If you're a member of an irrational cult you don't get to complain about the irrationality of another irrational cult. She deserved to die in agony. Hindus and catholics are equally guilty and they should all die together. Ireland is not a legitimate state and every member of its government should be executed.

"Why are you putting your morality on me?"

Fuck you relativist. That's exactly what you should do with morality; right and wrong isn't negotiable and it should be enforced. If catholics were right then abortion should be banned. Religious freedom would be ridiculous in a world with a correct religion. There isn't one, catholics are not right, they don't have any morality, they've abandoned their humanity, abortion should be easy and every catholic on earth should be killed.

I thought this should have done much better than it did.

Thanks for the promote to help folks see it.

In reply to this comment by ZappaDanMan:
*promote for brilliant end quote:

"The severity of feeling, is sometimes out of line with the reality of the problem"
--Ze Frank

(In regards to emotional (sometimes tragic) irrationality of teenagers).

*promote for brilliant end quote:

"The severity of feeling, is sometimes out of line with the reality of the problem"
--Ze Frank

(In regards to emotional (sometimes tragic) irrationality of teenagers).

I have to admit I find this pretty shocking myself. I personally don't believe that stoning is ever a justifiable action for anything, ever, period. What I find incredible is that I'm even having to take a stance AGAINST stoning in this day and age. Although of course it still goes on legally in several countries. This fact doesn't make it acceptable, it just makes it more disgusting.

Shiny, personally I'm disappointed. I was ready to give it a shot and read the bible all the way through, to give it the benefit of the doubt and try to approach it and what you said with an open mind. I saw this video and thought for sure you would dismiss it as false or something similar, but to see you essentially defending it, I just can't accept that the actions described in this verse are moral. I will never accept them as moral.

If this makes ME immoral in god's eyes than Shiny you had better get some stones ready because here's another sinner deserving of sinner's death.


>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^shinyblurry:
The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.
Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.
I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.
You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.
Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P


Hi, shinyblurry.
I haven't responded to any of your posts in a while, but this time your answer made me throw up in my mouth a little so I thought I'd chime in. Let me read back to you what you just said:
"Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin."
But in the Christian tradition, the ONLY being capable of moral perfection is God himself. Humans can strive for it, but never achieve it. So what you have essentially said is that God created imperfect creatures and now punishes them repeatedly, mercilessly, and arbitrarily with death for being imperfect. That doesn't sound much like a loving (or rational) God to me.
"I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent."
Except that "deterrent" didn't work, did it? After Numbers 32-36 there are countless more examples of the people sinning in the Bible. So you're basically saying the poor guy in this passage died for nothing and that the supposedly omnipotent God who commanded the death was unable to see that this deterrence would fail. Nevermind that picking up sticks is treated as a far worse form of "rebellion" than the other various sins recounted both before and after this story in the Bible in which many of the characters are given less severe punishments or the chance to repent. So much for the Christian god being a god of mercy...
These kinds of contradictions and irrationalities are apparent to anyone who takes even a brief moment to consider them... and you wonder why the Sift isn't flocking to your evangelical banner?

>> ^shinyblurry:

The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.
Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.
I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.
You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.
Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P



Hi, shinyblurry.

I haven't responded to any of your posts in a while, but this time your answer made me throw up in my mouth a little so I thought I'd chime in. Let me read back to you what you just said:

"Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin."

But in the Christian tradition, the ONLY being capable of moral perfection is God himself. Humans can strive for it, but never achieve it. So what you have essentially said is that God created imperfect creatures and now punishes them repeatedly, mercilessly, and arbitrarily with death for being imperfect. That doesn't sound much like a loving (or rational) God to me.

"I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent."

Except that "deterrent" didn't work, did it? After Numbers 32-36 there are countless more examples of the people sinning in the Bible. So you're basically saying the poor guy in this passage died for nothing and that the supposedly omnipotent God who commanded the death was unable to see that this deterrence would fail. Nevermind that picking up sticks is treated as a far worse form of "rebellion" than the other various sins recounted both before and after this story in the Bible in which many of the characters are given less severe punishments or the chance to repent. So much for the Christian god being a god of mercy...

