Godblock: block violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful religious material(godblock.com)
godblock.com
Godblock: block violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful religious material
http://www.godblock.com/
8 comments
Most religions have a fundamentalist branch and most are associated, at some level, with holding back progress. It's bad debating style not to identify "a certain other religion". Did you mean Scientology? Islam? Bahai? Buddhism? Paganism? or what? If you have not read it, Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith, is a worthwhile read.
I think he's referring to the Catholics. I'm a Catholic and noted too that we're not in the list :-D
I found it a little strange given the premises of the "God blocking" folks; maybe it was an oversight, who knows...
I found it a little strange given the premises of the "God blocking" folks; maybe it was an oversight, who knows...
Looks like you got some Reddit on your shoe, Hacker News. Here, let me help you with that --- I'll just hit the "flag" button.
I understand the rate of conversion to any religion via websites to be quite low. Wouldn't it be better to encourage that children ask pertinent questions about belief systems that they can't really avoid hearing about?
You are correct, of course, but this is religion bashing.
You see, it is traditional to attack blindly (usually against strawmen) without regard to logic, and feel smugly self-righteous about one's obvious superiority while mocking religious types for exactly that same set of traits.
Also, I think it's intended as a joke. Or at least I can hope.
You see, it is traditional to attack blindly (usually against strawmen) without regard to logic, and feel smugly self-righteous about one's obvious superiority while mocking religious types for exactly that same set of traits.
Also, I think it's intended as a joke. Or at least I can hope.
I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea. When I have children this is definitely being installed on every machine they have access to.
Not mine. Though I'm an atheist and really dislike religious fanatics or any state establishment of religion as a civic institution, I'm not allergic to the mere expression of religious ideas. Making anything taboo will just attract inquiring minds like a moth to a flame (which is exactly what happened with me; I grew up in a quite religious society and abandoning church caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth).
Also, you don't have to believe in religion to appreciate its cultural and historical importance and influence on societies' development. You wouldn't attempt a serious study of ancient Greece or Rome without also looking at their polytheistic religious institutions, but nor would you be likely to start worshiping Zeus/Jupiter as a result of doing so.
Also, you don't have to believe in religion to appreciate its cultural and historical importance and influence on societies' development. You wouldn't attempt a serious study of ancient Greece or Rome without also looking at their polytheistic religious institutions, but nor would you be likely to start worshiping Zeus/Jupiter as a result of doing so.
Is this a joke?
Ha.
This is the sort of thing I would expect from a bunch of anti-theistic children a la reddit.com/r/atheism, not hackernews.
This is the sort of thing I would expect from a bunch of anti-theistic children a la reddit.com/r/atheism, not hackernews.
“Love toward men, but love without belief in God, very naturally leads to the greatest coercion over men, and turns their lives completely into hell on earth.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
"I disagree"
- Paul Betts
And on a related note: the most violent and death-dealing ideology in the history of the human race is atheistic communism. For the advancement of its "revolution/s" the cost was untold tens of millions of lives throughout the 20th Century, more than all the wars of religion ever fought, all piled together, with even the most liberal estimates.
Just saying ... man seems to do rather poorly on his own when he departs from the love of God, and the love of his neighbor in view of God's love.
Just saying ... man seems to do rather poorly on his own when he departs from the love of God, and the love of his neighbor in view of God's love.
It seems like you just strung the word atheist along with the word communism in order to make it seem worse by association. Really, atheism and communism are not inextricably tied: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismmyths/a/Communism.htm
Blaming atheists for causing communism is sort of like blaming heterosexuals for causing the Holocaust.
Further, it is very difficult to find violence committed in the name of atheism (it seems to be almost a contradiction in terms). Violence committed in the name of God, on the other hand, has been cited in Internet Arguments so often that now it's almost a cliche.
Blaming atheists for causing communism is sort of like blaming heterosexuals for causing the Holocaust.
Further, it is very difficult to find violence committed in the name of atheism (it seems to be almost a contradiction in terms). Violence committed in the name of God, on the other hand, has been cited in Internet Arguments so often that now it's almost a cliche.
Communism is one of atheism's terrible and natural fruits, and many of the communist revolutionaries held as a first-rank goal the suppression, if not elimination of, religions and religious institutions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
^^ Go atheism, huzzah!
Seriously, let's learn the lessons from "God blocking", not repeat them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
^^ Go atheism, huzzah!
Seriously, let's learn the lessons from "God blocking", not repeat them.
This kind of one-upping (or one-downing, if you prefer) is part of the problem with ideology: deflecting criticism with a tu quoque argument to 'something even worse' means never having to confront one's own failings. The first step away from fanatical authoritarianism (regardless of which ideology it is clothed in) is to reject such zero-sum fallacies.
Incidentally, I also think this argument is flawed on the merits. Apart from the lack of meaningful criteria for establishing which Bad Things can be ascribed to religious or atheistic fanatics, it also sidesteps the legitimate question of what Good Things can be ascribed to religious or humanist progress through time - a general problem in politics of course, because people treating each other decently doesn't make headlines.
Incidentally, I also think this argument is flawed on the merits. Apart from the lack of meaningful criteria for establishing which Bad Things can be ascribed to religious or atheistic fanatics, it also sidesteps the legitimate question of what Good Things can be ascribed to religious or humanist progress through time - a general problem in politics of course, because people treating each other decently doesn't make headlines.
The world has been much, much more populated now than in the past, and we have much bigger weapons.
There have been very many religiously motivated wars through the ages. Do you think that, had those wars taken place in a world with similar population and weapons technology as today, they would have been any less destructive than our own?
Or is your argument that everyone, including those who love God, try to kill people, and that the atheists are simply better at it due to technology?
There have been very many religiously motivated wars through the ages. Do you think that, had those wars taken place in a world with similar population and weapons technology as today, they would have been any less destructive than our own?
Or is your argument that everyone, including those who love God, try to kill people, and that the atheists are simply better at it due to technology?
I'm saying a motivated atheist communist has (in his own mind at least) no God before whom he'll stand in judgment for his blunders, failures, excesses, crimes and stupidity.
Okay, so then your argument is that atheists don't believe in God. I completely agree with you.
Notice anything missing from that list? A certain other major religion often associated with "fundamentalism" and bad stuff happening?