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The evening after the massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, a California pastor took the opportunity to preach that "God said: When you find a sodomite, put them to death.'" A video of the sermon was uploaded by the church, then deleted "for violating YouTube's policy on hate speech." A copy of the video uploaded by someone else, describing the sermon as "despicable," was allowed to remain.
coverage:
- Sacramento Bee
- CBS (about sermon)
- New York Daily News
- Washington Post
further information:
Facebook page for Verity Baptist Church
(archived copy)
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Do not use if foil seal is broken.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 15 2016, @04:31PM
I'm so tired of this "yeah butbutbut atheists did evil shit too!" meme. Pisses me off and I'm not even an atheist. Atheism is not a belief; it's a lack of one. MOST atheists, from what I've seen, are also some form of humanist, though I've run into plenty of Randroids and even a few complete nihilists among them.
People like Stalin, if you ask me, actually had secular religions (cults of personality). Remember Stalin had seminary training; this is why his speeches sounded a bit religious. What Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, and any religious demagogue all have in common is that they knew how to energize and work a crowd, to put them into a suggestive state and rewrite some of their social programming.
And the key point here is that these people did not do what they did in the name of atheism; indeed, they had an almost religious belief in ways history "must" play out (see dialectic materialism, etc). Whereas our shooter here very obviously did what he did in the name of Islam; specifically, what Islam says about gay people, which seems to have included him.
Do you see the difference? Atheism was a tool in the kit of people like Stalin, at most; religion is the central thesis in how Omar Mateen and his Christian counterparts acted.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 15 2016, @05:14PM
Please note that I'm not bashing atheists or atheism. But if a person is going to tar every member of a religion because of the actions of some members of a religion, then isn't it fair to do that for atheism, too?
I agree with your characterization of Stalin, Mao, and other despots who were atheists. But that's parsing atheism and saying, well, but those guys were the bad atheists; all atheists are not bad. To me that sounds like saying, well, but those muslims/christians/jews were bad muslims/christians/jews, but they don't speak for all the rest. If it's fair to draw that distinction for atheism, then why is it not fair to do the same for people who believe in a god of some kind?
I believe that you're right, that atheism was a tool in the kit of people like Stalin, but that same is true of people who use religion (pick your flavor) as a tool in their kit to beat up on others, which is what I'm saying. People who mean to do evil to others will use anything to help them do it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @06:46PM
But that's parsing atheism and saying, well, but those guys were the bad atheists; all atheists are not bad.
No, it's saying that all those countries didn't commit those horrible acts in the name of atheism. There just isn't much there, because it's simply the absence of a particular belief. On the other hand, religions make countless claims and it's easy to control people by saying they should do X, Y, and Z in the name of the religion, all while backing it up with selective quotes from some supposed holy book.
Of course not all atheists are bad. Not all Christians, Muslims, etc. are bad either. Pretty much everyone realizes this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 15 2016, @07:08PM
AC below you nailed it. There is nothing in atheism, qua atheism, that leads someone to do this kind of thing. Whereas there is a hell of a lot in Islam and Christianity that leads its followers to do everything from casual discrimination to genocide.
It's not like the-conspicuous-lack-of-God is ordering atheists to kill people for not being atheists. But Yahweh cultists have invented some very creative and drawn-out forms of torturous death for people who don't believe in Yahweh, or who do things the scripture supposedly Yahweh-breathed says deserve death, cf. Leviticus 20:13 I believe.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 15 2016, @10:15PM
Well, how do you define atheism? I've seen it expressed in many different flavors. Some interpret it as humanism, others as a straightforward, "I don't believe in god." Others reject the judeo-christian values that Western civilization is built on. Other varieties of atheists called communists have definitely killed people of faith for having faith. Nietzsche was a prominent atheist philosopher whose ideas exercised a strong influence upon the Nazis, who definitely killed lots of people of faith.
Ahh, but *that* atheism is the bad atheism. *My* atheism is the good atheism, right? Yes, exactly.
There are passages in the Old Testament of the Bible, the Koran, and other holy books that are disturbing. The New Testament and Christians rather focus on the teachings of Christ therein. Christ never preached torture and death for people who didn't believe in him. I don't have a definitive list at hand, but in my experience most Christians who use Christ as a club typically reference passages in the Old Testament, which contains nothing about Christ. The Yahweh cultists are responsible for that part of the Bible, so perhaps questions about what they're about are better directed to them. Christ himself preached a message of love and inclusion.
What values does atheism preach? Does it extol the virtue of clipping coupons before going to the market? Does it condemn killing others unless you're sure you can get away with it? Or does it pick and choose the positive set within judeo-christian values inherited in Western civilization and recommend you live your life according to those? Or does it have no value system at all, because that would be too religion-like? If you're assembling the set of moral principles for yourself that feel right to you, then congratulations you're doing exactly what the vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and every other person of faith I've ever known also do. Occasionally you get the poindexters who try to live by the literal word of those faiths, and mostly everyone else avoids them as inflexible, insufferable dicks.
