There’s some guys who will probably get mysteriously beaten up a lot.

Of all the whiny, selfish, downright callous…

I got nothin’

Please don’t insult Bozo. He is smarter than these idiots.

I have posted only 1 comment, ever, on Fox. That was today in comments to this story. Went something like this:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF”.

These horses’ derrieres, pardon me please, can’t understand what is to the left of the first comma and can never get beyond that comma.

Guess you gotta rename San Francisco, St. Louis, St. Joseph, etc.

I read that one city or state had voted to put up a 10 Commandments monument in their public square. That ought to give them fits, sleepless nights, etc.
Remember, in Texas, one family claimed it would cause them irreparable harm to have to endure hearing a prayer at the graduation ceremony. Imagine such a claim. A federal judge decided to call their bluff.

A few years ago I was looking for a secular recovery group for someone who had to attend drug/alcohol sobriety support. Just a little reading of “humanist” websites demonstrated something I read on another website (or maybe this one) recently: these are not “a-theists” but “anti-theists”. They actually have nothing to say except how bad religion is and how stupid religious people are. Not to mention destructive. I’m glad Chris included a jab at their tens of millions dead.

Lord, what a bunch of eleven-year-old girls these and various other leftoids are!

It would be very insulting to me and cause me irreparable harm to not hear the Lord’s Prayer read out loud every day on all the morning TV shows. It would cause me irreparable harm to see any old churches torn down or converted into mosques or condos. It would cause me irreparable harm to see any stores open on Sunday.

I’m a very sensitive guy – get insulted and hurt easily. Hop to it, all you government folks and reshape the world for my benefit.

I resemble that comment, sybil! When I was eleven, I wasn’t nearly as thin-skinned or prone to take offence. (When I hit fourteen, I mysteriously morphed into the Anti-Christ, but that’s a different story).

Let’s hope none of these folks ever have reason to call a fire brigade, huh? “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir, and I know it’s awful to watch your house burning down with all your treasured possessions, but since we had to take down the street signs due to some court case, we’re just dreadful at finding our way. No sense of direction at all! Couldn’t find our way out of a wet paper bag!”

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF OR ABRIDGING FREEDOM OF SPEECH…..”

There you are! What is so difficult to understand? Even in the umbra of the penumbra, nothing there about anything religious being prohibited or limited because “It’s really insulting to us.”

Y’all have Phelps and the like, we have those people. Allow me to apologize for my nominal colleagues; we’re no more all that way than Christians are all [whatever].

Sometimes it’s less about Right v. Wrong, Red v. Blue, or what-have-you than it is about civilized v. barbarians.

regards,

JPB

“There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s really insulting to us.

Yeah, and all that blather about the separation of church and state? It's really just a guise to establish our preferred religion — atheism — as the state religion.

Never mind that you, as an atheist, are in the minority. You can't be insulted. The millions of people who *do* believe in religion, well, they deserve to be excluded from society.

Dear atheists: this is why no one likes you. You're all a bunch of miserable sad sacks.

Just Passing By -

Thank you for your comment. I agree that to a degree it’s a matter of civilized vs. barbarian, but I think it also matters that “religion” is a term so vague that it only has meaning when you specify which religion you speak of. Even then, you have the semetic and vedic religions that deal with the question of a deity in different ways. Within each… you get my drift. Therefore I can deride Phelps as a heretic and opportunist, as well as barbarian, although I can see your point that he is “one of mine”. In fact, Chris Johnson skewers him on this site from time to time, as occurs on other Christian sites. Christians, in fact, have a category of “calls himself a Christian”, which is to say their beliefs are so deviant, or so nominal, as to make their adherence to Christ shadowy at best. Do atheists have such a distinction?

No snark intended: do atheists have blogs or news sites that refute the sort of initiative under discussion here? Are their atheists out there refuting Dawkins and his kind and calling them out for the barbarians he are?

Well, I have some sympathy with those who object to such an absurd “memorial.” These seven firemen, so far as I know, were not martyrs for Christianity or Judaism, and we have no idea what unrepented sins (if any) they might have been burdened with.

So the words “Seven in Heaven Way” is a presumptuous absurdity.

Greetings, FW Ken:

“religion” is a term so vague that it only has meaning when you specify which religion you speak of.

