Vox Day #fundie

Vox Day #fundie voxday.blogspot.com

[A Christian college student commits suicide after reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.]

Such a waste. It's tragic to think that after reaching the correct logical conclusion to Dawkinsian moral logic, the unfortunate young man didn't see fit to shoot the pretentious Archbishop of High Church Atheism first.

129 comments

old comment by DevilsChaplain

"Where have I done this? Please read the article before making a judgment."
I'm not going to bother giving your disgusting site any traffic, so you can go fuck yourself right there.

I actually feel sorry for the guy because it brought it upon himself.
You're right, just for the wrong reason. Hitchens was a long-time smoker and drank heavily, both of which caused his cancer. To think your sky fairy did it because he's a jealous prick is completely irrational.

"He could repent and be forgiven yet he remains a mocker, even in the midst of suffering."
Not "mocking god" never cured anyone's cancer, you fool. And you know what? If he remains an anti-theist till the day he dies I'll have a great amount of respect for him (not that I don't already), because he has the courage of his convictions even while he receives mountains of letters and emails from Christian fuckheads like yourself expressing the same tired B.S. about divine wrath.

old comment by John

@ErikBBrewer Maybe Dawkins should pay attention to what is happening to his friend Hitchens

Darn right. If Dawkins had been a True Christian®, he never would have gotten cancer [/sarcasm].

As every religious person knows, God is just like the remote on your TV - His actions are controlled by your beliefs and behavior: do the right thing or have the right beliefs, and (maybe) He rewards you. Do the wrong thing or hold the wrong beliefs and (maybe) He kicks your ass. Ain't it great for losers to feel like they have the power of an omnipotent, supreme being in their hands?

What the "right thing" is, though, is our job to find out. Did Hitchens get cancer because he didn't wear a yarmulke and ate chicken and cheesecake with the same fork? Or maybe it's because he didn't bow towards Mecca and recite some words in Arabic five times a day. Or maybe it's because he didn't go to confession and eat a wafer chanted over by a priest. Or maybe it's because he let the Anglicans baptize him as a baby instead of waiting until the "age of responsibility" like the Baptists. Or maybe he's offended the "great spirit" by not praying over his meat. Or maybe because he's not "born again".

Gee. It's tough. What does God want? No matter what we do or what we believe, we all still get cancer, get killed by tornadoes and earthquakes, hit the lottery, survive heart attacks, get killed in Iraq, get a 7 at the craps table on average one time in six, have car accidents and get hit by lightning in equal numbers. Bowing to Mecca, eschewing pork or "accepting Jesus as out personal savior" doesn't seem to make any difference. Whatever God wants us to do (if anything), we don't seem to have figured it out. Or rather, 40,000 different religions each think they've figured it out, and want to kill the other 39,999 religions that disagree with them.

You'd think if it were important to God, He'd be a bit more specific.

old comment by DevilsChaplain

"Because of sin (disobedience to God), a free will choice that mankind made, we are all susceptible to sickness, disease, and death, no matter who you are (because we have all sinned)."
But if your god is omniscient and omnipotent he sees all and knows all and, furthermore, can prevent any tragedy from happening. Since he knows all he would know that Eve would be tempted into eating the forbidden fruit and would also tempt Adam. So really he couldn't have been surprised in the least, which makes his decision to plunge the world into the state it's in today all the more perplexing.

"Do not blame God when bad things happen to people (although He has to allow everything that happens, to happen, part of His all powerful nature)."
Way to contradict yourself. We can't blame god, even though you stated outright that he allows evils to happen to everyone. And if evil things happen to everyone regardless, then how could Christopher Hitchens have brought his cancer on himself by way of being a "mocker"? By your own admission shit happens to every human being because the world is "fallen", so even if Christopher were a Christian who smoked and drank (or even if he didn't) he might still end up with cancer or some other calamity. And fyi, I don't really blame god because he doesn't exist, I'm just using your religious logic.

old comment by Angua

Brewer, I read your article. I don't think you thought it out very well.

You know, if you say Voldemort's name aloud, looking at this strictly from the perspective of the Harry Potter books, he'll be able to find out where you are and he'll send his Death Eaters to torture and kill you. The only people who would ever say Voldemort's name aloud oppose Lord Voldemort and scorn and mock him. Anyone who says Lord Voldemort's name aloud is clearly arrogant to think that they can get away with it. Those who know Lord Voldemort personally would never dare to be so disrespectful. Dumbledore said Lord Voldemort's name aloud and he died.

