Hobart damned; Tasmanians fail to notice any difference

[bilby]

http://abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/dark-mofo-inverted-crucifixes-upset-hobart-christians/9844308?pfmredir=sm

Mark Brown, Tasmanian director of the Australian Christian Lobby, said the signs were "highly offensive" to Christians

Oh dear. What a shame. Never mind.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

As I understand it, since the inverted cross was put up, there are indications that some Australians in the area have engaged in drinking and debauchery. So, this guy was right to have been concerned about dark forces influencing the populace.

 

[Jobar]

*I'm* offended that *they're* offended.

Um, no. 'Amused' would be more accurate.

 

[Lion IRC]

It's one thing to claim open-minded, enquiring skepticism as to the existence of God.
It's quite another to deliberately mock and blaspheme.

On the Day of Judgement that latter will be harder to explain.

 

[bilby]

It's one thing to claim open-minded, enquiring skepticism as to the existence of God.
It's quite another to deliberately mock and blaspheme.

On the Day of Judgement that latter will be harder to explain.

That post contains exactly zero useful information.

You are absolutely right, but if and ONLY if your assumption that you are absolutely right is true.

You are threatening people with the dire consequences of not believing your threats, while claiming the right not to be laughed at for doing so. Can't you understand how ludicrous that is?

I know you might long for the good old days, when laughing at your crazy claims was punishable by being burned at the stake; But sorry to say, people these days need more than threats of punishment by your imaginary friend to stop them from pointing out that your ideas are baseless and nutty.

People putting up any symbols they like, is only an offence against your own imagination. You get to complain about it only after your side stops displaying their symbols in public.

Until then, mockery is completely justified as a response to your idiocies.

And stamping your foot and making hollow threats about the consequences of our mirth at your discomfort will only make us laugh even more.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's one thing to claim open-minded, enquiring skepticism as to the existence of God.
It's quite another to deliberately mock and blaspheme.

Ever notice that comedians tend to pick on the pompous?
No one laughs if you slam a bat against the head of a young girl in a wheelchair. Slap a banker, a lawyer, or the network's censor with a cream pie, it's hilarity.

There are always exceptions, but generally, people are quite moved to laugh if they see someone mocking pomposity. Especially if no actual hatm was done.

Identifying YOUR cow as the sacred one is a lightning rod for an attack. If this sort if thing didn't draw the predictable reaction, no one would do it...

 

[funinspace]

mock...oh covfefe

 

[Lion IRC]

It's one thing to claim open-minded, enquiring skepticism as to the existence of God.
It's quite another to deliberately mock and blaspheme.

Ever notice that comedians tend to pick on the pompous?
No one laughs if you slam a bat against the head of a young girl in a wheelchair. Slap a banker, a lawyer, or the network's censor with a cream pie, it's hilarity.

There are always exceptions, but generally, people are quite moved to laugh if they see someone mocking pomposity. Especially if no actual hatm was done.

Identifying YOUR cow as the sacred one is a lightning rod for an attack. If this sort if thing didn't draw the predictable reaction, no one would do it...

So you admit that the mocking entails a deliberate "up yours" aimed squarely at a particular target. So there would be no defense along the lines of..."oh was that blasphemous? Sorry God, I didn't know what I was doing"

And that's my point. Presumably, none of the Dark Mofo 'comedians' would be belatedly asking forgiveness if they feel so strongly about sticking it up the sacred cow.

 

[bilby]

Ever notice that comedians tend to pick on the pompous?
No one laughs if you slam a bat against the head of a young girl in a wheelchair. Slap a banker, a lawyer, or the network's censor with a cream pie, it's hilarity.

There are always exceptions, but generally, people are quite moved to laugh if they see someone mocking pomposity. Especially if no actual hatm was done.

Identifying YOUR cow as the sacred one is a lightning rod for an attack. If this sort if thing didn't draw the predictable reaction, no one would do it...

So you admit that the mocking entails a deliberate "up yours" aimed squarely at a particular target. So there would be no defense along the lines of..."oh was that blasphemous? Sorry God, I didn't know what I was doing"

And that's my point. Presumably, none of the Dark Mofo 'comedians' would be belatedly asking forgiveness if they feel so strongly about sticking it up the sacred cow.

I can't imagine that they have any more reason to expect to need to than they have to expect Santa to bring them a lump of coal.

