Understood. so the atheists here can talk of desiring to make the world a better place but they don't really care about the rest of world, just the Americas...
Atheists have varying agendas. But since they don't encounter hard-core Hindus everyday and have limited to no interaction with them and further, aren't greatly affected by them in obvious ways, and don't speak the same language as most of them, it's kind of pointless to get worked up about what they believe. Now, as time goes on we might see a greater shift towards criticizing Islam as it's becoming relevant to the average American.
I believe that isolating the weaker points of the argument and using them to refute the whole is another form of the straw man error. To hold the logical high ground you need to take on the stronger forms; such as the idea of Jesus Christ.
John. Your point, which was rather pathetic, was that to hate a religious idea implies a secret belief in it. Trust me when I say, plenty of people hate Al Queda's religion and really, really don't secretly believe in it.
And yet apparently sarcasm - a hostile form of belittling others - is used here.
As it is with just about every apologist on FAIR. Sarcasm is further, the favorite tool above all of the great LDS apologist Daniel Peterson. As it was Hugh Nibley's.
The sweeping statement with the use of the word "son" here appears to be an attempt to discredit the speaker - ad hominem. Perhaps I am mistaken...
ToJohn, you may come to realize someday, unlike the guy we call "Wade Englund", that attempting to reduce the oppositions arguments to a mess of logical fallacies is pointless. And usually a red herring.
You need to distinguish between personal attacks and ad hominems, (citing authorities and appealing to authority... etc)
I may have launched a personal attack (though I doubt it) but I might also have answered your charges fairly. It's only an ad hominem, as a fallacy, if I tried to make my argument based on attacking you personally.
Were you trying to discredit me, by the way, when you decided to cut a paste a definition of philosophy to me from wikipedia as if, in the preceding 14 pages I hadn't indicated any familiarity with the subject at all?
I am really trying to talk about God... and more importantly about Christ. All I was really trying to say was "Methinks thou dost protest too much." And that only in relation to God and Jesus, not to Mormon practices.
People will talk about there being a fine line between love and hate in a relationship. While that may be true, there are many, many reasons to protest loudly. But funny how you make the ending qualification, surely, the protest has to do with God and Jesus but not the Mormon practices. Why don't you just come out and say, people can be angry with and attack all kinds of religious beliefs for a number of reason, but if they ever attack the born-again Christian God, then that almost universally means that they must really believe in it.