Posted on 10/28/2009 10:27:28 AM PDT by TopQuark
Did you miss it? Last month the country celebrated national Blasphemy Day!
According to NPR.com, atheists marked Blasphemy Day last month at gatherings around the world, celebrating the freedom to denigrate and insult religion.
Activities included de-baptizing people with hair dryers and an art exhibit in Washington, D.C., which showed, among other titles, Jesus Paints His Nails, in which "an effeminate Jesus after the crucifixion [applies] polish to the nails that attach his hands to the cross." The atheist group Center for Inquiry hosted the exhibit.
Addressing a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, columnist Christopher Hitchens elicited enthusiastic cheers by commenting, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right." He told NPR that religion is "sinister, dangerous and ridiculous," because it can prompt people to fly airplanes into buildings, and it promotes ignorance.
Hitchens defended atheist incivility this way: "If I said to a Protestant or Quaker or Muslim, 'Hey, at least I respect your belief,' I would be telling a lie."
THE IRRELIGIOUS DIVIDE However, not all atheists should be painted with the same brush. Stuart Jordan, who advises the Center for Inquiry on policy issues, explain to NPR that Blasphemy Day is symptomatic of a debate among traditional atheists and "new atheists" over whether people of faith should be treated with respect or derision.
Paul Kurtz, who founded the Center for Inquiry three decades ago, was ousted in a "palace coup" last year. "I consider them atheist fundamentalists," he says. "Merely to critically attack religious beliefs is not sufficient. It leaves a vacuum. What are you for? We know what you're against, but what do you want to defend?"
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
That's actually true. When I first realized my faith in God was a sham, I was very defensive about religion. Now it's 15 years later, and Islam is the only one I still pick on (because I think they're awful.) But I treat Christians and Jews with respect and don't pick fights with them.
Mock: To treat with ridicule or contempt; deride.
If someone derides God, or treats he/she/it with ridicule or contempt, they are mocking God by definition.
No, they’re not, and I’m not going to get into a silly semantics contest. They’re mocking what they imagine God to be. One might as well be a child mocking the dark.
This isn't a "silly semantics contest". Let's see if an analogy helps. During the Cold War Soviet propaganda mocked the USA. It could be argued that the purveyors of such propaganda didn't understand the USA, and were simply mocking what they imagined the USA to be, but they were still mocking it. To say you can't mock the USA is absurd, just as it is to say you can't mock God.
I've just drawn a stick figure on a piece of paper. I'm pretending it's you. I just stuck my tongue out at it. Am I mocking you? Or am I kidding myself?
Are you arguing that one cannot mock something without a full and complete understanding of the subject in question?
Atheism is at root an emotional - and faith-based - belief. They trumpet science and reason while undermining any possible rational underpinning for the same.
Once more, with precision: when one hasn't a clue as to what one is trying to mock, it's toothless.
I do not require "full and complete understanding" - that is your term, which you were applying in order to sway the argument. Now please play these games with someone else, I've stated my argument in perfect clarity. If you want to restate it in other terms, you're arguing with yourself.
I never said you did. In post 45, I pointed out that the Soviet Union mocking the United States during the Cold War without full knowledge of it was analogous to someone mocking God without full knowledge of him/her/it. Your reply to this was that my logic was impeccable, but that my premises were flawed. Needing clarification, I then asked if you were arguing that Soviet propaganda didn't mock the USA.
Clear enough?
Once more, with precision: when one hasn't a clue as to what one is trying to mock, it's toothless.
That fact that it's toothless doesn't mean that the mocking in question never occurred. God obviously can be mocked.
I do not require "full and complete understanding" - that is your term, which you were applying in order to sway the argument. Now please play these games with someone else, I've stated my argument in perfect clarity. If you want to restate it in other terms, you're arguing with yourself.
If you don't want a reply, you really shouldn't ask me a question at the top of the post to which I am currently replying. In any case, it now seems that you're arguing that one can mock God as long as one has more than more than a "clue" about him/her/it. Correct?
No, you’re arguing that. Really, this is high school debate stuff, unworthy of FR. We’ll make a deal: you restate my case however you like, give your restatement a stern and logical disproof, and give yourself a high-five for winning the debate. I’ll be at the adult table when you’re done. Welcome to FR.
Unwillingness and/or inability to refute my last post duly noted.
Kid, you have an awful lot to learn. I hope you last to learn it.
We all have an awful lot to learn. It’s a big universe. That’s what makes it so much fun!
Busily cussing what they stoutly maintain is a nonexistent deity? Sounds like they have a screw loose.
That doesn’t make someone a polytheist. We’re idol worshipers to an extent but don’t really believe football, work, or money are gods.
That doesn’t make someone a polytheist.
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of course not, tongue in cheek comment.
The tree falls, thus making a traveling wave (an oscillation of pressure) in the atmosphere. Since this is the definition of a sound,
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Actually this is one of MANY definitions given and one that I personlly don’t like very well. The sound that a person HEARS is his own perception of the energy contained in the oscillations in the atmosphere. A totally deaf person standing beside the falling tree would hear no sound, therefore I say that if there are no ears there is no sound.
To refer to vibrations in the audible range as sound is no more valid than to refer to vibrations in the visual spectrum as sight. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can “see” things that I have not been around in years and if I go into a silent, dark place and concentrate I can “hear” things I haven’t been exposed to in years. I hope you follow my meaning, it seems a little difficult to put into words.
If a blind man strikes a match that no one else sees, does it make a light? Well...yes. Whether or not anyone's eyes intercept the photons that are produced, the light itself still exists.
Similarly, when the tree falls, the traveling wave (the sound) still exists regardless of whether or not it interacts with anyone's ears.
I don’t think I am quite getting it across, yes we can probably assume that if a blind man strikes a match that makes a light but the IMAGE of that lit match only exists in the mind of a viewer, it is the seer’s interpretation of the light energy.
Similiarly we may call vibrations sound but the PERCEIVED sound exists only in the mind of a listener. That is why the totally deaf person is unaware of the tree falling unless he feels the vibration through the soles of his feet or, in the case of a really huge tree, in his body, this is perceiving the vibration as vibration, hearing it is perceiving it as what we call sound. Perceived sound is not the same as vibration. I once saw Bob Guccione being interviewed on television and his voice was so low pitched that I could both hear the deep bass and at the same time feel the vibrations in my own chest. We may refer to both as sound but they are not one and the same. If I had been stone deaf I would not have heard his speech but I WOULD have felt the vibrations in my own chest.
All this may sound to some like semantics but there is more to it, it just isn’t easy to say clearly, at least not for me.
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