The Christian Agenda Continues

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
182

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
There are a lot of similarities between Christianity and Muslims. (Lot of differences too just so I am clear)[/quote]

Just as an aside, it’s interesting to note that at Gethsemane, when Jesus is praying continually as his disciples keep nodding off, he said “Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thy will be done.”

Now, disregard those fiddly questions like, if Jesus and Yahweh are the same consciousness, was he having an internal conflict? Or, if Jesus was praying alone and his disciples were asleep, just who it was who overheard his prayers so that they could be written down decades later in the gospel of Luke?

These are not the takeaway points from this episode. Let us assume that Jesus did pray in this manner (with his face flat on the ground, by the way, and facing the Temple in Jerusalem, as Jewish law commands, and as indeed Muslims did for the first thirteen years), and that he was not talking to himself, but praying to God. In these words is encapsulated the whole of Jesus’ message. “Not my will, but thy will be done.”…

[/quote]

No, no, no, you’re not getting away with this centuries old, tired mantra of “I just can’t intellectually digest the Trinity so watch me argue against the deity of Christ.” You’re too smart for this, Snarq.

You know the explanation for Christ humbling Himself while on this earth. You know that He took on human form and thus was subject to human emotions. You know that He placed Himself subservient to the Father during this time and that prior to that He had created the universe, and post First Coming is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

You understand the things yet you willfully leave them out in your narrative.
[/quote]

So, you have a problem with Islam, but you would vote for a Mormon?

183

[quote]bigflamer wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, come on. A little theocracy never hurt anybody. [/quote]

Yeah! Atheist states are far kinder…[/quote]

Where is that, Russia? China? Two societies that definitely forced the religion of Communism down their citizens throats. The very essence of theocracy. [/quote]

Check your facts. Atheism was in fact state policy of the Soviet Union. It saw religion as a threat to the state and was to be eliminated in as much as it could be.
Communism is much less a religion than atheism. It’s simple a failed political philosophy. [/quote]
[/quote]

Facts are stubborn things. They often don’t fit the propaganda you read.[/quote]

Your “facts” in these discussions, are nothing more than biased correlations, and not “facts” at all. It’s telling of your religious bias in that you do not attribute these atrocities to statism, socialism, communism, etc.; rather you and all of your apologist christian friends choose to tack it onto the face of atheism instead. Why? well, as I’ve already said, you NEED these to be atheist atrocities in order to water down the the horrific atrocities that have been carried out since forever in the name of some god or another. Well, guess what,patty cakes, blind faith in an ideology (and the head of that ideology) is what kills, not the secular/atheistic ideals of free inquiry, skepticism, and the pursuit if ideas for their own sake.
[/quote]
And I could flip that around insert the word Christian and say the same thing about you.
Fact: The USSR had a state policy of Atheism
Fact: The communists murdered millions of Christians and other religious because they consider them a political threat and a violation of the state policy.
Fact: Atheists have murdered more people than any other demographic in the history of the world.
These are the facts, and there is nothing you can do about it. No amount of linguistic gymnastics is going to make any of this, not true. So get over it.

Scandinavia? Who the fuck is talking about Scandinavia? You’re reaching, badly. This is known as a Red Herring.

Considering they murdered 4 million Catholics in those camps, your revisionist history is a fail. In the beginning of the regime, they were somewhat Catholic friendly that ended with the mass round up of Polish priests who were subsequently murdered.

Or I could just say, here we go again, the same old tired worn out arguments repeated over and over and over and over again. Cause that really makes a point.

184

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
super gay apocalypse[/quote]

I, for one, look forward to seeing how the end of the world can be made fabulous.[/quote]

We can dye the oceans pink.

185

[quote]dmaddox wrote:
Varqanir, God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Religions may change because man is involved, but God does not.[/quote] how would you know ? Jesus said feed the poor and heal the sick ,

186

[quote]pushharder wrote:

If the atheist employs it, and he must, all philosophy becomes a futile exercise because we’re just another mere taxonomically described animal and ultimately (human) life has no meaning or responsibility or intrinsic value.[/quote]

Absolutely untrue.

Meaning, responsibility, and and intrinsic value in life is up to YOU. If a mans life is devoid of these things, it is his own doing, and has nothing to do with his atheism or his trust in the science of evolution.

As an atheist, I invest in what’s REAL, and what’s around me; my family, my friends, my job, my personal interests, my willingness to help others, etc. These are things that FILL my life with meaning, responsibility, and intrinsic value.

