Christian Terrorists

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
121

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
<<< Good advice. The only problem that I see is that in just about every case and with just about every organized religion it’s tough to know what the original authors intended to convey, since the writings have been rewritten by hundreds of authors, translated into numerous languages, and in many cases either added to or omitted from the text.

Since no one is alive who was actually there to witness the events in these religious texts first hand, there is a lot of room for interpretation and speculation as to the original messages of the original authors. >>>[/quote]
I’ll put it like this. If one reads “The City of God” written by Augustine of Hippo 1700 years ago and John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” written 1200 years later it is clear they were both drawing from the same source documents for example and no Calvin did not draw his scriptural source through Augustine. He was fluent in Hebrew, Koine Greek and Latin and did his own translating.

There is no way to go into an expose’ on textual criticism with the schools of the textus receptus and Westcott and Hort and so on in an internet forum, I’m very very rusty anyway, but suffice it to say that no significant shred of Christian doctrine is dependent on any piece that is under dispute.

Few even bothers to question the empirical veracity of transmission for say the Bhagavad Gita or Vedic Hymns in Hinduism. Or whether what has gotten to us through the centuries in Islam is essentially what was recorded early on or not.

Religious people right or wrong take the most mind numbingly tedious measures to ensure the accuracy of their copying techniques. For instance, the class of scholars referred to as scribes in the Bible are named by a word that essentially means counter. They were called that because they utilized elaborate and varied formulas of counting the characters in the copies they made to be as certain as possible that the text was reliably preserved. The Isaiah scroll discovered in the great Dead Sea find in 1947 is independently dated to at least 100 years before Christ and probably a coupla few hundred years older. It is almost entirely intact and is practically identical to the Masoretic texts of the Old Testament book of Isaiah extant from the 10th century which until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the oldest available. Minute grammatical differences in a few places

The problem isn’t so much knowing what was said, but method of interpretation.

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Another fact along those lines, not often mentioned, is that the Samaritans have maintained their own Torah, in Aramaic, since long before the time of Christ, quite independently of the Jews. It is however virtually identical.

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[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Another fact along those lines, not often mentioned, is that the Samaritans have maintained their own Torah, in Aramaic, since long before the time of Christ, quite independently of the Jews. It is however virtually identical.[/quote]
There’s always going to be challenges to anything having to do with religion, but there is every reason to believe that the historical resources related to the major religions have given us a reliable representation of their foundations. Meaning they are essentially unchanged from their roots. Whether or not somebody believes those traditions or not is another story altogether.

It’s one thing to say, yep, this is what was written and this is how it was understood then and quite another to view those sources as believable. There have been some totally heterodox ultra theologically liberal scholars who have done incredibly useful work in the areas of biblical study who didn’t believe practically anything it said.

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Here’s a home video from one of these evil Christian Terrorists™ that was about to purge us into Civil War!

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/scar_my_tattered_body_no_more_with_your_punishing.php

mike

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]molnes wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]molnes wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
It is man that is inherently bad, so that which man’s takes part in can be bad as well.

Atheism can be bad as well, again because man can be bad.

[/quote]
But nobody kills or commits suicide bombings in the name of atheism. In the name of religion however…[/quote]
No, instead they create whole societies of oppression, squalor and genocide.[/quote]
You obviously didn’t get my point. Some crimes are committed because of religion. No crime has been committed because of atheism. Sure some atheists have committed crimes, but the fact that they are atheists is purely coincidental. The same cannot be said of Crusades, the burning of witches, Muslim or Christian terrorists and so on.[/quote]

That’s a pretty far out there claim. Technically, positive atheism is the belief in a negative. This means that any act not done for god can really be said to be done out of atheism. Something done based on self is an atheistic action. If for instance I commit murder without considering god as a factor in my decision, I’ve just acted out of atheism.[/quote]
No, you wouldn’t have acted out of atheism. Atheism didn’t motivate you to kill someone (like religion has done). Atheism isn’t used to excuse violent acts, which has happened time and time again with religion.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I would also like to point out that many horrible acts have been committed in the name of religious suppression also. A country that kills Christians because they disbelieve in the christian god, are in a way, christian atheists.

