A hate message against Atheists in Harrison, AR

[RobertMadewell]

I don't have a picture of it, because I didn't have a camera with me at the time. Shiloh Baptist Church in Harrison has a deroggatory remark about atheist on it sign. It says, "How to trap an Atheist: Serve a fine meal, then ask him if there is a cook." ???

I really don't get it. If it's a remark about Intelligent Design, then it is not a good analogy. Because, I can go to the kitchen and meet the cook.

I called the church and left a message on the machine. I tried to politely ask them if it was exceptable to post a deroggatory statement about people whose beliefs differ from theirs. That if the statement had been about Jews, then it would have been considered hate.

BTW, I didn't call anonymously. I left my name and number. Told them that I would love to meet with the pastor to explain my position.

I am tired of hiding my beleifs. The theists in my area are going to have deal with the fact the there are atheists who are members of their society and that some of these atheists are rather nice people and just want to get along.

[Doug]

It says, "How to trap an Atheist: Serve a fine meal, then ask him if there is a cook." ???

I really don't get it. If it's a remark about Intelligent Design, then it is not a good analogy. Because, I can go to the kitchen and meet the cook.

Right. By the parameters of the scenario itself, it asks the reader to "serve a fine meal," suggesting that he or she prepare it. It would be absurd to then ask if there is a cook.

On the other hand, a better analogy would be to make a spread of all the plants known to exist, some nutritious and some poisonous, and then ask if there is a menu designed for the human guests.

I am tired of hiding my beleifs. The theists in my area are going to have deal with the fact the there are atheists who are members of their society and that some of these atheists are rather nice people and just want to get along.

I applaud your conviction. I hope it does not bring you dismay in the future, but you must realize that the fundamentalists are largely NOT nice people and do NOT want to get along, at least with regard to those who differ from their own beliefs.

Time and time again we hear of Christians who become atheists only to find that some of their best friends from their church abandon them or even become hateful toward them. There are a few exceptions, but that is not the rule.

[RobertMadewell]

Well, when I got home from the meeting, I had a message on the machine from the pastor. He said that he would like to meet with me, however I have some misgivings because he may be more interested in prosyletizing than actually hearing me out. Anyways, its way too late for me to call him back, so I'll wait until monday. I assume he'll be busy on sunday.

[tmiller51]

I've never thought their argument is very strong. If you're going to take the position that everything must have a creator then isn't it a fair question to ask "who created god?" or "where did god come from?".

[Doug]

Well, when I got home from the meeting, I had a message on the machine from the pastor. He said that he would like to meet with me, however I have some misgivings because he may be more interested in prosyletizing than actually hearing me out. Anyways, its way too late for me to call him back, so I'll wait until monday. I assume he'll be busy on sunday.

DOUG
If we can manage it, let's see if Darrel, I, and/or others can be there with you for that meeting?

[Dardedar]

DAR
Just because he has a fundie on the hook Doug, doesn't mean he is going to share.

[RobertMadewell]

I probably could use the help. I am not very articulate. I plan to call him on Monday. Maybe we'll just talk on the phone. It'd be great to have you guys over here, though. You're always welcome at my house.

One thing I need to keep in mind is the reason I called him in the first place. My reason is not to debate with him, but to let him know that bashing atheists isn't nice and that I am his neighbor and a member of his community.

Tomorrow, I'm going to drive by and see if the message is still up.

Hey! Maybe a thought. Tomorrow is Sunday! I could go to the church.

I'll let you guys know what happens.

[RobertMadewell]

This morning at about 10:00am , I drove by the sign that offended me. It now says "Do you believe that a frog can turn into a prince? If you embrace evolution, you do!" Something like that. At least he may have recognized that he went a little too far, by bashing a particular group of people.

Well, church was just starting, but I didn't want to attend sunday school, so I went down to the park and tossed a few spinners in the water until 11:00. Then I went back to attend the worship service. The music was actually really good and moving. The musicians were talented. There was a cute moment or two when a little boy was "playing" the guitar backward and a teen girl sang backup for her dad.

Then, the pastor, Heath Kirkpatrick, gave a sermon entitled "Reason to Believe". He gave examples of how complex life is, DNA, the human heart, blood. Kirkpatrick then gave the argument from personal incredulity as the reason why I should believe. As a matter of fact, his entire sermon from that point on was an argument from personal incredulity. Sigh.

Here's some choice quotes from the sermon.
"We are made in the image of God, not an ape."
"It is unreasonable to believe that life came from just matter and energy given enough time."
"It's absurd, not reasonable to not believe in a designer!"
and last but not least, "I don't believe that Adam and Eve went to the bathroom." (I did not make that one up. He said it.)

After the sermon, they took communion. I did not. Then after prayer and song, we were dismissed.

I made it a point to meet with Kirkpatrick. He was ready for debate. I told him I wasn't wanting to debate him. I told him that I didn't assume to know everything, so maybe there is a god, but I didn't think there is. So he told me I wasn't a "true atheist", but an agnostic. I of course pointed out that the two aren't mutually exclusive, and that he was basically saying that I'm not a true scotsman. Blah, blah, blah.

