Devilnaut

Actually, I believe the original meaning of "pantheism" comes from pantheios, which refers to 'all of the gods'. That's why the collection of Greek gods is called the Greek Pantheon...

So a pantheist can be one who believes that all is God, or it can be one who believes that there are many Gods.

Celsus

GeoTheo,

It's rare when a theist actually speaks from the heart, and I'm assuming you're doing that in this post. So I mean my comments with the greatest respect, even where I'm saying, "Yes, but..."

There are a couple things wrong with your logic. Firstly, not everyone arrives at the conclusion that there is no God for the same reasons. Atheists need not be wiser than theists, any more than theists must be wiser than atheists if Christianity is the true religion. In fact, given the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I could argue that Christians should be much better behaved, more loving, more tolerant, much wiser, etc. than atheists.

Atheists do not claim to be blessed by a spirit to tell them the truth, nor do they need to arrive at a conclusion of atheism on account of higher intelligence. It is a shame about the stereotyped image you have received here. Sure, there are atheists who like to poke fun at Christians, but that is only natural. You're going to find exactly the same behaviour with any board, only with the roles interchanged, for several reasons.

Firstly, it gives the poster assurance of acceptance by the majority if he perceives that what he is saying follows the opinions of everyone else. It's pretty obvious what most opinions about God are here. Secondly, it is a source of venting where you know you are unlikely to be challenged in any significant way (or if you are, there is likely to be strong back-up). Finally, the assumptions that tend to go unchecked in a theist/atheist debate make it naturally frustrating for either side to get their message through.

Yes there are people who are angry at God. There are also people who simply enjoy getting at the crux of theist logic. This board will attract people with certain interests, and the two I mentioned are obviously going to be high on the list. However, it seems you never visit the Political Discussion forums, where God hardly ever figures in the majority of discussions.

Maybe not, but the effects of Christianity have often been downright evil. As everyone knows, the means of proselytisation have caused untold suffering throughout history, and it is to the Christians' credit that they have realised this in recent decades, and strove to rectify it. The irony of Christianity is that the most humane and consistent Christians were often ones with unorthodox beliefs. That just goes to show how little something can be said for the orthodox positions (regardless of denominations).

I myself went through a phase of unorthodox Christianity, when coming to terms with the need to be consistent and the conflict with how easily God's actions could be portrayed as cruel and merciless. I don't know what your beliefs are, but if you can come to a consistent, loving faith, then you will know through Biblical study that the OT actions of God are simply intolerable. Excusing them is the sort of thing we leave to Holocaust deniers and their ilk.

As for the NT, there is a much better doctrine, but it is still malleable enough that it can be (and has been) used to justify unspeakable crimes against humanity. When I began to think about it as a Christian, I realised that I was using my own opinions to figure out which parts were acceptable and which parts were not. That was when I realised which parts of the Bible were more important was a matter of reason rather than of faith or belief.

So inasmuch as "you know what Christianity is" and you think the people here misrepresent it, you must be aware that these ideas ("misrepresentations" permeated Europe and America for thousands of years prior to your arrival and your interpretation. You don't need to go far into Civil War documents to see how preachers were justifying slavery, or into Witch trial legislation to see how the Bible was being applied for the specific purpose of oppressing women). If you want to argue that Christians then got it wrong, I will tell you that back then, everyone got it wrong (Darwin was a racist by today's standards). The difference now is that we use our brains much more rigourously than before, to the betterment of mankind. That is the goal of humanism, secular or religious. If the Holy Spirit existed, shouldn't I be able to make an opposite claim of that you make, and say that if Christianity is true, there should have been an enlightened, loving, undiscriminatory faith throughout the centuries?

Ideally, yes. The problem starts when they're convinced that they're "better people" (which by default, makes others who have not had this transformation, "worse people"). I know most Christians supposedly are supposed to look upon themselves as sinful, and never coming close to God. However, so many of them still manage to perceive themselves in a better light than non-Christians. Do you see where this is going?

