1. The links you have provided show exactly how you are misconstruing my arguments and exactly how you are full of shit. I encourage other people to read them, and I find it hilarious that you can't even see how poorly you come off when you try to link to them as some sort of proof of your incredible spin. You make Glen Beck's method of citing right-wing blogs look like journalism when you cite your own stupidity to further back your stupidity.

2. I happen to know many counselors, behavioral therapists, relationship therapists, and standard psychologists. Every one of them required training, and every one of them is quite adamant about the need for a professional demeanor and distance in their job. Your example of a child who requires a closer relationship is a red herring, because while there might be someone in the orphanage who provides that familial closeness, it should never be the counselor whose job it is to guide that child in the proper direction. Oh, but next you'll tell me that orphanages only have counselors, and no other types of child care professionals, and they don't designate one or two people to act as therapists and guides for the children under care at that location...oi. You really do love smokescreens and falsehoods.

3. Everybody makes simple spelling mistakes in the heat of debate and forgets to hit the spell-check button. You'll notice that's not what I called you out on. It's your gleeful "you're/your" substitution and other grammatical fails that I was pointing out, not to mention your awful reading, which allows you to take complex sentences and paragraphs and turn them into "the Fire Brigade is responsible for defending children against child abuse." It would be obvious to anyone with a middle-school equivalency that your assertion is NOT what I said, and yet you stand by it. Either your reading level is so low as to make our conversations pointless, or you are so intellectually dishonest and sophomoric as to make your very attempts at debate laughable. Either way, I see no reason to continue playing chess with a pigeon.

4. Finally, that link I showed you isn't someone else's POV, it's yours simply being parroted by someone who you really hate to be associated with. Again, anyone with reading skills is invited to read your contributions to this entire thread that you started and then compare your POV with the hateful bile spewed by this moron. I think maybe the two of you attended the same church at one point...

I'm out. Flame me, put me on ignore, throw 500 more lines of bullshit and smokescreen my way, it won't matter, because I simply don't care to get into another last word battle with the likes of you.

Sounds about right for you so far.

1/ We're not talking about church or community here, we're talking about a therapist who should be actually doing his job. So that's bullshit on one count.
2/ What I called "horseshit" was NOT the idea of surrogate community, but the idea that it could only be provided by church or faith communities. Bullshit on two counts.
3/ I said the Fire Department, Police Department, and other public services WERE "front line" defense agencies, and that the church didn't qualify. Your attempt to state simply that I believe the fire brigade will run down child beaters is bullshit on a third count.

When in doubt, spin and baffle with bullshit.

Moving on, don't forget that you accused ME of being the one to conflate psychology and general therapy, and now you suddenly defend S4P for the same action when I point out that he was the one who performed the original conflation. That, my myopic friend, is called hypocrisy. Also, bullshit on a fourth count.

Your ideas on counselling are so far outside the norm of what actual professional counselling and help really are, that I can only assume your prior experience with counselling has been limited to pastors and church personnel. Sorry, barky, but those aren't counsellors. Those are pastors and church personnel. Counsellors are first and foremost professionals. Otherwise, they're just bullshit artists posing as counsellors. And BTW, on this topic, I find your example of the 14 yo ward of the state appalling. There is absolutely no reason that an adult counsellor should engage in wrestling or roughousing with a 14 yo boy in need of guidance and care. It violates the very tenets of leadership, credibility, authority, and objectivity needed in order to maintain a proper non-familial guidance relationship with the child.

The one in this conversation expressing willful ignorance is you. You are willfully ignorant of the professional nature required of all counsellors and therapists. You are also willfully ignorant of the English language, consistently (and possibly deliberately) misreading sentences that go beyond an eigth grade reading level and gleefully sticking the word "your" in where "you're" is supposed to go. THAT willful ignorance, THAT anti-intellectualism is what I have heaping amounts of contempt for, and I don't give a damn how huffy it makes you.

Finally, I wasn't foisting someone else's POV onto you, which BTW seems to be your favorite defense claim...I was merely trying to illustrate for you the fact that the very arguments you so consistently trot out and harp on here on this board have made numerous appearances on sites like FSTDT. Given your desire to die violently before being lumped in with theists or atheists, I thought you might want to know how closely you resemble such fundamentalist stupidity. Take that as you will.

I'm attacking the darkness!!"

*Thank you Summoner Geeks...

I was making a point, sarcasmo, and a very simple one at that. It is just as pointless for anyone to attack atheism as it is for that geek to attack the darkness, and for the same reason.

There is no such thing as darkness. There is only light, and the absence of light.

There is no such thing as cold. There is only heat, and the absence of heat.

There is no such thing as silence. There is only sound, and the absence of sound.

And along the same lines, I would like for so many people, on the internet and in my own life, to understand:
There is no such thing as atheism. There is only theism, and the absence of theism.

(Reposted as an OP by DUer request)
You ask for respect, and I would give it, but we have a differing view on what constitutes respect.

Atheists and believers have a very difficult time on agreeing to just what exactly constitutes "respect."

I respect you as a human being.
I respect that you have made a choice.

