JamesBannon

I don't think egocentricity played any role in evolution and neither does selfishness IMHO. In this thread, read egocentric to mean that we all have personal views of the world.

Cheerful Charlie

When Rios Montt became dictator of Guatemala and instituted mass murder and genocide, Robertson made a number of trips down there to support Montt. Robertson has become a long time friend of Montt, despite the fact he was a genocidal bastard. Roberston used his media empire to spew pro-Montt propaganda as the Democrats tried to cut military aid to Guatemala.

Robertson enthusiastically support US efforts in El Slavador, support for the Contras, Pinochet and every other scumbag Reagan and Bush ever fawned over.

Of course he hates Chavez. Robertson has been a proper little fascist for decades. Falwell, recently dead, also was a repeat visiter to Montt. A large number of far right American evangelists supported Montt following this general lead. Before he was selected to head the goverment after a military coup, Montt was a minister and a religious teacher, a member of a scummy far right evangelical church in Guatemala. Reagan himself made a trip to Guatemala to appear on stage with Montt and sing his praises.

CC

Cheerful Charlie

You mean shut up and let the scum support evil and not rock the boat? Not a chance. I am trying to figure how to rock this boat so hard a lot of people are going over board.

Evil policies from smirking politicians that assure us they are oh so religious is not acceptable. Evil far right religious leaders who are all for such policies is not acceptable. Useless religious leaders picking their noses and whimpering "We can't do anything about this really, we put out a press release but it didn't do any good!!" are not acceptable.

People like you who assure us we atheists have no basis for morality or caring about any of this is an insult and bigotry. I am happy I am not like you.


Evil is not acceptable. Mass murder, torture, genocide and brutality is not acceptable. The US government pursuing evil policies is not acceptable. Far right religions supporting evil is not acceptable. Powerful churches with millions of members who will not stand up and act decisively is not acceptable. Being told that I have no reason to dislike evil, mass murder, torture, oppression, and genocide because I a man atheist, is not acceptable. Telling anybody that is unacceptable.

I get this quite well. You are not getting this and don't seem to be willing to try.

I have morals. Many Christians do not, have not, will never have any.
They have been eagerly supporting these evils ever since they started voting.

American Christianity has a thirty five year history of failure, lack of moral leadership, and brains. Somebody smarter, more moral and righteous has to take these people by the hand and lead them, they can't make it on their own.

Do you understand that sad fact?

500,000 dead children. Why does that not seem to bother you in the very least? Why did it not bother hundreds of millions of Christians? Why do the politicians who supported this policy still hold office in a nation we are assured by ever so many Christians is indeed a Christian nation, despite what liberals and atheists say?

Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

God commands in a number of verses that you do his commandments.
This includes commands to be righteous. To hate wickedness and evil. To stand up for the poor and powerless, and to despise those who oppress, kill, and steal. Help the hungery, the thirsty, the naked, the sick,or burn.

Read the Pslams, the Prophets, the gospels. Again and again and again, the Bible tells you that this is what you are to do.

Yet, Christians do not act when our own secretary of state announces she thinks killing 500,000 children is worth it. This is not righteouness.
16 million members and this denomination did not arise as one righteous man and try to halt these murders, this genocide.

As a Texan who has observed these schnooks (They are thick as fleas here) for years, I dislike the SBC very much because it has always supported people like Reagan and as far as I can see, never stood up once to these sorts of evils.

Matthew 5. Til the earth and heavens pass away, not one jot nor tittle of the law shall pass away.

CC

Riverwind

Charlie, you have not made one single attempt that I can see to understand the things I've said. Instead, you repeat your ridiculous and bigotted mantra. I had hoped that you would engage in meaningful dialogue, but you would rather rail against your false perceptions of me and of my religion.

You fight ghosts and thus you will never win but continue uselessly swinging away at fallacious generalizations for the rest of your quite mortal life.

I won't say you're wrong about being offended by the deaths of so many, but I will ask what you've personally done for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. I will ask exactly how much you care. Something tells me that you've invested little other than rhetoric, although I'd love to be proven wrong in that.

You may have 'morals', but you have yet to address any of the many difficult issues for your own beliefs that I've paraded before you. You and your 'morals' are no better (and no worse) than those of the Christians you condemn, and you are very much cousins of the very fundamentalists you condemn...they, too, blindly condemn those whom they don't really understand (and don't take the time to understand) and rarely think about the love of fellow-man that they so often meaninglessly blab on and on about. Are you sure you're not Johnny Skeptic reincarnate? You both harp on Christians, but when the focus turns to your own views, you both throw up defense shields and bow out of the discussion only to return later with more hatred for Christians. Bah...bigots...

Angra Mainyu

Humans are not indifferent. We are part of nature, yes, but that doesn't mean we're indifferent. Plus, I never said it was genes alone, but a combination of genes and environmental factors.

First, the differences don't have to be genetic. In general, they aren't.
And that aside, of course people can blame them. People do blame them.

If they were bound by their own nature (I'm not sure what you exactly mean by "bound"), then the blamer would also bound to blame them.

You call that anarchy. As I mentioned before, there are societies that don't generally accept your god or gods, and they're not anarchic. Further, if you just considered other social animals, you'd realize that there's no anarchy because of a lack of belief in god.

What you fail to acknowledge is the fact that theism doesn't resolve any problems. You haven't address my arguments in that regard.

By your reasoning, are you saying that they care about the Iraqis because doing so benefits them (i.e., because they want to avoid punishment in the afterlife)?
If you're a theist, why should you care about the Iraqis? Because you think this entity that you call “God” says so?

