Why So Many Anti Atheist Websites...

[Mriana]

People think this would make cooking a night mare - but it isn't, it is challenging and I have to plan ahead a lot, but everyone chips in and helps and we tend to have sort of 'themes' to our family meals, so that there are side dish overlaps. My children are always gracious and polite about their food choices and go out of their way to bring alternatives if they eat elsewhere, or let their hosts know in advance so they don't cause difficulties. No one nags anyone else and whilst we will all answer questions and get involved in discussion and dialogue, no one preaches and we really love food!

 

Happy to share food idea's - I have a vegetarian or vegan alternative to most meals (I have the simplest and most fabulous vegan chocolate mousse receipe!)

 

That's the way we are too and I don't get upset, as a rule, unless someone goes acting stupid or pushes something. As for eggs though, I have to watch my consumption of them due to a mild egg allergy. I can get away with one, maybe two, but then I start breaking out in a rash, like I have dermatitis, a sunburn, or something. It's not a pretty site and itches a LOT.

 

I would love your vegan chocolate mousse receipe.

[Mriana]

This food talk is way off topic! You can’t do that!

 

Oh wait.

 

This is the Lion’s Den.

 

My bad. Carry on.

 

Yes, I guess it is lunch time. Morning Star or Boca burgers anyone?

[Alice]

I would love your vegan chocolate mousse receipe.

 

It is so simple - but it tastes heavenly and you can flavour it various ways, or just have it plain. I'm a kinesthetic cook, but next time I make I'll make a note of actual quantites - but basically it is just silken tofu and melted dark chocolate. It works best with at least 70% coco bean chocolate (I use 85%)

 

melt the chocolate in abowl over hot water and then whizz the melted chicoloate nad the siken tofu together in a blender. I add a sploosh of tia maria or cointreau , or a few droprs of rose water (this makes for turkish delight flavour) then chill - that is all

 

might make a batch tomorrow and then I can share the amounts :-)

[Mriana]

Thanks. I'm the same way when it comes to cooking. I just throw things in, esp if it sounds like it might be good.

[ContraBardus]

Alice, a blatant misrepresentation of the dairy industry. There are no buckets involved, feces splattered or otherwise. Even in the early days of dairy farming, you didn't use a crap covered bucket. Even then people knew that would make you sick. Also, the vitamin deficiency thing is BS and not true. We start out life on milk, and bovine milk, while fattier, is not that much different.

 

So yes, I consider Soy Juice more gross than milk.

 

The nitrate digestion problem you speak of is called 'lactose intolerance'. Not everybody has it, it's only common in cultures that do not drink milk after infancy. It's common in some parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Not in western cultures. If you've don't have lactose intolerance then milk is a very good source of vitamin D that does not lead to deficiency.

 

Mriana, Well, given the contents of my post, this snapping was unwarranted.

 

For starters, you brought it up. Secondly, I did mention more than once that -I've nothing against it- and that -it's your choice-, and -I wouldn't do a thing to stop you -or- change your mind-. I mentioned it repeatedly, and you're still acting as if it was an attack.

 

If you don't like meat, that's your business. Not everyone can, or should be that way. It's not realistically feasible.

 

You're also putting words in my mouth, I never said a vegetarian [or vegan] diet was 'less healthy'. I said that about organics, and it's true. In fact, I specifically mentioned that it could be just as healthy. I said it was more expensive, and difficult to maintain than a diet which includes meat, and that's true.

 

I also mentioned that while yes you can get more than enough of 'a few necessary elements' with plant farming, you get a -more comprehensive collection of several essentials- in a comparatively smaller area with animal farming. There's more to meat than protein, particularly if you include the nutrients of organ meats.

 

It's a case where the positives outweigh the negatives. We could not keep our our population fed and healthy on a vegan or vegetarian diet alone. There's not enough land space for it. It's literally a case of 'us or them' and I pick 'us' over 'them'. Again, we'd have to kill them anyway, you can't just let all those animals roam free. They'd be both pests, and a large health risk because of diseases and feral issues.

