Rules

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/1byox9/broadcast_this_is_a_femperial_rebroadcast_of_a/c9bxyk8

I interpreted the church in the video as being an abandoned building on an abandoned island, although I now realize that it might not have been abandoned. But isn't one of the rules of being a fan of problematic things that privileged people have to acknowledge the validity of marginalized people's interpretations of things? I just rewatched the video, and it clearly states that the island was purchased. Now, it would be legitimate to criticize or parody the idea that land can be owned, but I'm pretty sure that's not what was being done here. This is outright making fun of antitheists.

I had the misfortune to discuss rape with a college boy who did not think rape should be a crime. Well, no. If the victim was passed out, then clearly it's rape, but if there was even slightly littlest bit of consciousness in the victim, then you couldn't possibly charge a man.

He saw the problem, clearly, as being rape victims having too much credibility. Now, obviously, that's funny enough to be a punch-line if he was at all joking, but sadly, he was not. This child calls himself a "skeptic", but the fact that the chances of a man being falsely accused of rape is 82,000 times that of him actually being raped. He could quote anti-creation evidence until the cows came home, but earnestly could not grasp the difference between a woman choosing to be sexually assaulted and a person choosing to drink and drive.

I realized that this poor misguided fool wasn't a skeptic at all. He was looking for "truth", and when he found it, he clung to it. Despite the fact being found guilty of rape doesn't have any of the due process of being found guilty of actual rape is and it can carry a death sentence to some unable to deal with the bullying of having been raped, this young, poor, pathetic child could not risk even one innocent man going to jail for all those lying sluts out there who refuse to take responsibility for having been raped.

The irony is, I've watched his videos. I know he watched a Loose Change video and fell hook, line and sinker for 911 was an inside job. It made more sense to this young child that the US government gassed people on the planes than blame the one man who made millions short-stocking US airline stocks in the days leading up to a terrorist attack that involved four US airplanes. But does he blame himself for having fallen for LARPing with physics?

No, of course not! He blames the guy who handed him the DVD. Because clearly, he was an impressionable youth and teens don't have any higher reasoning skills. Loose Change are clearly 100% effective mind controlling devices.

All the results are in. Those who fall for conspiracy theories want to feel as though they are in the know and want to be perceived as being more intelligent than the average person. They have an extremely external locus of control and would blame the man who gave them the DVD isn't of the fact that they watched it and were swayed because it filled a need they had to feel like the special, chosen one who knows "the truth". This kind of person would live in constant terror that all women are just conspiring to ruin men's lives, and the chief weapon that they have is false rape accusations.

That men are much more likely to ruin, or end women's lives seems to have no effect. That's not important. He knows due process is a thing. He knows what the conviction rates are or that being falsely accused of any crime is part of being a member of the society around us. He knows all that.

He's not a skeptic, he's a truth-seeker. And when you're an externally controlled young college student, the fact that a woman could ruin his life. A woman is, statically speaking, the most likely to be raped when she's college-aged. But that doesn't matter. In this young man's unquestioned truth, this is what women do. They get drunk, agree to have sex, wake up and reach for the phone to press changes. No amount of evidence will not sway him from his truth any more than it did when he believed his 911 schtick.

If you recognize this young man's story from somewhere, please don't out him. I do not agree with the name and shame internet fury machine. He's still a very young man who lives in a world where rape is still a hypothetical situation. The numbers are not in his favour. One day he's going to be very up close and personal with sexual violence, and he'll see just how hard it is to mend together shards of glass. Young people are supposed to make mistakes, deal with the consequences and continue on.

Skeptics do not find the truth they want and then stop asking questions about it and yet truth-seekers like the anti-feminist atheist community love to take the voice of reason tone when discussing sexual assault, as though men are the impartial witnesses to a problem that is exclusively female. I have to stop engaging with truth seekers. It's the same pattern over and over again. We don't have to argue about forces in the universe.

In an exchange on youtube today, some child wanted to argue rape culture. I told him it didn't matter if he believed in the strong nuclear force, gravity or rape culture. Not believing in them doesn't cause them to stop existing.

