Reply #42: With respect Varkam

[ironbark]

“ we should try to be respectful of one another (even when people are not respectful to us)”……….?

I tried to have a respectful discussion with you months ago regarding why terms such as ‘fundamentalist atheist’ might arise or be deployed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

I described the (DU atheist) demand/expectation that scripture be read literally
You responded-
“I think that is a straw man. I don't think that there are any atheists that "demand that all Scripture be read and interpreted literally"
I disposed of your ‘straw man’ assertion by providing five examples of just such literalist expectation from DU atheists and you cut/ignored all of them only to lay down a blatant straw man of your own-
“I think the problem is simply that you know no better than anyone else what is supposed to be taken metaphorically or literally.”

I had never said/suggested/claimed >any< kind of “better” knowledge than “anyone else” as to “what is supposed to be taken metaphorically or literally”
…I had simply refused the incessant atheist demand/expectation that ‘Solomon talking to an ant’ was a literal event and refused to accept that my inclination towards metaphor in this instance made me a “Bible Banger”.

My “respectful” objections were initially shat on with the devastating deployment of dripping sarcasm emoticons and the advise that “ Participants who want to play in R/T on DU have to grow a set of steel balls” then followed by your riding shotgun/blow me off straw man bullshit about thinking I “know no better than anyone else what is supposed to be taken metaphorically or literally”.

Asserting ‘straw man’ havening it disproved, cutting/ignoring the evidence provided and then dispensing your own blatant straw man is not trying “to be respectful of one another” Varkam…it’s just riding shotgun and providing cover for the fundamentalist atheists who (clearly and unquestionably) picked a fight with a suspected ‘Bible Banger’ and made dam sure he knew whos “side” he was going to be on.

Frankly I hold the current concerns about the ‘accuracy’ of describing atheists as ‘fundamentalists’ and the calls for ‘respectful’ discussion to be hypocritical bullshit. No one, repeat, no one gave a rats arse about the incessant misrepresentation of my pov or the name calling that followed over several weeks.

Having proposed-

“When the immediate response to the mention of the fruits of Islamic civilization is the expectation that their “good book” be taken exclusively literally then I worry.
But then again I live right next door to 196,281,020 Muslims….and I don’t think they “Hate our freedoms” ”

The Varkam straw man speculation about what I >might think< invites me to “snuggle up” with the whole of the muslim world (read innuendo - including terrorists)-

“..the worst thing that a Muslim fundamnetalist will do is fly planes into buildings. If you think the whole of the muslim world wants to be our friend, then you are welcome to go snuggle up with them”.

It's bullshit Varkam...you ignore the point made and reach for straw man speculation leading to innuendo.


Before or after I drew on the behaviour descriptor ‘fundamentalist atheist’ there was no ‘respectful’ discussion…there was just an incessant compulsion to paint everything religious as evil and to insult, demean and misrepresent anyone who had a good word for it.

If (any) are insulted or offended by the descriptor ‘fundamentalist atheist’ then they had best be prepared to take a good honest look at what preceded and provoked it.