Kirkpatrick said he'd get back to me and go to lunch. I said that'll be fine. So that's about it for now.

Since his email and phone number is posted on the bulletin publicly, I will post it here, so if anyone wants to speak with this minister they can try to set up a meeting. This pastor may be ripe for a good debate. He seemed to be eager to debate, and this eagerness will be a hinderence to my speaking my point which is about tolerance.

The minister is Heath Kirkpatrick: shilohchurch@alltel.net

[Doug]

This morning at about 10:00am , I drove by the sign that offended me. It now says "Do you believe that a frog can turn into a prince? If you embrace evolution, you do!" Something like that.

Sounds like he's a fan of that hack creationist, now convicted and incarcerated felon, Kent Hovind. Hovind was fond of using the line:

"Evolution is: Frog + time = Prince"

He would also frequently say that evolution is the theory that people came from rocks.

Hovind is a dunce and a chronic liar. It is amazing that there are people who don't know any better than to believe his nonsense.

[RobertMadewell]

Yeah! I knew I had heard that b4. I forgot all about Fake Doctor Dino. Reminded me of the famous animated video that Kent's son tried to have banned from youtube. This link is possibly NSFW. Thank you. I now know a bit where he might be coming from, however I won't assume it.

BTW, Kirkpatrick says he wants to talk more and he'll call me and we'll go for lunch. I may decline though, because I think he wants to debate more than anything. I am not that confident about debating someone like Kirkpatrick. I am not that articulate, and I do stutter a bit. Kirkpatrick also has "The Power of Words" on his side. By that I mean quantity, not quality. He can talk a mile a minute. No joke.

On second thought, I'm not going to worry about it. I doubt he'll call me.

[Doug]

On second thought, I'm not going to worry about it. I doubt he'll call me.

DOUG
Probably not. But if he does, let me know. I'd be glad to be there to lend a hand.

I'll be gone for a lot of June, but I'll be here for almost all of July.

[RobertMadewell]

Kirkpatrick emailed me and ask the question about the meal and the cook again. So I sent him this rebuttal:

Heath, I do owe you a bit of apollogy, because you really had the right to post that message on your sign. I am quick to point out that fundies (some not all, also muslims) often are "thin-skinned". I have been scolded often about "attacking" christianity. However, I don't concider criticsm an attack. I also don't consider honest questions attacks either. For the same reason I shouldn't concider your criticism of Atheists as an attack either. I was a bit dismayed by the word trap, but I realize you meant trapped logically, not physically. I read a post on a message board somewhere that said, "How to convert an atheist, put a bullet in his head." So maybe, you can see why I was a bit flustered. I have been called many things as well.

But was I trapped logically by that statement? No, I was not.

I've done some thinking on it. Meals are intelligently designed. You are right. I remember a lake I use to fish in, and you know what? It was intelligently designed too! I looked at the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket and realized that they too are intelligently designed. Every one of them. It seems that there is a very intelligent creature on this planet that designs almost everything. You'd be hard press to find something that this creature has not had a hand in designing. Of course, this creature did not really create anything, but took the original form and modified it to serve that creature. You probably have guessed it by now. Humans are the intelligent designer. That lake was designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the vegetables were selectively bred for. Green peppers were bred to have no capsicum in them, so they are not hot. Apples were bred to be bigger and sweeter than the wild apple. Bananas are bigger and sweeter than their wild counterparts and have no seeds. Lettuce leaves are bigger and have no bitter sap in them like wild lettuce does. Now does that mean that the original wild things were designed? Yes they were! Yes, the sour little wild crab apple was designed, you bet. But it was not nesecarily intelligently designed. It was natural selection that designed it. Natural selection designed the crabapple to survive in colder climates, to have an edible fruit that animals would eat to disperse the seeds, mildly poison seeds so the animals would eat the fruit and not the seeds. But natural selection designed them only as far as needed for survival. Humans are the ones who desgined the bigger, sweeter, and more colorful apples. Nature only designed an edible fruit that would get seeds dispersed. Just because we imagine that everything in the world must have a designer, that does not mean that that designer had to be intelligent. The brute forces of nature designed our world and we have built on that. Thats how I believe. So yes, the meal had a cook and the earth had a designer. The difference is that the cook was intelligent, the original designer of the earth likely is not.

I hope this explaination was good enough. I don't have much experience in rebuttals.

[Nisemono]

Robert,

Kudos on stepping up and being willing to address Kirkpatrick to begin with.

I am not sure how it would apply in this situation, but the greatest tool that I have found when debating on atheism, or the various applications of religion, is an audience. It urges your debate partner to stick to some sort of logical argument.

Although the simplest way of doing this is to have a public debate, this can also be used online. For instance, when I am dealing with religious individuals online, I often challenge them to a blogalog, instead of simply arguing with them. They don't know what my readership level is, but they do know that there are others reading their work. This seems to make it (just a little bit) harder to slip into the "well... the bible says" corner.

