Inside Bay Area – Christian teens rally to save San Francisco — I wish these two groups s would just duke it out and get it over with.
By the tens of thousands, Christian teens poured into proudly liberal San Francisco on Friday for a two-day evangelical extravaganza where they would rock, pray and provoke progressives, who accused the movement of working toward a theocracy endangering “San Francisco values.”
BattleCry, a cross between a rock concert and a war rally, began with a showdown on the steps of San Francisco City Hall as Christians and progressives judged one another while accusing each side of intolerance.
“These people are no better than the Taliban — Christian soldiers,” said Joel Cook, 47, of Alameda.
On the other side of the philosophical breach, Eden West, a 16-year-old Christian, said of a man holding a sign proclaiming he was both gay and Christian, “If he really loved God, he wouldn’t be gay.”
The dueling rallies were the first course in a two-day evangelical event known as BattleCry, where 22,000 people were expected at AT&T Park to celebrate God while rejecting aspects of pop culture.
Divided by a street as well as ideology, BattleCry participants waved red banners and yelled that they were taking back their generation as progressives carried a blue banner depicting fornicating stick figures and the phrase “Sodomy Rocks.”
Sodomy rocks? Gads. What kind of retort is that? My favorite quote I saw on TV came from one of the particpants of Battle Cry. He said. “It’s great because when I hang out with my friends and they don’t know about God, I can tell them about God and have fun.” Move over Heidegger!
Realted link:
Battle Cry Home Page — See if it creeps you out.
Christians as bad as the Taliban? A group which kills others for believing something different than what they believe is the same as people standing up for their values? I think the man meant HE was like the Taliban – restricting the freedoms of Christians. By the way, Jesus even said how can you love me when you don’t do what I say. Don’t try to say Christians are as bad because of the Crusades. That was hundreds of years ago – get over it. What the “progressives” were saying was, “You can’t believe what you believe. You must believe what I believe – morals are relative.” That is intolerance.
Graham — I certainly agree with you that tolerance is a good policy, but keep in mind people on both sides aren’t always upholding it. Some (not all, but some) Christians are very intolerant of homosexuals and/or atheists. That bothers me just as much as homosexuals and/or atheists who are very intolerant of Christians.
(Devotees of various religions also sometimes argue that non-religious people cannot have any definitive morality, but that’s another story…)
Oh, the humanity!!…..”pop culture icons do not represent our values,
Judeo-Christian beliefs are being labeled as intolerant, activists seek to remove God from our schools…We recognize the value of each life, whether born or unborn, and we seek to protect those who are unable to protect themselves”.
“The Crisis: Corporations, media conglomerates, and purveyors of popular culture have spent billions to seduce and enslave our youth. So far, the enemy is winning. But there is plenty we can do. We need to take action. We need to answer the Battle Cry.”
Apparently you can answer the “BattleCry” by purchasing the $20.00 “Branded by God” t-shirts and $40.00 “Warrior” hoodies through their online store. They are in stock and available for immediate shipment. Buy two because when WE do it, we’re not trying to seduce and enslave you….
Creepy? Oh, yeah……
As a Christian I am always a little skeptical about rallies like this one. Esp. with comments like Eden West ‘s and others in the article. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong. but it also says we should treat EVERYONE with the same love and respect that Jesus did, even those who think Christianity is wrong.
As for the comments of the “progressives”. I don’t see a whole lot of love (no pun intended) or tolerance coming from their side either.
If Christianity was an operating system it would be DOS 6.66. It just can’t handle the apps of today. Christianity is absolutely obsolete.
sound and fury, signifying nothing. the vast majority of Americans would fit in neither of these two clashing camps.
Followers of organized religion do, and have done, throughout recorded history, coaxed, begged, threatened, tortured, extorted, run guilt trips, bribed with money / sex / promises of rewards and in fact, engaged at some point in just about every possible way of recruiting people to join their mob.
Atheists and agnostics – some of them, far from all or even most – will endeavor to demonstrate to those willing to listen why it is irrational, regressive and counterproductive to the advancement of humanity to suspend logic and reason and to accept ludicrously absurd superstition.
Bandying the word “tolerance” around as if it were some sort of unquestionable virtue is crap. We as a society and as individuals are intolerant of many things. There is no reason why we should tolerate violent criminals. No reason why we should tolerate psychopathic manipulators. No reason to tolerate leaders who would deceive us, impoverish us, enslave us.
Tolerance is only to be extended to those people and things which are, if not good and positive, then at least are not destructive, disharmonious or detrimental to society.
The body of rational people is under no obligation to tolerate those who promote the wrongdoing of illogic and irrationality.
