The substance has been labeled so it can be easier to "read." That substance once had a rich taste, an awakening smell and an affecting texture. Do we spread the gospel by pasting more interesting labels?

The most accurate and informative response was that Luther was anti-Jewish. So were many Catholics and other Protestants.

That I condemn unreservedly as bad.

Pope John Paul II has acknowledged the sin of the Church in this matter and visited Israel on a mission of reconciliation.

The organised religious overtones of Nazism ... Nuremberg rallies ... mass hysteria, etc, stand as a warning to sincere Christians not to manipulate human emotions with spiritual abuse.

I condemn also the actions of those who treated with hostility the Sec Web member who left the Church at the age of 17. Such hostility to young people by so-called Christians is contemptible.

Representing the mistakes of Christians as typical and ignoring the qualities of Christ's teaching only serve to build up an unjustified level of hostily ... of course all that is evil and harmful to people should be condemned.

Now tell me what you stand for?

What in your view is the basis for a moral person to act?

Do you always meet your own standards, or do you sometimes fail?

If you do what system of morality brings you back on track?

I accept that good atheists are better than bad Christians ... but where does that goodness originate?

Prove to me that you have a better source than mine.

Show me how it will stand against evil more solidly than Christ and his teachings.

Convince me that atheism is better.

Blessings and Peace

Hilarius

Hilarius:

I condemn also the actions of those who treated with hostility the Sec Web member who left the Church at the age of 17. Such hostility to young people by so-called Christians is contemptible.

The Resistance: I assume that's a reference to me. No one did anything to me personally. 17 was simply the age I took an objective look at Christianity and saw it for what it was.

H: Representing the mistakes of Christians as typical and ignoring the qualities of Christ's teaching only serve to build up an unjustified level of hostily ... of course all that is evil and harmful to people should be condemned.

R: Agreed. I was simply pointing out that Hitler was a Christain.

H: Now tell me what you stand for?

What in your view is the basis for a moral person to act?

R: I believe in life as an absolute good.
Respecting it and working to fulfill its potential.

H: Do you always meet your own standards, or do you sometimes fail?

If you do what system of morality brings you back on track?

R: No, of course I don't always meet my own standards. If I did, then my styandards are obviously too low.

When I fail, what keeps me on track is my own guilt and empathy for other human beings.

H: I accept that good atheists are better than bad Christians ... but where does that goodness originate?

R: If atheists can be good and Christians bad, then maybe goodness doesn't come from a belief in God.

H: Prove to me that you have a better source than mine.

Show me how it will stand against evil more solidly than Christ and his teachings.

R: For starters, I'm agnostic, not atheist, but that isn't extremely relevant here.

History shows that Christainity won't stand up to evil. I just finished watching Schinder's List on PBS. The Nazis are a great example of how Christianity failed to stand up to evil. Of course, that's a more poignant example.

Look at Christains as a whole and ask yourself. As a percentage, how many Christains are racist? Sexist? Homophobic?

Ask yourself the same questions of atheists/agnostics? For which group is the percentage lower?

I think its the athiests/agnostics? How about you?

I take that as evidence of who has a more solid moral foundation.

MYTH: Being a member of the Ku Klux Klan doesn't mean you agree with everything the KKK did!

TRUTH: Nomad is a cult member, desperately trying to apply rational thought to his irrational belief in a two thousand year old fairy tale.

He will not stop. Ever. That's what he does.

It doesn't matter how far he stretches the truth or marginallizes the lie, he has only one point to make: his belief structure represents the literal reality of our existence and no other reality is or can be "true."

Oh, and, by the way Nomad: STOP MAKING ARGUMENTS FROM AUTHORITY!

We could give a shit if you quoted Jesus himself, fairy tales aren't real!

Please God man, figure this out and move on with your life! Even I'm beginning to worry about you...

You know, does this have any place on the thread? Seriously---I don't agree with all of the skeptics that post here, but at least they try to respond point-by-point to their opponents, rather than just poisoning the well with "U'r a CULT MEMBER!" nonsense. Seriously, you're like the Atheist version of that "Eternal" character.

For more information on those dispicable apologists, please see Koy Luther's "The Apologists and their Lies"

Example:

Bill: "I believe that abortion isn't morally wrong in some circumstances."

Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a godless Atheist. Your whole purpose in life is to undermine God's holiness which you secretly know is true and good, but you will not admit this because you are spiritually blind."

Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"

Dave: "TRUTH: Your father is Satan and your arguments shouldn't be taken seriously."

Examples:

"Don't listen to him, he's a scoundrel."

"Before turning the floor over to my opponent, I ask you to remember that those who oppose my plans do not have the best wishes of the university at heart."

"You are told, prior to meeting him, that your friend's boyfriend is a decadent wastrel. When you meet him, everything you hear him say is tainted."

"Nomad is a cult member, desperately trying to apply rational thought to his irrational belief in a two thousand year old fairy tale."

Who the fuck are you to talk to me like that, punk?

I've gone up against Nomad's warped and circuitous posts so many times before that I would consider myself a Nomad specialist, if it wouldn't inflate his ego even further, so go preach your holier-than-thou crap to someone who gives a shit.

The whole point of being a regular member of this site is to engage in intellectual stimulus. I tried that once, twice, a thousand times a lady with Nomad many many moons ago and found out only one thing: Nomad is an indoctrinated cult member who has an agenda here that serves none of those ideals you so patiently posted. None.

I suppose, however, you have illustrated perfectly the fact that my pointing out Nomad's true modus operandi only serves to play into his martyr complex, but I can assure you it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever what you post (or don't post) to Nomad, right little clubber?

See, he's smiling. He loves it.

