Burn The Ships (in bold) quoting Nathan Natas (boxed) with a counter-response by Villabolo (Yellow highlighting).
Dawkins isn't making anything up, he QUOTING the exact words of so-called "Christian leaders."
None of those words are of any Christian "leaders" I have ever heard about...and certainly never followed. Dawkins often takes it upon himself to use the words and actions of fringes in order to paint the whole religion. That's dishonest.
These ARE leaders of tens of millions of fundamentalist Christians whether you choose to acknowledge that fact or not. That you refer to them as fringes is what is totally dishonest on your behalf since you have no excuse to be ignorant about the size and influence of fundamentalist religion in the USA. Remember those ridiculous books called the "Left Behind" series? Same type of people who read those books believe in Pat Robertson's basic theology. Those books sold tens of millions.
The concept of a church heirarchy belongs to the church; atheists are not a church and never claimed to be one, so don't impose your paradigms on us. Will you have us wearing Bishop's hats and robes next?
A hierarchy doesn't have to be explicit. Dawkins has quite a following, and is probably the world's most famous atheist right now. He is the most visible leader of a militant atheist movement. His article is followed by a chorus of "amens" in the comments section. His website is full of followers also, many hang off his every proclamation.
Dawkins following, which you claim to be "quite a following", is tiny compared to Fundamentalist Christianity. This is a perfect example of how you make a mountain out of a molehill whill making a molehill out of a mountain. That is refering to Atheists who make a couple of percent of the US population as "quite a following" while referring to Fundamentalist Christians who make up tens of percent of the US population as "fringe".
Dawkins is objective and rational.
Hardly.
Not worth debating with someone who skirted issues of Catholic genocide, Inquisitions, stake burnings and suppression of knowledge in the past.
He speaks historical truth.
His interpretations of "historical truth" are frequently flawed.
Go back to my previous statement.
He speaks historical truth. I embrace him as my atheist brother. Do you embrace Pat Robertson? Why or why not?
I embrace both Dawkins and Robertson as brothers, even if I think they are misguided in certain things. Robertson, with his interpretation of Christianity, Dawkins, for the same. I however, follow neither.
In the meantime, those evil Christian groups have sent millions in aid to help the Haitians. My church has had collections to aid them, as have many, many others regardless of denomination and regardless of whether or not they think the earthquake was somehow divine judgement.
Oh, so charitable regardless of whether they think they were divinely judged? They demonize the Haitians with their hearts but throw money with their hands. Qui Bono?
As far as "interpretation" of Christianity let us go back to the source itself. Jesus is only quoted by cowardly theologians and clergy for saying the nice things but when you contrast the nice things with the virulent abominations he said you either get cognitive dissonance or have to admit Dawkins was right.
Remember Matthew 11:20-25? Where Jesus condemned entire towns to Hades for being skeptical of his miracles. He even implied they were worse than SODOMITES! (who only wanted to anally rape God's angels). Where was the Jesus who is supposed to have said "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do? And not for merely disbelieving him but killing him as well! Get a clue Burns. Where is the Jesus who is supposed to have read men's hearts? Did he not know that these people should have been skeptical of anyones miracles in a world where magicians and phony healers roamed free. Did not Jesus himself warn them of false prophets who would perform powerful works in order to deceive?
How would they know he was genuine if most of the "word that spread" about him was hearsay? Even if they were eyewitnesses to the people being healed how would they know those people weren't planted as a magicians accomplice?
IT WOULD NOT EVEN MATTER THAT JESUS' MIRACLES WERE REAL. That's not the point. The point is he vitriolically condemned people who had a RATIONAL reason to be skeptical. Didn't he know ahead of time by being able to "read men's hearts" that he would get such a reception from sincere but not gullible people?
You could draw two conclusions from the founder of Christianity. Either, as God's genuine, miracle mongering Son, he was PSYCHOTIC or he was a FRAUD. A third conclusion is that the whole thing was made up. Pick and choose. Or choose a fourth conclusion, namely, that those who believe in these things without batting an eye are the psychotic.
This is not to say that all "Christians" are "evil" at least by generic standards of the word but they are either grotesquely ignorant of their Scriptures, thus lacking the moral right to be offended or they have read these Scriptures and they are suffering from cognitive dissonance, which could lead to psychosis. Or, again, they are in depth believers who by virtue of immersing themselves in this demonic Scripture are psychotic and potentially dangerous as they gain power.
The psychopathic God of the "Old Testament" was called "Father" by Jesus. Therein lies the Psychosis and Psychopathology of Fundamentalist Christians who are closer in spirit to these Gods than other "Christians".
THIS IS WHY PEOPLE LIKE DAWKINS ARE ON THE MARCH.
villabolo
