Hear hear!

Come on now Pat, tell us how you really feel!

I get where he's coming from--he absolutely should have the right (in countries that value free speech) to insult religions or any individual he chooses as much as he pleases. However, he lost the moral high ground on this one since his whole rationale for insulting religions seems to be "They started it!"

I don't see how "insulting" religion is going to do anything other than create more divisiveness. It certainly isn't going to convince religious people to suddenly embrace atheism, nor even re-examine their own beliefs. As therapeutic for Pat as spewing all this vitriol over the net may be, it doesn't seem likely to achieve his goal of getting religious people to "shut up and maybe see a doctor" (as his FAQ states). As one of the "rational-thinking persons" on this planet, I'm a bit surprised that Pat can't see the irrationality of his own actions and argument.

Downvoted for this line: "I sincerely hope [my insulting you] hurts your feelings, harms your emotional well-being, and damages your self-image to the extent that you have to go and lie down." This from a guy who claims to believe "the purpose of life is joy in the present moment."

Way to spread the joy, Pat.

@SDGundamX - I agree with Pat, and this is why: Right now religious people are only accustomed to being insulted insofar as people prevent them from forcing their beliefs on others. They have enjoyed a double standard that I think should be removed from society, and I'm glad to say it's starting to happen. That is, they can walk up to anybody and tell them they're going to hell, but I'm not supposed to walk around talking about how religion is nothing but a fairy tale. They get their feelings hurt. They think that freedom of religion means they can talk about religion and push it on other people, and not have to hear anybody telling them they are immature and irrational.

It's tit for tat time. They tell me I'm going to hell, I tell them they're going to cease to exist. They tell me to find Jesus, I'll tell them there's no evidence a man named Jesus even existed. They tell me that morality is derived from the bible, I ask them when was the last time they stoned an adulteress.

"Religion is a crock of dangerous, evil, dehumanizing, superstitious garbage." It's time we started treating it that way. And that means insulting the hell out of people who try to spread it. Because that is how we knock it off the bullshit pedestal it has been put on.

Advising one part of society to belittle and disdain another part of society is a recipe for social disaster.

This needs to be taken in context: when any criticism of religion (especially Islam in Europe these days) is immediately labeled as "insulting" or "provocation", then yes, we need to continue "insulting" religion.

This* is the kind of response you get when you draw a cartoon of Mohamed. Drawing Mohamed: an insult. Not to mention anyone who dare draw attention to the unethical consequences of Sharia, for example.

@SDGundamX: sarcasm, learn to recognise it


*edit: and that's just the signs. People killed and were killed due to the shitstorm that was roused by the Danish imams. The imams, mind you, not the cartoons.

@hpqp

Thank you for your suggestion. Let's get right on that.

From Wikipedia:

Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.”

From dictionary.com:

In sarcasm, ridicule or mockery is used harshly, often crudely and contemptuously, for destructive purposes. It may be used in an indirect manner, and have the form of irony, as in “What a fine musician you turned out to be!” or it may be used in the form of a direct statement, “You couldn't play one piece correctly if you had two assistants.” The distinctive quality of sarcasm is present in the spoken word and manifested chiefly by vocal inflection ...

Looking carefully at these definitions, it would seem that claiming to believe that the purpose of life is joy in the present and then to go on and wish for harm to others is not actually sarcasm--its hypocrisy: a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

@MaxWilder

And what exactly does all this insulting accomplish? Sure, you feel better after insulting them. But does it stop them from telling people they are going to hell? Or does it convince them that you need saving all the more? How does increasing the decibel level and rhetoric help in any way get us to a place where we can live together peacefully?

All Pat's diatribes do are score him popularity points with other angry atheists. Which is fine if his goal is to get as many hits on YouTube as possible. But he seems at least somewhat interested in actually effecting social change; so I have to ask again why is he choosing probably the least effective--and as @Morganth pointed out, potentially dangerous--way to go about it?

