Every once in awhile I just can't hold back!

[GOPFighter]

I just had another encounter with a brainwashed RW xtian and got admonished for calling RW xtians loonies. I tried, yes, I tried to show WHY fundies are looneys, but it didn't register with him/her.

I think growing up in a fundamentalist church and a fundamentalist family has made me less tolerent of them. Their beliefs are so irrational and so easy to debunk I find it damn insulting (and frustrating) that my country and it's politicians are still sucking up to them.

The Terri Schaivo affair is the perfect example of the idiocy going on right now. Millions of xtains believed Terri was conscious and lucid, trapped in a body that wouldn't allow her to communicate her lucidity. Millions of xtians prayed for her to be healed and prayed that the feeding tube would not be removed. Got that? MILLIONS of xtians prayed for her. Despite these prayers, she was not healed and the feeding tube was removed. She died.

This affair should have proved to everyone just how wrong fundies are.
1. If they honestly believed in the power of their God, they would not have gotten politicians involved. To me that was an admission that they didn't really believe God listens or cares - or even exists (I honestly think many fundies subconsciously doubt the existence of God)
2. The autopsy proved that their religious leaders were dead wrong in their assumption that Terri Schaivo was lucid and conscious. Considering that religious leaders claim to be in close touch with their God, why were they so wrong? Could it be that many, possibly most, of the fundie leaders are not really religious leaders?
3. If god didn't answer the prayers of MILLIONS of faithful xtians and heal Terri (she could have been healed on EASTER DAY when world-wide attention was focused on her...imagine how many converts god would have had if that had happened!), then when does he answer prayer? And if he can't heal Terri, or if he refused to heal her, what damn right do those assholes have to force my kid to pray in school? This is nearly irrefutable proof that prayer is totally useless, so why are we still seeing studies on the "power of prayer"?
4. If fundies really believe what they preach, they would have accepted Terri's death as god's will and sadly moved on with their lives. But instead they exploded in anger and blamed...MAN - judges and politicians - for Terri's death. Obviously they don't really believe what they preach.

This debacle should have put an end to fundamentalist's influence in America, or at least any country that values rational thought, but I have yet seen anyone in the MSM point out the absurdities and inconsistencies in the Terri Schaivo affair. Why can't we put these silly dangerous people on the spot and demand some answers? Why must we show them respect? Why is stupidity, wrapped in God's name, suddenly off limits? If someone says pi = 3 I have every right to dispute it but if someone says "My God says pi = 3," then I must keep quiet lest I show disrespect to his/her religion? Bull! Nothing should be off limits in a free society.

Please excuse those of us who occasionally go off on a poor xtian poster on DU. We have every right to demand rational arguments, provable assertions, and respect for OUR beliefs too.

:rant: :rant: :rant: Whew. That's been building up for awhile

[trotsky]

1. You know, I never thought of it that way.

Excellent post. Valid points all.

[Brewman_Jax]

2. Agreed

I get tired of listening to "poor, persecuted" Christians, who are roughly 75% of the population, whine about their rights. They mean the rights of everyone else NOT to agree with them and the separation of church and state. :eyes:

[beam me up scottie]

3. Excellent rant.

Very articulate, much of what you said is exactly how I feel but I could never organize it the way you did.

If you want to know how right you are, ask Taxloss or Muriel how the Brits view the Terri Schaivo circus.
Their views are objective and it helps you to see through their eyes just how sick and perverted the religious right really are.
And how powerful.
Actually, on second thought, don't go there, it's pretty scary.

[GOPFighter]

4. The Schaivo case is the perfect example of fundy lunacy

I just wish someone in the media would have the guts to examine the huge disconnect between what xtians preach and what they really believe. i wish there was a syndicated columnist who had the courage to occasionally write about the sham being foisted on us by xtians.

I plan to write to the Washington Post (maybe a columnist - Cohen or Dionne) and Newsweek. Newsweek has had 3 huge cover articles on Christianity and Jesus and the Pope in the last six months. I want to challenge them to do a cover about atheists and the irrationality of many aspects of religion, and the disconnects between what they preach and how they act, especially the fundamentalists. They should also discuss what a theocracy is and why it would be bad for this country (and Christianity for that matter).

There have to be plenty of honest, rational thinkers out there who would welcome such a lengthy cover article.

I don't expect anything to come of it, but maybe if I plant the seeds...

[Lowell]

5. Live just down the street from hospice

where Terri Schaivo was held. The religious nuts really came out of the woodwork for that one. One thing you can count on, they will not let cold hard facts and sound science interfere with their beliefs.

