How To Make People Very Angry

I think what Charles Lewis meant to say was “I wish those damn kids would stay off my lawn. And where the hell’s my prune juice?”

Another quote from PZ Myers that is applicable to both this situation and his own is that you do NOT have the right to NOT be offended. That was part of the entire point to be made with Wafergate. You don’t get to sue someone, or call for their resignation, just because they offended you. There are lots of people out there that really do think Jesus sucks, and they are entitled to that opinion and they’re entitled to express it as well.

I’m of the opinion we need more Jesus Sucks banners. The fundies tend to show their true colors when you slap their religion with the mental equivalent of a “yo’ mama” joke.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1581424/Dozens-blinded-in-India-looking-for-Virgin-Mary.html

Jesus does suck.

Allah blows….

What bothers me the most about this is that the guy set out to piss off as many people as possible, succeeded, and then afterwards tries to weasel out of it and pretend he didn’t want to offend people. People should at least own up to what they purposely do.

Though if you really wanted to win this competition hands down, I imagine a banner reading “Allah Sucks” would have been more effective.

Not in the US. Here, it would most likely be met with either applause or incomprehension.
But, in some other countries the plane would likely be the target of SAM’s. Get ready for a bumpy ride!

I wouldn’t be happy about an “atheists suck” banner. Not yet.

Has anyone seen Christopher Hitchens debate? I’ve heard he is going to be debating D’Souza in St. Lous September 10th. I found this website http://www.godontrialdebate.com

My problem is that (assuming Jesus was ever real) Jesus probably DIDN’T suck.
It’s like saying “Gandhi sucks.” He had his flaws, but he certainly didn’t suck.

Now, many of JC’s followers OTOH…

Jesus probably DIDN’T suck.

Which is why the banner, to me, is funny. Because that and the exclaimation point makes it clear that the banner is more about what an angry person would say than what would be “true”.

I think we have a knee-jerk response to print, which is to take everything we see in print as either truth or a threat to truth. There’s something either offensive or really funny about things in print passing themselves off as official writing. Which is why the Onion is funny, and why “Someone is WRONG on the Internet” behavior is so true to life.

This banner is just visually funny, because I picture a really angry guy flying that plane, swearing under his breath: “This’ll really show them!”

If his goal was to intentionally make people angry, targetting Christians in a country that is 80% Christian is probably the best way to do it. There is pretty much no larger demographic, unless he was targetting white people (still smaller than number of Christians, I believe), but unfortunately, I can think of no pithy way of offending a city full of white people due to the fact that they are white, in of itself. Saying “Jesus sucks” was the shortest way to offend the largest amount of people without resorting to vulgarity, tacit threats or mention of violence, or even directly insulting the group that he is targetting. And, even then, the offense comes entirely from a broad, simplistic insult directed towards a religious figure. No mockery, no parody, hell, Jesus is insulted in front of a larger audience and with more fanfare almost every day on one t.v. show or another (namely, anything on Comedy Central or adult swim).

I’ve got to call this banner hilarious, and perfectly suited for the task he was aiming to accomplish. Whether it was offensive or not to others is really a trifling detail. If you are willing to get offended over someone stating that “[insert anything short of a racial slur here] sucks” and nothing more, you really are too thin-skinned for people to care.

I like it. But I also think it throws more fuel into the “Atheists are just as dogmatic as Fundamentalist” argument. Still, I think it’s funny. Especially in context.

People need to be offended every now and then, when the things they’re offended about are trivial. I don’t have a problem with this prank, even though it’s very juvenile. The only “harm” it does is hurting people’s oversensitive feelings. Jesus either never existed or is long-dead, so “insulting” him doesn’t really mean much.

It’s definitely not the kind of thing I would do, but it’s also not something I think he should have to apologize for. I feel the same way about PZ’s cracker stunt. Immature? Yes. Offensive? Yes. Wrong? No. Entertaining? Yes.

If his banner had been an actual attack on people rather than on a symbol—such as “Christians suck” or “Religious people suck”—then that would be a totally different story. It would be simply bigoted. People comparing this to a banner saying “Atheists suck” are comparing apples to oranges, because such a banner would also be an attack on people. A better comparison would be a banner saying “Epicurus sucks” or “The God Delusion Sucks”, neither of which would really offend me at all, as an atheist. “Insulting” an idea or symbol is not, in itself, bigotry.