187

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

I cannot look up to intelectual half-wits. Seems pointless to me.[/quote]

No, of course not. You have all the answers, and refuse to even consider an opposing viewpoint, even one penned by some of the most prolific, well-respected and lettered holders of that viewpoint. This is why I directed the response to Sloth, who while sharing your religion does not seem to share as many of your prejudices.

And having presumably read nothing of their work, you still dismiss four brilliant men: a biologist, a philosopher, a neuroscientist and an author, broadly as “intellectual half wits”. Was Socrates an intellectual half-wit? Were Schopenhauer and Nietsche? I suppose Stephen Hawking would also qualify as an intellectual half-wit by your reckoning.

EDIT: removed gratuitous ad hominem, with apologies. [/quote]

I have the answers to these guys. Admittedly of the 4 Hitchens isn’t that bad. But Dawkins in particular did atheism no favors with his half baked angry little rants basing his athiesm not on logic or reason, but on cherry picking history and scripture and twisting it to “prove” that if God exists, He’s a big fat meany. I have read some of their works, as uncompelling as they were. By in large they make terrible, inaccurate arguments. They deal with the arguments for God’s existence with dismissal rather than proving they are wrong by any stretch. If this is the best atheists have, it ain’t much to go on.
I think these guys just serve to prove that atheism is based on anger against religion, rather than anything substantive. Which seems to encapsulate the new atheist movement as a whole, angry little people who hate religion and religious people. What little time they actually spend on the arguments for God’s existence are terrible at best. They don’t deal with the arguments directly, but create some half baked version of them and then argue against that. So that rather than taking on the arguments as they are, they create their own version of them and then argue against that, which in the end they are only arguing with themselves. The tragedy in all this is they brainwash the uneducated masses into thinking that their version of the arguments is what exists, because the people haven’t bothered to look at them outside the context of the angry little atheist.
If you want to read an honest atheist, read Hume. By far the most intelligent and honest atheist scholar who dealt with theism honestly as it is.
These ‘new atheism’ guys have only served to weaken the foundation of atheism, but hey they sell a lot of books!

188

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:
Varqanir, God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Religions may change because man is involved, but God does not.[/quote]

Nor do I think I ever claimed that God does. God is eternal and infinite, whereas man’s conception and understanding of God is finite and ever in flux. Any time we think we have a comprehensive understanding of God (and that all other interpretations of God are inherently false), we have created yet another idol, which will eventually crumble, inevitably to be replaced by another idol, as soon as our understanding of God leads us to construct yet another comprehensive yet false conception of what God is, does or wants.

You drew the parallel between science and religion, and I think it’s an apt one, but not perhaps for the reason you intended. Whenever science thinks it has everything figured out it becomes no better than religion, and scientific ideas that refuse to adapt to new realities are inevitably tossed into the ash heap of inquiry. Anytime we think we have the physical universe all figured out, the universe pulls a fast one on us and we have to revise our model. Ideas must evolve or they become extinct. Same for religions and governments. [/quote]

Science functions on completely different premises than religion. They are not the samething at all, nor are they contradictory. Science tries to understand the physical world based on observation and making correlations. Religion focuses on trying to understand and relate to God. There are two things that essentially change religion, man being fallible, consistently veers off course and changes are made to correct this course. New revelation or understanding. As our knowledge and understanding of God grows, changes are made to get in line with the new knowledge.
Science and religion do intersect are points, but they are different disciplines and should be understood as such.

189

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I agree with both Varq and Pat. They are merely arguing over what essentially amounts to nothing more than semantics.[/quote]

Thank you, Push. The first reasonable response I have heard so far.

And I absolutely agree, science can certainly be elevated to the level of idolatry if one adheres to the notion that it is the only source of absolute truth. And I will be the first to admit that there are an awful lot of fundamentalist adherents of “scientism”. These people, for whom science is their god, cannot, by my reckoning anyway, be considered atheists.

And I think Pat mistakes my indictment of communist theocracy as a defense of atheism, which it is not at all. If anything, my argument is that “atheism” is a lot less common than it is assumed to be, and cannot exist in a pure, platonic sense, because we as a species have a need to create gods. Back to Voltaire again, who famously said “if God did not exist, we would find it necessary to invent Him.” My proposition is, and I believe Voltaire would agree, that God exists, but that even people who deny the existence of God will find it necessary to invent surrogates for him.

