NationStates Jolt Archive

Laughable.

You don't have the time to examine the errors in your own reasoning that are illustrated by others, but you wan't us to take the time to read somebody else's argument.


Actually, I have a job to do. But I assure you, that I do read all messages. But for now it seems I am the only one debating in a pro creator mode and that can be quite straining when attacked by several.

Nevertheless, whatever excuses you have yourself for your own attitudes and other circumstances, I do respect you as a human equal being and I do not condemn you´, your beliefs or behaviour.
Bless you all and good night.

That's a myth. He also didn't ever fail math.

:)
And he could tie his shoes.

A professor friend of mine has a quote by Einstein (not sure if its accurate), wherein Einstein describes a fairly narrow range in which he considers himself "religious". If I recall, it was mostly about a sense of "wonder".

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
Wow, the very lowest and strongest brick in the wall of ignorance.
Plank in thine eye.

But oh, I believe Einstien also ended up as a believer (of God), and that was his latest conclusions in life.
Nope.
Myth.
Yo can find this myth repeated a lot by religious people but you can't find it in any biography or any of his personal writings.
Even if he did end up a believer on his death bed, the mutterings of someone who is about to die are probably driven more by fear than by reason.

Actually, I have a job to do. But I assure you, that I do read all messages. But for now it seems I am the only one debating in a pro creator mode and that can be quite straining when attacked by several.

*El drivel-snip*

The reason you're the only one making your arguements is because they are ridiculous and this is a relatively educated forum. You could find someone to argue for a creator, but I doubt they'd want to associate with your methods.

Nevertheless, whatever excuses you have yourself for your own attitudes and other circumstances, I do respect you as a human equal being and I do not condemn you´, your beliefs or behaviour.
Bless you all and good night.

You aren't even honest.

The snide comment "whatever excuses you have yourself for your own attitudes" is itself a condemnation on my behaviour.

Thus, your respect is inauthentic. I imagine your "blessing" is about as sincere.

Are religous fellows compensating for something?

Why yes, they rather are, utilisng anachronistic, restrictive moral codes and uninspiring mythology to placate their fears as to death and the subseqeunt state of the soul.

A professor friend of mine has a quote by Einstein (not sure if its accurate), wherein Einstein describes a fairly narrow range in which he considers himself "religious". If I recall, it was mostly about a sense of "wonder".
Yeah, he certainly may have been more agnostic than atheist, but he never leant any credence to any religion espoused by other humans.

Are religous fellows compensating for something?

Why yes, they rather are, utilisng anachronistic, restrictive moral codes and uninspiring mythology to placate their fears as to death and the subseqeunt state of the soul.
...nomination for Winner of Thread...

Actually, I have a job to do. But I assure you, that I do read all messages. But for now it seems I am the only one debating in a pro creator mode and that can be quite straining when attacked by several.


The running joke here is that, ostensibly, you want to "inform" us about the merits of your view, and yet your specious reasoning and clear hypocrisy actually detracts from that effort.

I wonder how much further religious folks would get if they weren't getting hit by all the friendly fire...

Judging from the fact this is the first time I've ever posted on this board, I think my quietness is obvious, and I'm an athiest. And I've been here for quite a while too, so it isn't because I'm new.

No one belief system is superior; some just have better advertising than others, in my mind. I would rather it be that everyone believed in what they did and left it at that.

The running joke here is that, ostensibly, you want to "inform" us about the merits of your view, and yet your specious reasoning and clear hypocrisy actually detracts from that effort.

I wonder how much further religious folks would get if they weren't getting hit by all the friendly fire...
Even more of the running joke is that it appears to be a core tenet that ... with people submitting themselves to this line of fallaciousness as a living philosophy ... the encouragement and vindication of absurdity and victimhood is a banner of accomplishment and virtue.

Even more of the running joke is that it appears to be a core tenet that ... with people submitting themselves to this line of fallaciousness as a living philosophy ... the encouragement and vindication of absurdity and victimhood is a banner of accomplishment and virtue.

Heehee.

So, they don't have a Christ Complex, they have a Christian Complex.

Well, they always say, "Many are the sufferings of the righteous"...

Seriously, I'm glad not all Christians are like BlackBart.

Heehee.

So, they don't have a Christ Complex, they have a Christian Complex.

Well, they always say, "Many are the sufferings of the righteous"...

Seriously, I'm glad not all Christians are like BlackBart.
Seconded!

Umm... god created everything, right? So by definition, that places him outside EVERYTHING... including time and physics

I wish more atheists were more like Eeble, actually willing to bloody well consider it from our point of view. he is slightly crazy (msn name is Artificial flavours X_X) but that doesn't matter. So am I.

Heehee.

So, they don't have a Christ Complex, they have a Christian Complex.

Well, they always say, "Many are the sufferings of the righteous"...

Seriously, I'm glad not all Christians are like BlackBart.
I don't think he's so bad. He believes what he believes and he's passionate about it. I wish more Muslims were like him. When you argue that way against them you get...


well...

Try it for yourself.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/index.php?

Umm... god created everything, right? So by definition, that places him outside EVERYTHING... including time and physics


That's precisely why BlackBart's linear-dependent "everything created must have a cause" bit was a flawed line of reasoning as applied to God.

There could certainly be God/Gods/Aliens/Whatever that exist above and outside natural law. We call those things "supernatural".

Umm... god created everything, right? So by definition, that places him outside EVERYTHING... including time and physics

I wish more atheists were more like Eeble, actually willing to bloody well consider it from our point of view. he is slightly crazy (msn name is Artificial flavours X_X) but that doesn't matter. So am I.

As soon as you consider the view of a Pastafarian. The FSM "created everything, right? So by definition, that places him outside EVERYTHING... including time and physics"

I don't think he's so bad. He believes what he believes and he's passionate about it. I wish more Muslims were like him. When you argue that way against them you get...


well...

Try it for yourself.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/index.php?

I see your point, but when we have to resort to extreme examples like this to put BlackBart in a good light, that means something in itself.

So the OP thinks atheists aren't supposed to voice our opinions? Rrrright.
Personally I only get involved when the issue is raised, or if I really feel the need to say something; like when the government starts legislating with a religious basis. If people are quiet when things that are important to them are happening the world will slide even further into shit.

Oh and think about it from an atheist's perspective. My atheism is rational, based on scientific humanism. No evidence = no god. Imagine how absurd it is to me to see people maknig decisions about their own (and even worse, other people's) lives based on fiction! Argh!

That's precisely why BlackBart's linear-dependent "everything created must have a cause" bit was a flawed line of reasoning as applied to God.

There could certainly be God/Gods/Aliens/Whatever that exist above and outside natural law. We call those things "supernatural".
Actually, the whole idea of anything happening before the big bang is flawed since, as Einstein's famous theory of general relativity showed, there was no "before" the big bang.

Time and space are relative. Time exists in relationship to space. There was no space before the big bang. No space, no time.

Maybe, but think about all the charity programs that wouldn't exist without religious purposes?

We wouldn't need as many charity programs if it weren't for religion. Don't get me wrong though. I don't see atheism as a negative or positive way to peace. There are psychopathic atheists as well as pacifist atheists.

Actually, the whole idea of anything happening before the big bang is flawed since, as Einstein's famous theory of general relativity showed, there was no "before" the big bang.

Time and space are relative. Time exists in relationship to space. There was no space before the big bang. No space, no time.

That sounds reasonable, I'm just hesitant to presume too much.

If, say, somebody discovers spatial dimensions beyond 3 and temporal dimensions beyond the one we see, I don't personally know enough about that level of physics to assume that all sets of dimensions are interdependent.

So, I maintain that some "Thing" (whose existence is not predicated on dimensions as we view them) could "Be", but I see no evidence of it.

I see your point, but when we have to resort to extreme examples like this to put BlackBart in a good light, that means something in itself.
Good point. Now I just need you to find me a single Muslim forum that is less "extreme" than this one. I've looked, but everyone I've ever seen only has opinions that range from "newspapers that insult the prophet should be shut down" to "infidels should have their heads cut off while they watch us kill their children." Interestingly, you are allowed on these forums to say "cut the heads off of anyone who insults islam" but you are not allowed to say "I'm an atheist and I don't believe that Allah exists." You'll get banned. Seriously. try it. You will not find one Islamic forum that differs. the Christian forums will ban you for arguing, too, but they'll also ban you when you talk about cutting off people's heads and shit.

Good point. Now I just need you to find me a single Muslim forum that is less "extreme" than this one.

Well, if your assertion is that BlackBart is more tolerable than the folks on these other forums you're referring to, I'll buy that.

I only made the point that I find him less tolerable than some other Christians, and the ferocity of these other forums doesn't really address that.

Umm... god created everything, right? So by definition, that places him outside EVERYTHING... including time and physics

I wish more atheists were more like Eeble, actually willing to bloody well consider it from our point of view. he is slightly crazy (msn name is Artificial flavours X_X) but that doesn't matter. So am I.
The problem here is ... humans are just that, humans.
They go through the trouble of being incompetent in a largely uncaring but insistently carnal world, and don't like the results (given their fleshiness), so they develop guile and cunning to make up for their lack of faculty in other respects. By extension, religion is what it is, not needing much more explanation than that.
Further, since you, being human, and i, also being "human", don't have the faculty to understand the mechanical reality that should/would be "everything", we shouldn't be talking about all encompassing natures except by an approximation of constants. Knowing "constants" means research. NOT "faith". Faith by its definition requires acceptance, which doesn't not qualify the mechanics of ... well, anything. And if the faith further requires one to "accept" the bizarre idea that the vastness of the universe in experience and corporeality are completely and utterly bypassed for the nature of an impish and infantile "man" and "his only begotten son" :rolleyes: while COMPLETELY IGNORING the SURROUNDING NATURE of physical organisms, well, then ... the philosophy loses. In every way except to qualify my opening statements.
N'joy.

Well, if your assertion is that BlackBart is more tolerable than the folks on these other forums you're referring to, I'll buy that.
My point is that even as devout as he is his level of tolerence is many magnatudes of order greater than what you find in the whole of the Islamic community, not just some "extremists," but in general.

I only made the point that I find him less tolerable than some other Christians, and the ferocity of these other forums doesn't really address that.
If you're talking about the ferocity of this forum, sure. If you are talking about the ferocity of the forum I posted a link to I must confess that I simply did a google search and posted one of the links. I didn't bother to read what was there since I knew what I would find. After I posted it I went and read and found it to be just like every other Muslim forum I've found. All about "death to the infidels" with a few Muslims chiming in saying "no, don't kill them all we just need to get them to think like us."

They go through the trouble of being incompetent in a largely uncaring but insistently carnal world, and don't like the results (given their fleshiness), so they develop guile and cunning to make up for their lack of faculty in other respects.

Stop talking about the fleshiness in carnal worlds. Its making the angels uncomfortable.

. All about "death to the infidels" with a few Muslims chiming in saying "no, don't kill them all we just need to get them to think like us."

Oh, man, I hope that isn't always true.

I'm going to ask my friend Yusuf, "If I said Mohammed (sic?) was just a man and not a prophet, would you feel the need to kill me, or call for my death?"

I honestly don't know how he'll answer, though.

Stop talking about the fleshiness in carnal worlds. Its making the angels uncomfortable.
It makes them .... twitchy. They kinda want to steer clear of that whole "nephilim" thing, i guess ... ;)
On a side note, if there was any angel you'd want to get carnal with, who's your candidate? (i don't mean that "Angel" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, either)

Hey, quit the Muslim bashing. Like any group most of them are fine, it's just the vocal minority giving the rest a bad name.

I simply don´t have the time to parry all messages. I do apologize for this.

I have to withdraw, but I appeal to you all to actually read on Anthony Flew and his journey from a total athesit, and quite a master on the subject and all of its arguments, into a believer of a creator.

No matter, you can answer my refutation when you have the time.

And if you read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Flew#Atheism_and_Deism) you'll find that he is a deist, but he rejects the Christian god completely.

Hey, quit the Muslim bashing. Like any group most of them are fine, it's just the vocal minority giving the rest a bad name.

I'm not Muslim bashing, I'm just wanting to get the view of a Muslim that I know.

If he says he wants to take my head off now, it doesn't prove they're all like that.

But if he doesn't want to take my head off, it shows they aren't all like that.

Sorry, Saint Curie, i know you're not... wasn't referring to you. I know it appeared that way, but....time lag in posting, ya kno?

I'm not Muslim bashing, I'm just wanting to get the view of a Muslim that I know.

If he says he wants to take my head off now, it doesn't prove they're all like that.

But if he doesn't want to take my head off, it shows they aren't all like that.

I can save you some time.

I don't know why the other poster (sorry, didn't pay attention, I guess... ) has decided to believe what he/she believes... or if he/she is just repeating a generalisation they have heard...

But, generalisations are almost always going to be a problem.. because, the instant you say a thing applies to ALL of something, you are imagining a form of absolute unity... and such things are inherently unlikely.

I have been friends with people of many different religions, and, staright off, I can tell you that the other poster is 'talking through his hat'. Yes - I have known some Muslims I certainly wouldn't consider friends... for a VARIETY of reasons... some religious and some not.

Just like any other religion... there are some who will always use religion as a calming influence, and there are others, that will 'start fires' with it.

I've seen Buddhists throwing rocks at each other, and hitting each other with planks. I've seen Muslims weep uncontrollably, as the news about 9/11 came in...

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
I only ever respond to attacks on science and non Christian philosophy. They stop being noisy so will I. Of course, it is their right to say what they will, as it is mine to reply.

Sorry, Saint Curie, i know you're not... wasn't referring to you. I know it appeared that way, but....time lag in posting, ya kno?

My bad, I was being defensive. No hard feelings.

True say to Grave_n_Idle

Saint Curie :) :p

I can save you some time.

I don't know why the other poster (sorry, didn't pay attention, I guess... ) has decided to believe what he/she believes... or if he/she is just repeating a generalisation they have heard...

But, generalisations are almost always going to be a problem.. because, the instant you say a thing applies to ALL of something, you are imagining a form of absolute unity... and such things are inherently unlikely.


Part of me is still curious about what stance Yusuf will take, as an individual, so I'm going to ask him. Again, I understand that his view does not define the view of all Muslims.

But if he doesn't think that slander against his prophet calls for bloodshed (of some or all), then I can factually say, of my own experience, that not all Muslims think that.

EDIT: I already strongly suspect that they don't all think that way, but if I ask around and find a Muslim who doesn't, it removes all doubt.

Interesting question...is it slander to say _you_ don't believe he was a prophet? Just to say you don't share his belief?

EDIT: not sure what stance my muslim friends would take, so I don't want to be too bold here.

Interesting question...is it slander to say _you_ don't believe he was a prophet? Just to say you don't share his belief?

S'good one. But I don't want to ask him if its slander to say that his prophet was a bastard or whatever, because that may be rude.

He knows my wife is Mormon, so maybe I should ask him, "If the Mormon prophet were gravely insulted, should my wife try to kill the insulter?" and then see if he applies the premise equally to Islam.

_May_ be rude? :p :p

Why are YOU being so noisy about him being noisy about other people being noisy?

ARE YOU COMPENSATING FOR SOMETHING?!

...yes

Part of me is still curious about what stance Yusuf will take, as an individual, so I'm going to ask him. Again, I understand that his view does not define the view of all Muslims.

But if he doesn't think that slander against his prophet calls for bloodshed (of some or all), then I can factually say, of my own experience, that not all Muslims think that.

EDIT: I already strongly suspect that they don't all think that way, but if I ask around and find a Muslim who doesn't, it removes all doubt.

Always a good idea, to look for the information yourself.

My Muslim friends (Christian friends, etc.) all used to joke around with each other... sometimes about silly stuff, but sometimes about serious issues, like religion.

I asked one of my Christian friends what God 'meant'... and his answer was something along the lines of "God is what made the world, and keeps it turning".

I asked on of my Muslim friends (same conversation) what God (Allah) 'meant'... and his answer was something along the lines of "Allah is what is the force that wakes me in the morning".

My response: "Oh - we have that, too. We call it 'alarm clock'..."

Everyone present laughed. Nobody got beheaded, or had death threats launched against them.

Purely anecdotal evidence, obviously. But, enough for ME to know that the generalisations SOME try to spread, are flawed, at best.

Similar experience to my own, though I don't have an example as good as that.

For a start most Atheists don't believe that there can't be a god, we simply don't believe there is one.

My personal response would be to concede that it was a possibility but not a very likely one. While I cannot disprove the existance of a creator you cannot prove the existance of one.

Sorry if this isn't very helpful but the argument is fairly weak, did you find it somewhere or did you make it yourself?


Well, that should be enough to get what should be needed to actually have a conversation, it's one thing to personally believe there is no God and to claim to know there cannot be a God, but once you concede that it is not impossible and that you just personally don't believe, that's probably somewhere along the lines of Quasi-agnostic, since it's just your opinion and not something you think of as fact. And like I said earlier, as long as people aren't compleatly steadfast against God existing, then there is room to actually talk about morality and people's ultimate fate, if people don't believe God can exist, why should they, after all, believe that people can even have an ultimate fate? And I got that argument from www.wayofthemaster.com, and like I mentioned, it seems so easy that, well, I kinda suspect somebody has made up a counter-argument already, so i'd still like to know one or 2 of them to anticipate it in the future and maybe have a counter-argument ready and all.


I would argue that a sense of right or wrong is dependant on culture and upbringing. For example, female genital mutilation is considered the norm in many parts of Africa wheras it is (quite reasonably) reviled in the west. I doubt there is any moral viewpoint that cannot be ingrained in a child. During the middle ages killing your enemies was considered the norm wheras nowadays it would be considered morally repugnant. During the crusades some crusaders even resorted to cannibalism as at the time it wasn't considered wrong to eat the flesh of a Muslim. An even more modern example would be the taboo that used to exist towards pregnancy outside of wedlock until very recently, today it is accepted as fine.

From these examples we can see that the ingrained sense of right and wrong are dependant on the general views of the culture at the time and especially the views of the individual raising the child.

There are just plain some things that, when you get right down to it, always make people edgy, even if a society represses the repulsion of a group of people to one thing, I can't image a culture that somehow has suppressed every single sense of right and wrong they have, all you've got to do is figure out what part of their concience their listening to, and go from there, or so i'd think. And adultery might be accepted as fine in PC land, but from where im standing, most people in America still tend to make a big hoo-haa over it when it's not in the major press or with a celebrity or something, in fact, one of the major causes that people have listed mostly when they get polled for wanting an abortion is because they had a child as a result of fornication and didn't want the pressure from either taking care of it or from their parents, so apparently a great many people still think it's unnaceptable. It's true what you say, of course, that culture can greatly influence how people excericise their sense of right and wrong, but if a culture simply did away compleatly with that sense, then you'd think they would of killed each other or something :/.

Well, that should be enough to get what should be needed to actually have a conversation, it's one thing to personally believe there is no God and to claim to know there cannot be a God, but once you concede that it is not impossible and that you just personally don't believe, that's probably somewhere along the lines of Quasi-agnostic, since it's just your opinion and not something you think of as fact. And like I said earlier, as long as people aren't compleatly steadfast against God existing, then there is room to actually talk about morality and people's ultimate fate, if people don't believe God can exist, why should they, after all, believe that people can even have an ultimate fate? And I got that argument from www.wayofthemaster.com, and like I mentioned, it seems so easy that, well, I kinda suspect somebody has made up a counter-argument already, so i'd still like to know one or 2 of them to anticipate it in the future and maybe have a counter-argument ready and all.

Okay, let's start with that website, then. First question: Are you a Christian? Presumably, if you're trying to convert someone, their answer to this is no. The website's response: blather about worrying about getting into heaven. Excuse me! I just *said* I don't believe in your magic fairyland! And when it goes on - I don't believe in the Ten Commandments! The site goes on - but really, I'm not going to repeat all the various critiques. Here's one that took all of half a second on Google to find: http://evangelicalatheist.com/2005/07/16/the-gospel-according-to-mike-seaver/ . The 'Way of the Master' isn't about converting people by sharing a positive message, it's about how to use the counter-marketing techniques of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
Did you seriously read that site and the stuff posted there? Did you notice how it's not, in fact, about morality, but is instead a pile of scaremongering? Sheesh! If that's the big-f Father you look up to, I have to wonder how abusive your small-f father had to be to make that vision look good by comparison.
As for morality - you confuse morality with religion. Moral philosophy exists quite nicely apart from religious values, and there are much more intellectually honest reasons why people should be nice to each other than "God will beat us with coathangers if we don't do what he says." Similarly, ultimate fate - do you mean an afterlife, for which there is in fact no actual evidence any which way? If you want to believe in an afterlife, fine, whatever makes you feel more comfortable. But, to use your earlier kitchen analogy (which I notice you never responded to the questions about) - if you come to my table and tell me that you believe a kitchen exists and the kitchen is on fire but you've never seen a kitchen and neither has anybody else, but you believe it because it would be so horrible to die in a fire - well, I think you can see why you wouldn't want to have your evening interrupted by that sort of hogwash.

There are just plain some things that, when you get right down to it, always make people edgy, even if a society represses the repulsion of a group of people to one thing, I can't image a culture that somehow has suppressed every single sense of right and wrong they have, all you've got to do is figure out what part of their concience their listening to, and go from there, or so i'd think. And adultery might be accepted as fine in PC land, but from where im standing, most people in America still tend to make a big hoo-haa over it when it's not in the major press or with a celebrity or something, in fact, one of the major causes that people have listed mostly when they get polled for wanting an abortion is because they had a child as a result of fornication and didn't want the pressure from either taking care of it or from their parents, so apparently a great many people still think it's unnaceptable. It's true what you say, of course, that culture can greatly influence how people excericise their sense of right and wrong, but if a culture simply did away compleatly with that sense, then you'd think they would of killed each other or something :/.

That reminds me of a rather famous little case out in Utah. A town was trying to shut down an adult video store for being 'outside the values of the community.' So the video store owner brought in his sales records and subpoenaed local hotels, and demonstrated that over fifty percent of the local adult male population had at some time or another been a consumer of pornography. They wanted to ban his store because they wanted to make a pretense of living up to their stated values - which was easier than shutting him down by lack of business, by in fact living up to them. A great many people *say* adultery is unacceptable. But judge them by their deeds, hmmm? For that matter, adultery is quite entirely not a 'universal' value. There existed many groups and cults where screwing around was not condemned.
In short, your argument is false. There may not exist any groups of people with no taboos or moral positions whatsoever, but there are not any taboos or moral positions that are universally accepted. There is no single act you could possibly perform that would get every culture ever in the history of the planet to say "Yes, that is not justifiable." If you want a universal moral value, you have to find some logically unassailable precepts and work from there. That's what religion tries to replace - the original precepts are not logically unassailable, they are simply declared unassailable on penalty of the worst possible things imaginable.

God'll smite you if you keep coming out with all that logic...

From the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

TRINITY, n.
In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

The bold I especially like.

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
The same could be asked of most followers of religion.

Atheist are neither better nor worse than anyone else.

Okay, let's start with that website, then. First question: Are you a Christian? Presumably, if you're trying to convert someone, their answer to this is no. The website's response: blather about worrying about getting into heaven. Excuse me! I just *said* I don't believe in your magic fairyland! And when it goes on - I don't believe in the Ten Commandments! The site goes on - but really, I'm not going to repeat all the various critiques. Here's one that took all of half a second on Google to find: http://evangelicalatheist.com/2005/07/16/the-gospel-according-to-mike-seaver/ . The 'Way of the Master' isn't about converting people by sharing a positive message, it's about how to use the counter-marketing techniques of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
Did you seriously read that site and the stuff posted there? Did you notice how it's not, in fact, about morality, but is instead a pile of scaremongering? Sheesh! If that's the big-f Father you look up to, I have to wonder how abusive your small-f father had to be to make that vision look good by comparison.
As for morality - you confuse morality with religion. Moral philosophy exists quite nicely apart from religious values, and there are much more intellectually honest reasons why people should be nice to each other than "God will beat us with coathangers if we don't do what he says." Similarly, ultimate fate - do you mean an afterlife, for which there is in fact no actual evidence any which way? If you want to believe in an afterlife, fine, whatever makes you feel more comfortable. But, to use your earlier kitchen analogy (which I notice you never responded to the questions about) - if you come to my table and tell me that you believe a kitchen exists and the kitchen is on fire but you've never seen a kitchen and neither has anybody else, but you believe it because it would be so horrible to die in a fire - well, I think you can see why you wouldn't want to have your evening interrupted by that sort of hogwash.


