Thanks for being a prick. (you respond)
Offline That was the actual title of the email. Jake pointed out that at least he's gracious. Notice the grammatical errors.
----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 3:43 AM
Subject: Thanks for being a prick.You guys are retarded emo pricks, get a life. If you really believe in atheism thats fine. I don't care thats your choice. For you to take the beliefs of others and compare them to Santa, is just childish. You might want to read up on near death experience research. Its scientific and clearly establishes fact that would lead intelligent people to believe in life after death or at least the strong probability thereof . Atheists stem from an old theory that is just a justified as the belief in creation. Atheists have even gone as far as to produce manipulated fossils to coincide with their own beliefs. Your so obsessed with being right its almost sad. The only constant is change. Albert Einstein believed in a higher power and he was a hell of a lot smarter then any atheist I know of, more creative and above all rational. "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind." - Albert Einstein. He dealt with absolutes while you deal with the desire to be heard and show the world your so right. I don't remember seeing an up cry from any religious group offering a free dvd to post a stupid ass video, that according to you dose not even matter so whats the logic in that. All I see is a bunch of irrational pricks trying to gain a little power and a flicker of fame. You'll
be forgotten or considered idiots. Not because your Atheist but because your group is retarded as a whole.bottom line fuck your little self righteous club.
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They are normally deemed theist I think.
How do you know?
But even if we accept this so what?
Quite right. It just means that they are no necessary in any explanation. As they are not necessary and there is no evidence for them the rational position is atheism.
The theories adapt in the face of new information. But the basic idea of evolution has not changed since Darwin proposed it.
So you mean if we cant explain some thing it must be God? If we don't have complete knowledge it must mean God? What the hell kind of argument is that?
Glad to hear it.
Indeed. But the point I was making was I really don't care what people believe as long as those beliefs don;t affect me. The xtian myth does affect me. When xtians (and muslims and jews and hindus) just shut the fuck up about their unproved claims then I will shut up. I won't care anymore.
The problem is not xtianity or even religion as such its irrational thought in general. America is the world most powerful nation. It has the ability to nuke the world and the person in charge claims to get his orders from an imaginary being. Moreover the voting system in America means that a minority of theists can swing an election and use this power to force the politicians to impose THEIR morality on the rest of the nation. This basically means that decisions are made that affect all Americans based on a bronze age mythology. This is fucking scarry.
What even if God orders it?
If God wants you to kill is it wrong?
Really is it? Because the Bible does not seem to think so. Neither does the Koran for that matter. Are you saying that the Bible is wrong?
No one said it was. The point that was being made is that when religious people stop pulling this kind of shit and just shut up and get on with their lives instead of imposing their myths on others then me and I suspect sapient, rook, kelly and all the others in the rational response squad will packup shop and websites like this will vanish. The RRS will no longer be necessary. I dont think anyone here has any problem with peoples private beliefs as long as they remain private. If these beliefs are to be made public and are to be used to affect the lives of others then you had better be able to justify them. If you can't then you can still have those beliefs thats you rught in a free country but you need to shut the fuck up about them.
Everyone has done an excellent job of debunking Daniel’s “arguments” (for lack of a better descriptive). I thought I would weigh in on the subject of NDE’s. In 1978 I was working as a cop in San Diego, CA. I was working the night shift and was dispatched to a no-detail motorcycle accident. Paramedics were about a block and a half behind me when a drunk driver turned left in front of me. We collided nearly head-on. According to the paramedics I was killed instantly as a result of demolishing the interior of the patrol vehicle with my head and body. They had hooked me up to a portable ekg and I was flat-lined. Said I was out for about 4-5 minutes before I was revived. I remember seeming to float above the scene looking down and having an overwhelming feeling of well-being. The human mind can do many things. An innate ability that some people have is being able to see things from a different perspective, literally and figuratively. Some people are wired in such a way that they can visualize things from different angles without having to manipulate an object or situation. Our brain is an amazing computer and we can process sounds and other sensations into visualizations without aid of sight. Vibrations can give us the impression of sound. Deaf people can “hear” vibrations and the sightless can “see” sounds. Two recent experiments have “replicated” out of body experiences in test subjects. These were accomplished using visual equipment and tricking the mind into believing the body was somewhere else. All of our senses are integrated in such a way as to keep us aware of where our bodies are in our environment.
