Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ybnormal · 12-29-2002, 01:10 AM

Rad...
I see no reason to let you change your question's wording from "honesty" to "integrity", as it would have a ripple effect back into the previous page, not to mention Toto's original challenge. Besides, it really would make no significant difference anyway. Why? Because this entire thing is based on the exact reasoning behind why I said what I did about integrity, NOT on the fact that I said it. But the latter is all you want, so I don't expect much from you one way or the other anyway.

Quote:

Originally posted by Radorth:
So Yb, do you admit you said atheists were more honest by definition, or not?

Rad, we're clearly talking about two completely different things here, and I'm sure you know the difference. Like I've already asked, What has one thing to do with the other? Maybe you disremembered what I had actually said, but you have reread it now. Please read it one more time.

My entire point was based ONLY on ideological bigotry, in that xians as a group, set themselves up as being superior to others, thru their most basic ideology.

And rather than even saying xians themselves have no integrity, I clearly stated, this fault (supremacy) of Christianity... commands no integrity.

Trying to draw some correlation between atheists are more honest by definition and my most basic bigotry commands no integrity is a far stretch at best... certainly when I simultaneously stated that, most Atheists, and certainly I myself, claim no such blanket supremacy.

If anything, that clearly states the exact opposite of what you claim I stated.

Other than that, please explain what bigotry and/or supremacy possibly have to do with honesty.

If you want to further argue this, kindly point me to the exact wording that makes your case.

Buffman · 12-29-2002, 01:19 AM

Radorth

No thanks on your offer. I've learned not to let skeptics ask all the questions and make all the rules. I've concluded there are things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in your library.

Thanks for admitting that you haven't the foggiest idea about answers to my questions. How pathetic that you know so little about the origins of your own supernatural faith beliefs and pretend to know so much about the origins of the American government. (Said with a sardonic grin.)

Ut · 12-29-2002, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by trunks2k
Really? Damn, then I guess I must have not gone to a Christian school. I went to a Catholic high school and I knew dozens and dozens of kids that did drugs, got in fights, had sex regularly, etc. They were just a lot better at hiding it from the administration.

Yeah, me too. Radorth, can you really be that naive?

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 08:50 AM

Quote:

(I am well aware that you "honestly" believe that what you are saying is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately for you, honesty and truth are only as valid and reliable as the verifiable evidence upon which they are formulated/presented.

Quote:

Christians who live by their bibles do so because they believe they will get a reward for doing so. The ethical Christian does things because he/she follows the Golden Rule...not the Heaven or Hell Bible morality of the Clergy salesmen and women.

I know you like to believe this, but it's patently obvious Jefferson disagrees and you have no evidence other than your own "reason." You also make a lot of people liars, and as usual your post drips with patronizing assertions about people's motives and relative stupidity. Funny all those gang members couldn't live by any rule at all until the Holy Spirit enabled them and they got into a church which preaches original sin, salvation therefrom, the uselessness of good works, and imputed righteousness.

I suppose John Newton would have just awakened one morning and said "I gotta follow the Golden Rule now because it's the right thing" and stopped slave trading anyway, without the Bible, or ever hearing a sermon. He was too ignorant to realize it. And the "rags of the clergy" would have just miraculously stopped abusing, misleading and oppressing people contrary to Jesus' teaching because of Voltaire's "reason" and not Luther's research. Is that correct?

Like I said, there are things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in your library.

Rad

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Really? Damn, then I guess I must have not gone to a Christian school. I went to a Catholic high school and I knew dozens and dozens of kids that did drugs, got in fights, had sex regularly, etc. They were just a lot better at hiding it from the administration.

I guess the mindless theory that "anyone who says they are a Christian is one" suffers another major blow.

What a surprise. I'm sure the kids were told "do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," and were made to go to church, confession etc, like most gang members in L.A.

Well that certainly explains you guy's disgust with things religious.

(Not that my opinion is much higher).