That, with few exceptions, is where my default state of respect ends. I do not respect your particular beliefs. I do not afford them any more weight or import than the beliefs of anyone else, past, present, or future.

I genuinely and truthfully see no difference between today's worship of a single deity called God and the ancient worship of a pantheon of deities that are no longer believed in. Yet, when I make statements like this, I am labeled as "disrespectful," because I dare to compare religious thoughts and practices of today to mythology or fantasy. It's not that I or any other atheists who do this are trying to be flippant or assholish, it's just that we genuinely don't see a difference, and your particular flavor of mythology has earned no more or less respect than any other idea on the planet.

Just because it's something that's important to you or others does not mean that people should respect it. Sharia law is an important and closely held belief of Muslims, and it requires that women adhere to laws that essentially turn them into nothing more than property. Should we respect those laws or the beliefs that led to their creation and enforcement any more than we respected segregation laws in our own country decades ago?

Respect is a funny thing. It comes in different levels. Basic respect for someone as a human being should be given by default, but respect for just about anything else, including ideas (whether they are closely held or not) is earned.

the fallacy of a false dichotomy, but it only applies when someone can actually provide a third option. Some states, no matter how hard you try to make them otherwise, are in fact binary. The light is either on, or it is off. The fish is either on your hook, or it is not. You believe that a deity or deities of any kind exist, or you do not.

I don't know how anyone can make this any clearer.

The word Christian is a noun, currently used to describe someone of a particular faith. It is a label chosen voluntarily by the people use it for themselves, and it should carry with it some sort of meaning.

That meaning, however, is in dispute, not just by the global populace in general, but by people on this board. To wit:

One DUer, who shall remain nameless, calls himself a Christian and believes that:
*- the Bible is the true, inspired word of God,
*- Jesus was the only begotten and divine Son of God, and
*- Jesus died to absolve all of mankind for our 'sins'.

Another DUer, who shall also remain nameless, calls himself (or herself) a Christian, and recently told me that:
*- the Bible was written by fallible men, and should never be taken literally,
*- Jesus may or may not have been the divine Son of God, and
*- Jesus' death had nothing to do with the 'sin' of mankind, and was instead meant as a type of message.

Now, as I understand it, the root of the word 'Christian' is 'Christ', which is Greek for 'Annointed One,' and is used as the title of Jesus of Nazareth. So it would seem that the Christian faith should center around Jesus. But as you can see, there are at least two Christians here on this board that disagree on the nature of Jesus himself, as well as the nature of Christianity's holy book, the Bible.

When someone tells me they are a paraplegic, I know that means they have lost the use of their lower limbs.

When someone tells me they are a teacher, I know that means that their primary task in this world is to impart knowledge.

When someone tells me they are a Muslim, I know that means that they believe in only one God, and that Muhammed is his prophet.

But when someone tells me they are a Christian, I no longer know what that means. I can't use the definition of the word to find out any more about who they are or what they believe. I find this troubling, because since this person has chosen to label themselves with a specific word, it must be important, but I can't figure out what that label is supposed to mean.

I am an atheist, and while many are confused as to what that really means, a dictionary search will reveal that I lack a belief in any God or gods. My chosen label tells someone about who I am.

So what I want to know is, where is the common theme? By what right can someone in this world call themselves a Christian? The word must mean something. If not, then I would be able to call myself a Christian without betraying my principles, which would allow me to fit in with the entirety of my family.

Lately on this board we've had the little problem of digging up history. The spiral into who-started-what and which-group-is-worse seems to start thusly:

1. (Optional) A Christian/Jew/Muslim/other believer states that religion is a force for good in the world.
2. An atheist states that over the course of history, religion has been responsible for death and suffering.
3. Believers rally and state two things:
a. Religion can't be held responsible for all of those deaths, as human nature or other forces were really the root of the problem.
b. Atheism, in the hands of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Hitler is responsible for just as much death and suffering.
4. And from here we go round and round and round...

I've seen this debate happen 3 times since I joined this board, and countless times here since I started lurking, and as an atheist, I am damn sick of seeing item 3b. So, in answer to that claim, I present the following. The questions are asked in honesty. If you have answers, please chime in.

----------------------------------
Killing in the name of _________.

Atheism: "Become an atheist, or die."
Communism: "Toe the party line, or die."
Christianity: "Believe in Jesus, or die."
Islam: "Pray to Allah, and his prophet Muhammad, or die."

3 of these things have happened, do happen, and will happen again. When has item number 1 happened? Please cite examples.
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When the Muslims marched on Constantinople, they brought with them the sign of their faith, and placed The Crescent on the highest points of the city.
When the Christians marched on the Muslims in the Crusades, they carried with them the sign of The Cross, and raised it high over the battlefield as they charged their foes.
When the Jews fire missiles into Gaza and Palestinian settlements, The Star of David is painted on their aircraft AND their missiles.

Under what sign do the atheists conquer? Under what mantra do they march? Please cite examples.
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'Those people were not 'true' Christians'
Define 'true' Christianity. Last I checked, a Christian was someone who believed in Jesus...his existence, divinity, saving grace, and intercessory powers. Are you saying that more is required to be a 'true' Christian? If so, what is required, and where did you get the rules?