Basically, when I took out the shotgun rack and broke the shotgun in half with my head, my senses became disconnected. I had a NDE. This in no way, however, proves that there is an afterlife or that God exists or even that Santa Clause exists. And the warm and fuzzy feeling? Try breaking a cinder block in half with your head and see if you don’t also have a warm and fuzzy feeling before the headache sets in. I sure as hell had no sense of any spiritual being anywhere in this experience.
I do remember seeing a light and something of a tunnel. I think that was probably the paramedic using a penlight to check pupil reaction after my heart got started again. The tunnel was more than likely nothing more than tunnel vision. By the way, Daniel, if you’re going to argue a point, argue it. Don’t use links to someone else’s site as your argument. State your premise and use the links to back it up. All you do otherwise is show your lack of personal knowledge on the subject. Also, while I realize you don’t take punctuation and grammar seriously, you should probably start. It’s sometimes hard to follow your logic, or rather, lack of logic. If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, you need present yourself in such a way that people might think you have something on the ball, whether or not you do."Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
<quote>You might want to read up on near death experience research. Its scientific and clearly establishes fact that would lead intelligent people to believe in life after death or at least the strong probability thereof .</quote><BR>
I wonder if anyone has ever told him that just as xtians claim to have seen god, muslims have claimed to see allah?
Morte alla tyrannus et dei
Susan, I sure agree! This guy probably represents one of the best intellects.
Miracles don't exist. "Miracle" is a word given to a preposterous event that a theist considers dogmatically advantageous. Def. - Ecclesiastical sensationalism.
Its been a while since I dropped by.
I think Theo comes across very differently now. The hostility is under control and communication is improved for everyone. Hi Theo, hope all’s well you’re still enjoying theism (Christianity I think wasn’t it?). Impartial study is still an issue, but its not as hard as it sounds. I hope you get there.
I sometimes think, therefore I am intermittent
I agree with Susan. I mean, if youre going to write a hate letter on the computer, atleast be decent enough to spell check. I mean, the means to edit your shitty email into a work of art is right infront of you. Use it.
This email reflects nicely on his every life, too. "Im a retarded idiot, and im not going to bother correcting my lifestyle."
I'm infallible. I don't know why you can't remember that.
lol, you guys are so weird. i sent an email to this team a day ago and discoverd your web page. you guys have like no freakin lives. wow! lol. this whole site is sooo stupid. tear it down please in the name of jesus. you guys dont just not believe in god. you hate him. you probably do secretly believe he exists but hate him cause he let your aunt die of cancer or something and now your pissed. i have not seen an atheist on this site yet that has not been some form of rude of condescending. you are so sarcastic and vile. every atheist i meet is like that. so irritated. i dont know any group of people, christians or hindu or anyone as intolerant as you guys are. what are you so pissed about. i bet u guys haven't showered in days. prove me right and chew my head off please. gosh! ur amusing. i'm signing off and going back to my life now. friggin losers.
Hurling insults and having no substance to your post. I wonder why people seem angry with you. I have an Aunt, whom I love, who is just like you. Is your post not full of rude and condesending remarks? Maybe that is why you get it in return?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
no dude, i was just reading this one and i noticed a lot of rudeness and stuff.
I suppose in the end it will be seen as ad hominem that I am pointing this out, but I wonder why it is that theists who hurl unsubstantiated blanket claims about atheists and our dysfunctional lives do so with the worst syntax imaginable. It seems almost a parody that someone with so much living to do in God’s grace can’t be expected to take the time to present ideas in a way that capture this so obvious euphoria. You’d think that the espousers of the so called “great news” would want to package this message clearly and with more conviction than the heretics and naysayers do in contradiction.
I find it humorous that theists today have the same base linguistic failures as the morons who slapped together the Bible in the first place. At least that is an argument for tradition if nothing else. But who wants a proselytizer unable to string together simple sentences about the greatest news known to man? I can’t help but imagine a six-toed, toothless redneck in blue overalls with a penchant for rolls in the hay with his little sister when I read tripe like the above or hear “the answer” ® to all the burning questions our species has come up with over the years.
Of course editing text and reworking word order so that one’s ideas are coherent must be the province of people with no lives, the cliché I assume being that people with lives have better things to do than worry about how their opinions look in cyberspace or in nifty tracts about dinosaurs riding in arks on the high, high seas alongside Noah and his soon to be indulgent incest clan.
“Stupid is as stupid does,” quips the philosophically adept Forrest Gump when faced with people who belittle him. I think the bench-sitting theist of today might want to follow our illustrious pundit above following the axiom “Easy is as easy does.”
