The Antichristian Phenomenon

Recently, a member of the ACP audience has been tenaciously debating with some of the authors, including myself on our most recent author’s introductory post. During this, quite intense, debate, he has gone on to claim all sorts of stuff. From quoting bible passages, to classic fallacies, to finally claiming that the bible is confirmed by Alien Abductions and…Equidistant letter sequence.

Now, everyone knows that extraordinary claims [1. like Aliens who are really Angels] require extraordinary evidence. But what most do not understand is that the place to present this evidence is not in a random Internet Blog or message board, especially if that place if skeptical of your claims.

Face it, even if you think that your brilliant theory on Equidistant letter sequences will abso-fucking-lutely prove the biblical inerrancy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and even if you’ve worded it in a way that you cannot see any obvious holes, you cannot expect random people on the internet to sit and read a subject that they’re pretty certain is wrong. This is because of two simple reasons.

• Our time is precious and sludging through bible passages or shady pictures is, frankly, a waste of our time.
• Even if we do read through your theory and do find a few holes to poke, it’s certain to escalate into a debate and it is quite possible that even then our opponent will claim a false victory.

For these reasons, it is quite improbable that you will convince a skeptic to take up your challenge to read some random sources online. Even though it can happen that one will take you up the challenge and then post his critique of the source (which will lead to point 2 above anyway).

However this is the wrong way to go about it. If come to discuss an article in a site, you should discuss the article and any errors or inconsistencies your find. If you start posting book links or quoting bible passages to us, we’ll just roll our eyes and ignore you.

If you do have some insightful evidence that you think no one in the last 2000 years has found before you, well, now is your chance to become famous. You see, even though we are skeptics, we are not skeptical of the scientific method or the scientific consensus. You know why? Becuase it has proven it works.

Thus, If you have done some kind of amazing research that really does prove that Aliens are Angels and whatnot, and you’re not just talking out of your arse, then take your research to a peer reviewed journal and see if it’s published. Then, people who are really knowledgeable on your subject (instead of random internet people) will review it and, if you are indeed correct, publish it. You will be instantly changing the world paradigm for not just a small internet message board, but everyone who is a skeptic.

If you’re looking for results, then there is no better place to go. And better yet, you have the knowledge that this can happen even if your research is controversial. I mean, they did accept Quantum Mechanics even though names like Einstein were opposing it.

It is, of course, quite probable that you won’t do this because you know you’re just wishful thinking. It is not surprising that the “New Age” movement has been left outside peer review and they only seem to work through anecdotal evidence. All these grandiose names of UFOlogist or Theologians seem capable of only preaching to the choir and cry persecution because their bad-research papers are not published.

If you are like these people, then please do not be surprised that we will not waste our time and energy to read any random book you have in mind. We know that humans are fallible and one can be convinced on something blatantly false just because of personal beliefs & experiences, we see it happening all the time with the Christians after all. And this is why on subject we do not know about, you will not find us in the middle of the road, so to speak, we will be sided with the scientific consensus by default.

If you wish to change our minds, try and change that.

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I know its a bit lame for an underdog like us to be nominated for Blogger’s Choice Award on “Best Religion Blog” but I thought I’d just go ahead and nominate the ACP.

So if you have nothing better to do for 5 minutes or so, go and push us up the ranks and, if you want, promote some other blogs about…religion

• Debunking Christianity
• Daylight Atheism
• About Agnosticism/Atheism

You can vote more than once and you can also nominate any other blog you see fit.

Last year all the Top Religion Blogs where praising Christianity. I think it’s time to reverse the roles a little >:)

After a bit of work and discussion I’ve setup the author pages to act as a true profile page. Now each member of the ACP who has written at least one post, will have the info he has provided in his profile, displayed at his author page.

Also, every author page allows comments so if you have anything to say to an author but do not want to derail the comment field of one of his posts, this is the place to go

I’ve also perked up our registration page to reign in spam registration which, even though they do not do harm, are annoying nevertheless.

So if you are looking for an alternative place to display your info (and act as a cool homepage as well), or if you want a place to write but don’t want to set up yet another random blog, now is the time to embrace enlightenment.