These religious whack jobs came from all over the country. It was a real zoo. Some moron dressed like Friar Tuck was always around the Swindler family and even Jessie Jackson was wrangled into making some disjointed statements in support of the nutcases.

[GOPFighter]

6. I only saw pictures but...

...I can imagine what it must have been like at the hospice. What affect did the loonies have on the local population? We're they generally sympathetic or were they generally disgusted?

I wonder if there will be more of these confrontations or whether the fundies realized they crossed the line on this and it turned out to be counterproductive. Still, I think the organizations that instigated this raked in a lot of money from the "believers" to be used for political purposes.

[Lowell]

10. The disrupted everything

from transportation, school buses and neighborhood. The local population was not at all impressed or sympathetic with the bunch of psychos. They were totally self absorbed. Their message was more important to them than the welfare of Terri or the other residents of the hospice. I am sorry they were not all arrested and carted off. Several residents died around that time and they were subjected to the circus outside their windows their last few days.

[LisaLynne]

7. The trouble is that it's hard to get them to face the cold, hard facts.

They have too many little loop-holes that they call upon to get out of really looking at things objectively. If anybody ever finds a way to really make people face the absurdity of things like that and actually start looking at the world logically or at least openly, I would love to hear it.

I, too, come from a Christian Fundamentalist background, so I really do understand your pain. It's so obvious to me and yet I haven't been able to really find a way to talk to those who are still immersed in it. I haven't even been able to get my fairly open-minded brother to see the "light", so to speak. :evilgrin:

[GOPFighter]

8. So True!

Every one of my brothers and sister are bright and compassionate, and yet they are all deeply involved in their fundamentalist xtianity. Once at a family dinner we cleared out a whole restaurant because our argument got so loud and vehement (the four of them against me)!

[MindPilot]

9. I used to be tolerant and respectful of religion

No more. I've become so disgusted by the constant complaints of persecution from religionists and enraged at the revisionist history that I simply have no problem criticizing religious beliefs.

Get your stupid myths out of my government, out of my schools, off my money, and out of my face.

I was never prouder to be an atheist than during the Shaivo affair when I could stand back and say look at the morAns and how they prove to the whole world they believe in bullshit.

[hel]

11. You're not thinking religious enough.

If she died, it's because god willed it, maybe so that 'activist judges' (that phrase sounds so funny to a non-American like me I have to put it in quotes) can be removed and god's word can be spread around the country or some kind of shit like that.

And they did play politics with it because if their politicians managed to keep the woman alive, it would be god's will too, answering their prayers through the blessed men in their party.

There is no way to argue your way out of this bullshit.

Don't bother to get into the praying and divine will arguments. If you really want to argue their religion, hit them with the age of the world, undeniable proofs of evolution, etc. Not that that will work, but at least you can get more satisfaction out of the dumb looks than 'You don't know what my God wants (and I do)' smirks.

[GOPFighter]

12. Yes, this would be their response

And I would ask "Why would a god take an innocent woman's life to remove 'activist judges'?" Why be cruel? That's one of the lunacies of their religion: their god is a mess. They call him God the Father, but what father would stand by and do nothing while priests (God's agents) abuse thousands of Innocent children?

I'm not concerned with the fundy's answers, my intent is to show the average rational person how fucked up the fundy's religion is.

If their god demands to be worshiped, if their god insists he's the only true god, then why disappear for 2000 years? Why make it so hard for his followers to convince non-believers that there is a god and only one true god. My only conclusion is that their god intentionally wants billions of people to go to hell, and only the most gullible, most insecure to be "saved" and go to heaven. Why? That seems incredibly cruel to me, and who wants to worship a cruel god? WTF has their god done in 2000 years that warrants being worshiped?

This is not rocket science. Why isn't it ever discussed in public and in the MSM?

[salvorhardin]

13. Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries

Go give a listen to this wonder audio drama adapation that the Sci-Fi channel did a few years back.

I've always loved Neil Gaiman's twist on the Christian god. Very similar to what Robert Heinlein did in Job: A Comedy of Justice but much darker.

In this mystery noir set in heaven's City of Angels before the fall, the first crime has been committed. It is an awful one. While the angelic hosts labor to create the world and its workings, one of their number is mysteriously slain by one of their own. Raguel, Angel of Vengeance, is mandated by Lucifer to discover both motive and murderer in this holy dominion that had so recently known no sin.

http://www.scifi.com/set/playhouse/murder