@SDGundamX

I stand corrected. It seems to me to be neither sarcasm nor hypocrisy, but ironic parody of all the (death) threats and "You'll burn in hell"s that people like Condell get for criticising religion. To suggest that he truly wishes harm on others is to miss the style of his comedy altogether. I've watched almost all of his videos, so to me it went without saying, but I understand that someone not familiar with his style could infer what you do.

Also, your comment to @MaxWilder suggests that you didn't get the point about "insulting". What Pat does in his videos is turn the rhetoric of religious fundies and apologists back on them, in this case those who call any criticism of Islam "insult" or "blasphemy" (those two are often used as synonyms by the Islamist defenders).

You ask, "what is the point?" The point is, imo, to encourage non-believers and (eventually) moderate believers not to sit quietly and "take it" when religion tramples all over basic human rights, and then tries to shut up those who call it out for it. Lack of dissent is silent assent. To paraphrase Sagan:

"If we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition [the abuse of human rights]—even when it seems to be doing a little good—we abet a general climate in which skepticism [criticism] is considered impolite [insulting], science tiresome, and rigorous thinking [ethical concerns] somehow stuffy and inappropriate.

@hpqp

I've watched a lot of his videos too... not sure why you keep assuming I haven't. Check out some of his other vids on the Sift and you'll see I've downvoted many of them (not all--it's hard for anyone including Pat to be wrong 100% of the time) too. The more I watch, the less I think he is being ironic and the more convinced I am he is being dead-straight honest.

In fact, I don't see how this video can be interpreted to be ironic in any way, shape, or form. If we use Wikipedia again to look at the definition of verbal irony we see that:

Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example of this is when someone says "Oh, that's beautiful", when what they mean (probably conveyed by their tone) is they find "that" quite ugly.

So how is this diatribe ironic? For it to be ironic, what he is expressing must be the opposite of what he is saying. In other words, he must mean that he really doesn't want them to feel bad after he insults them. In fact, he agrees with their methods. Clearly that's an absurd interpretation of this video.

He is being sarcastic in this video (according to the definitions from my last post), he is being a hypocrite (saying he believes the meaning of life is joy but then arguing its okay to insult other people cuz, you know, they started it), but I don't see how you can argue he's being ironic.

I understand that you believe Pat actually means "criticize" when he says "insult" but taken as a whole I don't think this video gives you much evidence to support that view. Conversely, there's lots of support there to show that when he says insult he means insult. For example at 1:34...

"And for this reason not only do I have a perfect right to insult your religion, I have a right to insult you personally the moment I have to hear about your poxy religion."

FYI according to the urban dictionary "poxy" means: crappy, stupid, dumb.

It's pretty difficult to explain that statement away as a criticism of religion and not a direct insult. Just look at how he says that sentence (his facial expression, intonation, etc.). He is dead-serious.

Just to recap my main points:

1) Claiming that it's okay to insult religion because "they started it" makes it difficult to take your arguments any more seriously than a childish rant
2) Throwing insults around is not likely to accomplish anything--even though you have the right to do something, doesn't always mean it's a good idea to do so.

I absolutely agree with you that we should not let people squelch criticism of religion by claiming that criticism is equivalent to insult. But neither should we, in turn, equate blatant insult with genuine criticism.

As far as Sagan goes... when you have to change multiple parts of someones quote in order to make it sound like they support your views, you're not really quoting them--you're just putting words in their mouth. Sagan was a class-act gentleman who knew how to argue rationally and found no need to throw shit around like some angry ape in order to make a point. Pat could learn a great deal about persuasive arguing from Sagan.

@SDGundamX

I apologise for making assumptions about your knowledge of Pat's videos; it seems to be - again - a question of seeing the same thing through different lenses. After rewatching the video and reading your comment, I agree that there are elements of pure insult and sarcasm in this (and surely other of Pat's) video(s). That being said, I cannot agree with you that he's being a hypocrite, because I don't think the caustic sarcasm of the phrase you point out is supposed to be taken seriously, but to mock the similar responses that people like him get for criticising religion.