Personally, I'm a Christian and believe in God because my set of life experiences has proven to me that there is a higher power at work. For most of my life I did not believe that. As a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, I can still certainly understand the atheist perspective. I can understand it as a rejection of god, and also as a "I simply don't care" variety, too. Everybody's on their own journey through existence. Be happy, and please be kind to everyone else along the way.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 16 2016, @05:33AM
Your experiences show a higher power. So do mine. The difference is, I know enough of comparative religion, church history, apologetics, COUNTER-apologetics, and theology to know that that higher power is not the Abrahamic God.
The criteria for being God held by the Abrahamic religions are internally contradictory ANYWAY, not to mention contradictory to observable reality, and even if they weren't, the very collection of books that are our ONLY record of Yahweh, the Abrahamic God, explicitly disconfirms that he has those properties necessary to BE God. I really think you've fallen victim to sloppy thinking here, not least because the entire central thesis of Christianity is insane. If this Yahweh fellow exists, he's some kind of evil spirit, demon, maybe even an evil alien, but definitely not God.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 16 2016, @03:02PM
There's no need to be insulting. You have particular issues with the judeo-christian god. OK, that's fine by me. The passages in the Bible that appall you appall me too, most likely.
For example, I find it particularly ironic that a people who practiced widespread genocide against those who occupied Judea before them should complain so loudly when the same sort of widespread genocide was practiced on them, especially when since they have regained that general swath of territory they have reverted to type and have resume genocide against others.
But there is an ethos to Christianity that appeals to me. It makes provision for those who are not Christian, even those who are not Christian and don't want to be Christian. I can't really name any other faith or philosophy that makes provision for people outside the fold. If you're a Jew, you'll go to the mat for a fellow Jew, but god forbid you should be a gentile. Likewise Islam. If you're a muslim, you're bound seven ways to Sunday to provide for them; everyone else, put to the sword. Atheists, it's kind of every man for himself.
The difference is that belief systems that limit their esteem and charity to those within the belief system beget tribes, but those that extend those to everyone regardless of religion or tribe, beget civilization and progress.
If you're an atheist enjoying a life of atheism in a Western society, then it is exactly because you are embedded within a larger Christian ethos that enables such things. You would have scant luck trying the same in Saudi Arabia or Israel. There, you would be dead, in prison, or if you're really lucky, you'd have rocks thrown at you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 16 2016, @05:12PM
Of course you believe your God is going to throw everyone who doesn't kiss his ineffable ass into Hell where they'll scream and broil and writhe and roast and weep and crackle and sizzle for alllllllll eternity, and you're fine with that, aren't'cha?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:01PM
Me? No, not at all. If you want to project that kind of sectarian hatred onto me, go ahead. But that's all about you and your resentments and has nothing to do with me at all.
In real life my set of friends includes atheists, jews, muslims, buddhists, druse, hindus, and even a zoroastrian. I have no problem with that. In fact i relish their insights into worldviews radically different from what i grew up with.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 16 2016, @08:16PM
I'm litmus-testing you, spaz. So, you don't believe in your religion's vision of Hell; good, because most of the early church fathers didn't either, and I'd argue the inability of Latin to well and truly convey the difference between the concepts Koine Greek glosses with kolasis, timoria, aionios, and aidios was behind a lot of that.
That said, how do you justify going against the grain on such a fundamental matter of doctrine for your religion? Understand that if you are wrong, your religion says YOU will go to Hell, and there is no escape and no mercy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday June 15 2016, @09:03PM
Atheism is not a belief; it's a lack of one.
Wouldn't that be agnostic? An atheist claims there is no god. This statement cannot be proven, for the simple fact that "god" is not well defined. As soon as you prove something doesn't exist, believers can amend their definition of "god" in order to keep it possible.
Since the statement can't be proven, atheists *believe* that there is no god, while agnostics would not claim any knowledge on that topic and therefore do not believe in any god.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 15 2016, @09:30PM
Sooooort of. I usually express this as a dual-axis statement: atheism/theism on the X axis as a belief claim, and gnosticism/agnosticism on the Y axis as a knowledge claim. So that gives us gnostic and agnostic theists, and gnostic and agnostic atheists. Most atheists are agnostic atheists; I suspect there are very few who are epistemilogically arrogant enough to claim perfect knowledge that there is nothing, anywhere, in any way shape or form that matches any definition of God, though it is perfectly reasonable to express gnostic atheism about *specific* God-concepts.
I would technically be an agnostic theist, though this is only because deism, pantheism, panpsychism, etc. all get lumped into the "theist" half of the coordinate plane here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...