[quote]pushharder wrote:
Espy, you just keep right on convincin’ yorself. You’re downright evangelistic, brother (brother to someone somewhere in yer Church of the Holy Atheist).[/quote]
Likewise brother of the holy easterzombie 
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Leading a good life is hard.[/quote]
Define “good”.[/quote]
Exactly.[/quote]
No, not exactly. You can’t say something is hard if you can’t define it properly.
[quote]espenl wrote:
My spouse has two lesbian half/sisters with partners. What would you say is a “good” way to treat them? Would I cause more “good” in their world by acting according to your book?
[/quote]
Do you know what the Bible actually tells Christians to do? There are a lot of “Christians” that have no clue what the Bible says, and I used to be the gay hating “Christian.”
The Holy Spirit convicted me of this. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all you Heart, Mind, and Strength, and equally Love your Neighbor as yourself.” We as Christians are called to Love everyone. John 13:35 says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” That includes people living in sin. Christians are also living in sin, and just because Jesus has washed away our sin we are just the same as everyone else. We are sinners in need of a savior.
When you see “Christians” gay hating all the time and bashing all types of sinners it is nothing more than someone being self-righteous. I have to fight this sin all the time. I have befriended men and women that are gay and also people that are atheists. I am not befriending them just so I can share what Jesus has done, I befriend them because I actually like them. I enjoy constructive conversations.
Christians do a lot of Bible thumping, but Atheist do a lot of God hating around Christians. Both groups go to the extreme. It is not for us Christians to save you. It is only by the Holy Spirit that being saved can happen.
I poke fun at you sometimes espenl, so I apologize. I should be better than that.
Though I may not have your faith, I respect your way of having it dmaddox
It’s my firm belief that Islam is a mirror of Christianity, it just happens to be 500- 600 years younger. If you look at Christianity 5-600 years ago you can see some parrallels (violence, persecution etc), it may be that now we just have IED’s and car-bombs instead of extremists on horse (or camel) back .
[quote]espenl wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Leading a good life is hard.[/quote]
Define “good”.[/quote]
Exactly.[/quote]
My spouse has two lesbian half/sisters with partners. What would you say is a “good” way to treat them? Would I cause more “good” in their world by acting according to your book?
[/quote]
Yes, you would. You don’t know the book, so you don’t know what it says. But your spouses sisters are to be treated with the love a respect that anybody else receives. It’s not about condoning or condemning their actions, it’s about minding your own business and working to make yourself a better person. Not trying to make everybody else think and act like yourself.
[quote]
Leading a good life is hard, but still if you have good parents leading by example, you usually turn out pretty well. Atheists may be egoistic, but their good deeds are not created from the promise of eternal reward or punishment. Would you act very differently in your life if the promise of eternal bliss or torture were gone? My guess is you would not kill rape or steal any more.[/quote]
Your premise is all messed up here. Christians aren’t seeking to act good or do good works because we fear punishment or desire reward. We do it out of love.
I don’t know what atheists do, or don’t do for good works, but as a demographic they are the least charitable. It makes sense, I wouldn’t see the point of doing good works in the absence of tangible results as an atheist.
I doubt any atheist would sacrifice their entire lives to serve others as someone like Mother Teresa did.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Leading a good life is hard.[/quote]
Define “good”.[/quote]
Exactly.[/quote]
No, not exactly. You can’t say something is hard if you can’t define it properly.[/quote]
Good is a reflection of action just as evil is. A good act is one where some sentient creature benefits from the action. Even if that action is first perceived as unpleasant by the recipient. Like getting your child immunized, or disciplining said child. Doing things that help others even when they aren’t open to it, is hard. It requires self sacrifice many times. If you want to reflect ‘good’, you have to put others ahead of yourself. That’s difficult in that we are predisposed to selfishness and it takes a conscious effort to break from that.
[quote]Villalobos wrote:
It’s my firm belief that Islam is a mirror of Christianity, it just happens to be 500- 600 years younger. If you look at Christianity 5-600 years ago you can see some parrallels (violence, persecution etc), it may be that now we just have IED’s and car-bombs instead of extremists on horse (or camel) back .[/quote]
I disagree. Islam is the afterbirth of Christianity.
[quote]Villalobos wrote:
It’s my firm belief that Islam is a mirror of Christianity, it just happens to be 500- 600 years younger. If you look at Christianity 5-600 years ago you can see some parrallels (violence, persecution etc), it may be that now we just have IED’s and car-bombs instead of extremists on horse (or camel) back .[/quote]
Maybe.
