AJ113

No, I was trying to present a point in a provocative manner, in order to keep the discussion lively.

I was not aware that this had ever been demonstrated. I think that if it were true there would be more non-believers in the world.

Where do the atrocities of World history fit in with this?

I made the statement with the intention of illustrating a point by means of exaggeration. It has not had the reaction that I was hoping for in this discussion, so I now withdraw it.

I was trying to say that there is a certain type of person: hedonistic, selfish, generous maybe to the extent of his family and close friends, but no real regard for society in general. Now this type of person exists in abundance where I live, but who is to say that his morals are "wrong" ?

It would be erroneous to confuse brevity and simplicity of reply with ignorance.

I think that you have a long way to go before you become justified in making comments like this. I am acutely aware of what morals are, and where they come from, I strive to adhere to them every day. How about you?

One thing I have learned in life is, the higher you place yourself on that pedestal, the further you're gonna fall.

AJ said:
Retracted. I think you could see the point I was trying to make, but I will answer you anyway.

This is clearly not true. There have been plenty of people in history with the attitude I described in my retracted statement, there are plenty alive today, and I have no doubt that there will be many more in the future.

I do not care whether I pass on offspring or not.
The survival of the species is not important to me. It is not an essential part of my faith. I do not care whether I survive or not. Try not to impute your own beliefs on to me. They do not fit.

ex-preacher

Given our context, I will assume you mean "morally right."

I'll give a general defition first: what brings the most happiness and the least pain to the greatest number of people. As I said before, the formulation of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" has been widely accepted by leading thinkers in most cultures. This principle generally brings the greatest good to the most people.

Given the wide variety of cultures and religions, it is comforting that most can agree on a basic set of right and wrong. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights spells out a thorough list of what I consider "right" (as well as "rights"). I consider it vastly superior to the understanding of human rights in either testament of the Bible.

Philosoft

<strong> In other words, AJ gets to define what is a True Christian(tm) because AJ's interpretation of the Bible is correct.

Double

<strong> Say what? No further questions your honor.

ex-preacher

Could you please give us book, chapter and verse for Jesus' condemnation of homosexuality?

free12thinker

You said: "You also appear to making an assumption that most people have the same sensibilities as you. In my experience they do not. How about your experience? What is going on in the world around you at the moment?"

What do you think the ratio of generally good people and generally bad people are: try not to think about what the media portrays. Think about actual numbers of bad people you are referring to when you say "what's going on in the world around you", because for all of the terrorists, molesting priests and such, there are millions more people who are minding their own. Think about it.

Also, you stated: "Again, I know that the reply will be something like "It cannot benefit YOU if it is hurting society, because you ARE part of society." But this just does not sit right with me."

It may not sit right with you (since when is that a valid reason?), but if we didn't consider how our actions affect others, there would be no others, because there would be no us, or nobody for that matter. We're all animals, we're all filled with hormones, agression, rage, etc..., but we're able to control such things, due to our sensibilities. And yes, their is turmoil in the world, but putting everything in perspective will give a good indication that the majority of the world isn't a terrorist, or murderer, or rapist, or bully, or thief....

You also said: "How DO you know? What if your beliefs are wrong, not right?"

There is no absolute in my morals. I believe they are right because they follow a simple guideline: My beliefs and the way I live my life do not negatively impact others. And if you have to ask me how I know that avoiding things that negatively impact others is the right thing to do, than I will ask you what we're here for. Whether or not ones feels we are here for god or just to live life with nothing after it, than my philosophy makes sense. If what I do does not halt or hamper the progression of someone else's life, than I have done the right thing. And that means practicing tolerance for things that don't negatively impact me or others (like casual sex, homosexuality, gambling, women in the workplace), and avoiding the things that do negatively impact others (murder, assault, rape .....) It doesn't seem to complicated until people start making it too complicated. The simple skinny of it all comes down to sensibilities and emotions, and how certain actions swing our emotions in certain directions, and in turn, how those emotions effect our decisions and thoughts about such actions.

