Catholicus
Active Member
Other Christians FOUGHT to ABOLISH slavery. Literally.
Who were the genuine Christians ?
Those who had the honesty to see that the biblical command "Love your neighbour as yourself" is an explicit forbidding of slavery.
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The Folly of Atheism
- Thread starter usfan
- Start date
Other Christians FOUGHT to ABOLISH slavery. Literally.
Who were the genuine Christians ?
Those who had the honesty to see that the biblical command "Love your neighbour as yourself" is an explicit forbidding of slavery.
Catholicus
Active Member
Saudi Arabia forbids Christianity - no one can take a bible there.
God doesn't send thunderbolts to kill bad people - because if He did so, we'd all have to be Good Puppets.
Catholicus
Active Member
Decline of religion in the West ? - yes, that's good news for religion, as the West is declining (indeed dying).
And its low birth-rate populations are being replaced by fertile (and religious) migrants.
Catholicus
Active Member
Christianity is a growing religion globally.
The West has ceased to be Christian over this last 300 years .
Catholicus
Active Member
1) You are blissfully, or perhaps wilfully, ignorant of your own projecting onto others.
2) No, the Apostles couldn't have been "honestly mistaken" about Jesus' physical resurrection.
3) The story of Abraham and Sara foreshadows - by God's providence and design - the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth.
4) Luke's Gospel is "literature, myth" ? Well, IYO. In the opinion of the world's Christians, it's factual history. You have no grounds for saying otherwise, other than your wish to believe otherwise.
But you really do want to keep working on behalf of Islam !
Altfish
Veteran Member
Abortion can be the kindest outcome.
Catholicus
Active Member
Catholicus
Active Member
Not for the dead baby.
Altfish
Veteran Member
No it's not because it exists.
Just be cause you (and I) don't understand it doesn't make it impossible.
Altfish
Veteran Member
We'll have to agree to differ here.
I believe God is a man made invention used to explain the unknown; but as science has advanced god's usefulness has diminished.
May I quote this post in another thread? RF rules prevent me from doing so without permission.
They're two of the common assertions by theists that irk me the most.
Tom
Altfish
Veteran Member
As long as it is an early abortion, it is not a baby.
Most abortions/miscarriages happen 'naturally' - why does your god allow so many miscarriages, why does he (to use your phrase) kill babies?
Altfish
Veteran Member
Do you really think that I've not seen these sorts of video.
To be an atheist is not a decision made on the whim; it has evolved over years since my initial indoctrination by school and church.
You're here to malign atheists. That's your agenda. That's why you started a thread demeaning atheism and atheists
Nobody is lashing out in hostility here except you atheophobes. As I said, it's why you started this thread - to tell atheists how stupid they are for being atheists.
Militant Christians are starting these atheophobic hate-fest threads. And no, we don't have to tolerate the filth Christianity is spreading about atheists.
I can see that. Your church has been dishing it out for millennia, and suddenly, when atheists get a voice and a platform and begin telling you what they think of that religion of hatred, you cry about it and play the persecution card. Your church is the aggressor. It is immoral. It teaches hatred.
I disagree. My beliefs are usually based on evidence that often fails to rise to the level of proof. One's degree of belief should be commensurate with a competent assessment of the quantity and quality of the relevant evidence available, and be adjusted up or down as new evidence surfaces making the belief more or less likely to be correct. Any other level of belief, whether greater or less, is unjustified belief, or faith.
Neither will Santa, and for the same reason.
What? That the god you worship doesn't exist, and that if there is an afterlife in which we are judged, that it won't be by the judge you were expecting or according to your religious beliefs? I'd say that you have a problem if that's the case. What if you were expected to use your reasoning faculty and conscience to decide what is true and what is good, but instead, went to a flawed book for those answers, answers that you could have seen through if you had exercised a little reason. What if you offend your judge and are punished for making that choice? That's the quality of the argument you are offering - believe something because it might be true.
Freddy sounds like a Jehovah's Witness. That's what is taught in their Kingdom Halls, an extremely dark, pessimistic, nihilistic view of the world and humanity.