But Christians who actually follow their writing end up being very peaceful people, in general.
Muslims who actually follow their writings largely end up being very violent people with an cannonical desire to kill Jews, in particular, and everyone else, to a lesser degree.
The exhortations of violence in Islam do not exist in Christian writings, and never did.*
- Note this is not to say Christians weren’t violent in the name of their religion. It’s just that they were violating or twisting the tenants of their religion to reach that result.
Rather major, long-term, difference.
Jewbacca,
I am not condoning their actions, merely stating that I think they are a bit immature culturally. The majority of “new” Muslim communities are typically poor and coincidentally illiterate. Their understanding of their religion is based on what other people tell them, they can’t usually read their “holy book”, instead they just recite words they’ve been taught. It is very similar to how Catholics used to run mass in Latin to people that couldn’t even read or write their native tongue. It is more of a brainwashing than a religion (though some would argue they are the same thing.) I think many of the people committing violence against us in the name of Allah have never even read the book (mainly because they cannot read) and are just taking the words of some evil bastards as law. Again not justifying, just pointing out what I think their main problem is (along with misogyny, homophobia, and a penchant for mayhem).
[quote]Villalobos wrote:
that I think they are a bit immature culturally.
[/quote]
Absurd. Egypt was a civilized country when Europeans were thinking about what fire is. Persia (Iran) is probably the oldest continuous civilization. Between it and China, I suspect.
This is just wrong. Just taking the 9/11 hijackers, most all were very highly educated and at least middle class, if not wealthy. Bin Laden was a fricken billionaire.
More to the point, if a Roman Catholic read their books, it teaches them to be peaceful. The Koran and related books, in contrast, teach warfare.
It’s not poverty. It’s not “underclass.” It’s not mis-directed teachers. It’s what their books say to do.
[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
[quote]Villalobos wrote:
that I think they are a bit immature culturally.
[/quote]
Absurd. Egypt was a civilized country when Europeans were thinking about what fire is. Persia (Iran) is probably the oldest continuous civilization. Between it and China, I suspect.
This is just wrong. Just taking the 9/11 hijackers, most all were very highly educated and at least middle class, if not wealthy. Bin Laden was a fricken billionaire.
More to the point, if a Roman Catholic read their books, it teaches them to be peaceful. The Koran and related books, in contrast, teach warfare.
It’s not poverty. It’s not “underclass.” It’s not mis-directed teachers. It’s what their books say to do.
[/quote]
x2
Jewbacca,
I think you misunderstand what I am saying. The culture of Islam is what I am talking about not the historical significance of pre-Muslim Egypt or Persia.
- 60% of Muslims are illiterate
- the whole Arab world translates about three hundred books annually?one fifth the number that Greece alone translates; investment in research and development is less than one seventh the world average; and Internet connectivity is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa
- Fifty-seven Muslim majority countries have an average of ten universities each for a total of less than 600 universities for 1.4 billion people; India has 8,407 universities, the U.S. has 5,758.
Additionally Muslims living in developed nations have significantly lower rates of literacy and formal education than natives.
You cannot debate against the facts that the Muslim world is essentially insular, narrow minded and intentionally ignorant.
Your argument that a Catholic that reads the bible (the whole bible mind you not just the turn the other cheek parts) is misguided, as a Catholic with 16 years of Catholic School and 2 Mexican American parents I can assure you that I have read the book more than once, and I can assure you that violence is a recurrent theme, it wouldn’t take much of a twisted church leader to take advantage of illiterate uneducated folks and have them do"bad things" in the name of the good book.
Your argument that all the terrorists are educated is also a bit weak, the majority of suicide bombers meet certain criteria, uneducated, poor and easily manipulated. More to the point they are expendable.
The Koran has something like 109 passages that promote violence towards non-believers or people that betray Islam the website the Skeptics Annotated Bible shows that the Bible has 842 cruel or violent passages the Koran has 333, however the Bible is much bigger so the % difference is pronounced 2.7% for the Bible 5.3% for the Koran.
I am not saying the Bible is just as bad as the Koran, I am saying that both can be used as tools by lunatics to control idiots, the difference is that we want fewer idiots in the western world, the Muslims are actively trying to increase the number of idiots in theirs.
[quote]Villalobos wrote:
Jewbacca,
I think you misunderstand what I am saying. The culture of Islam is what I am talking about not the historical significance of pre-Muslim Egypt or Persia.