Either it's bad, good, or indifferent. Bad is bad. The rest is ones perrogative. Which is essentially why a lot of atheists have a problem with those things god deems immoral, but which seem to have no negative impact on others. The indifferent ones. Homosexuality. Gambling. Casual Sex. Things like that.

And you said: "If there is a god, then your decision not to believe in him will not make him go away, so it can be argued that your inherent (high) morals will be the result of his presence."

The result of his presence? Is this some kind of subconscious transfer of morals from god to me? Is he giving me the inside track on morality without my knowing or accepting this? And furthermore, if he is, and therefore I have been given these morals from God himself, than I must be on the fast track to heaven, and I dont even know it...except of course, I don't havce faith in his existence, so..no matter how high my morality goes, I'm still part of the atheist clambake to hell, right?

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: free12thinker ]

[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: free12thinker ]</p>

Philosoft

Try to stay focused. It's quite irrelevant that all Christians have the same "basic beliefs." You can all believe Jesus was the karaoke champion of Jerusalem for all the real-world relevance it has. My argument is that they don't have identical moral codes. How hard is it for everyone to understand the 10 things you're really not supposed to do that are so important I put them in two places in the Bible and sort of changed a few in the transition?

Jayhawker Soule

Non-responsive, unsubstantiated, born-again bullpuckie! What system of "right or wrong, good or evil" is unique to Christianity?

free12thinker

Originally posted by AJ113:
The right and wrong was defined by Christ, and is not re-definable by men.

Here's a question for you. Does Christ have to have justification for declaring things right or wrong, or do you just listen to him, no matter what, trusting him as the eternal creator?

brighid

BLU -

Blu – To say that religion had NOTHING to do with 9-11 is absolutely FALSE. The Islamic religious belief that the Infidel (any non-Muslim) should be killed is clearly outlined in the Koran. The reward of martyrdom and 72 dark eyed virgins as reward for doing Allah’s work was motivation for these religiously indoctrinated men who were sent here for a specific mission – to kill the SATANIC American Infidel! Have you listened to anything Osama Bin Laden and his ring leaders have said? Are you at all familiar with the Koran or jihad? Even though peaceable Muslims and more liberal Islamic clerics will argue that the Koran is being “misinterpreted” and it should not be use for evil (and I agree that it SHOULD NOT) it is very difficult to apologize away much of the Koran to claim it declares peace and not war. Perhaps we could speculate that a terrorist attack of a similar nature could have or will take place in the future by a group motivated by money, political power or some non-sectarian motivation, but it would only be speculation. But 9-11 was motivated by fundamentalist, militant Islamic men who see Americans as unbelieving, infidel, satanic scum – PERIOD! Do you realize that people such as the Army of God and other militant Christian groups support Osama Bin Laden and think his philosophies are right on?

You are right these people are filled with hate and the hate is developed and supported by their CLERGY with the express consent of their GOD.

Religions are valid excuses for harming people, especially if within their books it calls for the death and killing of those who don’t follow the rules. The Bible itself is filled with many instances where death is the penalty for transgressing the law. The Koran has even more of those rules – especially for you, the unbelieving Christian Infidel. You realize that you worship a false God, Jesus and that by the decree of Allah death is one of the penalties for not worshipping Him?

When religious people do something bad, saying they are motivated by the words of their God, directed by their spiritual leaders who are allegedly in contact with this God why is it that their religion and God aren’t to blame? But when they do something good, motivated by the words in the same book and by these same spiritual leaders God is given all the credit? Religion is not a scapegoat, by definition. It’s not being erroneously blamed for things it does not explicitly say to do.

Here are some examples :

Catholic timeline of anti-semitism - <a href="http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/Timeline.htm" target="_blank">http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/Timeline.htm</a>

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.... On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.
Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, February 23, 1998

It is also false to claim that if religion teaches hatred, etc. ALL religious people would become terrorists, etc – talk about a fallacious premise!. If SOME people, or many people become terrorists, or hate their neighbor, kill in the name of their God, etc. the religion that taught them their God is on their side IS responsible for teaching them it’s OK! Blind obedience to the will of a God or a Human authority is wrong always. Religions teach blind obedience and those that do so with an oppressive hand, as Christianity has and Islam is presently doing are the culprits of those atrocities directly related to the hateful beliefs they instill – such as the Jew is a Christ killer and devil, Pagans are Devil worshippers and thou shall not suffer a witch to live … etc.

