It's not so much that dangerous fundamentalist atheism is impossible. As you said, Stalin and Mao proved otherwise, although an argument could be made that their zealotry was politically based, but I digress.

It's more that even the so called "rabid atheists" (Dawkins et al) of the present day simply aren't comparable. The lunatic fringe of religion is well documented (WBC, al Qaeda, etc) as is the harm caused by even mainstream religion (ban on condoms, hiding pedophiles).

There simply isn't anything comparable from even the most evangelical of the new atheists. Even dickheads like Pat Condell are small potatoes compared to the other side.

The reason why atheism is unique over other belief systems is because it isn't one. There is no atheist tract or creed that must be upheld. There are simply people who reject attempts by others to force them to comply with their particular belief set.

Now, if an atheist terror group appears tomorrow and starts bombing churches or even if an atheist political party* demanded the outlawing of religion, I would condemn them, but that hasn't happened.

Put simply, I've never had an atheist knock on my door and say "have you heard the word of Dawkins?"

*what would that even look like, given that atheism has no political affiliation?

Hmm.....habits I picked up while growing up. I can't say they were gotten from any one source, line, or context...but I had I still struggle to unlearn them.

Extreme independence, this mainly applies to learning in school. If I couldn't learn it in class or own my own, then I failed. I'd say this was a mix of bad teachers, parents who weren't familiar with the material, lack of easy and discrete tutoring options (although I can't say I would have used them), and the attitude that you should be able to do it on your own which was picked up along the way. This goes over into the next point.

Asking for help before you've tried for yourself. Now this is one of those things where it could go either way. Trying on your own might let you figure out a way that works for you, but it might also give you bad habits that don't carry over into other things. Mostly to do with mental tasks, but it also spreads into physical tasks. Like moving something too heavy or too large for one person, end up hurting yourself or breaking something and being chastised for the attempt that was almost implied you should make on your own for YEARS for everything. Or something as simple as trying to fix your bike, and ending up with it done wrong that could go spectacularly bad, like brakes that don't work well enough or a chain that breaks or skips and busting your face on your handle bars when you really stand on it. This is something where I still struggle today as an adult as to when asking for help or expecting help with something is "too soon" and getting varied results back. People who say "Why didn't you come to me sooner?" versus "That's easy! I can't believe you didn't try...." I think it's just so common with men that it's almost overlooked. And it leads into seeing people getting help as seeing them as stupid/weak/etc...then perpetuates the cycle. I don't know it's more of a US culture thing or what. Because I used to see a lot of foreign students in college that would work together on everything...I always viewed it as cheating and in some cases it was cheating by the rules of the college but overlooked in their cases.

So the "help" thing kind of leads into injuries, falling, etc. It's embarrassing to fall of course. But I can remember breaking my arm and having to walk home because my mom didn't believe I'd hurt myself. Or cases where I was having an asthma attack at school and told to just wait it out because I'd already used my rescue inhaler. Partly due to ignorance of the nurse or person involved, but also because there's just a mistrust of kids trying to "game" the system to get out of things. Admittedly some did this, I however did not, and I quickly learned to just tolerate all of the discomfort and distractions of various issues that may come up during the school day. Which led to a day where I was so sick I spent the entire day in the nurses office while they tried to contact a parent and had to ride the bus home flat on my back in a seat trying not to puke. Then with more apparent injuries, "walk it off" was and is the common thing you hear. It's holds some truth, but when your taught to put up with it.. I had a dislocated knee cap for a couple days. It was so bad the night before it popped back into place at school that I was using a crutch to get to the bathroom. Dislocated thumb that popped back into place when I fell trying to play football. I mean it sounds like I had horrible parents, but it was just so ingrained into me that if I could walk...I was fine.


Lots more stuff...but one that I'm not sure how to phrase properly. Anything to do with touching that might be seen as affectionate or showing concern. Pats on the back giving or receiving to or from another guy. Helping someone up could almost be seen as an insult at times. I want to say lots of eastern Euro cultures (which I could be entirely wrong here on the location) express themselves much more than US physically, and it's pretty alien for me to see given how it was and is for me aging. Of course there are times where I feel like I SHOULD do it, but the act of it is ingrained to be wrong.......? I guess that sounds as close to as I'm going to get with it.

But yeah, I see where they are going with the video. I also think that part of it is because opposite sex teacher/nurse/whatever showing above certain levels of care to a male/female student triggers something in the hormone addled brains that creates more problems. So in turn, adults are taught to put the kids in their box and treat them all like that to avoid the issues that might end up with you losing your job because Bobby or Susie thinks you like-like them. And in the past male teachers to male students might have been able to ignore the box, but I think with the public eye focused more on looking as being homosexual as more acceptable...the same sex teachers/etc are going to have adhere to the box thing too if they want to keep their jobs.

Ugh, Pat Condell.

This guy's not interesting, insightful or funny. He happens to be right some of the time, but that more by coincidence than anything else. He's really just a dickhead.

I'm happy to have missed the 60s and experienced the 90s there-Same good LSD, and no hippie-infestation! OH, and the Dead's last show in Oakland...lived in SF & MISSED IT!! (pats own back)

Upvote for the second best use of that Pat Benatar song.

Yes, aside from being adorable purring machines, kitties are also original gangstas. Since before human gangstas. Pat patting fools til they run away screaming about that darn cat.

And the real OG cats, well, they always come back. They not jus gonna go away, son.

Gimme a meow.

"People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." -A.Huxley

He read, from an ex-pat cafe in Morocco, undoing his capacity to think with a ball of hashish the size of of a pocket watch-

@19:00 some great excerpts from a talk from John Trudell. Meaty!

