Whats more important, religion or people?

danieldemol said:

Honestly the dishonesty of certain of my fellow theists towards their atheist brothers and sisters in the human family is truly a source of regret to me as a monotheist.

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There's an old joke. When someone asks "Is that statement really true?" The response might be,"Is the Pope Catholic?" The answer implies certainty.

That joke's not currently funny because the question "Is the Pope Catholic?" can be asked seriously. Francis puts people over the traditional doctrine of his religion often enough to be highly regarded even among Non-Catholics.

danieldemol said:

I must say I'll never get your obsession with demonising atheists.

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Thats just a lie you see because I never did that. Creating things about people is pure dishonesty.

danieldemol said:

The war on communism certainly killed lots

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That's kind of cute but you made that up. I was not talking about the war on communism! How ignorant was that? Mate. Stalin was an ally of the British/American coalition. And Stalin was anti-theist. He murdered many theists purely for being theists. And you see, his war was on theism within, and the inception was a political advent of atheism. Don't you have any clue of any of this?

Still, it was not the fault of atheism. It was a political tool to gain followers and gather momentum. So though are trying to make a strawman argument that I am demonising atheists, you know that you just made that up.

Why don't you read a little?

In 1937 the movement was called "atheist communism". Atheism has often been cast not just as a component part of Communism but as its very essence. Read Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev to gather more about that. There two main parties that evangelised atheism in Russia. One of them was the league of militant atheists or correctly translated "Godless". And their murder of innocent people of 15 to 20 million is probably only trumped by Mao Tse Dong. Another atheist.

So see. None of this has anything to do with atheism. Its to do with agenda, indoctrination for political gain, repeated PR, fear, power, etc etc. I am no hypocrite to blame it on atheism. Neither am I that ignorant.

That is why I said those famous atheistic evangelists on TV and Youtube make bogus apologetics that Stalin was just an atheist but yada yada yada and it was all communism. That's done in fear of their main false too just like you attacking and demonising religions for their fame and prosperity catering to absolutely naive audiences who have learned from repeatedly hearing the same false narrative and preaching like you are doing here with no facts or figures. Just preaching.

The most violent death tolls have been in the so called "anti theistic belligerent civilisations" in known history. Russian Civil War, China Mao, Korean War, Cambodia, North Korea, Stalin, and so on. None of these are religious war's.

Try not to make things up for the love of hate preaching.

danieldemol said:

I dont recall blaming anyone for the Inquisition, but without knowing a great deal about it I would probably tentatively look into a complex subset of Christian beliefs such as the belief there is only one path to salvation combined with the view that God needs its followers to defend it/ its religion millitantly. This probably covers more sects than just the one's that had the power to persecute heretics though.

In my opinion.

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Christianity has a 'one path to salvation' and its probably a more narrow path than most of us believe.
But what of 'other paths' ? Christianity states this is not your business, let alone tell you to harm another. So the RCC was wrong, indeed, absolutely corrupt in killing dissidents and apostates. This is stated explicity in the New Testament.

danieldemol said:

What language in particular do you feel is painting "broad brush strokes of blame"?

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"victims of religion"

This is very broad. Now victims of catholic priest child sex abuse is pretty precise. There are thousands of religions a great many do hold to there being a God or gods and notions of right and wrong. Little else is the same. Even within Christianity not much more is agreed on across the entire board.

PruePhillip said:

So the RCC was wrong, indeed, absolutely corrupt in killing dissidents and apostates. This is stated explicity in the New Testament.

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This was done by both sides, but this is not to excuse my church.

metis said:

This was done by both sides, but this is not to excuse my church.

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Both sides? Says in Revelations that he who sins, let him sin - that's not your part.
Recall the Disciples asking that fire come down from heaven and kill the Samaritans who rejected them? Jesus said, "You know not what manner of spirit ye are of." In order words, if you even think to do this - you don't understand what you are preaching.

ChristineM said:

Given SCOTUS have put religion above people (or at least half the people)
and seem to be continuing the trend i don't see it as anything but a real life situation in which the church has become more important than the people of America

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I think it would be a mistake to assume all the people who oppose abortion do so for religious purposes.

Kfox said:

I think it would be a mistake to assume all the people who oppose abortion do so for religious purposes.

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Are you saying that the scotus decision was not bssed on religious belief?

danieldemol said:

Whats more important, religion or people?

If people are more important (which I personally assert that they are) then it is only logical that an empath should feel more empathy for the victims of religion (such as the LGBT community) than for the people who have their religions critiqued.

But if you feel that religions are important more than people are feel free to justify your position to do so (no I'm not forcing you to justify your position by asking you to).

In my opinion.

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The Qur'an asks the rhetorical question, "Who does more wrong than one who invents a lie concerning God?" That quote led a Vancouver imam to state that wishing Christians a merry Christmas is a worst sin than murder. Pretty hard to believe, but there it is.

PruePhillip said:

Both sides? Says in Revelations that he who sins, let him sin - that's not your part.
Recall the Disciples asking that fire come down from heaven and kill the Samaritans who rejected them? Jesus said, "You know not what manner of spirit ye are of." In order words, if you even think to do this - you don't understand what you are preaching.