Read the Malleus Maleficarum and the Papal Bull that goes along with it to understand how “thou shall not suffer a witch to live” was used to murder innocent men, women and children for CENTURIES. Is the Bible and the Church NOT somehow responsible for this when the made it mandatory to adhere to these rules as given them by God? Here is a comprehensive site for you on this subject: <a href="http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jup/witches/books/mal_index.html" target="_blank">http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jup/witches/books/mal_index.html</a>

And Hitler and his henchmen believed they were doing GODS WORK. Read Mein Kampf. Read any of the speeches given by his hierarchy and see how the religious nature of the German was used to justify the Holocaust. And yes Hitler was a psychopath, but he used religion to motivate him to do evil and if there were no evil to be found within the Bible one could say – he used it as a ‘scapegoat.’ But he didn’t. He followed the example of the Catholic and Protestant Churches and what they had been doing for centuries. See the link I posted above for those eerie correlations. Gott is mit uns (God is with us) is emblazzened on SS belt buckles. The masses were whipped up into a frenzy in Churches and through RELIGIOUS propaganda. A depressed economy and other factors were a part of the reasons why the German people were more vulnerable to such propaganda, but it was no less the responsibility of religious tradition, Biblical teaching and a long history of both Churches persecuting and demonizing Jews. The entire German nation weren’t a bunch of psychopaths and there is no greater motivator for good or, in this case evil when you believe your GOD is telling you to do this.

This is the danger of those religions that focus on and contain messages of hate, even if ones of love are interspersed throughout the text. Man may choose either the good or the bad messages, but both are JUSTIFIED by their religious texts.

A perfect God, an all loving, benevolent, merciful being COULD NOT have created ANY book that contained a single message of hatred – such as He hates, kill this population for transgressing the law, stone that woman – etc.

So why does your God in one breath say – spare the rod and spoil the child and another say the opposite? Which one is RIGHT? And you can’t blame a man for following what God says when He is always contradicting himself. If in one passage of the Bible it says this why shouldn’t one follow that passage? The man is absolutely justified in doing what God says – isn’t the entire Bible the word of GOD? Why can’t your God get it straight?

YOU choose to ignore the VERY pivotal and the VERY powerful (and yes political) role the Church has played in regards to history and those atrocities you would like to blame on others. The Church leaders were the politicians – they were the government. They made the rules according to their interpretation of the Bible - HENCE why we have and MUST maintain a separation of Church and State. The CHURCH ordered these atrocities. The participated, organized and perpetrated those crimes. The Popes put their seal of approval on the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Malleus Malleficarum, the pogroms, the ghettos, the genocide, the enslavement of men – etc. Where was your GOD in guiding these men as they claim? Where was the Holy Spirit?

They were NOWHERE because they don’t exist. Man IS indeed the culprit and man created Gods and religion to justify their evil and good acts. Not the other way around. A psychopath could not use a religion to harm others if it did not contain rules on when and how others should be punished and killed for their sins. A book that contained only love, admonished all types of killing, was consistent and merciful could not be used to harm others EVER!

If you believe blaming religious edict for atrocities motivated by religious obligation, tradition and biblical text is weak then provide an argument that demonstrates that it is weak. You have done no such thing. If you would like I would be more then happy to delve into the atrocities of the Crusades, Inquisitions, Burning Times, the genocide, etc. and show the pivotal role religion has played.

B

G B Mayes

antichris said:

It seems that as the century has turned and the world is more scientifically advanced than ever before the atheists are the mild curiosity. This may be because so few are able to deny the obvious, that God exists. In fact, from a purely intellectual standpoint, one could say that a true atheist may have difficulty with abstract thinking. If they don't see the wind, it doesn't exist.

--Brent