God will kill you

[vikingsiddhu]

And strike you down with incessant lightling till you burn to the ground, and pray for your sins you athiests. God hates you all.

"We have allowed rampant secularism and occult, et cetera, to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered in our society. We have a Court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said, 'We're going to legislate you out of the schools, we're going to take your Commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states, we're not going to let little children read the Commandments of God, we're not going to let the Bible be read -- no prayer in our schools.' We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And, then we say 'why does this happen?' Well, why its happening is that God Almighty is lifting His protection from us." (in response to the 9/11 attacks)

And Pat Robertson is my greatest source of infromation. [haha bush think was a joke: no one caught it]
WACK

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson

*

* "I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights." (talking about apartheid in South Africa) [6]

What a crazy person. Uber Crazy(Thats German)

[Fenris]

Anything new?

This guy is screwed... even if christianity happens to be right, he will probably be the first one to be thrown in hell...

[MaximiIian]

Wow, that guy needs to lit on fire or something. What a moron, that Pat is.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Meh. The bigger they are. Bring this 'God' character on.

[Mangalore]

Well, the reason atheists have a bad opinion of Christians is definetely not because of the priests who have studied theology 4-8 years in universities but because of fanatical laymen like him spouting such nonsense. It's really startling, I once got into an argument with some Christian about wether I'm allowed to call the bible the Christian mythology. He was strongly against it, I was trying to explain him the very meaning of "mythology" and that it has not the negative bias he attributed to it but he didn't want to listen. Well, we left in dissens, I contacted two priests asking for their opinion on this and while both priests (one catholic, one Lutheran) were strongly opposed of me abusing a fellow Christian they pretty much agreed with me on the theologian level that the term mythology is absolutely correct.

This incident kind of had me worried. me, an half-atheistic, half-agnostic type of guy being in agreement with church people but not with the sheep they were preaching to.

[Musashi]

This cind of things are the very same thing that causes death and killings and all those things above mentioned. The most dangerous thing in the world for eweryone is fanatic religion.

[vikingsiddhu]

thank god no one seriously believes him

[Kaidonni]

This reminds me of when I used to be Christian...I always persecuted my father for him being an atheist. *Ahem* I'm an atheist now... *Just act non-chalant*

Anyhow, I won't go into why I became an atheist. That'll have to wait for another day (the 32nd of December...yeah, I won't tell of why I became an atheist...). However, it is rather disturbing that some people talk in such a fashion as the person quoted in the first post.

*I prescribe a relaxing stay in a soft-padded room with warm, fresh, clean backwards leather-jackets and all the morphine one could ever need, and perhaps several relaxing jolts of electricity*

[Zenith Darksea]

This cind of things are the very same thing that causes death and killings and all those things above mentioned. The most dangerous thing in the world for eweryone is fanatic religion.

I agree that religion has been used as an excuse for some very bad things. However, calling it the most dangerous thing in the world is simply ludicrous. By that logic, as I have pointed out before (not that anyone listened, of course), you could call any number of things 'dangerous'. Take politics for example. That has been responsible for any number of killings (probably far more than religion), so would you refer to fanatic politics as the most dangerous thing in the world? I think that it would be clearer if we said that fanaticism itself was dangerous - most things, when taken in moderation, are perfectly acceptable.

For example, you can use the above logic (this group of people have been responsible for a large number of violent acts, therefore what they believe in is wrong) to prove that atheism is totally unacceptable. In twentieth century Russia, atheists killed more Christians, Jews and Muslims than have ever been killed in any other purges in history (numbers are uncertain, but are most likely to be several million). Without doubt atheists have been responsible for the killings of a vastly greater number of theists than theists have ever perpetrated against atheists. Can we conclude thus that atheism is a malign influence on society and should be purged? I don't think that you would.

[Gwendylyn]

Big difference. Atheism wasn't the cause of those deaths in Soviet Russia. Communism was. Atheism isn't an ideology with a set of moral rules that spurs one into those sorts of actions. They didn't kill in the name of atheism: they killed in the name of communism.

Similarly, I'd argue that theism is not a cause of other deaths, because in and of itself it has no moral rules. Now, add organized religions in with specific ideologies and then you can start pointing fingers to Christianity or Islam or a number of others.

[Zenith Darksea]

Big difference. Atheism wasn't the cause of those deaths in Soviet Russia. Communism was.

Hardly a big difference. Have you by any chance heard of the Bolshevik 'League of Militant Atheists'? They published a five year plan to wipe out Russian religion and even tried to remove the word 'God' from the Russian language. Their atheism may have been a part of their Communism, but it was still atheism. Of course, your argument has a point. You can say that it's not really atheism that did it after all, but socio-economic/political/whatever reasons. A religious person can use exactly the same arguments, and their just as valid, even if you are looking at a specific religion such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. The Crusades can easily be blamed on a rogue splinter group in Christianity (ie. the Catholic Church) just as much as the atheistic genocides can be blamed upon rogue Bolshevism.

