Ziggy Stardust wrote:Flagg wrote:
Formless, shut the fuck up. That's not even close to what he's saying and you damned well know it.
Um ... that's EXACTLY what Lord of the Abyss said ...
"Christians are if anything more likely than Muslims, since it's
the Christians who collectively have a desire for the end of the world and have been pushing for just that for a long time." (emphasis mine)
If that isn't what he was trying to imply, the problem lays with Lord of the Abyss being terrible at communication, not Formless for actually taking a literal reading of the words he wrote.
Heh. I was about to post that too, but you beat me to it.
Its also amazingly ignorant of the religion's history and belief system. For starters, the Catholic Church, which is not only he single biggest but most historically influential christian sect hands down, doesn't believe in the Rapture (because seriously, its not there in the Bible), and specifically has the belief that "none know the hour or the day" of Judgement.
xthetenth wrote:It's not the average. It's the one exception who goes apocalyptically loony that we're worried about. It's not about preventing anyone from doing anything, it's boy isn't it fortunate that the really off the wall members of this group that occasionally comes out with apocalyptic rhetoric tend to steer themselves away from the study that'd let them do this sort of thing.
Manufacturing a weapon takes more than just a handful of wackjobs with a laboratory. At best, a small scale operation can achieve something like the Tokyo subway attack, maybe scale it up if we assume a more competent group of attackers. That's not the end of the world, as Aum discovered. And as I've said already, if you want access to something like the Spanish Flu you need access to things most institutions keep under lock and key precisely because its so dangerous.
Fearing these things is either a product of insanely unreasonable paranoia, or a belief that a sizable group with some small power is actually able to do something harmful.
Is it dehumanization to take people at their word? Because there is a very small minority that does say stuff like that like Falwell.
Very small. And I think smaller still actually believe what they are saying, or would follow through if they had their hands on the Football and could just nuke anyone and everyone they felt like. There are major social pressures at work that keep people from shooting up a mall, let alone blowing up the world. It is true that people can be broken down and convinced to do these things, but I think few people are aware just how much effort it takes to do that.
Also, there is the original statement which everyone has backpedaled from. Go ahead and read it yourself,
without mr friendly guy's commentary. What does it say about how we should treat fundies? Is that attitude
right? I still don't think so. But everyone has ignored it because apparently I think Fundies
are denied education (hint: no).[/quote]