- 60% of Muslims are illiterate
- the whole Arab world translates about three hundred books annually?one fifth the number that Greece alone translates; investment in research and development is less than one seventh the world average; and Internet connectivity is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa
- Fifty-seven Muslim majority countries have an average of ten universities each for a total of less than 600 universities for 1.4 billion people; India has 8,407 universities, the U.S. has 5,758.
Additionally Muslims living in developed nations have significantly lower rates of literacy and formal education than natives.
You cannot debate against the facts that the Muslim world is essentially insular, narrow minded and intentionally ignorant.
Your argument that a Catholic that reads the bible (the whole bible mind you not just the turn the other cheek parts) is misguided, as a Catholic with 16 years of Catholic School and 2 Mexican American parents I can assure you that I have read the book more than once, and I can assure you that violence is a recurrent theme, it wouldn’t take much of a twisted church leader to take advantage of illiterate uneducated folks and have them do"bad things" in the name of the good book.
Your argument that all the terrorists are educated is also a bit weak, the majority of suicide bombers meet certain criteria, uneducated, poor and easily manipulated. More to the point they are expendable.
The Koran has something like 109 passages that promote violence towards non-believers or people that betray Islam the website the Skeptics Annotated Bible shows that the Bible has 842 cruel or violent passages the Koran has 333, however the Bible is much bigger so the % difference is pronounced 2.7% for the Bible 5.3% for the Koran.
I am not saying the Bible is just as bad as the Koran, I am saying that both can be used as tools by lunatics to control idiots, the difference is that we want fewer idiots in the western world, the Muslims are actively trying to increase the number of idiots in theirs.
[/quote]
There are no calls in the bible to destroy, harm or do any kind of violence to a non-believer anywhere. Unless you consider shaking the dust off your feet a violent act.
Christianity is as equally violent as Islam, and preaches it similarly.
“I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” (Gospel of Matthew 10:34)
If you claim your fictional book to be infallible, you must take all of its idiotic contradictions as equally infallible. ALL RELIGIONS are a plague on our species.
It’s pretty disgusting to call christianity a religion of peace, because it’s a pretty homogeneous group of arseholes who bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors who perform them. Religion simply enshrines hypocrisy as a character virtue.
Any claim you attribute to Islam can be directly linked to Christianity and Judaism, because it is a plagiarism of those two older, but equally stupid books.
[quote]cryogen wrote:
It’s pretty disgusting to call christianity a religion of peace, because it’s a pretty homogeneous group of arseholes who bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors who perform them. Religion simply enshrines hypocrisy as a character virtue.
Any claim you attribute to Islam can be directly linked to Christianity and Judaism, because it is a plagiarism of those two older, but equally stupid books.[/quote]
And judging from your writing, one could assume that atheists hate religion - particularly christianity - and use the extreme as their definition of normal.
One could also assume that you have no real grasp of fact, and must resort to use of subjective terms such as ‘stupid’, ‘homogeous group of arseholes’, and ‘plagiarism’. You also use out of context selective quotes. Irrationally emotional hatred is not a substitute for reasoned debate.
If you want to hate religion, knock yourself out. No one is going to stop you. But for someone with such a dislike for hypocrisy, you appear more than comfortable behaving as a hypocrite.
[quote]cryogen wrote:
Christianity is as equally violent as Islam, and preaches it similarly.
“I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” (Gospel of Matthew 10:34)
If you claim your fictional book to be infallible, you must take all of its idiotic contradictions as equally infallible. ALL RELIGIONS are a plague on our species.[/quote]
You did not read that entire chapter did you? Maybe you should stop taking verses out of context or writing atheist talking points.
Got anything else? Please use the title “Spaghetti Monster in the Sky”. That is my favorite.
The Koran states very plainly convert them to Islam or kill the infidel.
I can live with christianity, since it has been tamed in Norway, Islam on the other hand seems to be on the rise. We are importing more muslim than new norwegians are born.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]cryogen wrote:
Christianity is as equally violent as Islam, and preaches it similarly.
“I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” (Gospel of Matthew 10:34)
If you claim your fictional book to be infallible, you must take all of its idiotic contradictions as equally infallible. ALL RELIGIONS are a plague on our species.[/quote]
You did not read that entire chapter did you? Maybe you should stop taking verses out of context or writing atheist talking points.
Got anything else? Please use the title “Spaghetti Monster in the Sky”. That is my favorite.
The Koran states very plainly convert them to Islam or kill the infidel. [/quote]
They did not do that.
They taxed em.