But either way, you think an atheist has never even punched a believer for believing in god? Interesting. I’ve known some pretty angry and aggressive atheists.[/quote]
Which country kills christians because of it’s disbelief in the christian god? I haven’t heard about any atheist using violence on christians simply because they are christians, but it’s possible.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
It’s also important to note that actions as religiously oriented as the crusades are NOT necessarily done for religion. Throughout history religion has been used as a tool of political control (opiate of the masses). If the leader of a country wants to invade and conquer another country (for the worldly reasons of power or wealth), and uses religion to motivate the people to do what he wants, is that a religious act? Certainly it’s at least not entirely a religious act. The guys pulling the strings may not even care if there is a god.

Do you believe the Europeans slaughtered native Americans because they wanted to please god for christian reasons, or did they want power, land, and wealth, then thought up “religious” reasons to justify actions? I don’t think most people believe that their motivation was religious just because that’s the reason they claimed. How exactly do you label that a religious act then? [/quote]

This is true. The crusades weren’t entirely based on Christian ideology, there were other, maybe more important historical reasons for why that happened, and there are many examples of religion being used as a tool to acheive what the people with the power wants. But there has also been plenty of hanes acts which have been done because of religion alone, which you can’t say about atheism. Also you can’t use atheism as an excuse or as a tool for the people with power to do crime.

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[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]lou21 wrote:

[quote]Chushin wrote:

Perhaps that has something to do with the FREQUENCY of Islam-inspired terrorism, as opposed to Christian?

Ever hear of the expression, “the exception that proves the rule?”

Care to venture a guess on the respective tallies of “Christian” vs “Muslim” terrorism in, say, the last 20 years?

[Edit: 20, not 2][/quote]

Over here in Britian and Ireland it’s something like Christians 100 vs muslims 1 (Protestants and Catholics)

Just saying you should think before you say something like that.[/quote]

Yeah, and in the Middle East it’s the exact opposite, to the 10th degree.

Anybody can pick a limited geographical area to prove their point. So what?

Just saying you should think before you say something like that.[/quote]

Nope I live in Britian. During the course of my life so far I have been more likely to be affected by ‘Christian’ terrorists than ‘Muslim’ terrorists.

I use quotation marks here to indicate the stupidity of the religion concept. I find it sickening and sad that anyone could set out to kill other people because of a combination of voices in their head and some guy wearing funny clothes telling them that some other guy over 1000 years ago said it’s OK to do so.

Let us also try an analogy. If I kill ten people it doesn’t make it any less bad that you kill one person.

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Making a whole group responsible for the actions of a few of its members is wrong, don’t you think?

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These are not christian Terrorist. They are crazy people of which a leader emerged to used religion as a way to give authority to his own crazy Ideas which are in no way supported by Christianity.

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[quote]Petermus wrote:
These are not christian Terrorist. They are crazy people of which a leader emerged to used religion as a way to give authority to his own crazy Ideas which are in no way supported by Christianity.[/quote]

Agreed.

But, I also don’t think that they’re that far from the depictions of the future that some modern day Christian leaders have been popularizing.

For instance, the popular “Left Behind” movies depict a future where the Antichrist uses military force to oppress and even kill Christians. Revelation speaks of a final great war between the forces of good and evil. John Hagee has made several films basically saying that all of the pieces are in place for the end times and basically (though not in so many words) saying that we should be preparing ourselves for that.

Since a recent Harris poll showed that 14% of Republicans polled believed that Obama may be the Antichrist, it’s not that far fetched to think that some (admittedly already a little “off”) radical groups like this one could have truly believed that they were preparing for Armageddon. And with the huge increase in militia in recent years it’s not that unlikely that they’d be armed and dangerous.

You also have some very public people playing up uneducated people’s fears and either exaggerating or downright fabricating things to incite them to action. No, they probably don’t really want violence, but you’re unfortunately going to get some already prone to violence individuals who will take their words literally. And that doesn’t even take into account the people who have racial motivations.

This in no way is a justification of their plans, nor am I saying that I believe that their actions/plan of action was in any way supported by Jesus’ teachings. Just saying that there is a lot of fear mongering going around, and some of it is not only being done by people who call themselves “Christian”, but is also (or at least could be) taken to be supported by popular depictions of scriptural prophecies. Which is truly a sad state of affairs IMO.

