Messages

>See, there are things we do agree on.

I never said there weren't; in fact there are lots of things we agree on. Religion and reality just aren't two of them.

["As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.]

What a dick. Sorry, but this guy is my new candidate for "A-Hole Of The Universe".


[a href=http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_3501617,00.html]Full Article[/a]

COLORADO PROF CLAIMS 9/11 VICTIMS DESERVED FATE.

Ward Churchill says 9/11 victims were not innocent people

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
January 27, 2005

A University of Colorado professor has sparked controversy in New York over an essay he wrote that maintains that people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not innocent victims.

Students and faculty members at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., have been protesting a speaking appearance on Feb. 3 by Ward L. Churchill, chairman of the CU Ethnic Studies Department.

 They are upset over an essay Churchill wrote titled, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens."

The essay takes its title from a remark that black activist Malcolm X made in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Malcolm X created controversy when he said Kennedy's murder was a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children killed in a 1991 U.S. bombing raid and by economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

The essay contends the hijackers who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

It states: "The most that can honestly be said of those involved on Sept. 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course."

The essay maintains that the people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."

"As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.

Churchill said he was not especially surprised at the controversy at Hamilton, but he also defended the opinions contained in his essay.

"When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn't be surprised when somebody responds in kind," Churchill said.

"If it's not comfortable, that's the point. It's not comfortable for the people on the other side, either."

The attacks on Sept. 11, he said, were "a natural and inevitable consequence of what happens as a result of business as usual in the United States. Wake up."

A longtime activist with the American Indian Movement, Churchill was one of eight defendants acquitted last week in Denver County Court on charges of disrupting Denver's Columbus Day parade.

His pending speech at Hamilton has drawn criticism from professors and students, including Matt Coppo, a sophomore whose father died in the World Trade Center attacks.

"His views are completely hurtful to the families of 3,000 people," Coppo said.

A spokesman for Hamilton College released a statement noting that Hamilton is committed to "the free exchange of ideas. We expect that many of those who strongly disagree with Mr. Churchill's comments will attend his talk and make their views known."

Controversial statements

In his essay Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, CU professor Ward Churchill argues that:

• The Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children who were killed in a 1991 bombing raid and for economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

• Hijackers who crashed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

• The people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."

>Asking for no response was to avoid a debate.... one has
>started, 'nuff said?

I wasn't the one who objected to that, but I felt the same way. Posting a very religious, very controversial message like that and then telling people "not to respond" is a little unrealistic. Some would say it was a drive-by post, others might call it intolerant.



>And as far as can anyone heal, or just my particular brand, I
>believe any bozo could heal in the name Jesus Christ if they
>believe. If you can't believe, obviously you can't "go there"
>yourself.

Thanks; I prefer reality.



>And as far as hospitals relying exclusively on God, doctors
>tend to believe they ARE GOD, so since they would have to
>believe in something outside of themselves...it isn't going to
>happen any time soon.

This is a bogus answer and ain't gonna fly. Forget what you think doctors believe about themselves- that's open to debate and I know many doctors who would disagree with you. NONE of the doctors I know think of themselves as god. So, back to the question at hand:

If faith healing worked, every doctor in the world would be using it day and night. If it really worked, why aren't they using it? Why bother with convenbtional medicine at all if the power of faith healing is so great? I mean really- if prayer could cure disease, is there a doctor alive who wouldn't be using it, and using it all the time?



>but I will not allow your (or Cathy's or anyone else's)
>disagreement with my views keep me from voicing my views.

You can't have it both ways- if you get to voice your views, so do we. And telling people not to respond isn't allowing other people the same freedom to "voice their views" as you claim to have the right to do.  




>And you can hollar about "crap" until you are blue in the
>face, but it will not stop me from praying for you and your
>situation... praying for peace in your life... and yes,
>praying for your unbelieving soul. You are one of many here I
>pray for.

How you waste your time is entirely up to you.



>Now, you can leave my opinion on the table and walk away, or
>we can continue this debate and distract others on the board
>from the reason we come here.  