My question for Pat is, if China and the Soviet Union were not theocracies, then by the same criteria, has there ever been a Christian theocracy in the history of Christendom? I ask because on another thread he did make the claim that Church policy has never been state policy. I’m still scratching my head over that one, but then I’m not Catholic so what the fuck do I know?[/quote]

The basic tenets of Christianity have never changed since apostolic times. That does not mean that states have not abused Christian theology to serve their own purposes, that doesn’t mean there weren’t bad guys in the church, but they were not adhering to Christian theology, they are abusing it to serve their own purposes. In other words they were sinning against God and man, by using the threat of God for selfish gain. Bad guys don’t nullify the truths of the church, they just cause it great harm. But we are used to that even though it still hurts when it’s done.

190

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

One wonders, though, what Jesus would make of the ostentation of the Vatican. Or, for that matter, of the conspicuous consumption of so many “Christians” in the United States.

[/quote]

It may step on a few R.C.'ers toes but I am with you on this one.

There is ostentation within Protestantism too but nothing on the scale of the Vatican and its satellites.[/quote]

God has never been against beautiful and opulent displays of worhipe space that was in his honor. As he gave very detailed instructions on how the ‘tent of meeting’ was to look with gold leafing and detailed craftmanship on the arc itself, etc. And then you have the temples, the first temple built by Solomon at God’s command was quite a place, importing cedars from Lebanon to make it.
I see no problem with beutiful places of worship.

191

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

Actual Islam is the fastest growing Christian heresy, even faster than the health and prosperity movement. [/quote]

Worldwide, yes. Although it looks as though the Latter Day Saints (a religion with more in common with Islam than with any other Christian sect/denomination/heresy) are gaining ground at a faster rate in the United States.

Interesting. How, where, and by whom, in your estimation, should these Christian heresies be “shut down”?

It occurs to me that the health and prosperity folks, with their soft, materialistic lifestyles, would be a bunch of pushovers if it came to a scrap. The Swiss Guards would ride them down like grass.

Against the Muslims and the Mormons, especially if they teamed up (and they might, in a pinch, if they heard someone was coming to shut them down), you might have your work cut out for you. Better call in the Irish Republican Army for this one.

And as for telling one heretic from another in the melee, I wouldn’t sweat it. Your battle cry can be neca eos omnes, diabolus suos agnoscet!

[/quote]

Actually, you cant really call Islam a Christian anything because they do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but I agree with your overriding point.

Mormons on the other hand, do believe in Jesus as a savior so while things may be similar, they are missing the most basic fundamental principal and that would cause the Mormons to come closer to siding with Christians (lumping Protestants and Catholics here).

And no, the alternative to the Health and Prosperity gospel is not a comfortable notion, however, how anyone can study the Bible and believe that following Jesus is supposed to be a comfortable notion is beyond me. I mean it worked out so well for the disciples, Paul, James (Jesus’s half brother), and Stephen. I am sure that it was comfortable being crucified upside down, having a sword pushed through you by Herod, being impaled, or being stoned. At least 7 of the 11 were killed with many accounts saying all but John was killed and he was left on Patmos do die.

192

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

Plus, once someone in the world pushes the Catholic Church out of first place when it comes to helping the “widows and orphans” maybe we’ll consider getting rid of such epicenters of civilization and culture.[/quote]

Just out of curiosity, how does one measure these things? By total amount of charitable donations and offerings collected worldwide, or by amount actually spent on the aforesaid widows and orphans? Also, if the Church is in first place, who is in second, and by how much are they lagging behind?[/quote]

From the equation should be subtract government handouts?

193

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:
Varqanir, God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Religions may change because man is involved, but God does not.[/quote] how would you know ? Jesus said feed the poor and heal the sick ,
[/quote]

I have no clue what you were trying to say.

194

There seems to be a lot of talk, and misconceptions, about religion in the Soviet Union so I thought that I would chime in and clear them up:

  1. Religion was not outlawed in the Soviet Union, with the notable exception of a few years immediately after the Revolution when all religion was banned and all church property was expropriated. By the end of World War II, the Russian Orthodox Church, Islam, and most other major religions in the Soviet states had reestablished themselves and the vast majority of Soviet citizens were religious and belonged to some kind of organized religion. Nearly all Soviet constitutions had a right to belief in them.