The above title is a classic saying back in my country or origin, Greece, and it is meant to show that you can find all the weird and insane people all around you. I chose it because I happened to stumble upon this article from the “Metropolitan of Kalavrita and Aegialia” - Ambrosios (Hat tip: Don’t Kiss the Frog). If you don’t speak Greek, don’t bother following the link, but there’s no reason to do so anyway, as I’m here to comment on it for your sake (and sanity)

First you should know that Greece still does not have a clear separation of church and state. The state and the prime minister are pretty much prostrating themselves at the feet of the clergy at every chance they get and the church has quite a bit of political muscle. Furthermore, since all Greeks are baptised at early childhood as Orthodox, the church gets to claim that 99% of Greek population is religious and wants them in power. Lastly the clergy is paid by the Government and oh, did I mention that the church is fucking rich?

So, enough background, on to the story. This bishop then, has gone on a rant because a same-sex couple has gotten married and you know, the goddamn civilization is going down around our ears! Yeah…

His post begins by announcing that a same-sex partnership (he refuses to call them “couple” because that’s somehow reserved only for opposite sexes) was insidiously legalized by marriage, by the mayor of the island Tilos, who then proceeded to absolutely ignore the announcements of the Greek high prosecutor. How dare he! Of course, the law is on the Mayor’s side on this which has the church and the far-right crypto-fascists foaming at the mouth.

The Metropolitan Ambrosios then informs us that human rights are always claimed by the unlawful and then proceeds to complain, get this, that his own human rights are being assaulted because same-sex marriage annoys him! Since when is it a basic human right to not be annoyed? Oh right, ever since the Muslims made it a religious pastime, but I digress…

He also, predictably, claims that the children need to be protected (Will no one think of the damn children?) from this unnatural lifestyle and cohabitation. As if children are going to suddenly and spontaneously turn homosexual, once they realise gay people have made a legal bonding. “Oh look mommy! These two people are holding hands and a marriage ring and I like being assfucked”. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And then, then, he claims that same sex marriage will inevitably lead to bestiality and marriage between man and dog. Because, you know, two consenting adults are quite similar to an animal with IQ of 20 which cannot give consent to anything.

So what does our dear bishop make from all this. Well, Greece is becoming massively insane of course. He explains that this kind of unnatural behaviour always existed in society but has always been condemnable (I guess he never heard of the ancient Greeks then) and that now that it’s been “blessed by the state”, all hell will break loose. Why? Because it’s unnatural of course. Why is it unnatural? Apostle fucking Paul. The same Apostle Paul who declared women only fit to be sexual objects to men, which leads us to believe that Ambrosios must be considering women (and especially feminist women) to be unnatural as well.

And then, after a quote from Paul, the posts ends…but the fun only just began! Orthodox people started commenting and sharing their bigoted condemnation. They agreed on the unnaturalness of it all, how the world must surely be ending, how this is all the result of the left and so on and so forth. It’s all great fun if you can read it, as you can get a glimpse into the weird and twisted mentality of the average god-fearing neo-Greek for whom same sex marriage is as equal, if not more important, than horrible human rights violations, Government scandals left and right, and half the remaining forests of the country being burned to a crisp.

But family comes first!

In all of this absurdity, what gets me, what really really gets me, is the lame and absolutely sickening kiss-your-feet respect, all of those god-fearing Greeks are displaying when they start commenting. Almost every single one of them starts by saying something like “Please grant me your blessing, oh wise old one.“, as if by wasting all your life memorizing the New Testament somehow makes you wise. As if by playing the church political games (and believe me, it’s a dog-eat-dog world) to get to a high position somehow makes you holy.

It’s all enough to make you lose faith in humanity.

At least now you know that U.S. Americans are not the only westen country ones with the religious nutters in power.

I didn’t really notice until just now but the ACP has recently closed its first year of existence. Go us!

Although we have not had much content (just 46 posts), I’m glad that we’re still here.  In case you’re curious, here are some stats.

• Total Unique Visitors: ~11000
• Top Post (Unique views): Debunking Christianity II
• 267 Comments (Avg 5.5 per post)

So keep on posting and visiting and kets see another year of us being here with double the visitors

Cheers!

Well, one day too early but still…It’s time for another Roundup of the best journals posted to the ACP (recently)

• VampyreAngel gives his personal salute to Arthur C. Clarke as one of the greatest visionaries of our time. I sincerely concur of course.
• LeaTelamon tackles what the Pop Music label really means and goes in depth into responding to another last.fm user who labels all Power Metal as pop. The article explains how Pop is not really entwined with a specific label but rather has to do with the attempt of the artist to appeal to popularity.
• fakitol is really wondering at this point, why a specific Viral video is so funny. I haven’t had time to watch it myself but apparently the Video is not only funny, but the reason why it is so, is something that most people cannot define
• nemo_tribe has a nice little rand about Emo (and who doesn’t really) where he pretty much explain how Emo is just Radiohead fans that dislike him. Jokes aside, it’s hard to argue with the man. Emo is the one thing most of us Love to hate
• LeaTelamon once more this time dissects melodic death metal for our pleasure. Oooh, Innards…

And that’s all for today folks. There weren’t so many Journals this time as people seem to enjoy writing silly games about their 1000 track or what they ate for lunch yesterday (and then tagging everything with popular band names so that they spam for readers) instead of thinking.