Rad

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 09:15 AM

We know your opinion of "you xians" now Yb, and you are certainly entitled to it. Rather than getting into a semantics war, I think I will just let the readers decide. I'm sure my assertion that it is a "mixed bag" will not go over their heads.

What you fail to realize is that integrity is very little connected to what one believes, and more connected to the whether one follows his or her own rules.

Rad

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 09:59 AM

But let us do something unusual, and discuss the thread topic, and more specifically some of Kirkhart's pontificating:

Quote:

In spite of the revisionist thorn in our side, there is little doubt that Jefferson's wall was intended, as metaphorical walls must be, to be an impenetrable fortress against the use of the power of government to support a belief.

(Rad) Except his orders that soldiers attend "divine services"

Quote:

If his vision was less pure than we atheists would like-his idea that these rights came from a Creator, with a capital C-it was as sturdy as any could wish, not allowing a presidential proclamation of a fast day, for example.

(Rad) Unlike Washington and a large majority of other presidents including Lincoln.

Quote:

Jefferson is often referred to as a Deist. Many nonbelievers take this to mean that he shared the proto-atheist philosophy of Thomas Paine, whose Deism was definitely that of a pre-Darwinian atheist who simply thought that a god was the logical explanation for our coming into being, but not for anything since that time. But Jefferson also called himself a Christian, though he was adamant that he did not believe in the divinity of Jesus; there is little doubt that he believed in a creator god.

(Rad) Gee. OK. This is an important point in the"new take" on separation I suppose.

Quote:

The record is clear his notion of separation had some political viability. It was an issue in the election of 1800. The Rev. William Linn said, "The election of any man avowing the principles of Mr. Jefferson" would "destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen the bonds of society."

(Rad) Heh. But the "right" ignored Linn so this quote only helps the case for the "right" being a wiser group than Kirkhart thinks.

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And incumbent John Adams, who once called the idea of a divine Jesus "a conventional cover for absurdity" put aside his own feelings to oppose Jefferson's separation in a vain attempt to hold onto the presidency.

(Rad) No details unfortunately. I'd like to hear more about his anti-separation thoughts. If he did not practice what he preached, he must have been quite the hypocritical founder, eh?

Quote:

As you know, the election didn't settle the issue. There continued, of course, debate about fast days and secularist opposition to the payment of military chaplains.

(Rad) Opposition by a tiny unnamed minority, which did not include Jefferson who encouraged services in public buildings and wanted all soldiers to attend "divine services." Did he say the chaplains should serve for free or what?

Quote:

Interestingly, several states did not allow clergy to serve in their legislatures, with the understanding that men of god should not be men of government.

(Rad) Which means they wanted no chaplains to pray in the Senate? Or that they thought ministers should minister full time, and not be caught up in worldly affairs. (it's the latter)

Quote:

James Madison, once safely in retirement, came out against the Congressional Chaplaincy, to no avail. But there was much to keep our secular ancestors busy, as the Christian God of our fathers seemed to stick his eternal nose into every aspect of public affairs, and even in areas where he was often rebuffed, he kept coming back.

(Rad) Rebuffed by who? Anybody we know and can quote? Certainly not by Washington. Man this guy is long on assertions and short on facts. But if you're preaching to the choir, who cares?

(More)
{edited by Toto for formatting}

Daggah · 12-29-2002, 10:01 AM

Quote:

And the "rags of the clergy" would have just miraculously stopped abusing, misleading and oppressing people contrary to Jesus' teaching because of Voltaire's "reason" and not Luther's research. Is that correct?

Luther, responsible for stopping oppression? ROFLMAO. You may as well say Hitler did the same.

Or are you talking about a different Luther? 'Cause the one I know of said:

"We are at fault for not slaying them [the Jews]."

"What shall we do with...the Jews?...set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them."

"What shall we do with...the Jews?...I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings...are to be taken from them."

"What shall we do with...the Jews? I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach on pain of loss of life and limb."

A role-model for tolerance and the ceasing of oppression, let me tell ya.