But make no mistake, he's not here to debate, as a debater admits when his position is rendered invalid and cops to the fact that his arguments never change from post to post to post. Nomad has one song to sing and he sings it so often I now feel like Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

Just stick around and read some of his posts and you'll be hurling ad hominem's left and right within a week (though pointing out the truth about somebody through experience is not in my opinion an "ad hominem")!

Otherwise, if you can't stand the heat, fuck off.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[This message has been edited by Koyaanisqatsi (edited April 22, 2001).]

ohwilleke

Returning to the mild mannered part of this discussion, I think you have to the definition of Christian you use to determine what Hitler was has to flow from why it is important to know. In this case, Hitler did some really bad things. Most particularly, he tormented and slaughtered Jews, Gypsies, Gays and sundry other people en masse and did so by and large with mass popular support. Why do these things? How did he get popular support for doing them? He did it by carrying out and relying upon Christianity. Christianity's condemnation of gays, Christianity's implicity condemnation of Jews (which Martin Luther and certain Popes have pressed, and others have let slide), and heck, I'll be honest, the only thing I know about Gypsies is that I had a client once who was fervently anti-gypsie for no really apparent reason -- I don't know what Hitler went after the Gypsies. But, the popular support for the other two acts dervied from an appeal to Christian beliefs (albeit somewhat warped) and the motivation for targetting those groups in the first place was rooted in Christianity. Who cares what Hitler felt deep, deep down? This is not a therapy session. My guess is that it was changable as the weather near the end. But, if you want to explain important very bad things that he did and want to explain how he got so many people to back him up in things like Kristalnach and Jewish ghettos, if not the death camps which were kept fairly low key, you aren't going to get an explaination anywhere but Christianity. There certainly isn't anything in the writings of Marx, for example, that calls for mass extermination of Jews . . . maybe a belief that theists are silly, but not that. If Christianity motivated a mass murder and made mass mistreatment of Jews palatable, then it bears some responsiblity, even if the guy at the top of the pyramid was not particularly Orthodox at the end of his life.

Also, responding to a much earlier post, in places where I said an issue was highly disputed, I referred only to issues that have already been hashed out at length by me or someone else on the board (Bede and I went at the library in Alexandria and pagan holocaust for some time on another thread and we exchanged quotes from history books and official documents, I'm honestly not much of a computer geek through and can't find a link to the thread right off but Bede will at least vouch that we did have an extended debate over the issue and that I did not simply make statements without any references. Several others on this board have debated the delay of science, for example, which is live on the Science and Skepticism board now). More importantly, recognize that something is not really a myth, unless there is widespread consensus by those shown certain evidence that it isn't true. If something is debated, it may be a contentious point between theists and nontheists, but that doesn't make it a myth. Coke rapidly degrades steak is a myth. Hitler's religion is a disputed point . . . with, as you admit, significant evidence on both sides. Lots of public statements for, lots of private statements against. Debatable. Neither myth nor truth.

Also, to be clear there are a couple of things noted as myths that I simply don't know about and have never considered. I don't necessarily buy that they are myths, but I can't disprove them either. Calling an undisputed myth claim proven, is a bit like jumping to the conclusion that anything that can't be proven by science right now is evidence of God. Were diseases caused by God until man discovered the germ? Was lightening caused by Zeus until Christiantiy came on the scene?

[This message has been edited by ohwilleke (edited April 22, 2001).]

Who the fuck are you to talk to me like that, punk?

Hi, My name’s Michael, pleased to meet you.

I would consider myself a Nomad specialist, if it wouldn't inflate his ego even further, so go preach your holier-than-thou crap to someone who gives a shit.

Koy? Don’t you think I knew when I posted the above that you wouldn’t care about your own fallicious behavior? ... Which raises the question of why I'm bothering to respond now, of course.

The whole point of being a regular member of this site is to engage in intellectual stimulus.

I agree. So stop with the substanceless rhetoric.

We could give a shit if you quoted Jesus himself, fairy tales aren't real!

Nomad is a cult member, desperately trying to apply rational thought to his irrational belief in a two thousand year old fairy tale.

Please God man, figure this out and move on with your life!

Even if Nomad is a cult member living on a plantation out in Iowa pointing out clouds shaped like Jesus, he’s still communicating a lot more substance than you are.

Nomad is an indoctrinated cult member who has an agenda here that serves none of those ideals you so patiently posted.

Exactly how do you know Nomad is an “indoctrinated cult member”? Do you know Nomad personally? Has Nomad posted his life experience for you to read? Or are you just a bitter little pill who’s trying to save face by making fun of Nomad because he wiped the floor with you and has helped obliterate your cute little pet theories?

you have illustrated perfectly the fact that my pointing out Nomad's true modus operandi only serves to play into his martyr complex

What “martyr” complex? The only one with the “complex” is the ignoramous writing propaganda* to de-humanize, psycho-analyze and point out the “method” of the enemy --- Give it up, you’re as 2 dimentional as a pane of glass and twice as transparent.

I can assure you it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever what you post (or don't post) to Nomad

In other words, you’ve found that you don’t have the skill to actually deal with Nomad’s work, and to keep your pride in tact you’re going to fabricate reasons (---all of which have nothing to do with your abilities as a thinker of course!) as to why you won’t dialogue with him. How do you do the “Roll eyes” emoticon again?

* Propaganda: "How Cult Members think" and other tactics of die-hard propagandists

http://www.infidels.org/electronic/f...ML/000353.html

[This message has been edited by Michael Wormwood (edited April 22, 2001).]

Hello Michael

Thank you.

Nomad

P.S. To make a rolleyes just type ":"rolleyes":" (but leave out the quote marks).