Here's an exchange I had with my sister on Facebook tonight.

[smokey nj]

It started when she posted this piece of wisdom:

"A United States Marine was attending some college courses between
assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the
ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock
me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes." The lecture room
fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the
professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting." It got down to the
last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the
professor, and cold-cocked him knocking him off the platform. The professor
was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The
other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.
The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine
and asked, 'What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?" The
Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's soldiers
who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole.
So, He sent me.'"

She posts a lot of "spiritual" stuff and usually I just ignore it, but since I'd had a couple of glasses of wine tonight and found this especially offensive, I responded thusly:

"Pat Tillman, who gave up a career in professional football to join the Army Rangers after 9/11, fought in Iraq, and was killed in Afganistan, was an atheist."

To which she responded:

"Everyone is entitled to their beliefs."

I replied:

Apparently not, since you think it's ok for an atheist to be assaulted by a Marine.

She replied:

Sorry I offended you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, she un-friended me.

[Tobin S.]

1. Un-friended by your own sister? That's pretty harsh.

Especially for the circumstances.

[smokey nj]

3. My sister has issues, religiosity is the least of them.

[skepticscott]

2. And you know what's ironic?

This guy did it because he knew, deep down, that his "god" wasn't there to do it on his own. Just like he'd know in his heart that if one of his buddies had lost an arm to an IED that praying to "god" to grow him another just like the old one would have no effect. He knows, no matter how hard he tries to deny it, that the world works just the way it would if his "god" didn't exist. And it scares him to the point that he'll do anything to avoid confronting that fact.

[smokey nj]

4. That stood out to me as well.

I'm taking quite a beating on my sister's facebook page. Apparently, it's fine do advocate, condone, endorse, and encourage violence towards atheists who are outspoken about their views.

[frogmarch]

5. Snopes says it's FALSE

http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

The story your sister sent you, along with several variations of it, can be found at the link. If I remember right, your sister's story is the last one on the page.

[smokey nj]

6. Thanks for the link, frogmarch. I pretty much knew it was nothing but an urban legend.

It smelled kinda Snopes-y from the get-go.

[cynatnite]

7. There are some real idiots who cheerlead this sort of shit...

I've heard variations of this garbage.

I probably would have asked the marine how do you know gawd sent you to assault that man.

[smokey nj]

10. I would have asked why God would need to send him, can't he multi-task?

[OriginalGeek]

11. Not to mention god is failing pretty badly at protecting soldiers too

aren't we up over 4000 dead service men and women?

So he's doing a shitty job over there AND he can't knock a college professor off a platform without beguiling a Marine to do his dirty work for him.

Pretty poor job performance there, G.

[lindysalsagal]

12. God could protect soldiers by telling us all to stop killing each other over religion.

And yes: We're in Afghanistan because of religion. Do you really believe we'd have invaded a christian country?

Only a marine can turn god into mass murder.

[OriginalGeek]

13. "god" was doing mass murder way before there were marines

the problem is he doesn't exist so it's all in the minds of his followers.

I don't recall making any statement of belief regarding what type of country we might or might not invade. Personally I believe it was all for the oil and to help make Haliburton and other Bush cronies richer. It was just awfully handy that the oil was being held by brown people of a different faith.


on a completely unrelated note, in trying to parse your username I get "lindy salsa gal" - are you into salsas? I just started growing peppers and tomatoes (like yesterday lol) and someday aspire to making my own top shelf salsa (among other things) - are you actively talking about that kind of thing in another part of DU? I'd be interested in that. or, if I got it way wrong, sorry to bother..

[lindysalsagal]

14. lol: Lindy and salsa are my 2 favorite dances

I go out dancing. But I do know that Mango salsa is my fav: Onions, tomato, cilantro, and mango. Delish.

[OriginalGeek]

16. Ohhh, lol

OK - I tend to see the food connection before anything else. I don't know much at all about dancing except I like Louis Prima's Jump, Jive and Wail...which I am led to believe is a song to which one can dance.

[progressoid]

8. There is an Einstein variation of this blather too:

http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp

[smokey nj]

9. I hate nonsense like this.

All of the replies my sister received were positive, "Git-r-done" types of responses.

[Taverner]

15. Religion is a mental problem

[Merlot]

17. Anyone ever know any atheists who waste their time taunting a god they don't believe in?

Only a religious person would make this simplistic story up.