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Timothy McVeigh was agnostic terrorist. That must mean that agnostics are terrorists, but the virtue of being agnostics.

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[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
<<< You also have some very public people playing up uneducated people’s fears and either exaggerating or downright fabricating things to incite them to action. >>>[/quote]
Examples? I’m not even necessarily saying there aren’t any, but we hear this a lot and don’t ever seem to get any significant demonstrable falsehood being propagated by any of these big name people.

Truth is this IS the first thoroughgoing leftist anti American power structure we’ve had in this nation. Filled with and surrounded by people who’s views and presence are public and common knowledge to any and all who care to simply look. This is nothing new since the Glenn Beck Show started, who I suspect is the subject here. Some of us have been warning since long before that if this guy got into office we would be up to our eardrums in communist marxist radicals.

I didn’t even watch Glenn Beck for the first 6 months he was on. Some of the guys here got me started. All he’s doing is pointing. There, there, there, there, there, there there, there and there are the people surrounding Obama and here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, is the record of them espousing the views of those we fought the cold war to defeat. Simple. He in particular has dedicated entire shows, which I have posted in these forums, specifically denouncing violence as both wrong and ineffective.

If you don’t mean Glenn Beck then who? Don’t misunderstand. I’ve known you a long time here and have nothing but pleasant memories of our past interactions. I’m not jumping on you, I’m just asking.

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
<<< You also have some very public people playing up uneducated people’s fears and either exaggerating or downright fabricating things to incite them to action. >>>[/quote]
Examples? I’m not even necessarily saying there aren’t any, but we hear this a lot and don’t ever seem to get any significant demonstrable falsehood being propagated by any of these big name people.

Truth is this IS the first thoroughgoing leftist anti American power structure we’ve had in this nation. Filled with and surrounded by people who’s views and presence are public and common knowledge to any and all who care to simply look. This is nothing new since the Glenn Beck Show started, who I suspect is the subject here. Some of us have been warning since long before that if this guy got into office we would be up to our eardrums in communist marxist radicals.

I didn’t even watch Glenn Beck for the first 6 months he was on. Some of the guys here got me started. All he’s doing is pointing. There, there, there, there, there, there there, there and there are the people surrounding Obama and here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, is the record of them espousing the views of those we fought the cold war to defeat. Simple. He in particular has dedicated entire shows, which I have posted in these forums, specifically denouncing violence as both wrong and ineffective.

If you don’t mean Glenn Beck then who? Don’t misunderstand. I’ve known you a long time here and have nothing but pleasant memories of our past interactions. I’m not jumping on you, I’m just asking.[/quote]

I actually wasn’t talking about Beck, more so Palin and Backmann. Palin with her “death panels” myth that she was so fond of perpetuating (a complete fabrication, or at very best a gross misrepresentation of language in one of the proposed bills), as well as more recently posting posting the image of a map with crosshairs designating Democratic senators to harass for voting for the health care bill. Backmann with her statement that she wanted the people of Minnesota to be “armed and dangerous”.

Now I realize that these statements/actions may have had no physical harm in mind when Palin/Backmann made them, but they are nonetheless highly irresponsible and like I said, could be taken by some by some radicals to mean that Palin/Backmann are actually calling them to do violence.

I’m glad to hear that Beck thinks violence is wrong. I don’t really pay much attention to him though, so I can’t really comment on what he says or doesn’t say.

133

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

Since a recent Harris poll showed that 14% of Republicans polled believed that Obama may be the Antichrist, [/quote]

Did you also believe the poll finding that nearly 10% of middle-school girls are taking anabolic steroids?

It is not unusual for people to answer “yes” to poll questions (or no) for reasons other than actually being true.

E.g., with the schoolgirls the obviously-ridiculous (yet widely publicized including in a peer-reviewed journal) result may come from confusion with corticosteroids prescribed for medical reasons, and/or out of desire to feel “cool” by answering yes to such a question.

As for the Obama and the Antichrist question – you can’t think of a reason why 14% might say yes while quite possibly zero percent believe it to be literally true?

