The atheist crusades must stop!

Post Reply New Topic

This is called apostasy.

One of the later Roman emperors who abandoned Christianity was called Julian the Apostate.

Religion attempts to distinguish between those who are "Saved" or "Enlightened," and those who are "Damned" or "Deluded." Thus, a distinction is made between two diametrically opposed mind-sets. Judging people as "Righteous" or "Sinners" is part and parcel of at least the Abramic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.


I'd be interested in knowing which ones, because even the Buddhists I've met seem to have some contempt for Christians and other non-Buddhists (there's a temple three blocks from my home).


Agreed. And it extends to every other religious group that I've had contact with on four continents.


I'm an anti-religionist. What do you expect other than contempt?

Holier-than-thou? MOI? I'm probably the least holy of people that you could ever encounter, but having been brought up in such an environment, I know no other way to make my points known.

Okay ... two examples, but only from the Judeo-Christain religions:

MAT 7:6 "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

This is Jesus telling people to not waste their time on unbelievers; the "dogs" being the unholy people, and the "swine" being those who pervert the Word for their own hedonistic ends.

PSA 4:3 "But know that the LORD has set apart the godly man for Himself; The LORD hears when I call to Him."

This is King David saying that the generic "godly man" is set apart by God for God.

There is much more, but all the religions I've encountered have a "Them" versus "Us" dogma somewhere in their writings.


I can't disagree with your opinion, since I believe (another opinion) that religion is the political expression of faith, and it is therefore flawed by subjectivism and ego.


Unfortunately, the various forms of Christianity are the ones that I'm most familiar with. Second place would be Judaism, Islam, "New Age," and Buddhism. Third place is everyone else.

You are making some bold statements here.. but I can find nothing in what you are saying to back them up.

Where is the logic in your argument.. ?

It comes across as being an unsurported argument.. which is no more valid that what some of the christians are saying.

Would you except my invitation to discuss this as a new topic..

Is The After-life Logical.. or Not.. ?

Also.. would you describe Buddha as being an "unfortunate frightened coward".. ?

If so.. what is the evidence to support such a statement.. ?

----

"In truth," said the Buddha, "there is such a happy paradise.
But the country is spiritual and it is accessible only to those that are spiritual. Thou sayest it lies in the west. This means, look for it where he who enlightens the world resides.

The sun sinks down and leaves us in utter darkness, the shades of night steal over us, and Mara, the evil one, buries our bodies in the grave. Sunset is nevertheless no extinction, there is boundless light and inexhaustible life."

"I understand," said the savaka, "that the story of the Western Paradise is not literally true."

"Thy description of paradise," the Buddha continues, "is beautiful; yet it is insufficient and does little justice to the glory of the pure land. The worldly can speak of it in a worldly way only; they use worldly similes and worldly words. But the pure land in which the pure live is more beautiful than thou canst say or imagine.”

Buddhist Scriptures - Amitabha 13 – 16

-

Hmmm, well, at simple sight it would be hard to consider that as a valid evidence, as it seems more to be one of many interpretations one can make of an english version of the Bible. To consider some texts from the Bible to be actual evidence, we would have to take that directly from original writings in Hebrew and Greek languages, and have to be translated carefuly, a part from that, we would have to see in History, what interpretation was intended to be made at the time, by parisees, even though, Jesus is said to have a different, perhaps more liberal, interpretation of the texts (speaking of the OT of course), at least I think so. Anyway, it would have come from a careful study following the scientific method, would it?

And, well, your assertion seems to be biased, which if I'm not mistaken, would discredit an evidence to be considered valid, although you didn't seem to explicitly claim this as evidence.

And yet there are other teachings in the Bible that talk about the exact opposite...

Matt 5:43-45


Matt 7:1-2


Even when His own apostles wanted to create an "Us vs. Them" ideology, Jesus stepped in:

Luke 18:15-16

(similar accounts exist in Matthew and Mark...)

Would you even understand the original Greek or Hebrew? Are you capable of performing an exegesis?

Of course I'm biased! I have anti-religious opinions! The only person who is not biased is one with no opinions at all.

Scientific method applied to the Bible? Okay ... start off by telling me the numerical value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (a value commonly known as "Pi"), and use as many decimal points as you need.

That is your narrow interpretation of these words of Jesus.
In fact this kind of advice is not bound to any religious tradition but can be found in all mystic paths all over the globe. For a spiritualist it is useless to waste time on people who are not ready to choose the spiritual path.
The teachings of Jesus are not about believing or not believing in religious truths although his words are used in that way by religious christians.

Well, No, I'm not, that is being why, I can't claim to provide evidence, strictly speaking.
I would have to provide something that was done by someone else, but, how much of certainty a result would have or the exact validity of such evidence will be, when these things can be debatable among scholars? taking a strictly approach of evidence according to your own definition.


You just said the magic word here: Opinion.
I replied to your assertion with: "Evidence, please?" just like you use to do, and well, you just provided an opinion and one interpretation of two verses of the Bible, and ASAIK, that does not qualify as evidence and is merely an opinion. Heck, this forum is about opinions anyway, how many can really provide scientific evidence to support or attack a belief system?

I believe we agree here that opinions are not evidence.

What you provide with your views on religion it seems more like subjective and biased opinions rather than evidence. Now I ask, is that invalid or valid knowing that it lacks of evidence?


Scientific method would be to try to provide if such interpretations given are to be accurate or not and to give value to a certain claim about religion.

