The inquisition is alive and well, and living in New York.

[Hermit]

Well, if the teenagers had had guns, they could have defended themselves.

Indeed.

Yes. Of course. If everybody who was legally entitled to carry firearms two teenagers would always prevail against six adults in a shootout.

[Seth]

Well, if the teenagers had had guns, they could have defended themselves.

Indeed.

Yes. Of course. If everybody who was legally entitled to carry firearms two teenagers would always prevail against six adults in a shootout.

At least they would have had the chance to try, something utterly denied them in the UK.

Fact is you don't give a shit how many people have to be sacrificed at your altar of hoplophobia. Here's hoping you ALL get to live your faith when some thugs come to your house to rape, torture and kill YOUR family.

I bet you'll be singing a different tune then.

[Hermit]

Well, if the teenagers had had guns, they could have defended themselves.

Indeed.

Yes. Of course. If everybody who was legally entitled to carry firearms two teenagers would always prevail against six adults in a shootout.

At least they would have had the chance to try, something utterly denied them in the UK.

Fact is more people would have finished up dead if everybody was carrying and a gunfight ensued.

Fact is you don't give a shit how many people have to be sacrificed at your altar of hoplophobia.

Fact is that I am not a hoplophobe. How many more times do I have to tell you?

[Seth]

Well, if the teenagers had had guns, they could have defended themselves.

Indeed.

Yes. Of course. If everybody who was legally entitled to carry firearms two teenagers would always prevail against six adults in a shootout.

At least they would have had the chance to try, something utterly denied them in the UK.

Fact is more people would have finished up dead if everybody was carrying and a gunfight ensued.

So, because "more people" might have "finished up dead" it's okay with you that only the teenage victims were brutally beaten to death, because after all, it's not about WHO gets killed...like the criminals doing the attacking...but rather it's only about the POTENTIAL number of people who MIGHT be killed, so the victims must be denied any right to defend themselves at all, and likewise, any person attacked by criminals has a public duty to just lay back and enjoy it because resistance might injure their attacker.

Fuck that. You can bend over and take it up the ass if you like, but I'm damned sure going to do whatever it takes to stop a criminal attack on ANYONE...except you. You get to die in terror and agony because that's what you deserve.

Fact is you don't give a shit how many people have to be sacrificed at your altar of hoplophobia.

Fact is that I am not a hoplophobe. How many more times do I have to tell you?[/quote]

You talk and walk like one, so I'm going to assume that you are one.

[Hermit]

Fact is that I am not a hoplophobe. How many more times do I have to tell you?

You talk and walk like one

Fact is I have never advocated a blanket ban on the private ownership of firearms. If you think I have, quote the post(s) where I did. What I do advocate is regulation of possession thereof just like we do with cars, which, as you may be aware, are not even designed with the primary purpose to serve as a lethal weapon in mind, and yet their possession and use is highly regulated in order to minimise the damage they can cause.

[JimC]

I don't like these kind of threads. The implication seems to be that all theists are fucktards whereas all atheists are angels. Whereas, as we all know, there's a minority of fucktards residing amongst the inhabitants of any belief system.

Don't get me wrong, these cunts deserve shafting.

The point is not that all theists do this kind of thing. At least in this day and age, it clearly is a tiny minority. However, it might be a valid point that, fairly consistently, most religions have a tendency to sprout these evil perversions, which always claim to be motivated by faith...

So what? You're implying that a) all bad things done by theists are motivated by faith; b) that "most religions" are somehow responsible for the deranged acts of a few self-professed religious believers; c) such things happen "fairly consistently" without providing a shred of evidence that this anything other than an extremely rare (and therefore newsworthy) event; and d) that "evil perversions" are the result of holding religious faith. All of those implications are wrong, as the BILLIONS of believers in God who do no such things, and never have throughout history, prove.

Your vicious and offensive lies are classic examples of the worst sort of Atheist mindless vitriol that proves everything I say about what reprehensible cunts Atheists are.

