"Look at what you would do to preserve your precious life."
Do you not think that my life is precious?
"Such is your will to live. Yet, you refuse to humble yourself and sincerely look into Christianity."
What makes you think I've never sincerely looked into Christianity? You're presuming that I'm just being a prankster or something. I know you have good reasons for having such an automatic response to people who disagree with you, and it's well founded. However, to say that I've never seriously and sincerely looked into Christianity is false. I have read the bible cover to cover twice in my life. I've evaluated the writings of Josh McDowell and C. S. Lewis (I have most of their books), along with others, and quite frankly, I was never moved.
Ray Comfort wrote:
"You resign yourself to death. You just give up. What a tragedy."
I'm the guy who opts for toughing it out and trying to survive, and you're the guy who would just say "oh, well, I'm going to die, so I'll just get a few more converts in for extra credit, before the end," and you say I've resigned myself to death?
I mean look at it this way. If you don't cop out and just let yourself get killed by the disaster, you'll have plenty of opportunity to prosthelitize to even more people during the recovert period following the disaster. How many people do you think would get saved as they saw you running through stores or running down the street screaming "repent!" I'd guess next to zero (based on the effectiveness of street preachers in general) If you live through the disaster, you can reach thousands more in hospitals, shelters, and other places.
It's just simple math; common sense.
15 comments:
How come Christians like Ray always assume we just automatically hate Christianity?
Sorry Dave, but I just can't read there any longer. It frustrates the crap out of me. I have no idea how you do it.
Back when we were the lonely atheists over at 24-Talkback.com, at least the folks there were willing to actually discuss things. Comfort just goes off on his own little tangents without regard to any of the points being made by *any* of the atheist and skeptical commenters there. He just basically regurgitates from a list of canned responses, and the Christians tell him how wonderful he is.
Makes me tired, dude. Heh. Sometimes I wish Pat would show up and start kicking ass - but Comfort runs that blog like the worst of dictatorships and Pat's comments would never get published. Which is his right, of course, it's his blog after all, but it makes it difficult to rebut him sometimes - and I'm not willing to devote the time to it any more.
Best of luck, my friend.
Gamingasshole wrote:
"How come Christians like Ray always assume we just automatically hate Christianity?"
Because like most Americans, they take everything personally. If this was about baseball, and not religion, and I said that the Yankees suck, they would respond, accusing me of hating baseball.
I think it would be valid to tell them that we don't dislike their faith and it's history. We just dislike the people who claim to represent it, because they can be quite fanatical and obsessive, and occaisionally... creepy.
Well, I'm actually trying to see if Ray is as bad as people have claimed. So far, what you describe -- the ignoring all points, and the "Ray Comfort admiration society" aspect, are what I've seen. It's starting to get tired already, because just like when I saw him on that televised debate with the rational response crowd, he seemd to just be in his own little universe, with Kirk Cameron, and they didn't seem to be focussed or pay attention.
I get the impression that the guy is so wrapped up in religion, that he simply cannot relate to anyone or anything without throwing in religious language in every few sentences -- it's the universal obsessive compulsive disorder of all those people I know who just get too into something, and start losing touch with people on the outside.
What a lot of religious people remind me of are the Japanese Animation fans I used to hang out with. They got so obsessive and deeply into Anime, that being with them was like being in a cult. They had their own language, catch-phrases, and behaviors that kinda creep people out... and I am not easy to creep out.
Yeah, I may eventually tire out, but I'd really like to see if Ray can actually learn anything from me or the other atheists -- you know, learn something that forces him to stop promoting the usual littany of "evil atheist" rhetoric. That really gets tired after a while.
How is Anime like a cult, davie? Do you even know any fans?
sdfdfssd wrote:
"How is Anime like a cult, davie? Do you even know any fans?"
I know plenty of Anime fans, and I'm not saying that all Anime fans are like cultists. I'm saying that some of them go too far.
Ever have a friend who can ONLY talk about anime? You know who I'm talking about. There's always this one kid whose life is "transformed" by Anime. They suddenly watch nothing but Anime. They learn Japanese just to read manga. Their room is a fricking shrine to Anime -- posters of cute anime girls like pink-dog-eyed wallpaper, figurines and dolls of anime characters in a little altar in the corner (all it needs is candles).
They only listen to Anime soundtracks. This is the part that mystifies me -- ever know those people who don't like listening to techno music, or to synthpop, or other forms of electronica, then an Anime soundtrack comes out done in that style, and they listen to THAT. They don't listen to the non-anime music in this genre, despite the fact that the Anime stuff is usually just an imitation, sometimes a complete ripoff of it.