[mongoose]

Hardly a big difference. Have you by any chance heard of the Bolshevik 'League of Militant Atheists'? They published a five year plan to wipe out Russian religion and even tried to remove the word 'God' from the Russian language. Their atheism may have been a part of their Communism, but it was still atheism.

That's different from genocide. If you don't understand why, then there's not much point to this debate .

And much more importantly, Athiesm is not a source of morality. Christianty, how ever is supposed to be one. That is why one is being held to a higher standard then the other.If you're going to make a fair comparison, contrast the actions of those who follow humanism to those who are religious.

Of course, your argument has a point. You can say that it's not really atheism that did it after all, but socio-economic/political/whatever reasons. A religious person can use exactly the same arguments, and their just as valid, even if you are looking at a specific religion such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. The Crusades can easily be blamed on a rogue splinter group in Christianity (ie. the Catholic Church) just as much as the atheistic genocides can be blamed upon rogue Bolshevism.

No you could not. Because the institution that caused things like the crusades was the Church itself. And yes, Catholism is still Christianty. The difference is that the "atheistic genocides" are not done in the name of Athiesm. Do you see the difference?

[Gwendylyn]

Hardly a big difference. Have you by any chance heard of the Bolshevik 'League of Militant Atheists'? They published a five year plan to wipe out Russian religion and even tried to remove the word 'God' from the Russian language. Their atheism may have been a part of their Communism, but it was still atheism. Of course, your argument has a point. You can say that it's not really atheism that did it after all, but socio-economic/political/whatever reasons. A religious person can use exactly the same arguments, and their just as valid, even if you are looking at a specific religion such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. The Crusades can easily be blamed on a rogue splinter group in Christianity (ie. the Catholic Church) just as much as the atheistic genocides can be blamed upon rogue Bolshevism.

Yes, I have heard of the League of Militant Atheists. My point still stands. Ideologies are responsible for atrocities, not atheism or theism. One can say they they killed someone in the name of God, but then you must look at the institution upon which their religious beliefs are founded to see what gave them the right to do that. The same with the League of Militant Atheists, since atheism, like theism, does not spur one into moral action. Other institutions and ideaologies do that. Atheism is no more of an institution then theism. We just have many more institutions that require theism than we do of atheism, so they have a much larger impact on society and therefpre more often criticized.

There's a big difference between saying that belief in a higher power is responsible for X atrocities, and saying that Christianity (or denomination) is responsible for X atrocities. The same for atheism, which is why you don't compare the atrocities that atheism has commited to the atrocities the Catholic Church commited and claim its a good argument.

[Zenith Darksea]

Mongoose, the League of Militant Atheists was not just involved in propaganda. If you don't know that they played an extremely active role in the killings, then perhaps you shouldn't be debating yourself.

Athiesm is not a source of morality.

First, let's get this straight - are we comparing atheism with Christianity or atheism with theism? If the former, then it's an inadequate comparison. If the latter, then it's just as much a source of morality. Theism has many different strands to it, and so does atheism. Some atheists may be liberal in their attitude to others' morality (just as some theists are, such as Buddhists), and others believe firmly (rather like the League of Militant Atheists, for example) that people should actively not believe in God and that we should have purely humanistic values, among others.

Catholism is still Christianty.

No. Catholicism is one interpretation of Christianity. You haven't heard of Protestants, Orthodox, Gnostics etc. I suppose. Again, like we (correctly) say that Bolshevik atheism was bad whereas another type is probably benign, so we might say that the Catholic Church of the day made a mistake whereas a different form of Christianity (or of religion in general) did not. To say that the anti-religious killings in Russia were not a result of atheism is quite frankly absurd in the extreme. Just look at any of the propaganda that accompanied the purges of religious groups (as well as the active targeting and hunting down of religious groups) and you will quickly see that it did very much spring from their view of atheism.

atheism, like theism, does not spur one into moral action

That's exactly what I'm saying. You can't judge all theism as bad simply because certain strands of it made mistakes any more than you can judge all atheism as bad simply because certain strands of it made mistakes.

Again, you can't blame all of Christianity for the perversion of its beliefs committed by the Catholic Church. Did the Orthodox ever wage Crusades? No. Were the Orthodox Christian? Yes. So do they share in the Catholic Church's blame for the Crusades and perversion of Christian values? To agree to that would be silly. I'm afraid that it's a perfectly good argument.

[mongoose]

The things that you used for an example were clearly not on the level of genocide. You should have stated the worst ones in the first place.

