* An all-powerful deity who has a plan for us.

* Said deity is so advanced, you cannot use your own reason to understand it or its commandments.

* The deity has given us instructions in this book.

* The book also contains atrocious shit justifying things like rape, incest, slavery, murder, and genocide.

And yet there are still those who believe that religion can never inspire people to do anything bad.

And even if it was used that way (and it ain't) whatabout those Chinese "atheists"?

for a chat, eh?

with Frederick Douglas.

religion?

Understood.

The quote is so simplistic that it needs no effort to refute it.

...you would be best advised NOT to post that non-sense here on DU.

For reference only:
https://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_politics

And what a bummer that would be, huh?

...then he already has nothing to say, and thus would be no loss to robust dialog.

Riposte:

No, simplistic and reductionist framing, and easily refuted by my post. A post that generated some comments that attempted, and failed, to defend your post.

Allow me to reduce your "dialogue" to its essence:


religion=bad.

is called acknowledging reality.

But if you prefer your memes to an actual discussion of reality, one might wonder why.

Does a discussion of this type of intolerance directed at theists violate some norms at DU?

that is the whataboutism. Why do you do that? It's rude, I think.

We all know how strongly discussion about the topics is adhered to here.

...believes in magic.

To re-phrase Twain's meme:

"Never argue with those who believe in magic, they'll drag you into a fantasy and wear you down with magic-missiles."

Ask the Uighurs in the concentration camps about dialogue with their guards.

...as I stated above, there is no point. You have repeatedly demonstrated an intractable inability to engage without the use of logical fallacies.

You sir, are dismissed.

But, considering that you started with a logical fallacy, ironic.

I can never remember.

If you don't know who Frederick Douglass is, I suggest looking the name up on Google. Perhaps you'll take his words more seriously if you do that.

Donald Trump also did not know who he was. I hope you have heard of Frederick Douglass before now. If not, I wonder why not.

What do you think of Frederick Douglass? Is his story not worthy of attention? Is that what you think? Is that why you attempted to hijack this thread with your Chinese story again? Please stop doing that. It's very rude.

Your constant attempts to divert from discussions about what prominent people have stated are symptomatic of something, but I'm not sure what that something is. I strongly urge you to read a little about the man discussed in the OP, and reconsider your attempts to try to change the subject in such threads. This one is an excellent example of a thread you should have left alone.

You might also look up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg

Really. He has things to say. He has a bit more gravitas than random bloggers on religionnews.com or the patheos blog.

Do some research, won't you?

But when a theist does it, that is noteworthy.

The double standard is noted.

When I talk about China, and the extreme intolerance shown for theists, you have attempted to divert by asking what is the relevance, or with anecdotal diversion about this Chinese acquaintance that you have.

So when you speak of attempt to divert, I will wonder why this concern is so sporadic.

Regardless of the subject you say "what about China?"

Could be a reason maybe.

Noted. In future, I will address you directly.

Noted.

It's so tedious to have to deal with the distraction. You should stay on the topic of the OP or, of course, by all means start you own OP about the Chinese.

I am merely honoring the tradition of the group.

But I did actually respond earlier by reducing the post to its essence, which is:

religion=bad.

Funny how there is the meme, if Trump doesn't like foreigners why does he keep marrying them

If people don't like diversions off the OP, then why do they keep doing them?

But they do appear at times.

So much for what Jesus taught you to do.

invariant and non-overlapping categories, so "good people do good things" and "bad people do bad things," but then tries to become less idiotic by admitting "good people can do bad things" -- which it wants to attribute to the influence of a vague and undefined force, called "religion"

rather than blends.

Never does evil?

Only evildoers do evil.

...