People saying stupid things on the Internet

September 19, 2012 | Filed under: Atheism,Islam,Ken Perrott's Blog | Posted by: Ken Perrott

I saw this young Muslim women on the TV news last night. She was demonstrating against the US over that silly video. The interview asked her _”but don’t you believe in freedom of expression.

Her answer – “Yes, but not when it comes to religion!”

My response – grow up!

That’s why I like this little skit on the current situation (thanks to YouTube video mocking Atheism greeted with global disinterest by Atheists).- I think there are some lessons in it:

A YouTube video mocking followers of science and those who discount the probability of omnipotent deity, has resulted in complete indifference throughout the Atheist community.

Theist comments on the video claim that the video will see “atheists burning down churches the world over!” have been met with blank stares by people who consider themselves ‘atheist’.

Non-believer Simon Williams told us, “I’m not sure what reaction they were expecting, but I’m afraid people saying stupid things on the Internet doesn’t really bother me.”

“What with me being a grown adult and everything. Tantrums haven’t really been my thing since puberty.”

“Do I want to kill the people behind it? No, of course not.”

“Though I would like to give them a few science lessons that didn’t end with the conclusion ‘God must have done it’.”

“But I’m not hopeful.”

Youtube video protests

The maker of the video has gone into hiding claiming that Atheist disinterest in his film has infringed his religious freedoms.

The unnamed producer explained, “It says quite clearly in a passage of one of my holy books – a passage that is definitely open to interpretation in the way that I want – that I must take the fight to non-believers – and yet here you all are refusing to fight.”

“You are oppressing my religious freedom to claim religious oppression.”

“What will it take?! Why can’t you at least throw a rock at me or something?”

“It’s almost like you’re suppressing the evil inside each of you in order not to look like dicks.”

“I’m guessing you get the strength from the Devil himself.”

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9 Responses to People saying stupid things on the Internet

thesauros September 20, 2012 - 8:15 pm

At first glance that little comic strip seems funny – humorous funny. In reality it’s fantastically misleading. I may not be spot on by “militant Christians have killed five abortionists in the last 15 years. I don’t know how many thousands militant Islamists have killed in recent history but militant atheists come in at around 100 million in the 20th century alone. There have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm. These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao. The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined. The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand. Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation!

- Mike Daniels September 21, 2012 - 9:44 am
  
  Let us observe the unending violence in Australia at the present time, thanks to their atheist Prime Minister. Oh, wait . . .
  
  - jay September 23, 2012 - 6:28 am
    
    I don’t think that handwaving like this addresses that poster’s argument, and, because it is commonly believed, it should be addressed with more than a put-down. Murderous organized rampages like you describe as well as those by people like Hitler and Mussolini (who were religiously confused but not atheist) actually have a more significant feature in common: a powerful authoritarian government. Even going back to the Catholic church’s obscenities in the middle ages, we realize that much of this was due to both the Church’s quasi-governmental status and the subservience Europe’s nation-states. All these actions you discuss, both religious and non religious come from the same rootstock. Terrorism is generally a different animal. This is the small scale, take it into your own hands action, sometimes done in defiance of government. Religion is a powerful motivator for some, but not all, of these actions, political ideology is the other biggie. While political terrorists can be either religious or not, it’s not the lack of religion that motivates them (whereas some terrorism is specifically motivated by religious belief). Atheists do not have a god to worry about offending, they don’t feel the need to prove their god to others. So at this level you will have a significant difference between atheists (who, again, could be political terrorists but not religiously motivated ones) and religionists who can be either or both. But yes, it is a cartoon. I’m sure there are criminals that happen to be atheist just like there are criminals that happen to be Catholic.
    
Philo Vaihinger September 21, 2012 - 10:45 am

Your cartoon establishes a false equivalence between Muslim and Christian “militancy” that holds nowhere in the world. You should be ashamed of the enormity of this lie.

- JamesK September 21, 2012 - 5:04 pm
  
  Oh really, Philo? THen explain the rise in right wing domestic terrorists in this country. Explain the guy who killed Dr. Tiller. The one engaging in lying, Philo, is you
  
  - jay September 23, 2012 - 5:58 am
    
    Sam Harris makes some points about this. There are differences of degree. http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/9/19/on-the-freedom-to-offend-an-imaginary-god#.UFpSh6RWpOi
    
- Mike Daniels September 22, 2012 - 9:37 am
  
  Google George Tiller. Google Hutaree. Google David Koresh. Learn something.
  
  - JamesK September 22, 2012 - 4:19 pm
    
    And lets not forget the KKK, the Army of God and the rise of right wing domestic terror groups the last 5years because of the “Scarey Black Man in the White House” Oh and did I mention all the white people threatening secession and civil war if Obama wins in November? And then there is the “Christian” preachers who are publicly saying that homosexuals should be rounded up, stuck in camps, and then executed…
    
"B" September 23, 2012 - 7:24 am

Let’s not equate a power mad communist with someone who performs an act for the benefit of thier imaginary friend. I’m on a cell phone so I’ll keep this short and focused on mao. Most of the deaths he caused were a result of famine due to rapid attempts to industrialize a primarily agricultural nation. His ideas were idiotic and supported by fools and “yes-men” but his actions were based on competing with capitalism not religion. Your assertion that he performed these debacles in the name of athiesm or trying to equate it to a religious conflict is not comparing anything remotely similar. If you look at his anti religion behavior then it makes him a fitting straw man, but anyone who wants to research a little deeper can see how he recognized religious groups as a tool to keep people under control and this is what made it a competitor, thus a target. Had he been a religious man himself or a ranking church official than its clear his actions would have been to establish a state religion matching his own. In addition many experts believe his rise to power was a “cult of personality” which isn’t dissimilar from a religion in itself.