These kinds of contradictions and irrationalities are apparent to anyone who takes even a brief moment to consider them... and you wonder why the Sift isn't flocking to your evangelical banner?

>> ^curiousity:
Thank you for providing this example of your irrationality and intellectual dishonesty by, among other things, completely ignoring the counterpoints to the few studies I was able to get to.

I didn't ignore your counterpoints, I just took them in the balance of this comment of yours:

"Ha. I really have better things to do than continue this conversation that you've, obviously for a long time, been preparing for"

Since you had already dismissed me as unworthy of your time, I saw little reason to devote much of my time to responding to your points. And even if everything you said were true, which I do not concede, it still wouldn't be enough to overturn the general conclusion of homosexuality being harmful to the individual, community and society. The evidence from the Netherlands is particularly powerful as it shows that even in societies that are open to homosexuality, the risk factors are the same or even worse. I'll address your points:

gay party scene: please be specific..I can think of one study.

too old: if it has changed, please show the data

>> ^curiousity:
"Link below is from 2003. It clearly shows the need for STD and sex education in this country. If I was less educated and wasn't worried about getting a woman pregnant, I wouldn't worry about condoms either. It's not a hard concept, but one that I imagine you will easily dismiss because it undermines your argument."

Are homosexuals less educated on STDs and sex education? How else do you account for them being 63 percent of all new cases? Why are the statistics the same everywhere you look. Sex education can only do so much..many people know when they are engaging in risky behavior and do it anyway.

>> ^curiousity:
"A study from two cities in a southern state from 1994. I've included a quote for this study that, apparently, you overlooked: "Although a low response rate severely limits the interpretation of these data, they are justified by the absence of similar published data for both gays and lesbians living outside major metropolitan areas." (This data isn't very useful, but we don't have any other data so we should use it. Again, not a hard concept, but it undermines you conclusions... Ignore! Ignore!)"

Here is more data:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15838193

>> ^curiousity:
"I like how you didn't read all of those 134 words in the second link - "helps users escape internalized homophobia or other social stigmas." I also find it shocking that gay men in long-term, stable relationships are not constantly going to an STD testing clinic - Does this point make sense? You haven't been completely robbed of all logic, have you? If you want to be a little more honest with yourself and actually look at the studies, it is easy to see the gaps that undermines your jumping to validate your viewpoint."

I'm sure that some drug use may be based on their feelings of being persecuted, but if it's all based on discrimination then why are the usage rates the same in countries where homosexuality is practically institutionalized? I also wonder where personal responsibility ever comes into play? Do you think people can blame all of their behavior on environmental factors and not take any responsibility for their own choices? If I lose all of my money because of some dishonest bank and become homeless, does that mean I now have a right to steal? Or when I steal, am I not a criminal?

>> ^curiousity:
There is a classic false argument of saying that being intolerant of intolerance is actually intolerance. If you want to classify my refusal to allow your intolerant claims to stand unabated in that manner, so be it. I do apologize that I didn't make myself more clear about not thinking you were a homophobe, but the simple fact is that I look at people's actions and speech instead of why they say they are doing something. Your actions of condemnation are the same end result and that is what I meant to draw the parallel too, but I had to leave for work and unfortunately didn't make that point clearly.

How are my claims intolerant? I am not intolerant of anyone, I am intolerant of sin. There is a difference between judging someone as a person and judging their behavior. I am incapable of judging anyone, because I would only be a hypocrite, being equally guilty as they are, but I can tell if what they're doing is right or wrong. And yes, it is intolerant (by definition) to be intolerant of those who don't tolerate your position. You either welcome everyone to the table, including those who disagree with you, or you do exactly what you accuse them of doing to you.

>> ^curiousity:
It irks me that you dismiss what I say as trying to undermine only part of your evidence. (To be more honest, I think that irksome feeling is more tied into your utter refusal to address those points of contention… which was expected, but still frustrating.) I didn't have enough time to go through all of your provided evidence. I had to leave for work soon and while writing is lovely, it is a laborious action for me - it takes a while for me to write anything surpassing cursory. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is that I actually was reading and thinking about the studies. So while you were able to throw together quite a few apparently supporting studies for your viewpoint in an hour, I was much slower because I read those studies beyond the headline and skimming the abstract. Congratulations, you succeeded in becoming skillful on the quantity side... perhaps now it is time to focus on the quality side.

