And what have we learned this week?

[onager]

From our favorite group:

Atheists are intellectual snobs who can be homophobic and sexist.

And we may have helped to disappear Malaysian Airlines 370.

I'm surprised nobody raised the really critical theological/philosophical question of our time: "Why are atheists such poopyheads?"

[Vashta Nerada]

1. Of course we're intellectual snobs.

At least science gives us answers to things. The buybull offers nothing but questions and contradictions.

[Warpy]

5. Yeah, well most of them have never bothered to read it

so they're totally in the dark about that.

[Promethean]

2. If having a standard

that requires that which I believe to be based on observable and testable phenomenon makes me an intellectual snob then I wear the label proudly.

[trotsky]

3. Wait a minute - I think I missed out on these!

Is it because of my wonderful Ignore list?

[onager]

4. Ha! Probably so.

You might have also missed out on some neat historical revisionism.

About a certain god-botherer who once showed up on DU, ready to set us all on the Right Path. Barged into this group and told us to get off his lawn. Was promptly banned, leading to butthurt which apparently persists to this very day. Oh the humanity!

IIRC, the subject of that thread was....damn, what's it called again? Some ancient and near-dead American religious belief system. Lego Xianity, Libelous Xianity...something like that, anyway.

[skepticscott]

6. That religious apologetics on DU

has reached its intellectual peak, and it ain't no Mount Everest.

[mr blur]

7. I'm beginning to think that the people in that group don't actually exist.

It's all just one person, who spends his or her time making up the most absurd shit they can think of just to see how far they can push it before they're exposed. A full-time occupation, a kind of giant Poe. A huge ego-trip? A psychological experiment? We'll probably never know.

[Act_of_Reparation]

8. I wish that were the case...

...but the vastly different styles, personalities, and varying degrees of stupidity and/or stubbornness suggest either multiple posters, or one poster with dissociative identity disorder.

[mr blur]

9. I'd go with choice #2 myself.

and I'm sure ̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ they are watching us right now.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. Considering one of the KRDS officer corps just called us out in that other forum...

...I'd say that's a certainty.

[Heddi]

10. I just learned the meanie-head Heathens ran off a greatly loved poster

(who just HAPPENS to be THE MOST LIBERAL Pastor in the history of liberal Christians. If you haven't heard of him it's ONLY because you're not one of the hoity-toity So'n'so's who read the Muglump Weekly Advertising Bee ((regionally recognized since winning the Best Advertising Circular Award in 1973)!!! You can find his column right next to Ask Ms. Cat Lady and across the page from the SCRAMBLE puzzle (check next week's Bee for this week's answer!!!))))) whose loving daughter only brought him here to raise the level of discourse only to be harassed, harraunged, bullied, and basically CRUCIFIED by those hate-loving bigotmongering not-naming-any-names-but-you-know-who-you-are-cough-ATHIESTS-cough-oh-yeah-fuck-Dawkins


ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS RAISE THE LEVEL OF DISCOURSEeeeeeeee

[Rob H.]

11. I didn't have any problems with him, per se

except for the fact that he wanted to claim that religion (and ONLY religion) was responsible for things like abolitionism, chocolate, puppy breath, and apple pie, while simultaneously completely ignoring or at least trying to minimize the many, many BAD things for which it's been responsible. That would be like me saying I like Christopher Hitchens' writings and then ignoring the fact that he was completely and utterly misguided wrt his views on invading Iraq and trying to shout down anyone who said he was.

Edit: Interesting, too, that some of the same regulars there who claim they aren't religious are the first to come out swinging in defense of religion (and flat-out ridiculous ideas born of religious belief, like exorcism) when a believer does something terrible or an atheist is mean to a believer in that forum, but remain oddly silent when atheists are being dragged over the coals. "Even-handed," my ass.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. "who claim they aren't religious are the first to come out swinging in defense of "

Amazing innit.

It's almost like... they're not what they say they are.

[skepticscott]

14. If that was dredged up again recently

I must have missed it. But talk about an ivory tower academic who never had to defend his ideas against anyone who wasn't fawning and deferential. Someone who was so sheltered, they actually claimed that most seminaries in the world were teaching affirming and tolerant attitudes towards gays (when it was actually only the three seminaries run by his cronies).

[onager]

16. Preach it, sister!

That was one of your better rants, and you've done some great ones. I'm still sitting here laughing over it.

You read the "historical revisionism" thread, I see. (That's the one I mentioned to Trotsky, up above.)

"Raise the level of discourse?" Yeah, right. Raise it to the level of that soapbox he was always climbing up on, so he could sermonize to the rest of us, the Great Unwashed.

"Let's have a dialogue! Now shut up and listen!"

[Iggo]

18. 50% of the Gang Of Four.

Oh, how I do not miss that "level of discourse."

[Curmudgeoness]

12. You mean that you missed that thread

where someone asked why atheists are "poopyheads"? I am quite sure that I read it, but with all the messy posts over there, I just can't find it right now.

I just cannot go over there, it makes me so sad to see how much hate there is in that forum. I don't see that kind of hate IRL, so I want to pretend that it doesn't exist.

[bravenak]

17. The plane dissappeared on my birthday. Maybe it WAS my fault?

I felt bad all day.

[Rob H.]

19. I learned that some believers are incapable of answering simple yes or no questions

They'll hem and haw and even try to claim that they've answered a specific question in the past (Really? Then why not just answer it again for those who missed your answer the first time around?) without realizing that by refusing to answer the question, they've answered the question. It's even more telling when they attack the person asking the question for daring to ask it.