Uh huh.

*Considers a response....*

Nah. Not worth taking any more time than I have already wasted.

I'm a reformed Christian, I was a flaming Christian and now I'm generally with you guys.  However the processes by which you attempt to free people from Christianity do not actually work.  Mean spirited arguments and mockery as I've seen are your MO are the absolute worst thing you can do to Christians to get them to rethink their positions.  I was a Christian when you were doing Blasphemy challenge and the Banana Ray Comfort thing

(and Kudos for owning him, the guy was wrong and the eloquence of you and Kelly was right up there with Sam Harris and Dawkins, you owned him). 

Yes I know that Religious nuts can be just as bad in attacking and being mean spirited.  But the whole challengeblasphemy is childs play.  What I was referencing in my post is that the things that have taken place in the RRS have awakened a dragon.  Plus getting on bad terms with Richard Dawkins.net.   I'm just noting the irony of the world handing you the same shit sandwich you were force feeding into other people's mouth.  You didn't give a ratts ass about the feelings of your readers because you were being logical and accurate.

The irony is that the others are now doing to you what they perceived you to be doing to them.  Pure Mocking. It's not fun. 

Humans would rather be in a group and have friends that will stand up for them than be right about something.  This is something the Rational Response mission does not do.  You would rather be Right than cultivate edifying relationships.  Your showing this by damaging almost every relationship you have.  The Bible does one thing right, and that's cultivate networks of sustainable relationships.  You have to copy the Religious business model or stop chasing windmills.  Your not going to get rid of Christianity with mocking.

Your giving people something they do not want.  And you want money from them while you go around pissing people off.  Sure you can attract other people like yourself.  But you won't get the Christians who are deluded to see your way until they genuinely believe that you want the best for them. 

In your last message you insulted me again, saying I use Whiney old arguments.  Sure maybe, but I think they are true and lost on you.  It's this thing you do that makes you fail.  Love conquers all, and you don't know the first thing about love.

I see myself as a person who could really get behind this whole "destroying Religion in all it's forms", but I find that mockery, attacks and having no regard for feelings method will always fail.  You have to put something in it's place and make people feel good at the exchange of ideas. 

If you got Dawkins trying to disassociate with you and Anonymous on your butt due to what has happened, you gotta start clean.  Rename the site, change the methods, and start over.  I was considering donating maybe $20 or $50, but I think the money would not be used to help deluded Christians become Responsible well adjusted Agnostics. 

Learn like Edison, you've simply found a way that doesn't work.  Start over, but do it right, go make friends with 5 people in a church somewhere and if you can get them to genuinely like you and form a business model around that, I'll give you much more than $50.  Sorry to kick you balls when your down, but with all due respect, this is what you've been doing to other people for the last year and a half.  It's what I referenced in the top of this thread.  You shall reap what you sow, and you sapient are a living testimony to what Jesus said.   You've got to get this "Love" thing down before you get a cent of my money.

Sentient, you read the MO right, but it's not who I really am.  Were you around a while, you'd know that.  I'm not concerned with people giving me what I dish out, I purposefully set myself up for that.  It helps me seperate who is actually wading through ideas to get to the heart of the truth and who has a propensity to trust a rumor mill.  It helps me know who I want to align with.  It's why you consistently see the atheists on this website have an exceptional ability at debunking irrational claims, many of them have waded through a bunch of false claims just to be willing to post here. 

There are plenty of atheists in the world, the people here are the best of the best.  You can believe that every Christian who reads arguments from atheists here considers Encyclopedia Dramatica a source of factual data, but then you'd have to agree that these same people view themselves as:

You expect me to cater to someone who would believe everything on encyclopedia dramatica?  If so, you've read my target audience wrong.

I don't want your money if the conditions to receive it include me having to prove myself to you.  I only want you to align with you and for you to align with me if...  (if I tell you, that makes it too easy)

And you wanted me to learn "love" from you?

That's the niche we set out to fill when we started RRS. 

1. I express humility when necessary.

2. I don't go down for the count. It's not in me.

You have a lot to learn from me.  Who I am is exactly your target niche market.  A 20 something male, who got sucked into contemporary Christianity in the late teens who's blind faith went away when I discovered a superior way to think. 

It's still fresh in my mind too.  These are the events.

1.  I was going to a church, the pastor, aggrevated at my increasingly penetrating questions.

2.  I was worship leader there, doing the guitar thing, people loved me, I loved it. 

3.  Too many questions, the pastor wanted me out, pulled the "You have to tithe a full 10% if you want to stay, long story short I'm like wtf man" and left.  That was that.

4.  My parents were not very religious, a little bit, but not much.  They said I could be whatever I want, whatever makes sense.

