone should be entitled to their belief.

So, we were talking about China there, yes? Yes.

So, referring to your question: So where's the logic of saying that fear of arrest and beatings causes people to be Christians in this case?

Now that's where we are talking about other countries that are not under Communist rule. I could use the Nazi regime to show that atheists were being killed in concentration camps, not just Jews et al. (the rest of the people that were deemed "worthless"), but that's unfair comparison, considering they were Communists. So, I will not make a reduction to the absurd, because that is disrespectful, considering that not all Christians/any religious peoples are like that. Regarding your question, the fear of arrests, beatings, injustices, and discrimination through harassment and violence that we're talking about here would be for example, within the America's Bible Belt.

I know you stated that you lived in the Bible Belt and that nothing happened where you are at, but hear me out here: People can be so self-righteous about their actions against atheists that they are not going to put this as a news story, but rather, it would be the town gossip, or it would be forgotten about. People can be so bigoted as to attack/ruin these people's lives. I understand some stories appear on blogs or other places on the Internet, but why deny the claim? Why would they lie? We have no reason to. We are not getting profit out of it. We are not making shit up to get sympathy. We are speaking out our fears over the Internet because frankly, the Internet is a free-roaming place. It's much safer here.

People here at the WWGHA forums have spoken out and testified on what happened to them, regarding Christians/any other religion. Does that make the stories false? No. Some people here have grown up/still are within the Bible Belt and shared their calamities. Just because you didn't see it happen or didn't hear about it does not in any way imply it didn't happen. I want to post more news stories, but it's up to you whether you want to believe them or not. It's not attacking your faith, mind you. It's showing you what some people will do in the name of their faith. Remember, we are talking about one country right now, and that is the USA. Seppuku named a few other countries in which this discrimination against atheists/people that don't believe enough takes place, and I'm sure you can do further research yourself instead of asking us directly for more. You have Google. Just search up "countries that discriminate against atheists" or different phrases if you are curious to know. When I stated earlier that I don't want to post more news stories, only to have them shot down and not even discussed properly like I do with your articles, then I don't want to make the effort because it only gives me the assumption that you only want what you want to hear. Prove me wrong.

[LadyLucy]

AlexBP, I would like to continue to discuss with you. We're getting on the right track. But please, no reductions to the absurd. Actually discuss with me, like we are doing right now. Be honest. I'm honest about the persecution of any other religion. I'm honest about the persecution of atheists. I'm honest about the calamities of mankind. I research both. We are talking about Christians not only persecuting atheists, but Christians going down hard on people even for not believing enough. I've read some testimonials and news stories about that, but I say again, I'm only willing to post these if you are willing to accept the other news stories instead of making a competition about "Whose news stories are the best/show the most martyrs?", which isn't the point that I have been trying to make. No one here is a martyr. Not one. People die. Things happen sometimes for the wrong reasons. Agreed?

[velkyn]

Well if the mods say that the debate is over, I'll take their word for it.  In any case I got what I asked for.  I wanted to know if there was any justification for what the video said.  Now I know there isn't.  Good day.

and here we see Alex again declaring victory where none was gained.  It is a shame that you must lie to do this, Alex.  What does your god say about lying again? 

[screwtape]

Well if the mods say that the debate is over,

I did not say the debate was over.  I said, it had degenerated into a shitshow and as such was moved to the Bottomless Pit.  You are free to continue your "discussion", unless it gets worse, in which case the thread will be locked.