In the vanishingly unlikely case that the Christian god exists, it's he who owes them an apology. What kind of idiot leaves the only evidence of some vitally important facts in the hands of the kind of slimy gits who run major religions, and doesn't update the stuff in person for a couple of thousand years?

Blasphemy is a victimless crime. If there's a god who gives a shit about it, he is free to tell the perpetrators that himself. If he can't be bothered, he has no grounds to get all pissy about it after the event.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So you admit that the mocking entails a deliberate "up yours" aimed squarely at a particular target. So there would be no defense along the lines of..."oh was that blasphemous? Sorry God, I didn't know what I was doing" And that's my point. Presumably, none of the Dark Mofo 'comedians' would be belatedly asking forgiveness if they feel so strongly about sticking it up the sacred cow.

Holy fuck did Lion miss the point...

It's an attack on YOU, by poking fun at your holy cows.
Cows that don't actually exist.
Cows that haven't lifted a fucking finger for actual crimes and atrocities committed by humans over actual recorded history, so what the fuck would make anyone think blasphemy will fire his ire?

This is ENTIRELY between camps of humans. You getting all huffed up about the blasphemy just makes you that much more of a pompous target. Threats of hell work just about as well as they ever have, too. You 'point' is the same point the Church has been flogging since the first heretic was burned.

By pompous humans.
Not by any skybeasts.

. But i will admit, you ARE doing your part of the performance really, really, well. No one could ask for any more, except maybe if you threw in some scripture quotes?

 

[funinspace]

But i will admit, you ARE doing your part of the performance really, really, well. No one could ask for any more, except maybe if you threw in some scripture quotes?

Yeah, what we need is a TULIP reverend...then those quotes would be there

 

[Lion IRC]

Look, my point is simple.
There's a difference between open-minded, agnostic atheism (ignorance) and deliberate anti-religion blasphemy. And you confirmed that the latter would have a different sort of explaining to do on Judgement Day.
In fact there's probably a version of Pascals Wager which says why not give theism the benefit of the doubt and NOT taunt God. (Unless you like living dangerously)

 

[abaddon]

Maybe there's an invisible and powerful 'god' that gets upset if you don't act at least a little like he's king-shit ... Worrying at all on that total impossibility would be entirely stupid even for agnostics.

Open-minded, agnostic atheism perhaps makes some sense for remotely possible "philosophical" gods... Maybe something along the lines of AN Whitehead's panentheistic conception. But not ever the petty tyrant told about in some old book of myths.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Maybe there's an invisible and powerful 'god' that gets upset if you don't act at least a little like he's king-shit ...

But an all-knowing skybeast would know, as an absolute fact, that i intend no disrespect to Him, Her, Them.
No more than joking about Darth Vader's choices in battle disrespects THAT fictional character.

She MUST know that it's fellow humans i target.

And besides, the only punishment for any finite amount of sin is infinite torture. So if I'm already hell-bent for evolutionary theory, doubt, asking questions, rejecting palliatives in place of answers, or any of a hundred other things The Faithful have told me was my Doom

(A roommate in the barracks once reached past my AD&D books, my tarot deck, my copy of Fear And Loathing, tapped the issue of Playboy, and told me That was going to send me to Hell.
But another sailor felt that Playboy was my best hope. Look at naked white girls long enough, I'd eventually leave my black wife and interracial kids, and seek forgiveness... )

Anyway, i see no reason to believe gods exist, so no reason to fear 'what if he does.' If she does, they will either forgive everything, or he won't. If they forgive 99% of my sins, i go to the same place as if she forgives none of it.

 

[bilby]

Look, my point is simple.

You mean as in "Don't pay too much attention to Lion; I'm afraid he's a bit simple"?

There's a difference between open-minded, agnostic atheism (ignorance) and deliberate anti-religion blasphemy. And you confirmed that the latter would have a different sort of explaining to do on Judgement Day.
In fact there's probably a version of Pascals Wager which says why not give theism the benefit of the doubt and NOT taunt God. (Unless you like living dangerously)

Pascal's wager has no value, other than as an excellent example of a common form of cognitive error.

Laughing at people who believe absurd nonsense is perfectly justified. Particularly when they want respect for their absurdities to override other people's right to artistic expression.

