Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on March 25, 2011 at 8:53am

Adam:

"Interesting. The justice system and I disagree with you on that one.

Actus reus and Mens rea ;)"

 

We will start with the last.  You clearly don't know what a "thought crime" is.  Thought crime is mens rea alone. 

 

In a broader context, teaching people that they are not allowed to think anything that is not in the religious dogma, which is what Christianity teaches is evil.

 

As for hell, the bible does threaten punishment and the cult has twisted that into hell.  When you get the rest of Christianity to stop using this horrid concept, then we can talk. 

 

BTW, you do know that the bible is just the collection of Christian writings that served Constantine's purpose, don't you?  There is no reason to think they are any more valid with regard to what Jesus had to say than any of the other writings that were considered and rejected.

 

I am not even going to bother to address the "Jesus swept the old testament away" crap.  When the rest of Christianity stops taking it seriously, then we can talk.  Right now, what they do is exactly what you are doing:  Use that idea to cherry pick the parts of the OT that they like and throw out the parts they don't like.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Weber on March 25, 2011 at 11:59pm

Actus reus and Mens rea go hand in hand with the justice system, but it appears that you are falling back on what you said before, that thought crimes are 'evil'.

 

It sounds like you are getting the Bible and fundamentalism mixed up. Some of the greatest thinkers have been Christians; eg Rene Descartes or Soren Kieggard, history is fully of Christian thinkers so you need to becareful with your words...

 

Actually the NT scriptures were formalised much earlier than Constantine, Origen (The first theologian of the church) in mid second century had already formulated the 'NT' but it was not official, until l the 4th century.

 

I am not cherry-picking the OT. I place the OT in its certain time frame. Its silly how Christians and secularists a like, pull the OT of its context, yet they do not do it with any other book, like the Iliad? 

 

It all comes back to the idea of sola scriptura, 'scripture alone' and that it is God's perfect, unaltered and without error word of God.  So perhaps you need to stop looking at the OT liike a protestant and just accept for it is; a great piece of anceint litereature?

And for the Christian: Where God slowly reveals His plan of redemption.

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Permalink Reply by Arcus on March 26, 2011 at 6:22pm

Two things I would like to argue, the remaining points being outside what I can comfortably speak to.

Firstly, the statement "Some of the greatest thinkers have been Christians". Yes, this is true. However, some of the greatest thinkers have also been Jewish (perhaps the greatest thinkers, as measured by Nobel prizes), Muslim (stars, medicine, mathematics), Greek mythology (the ancient philosophers), atheist (quantum mechanics, relativity), and a whole plethora of other belief systems. Just because some smart people happen to also be Christian lends absolutely no credibility to Christianity as an explanatory theory.

Second, seperating between Christians who "get" that the bible is only full of metaphors and stories vs those who believe in it as written just screams no true Scotsman.

 

Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on March 26, 2011 at 6:38pm

Yes, it is quite evil to stifle thought, especially by criminalizing it and making it punishable by death.

 

Um, being a fundamentalist means you try to strictly adhere to the doctrines found in the bible. 

 

Actually, Christians are curiously underrepresented in the ranks of great thinkers, proportionally speaking.  Freethinkers, on the other hand, are remarkably overrepresented compared to their numbers in the general population.

 

What it all comes down to is rationalizing your particular cherry picking scheme.

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 18, 2012 at 10:49pm

Lying is not ethical by your standards.

Stop lying to yourself and us.

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Permalink Reply by Spencer Klinefelter on February 20, 2012 at 2:36pm

"What the Christians blithely did to the non-Christians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

Are you saying that the dropping of nuclear bombs on those two cities was because they weren't Christian?

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on March 5, 2011 at 4:21pm

Right now I would have to give the prize to Islam because it is still in its infancy in terms of moral and emotional development.  It still has more of the violent and intolerant aspect.  It is debatable, however, whether the other two have really changed or just become more subtle and manipulative.  So, it is possible to debate their relative merits. 

 

A better way to look at it is to ask oneself where one would live if one could live in any country.  Even if you can see the relative merits and faults of each religion, the answer to that question reveals what you truly think is the bottom line.  The bottom line for me is that I would never want to live in a Muslim country for the simple reason that people there are not free to choose not to believe.

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Permalink Reply by Hope on March 5, 2011 at 5:32pm

I put these three religions in the same level,

Christian Zionists = Jewish Zionism = Radical Islam

 

Because they believe in religious legitimacy of war and occupation...

perhaps, adopting the idea of [moderation with secularism adds] helps to mitigate this harm.

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on March 5, 2011 at 8:15pm

Ah, if you break them up into sub-groups, then it will always be a tie.  Each is just a different flavor of crazy and the sub-groups allow you to find the pure flavor of each.

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Permalink Reply by Hope on March 6, 2011 at 6:34am

Yeah, absolutely, that's the point.

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Permalink Reply by Justin S on March 23, 2011 at 12:28pm

Well put. When you boil them down they are pretty much the same.

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Permalink Reply by John Grimes on March 5, 2011 at 5:52pm

I think all religion is equally harmful.

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