Btw, what's wrong with insulting religion, when much of religion itself is an insult (and injury) to the basic integrity and morality of humankind? There is another function of rants like Pat's, and that is the cathartic effect* it provides for people who share Hitchens' opinion that "religion poisons everything" and who, like me, are often sick of and enraged at not only religion's rampant influence, but the lenience it receives from moderates and timid atheists.

As for quoting Sagan, I simply used his elegant phraseology to make a parallel point about the danger of silent assent.

*edit: sure beats rioting in the streets and murdering people, don't you think?

@SDGundamX

The point, in my opinion, is to remove religion from its current place on a pedestal where it expects to remain untouched. That is the first step toward general acceptance of those who do not believe. You simply cannot have a society of equals when a large segment of the population is socially permitted to mock, insult, and belittle another segment without retaliation. And remember, this insulting of religion that Pat advises is purely intended as a rebuttal to religious verbal attacks.

Perhaps this isn't the single best way of effecting that change, but I believe it is a strong choice. It has been said by some more intelligent than me that if you can't use reason to change a person's illogical conclusions, then mockery might be the answer.

@SDGundamX

Look, pretending that you've examined the dictionary definition of sarcasm and irony really shows that you don't get Pats jabs AT ALL. Heres the joke he was making:

He hopes his insults "harms your physical and mental well-being so har that you'll have to lie down for 10 minutes before you can even pray"

Clearly this is a JOKE, he knows full well that no matter what anyone says to anyone ever, certainly not in a public debate, can actually harm people like that. The joke is targeted at people who claims that actual harm has come to them, simply because their beliefs were insulted. IE muslims who just cannot live in a world were people draw their precious prophet, so they have to threaten and scream at everyone, muslim and infidel, until they stop the drawing and apologize for the "crime", and even then they are not satisfied and take the liberty of threatening liberal democratic countries with "revenge".

If you are a certain kind of jihadist, murder and offensive cartoons seems to be reasonable tit-for-tat to you. it is this concept that Pat is mocking with his joke. Cleary he knows, like everybody else , that you cannot be "physically harmed" by an offending joke or insult, he sarcastically pretends to have this awesome superpower that he can harm people with.

It actually reminds me of a great old monty python sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNvi6xG-5Y

>> ^MaxWilder:

@SDGundamX
The point, in my opinion, is to remove religion from its current place on a pedestal where it expects to remain untouched. That is the first step toward general acceptance of those who do not believe. You simply cannot have a society of equals when a large segment of the population is socially permitted to mock, insult, and belittle another segment without retaliation. And remember, this insulting of religion that Pat advises is purely intended as a rebuttal to religious verbal attacks.
Perhaps this isn't the single best way of effecting that change, but I believe it is a strong choice. It has been said by some more intelligent than me that if you can't use reason to change a person's illogical conclusions, then mockery might be the answer.


I guess what I'm saying is that in a society that respects free speech, everyone must have the right to mock, insult, and belittle each other. BUT, in a society that respects peace, it seems only logical that we condemn those who use such tactics in the strongest terms without descending to their level. I believe in the old adage "When you fight with a pig you both get dirty -- but the pig likes it." The religious nutters are looking for a fight--they're looking to play the victim, to show how oppressed they are, to reaffirm their worldview is correct. I'm convinced that such mockery and insults when directed back at them only prove to them (in their mind) that they are right.

I think for people who are on the fence about their religion, the mockery just makes them defensive and less likely to critically evaluate the rational arguments that are actually made. That's why I strongly disagree with Dawkins (who has been one of the most vocal supporters of using mockery) about its use. I think at the end of the day it just pushes people apart instead of bringing them together.

@BicycleRepairMan

Thanks for the explanation of the joke and the clip.

You're right, I don't "get" Pat's jokes--they're not funny to me. Unlike science, comedy is completely subjective and what's humorous to one person is not at all humorous to another.

@hpqp brought up the whole sarcasm thing and admittedly the thread got a little hijacked by that discussion.

I still stand by the downvote and my origional comment. I've watched it again just now (probably the 10th time) and I still get the vibe from him that his "humor" is intended to be malicious. I don't see such humor helping things get better.