IAP Political Forum

Cardinal George of Chicago clearly calls Talmudics jews to stop their blasphems against Jesus in order to begin a serious discussion...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/october2007/jews.htm

Cardinal George is one of the most senior cardinals in US!

I sometimes wonder, is it so difficult to change this old belief from their holy texts? ::)

(http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/observer/images/george1.jpg)

Some people obviously don't have enough things to argue about.

No!, raising his children with hate can matters!
the consequences of Talmud teachings are present uptodate, therefore "The last temptation of the christ" and "Da Vinci Code" are typical jewish productions....(MCA Universal and Columbia)

However  "Passion of The Christ" was strangely boycotted by almost all prouction societies !!!

They simply must stop this behavior's filth.

Let's see.......you bet a slander against Jesus in the Talmud......I'll raise a beheading of infidels in the Koran.

Shall we call?

Beheading of infidels !!!!!; seems that you are suckled with media propaganda ; I’m muslim and I never heard about that.

In other part, the two movies above are banned in Islamic countries official distribution- attacking jesus or calling Mary a prostitute as Talmud did is an anti-islamic behaviour too

Self-delusion is an interesting thing. 

I suggest you read your Holy book again.

Sura 47-4: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives”

thanks for posting that;
first, this verse is directed to fidels who were attacked and violated by paganists; captives children and women should be spared!

second, the rule of treating the others is clearly explained here
"God does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely God loves the doers of justice."

Joyce asked your  same qst here and he was answered clearly by a scholar:

Islamic Treatment of Non-Combatants
http://www.readingislam.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996016532&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE

Hitman your obvious anti-semitism is both irrational and appalling.


No doubt 9/11 and the JFK assassination were "typical jewish productions"?

Show us this. With regards to this verse, there is nothing like what you have said.

Doesn't lying for Islam make you a heretic and poor excuse maker for the religion of peace?

Sura 47 (http://www.submission.org/efarsi/arabic/sura47.html)


Again, with regards to the verse, there is nothing like what you claim......two lies....double heretic.

Hitman (or, is that "assassin"?) welcome to IAP. You are a fresh voice and one we desperately need.  There are many Xians on this forum who claim Islam is diabolical and their religion is the one true religion.

It is wonderful to have balance to the horrible slander against your religion of peace.  Perhaps we will all see the beauty of religion after you have all discussed this in depth.

I, for one, can't tell you how excited I am at the prospect of the discussions that could result. I am almost literally physically excited by the possibility of those discussions revealing the truth and value of religion!

Please tell us more true stories of your belief, instead of letting the Xian Fundimentalists define your precious Koran.

 ;)

Hi man, maybe we are not sharing the same belief as you seem an "atheist holy warrior"!  :D

I respect your choice, but we surely  should  have common ideas toward christianity (contradictions, trinity theory...etc)
Hope that we can tip up this right-wing board

Patton:
YEP!

Indeed This surat is named the "surat of fight" too, it was inspired during Muslims fight against heathens---the fidels was firstly forbidden to defend themselves or using force for about a decade and until Mohamed clan joined Mediana, then those verses was dictated as war rule to kill those paganists who massacred fidels in Mecca!

The exact word "dharb Riqab" in the verse didn't mean beheading  but it's a metonymy of drubbing in order to humble.- otherwise you would conclude that every muslim shall   kill evey unbeliever in earth wich is  a stupid aseessment!

again the rule of dealing with pacifist unbelievers is in the verse; Mumtahina 60-8
"God does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely God loves the doers of justice."

So for instance it's not forbidden to marry a christian or jewish girl for a muslim.

Understand?

Your talking sounds like a tone of a little bit bigoted like pat Robertson!


The antisemites are those who didn't and can't change their teaching against Jesus (the son and father of semites)

Pat,  ;D Did you like that extra touch? I must say I am as giddy as a schoolgirl! lol :laugh:

Hitman, I am serious that we need your voice here

Yes, we disagree about a few things (the existence of a god, for example), but I am sure we are in agreement that, at least, the Xian religion has elements that when analyzed don't seem to measure up to the claim of divinely inspired.

Worse, often Xianity is defended wholly on this board but Islam is ripped to shreds by taking verses out of context and pointing to the extremist representatives.

It will be interesting to see Apologetics applied equally to each religion.  Very, very, very, incredibly, succulantly, deliciously, decadantly, mouth-wateringly, mind-numbingly.... interesting.

Horrible slander? So all those honour killings, stonings of women, lashings of rape victims are all just made up?

I understand we want to attract fresh people to this board but let's not pretend Islam is something it's not.