Firstly, I meant a conversation on both morality and your ultimate fate, not just morality :/. And Actually, it was through reading that website that I learned it was not, in fact, merely a repackaging of Jonathan Edwards with a Kirk Cameron twist on it, if it was, I wouldn't of asked for all 26 episodes and spent days watching them all during Christmas break. The majority of the world is not Atheist, so of course not everyone would so quickly discount heaven/hell/ten commandments/etc. etc. etc., and that website probably would actually do some good for those people. I suppose their website could, technically, ask if you were an Atheist and then go through that thing first, but then why not go through all other religions which often have much more representation in the population, what if you click "No" and it asks "Are you Islamic?" "No" "Are you pan-theist?" "No" "Are you SURE?" "Yes" "Are you a Mormon?" "No" "Are you a Buudhist?" "No" "Are you a Hindu?" "No" Are you even ANYTHING?" "Yes" "Are you SURE you're something?" "No" "Wait, what, ARRRG!" Yea, I might of gone a bit overboard there, but it could turn into a problem you see, they'd really slow everything down and probably lose many people's interest because it would quickly get ridiculous. Also, you seem to have also helped prove both the person who first responded to me and myself about how obviously an Atheist really would not be very worried about sin/Christ/heaven/hell/God and so on, because as you've said, you don't have any belief whatsoever that any of it has any chance of being true. Evangelising must, by default, give someone a reason to, you know, listen. Why not actually use the Biblical one, im supposed to be Christian after all. I can understand the revulsion to listening to people make you worry about things, especially when their about eternity, but just because something is scary doesn't mean it's just a fake cheap-o scare tactic, even if it is extremely frightening and/or offensive. Going back to the resturant thing, (And by the way, what questions didn't I answer?) the assumption is that the person is, in fact, in a kitchen, there's no "I quite strongly believe you are in a kitchen sir" about it, the kitchen is quite there, now what the people think about it is quite another. And that's the thing, the assumption is that the people in the kitchen you would be warning don't realize what the kitchen really is and that it is on fire. Furthermore, on the morality thing, it looks to me like you've just partly supported me, the entire point on bringing someone through Christ through morality is because you don't actually have to be a Christian to have morality, if so, then I don't honestly see how Christianity would of progressed beyond a couple thousand members or so, nobody would be able to see that they've done something wrong to need Christ. Finally, the reason to become a Christian isn't to make a stable, pleasent society where everyone is nice to each other, it's to save yourself from Hell and go to Heaven, it's not about bringing up a utopia on earth, God is the one who's going to do that in the end.

That reminds me of a rather famous little case out in Utah. A town was trying to shut down an adult video store for being 'outside the values of the community.' So the video store owner brought in his sales records and subpoenaed local hotels, and demonstrated that over fifty percent of the local adult male population had at some time or another been a consumer of pornography. They wanted to ban his store because they wanted to make a pretense of living up to their stated values - which was easier than shutting him down by lack of business, by in fact living up to them. A great many people *say* adultery is unacceptable. But judge them by their deeds, hmmm? For that matter, adultery is quite entirely not a 'universal' value. There existed many groups and cults where screwing around was not condemned.
In short, your argument is false. There may not exist any groups of people with no taboos or moral positions whatsoever, but there are not any taboos or moral positions that are universally accepted. There is no single act you could possibly perform that would get every culture ever in the history of the planet to say "Yes, that is not justifiable." If you want a universal moral value, you have to find some logically unassailable precepts and work from there. That's what religion tries to replace - the original precepts are not logically unassailable, they are simply declared unassailable on penalty of the worst possible things imaginable.

Well, that sounds pretty hypocritical for that town then i'll admit, but I neither live in Utah nor in that town, sometimes the people who claim they want to be as generally moral as possible, well, aren't, it's just a fact of life, but it is important to note that it is a "sometimes" and not an "always". I also agree that there are some groups and/or cults that specifically make themselves not consider adultery wrong, but give yourself enough time, and your going to find something so horrible, so insane, so increadibly awful on this planet that everyone in the entire world will simply have to agree it's evil, Think Holocaust, starving children in africa, pictures of partial birth abortion in full color and no censorship whatsoever, being born without a head/face/nose/eyes/inability to not convulse violently forever in extraordinary pain etc. etc. and going down that kind of line of horror, there's got to be something everyone considers wrong somehow unless their insane and can't hear what your talking about, or are just basically ignoring you in a fit of hysteria. probably not something simple like "Thou shalt not lie" will get everyone's concience to respond, but I don't see how any society could only have such a very limited concept of good and evil to the point where you can't actually evangelize to them because they won't admit anything is wrong, if their that increadibly relative, one would think they wouldn't really want to exist because there wouldn't relatively be a real reason to exist to them, and they'd probably just all die from suicide or starvation because they might thing hunger is relative.

Wow, the very lowest and strongest brick in the wall of ignorance.
Plank in thine eye.
Curiousity is "the very lowest and strongest brick in the wall of ignorance."? I've never heard that before... Indeed without it you wouldn't have your beautiful science to cling to.

Are religous fellows compensating for something?

Why yes, they rather are, utilisng anachronistic, restrictive moral codes and uninspiring mythology to placate their fears as to death and the subseqeunt state of the soul.
Maybe we are compensating for something, but atleast I'm admitting to it. I admit my inability and illogical choice to give up my belief in God, and I've gone through alot of speculation too. Also, Jews generally do not believe in heaven or hell, those are mostly things put into the Abrahamic faith by taking ideas from other religions. It may seem uninspiring to you but to me, its certainly enough to go by.
And for the religious charity, I went on a CHURCH SPONSORED mission trip to Reading, PA. We worked and helped rebuild an elderly man's house, and hopefully gave him something to be happy about. And another CHURCH SPONSORED mission trip, one of my friends from church went to Guatamala recently and helped down there with building houses and taking care of the sick. Don't tell me that the church doesn't do anything to give back to the community cause it does.

A quiet atheist... yes... thats makes sense.
Btw the other day i met an intelligent republican.


<<<SILENCE>>>

Lord Jimbo
God-Emperor of Jimbolandistan

This entire thread is nothing but a bunch of people missing the point. C'mon
people, I've come to expect better of you!

Furthermore, on the morality thing, it looks to me like you've just partly supported me, the entire point on bringing someone through Christ through morality is because you don't actually have to be a Christian to have morality, if so, then I don't honestly see how Christianity would of progressed beyond a couple thousand members or so, nobody would be able to see that they've done something wrong to need Christ.

Your reasoning here is particularly questionable.

So, the only reason a religion could become popular is that its necessary for morality? How many popular religions are there?

Your reasoning could apply to Mohammed or Bhudda or Scientology. They all have more than "a couple thousand" members.

Firstly, I meant a conversation on both morality and your ultimate fate, not just morality :/. And Actually, it was through reading that website that I learned it was not, in fact, merely a repackaging of Jonathan Edwards with a Kirk Cameron twist on it, if it was, I wouldn't of asked for all 26 episodes and spent days watching them all during Christmas break. The majority of the world is not Atheist, so of course not everyone would so quickly discount heaven/hell/ten commandments/etc. etc. etc., and that website probably would actually do some good for those people. I suppose their website could, technically, ask if you were an Atheist and then go through that thing first, but then why not go through all other religions which often have much more representation in the population, what if you click "No" and it asks "Are you Islamic?" "No" "Are you pan-theist?" "No" "Are you SURE?" "Yes" "Are you a Mormon?" "No" "Are you a Buudhist?" "No" "Are you a Hindu?" "No" Are you even ANYTHING?" "Yes" "Are you SURE you're something?" "No" "Wait, what, ARRRG!" Yea, I might of gone a bit overboard there, but it could turn into a problem you see, they'd really slow everything down and probably lose many people's interest because it would quickly get ridiculous. Also, you seem to have also helped prove both the person who first responded to me and myself about how obviously an Atheist really would not be very worried about sin/Christ/heaven/hell/God and so on, because as you've said, you don't have any belief whatsoever that any of it has any chance of being true.
The point is, the website *does* start by asking if you're an atheist, then goes on to yammer about things that have no semantic value unless you already believe in them. If you're already religious, you already subscribe to some dogma or another, and once you're believing in a specific deity-system, all you can do by evangelizing at them is, just like with the atheist, insult their commitment to their existing faith. An atheist is obviously not worried about any imaginary afterlife, so the arguments there (which are *all* of the "You'll go to Hell!" threatening variety) are nothing more than mindless yapping.

Evangelising must, by default, give someone a reason to, you know, listen. Why not actually use the Biblical one, im supposed to be Christian after all. I can understand the revulsion to listening to people make you worry about things, especially when their about eternity, but just because something is scary doesn't mean it's just a fake cheap-o scare tactic, even if it is extremely frightening and/or offensive.

Ahem. "just because something is scary doesn't mean it's just a fake cheap-o scare tactic". I notice, however, that you don't deny that the object of your adulation is in fact both using and advocating exactly those tactics. Along with suggesting using peer pressure (getting a bunch of Christians to help gang up on the target) and other pressure tactics most commonly associated with gangs, thugs, and used-car dealers. Just because you believe something is true does not make it less of a scare tactic to threaten people with it. If I say "Dozens of people are getting killed by lightning strikes!" then I'm using scare tactics even if it's completely true. That website advocates using the scary parts as a push, which is in fact a scare tactic. I reject your argument here in its entirety. Selling a religion through fear is unsupportable (unless you're recruiting for the Hashishim or something, I suppose).

Going back to the resturant thing, (And by the way, what questions didn't I answer?) the assumption is that the person is, in fact, in a kitchen, there's no "I quite strongly believe you are in a kitchen sir" about it, the kitchen is quite there, now what the people think about it is quite another. And that's the thing, the assumption is that the people in the kitchen you would be warning don't realize what the kitchen really is and that it is on fire.
No, you are incorrect on the state of the analogy. The analogy: I am in a restaurant, eating a meal. You come to believe that there is a kitchen, despite not having seen it, and that furthermore the kitchen is on fire, also without having seen it or any evidence of it. You have no proof of your assertion, but you want to make me run from the restaurant because the horrible things that would happen if you were somehow right would be so bad. You are not warning anyone in the kitchen; you are warning me, the person who does not believe the kitchen is on fire. If you were in the kitchen and saw a fire, then you would have concrete proof. In your situation, as an evangelical, you have no proof; you are arguing purely from belief.

Furthermore, on the morality thing, it looks to me like you've just partly supported me, the entire point on bringing someone through Christ through morality is because you don't actually have to be a Christian to have morality, if so, then I don't honestly see how Christianity would of progressed beyond a couple thousand members or so, nobody would be able to see that they've done something wrong to need Christ.
Okay, first off? Get a grammar checker and use it, because you commaspliced like mad just there and negated your own statement at least once. You don't need to be a Christian to have morality; there are lots and lots of moral Jews and atheists and Hindus and Pastafarians and so on and so on. Christianity grew originally because it did provide an alternative to the existing religious sets, and once it reached a certain critical mass it was able to memetically propagate itself.

Finally, the reason to become a Christian isn't to make a stable, pleasent society where everyone is nice to each other, it's to save yourself from Hell and go to Heaven, it's not about bringing up a utopia on earth, God is the one who's going to do that in the end.
In this, you are not only wrong but damned. Your hypothetical God is supposed to be omniscient and therefore knows your motivations for acting. If you become a Christian in order to save yourself from Hell, then God knows you are not doing it because you love Him but because you are scared for yourself. If you do a good deed because you want to win brownie points and not because a good deed is worth doing for its own sake (i.e. because you're a good person who inherently would do that without cause), God will know and so you won't get any credit for it. You strive to emulate Jesus not because you are afraid and hope it will save you from Hell, but because you love Him and His teachings. If you are a Christian because of fear and not because of love, your religion says you are damned. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you.


Well, that sounds pretty hypocritical for that town then i'll admit, but I neither live in Utah nor in that town, sometimes the people who claim they want to be as generally moral as possible, well, aren't, it's just a fact of life, but it is important to note that it is a "sometimes" and not an "always". I also agree that there are some groups and/or cults that specifically make themselves not consider adultery wrong, but give yourself enough time, and your going to find something so horrible, so insane, so increadibly awful on this planet that everyone in the entire world will simply have to agree it's evil, Think Holocaust, starving children in africa, pictures of partial birth abortion in full color and no censorship whatsoever, being born without a head/face/nose/eyes/inability to not convulse violently forever in extraordinary pain etc. etc. and going down that kind of line of horror, there's got to be something everyone considers wrong somehow unless their insane and can't hear what your talking about, or are just basically ignoring you in a fit of hysteria. probably not something simple like "Thou shalt not lie" will get everyone's concience to respond, but I don't see how any society could only have such a very limited concept of good and evil to the point where you can't actually evangelize to them because they won't admit anything is wrong, if their that increadibly relative, one would think they wouldn't really want to exist because there wouldn't relatively be a real reason to exist to them, and they'd probably just all die from suicide or starvation because they might thing hunger is relative.

The Holocaust: That would be the President of Iran, along with a lot of other anti-Semites.
Starving African children: That would be racist [ deleted ].
There is no medically recognized technique named 'partial-birth abortion.' There is a medical technique referred to as dilation and extraction, which has no known medical use outside of extreme emergency situations anyhow - and those pictures are in fact published without censorship, both by anti-choice zealots and by publishers of medical textbooks that reference the procedure.
The born without {list} is not a moral question because there is no action taken; the only one a religious individual could blame for those conditions would in fact be the abusive guy upstairs.
You're further misunderstanding, either deliberately or honestly, the point about moral values being relative: I did not say in any way, shape, or form that a group existed which denied the concept of some things being good and some things being bad. I did say that no single thing is universally accepted as being either good or bad. You were claiming that some things were universally recognized as bad, and that is simply false.

And for the religious charity, I went on a CHURCH SPONSORED mission trip to Reading, PA. We worked and helped rebuild an elderly man's house, and hopefully gave him something to be happy about. And another CHURCH SPONSORED mission trip, one of my friends from church went to Guatamala recently and helped down there with building houses and taking care of the sick. Don't tell me that the church doesn't do anything to give back to the community cause it does.

The point is not that religious institutions do not do positive works; the point, as I read it, is that the sum of all the works of most given denominations is negative. When you sum up the Crusades, the Klan, the Inquisition, the GOP, and other inhumane acts and groups attributable to Christianity, and put them alongside Mother Theresa, church trips, and the other positive things attributable to Christianity, there is a substantial case to be made that the grand total is a negative effect.

Your reasoning here is particularly questionable.

So, the only reason a religion could become popular is that its necessary for morality? How many popular religions are there?

Your reasoning could apply to Mohammed or Bhudda or Scientology. They all have more than "a couple thousand" members.

No, im saying that a religion dependent on getting people to admit that they have done wrong is entirely dependent on people having a sense of what is wrong and what is right. If you won't admit you've done something wrong, why should Christ forgive you if you assert you haven't done anything that needs forgiveness for?

No, im saying that a religion dependent on getting people to admit that they have done wrong is entirely dependent on people having a sense of what is wrong and what is right. If you won't admit you've done something wrong, why should Christ forgive you if you assert you haven't done anything that needs forgiveness for?

You make the erroneous assumption that this inherent sense of "right and wrong" in an absolute sense is addressed solely, perfectly, or even correctly by Christianity.

In fact, Christian dogma frequently accuses people of wrong when they don't feel they've done any wrong. Its the enforcement of an arbitrary set of "right and wrong", not a self-evident one.

The fact is, a morality that is developed and practiced diligently and through sincere introspection is (at least) equally as valid as a morality based on "wash yourself in somebody else's blood or God will torture you forever".

You talk about a sense of right and wrong. Well, mine tells me that its wrong to let somebody else take the punishment for what you did. I figured that out when I was about five.

My sense of right and wrong also tells me that applying a unilateral death and torture sentence on fallible beings for not living up to an infallible standard is also wrong.

Its wrong to preach "Thou shall not commit adultery", and then get your only begotten son with somebody else's wife.

Its wrong to say "Thou shall not kill", then kill infants for the sins of a ruler.

Christianity is not dependent on "getting people to admit they've done wrong". Its mostly about getting people to believe they've done wrong, and will be tortured if they don't do what you say.

The point is, the website *does* start by asking if you're an atheist, then goes on to yammer about things that have no semantic value unless you already believe in them. If you're already religious, you already subscribe to some dogma or another, and once you're believing in a specific deity-system, all you can do by evangelizing at them is, just like with the atheist, insult their commitment to their existing faith. An atheist is obviously not worried about any imaginary afterlife, so the arguments there (which are *all* of the "You'll go to Hell!" threatening variety) are nothing more than mindless yapping.

What? No, it asks if your a Christian or not, the world is not divided into Christians and Atheists, that would be a really strange world. The objective also isn't supposed to be to laugh and complain at other people's beliefs, it's supposed to earnestly make one consider the viewpoint of Christianity, just because many people are offended that evangelism inherintly implies that we think our religion works and their's doesn't mean they absolutly are being forced by the Atheist overmind to be offended, (See http://www.evilatheistconspiracy.org/ sometimes you can say someone is wrong without actually being insulting or mean about it. And I think i've already said, I fully agree an Atheist is probably not worried about these things and your statements seem to follow precisely on that course, I see no problem here, even the Bible agrees with the results of your position, (1 corinthians 1:18-19) so why are we fighting over it, I agree that you aren't worried as an Atheist, you apparently agree, and the Bible agrees, what more is there to say?

Ahem. "just because something is scary doesn't mean it's just a fake cheap-o scare tactic". I notice, however, that you don't deny that the object of your adulation is in fact both using and advocating exactly those tactics. Along with suggesting using peer pressure (getting a bunch of Christians to help gang up on the target) and other pressure tactics most commonly associated with gangs, thugs, and used-car dealers. Just because you believe something is true does not make it less of a scare tactic to threaten people with it. If I say "Dozens of people are getting killed by lightning strikes!" then I'm using scare tactics even if it's completely true. That website advocates using the scary parts as a push, which is in fact a scare tactic. I reject your argument here in its entirety. Selling a religion through fear is unsupportable (unless you're recruiting for the Hashishim or something, I suppose).

I don't see what's so bad about advocating the use of so-called "scare tactics" when Christians should know very well that doing nothing will not save someone from burning in hell for eternity? This wasn't a game to me when I first posted, and it's still not a game to me, I am quite serious about these things, I am not merely recruiting for the next Jihad group so that I might smite the heathens or some such un-nice concepts. The idea of using "peer pressure" to "help gang up on the target" is not nearly as sadistic as you make it sound, most Christians, including myself of course, do not, in fact, know everything. I do not see how it is so unreasonable to then want help when you're trying to save people's eternal soul from eternal punishment, it's not something you generally want to be unsure over by always going it alone. Do atheists always go it alone when they wish to confront a Christian over anything? I'd also like to reiterate what I said earlier, I am not a cotton candy evangelist, This isn't about selling religion on anybody, it's about saving them from Hell. If I was about to be run over by a truck but was looking the other way, would you scream at me to get out of the way, or tell me "You know what, it's so nasty right where your standing, why not come over to this spot over here, it's got a free car, you get your own cool gang to hang with, and thugs to do whatever you want, think about it, eh? But don't feel too pressured or anything, there's nothing wrong with where your standing at all, take your time!"

No, you are incorrect on the state of the analogy. The analogy: I am in a restaurant, eating a meal. You come to believe that there is a kitchen, despite not having seen it, and that furthermore the kitchen is on fire, also without having seen it or any evidence of it. You have no proof of your assertion, but you want to make me run from the restaurant because the horrible things that would happen if you were somehow right would be so bad. You are not warning anyone in the kitchen; you are warning me, the person who does not believe the kitchen is on fire. If you were in the kitchen and saw a fire, then you would have concrete proof. In your situation, as an evangelical, you have no proof; you are arguing purely from belief.

Ah but I do see a fire, I don't have to go to Hell to see it conceptually or logically from a Christian standpoint. Think of it this way, I have yet to personally see that the earth is round, I have not been up in a space shuttle, but I have seen many pretty pictures, and knows that since the horizon ends no matter where I go and gravity is relatively constant wherever I am, the earth must be spherical in nature. Technically speaking, I couldn't even view an entire sphere at once anyway, but that doesn't stop me from knowing, with certainty, that the earth is, in fact, a spherical object. Why should I have to go to Hell just to know it is there when there are many things in this world I cannot actually see but know are quite there in a certain obvious form? On the Kitchen, how are you not anyone, and this entire analogy is metaphorical, the kitchen in this sense is the world, and the fire is death, spreading through the restaraunt and about to kill everyone inside. By running out of the door, you also leave the world so to speak, but don't get burned up, because you've gotten out of the world in time because somebody gave you instructions on how to get out, and you acted upon them. But it is as you say, if you don't see that there is a fire, why should you listen? The only way I could really get someone who earnestly doesn't believe there is a fire to listen is to explain to them why the fire exists and why, by its very nature, it must eventually kill everyone. If I didn't do that, then I think I would agree with you, I can think of no real reason why you should believe me and get away from the fire. I summarized that reason up in my first post in this thread which is awhile back, but i'll be happy to explain it again if you like, maybe you'll even find something wrong with it which I can then correct and improve on in the future, who knows?

Okay, first off? Get a grammar checker and use it, because you commaspliced like mad just there and negated your own statement at least once. You don't need to be a Christian to have morality; there are lots and lots of moral Jews and atheists and Hindus and Pastafarians and so on and so on. Christianity grew originally because it did provide an alternative to the existing religious sets, and once it reached a certain critical mass it was able to memetically propagate itself.

I didn't see anything about negating myself. I've tried saying this before in total agreement with you, the entire argument for using the concience to show people how they have done wrong is entirely dependent on the fact, like you have so clearly stated, that all people, Christian or not, have morality, and therein lies the common ground in a debate. How am I negating myself? Both Christians and non-Christians have morality, this is how you find common ground in evangelism. I am not disagreeing with you on this, nor have I ever, even if I may of seemed very unclear before. Christianity wasn't at all a very good system for simply being an "alternative" for the first Christians either, as they were almost always persecuted quite horrendously in many instances, often arrested, and mostly martyred. Why would anyone get themselves in so much trouble just to memetically propagate an alternative religion unless there might of been a real, God inspired reason for it? They certainly couldn't of been doing it for fame because they wern't declared saints for hundreds of years after they had been dead.

In this, you are not only wrong but damned. Your hypothetical God is supposed to be omniscient and therefore knows your motivations for acting. If you become a Christian in order to save yourself from Hell, then God knows you are not doing it because you love Him but because you are scared for yourself. If you do a good deed because you want to win brownie points and not because a good deed is worth doing for its own sake (i.e. because you're a good person who inherently would do that without cause), God will know and so you won't get any credit for it. You strive to emulate Jesus not because you are afraid and hope it will save you from Hell, but because you love Him and His teachings. If you are a Christian because of fear and not because of love, your religion says you are damned. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you.

I did not become a Christian off of Jonathan Edwards, Christ did not bully me into accepting Him, I simply noticed that there was no way I could go to heaven myself because there was no good reason I should be able to. I also noticed that God seemed to care an enormous deal about this as He sacrificed His only begotton Son so that I might have a chance to get to heaven anyway, why would God sacrifice His only Son for us if He hates us so much that He wants us all to go to hell? The Bible tells us that those who love Christ will obey Him, and I am obeying Him right this very instant by evangelizing my views. (Albiet apparently unsuccessfuly so far) Of course, I never totally succeed, but Christ also says to repent of our sins, which I do very often I assure you, and so im obeying Him anyway despite my frequent failures, it comes with being human. If this doesn't seem normal to you, your problem isn't with my personal beliefs, it's with what Christ mandated. The Bible does not say faith in Christ makes us good either, it simply makes our bad deeds recieve forgiveness, being saved from sin does not make us immune to sin by any means. I also do not strive to emulate Jesus compleatly, because first i've already failed simply by being born as a human who is not God and by sinning far, far, FAR too many times to count, I would have to judge people and thus be judged and sent down to hell for it, and also get sent to hell anyway for trying to be God, which is what I would have to try to do through acting like Christ, since the Bible says only God is perfect and that Christ is also God, and that God cannot share His throne with anyone. And no worries on the last thing, I do love Christ for His sacrifice for us, the Bible tells us that through faith in Christ we are assured salvation, by constantly fearing the opposite, I would essentialy not be trusting in Christ, and then would go to Hell anyway by implying through lack of faith that I might think Christ was exaggerating somewhat.

