What’s the difference?
(Source: hatefulatheist)
Norway and Christianity.
For all those athiests who keep posting that the Norway Attacks were because of Christians, please read below! The guy was not a Christian. :)
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
Bull.
Shit.
You’re not allowed to pull this shit. You’re not allowed to say “Well he’s not really a Christian.” No one is allowed to do this. I don’t care if he ignored a few passages in your “rule book,” the entire religion of Christianity is guilty of conveniently ignoring unpleasant passages or ones that might make their own life a little bit more difficult.
When a Muslim commits an act of Terror, everyone is so quick to scream and shout that it was because of his Religion. When a Muslim commits an act of Terror, no matter the number of Muslim voices that rise up and shout “He was no true Muslim!” no one listens.
Turn about is fair play.
Re-blogged again because Brittany just owned this post.
Norway and Christianity.
For all those athiests who keep posting that the Norway Attacks were because of Christians, please read below! The guy was not a Christian. :)
Except for that part where he identified as Christian and his manifesto mentions God/Christianity numerous times.
But fuck that, I’ll just indulge in No True Scotsman and claim that he’s not a Christian, because…like, I have the power of God to judge other people and excommunicate them from Christianity as I see fit because they did something which reflected badly on my religion.
Stupid facts, always getting in the damn way.
(via dkyubey)
Pandas Thumb takes on the Creationists calling Anders Breivik (the Oslo Terrorist) a ‘Darwinist’ and blaming ‘Darwinism’ for the acts.
The Norway Murders, Christianity, Darwin, and tolerance
As predictable as the sunrise, creationists are launching another round of the disgusting practice of trying to tie every mass murderer to Darwin and evolution, self-consistency and logic be damned. This time it’s about Brevik, the bomber and shooter in last Friday’s killings. We saw this at Uncommon Descent on Sunday (“Norway shooter a Darwinian terrorist?”) – itself relying on an article from the fundamentalist WorldNetDaily (“Terrorist proclaimed himself ‘Darwinian,’ not ‘Christian’”), and today from alleged scholar John West at the Discovery Institute (“Fundamentalist Christian or Deranged Social Darwinist?”).
West does the usual thing, word-searching Brevik’s 1500-page screed for the few references to Darwin, and brazenly playing down the hundreds of references to Christianity and God and the Templars and Christian holy war against Islam. These are just brushed off by West. West pretends that Brevik calls himself a “Christian atheist” through pretty optimistic (optimistic from West’s perspective) readings of some Brevik passages, which completely ignores the various quite direct references that Brevik makes towards his own belief in God. Here’s West:
Although he adds that he has not yet actually prayed to God for strength, he expects that he may do so when he goes on his murderous rampage: “If praying will act as an additional mental boost/soothing it is the pragmatical thing to do. I guess I will find out… If there is a God I will be allowed to enter heaven as all other martyrs for the Church in the past.” (p. 1345) Note the “if” in his statement about whether God exists. Breivik himself doesn’t even appear to believe in God. He frequently identifies himself as a “cultural Christian,” a term which he defines at one point as the same thing as a “Christian atheist.” (p. 1360)
About the last sentence – it’s pretty clear that while Brevik thinks you can be a cultural Christian without being a practicing Christian, he doesn’t see the categories as mutually exclusive. Practicing Christians would be a subset of cultural Christians in his view. I think Brevik sees himself as a cultural Christian who definitely believes in God, but doesn’t practice much (undoubtedly quite a common position in the general public, by the way).
West also draws the dubious conclusion that Brevik doesn’t believe in God, based on “optimistic” readings of a Brevik passage on prayer and a use of the word “if”. This is ignoring direct contradictory evidence. Here is a section from Brevik’s journal from June where he discusses his praying with God. I include the surrounding passages about bomb-making, which Brevik was in the midst of.
From page 1459 (italics added):
[…]
Friday June 10 - Day 40: Continued synthesizing 4 and 5 of 10 batches picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry. I placed 50g of my best batch in the oven to prepare for testing and to use it for DDNP manufacturing. Potent PA should burn when lit with flame.
To my great disappointment, nothing happened when I did the fire test…! What the hell, how is that possible, it was completely dry and that particular batch was manufactured perfectly according to specifications!? I did everything according to specifications… Could the compound I have manufactured be inert???? Unfortunate circumstances rams cock in arse once again…! I started to have serious doubts and my morale and motivation started to shatter…
I concluded that given the recent events, I would now have to move forward with operation B, at least continue to complete all preparations for this as the primary operation seemed to wither away.
