hezekiah jones

Oh but Biff, Roe v. Wade is a perversion of the Constitution by ungodly men.

Llyricist

When and where?
On Edit: okay I found it, Out of 38 VOLUMES of .The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799 He Mentions Jesus or Christ ONCE!! ONCE!!!!!!!!! LOL hell of a thing to hang your hat on
Bush offends me every time he opens his mouth, whether he speaks of his god or not. But when he does, he offends people all over the world....careful my ass

Stephen T-B

Perhaps I’m wrong not to read a book with the title A Case for Faith. Perhaps I am wrong to pre-judge it and to assume it has nothing to tell me which is either new or interesting.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t expect someone with a religious faith to read The Case for Atheism (if such a thing existed outside Radorth’s first post in this thread.)
I doubt that any atheist would invite or expect a “believing” acquaintance to read such a book.

So, let’s look around the world and see what we’ve got: 50, 100, 200, 3,000 religious faiths? I don’t know the number but I guess there’s lots. And out of all those, how many go out of their way to proselytise?

Islam for one.

Christianity for another - plus all the sects and other odd-ball religions which spring from its tradition and culture, such as the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Scientologists (after money rather than souls.)

Can we conclude, then, that something very fundamental links Christianity and Islam, outside their common descent from Abraham?

Is the answer political power?
If so, does this account for the historical conflict we see between them, and am I right to think it bodes ill for the future?

Just a thought.

HelenM

Actually, I bought and read "The Case Against Christianity" by Michael Martin, a few years ago. I've also read "A Case For Faith".

Helen

Stephen T-B

Helen - you are far more open-minded and inquisitive than I am.

I miight dip into these two books if I saw them on a shelf, just to get a flavour of them.

I wouldn't need to know why the Case for Faith had been written, but I'd be slightly curious as to Michael Martin's motioves. And I'd be astonished to find out that an atheist had ever give it to a Christian acquaintance, unless to aid an on-going discussion..

HelenM

I think I began by doing that then decided to read the whole book. I had been writing to Jeff Lowder about something, as I recall, and was curious to see what Michael Martin had written. I don't remember if the book was suggested to me; it may have been on a booklist on the Sec Web somewhere.

I'm not sure where my copy is (we have many books in our house and it's not easy to find one unless you remember where it is) so I can't see if he gave a reason. I'd guess that he wrote it because he wanted people to 'know the truth'.

The thing is, the stakes are different. Bible-believing Christians urge atheists to read books like A Case For Faith to try to save them from eternal torment. Atheists might want their friends saved from living a life based on a lie but of course they don't believe the other person's eternal destiny is at stake, since they don't believe in such things. It has to be easier for an atheist to shrug and say "waste your life if you like" to a Christian than for a Christian to not try to save a atheist friend from eternal torment.

Or so it seems to me.

It seems ironic that Christians are continually criticized here for their efforts to convert people. But really, the only reason they wouldn't try, is if they didn't care about others. It's more logical to ask why they don't try harder, given their beliefs (and some people do ask that here), than to expect them not to try. Them. Us. Whatever

Helen

scombrid

Just got in from the field. Some unresolved faith related stuff follows.

So the dedicated shipyard employee that put in 44years of honest service to support his family that then dies from asbestos exposure (not a fun death either as the tight junctions between the endothelial lining of the lungs fails and you slowly drown in your own fluid) on the job is being “wizened up”? Yeah, he learned his lesson about asbestos exposure. Not much of a lesson though since he’s dead. Or was the death by asbestosis punishment for some other shortcoming? If it was a punishment for some other shortcoming, how can we determine just what the punishment was for? The lesson is useless if we have no means of drawing a cause/effect relationship.



I also want to know what the threshold for determining when a life has truly been changed and how you determine when the change is attributable to personal will or being “inhabited by the Holy Spirit”. It seems that criteria for that are as fuzzy as determining a true Christian.

Stephen T-B

I’m trying to get to something else, Helen. (And it’s not, I now think, only to do with political power.)

Christians wanting their fellow human beings to be saved from Hell is an admirable reason for proselytising and shows them to be as caring as Jesus Christ exhorted them to be.

But what, I wonder, is so appealing about the idea of a chosen few being saved while most of humanity goes to Hell that it should have been taken up with such enthusiasm by so many individuals and states?
Why hasn’t the universal response (as opposed to an occasional one) been: “That’s a horrible doctrine. I’d rather be a Druid (or whatever), thank you”?

I think it is an unpleasant notion (seems to have been endemic among the Semitic peoples) and regret, I suppose, that it should have become so influential in human affairs.
But why did it?

Radorth

Llyricist, still furiously embroidering

You miss the point because you are applying subjective standards. The point is that he doesn't use any different words than Washington did, yet you are not offended by Washington's rather blatant assertion. In fact if Bush said you aren't much of a patriot if you shun religious principles, you'd scream louder than a gutshot banshee, eh? I could well argue Bush is more careful than Washington was.

Washington was an enigma, and left us little to go on, but he also said that Christianity was so obviously the right way, that no comment was required. To me, that explains his reticence as well as anything. He also called Jesus "the Author of our Religion" in a signed and public statement. Has Bush ever used that phrase or similar in a public statement? Not to my knowledge. Washington calls it OUR religion. Doesn't that make him a presumptious bigot? Be honest, and spit it out.

Nice try, but I'm afraid your embroidery has unraveled.

Rad

HelenM

Because a) if you think the evidence indicates it's true you can't not believe it just because you don't like it, any more than I can disbelieve that Hitler really existed and killed all those Jews.

b) Christians rationalize that it's ok because i) everyone gets a choice ii) even if it's not a happy thought, God's ways are good pleasing and perfect so any problem they have with the doctrine must be due to them not being able to see things from God's perspective, due to their limited human understanding.

Or something along those lines.

Seriously, if an atheist can't just give up being an atheist because they'd like to believe there is a God looking out for them, then why would a Christian be able to give up a belief in hell just because they found it a hard doctrine?

Helen