 

Even without farming, we'd still be killing them to keep them under control. They aren't a part of the natural system, and would essentially destroy it if released. Many would largely die off without human care, chickens are a good example of this. Farmed chickens are not fit for life in the wild.

 

While I do understand the sentiment behind it, much like the followers of 'organics', those that are hard line vegetarians or vegans who think -everyone- should be doing it simply do not understand that it's just not realistic.

 

Also, the origins of the 'ties to lesbianism' was -requested- information.

 

I also directly mentioned that like many stereotypes, it does have some small basis in fact, but is -largely exaggerated-. Prehistory women did eat more plant product than men.

 

That's not to say they didn't eat any meat or do any hunting, or that men didn't eat any plant products.

 

How many pregnant women do -you- know who are going to run around in animal skins and hunt with spears? How many women do you know who are going to take a young child out to hunt large dangerous game without the security of even metal weapons, much less firearms? Especially given there's an alternate source of available food and others who can do the work with considerably less risk.

 

Men did most of the hunting in early human history. It doesn't really matter if the women of today don't like the way it sounds or not. There was no feminism then, and men's frames are built more for that sort of activity. That doesn't mean women were incapable and didn't help or hunt on their own when they could.

 

Even today, most hunters are men. That's -not- saying that there are no women hunters, or even that there are only a few. It's not uncommon at all. It only means that men make up the majority and there are reasons in our past history for it beyond 'suppression of women's rights' there are biological elements involved as well. Both mental and physiological. Men and women's brains are no more exactly the same than our bodies are.

 

Men have larger upper bodies with a higher center of gravity. Women have more fine control of their hands. I'd never bet against a woman playing against a man playing pong.

 

-One- of the -reasons- for this is the way they ate and gathered food in early human history. There are other factors involved, some cultural, some biological.

 

It's simple biology, not anti-feminist or sexist propaganda whether you like the way it sounds or not. Equal rights has nothing to do with 'we're all the same'. There are things men are largely better at than women, and things women are largely better at than men.

 

It doesn't change the fact that pre-history Women tended to have more plant in their diets than men did. They are also -more prone- to vegetarianism than men are today. It's impact is minimal in today's world, but it is still there in a residual manner.

 

Again, you putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about it being exclusive, and no such implication was made. It's just -more common- in women, and there are sound biological reasons in past human history for it as well as cultural issues.

 

So it's okay to state your beliefs and opinions but not mine on the same subject? Boy, does that ever sound familiar.

 

Don't be a vegetable fundy.

[ContraBardus]

By way of example about differences between men and women. I'll use an example.

 

A man and a women in roughly the same physical condition are firefighters.

 

They enter a burning building and find a 250 pound man who needs to be carried out to safety.

 

Could the woman put him over her shoulder and carry him out?

 

Yes.

 

Will she if her male partner could do it faster and easier because of his center of gravity and larger upper body?

 

Probably not.

 

Does that mean she's not capable of doing if needed, or less capable than he is as a firefighter?

 

No.

 

It's simply a matter of who has the greater advantage for the given job at hand. No more, no less. She's no less capable of doing the job than he is, but the minor advantage he has to carry the man out of the building gives him the edge and makes him the best candidate for doing it in that situation.

 

It's just the most efficient and safest option given the situation at hand. That does not mean she wouldn't have been able to help the man on her own if her male partner was not present.

 

She's still just as well trained, just as capable, and no less useful than he is. It's just playing to the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals available for the job in order to best utilize teamwork and get the job done as quickly and safely as possible.

 

Early human history was much the same. Everyone that was capable pitched in everywhere they could. That included men gathering plants, and women helping with the hunting.

 

However, given physical differences and factoring in child care, men were more available, and their physical traits more suited to hunting given the tools available. Women ended up doing most of the child rearing because in infancy, they were the food source. After they child was weaned, the mother was already spending the most time caring for the child, and simply continued to do so. It was a system that worked, and while it did lead to 'problems' later, it served it's purpose at the time very well, and allowed males a greater range to find resources and food by freeing them up for such activities.

 

So, the men ended up doing more of the hunting work, women had more opportunity for gathering, and it was safer to do while pregnant or with young children, so they tended to do more of that kind of work, and as a result, tended to include more of those types of foods in their respective diets.