Saturday June 11 - Day 41: As I was doing research on the net, a thunder storm approached, but it was still very far away. I have never had any problems with electrical overcharges the last 15 years because I always use specialty electrical outputs with gas cylinder electrical overcharge protection. Suddenly my PC made a relatively large bang, and the electricity went out. Once electricity was back on I noticed that my PC was dead. FFS, not again… As it was in the evening, I couldn’t fix it until Monday…
I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail. He must ensure that I succeed with my mission and as such; contribute to inspire thousands of other revolutionary conservatives/nationalists; anti- Communists and anti-Islamists throughout the European world.
Sunday June 12 - Day 42: Although highly demoralized, I decided to do one last test of the PA compound. I decided to create a batch of DDNP using my best batch of picric acid. This was to be my last attempt to move ahead with operation A. I didn’t have much faith in creating such a difficult compound as DDNP when I couldn’t even manage to create a decent batch of PA… I spent most of the day preparing that batch of DDNP, then drying it in the oven for 4 hours.
Monday June 13 - Day 43: I prepared a test device today and drove off to a very isolated site. The test bomb was composed of a 3g DDNP primary and a 30g PA secondary. If this test would fail, I would abandon operation A and move forward with the non-spectacular operation B.
I lit the fuse, went out of range and waited. It was probably the longest 10 seconds I have ever endured…
BOOM! The detonation was successful!!!:-) I quickly drove away to avoid any potential unwanted attention, from people in the vicinity. I would have to come back a few hours later to investigate the blast hole, to see if both compounds had detonated.
A few hours later, after returning from a restaurant in the southern town to celebrate this success, I went back to the blast site to evaluate the detonation. The DDNP primary detonated successfully but the dry picric acid booster did not detonate at all. So I confirmed that the PA was not inert, just of a very low purity grade. This could be sorted as I would now move forward with purification after completion of the last PA batches. Today was a very good day as I really needed this success.
Tuesday June 14 - Day 44: Continued synthesizing picric acid and placing the finished compound to dry.
[…]
There are a lot of disturbing things about this passage, ranging from Brevik’s use of smiley-faces while building a bomb (as if his journal entries were goddamn facebook updates), to the fact that Brevik’s bomb-making efforts were experiencing setbacks, reversals, bad luck, etc. – until he prayed to God, at which point it appears that things started working.
West goes on to claim that “Social Darwinism” and “eugenics” are Brevik’s recommendation for the future. Well, there might be a little of that in Brevik’s plan, he does give a few brief references to eugenics – but what’s Brevik’s main idea? Well, it’s holy war! Holy war against the cultural Marxists and multiculturalists, and once they are out, deportation of all the Muslims from Europe, never to return again. There’s actually not a heck of a lot left for eugenics to do, even theoretically, if Brevik’s holy-war-and-deportation agenda were ever carried out, anyhow!
And what is Brevik’s inspiration for and defense of using violence, both in his future envisioned holy war, and in his planned July attacks, which he sees as the first strike in that war?
Continue to read this article at Pandas Thumb
This is a pretty exhaustive and in depth article. Of course, the American Right are attempting to distance themselves from this man - using every slight of hand trick they can think of - but it’s not going to work. The usual fall-back is ‘Darwinism’ - as in, Eugenics based on superiority of race/genes/etc. Which, in this case, is an absolute pile of twaddle.
The man identifies as Christian and he is a terrorist. He is also socially conservative and anti-Islamic. He may not be a ‘Christian Fundamentalist’ in that he believes in the inerrant word of the Bible - but he is fundamentalist in that he would rather commit acts of terrorism than politics. The Christian Right need to stop playing games with this and just accept that a Christian man committed some atrocious acts, they are doing no-one any favors by continuing to deny the links.
Anyway - it’s a fascinating read, I recommend it.
~Mooglets
For fuck’s sake man, the American right - so full of shit it’s oozing out of their ears.
(Source: atheismfuckyeah)
Glen Beck is such a fucking Jackwagon.
Glen Beck: “There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing.”
Tampa Liberty School, the brainchild of conservative writer Jeff Lukens and the Glenn Beck-inspired Tampa 912 Project
If you’re going to be a fuckhead, at least try not to be a hypocritical fuckhead.
Bill O’Reilly: Media Labeling Norway Killer Breivik ‘Christian’ Because ‘They Don’t Like Christians’ (VIDEO)
Bill O’Reilly sternly criticized the media for describing Anders Behring-Breivik, the man who has admitted to committing the mass killings in Norway, as a Christian, saying that such a thing was “impossible.”