134

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

Since a recent Harris poll showed that 14% of Republicans polled believed that Obama may be the Antichrist, [/quote]

Did you also believe the poll finding that nearly 10% of middle-school girls are taking anabolic steroids?

It is not unusual for people to answer “yes” to poll questions (or no) for reasons other than actually being true.

E.g., with the schoolgirls the obviously-ridiculous (yet widely publicized including in a peer-reviewed journal) result may come from confusion with corticosteroids prescribed for medical reasons, and/or out of desire to feel “cool” by answering yes to such a question.

As for the Obama and the Antichrist question – you can’t think of a reason why 14% might say yes while quite possibly zero percent believe it to be literally true?
[/quote]

Hey, I’m just quoting the poll results, that’s the only data I have to go on.

I could turn around and say the same thing about any survey/poll’s results, and while there might be a chance that I was right and that everyone who took that poll/survey had some ulterior motivation for answering yes, even though they really mean no (or vice versa), the much more likely truth is that many of them (though quite possibly not all of them) answered honestly.

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“Hey, I was just quoting and ascribing significance, so who cares whether it is likely that it was hyperbole not literal belief… gee it’s not my fault” [paraphrase]

Same I’m sure for the authors who published that nearly 10% of middle school girls were using anabolic steroids. Not their fault that they didn’t use any judgment! They were just going by what they were told. How could they have known it was unlikely to be literally true?

“WAAAAH!!! THEY’RE BEING MEAN TO ME!!!”

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[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
<<< I actually wasn’t talking about Beck, more so Palin and Backmann. Palin with her “death panels” myth that she was so fond of perpetuating (a complete fabrication, or at very best a gross misrepresentation of language in one of the proposed bills), as well as more recently posting posting the image of a map with crosshairs designating Democratic senators to harass for voting for the health care bill. Backmann with her statement that she wanted the people of Minnesota to be “armed and dangerous”.

Now I realize that these statements/actions may have had no physical harm in mind when Palin/Backmann made them, but they are nonetheless highly irresponsible and like I said, could be taken by some by some radicals to mean that Palin/Backmann are actually calling them to do violence.

I’m glad to hear that Beck thinks violence is wrong. I don’t really pay much attention to him though, so I can’t really comment on what he says or doesn’t say.[/quote]
The day WILL arrive when you will look back on conversations like this.

There WILL be people charged with the financial oversight of this coming monstrosity who will determine that certain human beings are no longer a cost effective investment. No point going round and round, just hang in there. The day will arrive. Call that whatever you want, but death panel fits. Rationing is the less offensive term. It is a mathematical inevitability.

You really have to know better than the crosshair thing. Come on. Even many liberals I’ve seen poo poo that away.

As for Bachmann? I don’t know how much reading you’ve done on our founding, but most of the big names sincerely prayed that the law abiding citizenry would remain forever “armed and dangerous”. Precisely to prevent federal tyranny. That was the purpose of the 2nd amendment. Look it up. See, this is where we’ve come to. Views that were once considered simply mainstream American values have been redefined as right wing extremism. It wouldn’t take too much effort to fill a page here with quotes from signers of the constitution that would have the Huffington post screaming lunacy. This is not however an unqualified justification for private terrorism.

Your misguided compassion will be your undoing my friend. It is being used against you as I type this. Like I say. You will one see that that has been the case.

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Tirib, just found this quote by Beck:

"“You have three people in the White House that are in love with eugenics or whatever it is you would call it today. â?¦ Please dear God, read history. Please dear God read the truth of what these people have said in their own words, and ask yourself this one question: Do you trust these people enough to give them control over who lives and who dies? Because that’s what health care is when you have no other choice but to go to the state.”

Now, unfortunately this seems to be just cut together, and I can’t read what he said between “today” and “Please dear God”, so if he explains his position better, then that’s at least a little better. If it’s just to signify a pause, then it’s not looking good.

The problems/lies in this statement are pretty obvious really.

First, eugenics has to do with breeding human beings (most often associated with the third Reich) and was often used in the justification of racial agendas (such as to “prove that the negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race.”). It has absolutely nothing, nothing to do with end of life care or health care in general.

Second, when was “you have no other choice but to go to the state” ever an option on the table in Obama’s health plan?