  2. Religion was very much suppressed in the Soviet Union. It was a stated goal of the Soviet leaders that they wanted to abolish religion and replace it with atheism. Leninism actually calls for an abolishment of organized religion because it splits the loyalties of supporters between two authorities, but his subsequent followers took it one step further and replaced just abolishing organized religion with establishing atheism. I think that Marx advocated atheism, but his works were banned in the Soviet Union by the time I was born so I am not too familiar with him. In school, atheism was taught and openly religious people were ridiculed, teased, beaten and such. Practicing religion was allowed in the home and in designated places of worship, and that was it. If you tried to preach outside, that was illegal. If you tried to convert someone to your religion, that was illegal. Any kind off mass media messages promoting religion were illegal. If a law or state policy conflicted with your religious beliefs, and you argued against it based on religious beliefs, that was illegal too.

  3. The Catholic Church was especially targeted for persecution for two reasons:

               1. Catholics are supposedly loyal to the Pope before any secular ruler (I don't know if this is the truth or not but that was the belief).

           2. The major religion in the Soviet Union was the Russian Orthodox Church. The majority of citizens that were religious were                  
           Russian Orthodox (big shocker, I know), and this included Party members (even if they had to keep it fairly secret). There is a very     
           well known enmity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. They each have stated goals of   
           converting the other to their views.

  4. Much of the persecution of the Catholics and other Christian religions came from the Russian Orthodox Church. By the end of the second World War, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet government had more or less reached an understanding and the church supported the government (with a few notable exceptions, and there still was some persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church). Many Catholics, especially priests and such were “encouraged” by the Soviet government to break ties with Rome and subordinate themselves to the Patriarch. This was a blatant attempt by the Russian Orthodox Church to forcibly convert Catholics and other Christians. It was fairly successful too, since the other option was to die. It was win-win for the government.

The point I am trying to make here is that atheism was a goal of the Soviet Union, it was not the cause of anything. Communist doctrine was the cause. The persecution of religion in the Soviet Union was not even successful to a noticeable magnitude anyway. Sure, a lot of religious people were sent to gulags and never came back. Good luck proving whether it was because the atheist government just didn’t like their religious views, they were the victims of a power grab by the Russian Orthodox Church, or they were in some other way an enemy of the state. That is why this this particular quote by Pat is disturbing:

So? Atheism was not widely accepted by the majority in the Soviet Union and we have no way of knowing who was killed solely because they were religious. There were way too many factors involved and not enough information to make any kind of accurate claim.

You have no way of knowing whether this is because of their religion, or they just happened to be religious and a threat to the state. Keep in mind that for every religious person that was taken away and never came back many more lived out full lives.

[quote]
Fact: Atheists have murdered more people than any other demographic in the history of the world.
These are the facts, and there is nothing you can do about it. No amount of linguistic gymnastics is going to make any of this, not true. So get over it.[/quote]

You have no way of knowing this, and if you somehow do please present it. And even if this were true, which it may or may not be, that is still not any evidence that atheism leads to violence, just that violent people have happened to be atheist. Let us use this exact same type of logic on the Catholic Church (I am assuming that everyone agrees with me that killing someone for not believing the same as you is wrong):

FACT: The Catholic Church has, at various points, advocated harsh punishments, including death for heresy.
FACT: It is evil to kill someone or start a war just because they hold beliefs that are different then yours.
FACT: The Catholic Church is evil.

You see now why that type of reasoning is childish and wrong? The Catholic Church of today is not the same one that advocated wars against and death for heretics, so it is wrong to judge the modern day Catholic Church based on that criteria, just like it is wrong and childish to blame every atheist for crimes committed because of some atheists, and to claim that because an atheist does something it is automatically a tenet of atheism, as if to be an atheist you have to want to murder religious people.

198

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

One wonders, though, what Jesus would make of the ostentation of the Vatican. Or, for that matter, of the conspicuous consumption of so many “Christians” in the United States.

[/quote]

It may step on a few R.C.'ers toes but I am with you on this one.

There is ostentation within Protestantism too but nothing on the scale of the Vatican and its satellites.[/quote]

God has never been against beautiful and opulent displays of worhipe space that was in his honor. As he gave very detailed instructions on how the ‘tent of meeting’ was to look with gold leafing and detailed craftmanship on the arc itself, etc. And then you have the temples, the first temple built by Solomon at God’s command was quite a place, importing cedars from Lebanon to make it.
I see no problem with beutiful places of worship.[/quote]

Different covenant.
[/quote]

This is going to turn into another Catholic vs Protestant bashing thread. Here we go.