Flog,    VERY.......... slowwwwwly......Repeat...... after... me.

Atheism     isssss      not     a      beeee-lief    system.

I saw the word humiliate. But the others, uhh no.

Are you seeing things again, Flog?

Now, one more time, Flog. And this time, 

say it with gusto,

say it with feeling....

Atheism is NOT a belief system.

Actually it was more of a joke.    Actually I'm writing a future story in the year 2212, full of deformed monsters, a small technological colony and one large group of religious fanatics who dug up some old uncompleted files and pamphlets on the Spaghetti monster and formed an oppressive religion out of it.    Catholocism is subjected to small persucted crowd and the world has 100 muslims who are stocked up in a temple.    I'm actually getting it all together.  Makes some good scif fi, don't worry, nothing like that book "Taken away" or whatever it is about the rapture. 

As far as evidence of scenario 2, history is full of examples.  I mean you take Christianity for one. It went from a small group of believers in the country side of Israel to the ruling power of Rome and Europe, where the Jews once persecutors of Christians went on the receiving end.  The whole point of Christianity changed for a group worshipping God and promoting loveto the huge commercial and polictical monster we have to do with very few glimpses of actual Christianity which promotes death and destruction.

So it is possible one day as science progresses that the minority will become the majority.    Atheist, Christian or Muslim or it does not matter, man has a bad habit of domintating one man over another based on race, sex, age, beliefs etc.   It is the way of the world no matter who is in charge.  And history has shown that sometimes you end up being the person you wanted to stop.    Good intentioned young freedom fighter against an oppressive government wins and then becomes an even more oppressive government.  So it is in the realm of reality especially at the rate we are going that there will be a ww3 and as Einstein said WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones.  High chance we revert back and some crazy fool digs up some old pamphlet about the Spaghetti monster and creates a whole religion out of it.  Stuff of SCI Fi and fiction but history has also told us sometimes reality catches up to Sci Fi. 

As far as scenario 1 is concerned if there is a God he'll have to show up soon before we do blow ourselves up, ruin the environment and suck up all Earth's national resources and if not, well we go to scenario 2    

flog wrote:

You are a living example of why the above notion would be a poor idea.

Sans the "hate" and the "imaginary deity" and the "sacred scripture that promotes, divisiveness, hate, ignorance" and the "fools of themselves" thing"...oh and the "crazy".

Yep except for those, surely the opposite side of the same coin.  You're making quite an argument here..

Over half of the world believes that individuals/groups who do not meet certain criteria should die.  A student of history would understand that all beliefs are surely not equal.

Taking a stand against bigotry and/or ignorance hardly makes someone a bigot. Does it ?  This might be one of the worst arguments I've ever seen.

Letting people know they don't have to surrender their freedom to something imaginary or burn forever in a lake of fire seems to be the very height of respect to me.

There are a great many beliefs that are not and should not ever be tolerated in a civilized society.  Did you sleep through all your history classes ? 

Our best hope for the present and the future is to stop promoting (or encourage others to stop promoting) those beliefs that encourage hatred, divisiveness, exist to manipulate the minds of fellow humans and glorify dishonesty to the exclusion of the search for truth. 

There is nothing ignorant about that.  In fact, there's hardly an action I can think of, that is more honorable.

"Taking a stand against bigotry and/or ignorance hardly makes someone a bigot. Does it ?  This might be one of the worst arguments I've ever seen."

Yes but notice at the very beginning of this post he was not simply taking a stand. His words from the very beginning were "how can I find a way to humilate them"

It would have never even been mentioned by me if the original poster simply would have said " how can I inform these people" "present opposing evidence"  "fight against ignorance"  "show another picture" or "even show how I disagree with this museum."

His words were "HUMILIATE them."  You don't fight bigotry and ignorance with more bigotry and ignorance.

Replace the venue with another venue.

Black College opens up in the South and you want to go HUMILIATE the Black Kids at the school becasue they come from the ghetto and speak ebonics which you feel is plain ignorant.

or

A Homosexual Organization opens up and you want to go and HUMILIATE them because you feel it's wrong and disgusting and against the laws of nature that they are gay.  They are ignorant thinking it's okay. 

Attacking people and trying to humiliate them will not help your cause but will only hinder the result in which you speak.

If science is correct on Evolution it will eventually win as science has done against ignorance in the past.    There has been many battles in the past and science won.  Fight the fine fight but do so as a soldier with honor.   I'm all for speaking up but not outright trying to humiliate people.  Leave that to the crazy "GOD HATES FAGS" guys.

Flog,

You continue tossing around the word humiliate as if it were some really filthy, rotten, wickedly evil word/action.

Humiliate like the word "humble", both offshoot from Fr. to Latin from humilis or humus. I think Hamby used an extremely appropriate word and I'd be hard pressed to find a better one. It's intended meaning seems clear and considering the scenario he and other north Georgians are facing, well, I couldn't blame anyone for wanting to humble Creationists down to the ground, so to speak.

Come to think of it, isn't that where they love to grovel in prayer any way ???

I know Humiliate does in fact mean humble it also means

So say a teacher at school humiliated your child versus kindly correct and teach your child what would you do when that child came home "humbled"

No it's not rotten or evil but it's not good to humiliate people.  I'm sure we all enjoyed being humiliated and we all know what it means to be humiliated. 

