I did not compile the list myself. Clearly it's a just list of shootings that happened at churches. I never asserted that they all were motivated by this or that.
No you didn't because apparently all you did is cut and paste an article off of a website. However, the article gave the list after the statement that "the full extent of violence against the church has not been adequately discussed" and then stated afterword "Anti-Christian hostility is reaching a new, more violent level". These two statements framing the incident list show the writer's intent to portray this list as examples of "violence against the church" and "Anti-Christian hostility". Your posting of the article indicates that you agree with the author's conclusions. Now you want to tell me that you didn't understand the article?
I understood it, and I think everyone else understands it too.
"The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has compiled a partial list of recent church shootings:"
That pretty well tells everyone what the list is, and what it's about.
Playing stupid is not an adequate defense.
And yet I continually see it...
And I wasn't anticipating a whitewash job. That move took me by surprise.
I guess you are not used to someone actually looking into one of your claims.
A good deal of that which you'd write off for one excuse or another just can't be written off.
The Joplin story, for example. The man killed three church leaders, and wounded four other people. He's supposed to be "upset with his family"? Why then does he target the church leaders? Why not target his family? Why not go to their house and catch them all together?
The article I cited clearly said he had a problem with people in his community making disparaging remarks about him, not his family. They would all be in church together. His killing the church leaders isn't necessarily targeting them. The preacher would be standing up and so easily shot at. The deacons may have been standing and/or likely to react to the situation first.
Quite a few articles gave the gunman's excuse: "He was upset with family members who made fun of him". Oh yeah...
Congrats on cherry-picking one that didn't.
And even wiki says "Police suspected that he targeted leaders of the church."
This link has his bogus "story". "In both written and oral statements presented to the court, Saimon said the shooting incident was as a result of embarrassment he suffered at a barbecue days before the shooting. He said he didn’t bring any food to the event, and his relatives gave him a hard time about it, saying he was stealing food for his children."
But guess what? "“I think that you’ll find that the victims were what some would term elders or leaders (of the Micronesian congregation),” Watson told The Associated Press earlier in the day. “As information continues to come forward, it appears that the shots that were fired were not random.”
The victims were not friends or relatives of the gunman, Watson said. "
from another source. Just how much desire would have to be invested in order to believe that lie? Looks like he learned from the same "master" as the typical scoffer. Still, I don't doubt that the whitewashing will continue. You surprised me once, but don't count on doing it again soon.
Seeing as he was also charged with sodomizing a juvenile, it's even more absurd to pretend one cannot connect the dots.
You have some information that hatred of Christians and child molestation are causally linked? Please present your evidence.
Those who do such things may get along well with the object of your worship; the Living God has always been resented and hated by them.
You mock "evolutionists" and a great number of Christians on the internet and in print do the same. Should "evolutionists" consider themselves "persecuted"?
What in the world do you think you're talking about? Exposing liars constitutes "persecution"? Isn't it a shame you have to distort every other word in the language?
You haven't even come close to showing that the great majority of biologists, geologists, physicists and cosmologists are lying. So that statement is pure baloney.
Your refusal to acknowledge truth changes nothing. I have exposed more than one liar, and more than one lie.
Even had I failed completely, how would making the attempt constitute "persecution"? That's the question you think you're dodging.
I'll tell you something right now. I can defend myself, my beliefs, my friends, and my family. I can and will use words to accomplish the job, and if words aren't enough, I can and will use other resources.
You're the one who decries the tactics you claim are being used by the evolutionists, yet you use the same tactics. Can you say "hypocritical"? I knew that you could!
Now you're just making stuff up. I do not reason in circles, contradict myself, and lie. I keep track of evotactics because it is prudent to do so (and impossible for an intelligent person to avoid noticing obvious patterns). Why would I want to employ any of their consistently self-defeating methods?
Call that whatever you want in evospeak, or just plain untruth. It's the way things are. I don't have to take crap, and you can't make me. Neither will you make me ashamed of the policy.
Not ashamed of the end-justifies-the-means policy? Why not? Do you think you can win people to your side by publishing half-truths and insults? When did that become part of Christ's Great Commission?
I never said "the ends justify the means". Do not project your crud onto me.
What a splendid example of twisting the credibility clean out of one's own words. Shooters come in and gun down folks in church, and if you think you can sell (yourself - won't nobody else buy it) any other possible motive it's not persecution. But my defense of truth is.
So now it's the truth to depict a troubled man's suicide (first incident in the list) as a hate crime against Christians? Did he hate his own Christianity?
Nobody said suicide was a hate crime against anyone. I see you still desire to create straw opponents.
You're playing this junk on the wrong audience. You need a crowd of atheists so blinded by hate and rage they don't care that everyone knows they don't think or talk straight. I can PM you some links to that kind of forum, if you'd like.
Your invectives against me indicate that you are the one who hates. All I need is an audience that is interested in the whole truth not implied truths that are manufactured by shading the information and leaving out the details. It is this very type of reporting that you have railed against concerning evolution. Why is it ok for you to use it to support your side? You have torn into me for my mistakes of the past and then used that undermine my credibility. Fair enough, but don't expect different treatment than you are willing to provide.
Aligning yourself with the spin doctors of Christianity does nothing except to get the undecided to dismiss your opinions out-of-hand.
Would it really make you feel better if you drug me down to your level? Of course! That's just one more reason I won't allow it to happen.
You're the one who asked for evidence of persecution, remember? Now that you have it, I'm a bad guy? I don't think so, and I still think this is the wrong audience to play that game on.
Of course Christians are already aware of the persecution that they encounter all the time. I don't have to tell them, and your denial is just an unfunny joke.
Now then, I think this is enough straying from the topic. If there's nothing left to discuss, perhaps the thread should be closed.