The Holocaust: That would be the President of Iran, along with a lot of other anti-Semites.
Starving African children: That would be racist [ deleted ].
There is no medically recognized technique named 'partial-birth abortion.' There is a medical technique referred to as dilation and extraction, which has no known medical use outside of extreme emergency situations anyhow - and those pictures are in fact published without censorship, both by anti-choice zealots and by publishers of medical textbooks that reference the procedure.
The born without {list} is not a moral question because there is no action taken; the only one a religious individual could blame for those conditions would in fact be the abusive guy upstairs.
You're further misunderstanding, either deliberately or honestly, the point about moral values being relative: I did not say in any way, shape, or form that a group existed which denied the concept of some things being good and some things being bad. I did say that no single thing is universally accepted as being either good or bad. You were claiming that some things were universally recognized as bad, and that is simply false.
Ah, but the Iranian president only says that the Holocaust didn't exist, not that a Holocaust-like situation is not evil. Next, do you really think most racists actually have seen starving african children up close? It could possibly be very easy for them to say something horrible like they want them to starve, but it would be quite another for them to say that when the starving children are right in their face. Of course, you might be right that they just plain wouldn't care anyway, but like I said, you can go down that general line of horror and your bound to hit something that everyone agrees is evil in some way. Fair enough on the partial birth abortion point not actually being the medical name of the procedure, but still, how can you be so sure that those anti-choice zealot created pictures will not instill some inkling of negative connotation with someone? (Who is of course self-aware enough to actually comphrehend them) Finally, your last point is, at least it seems to me, evading the issue, can you say with confidence that somebody would think some of those horrors to be not evil? Also, I am a religious person, (Though some people say Christianity isn't technically supposed to be religious, but that seems to only apply to one definition of religious as far as I know. )and not only can I blame someone other than God for those things, but I will blame someone else for those things right now: It was Adam's, Eve's, and the snake's fault.

You make the erroneous assumption that this inherent sense of "right and wrong" in an absolute sense is addressed solely, perfectly, or even correctly by Christianity.

In fact, Christian dogma frequently accuses people of wrong when they don't feel they've done any wrong. Its the enforcement of an arbitrary set of "right and wrong", not a self-evident one.

The fact is, a morality that is developed and practiced diligently and through sincere introspection is (at least) equally as valid as a morality based on "wash yourself in somebody else's blood or God will torture you forever".

You talk about a sense of right and wrong. Well, mine tells me that its wrong to let somebody else take the punishment for what you did. I figured that out when I was about five.

My sense of right and wrong also tells me that applying a unilateral death and torture sentence on fallible beings for not living up to an infallible standard is also wrong.

Its wrong to preach "Thou shall not commit adultery", and then get your only begotten son with somebody else's wife.

Its wrong to say "Thou shall not kill", then kill infants for the sins of a ruler.

Christianity is not dependent on "getting people to admit they've done wrong". Its mostly about getting people to believe they've done wrong, and will be tortured if they don't do what you say.

But it doesn't matter if you think people taking the heat for you is wrong, it didn't stop Christ from doing it for you anyway, how does that make you feel? And nobody said that everyone's concience affirms everything the Bible says about what is right and what is wrong, as i've said to Abstentia, many groups might not agree on exactly what is right and what is wrong most of the time, but there has to be a common ground somewhere where nobody can say that something is clearly not evil, unless their lying specifically to undermine my point or something. You are also quite correct that applying an infallible standard to fallible beings and then forcing them all to be punished for it despite the standard-bearer claiming He is a being of infinite love, this is precisely why Christ gave us the chance to not be punished for all eternity for failing to live up to a standard that nobody can reach but God Himself. Furthermore, God did not rape Mary, that would indeed be a horrible double standard as you say. You can make an egg be fertilized without actually having sex with a person, God is infinitly powerful and wise, if we can think up in-vitro fertilization, why can't He think up something infinitely better and also non-sex reliant? Furthermore, the hebrew translation for "kill" being used there leans more towared murder, as the hebrew language is very distinct on the difference between kill and murder. It is possible that the writers of early Bible's considered kill to mean more towared murder in context, but most modern translations will tell you it says murder there. And I still don't see why Christ would forgive anyone who won't admit that they've done wrong, why should Christ send in a spiritual SWAT team to force your sins to be payed for when you don't actually want them to be?

I think you're confusing atheists with men who drive Corvettes.



True that my friend. I am an atheists and we are not compensating at all..we simply want hardcore facts..something that can be proven..To me all religion is the same-something to tell you how to act and what you can and can't do because it's either right or wrong. Who is to say what is right or wrong these days?

But it doesn't matter if you think people taking the heat for you is wrong, it didn't stop Christ from doing it for you anyway, how does that make you feel? And nobody said that everyone's concience affirms everything the Bible says about what is right and what is wrong, as i've said to Abstentia, many groups might not agree on exactly what is right and what is wrong most of the time, but there has to be a common ground somewhere where nobody can say that something is clearly not evil, unless their lying specifically to undermine my point or something. You are also quite correct that applying an infallible standard to fallible beings and then forcing them all to be punished for it despite the standard-bearer claiming He is a being of infinite love, this is precisely why Christ gave us the chance to not be punished for all eternity for failing to live up to a standard that nobody can reach but God Himself. Furthermore, God did not rape Mary, that would indeed be a horrible double standard as you say. You can make an egg be fertilized without actually having sex with a person, God is infinitly powerful and wise, if we can think up in-vitro fertilization, why can't He think up something infinitely better and also non-sex reliant? Furthermore, the hebrew translation for "kill" being used there leans more towared murder, as the hebrew language is very distinct on the difference between kill and murder. It is possible that the writers of early Bible's considered kill to mean more towared murder in context, but most modern translations will tell you it says murder there. And I still don't see why Christ would forgive anyone who won't admit that they've done wrong, why should Christ send in a spiritual SWAT team to force your sins to be payed for when you don't actually want them to be?

It does most certainly matter if I think punishing one for the crime of another is wrong. It makes me feel that you clearly don't understand what right and wrong are if you think they don't matter.

And saying "Christ gave us the chance to not be punished for all eternity" for what you concede is an unreasonable standard is like a judge saying "I won't have you tortured if you obey me, and my son will be killed to seal the deal". Blood sacrifice is not an act of love. Do you get it? God called for a sacrifice to appease his anger at fallible beings being fallible. Its an inherent hypocrisy, regardless of God's willingness to sacrifice his children for somebody else's crime.

Also, I never said God raped Mary, I said he got his only begotten son from another man's wife. In Christianity, that is presented as fact. Make up some "non-sex" reliant way to impregnate a woman, it shows how far you're stretching.

Infinitely "powerful and wise" beings don't kill children for the sins of their fathers. Call it the ancient Hebrew word for "kill" or "murder" or "liquidate" or whatever semantic absurdity comforts you. The children had their heads bashed against rocks in one verse (at the command of God), and God had children struck dead as a "plague" in others. Make up any translation you need to, nothing makes that okay.

Lastly, who made the rule that being fallible meant being tortured? In your religion, God makes all rules. He has free will, too. Your "God and Christ" still just boil down to: "For the crime of being human, I will torture you forever if you don't wash yourself in the blood of my child, whom I sacrificed because I love you so much".

Its hypocrisy and bloodlust, not love and forgiveness.

Curiousity is "the very lowest and strongest brick in the wall of ignorance."? I've never heard that before... Indeed without it you wouldn't have your beautiful science to cling to.
Lol, you mean you actually think that CURIOSITY was expressed in the statement Straughn quoted? Gimme a break. It would be one thing for you to join in the ignorant masses ranting about evil nasty atheists, but it's quite another for you to actually claim that the starter of this thread was asking a genuine, honest question for the sake of expanding his own knowledge. I know you're probably religious, but let's try to keep the gullibility factor as low as possible, shall we?

Wow. This thread ended up as a low point even in the usual useless discussion that goes on here in General.

An attempt to start a theist masturbation party backfired and became an atheist masturbation party! Hallelujah! Ah well, at least it's good for some cheap amusement and a good way of reinforcing my superioty complex.

Are religous fellows compensating for something?

Why yes, they rather are, utilisng anachronistic, restrictive moral codes and uninspiring mythology to placate their fears as to death and the subseqeunt state of the soul.

Careful there, if I've said it once I've said it a dozen times: not all religions have the eschatological fetish that Christianity does. You're using too broad a brush to pain religion when your experiances really only apply to one faith.

Careful there, if I've said it once I've said it a dozen times: not all religions have the eschatological fetish that Christianity does. You're using too broad a brush to pain religion when your experiances really only apply to one faith.

(Jumps out from a dark corner)
HAHAHAH! NOT ALL ATHEISTS ARE LOUD!
Your using too broad a brush!
Gotcha!

Oh, man, I hope that isn't always true.

I'm going to ask my friend Yusuf, "If I said Mohammed (sic?) was just a man and not a prophet, would you feel the need to kill me, or call for my death?"

I honestly don't know how he'll answer, though.
I'm curious about that myself. Let me know what he says, please...

No atheist tries to get religious worship banned, but plenty of Christians take every chance to try to make us a theocracy.

Bullshit, plenty of athiest just cant stand the site of someone worshiping, there have been cases where they protest a new church going up in an area, (although i have never seen yet, them protest a church to be closed down)

but yes the same is true for some christians, some christians are not really christians, its kind of hard to say some athiest arnt really atheist.

www.wayofthemaster.com[/url], and like I mentioned, it seems so easy that, well, I kinda suspect somebody has made up a counter-argument already, so i'd still like to know one or 2 of them to anticipate it in the future and maybe have a counter-argument ready and all.

You keep banging that drum and I must say, I went and found it unconvincing. The entire line of argument requires an external spiritual system, requires that you accept the primacy of the ten commandments, and requires that you accept Christian eschatology. I imagine that it works well for lapsed Christians, but for those people who are of a differing view than Christians (as opposed to people who are neutral) then it comes up short.

How would the way of the master address someone who is an apostate?

Bullshit, plenty of athiest just cant stand the site of someone worshiping, there have been cases where they protest a new church going up in an area, (although i have never seen yet, them protest a church to be closed down)
Could you give a reference on this, please?


but yes the same is true for some christians, some christians are not really christians, its kind of hard to say some athiest arnt really atheist.
Just because a person is a "militant" Christian or atheist doesn't mean they aren't a "real" Christian or "real" atheist.

I can save you some time.

I don't know why the other poster (sorry, didn't pay attention, I guess... ) has decided to believe what he/she believes... or if he/she is just repeating a generalisation they have heard...

But, generalisations are almost always going to be a problem.. because, the instant you say a thing applies to ALL of something, you are imagining a form of absolute unity... and such things are inherently unlikely.

I have been friends with people of many different religions, and, staright off, I can tell you that the other poster is 'talking through his hat'. Yes - I have known some Muslims I certainly wouldn't consider friends... for a VARIETY of reasons... some religious and some not.

Just like any other religion... there are some who will always use religion as a calming influence, and there are others, that will 'start fires' with it.

I've seen Buddhists throwing rocks at each other, and hitting each other with planks. I've seen Muslims weep uncontrollably, as the news about 9/11 came in...
I never said ALL of anything or anyone did whatever...

I'm know Muslims that I consider my friends, too. But it is undeniable that the public face of Islam is overwhelmingly intolerant to the point of violence. Period. Much more so than other religions. Don't think so? Go to the forum I posted a link to, or any other Muslim forum, I've been to dozens. They are all the same. While there are Muslims in all of them that I would not call extremists, the level of violence and hatred expressed on every single one I have been to is frightening and unique. Frightening because they really mean it. Unique in that it is so pervasive and even some of the more peaceful ones find it religiously necessary to tolerate, even defend the point of view of those who advocate bombing maternity wards.

Don't take my word for it. Seriously. Go check it out yourself.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bislam+%2Bforum

Could you give a reference on this, please?

cant find the article at the moment, will report back once i do

it was on local news, i cant seem to find the link to it


Just because a person is a "militant" Christian or atheist doesn't mean they aren't a "real" Christian or "real" atheist.

on the contrary it does (for christians). a true christian is a follower in christs teachings, not just believing in him, and knowing he existed. and unlike a certain middle eastern religion, christ didnt tell people to kill the nonbelievers.

as for atheism, its lacks structure, rules, guidlines, etc..., so anyone who calls themselves atheist is pretty much atheist

Furthermore, on the morality thing, it looks to me like you've just partly supported me, the entire point on bringing someone through Christ through morality is because you don't actually have to be a Christian to have morality, if so, then I don't honestly see how Christianity would of progressed beyond a couple thousand members or so, nobody would be able to see that they've done something wrong to need Christ. Finally, the reason to become a Christian isn't to make a stable, pleasent society where everyone is nice to each other, it's to save yourself from Hell and go to Heaven, it's not about bringing up a utopia on earth, God is the one who's going to do that in the end.

A little bit of history and an understanding of human nature can go a long way. Over the centuries, very few Christian converts have been willing. Constantine brought Christianity to the Romans, making it the state religion. While it might have been that Constantine was genuinely swayed by Christian doctrine, it is just as likely that he used Christianity to measure loyalty and to quietly take power and influence away from the growing Mithraic tradition which he viewed as a potential threat to his military power (soldiers getting into mystery religions make commanders nervous). Once Rome was Christian, everyone Rome conquered became Christian, and when Rome fell everyone those conquered nations conquered were also converted. The spread of Christianity through Europe (and later to South America) is not a testament to Christian Dogma, it was a tool of control used by human leaders.

Even if the first generation of conquered people did not truely believe, their children would. The old ways would die out over a few generations and control would be easier to maintain. A king could enforce the laws of earth, a Cardinal could be make sure that the laws of Heaven supported the laws of earth. There are alot of Christians because human beings are lazy and if they are Christians when they are born they are unlikely to change that unless they have a good reason. Hell, looking at Europe and the US, Christianity is less a religion and more a default to be ignored. Why else would you need things like Born Again culture?

as for atheism, its lacks structure, rules, guidlines, etc..., so anyone who calls themselves atheist is pretty much atheist

That's an overly broad generalization. Somebody who calls themselves an atheist, but in moments of fear/doubt is compelled to resort to the coping mechanism of religion and start praying or calling out for some God or other would be a lapsed atheist.

(S)he just doesn't have to ask the Atheist Pope for forgiveness, because, of the 11 self-declared Athiest Popes, only Bender and Bill Gates have enough of a following to force a majority ruling in Athiest Conclave, and neither of them believes in apologies.

No, im saying that a religion dependent on getting people to admit that they have done wrong is entirely dependent on people having a sense of what is wrong and what is right. If you won't admit you've done something wrong, why should Christ forgive you if you assert you haven't done anything that needs forgiveness for?


An excellent point. Your religion is entirely dependend upon guilt. The prerequisite for entering the faith is looking to God and saying "I'm a piece of shit too weak to control myself and too pathetic to do anything about it. Please fix me."

Some of us demand more from our gods than some pathetic fingerwaving from five thousand years ago. I'm comfortable with who I am, I don't feel guilty, and I don't need someone to tell me how wicked I am just so I can then be saved. I don't need to submit, I don't need to kneel, I don't need to bow. My entire spiritual expression does not revolve around some deep-seated feeling of guilt.

I don't want someone to save me, I don't want to be absolved of my sins. If I do wrong there is no justice in the universe if anything other than my own actions can redeem me. I don't want to be patted on the head and told that Daddy will make it all better.

Well, that should be enough to get what should be needed to actually have a conversation, it's one thing to personally believe there is no God and to claim to know there cannot be a God, but once you concede that it is not impossible and that you just personally don't believe, that's probably somewhere along the lines of Quasi-agnostic, since it's just your opinion and not something you think of as fact. And like I said earlier, as long as people aren't compleatly steadfast against God existing, then there is room to actually talk about morality and people's ultimate fate, if people don't believe God can exist, why should they, after all, believe that people can even have an ultimate fate? And I got that argument from www.wayofthemaster.com, and like I mentioned, it seems so easy that, well, I kinda suspect somebody has made up a counter-argument already, so i'd still like to know one or 2 of them to anticipate it in the future and maybe have a counter-argument ready and all.

You need to realise that there are two kinds of Atheist, explicit and implicit. The majority of us are implicit and so we don't deny that it is possible for god to exist, we just don't think he does.

And to be honest friend, from what I read on the website the authors of 'way of the master' seem to rely on rhetoric above reason and logical argument. Any reasonably intelligent atheist would be able to shred those arguments within seconds. The only half-way convincing logical proofs of god came from Aquinas and even those can be beaten with a little effort.

There are just plain some things that, when you get right down to it, always make people edgy, even if a society represses the repulsion of a group of people to one thing, I can't image a culture that somehow has suppressed every single sense of right and wrong they have, all you've got to do is figure out what part of their concience their listening to, and go from there, or so i'd think. And adultery might be accepted as fine in PC land, but from where im standing, most people in America still tend to make a big hoo-haa over it when it's not in the major press or with a celebrity or something, in fact, one of the major causes that people have listed mostly when they get polled for wanting an abortion is because they had a child as a result of fornication and didn't want the pressure from either taking care of it or from their parents, so apparently a great many people still think it's unnaceptable. It's true what you say, of course, that culture can greatly influence how people excericise their sense of right and wrong, but if a culture simply did away compleatly with that sense, then you'd think they would of killed each other or something :/.

Maybe all of the cultures which didn't prohibit random killing did die out and that is why cultures today are generally against it, natural selection.

The problem here is that you are still looking at it from a point of view which believes in moral absolutes, you say 'I can't image a culture that somehow has suppressed every single sense of right and wrong they have'. The point is that they aren't supressing their sense of right and wrong because they don't have one as such, their sense of right and wrong was taught to them by the culture.

I assume you're refering to childbirth outside of wedlock when you say 'adultery' and here you confirm my point: it is considered to be fine over here whereas in America it apparently isn't. This isn't because Americans have a stronger sense of right and wrong, it's because they were brought up in a culture which objected to extra-marital sex whereas in 'PC land' we weren't so we don't have a problem with it.

If I do wrong there is no justice in the universe if anything other than my own actions can redeem me.

I like that idea.

And asking somebody else to take the rap for you shouldn't count as an action.

(Jumps out from a dark corner)
HAHAHAH! NOT ALL ATHEISTS ARE LOUD!
Your using too broad a brush!
Gotcha!


Hmmm. Can you please explain to me how I was generalizing? The entire Christian faith is built around eschatology. What happens and where you go when you die is central to the Christian faith. Without it, there is no religion, there is no heaven or hell, there is no need for Christ. Christians need their death mythos to exist.

An excellent point. Your religion is entirely dependend upon guilt. The prerequisite for entering the faith is looking to God and saying "I'm a piece of shit too weak to control myself and too pathetic to do anything about it. Please fix me."

Some of us demand more from our gods than some pathetic fingerwaving from five thousand years ago. I'm comfortable with who I am, I don't feel guilty, and I don't need someone to tell me how wicked I am just so I can then be saved. I don't need to submit, I don't need to kneel, I don't need to bow. My entire spiritual expression does not revolve around some deep-seated feeling of guilt.

I don't want someone to save me, I don't want to be absolved of my sins. If I do wrong there is no justice in the universe if anything other than my own actions can redeem me. I don't want to be patted on the head and told that Daddy will make it all better.
A bit from Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller):

"This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

And asking somebody else to take the rap for you shouldn't count as an action.

No, it shouldn't. Then again, it is as good a way out as any in a system that is rigged against you from the start. I've always wondered a bit about the Christian God:

"Here you are, created by me. I can do anything and I know all that ever was, is, or has yet to come. I give you the freedom to choose for yourself, but to balance that out I give you the desire to choose all the things I forbid. I know you are curious, I know that prohibitions will only encourage you, but don't eat anything off that tree in the backyard. Ah, gotcha! Yeah, I knew you'd do it. Well, you know the rules, out of paradise, welcome to a world of pain. Its for justice, you know. Don't worry, love me anyway and someday I might torture one of you to death, then chuck him on into hell to pay for all the evil things anyone will ever do. It'll hurt me to do it, you know, cause he'll be my only son. What? Well yes, I suppose the angels could count because I created them directly. Yes....and Adam. Eve? Well...now you're asking too many questions. Yes, I know I made you in such a way as to lead you to ask questions! I'm God, I know everything! Its complicated...ok...now you're pissing me off...*lighting bolt* Hah! Whose the man? I'm the man! Damn right..."

How many times have I seen this argument on these boards before... I will not deny that Christianity does put emphisis on converting others, as it is in the bible, however when you say Christians you are refering to the religious group in general not a specific sect devoted to evangelizing to the masses.
Almost every Christian group evangelises. When I go into the city centre, there are always Christians shouting at everyone through their megaphones and handing out leaflets (their voices get so distorted no one can ever work out what they're saying, but meh) and my house gets on average 5 leaflets per year about Christianity. How many do we get about atheism? None. How many people preach atheism in the streets of the city centre? None. It's a bit rich for a Christian to accuse atheists of evangelising.

And as far as atheism not being a unified body of people you are forgetting that there are many small groups that strongly support atheism such as Communism according to Karl Marx, Objectivism according to Ayn Rand, and such groups as American Atheists. None match that of the Christian church, but that is because Atheists are a much smaller group.
You have named three different groups, many of which (such as Marxists) have dozens and dozens of groups within themselves. Clearly you can see that this is completely consistant with what I said about them being a disunited group? In addition, the defining principle of Marxists is not atheism, it is Marxism

And my allegations against atheists being noisy, here are two:
a)an article in my school newspaper (http://my.highschooljournalism.org/md/bethesda/wj/article.cfm?eid=4619&aid=68424)
b)this thread has 13 pgs now, and it hasn't even been 3 complete days yet
I hardly think that "an article in my school paper" counts as hard-core evangelising on behalf of atheists. In fact, it sounds extremely small and irrelevent.

Well Im a fairly quiet Atheist here in this Christian dominated US...but sometimes I wonder what its like being an Atheist in a place like Iran, or Pakistan...Must be not so far from being a Jew in Hitlers Germany...I dont guess that the Islamics kill Atheists, but Im sure they dont make life easy for em, neither

I'm curious about that myself. Let me know what he says, please...

Just dont draw any cartoons of Mohammed, or he might have to burn your house down :sniper:

No atheists are not compensating, if they are its for the annoying fundamentalists. Nipples.

Lol, you mean you actually think that CURIOSITY was expressed in the statement Straughn quoted? Gimme a break. It would be one thing for you to join in the ignorant masses ranting about evil nasty atheists, but it's quite another for you to actually claim that the starter of this thread was asking a genuine, honest question for the sake of expanding his own knowledge. I know you're probably religious, but let's try to keep the gullibility factor as low as possible, shall we?
Actually I was curious. This was not meant to be an atheist bashing thread, nor was it supposed to be a christian bashing thread, it was purely my own curiosity that started this thread.

Actually I was curious. This was not meant to be an atheist bashing thread, nor was it supposed to be a christian bashing thread, it was purely my own curiosity that started this thread.

You aren't even an honest person.

Opening up with "Are atheists compensating for something?" and then making the presupposition that atheists are somehow unilaterally loud about their beliefs is not a curious question, its a clumsy, ill-disguised accusation.

The point is not that religious institutions do not do positive works; the point, as I read it, is that the sum of all the works of most given denominations is negative. When you sum up the Crusades, the Klan, the Inquisition, the GOP, and other inhumane acts and groups attributable to Christianity, and put them alongside Mother Theresa, church trips, and the other positive things attributable to Christianity, there is a substantial case to be made that the grand total is a negative effect.
The Klan is not a Christian organization, if you had any knowledge about it, you would know that it was originally a fraternity that developed into a hate group, the people who are Klan members are not Christians, even if they proclaim to be. I believe it was argued earlier that wars are over resources and land, not religion. Religion was the excuse for the Crusades but it was not the cause. The Catholic Church wanted to expand its influence. Specify what other inhumane acts and groups are attributable to Christianity that you are thinking of.

The vast majority of atheists that I know are polite and perfectly willing to live and let live. The ones on this board seem to be the exception to this rule.

You aren't even an honest person.

Opening up with "Are atheists compensating for something?" and then making the presupposition that atheists are somehow unilaterally loud about their beliefs is not a curious question, its a clumsy, ill-disguised accusation.
I'm a very honest person, and a very curious person. I enjoy science because of my curiosity. And I'd be sinning if I was lying.

The vast majority of atheists that I know are polite and perfectly willing to live and let live. The ones on this board seem to be the exception to this rule.
Well said.

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
Your title indicates you're aiming this at atheists...but it's usually the religious folks that tend to be noisy...and the atheists who tend to tell them to quiet down.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's noticed - though it is always nice to talk to polite Christians.

Almost every Christian group evangelises. When I go into the city centre, there are always Christians shouting at everyone through their megaphones and handing out leaflets (their voices get so distorted no one can ever work out what they're saying, but meh) and my house gets on average 5 leaflets per year about Christianity. How many do we get about atheism? None. How many people preach atheism in the streets of the city centre? None. It's a bit rich for a Christian to accuse atheists of evangelising.
Its the Baptists, the Evangelicals, and Jehovah's Witness (which I do not consider a Christian sect) that do most of the evangelizing.


You have named three different groups, many of which (such as Marxists) have dozens and dozens of groups within themselves. Clearly you can see that this is completely consistant with what I said about them being a disunited group? In addition, the defining principle of Marxists is not atheism, it is Marxism.
I said before that I know that atheists are not nearly as united as Christians, but there still are groups that are primarily atheist, I mean would I be greeted with open arms by an American Atheists convention? Most likely not as I'm obviously not atheist.