Freddy pays a price for accepting that description of reality. If only he could share in the humanists' optimism about life and its possibilities. It's the same world, but it doesn't look so horrible.
Your use of the word fact is consistent with faith-based thought. A fact is whatever you choose to believe is a fact. You're wrong on both counts. If you used to evidence to decide what is true about the world instead of an ancient book and the words of clergy that drink from that same cup, you'd understand that murder is illegal homicide, and many homosexuals lead satisfying lives except when then encounter the bigotry of small-minded religions.
The atheist has no burden of proof. Atheism is merely the no answer to the question of whether one believes in a god or gods, and I don't care if you believe my claim that I don't.
Also, there is never a burden of proof when dealing with a faith-based thinker. They don't use reason applied to evidence to decide what is true, so how are you going to get through to them if they don't allow it?
What would you know about truth? You believe a fantasy and call it truth. If you cared about the truth, you'd use a method capable of determining truth rather than faith and revelation.
Thinking that you have the right to impose your religious beliefs and make that decision for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is fascist. You would have her be an incubator for the state enforcing the beliefs of one religion. It's a little too Handmaid's Tale for my taste, but that's the authoritarian nature of Christianity - everybody commanded to submit to everybody else, man to God, subject to king, slave to master, and wife to husband.
The evidence supporting the theory of evolution has already ruled out the possibility of a god like the one described in the Christian Bible for the reasons given. You concede that point when you fail to rebut the specifics of the argument and dismiss it away with the wave of a hand as you just did.
Furthermore, I didn't say that science commented on religion. I said that it has ruled out a particular class of gods.
Or, there is no god.
Perhaps you haven't noticed that every choice Christians say that their god makes is what we would see in a godless universe. In a universe run by a god, we might or might not have regular physical laws, but in a godless universe capable of supporting intelligent life, we would require order. In a universe run by a god, we might have a holy book so impressive that no human being could have written it or just flawed human attempts at the same, but in a godless universe, only the latter would be expected. And on it goes, always the choice we would find in a godless universe.
Science is closing the gaps on all gods. They are not included in any scientific theories, and wouldn't make them more predictive or explanatory if gods were inserted ad hoc. Stick a god into any scientific theory you like and see if you can improve it. Newton did in his celestial mechanics when he hit a problem he couldn't solve. His mathematics told him that the solar system ought to be unstable, with planets like the earth being thrown into the sun or into interstellar space by the gravitational tugging from Jupiter and Saturn, and so he posited divine intervention to keep the solar system intact. But Laplace came along 130 years later, solved the three-body gravitational problem with new mathematics, and Newton's god was removed from the theory.
Science has shown much of the Bible to be in error. There was no global flood, which was likely posited due to another error - interpreting marine fossils on mountain tops as evidence for global submersion, a more reasonable explanation for how those fossils got to those elevations than the idea that the mountains were once sea floors. That set off a lot speculation about why the local tribal god flooded the world, and a story of punishment was concocted, albeit a rather juvenile one. You don't need omniscience to realize that if you consider the human race systemically defective, killing most of it and starting over using the same breeding stock is doomed to failure.
Religion crept into the ID researchers' science and rendered it sterile and impotent.
And I've already mentioned how the evidence supporting evolutionary theory has already ruled out the god of the Christian, which you dismissed without rebuttal. The argument is sound and stands rejected, but unchallenged. Whatever happened in the history of the universe, the earth, and the life on it, was either biological evolution or a super-human effort to deceive man into thinking otherwise. If the theory were ever falsified, it's too late to return to the idea that a god that wants to be known, loved, obeyed, believed, and worshiped is the explanation.
Seriously? Your religion is all about bigotry. It generates atheophobic and homophobic bigots by the tens or hundreds of millions. Do I need to wheel out the scriptures that teach the hatred again?
Incidentally, I notice that nobody rebutted that argument, either. How could you? The words are clearly bigoted hate speech.