And I guess it's totally meaningless that the parts of the world who are moving farthest away from Christianity seem to be the ones moving closest towards tolerance. See, for example, most of Europe, where Christianity is more a traditional belief than anything else.

Oddly enough, problems such as STDs, drug usage, and teen sex are not NEARLY so bad there as they are here in the fundie-dominated America. Go figure.

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 10:28 AM

Still searching for a "new take" and a fact or quote of some sort, we plod along:

Quote:

With each period of rapid change, there were new evangelical reformers. By the 1820s, we had the General Union for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath, and in the 1830s, well-intentioned do-gooders started a prison program where all prisoners were isolated, to keep them away from bad influence, and required to read the Bible all day. We don't know the recidivism rate, but the suicide rate was high.

(Rad) OK, a dumb experiment I would never have recommended, since even God does not forcefully override the human will- not in this dispensation anyway.

Quote:

One Christian reaction to separation was church opposition to fledgling public welfare projects, such as poor houses. The reasoning was that when government and church were one, charity was their business, but when they were separate, charity was a church project. It is interesting to note that to this day, the United States provides much less in public welfare than Europeans with your state-established churches.

(Rad) Well yes it is interesting. What's the point here? That when you have state established churches, things are better for the poor?

Quote:

As the nation moved west, the church was usually the first building in a new settlement, and it often doubled as a city hall and sometimes as a school. In the 1870s, the Women's Christian Temperance Union had its first victories, achieving local option on the sale of alcoholic beverages,

(Rad) Another bad idea from religious people. Whitefield made people want to stop drinking, and revival is the one hope of America.

Quote:

and in 1877, President Hayes appointed prominent atheist Robert Ingersoll as ambassador to Germany but had to withdraw the nomination in the face of strong religious opposition. I suppose they felt that the German people were just too easily corrupted.

(Rad) Yes Ingersoll, who claimed his skeptics.org library cost him the presidency. No humble servant lost there.

Quote:

These events, however, were side issues.

(Rad) Now we are getting somewhere.

Quote:

Throughout the 19th Century, two developments dominated the debate on church-state separation, and there is irony in both.

First was the emerging public school system. One would think that a move to educate the populace would be a great boon to a secular government, but indeed the schools are-to this day-the fortresses the theocrats will not give up.

(Rad) Oh boy. I never heard one word of the Bible or the founders beliefs all through high school, so I suppose they were lost by 1962. Nor do I hear of any takeover plans here either. All this far right take-over conspiracy must be brewing in Utah or something. Again, not one fact, quote from a textbook, or anything. Again, what content in what textbooks does Barton dictate again?

Quote:

The other irony is that the fear of Catholic immigration created a nativist movement which, in adopting the vocabulary of secularism, converted many of the common folk to that secularism, even though their concern was to deny Catholics equal rights. Eventually, these two movements would become intertwined, but public education came first.

From the beginning, public schools included religious education, and from the beginning, there was controversy. Jefferson, of course, opposed Bible reading in school, suggesting it could be replaced by teaching historical fact and "the first elements of morality." This assertion that morality was to be found outside the Bible was conflict-ridden indeed.

(Rad) Huh? When did Jefferson assert that? He practically worshiped Jesus' moral teachings.

Quote:

When political ally DeWitt Clinton defended Jefferson with the statement that "the primary design of sending children to school, is to learn to read and write, not to learn religion," he followed with a diatribe about the importance of the Bible as a moral guide, as he apparently felt it politically necessary.

(Rad) Oh right. Once again any conflict is resolved by the simplistic assertion of political necessity. Amazing how these apparent hypocrites changed intellectual horses whenever a skeptic wants them to.

