As for why I stay to argue, I speak because people address me and ask questions. If you look at this thread with any honesty, you'll see that if I stop answering questions, I get attacked as having "run away."
So really, there is no way to please Christians. If you speak, they demand answers and explanations. If you don't give them, they accuse you of cowardice and avoidance. If you do give them, they try to get you zotted or invoke JR to shut you down.
Why don't you just admit that what you want is to abuse and revile atheists and they had better keep quiet and keep their heads down or else. Which reveals to me that Christians have not really changed much since they days that they DID seek out atheists and murder them. Nowadays, the only way you can persecute them is online. So you do. Your basic attitudes have not changed, only your ability to inflict distress.
Really? Care to cite that?
Oh, we all understand a lot more than you can find comfortable.
“there are dozens of religious threads on FR. I stay off of them.”
Clearly you don’t. You’re here.
”Only when a thread picking on a specific atheist comes on do I say anything”
Which Atheist? Dawkins? You deem an eminent scientist such as he in dire need of your defense? Do you presume that Dawkins frequents FR, and is desperate to read your rebuttal to his attackers? Does he send you “Thank You” notes and birthday cards (obviously not Christmas cards)? You are aware, are you not, that Dawkins is notorious for his relentless and vicious attacks on Christians (delusional psychopaths who worship a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent god)? He has written a book on the subject (The God Delusion) and uses the excuse of its promotion to continue to constantly launch his well-publicized venomous attacks on Christians.
“As for why I stay to argue, I speak because people address me and ask questions.”
Really? Those questions just came flying in over the transom unsolicited? They did not ever arise in response to your assertions? Your initial post in this thread was to daletoons in response to his opening post which customarily is addressed to everyone generally. You certainly had every right to respond, but you had no compelling reason to feel an obligation to respond. Drop the “little old helpless you” routine. It makes you look silly. Everyone knows the drill. Your standard modus operandi is to lodge a provocative post and, tally-ho! we’re of on another running battle.
”If you look at this thread with any honesty, you'll see that if I stop answering questions, I get attacked as having "run away."
Looking at this thread honestly, I see that you could hardly be accused of “running away” from a thread if you had not first entered it.
“So really, there is no way to please Christians.”
You’re not here to please Christians. Who do you think you’re kidding?
“If you speak, they demand answers and explanations.”
If you make assertions, be prepared to support them. That’s how it works in JR’s forum.
“If you don't give them (answers and explanations), they accuse you of cowardice and avoidance.”
Don’t know about “cowardice.” Who has done that? If you make assertions (especially ones that are provocative), but refuse to support those assertions, than that certainly is avoidance. What do you want? A free ride?
“If you do give them (answers), they try to get you zotted or invoke JR to shut you down.
I’ve never known anyone to get the zot who did not deserve it. The house rules impose little else than civility and JR is a remarkably tolerant host. Don’t whine.
“Why don't you just admit that what you want is to abuse and revile atheists and they had better keep quiet and keep their heads down or else.”
The shin kicking getting a little tough for you, is it? Maybe you shouldn’t start shin kicking contests. This thread has been pretty tame. Don’t know what’s your complaint.
“Which reveals to me that Christians have not really changed much since the days that they DID seek out atheists and murder them.”
You suffer from a very selective memory (we must think from a overwhelming need to propagandize). The Twentieth Century will be known as the “Atheist Century,” when Atheist governments sprang up all over the surface of the globe like a festering skin disease. It was their shining moment to show us all how it’s to be done properly. How did they do? In the Soviet Empire? In East Berlin and the countries of Eastern Europe? In China? In Cambodia? In Viet Nam? In Burma? In Cuba? In any country where Atheist thugs held sway?
In the Twentieth Century it has been Christians (really the whole Judeo-Christian tradition) who have been relentlessly pursued and targeted for murder (see The Voice of the Martyrs, serving with the persecuted church since 1967)
Some time ago I gave you a concise but fairly comprehensive description of the labors that Christian Western Civilization has gone through in the last two thousand years to regulate the issues of the meaning of lawful war, the origins of war, the avarice and cruelty of war, the treatment of prisoners, when the right of conquest and the claiming of the spoils of war are just and when they are not, the rights of discovery and the treatment of native peoples, the securing of peace as the prime objective of war, questions of maritime law, redress for injuries, restitution of property and recompense for wrongs done, and the laws of embassy and envoys. I suggested that no competing civilization or philosophy had even approached that accomplishment – ever. Your response was silence. Apparently you could find no adequate rejoinder to my point, so suck it up, cupcake, and take your pity party down the street.
“Nowadays, the only way you can persecute them(Atheists) is online. So you do.
Oh, those mean ole Christians won’t abjectly assent to anything you poor little meek Atheists assert. Poor you. More pity party.
Give it up dear Lady. You’re busted. Your arguments are vapid and evasive. Everyone can see through your circumventions. You think to avoid taking responsibility for your advocacy by declaring disengagement from the world, permitting you to stand off at a distance and snipe.
I’m sorry for the pain you feel, made so obvious by the burning resentment you exhibit. I wish I could assuage your pain, but that task falls to you. Your bile harms only you. The person (or persons) who abused you bears responsibility for the abuse (it’s called “free will”), not the Judeo-Christian God you damn.