And who expresses hatred of Catholics apart from Protestants? I like most Catholics I encounter, but not the bigots. And I don't dislike those people for being Catholic or Christian. I dislike them because they are bigots spreading hate speech from their Bibles
Why shouldn't he (Richard Carrier) be biased. He's an educated and probably decent man. He's probably biased against drunk driving, faith-based thought, and crossing the street without looking both ways. Biases are what we accumulate over a lifetime of learning. We have a bias for one restaurant and against another based on prior experience. It's an essential part of learning, and very helpful if the biases are rational.
Incidentally, by your argument, you should be disregarded also because of you apparent biases. Is that how you feel?
Who's being militant here? This is a thread created to attack atheists. Were you hoping that we wouldn't notice?
And more of your hatreds and bigotry.
Here's another comment that all of you routinely ignore, but that's fine. It's a rhetorical question needing no answer. How should atheists feel about a religion that actively and systematically demeans them? I guess I'm asking the other atheists, and suggesting an answer.
Carrier made the last feasible and unrebutted argument, meaning that he prevailed in your disagreement. That's how it works, same as in a courtroom. The last attorney to make an argument that is consistent with the evidence and which can't be or hasn't successfully rebutted will get the verdict he seeks if the jury is competent.
Worse, they are indoctrinated to see atheists as immoral. Look at the contempt for atheists on this thread. I'd call doing that immoral. And I'd like every atheist tp recognize that this religion is their enemy.
- "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."- American President George H. W. Bush
The god of the Christian Bible has been ruled out for those who use reason applied to evidence to decide what is true.
How stupid do you have to be to believe in a god that has been ruled out multiple ways?
You are a bigot, and the product of a hateful ideology.
I don't see a difference. Gods, pixies, brownies, elves, sprites, fairies, nymphs, satyrs, fawns, changelings, ghosts, goblins, spirits, giants, doppelgangers, demons, devils, angels, demigods, djinns, succubi, incubi, zombies, mummies, werewolves, banshees, gnomes, trolls, imps, gorgons, gargoyles, dragons, mermaids, unicorns, sea serpents, furies, harpies, fates, muses, graces, minotaurs, medusae, gremlins, warlocks, sirens, phantasms, poltergeists, specters, zombies, djinns, spooks, demons, wraiths, revenants, phantoms, ghouls, apparitions, or eidolons. They're all on the same shelf with the cyclops, the White Walkers, and the Kraken, and we’re free to ignorre them all without counterargument..
"We're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens ... I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god, and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Super Bowl and turns all the nachos into loaves and fishes, well, I'll think ... "Oh, look at that. I was wrong. There he is. My bad. Praise the Lord." - Bill Maher
I blame faith-based thought for climate denial, and who better to go to if you need that than Christians, These are your people, not mine:
- "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand" - James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan (note his position and responsibilities)
- "My point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous." - Sen. Inhofe, R-Okla
- "The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a flood. . . . I do believe God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect." - Rep John Shimkus, R-Ill.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Nice try. but wrong again. Do you want a serious discussion or are you too hung up on your myths?
The fact is that when critically investigated the tales of early martyrs fall apart even worse than George Washington's cherry tree. The stories become more like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, the person making the rather crazy claim has to prove that.
wandering peacefully
Which way to the woods?
British & World English fundamentalism
Definition of fundamentalism in English:
fundamentalism
NOUN
mass noun
- 1A form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.
‘there was religious pluralism there at a time when the rest of Europe was torn by fundamentalism’- 1.1Strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
‘free-market fundamentalism’
- 1.1Strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
Why not leave it at Jesus has a lot of wisdom worthy of consideration just like a lot of spiritual teachers such as Buddha, Chief Joseph and others? Why look for more meaning than what is presented? Or look to other great people who have messages which actually could benefit all of humanity and all of life on this one little rock we live on together? Because this is reality. People may dream, believe, swear to, die for, kill for, some other godly universe or space different than the one we actually do live in, but that is not reality. None of us can know what the reality is so why create billions of different stories to tell each other instead of dealing with the tree in the forest which does make a noise when it falls?
Why can't people just hear the falling tree?