American Atheists leaders receive death threats serious enough to warrant police attention

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American Atheists LogoThe American Atheists posted on its Facebook fan page yesterday that it had received death threats against its President, Dave Silverman, and Communications Director, Blair Scott. Police were notified and are reportedly taking the threats seriously. "Religion makes some people too crazy," the post notes.

Email and voice mail threats were made about torture, kidnapping, and shooting.

American Atheists posted a portion of the email with an explanation:

"the minute you [Blair] step to speake, a 30 30 round will be put in your head, and then you will meet the satan and demons of hell that you do not believe in……………..dave however, will be taken and tortured for weeks till he crys out for 'god' to save him"

From the voice mail:

"If you [Blair] or Dave ever email me again, I will hunt you down like a bloodhound, tie you to a tree and torture you for weeks… damn f*ing [edited] atheists…"

He was getting email because he signed up on our web page as a user in order to stalk Dave and Blair. He has posted on their online videos, etc.

The voice mail can be heard here.

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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  • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

    What a sick man.  He intentionally went out of his way to threaten the lives of people, esp if he signed up to receive emails from American Atheists.  I followed the links on American Atheists and read some of those comments.  They are unbelievable.  Interesting how we are suppose to know they are Xians by their love.  Does this mean when they spew hate, we know they are Xians?  And why is it they have so much hate, esp for atheists?  Do they really believe that is going to convert anyone, esp atheists?  Just goes to show, religion in a virus, of which some of us have built up immunity from, while some others who haven't are truly sick from it.  Those making such threats, truly need psychological help in a high security mental ward.  I'm being nicer than a judge who could give them a pricey fine and/or jail time.

    • joe paterno

      The person who spews hate is sick.  This person is sick.  What Christianity?  This is crazy talk.

      • BruceMcGlory

        Might want to read it again, if you're confused. it's pretty clear what christianity.

    • VIKING_THORD

      yea a sick man that cares so much for anyone that satan has in his hands.
      I WILL GIVE MY VERY LIFE- IF I COULD JUST SAVE YOU FROM THE HANDS OF SATAN.
      NOONE HAS BEEN THREATENS BUT SATAN . TO GET THE HELL OUT OF YOUR LIFE,
      CHRISTIAN LOVE MEANS I/ WE / CARE FOR YOU SO MUCH THAT I WOULD LAY DOWN MY LIFE TO SAVE YOURS FROM SATAN AND ALL ETERNITY IN HELL.. I LOVE AND CARE FOR ALL OF YOU ,, BUT YOU ARE OVERTAKEN BY SATAN , THATS HIS JOB = TO FOOL YOU. i will pray for you , only satan will harm you ,not me, i cannot help you anymore, satan HAS YOU.
      CALL 1 800 759-0700  if you need  help . as of now =i leave you alone. i do not negiotiate with demons. goodbye AND I WILL PRAY FOR YOU……………..//

      • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

        lol  Yeah.  Right.  Do us both a favour and don't waste your time getting housemaids knees.  Satan is a fictional character and you really don't have to scream.  You really aren't in the Land of Oz while I'm in reality.  We can hear you quite well and I'm not the one who needs help.  I suggest you find yourself a good psychologist, just so you keep from committing suicide.

    • Skater60_00

       "Xians"?  I believe the proper term is "Christians".   Using "Xians" is
      a tad bit provocative, no?  Why
      provoke?  What's the point?  I consider myself somewhat of a Christian and I don't hate atheists or anybody else.  In fact I can say with confidence that I've never personally known anyone who hates atheists, but maybe I don't get out much.  You can find a crazy here and there who will hate anything I suppose, but that's no surprise.  If there's a Banana Hater out there and there exists a Banana Lover's site then rest assured that a hater will seek out a lover for some strange reason, I'm sure a shrink or psychologist could elaborate.

      Religion…a virus?  I just did this google ("are there any good viruses"): 

      "Us humans are composed of about 10 trillion 'human' cells. There's more
      than 100 trillion bacteria in us as well. Bacteriologists love to see us
      in this manner. Furthermore, virologists love to see us as having over
      1000 trillion viruses in our bodies.