One who doesn’t care enough to convey their thoughts intelligibly would certainly be open to simple explanations about our origins on this planet and in the universe. It makes sense that he would be attracted to patterned, Pavlovian responses that rest on the bedrock of asking people to disprove negatives and endlessly quibbling about what theory or logic really means when faced with the obvious failure of the former. I guess it is true that the devil is in the details. That’s why the ardent supporters of all those gods avoid them like the plague.
The theist who has macro buttons and cut and paste tendencies in this “easy” life of intellectual opium must then be happier as a result, right?. Given the payoff of bliss, perhaps he is right that we atheists dwell too long in these factual matters when all one needs to do is accept that we don’t have to think or ponder reality any more than we have to suffer knowledge the way Eve does when she chooses to buck a tyrant and eat freely of what life has to offer. Why suffer this lost life when all you have to do is obey simplicity for simplicity sake? Choose “easily” from a menu of ad hoc explanations for the reasons we are floating out here all by ourselves in the middle of an expanding nowhere and attach this to god. That way you don’t have to be afraid of anything. You go to church, read the approved texts (if you are of the right gender and/or level of enlightenment to do so), and obey the tenets of self imposed stupidity. Its’ easier that way. And don’t we all want things to be easier in the end?
Yes, Forrest, I think you are right indeed. Stupid is as stupid does, not to mention “Stupid is as easy writes.” Of course Forrest is a theist after all, and that makes him all the more lovable and genuine and all that. It’s easier for him to believe, just as it is the rest of the confused masses who cuddle up to the lowest common denominator, the one that keeps us one foot in our six-toed past.
Cheers
Your post is riddled with fallacies. How far are you into your schooling?
...which is why i ignore you. you make it easy hun. its hard to answer you all at once and i'm glad when someone is rude. i'm glad because that simply narrows down who i gotta answer. thank you magilum (whatever your name is).
friggin loser
dont bother to write to me anymore,
And to demonstrate your displeasure with the one post you read, you chose to include all atheists in your commentary that includes insults in a sweeping fashion. Diplomacy isn’t one of your strong suits, is it, dude? Here’s a hint. If you don’t want to look like a hypocrite when claiming that your target demonstrates prejudicial language when discussing theists on the whole, don’t use terms like this:
“you guys”
“you probably”
“your aunt die”
“your pissed” (you mean you’re obviously)
“have not seen an atheist”
“every atheist”
“as intolerant as you guys are”
“what are you”
“i bet u guys” (Getting tired? “you” too difficult to type out after 560 characters?)
“gosh! ur amusing”
Here’s a tutorial on the English language. Unlike other European languages, English is somewhat distinctive in that “you” can carry a familiar singular impart or it can have a more plural connotation depending on how you use it. So when you attach “you” to a group, say atheists, blacks, blonds, etc., you give the sense that you are talking about the whole group. The fact that you have done this in your post in all the examples I cite demonstrates that you were not merely responding to “this one” as you claim, but instead you are jumping on a bandwagon in claiming to speak to all atheists (on this board and otherwise).
And then there is that nasty hypocrisy. By actually using the inclusive morphology for “you” as you have done, coupled with the derisive language used to insult us, you actually do what you claim atheists do by being intolerant. This is amazingly ineffective, not to mention lazy, and I’d say pretty stupid of you.
The good news is that there are some theists who would shy away from such behavior. Whether it is the perennial belief that we infidels can still be saved or the notion that by treating atheists with some respect one might get it back, there are some theists with more circumspection than you have been able to demonstrate. No matter. Your language betrays your agenda, and frankly it is one that appears to be about as well thought out as the message one might read on a greeting card at a truck stop near Yuma Arizona.
Sorry, but that is how I see it.
Cheers!
yo shut up. go to bed man
I didn't write you. If you get any more into projecting, you're going to accuse me of believing in Jesus.
Feign knowledge one does not have any idea about. Make sure to do it with conviction. The gullible will buy it.
One should present this "knowledge" in colloquial text talk so that it appears to be genuine instead of the pretentious ad hoc crap it is. Those uninterested in things like punctuation and word order might find it quaint, while others can be ridiculed in a similar style if they dare call one for one's lazyness.
In doing so, one should never be original. It is best to pigeon others’ arguments and attempt at least to show that you understand them. That way when people start calling one's attention to the lack of actual knowledge being given, it will be that much easier to marginalize these people in one's mind as rude or just send them to bed or something equally pedestrian.