Quote:

Public schools were state or local institutions, where the federal law had no impact. In some places, the separatist philosophy had influence, but as most communities were homogonous, the school term was short-lived, and attendance was not mandatory, debate was not usually passionate until the Catholics came to town. Then the schools became instruments of Protestant indoctrination. For example, in the 1820s New York City, as an act of separatist philosophy, denied school funds to all religions, Catholic, Methodist, Baptists, alike. The recipient of most of the funds was a private, secular organization called the Public School Society. Not only did their students read the Bible daily, their texts condemned Catholics in the worst possible terms.

(Rad) Whew. A point.

Quote:

Like most hatred, our bigotry here arose from fear. Our English heritage was one of Catholic-Protestant rotating persecution, and by the 19th Century we had a fair number of Protestants who had fled Catholic rule in France and come to think of it, southern Germany. I am speaking in English today because a Protestant named Anton Kirchhart chose flight over fight someplace very near here. When his grandchildren saw Catholics invading the shores of his refuge, they may well have panicked.

The resulting Nativist movement is the embarrassing, drunken and profane grandfather of us modern American secularists. There was nothing philosophically appealing about these Nativists. Because Catholics were thought to be against separation of church and state, the argument went, the Papists must be denied the right to vote. This is certainly a contention worthy of ridicule.

(Rad) Yeah, now it's the vote of Protestant "extremists" that should be denied, in favor of the agenda of a secular minority comprising no more than 5% of the population who think rich people and Christians alone should have a choice of schools.

Rad

edited by Toto for formatting

Radorth · 12-29-2002, 10:48 AM

We are left intellectually stranded, to make wild guess about what Kirkhart is saying.

Is he comparing Jefferson to Bush or what?

OK. Does Bush secretly want Catholics denied the vote or is Bush a closet LDS member? Is Kirkhart saying, that we are reverting to some 1870's philosophy of the Christian temperance union? Is Ashcroft about to outlaw alcohol? Was Jefferson a closet pro-choicer or something? (They had abortion methods then I'm sure you know)

Or is this just another well-spoken "intellectual" jabbering away, giving us no relevant facts, but assuring us through innuendo that Bush really is way to the right of one single founder? Actually one of Jefferson's biggest worries was the unbridled power of the Supreme Court, something Bush would not dare speak about in the same terms as Jefferson did.

It's all a mystery to me, but I'm sure Buffman or Toto will clear it up for us.

Well, for the true believers anyway.

Rad

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12-29-2002, 01:19 AM	#62
Buffman Beloved Deceased Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: central Florida Posts: 3,546	Radorth No thanks on your offer. I've learned not to let skeptics ask all the questions and make all the rules. I've concluded there are things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in your library. Thanks for admitting that you haven't the foggiest idea about answers to my questions. How pathetic that you know so little about the origins of your own supernatural faith beliefs and pretend to know so much about the origins of the American government. (Said with a sardonic grin.)

12-29-2002, 09:15 AM	#66
Radorth Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 1,872	We know your opinion of "you xians" now Yb, and you are certainly entitled to it. Rather than getting into a semantics war, I think I will just let the readers decide. I'm sure my assertion that it is a "mixed bag" will not go over their heads. What you fail to realize is that integrity is very little connected to what one believes, and more connected to the whether one follows his or her own rules. Rad

12-29-2002, 10:48 AM	#70
Radorth Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 1,872	We are left intellectually stranded, to make wild guess about what Kirkhart is saying. Is he comparing Jefferson to Bush or what? OK. Does Bush secretly want Catholics denied the vote or is Bush a closet LDS member? Is Kirkhart saying, that we are reverting to some 1870's philosophy of the Christian temperance union? Is Ashcroft about to outlaw alcohol? Was Jefferson a closet pro-choicer or something? (They had abortion methods then I'm sure you know) Or is this just another well-spoken "intellectual" jabbering away, giving us no relevant facts, but assuring us through innuendo that Bush really is way to the right of one single founder? Actually one of Jefferson's biggest worries was the unbridled power of the Supreme Court, something Bush would not dare speak about in the same terms as Jefferson did. It's all a mystery to me, but I'm sure Buffman or Toto will clear it up for us. Well, for the true believers anyway. Rad

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