Why Dont You Blog?

Debbie Sclussel’s piece entitled “Who is the “Asian” Mass Murderer at Virginia Tech? UPDATE: Shooter is S. KOREAN w/Student Visa” may possibly be the most unbelievably crass thing I’ve ever read on the Internet.

As she seems to have been a finalist in the Weblog awards 2005 (and hence not a winner – wahay – note to atheist blogroll – so there is a god….) I am hereby awarding Debbie Schlussel the Why Don’t You “Joseph Goebbels Award for Sensitivity.”

I see that some comments on her vitriolic blogpiece have also put in strong bids for the Crassest Thing on the Internet title, but you are wasting your time, “Republican Patriot” and others of your ilk. My mind is made up.

The fact that she didn’t even have the grace to admit any error whatsover, let alone apologise for stirring up completely unwarranted bigotry against foreign students, people from Pakistan, Muslims in general means the award remains hers for the foreseeable future. I bet the relatives and students who had a narrow escape really appreciate her efforts to stir up hatred off the back of their tragedy.

I wonder if the terrorists who she imagines to have watched this and thought “Gosh, wouldn’t it be easy to shoot up a campus” were unable to come to this conclusion after Columbine and all the other North American campus massacres because the shooters weren’t Asian.

Well, I was going to leave the Virginia Tech tragedy and not mention it again, but the sheer idiocy demonstrated by good old Debbie Schlussel can not be missed out! This blog has mentioned Ms Schlussel in the past, so I am sure you can imagine what wonderful comments she is coming out with now.

On that delightful part of the blogosphere which is her blog, Ms Schlussel was very quick off the mark with “updates” about the Virginia Tech shooting. Obviously being quick was more important than having anything but the most approximate relationship with reality. She has a post titled “Who is the ‘Asian’ Mass Murderer at Virginia Tech? UPDATE: Shooter is S. KOREAN w/Student Visa” and within it, is a seething pool of woo, nonsense and racial hatred. It is almost comical.

The sheer volume of bile and nonsense on this blog post is surprising, and makes it reasonably difficult for me to pick what bits I will repost here. Please, check out her blog (especially the comments) and see for yourself the reality. Some highlights, in time order are:

It seems that people who are guided by their belief in an imaginary being often get confused over what Atheism means. Atheism is not not “just another form of belief” and it is not a religion. Remember, Dawkins, Harris, Myers (et al) are not the Prophets of Atheism. They are not Ministers of Atheism.

People who follow a religion, and let it guide their lives sometimes have difficulty coming to terms with the concept, but part of being an Atheist is making up your own mind. There is no doctrinal book which says what all Atheists must believe, or how they should behave. Atheism allows the human to make their own choices. While this should be common sense, it seems some people really can not grasp it (for example Debbie Schlussel is convinced all Atheists are Muslims or brainwashed).

It is not just the offensive and idiotic theists who make these mistakes as well. Otherwise normal, decent followers of various religions can, sometimes, get confused over the matter. Take this example:

At the end of the day, we all have faith in something. Even an atheist has a kind of faith; faith in the absence of any god. (The Sleepless Nights Reading File)

Now, sorry to say, but no. Not all Atheists have faith in the absence of any God (see above for why I do not speak for any Atheists other than myself though). My understanding of the word “faith” is it means a belief in something without any evidence. A quick visit to Google and I can’t find any better definition.

Given this, I feel fully confident when I say I do not have faith in the absence of any god.

I have mentioned in the past the problem of debating matters of faith with theists, and this is a good example. I can think of nothing that I “believe” which can not be falsified. Every concept and I idea I hold, I can think of a way in which it could be proven wrong and I would (reluctantly maybe) have to rethink. I suspect the majority of theists are similar to Andrew Sullivan, in that when it comes to their religious faith, not only will they hold it without any supporting evidence, they will hold it in the face of contradictory evidence.

Maybe this is why some people think of religion as a mental illness. If I went about my daily business, believing (for example) that Cars could talk to you and gave you guidance as to how to live your life, I wouldn’t spend long before I started sleeping in a padded cell. Is it a double standard that we allow people to make the same apparently insane commentary simply because they can claim their “religion” has lasted for a few centuries?