Via the CBC.
“Denmark’s intelligence service says police have foiled an attempt to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — the artist who drew cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, causing outrage in the Muslim world.”
Let us celebrate the forces of anti-modernity, anti-rationality and anti-intelligence. The man’s crime against Islam? He drew cartoons. Yes, and now he deserves to die:
“akob Scharf, who heads the PET intelligence service, said a 28-year-old Somalian man was armed with an axe and a knife when he entered Westergaard’s home in Aarhus.”
Armed with an axe and a knife, the Somalian man was not there for tea and crumpets. Pumped up past rationality and reality, this religious fanatic was going to murder someone to clean his imaginary goddouche’s reputation.
It is actions such of these that further confirm the inanity, cruelty and delusional nature of religion.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
2 comments
June 15, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Michael David
Actions such as these do not confirm the inanity, cruelty and delusional nature of religion. Sorry. In point-of-fact, such comments are ironically tantamount to inanity itself. This of course is a perfect example of a logical fallacy called, “Hasty generalization – Making assumptions about a whole group or range of cases based on a sample that is inadequate (usually because it is atypical or just too small)”. There are others, but that will suffice to negate it as logical. Just because one person, or several that adhere to one religion act in a “inane, cruel or delusional” manner, doesn’t mean that all religions (or even that religion, for that matter) are “inane, cruel or delusional”. This, by the way, is also known as “guilt by association”, if you’re not familiar with logical fallacies. One is not guilty of the crimes of a group simply because a person belongs to that group.
There have been many atheists over the years that have murdered, raped, and committed other crimes, but that doesn’t mean that all atheists are murders and rapists, or that being an atheist causes one to murder and/or rape, or that atheism condones such actions. Maybe sophistry like that works on the playground, but in the world of adults it is just that, sophistry of the most juvenile order.
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June 15, 2010 at 6:06 pm
The Arbourist
Actions such as these do not confirm the inanity, cruelty and delusional nature of religion.
Actually, this is just a particularly heinous example of the suffering religions bring to the world. Consider the continued oppression of women; that is neither a specific instance nor is ‘hastily formed’. It rings true for most religion, and tends to be worse where belief is stronger.
This, by the way, is also known as “guilt by association”,
It is also sounding like you are starting down the well worn path of apologetics for people that allow their lives to be dictated by magic as opposed to rational thought. Just because the moderates of a religion do not act like the radical few who really stir things up still, to a certain degree, are responsible for keeping the whole rotten system going.
There have been many atheists over the years that have murdered, raped, and committed other crimes, but that doesn’t mean that all atheists are murders and rapists, or that being an atheist causes one to murder and/or rape, or that atheism condones such actions.
Speaking of sophistry, comparing atheists to the religiously deluded is quite absurd. Atheism and rationality are closely related and usually rational people do not commit the crimes you mention in your false dichotomy of a rant above. Before I have to correct your clumsy and inaccurate riposte about Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot all being representatives of the atheist camp please watch this.
As one can conclude, none of these individuals suffered from a excess of rationality. So before trying to tackle atheism as if it was a religion, which clearly it is not, please and try to get your facts straight.
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