If they "un-blessed" it, does that mean that they believed that it was blessed in the first place? They should have just ignored it.

(I know that the un-blessing is suppose to be "humorous" and somewhat "ironic". I fail to find it both, just stupid. And a rather catty attack.)

wintercoat:
Y'see, this is why I hate telling people I'm Atheist. Because I eventually get lumped with people like this. Retards who think it's socially acceptable to mock others just because they believe something different. They're no better than the Christians that they make fun of.

What I want to know is, where are all the Christian apologists saying "Ugh, I hate being associated with these retarded asphalt-anointers. They're no better than atheists"?

It's not the atheist's job to turn the other cheek - according to the Bible, that's what Christians should be doing.

Batou667:

wintercoat:
Y'see, this is why I hate telling people I'm Atheist. Because I eventually get lumped with people like this. Retards who think it's socially acceptable to mock others just because they believe something different. They're no better than the Christians that they make fun of.

What I want to know is, where are all the Christian apologists saying "Ugh, I hate being associated with these retarded asphalt-anointers.

Wait, blessing the highway was a bad thing to do?

thelittleman66:
Wait, blessing the highway was a bad thing to do?

If we're being completely impartial, the act of blessing the highway was no better or worse than unblessing it.

You can't bless a highway. I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of the people here would agree with that; and that even the Christian posters would admit that if you want to bring about social change, sprinkling oil on tarmac probably isn't the best way to do it.

The only possible point of disagreement, then, is to judge not the actions but the intent of the two parties involved. And boy, have people been judging. What I find depressingly amusing (or should that be amusingly depressing?) is that a sizeable proportion of a majority-atheist forum actually sided with the Christian road-blessers on this one. It just underlines how priveleged religious people are in Western society; when people who are nominally disinterested or even opposed to them flock to give support to their meaningless acts of ritual and to defend them from the "mean and disrespectful" anti-theists who play them at their own game.

You know what's stupid? Pouring oil on a road and burying some bricks to keep "undesirables" such as gays out of your town.

You know what's really stupid? Defending this when you should know better.

The implication, presumably, is that the atheists were acting out of pettiness where as the Christians were acting on genuine motives. Therefore, the logic goes, the Christians occupy the moral high ground. Bullshit! In what other aspect of life or society would we favour well-meaning ignorance over rational piss-taking? It's like scolding a child for telling his naive 12-year old cousin that Santa doesn't exist: shh, he's innocent, let him have his comforting make-believe, he's not hurting anybody, play along. It's condescending.

Batou667:

wintercoat:
Y'see, this is why I hate telling people I'm Atheist. Because I eventually get lumped with people like this. Retards who think it's socially acceptable to mock others just because they believe something different. They're no better than the Christians that they make fun of.

What I want to know is, where are all the Christian apologists saying "Ugh, I hate being associated with these retarded asphalt-anointers. They're no better than atheists"?

It's not the atheist's job to turn the other cheek - according to the Bible, that's what Christians should be doing.

If an Atheist doesn't believe in God, then there's no reason to "debless" the highway, since all the Christians did was say some nonsense and sprinkle oil on the ground. They're doing it as a mockery. I may not agree with the Christian faith, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with idiots mocking them in public. It makes them look like petty children, no better than the people they're mocking.

isn't the whole

"Two days after this March 1st event, Sherriff Grady Judd arranged for the arrest and
incarceration of EllenBeth Wachs, an atheist activist, after she made public records requests
investigating Judd's allegedly illegal transfers of county property to local churches. (Wachs now
serves as President of the Humanists of Florida Association.)"

corrupt sheriff arresting a woman because she investigated his shady dealings more important then the fact that some holier then thou old man cast a level 4 Barrier of turn Junkie on the highway?

wintercoat:
If an Atheist doesn't believe in God, then there's no reason to "debless" the highway, since all the Christians did was say some nonsense and sprinkle oil on the ground. They're doing it as a mockery. I may not agree with the Christian faith, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with idiots mocking them in public. It makes them look like petty children, no better than the people they're mocking.