As I indicated, your post was dismissive..therefore I didn't spend much time on it. I appreciate the time you did spend but there was no indication you weren't interested in further dialogue.

>> ^curiousity:
Please in the future, respond after reading/viewing any evidence provided. This is similar to all the comments I see here asking you to actually watch the video before announcing that (shock!) what you thought was right was still right because you saw something that you disagree with in the first couple of minutes. If you don’t have the evidence or that evidence is something is the hazy distance of memory, just leave a comment that you need to refresh your memory on those resources. I completely understand this situation as I voraciously and nomadically spelunk into various intellectual subjects. On a semi-regular basis and depending on the subject, I will have to re-find that research that I faintly remember. I know that my writing style can come off as hyper-aggressive and be a little off-putting (especially when coupled how people have responded to you here on videosift.) I can only speak for myself, but if your response to my initial comment said simple that you had read it in some research long ago, that was hazy, and you needed to find those sources – this conversation could have went a very different route.

I'm open to a change in conversation. I am not super interested in arguing about statistics until kingdom come. I realize that they are not going to convince you of anything. I was just trying to support my statement. Since you feel that you understand some psychological motive about me that underlies my behavior, what do you think that is exactly? I can tell you that I do sincerely feel love for all people, even those who openly hate me. Mind you, sometimes I fail to show it, or even show the opposite..but that is something the Lord is helping me with. Some people are harder to love than others, but I see them all as being in the image of God and worthy of my love and respect. I can honestly say that have no predisposition against homosexuals, but you feel I do; so tell me why.

>> ^curiousity:

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^shinyblurry:

...snip...

Thank you for providing this example of your irrationality and intellectual dishonesty by, among other things, completely ignoring the counterpoints to the few studies I was able to get to.

There is a classic false argument of saying that being intolerant of intolerance is actually intolerance. If you want to classify my refusal to allow your intolerant claims to stand unabated in that manner, so be it. I do apologize that I didn't make myself more clear about not thinking you were a homophobe, but the simple fact is that I look at people's actions and speech instead of why they say they are doing something. Your actions of condemnation are the same end result and that is what I meant to draw the parallel too, but I had to leave for work and unfortunately didn't make that point clearly.

It irks me that you dismiss what I say as trying to undermine only part of your evidence. (To be more honest, I think that irksome feeling is more tied into your utter refusal to address those points of contention… which was expected, but still frustrating.) I didn't have enough time to go through all of your provided evidence. I had to leave for work soon and while writing is lovely, it is a laborious action for me - it takes a while for me to write anything surpassing cursory. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is that I actually was reading and thinking about the studies. So while you were able to throw together quite a few apparently supporting studies for your viewpoint in an hour, I was much slower because I read those studies beyond the headline and skimming the abstract. Congratulations, you succeeded in becoming skillful on the quantity side... perhaps now it is time to focus on the quality side.

Please in the future, respond after reading/viewing any evidence provided. This is similar to all the comments I see here asking you to actually watch the video before announcing that (shock!) what you thought was right was still right because you saw something that you disagree with in the first couple of minutes. If you don’t have the evidence or that evidence is something is the hazy distance of memory, just leave a comment that you need to refresh your memory on those resources. I completely understand this situation as I voraciously and nomadically spelunk into various intellectual subjects. On a semi-regular basis and depending on the subject, I will have to re-find that research that I faintly remember. I know that my writing style can come off as hyper-aggressive and be a little off-putting (especially when coupled how people have responded to you here on videosift.) I can only speak for myself, but if your response to my initial comment said simple that you had read it in some research long ago, that was hazy, and you needed to find those sources – this conversation could have went a very different route.

What about reactors that can't melt down? What about Ford Pintos that exploded when you hit them from the rear, that isn't a story of why all cars are dangerous, only Ford Pintos. What about a plane lands on a city and kills thousands, or the super dome and 10s of thousands? What if what if what if. 50 million people is a little showing of being irrationality scared. Even in the worst designed reactor incident in history, it wasn't as bad as that. If you looked closely, as well, the chart shows that nuclear has historically been safer that solar and wind (and hydro if you include the Banqiao Dam incident).