Here’s to more good journals in the future.

The above (title) is something I decided just now, after watching this video. Specifically, the part that made me take this decision is the 4th chapter which begins on the 58th minute.

Apparently, Quran itself instructs its followers to lie and deceive in the name of promoting Islam. Sure, Muslims will tell you that Islam denounces lies but it is the words of their Prophet himself that specifically allows a member of his cohort to lie in order to slay one of his enemies. and this is of course just one example of the Quran promoting deceit.

I honestly had no idea of this to tell the truth. I could not imagine that religion itself practically teaches people to lie if their purpose is to promote the cause of Islam.

This actually explains quite a lot.

It explains how Muslims can promote themselves as peaceful or whatever but when the concentration of Muslims actually becomes considerate in any given country, violence is certain to occur. They are lying. They are either presenting a facade of a peaceful citizen or they are not aware of what Islam really is about. Unfortunately, given the specific instructions in their holy book, I cannot accept that only the second type exists.

I have thus decided not to trust any Muslim again. This is a radical statement to make but I feel that I am left with no other choice. Especially from a religion, you are supposed to receive correct values that will make you a member of society. When a religion itself instructs you to be a liar and you fail to denounce this religion, then I am left with no other choice but to label you as a liar and take the appropriate social actions people should take against any liar.

Sure, a Mulsim might say that he does not follow that part of the Quran’s teachings but how do I then know that he is not lying once more in order to appease me until he has enough power over me so as not to care if I consider him a deceiver anymore?

When you own beliefs instruct you to become a liar, then the only way to regain my trust if to denounce these beliefs. Anything less can easily be faked.

Ah, and do yourself a favour and watch the video in its entirety and of course specifically the fourth chapter.

UPDATE: In case you can’t be bothered to see the video, at least read this

A discussion has been ongoing for a while in the fora where the following question was raised:

The True Enemy

Institutional religion, or religion itself?

This is an interesting question, especially for a group calling themselves Antichristians. One would assume that the “Enemy” is the Christian religion but by judging from the replies of the members inside, this is not actually the case.

In the end, is there an enemy? I used to think so in the past but presently my thoughts on this are more fuzzy. Lets explore some common themes that Antichristians might consider as “the enemy”

Religion

Is religion, by itself, to be combated and eliminated? Most of us would answer an emphatic “No” to this question. A religion, by itself, is no more harmful than a delusion. Sure, you might believe you are talking to invisible pink unicorns that make you happy, or you might believe that your great Sky Daddy is always watching you take crap. These delusions by themselves however do not constitute a threat to anyone else other than the afflicted.

Sure, a problem might occur if these delusions lead a person to perform some kind of wrongdoing, like flying an airplane onto a skyscraper or ambush and murder a homosexual in a dark alley. These acts however will not be prevented by taking religion away. Like violent video games and actual violence, the link is usually a deeper issue, like a dementia on the part of the afflicted by the particular religion meme. Lacking religion, it is still quite probable that he might have done the same or similar crime, under another guise, like the aforementioned violent games.

The cure, then is not to take religion away, but rather to introduce checks in which the people that display this dangerous potential, might be caught.

Religion, by itself, is harmless. The real problem arises when it transforms into the more dangerous…

Organized Religion

Getting into details on all the problems that a religion creates when it gains organization and power will just derail this post so I’ll assume you are aware of them (If not, just research Scientology).

Should it be treated as an enemy though? Many would confirm and this is actually what I labeled as “the enemy” in the past myself and I still retain much of the same passion against it. However I cannot in all honesty label it as an enemy of mine. Sure, I despise the ridiculously corrupt ruling class of “holy men” who are granted authority and respect without doing anything to deserve it. Sure, I despise the political muscle that they wield to force whole nations to give them extra benefits than anyone else.

