Opinion of internet atheists

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My main experience with them today has been them acting genuinely scandalized (as opposed to simply dismayed, which--I cannot stress this enough--is entirely appropriate and has been for a long time) by the fact that the new pope opposes gay marriage. These are supposed to be the enlightened, rational 'brights'?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My problem is simply just how BORING most of them are. Never any original material.

That kind of goes hand in hand with having a rational, logical approach to the world, you see.  Sorry that we can't all be batsh[inks] insane like a lot of you folks and your weird perspectives of reality.

Yes, thank you for the demonstration.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

DemPGH, what's your opinion of the late Christopher Hitchens? A lot of his broadsides make for entertaining reading and hold up decently, but they also strike me as often argued in bad faith, in this case meaning from questionable historical and anthropological angles and at times in service of the awful geopolitical ideologies that he ended up in hock to.

The gentleman in your signature is Michael Shermer, right? I've always had a good deal of respect for him. Seems like a nice, honest guy who happens to devote his time to advocacy for a cause with which I disagree.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Oh look, this thread was going just fine enough until WMS had to go and repost that goddamn awful Mikado post that makes me so angry. I'm going to be on blood pressure medicine before I'm 25 at this rate.

Eugh, that really was terrible, wasn't it?

It don't see how it was 'goddamn awful' or 'terrible' in any objective sense, but it was obviously by a very angry humanities academic with postmodern leanings, which I guess for some or even most people might not and shouldn't be expected to have the desired effect.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You know that Mikado, at least, doesn't believe in God, right?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

People are posting me like I'm Scripture now?

I was surprised too, although I very clearly remember the discussion that we had when you made those posts.

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Good.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mikado, Al, would either of you happen to remember where in Blake the 'x of y is the z of God' (where y is various kinds of animal) formulation occurs? I'm reasonably sure it's Blake, and I think it's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but I can't remember exactly.

(This is now a William Blake thread for those who want it to be.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Thank goodness Zyklon-B is the exception.

Is it? I'd like to agree with you, because I'd like to agree that Zyklon-B is the exception to anything, but how exactly is this to be determined? (I ask primarily in the interest of clarifying the terms of discussion, not because I don't understand what you're saying.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Atheists who write books are far more aggravating.

Richard Dawkins and Ayn Rand are two of the most aggravating, annoying, and awful humans ever to publish their works, so I have to agree here.

Dawkins is a jackass, but he's nowhere near Rand.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If I understand his thinking correctly, Mikado probably knows this, and probably considers it part of the problem.