Helpful hint to the religious theocrats: if you’re going to pretend that you have a special relationship with a fictional supernatural authority, never ever call on your fictional supernatural buddy to actually do anything specific. Because, see, it’s fictional and you’ll end up looking stupid.
Case in point: the Christian theocrat Wiley S. Drake, who has said he doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state and wants to see a U.S. government run on Christian dictates, called on his followers as a Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention to engage in imprecatory prayer to their God to kill Barry Lynn, Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. That was back in August.
The problem is, Barry Lynn, Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming are still alive and fruitfully at their work.
I see three possibilities:
Alpha: Wiley S. Drake’s followers didn’t listen to him when he issued his call. That would make Drake an impotent buffoon of a man.
Beta: Wiley S. Drake’s God is either nonexistent or too weak to act on the imprecatory prayers of Drake and his followers.
Omega: Wiley S. Drake’s God exists and is powerful, but disagrees with Wiley S. Drake, and actually appreciates the work of AU.
I suspect it’s option Beta that’s true. But none of the options is good news for Drake. Next time some preacher like Drake says it’s time to issue death prayers, ask yourself which variety of fool you’re dealing with. Better yet, ask the preacher.
Though I dispute your Omega option [in which “B†is neither the sole nor necessary alternate to “Aâ€], Drake has abundantly earned your pillorying.
I live in Buena Park, Drake’s base of operations, and have contacted him regarding his call for imprecatory prayer. Evidently his lawyer has succeeded where reason has failed, and Drake’s no longer discussing the matter.
Drake’s extremism should be troubling beyond the political sphere. As you’ve alluded to in your post, a religious leader who presents their views as Divine mandates is no longer a leader, but has become a cultist. In rejecting accountability to reason or review, they become tyrants. Their uniform may be sackcloth rather than brown shirts and jack boots, but their effect is the same: elevating self above others through force.
It is profoundly curious that such an aberration should take place in the Baptist denomination. Baptists predominately adhere to the principle of ’sola Scriptura,’ the view that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. By affirming Drake’s position, his supporters have rejected a foundational principle of their own denomination. Would it shock them to learn that in doing so they’ve become functionally Roman Catholic?
Drake and Jim are obviously ignorant of any knowledge of the One True God. First of all Drake claiming to be a man of God should have known that God would not honor such a prayer. And Jim, hmm…you’re an athiest, you wouldn’t understand.
There is an old saying, it’s better to know God and not need Him, than to need Him and not know Him.
Jim, I pray you never need him.
Oooh. Oooh! I have knowledge of the Three True Fruitbars. Do you have that, Kara?
There is an old saying: It is better to have a brain and not need it, than to need a brain and not have it.
I hope you never need your brain.
Yes, in the most literal sense I am fully ignorant of any knowledge of the One True God. I have absolutely no knowledge of such a One True God existing. And every True Believer who tries to show me The Way mostly ends up baring his or her own ignorance of the existence of One True God as well. I’m an a-theist because I am a-gnostic. You don’t know either, and you know, unless you try to use your pretend religious experience as a pretext for fucking with my freedoms it’s entirely your business whether you want to continue pretending or not.
But telling me that your God, your ruler of the Universe, isn’t going to help me out unless I pretend I know he exists, well, that’s pretty much telling me that this supposed ruler of the Universe is an asshole. Why would you follow an all-powerful prick who’s been around as long as the Universe — billions of years — but bashes people, or at least won’t help them out, if they haven’t gotten themselves sorted out in a mere forty, fifty or sixty of those years? I mean, really! Haven’t you ever stopped at least once in your tracks and said, WTF?
“I’m an a-theist because I am a-gnostic” isnt a-theist belief that there is absolutly no God while a-gnostic belief that there may be a god but you are not sure. Dont those conradict each other?
No. “A” is a prefix referring to the concept “without.” An atheist is someone who lives without a theism. An atheist is a disbeliever, someone who does NOT believe in the existence of a god. An agnostic is someone who claims a lack of knowledge about whether there is a God, or two gods, or Zarathustra, or the Greek Pantheon, or not. The two do not contradict one another.
but you do not claim a lack of knowledge about God. I have read these posts for a long time and have read almost all religious articles back to 2006 and you most defenitly claim knowledge about God. You spew how awful he is all of the time. In fact, you trash all gods in these articles. How can you have no knowledge and yet claim it in your writings?
Then you aren’t reading closely enough to understand the hypothetical nature of the writing:
IF your God exists as you say it does, THEN from your own holy texts and the mouths of your preachers this is the nature of that God…
There’s a difference, Anonymous, between what religious people claim about the existence of the character of God, like a character in a story, and what an actual God would be, if such a God existed. There is no information of any sort about any actual God, none. All that exists are stories that people tell about God, the character. You’re trying to talk about this God thing, as if it’s real, but you don’t have any direct knowledge. Just stories. To be without theism is to acknowledge that all this God talk people do amounts only to stories, not knowledge of anything real.
When we slam gods, we slam the stories people tell about these divine characters, and we’re criticizing the stories in terms of the extremists political and cultural agendas that they’re used to support.
so if a god exists for you it would be a god that no one can see or experiance and has no rules an no care to be part of anything on earth. this possible god of yours would leave no proof of eixtance and would let people do whatever feels good. this would be an absent god. if you believe in a possible god does that about cover the possiblity of who your god would be?
Anonymous, you don’t get it. There is no belief in a “possible god”. This storybook character of God you keep referring to is contrary to all knowledge I have of the world.
No. No. There is no god I imagine would exist. I don’t see any reason to imagine that a god exists, in either the affirmative or subjunctive sense.
so you are only athiest… you seem to know that there is no God. You cant have it both ways…
“Seem” is a great word, because it makes any claim about another person possible. You could say I “seem” to be a cannibal, and it would be true. I may “seem” to you to know that there is no god. But I haven’t said it. I’ve said something different. Apply yourself to understand the difference between what I’ve said and what you say I “seem” to be saying.
gaaaa yes u can….
“Napoleon: How is it that, although you say so much about the Universe, you say nothing about its Creator?
Laplace: No, Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis.
Lagrange: Ah, but it is such a good hypothesis: it explains so many things!
Laplace: Indeed, Sire, Monsieur Lagrange has, with his usual sagacity, put his finger on the precise difficulty with the hypothesis:
it explains everything, but predicts nothing.[ii]”
We don’t NEED to believe in a god and are therefor a-theist. We don’t have any proof that there is a god or not and are therefor a-gnostic.
http://www.universaldarwinism.com/ee_7.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Greek-2004/Gnosis-Noesis.htm