First, let's get this straight - are we comparing atheism with Christianity or atheism with theism? If the former, then it's an inadequate comparison. If the latter, then it's just as much a source of morality. Theism has many different strands to it, and so does atheism. Some atheists may be liberal in their attitude to others' morality (just as some theists are, such as Buddhists), and others believe firmly (rather like the League of Militant Atheists, for example) that people should actively not believe in God and that we should have purely humanistic values, among others.

You can't compare them because, once again, while Christiaty is supposed to provide morality, Athiesm makes claims about doing so. By looking at the crusades, you can clearly see that Christianty does not keep up with this promise. Athiesm cannot break the same promise because it makes no such promise.

Let's take a look at the defintion:

1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.


No where do I see anykind of moral teachings. If you're going to look for morality, you'll have to see humanism, which is not the same as Athiesm. Once again, we're comparing moral codes. If you're going to do that fairly, then you're obviously going to have to make sure that both are actually moral codes. That is why while a Christians doing something immoral in large numbers is proof that Christianty has failed, Athiests doing the same thing would not proof that athiesm has failed. If large numbers of humanists did it, how ever, it would indicate that something is wrong with humanism.

No. Catholicism is one interpretation of Christianity.

How does the fact that there are other interpretations change the fact that this one is still Christian? I never said that it was "THE" interpretation of Christianty, I said it was just as Christian as any of the other sub-groups.

Edit: Fixed da gramma

[Gwendylyn]

That's exactly what I'm saying. You can't judge all theism as bad simply because certain strands of it made mistakes any more than you can judge all atheism as bad simply because certain strands of it made mistakes.

Then we seem agree on the same concept. Except...

You can't compare them because, once again, while Christiaty is supposed to provide morality, Athiesm does not.

If we take the League of Militant Atheists as the example again, you'll see that that statement has little bearing on the issue. The League's strong belief that believing in God is wrong led them to commit mass murder. Atheism here, even though it was one part of a bigger philosophy, was still the reason that they killed religious adherents.

It was an ideology, just as Christianity is an ideology. Mongoose's comment is perfectly accurate: Christianity provides a moral basis but theism does not; the League of Militant Atheists provides a moral basis but atheism does not. We agree on this, so I don't understand why you keep pointing out "atheism this" and "atheism that". I've yet to see anyone claim that theism is inherently negative, only Christianity... an ideology.

It seems to me, though, that you are relegating Christianity to the status of general theism, as if it's impervious to criticism because there are so many interpretations of it. I know you said explicitly that you weren't, but your argument moves back and forth between the two to the point where I can't tell the difference. I think the main issue is whether atheism or theism leads to these insitutions - which is highly debatable. Christianity can be criticized as a whole based upon what moral systems it preaches and how those system are put into use. Of course we can criticized individual denominations, and there is probably more worth in that type of criticism because denominations have more specific and wide ranging ideologies. That doesn't stop people from being able to frame arguments against the basic tenets of Christianity and how they've manifested themselves.

EDIT:

Besides, theism in general does exist mostly to serve as morality. You can't deny that.

I dispute what you are implying, though, because there are plenty of theists in the world who do not belong to specific religions with moral teachings, and instead find their ethical codes through other venues. Theism alone has no moral purposes, it only serves to state a belief in a higher power, nothing more. Organized religions, on the other hand, instill codes of morality, but they are so prevalent in our society and history we rarely see them as different from theism. If you need to attack somehting, don't let it be "belief in a higher power" but instead let it be an attack on a belief of a certain image of a higher power, i.e. the Christian god and his code of beliefs.

[Zenith Darksea]

"THE" interpretation of Christianty, I said it was just as Christian as any of the other sub-groups.

But that doesn't put the blame on them as well!

The things that you used for an example were clearly not on the level of genocide. You should have stated the worst ones in the first place.

I did! I talked about the mass killings of millions of religious adherents in my first post, and the League of Militant Atheists was instrumental in carrying them out and facilitating them. The order in which I mentioned them doesn't affect the validity of the argument anyway.

You can't compare them because, once again, while Christiaty is supposed to provide morality, Athiesm does not.

If we take the League of Militant Atheists as the example again, you'll see that that statement has little bearing on the issue. The League's strong belief that believing in God is wrong led them to commit mass murder. Atheism here, even though it was one part of a bigger philosophy, was still the reason that they killed religious adherents. If they weren't atheistic, they wouldn't have killed those people. What I'm saying is that atheism can provide the excuse for violent and inhumane acts - you can hardly deny it.

You don't see any moral teachings in atheism - remember that we're not comparing it to Christianity here, but theism in general (otherwise the comparison would be flawed). Atheism can lead to certain moral teachings (eg. it is right to kill theists), as it has done in the past. So can theism. But it doesn't necessarily lead to such teachings, and neither does theism.

Finally, how many people does it take to do something wrong in order to prove that the original concept, which they have changed, has failed? Can you put a number on that? It's a ridiculous notion that you can invalidate a concept by changing it and then judging by the results.