I'm not the one who started with the post on how I can humiliate someone.

Embarass or humiliate your wife in front of her friends and see if she simply thinks you "humbled' her. 

SOmeone so stupid to think the Earth is 6000 years old deserves way beyond humiliation. They should get lifetime commitment.

What would you have us do? You're quick to say what not to do, so how about a positive suggestion?

I'm sure we're willing to listen, but if your answer is "I don't know" then kindly keep your opinions to yourself. The conversation is about what to do, not what not to do.

To Flog (and anyone else here, who might want to hear more of my original opinion about the RRS).

I come from a country where Religion is quite simply a non-issue. We don't have crazy fundies here at all, and the few muslim immigrants we have here are the ones whose ideas are dwindling away under the pressure of the dominating culture, not the other way around.

So I am very much of the live and let live opinion, since anger, arrogance and condesention is often counterproductive, if you geniually want to convince someone of the value of your position.

When I first came here I saw atheism (which I've grown up with as the only "beliefsystem" around) in a form I had never seen or experienced before: activist atheism, or, you might call it radical atheism.

My immediate impression was that people here really think alot about religion, and man do they have a strong opinion on it! You might say I was even concerned from time to time that they were being counterproductive, and that they really ought to calm down.

But it didn't take me long to get an impression of what the people here were all about. They are the minority where they are from, and just stating that they don't really consider themselves religious is enough to get them fired, scorned, feared, attacked, not to mention being disowned by their own family.

So that means that even when I see someone who is being counterproductive with their behavior (I think Mattshizzle is too much attitude, and too little substance for example. Sorry Matt, I'm just being honest), I totally get where they are coming from, because who would not get angry under those conditions?

And also, just because they (understandably) let some of their frustrations out here, doesn't mean they always act completely emotional around Theists. Most people here are in fact very kind, friendly people who do live and let live from day to day. They aren't telling their old grandmother that she's not really going to heaven, every time they see her (well not all of them do ).

I've read many of Hamby's posts (He's the OP of this thread), and I know by now that he is a smart, friendly, knowledgable and reasonable person, and when he writes "humiliate" I know excactly what he means. He's not talking about standing outside creationist's funeral with a sign that says "The Universe hates Creationists"

He's asking us, he's likeminded peers, to give suggestions for a witty, intellegent way to protest ignorance and bigotry, and perhaps get a few fencesitters to consider a thing or two.

You are responding very aggressively to a single word, that I must tell you, I think you are reading all the wrong things into.

I know why you are doing it: you want the world to be a better place. That's an honourable thing, and certainly the world doesn't get better if Atheists are just as bigoted and hateful as the opposition.

But I urge you to hang around the forums for a while and "shoot the breeze" as it were, with the people here. Sure they laugh at theists alot, but they also engage them in friendly conversation and they talk about their religious family members, and about other theists that they deal with from day to day, and that they certainly "let live".

You need to get to know people like Hamby, before you can assume that he is a huge bigot, that would like nothing better than to set fire to the Creationist museum.

And just to finish off: maybe there are people here that are just loudmouthed bigots, but firstly, for some of them, It is understandable to me, even if I still think they are wrong, because I consider that they have to deal with fundementalism every day, which I do not. And even if they have no "excuse" for their behavior, that just goes to show that dickheads come in all shapes and sizes, something I knew long before I came to the RRS. And they don't represent all of the RRS, anymore than they represent all atheists.

Given that these same Creationists will not listen to reason (literally). Given that these same creationists want thier fantasy taught as science in public schools (meaning stuffing their fantasy down the throats of children of families who do not share thier delusions).

What would you have us do? You're quick to say what not to do, so how about a positive suggestion?

I'm sure we're willing to listen, but if your answer is "I don't know" then kindly keep your opinions to yourself. The conversation is about what to do, not what not to do.

No there are many ways to get a message across.  In fact Creationism has really quite literally been killed by the court system to be taught in school.  That battle has been fought and won.  I believe everyone should have a right to free speech and use things like the court system to stand up for certain causes.  I also think educating not humiliating people in an honorable manner is the way to go. 

I also think going to the news channels locally and presenting the opinion is another great avenue as well as making websites such as these to speak to people about the other views out there.  There are many ways to get the message across and try to educate people and do productive debates.  I'm all for that but when your method is to do things like try to start trouble calling authorities and inspectors unneccessarily to be a jerk I think that crosses the line.  I'm all for various other methods. 

Personally I don't believe as many creationists do such as the world being only 6000 years old and not millions to billions of years old.  The bible itself does not even give that idea.  See above a few posts up.  I can only try to educate them, but if I try to humiliate or demean them all it does is shut them up in their bubble even more strongly and allows even more ignorance to flourish.  We don't want to be counterproductive. 

Cool but unlikely that people will actually stop and read.  Go in the place when it's up, take a few pictures and debunk one or two things quickly and humorously - maybe include a link for more information.  Hell the link could host Kevin's idea.  Pick things that make them look absolutely ridiculous (I know it all does but the easier an average person can see the insanity, the better) and print it up on a one page flyer.