Like you, I feel like voicing my views. To remain silent would be doing a disservice to everyone here who doesn't share your views. SPARC isn't a faith-based organization, so when you write about your religious persuasion, expect other people to object.

>the lenth of the cut. otherwise i'd have bled to death before
>the paramedics got there.
>Am I one lucky SOB? Yes.
>Did a "god" save me? don't know. insufficient data. doubt it.

Yep.

I always find it AMAZING that "god" is credited for all of the good things that happen but none of the bad things. That's kinda stupid and willfully blind to reality if you ask me.

God lets little girls and boys be raped and murdered. If one of them happens to survive, everyone who believes in 'god' dances around like imbeciles and thanks 'god' for this miraculous thing. Why don't they blame 'god' for allowing it to happen in the first place? Answer: Because that's bad public relations for 'god'.  

Why did 'god' kill 100,000 people in the tsunami? What did they do to deserve that? Who knows, but my guess is that they weren't ALL 'sinners'. So all those people perish and no one blames 'god'....but let one person be found clinging to a tree alive, and all of a sudden it's god's will, a 'miraculous intervention'.  For some reason, 'god' never gets the blame for any of the bad things that happen, which seems a bit ridiculous to me.



>any "god" that allows the slaughter of millions around the
>world in various ways but would take the time to bend the
>world he supposedly created just to save one punk who doesn't
>even think he's there is worthless and deserves to go to his
>own hell and leave us monkeys alone.

Bingo. God seems awfully petty, don't ya think?



>Nothing has ever convinced me that ANY Religion is anything
>but a crutch for people too weak to accept that WE are the
>ones in charge of our lives and our world.

Religion has been responsible for more death and war and hatred than anything else in recorded history. The 9-11 tragedy was a direct result of religion, and so is everything that is going on in Iraq right now (and for the last 1000 years, too).

To me, belief in 'god' is a sign of an inability to reason and think logically. It's an excuse to hate those who don't believe in whatever you believe in. It's just plain bullcrap.

I mean, for crying out loud, it's 2005 and people still want to believe in their Invisible Friend In The Sky. It's about time to put that crap to bed and start taking respnsibility for our own actions.

As George Bush said, "Jesus helps me trick people."

Frankly I have little respect for anyone who believes in any brand of mystical hocus-pocus. It's ALL crap, no matter what they think they've seen or what they choose to attribute it to. Really.....bring the dead back to life? Wouldn't the Army be interested in that? Why aren't they using it, if it really works?

4Honor:
"I SAW a man be raised from the dead.."

No, you didn't.  You  may have seen someone revived, but attributing it to your own personal brand of religion is ridiculous. And a bit pompous, I might add. Do Bhuddists and Pentacostalists and Mormons get to miraculously revive people, or does it only work with your personal brand of God©?


4Honor:
"I SAW a woman (known to me for many years) be completely healed in the name of Jesus Christ, from COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.)"

So....you diagnosed this woman yourself with your medical training and you can show us the records of her "miraculous" recovery? I don't think so.


Look, believe whatever you like, but please don't post your Sermonette stuff here and tell people not to respond. That's a cowardly act. The fact is, this kind of stuff just doesn't happen. You may thinkyou know what you "saw", but if it was true, WHY DOESN'T EVERY HOSPITAL IN THE WORLD RELY ON GOD EXCLUSIVELY?

Answer: Because it's all a load of crap! You can't cure people by believing in an invisible super-being.

>So do you believe every Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, etc
>is not a real human being?  That you have no respect for them
>and they should not be taken seriously?

I wouldn't say that exactly, but I think anyone who truly believes in mystical forces and who engages in that sort of 'magical thinking' isn't fully rational. I have a dificult time respecting anyone who willingly believes in this stuff. Sorry, call me intolerant, but sometimes intolerance is called for. I'm intolerant of racism and bigotry, and by the same token I'm intolerant of willful ignorance.

Let me put it this way:

Would you want someone who holds these beliefs to be the person diagnosing your x-ray or putting rivets in the wing of an airplane you're going to fly in?




>What is your measurement of "truth"?  I mean, sure, I can
>agree there are things that we pretty much know with
>certainty, that can be scientifically proven.  