When asked to clarify one's position, switch the burden of proof onto the questioner and then ignore any parallels they draw to one's duplicity in doing so. This will keep them chasing one in circles as one cleverly draws the intellectual wagons around the lack of evidence one has for one’s beliefs.
If they are persistent in actually giving one an open enough ear regardless of the fact that this is completely unearned, one should simply claim that the one entertaining them is not worthy of discourse, thereby completing the delusional circle around the cocoon that theism creates.
Don't forget to wrap this entire package in syntax well below that of the average 8 year old and one has a recipe for irrational belief despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Rinse and repeat whenever the real world comes up against one’s pet mythology and be sure that one doesn’t ever pick up a book that isn’t sanctioned in holy circles or parroted by patriarchs on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. After a few years of this behavior coupled with wasted time and money in church gatherings, one will be beyond hope, and one can rest peacefully in the thought that one did one’s best to thwart further advancement of the human race.
If one needs examples of this behavior to emulate, I refer you to the ongoing case study above supplied to us by the venerable Focusedoc.
Enjoy the tutorial!
Cheers!
You say all of those things (the third of which demonstrates absolute ignorance about the position you're attacking), and then you say this:
Oh, that's not hypocritical at all.
How many have you actually met? What did they do that was so "vile"? If disrespecting your beliefs is how you define "vile" then consider me vile.
Christians, for one. See how easy it is to just say these things? Anyone can do it!
Yet I can give historical evidence for mine. Not so much with you. Tough luck.
Being pissed and ridiculing someone are two different things. If you see anyone getting pissed around here, it's probably because someone just said something ignorant about them. Oh... like... for example... this: "you probably do secretly believe he exists but hate him cause he let your aunt die of cancer or something and now your pissed."
That's not at all why I don't believe. It's not even close. It's so incredibly wrong that it's laughable. Yet it's common for Christians to assume this. It's called stereotyping. Stereotyping pisses people off.
Again, stereotyping pisses people off.
Also, remember how you accused us of being rude and condescending? The more I read, the funnier that looks.
I can tell you that you're wrong without chewing your head off, but if anyone gets pissed it's not because they disagree; it's because you're acting like an ass.
But I know it's comforting to use an atheist's anger as a confirmation of your belief. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Did you just call us friggin' losers? That's so uncondescending of you.
You didn't go back to your life though, did you? You stayed! I guess you found our intolerableness to be just irresistable. =)
Everything you said in this post is laughable, rude, and wrong.
But thank you, come again, and have a nice day.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
It’s amazing, actually. I am one of those atheists who is “rude” to people like Focusedoc, not merely because he represents a life philosophy bent on a belief in fairy tales, fairytales that hurt people and make otherwise capable individuals into bumbling idiots, but also because he represents all the worst characteristics of theists without showing any of the better qualities that some are able to demonstrate in these exchanges.
When I read the tripe quoted above and give it some reflection, I get the strong feeling that he is actually a troll playing the role of a fundamentalist moron instead of providing what he really thinks.
The language is so poor on so many levels that I almost need to feel that someone capable of sitting behind a computer screen and typing this bile could only be doing so as an attempted lampoon of theists or perhaps some sort of covert bait and switch campaign where Focusedoc waters down his beliefs so that we are attacking a straw man instead of his actual views on his god. The strategy in his mind being so that if he can defend weaker versions of his “truth,” well then his actual beliefs are all the safer in his mind. And more importantly, these ideas are never really put out there to be attacked in a meaningful way. As if that would really matter anyway to the theist with an ax to grind.
Maybe I’m giving him too much credit. The posts above seem to indicate that I am.
And this gem is classic:
Archeopteryx, I have to disagree with your opinion on a technicality. This statement isn’t hypocritical at all because he leaves this adjective hanging there with the reader left to “cloze” in the final piece.
Of course we could make it easy and assume he means assholes, or jerks, or something like that. I’m not that nice. I see the word being more reflective of the reality he can’t see, albeit I’ll grant you the obvious bias in my conclusion.
I think the missing piece is “geniuses”. Yes we atheists are all a bunch of rude and condescending geniuses adeptly capable of pointing out how utterly ridiculous theism is on its face. The rudeness comes in our ability to apply science, logic and philosophy to these questions and continually hand people like Focusedoc their hats in exchanges on the benefits of thinking for oneself.
