Tim Wescott wrote:

On 12/22/2010 10:38 AM, Pete C. wrote:

Tim Wescott wrote:

On 12/22/2010 04:59 AM, Steve B wrote:
"Tim wrote in message
...
On 12/21/2010 03:47 PM, Pete C. wrote:

Tim Wescott wrote:

On 12/21/2010 02:58 PM, Pete C. wrote:

Tim Wescott wrote:

On 12/21/2010 09:38 AM, Chomp Noamsky wrote:
ABU DHABI (AFP) - A luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi which unveiled a
Christmas
tree decorated with jewels valued at 11 million dollars has decided
to
put the record straight against criticism of having gone over the
top.

The Emirates Palace hotel said it regretted "attempts to overload the
tradition followed by most hotels in the country," it said, in a
statement quoted in Gulf News on Sunday.

"Putting the Christmas tree... is a tradition meant to share in
celebrating occasions guests hold while they are away from their home
countries and families," said the hotel in the United Arab Emirates
capital.

Under a headline of "Trouble over 11 million dollar Christmas tree,"
Gulf News said the hotel stressed this was "within the framework of
the
UAE's policy which is based on the values of openness and tolerance."

Emirates Palace stressed that the jewels were on loan from an Abu
Dhabi
gallery which had paid all the costs of making and decorating the
tree.
The jewels would be recovered by their owner at the end of the
festive
season.

"The hotel is just a venue for exhibiting the tree," it said.

The tree, inaugurated on Wednesday, holds a total of 181 diamonds,
pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa
Khouri, owner of Style Gallery which provided the jewellery.

Emirates Palace hotel general manager Hans Olbertz said the tree,
which
he described as the "most expensive Christmas tree ever," will
probably
be an entry into the Guinness book of world records.

The 13-metre (40-foot) faux evergreen, located in the gold
leaf-bedecked
rotunda of the hotel, is not the first extravagant offering from the
three-billion-dollar Emirates Palace.

The hotel in the oil-rich Gulf emirate where the local population is
Muslim, bills itself as a seven-star establishment and has a package
for
a week-long stay priced at one million dollars.

The package comes with a personal butler and a chauffeur-driven
Maybach
luxury car as well as a private jet available for trips to other
countries in the region.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101219...ristmasoffbeat

As someone who considers the life of Jesus to be an inspiration in my
life, and who is appalled at the idea of celebrating his birth by
ostentatiously displaying exorbitant wealth in a world where children
are dying of hunger, I have only one response to you characterizing
such
objections as coming from atheists:

Shame.

Shame on you.

Shame on you, and every other person in the world, of any religion,
who
tries to use the cloak of religion to gain political power.

Shame on you, and every other such person everywhere, who would so
warp
religion for your own personal gain.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame.

Go jump in a hole, and don't come out until you understand what Christ
was _really_ about.


As a life long devout atheist who was blessed to be born with the
insight to see religion for the age old control game it is and the iron
will to never be coerced by anyone, I'll say to you that religion is a
cancer on civilization and will ultimately destroy the world unless
people loose their ignorant superstitions and come to terms with
reality.

How ironic, then, that to be a devout atheist requires a strong faith in
an unproven assumption about how the universe is put together.

Sadly, those who cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality also
cannot comprehend atheism.

Sadly, true atheists are religious fundamentalists who can't see
themselves in a mirror.

My _reality_ is that one can't know -- the God hypothesis is cleverly
constructed to be beyond proof. So I live my life consistent with the
assumption that God exists, that God doesn't exist, and that whatever this
"God" thing is would be beyond my comprehension anyway.

Fundamentalists, whether atheist, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, or any other
stripe, can't stay sane without putting God in a box of their own
fantasizing, and shaped to their desires -- atheists are only different in
that their box for God has no room inside.

--

Tim Wescott

Another difference in atheists is that they must force everyone else to
believe as they do.

Sounds vaguely familiar, but can't say how .................

You're right! That's another fundamental fundamentalist behavior. Thanks.

Note that I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything -- I'm just
bitching.

I'm sure you actually believe your lies.

The fact remains that no atheists are trying to force private religious
schools to teach evolution, while religious kooks are indeed trying to
force their religion into public schools.

