emphryio

I brought up the seeming contradiction between OT and NT to a fervent and yet intelligent christian. His interpretation was that in the OT, mankind was like a child that first needed to be taught obedience. (Or like a half animal that had to be dealt with on a level it could understand.) Later when mankind had "grown up", it could be taught the more detailed, beautiful philosophy that Jesus brought.

Which leads me to conclude, if you have some intelligence and are unaware of possible biases in your thinking, you can believe anything.

Personally I can't embrace christianity cus it's logically wrong. Nightshade's reasoning seems to suggest that if it really made everyone happy, then, to heck with logic, let's just lie to ourselves and be happy.

(I don't mean to criticize, you still are bringing up good examples of how it's actually quite harmful to be a christian.)

KnightWhoSaysNi

The logic is there.

omnibenevolence ≠ genocide/atrocities

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

d'naturalist

Not even counting christian history (witch burnings, crusades, inquisitions, etc), when Circuit Court Justices get death threats and abortion doctors get shot, what are we supposed to think?

Hmmm, you should've asked: 1500 years between childhood and grown-up enough to learn a more "beautiful" philosophy? It's been 2000 years since then, are we "old enough" now to be considered adults and allowed to think for ourselves, or are we supposed to remain children forever?

philechat

The "beautiful philosophy" of Jesus Christ? He was five century too late from the even more elegent philosophy of Socrates and Plato, Confucian school and the Buddha, the Hindu yogis and the "virtues" of Aristotle. I guess the enlightened Greeks were still too childish to accept the even more mature philosophy of Christianity? Give me a break.

mizpah

Being a religious fellow (I guess) myself, I guess part of what prevents me from abandoning it is that I don't really see anything better out there. Actually, let me modify that - I don't see anything that is going to CAUSE better behavior in people. Would those of you responding on this thread say that athiesm would prevent the Holocaust, Crusades, Inquisitions, etc. I mean, obviously, if everyone was an athiest, there would be no Crusades as we knew them, but would athiesm put a stop to mass killings and atrocities like that? If so, why?

also, I'm not sure I get the connection between the I Samuel bit and the Holocaust. Could someone elaborate on that a bit?

Thanks....

emphryio

To mizpah

That is the question. The answer is long. Keeping it very short. Making tons of assumptions:

If you could somehow "magically" increase the intelligence of people I think they would behave better. I think relying on reason instead of constantly falling back on the crutch of faith, might increase intelligence. (Unfortunately I think intelligence is more a result of genetics than environment.)

So atheism could promote logical thinking. And if the masses thought a bit more logically, it is highly probable we would all be better off.

This is ignoring all the absurd things the bible says. This is ignoring the twisted sense of morality some christians have. This is ignoring exactly how intelligence is defined. Etc.

To nightshade

Ah, but you see the problem is. "Those weren't real christians." Name the horrible thing done in the name of christianity. Answer: "Those weren't real christians." (Amazing how many non-real christians there are. Isn't it?)

So my solution is I'll just come back to: "It's all a crock of shit and I'm not going to lie to myself." (It's a bit harder for a christian to defend their reason for believing than it is for them to jump to and fro thoughout history distorting the facts about the good or bad caused by christianity.)

scumble

mizpah - how do you know Christianity causes people to behave better, exactly? It doesn't seem to help Roman Catholic priests.

babelfish

This troubles me about Christianity as well. Not only Roman Catholic priests, but if you take any random group of Christians and compare them to a random group of Jews or Buddhists or unbelievers -Will you find the Christians are less likely to lie, steal or cheat on their income taxes? Will they be more likely to stay married or less likely to beat their wives or kids? Will they be less likely to act vindictive or nasty or gossipy?

Or will they be indistinguishable from any other group people, except for the fact that they are constantly praying for forgiveness?

garraty

What made me totally disgusted with Christianity (I never accepted it to reject it) was the realization that while those Jews were burning in hell all Hitler had to do was truly believe in Christ before he died, and he gets to hang out in heaven.

Any religion that places Ghandi in hell, and Ted Bundy in heaven is way too logically flawed.

Belle

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quote:
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Originally posted by Nightshade:
Why I cannot embrace Christianity
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Silly. Your arms aren't long enough.

Boro Nut, I want that on a shirt!