5.  A guy who cared about my mental accuracy very much battered me with questions I didn't want to answer.  He was a very VERY mean person.  Exactly like you guys.  I Resisted him every single step of the way because I didn't want his mean nature.  He was repulsive in many ways.  But yet his arguments were sound, that didn't matter.

6.  After about a year of that, he gave up, but then on my own I started seeing that what he was saying was yielding better results than what I had.

7.  Very VERY slow deconversion, no sudden movements.

Now what I'm trying to say is that if this guy put his hand around my shoulder and said... man, I really CARE for you.  I want you to have the BEST in life.  I want things to make sense to you! and made every effort to let me know that he was there to connect the dots that don't make any sense in my life.. then I am 100% certain he could have deconverted me in 2 months.  I'm CERTAIN of that.  It was his ass-hattary that made me think twice.

I'm your target market, so listen closely, make it abundantly clear to people that come here that you want only the best for them and that you want things to make sense to them.  If they say something retarded, show them the error gently and quietly.  always have them throw the first insult, and if they do, tell them we don't allow baseless insults here. 

My two cents.  off to bed it's way past my bedtime.

I agree with you, actually.  In your case a non-hostile voice might have been better.  However, that is not true for everyone.  There needs to be a voice mocking religion, it is necessary.

Is it the only way?  No.  Is it the best way?  No.  Is it a necessary part of the atheist 'movement'?  Yes.  I have mentioned in other threads that I think the attitudes you see here are often counter-productive, and if this small website were the only voice for secularism on the web I would probably be fighting it on principle...but it isn't the only voice on the web and it has a purpose, a niche.

Really I think all you are arguing for is a reversal of the current ratio of attitude.  Right now there is one area with rules of decorum and everything else is a free for all and that creates a hostile attitude where we tend to see the worst of theism because this is not a place most rational theists would visit...most forums are the other way around.

*Sigh*

"Vastet, you do understand that Sapient just got done begging for money in a mass email don't you?"

Yeah.

"Your not helping sapient out that much by insulting someone who might have been persuaded to help his cause."

You don't strike me as being very likely to help his cause. You fly in here with guns blazing with less than 30 posts, without even looking through the topics to see the meat of what happens here. You've only posted in six topics, two of which you made yourself. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised you came back so quickly. What evidence is there for your likelyhood to even take a serious participation in discussion, let alone donate to the site?

"If I was sapient, I would ban you for life on account that you just hurled a mean spirited insult at a potential donor."

"vastet, if you had humbled yourself and said: "yeah you know, Sapient is on hard times, the RRS is on bad times and we really need support now or never".  Dude that's fucking all you need to say.  I do onto others as I want others to do onto me.  I want people to give me money when I beg, so I give other people money when they beg.  But when I get insulted for just starting conversation.  It becomes difficult to help a dog that bites you when you reach to help in the best way you know how."

Hypocrisy. You came in here making unfounded and/or ridiculous accusations and speculations as well as criticising our varying methodology with a gross generalisation and then you have the nerve to suggest I'm dismissing you so harshly that I should be banned for it? And then you go even further and say you were thinking about giving money because you liked how the RRS destroyed Ray Comfort even though just insinuated that use of mockery against him was a bad tactic? Just why am I supposed to take you seriously?

Invalid argument hurled by atheistextremist.  Fallacy of strawman.  Please review:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

To understand what I'm trying to say: Explain why the following is wrong:

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

I'm not asking for smotherhugs, I'm trying to identify why some mega churches are able to get 5000 new followers in a matter months while the RRS has been incapable of that... yet.   We could have filled this thread with a nice conversation about how to improve the bottom line of RRS by an order of magnitude, but no, you  have to direct the battle to a baseless straw man.  Only rational arguments in the RRS please, hold the fallacies.  I think I'm a hybrid, I understand the great power held in the sides of agnosticism, atheism, and christianity.  You will never destroy blind faith because it's a part of all of us, you can only seek to minimize it where it becomes destructive.  I don't think there was a "coming out" phase for me, I just assimilate new knowledge, new facts, new abilities and apply rational arguments look for errors and stir.  You'll have to probe me on a specific belief to find out if I'm flawless just yet.

Fallacies running bad on this thread.  Genetic fallacy:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/genetic-fallacy.html

Explain why this argument is wrong:

Premise1:  Sentient machine comes in here with guns blazing.
Premise2:  Sentient machine has less than 30 posts.
Premise3:  Sentient machine didn't look through the topics to understand what we do.
Conclusion:  Sentient machine won't seriously participate in the discussion and won't donate to the site.

Sapient said that this whole "getting spit on as you walk in the door" is part of a niche program in this place.  That process doesn't work well in the mega churches obviously.  I'm just bringing it up because it's a very strange strategy one that seems to me that it would never work at all.  It's very unpleasant and was part of the reason why my deconversion took years instead of months.  I wanted no part of being like a person who is angry all the time.  I'm calling out Brians strategy as one that needs improvement.

