Murdered for being religious, sickoes everywhere.

If you read the comments here (one of the few newspapers that are allowing any) Killing of 3 in Chapel Hill stirs alarm among Muslims - The Washington Post there is a fair bit of condemnation from all quarters including people who self identify as atheists.

And this bloke too Richard Dawkins condemns Chapel Hill shooting suspected to have been carried out by 'anti-theist' that left three Muslims dead - People - News - The Independent who is also an anti-theist of some renown.

Although of course Atheists genuinely don't claim to be part of any existential community, but there will be a statistical amount of nutters among them, being human an all there probably be some atheistic 'community' group or commune in America.
 
Yes that's all normal and straightforward condemnation. I just found those comments pretty ignorant, and probably the start of some evangelical backlash against atheism/secularism.

Have always agreed with RD's views on religion, so I suppose I could be seen as an anti-theist. But I wouldn't ban religion as that is just stupid, undemocratic, dictatorial, and most probably impossible.
 
Its sixth form thinking that banning religion would solve the worlds problems, enlightenment style thinking should if allowed to flourish with education make religion less relevant and less harmful all by itself.
 
Its sixth form thinking that banning religion would solve the worlds problems, enlightenment style thinking should if allowed to flourish with education make religion less relevant and less harmful all by itself.

I agree with Krish, I am an anti-theist who wouldn't ban religion .... I am against it but I have no right to force people to believe.
For me, it's only a case of removing unfair, undue and irrational religious influence from the state and international politics ie no religious leaders elected to the house of lords simply to have religious leaders there.

Information, communication, science and free speech are all what reduce the number of believers and religious influence.
There will always be a certain number of believers regardless of the evidence or information, but as long as we get to the point that they are not given special privilages and don't harm anyone else then it's fine.
 
Craig Stephen Hicks arrested after 3 Muslim students shot dead in Chapel Hill | Daily Mail Online

He appeared to do this as he hates all religions, is an anti theist, vile action that will find no truck with even the most militant atheist (hopefully). R.I.P.

The guy was a nutter and it's attrocious, abhorrent behaviour.
You could blame anti-theist ideology on par to religion and killings in the name of a religion.
You can't blame atheists or even 'militant atheists' ... as generally militant atheists are simply atheists that stand up and argue their point.
 
Have I missed something here.? This was a dispute about parking and the perps lack of religiosity and the victims religion don't appear to be factors .
 
Yes it appears it wasn't religiously motivated, that seems to be more recent news.

Good to see everyone condemn the murder of innocent people.
 
I just hope this doesn't become an example of an atheistic murder trotted out to deflame atheism to counter the regular religiously motivated murders debates.
 
I just hope this doesn't become an example of an atheistic murder trotted out to deflame atheism to counter the regular religiously motivated murders debates.

Ofc course it will, just like every other argument that gets used repeatedly over and over even though it's been discredited or proven wrong.

It's just like you are a labelled a militant atheist simply for arguing for secularism in debates or even going so far as to make a TV program.

Religious groups and organisations fear information and rational discourse they can't control and their response is to decry the militant atheists and secularists as a malign force set to destroy society and it's morality.
 
The important thing is that high profile anti-theists discuss issues with moderate language so as not to inflame this sort of thing, in exactly the same way they expect religious leads to.

The enemy isn't religion or atheism, it's a lack of tolerance and intolerant rhetoric.

Why on earth does this even need pointing out?

Steve W
 
The important thing is that high profile anti-theists discuss issues with moderate language so as not to inflame this sort of thing, in exactly the same way they expect religious leads to.

The enemy isn't religion or atheism, it's a lack of tolerance and intolerant rhetoric.

Why on earth does this even need pointing out?

Steve W


Who are the high profile anti theists inflaming this? Not disagreeing with you, but I don't know any!
 
Who are the high profile anti theists inflaming this? Not disagreeing with you, but I don't know any!

It's probably in those militant anti-theist training camps and academies where they teach that anti-theists are better than everyone else and shouldn't mix with religious types.
 
Richard Dawkins said that religion was every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.

Do we call that moderate, tolerant language, or the sort of words a nutcase like this could have buzzing round his head?

After all, only an idiot would not do everything they could to eradicate AIDS.

You only have to look at Stephen Fry to know that it's possible to have a fixed, firm, strong and principled opposition to religion without having to use such intolerant and inflammatory language.

Steve W
 
I agree 100% with RD, and I see nothing intolerant in what he said.

Are we talking about the same Stephen Fry, or is just that you're not exactly a fan of Dawkins?

twitter.com/stephenfry/status/370576679431045120
Mary had a little lamb
It's fleece was white as snow
All you religious dicks
Just fudge off and go.
No more discussion with dickheads. Sorry.
 
Richard Dawkins said that religion was every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.

Do we call that moderate, tolerant language, or the sort of words a nutcase like this could have buzzing round his head?

After all, only an idiot would not do everything they could to eradicate AIDS.