With that said, I do wish to see old light water reactor technology phased out and new, walk away safe reactors phased in. Engineered safety is less preferred than intrinsic safety that many of the new reactors have. Also, lets not forget, most of the navy is nuclear...meaning they feel safe enough to be in war time situations with current reactors, so engineered safety can indeed be very safe.

I have irrational fears as well, I hate to fly even though I know statistically it is safer than driving. I would suggest that your fear of nuclear is of the same nature. The only way you can kill millions of people with current or future nuclear technology is with bombs, not reactors. The only way reactors can "explode" is from a steam explosion or a hydrogen explosion...so about as bad as a fuel plant exploding, most likely several orders of magnitude less. IE, reactors explode chemically, not via fission, making no more or less dangerous that that other kinds of tech, with the exception of the fission byproducts. The good thing about most of the new nuclear tech is the fuel burn up rates are very very high, meaning there is less fuel involved in most cases.

At any rate, don't take my word for it, there is lots of data out there to look over. For my part, I think nuclear is the cleanest, safest bet for energy needs. I submit that nuclear is only scary because of it was first developed as a fearsome weapon. But the even more fearsome weapon are thermonuclear weapons, which are actually fusion/fission hybrid bombs. I would imagine for whatever reason you aren't super scared of fusion, and would wager that if thermonuclear bombs were called fusion bombs, the world at large would have a different mindset towards it...irrationally.

But I leave you with the facts, nuclear has been the leading sources of clean power which has also caused the least amount of deaths than other technologies. There are many factors in that, including massively engineered safety that continues to improve, as well as highly trained crews that watch over them. Coal miners die all the time, pipelines explode, oil platforms explode, people fall off roofs, or fall off wind farm towers, or get electrocuted...but none of these deaths cause the downfall of those technologies. Nuclear still has more drama in our minds, so plays out much differently when something goes wrong, which isn't very often ( 6 fatal occurrences since 1961) .

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html


I'm sorry are you comparing death rates between Coal and Nuclear Reactors? What if there's a meltdown or a terrorist attack and suddenly there's 50,000,000 people dead? It only takes one reactor outside of LA to do catastrophic damage you cannot compare the two NOW when we don't have a Fuckton of Reactors near population centers.
Comparing the two at this point in time is just ridiculous, the numbers are so skewed it's not even funny.

>> ^Fletch:

>> ^gorillaman:
Why not three men?

Why can't a woman marry two men? Or a man marry two women? Duh. It was a stupid, red herring response to a reasonable question. He didn't like the road she was taking him, so he jumped off the bike. If you think "why not three men" has any validity whatsoever in regards to the question that was asked, you are as irrational and detached as Santorum. He thinks he's shoving logic down their throats, but he's just making an ass of himself, and so are you.


I'll admit to somewhat playing into Santorum's hands by following the diversionary path he threw up and, yeah, I understand how the questions differ in their specifics.

But, both questions do need to be asked because both address serious state and social interference in private life. It's important to question whether that interference can be justified, and while gay marriage has huge public support and garners significant attention, group marriage gets almost none of either.

Ultimately opposition to polygamy has its roots in the same bigotry that condemns other non-traditional practices, and the same irrationality that views marriage as anything other than an artificial construct that should probably eventually be dismantled.

So, why not two men? Why not three men? Why not a man and a donkey? Why not twelve men, sixteen women, a chicken and a block of wood?

>> ^hpqp:

You make a good point in most of your comment, but I must object to the bit below. A person's belief in god(s) is unfortunately hardly ever a purely personal thing. They might teach it to their children (religious indoctrination is never a good thing, no matter how tame), they might base their political/ethical choices/decisions upon it, and they are upholding - by their adherence - a system of belief that is anti-rational, almost always totalitarian, often misogynistic and hateful, not to mention generally immoral, all because it is what they were indoctrinated with to begin with.
If one wants to have imaginary friends based on ancient books, fine. But they should at least be able to first grow up in a world where rational/critical thought is taught and respected, not its contrary. And that's not going to happen as long as religious beliefs aren't continually exposed for the hokum that they are.

