Things I Learned Today Reading The Internet

[Heddi]

1) questioning the need for the 10 Commandments (from the Bible), pointing out that they came from older laws, and trying to consolidate them is offensive to nearly all Christians, most Jews, and most Muslims

2) Atheist and Religious progressives can believe in Separation of Church and State, except when we can't, and that progressives all believe in reproductive freedom (even when that freedom boils down to having to buy rubbers at 7/11 vs real access to health care and reproductive medicine), and that all progressives should believe in the rights of same sex couples, even if one member of the couple is a vole, a bicycle, a sister, or a dead grandmother.

One must wonder whether the right to marry ANYTHING and ANYONE you want (which isn't just a right-wing argument about gay marriage, as it repeated often from one supposed leftward-leaning poster), does that mean that adults can marry children (a child can no more consent than a vole, a bicycle, or a dead grandmother can). Can children marry children? Aaahhh...those pesky questions.

Well, off with me. Time to go buy some rubbers at the 7/11 like everyone else!

tah-tah!

[Lordquinton]

1. I learned something too!

States rights are more important than human rights, unless those humans are religious, of course. (and we're all welcome at their church, even if we're martians).

[Heddi]

2. NALT

THEYRE NOT ALL LIKE THAT! NOT ALL!
1

[trotsky]

12. There is a really good book I think you should read.

It's called The Sparrow.

[Heddi]

13. just finished it the other day

Have you read it?

[trotsky]

14. Have I read it?

Why, it's one of my favorite books! As you know, it involves a Jesuit priest that has a crisis of faith while visiting an inhabited planet.

[Heddi]

17. See, that's the fly in the ointment - he doesn't have a crisis of faith while visiting an inhabited

planet.

He has a crisis of faith before he visits and after he visits.

The book, while somewhat interesting, left me flat.

Everyone loves god. The priests, the atheists, the Turkish Jew. They're all OMG GOD!!!

and then

SPOILER
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they all die horribly

SPOILER PT 2

and the priest is repeatedly raped by an alien that may or may not look like a deer with ribbons in it's hair (fur). And the message that drew them to the planet in the first place isn't a religious song, but a dedication to rape, musical-style.

So when he comes back, the tendons are chopped from his fingers and his rectum is in a state referred to only as "indescribable" and he's like "GOD!> Y U NO TELL ME NOT TO GO TO THAT PLANET" and the other Priests who are calling him a child killing whore are like "heh" and so he's like "But the bible says that not even a sparrow can fall in the forrest without god knowing, so he sent me there knowing that my friends would be eaten by the ribbon deer and I would be brutally and repeatedly raped only to come back to earth and be accused of being a whore and a child killer and a people killer and did nothing, or he sent me there and didn't care, or he didn't send me there" and everyone's like "yeah" and he's like Orly? okthxbai and that's the end.

It was quite unsatisfying. THere's a second book that I may or may not read depending on how cheap I can get it on amazon or if I can torrent the ebook.

I felt like all of these "hard hitting theological questions" all boiled down to "God" and we should be happy with that. No answers, no different perspective. Just "god".

There's this theme throughout where every tough question is answered with "God's Will." and that's what you get in the end: god's will.

There. I just saved you $9 plus shipping from half.com

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Are there any goats in the book?

[Heddi]

19. sadly, no. there is, however

A female MD who is just the best person ever. She's so good that she is an atheist/agnostic who believes in the glory of God and still calls herself an agnostic/atheist. The parallels with real life are staggering

[trotsky]

20. Wow so it's almost like a biography of a wonderful, supremely self-aware...

and definitely NOT mediocre individual that takes place in the future. Cool.

[onager]

21. But is a boat involved?

TEST POST here, but couldn't resist the topic.

Testing to see if I can post from here inside the Atlanta airport, where I keep getting "network is borked" messages. Waiting for my flight from Atlanta back to Los Angeles.

That's the Atlanta airport with some frigging twee little "people mover" train you must board to get any damn where. Any day now I expect they will move the bathrooms to the far end of the terminal, and everybody will have to ride a little train to pee.

Damn Atlanta. Thanks for not finishing the job, Gen. Sherman. You mushy-headed bleeding-heart liberal.

[trotsky]

22. Have been to (and through) that airport a few times.

I feel your pain.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. I already asked about goats.

[mr blur]

3. Also, the theists at DU,

are reasonable, progressive, tolerant and all-round wonderful people. Just misunderstood .

[Warren Stupidity]

4. I learned that there are things out there even more stunningly stupid than

Radioactive Ark Man.

[AlbertCat]

5. I learned

that god (don't know which one) is not superfluous because people who think god (don't know which one) is important don't think he's (she's) superfluous.

[edhopper]

6. I must admit

I am confused over which beliefs I can question and which I can't.

[Cartoonist]

7. Here's a poem I altered.

I won't question you
Don't question me
Question that man
Behind the tree.

[trotsky]

8. That "rubbers" remark remains one of the most disgusting things I've ever read on DU.

The civility brigade still loves the person who posted it though, which shows everything you need to know about them.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Plus that poster has the support of all the Good Atheists, and there are a shit-tonne

of those here.

[trotsky]

10. If being a "good atheist" means making (or just ignoring) fucking sexist and homophobic remarks...

then I embrace my label of "bad atheist."

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Well as we know it also means "STFU and get outta mah face!".

'cause that is how to be a "good *theist".

[Lordquinton]

16. There's so much to choose from too

Defending arranged marriage, arguing the definition of rape, Professing undying loyalty to an organization, but not wanting to be affiliated with it, belief that others they interact with on a daily basis are going to hell. I just don't know which to pick.

[onager]

15. Are you Flirtin' with Alertin'?

Being Alerted on, that is. If so, to mix movie/gender metaphors...I'm your huckleberry...



I learned, from Those Who Monitor All Things Atheist All The Time, that an atheist blogger got caught repeatedly plagiarizing.

Well, no, I didn't learn that. I already knew it before Hemant Mehta posted it at The Friendly Atheist. After which it got dragged into the DU "Atheists Behaving Badly" eternal sub-topic.

I also knew that the hard work exposing that plagiarist was done by a woman from the awful, evil, iniquitous, misogynistic hive of haters known as the SlymePit. She posted her findings to Twitter, which is where Mehta initially got them, I'm pretty sure. And that's why he gave a shout-out to the SlymePit - somewhat muted in his first post, more overt in the second.

WTF? A WOMAN posts at the SlymePit?!? You may not know that, if you only read the propaganda about that site.

Yep, lots of very outspoken women post there frequently. Along with every other imaginable type of human, including gay people, trans people, many non-Americans, and even a self-identified robot feline deity.

Which makes sense. The SlymePit was started by a woman scientist. And many of the women posting there seem to work in the STEM or medical fields. At least one frequent poster is a woman MD.

I'm not posting any direct links because some jackhole will probably alert on me for linking to a "hate site."

The SlymePit is not a hate site. It is a site dedicated to VERY free speech, often rude and right in your face. But there are no BS "Alerts," thread-nannies, or power-crazy moderators ban-hammering people, either.

Of course, you'll see many people telling you to NEVER visit the SlymePit. Which is exactly why you should, IMO.