 

Gathered food was readily available, probably along with small game. Men would go off hunting for often several days. While they did eat gathered food as well, they tended to start eating some of the game while returning, and women would be eating some of the gathered and largely plant product food while they were gone.

 

It was the best way to do things, and the best way to implement teamwork within the group to help with survival.

 

How exactly does this basic concept become offensive? How exactly is it not true? What's it got to do with sexism? It's just early human history and biology. Why exactly wouldn't there be residual results from these behaviors today? What's the issue with that concept?

[Mriana]

Nitrates and nitrites are preservatives found in lunch meats, ham, and hot dogs- a contributer to migraines, which run in my family and my mother found triggered my headaches and at an early age. There is nothing like getting a migraine after joining other kids who ate hot dogs. If the migraine is not treated soon enough, you up chuck what you ate. Not a pretty sight. Granted, not all meats have these preservatives, but it doesn't help much in liking such things.

 

My first husband tried to get me to eat meat while I was pregnant with his sons because he feared a protein deficiency. The smell of chicken alone made me puke even in the 9th month of my first child, let alone trying to eat it. My 8th month, just barely my 8th month, and last month with my second son, some sort of meat he cook, caused me to puke from the smell alone or so it appeared at first.

 

Sadly that was the night he also had to run me to the hospital too, because it was no ordinary... how should I say as not to gross people out with details? Stomach sickness, esp with my other symptoms. We were in serious trouble, so that one wasn't from the meat he cooked- which he didn't even try to encourage me to eat, but boy did he sober up (he had been drinking that night too and was sleeping it off) when I told him in the middle of the night that his second child and I were in BIG trouble. However, as I said, there was no relationship to the smell of meat with that one, or there was very little if there was.

 

The moral of the last story is, don't assume every reaction that appears to be normal for you is necessarily normal. It could mean something else that is more serious. We assumed it was the same thing as usual, when it was not, esp when it looked like I was going to start miscarrying at the beginning of my 8th month and was still puking at the same time. I don't know who was more scared- my 1st husband or me.

 

However, my not liking meat is much more than that, but all of that, esp at a very early age, I'm sure did not help and may have attributed to some of the reasons as to why I do not like meat. However, it is not the sum total of it. It's much more than that, but I don't think I'll just assume what the trigger is, if something similar happens again or if I see something similar in one of my daughter-in-laws in her third trimester. If I see something similar, I might sound the alarm early, even if I am wrong- better safe than sorry- and my sons know the story too, so hopefully they won't just assume either, if they see their wife that sick in her last trimester.

[Vixentrox]

Mmmm...soy milk! Particularily vanilla flavored! Mmm...tofu, particularily in Korean dishes. Mmm..freshly killed deer heart and tenderloin from the deer I just hunted and killed. Good stuff either way.

[OpheliaGinger]

 

 

Only atheism has real-world rational arguments against faith in sky daddy. It is a worldview based on logic. Islam (or Mormonism or Scientology or FSM-ism) cannot pose a real threat to Christian beliefs because all it has to offer is a competing mythology.

But I know the FSM is real! I know he's real because I feel his pasta goodness inside my heartburn!

 

He also noodle raped me.

[Alice]

Hi Contrabardus,

 

Whilst the faeces splattered bucket has been replaced by hightech wizardry - you are aware that milk still contains faeces, blood, pus and bovine hormones aren't you?

 

Not that faeces is always a bad thing - some of those bacteria it harbours are needed to break down the fat molecules in the milk.

 

An interesting video about the power of the dairy industry

 

 

 

We have been duped by the dairy industry - drinking milk after weaning is unnatural and a major cause of obesity (not surprising when you think that milk is the food that takes a 65lb calf into a 600lb cow) and a whole range of other western diseases.

 

Your concerns about vast numbers of chickens, pigs and cows roaming free and dangerously would be easily resolved by ... ceasingly breeding programmes, whilst the current generation experience life as they would have done. (A chicken bred for the table is generally kept alive for between 6 and 14 weeks, those vast numbers of chickens you are worried about are replaced every three months) Your belief that it takes more land space to produce the nutrients needed from plant sources is simply wrong (what are you basing this on?)