_{drat, i ended up ranting again, sorry.}>> ^NetRunner:
[...] I find the whole concept of going around and challenging religious people's belief in God a bit repugnant -- much better to go after just the people who are using lines of scripture as a substitute for thinking for themselves.



Your objections are reasonable only if you make the following assumptions:

1) That teaching your children about your religion is the same as indoctrination (it isn't, though I know Dawkins proclaims that it is)
2) That "indoctrination" will, the majority of the time, result in adults who are incapable of rational/critical thought (cite me some studies that show this and you might persuade me its true; I suppose in a closed society in which a single religion permeated every aspect of daily life including work and education this might actually be plausible)
3) That making political or ethical choices based on a religion is always a bad thing (it might be... or it might not be--depends on the situation; Hitchens's story of the time a Muslim taxi driver went to great lengths to return the wallet Hitchens had left in his taxi precisely because he felt his religion required him to do so is one counter-example).
4) That all religions are anti-rational, misogynistic, totalitarian, and hateful (they aren't; check out Baha'i as just one counter-example)

@NetRunner, in reply to your comment, made the astute point that atheism does not "preclude dogma, bigotry, or hatred." In that same vein I would add it doesn't preclude irrationality either, though there seem to be no end these days of atheists--including yourself--insinuating that somehow atheists are more rational than their religious counterparts (for more on the fallibility of atheists in the areas of reason and logic, I recommend these interesting websites, all by the same author--an atheist for over 40 years):

The Reasoning Atheist
Handbook of Logic and Rational Thought, Book 1
Handbook of Logic and Rational Thought, Book 2

My point is that atheism has gone beyond a mere denial of the existence of a deity or deities and become for many people a type of worldview. And for those people, this worldview is as hostile to criticism and as capable of gross logic fails/critical thinking errors as the most fundamentalist of religions. That's one reason why I wholeheartedly agree with Netrunner that time is better spent arguing with people about what is moral or immoral than to waste time aggressively attacking people who--in many case--will actually agree with you about what is moral/immoral (just not for the same reasons that you have).

@Ornthoron @dannym3141 and @Mikus_Aurelius I promised a reply, and I will give one in time, but it might need more time than I thought. I think I might be onto something, big. If it pans out, I am going to call it "The Extended Gödel's Incompleteness theorem as it refers to infinite irrationality". I think I can show that all non-terminating sets either are undefined, and/or, the largest set of infinities in existence. I haven't yet found the significance of the equation I crafted to explain irrational repeaters. I will check in later with the complete proof when I am done crafting it.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:

>> ^Psychologic:
Religion isn't the cause of irrationality, it's a symptom of it. Eliminating superstition would be about as effective as treating disease by finding a cure for coughing.
Maybe Hitchens really is helping people who are uncomfortable doubting religious claims... I just feel that his aggressive and hyperbolic language can be counter-productive to his apparent goals.

The tenacity of Hitchens and Dawkins may seem malevolent, but they attack using language and logic instead of censorship, violence, and excommunication.
I much prefer that over the alternative.


Why are there only two options?

>> ^Psychologic:

Religion isn't the cause of irrationality, it's a symptom of it. Eliminating superstition would be about as effective as treating disease by finding a cure for coughing.
Maybe Hitchens really is helping people who are uncomfortable doubting religious claims... I just feel that his aggressive and hyperbolic language can be counter-productive to his apparent goals.


The tenacity of Hitchens and Dawkins may seem malevolent, but they attack using language and logic instead of censorship, violence, and excommunication.

I much prefer that over the alternative.

Religion isn't the cause of irrationality, it's a symptom of it. Eliminating superstition would be about as effective as treating disease by finding a cure for coughing.

Maybe Hitchens really is helping people who are uncomfortable doubting religious claims... I just feel that his aggressive and hyperbolic language can be counter-productive to his apparent goals.

amish - true, they aren't violent, but there is still some deep rooted irrationality there. that's some serious whackadoodle.