You only have to look at Stephen Fry to know that it's possible to have a fixed, firm, strong and principled opposition to religion without having to use such intolerant and inflammatory language.

Steve W

You seem to be confusing an idea ie Religion with people.

It only translates as aggressive or an attack on people to those making that mistake or those who know full well what it means, but are upset because it challenges their world view.

Religion is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Racism is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Homophobia is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Poverty is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
 
Richard Dawkins said that religion was every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.

Its all very well for people to dream about eradicating religion, but what good would it do? It is in man's nature to be tribal, belligerent, distrustful and aggressive. If you eliminate religion as a cause for people, you will find it rapidly replaced by politics or racism as the cause for war and violence. How many massacres, wars, genocides and the rest have overtly political causes when compared to religious causes? Things like the collapse of Yugoslavia may be dressed up as having a religious element, but the massacres would have happened without any religious divide to name but one.
Was the holocaust religious or was it political? Was the Kurdish massacre by the Turks religious or political? Rwanda? Would the disaffected youth of the West be just as pee-ed of with life if Islam wasn't there? I would say almost certainly. It may be harder to convert them to violence for political aims, but not impossible.
Religion is a convenient whipping boy for unrest and violence, and perhaps a convincing rallying point for all the mal-contents and others, but it isn't the cause.

Destroy religion and bugger all will change.
 
You seem to be confusing an idea ie Religion with people.

Religion is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Racism is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Homophobia is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.
Poverty is every bit as dangerous as AIDS, but more difficult to eradicate.

If Aids is dangerous simply because it kills people, I bet more people die for twisted religious reasons ( particularly in the Middle East) than they do AIDS . Ergo Dawkins is probably statistically correct.
Homophobia hasn't killed anywhere near as many as AIDS has so is a bad comparison .
You may have a point with poverty but I suspect that is far easier to eradicate than religion .
 
Its all very well for people to dream about eradicating religion, but what good would it do? It is in man's nature to be tribal, belligerent, distrustful and aggressive. If you eliminate religion as a cause for people, you will find it rapidly replaced by politics or racism as the cause for war and violence. How many massacres, wars, genocides and the rest have overtly political causes when compared to religious causes? Things like the collapse of Yugoslavia may be dressed up as having a religious element, but the massacres would have happened without any religious divide to name but one.
Was the holocaust religious or was it political? Was the Kurdish massacre by the Turks religious or political? Rwanda? Would the disaffected youth of the West be just as pee-ed of with life if Islam wasn't there? I would say almost certainly. It may be harder to convert them to violence for political aims, but not impossible.
Religion is a convenient whipping boy for unrest and violence, and perhaps a convincing rallying point for all the mal-contents and others, but it isn't the cause.

Destroy religion and bugger all will change.

I disagree.

If a person or group hold racist views we can confront them with evidence and reason if not to their own entrenched ideas that they are wrong, at least to everyone else and especially those who were possibly swayed by some of the arguments put forwards.
However, with religion, evidence and reason don't matter.

We are potentially violent, beligerant and aggressive, but as a species and societies we endeavour to play down and inhibit those behaviours to get along and work together for mutual benefit.
There will always be some people intent on acting out and tribalistic attitudes, but as we progress we have eliminated many barriers and slowly increased tolerance.
Religion stands as a barrier to those changes and provides artificial tribal attitudes.

We haven't eliminated homophobia, sexism or racism from our society, but we have reduced them dramatically and certainly dramatically reduced their social acceptability.
Religion often provides a free pass to social acceptability with regards to bigotry and without it, certain antisocial and intolerant attitudes would be seen as socially unacceptable and reduced much quicker.
 
If Aids is dangerous simply because it kills people, I bet more people die for twisted religious reasons ( particularly in the Middle East) than they do AIDS . Ergo Dawkins is probably statistically correct.
Homophobia hasn't killed anywhere near as many as AIDS has so is a bad comparison .
You may have a point with poverty but I suspect that is far easier to eradicate than religion .

The use of poverty, homophobia and racism was not to compare them in actual harm they do, but to show that simply swapping the religion with for example poverty makes the statement cease to appear like a threat to a person.
ie it isn't aggressive if you make that statement about erradicating poverty.
It shouldn't be seen as aggressive to wish to erradicate religion - that being the idea of religion as an ideology, not religious people.
 
This incident has nothing to do with religion. It's some random nutter on a rampage. But I can see this thread has gone off discussion of the original incident anyway. Didn't take long.
 
However, with religion, evidence and reason don't matter.

Racism is based on evidence and reason? I very much disagree with that! It based on prejudice and personal belief that one is better than the other. No facts there, just belief.
 
Racism is based on evidence and reason? I very much disagree with that! It based on prejudice and personal belief that one is better than the other. No facts there, just belief.

I read what TB was saying was that you can use evidence and reason to try and persuade people that their racism is wrong. But that you can't do that with religion. I think you misunderstood his point.
 

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