Offended by religious group's highway blessing, atheists 'scrub' it away -- by "tactical mistake",I refer, of course, to the prior blessing of the roadway by the "religionists", who thereby "offended" the innocent, unassuming humanists.
Then again, when there are folk who hate the fact that you continue to breathe, then drawing breath, much less exhaling it as speech, is a "tactical mistake."
Thursday, March 22, 2012
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4 comments:
The only "tactical mistake" in that case was by the atheists. Antics like these and "Blasphemy Day" are cathartic, but as far as persuading people goes, most of what they manage is convincing others that atheists are jackasses.
Which, by the way, just serves to bolster my point.
And, you deny that there is a value - an extreme importance - to making sure one communicates well? That one's message is heard, that it's put in the best possible light, that it's given in a way that makes potential listeners more sympathetic, or more willing to hear an argument or idea out? I doubt you do, because that would be a damn stupid thing to do, and you're not stupid.
I advocated Limbaugh running the math on Fluke's claimed contraception needs and estimating out how many times a week she was getting bent over. You don't think someone would scream "I'm offended!" at that? I explicitly said that I don't care about "offending" the diehards in a conversation who aren't there to do anything but spout talking points. I care about reaching out to people who may be on the fence, or who disagree but who will sincerely listen, and part of that is making sure I (or anyone else) don't get them to tune out just because I felt an emotional need to be bombastic.
Call me crazy - I think conservatives and Christians need to persuade and convince people who may not be on their side automatically. This doesn't mean catering to faux emotional plays of the nutters in the Women's Studies Department, or being sweet and gentle to one of Dawkins' little drones.
The thing that is so great about this news item is that no matter how I chose to play it, it illustrates the emptiness (and moral danger) of your point – of which, just as I said a couple of weeks ago, the only point I see you making is that we (*) ought to let those desire that we say nothing set the terms of what we may say.
(*) whether ‘we’ means Christians or conservatives
I wonder, are you going to *finally* see the point and recognize the misguided nature of what you’ve been saying these past few weeks? I’m thinking not -- even though you have already explicitly pointed out the real issue in all this.
So, you say it wasn’t the Christians who made the ‘tactical error’ by “offending” the atheists, but rather the atheists by “offending” someone else. Whom did they “offend”? Why, they “offended” ‘Everyone Else’ … in much the same way that Limbaugh’s comment “offended” ‘Everyone Else’. How did they “offended” ‘Everyone Else? By trying to publicize their main message (which generally isn’t so much that “God is not”, but that “We despise your pieties”), by doing anything at all, by continuing to exist!
Now, it’s not that ‘Everyone Else’ loves Christ or Christians or Christianity so much, for they hate all three with a passion, as that they hate organized atheism even more. The fact is, ‘Everyone Else’ are practical atheists, they just don’t want to admit that they are atheists, and they don’t want to look atheism full in the face.
‘Everyone Else’ hate Christianity, but they will tolerate it so long as it is reduced to tepid treacle about “love” (the quote marks are because the “love” they want to hear about isn’t actual love), which makes no moral demands, or at most, demands in good “social gospel” fashion, that ‘Someone Else’ is wicked, by virtue of being more well-off than ‘Everyone Else’, and can “repent” only by “sharing” what he has with ‘Everyone Else’.
But let someone say something that even hints at one of the cardinal truths of Christianity (“What’s wrong with the world isn’t ‘That Guy Over There’, it’s you: you are a sinner and you’re dying of it”) and ‘Everyone Else’ starts hyperventilating about the Phelps cult.
The thing that is so great about this news item is that no matter how I chose to play it, it illustrates the emptiness (and moral danger) of your point
Then take the stab at it which does that. I'm waiting. So far, I'm not seeing anything like this 'illustration of the emptiness of my point'. At best, I'm seeing utter misunderstanding of said point.
So, you say it wasn’t the Christians who made the ‘tactical error’ by “offending” the atheists, but rather the atheists by “offending” someone else.
Actually, I said that atheists are mostly convincing people that they're a bunch of jackasses when they pull stuff like this and 'Blasphemy Day'. Were you offended by Blasphemy Day? I don't think I could say I was. Do you think Blasphemy Day did a good job of making it clear that those partaking in it were a bunch of jackasses whose opinions are not worthy of attention? Now that's the effect I experienced.
The fact is, ‘Everyone Else’ are practical atheists, they just don’t want to admit that they are atheists, and they don’t want to look atheism full in the face.
"Practical atheism" is a BS term. Most people are, practically, moral realists - a position not compatible with atheism as you're speaking of it. Most people think teleologically - again, not compatible with atheism.
Most people are inconsistent, and what they are 'practically' is an inconsistent mix.
And that, by the way, is one reason you shouldn't just go out of your way to piss them off. They're exactly the people whose minds you can change. You can't change the mind of a hardened cultist of Gnu. You can change the mind of the inconsistent people out there who right now may be nominal Christians if even then, but who can understand and appreciate your points if you just reach them.
and ‘Everyone Else’ starts hyperventilating about the Phelps cult.
The Phelps cult stands as a great example of the very problem I've been trying to highlight. The WBC convinces no one. I'm willing to bet they know they convince no one. They turn people off. Mimicking them is a stupid idea.
If they ain't listening', the' ain't no point in 'splainin'
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