In the first two Harry Potter movies, Dumbledore was played by Richard Harris. Richard Harris is now dead. We must encourage Michael Gambon, who took over the role of Dumbledore following Harris's death, to never say Lord Voldemort's name aloud and hope he comes to repent unless he wants to meet a similar fate.

old comment by DevilsChaplain

"No contradiction, man opened the door to evil and sin (that door would have remained closed if we would not have sinned, but we did and do) =. We made the choice and have no one to blame but ourselves."
That's absolutely a contradiction. You stated that it wasn't god's fault even though he allows all horrible things to happen and can stop it at any time. That's a contradiction because, as the almighty deity, it's within his power to stop evil. And, like I said before, he knew what Adam and Eve would do beforehand, so why should he have even been mad? It means he knew they'd fuck up and he made the world a terrible, painful place anyway. Furthermore, how just is it for someone to punish generations of people for what their ancestors did? Because Adam and Eve screwed up all of humanity--and every other species on this planet for that matter--now must suffer? That's terrible logic and terrible morality.

old comment by Angua

Brewer, in the comments of your article, you said:

"Yes, every cancer patient is a sinner because we are all sinners (you and I included). Is the disease of cancer the result of sin? Absolutely, there would be neither sickness nor disease if sin were not in the world. Does ever case of cancer mean that the person has committed some specific sin? No, cancer is the result of the fall of mankind into sin. Because of sin (in general) sickness and disease is able to attack at will, upon the just and the unjust, because we all are exposed due to the fact that we have a sin nature."

So people get cancer because of sin in general? If God allows people to get cancer because of sin in general, how can you pin Hitchens getting cancer on his atheism? Furthermore, if cancer is punishment for sin, how can you say that people who get cancer don't deserve it? If people who get cancer didn't deserve it, it would mean that God was punishing people unfairly. In which case, God is a bastard, and if you could demonstrate this God to exist, I would stop being an atheist. I'd try to oppose him in any way I could, I'd probably become a Satanist.

old comment by DevilsChaplain

"Again, you want to blame God for man's actions. Victimization, a great liberal tactic."
You're a dense little fucker, aren't ya? Let me put it this way:

*God decides to create human beings. Of course he knew he'd create them, and what they'd do, and everything that would happen in the future because he's omniscient.
*He creates human beings knowing full well they'd disobey him after he gave them free will.
*They did precisely what he knew they'd do, and he then punished them for it. What. Sense. Does. That. Make?!

*On a side note, if god sees all, he knows ahead of time who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. That means certain people are predestined to be tortured forever. Loving god, my aching ass.

old comment by John

@ErikBBrewer: Because of sin (disobedience to God), a free will choice that mankind made, we are all susceptible to sickness, disease, and death, no matter who you are (because we have all sinned).

But that doesn't answer the central question my screed raised: if we can't predict or control God's actions by our behavior, how is His existence relevant to us? If we can't predict or control God's actions by our behavior, then He's like gravity or the weather: we just have to take what He does and like it. So all religion begins with the assumption that we humans can control God's actions by our behavior.

But even if we can predict or control God's actions by our behavior, there are 40,000 different opinions about how to do that. Your assumption that our ancestors have somehow controlled God's actions toward us by their "sin" (whatever your personal opinion of what that is) is one such opinion. Do we "sin" by eating pork? Do we "sin" by burning the Quran? Did Christians survive the Plague or the Lisbon earthquake of 1755? Did Muslims survive the Indonesian tsunami? Are Baptists more likely to come home from Afghanistan alive? Did the Jews who abstained from pork survive the Holocaust?

old comment by EuropeanLibertarian

The excercise of free will requires a certain lack of restraints, but given that the penalty for not following god's will is eternal torture, and it 'is' torture, not punishment, then the free will argument is invalid because either way around, the ends have been decided by god. When the ends have been pre-determined, free will does not exist.

As for the stupid bullying analogy. if your god would prove that he existed and that such 'mockery' is actually have a determential effect on him social, mentally and physically, as a person who has been bullied rather consistently throughout my life thus far, I would be among the first to defend him. This of course, providing he fufils the previously mentioned conditions, otherwise I am no more going to stop him being slandered than I would stop Lord Voldemort, Emperor Palpatine, The Joker, or Galactus Devourer of Worlds being slandered, as they do not exist.

old comment by Pule Thamex

#1274896 DOS ET AL

Oh dear! It seems as if it has to be a fantasy if it's to register with you DOS ET AL. This time it's fantasies about how you imagine someone who is an atheist must think and act. These raving fantasies are demonstrably untrue, and yet, apparently, they help you fixate more firmly in your completely weird religious fantasy. Dawkins a shithead? How so? Dawkins an Athist (sic) filth? How so?

I say that Gods do not exist. If Bible God did exist, it would be the most fiendishly evil creature in the known cosmos. Jesus is the Son of God? Don't make me laugh. Make the most of your life, there's no heaven or hell.