The fact remains that no atheists are going door to door harassing
people and leaving pamphlets of insane babble, while religious kooks are
indeed doing just that.

The fact remains that no atheists are trying to put atheist displays on
public property, while religious kooks continue to try to put their
religious displays on public property.

The fact remains that there's a sub-population of atheists who, when
confronted by the mildest of agnostic comments, start to spew bile.

I defend against the constant attacks of the promoters of ignorance and
superstition. Were there no such attacks you'd never hear from me or any
other atheists.


Please show where I have lied.

I already did, but you've blinded yourself to that fact.


Did I lie when I said that you take the non-existence of God on faith?
No -- it's a hypothesis that has been pared down enough so that it is
unprovable either way, so to disbelieve it must be done with a leap of
faith. However much smaller the leap of faith is to disbelief than the
leap to belief, it's still a leap. I never said it took _much_ faith to
disbelieve in God (or, more generally, the divine), I never even said
that I generally believe in God (I usually don't, but I can't sustain my
faith), all I said is that it takes faith.

In fact, asserting that "Science finds no proof of God, therefore there
is no God" not only makes a leap of faith -- it leaps from a
misunderstanding of science, and a false premise.

Again, you lie. The truth is that there is no scientific evidence to
support any religious mythology, therefore there is no reason whatsoever
to even consider such mythology.

The misunderstanding
is that science proves anything -- it doesn't.

Another myth from the religious kooks. Science most certainly does prove
facts.

Science merely
hypothesizes, then finds evidence to support hypotheses, then given
enough evidence elevates hypotheses to theories. The premise is that
science is infallible, and that it is impossible for something that
science hasn't formed a theory of to exist. Does that mean that quantum
behavior didn't exist before the 20th century, because no one had
hypothesized it yet? Does that mean that Evolution did not happen
before Darwin, because no one had hypothesized it yet? Do I need to go on?

You can go on proving your ignorance of and/or disbelief in science if
you want, I already know you are brainwashed and will never understand
it.


Did I lie when I said your concept of God and the Universe is
inflexible? No -- you're proving the truth of that statement with every
response you make. In fact, I'm pretty sure you'll be doing it some more.

Once again you make the same false assumptions that all brainwashed
religious kooks make. Atheists concept of the universe and their lack of
belief in any mythology is not at all inflexible. If presented with
valid scientific evidence to support mythological claims of the
existence of a "god", atheists will readily consider that possibility.
Until some such valid evidence is presented, we will continue to view
religious mythology as the ridiculous babble that it is.


I contend that your very inflexibility makes you a fundamentalist. Your
need to defend your beliefs by demonizing anyone who questions your
belief system (see above, where you take an objective analysis of your
behavior and turn it into "lies") merely bolsters my assessment. If you
were _really_ sure of yourself, you'd blow me off.

Your constant distortions and lies in the hopes of making a pseudo logic
argument for your unsupportable beliefs shows you for what you are.


Atheists are, by definition* religious fundamentalists. There's a word
for an atheist who's not also a fundamentalist -- that word is
"agnostic". Your need to make me see things your way clearly takes you
out of that category.

Only by your religiously distorted definition, as you have recognized
below.

Agnostics are nothing more than people who have partially freed
themselves from religious brainwashing, but are still stuck in the
belief that there is a "god", but they don't think the particular
mythology that was imposed on them is valid.


I think if you want to be happy with yourself you need to either
recognize and embrace your fundamentalism, so that when you read about
creationists in Texas and mad bombers in Pakistan you can smile with
fellow-feeling, or you need to reexamine just exactly what your beliefs are.

I don't need to reexamine my beliefs, you need to reexamine yours. As I
noted, atheists are perfectly willing to consider the possibility of a
"god" - when and only when there is supporting evidence for such.
Supporting evidence doesn't equate with proof either by the way.


* Well, by _my_ definition. I've stated it, and you are welcome to
_objectively_ analyze it, avoiding all leaps of faith while doing so or
at least identifying them when you do need to use one.

The only leap of faith here is your belief that there must be a "god"
despite any supporting evidence, and you fundamentalist unwillingness to
consider that that assumption may be wrong.