I hardly think that "an article in my school paper" counts as hard-core evangelising on behalf of atheists. In fact, it sounds extremely small and irrelevent.
Did you read it? Granted Its not saying "Become atheists and abandon your beliefs because they are illogical and foolish" but that is the main point.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's noticed - though it is always nice to talk to polite Christians.
Indeed it is.

It is a pretty general Christian teaching to evangelize, but the majority of Christians do know that screaming at people about how horrible they are and passing out stupid pamphlets that nobody reads aren't going to change anything. The people at my church are more interested in being kind and caring than telling everyone who doesn't think like them that they're going to Hell, because they're pretty much aware that they're not perfect.

The vast majority of atheists that I know are polite and perfectly willing to live and let live. The ones on this board seem to be the exception to this rule.
I'm one of the atheists on this board, and I'm quite happy to live and let live. But if a belief-based discussion arises, then I'll put my view - that's what discussion is for.

What I don't do (and nor does any other atheist I know of) is doorstep trying to convert people, preach the atheist message over megaphones in shopping centres, and try to convince the government to create more explicitly atheist schools etc etc.

Your title indicates you're aiming this at atheists...but it's usually the religious folks that tend to be noisy...and the atheists who tend to tell them to quiet down.
To my very limited knowledge of this board, it seems that there is pretty much an equal number of atheist bashing threads and religion bashing threads.

What I don't do (and nor does any other atheist I know of) is doorstep trying to convert people, preach the atheist message over megaphones in shopping centres, and try to convince the government to create more explicitly atheist schools etc etc.
Actually that would be kind of funny if that happened...

I'm glad you're polite, Candelar, but there are atheists on this board who say that if you're anything other than atheist you're an idiot who believes that fairy tales are true - and even if you believe that the Bible is a load of crap, it's really rude to insult the intelligence of someone who does believe it.

I'm a Christian and I'm not about to go telling all the atheists on this board that you're horrible sinners and going to Hell or whatever, I'm not going to stand in a public place with a microphone or go door-to-door; frankly people like that annoy me too.

Of course, someone's likely to insult my intelligence for being a Christian, but I feel that that makes them look bad. After all, I'm not going to say that you're stupid for not believing in God - after all, you can't prove or disprove His existence.

Hmmm. Can you please explain to me how I was generalizing? The entire Christian faith is built around eschatology. What happens and where you go when you die is central to the Christian faith. Without it, there is no religion, there is no heaven or hell, there is no need for Christ. Christians need their death mythos to exist.

Umm, no.

You seem to confuse "Christians" with "those who follow a very narrow, rigorous set of doctrines, including but not exclusively Augustinian evangelism". The thing is, not every Christian, even in Augustine's day, believed half of the crap that came out of that charlatan's mouth: St. Jerome advocated biblical non-literalism, for instance, and Irenicus had already come out with a perfectly serviceable understanding of Genesis that didn't involve original sin at all by the time St. Augustine was around.

In other words, lots of Christians don't hold with the belief that we shouldn't live happily in this life for fear of the next. Lots of Christians are perfectly willing to say that most if not all of Genesis is just a fable. Lots of Christians don't necessarily know if there is an afterlife (especially in Christ's day, because the whole concept of a heaven was still viewed in many quarters as dangerous Persian and Greek heresy). Personally, I count myself among them. But all true Christians do strive to uphold two principles that, in my view, are pretty good: love God with all your heart, and treat all people as you would your brother.

This is a big part of the reason why I always have a problem with some of the more vocal atheists on this board: they love to talk about the strawmen those loony Christians construct of them, but when push comes to shove are almost completely unwilling to admit that any Christian can exist who isn't some buck-toothed, banjo-wielding hick from rural North Carolina. I didn't come to believe that Christianity was true because I was brainwashed into it; it was the brainwashing that made me agnostic growing up. Rather, it was reading philosophers like Aristotle and Kant that convinced me that there must be a God, and there must be a universal truth. But whenever I quote Kant, I get people who wouldn't even know some pop "philosopher" like Rand if she bit them in the ass summarily dismissing what I say as some stupid rambling of an ignorant peasant.

No atheists are not compensating, if they are its for the annoying fundamentalists. Nipples.Speak for yourself. I'm an atheist because i need to compensate for my enormous penis. :(

(snip) This is a big part of the reason why I always have a problem with some of the more vocal atheists on this board: they love to talk about the strawmen those loony Christians construct of them, but when push comes to shove are almost completely unwilling to admit that any Christian can exist who isn't some buck-toothed, banjo-wielding hick from rural North Carolina(snip)

This is what I was trying to express in an earlier post but you did a better job of it. People who behave like that give regular atheists a bad name, just as door-to-door evangelizing assholes give regular Christians a bad name.

Umm, no.

You seem to confuse "Christians" with "those who follow a very narrow, rigorous set of doctrines, including but not exclusively Augustinian evangelism". The thing is, not every Christian, even in Augustine's day, believed half of the crap that came out of that charlatan's mouth: St. Jerome advocated biblical non-literalism, for instance, and Irenicus had already come out with a perfectly serviceable understanding of Genesis that didn't involve original sin at all by the time St. Augustine was around.

Actually, no, I don't. Nothing I said revolved around augustinian tenets. For the vast majority of Christians in the world the very core of their faith is, well, Christ. The reason for Christ in the Christian cosmos is simple, he showed up to redeem the sins of mankind and to establish a new covenant. Jesus came down to earth to pay for the sins of mankind and make them eligible for heaven. Thats not Augustine, thats basic canon.

In other words, lots of Christians don't hold with the belief that we shouldn't live happily in this life for fear of the next. Lots of Christians are perfectly willing to say that most if not all of Genesis is just a fable. Lots of Christians don't necessarily know if there is an afterlife (especially in Christ's day, because the whole concept of a heaven was still viewed in many quarters as dangerous Persian and Greek heresy). Personally, I count myself among them. But all true Christians do strive to uphold two principles that, in my view, are pretty good: love God with all your heart, and treat all people as you would your brother.

I never said that Christians aren't allowed to be happy on earth, I understand the difference between Christianity and Catharism (or any of the other dualist heresies). Granted, I know quite a few who feel that way, but it isn't a prerequisite of faith. I also never said that all christians were literalists. I did say that Christianity requires an eschatology. You can assert that there are Christians who do not know if there is an afterlife, but the entire bible is written around the concept of sin and redemption, which necessarily needs the consequences of an afterlife. Saying Christianity doesn't need it's eschatology is like saying that Judaism doesn't need tradition. Sure, you could take it out of the religion, but there wouldn't be much left.

But whenever I quote Kant, I get people who wouldn't even know some pop "philosopher" like Rand if she bit them in the ass summarily dismissing what I say as some stupid rambling of an ignorant peasant.

I hate Kant. Not criticizing you for liking him, but I just cannot stand the man. Not exactly a fan of Rand either. Give me some nice Nozick or Guenon any day.

You might not like Kant but at least you know who he is.

Actually, no, I don't. Nothing I said revolved around augustinian tenets. For the vast majority of Christians in the world the very core of their faith is, well, Christ. The reason for Christ in the Christian cosmos is simple, he showed up to redeem the sins of mankind and to establish a new covenant. Jesus came down to earth to pay for the sins of mankind and make them eligible for heaven. Thats not Augustine, thats basic canon.

Yes and no. Augustine is the guy who popularized the notion that "we're saved because Christ redeemed us", and he was the guy most responsible for getting it put into canon. The actual theory of how Christ paid for our sins is not Augustinian, however, but from the writings of Anselm. Augustine, on the other hand, argued that Jesus was a Trojan Horse in the war against Satan: Satan thought that by desecrating a Jew on the cross (a big no-no in early Judeo-Christian theology), he could net an especially virtuous human, and inadvertantly brought the Son of God into Hell itself. It cannot be denied, however, that Augustine is the root of the beliefs you just described.

More importantly, however, you're missing the point by stressing that you weren't talking about Augustine, because in reality I wasn't either. What I was talking about is the pervasive belief that in order to be a Christian, you have to believe a rigorous set of doctrinal beliefs. Those beliefs could be from Augustine, they could be from Aquinas, they could be from the Nicean Creed, whatever. The truth is that Jesus lays down only two provisions for what constitutes a follower of Him: you have to love God with all your heart, and you have to treat all people as your brother. Further, I think, and I believe that most people would agree, that these are good things to believe in. I don't deny that there can be virtuous non-believers, but generally speaking, those beliefs help me to be a lot more virtuous than I was before, and they could help a lot of others were they to read them as well.

This then is the end to which I, and quite a few others progress: virtue, not some theoretical heaven. I don't do things because I'm getting into heaven, if for no other reason than because that implies I can be bribed; as unChristian a principle as ever I heard. Rather, I do the things I do largely because I believe that they are the right things to do, and would do them even if I were sent to Hell by a corrupt and unjust God. Moreoever, this is not uncommon a view among genuine, dedicated Christians. I don't need heaven or an eschatonology to justify what I do, because virtue is, to cite the Christian cliche, its own reward.


I never said that Christians aren't allowed to be happy on earth, I understand the difference between Christianity and Catharism (or any of the other dualist heresies). Granted, I know quite a few who feel that way, but it isn't a prerequisite of faith. I also never said that all christians were literalists. I did say that Christianity requires an eschatology. You can assert that there are Christians who do not know if there is an afterlife, but the entire bible is written around the concept of sin and redemption, which necessarily needs the consequences of an afterlife. Saying Christianity doesn't need it's eschatology is like saying that Judaism doesn't need tradition. Sure, you could take it out of the religion, but there wouldn't be much left.


See above. A real Christian finds that to be a load of hogwash, if not suggestive that I'm really just saying that I can be paid off for good deeds. Christians act out of a sense of right, justice, or virtue, not a sense of advantage. Right, justice, and virtue are all perfectly definable and justifiable in terms that never reference an afterlife. Follow the logic.


I hate Kant. Not criticizing you for liking him, but I just cannot stand the man. Not exactly a fan of Rand either. Give me some nice Nozick or Guenon any day.

I haven't read enough Nozick to really say one thing or another about the man, and I don't know Guenon. And it's to your credit that you don't like Rand. But the larger question was the degree of stereotyping that goes on, and I've found that on these boards, 1) most atheists, however much they might like to claim themselves enlightened, know next to nothing about how they arrive at their ideas and simply parrot what their high-school social studies teacher told them about relativism, and 2) they insist on caricaturing every Christian as some intolerant redneck idiot.

You keep banging that drum and I must say, I went and found it unconvincing. The entire line of argument requires an external spiritual system, requires that you accept the primacy of the ten commandments, and requires that you accept Christian eschatology. I imagine that it works well for lapsed Christians, but for those people who are of a differing view than Christians (as opposed to people who are neutral) then it comes up short.

How would the way of the master address someone who is an apostate?

But the thing of it is, all that stuff that that website is talking about is, one way or another, compleatly Biblical :/. So of course it requires the existance of heaven, the 10 commandments, etc. etc, their not using the flavor of the month Biblical interpreation by any means, and neither am I. And I assume by apostate you mean Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses and so on, there are a couple guides on understanding other religions and how you can show people (Kindly of course) that they just don't add up, it's under tools, 100 questions/objections, and it's under one of those categories somewhere. But generally, I would think most people who first visit that site wouldn't always be totally entrenched behind a wall of sorts faith/wise, so the message of that site might reach them. Of course, I seriously dought these forums apply, most of the people i've seen talk religion here appear to be just as fervently reliant on their own beliefs as I am, which means I need to step up to the plate rather than just sit down on the sidelines.

You need to realise that there are two kinds of Atheist, explicit and implicit. The majority of us are implicit and so we don't deny that it is possible for god to exist, we just don't think he does.

And to be honest friend, from what I read on the website the authors of 'way of the master' seem to rely on rhetoric above reason and logical argument. Any reasonably intelligent atheist would be able to shred those arguments within seconds. The only half-way convincing logical proofs of god came from Aquinas and even those can be beaten with a little effort.

Ok, fair enough if that's really how atheists generally categorize, but then I don't see the problem with trying to go with the standpoint of God existing in a conversation then if the other person is not dead-set opposed to the idea, which I suppose would be the implicit variety of Atheist then. But if I was against an explicit atheist like you describe, then i'd have to convince them to be at least implicit like you say before i'd actually be able to have a real discussion. On the topic of The Way of the Master, the problem with arguing is exactly what you've described, somebody, somewhere, will try to shred it as quickly as possible, using whatever means necessary sometimes. But that site wasn't just arguing over the existance of God, it tries to get you to imagine what would happen if He exists and is infinitly just, and it attempts to address your sense of right and wrong and get you to understand how an infinitly just being can't simply ignore things that are wrong simply because society or sheer force of will makes one think earnestly they are not wrong. Think of it this way, let's say you went on trial for lying to a court, but you argued quite skillfully, earnestly, and logically (Which one could very well do) that you don't see any reason why lying is really bad at all, therefore, you should just be let go, or the court will be imposing a moral code that many may disagree with, and thus be acting mean. Would that really work if you were in a real court? Of course, a court is not perfectly just, as at the core, it is only instituted as a means of stopping society from decaying to bits as a result of lack of morality. (Or at least that's probably part of it) But God is perfectly just, and therefore, how much more will He see wrongdoing as exactly that, wrongdoing, no matter the situation? Finally, I shouldn't need to prove God exists to get people to believe in Christ and be saved, that would be extremely difficult, as the only ultimately reliable form of proof is first person experience, and even that can have it's flaws. If you were offered the chance to get 10 million dollars, and all you'd have to do is put a revolver to your head and press the trigger when it only has one bullet in it and the barrel is randomly cycled, would you take that chance? What if there were 2 bullets? or 3 bullets? I'd imagine there is a point where you simply wouldn't take the chance so why bother taking a chance on God not existing and getting sent to Hell over it? Yea, it's scary, I won't contest that point, because that'd be kinda silly. But I don't see why Hell must not be scary, nor why it absolutly, positively, definitively, beyond any possible moral system "must" be wrong to try to use such supposed "scare-tactic" reasoning in a conversation, especially when I don't plan to just leave it at that and say ,"Well, it's scary, you figure out a solution" The entire point is informing people that God gave us the solution already to the problem, via the sacrifice of God's only son Jesus Christ, and faith in Him will give you the results of this solution, everlasting life. Like in my first post, I didn't leave at the "A just God must send sinners to Hell" part, I went through the whole thing, and if I hadn't then of course I would have a severe problem in my strategy because it would go nowhere and have no good point for riling up people.

Maybe all of the cultures which didn't prohibit random killing did die out and that is why cultures today are generally against it, natural selection.

The problem here is that you are still looking at it from a point of view which believes in moral absolutes, you say 'I can't image a culture that somehow has suppressed every single sense of right and wrong they have'. The point is that they aren't supressing their sense of right and wrong because they don't have one as such, their sense of right and wrong was taught to them by the culture.

I assume you're refering to childbirth outside of wedlock when you say 'adultery' and here you confirm my point: it is considered to be fine over here whereas in America it apparently isn't. This isn't because Americans have a stronger sense of right and wrong, it's because they were brought up in a culture which objected to extra-marital sex whereas in 'PC land' we weren't so we don't have a problem with it.

Or, maybe they didn't all die out from natural selection, I can't think of why a concience must of just evolved suddenly exactly when it would be needed for humanity to survive as a group, nor how it could be genetic and thusly spread to offspring, nor how the first person to have a concience could of survived, since everyone around him would of just taken advantage of the poor guy. Even though altruristic actions have indeed been proven to exist at least in some animals, most of that is just for self-benefit, (Quid-pro-quo type situations) a fully defined concience would care more about other's than itself, because that's how a compleatly defined urge to be moral and good works, it's not always self-serving. Yea, a society could beat that down in you by inspiring enough greed, but way back then, there wasn't much to be greedy about. But I don't want to argue over evolution, I simply want to point out that there's no group of people living today you can definitively prove have no sense of right and wrong at all, therefore, I don't see why addressing people's concience in evangelism will always fail against a certain group of people. (That, and the Bible says everyone knows right and wrong since Adam and Eve ate that apple with said knowladge inside it, so personally I have plenty of reason to believe it :/.) You do raise a good point on the adultery wherever you live thing, but the thing is, generally in evangelism, you don't ask someone "Ever had sex with someone that wasn't your husband?" Because first that's probably extremely private to most people, and nextly because you won't always get a response, but you probably will get a response if you go on the grounds of Matthew 5:28, where Jesus says that lust is adultery of the heart. I have indeed entered puberty, I fully understand how it is pretty much impossible not to have ever lusted after a woman, so your bound to always get a yes response, (Unless, you know, there's a hormone problem, which isn't impossible of course.) while not actually prying into people's sex lives. Often times, when people actually think about how much they naturally lust after the opposite gender with the clear desire of having private relations with them often regardless of whether they have any idea who they are or not (Sometimes you gotta clear up the definition :/ ) it gives people pause to some degree even if they don't think it's evil.

By the way, did I miss a paragraph of yours, I thought there were 3 but I can only see 2 :/.

It does most certainly matter if I think punishing one for the crime of another is wrong. It makes me feel that you clearly don't understand what right and wrong are if you think they don't matter.

And saying "Christ gave us the chance to not be punished for all eternity" for what you concede is an unreasonable standard is like a judge saying "I won't have you tortured if you obey me, and my son will be killed to seal the deal". Blood sacrifice is not an act of love. Do you get it? God called for a sacrifice to appease his anger at fallible beings being fallible. Its an inherent hypocrisy, regardless of God's willingness to sacrifice his children for somebody else's crime.

Also, I never said God raped Mary, I said he got his only begotten son from another man's wife. In Christianity, that is presented as fact. Make up some "non-sex" reliant way to impregnate a woman, it shows how far you're stretching.

Infinitely "powerful and wise" beings don't kill children for the sins of their fathers. Call it the ancient Hebrew word for "kill" or "murder" or "liquidate" or whatever semantic absurdity comforts you. The children had their heads bashed against rocks in one verse (at the command of God), and God had children struck dead as a "plague" in others. Make up any translation you need to, nothing makes that okay.

Lastly, who made the rule that being fallible meant being tortured? In your religion, God makes all rules. He has free will, too. Your "God and Christ" still just boil down to: "For the crime of being human, I will torture you forever if you don't wash yourself in the blood of my child, whom I sacrificed because I love you so much".

Its hypocrisy and bloodlust, not love and forgiveness.

Ok, let me try to explain this another way. Let's say you were in a courtoom and were saddled with a 500,000 dollar fine which you couldn't pay, and without paying for it, you would go to jail for 20 years. What if someone, a compleate stranger or not, walked up to you and told you that they wanted to freely give you the money with no strings attached because he really likes you, and that he got it by selling his house since he would be moving into a better one for no cost anyway? Would you refuse the money, even when it is an absolutly free gift with no strings attached, just because you want to be responsible and go to jail for 20 years? What if the crime you were charged with was something you wern't originally responsible for? It's one thing to have no sympathy for oneself, but quite another to refuse the sympathy of others. And by unreasonable standard, I meant unreasonable for us to expect to be able to keep, not unreasonable compleatly, it is entirely reasonable for a perfect being to hold His creations up to a perfect standard. You can personally think that God is a being of pure hatred if you want, I can't force you to think otherwise, but Christ wasn't simply the seal of the deal, He was the entire deal, without Christ, there absolutly could be no deal. Besides, Christ was God, therefore it wasn't God methodically demanding His own Son die in as guresome a manner as possible to prove seriousness on a deal, in a way, it was really God sacrificing Himself for us. I see no reason why this cannot be an act of love just because it was very gruesome.
Next, I did not make up the term in-vitro fertilization, (I did mention that, right?) it is a scientifically proven non-sex reliant method of fertilization with humans. If we can do that, why couldn't God, for example, use His infinite knowladge and power to see an egg in Mary's womb, cause the other half of the 46 chromosomes to be created with the egg's DNA, and thus conceive Christ? If im stretching, it's only because science did it first.
Nextly, ok then, I won't call killing the children for the sins of their fathers to be "killing", "murder" or "liquidate" I will call it justice. God knows everything, so of course He can see into the future, and would know therefore whether or not those particular children the Bible refers to would grow up and believe in God if He simply let them live. Apparently, they wouldn't of, the Bible doesn't say this exactly, but it definently doesn't say He knew they would grow up as believers and sent them to Hell to stop this. you have to understand, these fathers of these children were behaving increadibly immoral, nothing you can say will make their lifestyle ok either. Many people have already brought up the point that culture very much shapes people's sense of right and wrong on some level, why wouldn't it apply to these children when their society was almost totally corrupt?
On your final point, technically speaking, nobody did, God said that through justice we "should" be sent to hell, but through His love He is giving us a chance not to anyway, because Christ will take this justice upon himself for those who trust in Him. The thing is, Christ was God, so it's not like He gets to go to Hell forever for us, His infinite power allowed him to survive infinite justice being inflicted upon Himself and His infinite goodness means He can't go to Hell anyway, and the Bible never says He did. Sometimes people say that Christ should of gone to Hell for those 3 days in between His death and ressurection, but the thing is, that's not in the Bible. It also implies His death, despite being infinitely powerful at taking infinite justice, was somehow not good enough, which writes infinite power out of Christ, and means He wouldn't of been God. And it's not just enough that we're human that means we have to go to Hell, the Bible asserts that we are all born into this world evil not simply because it is without cause, but because we really do evil things and think evil desires, either through greed, self-serving attitudes, pride, lying, hatred, sexual perversion, murder, and so on and so forth, there's not a person who was born in this world and is here today that can say they have never done something evil, nor is it likely there is one person who can say they have done less than several thousand evil things.

A little bit of history and an understanding of human nature can go a long way. Over the centuries, very few Christian converts have been willing. Constantine brought Christianity to the Romans, making it the state religion. While it might have been that Constantine was genuinely swayed by Christian doctrine, it is just as likely that he used Christianity to measure loyalty and to quietly take power and influence away from the growing Mithraic tradition which he viewed as a potential threat to his military power (soldiers getting into mystery religions make commanders nervous). Once Rome was Christian, everyone Rome conquered became Christian, and when Rome fell everyone those conquered nations conquered were also converted. The spread of Christianity through Europe (and later to South America) is not a testament to Christian Dogma, it was a tool of control used by human leaders.

Even if the first generation of conquered people did not truely believe, their children would. The old ways would die out over a few generations and control would be easier to maintain. A king could enforce the laws of earth, a Cardinal could be make sure that the laws of Heaven supported the laws of earth. There are alot of Christians because human beings are lazy and if they are Christians when they are born they are unlikely to change that unless they have a good reason. Hell, looking at Europe and the US, Christianity is less a religion and more a default to be ignored. Why else would you need things like Born Again culture?

Technically speaking, you could be absolutly right, it is entirely possible Constantine was just faking it, we can't judge him to be a Christian or not definitively, nor can we technically judge anyone else to be. It is entirely possible that people exploited Christ's message for a form of social control, or it is just as likely possible that it was not, perhaps even less likely, I dunno, that wouldn't invalidate Christ's teachings, it just once again would prove that humans can be quite evil and manipulative. Besides, you can't be a Christian by being born into a Christian family, you might socially kind of imitate one, but only through being born again (This is absolutly Biblical, John 3:3) does anyone achieve salvation, and Christ then goes on to explain in more detail about how faith in Him achieves everlasting life, so therefore, it must be through the faith that one is born again of the spirit.

*Huge snip of mediocre sophistry*.

Explain it any way you want, you're just dodging. Comparing hell to a monetary fine that somebody else offers to pay shows you can't detect the glaring flaws in your own analogy. And no, its still not okay to let somebody else take the blame, you should face your own music "just to be responsible". I don't think you get what responsibility is.

Your bit about "What if the crime was something you weren't originally responsible before" is disgusting. If God charges people with crimes they aren't "orginally responsible for", he has as poor an understanding of responsibility as you do.

You say that killing children for the crimes of their fathers is "justice". Try actually practicing what you preach in any kind of "justice" system, and the people will accurately call you psychotic. I hope you explain your definition of justice if you're ever called for jury duty.

Children should die because their father's are "incredibly immoral"? I have a friend whose father molested her. You don't get much more immoral than that, so by your logic, she and her brothers should be killed.

I've read your whole post, and I'm sick to my stomache. Your failed attempts to justify hypocrisy and death are the whole reason I worry about Christians. I never used to, until I started seeing Christians like you.

I'm past words, now. I'm seriously going to find and join an organization to take collective political action against people like you. Free speech is one thing, but if you vote in accordance with your putrid "reasoning", I want to make sure my vote cancels yours, or that of someone like you.

Saint Curie, you don't need to worry about Christians. Who you need to worry about is people who call themselves Christian but don't seem to understand Christ's teaching, which basically boiled down to "love everyone."

Saint Curie, you don't need to worry about Christians. Who you need to worry about is people who call themselves Christian but don't seem to understand Christ's teaching, which basically boiled down to "love everyone."
Only if that's what you want to boil it down to. It can equally easily be boiled down to "worship me".