-Amber C-F
nisemono.12.15.1791@gmail.com
http://tehjuggernauts.blogspot.com

[Dardedar]

http://tehjuggernauts.blogspot.com

DAR
It's worth going to Amber's blogspot and reading her story. Welcome aboard Amber! I hope to meet you at a freethinker meeting soon.

D.

[LMJ]

I also called Kirckpatrick and left him message that his sign was rude and uncalled for. (I also live in Harrison.)
Kirckpatrick does not debate, he attacks the person and overtalks them, laughs at one's position or statement.
It was not going anwhere trying to make a statement, as he would constantly put one off by let me ask you a question MR Johnson.
I did ask him how a god creates, he said god talks things into existance?
This means at the speed of sound.
We agreed to dissagree.
Larry M Johnson

[Dardedar]

Kirckpatrick does not debate, he attacks the person and overtalks them, laughs at one's position or statement.

DAR
Arrogance and ignorance. What a combination.

I did ask him how a god creates, he said god talks things into existance?
This means at the speed of sound.

DAR
I hadn't heard that one before. When the ignorant goat herders who wrote the Bible made this part of the tale up, they didn't understand anything about sound or that it travels at a certain speed (770 mph). This claim presents an interesting problem for literalists.

According to Genesis, our sun was made on the fourth day:

1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

So if God was on earth when he decided to "speak" the sun into existence (remember Genesis also has Yahweh walking around in the forest looking for Adam) how long would it take "His words" to go the 91 million miles to make the sun? (forgetting that sound doesn't really travel through space)

Answer: 13.4 years

Never mind that "years" didn't really exist since there was no sun for the earth to travel around.

How long for his spoken word to travel out and create Pluto?

532 years

And that's just our tiny fly speck solar system. And the good book says: "and he made the stars also." That's nice. A grain of sand held at arms length covers up an area of the sky containing about 1,500 galaxies. Some of them are over 13 billion light years away. Light travels 869,610 x faster than sound. So take 13 billion, times it by 869,610 and you have how many "sound years" they are away from us. It get:

11,304,935,064,800,000.

I think that's 11 quadrillion miles, give or take.

Moral of this story: When you force a childish literal interpretation upon the fables of a privative culture, you get nonsense.

D.

[Doug]

How long for his spoken word to travel out and create Pluto?

532 years

DOUG
How long to pull the Genesis story out of a goatherder's ass? Minutes.

[RobertMadewell]

I think if I debate anyone, I'd rather do it online in a forum like this. That way, I can think about the answer and write it in an essay format and check grammar and spelling. Also, that way, I can break down each statement and rebut each one in turn.

No, I'm not going to debate Krikpatrick. I just plainly don't want to. I've said my peice and that's what matters.

Also, I want to "come out" to Harrison gently. This town is very religious and hate is not unknown here.

Kirkpatrick did not know that if he said somthing about atheists on his sign that he would get a response from an atheist or two. I bet that did not cross his mind when he posted that message because he probably thought that atheism is over there, not here. That's my point. I want people to know that there are others who are part of their society who are not religious.

Not everyone sets in the pew nodding his head to everything the pastor says no matter how absurd. When he said that Adam and Eve didn't poop, everyone in the church was nodding his/her head. There was even an AMEN!. Not one member of that church called Kirkpatrick out on that silly statement. Not even after the service. If someone had said something so silly at our meetings, there would be several objections. I doubt anyone would wait until the meeting was over.

Thanks Nisemono. I apreciate the encouragement. I'm going to look at your blog. I've thought of blogging myself. I'm just a bit lazy. Hope to meet you at the meeting as well. I always have a blast at them.

Darrel, I like to point out that God created light 4 days before the sun. He also created plants before there was a sun to give them energy. If the bible was inerrant scientifically shouldn't it read that the sun was what gave light to the world? Like "God said Let there be light! and there was the sun that shone forth the light. And it was very good." Instead the sun (according to the bible) is just a light to rule the day. Oh yeah, God also created the stars. ??? All the galaxies and the trillons of stars in each of those galaxies, the vast star nursuries and the violent supernovae were created as an afterthought. God did all that just so we could have them for signs and seasons. You know, if God wrote the bible, I'd expect it to have some scientific fact in it. All the bible has is bronze age superstition.

[LaWood]

I had a discussion of sorts with the sister of a fundie preacher. I wasn't feeling so well inasmuch that our meeting was in the chiropractor's office.
But she was going on and on about the infallibility of the bible. I asked her
where did Cain's wife come from? Up until Cain and Abel god had only created 2 people then those two created two more. Suddenly out of nowhere
Cain takes a wife.

The preacher's sister said her brother explains how god "breathes" certain things into existence.

So now the fundies have a two-folld explanation: sounding and breathing.

Anybody wanna guess a third fundie explanation?

[Savonarola]

Anybody wanna guess a third fundie explanation?

God wills things into existence.

And the slightly less popular, God thinks things into existence.


It's really just an exercise of how many different ways we can think of to say, "magic."