Offending a theist

[Feck]

There’s this atheist I know who is nice and pleasant and never starts a religious discussion with me but is always an enthusiastic debater if I ever mention the topic. His logic is highly fallible and he always brushes me off with the usual “non-stamp collector”, zero onus of proof, “atheism isn’t a religion” stuff whenever he can’t handle the logical arguments I counter him with. The other day he said to me he really, really really wanted to know what I thought about a book by that prominent French New Atheist “Michel Christopher Dawkmyers”.
I said I didn’t think highly of it and found it to be full of errors in logic and fact. When he pressed me even more I said I would not tell him any more unless he agreed not to think I was attacking him by proxy. After he assured me it was OK and I completely dissected all of the strawmen and faulty atheology in the book, he flew into a blind rage and started calling me every expletive ad hominem he could think of and abused the church, the clergy, Jesus, Mother Theresa, Creationists and anyone else on earth who hadn’t read New Scientist. He told me he would never speak to me again and that I was banned from ever visiting him again.

Should I have bitten my tongue?

Lion (IRC)

No you should have forgiven him and offered to pray for his immortal soul .

[Rum]

From http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0979074401 ... J6G2QYGCG2

I have only read the extract.


Was the prophet Mohammed schizophrenic?

"After his first major hallucinatory experience, Mohammed himself thought he was "possessed" and tried to commit suicide. He later regularly experienced trance states, sometimes foaming at the mouth and rolling on the ground. In the late 1800s, British psychiatrist Henry Maudsley argued that Mohammed's trance states were likely brought on by epilepsy. More recently, Flemish psychologist Dr. Herman Somers described parallels between accounts of Mohammed and what today would be diagnosed as schizophrenic-like hallucinations and delusions:

'Mohammed, according to Dr. Somers, was a classic case of paranoia. The syndrome of paranoia is essentially characterized by a delusion about oneself nourished by recurring hallucinations. These hallucinations may be auditory (hearing voices), visual (seeing visions or apparitions), or purely mental (being struck with sudden "insights" of enormous and unshakable certainty, not susceptible to falsification by reality). The delusion typically puts the affected person in the center of events: either he is the target of a ubiquitous and all-powerful conspiracy (delusion of persecution); or he is the privileged witness to a cosmic event, especially the imminent end of the world; or he has been selected for a unique mission.'

"Mohammed may have hallucinated much of the Koran in a cave near Mecca, where he would spend months in isolated prayer and meditation. Referring to the Koran, Victorian writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote: "Much of it is rhythmic, a kind of wild, chanting song %u2026 a bewildered rhapsody."
(pgs. 124-125)

[Feck]

Oh you must save that one for when Mandy comes back ! .

[Hermit]

I said I would not tell him any more unless he agreed not to think

^^^ notaquotemine ^^^

[Lion IRC]

The anecdote I gave in reply to the one by Cu...err...uh...in reply to the person who posted the OP demonstrates how it is not so much a matter of offending the "theist" or offending the "atheist" but rather, it is a matter of offending the person who lives in an egg shell and has a hypocritical attitude towards "the contest of ideas". They expect you to politely sit and listen to their "voice of reason" whereas they wont give you equal time. Moreover, the value or logic of the idea they are trying to promote or defend would seem to be so tenuous that it needs to be delivered with the volume turned up so loud that none other is audible. As AC Graying reminds us in his book Towards The Light, the very use of aggression undermines the idea itself. How good can an idea really be if it HAS to rely on bullying and censorship to survive or flourish? (Even Torquemada eventually realized that.)

I like rationalia.com

I can't recall ever having been threatened with a ban. The AvT debates are as vigorous here as anywhere. I certainly wouldn’t define "the average atheist" here as being any more or any less committed to atheism than "the average atheist" at any other forum or chat room I have visited. The ability to understand what another person is trying to say - without agreeing with them - is just as abundant here as anywhere else I visit. So the only real difference between two atheists (or theists) is their ability to communicate without losing their self control. The only real difference between the admin of atheism forums (fora) is likewise.

I have poor impulse control and my brain might explode if I have to keep it in check much longer.

If they get offended and ban you or shout at you or censor you it is unlikely that you said something which made them feel better about their ideology

Lion (IRC)
P.S. I quite like the observation by one of Mr Dawkins debating opponents John Lennox, about the Gospel account of Peter (an incompetent swordsman) trying to behead one of the soldiers sent to arrest Jesus and merely chopping off an ear. He suggested the idea that violence in pursuit of ideology does nothing more than make your enemy “deaf” and that the loss of an ear in this biblical account had a deeper symbolic significance – hence we see Jesus healing the wound and restoring the ear as an act of kindness to ones enemy. Aggressive atheism wont get any more form people than aggressive theism.