Why do they have to be better than them?

Erm.....seams unnecessary.

I mean it's not like a blessed highway will doing anything bad to them....

wintercoat:
If an Atheist doesn't believe in God, then there's no reason to "debless" the highway, since all the Christians did was say some nonsense and sprinkle oil on the ground. They're doing it as a mockery. I may not agree with the Christian faith, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with idiots mocking them in public. It makes them look like petty children, no better than the people they're mocking.

If the Christian group here were holding a respectful, private ceremony behind closed doors and a buch of atheists burst in, whooping and laughing in derision, then yes, that'd be something of a dick move.

But that's not what happened. The Christian group were making a very overt statement that their town/highway - public spaces paid for with atheist/Jewish/Muslim tax dollars as well as Christian - were the metaphorical domain of Christians.

Sure, it's just banner-waving, and aruably the atheists should have "risen above" the provocation, ironically making them better Christians than the Christians themselves. What I'm saying is the fact that the holy oil may be just symbolism, but symbolism is potent. Try waving a British flag in an Independence Day parade, or walk into a bar full of truckers and raise your middle finger at the biggest guy, or give a seig heil salute at a Bar Mitzvah. And then reflect, as you collect your teeth from the floor, why people get so worked up about mere symbolism.

Well, as an atheist if a road in my town got blessed I'd probably think "Bit silly" and then get on with my life.

Oh, so that's why there's been ads for what looks like an atheist church on TV lately (I live in the area. Long story short: Polk County is crazy.)

Edit: also, Sheriff Judd is a crazy among crazies. The dude has a /really/ weird hangup about porn, and spends an inordinate amount of time hunting down pedophiles. Not that I have a problem with bringing child molesters to justice, it's just that he's a bit too single minded about it for it not to be weird.

Edit Edit: One more note: I've been where this is taking place. When you cross the county line into Pasco, the ride gets noticeably smoother, because Pasco county actually maintains the roads in its jurisdiction.

Why would people actually waste their time doing this? Do they really have nothing else to do? Who cares, honestly..

Fisher321:
Why would people actually waste their time doing this? Do they really have nothing else to do? Who cares, honestly..

Well, why would we waste our time discussing this on a forum?

I'm sure they had some kind of motivation and some kind of reasoning that made it "not a waste of time" to them.

Kind of pathetic. Such provocative cultism makes you look like the monster you're trying to fight.

I don't realy care if a person is religious or an athiest, but this just seems stupid, it seems more anti-religion in general than atheism or just an attention grab. I mean, if you don't believe in it, then what the hell is a blessed road going to do to you?? As for the people who blessed it, they would believe God blessed the bridge, and the athiests don't belive in God so what could they do with simple water to unbless a bridge?

And if the church responds, it's just going to continue this bullshit and make it worse >.>

Astoria:
Stupid much, for both groups. Why the hell would you bless a friggin road?

Because it just sneezed! Back on topic though I'd like to act to the topic that as a christian, I'm friends with an atheist and we find it easy to get along, we just don't talk about religion. I respect that he will NEVER believe in god and that doesn't make him a faithless idiot and he respects that me being religious doesn't make me a blind ignorant moron.

What is so hard about that? How is it so hard for Christians and Atheists to just accept that you can't find a middle ground so the only solution is just to not talk religion? To accept that both sides have their values and move on. It seems to me that both sides are in the wrong, Christians for trying to push others into religion even when they don't want to and Atheists for mocking religious people for wanting to have a little faith in things we perhaps will never understand. (P.S - I believe in Evolution, I'm religious not stupid)

Holy Omnissiah, this thread is still kicking? What have I released onto the Escapist?

Revnak: High religiosity is correlated with lowered crime rates across the board. I don't know how this can confound you or why you doubt it.

I always shake my head when people make blanket statements without a shred of documentation and expect others to swallow it.