[mongoose]

But that doesn't put the blame on them as well!

Yes, we can. The point is that Christian doctrine failed to guide them morally, and it was supposed to do that.

I did! I talked about the mass killings of millions of religious adherents in my first post, and the League of Militant Atheists was instrumental in carrying them out and facilitating them. The order in which I mentioned them doesn't affect the validity of the argument anyway.

Sorry, I did not read it.

If we take the League of Militant Atheists as the example again, you'll see that that statement has little bearing on the issue. The League's strong belief that believing in God is wrong led them to commit mass murder. Atheism here, even though it was one part of a bigger philosophy, was still the reason that they killed religious adherents. If they weren't atheistic, they wouldn't have killed those people. What I'm saying is that atheism can provide the excuse for violent and inhumane acts - you can hardly deny it.

Atheism=amoral, it does not provide morality. Christianty does. That's why this point is irrelavent.

You don't see any moral teachings in atheism - remember that we're not comparing it to Christianity here, but theism in general (otherwise the comparison would be flawed). Atheism can lead to certain moral teachings (eg. it is right to kill theists), as it has done in the past. So can theism. But it doesn't necessarily lead to such teachings, and neither does theism.

No, that's not Atheism. Atheism is the lack of theism, nothing more. It is not anykind of moral code. Therefore, if someone does something immoral under the name of it, it does not mean anything. Besides, theism in general does exist mostly to serve as morality. You can't deny that.

Finally, how many people does it take to do something wrong in order to prove that the original concept, which they have changed, has failed? Can you put a number on that? It's a ridiculous notion that you can invalidate a concept by changing it and then judging by the results.

Christian = one who believes in Jesus and belongs to the Church. If you're looking for something beyond that, then you're falling into the "No True Scottsman" fallacy.

[Zenith Darksea]

It seems that we need to define terms here, and make sure that we know what to compare to what.

Atheism equals ¬theism ('it is not the case that' theism). Likewise theism is ¬atheism. Atheism however is not ¬Christianity, even though Christianity is ¬atheism.

You say that atheism does not provide morality. That's what I also say. Theism does provide morality. Theism merely states that there is a deity (some of its derivatives include morality, but theism itself does not intrinsically do so). Both are mere statements of belief about God. Say that 'P' represents the phrase 'God exists'. Theism is thus [P], atheism is [¬P].

Let's say that Christianity is the correct 'worldview'. Let's call Christianity 'R'. Thus a Christian believes [P^R] ('P' and 'R'). [P^R] is not logically equivalent to [P]. As a result, you cannot by extension compare [P^R] with [¬P].

The point is that neither [P] nor [¬P] provide a basis for morality. [P^R] does. Now, let's say that someone removes the belief that 'pacifism should be observed' (we'll call it P1). The result is [P^[R^¬P1]]. What you are attempting to do in the statement that, because Catholicism failed, Christianity failed, is to say that [P^R] is logically equivalent to [P^[R^¬P1]]. This is, in the terminology of the logician, an invalid argument. Let's hypothesise that that argument were correct. Now, imagine that a different group of people were to add to [P^R] the belief that 'pacifism should always be observed under every circumstance' (we'll call it 'Q2'). Thus we get [P^[R^Q2]]. Considering that the original [P^R] is logically equivalent (in our hypothesis) for all the actions of all derivative formulae, that would mean that [P^[R^Q2]] must be logically equivalent to [P^[R^¬P1]].

In other words, Christianity is responsible for war-mongering and perpetual pacifism! Clearly the hypothesis that you suggest is wrong. Christianity may have been the parent formula for Catholicism, but it cannot be held to be responsible for the results of the Catholic formula. I can see what you're trying to say, but by logical extension, if Christianity was judged to have failed because it produced something flawed, then theism would also have to be judged to have failed. And thus, if Militant Atheism were judged to be flawed, then atheism would have to be judged as failed because one of its derivatives was flawed. The whole concept is ridiculous, and you can't blame a parent religion for human-induced flaws over which it has no control. Christianity is not responsible for the Crusades - the men who changed Christian doctrine are responsible.

Christian = one who believes in Jesus and belongs to the Church.

What's your perspective? If you're a Catholic, then anyone who's not a Catholic does not belong to the Church. However, I'm not a Catholic, so I can't judge a Catholic to be a member of the Church.

EDIT - I started writing this post before Gwendylyn posted, and so it does not take into account his reply.

[Gaidin]

It seems that we need to define terms here, and make sure that we know what to compare to what.

Atheism equals ¬theism ('it is not the case that' theism). Likewise theism is ¬atheism. Atheism however is not ¬Christianity, even though Christianity is ¬atheism.

One of the basic tenets of christianity is the belief in a god of hte trinitarian form, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Despite your best efforst, Atheism -> ¬Christianity.

Quick reply done, back to programming.