"Wielding a blow-dryer, a leading atheist conducted a mass "de-baptism" of fellow non-believers and symbolically dried up the offending waters that were sprinkled on their foreheads as young children. "
Me: Though I appreciate the tongue in cheek humor that this probably arose from, I can't help flinching at this blatant reversal. It smacks slightly of inverted crucifixes to me. I'm sure there are Hellworms loving this particular human antic.
"[Edwin Kagin, American Atheist's national legal director] has reportedly called out parents who subject their children to strict fundamentalist religious education, referring to it as child abuse."
A Cincinnati woman said, "I was born atheist and they were forcing me to become Catholic."
Me: So baptism is now child abuse!? It is not enough for a person to submit to the wisdom of their parents as children and be legally free of their official influence at 18 years of age. Will it become illegal for parents to form their children at all? Is this seriously what these people want? I know there is a spiritual undercurrent here. Of course this is what "they" want. This group just doesn't believe "they" exist. Has no one ever read "Brave New World"? Goodness, even "Ender's Game" would provide a glimpse as to how this would play out. Perhaps they read them, and saw them as paradises, not nightmares inclement.
"They are practicing child abuse in teaching that the world operates in ways other than it does," he told the convention crowd. "And in my opinion, they are engaged in terrorism by weakening our nation and our understanding of science and things with which we can defend ourselves and progress. If it had not been for these fools we could have been at the stars 2,000 years ago."
Me:
2 points:
1)WHO is teaching that the world operates in a way other than it does!? Same could be said of you people.
2) He obviously doesn't know his history very well. Though I will grant that the "2000 years ago" part is dramatic exaggeration, it is actually the irreligious who have held back progress. May I suggest reading "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" by Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ph.D. One example being that King Henry VIII's suppression of Catholicism and his act of closing down monasteries in the 1530's may very well have delayed the industrial era and it's related wealth, life expectancy and technology by two and a half centuries. English monks were making major technological breakthroughs around the time they were all cast out of their monasteries by the king. See chapter 3 of Dr. Woods book.
Kagin said religion should not be used to determine how people ought to live their lives. "They're doing harm to women who want to control their own bodies and their own reproductive rights," he said. "They're doing harm to a great number of people and they're saying that 'what we're doing is sacred and inviolate. We can do whatever we want to your rights, and you can not react.' That's what they're doing."
Me: Irreligion should not be used to determine how people aught to live their lives. Who says you, Kagin, are the right one here.
Rights. So easily invented. Natural law. Rights have become a definition for anything a person or group thinks it should be able to do because they think it will make them happy. You can jump off a cliff right after declaring that flying will make your life better and thus you declare your right to be free from the oppression of gravity. That doesn't mean that is the way the world objectively works. Gravity will still kill you.
They are saying that they should be able to decimate civility, stability, and human biological and psychological science and you religious/logical people should not be able to react to us.
"He recited a few mock-Latin syllables, to the audience's amusement. An assistant produced a large hairdryer, labeled "Reason and Truth," and handed it to Kagin. The man who'd elected himself to be de-baptized stood before him. Kagin turned on the hairdryer, blowing the hot air in his face in an attempt to symbolically dry up his baptismal waters.
"Come forward now and receive the spirit of hot air that taketh away the stigma and taketh away the remnants of the stain of baptismal water," Kagin shouts."
Me: "Jadedness and self delusion" maybe the label should have been. Yeah, I'll agree with the "hot air" part. *Giggle*
"Atheists poke fun at baptisms in this ceremony, saying they believe their waving around a hairdryer holds the same level of magical and spiritual powers as does the baptismal ceremony."
Me: I have no doubt. Such a blatant denial of Christ certainly shows your defiance as surely as the fallen angels refusal to serve. You think it all means nothing. We know it ALL means something.
"Kagin said he thought some people might get overly offended by his poking fun at religion. "If someone is so secure in their faith, why are they the least bit concerned about some little atheist mocking them?" he asked. "I think the reason they are worried and concerned is the very deep fear that if everyone doesn't believe it, maybe it isn't so."
Me: Concern for your soul maybe. Concerned that you might to impose your version of "morality and reality" on us all by taking legal steps as an organisation, yes. If everyone doesn't believe it, maybe it is not so? This doesn't worry me. Not everyone will believe it. We have free will.
""I don't lose much sleep over [it] because everyone has the right to do what they want to do within the law," he said. "That's what I believe in."
Me: Well, there are no laws saying you are required to baptise your children. Baptism isn't intrinsically evil. There should never be a law to criminalize baptizing your children. Okay. I might ask, what makes "law" the absolute for you Mr Kagin? If there was a law that required you to baptize your children, then what? You would lay down and concede, give up because it is "the law" and "you can do what you want to do WITHIN the law"? You will do nothing if you believe that law is wrong!? I don't believe you would. If you didn't oppose a law you thought was unjust, I would be disappointed in you as a human being, Mr Kagin. You should be outraged at the Christians who don't oppose Roe V Wade if "LAW" has a value and a standard it must represent and isn't arbitrary. You may not agree, but you need to decide on a few definitions. All things are not definitionless.
"Kagin said that he saw the conflict between atheists and believers as America's religious civil war. He said bad manners are a reasonable weapon in that war, but he said it was unlikely that atheists would emerge as the victors.
"Atheists have no chance whatsoever of prevailing in a direct confrontation with believers," he said. "There are far too many [believers]."
Me: Yes, bad manners make those offended reflect on why they think something is wrong... or they just get angry, which is not the ideal reaction for an intelligent person. Reflection and reasoning out one's beliefs are a good thing... on both sides of your religious civil war.
Atheists will not loose because of numbers. They very well may win or at least gain ground for a time. They will ultimately lose because their view of reality is false. God will win in the end because He is God and Truth is not relative.
-Anna Truckey
Source. Supposedly you can learn more about all this tonight (Saturday July 17, 2010)on ABC's Nightline.
