The Black Vault

Nine bullets fired from close range ended the life of Salman Taseer last month, making the Pakistani governor the latest high-profile victim of religious violence. Taseer had the audacity to publicly question Pakistan's blasphemy laws, and for this transgression he paid with his life.

Taseer joins a list of numerous other high-profile victims of militant religion, such as Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas abortion doctor killed by a devout Christian assassin in 2009, and Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker whose provocative movie about Islam resulted in his being brutally murdered in 2004.

With this background, it is especially puzzling that the American media and public still perpetuate the cliché of so-called "militant atheism." We hear the disparaging term "militant atheist" used frequently, the unquestioned assumption being that militant atheists are of course roaming the streets of America.

Continued...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our ... nt-atheism

Especially for you, Greeney

you don't have to be religious to believe in a higher power, or life after death,or some kind of hierarchy, fyi

Oh please! Pass the violins the atheists are victims!

And expecially for you if you inisist, this has nothing to do with what is regarded as militant atheism. You just play dumb to it. Never a single word has been suggested that militant atheism means going out and killing someone. And the examples you just gave are in no way a charterization of any respective religion. Just like EH proofs being a total distortion, so is this trash, and that is all it is a nonsense and trash.

I mean this especially for you, that if trash like this, and the 51 proofs, decide the direction of your beliefs, I feel sorry for you. Lets hope you only do it to yourself, but we know better. Any critical thinker can see this is a distortion of reality.

Clearing up yours and others retarded use of the word "militant" in regard to some atheists, and the double-standards that go with them when they are not applied to equally enthusiastic theists, is not playing the victim, it is educating the ignorant (eg you).

Well done on proving the article correct with your response, anyway.

The double standard is that you would consider EH, Dawkins, and probably me to be a militant atheists because we are enthusiastic towards the cause of atheism, but I have never seen you refer to yourself, or Halfabo, or Tom as "militant Christians", even though their enthusiasm for their cause surpasses that of any of the aforementioned atheists. See? That's called a double-standard. That's the point of the article I am guessing you missed.

greeney2 wrote:Never a single word has been suggested that militant atheism means going out and killing someone.

You really did miss the entire point of the article.

Did you even read this part, it's pretty important?

"When the media and others refer to a "militant atheist," the object of that slander is usually an atheist who had the nerve to openly question religious authority or vocally express his or her views about the existence of God. Conventional wisdom quickly tells us that such conduct is shameful or, at the very least, distasteful, and therefore the brazen nonbeliever is labeled "militant."

But this reflects a double standard, because it seems to apply only to atheists."

Would anyone with a properly functioning brain who actually read it in its entirety and understands what its about like to comment on the article?

You must get that alot that everyone else doesn't understand you, or your pal EH. You ask for it, by being so enthusiastic as you put it. But you love those plays on words like Faith, and trust. Thats another one you lost purly by definition and stumbling over your own use of words.

You are the one who brings an aritical to the table about events having nothing to do with militant atheism, nor represent any religion whatsoever. You disappear for weeks and come back with this directed "especially to Greeney2", for what reason? Maybe Greeney2 makes more of a impact on your phoney theories and beliefs, that urk you?

You think this will convince me of atheism, or just bring another stupid arguement to nowhere? You begin with something so i1`mflamatory, it begs to be put in proper perspective. Why did you need to use such a distortion to get any attention? You try to make some accessement equating the actions of extremist acts, to all religions, or to support atheism? I missed the point, but I wonder if you even have one at all.

Since you are stuck on the "retarded" use of militant, and have the same lack of comprehending it like Faith, its pretty simple. Look it up in the dictonary, and when the shoe fits, wear it.

Properly functioning brain as defined as someone who will agree with you? I'm sure EH will wake up and join you.

Wow.

Just please read the posted article before commenting and making yourself look silly, okay? It seems like you've only read the title or at most the first paragraph, because in no place does it say "militant atheism" is about killing people.

If you even just read the paragraph I quoted to you a few minutes ago you'd see this thread is about the double-standard of labeling vocal and enthusiastic atheists "militants" but not applying the same rules to vocal and enthusiastic believers. Either vocal enthusiasts from both sides should be referred to as militants, in which case you're a "militant Christian", or the word should be used only to refer to violent activists, in which case we're going to struggle to find any "militant atheists" at all.

Why are you happily propagating this double-standard, Greeney?

By the way, the article is directed to you because no one else here has been dumb enough to use the term "militant" in reference to myself and others here, as far as I am aware.

So...with those fireworks out of the way, what was the point of the thread?

Either religious people will stop using the term "militant atheist" to refer to vocal and enthusiastic atheists, or at least it will become clear to them that they are propagating a double-standard when they do so, in which case they'll start being labeled "militant Christians" or "militant Muslims" and so on in return, and maybe come to realize that the term is being used invalidly.

Simples.