That's my definition, but it doesn't exclude the rest of the universe at large.



>But there seems
>to be many things that are not so certain, that cannot be
>necessarily "proven".  

Sure, and some of them will likely turn out to be real, be true. But that doesn't mean that ANY idea (no matter how whacky) should be respected and tolerated.


>And then, at least for me, there are a
>lot of things that I truly believe we just do not know, that
>can't necessarily be "proven" to be true or false.

Same here.  But "cellular memory" isn't one of them. An idea must have some reasonable basis for believing in it, otherwise it's wide open and anything goes, anything "could" be.

Elvis could be hiding in my fridge, but there's no reasonable basis to believe that he actually is.

According to your point of view, however, if that thought somehow helped me cope with the world, it should be respected. That's where I stop nodding my head.

I'm not telling anyone what to believe, but if they believe in things that conflict with my best guess at reality, then I'm not going to be able to take them seriously- they've shown their perceptions to be too far off from mine, and I have no reason to believe that their perceptions and beliefs are more accurate than mine.

Show me it's real and I'll be an instant convert, but until then I have to use my best judgement based on my perceptions.

>Absolutely you have the right to disagree with anything.  Call
>a spade a spade.  If it is bullshit, call it bullshit.  But if
>a person believes in and finds comfort in that bullshit, that
>doesn't make them any less of a person.

Well, actually I think it does. I think anyone who can't reason logically and who instead *chooses*  to believe in fantasy-laden psuedo-scientific bullcrap is NOT a real human being, and is not worthy of being taken seriously.



>It doesn't make them
>stupid, ignorant or worthy of disdain.

I think it does. If a person believes in something that is utterly ridiculous, what does that say about that person? Why should I respect someone that believes in the silliest crap to come down the pike in decades?


>
>The example of religion - we sound like we are probably in
>agreement.  I simply cannot suspend belief in everything I
>have experienced and learned to accept the concepts and terms
>of religion.  I do not believe babies are born to virgins, I
>do not believe people come back from the dead, I do not
>believe water can be turned into wine, etc etc etc.

Exactly.





>For ME, these things are not true.  For others, they may be.

It soesn't work that way. Something either is or isn't. There is no such thing as subjective "truth".


>I often think how
>comforting it must be to believe in religion, or to have some
>method you feel helps you in understanding yourself better.

I prefer reality. It may be uncomfortable, but I refuse to pretend in things I know aren't real.



>
>Just a clarification - it was not a friend - it was a poster
>on another board at this site.  They posted about their
>experience and the fact that it had provided insight to her
>and helped her.

She sounds like she needs a lot more help than she'll get from believing in "cellular memory". If anything, it will only DEEPEN her pathology and make it even more difficult for her to manage her existence in the real world. Allowing someone to buy into this kind of crap isn't doing them any favors, believe me.



>
>Again, I don't have all the answers.

I may not have all the answers, but that doesn't mean I don't have some of the answers.



>Maybe this clarifies my position a little better - I'm not
>sure.  But it seems like this is just one of those "agree to
>disagree" areas!  

Okay.

>By respect, I don't mean you have to give credence or agree.
>You can respectfully state that you do not believe in
>something.  You can even respectfully say that you don't
>understand how anyone can.

I could, but that would be condoning belief in something that just isn't true. Doesn't that mean anything? Should we validate every crazy belief in the name of "respect"?

To me, respect is earned. It doesn't come by default. And believing in crazy nonsense is NOT the way to get "respect".


> Nothing is gain by putting someone
>down for holding different beliefs than you.

I think there is. I think that when a crazy belief is ridiculed for what it is, it may teach others to think more carefully (and rationally) about what they believe in.



>
>Do you believe in any particular religion?  Do you think
>others that aren't of that religion are stupid?  Do you think
>their beliefs are "undefendable"?  That their ideas are crazy
>and you have no respect for them?

Well, yes, that about sums it up. I have no respect for or belief in religion. If someone else wants to believe, great, but don't expect me to play along. After all, aren't they supposed to respect MY beliefs? Well, my belief is that it's all a load of nonsense.  If someone wants to take me to task for that, so be it. I still won't believe.