Graham, why don’t you and those who share your beliefs simply look at a map of the world and note the countries where ignorance, violence, and the whole panoply of human misery may be found – you will find, as others have done, that the most civilized of the world’s societies are those where religion does not hold sway.
Better yet, let me offer a favorite illustration of the accomplishments of religion and reason in concrete form, showing by clear example what each brings to humanity’s table: take a good long look at what human rationality builds and what religious superstition does to it here.
In hundreds of billions of years of human existence (that is, billions of human lives lived over the last 2000 years), the absolute, exact, precise-to-the-limits-of-conception amount of evidence of the existence of the Judeo-Xian-Muslim “G-d” or “God” or “Allah” is this much: none. Zero. Zip. Not. One. Single. Subatomic. Particle. Ever. Anywhere. Anytime.
That – if you are sane, and you have functional reasoning skills that haven’t been short-circuited by childhood brainwashing, peer pressure and insecurity – should tell you all you need know.
And John C –
I understand why you look askance at “sodomy rocks”, but think about it. It’s a deliberate, in-your-face assertion of defiance, but what is actually offensive about it, if you remain objective and factor out the emotional connotations the word has been loaded with by judgemental religionists?
“Sodomy” – to Bible-thumpers, a marvelous portmanteau of a word that in reality means nothing more than “every and all normal human sex acts – other than male-female coitus, in the missionary position, for the sole purpose of reproduction”.
So: Sodomy = That which everyone does except Baptists, and they’re lying. 🙂
And elsewhere, life in the real world continued as normal – people kept both their preferred orifice and deepest beliefs as private matters.
Also to #7 LAUREN the GHOTI – you wrote too much, nobody will ever read all that.
Since Christians are still so intent on spreading the word of God, we need to take up a collection (I’m passing the plate right now) to raise funds to ship as many Christians as possible to the four corners of a world that is still a little bit heathen.
I’ve heard the Christian message several times, but there are people dying every minute, going to hell because they’ve never heard about Jesus even once. Christians should be going to Africa, or even to the Middle East where many people still don’t know about the Savior. Instead, the Lord’s followers are wasting precious time and even more precious gasoline as they drive to San Francisco for this silly rally. They’ll probably gain a few souls, but could possibly lose even more in that wretched den of iniquity by the Bay (not the official city motto).
Please send money today, and help send a Christian abroad. I promise you won’t regret it.
Ya. She had me going till the fourth paragraph. Then I realized that this person is not very tolerant of my time.
Lauren, one word: summarize.
By, Atheists and agnostics – some of them, far from all or even most – will endeavor to demonstrate to those willing to listen why it is irrational, regressive and counterproductive to the advancement of humanity to suspend logic and reason and to accept ludicrously absurd superstition., are you referring to Mao Tse-tung, Karl Marx, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Stalin, and all the great works they did for humanity?
or are their Atheist/Agnostic versions of Mother Teriasa, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, or William Wilberforce (the Amazing Grace Movie) that I (and perhaps the World) haven’t heard about?
Tried it, John C. Then I always wind up omitting a salient point that some wiseass instantly pounces on. Then things seem to degenerate even more quickly than they do otherwise…
OK, OK. I admit it – me sainted Ma, when she was carrying me, was once scared by a PowerPoint summary and thus was I born with this fetish for what I like to think of as ‘preëmptive refutation.’
So does this mean you’re no longer paying me by the word? 🙂
#1 >>Christians as bad as the Taliban? A group which kills others for believing something different than what they believe is the same as people standing up for their values?
“As bad” is a hard one to defend but…
I personally know many Christian and Muslim conservative fundamentalists and even the stray Taliban. It’s clear to me that these groups have more in common with each other than with we liberals.
#5 If Christianity was an operating system it would be DOS 6.66. It just can’t handle the apps of today. Christianity is absolutely obsolete.
What percentage of the world’s 2.1 BILLION do you know so well that you can make this sweeping proclamation?
#7 Atheists and agnostics – some of them, far from all or even most – will endeavor to demonstrate to those willing to listen why it is irrational, regressive and counterproductive to the advancement of humanity …
Talk of atheistic “enlightenment” would be big news to the THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of my fellow pacifistic Mennonite brothers and sisters who were jailed, killed and starved to death by the aggressively atheistic communists. Why? Because refused to embrace atheism.
In light of the 20th century slaughter by atheists OF MILLIONS OF INNOCENTS, it’s stunning arrogance for any atheist to claim they are more humane or more enlightened than the religious.
#10 I’ve heard the Christian message several times, but there are people dying every minute, going to hell because they’ve never heard about Jesus even once. Christians should be going to Africa, or even to the Middle East where many people still don’t know about the Savior.