 

Important to note that I have no desire to see the entire world become non dairy consuming non meat eaters ... I would like to see an end to intensive meat and dairy farming and todays levels of meat and dairy consumption (a very new thing in human development confined to those who follow a western diet), because of the impact on the environment and the impact on peoples health.

 

Your views about higher numbers of female vegetarians are very ethnocentric. If you were to step outside your immediate sphere a little you would discover that this is a western condition and is a recent cultural manifestation due to ideas aorund in the west that meat eating is macho. Interesting to note that amoungst vegans in the west, men out number women.

 

I have no problem with your comments about men having been the hunters but can't actually see a link between this and its consumption ... believe me, those hunters were dragging that meat back to the compound and expecting the women to plate it up, along with the gathered greens :-) and there were days on end when all that was available were the 'side dishes'.

[Neon Genesis]

However, if you do eat fish, seafood and chicken, you are not technically a vegetarian.

 

I'm reminded of how in a recent episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast, the hosts were debating vegetarianism and one of the hosts doesn't eat meat but he'll eat fish and he jokingly refers to himself as a "hypocritical vegetarian."

 

[Happy to share food idea's - I have a vegetarian or vegan alternative to most meals (I have the simplest and most fabulous vegan chocolate mousse receipe!)

This is one of the reasons why I could never be a vegetarian. While I can understand a lot of the vegetarian's arguments for it, I'm just a very picky eater and I hate lettuce, onions, and tomatoes and most salads in general. I love pasta salads but I just don't care for the garden salads and there wouldn't be as many food options for me. Of course I probably need to lose some weight. On the main topic, I think the reason why Christians tend to focus more on atheism than on Islam is because while Islam is more dangerous, atheism is percieved as being the more immediate "threat." Like most western Muslims aren't going around campaigning politically, so Christians don't see them as much of an immediate concern and they feel more threatened by the enemy at home who's trying to "take away Christian values."

 

I also wonder if it's because of a cultural barrier. Like with Islam, Christians would have to learn not only a completely different religion but they would also have to learn an entirely different culture and way of living in order to argue against it. With atheism, most western atheists don't live that drastically different lifestyles than western Christians do, so it's easier for them to just learn the apologetic chants to counter atheism with than to learn a whole different culture. It also probably doesn't help that many Christians are discouraged from learning about other religions but with atheism, all the Christians have to do is just plug up their ears and say "I do believe in spooks" over and over to themselves to "counter" it.

[Mriana]

Mmmm...soy milk! Particularily vanilla flavored! Mmm...tofu, particularily in Korean dishes. Mmm..freshly killed deer heart and tenderloin from the deer I just hunted and killed. Good stuff either way.

 

 

I eat tofu raw, in salads, and other food. Now that is good. Better than a dead animal any day.

[Snakefoot]

Dietary preferences do not bother me, but I blanch whenever vegan or vegetarian is mentioned because I associate it with animal rights activism--which is a religion.

 

And we all know how we feel about that.

[Jin Kisaragi]

Atheists are an important target for Xtians because, intellectually, atheism poses the greatest threat to Xtianity.

 

...

 

IMHO, this makes it important for atheists and even agnostics ("atheists without balls," if you will) to continue to educate people whenever possible and prevent the spread of this "pernicious superstition."

 

Ding! Ding! Ding!

 

Only atheism has real-world rational arguments against faith in sky daddy. It is a worldview based on logic. Islam (or Mormonism or Scientology or FSM-ism) cannot pose a real threat to Christian beliefs because all it has to offer is a competing mythology. It's easy to refute one nonsensical fairy-tale with another nonsensical fairy-tale. It's like Rapunzel v. Sleeping Beauty - neither is a real threat to the other, because both are pure fiction.

 

It's only the people who start saying "now wait a minute, the historical and archaological records say you're full of crap" who seriously annoy the Deists, because somewhere deep inside they're afraid we're right.