      Fact of the matter is, we are our own ecosystem. We need the bacteria to
      survive. Furthermore, we need the virus to survive as well. They play
      an extremely crucial role in maintaining the environment (human body or
      otherwise)."              Hmmmm….

      If an atheist ever "converted" because of me I would be very troubled – suppose I was wrong!  It'd be a big burden to carry around.  If there ever is a true "conversion" (to anything) it must somehow come from within.

      I will truly believe in God when seeing face to face, or a reasonable facsimile.  Until then I am only a Strong Suspector – a Christian, in other words.  A Strong Suspector will attempt to handle things in light of the teachings of Jesus (from Nazareth).  Hate is not one of those teachings. So, a Christian who hates is actually not Suspecting Strongly enough.

      Say, what exactly is the difference between Agnosticism and Atheism?  Or should I just google it?

       

      • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

        No, not if they know their Greek, it's not provocative.  My point is to educate and inform hat the X is the initial of their Christ in Greek.  It is often seen in the Chi Rho symbol.  If you look up the Chi Rho, you may recognize the symbol and begin to understand.

        Try reading Darrel Ray's book The God Virus.  He's a psychologist.  Then read other psychologists book such as Marlene Winell's "Leaving the Fold" and Valerie Tarico's book, "Trusting Doubt".   Both of them are psychologists. Also see Andy Thompson's speech on why we believe in gods:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg 

        They all talk about how religion hijacks various developmental stages and even stunts developmental growth in some areas of people's lives.  We do not need all viruses or bacteria to survive.

        Agnostics profess that they don't know if a god exists and atheists state either one of two things, which is "I know there is no god" or "I don't believe there is a god".  There are actually two different types of atheism weak/soft/negative/implicit atheism and strong/hard/positive/explicit atheism.

  • Peter

    It is getting ugly and scary out there, globally . 

  • http://www.knosysnetworks.com/ Knosys Networks

     That crazy emailer sounds like he has no clue what Jesus would do.

  • joe paterno

    Sounds like a cRAZy mAN.  Also, has apparently NO CLUE that IP addresses can be traced.

    • VIKING_THORD

      i will also pray for you………
      i will give my life to save your soul from all eternity in hell with SATAN.
      THAT IS CHRISTIAN LOVE==
      hell is forever, with no end . you dont want to chance that.
      i love and care for your soul. dont let satan have it. ! ! !
      JOE= listen to me ,,,,,, satans job is to trick you;;;DONT LET HIM,

      • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

        WTF?  That just made no sense.  You'd give your life for a story book character?

  • Stefaneinar

    Can't you just feel that christian love?

    • VIKING_THORD

      christian love is doing anything to save a person from eternal soul in HELL with SATAN and his demons, nothing said was ever meant,, in any way to harm anyone , only to try to save them from SATAN,. do you not realize that when you pass be it 20 or 100 years old  you will spend all eternity
      FOREVER IN HELL  and you cant ever get out, its for all time never end.  that is the love of a christian, i would give my life to save you..= I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU COULD KNOW.
      JUST ASK HIM ==AND YOU WILL BE SAVED./////////////////////////////////// 

  • CGM

    Christian 'love' and 'tolerance,' everybody!

  • Vivisectus

    Quite apart from hate-droids like this guy, who seems to take a positive joy in anticipating the unspeakable torture of people who do not share his beliefs,  the average religious person seems to think that Atheists will go to hell, no matter how blameless a life they lead. And what is worse: they think it is perfectly fine and that the God who set things up this way is a great guy.

    • http://www.houseofbetazed.com Mriana

      The idea, as well as threat, of hell is nothing more than a scare tactic to control people.  It started several centuries ago when people were even more gullible and superstitious than they are now.  Unfortunately, the threat of hell is still used today in an effort to control people.  If more people realized, or acknowledged to themselves, that hell is nothing more than a factitious place and those who use it are just making idle threats as they attempt to instil fear, then maybe they wouldn't fall for it.

  • http://slrman.wordpress.com/ James Smith

    There's nothing new or surprising in this. I came out as atheist at age 13 and have been threatened, physically assaulted and ostracized many times. None of that has deterred me in the slightest.