Perhaps we could be nicer about it. Many people have pointed out that letting go of mythological constructs and waking up to reality is very hard to do emotionally at times, and I suppose there is a lot of truth in this way of thinking. The problem is that the person hanging on to these notions tends to get very defensive in a “shoot the messenger” kind of way. I still think it is possible that Focusedoc is a troll, but he more than adequately demonstrates this characteristic quite well. The anger and personal slights are all part of his defense strategy that amounts to an onslaught of insults in lieu of ever letting the exchange challenge what he believes. Or it is the snapdragon response to the fact that his ideas are already starting to suffer the slings and arrows of common sense. It is hard to say.
The irony is that regardless of how rude we are in the larger scheme of things, the conclusions are still the same as they would be if we seasoned the message with whipped cream with cherries on top; all gods are human constructs and they are unnecessary if not counterproductive to our species and our desire to survive in the long run.
In the end though, whether the atheist is “vile” in his approach or if she uses kid gloves instead to get this message across, the burning truth is that anyone’s god is nothing more than a crutch created by tradition and forced upon people in perpetuity. And as with any nasty habit worth kicking, the process starts with a caring someone giving out the cold, hard facts to the one who needs to see the light and get better, whether that be with a loving touch and a soft coo, or a baseball bat and a superior lexicon.
Focusedoc, whether creative persona, defensive philosophical strategist, or idiot extraordinaire, is only one of the millions of Internet proselytizers that we are going to have to bitch slap into reality, this given that my cooing days are over, as I see it is for many of us here at RRS.
Stay the course, lads!
Cheers!I work for retarded emo pricks, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies . . . .
/obligatory
Not to take the emphasis away from Daniel's amazingly coherent and compelling arguments, but I thought I'd pose a question to the group. At what point does trying to have a rational discussion with someone like Daniel become nothing more than feeding the troll? Clearly he and others like him are not interested in having a real discussion, they only want throw their particular blend of illogic and invective into the forum and then declare victory based on the combination of their awesome use of arguments that are the long-form version of "uh-HUH", "nuh-UH", "I know you are, but what am I?", etc. On some level there's a certain satisfaction in logically tearing the arguments of someone like Daniel to shreds, but I think we can all agree that it becomes little more than a wrote exercise in fairly short order. I have yet to see a sophisticated argument set forth by someone like Daniel (not surprising, since it's not exactly an intellectually-defensible position in the first place).
BTW, I'm really not trying for a threadjack here. If this is likely to generate substantial discussion, perhaps we should start a new thread.
Here comes the...
You ask a fair question, one I've asked myself quite a few times. Where is the real benefit in engaging in these forays if the person on the other end isn't willing to approach the discussion logically and honestly?
The only answer I can give for myself is that I was swayed to the atheist side because of these types of discussions and my desire to see what the real arguments are on this topic. I was a fence sitter for a long time reading exchanges and debates (mostly on Infidels.org and through the Skeptical Review). It was only when I saw how bankrupt the theist position is through these types of exchanges was I able to finally toss aside any remnants of agnosticism and half step conclusions arrived at by some misplaced diplomacy I allowed myself to get stuck in.
The record is what it is, and Focusedoc is not by any means the best and brightest to come along from the theist camp. He does represent something of an archetype, however, in that his stubborn demeanor and assertion-laden claptrap are essentially par for the course for those so utterly tied to this theistic nonsense.
To isolate it, turn it on its side, and then allow the subjects to bury themselves in their own misconceptions is one of the best ways to help other fence sitters avoid the same fate. I mean honestly, who is going to read Focusedoc’s contributions here and conclude he is worthy of emulation? In that sense, he serves a valuable purpose; he makes the decision for others hopefully that much clearer.
He may well claim victory here and he might even cite the thread as an example of this victory. What will happen though if a friend of his decides to check it out? Will that premise hold any more than his others have? I doubt it.
Cheers!
Dadvocate a small request
Your font color choice makes it necessary for many people to highlight your posts to read it because it is black
Can you change it to white?
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Because I can see my own posts, I'm not sure if the change went through. Is my last post clear now?
Cheers!
Perfect
Thank you Dadvocate
your welcome!! being a prick is just one of the many services we offer!.
For you to take the beliefs of others and compare them to Santa, is just childish. You might want to read up on near death experience research. Its scientific and clearly establishes fact that would lead intelligent people to believe in life after death or at least the strong probability thereof
well Having been head injured and having one of those near death things it never really changed my perspective,especially after reading seeing something on NOVA about minds trickory wherever you get your info from I suggests you get calaboratory info. because scientifically it is a lack ofoxygen to the mind playing with synaptic functions.
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..