I take your point, though I would suggest that religions seem to be distinguishable on the basis of what they affirm, and while there are (obviously) aggressive, “proselytizing” atheists, there are also many that simple don’t believe and are perfectly content to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude about it. I myself say “Merry Christmas” (not “Happy Holidays) to people during the season unless I know they prefer otherwise, because I value good manners and sociability over ideological purity.

Therefore I can deride Phelps as a heretic and opportunist, as well as barbarian, although I can see your point that he is “one of mine”

And I do realize that he is only “yours” in the sense that the whining children in this article are “mine”.

Christians, in fact, have a category of “calls himself a Christian”, which is to say their beliefs are so deviant, or so nominal, as to make their adherence to Christ shadowy at best.

No snark intended here, but anyone who pays any attention knows that not all Christians agree amongst themselves. Further deponent sayeth not.

No snark intended: …

None perceived.

… do atheists have blogs or news sites that refute the sort of initiative under discussion here? Are their atheists out there refuting Dawkins and his kind and calling them out for the barbarians he are?

Not that I am aware of. Speaking for myself, this is not because “we” approve of Dawkins (or whoever else), but because we just don’t see him as representing “us”. Most of the atheists I know (which I don’t claim as a representative sample) simply don’t feel defined by their unbelief, any more than I suspect you feel defined by things that you don’t believe.

I know that there is a debating point that tries to define us as a “religion” of sorts, but as a practical matter it simply doesn’t pan out for most of us.

I would NOT ask people to agree that it doesn’t matter what we believe, but I do think it’s possible to be polite about such disagreements.

regards,

JPB

William Tighe says:

So the words “Seven in Heaven Way” is a presumptuous absurdity.

In which case it becomes a good example of what’s called “civil religion”.

JPB

I admit my jaw clenched just a bit on reading the words “Seven in Heaven’s Way.” For some reason to me it smacked of insincere, trite politically motivated sentimental talking points. The words are so easily gone from the mind to me they distract from really considering and remembering the loss of those good men. So for this and the reasons he mentioned I am inclined to agree with Mr. Tighe.

But the words take on a delightful fun patter eliciting joy and mirth from my heart over its ability to send the professional tantrum takers into full melt down.

JPB,

Thanks for dropping by, and please visit again. It’s easy to see atheists as hateful leftist activists, because those are the noisy ones. I suspect the more normal atheist probably either shrugs his shoulders about gullible believers, or wishes he could believe in something that much. At any rate, I appreciate your even-tempered contribution and refusal to take offense.

Y’all have Phelps and the like, we have those people.

Hypocritical nonsense, JPB. Phelps contradicts Christianity and can be shown to do so.

These people do nothing that can be contradicted by your worldview. If I am wrong, please show why.

Christendom, despite its errors, has always been correctible. It has always been reformable so as to conform more closely to its founding documents.

But secularism/matialism/atheism has no such hope. There is no reasoning with a Stalin or Mao. They have never been correctible. The only solution is to defeat them in combat once they have risen to power.

If a pusillanimous half-wit like you feels uncomfortable with what dictators like that do, you will never do anything about it, because that would be absurd. Of course you’d rather stagnate in whatever situation you were in rather than take a stand for anything. That too is dictated by your worldview, since you only have this one life and after that you will be annihilated, so why rock the boat?

So tell me, what stand have you made against people like this? You hypocritically criticize us for pointing out how they will jeopardize the principles on which this nation was founded, yet you have not criticized them?

You are just a self serving hypocrite, and until you demonstrate a consistent ethic of behavior, there is nothing that would obligate us to take you seriously.

Smurf Breath said:

Hypocritical nonsense, JPB.

My point was only that all groups contain people who do rude, silly and sometimes-worse things, and that such people do not necessarily define the entire group.

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m not following your point about combatting Stalin and Mao. It’s true that other than serving in the (US) Regular Army I probably haven’t done much of anything to defeat the external enemies of the United States.

You hypocritically criticize us …

I thought I had apologized to you on their behalf. You may doubt my sincerity, but I’m not sure where you see criticism, much less the hypocrisy that you take the trouble to mention twice.

… there is nothing that would obligate us to take you seriously.

Indeed not. Then again, it’s just a blog, after all.

Nice chatting with you. Enjoy your day.

regards,

JPB

Dr Tighe and Paula Loughlin, Granting all the merits of your posts, I am reminded of, “Greater love hath no man….”