>For you, "cellular memory" may be crap and "NOT TRUE".  To
>some, it may hold truth and may help them.  Where's the harm?

The harm is that IT'S NOT TRUE, goddamnit. Has our culture sunk so low that whether or not something is true doesn't even matter any more??

YOU know it's not true. I know it's not true. Why do we have to pretend to respect something we KNOW isn't true?



>And that is the big difference in the examples you gave - this
>does not harm anyone.  For some, it seems to help.  So why the
>extreme intolerance?

I'm intolerant of lies.  I'm intolerant of mystical bullcrap. I'm intolerant of people believing in things that are bogus, and I'm not going to apologize or br ashamed about it. I'm also not going to tippy-toe around in order to protect anyone's feelings when it comes to believing in things that just aren't true.



>None of us have all the answers.  None of us know what is "the
>truth" and what isn't.  

I love this argument, because it's got more holes in it than an Asian whorehouse. ;)

Look, just because we can't know everything doesn't mean we can't know some things. To defend this sort of belief with the argument that no one knows everything is tantamount to saying that there is nothing we can be sure of, nothing we can really know.

It's just not true.

Your friend is welcome to believe in whatever she wants, no matter how dumb, stupid, or illogical.  I'm welcome to not believe, and to say so out loud. I'm sorry, I just can't find a "respectful" way to go along with something that's 100% utter crap.
 


>I just think a little tolerance for
>others would go a long way in helping.

In helping to do what? To spread ignorance? To foster belief in things that simply aren't true?

>While it may not be the answer for everyone, I would
>respectfully suggest that we show a little more respect for
>others - at least until we have all the answers ourselves.

No offense cathy, but I can't be respectful of things that are utter crap.

The person you spoke of has the right to believe in whatever ridiculous baloney she wants to, but please don't ask me to be respectful of things that are provably false. He doesn't have the right to expect that I'll respect his belief.

Really- are we supposed to accept any kind of foolishness and then legitimize it by "respecting" it?

If someone believes in Batman, should I be respectful of their belief? How about if they believe Hitler was a "great leader" and a "good person", should I respect that belief? Sorry, but that's denying reality. I won't do it. Same thing with "cellular memory". It's crap. It's NOT TRUE, and I won't pretend to respect it. If someone can't defend their beliefs and needs others to "respect" their crazy ideas, they're out of luck, I won't go along with it.

It's not my fault if they believe in something that's so stupid as to be undefendable.


>
>  But I
>certainly don't think that all christians and buddhist are
>ignorant, stupid and deserving on utter contempt)

When a person believe in something that cannot possibly be true, please don't expect anyone else to go along with their delusions. Sorry, but I'm calling like I see it, and believing in "cellular memory" is just plain idiotic. I can't be respectful of something I know to be a lie.

What a fabulous load of utter horseshit. Anyone stupid enough to believe in that crap is, by definition, retarded.  In my opinion, anyone stupid enough to believe in nonsense like that shouldn't be allowed to drive or vote, because both those activities require a minimal level of intelligence.

For eample, listen to this bit of *cough* "wisdom":
5-What does science say:

'Energy is neither gained nor lost, but changes form.'-One of the most prophetic scientific statements of our time.

'Everything is made of energy.'-A statement agreeable to almost every scientist alive.

If these two widely known statements are true then:

- Events are energy, they are the interaction of 2 or more energies.

- Memories are energy, they are energetic imprints of events, as if an energetic snapshot.
That ridculous brain-dead "reasoning" is no different than this ridculous brain-dead "reasoning":

- The light in my refrigerator comes on when I open it
- I never see Elvis in my refrigerator.

THEREFORE, Elvis runs and hides whenever the light in my refrigerator comes on.

And some more:

"Cellular memory is a Divine Database containing the keys to the Universe, God, Love, Yourself, etc."

Geeeez, let's hope they have a good password on that database. I'd hate for hackers to get in there and mess up the universe or delete the file that has "love" in it. And let's hope god keeps backups, just in case., lol.


This just *proves* that there is no limit to how stupid a person can be and what infantile garbage some people can be convinced to believe in.


Lol, thanks Olanna!