What utter, mendacious nonsense.
a) I asserted that some bad things done by theists are motivated by their faith, by no means all. On average, within current mainstream christianity, this number is tiny - only a handfull of nutters do evil things in god's name. In Christianity's past, the number was much higher. In Islam's present, it is definitely higher...
b) religions have a tendency to produce offshoots which kill for their god. The number varies, but one must recognise the tendency is real, unless you are an apologist for religion with your head in the sand
c) the history of religion over the ages, including christianity, provides overwhelming evidence or torture and murder in the name of religion. In current mainstream christianity, this tendency has been broken by the rise to power of secular government, and (if I'm being charitable) by an improved understanding of ethics by christian faiths since the heyday of the real inquisition...
d) holding religious convictions does not inevitably lead to perverse, violent actions, but it can, in certain individuals, if not kept in check by the rule of law...

Religions have a moral responsibility to look at the occasions, whether past or present, whether rare or common, where adherents kill in their name. If they don't, they are apologists for murder.

[JimC]

Oh c'mon, you'll find all manner of fucked-up crimes commited by atheists. This is a 'human' issue, not one specific to a certain set of beliefs.

But not committed in the name of Atheism...

Wrong. Tragically and disgustingly historically wrong, as a hundred million victims of Atheism in the guise of Marxism prove.

We've had this argument in the past. You lost...

By now, you should well know that I'm not an apologist for the great evils committed by attempts to enforce the unrealistic ideology of communism on societies. The motivation for the murders committed by Soviet Russia, as one example, were not atheistic, but either down to a perverted faith in marxist ideology which made any means justify an end, or the self-serving drive for power of individuals or small cliques of party apparatchiks. The atheism of party members was not a motivation; the vast numbers of state evils committed before and after by people with a variety of faiths but personal ethics equal to Stalin are all the evidence required...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

[laklak]

At least it didn't happen in the South. Upstate New York is a bit of a hillbilly area, though.

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah, we've all seen Family Guy.

[Seth]

Well, if the teenagers had had guns, they could have defended themselves.

Indeed.

Yes. Of course. If everybody who was legally entitled to carry firearms two teenagers would always prevail against six adults in a shootout.

At least they would have had the chance to try, something utterly denied them in the UK.

Fact is more people would have finished up dead if everybody was carrying and a gunfight ensued.

Actually, that's not a fact, it's a specious bit of propaganda. But who cares if the criminals get killed? Not me.

Fact is you don't give a shit how many people have to be sacrificed at your altar of hoplophobia.

Fact is that I am not a hoplophobe. How many more times do I have to tell you?

You can tell me as many times as you like, but when you walk like one and quack like one, I'll continue to call you one because, well, I think you're lying.

[Seth]

I don't like these kind of threads. The implication seems to be that all theists are fucktards whereas all atheists are angels. Whereas, as we all know, there's a minority of fucktards residing amongst the inhabitants of any belief system.

Don't get me wrong, these cunts deserve shafting.

The point is not that all theists do this kind of thing. At least in this day and age, it clearly is a tiny minority. However, it might be a valid point that, fairly consistently, most religions have a tendency to sprout these evil perversions, which always claim to be motivated by faith...

So what? You're implying that a) all bad things done by theists are motivated by faith; b) that "most religions" are somehow responsible for the deranged acts of a few self-professed religious believers; c) such things happen "fairly consistently" without providing a shred of evidence that this anything other than an extremely rare (and therefore newsworthy) event; and d) that "evil perversions" are the result of holding religious faith. All of those implications are wrong, as the BILLIONS of believers in God who do no such things, and never have throughout history, prove.

Your vicious and offensive lies are classic examples of the worst sort of Atheist mindless vitriol that proves everything I say about what reprehensible cunts Atheists are.

What utter, mendacious nonsense.
a) I asserted that some bad things done by theists are motivated by their faith, by no means all.