[Feck]

I like rationalia.com

I can't recall ever having been threatened with a ban.

Lion you won't get a ban ,We have no restriction on preaching , If it snowballs into annoying Trolling you might be asked to stop that .But you have to be a very unpleasant character to get banned

[cowiz]

I like rationalia.com

I can't recall ever having been threatened with a ban.

Lion you won't get a ban ,We have no restriction on preaching , If it snowballs into annoying Trolling you might be asked to stop that .But you have to be a very unpleasant character to get banned

How come you've not been banned then?

[Feck]

I like rationalia.com

I can't recall ever having been threatened with a ban.

Lion you won't get a ban ,We have no restriction on preaching , If it snowballs into annoying Trolling you might be asked to stop that .But you have to be a very unpleasant character to get banned

How come you've not been banned then?

Because I'm not a rancid festering cunt like you

[cowiz]

I like rationalia.com

I can't recall ever having been threatened with a ban.

Lion you won't get a ban ,We have no restriction on preaching , If it snowballs into annoying Trolling you might be asked to stop that .But you have to be a very unpleasant character to get banned

How come you've not been banned then?

Because I'm not a rancid festering cunt like you

Good point, well made.

[hiyymer]

In the age of modern medicine, people who hear voices, have visions and claim to be visited by god (or other spirits) are diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated for it. Mohammad had these experiences, as well as head-aches and "fits" (I believe) from the intensity of his visions. I guess there is an ever-so-slight chance that it was the archangel Gabriel visiting him, but it seems highly probable that he was just another schizophrenic like many millions of others out there...

Strange though that he was also able to lead a large group of followers. Schizophrenics are not typically very functional people. Don't you think it's more that they lived in a non-written culture, and there was no clear demarcation in people's minds between mythological stories and "scientific" reality. Almost anyone that stood out would have these stories attributed to them. Stories of virgin births and resurrections were pretty much the standard entertainment of the day. Constantine saw the cross in the sky that led him to march under the banner of christianity and prevail. I suppose he was having a schizophrenic incident as well. Strange that these guys could lead large groups of people, being out of touch half the time as it were.

[Feck]

In the age of modern medicine, people who hear voices, have visions and claim to be visited by god (or other spirits) are diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated for it. Mohammad had these experiences, as well as head-aches and "fits" (I believe) from the intensity of his visions. I guess there is an ever-so-slight chance that it was the archangel Gabriel visiting him, but it seems highly probable that he was just another schizophrenic like many millions of others out there...

Strange though that he was also able to lead a large group of followers. Schizophrenics are not typically very functional people. Don't you think it's more that they lived in a non-written culture, and there was no clear demarcation in people's minds between mythological stories and "scientific" reality. Almost anyone that stood out would have these stories attributed to them. Stories of virgin births and resurrections were pretty much the standard entertainment of the day. Constantine saw the cross in the sky that led him to march under the banner of christianity and prevail. I suppose he was having a schizophrenic incident as well. Strange that these guys could lead large groups of people, being out of touch half the time as it were.

Charles Manson ,Jim Jones and most dictators FFS all have (or seem to develop) mental problems . Being out of touch with reality adds an air of "otherness" of being special and makes the cult of personality grow .

[hiyymer]

From http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0979074401 ... J6G2QYGCG2

I have only read the extract.

I remember a friend bringing up the Julian Jaynes book at length in a conversation. He thought it was fascinating. I read the wiki comments on it.

So that would mean that our irrational motivations were routinely represented as external agents talking to us, and introspection, or the fully developed self agent, didn't even occur until a few thousand years ago. The modern mono-god would then be a vestige of a more active and fully expressed bicameral mode of experience. If it is such a recent genetic shift, then it would make sense that there is such a wide variety of religious experience. Some people would be genetically predisposed to have conversations with Jesus, while others would be predisposed towards the newer "introspective" self agent to the exclusion of the experience of external agency. But wouldn't schizophrenia still be a pathology, where the point isn't that the subject is "hallucinating" external agency, but that the content is dysfunctional and unrelated to reality and effective life decisions. Is everyone that has Jesus talking to them a schizophrenic?