bump

no, no, no Josh, that isn't my photo. This is my photo after completing 12 weeks of body for life last summer. Nice try though...

It shouldn't matter if he is fat or not, or what he looks like.

I refute his ideas, with respect, not because I expect respect back but out of my own self-respect.

I will not make fun of his appearance no matter what it looks like.

And I would not make any inquiries into his family, marital status, size of his family, etc.

He makes his position clear, it is one that I am opposed to. He is trying to spread his particular interpretation of Christianity and is willing to go toe to toe to provoke discussion with those who do not share his beliefs. The world we live in is based on the "consensual reality" of the majority of beliefs of those around us in terms of how people vote, what government we get, how our employers and those in those organizations believe... our civilization itself and the values of those in it directly effect the world we live in. He understands this, he is working to energize the combative spirit in those who are already Christian not to be apathetic, be stronger politically, less tolerant of those in other beliefs because in the end the work of him and people like him could create a change in the world in keeping with the vision he wants to see happen to humanity. It is just about the opposite of what I'd want to see, I find his ideas needing to be refuted. They should not be answered with silence. But how it is answered is important.

But you all don't seem to understand how clever his tactic is, you keep falling for the bait.

He is not provoking debates online with atheists to convert atheists through his arguments, I think he knows he can't convert people the way he does. What he is doing is getting people to attack at Christianity with him as it's representative, rather than attacking at his extreme interpretation of Christianity. That can provide him will all the text responses he can snip, cut, and paste of things people reply to him in the heat of the moment that he can then make the case to baptist and other evangelical Christians who may not be as extreme as him at this time why they need to be more extreme, because he can show in text we are out to destroy his faith with our own words.

To use our current political jargon, his purpose is to "mobilize the base"

If you just refute his interpretation of Christianity as extreme and counter productive, and not even what most baptists and other Evangelicals would believe in the modern day, rather than attacked at the entire religion. You'd be able to stop giving him the text he needs to run back to his circles and say essentially "one day these atheists and agnostics and other non Christians are going to be the persecutors of our faith, look at their words to me about our faith, we cannot share the same world, government, country... if we don't mobilize against them they will mobilize against us".

Of course some of you all would like that, a direct fight atheist vs christian but given the numbers and percentage with gun ownership I don't think that's a fight you'd really want to pick. We'd lose.

We who are atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, wiccans, etc. are allowed our freedoms to be outward about our beliefs due to the live and let live attitude of most Christians who make up the majority of the American faith. If they are convinced we are out to destroy them by the likes of Dan, and we fall right into the role he wants to provoke us into and cast us in, we'll see those freedoms taken away.

We will only prevail in freedom if we don't give the answers that he and others like him wants us to give, which ironically is the very responses he manages to get out of you all. That is not to attack the christian faith, support christian moderates who'd oppose him, make it clear we are willing to be good neighbors and not undermine or harm Christians. Christianity always strengthens and becomes more radical and powerful when they are convinced they are under assault, they always weaken and become less extreme and less literal during times of enlightenment when they feel more secure. Give enough security and tolerance and allow enough ideas counter to Christianity to exist and in a generation or two people will just make other choices besides Christian belief on their own or embrace Christian beliefs about as extreme or threatening as Episcopalians or Presbyterians, maybe even left leaning interpretations of faith like "liberation theology" popular in south and central America.

You guys have to think strategy and take the long view, because that's what he's doing and i think that you may believe you are winning each argument with him and out-maneuvering him, but he's just collecting more material to convince Christians that there is a real war and that they must stop being complacent. We are totally missing what he is really trying to do and taking it all at face value that he's just a stubborn fellow that wants to pick a fight with an entire thread of people flaming him all of the time. He's making himself into an internet martyr.

I urge all of you to think before you make replies to him, refute the extremism of his interpretation of Christianity without making blanket statements against the entire faith carelessly. Do not be blinded and say rash things, no matter how emotionally gratifying, and let the material we have already given him to work with get old and less relevant. If you don't, you will not realize the power you may actually be handing him to have the statements needed to energize more Christians to extremism, and be less tolerant. I live in a red state, Texas, and I'd hate to see what my life would be like as an atheist if he had the ability to mobilize Christians and get people elected who want to make non-Christians into second class citizens. And do not presume that it can't spread to blue states and effect all of you where you are, don't think you'll be safe in SF or NYC if enough people like him whip Christians to extremism. Urban areas have been centers of high rates of conversion to evangelical faiths, not all evangelicals are extremists but if they can make the case that they are under attack from non-believers then they will.

The peaceful coexistence between faiths here is fragile, we so far have been able to escape much of the religious inspired violence found within other countries with religious pluralism. Dan wants to see that coexistence which been our status quo ended, some on the other side of the fight would like to see it end but they are FOOLS. What are you going to do when an armed militia of christian angry white male rednecks who have played the "left behind" videogame too many times points a shotgun in your face, hit them with sharp wit and try to make them feel stupid?

Either do that or start getting guns of your own, you'll need them, and given you'll be up against militias try and see if you could actually organize wiccans, gays, atheists, marxists, intellectuals, into militias with adequate size to actually stand up to the christian militias, if that wouldn't be like herding cats. Our only real weapon of self defense is to not posture as if we were a threat, and numb people to the sleep of moderate Christianity, and live up to the tolerance of that faith we will say we have... and only refute Christian Extremism and acts of Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism and fascism.

Most Christians would much rather listen to a moderate atheist than an extreme Christian when it comes to coexisting peacefully, otherwise they'd have to get off the couch. The same apathy that plagues and frustrates activists on the left and among non-Christians thankfully plagues activists like Dan on the right wing and among the Christian activists, most people will cheer them, pat them on the back, and then go home and watch desperate housewives or shopping and max out the credit card.

And really, it's a pointless waste of time to try to find out if Dan is Robert or not. It is irrelevant. We need to deal with the message and argument against christian tolerance of non-believers, and we can safely assume there is going to be more than one person out there preaching the same thing we need to refute so let's presume Dan is Dan and Robert is Robert whether they are the same people or not. The people saying it doesn't matter actually, the message they are speaking and their goal is what we need to address. And should Dan or Robert keel over at the keyboard from natural causes there would be others behind them to fill their place. We should not be getting personal.