And then you said, "However, it might be a valid point that, fairly consistently, most religions have a tendency to sprout these evil perversions, which always claim to be motivated by faith..."

In other words, you hold the opinion that "most religions" perpetrate evil perversions" and then you try to excuse that bigoted opinion by saying "it clearly is a tiny minority" who do bad things. Kindly make up your mind. It's either a "tiny minority" or it's "most religions." You can't have it both ways, and I judge that your real belief is that it's "all religions" not "most religions" and it's "the unexcepted totality of theists" not "some" theists who do bad things and you're just temporizing.

On average, within current mainstream christianity, this number is tiny - only a handfull of nutters do evil things in god's name.

And Christianity as a whole is responsible for the actions of these "nutters" how, exactly? Are they even Christians if they do nutty things like kicking fellow church members to death? I wouldn't say so and any rational person would reject the very idea that they are Christians or that other Christians are somehow culpable for their deranged and evil acts.

In Christianity's past, the number was much higher. In Islam's present, it is definitely higher...

Um, big difference here: Christianity doesn't authorize anyone to kill anyone else for religious reasons, ever. Islam, on the other hand, expressly commands Muslims to kill Christians and other infidels. Your comparison sucks.

b) religions have a tendency to produce offshoots which kill for their god. The number varies, but one must recognise the tendency is real, unless you are an apologist for religion with your head in the sand

This falsely presumes that "religions" have an INTENT to produce such offshoots and that therefore these "religions" are somehow culpable for the actions of those offshoots. In the case of Christianity, this is simply false, as no Christian is ever commanded to kill. Muslims, on the other hand, are expressly commanded to kill or enslave non-Muslims.

Therefore, you might say that SOME religions produce not "offshoots" but expressly command believers to kill for their god, but that is not a universal truth at all.

c) the history of religion over the ages, including christianity, provides overwhelming evidence or torture and murder in the name of religion.

And the history of atheism provides overwhelming evidence of torture and murder in the name of the religion of Atheism. Pot, kettle, black.

In current mainstream christianity, this tendency has been broken by the rise to power of secular government, and (if I'm being charitable) by an improved understanding of ethics by christian faiths since the heyday of the real inquisition...

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

d) holding religious convictions does not inevitably lead to perverse, violent actions, but it can, in certain individuals, if not kept in check by the rule of law...

And not holding religious conviction can, and has lead to perverse, violent actions in a far greater number of people, to the detriment of everyone else, than religion, all religions combined throughout history, ever has, to the tune of more than 100 million lives taken by atheists.

Religions have a moral responsibility to look at the occasions, whether past or present, whether rare or common, where adherents kill in their name. If they don't, they are apologists for murder.

Atheists have a moral responsibility for those occasions where atheists have killed in the name of atheism (which includes the 100 million deaths caused by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot alone), and they are apologists for murder if they deny this culpability.

The fallacy of your argument is in thinking that "religion" is responsible for perverse, violent acts. It's not. Perverse and violent human nature is responsible and always has been.

[Seth]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

Oh, I'm chill. Of course you're not acting in an ethical way at all by calling me out while you ignore the outright personal insults that have been recently reported, so fuck off.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Take a happy pill, Seth. You're ranting a bit and showing a level of negative emotional engagement that the discussion doesn't warrant. In the past this usually happens just before you call someone a cunt and go on holiday. So chill, please.

Oh, I'm chill. Of course you're not acting in an ethical way at all by calling me out while you ignore the outright personal insults that have been recently reported, so fuck off.

I'm not "calling you out". I'm trying to remove any reason to suspend you before it happens. You have a pattern of behaviour here, accept it or not, that i see moving towards a head. You would do yourself a favour by disengaging for a while.

And there has only been one report of a PA on you recently. It was relatively mild and was dealt with behind the scenes. Feel free to report anything similar, as ever.

[Ian]

Confucius say: "Don't bother reasoning with cunts."