Sorry, but your statement is wrong. There is *far* more violent crime in the US "Bible Belt", where there is a much higher concentration of Christians than in states where there is a higher proportion of atheists. Recent research concludes that there is more crime where people believe in a "forgiving" god. Throughout Christianity's history, critics both within and without have pointed out Christians' criminal behavior:

Salvianus of Marseilles (5th Century CE): Besides a very few who avoid evil, what is almost the whole body of Christians but a sink of iniquity? How many in the church will you find that are not drunkards, or adulterers, or fornicators, or gamblers, or robbers, or murderers--- or altogether?

The USA, with its high rates of Christian belief, has *far more* violent crime than the more secular/more atheist nations of Western Europe and, in particular, Japan. Japan, with less than 10% of the population believing in a god, has the lowest rates of violent crime. The US's rate of violent crime is 5 times that of Western Europe, and 10 times that of Japan.

The reality is the OPPOSITE of what you posted: High religiosity is correlated with high rates of crime across the board. Go ahead now - slice and dice until you get the piece that corresponds with your preference and ignore the rest. "But there are low rates of crime among black Hutterite women over age 50!!"

chxlive:
Revnak: High religiosity is correlated with lowered crime rates across the board. I don't know how this can confound you or why you doubt it.

I always shake my head when people make blanket statements without a shred of documentation and expect others to swallow it.

Sorry, but your statement is wrong. There is *far* more violent crime in the US "Bible Belt", where there is a much higher concentration of Christians than in states where there is a higher proportion of atheists. Recent research concludes that there is more crime where people believe in a "forgiving" god. Throughout Christianity's history, critics both within and without have pointed out Christians' criminal behavior:

Salvianus of Marseilles (5th Century CE): Besides a very few who avoid evil, what is almost the whole body of Christians but a sink of iniquity? How many in the church will you find that are not drunkards, or adulterers, or fornicators, or gamblers, or robbers, or murderers--- or altogether?

The USA, with its high rates of Christian belief, has *far more* violent crime than the more secular/more atheist nations of Western Europe and, in particular, Japan. Japan, with less than 10% of the population believing in a god, has the lowest rates of violent crime. The US's rate of violent crime is 5 times that of Western Europe, and 10 times that of Japan.

The reality is the OPPOSITE of what you posted: High religiosity is correlated with high rates of crime across the board. Go ahead now - slice and dice until you get the piece that corresponds with your preference and ignore the rest. "But there are low rates of crime among black Hutterite women over age 50!!"

i dont think you understand the term religiosity bro. religiosity has very little to do with if you label a s a Christian or not and deals with how strongly you actually believe in that religion. out of all criminals who identified with a religion only a small percentage, i believe 10% where actually practicing, the others all just put it down because of cultural and familial influences. so next time before you attack a poster at least understand what your attacking them on since, here you where clearly wrong.

Wolverine18:
I always have to laugh when I see someone bothers to sign up for an account just so they can necro an old thread.

Yup, it's as though they think we won't know what they're doing, lol.

Anyway, to contribute to the topic since it's back up here, obnoxious people are obnoxious. Doesn't matter who you are, obnoxious is obnoxious. Doesn't make them any better (or worse) than obnoxious religious people.

chxlive:
snip

Seriously though, is there anymore to say about this thread?......

Gentleman Adventurer:
If they "un-blessed" it, does that mean that they believed that it was blessed in the first place?

lol, good point.

Eleven pages. Looks like 'unblessing' a highway got exactly what it wanted.

Think about it folks. What do you think they wanted more. That the highway be 'unblessed' (that is, having something they don't think existed removes, like they were 'clearing out all the unicorns'), or for people to talk about it?

Looks like they gotcha.

You know actually it's more weird that the atheists would want to unbless a road, wouldn't they be confirming that the Christians who blessed the road actually did something? Surely that's like not believing in ghosts but still having a priest come over when your friend says he saw the boogeyman.