Comments on: What DID he think he said?

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:32:58 +0000

Bill, why haven’t you banned Rid from posting here? He has long since proved that he is a pathetic little troll.

By: Tunasammich

Tunasammich — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:05:29 +0000

As an atheist myself I’m fully aware that when the non-religious want to be aholes they just use evopsych and act like science says women and racial minorities are inferior and should be oppressed.

By: Lihtox

Lihtox — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:16:15 +0000

Getting back to the comic for a moment: I read the comic in a different way: if Satan appeared before you like that, it would be pretty strong empirical evidence for the Christian worldview, but I’m rather not be provided with said evidence thank-you-very-much.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Holy War. Do note, however, that “religion” encompasses a wide range of beliefs; “religious” is not a synonym for “Christian fundamentalist”. If one’s criticisms about religion are not applicable to Buddhism, Quakerism, Baha’i, etc, then one should tighten the beam on one’s flamethrower a bit. So much of this sort of argument consists of Christian fundamentalists and dogmatic atheists shooting at one another, with the rest of us hiding behind rocks trying not to get hit by either side.

By: John Small Berries

John Small Berries — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:56:40 +0000

From a Christian scriptural perspective, though, not really - after all, in John 20, Thomas refuses to believe his fellow apostles’ claims to have seen the resurrected Jesus “except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side”. Jesus appears a few days later and enunciates a special blessing for “they that have not seen, and yet have believed” - but only after offering Thomas exactly the empirical evidence he demanded; he didn’t condemn Thomas for insisting upon proof (”ask and ye shall receive”, after all).

Furthermore, in Mark 16:17-18, Jesus explicitly promises a list of empirical evidence by which one may know believers: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Some of them are pretty hard to verify, or can be interpreted ambiguously, but others are easily testable - quaffing a glass of Drāno with no ill effect, for example, would certainly be somewhat persuasive to me.

By: OMJulie

OMJulie — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:00:26 +0000

Igelino: Yes, that completely clears it up! Thank you!

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:14:17 +0000

Theologically, it’s entirely sound to believe that God (or a god, if one prefers) is only knowable through faith, and that insistence on empirical evidence will only lead one to see the work of the devil. After all, any empirical evidence can always be explained away as something other than the work of God. It’s necessarily a dead end.

By: Ian Osmond

Ian Osmond — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:01:09 +0000

Rid #12: Yes, that’s true. Religious and non-religious people ARE responsible for all the violence and warfare in the world!

Well, all the human-caused deliberate violence, anyway.

Yes, religion can be one excuse for violence. But so can any other cause.

By: Igelino

Igelino — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:46:56 +0000

OMJulie: does this help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex

By: OMJulie

OMJulie — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:12:33 +0000

I generally don’t care what anybody believes either as long as they aren’t hurting anybody, but I sure don’t like being unfairly stereotyped. And it’s pretty hypocritical to use bigotry-inducing “All members of X group are Y” reasoning to dismiss X group for being closed-minded, of all things.

That was in reference to Rid’s comments, btw, not Nicole’s.

By: Winter Wallaby

Winter Wallaby — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:56:04 +0000

Nicole, atheists as a whole worldwide don’t seem any less violent than theists. Communist countries were mostly atheist, and were plenty violent without religion as an excuse.

People often like to be violent, and religion can give them a good excuse for it, but without religion, they just find other good excuses.