But anyone who thinks it can be so simplisitically boiled down at all doesn't understand the Bible or Christianity.

It's obviously more complex than that, but some people can't handle anything more than the Cliffs Notes version. There's really so much in the Bible that you can probably find a verse to support anything you want it to - it's a big damn book.

Only if that's what you want to boil it down to. It can equally easily be boiled down to "worship me".

But anyone who thinks it can be so simplisitically boiled down at all doesn't understand the Bible or Christianity.

Well that depends entirely on what part you want to look at. If you want to focus on Jesus' message, it does boil down very simpley into "love everyone" the whole "worship me" didn't come into play until much later. I will make the argument that the people who LEAST understand Christianity are the Christians.

Don't lump us all in with the Jerry Falwells and Billy Grahams of the world. Some of us read the Bible and try to understand its contents.

Don't lump us all in with the Jerry Falwells and Billy Grahams of the world. Some of us read the Bible and try to understand its contents.
I don't think this is lumping you all in with the Falwells and Grahams. Many moderate, relatively open-minded Christians read and try to understand the Bible, but are still reading it with pre-conceptions about its veracity and about what they want to find in it. They also tend not to understand it in context - few make the attempt to truly understand the religious, political and social world(s) in which it was written, to objectively question its claims against archaeological and historical evidence, or to understand the history of the Bible and Christian doctrine themselves. It's viewed with a hindsight which is laden with many centuries of dogma and doctrine.

I'm the type to take everything with a grain of salt - even what people around me hold up as perfect, because frankly I think that if Christ Himself didn't put pen to paper to write it, it's not perfect.

Apologies, I didn't reply because it was Fair and even headed. so I understood what you were saying. Should've said something. Sorry.

now if... and this is hypthetical. two statues were delivered to a government building by two loyal and religous constituants. one is the 10 commandments and the other... well let's use Islam because it's another large religion.

Is it better to offend both by refusing a gift that took time and effort to make? or to display both as a symbol that the government is fair to all. even allowing other religions to donate symbols of their faith. No ONE religion is supported and since Athiesm isn't a religion... maybe place all the symbols on one side of the walkway? dunno.

Will the government display my religious commandments then? They include things like, "You must wear a red hat on every third Tuesday" and "Frogs are sacred, you must never kill them." :)

Probably not, I'm guessing.

Depends on which definition of religion you go by. Atheism could certainly be considered a religion in some lights.

Depends on which definition of religion you go by. Atheism could certainly be considered a religion in some lights.


Holy sheep shit.

Why must everyone keep saying this?

In what way, do athiests have any set rituals, or dogma, or obligation, that any other actual religion is similar to?

It is NOT a belief, it is a LACK OF A BELIEF.

Religion requires faith.....all of them.
To be a religion, you must have a belief, in the god, or system the religion od formed on.

Atheism has none of the above.

It is simply...a lack of a belief in God, or gods.

Holy sheep shit.

Why must everyone keep saying this?

In what way, do athiests have any set rituals, or dogma, or obligation, that any other actual religion is similar to?

It is NOT a belief, it is a LACK OF A BELIEF.

Religion requires faith.....all of them.
To be a religion, you must have a belief, in the god, or system the religion od formed on.

Atheism has none of the above.

It is simply...a lack of a belief in God, or gods.

Actually, Explicit Atheism is a belief in no gods and not just a lack of belief in gods. What you say applies to the Implicit Atheism only.

Though you're right, atheism is not a religion in itself any more than theism is a religion unto itself. There are, however, a number of religions based around atheism (though not as many as based around theism, obviously). The Church of Satan/LaVeyan Satanists springs immediately to mind.

Actually, Explicit Atheism is a belief in no gods and not just a lack of belief in gods. What you say applies to the Implicit Atheism only.

Though you're right, atheism is not a religion in itself any more than theism is a religion unto itself. There are, however, a number of religions based around atheism (though not as many as based around theism, obviously). The Church of Satan/LaVeyan Satanists springs immediately to mind.

That's why we keep saying it.

There are, however, a number of religions based around atheism (though not as many as based around theism, obviously). The Church of Satan/LaVeyan Satanists springs immediately to mind.

But the CoS doesnt worship athiesm.
They dont worship the lack of belief in God, they, in fact, do not worship anything at all, unless it be themselves.
They adhere to a belief system however, mainly being hedonistic, and pleasure seeking.
It IS a religion, as it has rules, and even rituals, although Le Vay often admitted, these were maily all for show.

There are no set rules for athiesm.
Just one requirement.

I considered atheism to be my religion when I was one, but then I've never felt that religion is about the trappings.

It is entirely possible that people exploited Christ's message for a form of social control
Christ's message, in it's strictures on personal behaviour, is a form of social control, whether you regard the control as being from god or from men.

"Look how the world, and your life, would be better if you behaved and felt in such and such a way" is advice and encouragement. But "follow my way or 'go from my sight to the eternal file'" (Matt 25:41) is control.

Curiousity is "the very lowest and strongest brick in the wall of ignorance."? I've never heard that before... Indeed without it you wouldn't have your beautiful science to cling to.
WTUHF?

I wish to express my gratitude to Bottle, who again subjected an integrity of rigmarole to a thread (specifically this one) in this post ...
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10370931&postcount=315

I also wish to express my gratitude to Saint Curie who is also as committed, as shown in this thread ...
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10373808&postcount=338

As for Kreen, time for a remedial IQ test - you flunked.
It's amazing how poorly you interpret as short a statement as mine. It doesn't surprise me at all that you hadn't heard the quote before ... even if you had you apparently wouldn't have heard all the right words in the right order by the time your processor took to them.

Also, i think this fella surmised it nicely ...
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10369062&postcount=305

But the CoS doesnt worship athiesm.
They dont worship the lack of belief in God, they, in fact, do not worship anything at all, unless it be themselves.

Of course they don't worship atheism. Theistic religions don't worship theism either. How many religions do you know that worship abstract nouns? Worship is not a requirement of religion. Even some theistic practictioners don't "worship" their God/s, let alone the fact that they theistic. LaVeyan Satanism is, however, at least partly based around atheism. This does not imply that they 'worship' atheism and I never actually said that, as much as you seem to be trying to infer that I did.


They adhere to a belief system however, mainly being hedonistic, and pleasure seeking.
It IS a religion, as it has rules, and even rituals, although Le Vay often admitted, these were maily all for show.

Yes, this is why LaVeyan Satanism it is a religion, just as I said. Very good.


There are no set rules for athiesm.
Just one requirement.

Did I say otherwise? You'll note I stated atheism is not a religion.

That's an overly broad generalization. Somebody who calls themselves an atheist, but in moments of fear/doubt is compelled to resort to the coping mechanism of religion and start praying or calling out for some God or other would be a lapsed atheist.

(S)he just doesn't have to ask the Atheist Pope for forgiveness, because, of the 11 self-declared Athiest Popes, only Bender and Bill Gates have enough of a following to force a majority ruling in Athiest Conclave, and neither of them believes in apologies.
Bite his shiny metal ass! ;)

I'm a very honest person, and a very curious person. I enjoy science because of my curiosity. And I'd be sinning if I was lying.
If you are being honest to your ignorance, how in the hades would you know any different about if you were lying or not? That INDEED appears to be your problem.

Of course they don't worship atheism. Theistic religions don't worship theism either. How many religions do you know that worship abstract nouns? Worship is not a requirement of religion. Even some theistic practictioners don't "worship" their God/s, let alone the fact that they theistic. LaVeyan Satanism is, however, at least partly based around atheism. This does not imply that they 'worship' atheism and I never actually said that, as much as you seem to be trying to infer that I did.

I think you may have misunderstood me when I said Levayists dont worship atheism.
Maybe I wasnt being clear, or something, or maybe you didnt quite get what I meant.

I was simply explaining that the CoS isnt "based around athiesm" anymore than Buddhism, or Scientology.
Its an entirely different belief system, in wich, no god or gods happen to be present.
Its only similarity is just that.

The fundamental difference, is belief.
Religions have it...
Atheists dont.
Im glad we agree on that at least.

You might not like Kant but at least you know who he is.
...he was a real pissant who was very rarely stable...
:D

Atheists just don't believe in an omnipotent God. Thats the basic definition. I'm sure some are like Christians, in that they want to tell other people about it, to save their lives from being what they consider "wasted". Everyone wants to convert eachother to their own belief system, its a survival instinct.

Atheists do have belief but I'm too tired to argue and neither of us are going to change our minds.

Atheists do have belief but I'm too tired to argue and neither of us are going to change our minds.

According to the definition of Atheist I could believe in ghosts, aliens, faeries, and giant sentient octopi... But I just don't need to believe that some giant omnipotent figure judges us when we die, or anything this figure or figures does.

Atheists do have belief but I'm too tired to argue and neither of us are going to change our minds.
Although i appreciate your posts, i need to point this out ... as well to this fella:
Atheists just don't believe in an omnipotent God.

a.theism
a-:negating root word
theism:belief in gods or a god

(OED)

Now instead of further purporting of a disingenuous idiom, simply utilize any number of different dictionaries/etymological resources to qualify your argument. You'll find that whole idea of "atheism being a belief or religion" isn't particularly substantiated by any actual definition.

From the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

TRINITY, n.
In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

The bold I especially like.

You win my FAVOURITE POSTER AWARD for this. I gots the book m'self.
You ROCK. *bows*

Hades, you even :fluffle: !!

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?

I'm an Atheist, well if you can call it that, like most 'atheists' I'm actually an agnostic with doubts. There may be a teapot in orbit around the sun, I can't disprove this notion but I wouldn't say that I categorically dismiss this statement as having no creedence what-so-ever. It is possible and I have no proof one way or the other but it's unlikely. I believe in God about as much as the teapot, although this is my own personal belief and I'm not about to try and force it down someone's throat.

On the whole I am quite quiet about my 'atheism', If somebody asks me I will tell them but I don't offer that sort of information to people without prompting, nor do I 'testify' about it on street corners. If you look at the news you don't see bands of atheists setting fire to embassies or waving placards saying that all infidels must die, nor do they come to your door and try to force you to buy the watchtower. In comaprison to members of organised religon they keep themselves to themselves.

I would like to turn the question on it's head and suggest that Christians are compensating for something. It's no coincidence that the majority of people find god (as opposed to being born into it) when they are at a low ebb. Therefore i would suggest that the notion of an omnipitent being guiding and helping you through your life constitutes a some sort of pyscological crutch that agnostics and atheists don't need.

I think you may have misunderstood me when I said Levayists dont worship atheism.
Maybe I wasnt being clear, or something, or maybe you didnt quite get what I meant.

I was simply explaining that the CoS isnt "based around athiesm" anymore than Buddhism, or Scientology.
Its an entirely different belief system, in wich, no god or gods happen to be present.
Its only similarity is just that.

I think LaVeyan Satanism is based around atheism significantly moreso than the atheistic Buddhist sects (I'm not really sure what to make Scientology). Buddhism, as far as I know, developed on its own merits and simply had no need for a god. LaVey created his brand of Satanism is direct response to two major things, one being the peace and love, "let's all get along attitude" of the hippies back in the 60s when he founded the CoS, the other being the so-called "Right Hand Path" religions that are often based around a God. The atheism of the CoS was in direct response to the theism of the major "RHP" religions that he detested. LaVey himself was probably an atheist for his own reasons, but it seems to me that he made atheism a fairly central point of his Satanism for that reason. That's the impression I got from reading his writing and chats with current LaVeyans.


The fundamental difference, is belief.
Religions have it...
Atheists dont.
Im glad we agree on that at least.

Some atheists don't. You're forgetting the explicits again. Though I'll give you that it's hard to pin-down most explicit atheists because so many of them retreat to claiming to be merely implicit atheists when challenged, unfortunately, so that they can avoid having to defend their position.

Actually I was curious. This was not meant to be an atheist bashing thread, nor was it supposed to be a christian bashing thread, it was purely my own curiosity that started this thread.
You are living proof that belief in God does not ensure moral conduct. I'm impressed not only by your blatant dishonesty, but also by your arrogance in thinking that any rational human would be fooled.

Though I'll give you that it's hard to pin-down most explicit atheists because so many of them retreat to claiming to be merely implicit atheists when challenged, unfortunately, so that they can avoid having to defend their position.
Perhaps it's because, when challenged, they become specific, whereas in the normal course of conversation, they're a bit more lax about their wording, as most people would be.

I would normally be happy to make a statement such as "there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto" (explicit ateapotism), but if challenged to prove it, I would have to be more specific and say "I am 99.9% certain there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto, but I have no explicit proof, and so must leave my mind open to the hugely unlikely possibility that there might be" (implicit ateapotism).

I've seen the same thing happen with Christians. "Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ?" "Yes" (explicit). "Are you absolutely 100% sure that the bodily resurrection took place?" "Well, no" (implicit).

Perhaps it's because, when challenged, they become specific, whereas in the normal course of conversation, they're a bit more lax about their wording, as most people would be.

I would normally be happy to make a statement such as "there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto" (explicit ateapotism), but if challenged to prove it, I would have to be more specific and say "I am 99.9% certain there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto, but I have no explicit proof, and so must leave my mind open to the hugely unlikely possibility that there might be" (implicit ateapotism).

I've seen the same thing happen with Christians. "Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ?" "Yes" (explicit). "Are you absolutely 100% sure that the bodily resurrection took place?" "Well, no" (implicit).
That's a good way to put it.

I think it's also partly due to misconceptions on the part of the person asking the question. For instance, if somebody asks me, "Do you believe in God?" then I will answer, "No, I do not believe in God." However, many people interpret this to mean that I believe there is no God. The two are actually pretty different, though they sound virtually identical.

For one thing, the question they asked me is a problem. The word "God" means so many different things that it has become meaningless. I don't believe in "God" any more than I believe in "Quizblorgjkelf."

For another, saying that I lack belief in God does not mean I am expressing personal certainty that there isn't a God. I don't know if there is or not, just like I don't know if there are magical invisible centaurs or not. Until I have more information, I will remain null on the subject.

And finally, there's another interpretation of the term "believe." For instance, we will sometimes hear people say, "believe in yourself," in which case "believe in" means something along the lines of, "put your confidence in..." or "put your trust in..." In that case, I most certainly do not "believe in" God. Whether or not God exists, I most certainly do not put my confidence or trust in Her/Him/It.

Perhaps it's because, when challenged, they become specific, whereas in the normal course of conversation, they're a bit more lax about their wording, as most people would be.

I would normally be happy to make a statement such as "there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto" (explicit ateapotism), but if challenged to prove it, I would have to be more specific and say "I am 99.9% certain there is no red teapot orbiting Pluto, but I have no explicit proof, and so must leave my mind open to the hugely unlikely possibility that there might be" (implicit ateapotism).

I've seen the same thing happen with Christians. "Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ?" "Yes" (explicit). "Are you absolutely 100% sure that the bodily resurrection took place?" "Well, no" (implicit).

Sure, in general conversation it's reasonable to expect that people aren't going to be watching what they say to that degree.

But in a debate about the existence of God, where specifics are obviously being addressed? Where the debate is in text and not in real time? This is the environment I mean.

More importantly, however, you're missing the point by stressing that you weren't talking about Augustine, because in reality I wasn't either. What I was talking about is the pervasive belief that in order to be a Christian, you have to believe a rigorous set of doctrinal beliefs. Those beliefs could be from Augustine, they could be from Aquinas, they could be from the Nicean Creed, whatever. The truth is that Jesus lays down only two provisions for what constitutes a follower of Him: you have to love God with all your heart, and you have to treat all people as your brother. Further, I think, and I believe that most people would agree, that these are good things to believe in. I don't deny that there can be virtuous non-believers, but generally speaking, those beliefs help me to be a lot more virtuous than I was before, and they could help a lot of others were they to read them as well.

You can argue why you are a Christian until you are blue in the face, but you are not going to obscure the point I was making. Virtually every single Christian organization in the world is steeped in eschatology. The symbol we use to identify Christianity (the cross) is inseperably tied into the eschatological aspects of Christianity. The traditions of a majority of the world's Christians (baptism, evangelism, eucharist, etc) exist solely because of the faith's cosmology. While you might not ascribe to the theoretical underpinnings of the Christian faith (it doesn't matter if it was Augustine, Nicea, Luther, nor anyone else, they are the concensus now) you must understand that you are in the minority.

Without the eschatology, Christianity becomes humanism with a 2000 years dead mascot. Worse (to my mind), is that it demands unconditional love for a diety. Virtue is not enough, you must also submit. That creed says more about the faith than I could in a thousand posts.

This then is the end to which I, and quite a few others progress: virtue, not some theoretical heaven. I don't do things because I'm getting into heaven, if for no other reason than because that implies I can be bribed; as unChristian a principle as ever I heard. Rather, I do the things I do largely because I believe that they are the right things to do, and would do them even if I were sent to Hell by a corrupt and unjust God. Moreoever, this is not uncommon a view among genuine, dedicated Christians. I don't need heaven or an eschatonology to justify what I do, because virtue is, to cite the Christian cliche, its own reward.

See above. A real Christian finds that to be a load of hogwash, if not suggestive that I'm really just saying that I can be paid off for good deeds. Christians act out of a sense of right, justice, or virtue, not a sense of advantage. Right, justice, and virtue are all perfectly definable and justifiable in terms that never reference an afterlife.

For the record, allow me to say that I am not an athiest. I am also not wholly ignorant of Christian philosophy, theology, or values. I am an apostate and I hope that you will understand the exact position from which I speak. I know that the best Christians are virtuous for virtue's sake, I know that truely dedicated and genuine Christians would do what they do even without the carrot dangling before them. Most Christians I have met in my life, however, do not meet those standards. There is a reason that fire and brimstone puts asses in seats, there is a reason that evangelism focuses so often on fire and pain. Look at Theorb, posting his link to The Way of the Master. That is the majority, that is force which drives the faith.

The Great Debate is over, and the least common denominator has won. Love and virtue are too difficult for the lazy, stupid, fearful Sunday Christians. Sheep do not want a hard choice, they want a shepherd to save them. Virtue is an afterthought.

Follow the logic.

I did, thats why I turned my back.

But the thing of it is, all that stuff that that website is talking about is, one way or another, compleatly Biblical :/. So of course it requires the existance of heaven, the 10 commandments, etc. etc, their not using the flavor of the month Biblical interpreation by any means, and neither am I.

Still, it means that the technique is useless against anyone who does not believe in the bible. The point I was making is that those of different religions or different philosophies are not going to be swayed. Only lapsed Christians with wills weak enough to be left quivering in fear of a hell.

And I assume by apostate you mean Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses and so on,

And you'd be wrong. If you don't know what something means, look it up.

Apostasy (Greek απο, apo, "away, apart", στασις, stasis, "standing") is the formal renunciation of one's religion. In a technical sense as used by sociologists without the sometimes pejorative connotations of the word, the term refers to renunciation and criticizing one's former religion. An old, narrow definition of this term refers to baptized Christians who leave their faith.

An apostate is a deserter, someone who has been a member of a faith and then walked away. Generally it is because they have found a major point within the faith which they can no longer tollerate. My question is how you would deal with someone who was once a Christian but who has made the conscious, willing, and informed decision to turn his back on God.

Technically speaking, you could be absolutly right, it is entirely possible Constantine was just faking it, we can't judge him to be a Christian or not definitively, nor can we technically judge anyone else to be. It is entirely possible that people exploited Christ's message for a form of social control, or it is just as likely possible that it was not, perhaps even less likely, I dunno, that wouldn't invalidate Christ's teachings, it just once again would prove that humans can be quite evil and manipulative. Besides, you can't be a Christian by being born into a Christian family, you might socially kind of imitate one, but only through being born again (This is absolutly Biblical, John 3:3) does anyone achieve salvation, and Christ then goes on to explain in more detail about how faith in Him achieves everlasting life, so therefore, it must be through the faith that one is born again of the spirit.

You're serious? This sin't some relativistic "well we'll never know" situation. Christianity was won through most of Europe and all of South and Central America either politically (through a king bbecoming Christian and forcing his subjects to follow) or through violence (take a good look at the spread of Christianity and it's involvement with the conquistadors). You can argue about what it means to be a "real" Christian but the fact of the matter is, if you're born to a Christian family, baptised, show up to church, and don;t do anything public to prove otherwise, history assumes you are a Christian. My specific point was addressing this statement made by you:
Furthermore, on the morality thing, it looks to me like you've just partly supported me, the entire point on bringing someone through Christ through morality is because you don't actually have to be a Christian to have morality, if so, then I don't honestly see how Christianity would of progressed beyond a couple thousand members or so
I was arguing that Christianity did not spread because of it's morality or philosophy, but because of the violence and conversion tactics of it's existing members.

Now, as for your assertions about what you need to do to become a Christian, you're talking about theology, I'm talking about pragmatism. Becoming a Christian isn't a choice for most people who are born into Christian families. They have the beliefs, they get dragged to church, they don't bother to question. This was even more the case during the spread of Christianity when most of the people weren't educated well enough to question and those that were knew that not being seen as a Christian meant death. Those who would use Christianity as a means of exercising control understood this. That was the point I was making. You tell a lie long enough, people start believing it.

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?

Which philosophy are you referiring to? Some are humanists, some buddists, reincarnationists, materialists, naturalists, hedonists, spiritualists, etc. The only thing in common is atheists don't believe in gods which is hardly a philosophy in it's self.

As for noisy, I've never seen an atheist shouting on a street corner,never had one show up proslytising at my door or work. The only ones making noise appear to be protecting your constitution (I'm not american) from religious zealots who think the constitution applies to the rest of the country.

Actually, Explicit Atheism is a belief in no gods and not just a lack of belief in gods. What you say applies to the Implicit Atheism only.

Though you're right, atheism is not a religion in itself any more than theism is a religion unto itself. There are, however, a number of religions based around atheism (though not as many as based around theism, obviously). The Church of Satan/LaVeyan Satanists springs immediately to mind.


LaVey was a douchebag, a plagarist, and a con-man. He came along at the right time, said the right thing, and pulled a Crowley. The only difference is that he didn't actually contribute anything to any conversation, just pulled a hundred bucks each off a bunch of gullible highschool kids for a few generations.

I think LaVeyan Satanism is based around atheism significantly moreso than the atheistic Buddhist sects (I'm not really sure what to make Scientology). Buddhism, as far as I know, developed on its own merits and simply had no need for a god. LaVey created his brand of Satanism is direct response to two major things, one being the peace and love, "let's all get along attitude" of the hippies back in the 60s when he founded the CoS, the other being the so-called "Right Hand Path" religions that are often based around a God. The atheism of the CoS was in direct response to the theism of the major "RHP" religions that he detested. LaVey himself was probably an atheist for his own reasons, but it seems to me that he made atheism a fairly central point of his Satanism for that reason. That's the impression I got from reading his writing and chats with current LaVeyans.

LaVey cribbed virtually all his spiritual/magical rheotirc from Crowley (up to and including his talk about the Left Hand Path). His use of love (and it's relation to Will) was a thinly veiled theft of Crowley's Thelema. From that LaVey just added some humanism, and a little bit of Nietzsche and Machiavelli and poof, instant religion. Basically, LaVey tried to build an organized religion out of Crowley's work, but the damn man never had an original idea in his life. I must admit, though, I respect him for the money he made.

Which philosophy are you referiring to? Some are humanists, some buddists, reincarnationists, materialists, naturalists, hedonists, spiritualists, etc. The only thing in common is atheists don't believe in gods which is hardly a philosophy in it's self.
Yeah, it's kind of like asking, "Why are all you non-stamp-collectors so loud?"

Lots of people don't collect stamps. Doesn't mean they have anything else in common.

LaVey was a douchebag, a plagarist, and a con-man. He came along at the right time, said the right thing, and pulled a Crowley. The only difference is that he didn't actually contribute anything to any conversation, just pulled a hundred bucks each off a bunch of gullible highschool kids for a few generations.


You go girl! :D

Seriously, though, I agree.


LaVey cribbed virtually all his spiritual/magical rheotirc from Crowley (up to and including his talk about the Left Hand Path). His use of love (and it's relation to Will) was a thinly veiled theft of Crowley's Thelema. From that LaVey just added some humanism, and a little bit of Nietzsche and Machiavelli and poof, instant religion. Basically, LaVey tried to build an organized religion out of Crowley's work, but the damn man never had an original idea in his life. I must admit, though, I respect him for the money he made.

I suspected that was probably where LaVey pulled a lot of his stuff from, though I never looked into it in any depth. Anyone who wants to make something magical just grabs from Crowley, Yeats, et al. Even Gardner did it to a certain extent. You're right, though, he certainly did know how to make money, and craftily, built a religion that encouraged that to avoid any uncomfortable "you made it for the money!" accusations. Of course he did, it's Satanism!

I'm one of the atheists on this board, and I'm quite happy to live and let live. But if a belief-based discussion arises, then I'll put my view - that's what discussion is for.