Read an encyclopaedia if you want a balanced and impartial view. People are biased, even bigoted. That's a fact of life, and it makes life interesting, but also dangerous if we let the people get away with their bias. I cannot change your mind about the stereotypes you've encountered, for example, but I am trying to rein them in with this post. Whatever happens, I wish you the best in dealing with your crisis of faith. I know what a torment it is.

Joel

GeoTheo

Wow,
You guys object to my analysis of you? Theres a shock. I never saw that coming. I don't buy the persecution thing either. How downtrodden are atheists within academia and the scientific community? Whose opinions matter more to you?
Europe and the UK are "post Christian" also.
Not much persecution of atheism there.
Look around the boards here. Wake up and take the blinders off. This is merely an anti-Christian website. Of course people are self-conscious about coming right out and saying it. It would be unsophisticated to admit that. Look at the posts here. People hate Christianity and they distort Christianity. They rant about Christianity. So what if you occasionally argue amongst yourselves or with the odd pagan or muslem?
Guess what? I was posting here before they put in the "Non Abrahamic Religions" section. And Guess what? It gets no play. The "Biblical Criticism and Archeology" board gets way more play as well as the evolution board. These are aimed at attacking Fundamentalist Christianity. This is not a Science website. People are interested in these topics because they want to attack Christianity.
The overall tone here is negative in all forums. No one seems to have anything to say that does not relate to a criticism of Christianity or Christian culture. Obviously there are rare cases where things come up that may not be related. But case in point, look in the humor section. Take away jokes poking fun at Christianity and what would you have? Not much.

Llyricist

oooh okay, thanks Devilnaut, I should have thought of that. Nevermind Philosoft.

Philosoft

Whatever you say, Geo. You're right, of course. We spend all day hating Christianity. I know I never get any work done because all I can do is hate God. Anyway, your mind's made up; we won't confuse you with facts. Whatever you do from now on, don't read any posts written by, oh say, Thomas Metcalf or bd-from-kg, else your convenient compartmentalized 'atheist' schema won't be able to deal with their non-Christian-hating prose.

GeoTheo

Joel,
How could you possibly quantify the evil Christianity has caused in the world? If it has caused evil, how do you account for the evil in the world that occured and does occur in the absence of Christianity? If you were to take a critical look, at the subject I think you would find that Nations most influenced by Christianity are the most civilized places to live and places where your rights are most likely to be protected.
What you are doing is focusing only on the negative. If you were to take positive contributions of Christianity into account, the scales would be sharply tipped in it's favor. But what you do, is you take the good and account for it some other way and only attribute the bad to Christianity. I admit trying to sort out the overall influence of Christianity is tenuous. But you conveniently only seem to quantify, however imperfectly, the negative influence.

GeoTheo

bd_from_ kg's posts stand out in STARK contrast to most of the twaddle posted here. I will admit that.

Celsus

Simple. Christians make the positive claim that their adherents are imbued by the Holy Spirit. I'm not saying that Christianity is any worse than any other religion or system of morality. What I am saying is that Christianity should be several levels higher than every other system if their claim is true. The simple fact that it has not proven better than any other system means that the influence of the Holy Spirit is negligible (it only affects a vanishingly small percentage of people known as "True Christians" apparently). In other words, I'm simply reversing your argument that atheists should be wiser than Christians if there is no God. (And I have tried to show that atheism makes no positive claims as to what should or should not be the behaviour of atheists, which is why, IMO, your claim fails.)

Llyricist

Are you just trolling for abuse???

I think ya passed the darn near mark now.

Philosoft

What are you after? Many atheists here, myself among them, have a reasonable level of respect for your arguments, and we rather like having you around. I don't recall the last time anyone went out of his way to be disrespectful to you, but naturally, I can't follow you everywhere. Understand, you're a significant minority here. If you feel beseiged by the volume of atheist commentary on a debate board, that's because you usually are. It doesn't mean everyone hates you.

[added]
Mods, truly sorry about the direction of this thread. I don't know if it should still be here and I'm not sure where it's going.

[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>