That's what I think. Now, if anyone reads that and commits suicide then, my words would have more power than I thought. Indeed, my words would be more powerful than Gods words, if He existed, which He doesn't. So I suppose I can't really mock something that doesn't exist. Oh well! Can you read my words and still live?

old comment by John

Why argue about the existence of God? Unless we can influence God's actions by our own behavior - and we also know how to do that, then it doesn't matter whether God exists or not.

So there's no point in arguing over the existence of God unless someone can also show that they can influence God's actions toward us by their own behavior, and also that they know how to do this.

There is absolutely no evidence that anything we do - pray, abstain from pork, eat wafers, go to confession, accept Jesus as our personal savior, read the Bible, etc. - has any effect, good or bad, on what happens to us - at least on earth. In fact, looking at income, divorce rates, crime rates, etc. seems to show a negative correlation between religion and any kind of earthly happiness or success.

So either God doesn't exist, or He exists but He's irrelevant to us because we can't do anything about it. Why worry about which?

old comment by

@ErikBBrewer

Bad stuff happens because we live in a fallen world, a broken world. It was never created to be this way.

So, does that mean you don’t consider God to be omnipotent? I mean, if he were omnipotent, then there is nothing that could happen without him intending it or at least being able to fix it.

@ErikBBrewer

No contradiction, man opened the door to evil and sin (that door would have remained closed if we would not have sinned, but we did and do) =.

So why doesn’t God close the damn door and put a better lock on it?

If he is omnipotent, then he is able. If he is omnibenevolent, then he doesn’t want anyone to suffer and is willing to do so. So what’s stopping him?

@ErikBBrewer

Have you ever actually cracked open a Bible?
http://erikbrewer.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/bible-alcohol/
Check out what the Bible actually says about drinking.

You seem to be equivocating simply drinking with full blown alcoholism here. That’s a pretty serious mistake. I don’t think anyone here really disagrees that actual alcoholism is a bad thing.

As for what the Bible says, I do like the occasional back and forth comparison.

Oh, I also appreciate the irony of a person named “Brewer” advocating against alcohol. That brought a smile to my face.

old comment by Angua

@ bleh bleh bleh

Yeah. He basically said that Christopher Hitchens had cancer as punishment for mocking God, and that Richard Dawkins had better learn from what had happened to Hitchens and repent before God decided to do something similar to him. And that suffering from cancer was nothing like the sort of suffering they would soon be facing. He linked to a couple of stupid articles on his blog, blamed humankind for all suffering and disease, managed to contradict himself several times, tried to use the Bible to prove that God existed, and ADevilsChaplain (along with EuropeanLibertarian and Neith) basically destroyed most of his arguments.

Edit: I only say "most" of his arguments because Brewer was spilling forth so much stupid, you'd need an army to wade through it all, especially when he started linking back to his blog.

old comment by dionysus

1) If you can blame The God Delusion for this suicide then I can blame the Bible for every atrocity committed by a Christian, are you willing to make that bargain?

2) There is no Archbishop of atheism or any other such authority. Sure, there are those that atheists look up to and agree with and even those that lead various movements but they're still not authorities and we're free to disagree with any of them on anything and we use that ability often.

3) Saying that it's tragic that he didn't take another life with him is sick especially since the man you want him to kill is guilty of nothing more than writing a book that disagrees with you.

@Brewer

From what I've pieced together from replies to you (what happened to his posts anyway?), you seem to have a rather low opinion of god's self-esteem as apparently he'll give cancer to anyone who makes fun of him and then he'll roast them forever for that same 'crime'. And given that we tend to make god in our image it raises some questions about you. As for hell being a punishment, just punishment has four types: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Retributive justice requires proportional punishment and that fails immediately as finite deeds, no matter how horrible, cannot ever equal infinite punishment. There is no rehabilitation in hell (as it's eternal) so that goes out the window. Deterrence isn't really met either as you're not deterring the people in hell anymore and other, living people still continue to do bad things, even believers, and at a rate equal to or greater than non-believers! Finally, there's incapacitation which only works if the person poses a danger to others, but how the hell can you endanger people who are already dead? So hell fails every single criterion for just punishment.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

@dionysus

"From what I've pieced together from replies to you (what happened to his posts anyway?), you seem to have a rather low opinion of god's self-esteem as apparently he'll give cancer to anyone who makes fun of him and then he'll roast them forever for that same 'crime'. And given that we tend to make god in our image it raises some questions about you. As for hell being a punishment, just punishment has four types: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Retributive justice requires proportional punishment and that fails immediately as finite deeds, no matter how horrible, cannot ever equal infinite punishment. There is no rehabilitation in hell (as it's eternal) so that goes out the window. Deterrence isn't really met either as you're not deterring the people in hell anymore and other, living people still continue to do bad things, even believers, and at a rate equal to or greater than non-believers! Finally, there's incapacitation which only works if the person poses a danger to others, but how the hell can you endanger people who are already dead? So hell fails every single criterion for just punishment."