O’Reilly singled out the New York Times, which called Breivik a “Christian extremist” in an article. Breivik also referred to himself as a Christian, as did the Norwegian police, and his 1,500 page manifesto has been described as coming from a Christian perspective. In the manifesto, he writes that he does not have a “personal,” religious relationship with Christ, believes in Christianity “as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform,” which he says “makes [me] Christian.”
To O’Reilly, though, it was “impossible” that Breivik is a Christian.
“No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder,” he said. “The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith…we can find no evidence, none, that this killer practiced Christianity in any way.”
He said that the reason the media was calling Breivik a Christian was because “the left wants you to believe that fundamentalists Christians are a threat just like crazy jihadists are.” O’Reilly called this notion “dishonest and insane,” saying that no government was backing Breivik’s ideology.
O’Reilly also said that the media “is pushing the Christian angle [because] they don’t like Christians very much because we are too judgmental,” and that the press want to “diminish” social and religious conservatives.
Bill O’Reilly and Fox news are the biggest piles of stinking bullshit in the world, but this kind of shit still pisses me off because there are people out there that watch this shit on TV and believe it.
Fox News Refuses To Acknowledge Norway Shooter’s Right-Wing Beliefs
By now, there’s no question in anyone’s mind that the tragic Norway shootings are the work of a right-wing extremist who appears to at least have been influenced by web sites like StormFront.org, among others. But watch these Fox talkers avoid it completely, even in the beginning, where they open up by asking if this can “really be compared to the Oklahoma City bombings.” Not only do they deny it, they manage to turn everything on its head to portray the guy as someone with a deep fear of Islamic extremists.
By far, the most intellectually dishonest and insidious part of this report is the characterization of Anders Behring Breivik as a “domestic extremist.” I defy anyone here to explain exactly what the hell a domestic extremist is. Seriously.
Taking apart this silly video step by step, let’s begin with who they decided to put on as an “analyst”. Fox News “correspondent” Catherine Herridge, author of the book “The Next Wave: On the Hunt for Al Qaeda’s American Recruits”. Just to give you a flavor of her thought processes, here’s a small snippet from her book from a section recording her thoughts during the KSM tribunal:
So Janet fixes the sketch to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s satisfaction. Within minutes, the sketch is carried to our live shot position on the tarmac about 50 yards from the courthouse. It is filmed by the pool TV crew and then broadcast to millions.
Later in the evening, I sit on the equipment box near the live shot position. The sun is dropping like a red, hot ball into the Cuban hills.
“Who’s in control,” I say under my breath. “Us or the terrorists?”
There you go. Typical Fox News them-or-us thinking, resplendent with lots of fear of the brown guys. Now, on to the transcript:
ANCHOR: Many comparisons made to the Oklahoma City bombing. Are they valid?
HERRIDGE: Well, I think they are valid. I spoke with a US official last night in Oslo and I said “Hey, is this Oklahoma City comparison appropriate” and they said absolutely because on the face of it, based on what we know from the investigation, it’s a case of domestic extremism and there do not appear to be any known links to an outside terrorist group. We’ve had a series of arrests this morning but it really does appear to be an act that was driven by a single suspect or lone wolf operative, Dave.
DAVE: And it’s this guy, Anders Brevik who was not hiding his extremism, he had this video online, he was very active in social media. How was this missed and is that the takeaway?…
Can someone please tell me what a “domestic extremist” is other than a euphemism for Fox News avoiding their responsibility to report the truth to their viewers? As Dave pointed out yesterday, this is part of the reason these people get away with what they do. As you can see, the host is getting away with blaming social media, Norway’s law enforcement authorities for not monitoring social media more closely for people like this, and just about everything but coming out with the truth: Brevik was not a “domestic extremist.” He is a radical right-wing cultural warrior who has been influenced by many different people, including Tim Phillips, director of Freedomworks, apparently.
Herridge, instead of discussing the fundamental problem here, spends an inordinate amount of time blaming the Internet for his views. There is some truth to what she says. It’s easy to turn social media, blogs, and other content into an echo chamber which then magnifies anger and hate. Just have a look at Andrew Breitbart’s timeline sometime for an example. He specializes in that kind of tactic. Still, it’s beside the point. The point here is that Brevik espoused extreme right-wing political positions and acted on them to inflict political mayhem on his countrymen.
Let’s not forget that he didn’t just target a random group of people. He chose to target the youth movement of the current political party in power, which is further evidence of just how far he was willing to go to eradicate opposition.
Unfortunately, deluded Fox News viewers will just go on thinking he was some sort of amorphous ‘extremist’ deluded by social media. Business as usual.