He said that he certainly agrees that rape culture exists...but then trailed off into a ...read more. I said he was basically saying that the strong nuclear force certainly exists, but some times objects fly apart at the quark level at the speed of light. The forces of the universe do not need a map to tell them where they work.

I'm no longer going to argue with truth seekers. I'm ENTJ. Our personal hell is someone being wrong on the internet. Clearly Youtube is hell on earth.

I'm a rationalistic skeptic atheist through and through. I whole-heartedly believe that the bible was not written by any supreme commander and that natural selection explains everything we need to know about nature.

However, I've had a couple experiences in my life that defy all logic. There have been several, but I'll only explain one. One night, when I was living in Korea, I was doing my dishes. I usually kept my knives on the counter, a thin steak knife that couldn't cut through paper it was that dull and a thirteen inch butcher knife that was razor sharp.

This is where it gets dark. I had a thought, clear as day, yes, I should put it in the drawer. This wouldn't sound unusual, but I had cockroaches, and I would rather wash the knives before and after I used them than open the drawer and see them skitter. I'm an Albertan where we don't have such big creepy-crawlies and I'd brought my cat who hunted them, so I couldn't poison them.

So I put it away. One night in six months. That was the night that a man broke into my apartment, grabbed the very dull knife, and tried to assault me. I felt the dull knife saw into my arm several times, but it couldn't cut. I'd taught up north in Canada and knew that a man killed his brother with a butter knife on a reserve near the one I was teaching on so any knife could stab, but I managed to get out from under him and fight him off, but not until I heard a voice telling me to just stand up.

Now the voice could have totally been the part of my brain that was disconnected, I'd been choked to the point of blacking out twice and I think that could be explained away though brain chemistry, but I can't figure out why I would have put the butcher knife that would have changed what might have happened into a much more grim story.

So, yeah. Rationalist to the core, can't figure out why I put a knife away.

The page was putting up pictures from that "Faces of Atheism" campaign and making fun of them for holding views critical of religion. I commented that my view is that religion/mysticism is a negative force in society and that we would be better off without it. I also clarified that I don't have anything against people who happen to be religious, I just fundamentally disagree that it is something we need to have. I figured for a mostly atheist group they would understand this point of view.

As the title says, cue a massive argument where pretty much every other person on there called me an intolerant bastard who was just as bad as religious fundamentalists. They then proceeded to ban me from the group.

I honestly don't really understand what happened here. I just fundamentally disagree that religion/mysticism is something that is needed in human society. I don't see why this makes me intolerant or bigoted.

But, you guys are the experts here, so can you tell me? What might have happened here? Is there something wrong with my opinion? Am I really bigoted and I just don't realize it? Were they right to ban me?

I would provide a link to the conversation but since I was banned I can't see it anymore. :P I've tried to give as well rounded of an account of what happened as I can.

Also, I hope this is the right sub.

I always found what she did pretty deplorable, but if I'm gonna talk about it, I'd like to talk about it in a way that doesn't come off as celebrating a person(especially a woman)'s death. I don't really know what to say. But this subreddit was my baby (before I lost my password ._.) so I thought I'd open up a discussion.

The doctors told her that they've done everything in their power to do, but she's got multiple inoperable brain tumors. I can't imagine how much it sucks to get a death sentence like that or what kind of place the family is in right now. So the family went searching high and low waving money until someone said "oh yeah this accupuncture and special vitamin diet will do the trick" or whatever and it costs about two thousand dollars a week.

My friend went from being comfortable financially to huge debt, and it's only getting worse. She loves her mom and doesn't want to see her die or to feel helpless in the meantime, but it's ruining her and all they are getting out of it is false hope.

So far I've just been sympathetic and listened when she wants to talk and generally given my support, but I can't bring myself to offer any money to pay for pretend treatments (I haven't told her what I think of the treatments because I don't want to be a shithead).

What do I do here, if anything? I'd prefer my friend doesn't go bankrupt because I care about her, but there's a little more to the situation than money. How do I help?

I don't completely understand postmodernism myself (first year psychology major and therefore only a wee babby in the academic world) but what I've read of it seems reasonably solid. So why the knee-jerk hate for it in skeptical circles?