Gamera

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic]Yep, long overdue -- a moral failing that can only be made because Christianity posited an ethics that made slavery wrong in a world that said it was right. In short you're speaking from the position of Christian ethics and seem unaware of the fact.

Hammurabi's culture had no problem with slavery.

I think you're noted skeptic is wrong, but right or wrong, what Christians do and what the NT texts say are often two different things and do not in any way alter the fact that the NT text generated a new ethical regime that included the condemnation of slavery, which you now have the benefit of.

Not a question of who is moral but rather what ethical systems propound. Pre-Christian ethical systems found nothing problematic about slavery. Period. Christianity made slavery problematic since it claimed all people were brothers. The result: slavery was eventually ended.

Gamera

[QUOTE=Haran]The religious right in fact has a lot of problems with science.

Why do you italicize the theory of evolution, since its a valid scientific theory like our theory of electromagnetism.

[QUOTE]
That's the thing about being bamboozled. You don't know it.

So Paul was a gnostic.

Romans 11:33 - O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

2 Corinthians 2:14 - But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

2 Corinthians 10:5 - We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Ephesians 1:17 - that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,

Ephesians 4:13 - until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;

Colossians 1:10 - to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God


You have read Paul, right?

Johnny Skeptic

It doesn't matter unless you can reasonably correlate good behavior with inspiration from God, AND reasonably establish that God is ethical, AND reasonably establish why his judgments have to be right?

Gamera

Arguably it is if you're trying to prove God, but that's not the topic here is it.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Gamera: I am not sure what you are trying to prove. If early Christians were more ethical than other groups of people, so what? It is WHY they were moral that it the most important issue, and you haven't given any credible evidence why they were more ethical. Of course, if you cannot reasonably prove that God is ethical, you have no intelligent case to make whatsoever. If the SOURCE of Christianity is not ethical, then it doesn't make any difference whatsoever whether or not early Christians were ethical.

Surely there were some quite ethical people in the world centuries before Christianity. If there was even one such person, and there surely must have been, his enlightenment completely destroys your entire case.

Haran

Exactly what problems does the religious right have with science. Many are good engineers and doctors...

I do believe you are bitter against the religious right.

I italicized the word theory. A theory is not set science and other alternatives are possible.

LOL! You're funny. Then, how do you know you haven't been bamboozled by the liberal left?? LOL!

Let me get this straight because it is so funny. I do not listen to conservative TV or radio. I, in fact, listen to liberal TV and radio because I want that perspective. You, on the other hand, likely listen only to liberal TV and radio, yet you are telling me that I have been bamboozled by the right! What do you know about the right, except what you are fed by the left?

I was being fecetious, Gamera, especially since you were arrogant enough to presume that I do not have a "real knowledge of Christ". I presume nothing about your relationship with Christ, but I can tell that you are quickly looking for verses that support your human views and not looking at the overall context for God's views.

I find it rather ironic that someone who claims that the religious right are so legalistic presumes to tell them that they are wrong and they had better straighten up. In doing so, one is in fact being legalistic and condemnatory as well....

This is why I find the incessant preaching of the far liberal left and far conservative right to be contrary to the gospel of Jesus. They are caught up in a fight against each other, each desiring something worldly, while forgetting the Godly.

Johnny Skeptic

And with good reason, as easily proven by the fundamentalist Christian perversion of scientific evidence in their attempt to discredit homosexuals, and their inhumane resistance to physician assisted suicide.

"Many [Christians] are good engineers and doctors?" Well of course, but a quite disportionate percentage in the upper echelon of science and engineering. Christian Nobel Prize winners in science are rare these days, and have been for some time. Only 7% of the members of the prestigious National Academy of Science (NAS) are Christians. The least represented science among Christians is biology, and after that I think physics.

I will be happy to debate homosexuality, same sex marriage, and physician assisted suicide with you anytime that you want to at the MF&P forum or the GRD forum. I have debated those issues a lot over the years here at the Secular Web and elsewhere, and I have retired a lot of Christians.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Haran: You aren't by any chance an inerrantist, are you?

Haran

There is no perversion of scientific evidence. It is only interpreted and characterized that way by those attempting to discredit them.

I don't put much faith in statistics because I have seen them in action in engineering. They can be made to say anything you like.

Regardless, have you ever thought that there might be a bias against Christians in the world today that influences the vote. I'm sure you haven't, but Christians have.

Yeah, I'm sure those Christians would think that you "retired" them and their arguments. I've spent quite a lot of time delving into these issues as well, and I doubt that you'd have the arguments that would change my mind. Just remember that you will find cheerleaders here amongst your kind, but just because you have more like-minded people to cheer you on and boo the Christian here doesn't mean you're correct.

Haran

Not in the strict sense, no. However, there are very few things in the bible that you could convince me do not have truth behind them.