rock_nog wrote:Oh see, now you're just making an ad hominem attack. You're implying that because Dr. Breen said that, and Dr. Breen is horribly evil, that what he said must also be evil. So? Hitler was a Christian. Does that make Christianity wrong, or Hitler right? Obviously, as an atheist, I would argue that, in fact, Christianity is wrong, but not on the grounds that Hitler was a Christian.
No, I just found a nice parallel between the nature of Beldaran's mannerisms regarding religious thought and Dr. Breen's mannerisms regarding rebellion against the Combine. Dr. Breen promised enlightenment in exchange for parting with mankind's desire for freedom, and this has about as much to do with Beldaran promising enlightenment for joining his religion as guinea pigs have to do with Mario Kart.
I don't see why you're so incensed by my "ad hominem" which is nothing more than a restatement of Beldaran's words:
I'm just here to express my contempt for your childish unfounded delusions and to be as big a smart ass as I want.
Wikipedia wrote:An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
If Beldaran can use "witchcraft" and "magical fairy tales" to refer to religion in general, I can use "troll" to refer to "making multiple strong-opinioned posts about a controversial topic for the sake of starting heated arguments". At one time, I actually enjoyed posting against Beldaran because he put forth minimal effort at addressing my points. Now, he's playing Fred Phelps on the side of the athiests.
With respect to Hitler being a Christian, I have failed to find good evidence for or against it. What I do find is strongly biased sources presenting flawed evidence from either direction. If he believed he was a devout Christian, he didn't follow any Jesus I know of. I was going to point out some of the regimes that practiced state atheism, but after reading your post again I see you were just using hyperbole because you couldn't think of a better way to accuse me of attacking Beldaran with my bad analogy gun.
I do have a response to the picture of the attack on the WTC (the attack's connection to religion is easy to jump to, but there are many more complicated reasons why terrorists attack us as well):
http://students.umf.maine.edu/~donoghtp/Images.htm
Take a look at the aftermath of Hiroshima. How about Unit 731, who worked in the name of science? We even granted them a special immunity from being prosecuted so that we could benefit from their research! No, I'm afraid that no system of belief (or non-belief, if you prefer I call it that) is untainted. Humans like to fight over resources and will use any justification they can, including but not limited to invisible friends and invisible (but detectable!) atoms that happen to form shiny metals. Sometimes it's invisible lines in the dirt, or invisible weapons that exist inside of boxes and might be there so we have to open the box with a missile to find out. Honestly it seems like we fight more over things we can't see than things we can.
And when religion is used to convince Catholics that birth control is a sin, thus contributing to the spread of AIDS and other STDs as well as the population crisis this planet is facing? What then? I mean, the issue of whether birth control is acceptable or not wouldn't even be raised without religion, so you can't say that it's good or evil hiding behind religion.
Oh you posted this while I was posting. See, a good Catholic who follows everything the believe wouldn't have premarital or extramarital sex. This means that STDs can maybe spread to one other person, or their offspring. Any good Catholic who feels guilt for their sins would take having an STD as a sign to
not have children, thus the STD would not spread. Of course, that is the ideal; the "if everyone did this then these problems would not exist". People break the rules, and the consequences of breaking them exist. Besides, how does birth control prevent AIDS anyway? Last I checked, you can get herpes through a condom and the pill isn't protecting anyone from anything. With respect to the population crisis and whether Catholics are to blame, how do you explain the overcrowding in India and China, regions where Hinduism, atheism, and Buddhism outnumber Catholicism by probably orders of magnitude?
No, the spread of STDs is caused by casual sex. Birth control does nothing to hinder it. Abstinence is an excellent means of control, as is celibacy.
The population crisis is caused by casual sex. Birth control helps, but is not always effective and the vast majority of the planet's population has no access to it. Abstinence is an excellent means of control, as is celibacy.
It sucks when a bunch of men living in huts several thousand years ago come up with a strategy more effective than dozens of years of research, doesn't it?
