AJ113

Nope, YOU are stuck with that name.

I hereby table a motion that you are referred to from now on as "Rationalize BAC" which is a significantly more accurate description.

All those in favour say "aye"

Yellum Notnef

Aye!

Sabine Grant

Salut rational BAC....the fact you have displayed in your posts the ability to reason and explore your own beliefs with such honesty makes you well deserving of the epithete you used in your name. As a plus, you stay " cool " despite of rather provocative comments coming your way at times. And yes... that is the result of maturity to take things " with a grain of salt".
I have never considered faith to be the product of reason. Paul's definition of what faith is does not imply the use of reason. If I were to evaluate who is rational and who is not, I would look at how a person lives her or his life. How he or she treats others.

If you are familiar with " mein Kampf", the most horrifying aspect of Hitler's ideology was that he used a rational process to justify the "final solution".
Reason can produce great evil..... at times it might be better to be
" l'idiot du village" and remain unaware of what reason can produce. In fact... in my encounters in lost villages in the Alpes or in Corsica with an authentical " idiot", I always noticed the innocent aspect of the thought process of an "idiot". A good illustration of that innocent state of mind is given in the movie " Ryan's Daughter" thru the character of Michael.
A bon entendeur... salut !

mike_decock

Reason based on irrational assumptions is still irrational, no matter how rational the process is.

-Mike...

Kilgore Trout

Rational BAC - I would be curious as to what you think happens to us normal, everyday atheists (e.g. ones that don't go on killing sprees etc). Do atheists go to hell? Or is it all based on works, so that decent atheists go to heaven?

Frankly, I am surprised that with with all your "cherry picking" you kept that hell business. Of all the thing that I find repulsive about christianity, hell is number one. Since hell is eternal, each person in hell will suffer more than all of the suffering that ever has or ever will exist on Earth. No one can possibly deserve to go to hell. Also, anybody who is the "lowest of the low" as you say has to be insane, a lousy upbringing or some other problems so it is silly to torture someone for something they can't help. It's kind of hard to argue that Jeffrey Dahmer is "sane", even if the courts may have found him.

Thats the problem with that heaven/hell fantasy nobody wants to think of their enemies in heaven with them, so you say they are in hell. In doing so you create a real sicko god that can torture a bunch of people in hell forever, while the rest of the people are in heaven singing joyously how merciful and loving he is.

Kilgore Trout

Mike is right. Don't blame "Mein Kampf" on being rational. While I don't claim to know exactly what thought process is used in it, somewhere in there it has to start with faulty assumptions. When you say things like "These types of people are bad..." you are automatically starting off irrationally. If someone says "1+1=4" he can use "logical"reasoning to say "therefore 2+2=8", but since he had a faulty premise the reasoning is nonsense, not rational thought.

Besides, the Old Testament uses thinking similar to Mein Kampf. God was saying things like "Such and such tribe are a bunch of pagan scum so you must kill them all. Babies and animals included." Sounds like genocide to me.

mike_decock

I found an excellent website discussing Adolf Hitler's Religion with lots of excerpts from Mein Kampf. Hitler was the culmination of centuries of anti-semitism (those Jews were the "Christ-Killers", ya know). The world's most famous alter boy decided he was gonna follow God's will and restore the Aryan race that started with Adam.

-Mike...

Biff the unclean

Rational–as for #12 St Paul, we can throw out most of what you think we know about him. Persecutor of Christians, epiphany on the road to Damascus, scales falling from eyes and all that is a fraud. It's lifted straight from Euripides famous play The Bacchae. Even Jesus' notable speech to Paul about "kicking at pricks" from Acts of the Apostles is lifted line for line from the play, which would have been something like 500 years old at the time Acts was supposed to be taking place.
You can't take Xians claims that "Dr" Luke was an accurate historian. What (s)he seems to have been instead was an avid theatre goer.

Radorth

Sorry to diappoint, but I was just using your statement to point out that if you apply consistent historical methods, as skeptics like Durant and Klausner did, and noted, you have to accept there was more to Christianity (and Muhammed's life story) than story-telling as you flippantly assert.

I'm heart broken. That will only leave me fifteen other purveyors of unproven assertions to argue with.



Rad

Luiseach

For clarification: are you suggesting that ignorance is bliss?