Free Offer: God's Unconditional* Love!

*- Terms and Conditions apply.

But not for murderers, rapists, terrorists and paedophiles, it seems:

image

Seems that your so-called 'God' has extremely low standards re. admission to 'Heaven', eh? Just so long as you 'believe', eh ErikB(ullshit)Brewer? Now we know why fundies favour the 'Grace through Faith' method of being 'saved'; i.e. you can be as much a cuntbag in word, action & thought, just so long as you 'believe'. As demonstrated by their cherry-picking of the OT, to suit their own agendas & attitudes. Just as they similarly ignore other parts of Scripture: James 2:26 ring any bells? As you would say...

That tells us all we need to know about you.

Re. the above pic (from a newspaper/magazine from well over a century ago). Yep, even in the 19th Century, people realised that the 'God of Love' favours, indeed, prefers the company of murderers, rapists, terrorists, and paedophiles.

...compared to, say, those who had never so much as swatted a fly. And generally been a good & decent person all their lives. And all because of the lack of a 'belief' in a certain sky fairy.

And now we know who Games Workshop based the Chaos God Khorne on:

'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!'

It's certainly why the alternative - Atheism - exists. Fact is, we've heard all the bullshit before (especially from you, ergo your real name, ErikB(ullshitBrewer. QED.) The more science explains things, the less need there is for a 'God' in people's lives. Just ask Jonathan Edwards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(athlete)

He rent the veil of lies. As we Atheists did. We saw through the bullshit that is fundie religion, and found it wanting. Thus we in the UK aren't as obsessed about religion as you nutty bugers are over there in the US, with your 'Turn or Burn' bullshit. And that's all 'Turn or Burn' is: bullshit psychological snake-oil blackmail that has no right whatsoever to be 'believed', acknowledged or accepted. Just as fundie belief has no right whatsoever to be acknowledged as mere 'truth', never mind considered to have any credibility whatsoever. 'Turn or Burn'? Change the track on the CD already, this one's become old extremely fast. And even if your ''God' exists, what makes him think he even has the right to be acknowledged, never mind accepted, 'believed', or even worshipped, praised, and respected? Thus, ErikB(ullshit)Brewer and all your fundie ilk...:

image

We are no longer afraid.

Speaking of which...

@Brianisha

"I guess the christian wanted to see if there was an afterlife.........."

So why are those on Ruptured Retards so afraid of drinking the special Kool-Aid, to accelerate* that lovely (C)Rapture they're always banging on about? 909 people at Jonestown can't be wrong.

*- And remember, fundies: 'Suicide is a Sin' is purely Catholic doctrine; and as the hardcore Protestants you lot claim to be, you by definition, must oppose Popery in all it's vile forms, amirite?!

old comment by Skyknight

I'm suspecting that Vox's "correct logical conclusion" that allegedly incited the suicide is the idea that life is without purpose.

One big fallacy, though: Where is it written that purpose can only ever be imbued from without? Look at Nietzche--to him, life WAS without purpose...INITIALLY. However, each person has the capacity (and the inevitability) to delve out a self-chosen purpose of their own (whether fully crafted by themselves, copied from others, or a mix of the two), and thus avoid the grasp of nihilism. I think one could argue that God was necessarily in the position of Nietzche's pre-Ubermensch; if he isn't a created entity, he certainly doesn't have a built-in purpose, so he must have worked one out on his own. HE obviously didn't fall prey to the idea that a purposeless thing is only fit for immediate self-eradication. Why would the situation change for humans?

old comment by Anon-e-moose

@Angua

"We must encourage Michael Gambon, who took over the role of Dumbledore following Harris's death, to never say Lord Voldemort's name aloud and hope he comes to repent unless he wants to meet a similar fate."

Michael Gambon almost overturned the 'Reasonably Priced Car' (a Suzuki Liana then, in said 'Star In A Reasonably Priced Car' segment) when, years ago, he went round the last corner on the "Top Gear" test track. Said corner was named in his honour as a result.

Even Tom Cruise Control lifted the left side wheels - again, going round 'Gambon' - when he did his run in that segment of the previous series of "Top Gear" (in the new Reasonably Priced Car - a KIA Cee-apostrophe-D).

If saying 'Xenu' holds no fears for OT-VIII Tom, then frankly Lord Voldemort would be terrified by Sir Michael. After all (and who tutored them in driving on said "TG" test track)...:

image

Some say, that his nipples are explosive. And that Voldemort daren't even think his name, never mind speak it. All we know is... he's called Lord Stig!

Vox Day #fundie voxday.blogspot.com

129 comments

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