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I was referring to your accusation against Catholics, which is true, but not mentioning Protestants that did much the same as well as Orthodox.

firedragon said:

So judge atheism by their fruits.

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People who happen to not believe in deities do horrible things because they are horrible people, not because they don't believe in deities.

There are undoubtedly examples of a horrible person restraining himself from doing a horrible thing because he does believe in a deity, and believes that said deity will punish him if he follows through on his impulse. That can't be denied.

However, the opposite of that is when an otherwise decent person does something horrible because he believes his god will punish him for not doing a horrible thing.

stevecanuck said:

People who happen to not believe in deities do horrible things because they are horrible people, not because they don't believe in deities.

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You have not understood the point.

stevecanuck said:

However, the opposite of that is when an otherwise decent person does something horrible because he believes his god will punish him for not doing a horrible thing.

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So your point is that an atheist who does something horrible was horrible by default anyway but the theist is a decent person just doing a horrible thing because God will punish him if he didn't! Nice.

danieldemol said:

Whats more important, religion or people?

If people are more important (which I personally assert that they are) then it is only logical that an empath should feel more empathy for the victims of religion (such as the LGBT community) than for the people who have their religions critiqued.

But if you feel that religions are important more than people are feel free to justify your position to do so (no I'm not forcing you to justify your position by asking you to).

In my opinion.

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Most people seem to put their Religion before God so where does that leave men.

danieldemol said:

Whats more important, religion or people?

If people are more important (which I personally assert that they are) then it is only logical that an empath should feel more empathy for the victims of religion (such as the LGBT community) than for the people who have their religions critiqued.

But if you feel that religions are important more than people are feel free to justify your position to do so (no I'm not forcing you to justify your position by asking you to).

In my opinion.

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People,unfortunately religious orders never looked on them as individual people but instead as a flock,imo.

firedragon said:

So your point is that an atheist who does something horrible was horrible by default anyway but the theist is a decent person just doing a horrible thing because God will punish him if he didn't! Nice.

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Why did you feel compelled to begin with, "So your point is ....." when that clearly is my point?

As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

Some have said that the question is a false dichotomy, which is what it looks like on the surface. But it isn't even that. In a way, the question itself is not even well-formed (like "how much does Thursday weigh?")

The reason for this is that "importance" has nothing whatever to do with it. Without religion, it is certainly possible to have people -- but without people, you cannot have even have religion, let alone wonder whether it is "important" or not.

Truth in love said:

People matter more, however the broad brush strokes of blame here are unjustified.

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Then what’s wrong with letting people use a condom,saves peoples lives,so too can abortion,who’s to blame for them not being able to?.

stevecanuck said:

Why did you feel compelled to begin with, "So your point is ....." when that clearly is my point?

As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

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I see. So someone else's wishful thinking is your point. Not what you said earlier. No problem.

So is it anyone who believes absurdities like atheists who do bad things were bad already anyway but theists who do bad things were otherwise good??

firedragon said:

Thats just a lie you see because I never did that. Creating things about people is pure dishonesty.

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firedragon said:

So judge atheism by their fruits. 15 million murders in one country.

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When you said to judge atheism by the fruits of 15 million murders I thought you were trying to say we should judge atheism as being at fault for 15 million murders. But if thats not what you meant no problem. If thats the case I apologise.

That's kind of cute but you made that up. I was not talking about the war on communism!

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You were talking about wars by democracy, the war faught by the US against communism are a sub-set of that. (For example the war by the US in vietnam).

That is why I said those famous atheistic evangelists on TV and Youtube make bogus apologetics that Stalin was just an atheist but yada yada yada and it was all communism. That's done in fear of their main false too just like you attacking and demonising religions for their fame and prosperity catering to absolutely naive audiences who have learned from repeatedly hearing the same false narrative and preaching like you are doing here with no facts or figures. Just preaching.

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As I explained in post #43 it would be unethical to run an experiment to obtain the figures, so we are forced to recourse to reason in the absence of solid data. It is not ideal, but you haven't refuted my logic so far either that if people are indoctrinated to believe that God wants them to murder apostates then where they have the power we should expect to see them killing apostates.

The most violent death tolls have been in the so called "anti theistic belligerent civilisations" in known history. Russian Civil War, China Mao, Korean War, Cambodia, North Korea, Stalin, and so on. None of these are religious war's.

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I don't know which wars had the most violent death tolls, however I'm doubtful those civil wars could have been avoided without the benefit of the hindsight we have today. So we shouldn't let issues which we have the foresight to avoid get lost just because besides war they are insignificant, for example it would be wrong to say lets just not tackle domestic violence because hey - the biggest murder rate is through wars not domestic homicide. We judge them in a seperate category to war probably for a variety of logical reasons. And we should do the same for the murder of apostates, because we can do something about indoctrination of people into the belief that killing aostates is what God wants provided we are honest enough to admit that logically it is a problem.

It makes no sense to compare all categories of murder to war.

In my opinion