What I don't do (and nor does any other atheist I know of) is doorstep trying to convert people, preach the atheist message over megaphones in shopping centres, and try to convince the government to create more explicitly atheist schools etc etc.

Apparently, anyone who is not quite content to let Christians bitchslap them into submission, is a 'difficult' Atheist....

Next, I did not make up the term in-vitro fertilization, (I did mention that, right?) it is a scientifically proven non-sex reliant method of fertilization with humans. If we can do that, why couldn't God, for example, use His infinite knowladge and power to see an egg in Mary's womb, cause the other half of the 46 chromosomes to be created with the egg's DNA, and thus conceive Christ? If im stretching, it's only because science did it first.

Because, were this the case, Jesus would have been a girl...

Ok, fair enough if that's really how atheists generally categorize, but then I don't see the problem with trying to go with the standpoint of God existing in a conversation then if the other person is not dead-set opposed to the idea, which I suppose would be the implicit variety of Atheist then. But if I was against an explicit atheist like you describe, then i'd have to convince them to be at least implicit like you say before i'd actually be able to have a real discussion. On the topic of The Way of the Master, the problem with arguing is exactly what you've described, somebody, somewhere, will try to shred it as quickly as possible, using whatever means necessary sometimes. But that site wasn't just arguing over the existance of God, it tries to get you to imagine what would happen if He exists and is infinitly just, and it attempts to address your sense of right and wrong and get you to understand how an infinitly just being can't simply ignore things that are wrong simply because society or sheer force of will makes one think earnestly they are not wrong. Think of it this way, let's say you went on trial for lying to a court, but you argued quite skillfully, earnestly, and logically (Which one could very well do) that you don't see any reason why lying is really bad at all, therefore, you should just be let go, or the court will be imposing a moral code that many may disagree with, and thus be acting mean. Would that really work if you were in a real court? Of course, a court is not perfectly just, as at the core, it is only instituted as a means of stopping society from decaying to bits as a result of lack of morality. (Or at least that's probably part of it) But God is perfectly just, and therefore, how much more will He see wrongdoing as exactly that, wrongdoing, no matter the situation? Finally, I shouldn't need to prove God exists to get people to believe in Christ and be saved, that would be extremely difficult, as the only ultimately reliable form of proof is first person experience, and even that can have it's flaws. If you were offered the chance to get 10 million dollars, and all you'd have to do is put a revolver to your head and press the trigger when it only has one bullet in it and the barrel is randomly cycled, would you take that chance? What if there were 2 bullets? or 3 bullets? I'd imagine there is a point where you simply wouldn't take the chance so why bother taking a chance on God not existing and getting sent to Hell over it? Yea, it's scary, I won't contest that point, because that'd be kinda silly. But I don't see why Hell must not be scary, nor why it absolutly, positively, definitively, beyond any possible moral system "must" be wrong to try to use such supposed "scare-tactic" reasoning in a conversation, especially when I don't plan to just leave it at that and say ,"Well, it's scary, you figure out a solution" The entire point is informing people that God gave us the solution already to the problem, via the sacrifice of God's only son Jesus Christ, and faith in Him will give you the results of this solution, everlasting life. Like in my first post, I didn't leave at the "A just God must send sinners to Hell" part, I went through the whole thing, and if I hadn't then of course I would have a severe problem in my strategy because it would go nowhere and have no good point for riling up people.

So basically your whole argument is 'God might exist, if he does it'll be bad for you' wrapped in a lot of rhetoric?

Friend, do you really have such a low opinion of your God that you don't think he's smart enough to know if I'm really believing or if I'm pretending to believe in case he exists?

And why should I risk a greater punishment from Allah or Yahweh for worshipping false gods if they exist?

If you search for Pascal's Wager on google you'll get a far better refutation than any I can give, if you try to use that argument on people you'll be laughed at.

Incidently, why do you think it is that Hell isn't mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament? Could it be that it was adapted from Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures at the time when Christianity was formed?

Or, maybe they didn't all die out from natural selection, I can't think of why a concience must of just evolved suddenly exactly when it would be needed for humanity to survive as a group, nor how it could be genetic and thusly spread to offspring, nor how the first person to have a concience could of survived, since everyone around him would of just taken advantage of the poor guy. Even though altruristic actions have indeed been proven to exist at least in some animals, most of that is just for self-benefit, (Quid-pro-quo type situations) a fully defined concience would care more about other's than itself, because that's how a compleatly defined urge to be moral and good works, it's not always self-serving. Yea, a society could beat that down in you by inspiring enough greed, but way back then, there wasn't much to be greedy about. But I don't want to argue over evolution, I simply want to point out that there's no group of people living today you can definitively prove have no sense of right and wrong at all, therefore, I don't see why addressing people's concience in evangelism will always fail against a certain group of people. (That, and the Bible says everyone knows right and wrong since Adam and Eve ate that apple with said knowladge inside it, so personally I have plenty of reason to believe it :/.) You do raise a good point on the adultery wherever you live thing, but the thing is, generally in evangelism, you don't ask someone "Ever had sex with someone that wasn't your husband?" Because first that's probably extremely private to most people, and nextly because you won't always get a response, but you probably will get a response if you go on the grounds of Matthew 5:28, where Jesus says that lust is adultery of the heart. I have indeed entered puberty, I fully understand how it is pretty much impossible not to have ever lusted after a woman, so your bound to always get a yes response, (Unless, you know, there's a hormone problem, which isn't impossible of course.) while not actually prying into people's sex lives. Often times, when people actually think about how much they naturally lust after the opposite gender with the clear desire of having private relations with them often regardless of whether they have any idea who they are or not (Sometimes you gotta clear up the definition :/ ) it gives people pause to some degree even if they don't think it's evil.

By the way, did I miss a paragraph of yours, I thought there were 3 but I can only see 2 :/.

I think you got all of my paragraphs.

But anyway, you haven't answered the point about the existance of moral truths. For you to prove that universal moral truths exist you must prove the veracity of your holy book, which you can't do.

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
Really. Atheists are loud... Do pigs fly too?
I don't have atheists knocking on my door at 6 am in the morning because they want to 'spread the word' of no God. I think you are really a hypocrite. You, being religious, can't stand when other people around you talk about their non-belief.
Therefore you claim that atheists are obnoxious. Look in the mirror. More than likely half the people you go to church with think the entire world is against them. When really atheists just don't want the religious zealots knocking on the door at the butt crack of dawn.
I'm not saying you do, but even though I'm not an atheist I view this beginning thread as a flame of sorts. Kind of like that "do you know the bible is a lie" thread.
It is a way of one group trashing another and looking down on them.
*shakes head*
Please, to everyone. Don't be a hypocrite.

I think that he was originally referring to the handful of atheists on this board who will insult the intelligence of anyone who believes in some sort of God and tell them that they need to grow up and stop believing in fairy tales. Someone posting a thread entitled "Do Christians know that the Bible is really a lie?" is just as much of a loudmouth as someone posting a thread saying "All atheists are damned to hell, period the end."

Apparently, anyone who is not quite content to let Christians bitchslap them into submission, is a 'difficult' Atheist....

Christ, we're on the same side of an issue? Maybe I need to rethink my views on Christianity ;)

Seriously though, you're right. Christians are so used to being the only players in the game that they seem to feel like they're being attacked not only when someone uses their own tactics against them, but when someone refuses to submit. The combination of of snide condescention and outright hostility with which many Christians treat nonbelievers is maddening. I, for one, refuse to let anyone treat me in my own country like a dhimmi in a sultanate.

I think that he was originally referring to the handful of atheists on this board who will insult the intelligence of anyone who believes in some sort of God and tell them that they need to grow up and stop believing in fairy tales. Someone posting a thread entitled "Do Christians know that the Bible is really a lie?" is just as much of a loudmouth as someone posting a thread saying "All atheists are damned to hell, period the end."

Except, of course... that the Atheist has better evidentiary support for his/her claim... since there is no independent evidence to back up the extraordinary claims made by Christianity.... and, indeed, there are THOUSANDS of other scriptures that are not really reconcilable with the world that the Bible suggests.

Thus - in the absence of 'extraordinary evidence' to back it's 'extraordinary claims'; and in the presence of a WEALTH of OTHER 'extraordinary claims' that ALSO lack 'extraordinary evidence'; and given the idea that one should not complicate matters unneccessariyl...

The LOGICAL assumption is that the Bible is just as bogus as Christians claim every OTHER scripture is.

Incidently, why do you think it is that Hell isn't mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament? Could it be that it was adapted from Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures at the time when Christianity was formed?


Pshh, shows how much you know. Everyone with a brain knows that religions don't evolve or change based on their enviornments. All religions in the world today are exactly the same as when they were founded, Christianity moreso because God has looked out for His Word and made sure no one changed or edited it. Any proof you might have to the contrary is surely evidence that Satan is interfearing with God's plan and, thus, proof of the existance of God. QED, bitch.


note: for those observers in highschool with what I can only describe as a creepy obsession with the conflict between rival groups of fashionistas, the above was sarcasm.

Christ, we're on the same side of an issue? Maybe I need to rethink my views on Christianity ;)

Seriously though, you're right. Christians are so used to being the only players in the game that they seem to feel like they're being attacked not only when someone uses their own tactics against them, but when someone refuses to submit. The combination of of snide condescention and outright hostility with which many Christians treat nonbelievers is maddening. I, for one, refuse to let anyone treat me in my own country like a dhimmi in a sultanate.

Not only do we agree on the role of religion... we are also both fans of the works of Joss Whedon, and Andrew Eldritch, apparently... ;)

And - when you think about it, although we perceive different 'more correct routes' through the economic morass... we both ultimately have some form of 'the greatest good' as our goal. You just see my 'route' as 'pie-in-the-sky', and I see yours as 'cynical-and-destructive'...


On the point you were raising... I'm an English Atheist working in NE Gorgia. I have probably been the object of 'conversion' attempts roughly once a week, pretty much every week, since I got here. I listen. I discuss. I'm personable and I consider what we talk about.

The other day, as a sort of experiment, I interrupted the flow of a 'workmate' who was taking it upon himself to show me the error of my ways (in fairness, this was not an offensive attempt, except that I don't really appreciate being preached to on work-time).

I pointed out what I considered some glaring inconsistencies of the arguments being used, and asked for a realistic defence of belief that scripture is God-ordained, since, it seems to me JUST as believable that (if any of the Christian story is true) Satan would just LOVE to write a book of 'laws' and 'ideas' and PASS IT OFF as 'the word of god'.

The atmosphere at my workplace became very unfriendly. My workmate clammed-up and refused to discuss the issue with me any more. In his eyes, I could see something like anger.

It appears us 'non-believers' are only allowed to 'shut the fuck up' and listen, and then sell our souls to the god or gods we are offered.

No thanks... I'm not buying.

I don't have a tag for my beliefs.

That or I don't really know what I would fall under, I guess I really just am not religious, I don't go to any gatherings, I don't believe in any devine forces or spirits, I think crazy christian people are very sad and mislead, I think anyone devout to a religion is very sad.

I say screw religion. You live a short life here on earth, make the best of it. Don't live your lives by the rule of someone who preached the word of thier so called "God". Live life the way YOU want to live it.

I live my own life, not by the teachings of Jesus, not by the rule of buddah or mohammed, I live it by the rule of myself, and I don't regret anything. Why waste your life trying to get to heaven when heaven may not even be waiting for you?

Thank you.

Not only do we agree on the role of religion... we are also both fans of the works of Joss Whedon, and Andrew Eldritch, apparently... ;)

And - when you think about it, although we perceive different 'more correct routes' through the economic morass... we both ultimately have some form of 'the greatest good' as our goal. You just see my 'route' as 'pie-in-the-sky', and I see yours as 'cynical-and-destructive'...


On the point you were raising... I'm an English Atheist working in NE Gorgia. I have probably been the object of 'conversion' attempts roughly once a week, pretty much every week, since I got here. I listen. I discuss. I'm personable and I consider what we talk about.

The other day, as a sort of experiment, I interrupted the flow of a 'workmate' who was taking it upon himself to show me the error of my ways (in fairness, this was not an offensive attempt, except that I don't really appreciate being preached to on work-time).

I pointed out what I considered some glaring inconsistencies of the arguments being used, and asked for a realistic defence of belief that scripture is God-ordained, since, it seems to me JUST as believable that (if any of the Christian story is true) Satan would just LOVE to write a book of 'laws' and 'ideas' and PASS IT OFF as 'the word of god'.

The atmosphere at my workplace became very unfriendly. My workmate clammed-up and refused to discuss the issue with me any more. In his eyes, I could see something like anger.

It appears us 'non-believers' are only allowed to 'shut the fuck up' and listen, and then sell our souls to the god or gods we are offered.

No thanks... I'm not buying.


Cynical and destructive? I don't know what you're talking about, no one has accused me of being cynical or destructive for at least 24 hours. ;) Oh, and a big gold star for the Eldritch reference.

I understand your plight with conversion attempts. At least you can always hang back and play the "dispassionate man of reason" card, I'm just a heathen. Of course your coworker got angry. He felt he was doing you a favor. Most conversion attempts I have had to suffer through seem to have the same basic starting point: "Clearly you just don't understand, let me explain." It is the dangerously fascist opinion that anyone who doesn't share your views is either ignorant (in need of reeducation) stupid (in need of supervision) or willfully evil (not worthy of the group). You, as a potential convert, are not in a position to question or discussion. You are to be lectured to until you understand, until you submit.

The underlying hostility of conversion is why I never see it as friendly. It is, on a basic level, a form of violence. Conversion attempts are never an open dialogue, there is no two-way communication, there is only intimidation. You must convert or you will go to hell, you must convert or you will be a bad person, you must convert or you will never truely be a part of the society. You can dress that up as "I'm happy and you should be happy too" but the end result is still the spiritual equivilent of colonialism. Conversion is an act of war, otherwise why would your coworker have felt anger as opposed to sadness or frustration?

Cynical and destructive? I don't know what you're talking about, no one has accused me of being cynical or destructive for at least 24 hours. ;) Oh, and a big gold star for the Eldritch reference.

I understand your plight with conversion attempts. At least you can always hang back and play the "dispassionate man of reason" card, I'm just a heathen. Of course your coworker got angry. He felt he was doing you a favor. Most conversion attempts I have had to suffer through seem to have the same basic starting point: "Clearly you just don't understand, let me explain." It is the dangerously fascist opinion that anyone who doesn't share your views is either ignorant (in need of reeducation) stupid (in need of supervision) or willfully evil (not worthy of the group). You, as a potential convert, are not in a position to question or discussion. You are to be lectured to until you understand, until you submit.

The underlying hostility of conversion is why I never see it as friendly. It is, on a basic level, a form of violence. Conversion attempts are never an open dialogue, there is no two-way communication, there is only intimidation. You must convert or you will go to hell, you must convert or you will be a bad person, you must convert or you will never truely be a part of the society. You can dress that up as "I'm happy and you should be happy too" but the end result is still the spiritual equivilent of colonialism. Conversion is an act of war, otherwise why would your coworker have felt anger as opposed to sadness or frustration?

Oh, I agree.

The other thing I've done, of course, that has really upset my would-be-saviours... is pointed out that I was a Christian... and no longer believe.

The argument always then, follows the line that I never REALLY believed... which always leads me to ask why I felt like I did.

Obviously.. I felt like I did, because Satan MADE ME feel that way...

Okay, I ask... what makes you so sure YOUR belief is different to mine...?

Except, of course... that the Atheist has better evidentiary support for his/her claim... since there is no independent evidence to back up the extraordinary claims made by Christianity.... and, indeed, there are THOUSANDS of other scriptures that are not really reconcilable with the world that the Bible suggests.

Thus - in the absence of 'extraordinary evidence' to back it's 'extraordinary claims'; and in the presence of a WEALTH of OTHER 'extraordinary claims' that ALSO lack 'extraordinary evidence'; and given the idea that one should not complicate matters unneccessariyl...

The LOGICAL assumption is that the Bible is just as bogus as Christians claim every OTHER scripture is.

You can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove that he doesn't exist either. Some people choose Christianity as their drug of choice - that doesn't make them stupid.

You can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove that he doesn't exist either. Some people choose Christianity as their drug of choice - that doesn't make them stupid.

No, no it doesn't. It is when they begin to try to force their drug upon me that problems start to arise.

Replace the word "Atheist" with "Christian" in the original post, and that's the question I've asked most of my life.

No, no it doesn't. It is when they begin to try to force their drug upon me that problems start to arise.

I'm not trying to force it on you. I'm just asking you to not call me stupid for using it myself.

No, no it doesn't. It is when they begin to try to force their drug upon me that problems start to arise.


which is exactly why my drug of choice is not at all related to religion. :)

You can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove that he doesn't exist either. Some people choose Christianity as their drug of choice - that doesn't make them stupid.

No... it doesn't.

However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and extraordinary evidence just does not exist for ANY gods... much less, one specific one.

Thus, it is certainly ILLOGICAL to 'choose Christianity'.

I wonder if you hold your religious convictions to the same standards you would expect if we were talking about vampires, aliens or fairies... ALL of which have 'better' extraordinary evidence that the myth of the Impaled Nazarene.

I like religion because it's free, legal and makes innocent young women trust me.

I'm not trying to force it on you. I'm just asking you to not call me stupid for using it myself.

I don't believe that I have.

I don't believe that I have.

For which I am grateful. My issue exists with people like Grave_n_Idle, who did call me stupid for my drug of choice.

I like religion because it's free, legal and makes innocent young women trust me.

^Quote of the day^

Already incorporated into the signature....

Already incorporated into the signature....

I would but my Jolt account is screwed and it won't let me sig.:(

Well, I don't mind sharing when you sort it out :)

Not my line after all...;)

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to use it is welcome to it. I'm all for the sharing of ideas. :D

Grave is just bitter because he's met Christians who don't know how to shut up.

Grave is just bitter because he's met Christians who don't know how to shut up.

Quite a few of us are. One of the problems with Christianity is that it encourages evangelism and, in the hands of fools, leads people to talk endlessly about the primacy of their faith. Those of us who do not ascribe to the same tenets, especially those of us who have radically different values, tend to become slightly angry after years of being told how stupid we are, how damned we are, how wicked and evil we are. We grow tired of being constantly belittled by the follows of a faith that claims to espouse tollerance, we look at history and consider ourselves lucky that we do not live in a time when our refusal to submit would mean torture and death.

How would you feel if every few weeks someone came up to you and told you that everything you believe is wrong, that you are under the control of anceint evil, and that you are destined to be tortured for eternity if you don't give up your ideals. Imagine that those people were sometimes friends, sometimes family, sometimes strangers. Imagine being constantly on the defensive. imagine people suddenly disliking you or being unwilling to associate with you if you refuse to share your faith. Imagine that members of your family disown you because of what you believe. Imagine that you meet a woman you love and begin the rest of your life together with her parents hating you because you could not be married in their church. Imagine elderly family members cornering you, demanding that you convert before they die because they "want to be able to die knowing you go to heaven."

Bitter? Yeah, some of us are. We have reason. Maybe it isn't your fault, but perhaps you should consider what lead others to where they are before you cast stones.

*snip*As for Kreen, time for a remedial IQ test - you flunked.
It's amazing how poorly you interpret as short a statement as mine. It doesn't surprise me at all that you hadn't heard the quote before ... even if you had you apparently wouldn't have heard all the right words in the right order by the time your processor took to them.*snip*
I meant what I said, and I knew exactly what you were reffering to, but you failed to specify exactly what you were talking about. Allowing me to create a margin of doubt and use it how ever I wanted. My statement was not a challenge to your beliefs unless you took it as such. And don't insult my intelligence. For all you know, I could be someone who is diagnosed as mentally slow, or I could be someone who is as, or more intelligent than you.

My two cents:

I'm a non-theist, and none of this really matters to me. Anyone in the same boat as me?

Personally, i'm an atheist, but not a militant one.

I prefer not to discuss religion, because I don't think it is a topic that merits serious consideration. Life is an absurdity, and death is a worrying mystery, and whatever illusions people may use to cope with it is their own business and none of my concern. It is however, in my opinion, unscientific, primitive, and insane to believe in God, and I don't like people trying to persuade me otherwise, whether or not their intentions are good (save my soul, etc) or simply stemming from an inferiority complex.

I'm an adult, I live in the real world, and I don't want to play make-believe with christians.

And don't insult my intelligence as you don't know with who you are dealing with, and what connections I have. For all you know, I could be someone who is diagnosed as mentally slow, or I could be someone who is as, or more intelligent than you.
Oh man watch out he might have an uncle in the mob. :rolleyes:

Death is a part of life, its not something to fear. Sides, without it, the world would be a much more crowded place.

I meant what I said, and I knew exactly what you were reffering to, but you failed to specify exactly what you were talking about. Allowing me to create a margin of doubt and use it how ever I wanted. My statement was not a challenge to your beliefs unless you took it as such. And don't insult my intelligence. For all you know, I could be someone who is diagnosed as mentally slow, or I could be someone who is as, or more intelligent than you.
Hmmm.... a few things ... one, as for most of the post, you've qualified yourself as disingenuous, which is again a general trait indicative of the philosophy you espouse, appropriately enough ... as i said, general, not specific, since there are a few exceptions, as some who post here (of course excluding yourself) I note them when possible.
Second, i at NO point stated that my philosophy was atheist. I simply pointed out the blatant bias ignorance of your OP and follow-up. Nothing sneaky about that.
Third, i don't have to insult your intelligence, you apparently can't tell the difference, and you're welcome to make a spectacle of yourself as much as you want ... but it's cute that you think you can turn that into an advantage here, so i bolded your text thusly (and italicized the extra-special part). Very firmly seated in the ignorance i'd implied in my first response to you.

So, all in all, pretty much where one could expect you to be. Too bad.

Oh man watch out he might have an uncle in the mob. :rolleyes:
Well, that should go interestingly enough. I like Italian food! :)
Some of us are probably much closer to the mob than we might be willing to admit ... take Lunatic Goofballs or Corneliu, for example. *nods*

Death is a part of life, its not something to fear. Sides, without it, the world would be a much more crowded place.
Well, this post would probably go in your favor. Baby steps, baby steps.
And, you missed an apostrophe.

Explain it any way you want, you're just dodging. Comparing hell to a monetary fine that somebody else offers to pay shows you can't detect the glaring flaws in your own analogy. And no, its still not okay to let somebody else take the blame, you should face your own music "just to be responsible". I don't think you get what responsibility is.

Your bit about "What if the crime was something you weren't originally responsible before" is disgusting. If God charges people with crimes they aren't "orginally responsible for", he has as poor an understanding of responsibility as you do.

You say that killing children for the crimes of their fathers is "justice". Try actually practicing what you preach in any kind of "justice" system, and the people will accurately call you psychotic. I hope you explain your definition of justice if you're ever called for jury duty.

Children should die because their father's are "incredibly immoral"? I have a friend whose father molested her. You don't get much more immoral than that, so by your logic, she and her brothers should be killed.

I've read your whole post, and I'm sick to my stomache. Your failed attempts to justify hypocrisy and death are the whole reason I worry about Christians. I never used to, until I started seeing Christians like you.

I'm past words, now. I'm seriously going to find and join an organization to take collective political action against people like you. Free speech is one thing, but if you vote in accordance with your putrid "reasoning", I want to make sure my vote cancels yours, or that of someone like you.

I know this thread is like a day old now, but I had to go to school. First, i'd like to start out by saying that I specifically stated that the money thing was not exactly the same as God's justice, there is a big difference between earthly systems of justice and God's system of justice, I pointed this out quite clearly, man's system of justice can only go so far, while God's justice will judge infinitly well. How do you plan to take responsibility for your failures when your up against an infinitly just judge? Nextly, I think we just don't understand each other, I meant that we aren't originally personally responsible for Eve eating that apple, and therefore, why should God NOT be merciful to people in the future if they'll actually listen? It's not like He didn't keep giving people chance after chance after chance, yet time and again almost everyone except a small handful of people out of hundreds of thousands fell away, no matter what God did for them. Nextly, if I tried practicing what you proclaim in a courtroom , I wouldn't be much of a Christian at all, so I don't see how your argument can apply to me. Matthew 7:1 expressly outlaws us from judging anyone, because God is the only being qualified to judge anything. Next point, that is not what I said, you have generalized everything and removed the sequence showing how it is justice, now it is of course slamming an unjust system...which is not Biblical. As i've tried to explain, because God is all loving along with being infinitely just, He wouldn't send people to Hell if they would of grown up to love Him, the entire point of Him judging the children is not because the father's would abuse them and thusly force them into Hell, im not even sure where you got that molesting thing from. If Proverbs 22:6 says that training a child in the way he should go will make them not turn from it when they are older, why should the converse not be true, especially when the vast majority back in those times consisted of almost compleatly immoral acting people? God didn't start punishing His people when just one of them messed up, He started on them again and again after the majority kept leaving and taking back up evil ways. Lastly, I would be sick to my stomach too if I had actually said exactly what you are attacking, but I will be able to keep my dinner down tonight, since I didn't say any of those things like you want me to of said them.