I do not fight them like an enemy however, for that is a lost cause. There is nothing that most of us can do to actively “fight” organized religion and acts like isolated offensives of church burnings and the like only serve to strengthen the resolve of their flock and grant them more power as their persecution complex is vindicated. For example, as much as I like and enjoy what Anonymous are doing, the more I see how hopeless it would be if the opposing religion was bigger and stronger.

An enemy like that, is an enemy you are bound to lose to and thus better not to declare as an enemy at all. Rather, you should strike at the weak point of this structure and the only place where you cannot be accused of being a bigot or a hate monger. This is the actual thing that I’ve realised is the true enemy of not only Antichristians but of Humanity as a whole.

Anti-Knowledge

Or ignorance if you like. Unfortunately that term has different meaning for different people. A Christian might accuse you for example of being ignorant of the “True meaning” of their religion.

Anti-Knowledge is a much more fitting term for what all religions are based on. The mentality that lack of knowledge (blind faith) in your drug of choice belief is a virtue. This is a very strong memetic trait of the same magnitude as children brainwashing that provides the religions that teach it with a large competitive advantage. Unfortunately, this ideology, not only serves to fill the ranks of the organized religions, but allows people to fall for any belief that “sounds right” to them.

The proverb “If you don’t believe in something, you’ll fall for anything.” (At times changed to “If you don’t believe in God, you’ll believe anything.”) only really applies to people who have had their mental immune system, AKA critical thinking, compromised. Unfortunately the percentage of people who are thus conditioned is large. And thus you observe people not leaving religion altogether but rather jumping from one to the other when they are not comfortable with the last. Just witness the quick rise of Islam in many countries, not only as a result of immigration but also because as a religion it has a larger competitive advantage than Christianity in the memetic war.

Not only that but the lower the education, the easier it is for this meme to replicate. It is very easy to discard what you never had and save yourself of the effort to educate yourself by grasping at the easy choice of believing what your authority figure tells you.

This is our true enemy. I have found that most of the time, the effort to convince someone that their beliefs are wrong is just too large. This is especially true if these beliefs have been their basis for all their life, like most major religions are to the less fortunate.On the other hand though, teaching people to embrace critical thinking and love of knowledge is usually a much easier task. As long as you take care to avoid their delusions, you can show them how greater knowledge will benefit them and why critical thinking can save them from scammers and other who would take advantage. Hopefully, when these two ideas have been implanted in them, they will eventually notice the gaping holes in their previous ideologies and slowly open their eyes.

A look at how people usually discard their delusions will quickly show you that, most often than not, it’s not arguments and rhetoric that change their mind but rather a long, difficult process of soul searching and questioning that they do themselves. Usually this begins once they are free of the groupthink in their previous communities (like, say, by going to college) and once they start thinking more.

It is thus no surprise that organized religions, along with totalitarian regimes, are perpetuators of ignorance. To them, Knowledge is anathema.

As antichristians, nay, as humans, it is imperative that we fight the true enemy, and not it’s symptoms.

It is a common theme, especially in regards to the Antichristian Phenomenon, that someone will take offense at our existence, the things we say, or the behaviour of some of our members. Many times have people left shouts at our shoutbox on how we’re burning in hell or some such. At some point we even had a troll join the group, sprout some nonsense and leave it again, which meant that we couldn’t ban him (Which was eventually the reason to turn the group into member-approved entry). That’s christian integrity for you.

It’s also been a while since I posted in the “Jesus Rocks” group where they implemented a rule to stop arguments between christians and non-christians. I only joined that christian group to reply to that thread. Thanks then to Last.fm’s reply tracker, I was notified that I had a new response today.

Since I am no longer a member of that group and nor do I wish to join to discuss that there, I was getting ready to reply in IM when I thought it would be better to reply through the ACP and perhaps have some actual dialogue in the process.

What follows is the reply I received and interjected are my responses to porkchop1234’s points:

db0 the problem isnt always from us as you seem to believe.

I suggest you check my profile and look into my forum posts and you will see for yourself a member of your group namely ISos has in the past trolled past threads when it came to debate over God and religeon. Of coarse when I went to the anti christian phenomenom forum the first thing I see is a posting in the main forum heading page saying this group takes no responsibility for the actions of its members. How quaint. Then in the shoutbox of your forum i see the comment from one of your members and i quote ‘ENOUGH TALK LETS GO BURN SOME CHURCHES’

First of all, I don’t see how Isos has trolled and I find it hard to believe that he has. Please provide evidence.

Secondly. Yes we cannot be held responsible for the members of our group. We are not an organization ffs and nor are we going to be stalking our members to see who behaves (even if we wanted to). If you have a problem with someone, take it out with himself, not with his groups. Do you hold his other groups responsible for his actions as well or is the ACP just a suitable target?