It was a dangerous thing to do when the church could set people on fire for doing it; But you can't do that any more, and threatening us with punishment by your imaginary friend is just going to provoke further mirth. Lot's of people are not frightened by your silly ghost story any more. If you find that upsetting, then stiff shit. I find it far more upsetting that you still support the folks who abused their power to torture people to death for laughing at their nonsense. But I will defend to the death your right to do so - as long as your beliefs are in not way imposed upon anyone who does not subscribe to them.

Sadly, your religion just doesn't seem to be able to grasp that not being allowed to impose on others is not an infringement of your rights. But until you do, you will find people who will keep reminding them that they have no authority over those who choose not to put themselves under their control; And that to try to insist on such authority will get them laughed off the stage for the pompous fools that they are.

Warning what might happen on Judgment Day when your audience are atheists is about as effective a debating strategy as putting on a wild and brightly coloured wig, large red nose, white face-paint, baggy trousers and HUGE shoes.

 

[RavenSky]

http://abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/dark-mofo-inverted-crucifixes-upset-hobart-christians/9844308?pfmredir=sm

Mark Brown, Tasmanian director of the Australian Christian Lobby, said the signs were "highly offensive" to Christians

Oh dear. What a shame. Never mind.

"We're dealing with spiritual forces here. I don't think those involved with this event, David Walsh and Leigh Carmichael, would disagree with the spiritual realm being a real thing."

I'm guessing they would disagree

 

[bilby]

"We're dealing with spiritual forces here. I don't think those involved with this event, David Walsh and Leigh Carmichael, would disagree with the spiritual realm being a real thing."

I'm guessing they would disagree

Yeah, me too.

It amuses me that people who have no trouble imagining an entire pantheon of supernatural entities - a god (who might be three gods), saints, devils, angels, demons, ghosts and spirits of the departed, etc., etc. - still cannot bring themselves to imagine the outlandish possibility that other people might not share their delusions.

It's like talking to a football fan who can grasp that you might support a different team from him (though he thinks that's a bad choice on your part); Can even grasp that you might prefer a different version of football - American, Australian, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Soccer, etc. - But just cannot accept that you don't care about football at all. Only of course, it's worse, because at least we have physical evidence for the existence of football. Why anyone would be a fan of a particular team if they had never seen a match at all, and only had other people's word for it that the sport of football even exists, I do not know.

 

[Lion IRC]

...Warning what might happen on Judgment Day when your audience are atheists is about as effective a debating strategy as putting on a wild and brightly coloured wig, large red nose, white face-paint, baggy trousers and HUGE shoes.

Right.
But that's not my point.
I'm not talking about the atheist who simply lacks belief in God, I'm talking about the atheist who is so convinced that God doesn't exist that they feel completely safe in deliberately blaspheming Him. That's more than mere disbelief, that's atheisms version of the type of fundy that atheists themselves despise. #pot/kettle #FSTDT

Is THAT simple enough for you to understand?

 

[bilby]

...Warning what might happen on Judgment Day when your audience are atheists is about as effective a debating strategy as putting on a wild and brightly coloured wig, large red nose, white face-paint, baggy trousers and HUGE shoes.

Right.
But that's not my point.
I'm not talking about the atheist who simply lacks belief in God, I'm talking about the atheist who is so convinced that God doesn't exist that they feel completely safe in deliberately blaspheming Him. That's more than mere disbelief, that's atheisms version of the type of fundy that atheists themselves despise. #pot/kettle #FSTDT

Is THAT simple enough for you to understand?

There's no misunderstanding here, other than your failure to grasp that the two are indistinguishable.

IF you don't believe that god exists, then you must (by definition) believe that you are "completely safe in deliberately blaspheming Him". That's no more than mere disbelief. I am completely happy that if I dis Superman, he won't detect my abuse with his super hearing, and fly over from Metropolis to tick me off for being rude about him. That's because he is a FICTIONAL character.

To say 'I do not believe Superman really exists, but I won't say rude things about him JUST IN CASE' would be literally insane.

What do you imagine that 'lacks belief in God' could mean, if NOT 'so convinced that God doesn't exist that they feel completely safe in deliberately blaspheming Him'??

You really don't seem to be able to grasp the existence of atheists at all. It's like you think atheists merely pretend not to believe in God, but that really DO believe, so they should be worried about upsetting him. Well, sorry, but there is not one thing 'fundy' about not being frightened to insult a fictional character.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You really don't seem to be able to grasp the existence of atheists at all.

Also, doesn't understand the impotence of Pascal's Wager.

I'm nor more afraid of Hell than Lion likely fears ending up in Niffleheim.