Wrong. The correct answer is the same reason atheists for the most part attack Christianity. Exposure is the key. Muslims aren't as lenient on their de-converts, but if they were you'd see more of that sort of thing..but not here where we speak English rather than arabic.

[Mriana]

Wrong. The correct answer is the same reason atheists for the most part attack Christianity. Exposure is the key. Muslims aren't as lenient on their de-converts, but if they were you'd see more of that sort of thing..but not here where we speak English rather than arabic.

 

Would you prefer Xians killed their de-converts too? Given your siggy, it makes me wonder.

[florduh]

I fail to see how drinking liquidized soya beans is more gross than drinking bovine bodily scretions squirted into a feaces splattered bucket

That is poetry.

 

I never did like milk, but that imagery settles things for good.

[Mriana]

I like raw tofu.

[Shyone]

I like raw tofu.

Did you hear about the lady whose license plate application was refused because she was a tofu fan?

 

It read: ILUVTOFU

 

Somehow the censor saw this as vulgar.

[NotBlinded]

I like raw tofu.

Did you hear about the lady whose license plate application was refused because she was a tofu fan?

 

It read: ILUVTOFU

 

Somehow the censor saw this as vulgar.

[Mriana]

I like raw tofu.

Did you hear about the lady whose license plate application was refused because she was a tofu fan?

 

It read: ILUVTOFU

 

Somehow the censor saw this as vulgar.

 

I don't know why. However, it is too many letters. Unless you are in one of those odd states that allows for more than 6 letters.

[Shyone]

I like raw tofu.

Did you hear about the lady whose license plate application was refused because she was a tofu fan?

 

It read: ILUVTOFU

 

Somehow the censor saw this as vulgar.

 

I don't know why. However, it is too many letters. Unless you are in one of those odd states that allows for more than 6 letters.

Sorry, it was Colorado, and the license was ILVTOFU

 

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/04/08/Colo-rejects-ILVTOFU-license-plate/UPI-46031239221493/

[Mriana]

Ok 7 letters/numbers works too. I've seen that.

 

OH! I didn't think of that one, no matter how hard I tried to figure out how it couldn't pass the censors. Now that's a riot!

[Guest I Love Dog]

I think that atheists appear to be an easy target to Christians because there are so few of us around. I also think that Christians are frightened of Islamic backlash if they attack Moslems, besides which they are fellow god-followers, anyway.

 

Another reason for Christians to attack atheists is that Christianity is so easy to debunk, especially now that standards of education, particularly in Western countries are so high that anyone with the capability of being able to think reasonably and rationally and do some research will soon reach the conclusion that god is impossible, or at least, very highly unbelievable.

 

Europe is an interesting situation because it's a toss up whether atheism or Islam is the faster growing! U.k. in particular where Christianity is disappearing so fast and there are so many disused churches, but Islam is booming.

 

Of course, all religions have a use-by date and no doubt Islam will follow Christianity into obscurity at some stage. Interesting there have been roughly 20,000 religions with 30,000 gods in the past 6000 years on planet Earth.

[REBOOT]

. . . somewhere deep inside they're afraid we're right.

Absolutely. People who at least believe in some sort of supernatural nonsense have the potential to be swayed over to their side. Rational minds never will, and that's why they fear and hate rationality. They just might catch it if they ever take their fingers out of their ears.

 

Absolute claims require absolute proof ... you would think. The absolutist trap springs to life again

 

Healthy rationality should give the benefit of doubt in the absence of the absolute.... human experience has driven most of the people here away from the extreme fundamental christian posture. However, a sliver of it remains relevant in the absence of absolute proof. Thus the human drive to explore the unexplored in a long quest to refine and validate a point of view

 

IMHO, the road you choose should be in tune with intellectual efforts and not faith.

[agnosticator]

I like raw tofu.

 

Hey Mriana, I've been cooking Thai food lately with tofu. It's soooo good! Since you're into tofu, I thought you might like to try this. I use firm tofu and stir fry it before incorporating it into a dish. This site has some great recipes. You could substitute any meat dish with tofu. Of course, you have to try good Thai food to know if you'd like it or not.