I agree.  You seem to be a huge asset to the RRS and are very active.  Brian is probably trying to get the site viral, make lots of cash and reproduce what has gone on inside my head to others.  It's good not to chase people away by being excessively condescending and treating people like vast inferiors.  I remember talking here when I was more faithful in God, after the people here hurled some insults and got the flamewar started I just shrugged you guys off as a bunch of unpleasant angry old men.  I didn't want to be that.

Your right I was coming on too strong trying to change your ways because I was under the impression at the time that the RRS was on it's last legs and with Brian begging for funds in a mass email.  I figured it was my chance to explain my two cents as to why I think your not able to get tons of money donors to support Brian.  I was mean too and I sorry I should be more respectful and maybe you would have been nicer in return.  But regardless, you should be nice regardless of if the new guy comes in with guns a blazing.  If your spending 10 hours and they refuse to respond to argument, then by all means mock them into the stone age, but not as they come in the door.

Yeah I knew I shouldn't have been said mean things after you said you don't have time for my dumb ideas.  But that's the penalty to spitting on someone as they walk in.  You probably notice it's not just me who retaliates when treated like dirt.  I had some real ammo and I used some of it. 

However it's YOU guys that are supposed to be teaching ME that good social skills, being 'moral', good and just can be achieved without Religion.  Now it's me having to teach you this, however I've been heavily churched, so the argument of morality and religion seemed to be linked in me.  Part of me still thinks that Religion can be used to instill good morals if applied correctly.  That's not to say Religion IS morality, it's a tool and it worked for me.

My opinion is that we should congradulate people as they come in to argue with RRS.  Treat them as if they are choosing a new birth.  We are glad that they come in and want to graduate from the world of being told what to think, and to discover and celebrate a life where we can think accurately for ourselves.   In some way I see Rational Response Squad as a "level 2 christianity" where people learn to throw away falsehoods, delusion and anger, and and becoming powerful minds that will do great things in the world.

Will do, friend.  How about this one?  You guys have the "kill um with kindness" forum.  I like the sound of that.

I've got this nutty idea, one that you all will absolutly love to HATE.  That is lets all work together as one, and do something nice for someone.  Make a campaign where the rational response squad is going to help a worthy cause.  Operation Christmas child? 

Operation Forgiveness?  Lets categorically Forgive Kent Hovind and stop calling him an asswipe.  He's a human, and he makes mistakes, and we forgive him.  It's all part of that Karma thing, reaping what you sow.  Doing onto others.  If the RRS is failing, then doing the opposite should equal success right?  Give a Gift to Eric Hovind and schedule a talk with him about the past, about the mis understandings, and how to join forces (with the Christians I know your all puking) to build a better world.   If you can't beat um, join em.

/crazy

"It's good not to chase people away by being excessively condescending and treating people like vast inferiors.  I remember talking here when I was more faithful in God, after the people here hurled some insults and got the flamewar started I just shrugged you guys off as a bunch of unpleasant angry old men.  I didn't want to be that."

But we aren't angry people. We can get angry, like everyone can. It does not follow that we're always angry, hence angry people.

"Your right I was coming on too strong ~ some real ammo and I used some of it."

I appreciate and accept your apology, and extend my own for being so harsh. Let's start this over then, shall we?
Welcome.

"Part of me still thinks that Religion can be used to instill good morals if applied correctly.  That's not to say Religion IS morality, it's a tool and it worked for me."

Not necessarily to chase them away in the process, but to expose the truth behind the facade. If they respond as you have, then I can ease off and have a civil conversation. If they respond like a certain jew who recently joined, then I can dismiss them as tools and trolls, and roast them accordingly.

"The idea that we should believe something because its true does not come naturally to all people. People don't believe in things because they are true, they believe in them because they are useful. Holding a belief that runs contrary to reality can be a marker that binds you to the loyalty of a tribe. Belief=Belonging=Protection. We must take heed to well informed hostility lest the situation degrades to the point of war and we are mowed down by a force greater than ourselves."

I think you should read some of this guys posts: exnihilo
He would very much disagree with you.

Have you ever seen another site I run: http://www.atheistvolunteers.org  Check out the Atheists Helping Hands in Austin project. 

Yes, that is crazy.  The major problem I see with this is that you can't forgive someone who doesn't believe they need to be forgiven.  It is because of the things the Hovind family believes and teaches to both children and adults that they are fucktards.  I don't think we've called him asswipe by the way.  But Hovind is a fucktard for sure.  Anywho... they still think they're right.  You don't forgive someone for being a fucktard as if it's in the past when they are still a fucktard.  Not me at least.