Check out this undescribable tragedy: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/07/21/montreal-concrete-slab-death-funeral-engineer-report.html
If you are religious, I guess you would say that Ms. Guilbeault was touched by the hand of God ... or that God works in mysterious ways ... or that she is now in a better place. Take your pick - it's all unadulterated bullshit.
If you are an atheist, I guess you would say "Oh dear what a tragedy. Lets hate on religion." Generalizing is fun. Your "hope is that this space will provide a critical but tolerant forum". Incase you werent aware, tolerance works both ways. Its great that you are an atheist. And its great that you want people to come here and learn about your freedom from religion (or lack thereof considering your determinism post). Whats not great is that this post is neither critical nor is it tolerant.
ReplyDeletenab, the purpose of this post was to illustrate that tragedies such as these stand as testaments to the fact that either:
ReplyDelete1. there is no God; or
2. if there is a God, he is either powerless or unspeakably cruel.
I don't know what's intolerant about that and perhaps you would be kind enough to enlighten me.
Calling what somebody believes as "unadulterated bullshit" is intolerant. Its fine that you believe that. It is also fine that you post it and tell the world about it. This does not change the fact that you can not tolerate religious peoples beliefs. Ofcourse, this is your space, and you can post what you want, but don't hope for this space to be a tolerant one, when you as the author of it, have no tolerance for other peoples religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI think he tolerates the rights of others to believe unadulterated bullshit.
ReplyDeletenab, if you are equating energetic criticism with intolerance, I am guilty as charged. However, I define intolerance as going beyond criticism and attempting to stifle the opposing viewpoint. I don't do that and, to date, I am proud to say that I have never had to delete a comment from this blog.
ReplyDeleteThink about it this way: if you were to ridicule me for believing that little green men live on my roof, would you be being intolerant? Would it matter is millions agreed that little green men lived on my roof?
nab, please see this post for a clear statement of my "mission": http://www.atheistmissionary.com/2009/01/unstoppable-wave-of-common-sense.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, your "mission" is a lot clearer. I suppose the definition of intolerance may have a broad spectrum hence my posts.
ReplyDeleteBULLSHIT.
ReplyDeletenab, you said:
ReplyDeleteCalling what somebody believes as "unadulterated bullshit" is intolerant.
But wouldn't you say the same thing about some beliefs? For example, what do you think of Scientology? Would you agree that it's "unadulterated bullshit"?
I disagree with the teachings/philosophy/ideology of scientology. Personally if I had a "tolerant" blog dedicated to the "reasoned and peaceful eradication" of scientology, I would not take the offensive by calling their beliefs "unadulterated bullshit". But thats just me.
ReplyDeleteThe author of this blog pointed me to another post of he said one of his goals was to also poke fun at religions. Given that knowledge and his definition of intolerance, his post becomes less hypocritical.