Fundamentalist Christians believe that nearly everybody is going to hell but most mainstream and liberal Christians (the vast majority, I should point out) have a much higher view of grace than that.
Remember people — before you make sweeping judgments and proclamations — we Christians make up ONE THIRD OF THE WORLD.
We are at every level of society; at every level of education and intellegence and come in every political stripe. We are everywhere in every country and of every ethnicity, age and, of course, both genders.
Also, we Christians are also both gay and straight — which gets us back to this article. .
Sorry for the rant but — no offense — some of you guys are so ignorant of Christianity yet so opinionated. It’s an irritating combination.
It would be interesting to have Physical proof, that one or the other ‘IS’…
I would LOVe to see the hearding of every nation into 1 solid IDEAL, religious or other wise.
I would LOVe to know that the hipocrates(bankers, Lawyers, Politicians, and soforth) were going to a HELL that they would never return.
that Belief, in ALL its fashions, and the base beliefs we have/had MAY acually help us.
#15 – Since when did popularity make something right? Yes, Christians make up one third of the world….so what? It amazes me that in this day and age there are so many people that hang on to these silly…yes silly…superstitions.
Do you REALLY believe this bullshit? Here, a wiser man summed it up better than I ever could:
“Religion–easily–has the Greatest Bullshit Story Ever Told! Think about it: religion has actually convinced people–many of them adults–that there’s an invisible man who lives in the sky and watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And who has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to remain and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, till the end of time…..but he loves you! He loves you, and he needs money! He always needs money. He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow…he just can’t handle money. Religion takes billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and somehow always needs a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy shit!”
Come on, I don’t care how many degrees you have or how many books you’ve read or how many people believe just like you do. If you believe in this crap, then you’re not all there mentally. I’m sorry, I used to have religious tolerance and I respected others beliefs that were different from my own. But not anymore. It’s gotten WAY out of hand and when other peoples beliefs start interfering in the way I live my life, then I have to call them out for what they are.
Wouldn’t it be nice if…
Most if the religion thing turns out to be B.S., except:
GHOD has reluctantly welcomed “Christian Homos” and “Pseudo-Christian Atheists” into Heaven for EONS — but has a plan…
… and that plan entails GHOD purifying their souls, and they go forth on Earth slaying faggoty fags and unbelievers with fiery vengeance and fury the likes of which haven’t been seen since Hiroshima in 1945.
Well, it could happen…
#1 – “Christians as bad as the Taliban? A group which kills others for believing something different than what they believe is the same as people standing up for their values?”
Spend about a minute reading some of the things Catholics and Protestants did to each other in Northern Ireland for thirty years, and you’ll see what it means.
Neal in Ireland
There’s a great line I remember from some movie that summarizes christianity perfectly:
“God is an imaginary friend for grownups”.
That about sums it up.
And of these bible-thumpers here in this thread, I wonder how many actually go to church every Sunday? Or are they just there for xmas and easter?
Look, religion has caused more deaths in the history of this planet than all the wars combined. Christianity is a religion of exclusion and coercion of the ‘non-believers’.
And as far as the 2.1 billion cry…McDonalds serves the most customers worldwide, does that make them the best place to eat in the world, too?
Whatever,
Why Progressive (NAZI/Commies) don’t like Christians.
Someone that is putting their pecker into body waste, crap, doesn’t want to be reminded of what’s on their pecker?
Homos are Darwin’s answer to Creationalism?
Morals should not be in public arena, we should just by what?
Atheist don’t believe in right or wrong, just what’s efficient?
Atheist aren’t religious, they just have faith that Chrisians are wrong?
Christians are aginst sin, abortion, adultry, fudge packing, theft, jelousy and Atheist are for this?
Christians believe in tolorance, but not participation. Atheist are interested in new victems?
Christians believe in life, Atheist believe in abortion, Youthanasia, drugs, pornography?
Progressives think that the earth was created by hapenstance, but everything else is done by science. That’s why each time science revises their theories it conforms more and more to the Bible (Big Bang)?
Atheist arogantly believe that they created mankind, by mistake and have continued to try to correct it ever since, Stalin/Hilter/Mao/Idi-Amin/Tito/Carter. Sorry the last simply agreed with their interpetation of human rights?
What can you expect from Dehimmi Atheist, if you were to line up eveything satin would be for they stand toe to toe in lock step with him. Of course satin doesn’t exsist, but evil does and here in the states we call it a Democrat/Liberal/Progressive/Commie.
Its not only religions, and beliefs, and IDEA’s…That have killed many.
