posted
Huh. While the facts are tragic, I just find the story itself to be funny.
I know there have been black humour posts by other people that have been well recieved on this site before. Don't y'all start getting all moral on me.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Yeah, the reporter was pretty incompetent. I'd actually like to see the original police report; it's probably better-written.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I wouldn't be surprised if this was a case of serious mental illness. Even men who have an Eagle Scout history (he's now 49, right?) can have psychotic episodes.
Apparently, this is attributed to Taylor, Michigan, but I haven't yet found any unbiased sources to corroborate. There are some blogs and secular humanist sites and whatnot, but they seem to be cutting and pasting from this article.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I just remembered the story "Eye for Eye" in OSC's Maps in a Mirror. There are a lot of religious freaks there.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Yes it's true. Why should anyone be surprised? Religion is probably the most divisive issue on the planet. People kill each other over religious issues all the time. You'd think atheism would be even more problematic.
There's a woman at american atheists who collects stories like these. I was beat up as a kid for being an atheist.
I do not find it funny at all.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Much less suspicious, but still there's nothing on the Net that doesn't trace back to this paper. I did find this story about the same town and same guy who was suing the police department for brutality in 1997.
And now it's shown up on Landover.
Certainly there's nothing here that I find impossible to believe. But this story is only being reported in one newspaper, as best I can tell.
posted
Why when a violent act is attributed to video games, Hatrack rejects that. But if it is attributed to God, there must be something to it?
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Pooka, I think Hatrack is far from universally blaming this murder on the killer's belief in God.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Why when a violent act is attributed to video games, Hatrack rejects that. But if it is attributed to God, there must be something to it?
This murder isn't attributed to God, it's attributed to an argument about whether God exists. The murderer admitted that. He didn't say "God made me do it." He said he was having an argument with an atheist and he killed him.
Some people get really angry when they feel their faith is threatened. That's not rare. I've seen it many times, and been on the recieving end of it myself. Just being an atheist makes people pissed off.
Jeez, it's not like the news article is from someone's BLOG, it's from the Detroit Free Press.
So what's there to be suspicious about? Do you think the Free Press made up the story? Or that someone forged a Free Press website or hacked the story into their website?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Glenn, there's a list out there of ridiculous law suits ("Man sues gas station for $10 million because he sniffed gas!") that were reported in newspapers but never actually happened. I'm very cynical about anything I here on the web. This is apparantly of enough interest to be quoted ad nauseum in the web world. If one of those organizations using it to make their points did a modicum of research, they could post conclusive proof of this.
I don't need to know if it's true. What I've seen hasn't been enough to tilt me into the "Yeah, that probably happened" category.
If you look at the article in the Metro Times, and the newer article in the Free Press, they both cite an incident in which Arthur Shelton discharged a gun into the ground. The Metro Times also has a picture of him. (incidentally, wearing a cross on his necklace) Surely you don't doubt that the guy exists?
See, your tendency to discredit this story itself makes me suspect your motives. I don't understand it. It's a common murder. These things happen all the time, for ridiculously stupid reasons. And most of the time, they get a listing in the local paper and nothing more. See how many sources you can find for "David Centorani."
Every once in a while, one gets notariety. Like the Medgar Evers case, or Matthew Shepard, because civil rights and gay rights happen to be trendy at the time. (I leave out Martin Luther King because he was famous before he was killed). But before the civil rights movement, lynchings were common in the south, and they didn't much make the news. The Gay pride movement had to make a big deal out of gay bashing before the Matthew Shepard Case was big. But try to find a report of a murder of a lesbian who was last seen at a gay bar in Plattsburgh NY in 1984. The whole town knew about it, and why it happened, but the Plattsburgh Press Republican never mentioned that the girl was gay, or that the suspect had a history of homophobia.
For whatever reason, you don't think "this probably happened." Could it be that you just wish it would go away? From my experience, I think society as a whole just wishes atheists would go away, and so cases like this are ignored. I think it shows your bias, that you are unwilling to admit that a reputable news source might actually be telling the truth when it's a Christian that committed the crime, and the victim was an atheist.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
You're reading waaaaaay too much into this. I think you're the one with an ulterior motive here, as evidenced by your bump.
The first article was so poorly written that I thought it might be a parody. The second was in the same paper.
As I said, I doubted the Swedish minister thing, even when it was posted as supporting a point I was making about free speech.
I don't need to know if this happened. I don't really care. I wouldn't have responded had it just been bumped. If the story happened the way it said, then the defendant is a nutcase. They knew he was at least a little wacko before the case.