Socialized medicine was never, ever even proposed. And just to be clear, socialized medicine would mean that the government owned all of the hospitals, employed all of the doctors/nurses/specialists/etc…, and paid for all of the services. The only socialized medicine system in the US today is the VA. Even a single payer system like Medicare (which was again never on the table) is not really socialized medicine, only a socially funded system since the hospitals and health care providers are privately owned/employed.

A public option would be far from socialized medicine, and even that was taken off the table fairly early into the discussion (though admittedly I don’t know when the above quote by Beck was made, so he could have made it beforehand; still far from socialized medicine).

So where is this idea that we “have no other choice but to go to the state” coming from? What facts is he basing that statement on? If there are some, I’d genuinely like to see them because they’d certainly be news to me. And I mean that completely sincerely; if you or someone else has legit factual evidence to support Beck’s statement that Obama’s plan will directly leave us no other choice than to go to the state, I’d love to see it. And if it’s in fact truthful, I’d probably even change my opinion of the above statement and my opinion of Beck.

138

Obama has stated plainly that his goal is a single-payer system and that it will take some time to arrive at that.

What part of “single payer” is unclear to you?

You are aware that under the HillaryCare plan, it would have been a felony either for a patient to pay for a doctor’s services himself or for the doctor to accept private payment?

So please don’t say that Democrats never really mean “single payer” when they say “single payer.”

You see, when health care is a “right” and there are long waiting lists – as always happens when governments take over health care – then when the rich jump the line by flashing their cash and paying doctors directly, they are depriving others of their rights. That can’t be allowed.

You can’t have the best health care going to the rich. That’s not right. Everyone should get equal health care.

And that requires single payer.

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
<<< I actually wasn’t talking about Beck, more so Palin and Backmann. Palin with her “death panels” myth that she was so fond of perpetuating (a complete fabrication, or at very best a gross misrepresentation of language in one of the proposed bills), as well as more recently posting posting the image of a map with crosshairs designating Democratic senators to harass for voting for the health care bill. Backmann with her statement that she wanted the people of Minnesota to be “armed and dangerous”.

Now I realize that these statements/actions may have had no physical harm in mind when Palin/Backmann made them, but they are nonetheless highly irresponsible and like I said, could be taken by some by some radicals to mean that Palin/Backmann are actually calling them to do violence.

I’m glad to hear that Beck thinks violence is wrong. I don’t really pay much attention to him though, so I can’t really comment on what he says or doesn’t say.[/quote]
The day WILL arrive when you will look back on conversations like this.

There WILL be people charged with the financial oversight of this coming monstrosity who will determine that certain human beings are no longer a cost effective investment. No point going round and round, just hang in there. The day will arrive. Call that whatever you want, but death panel fits. Rationing is the less offensive term. It is a mathematical inevitability.
[/quote]

Thing is, it’s already been here for quite a while, only the health insurance companies call them “life time caps”, or dropping people for “pre-existing conditions, like acne for example”. And, from what the CBO (yeah, I Know, I know) estimates, the bill will actually decrease the deficit, so I don’t see how it would get any worse than it already is.

And even if it was true (which I still don’t think it is, but I could be wrong), the only real difference would be that the public servants deciding will be answerable to we the people, whereas now, the people running the insurance companies are not.

It’s irresponsible, plain and simple. She could have easily got the point across without using potentially violent graphics. But again, I’m not saying she had any malice in mind when she did it.

I know what the 2nd Amendment says I know know that some like Jefferson believed that there would be frequent revolutions, and that there should be no standing army in a time of peace, only militias.

That’s not what Backmann was referring to and again, telling people to remain armed and dangerous when there is a lot of hate flying around is again irresponsible. It’s not the meaning behind what she’s saying that I’m opposed to, it’s her choice of words. Words are powerful and people who have great influence like Backmann should choose them wisely.

[quote]
Your misguided compassion will be your undoing my friend. It is being used against you as I type this. Like I say. You will one see that that has been the case.[/quote]

Perhaps, but it’s my compassion which keeps me in touch with my conscience, and continue to let it guide me I must.

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It’s nice of you to be compassionate with other people’s money.