Now, now, Iamme, lets be polite to our guest.  I'm sure he has a perfectly good explanation for all the killing. The xians do.

Right-wing board? Are you serious?

And at well over 125 million dead and counting the Atheist are doing well too.

Hmmm, its a shame this thread isn't about Communism, eh?

was not atheism the soul of leninism, nazism and fascism movts?!

No more than Theism is at the heart of Capitalism.

(In fact, you can see a direct connection to Martin Luther in Hitler's writings and hatred of Jews. Martin Luther - the father of the Protestant movement, which declared that anyone should interpret the Bible as they saw fit and not the church - was a massive Anti-Semite.)

It may explain why 70% of bolshevik leaders were jews!!

No. In none of these is Atheism a drivig force, Nazism itself was a mix of Peganism/Catholicism. Atheism is one perspective of Marxism, and Fascism is a political ideology seperate from religion.

Leninism - various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, and by other theorists who claim to be carrying on Lenin's work. Leninism builds upon and elaborates the ideas of Marxism, and serves as a philosophical basis for the ideology of Soviet Communism.
It is essentially a rebellion from Capitalism which was seen by Marx/Lenin as imperialistic and aggressive to human liberty.


Nazism - The key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, ethnic nationalism, racism, collectivism,[7] eugenics, antisemitism, opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism,[8] a racially-defined and conspiratorial view of finance capitalism,[9] anti-communism, and totalitarianism.


Fascism - Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state



Unless you are willing to claim Christianity is the driving force of Western Imperialism, Atheism is NOT responsible for Marxism. ONE way of coming to an Atheistic conclusion is through marxism, there are numerous other ways like that of the reformation and Thomas Jefferson.







It should be understood that blind ideology to bad ideas that is the primary problem, religion is simply ONE of them.... this is the idea we Atheists are trying to express

RF, see whos on your side against Atheism?

excellent synopsis, Fasc.

No. Even if every leninist, nazi and fascist and atheist were atheists you still have a bit of work to do explaining how these three contradictory philosophies all follow from the absence of belief in God.

I feel that Marxist economic/political philosophy can and should be separated from Marx's views on religion.

Oh, and I'm a Marxist.

TBH I think you're grooming him: trying to lull him into a false sense of security before releasing all of your actual views.

But at least you learned something from the Rachel incident.

Just to add onto this in terms of Nazis. Hitler was actually a part of the Christian religion for a while. Eventually he did put down Catholocism, but the reality is he nearly wanted to from his own sector of religion.

RF, you show your lack of history when you say stupid things like atheism is the thinking behind nazism.

I don't consider Jews as Atheists.  Clearly Hitman is not in my camp.

Hopefully you realize that Atheists aren't immune to blind ideology or bad ideas.  You are over-represented in both.

Edit:  The facts speak for themselves that more people were murdered in the 20th century at the behest of atheist leaders in the name of (forms of) atheism than by all others who ever claimed to fight for their religions.

Yep for that reason, Hitler massacred 5 millions christians !!!!

"Hitler catholics" ;is just a zionist propaganda to assume that they were the only and last victims.

Daedalus!,if you want a civil discuss please remove your avatar; it's very offensive...

Why? What is wrong with homosexuality?


RF: You continue this despite the fallacy?  You are trying to hijack this thread away from the OP with lame reasoning.  Atheism is the lack in a belief of a god - not a doctrine to kill millions.  The fact that you make the connection is because you can't grasp that concept.  People don't kill for the lack of a belief, they killed because they believed they were protecting a percieved threat to their nation and larger plan.

I find it odd that you point out how evil Stalin was but to you Moses is a Saint. I can at least admit that both were monsters. I have morals.

In all these cases there is an associated moral code that is predicated on an underlying worldview that was used to justify the murders and killings.


The underlying moral code that justified murder, imprisonment, suffering and death was that there is no God and that the collective state (society) is supreme over the individual. The worldview is an atheistic and materialistic.


The focus was the idea that there was an ideal genetic line, a pure race and anyone who stood in the way from expanding this vision should be punished and/or exterminated. The concept of a pure genetic line was/is based on an atheistic and materialistic worldview.



The response here is similar to Leninism.



I will agree that Christianity was one driver to Imperialism. The facts speak for themselves. Imperialists clearly misdirected Christianity for geopolitical motivations.



Hitler was a master at deception and used any group to his advantage. If he could use propaganda and trick people into believing half-truths, so much the better. Even this rationale is atheistic and materialistic since in this worldview morality is derived by selection pressure. There is no absolute right or wrong, there is only what will best further the Arian race.  I suggest you read his writings. At the core, Hitler was motivated by atheistic/materialistic principles.