Again, is it your view that theists help others only to avoid punishment in Hell?

Why do non-theists help others, then?

How do you account for the fact that people that don't believe in any deities, also care for others?
How do you account for the fact that societies where most people don't believe in your any deities, are not anarchic?
How do you account for the fact that groups of other social animals are not anarchic?

Ephemerid

Or for their reward in heaven?

Cheerful Charlie

No, you need one to be indifferent.You reasonforbeingindifferentistodemand peoloelgiveyoua rwasonm nottobeindiferentandthenrejectingall good reasons.

Including your own Biblical commands to care and to stand up against evil, wickedness,and oppression. Youarecommanded toberighteous. You claim to be a Baptist whom claims to believe in the Bible but you don't.

Of course many SBs claim they are the elect and saved and no matter how bad and evil they are, their election makes them saved, not their own efforts, their works, acts or attitudes. Baptists have always had a problems with election and antinomianism. Once saved, always saved.
This is what makes a lot of SBs such sorry human beings,and Ihaveknowna lot of SBs personally that wore their religions on their sleeves and yet were abject human scum. Oxygen theives.

This is not of course confined to Baptists, a lot of Christians do this. This is one reason Christianity is a moral failure. Calvinism has given many Christians license to not give a damn, or act decently.

CC

Cheerful Charlie

I understand you totally. I violently reject all your claims and ideas.
I do not like you. And I do not like people like you. I do not like religion as it spawns people like you by the tens of millions. There can be no dialogue with a person who is ineducable, irrational and bigoted.

Killing 500,000 children for nothing is not acceptable. That you will not admit this is evil, that our government that did this is evil for doing it, and that who support it with bad excuses or apathy are just as evil for allowing this and not making any real concentrated attempt to end it. Religious leaders with collective religious memberships of 100 million + members could have and made little effort to do so.

This is by all sane accounts, evil.

The only dialogue possible is to point out this is evil and watch you fail to agree. What you mean by dialogue here is that I am to soften my attitude on this sort of genocide and admit that maybe it isn't so evil after all, and no, that will never happen.


I fight mass murder, mass torture, oppression, and genocide. To call these evils "fallacious generations" tells us a lot about you. Itis not pretty, or moral. 500,000 dead Iraqi children is not a generalization. Arguing that killing 500,000 children is fallacious is evil.
You claim to be a bible believing Southern Baptist. We see then that religionis indeed part of the problem, it does not automatically makes us thinking, moral human beings to be religious.

Slimy diversionary tactics noted. Losing argument, change the subject!
As I stew about this and have put together the pieces over the last few years I am writing this out as a lash to bring all of this out in the open and start a reform of America government so there can never be these things done in the name of US citizens again.

The US aided and abbeted theTaliban's rise in a cynical mannner to harass the Soviets, never mind what it did to the good citizens of Afghanistan. The support for Saddam over the years allowed him to kill all those Kurdish villages with poison gas. We did him a lot better, insteasd of 20,000 Kurds we killed 500,000 children. The last great genocide of the 20th century.

I could do little for these people, but I will try to make sure the US does not make these same evil mistakes if I can help it.

Now, what have YOU done for these peoples? What are you going to do about the US penchant for support of evil genocidal bastards and policies?
You cans tart by admitting the US has indeed followed such policies and that it was wrong to do so, even more wrong to continue.


No, I have dealt with them all. All you have done is show you {{Edited}} won't shut up about things you don't get. You are {{edited}} living proof that religion is the problem. I could not invent somebody as a strawman believer to do as much damage to religion as you do for me. I thank you.


I don't understand why killing 500,000 children is good and acceptable I guess. Maybe you can explain it me. I can't understand why supporting Rios Montt, Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and D'Aubisson was acceptable to right wing Christians. Do explain it to me. I do not understand why sitting on our butts as our Indonesian allies killed 1/3 of the population of East Timur was acceptable. Explain it to me.

I am not talking about love of fellow man. I am talking about not supporting mass murder and genocide. Because it is evil and morally bad.
You will not accept your own Bible's commands from god to not do such things or the atheist claims morality is based on empathy.

Thus as far as I see, you have no basis at all for morality which maybe explains why you are not bothered by 35 years of the US following such policies while good Christians either support these policies or are mainly apathetic and don't even bother to show up at the polls to oppose their evil right wing Christian bretheren.

Christianity is again, a huge moral failure in America.

IIDB rules forbid me to post what I would really like to discuss about you here. But keep posting like this. You do yourself more damage than I can. A perfect bad example.



CC

Riverwind

Wait, Charlie... I have torn your arguments into piecies of pieces and you have yet to respond in depth to any of my arguments, as I have already stated.

You have as much as admitted that you have done nothing but spew evil rhetoric to help the people of Afghanistan and Iraq (and then called it a diversionary tactic and a changing of the subject that I ask what you have really done...balony! I'm seeing if you practice what you preach!). Why is this? This is because you are completely indifferent to their suffering. If you truly cared (and didn't just hate people of religion) then you would have actually done something to help relieve those people. Truth be known, you only need to look in the mirror to see the very type of bigotry you unreasonably rail against.

I have never said that I condoned any killing of any Iraqi children. That is a bogus claim you have dishonestly and erroneously foisted upon me and all Christians. In fact, it bothers me more than it does you because I have found ways to help the people of Afghanistan and Iraq while you admit by your silence that you have done nothing for them. It is your hate of religion that you are really interested in, not the dying children of Iraq. Shame on you for such a sham.

You don't like me. I don't know you personally so I can't make such a judgement, but I certainly don't like the bigoted things you spew at religion.