Furthermore, I find it strange that you mark a loosely knit group by the actions of its members. Does that mean that I should judge Christianity by the actions of pedophile priests, wife-beating husbands and born-agains? This is Great! I didn’t realize that discrediting Christianity would be so easy.

But of course it isn’t and you know it. Just as I cannot judge christianity solely on the actions of their few bad apples, other than say that christianity does not automatically make you a better person, so it is mistaken to judge the ACP by a few members that misbehave. Especially when we have a history or attacking idiotic behavior and reliefs, even within our ranks.

With stuff like that CAN YOU REALLY BLAME US for being suspicious of you and your members? I have just joined this forum and I dont approve of this rule AT ALL. I also point out that your forum shares part of the blame. There has been ATTACKS on christian forums by some of your members Ive seen it.

I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I just couldn’t care less. However If you judge someone from what you believe his affiliations mean instead of what they really stand for, then you are plainly ignorant.

As for attacks on christian forums, once again, provide evidence and we can discuss it. This being a forum, such a task should not be difficult.

If you really want open debate I suggest you learn to control some of your membership and kick out the trolls. You have a responsibility for the actions of your members just like the owners here have when it comes to their members.

Next….these are not my words people so dont get mad at me. Im sick and tired of seeing users from the anti christian phenomenom putting up posts where at the bottom they have crap like F God F Christ etc. You want to debate us STOP insulting our God and acting stupidly and maybe we will take you seriously.

I don’t care about people’s signatures insulting your senses. I don’t generally care on anyone’s feelings being insulted as you can see on the “On Respect:” series of mine. If you are so thin skinned that a signature makes you stop talking then you’re obviously not meant for dialogue and you’re better off having another hobby. I can guarantee you that some of our member arguments can make a two-line signature look like praise to God in comparison.

Furthermore, if you want to censor anti-religious signatures, are you for censoring anti-muslim, anti-hindu and andi-nordic ones as well (Fuck Odin!)? Should we censor, say, cartoons? How about books? Is this sinking in already or should I make it more clear?

As for holding our members responsible, see my reply above.

And finally dbo I have no reservations in defending my faith whatsoever. I have done so many times since Ive joined LastFm. In one of your past posts dbo you said we dont want people to think and know the truth. One thing I will tell you right now though is that GOD IS TRUTH. You want to reject that belief then the problem is yours not mine.

There see people me and dbo are debating God. And I have no complaints about it and I CAN hold my own against him. We all can. There is nothing to fear from these people.

Right then. I’m waiting for you to take on some of the articles in here.

You have probably seen the “Recent journals” part in the sidebar. This is an automated list of the things various members of the ACP write on their own Last.fm journals from time to time. Occasionally some of these are quite thought provoking and interesting but since they’re hidden within the last.fm structure, it’s difficult to find.

I’ve decided to do everyone a favour and then gather the best ones that were posted between the times I checked them and provide a link here. For this first roundup, I’m going far back in the ACP’s past and digging out all the interesting posts.

• Metalmicky wishes us all a Happy Winter Solstice and explains how the Christmas tradition is a mash-up from earlier pagan celebrations and was created with the purpose of making the transition of Pagans to the Christian religion easier.
  Obviously this is something that most people who have studied history have known all along but it’s nice to state it again for the christians that are unaware (and there are many of them)
• LeaTelamon explains to us what engative stereotypes for Metal exist and why he is different than you. This is quite a long post but interesting to take a view in a scene most people don’t experience. In the same vein, SpHaer also wants to explain What Metal is (to Him) and goes more into depth on the various aspects of it.
• TheWiseDragon brings to us a Parable on Worrying. I don’t agree with what he says, mostly because I do not believe you should worry much about anything, for it does no one any good. However it might incite a discussion so I think it’s worth linking to.
• Tsatthoggua explains what his group “Fuck you Christ” stands for and why he hates Christianity so much
• The MetallicMadman, explains why the Metal Scene rules this world and how it was alwayd been the spearhead of progress in music
• Out very own Anath, gives us a rundown on what constitues Good and Bad Music and why it is labeled as such.
• For a bit of laug, Vortus gives us two comics, or rather one comic and an animated gif
• And finally, Gingerpip informs us of a little treat where his solo project, Final Coil, is giving away music for free. I will admit I haven’t listened to them but it may be worth checking it out if you have the time