Totino, I suggest you look deeper into the roots of various ideologies prior to commenting.

Its too bad atheism doesn't have any doctrine other than a lack of a belief in a god.  Buddhists are atheists.

It kind of ruins your whole hate speech against what you percieve as another religion. And yet you want your own religion to be unassailed.

Nice hypocrisy - a hallmark of Xianity (see Paul for where he claims hypocricy is part of being a "good" Xian)

Perhaps you can explain in more detail how totalitarian Communism is a form of atheism?

So, RF is arguing that because atheists are more effective, that they are more evil?

Because, I think he just admitted to the atrocities committed by the religious.

Of course, he won't include Moses and his massacre of women and children in that. Or the eternal torture that God imparts on infidels.

This is the difference.  I see the evil in what Stalin, Mao AND Moses did.

RF doesn't.  He only sees it in a partisan blindness.  If the Bible says killing women and children is good, then it is good.

To me this is the most disgusting thing about religious fundi's - their lack of ability to see horror and evil when it is done in the name of god.

Tell me why that is, RF?  Why can we recognize evil and you can't?  What has made you so callous to see things only in black and white "my religion vs. your side"?

Hey, Hitman, I just watched "My Name Is Trinity" about a week ago. It wasn't as good as I remembered when I first watched it years ago, but I think the later ones are better, especially the one where he's slapping the guy in the bar.

Ah, classic! :-)

Long ago we agreed the Church and political leaders have made mistakes in the name of religion.


I don't see where scripture ever says killing is good.  I do see where it claims it is sometimes necessary to promote a good.  Life is full of trade-offs.  Scripture confirms this reality.  It was necessary to fight against and defeat Hitler.  Scripture says it was necessary to fight the enemies of Israel, I accept that as true.


Not true, I clearly see the horror but I also realize the necessity at times.  Following the fulfilment of the covenant with Israel, it is never justified to kill for no other reason than in the name of God. 


Wrong again barney.  We all recognize evil for what it is because we all inherited that ability from God.  Some attempt to rationalize it away because they are deceived (many who follow Islam for example) or worse self-deceived like you.  If atheism/materialism were true, you would instead say, "Why can we recognize disadvantage to our offspring when your genetic mechanisms seems to be malfunctioning?"

1. You can't even get close to showing there is a God - so we have more jsut so assertions from RF.
2. You just claimed fighting Hiltler was a good thing - I agree. But then you say that fighting the enemies of Isreal is Good.

Moses WAS the Hitler of his day. He killed women and children - just like Hitler.

RF, how in Hell can you claim that fighting Hitler should have included killing all the women and children of Germany, except to keep the young virgins?

What kind of sick sadistic bastard are you?

America and Britan killed women and children in the process of fighting our enemies.  Israel killed women and children fighting its enemies.

Moses was not just like Hitler.  Mosses did not instigate unprovoked attacks and did not set extermination of a race of people living peacfully among them as a goal. 
 

I don't make this claim.  How can you claim to know the situation so well that can be certain that these people and there future generations you think should should have been spared were not a social threat to Israel?

What makes you so certain they were the innocents you take them for?  Scripture records that Israel allowed the innocents to leave prior to battle.


Less so than the kind of ignorant deceptive fool you are.  Your arguments are as transparent as you are.

Meanwhile there is absolutely no defense for the undeniably true fact that well over 100 million people were murdered by atheistic leaders based on atheistic principles in the 20th century.

RF, you are disgusting.

Moses' army had captured everyone. The war was over and Moses told them to kill everyone but the virgins.  They were innocent captives.

And your God (supposedly) told him to do it.  That is, what you hold up to the highest moral standard commanded Moses to kill women and babies.  If this is Good, then Good has no meaning and you are allowed to kill anyone and call it Good.

What difference am I to make between you and Andrea Yates? The 9/11 Hijackers? Your morals are identical. You all attribute the killing of women and children to God and Goodness, and you assert that you are right.

You have subjectively declared yourself the arbitor of what is goodness, and you declare that killing women and children is sometimes good.

When?  Whenever you want.  After all, you tell me that I need to CHOOSE to believe in God, and accept the faith you have.

You chose a God that demands sacrifices and the murder of women and children.  YOU chose it.  YOU CHOOSE to call the murder of women and children Good.  It is not dictated, or "come from high" or "self-evidence" - you choose to declare it so.