The number one sign that makes some Anime fans look like cultists, though is the obsessive aspect of it. Among a group of mixed friends, the Anime obsessed fan will only be capable of talking about Anime. No matter what you try to talk about, they will constantly try to steer the conversation to their favorite anime show.
When people like what I describe above get to be 30 and 40 years old, it's just pathetic.
Yeah, I'm a gamer (hence my screen name) so I know plenty of Japanimation dorks. Plus I live in California, and everyone here is mad for everything Japanese, so when I tell people I don't really like those cartoons, a fair amount of them literally have a mental fit and will even go so far as to accuse me of being a racist!
I've had the opinion for quite some time now that the society of Japan is simply insane. I've seen all sorts of bizarre consumer products, TV shows, movies, and such, that I base this opinion on. I mean, I went to the grudge, because I like horror movies, and all these horror fans raved about it. I coud not count a single time inthe movie that I saw anything scary.
Apparently in Japan, it's scary to see an old woman with a wrinkled face, long hair that reached up to 20 feet in length, girls who are drenched in water, and little boys who disappear and say nothing. The movie was totally dull and stupid, and there were these geeks singing it's praises.
Then there's all the potty-training books, videos, and cartoons! I never saw a culture so obsesssed with pooping!
Woah, both of you anime bashers are quiet uninformed. So what if many of us anime lovers revolves our lives around anime, ANIME is simply the best genre of film and television out there, NOTHING can compete with the storylines, the characters, the universes that are built around anime. I will be showing this to some Otaku forums.
By the way, Grudge rules, so go fuck yourself Dave.
Yeah Dave, I see what you mean. While I am a big Nintendo fan, and have an almost obsessive collection of Nintendo games, merchandise, magazines, etc. I really don't have much interest in anything else Japanese, and find most of it too bizarre for even me! Japanimation nerds don't seem to get that, and come off as evangelist preachers in their attempts to get me to like their crap. It's really...creepy.
Oh Johnny boy, The Grudge blows. What is so good about it that people who dont like it should go fuck themselves?
John wrote:
"Woah, both of you anime bashers are quiet uninformed. So what if many of us anime lovers revolves our lives around anime, ANIME is simply the best genre of film and television out there, NOTHING can compete with the storylines, the characters, the universes that are built around anime."
I've always seen Anime as obsessively plagiaristic of itself, as well as self-masturbatory. It seems to me, after spending 10 year in the genre, that every show is full of elements that are literally copied from other shows, and the average plot is what one would expect from most children's shows. Akira is only good as long as you don't understand what they're actually saying. The actual dialog, when translated by someone who really translates Japanese into English well, is ridiculous and can't be taken seriously. How many thousands of shows can you watch with identical characters, giant robots, plots ripped off of plots from other shows (which in turn ripped off their plots from others) before you get bored? If it's the "greatest genre", then your taste basically is stuck in a juvenile phase.
John wrote:
"I will be showing this to some Otaku forums. By the way, Grudge rules, so go fuck yourself Dave."
Whoop-tee-fucking-doo.
David wrote
"I've always seen Anime as obsessively plagiaristic of itself, as well as self-masturbatory. It seems to me, after spending 10 year in the genre, that every show is full of elements that are literally copied from other shows, and the average plot is what one would expect from most children's shows."
Hmm, ten years into the genre? Doesn't seem that way, how about some actual examples.
"Akira is only good as long as you don't understand what they're actually saying. The actual dialog, when translated by someone who really translates Japanese into English well, is ridiculous and can't be taken seriously."
What are you talking about? Akira is one of the best movies ever made, and even people who aren't into anime consider it a classic. Show me some examples of "ridiculous dialog" in there. I've seen it translated correctly, some of the best thought provoking dialog ever.
"How many thousands of shows can you watch with identical characters, giant robots, plots ripped off of plots from other shows (which in turn ripped off their plots from others) before you get bored?"
I rarely see plagiarism in anime, it's more constant in western media. Again, examples.
"If it's the "greatest genre", then your taste basically is stuck in a juvenile phase. "
How so? Anime isn't for kids, it's some of the most awesome gore you'll ever see.
Oh geez, Johnny boy, gore really makes something mature. I mean, back in the mid 90's, when I was growing up, there were certain kids cartoons that had peoples arms being ripped off, with blood and everything. So how does gore make something mature?
Hey John, this ain't a forum for talking about the fucking cartoons that you jerk off to, okay? I'm not going to drag this out any longer. Maybe I'll make a blog about random thoughts and observations, then my first topic will be Anime.
To read what I wrote about 10 years ago on the subject (after having spent 10 years as an Anime Fan, and selling my collection of over 120 tapes at a flea market), check out this link:
http://www.weirdcrap.com/scholarly/anime.htm
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