And well, the value number of pi doesn't seem to be relevant to the case, however, I should ask you, where exactly the Bible says or indicates that Pi equals exactly 3? and if it was rounded to 3, why? why they didn't use decimals? to be honest, the thing about Pi is commonly used by atheists to discredit the Bible, but again, they are biased.

AFAIK in ancient judaism, they didn't seem to have a perfect measure system, the cubit is suppose to be the length of a forearm, I suppose it would have been a constant value, but I can't say for sure, I don't think the system would give room for exact values as decimals do, but that's my opinion

This still strikes me as an argument that is biased to the point of being illogical. I'm sorry. It is still very generalized in it's own way, while still narrowly focusing on the chronic exploitation of one aspect that is evident in most (possibly all) organized religions.

Now, while it's a very valid beef (and I suspect the primary one that most atheist have with organized religion) it is while 'part and parcel', ( to Abramic religions specifically, and most religions in general) not the point.
It is true that the focus on that central diametricity--'good vs. evil'-- lends itself all too easily to misuse in the form of judging other human beings who do not (or do) believe such-and-such..., but that is a misuse that is often (although not always only) capitalized on by the powerful to control others to their own gain. That is a human fatal flaw. Not a flaw in a religion itself, its philosophy, dogma, or rhetoric, or even many of it's individual adherents.



I would counter that these Buddhists are human and prone to mistakes, and that their contempt is hypocritical, but may not be negligent enough to be worthy of contempt from you.
Spiritual journeys, or even journeys for self-improvement last a life time. People change and grow (or stunt), make mistakes, learn from them, drop hypocrisies and add them; it is our nature. If someone chooses to believe in an afterlife, or a cohesive intelligent force in charge of the universe to give themselves comfort enough to engage on this path then so be it.
As far as which ones... Every one I have looked into or stumbled on, from Buddhism to Christianity (and it's many mutations) is not about that sense of superiority, but about growth, with the ultimate goal of re-unification (in some shape or form) with the divine.



Cop-out; and in the same vein of "I'm Catholic. What do you expect? Of course I hate Gays/abortion clinics/protestants/whatever."




Forgive me. I should have been more specific. When I say "Holier"-than-thou, I take it to be a tacitly understood simple "Better-than-you", because at the end of the day it is all the same thing.

(Although, you are smart enough that I suspect that you were deliberately misunderstanding me. Which is irritating, but I'll try and give you the benefit of the doubt here. )

I would suspect that whatever motivates you to such contempt for those who 'believe', and whatever motivates others to such contempt for those that 'believe' differently than they, is precisely the same need for comfort; that narcissistic push to feel more intelligent/enlightened/better... in short, 'holier-than-thou' than others. It appears as if you are adhering to a rhetoric just like any fundamentalist.

I may be wrong. But it may bear looking into.



It may add credibility to your view point to find one; another 'way to make your points known'.
Just a thought.

2Chronicles 4:2 reads thus, “Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.”

Diameter: Ten cubits.
Circumference: Thirty cubits

30 ÷ 10 = 3

According to the Bible, circumference divided by diameter is 3. Yet, there are those who claim that their Bible is THE inerrant and inspired Word of God. If this is so, then all of the mathmeticians and scientists are wrong; and if instead the value quoted in 2CH 4:2 is wrong, then what of the rest of the Bible?


Then why not state something a little closer to reality like, “Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a measure of two and twenty times the seventh part of the distance from brim to brim did compass it round about.”? I mean, 22 ÷ 7 is accurate out to two decimal points (3.14), and shows at least that someone was paying attention.

Instead, people make excuses for what is obviously a glaring error in the Bible.

When I brought this up at seminary, they also lectured me about "holier-than-thou" attitudes, and instructed me to take such questions up with the instructors after class, and preferrably when no other students were around. This convinced me that the whole "religion thing" was a racket, and that's why I took up engineering.

(BTW: 355 ÷ 113 = 3.141593; rounded off, this matches Pi to six decimal places, and is sufficent for most Earth-bound calculations.)

Do you know what this seems to parallel to?
It seems to parallel to Creationists trying to debunk Evolution when trying to find some holes in the theory, to completely discredit it. With small details like the Pi in this case. Curious, isn't it?

There are other issues in the Bible that are stronger than the Pi however, like the 6 days creation and Jesus expelling demons as examples, the literal interpretation of this is contradicted by scientific theories and with what is considered as medical facts today, but, we need to take into account that there are different interpretations and approaches to the Bible, some take the Bible as inherrant and literal, others take it as being inspired by God but written by men with their own interpretation of what God supposedly said, some take it as metaphorical instead of taken it literal. So there are different ways on viewing the Bible, depending on the denomination. This pi thing doesn't seem to be something of a big deal. Something interesting to ask is, would someone be accused of heresy in the dark ages for denying Pi=3.0?

Not Even Close, dude.
You CANNOT induce the existance of God, first and foremost because you cannot induce the existance of supernatural being than can manipulate natural forces in the first place.

Hey, you don't know what I can or cannot do!

And of course, you are awesomelyglorious.

BTW, I don't know if you followed your thread any further in WP.net, but your blog is still accessible below each of your posts. You should PM alex if you want to get rid of it.

I agree with OP wholeheartedly

It's really irritating when a rabid atheist sets himself up as the king of logic and issues 'decrees' about which attitudes are correct.

Usually these dumbshits have absolutely no background, formal or informal, in philosophy, science or mathematics and end up saying hilarious things like "Atheism should be the default position." Why bother considering ternary logic when you can pull stuff out of your ass instead?