Still, it means that the technique is useless against anyone who does not believe in the bible. The point I was making is that those of different religions or different philosophies are not going to be swayed. Only lapsed Christians with wills weak enough to be left quivering in fear of a hell.

Yea, if I was a hell-fire preacher, what I do would only work on the weak-minded and even then probably wouldn't inspire real faith, but I haven't been screaming in all caps once in this thread that everyone is going to Hell here because I think so, nor have I made various false allusions about God being infinitly hateful, which is generally what hell-fire preaching comes out as. My argument does not rest alone on telling people it is possible they might go to Hell, it is about showing them "why" it is possible for them to go to Hell, without the "why", it is just silly, you know? and the "why" is clearly defined, ask someone long enough about whether they've ever told a lie, stolen anything, used God's name like a cuss word when Hitler on the other hand has gotten off pretty scotch-free vulgarity wise, or ever lusted after people, or hated their brother, and eventually your going to find something that someone feels guilty about. Of course, as i've tried to explain, it's not all about creating guilt, that's just ridiculous, it's about showing what you've done wrong and what God did so you can be forgiven for it.

And you'd be wrong. If you don't know what something means, look it up.


An apostate is a deserter, someone who has been a member of a faith and then walked away. Generally it is because they have found a major point within the faith which they can no longer tollerate. My question is how you would deal with someone who was once a Christian but who has made the conscious, willing, and informed decision to turn his back on God.

It looks to me like im compleatly right, Jehovah's witnesses and Mormons and the like were all generally started by people at least claiming to be Christian, and then they walked off to found their own denominations. Next, there are 2 possible situations there for your question. Either they didn't really know God the first time and I can show them what the Bible really says, (Highly possible, they might of been incorrectly taught on who God is, through any number of possible false teachings) or they have commited the unforgiveable sin, which is when you can see who Christ is and that He is doing good and clearly is God, and still call Him Satan or deny Him. You can't figure out if someone has done that just by looking at a person, and probably not by talking to them either because you can't be sure of what anyone is thinking, so if I did come across such a person, simply put, it wouldn't matter what anyone does, because they'd be doomed anyway. But like I said, you can't be sure if other people have actually done this, they might deny God and not actually be talking about God if they don't even know who He is in the first place.

You're serious? This sin't some relativistic "well we'll never know" situation. Christianity was won through most of Europe and all of South and Central America either politically (through a king bbecoming Christian and forcing his subjects to follow) or through violence (take a good look at the spread of Christianity and it's involvement with the conquistadors). You can argue about what it means to be a "real" Christian but the fact of the matter is, if you're born to a Christian family, baptised, show up to church, and don;t do anything public to prove otherwise, history assumes you are a Christian. My specific point was addressing this statement made by you:

I was arguing that Christianity did not spread because of it's morality or philosophy, but because of the violence and conversion tactics of it's existing members.

Sure it is, you cannot get into someone's head and figure out if they are a Christian or not, the reason we were told to not judge people wasn't just because Jesus didn't want us to use a useful gift, it's because we literally cannot judge people compleatly, it cannot be done. But im not saying that Christianity hasn't had its bad share of spreading through evil practices, but you can't say that it was all through those, and besides, much of the spread of Christianity was done over a long period of time and peacefully, so it wasn't nearly as famous as the crusades or something. Christianity did not spread through 100 percent violence, there's no way so many people would of bought such hypocracy for thousands of years in such vast numbers, one or 2 rulers might be able to twist doctrine this way and that to intimidate people, but those rulers had to of died, and all their successors could not possibly of been as good at suppressing the masses as previous rulers. Somebody, somewhere, had to of spread Christianity by the actual Bible rather than the Spanish Inquisition. And it's true that history might judge people who act like Christians to be Christians, but God is not history, He will judge based on how He set the criteria for being saved or not, if you are not born again like He tells us, He will not judge you to be saved, this isn't my opinion on the subject, it's what the Bible says :/.

Now, as for your assertions about what you need to do to become a Christian, you're talking about theology, I'm talking about pragmatism. Becoming a Christian isn't a choice for most people who are born into Christian families. They have the beliefs, they get dragged to church, they don't bother to question. This was even more the case during the spread of Christianity when most of the people weren't educated well enough to question and those that were knew that not being seen as a Christian meant death. Those who would use Christianity as a means of exercising control understood this. That was the point I was making. You tell a lie long enough, people start believing it.

On the contrary, i've seen many people at my school who's parents tried to raise them up as Christians and took them to church all the time, yet they not only bothered to question, but assert themselves plainly to not be Christian to our faces, often using very colorful language to do so. And evangelism isn't about outlawing people's ability to question, otherwise, why would I have answered (Or at least tried to) so many people's questions already, including your own?

I know this thread is like a day old now, but I had to go to school. First, i'd like to start out by saying that I specifically stated that the money thing was not exactly the same as God's justice, there is a big difference between earthly systems of justice and God's system of justice, I pointed this out quite clearly, man's system of justice can only go so far, while God's justice will judge infinitly well. How do you plan to take responsibility for your failures when your up against an infinitly just judge? Nextly, I think we just don't understand each other, I meant that we aren't originally personally responsible for Eve eating that apple, and therefore, why should God NOT be merciful to people in the future if they'll actually listen? It's not like He didn't keep giving people chance after chance after chance, yet time and again almost everyone except a small handful of people out of hundreds of thousands fell away, no matter what God did for them. Nextly, if I tried practicing what you proclaim in a courtroom , I wouldn't be much of a Christian at all, so I don't see how your argument can apply to me. Matthew 7:1 expressly outlaws us from judging anyone, because God is the only being qualified to judge anything. Next point, that is not what I said, you have generalized everything and removed the sequence showing how it is justice, now it is of course slamming an unjust system...which is not Biblical. As i've tried to explain, because God is all loving along with being infinitely just, He wouldn't send people to Hell if they would of grown up to love Him, the entire point of Him judging the children is not because the father's would abuse them and thusly force them into Hell, im not even sure where you got that molesting thing from. If Proverbs 22:6 says that training a child in the way he should go will make them not turn from it when they are older, why should the converse not be true, especially when the vast majority back in those times consisted of almost compleatly immoral acting people? God didn't start punishing His people when just one of them messed up, He started on them again and again after the majority kept leaving and taking back up evil ways. Lastly, I would be sick to my stomach too if I had actually said exactly what you are attacking, but I will be able to keep my dinner down tonight, since I didn't say any of those things like you want me to of said them.

Do you even listen to yourself?

You said yourself you would call it "justice". You don't even take responsibility for what you say, and you clearly have no understanding of basic propositional logic. There is no "sequence" that makes it okay to bash a child's head open for the crimes of its father.

YOU reasoned that the children were killed because their fathers were immoral; if you really don't have the acumen to see how the molestation example illustrates a grotesque flaw in your logic, then you suffer from cognitive dissonace or you're being deliberately obtuse.

Everything I said follows from what you said; your inability to see the connection is not my fault, but I can see how it leads to your beliefs.

Mercy in exchange for obedience is not infinite justice, its wretched fascism. You and your God don't practice what you preach; you aren't even consistent in what you preach. It's always "Don't judge, I judge. Don't kill, I kill." An infinitely wise God would have the integrity to hold itself to the same standard it wants from people.

Can you even grasp the idea that an eternity of torture is not an "infinitely just" punishment for human mistakes? That washing yourself in somebody else's blood for your mistakes is not justice?

You use the court system/fine comparison, then turn around and say how different it is.

Your long-winded backpedalling doesn't withstand basic analysis.

On the contrary, i've seen many people at my school who's parents tried to raise them up as Christians and took them to church all the time, yet they not only bothered to question, but assert themselves plainly to not be Christian to our faces, often using very colorful language to do so.

Gee, what happend to Proverbs 22:6? Well, maybe those kids weren't indoctrinated long enough...

You said yourself you would call it "justice". You don't even take responsibility for what you say, and you clearly have no understanding of basic propositional logic. There is no "sequence" that makes it okay to bash a child's head open for the crimes of its father.


It's a problem with the one of the propositions itself surely, rather than an invalid syllogism?

Nextly, if I tried practicing what you proclaim in a courtroom , I wouldn't be much of a Christian at all, so I don't see how your argument can apply to me. .

I wanted to respond to this specifically, because what you are trying to do here is particularly deceitful.

It was YOU who "proclaimed" that killing children for the crimes of their fathers is "justice". Get it? That was YOUR statement.

I simply pointed out that actually trying to apply your concept of "justice" puts in a very clear light how monstrous it is.

Seriously, do you even read your own posts? You admit you wouldn't be much of a Christian if you adhere to the axiom that you yourself call "justice"?

There's a word for that "big difference" between what your version of God can do and what He expects us to do. Its called hypocrisy.

I'm really starting to suspect you aren't even a Christian; I think you may be somebody with a grudge against Christians and you're trying to put them in a bad light.

It's a problem with the one of the propositions itself surely, rather than an invalid syllogism?

I'm sorry, I disagree (although I find a number of his propositions odious).

The fact is, he doesn't understand that if he says "The children were killed because their fathers were immoral", it follows from that proposition that we would have to kill victims of parental child abuse, because their parents are immoral.

So basically your whole argument is 'God might exist, if he does it'll be bad for you' wrapped in a lot of rhetoric?

Friend, do you really have such a low opinion of your God that you don't think he's smart enough to know if I'm really believing or if I'm pretending to believe in case he exists?

And why should I risk a greater punishment from Allah or Yahweh for worshipping false gods if they exist?

that rhetoric you speak of is the entire reason why the argument is good, without that rhetoric, I might as well be saying "it might be bad for you to put your hand in a toaster, if your hand exists, it'll be bad for you" if I didn't have some real reasons behind it. I don't have a low opinion of God at all, but He commanded us to spread the gospel, which cannot be done unless people understand why they even need the gospel in the first place. And I know that God is smart enough to know if people are pretending or not, I never said He wasn't, but I cannot just simply assume everyone I try to evangelize to will be pretending, and then stop because it might be wrong of me to assume im doing any good. And since the Bible says there is no God but the God, there can't be any plural false gods to get caught up in worship of, im not sure what you mean here exactly.

If you search for Pascal's Wager on google you'll get a far better refutation than any I can give, if you try to use that argument on people you'll be laughed at.

Incidently, why do you think it is that Hell isn't mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament? Could it be that it was adapted from Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures at the time when Christianity was formed?

Deuteronomy 32:22 reads , "For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains." It doesn't need to say Hell there, because there's only one realm of death that the Bible ever mentions, and that is Hell. Yea, the NIV says that realm of death is "sheol", the hebrew word in question in this whole debate. However, how do any of the other definitions fit in there and not either mean Hell or not make sense, "to the pit below" sounds like Hell as well, and "To the grave" doesn't make any sense since there are many graves in the world and the Bible never mentions one specific, literal grave as containing fire below, unless it metaphorically refers to Hell somewhere like that. Yes, I know a great majority of the Old Testiment refers to similar things as "the grave" in the NIV at least. Yes, I fully understand how the word for grave, Hell, and pit are technically the same in ancient Hebrew as "sheol", i've read universalist stuff myself, gotta know what that is all about too if I want to actually win a debate with one of those guys if I ever come across one :/. But the New Testiment also refers to Hell without using the word "sheol" in hebrew either, (At least it makes no sense to me for it to use it.) it talks about a place of eternal torment several times, and a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, neither of which should require the word sheol.


I think you got all of my paragraphs.

But anyway, you haven't answered the point about the existance of moral truths. For you to prove that universal moral truths exist you must prove the veracity of your holy book, which you can't do.
Eh, now I can't remember who I answered what with. I shouldn't have to go to the tremendous trouble of proving the Bible correct because it would just degrade into a humungous argument which ultimately wouldn't solve much and probably wouldn't do a thing for anybody anyway because it still wouldn't make someone believe if they really didn't want to. All I need to do to prove universal moral truth is interview every single person who is alive today and ask them if they think there is something in the world that is bad, and if they answer yes, I could say with confidence that a universal moral truth exists that says something(s) must be bad, but you won't ask me to go through all that trouble, will you? :(. Besides, people could still just lie to me and say there is nothing that is bad, and then everything would get messed up.

Eh, now I can't remember who I answered what with. I shouldn't have to go to the tremendous trouble of proving the Bible correct because it would just degrade into a humungous argument which ultimately wouldn't solve much and probably wouldn't do a thing for anybody anyway because it still wouldn't make someone believe if they really didn't want to.

And yet you still try to supporty our points by saying "its biblical", or my personal favorite, you statement "That's not my opinion, its in the bible".

Just because you chain your opinion to a book doesn't mean its not your opinion. And the veracity of the book is a matter of opinion to begin with.

Eh, now I can't remember who I answered what with. I shouldn't have to go to the tremendous trouble of proving the Bible correct because it would just degrade into a humungous argument which ultimately wouldn't solve much and probably wouldn't do a thing for anybody anyway because it still wouldn't make someone believe if they really didn't want to. All I need to do to prove universal moral truth is interview every single person who is alive today and ask them if they think there is something in the world that is bad, and if they answer yes, I could say with confidence that a universal moral truth exists that says something(s) must be bad, but you won't ask me to go through all that trouble, will you? :(. Besides, people could still just lie to me and say there is nothing that is bad, and then everything would get messed up.


At least you're getting the point on why it's tough to prove 'universal' morals held by EVERYONE. Of course, we can use logic to assume that some morals are relatively universal.

I wanted to respond to this specifically, because what you are trying to do here is particularly deceitful.

It was YOU who "proclaimed" that killing children for the crimes of their fathers is "justice". Get it? That was YOUR statement.

I simply pointed out that actually trying to apply your concept of "justice" puts in a very clear light how monstrous it is.

Seriously, do you even read your own posts? You admit you wouldn't be much of a Christian if you adhere to the axiom that you yourself call "justice"?

There's a word for that "big difference" between what your version of God can do and what He expects us to do. Its called hypocrisy.

I'm really starting to suspect you aren't even a Christian; I think you may be somebody with a grudge against Christians and you're trying to put them in a bad light.

No, I said that it was justice for God to kill them whenever He said he would do it, and He did change that rule eventually so that He would no longer visit the sins of fathers upon their children. This is not my standard of justice, it is God's. God is the one who judges, He said He would judge the children of the old testiment by the sins of their fathers for awhile, therefore, His judgement must of been justly judging them for something, I didn't have to make up His judgement on them, the Bible already says it happened. But when Jesus commands "us" not to judge, that means we should not judge anyone, not lets all go kill all the children because God did it and we somehow have the capability to judge just as well as God. I can say that those children deserved their judgement because God thought so obviously when He said He would judge them, not because I personally feel that they should all go to Hell. It's like saying we aren't allowed to say that Satan should be in Hell even when the Bible already affirms that Satan will be spending forever in Hell, after coming back for a bit, then going back forever again. Im not making the judgement, im only repeating it, that does not require me to judge.

At least you're getting the point on why it's tough to prove 'universal' morals held by EVERYONE. Of course, we can use logic to assume that some morals are relatively universal.

I never said it was easy to prove, it does get kinda complicated, because if we assume that some morals are relatively universal, we would be absolutly stating that all morals are relative, thusly making them un-relative :D.

Gee, what happend to Proverbs 22:6? Well, maybe those kids weren't indoctrinated long enough...

Or maybe they wern't raising them correctly and/or going to a bad church? The point is that people aren't Christian because they go to church or listen to their parents a church can fail, and so can parents, but if they don't fail, then your good.

And yet you still try to supporty our points by saying "its biblical", or my personal favorite, you statement "That's not my opinion, its in the bible".

Just because you chain your opinion to a book doesn't mean its not your opinion. And the veracity of the book is a matter of opinion to begin with.
Very well stated

I'm sorry, I disagree (although I find a number of his propositions odious).

The fact is, he doesn't understand that if he says "The children were killed because their fathers were immoral", it follows from that proposition that we would have to kill victims of parental child abuse, because their parents are immoral.

No that makes sense.

I suppose was assuming however, that the biblical definition of immoral was somewhat different from our present day understanding, and parental child abuse* wasn't covered by it. I.e, my initial question about propositions v. syllogisms.

It's a moot point anyway, I was just curious how you were approaching it.

*For example it seems as if incest is not always frowned upon, nor taking extremely young wives, or beating - or even killing - children.

No, I said that it was justice for God to kill them whenever He said he would do it, and He did change that rule eventually so that He would no longer visit the sins of fathers upon their children. This is not my standard of justice, it is God's.

So, you dont' read your own postings then. Tell me, why does an infinitely just God have to "change rules"? And if you obey God, you are making his standard your standard.

You are the most spineless Christian I've ever met. "This is not my standard of justice, it is God's". Do you understand that if you call him "infinitely just", you're praising him as just in your eyes? So, his standard becomes your standard.

Fact: You worship and obey a God who thinks its okay to kill children for their father's wrongdoing. Think about what that would mean in daily life, if you can.

Imagine that members of your family disown you because of what you believe. Imagine that you meet a woman you love and begin the rest of your life together with her parents hating you because you could not be married in their church. Imagine elderly family members cornering you, demanding that you convert before they die because they "want to be able to die knowing you go to heaven."

Actually, this just happened to myself. My gf's grandmother now thinks that I worship the devil, and keeps trying to get my gf to take me to church.

Im not making the judgement, im only repeating it, that does not require me to judge.

Judging is a form of thinking, so do me a favor and substitute the word "think" for the word "judge", and you will have finally made a reasonable statement about yourself.

For other people, when they choose what to worship, and what to obey, they are making a judgement. It does require them to judge. Its sometimes called "due diligence of thought" or "taking responsibility for what you base your life on".

And it absolutely does require judgement.

Just not the kind that kills children for the crimes of their parents.

No that makes sense.

I suppose was assuming however, that the biblical definition of immoral was somewhat different from our present day understanding, and parental child abuse* wasn't covered by it. I.e, my initial question about propositions v. syllogisms.

It's a moot point anyway, I was just curious how you were approaching it.

*For example it seems as if incest is not always frowned upon, nor taking extremely young wives, or beating - or even killing - children.

At least you're asking a reasonable question. I'm sure the biblical definition of "immoral" varies; I think much of it was translated purposely vague so that people like "Theorb" can twist it like a balloon animal into whatever they need to believe at the moment. Assuming he's what he says he is.

At least you're asking a reasonable question. I'm sure the biblical definition of "immoral" varies; I think much of it was translated purposely vague so that people like "Theorb" can twist it like a balloon animal into whatever they need to believe at the moment. Assuming he's what he says he is.
Is that not exactly how most things like that go

Look at why Ms. Cleo was so sucessfull

Keep it genaric and vague and people will interpreted how they most want.

People fall for that shit all the time

Is that not exactly how most things like that go

Look at why Ms. Cleo was so sucessfull

Keep it genaric and vague and people will interpreted how they most want.

People fall for that shit all the time

Yep. Ms. Cleo is just the "Del Taco" trying to get market share from "McJesusChrist"

At least you're asking a reasonable question. I'm sure the biblical definition of "immoral" varies; I think much of it was translated purposely vague so that people like "Theorb" can twist it like a balloon animal into whatever they need to believe at the moment. Assuming he's what he says he is.

I would imagine it was pretty vague in the original too; for much the same reasons.

I would imagine it was pretty vague in the original too; for much the same reasons.
Yeah the more specific your predictions the bigger chanse that they will be wrong (or appear so)

Yeah the more specific your predictions the bigger chanse that they will be wrong (or appear so)

Personally, I am always dissappointed that more people don't follow Santa Claus. He's clearly the most ethical of all the mythical figures. Think about it:

He tangibly rewards people regularly for being good, unlike god, who is mysterious and waits until you are dead to give you presents.

The worst he does if you are 'naughty' is give you coal. This is a sharp contrast to not condemning you to eternal hellfire for not worshiping him.

I cannot understand why he isn't more popular.

Personally, I am always dissappointed that more people don't follow Santa Claus. He's clearly the most ethical of all the mythical figures. Think about it:

He tangibly rewards people regularly for being good, unlike god, who is mysterious and waits until you are dead to give you presents.

The worst he does if you are 'naughty' is give you coal. This is a sharp contrast to not condemning you to eternal hellfire for not worshiping him.

I cannot understand why he isn't more popular.
Honestly he probably is up there in compitition for popularity with JC lol

Personally, I am always dissappointed that more people don't follow Santa Claus. He's clearly the most ethical of all the mythical figures. Think about it:

He tangibly rewards people regularly for being good, unlike god, who is mysterious and waits until you are dead to give you presents.

The worst he does if you are 'naughty' is give you coal. This is a sharp contrast to not condemning you to eternal hellfire for not worshiping him.

I cannot understand why he isn't more popular.
Good point.
When did that whole "Easter" thing come around again?

I'm curious, if you believe your philosophy is superior, then why do you have to be so noisy about it?
I'm curious as to how the "then" has anything to do with the "if". Everyone thinks their philosophy is best; that's why they believe in it. Noisy people will be noisy about their philosophy, and it has little to do with which philosophy that actually is.

Good point.
When did that whole "Easter" thing come around again?

When the bunny laid its first egg. Actually, if they could keep that jesus fellow out of easter, I think I would quite like it. I like bunnies, and I like chocolate. It could be a sort of chinese new year thing, but with more candy and rabbits every year.

The whole jesus thing is just a downer.

When the bunny laid its first egg. Actually, if they could keep that jesus fellow out of easter, I think I would quite like it. I like bunnies, and I like chocolate. It could be a sort of chinese new year thing, but with more candy and rabbits every year.

The whole jesus thing is just a downer.
Ya know i have actually watched paint dry before. $14/hr can make a person do funny things, like try to crossbreed a chicken with a bunny rabbit. Like put them in a bag and shake the bag up a bit. Or to try and push the rooster spot (yes, spot .... fertilization by seepage) up against the least mobile part(s) of the bunny (man can they move!). Thankfully i have somewhat of a responsible schedule, and, they weren't willing to part with the extra buck-fifty an hour and benefits to make me do something truly humiliating.
As for the last line, i guess it depends on what you mix it with!

Ya know i have actually watched paint dry before. $14/hr can make a person do funny things, like try to crossbreed a chicken with a bunny rabbit. Like put them in a bag and shake the bag up a bit. Or to try and push the rooster spot (yes, spot .... fertilization by seepage)up against the least mobile part(s) of the bunny (man can they move!). Thankfully i have somewhat of a responsible schedule, and, they weren't willing to part with the extra buck-fifty an hour and benefits to make me do something truly humiliating.
As for the last line, i guess it depends on what you mix it with!

To be fair, you need a magic bunny to make it work.

To be fair, you need a magic bunny to make it work.
So do i need to do some incantations and pentagrams and funky dancing too? Strangely enough, that involved chickens too, last time. *nods*
Or do you mean i have to find a special kind of hat like the one they put on Frosty, and i put it on a chocolate bunny? Wait, did they have those then? :confused:

Eh, no.. not necessarily..

Many radical atheists (people with an engrained hatred of religion, rather than those who simply dont believe) seem in many cases to have had abusive or absent male figures in their lives at young ages.. that's the theory.. psychologists point to writers like Camus and Freud as examples..
And sadly overly religious people are the ones that create these athiest radicals...

Yea, if I was a hell-fire preacher, what I do would only work on the weak-minded and even then probably wouldn't inspire real faith, but I haven't been screaming in all caps once in this thread that everyone is going to Hell here because I think so, nor have I made various false allusions about God being infinitly hateful, which is generally what hell-fire preaching comes out as. My argument does not rest alone on telling people it is possible they might go to Hell, it is about showing them "why" it is possible for them to go to Hell, without the "why", it is just silly, you know? and the "why" is clearly defined, ask someone long enough about whether they've ever told a lie, stolen anything, used God's name like a cuss word when Hitler on the other hand has gotten off pretty scotch-free vulgarity wise, or ever lusted after people, or hated their brother, and eventually your going to find something that someone feels guilty about. Of course, as i've tried to explain, it's not all about creating guilt, that's just ridiculous, it's about showing what you've done wrong and what God did so you can be forgiven for it.

The wole problems is that you are preaching hellfire. Sure, you aren't screaming or talkling up God's hate, but your entire argument revolves around forgiveness, guilt, and ultimately hell. It is the same point in slightly less extreme clothes. Further, you're looking for something someone feels guilty about, but your ideas of what someone needs to feel guilty about are so tied into existing Christian philosophy that you won't get very far with anyone who isn't from that background. A week doesn't go by where I don;t break half a dozen commandment, and if you're talking about the extreme interpretations of The Way of the Master, a day doesn't go by when I don't break eight. Do I fell guilty at all? No, because I'm not a Christian, I do not respect the Christian God, and His commandments mean nothing to me. Where do you go from there?