@bcglorf

i think it is rather you who missed my point and are aligning with the same argument @A10anis laid out.

i am not dismissing the horrific violence perpetrated by "terrorists".
what i AM dismissing is the "lesser of two evils" premise.

because it is hypocrisy on steroids.

now i realize you and i highly disagree on this matter.
thats ok..we can disagree.

people can use all the nationalistic jingoism they wish to make this situation a more "feel good" narrative.
they can point to the dead,tortured and beheaded to justify their own brand of violence.
they can flag-wave and pat themselves on the back that our form of violence is somehow "less" violent and "more" noble.

and it still would not change the fact that the reasons behind normal people turning to fundamentalist,reactionary violent groups can be found at our own feet.

this is the part of the equation that so many people i talk to seem to either willingly or unwittingly...ignore.

responsibility lies at the feet of those who created this violent ballet,just as it does with those who perpetrate the violence.

its like you hitting me in the face everyday at school and one day i hit you back.
but with a bat.
and you run to the principle and cry to have me arrested for hitting you in the face with a bat.
ignoring the fact you had been violent with me for many days prior.

moral question:who is wrong?
or in the context of this discussion:who is more evil?

Transcript from Reddit:
I translated most of the exchange between the people in the video. It starts at 0:41.
Robber: Stop! Stop, stop, stop. Give me the alarm!
Victim: Okay, okay.
Robber: Give me the alarm, give me the alarm!
Robber points the gun at victims head.
Victim: It's here, it's here.
Robber: Fuck, hurry!
Victim: It's right here, it's right here!
Victim hands over the alarm system key.
Victim: You can take it away, you can take it away!
Other robber approaches say something inaudible.
Victim: No man, I'm not armed.
Robber #2: What?
Victim: I don't have any gun on me, I'm not a cop.
Robber #2 to Robber: Let's go, let's go.
Victim: You guys can take it, take it.
Cop approaches Robber and BAM! BAM! (or pew! pew!, whatever you prefer)
Robber: Ouch! Fuck!
Victim: Thank you police! Thank you police! Thanks a lot!
Victim: Now you're gonna rob in hell. You're not gonna take away my bike. You're not gonna take it, thank god.
Victim put's helmet on the ground.
Inaudible exchange between victim and cop.
Another cop in black t-shirt steps in and talks to cop hero.
Black tshirt cop: I work for "Guarda". (a division of the police department) Are you a captain?
Cop gets in the car.
Victim: Now you're gonna rob in hell you son of a bitch.
Robber (whining): I got shot!
Victim (pissed off): You go fuck yourself! You're the one pointing gun at other people's face!
Robber: Oh, I'm gonna die.
Victim: You sure will! You should have already! Son of a bitch.
Robber inaudible, apparently asks someone to get him something to drink.
Victim: You're gonna drink in hell! You're gonna drink the devil!
Victim to other people around: Fuck, I'm going on my way and this asshole comes to rob me.
Victim pick up the helmet.
Victim (to camera): I'm lucky it's still recording. They tried to rob me here.
Victim (on the phone): Just come over here. This guy just tried to rob me and the cop shot him. Come quickly. Just don't tell dad. Come quickly!
Victim hangs up.
Victim: You have to live so you can get beat up in jail!
Victim (to himself): Fucking idiot.
Robber: I'm dying!
Victim: Yeah, you're supposed to! You have to get fucked. You're not the one that likes to rob? Getting a job is something you don't want to, right?! Do you have any idea how much I'm working to pay for this motorcycle?! You have no idea, right! And then you take it away easily!
Victim: And you're lucky that I wanted to get your buddy as well! But don't worry because he's gonna get caught.
Guy in blue t-shirt to victim: Was it red or black that one?
Victim: Red.
Victim (to some cop): Guy wasn't wearing a helmet but I noticed when I looked in the mirror they were up to no good.
Guy in blue t-shit starts patting down the robber.
Robber: Keep your hands off me! Fuck.
Blue t-shit guy reaches for something and hands it over to cop.
Robber to cop: I'm dying sir!
Victim: Oh now you say "sir" right?! You first scare the shit out of other people and now it's all "sir". "Sir" my ass buddy! Now you're gonna get fucked up in hell.
Vicim: How about your buddy? You see. He ran away!
Victim: You wanted to ride some Hornet, right?! (flips off) Here, now you're gonna ride a hornet in hell! (Hornet is a Honda model)
Victim picks up camera
Victim: Now you see this guy. He was going to rob me, now got all fucked up. The cops shot him.

I love Pat Benatar. <3 "Invincible" is one of my favorites.

I don't know if my cat is super intelligent, little else suggests it

She never had a problem with mirrors and seems to understand the concept at some level. The first time, she patted it twice and seemed to have figured it out, it never phased her after that and I can't even fool her with hanging a rope in the reflection, she just turns around and gets the real rope.

Perhaps that's just the sounds the rope is making my crappy ears can't pick up but yeah, mirrors ain't no thing. I also can't fool her with things on the iPad or TV, she seems immune to flat projections of things.

If you leave out the digression about the rings, this was pretty reasonably by Pat Robertson standards. Not entirely accurate, of course, but pretty good for Pat.

Is dancing on someone's grave illegal? I really want to dance on Pat's grave when he dies.

For those confused about the "wants the video deleted from the Internet" title, they removed it from their show and tried to file copyright claims to force it off Internet sites, but Right Wing Watch managed to get it back on under Fair Use.
http://gawker.com/pat-robertson-has-lost-his-fight-to-keep-gay-aids-ring-1314509544

See? Yoga is demonic, Pat Robertson said so!
Jesus wants you to stay on that couch. Potato chips are good for your soul.