Think of a corp that has a product, that they would like to use, but has long term affects. They pay off the FDA, or fake the tests, and get it on the market…
ANY, A’ type Focused GROUP…
Im right, YOUR WRONG…
I asked a christian about BEFORE christ…and If any would be saved..
He said…No.. HOW in the 7 hells does HE know?
Oh, good grief. 3,000 years of religious war and it still goes on. What fun is this?? HEY! MY GOD IS BETTER THAN YOUR GOD! Get over it. or die ! What nonsense. Jeez (pun intended).
Youthanasia is teenie Euthanasia, right?
Things I find interesting about the Bible.
Old testiment??
Umm, how many know where it came from?
How long and how old it is??
WOW, arent these the the Hebrew books and stories?? The times in the PAST…Why dump 1/2 of them and not learn from them ALL.
New testiment??
How long has it been sence we found it??
Life and times of WHO?? from their understanding..
How many BOOKS are left out??
Words change with time, TRY to read the old text and find a meaning. Thru 4 different languages, and interpretations…
It wasnt BAD to be gay for ALONG time, WAS IT EVER…
Why has it taken, HOW LONG, for women to be admitted into the clergy.
WHY, in ALL the world did/do/does WHITE man think Jesus was WHITE?? Jerusalem ISNT in Europe….
Why fight over a Holy place thats HOLY/Holey to almost every religion??
Its been admitted that Christ as a child visited Many places, and many religions…Why fight over an IDEA… And its only 1 thing…
“BE NICE to each other”
Both sides hav a fundamental right in the USA to be able to assemble and voice their opinions. This does not automatically infer that either side will have its message accepted or that either side will not have its message thought of as contemptable or laughable.
If christians are so up in arms that their messages are being considered foolish or laughable by seculraists, that’s TOO BAD. Jesus said the world hated him before it did his followers, so GET A HELMET people! If you get all bent out of shape and feel like you are being mistreated or thought of as intolerant, then welcome to what Jesus went through! You’ve gotten a taste and you you don’t like it, boo hoo. He didn’t say it was going to be a picnic. So suck it up and keep focused on what he was saying.
I am personally offened every single time a christian barks that they are getting a raw deal when Jesus said they’d get a RAW DEAL. Look if you can’t handle the heat, please go to some other religion. Like buddism where no one really cares what they say or do. But PLEASE don’t be a christian if you can’t take the pain of ridicule or oppression. If this was 150CE they would have been rounded up and killed, BE HAPPY its NOT 150CE. It could be a LOT worse.
If you don’t like the repercussions of having that faith, you should leave it. Otherwise, shut up and take it. Jesus said you WOULD if you LOVED HIM.
It doesn’t matter what the constitution says, its what God said that mattered and he said you WILL SUFFER. Do what he said about fasting and such in the bible. Wash your face, put on an image that nothing is wrong and let NO ONE know you suffer. Bless those that mistreat you and DON’T sink to THEIR level. Yelling and screaming back at them will not do anything at all.
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@ Jim W
“or are their Atheist/Agnostic versions of Mother Teriasa, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, or William Wilberforce (the Amazing Grace Movie) that I (and perhaps the World) haven’t heard about?”
Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Andrew Carnegie, Aldous Huxley,Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson. Just a short list.
To al bickers, re #7, you’re wrong. I read the whole post. It’s the most coherent and correct post on the list IMHO, though there are a few other good ones.
To Lauren the Ghoti, great posts! I’m glad to see you and some other antitheists speaking out so eloquently.
Ryan, good examples, except that I’m not so enamored of Mother Theresa. My understanding, though I could be mistaken, is that she loved the poverty of the masses, and saw it as a tool by which she could further spread the word of her vision of god. She did little or nothing to alleviate the conditions of poverty she saw around the world.
Laurent the Ghoti, I am surprised that you didn’t point out the significant number of studies now showing a high correlation between religiosity of a society and violent crime in that society. The U.S. is, of course, way off the charts on both counts. But, the correlation exists and holds quite well throughout the developed, democratic nations of the world. The developing nations and non-democratic nations were deliberately left out, at least in the studies I read, to keep to a level playing field where people have the means and the choices available to make such a study worthwhile.
So, if violent crime is higher where religiosity is higher, what does that say about the morals derived from religion?
There are also some very good studies about human moral centers of the brain and morality across a wide variety of cultures. Luckily, our morals do not come from religious works or we’d still be stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath, homosexuality, and wearing wool/cotton blends.
“…working toward a theocracy endangering ‘San Francisco values.'”
But I always thought the joke was that San Francisco has no values.
Maybe the Mayan priests will come out to San Francisco and clean up the bad spirits there, after they’re done with Washington DC.