It looks to me like im compleatly right, Jehovah's witnesses and Mormons and the like were all generally started by people at least claiming to be Christian, and then they walked off to found their own denominations. Next, there are 2 possible situations there for your question. Either they didn't really know God the first time and I can show them what the Bible really says, (Highly possible, they might of been incorrectly taught on who God is, through any number of possible false teachings) or they have commited the unforgiveable sin, which is when you can see who Christ is and that He is doing good and clearly is God, and still call Him Satan or deny Him. You can't figure out if someone has done that just by looking at a person, and probably not by talking to them either because you can't be sure of what anyone is thinking, so if I did come across such a person, simply put, it wouldn't matter what anyone does, because they'd be doomed anyway. But like I said, you can't be sure if other people have actually done this, they might deny God and not actually be talking about God if they don't even know who He is in the first place.

First of all, Mormon and Jehovah's Witnesses would be heretics in your worldview. There is a difference. A heretic remains partly a member of the sect but has a radically different (and, to the mainstream, inaccurate) interpretation of the faith. All rpotestantism started out as sects heretical to the Roman Catholic Church. A little bit of history will go a long way.

Now, to address the points you have made above. Most apostates would fall into the second group, and I know that I do. As hard as it is for a committed Christian to believe, there are people for whom the faith does not work. People who have a radical disagreement with basic tenets of the philosophy, people who are not comforted. There are also people simply lose the ability to believe, people who have had experiances which have made the Christian faith inaccessable to them.

Unforgiveable sins and unforgivable sinners. I find it disturbing that the only things that qualify are those who refuse to bow. A rapist or a murderer can be redeemed, but not a dissident. That, my friend, is why so many of us view conversion as an act of violence.

Sure it is, you cannot get into someone's head and figure out if they are a Christian or not, the reason we were told to not judge people wasn't just because Jesus didn't want us to use a useful gift, it's because we literally cannot judge people compleatly, it cannot be done. But im not saying that Christianity hasn't had its bad share of spreading through evil practices, but you can't say that it was all through those, and besides, much of the spread of Christianity was done over a long period of time and peacefully, so it wasn't nearly as famous as the crusades or something. Christianity did not spread through 100 percent violence, there's no way so many people would of bought such hypocracy for thousands of years in such vast numbers, one or 2 rulers might be able to twist doctrine this way and that to intimidate people, but those rulers had to of died, and all their successors could not possibly of been as good at suppressing the masses as previous rulers. Somebody, somewhere, had to of spread Christianity by the actual Bible rather than the Spanish Inquisition. And it's true that history might judge people who act like Christians to be Christians, but God is not history, He will judge based on how He set the criteria for being saved or not, if you are not born again like He tells us, He will not judge you to be saved, this isn't my opinion on the subject, it's what the Bible says :/.

I'm going to have to disagree. Christianity was not spread at all through south or central American except through violence. Even if a particular missionary did not come with the conquistadors the locals knew that he was of the same race, that he came from the same land. The threat of violence was there. The spread of Christianity through Europe was similarly aggressive. Ever wonder why Christmas and Easter fall on or near the high holy days of pagan religions? Ever wondered why so many Catholic saints are so similar to heathen Gods? When the Chruch came in they took over the shrines, took over the days, coopted the Gods, and comandeered the culture. Those who continued to follow the old ways were witches. We know how they were dealt with. Ever wondered why there are no more Druids in the British Isles? I'll give you a hint, it involves genocide.

Even beyond the spread of Christianity, Christians have always used violence to supress competing beliefs. You have the crusades, the spanish inquisition, the murder of french Hugonauts by the Pope's army on St Batholomew's day in 1572, the systematic extermination of heretical sects all through the middle ages including the extermination of the cathars, the burning and destruction of the Knights Templar, the Salem witch trials, the murder of Mormons in the American south by protestants, the reign of Mary I of England, the prosecution of Jews for hundreds of years in Europe culminating the in the Catholic Chruch's silence near support of the holocost. Christianity hasn't been a religion of peace since the day Christians gained enough political power to kill those who dare dissent. After all, theres all those unforgivable sins...

On the contrary, i've seen many people at my school who's parents tried to raise them up as Christians and took them to church all the time, yet they not only bothered to question, but assert themselves plainly to not be Christian to our faces, often using very colorful language to do so. And evangelism isn't about outlawing people's ability to question, otherwise, why would I have answered (Or at least tried to) so many people's questions already, including your own?

I'm glad to live in a world where education and freedom have come together in such a way as to allow people to question.

As for your question, I think that Nietzsche answered it better than I ever could:
It is not their love for men but the impotence of their love for men which hinders Christians today from - burning us.

Good point.
When did that whole "Easter" thing come around again?

Heh heh. Easter is just a far less entertaining version of Beltaine.

Seriously, folks, we need more holidays designed to celebrate sex.

that rhetoric you speak of is the entire reason why the argument is good, without that rhetoric, I might as well be saying "it might be bad for you to put your hand in a toaster, if your hand exists, it'll be bad for you" if I didn't have some real reasons behind it. I don't have a low opinion of God at all, but He commanded us to spread the gospel, which cannot be done unless people understand why they even need the gospel in the first place. And I know that God is smart enough to know if people are pretending or not, I never said He wasn't, but I cannot just simply assume everyone I try to evangelize to will be pretending, and then stop because it might be wrong of me to assume im doing any good. And since the Bible says there is no God but the God, there can't be any plural false gods to get caught up in worship of, im not sure what you mean here exactly.

No, the argument isn't good at all, the rhetoric's only use is to distract the target from the appalling logic, your entire argument is one piece of faulty logic (Pascal's wager) with a lot of empty sophistry around it.

Let me try and explain why Pascal's wager doesn't work.

The argument

1. If one believes in God and God exists then there is infinite gain.
2. If one believes in God and God doesn't exist then there is no loss or gain.
3. If one doesn't believe in God and God exists then there is infinite loss.
4. If one doesn't believe in God and God doesn't exist then there is no loss or gain.

Therefore it is a better bet to believe in God as you have the chance of infinite gain and avoid the chance of infinite loss.

This is effectively your argument (ie. if God exists then it will be bad for you).

The refutations

1. If God is all knowing then he will know if people are genuinely believing or if they're pretending to believe because it's the better bet statistically.
2. Worshipping Jesus could get you sent to hell by Yahweh if the Jews are right (remember the first commandment, "for I am a jealous God").
3. You are assuming that belief is the only catergory for judgement, most other religions place the emphasis on actions.
4. This logic would only work if the odds of God existing or not is exactly 50:50. If the chance of God existing is very slim then the advantages of non-belief (time saved not going to church, reading the bible, praying etc. extra-marital sex and generally more control over your life) would outweigh the risks.

In other words, genuine belief cannot come from Pascal's wager and it is useless. The rhetoric's only purpose is to confuse and distract the target from the faulty logic.

Deuteronomy 32:22 reads , "For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains." It doesn't need to say Hell there, because there's only one realm of death that the Bible ever mentions, and that is Hell. Yea, the NIV says that realm of death is "sheol", the hebrew word in question in this whole debate. However, how do any of the other definitions fit in there and not either mean Hell or not make sense, "to the pit below" sounds like Hell as well, and "To the grave" doesn't make any sense since there are many graves in the world and the Bible never mentions one specific, literal grave as containing fire below, unless it metaphorically refers to Hell somewhere like that. Yes, I know a great majority of the Old Testiment refers to similar things as "the grave" in the NIV at least. Yes, I fully understand how the word for grave, Hell, and pit are technically the same in ancient Hebrew as "sheol", i've read universalist stuff myself, gotta know what that is all about too if I want to actually win a debate with one of those guys if I ever come across one :/. But the New Testiment also refers to Hell without using the word "sheol" in hebrew either, (At least it makes no sense to me for it to use it.) it talks about a place of eternal torment several times, and a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, neither of which should require the word sheol.

You're taking Deuteronomy out of context here friend, if you read the whole of Deuteronomy 32 then you'll find that the fire is a earthly fire, God is planning to kill the people through famine, plague, wild animals and enemy warriors:


22 For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of death [e] below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

23 "I will heap calamities upon them
and spend my arrows against them.

24 I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

25 In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
Young men and young women will perish,
infants and gray-haired men.

26 I said I would scatter them
and blot out their memory from mankind,

Friendly huh?

As you can see, God is taking a material, not a spiritual revenge. This fits better with the beliefs of the Hebrews, they viewed God as meting out justice in this world, Sodom and Gomorrha are prime example of this belief.

Oh, and while I am pleasantly surprised that you know about Sheol I'm afraid it doesn't mean hell by any stretch of the imagination, it can mean grave but it can also refer to a kind of afterlife quite unlike both heaven and hell. Here's a link (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=614&letter=S&search=sheol).

I would be very surprised if the New Testament used the hebrew word 'Sheol', especially as it was written in Greek... However, this does nothing but reinforce my claim that Hell only appeared after the Hebrews came into contact with religions which did have fiery afterlives, i.e. in the New Testament.

Eh, now I can't remember who I answered what with. I shouldn't have to go to the tremendous trouble of proving the Bible correct because it would just degrade into a humungous argument which ultimately wouldn't solve much and probably wouldn't do a thing for anybody anyway because it still wouldn't make someone believe if they really didn't want to. All I need to do to prove universal moral truth is interview every single person who is alive today and ask them if they think there is something in the world that is bad, and if they answer yes, I could say with confidence that a universal moral truth exists that says something(s) must be bad, but you won't ask me to go through all that trouble, will you? :(. Besides, people could still just lie to me and say there is nothing that is bad, and then everything would get messed up.

Friend, if you really think that you could get everyone in the world to agree on anything at all then I'm afraid you are terribly naive.

Seriously, folks, we need more holidays designed to celebrate sex.

That's a fact.

I'm really looking forward to Het-hert's feast days this year.

You are living proof that belief in God does not ensure moral conduct.
Indeed it does not, but then again, does being atheist ensure moral conduct either? No.
I'm impressed not only by your blatant dishonesty, but also by your arrogance in thinking that any rational human would be fooled.
Rational... Rational? You think that it is possible for a human to be rational? Sometimes as humans we act more sophisticated than animals, maybe even thinking twice or more about our original instincts, but never have humans acted fully rational. To be rational requires not just acting on a good understanding of something but acting on a full understanding. As humans we are not omnipitent and cannot possibly have a full understanding of all that goes on around us. So in that remark there is no such thing as a rational human. And why do you feel the need to bring my honesty into question once more. I tell you honestly that if it weren't for my curiosity then this thread would not have been started.

Rational... Rational? You think that it is possible for a human to be rational? Sometimes as humans we act more sophisticated than animals, maybe even thinking twice or more about our original instincts, but never have humans acted fully rational. To be rational requires not just acting on a good understanding of something but acting on a full understanding. As humans we are not omnipitent and cannot possibly have a full understanding of all that goes on around us. So in that remark there is no such thing as a rational human. And why do you feel the need to bring my honesty into question once more. I tell you honestly that if it weren't for my curiosity then this thread would not have been started.

No, to be rational is to act logically based on what information you have access to at the time. How much information you have access to is irrelevant unless the rational descision reached was that you needed more information before a descision could be made.

I've decided Sutured Psyche is my new hero. Says what I want to say, but is much better at it.

I've decided Sutured Psyche is my new hero. Says what I want to say, but is much better at it.

Why, thank you.

To be rational requires not just acting on a good understanding of something but acting on a full understanding.
Rational:
"1 a : having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason"
Acting based on reason has nothing to do with full understanding, it just requires logical conclusions based on what is known.

Rational:
"1 a : having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason"
Acting based on reason has nothing to do with full understanding, it just requires logical conclusions based on what is known.
Reason must be based on understanding, and to understand something you must have full knowledge of it.

Hmmm.... a few things ... one, as for most of the post, you've qualified yourself as disingenuous, which is again a general trait indicative of the philosophy you espouse, appropriately enough ... as i said, general, not specific, since there are a few exceptions, as some who post here (of course excluding yourself) I note them when possible.
Second, i at NO point stated that my philosophy was atheist. I simply pointed out the blatant bias ignorance of your OP and follow-up. Nothing sneaky about that.
Oh, so Christianity and myself are convoluted? It seems though that you are the one who failed to answer my question in the first place. Also, Christianity has a basic set of rules, atheism however has none. It seems to me that atheism can be whatever it's believer wishes it to be. Making it more convoluted than Christianity. And although you never outwardly said you were atheist, you agreed with many of the atheists on this thread, and seem more than ready to support their ideals.
Third, i don't have to insult your intelligence, you apparently can't tell the difference, and you're welcome to make a spectacle of yourself as much as you want ... but it's cute that you think you can turn that into an advantage here, so i bolded your text thusly (and italicized the extra-special part). Very firmly seated in the ignorance i'd implied in my first response to you.
Ah, but you did insult my intelligence. As for Kreen, time for a remedial IQ test - you flunked. And yeah, I am stubborn but that's irrelevant to the argument. And as humans we are all ignorant that's why we have science and/or faith depending if you choose one, the other, or both. I choose both. The ignorance you implied was that of asking a question. If you believe in science, then how can you see a simple question as ignorant.

*snip*And, you missed an apostrophe.

So, all in all, pretty much where one could expect you to be. Too bad.
You've had plenty of gramatical errors, and yet I don't point them out. Also, the people who know me including my atheist, and agnostic friends expect a fair amount from me reguardless of my faith. Infact to most of my friends, and myself faith or lack thereof it doesn't really matter.

What I think is too bad is that you are getting slightly perturbed at my stubborness to let go of the argument.

Reason must be based on understanding, and to understand something you must have full knowledge of it.When you are in a situation where you do not know all the information, you can still make a reasonable decision based upon what you know, even without complete knowledge.

For example, three boxes, one with a prize. You choose a box. One of the other boxes is opened to show that it has no prize in it. You then still don't know which of the other two boxes (the one you chose or other one still unopened) contains a prize, but you can still make a decision to change your choice to the other unopened one... You have a good reason to do so, and in doing so you accept that 1/3rd of the time you're going to be wrong, but it wouldn't be rational to stick with your choice (as long as you have no other indicators, of course...)

When you are in a situation where you do not know all the information, you can still make a reasonable decision based upon what you know, even without complete knowledge.

For example, three boxes, one with a prize. You choose a box. One of the other boxes is opened to show that it has no prize in it. You then still don't know which of the other two boxes (the one you chose or other one still unopened) contains a prize, but you can still make a decision to change your choice to the other unopened one... You have a good reason to do so, and in doing so you accept that 1/3rd of the time you're going to be wrong, but it wouldn't be rational to stick with your choice (as long as you have no other indicators, of course...)
Hah, Monty Hall's Goat puzzle. You have full knowledge that the prize is not in the opened door, unless he made a mistake. And you would also have full knowledge that you would improve your odds by switching.

Reason must be based on understanding, and to understand something you must have full knowledge of it.
Since when has reason required understanding of everything?
Acting according to reason merely requires acting according to logic. I don't need to know anything about the rest of the Universe to know that if P->Q and P is true, so is Q. This is the same for every other situation.

Hah, Monty Hall's Goat puzzle. You have full knowledge that the prize is not in the opened door, unless he made a mistake. And you would also have full knowledge that you would improve your odds by switching.
But didn't you just say that humans can't have full knowledge of anything a few posts ago?
:confused:

Reason must be based on understanding, and to understand something you must have full knowledge of it.

Name something you have full knowledge of.

Do you have full knowledge of God's will, your religion, or right and wrong?

If not, you don't understand these things.

I wish you had admitted up front that you were talking about Christianity without understanding it. Could've saved us the trouble of reading your posts.

Indeed it does not, but then again, does being atheist ensure moral conduct either? No.

The difference is, atheists don't rely on their atheism to ensure moral conduct.

Religious people do rely on it, and you just admitted that "Indeed, it does not" ensure moral conduct.

And why do you feel the need to bring my honesty into question once more. I tell you honestly that if it weren't for my curiosity then this thread would not have been started.

Asking a question like "Why are you so loud about it?" is just a way of accusing atheists of being "loud about it". In fact, most atheists aren't, and the ones who are are usually responding to a loud religious person (like the one who started this thread".

Its like me saying "Why do you beat children?"

And you say "I don't beat children! What's your evidence?"

And I say "Oh, its just my curiosity, I'm not bashing you."

Reason must be based on understanding, and to understand something you must have full knowledge of it.

It occurs to me..

A) You've said that you think the application of reason requires full knowledge (simple transitive property of your own statement)

B) You yourself say we can't have full knowledge

C) Therefore you clearly excuse yourself from applying reason, since by your own axioms, you aren't capable of it.

Again, I wish you'd included that in your opening post, it would save time.

There never is a winner in these debates.
Simply put, it's a classic case of Schroedinger's Cat. As long as nobody can prove there is in fact no God, there will always be people who say there is.
Mind you, those people aren't the worst of the lot. The real troublesome bunch are those who take their belief as an excuse to blatantly disregard morals, ethics and manmade law. :headbang:
There's also the fools who will come to an exam totally unprepared, and then call for everyone to have a prayer (to the White Christ, naturally). Then they pray and sing so loud (and so headsplittingly off pitch) that even if you did come prepared, all the knowledged is blasted from your memory by those moronic isnogoods. And I bet if this were 500 years ago, they would have gladly joined the ranks of the flagellants, and marched down the main street.

My view on the matter is that old religions are much more fun, because the stories are easier to relate to, and recounting them justifies to indulge in a few excesses of alcohol, good food and extensive cuddling. One of my favourites is how Loki told off every other God and Goddess, and got away with it.

Name something you have full knowledge of.

Do you have full knowledge of God's will, your religion, or right and wrong?

If not, you don't understand these things.

I wish you had admitted up front that you were talking about Christianity without understanding it. Could've saved us the trouble of reading your posts.
Do you have full knowledge that God doesn't exist? Of course not, therefore you can't possibly be reasonable by being an atheist, that saves alot of time doesn't it.

And Saint Curie, there is no need to get pissy about it. As you obviously posted far too many times with pretty much the same point in each post.

Do you have full knowledge that God doesn't exist? Of course not, therefore you can't possibly be reasonable by being an atheist, that saves alot of time doesn't it.

Friend, by your (completely twisted) logic you can't be reasonable by being anything so why single out Atheism?

However, the point is irrelevant as you have invented your own definition of 'reasonable' which is, quite frankly, unreasonable. The standard definition of reasonable is very different.

And Saint Curie, there is no need to get pissy about it. As you obviously posted far too many times with pretty much the same point in each post.

You start a thread entitled 'Are Atheists compensating for something?' and you accuse others of being pissy? You would do well to heed the teachings of your messiah and take the log from your eye before you pick the splinter from his.

Asking a question like "Why are you so loud about it?" is just a way of accusing atheists of being "loud about it". In fact, most atheists aren't, and the ones who are are usually responding to a loud religious person (like the one who started this thread".

Its like me saying "Why do you beat children?"

And you say "I don't beat children! What's your evidence?"

And I say "Oh, its just my curiosity, I'm not bashing you."
You think I'm a loud religious person? I laugh. I know what a loud religious person is. I've already been through that stage, it doesn't work and it gets people angry at you. See, what I said, I said in a calm manner, I did not say it to start flamming atheists. If I wanted to start flamming atheists I would have said, "Why are atheists so damn loud?" I stated my OP in a manner that would arrouse debate obviously, but not meant to bash or flame atheists. Of course, many people can't handle any opposition to their beliefs and turned this into a flame.

You start a thread entitled 'Are Atheists compensating for something?' and you accuse others of being pissy? You would do well to heed the teachings of your messiah and take the log from your eye before you pick the splinter from his.
Nice quote. But I've said before this wasn't a flame, people just turned it into one. Would it make you feel better if I swore on the bible?

Heh heh. Easter is just a far less entertaining version of Beltaine.

Seriously, folks, we need more holidays designed to celebrate sex.
WooT!!

*ahem*

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil May 9, 2005 (AP)— Sex rarely makes the news in Brazil's conservative Northeast until a small town declared an official Orgasm Day on Monday.

Espertantina Mayor Felipe Santolia endorsed the May 9 holiday, which he said was intended to improve relationships between married couples.

"We're celebrating orgasm in all its senses. There's even a panel discussion on premature ejaculation. But from what I've seen, women have more trouble achieving orgasm than men, especially in marriage," Santolia said by telephone from Esperantina, 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro.

Santolia said the remote town of 38,000 people has been unofficially celebrating orgasm day for years, but that the town's former mayor had vetoed a bill making it an official municipal holiday.

The city council passed a law Saturday creating the holiday. Santolia, who took office earlier this year, said he would sign the bill later Monday.

"I'm 32, single and I have an open mind. Beside the theme is very much of the moment," he said.

Orgasm Day celebrations include a series of panel discussions by sexologists from across Brazil and a presentation of Eve Ensler's play "The Vagina Monologues."

Santolia said the idea of celebrating Orgasm Day at first created a scandal in this poor region, known for its religious fervor. But he said residents gradually residents warmed to the idea.

"I've seen scientific studies that show when a woman is unloved, when her husband can bring her to orgasm, it affects all aspects of her life, her relationships with her children, at home, with the city and at work," Santolia said.

Friend, by your (completely twisted) logic you can't be reasonable by being anything so why single out Atheism?

However, the point is irrelevant as you have invented your own definition of 'reasonable' which is, quite frankly, unreasonable. The standard definition of reasonable is very different.
I admit... My logic can be and in the case above is fuzzy... I never was great with proofs in geometry.

Oh, so Christianity and myself are convoluted?
Yes. It's sad you couldn't save as much time with the rest of your posts :rolleyes:
It seems though that you are the one who failed to answer my question in the first place.
No i didn't. You never got the point in the first place, and two other oft-astute posters called YOU on it. Again with the ignorance.
Also, Christianity has a basic set of rules, atheism however has none.This is another post of ignorance in two facets - one in that you are failing to take into account how many different foci and denomination there are AS well as re-translations and applications. I don't need to prove that.
And two - arguing atheism into a standard that requires rules is again trying to turn it into a philosophy or a religion, and that in itself is fallacious. If nothing else, atheism simply means the people who endorse it don't require some made up phantom to condemn them to someplace that doesn't exist just to keep them in line - no, instead they take on the MUCH HARDER responsibility of being ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR OWN CHOICES since they can't blame their or anyone else's nature on something ineffable and abstract.
And although you never outwardly said you were atheist, you agreed with many of the atheists on this thread, and seem more than ready to support their ideals.
You simply don't know enough about me or many others here to really know, now, do you?
This AGAIN enforces the fact that you're acting on ignorance.
I'm not an atheist and i'm not a Christian - but i do recognize the merits and capacities for good within both the concepts. Relating to my first post, you bypass that for a quick fix on an error of your own judgment.


Ah, but you did insult my intelligence. And yeah, I am stubborn but that's irrelevant to the argument.
Ah, that would be the subtlety of my statement. I gave too much credence to your deductive capacity. What i said was I didn't need to insult you, not I didn't insult you.
And as humans we are all ignorant that's why we have science and/or faith depending if you choose one, the other, or both. I choose both. The ignorance you implied was that of asking a question. If you believe in science, then how can you see a simple question as ignorant.
You just don't get it. I would recommend you take a sabbatical for a while and determine the nature of involving integrity of both pragmatics AND semantics in your life, your methods at this point seem to be doing you disservice.


You've had plenty of gramatical errors, and yet I don't point them out.
Oh really? No, no, PLEASE, how else am i gonna learn? :rolleyes:
Also, the people who know me including my atheist, and agnostic friends expect a fair amount from me reguardless of my faith. Infact to most of my friends, and myself faith or lack thereof it doesn't really matter.
Well thanks for getting mushy, but what world is it exactly where you can employ du(tri-)plicity of standards in this fashion? It would seem your last line there cuts to the chase, even if you mucked it up a little.

What I think is too bad is that you are getting slightly perturbed at my stubborness to let go of the argument.Not quite, yet again. Your ego is obscuring the integrity of this commerce here.

Asking a question like "Why are you so loud about it?" is just a way of accusing atheists of being "loud about it". In fact, most atheists aren't, and the ones who are are usually responding to a loud religious person (like the one who started this thread".

Its like me saying "Why do you beat children?"

And you say "I don't beat children! What's your evidence?"

And I say "Oh, its just my curiosity, I'm not bashing you."
As i say on almost every thread i see you on, i must again ...
You ROCK. *bows*

For which I am grateful. My issue exists with people like Grave_n_Idle, who did call me stupid for my drug of choice.

I did, did I?

I wonder if you could actually provide a link to support that claim...

Love me or hate me, I'm pretty sure there is no NS member who can legitimately claim I have called them 'stupid'.

Indeed... perhaps I'm biased in favour of myself, but I have always thought I presented a fairly reasonable argument, with minimal hyperbole or hypocrisy...

Imagine elderly family members cornering you, demanding that you convert before they die because they "want to be able to die knowing you go to heaven."


By the way, this is something I have had to deal with just within the last year and a half...