You're trying to get me to say I believe something happened, without directly addressing my reasons for doubting. Sure, murders happen all the time. Not all get reported elsewhere. But in this case, it's being used across the net to make a point about American society, and no one has bothered to confirm it. I find that more suspicious than a story about two drunk guys stabbing each other in the gravel parking lot of the Sud's an' More.
I don't believe this happened. I believe it probably happened. What's wrong with that?
posted
I just found the way people were edging cautiously away from this subject to be curious. As Storm said, he was just going for a little humor noir.
I had to laugh at my Simpson's Road Rage post. It's kind of scary how posting here a lot gives one a sort of tunnel vision.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Anyone that would kill another over an argument that has no real consequences clearly needs to be grounded in reality.
Posts: 291 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
First of all, my motives aren't ulterior, they are pretty much stated. But I'll clarify them.
1. Atheism has a bad reputation, largely caused by the definitions imposed on it by theists. I believe that atheists have the authority to define themselves in much the same way that african-americans and gays have rejected external definitions and defined themselves.
2. Prejudice against atheists exists. Sometimes it's obvious (in this case deadly), sometimes it's subtle. In either case, I believe it needs to be identified if it's to be dealt with.
In your case, or I should say in this case, your prejudice is showing, in much the same way that prejudice was demonstrated during the civil rights era when people discounted stories of lynchings, or during the early days of the gay rights era when people discounted stories of gay bashings. It's called denial.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:In your case, or I should say in this case, your prejudice is showing, in much the same way that prejudice was demonstrated during the civil rights era when people discounted stories of lynchings, or during the early days of the gay rights era when people discounted stories of gay bashings. It's called denial.
I've given reasons for my suspicions. I've related having similar suspicions about other, analogous situations in which the truth of the story would have served to support a point I was making.
You've ignored all this, and decided instead that I'm prejudiced. This despite the fact that you know essentially nothing about me.
quote: 2. Prejudice against atheists exists. Sometimes it's obvious (in this case deadly), sometimes it's subtle. In either case, I believe it needs to be identified if it's to be dealt with.
This prejudice goes both ways. I have heard many atheists and even agnostics say that they think the world would be better of without believers. Some even try to pin all the woes of humanity on religion. Just thought I would point that out.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I'm fully aware of those people, Beverly. I agree, prejudice goes both ways.
I have been back at alt.atheism recently, more than I have in years, since I left probably in 1997. I left because I was tired of the mechanisms of prejudice, even though I understood the atheist perspectives, it was mostly the atheists I was ticked off at.
Now I'm at a similar point here. I'm not sure why I came here in the first place, but once here I found that the topic of theism versus atheism came up often, and there are people here on both side that are much more reasonable to talk with. I could reason with you guys. In point of fact, compared to the kind of flaming and heated discussion there was on alt.atheism there's virtually nothing here that should put me off so much. But Dagonee's right. I've been bumping threads for my own interests. Whatever it was that caused those thread naturally when I got here seems to be gone.
So lately, I've found myself back at alt.atheism. And it's a "you can't go home again" feeling. I'm not one of them. Most of the people that I made friends with are gone. I guess they got tired of it just like me. And those that are still there either don't remember me, or remember the fit that I threw when I left.
shheesh.
I just went back and found part of the thread on google groups. I can't find my really nasty posts, but they must be there.
I'm not sure why I'm posting this, but this is a copy of my goodbye to alt.atheism:
>Atheism is lonely for me. I look around at the world and see people who >join political parties, churches, social clubs. Places where poeple can >share their views on whatever personal beliefs they hold in common.
>My wife insists that I am hiding my belief in God. She's not as arrogant >as Lopez, but the basic arguement is very much the same. She starts >singing a hymn, and I join in, because the harmony is tight and resonant >and the melody is gorgeous, and she flashes me that look: "You'd feel >better if you BELONGED".
>Yes dear, but there's nowhere to belong to.
>I'd like to belong here. But I don't. Not anymore. I've made friends >here. You guys know who you are. But the fact is that hanging out on >usenet is just too much work.
>I notice Howard E. Nelson is back. Maybe he belongs.
>Who's going to tell Brandon that he isn't a friend anymore?
(to explain: Brandon Gorte had been given official "friend of atheist" status, but the group had decided to rescind the list of friends. Howard Nelson was an atheist of the sort Beverly is talking about, who accused me of being a "theist sympathizer" of something)
>I'm not going to promise that I won't come back. >Take my ball and stomp away mad, only to return sheepishly when I find >myself alone.
>But for now, see you later.
>Glenn Arnold Atheist #20
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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