Some one will be offended no matter what the banner said. Big groups of people are offended by something every second of the day. Look at the comments on the different posts on this blog. A good portion of them are about people being offended by what someone else posted. It seems that humans are a prickly bunch and we spend a fair amount of our time looking for something to be pissed off about. I’ll bet I’ve just offended you. If I have let me knw.

This thread has taken on a very interesting topic.

So…regarding people needing to be offended. Christianity has built into it a need to be offended. The early church was repleat with people TRYING to become martyrs…because the doctrine seemed to call for that. In order to be a martyr, you have to have opposition to your cause. The beginnings of that is offense.

At it;s basic level, chrisitianity has set itself up to be viewed as strong by it;s followers if there is opposition. Satan is working to bring down god’s kingdom. He will use all kinds of tricks like people using their intelligence, and scientific facts, and the fossil record and such. All of it is an affront to god, and those who perpetrate it, offenders of god. it is teh only way they can comfrotably expalin us away. If the bible did not pidgeon hole us into that role, they would be confused and very likely pay attention to us. But…people obviously voiced their intellectual offense at the purly idiotic christian fable…and those men who were building control put in verses and statements that took care of this…making anyone who saw it is untrue part of satan’s camp. And, as mentioned above…christians expect satan to attack their beliefs. How? US! So they expect and require it…to validate part of their faith.

Chrsitians need this. They need people telling them they are wrong, so they can defend their god. They just are typically not prepared for good arguements. Their doctrine leads them to believe those who offend them are all just evil buffoons who know nothing. Instead, we have real arguements that require answers or a complete and total disregard for human intellect. They end up unable to stand in discussion about thier belief…usually runnning away or calling on faith as the magic word, silver bullet to it all…and then run away. Either way…usually a christian wants the offense, just so long as they do not have to engage their brain beyond quoting a verse or using some long over-used platitude about faith.

So yes…christianity specifically…and I think many other religions have the same need…need to be offended. They find validity in the fact that those they perceive as evil are affronting them.

They just fail to see the root cause of this perception of evil. It is simple and throws their arguement off the tracks, intellectually speaking. The bible is the root and the answer. It asks the questions and then asnwers, never allowing the person to think for themsleves. The illogical circle that is god vlidating the bible, and the bible validating god…also is what makes them yearn for offense and then it makes them think they championed god by calling on the word faith. All it all really does is make these people look deluded and misguided to those of us with an objective brain.

Is it offensive?

Of course. It was meant to be offensive. It was a contest to see how many people they could piss off.

The question is: Is that a worthwhile goal?

In this case, I’m going to say No.

Offending people in order to make a point? That’s often worthwhile. Offending people as a by-product of some other political or artistic intent? Yeah, that’s valid.

Offending people just for the sake of offending them? Offending people just to prove that you can? Offending people just to win a contest on a television show?

That’s pretty fracking childish, in my opinion. Almost a dictionary definition of “childish,” in fact. As Bart Simpson said, “Oh please — this is senseless destruction, with none of my usual social commentary.”

Of course they should have the right to do it. But I remain unimpressed.

If the point was to be offensive, suggesting for them to do something other than “Jesus sucks” because it’s offensive to Christians, is a double standard. Basically, by saying they should have made fun of (or be offensive to) someone else, you’re saying that it’s okay to make fun of anything except religion.

Now that, in my mind, is fucked up.

I’m sure glad I don’t buy the National Post.

A little context may be in order.

This show has a somewhat small but loyal cult following here in Canada. It’s been on for quite a long time, actually. The show is about two friends who have these random competitions with each other. Things like… who can dance the longest… or who can go the longest without speaking… or first guy to get a boner loses…. you name it, they’ve probably done it. Kenny, the guy who hired the banner, usually tries to cheat.

There’s really nothing held sacred on the show so everything is fair game. As silly as some of the stunts have been, the show isn’t outlandishly stupid and more often than not, the joke is on them. This latest stunt is entirely keeping within the spirit of the show and I would be very surprised if it caused any kind of uproar at all beyond an article in the paper.

I’m with Tao Jones. If you know anything about the show, you know this is really no big deal at all. A huge “meh”.

I have no doubt that the “Jesus Sucks” banner was effective at offending people, but it strikes me as stupid and useless.

By contrast, I think P.Z. Myers effectively made a legitimate point, and also provoked a demonstration of the irrationality and double standards of numerous Catholics. It doesn’t make sense to claim that what he did was “ineffective” as though his goal was to persuade Catholics.

surley if your laughing at someone elses misfortune then u urself would be commiting a sin, this means that u would end up joining him while he burns ?