How about we all believe in ourselves and each other rather than some false diety or higher power? in the words of Bill Hicks "i appreciate your quaint traditions and superstitions but i choose to deal with the one true source of light, that exists in all our hearts." I dont need a god to put love into my heart and there isn't any possible way you can convince me otherwise. when i ask for proof of god, many people abruptly end the arguement by throwing in "you just have to have faith". way to tie it up and make it a stalemate. what a catch 22 that one is. words like god and ali should go the way of zeus and humanity for the first time should take responsibility for the horrible things that have happened rather than chalk it up to "gods will". I will quit now since i have probably given you all more than enough blasphamy to tear me a new one.

According to scripture the innocents were allowed to leave prior to battle.  There were no innocents left.   You can argue that captive should always be spared but even that rule is not absolute.


If Moses truly led the Israelis out of Egypt across the parted Red Sea and then lived in the desert for 40 years with water pouring from stones and food dropping from the sky, then following God's orders in battle hardly seems like faulty behavior. 


I wouldn't expect a hardened critic like you to make any difference.  But let me ask you this, Did Andrea or the hijackers witness the parting of the Red Sea and eat bread from the sky for 40 years?  If the God of Moses exists, then he absolutely has the right to ask Moses to do anything and call back anyone of his people he wishes for whatever reason he has.


Scripture tells me what is goodness, and scripture tells me that the killings were justified.  I accept it because the evidence falls on the side of scripture.


Nonsense.  You want so badly not to have a creator because you hate the idea of being accountable to a higher power.  You want to believe that you are an entity to yourself, accountable to yourself, responsible for yourself.  You think that you know better and yet at the same time you paradoxically believe because of (this false and contradictory notion of) determinism that you have no control over anything.  On the one hand you want to make use of the free will and moral characteristics that are inherited from God, but then you try to deny they exist.  The contradiction is on your side not mine.

First off, numbers.

How many people would have been killed if the crusaders had had modern weapons?  If the Inquisition had had all mod cons?  We are all aware of what happens when 'higher' technologies are used against 'lower' - regardless of religions involved.  You are, after all, the beneficiary of such a confrontation....   The horror effect of great big numbers is not a good rational argument.

Secondly, 'principles'.

The people you speak of were (mainly) heterosexual males who had a lust for power.  Lets condemn all such, then.... ?  I am sure that once you have lost the purple from your face, and wiped the spittle from your chin (and from anyone unfortunate enough to stand in front of you as you made these last few posts), you can go off and find some tortuous fundy website quotations that 'prove' that Satan himself entered the soul of Pol Pot, Stalin, etc  And that in some secret code the refrain 'God does not exist' was used as justification for every heinous act ever commited.  But sadly, you have not made a connection that 'evil-doing' is an essentially atheistic trait, nor that 'faith' has stopped wholesale murder, rape and pillage in the world.  Whatever the dominant memes of a society, genes get the better hand.

Patton had the best answer to this thread in the second post - maybe you and barney et al should go read it again.

Scripture "tells" you nothing.  You CHOOSE to call a particular text "scripture" and CHOOSE to believe it has special power and meaning and CHOOSE to believe that evidence - serprise! serprise! - falls on the side of your belief.

You CHOOSE to determine what is goodness based on what you have deemed worthy.

Your CHOOSING didn't come from God, it has come from RF.  RF has declared himself the best judge of what goodness is and finds support for his misogynist and misologist feelings in an ancient collection of texts written by power hungry, superstitious men.


After all, RF, you are defending the slaughter of children by calling them guilty - because an ancient writer said so.  Is this what you mean by Faith?  Perhaps you mean "Filth"?

Which brings up the other point: you claim that the evidence is on the side of scripture.  What happened to the role of Faith in your religion?  What role does Faith have in RF now that he has all the evidence he deems worthy enough to convince him?

Do you see how you have placed yourself first? Do you see how all your decisions are based on YOU, YOUR feelings of proper levels of evidence, YOUR feelings of a god, YOUR feelings of the comfort religion gives you?




Cal: you're right but its so damn fun! ;-)

Barney.  The man has lost all power of reason.  In trying to engage with him you are becoming infected with his icily, chillingly all-to-real human hatred.   Walk away and hope that he eventually comes to some sort of reasonable mindset.  If not, just bin him with the whole slew of Elmer Gantrys, Pat Robertsons and Osama bin Ladwns that he so obviously admires.

Back it up!

Simply stating that this is "undeniably true" is a poor substitute for an actual argument. How did atheism cause all those deaths? What line of reasoning takes you from "I don't believe in god" to "I think I'll indulge in a spot of genocide today"?


Life is only full of trade-offs because your God chose to make it that way. Why did god make a universe where trade-offs were necessary. Is this the best universe he could make (in which case what's heaven?) or is he just a sadistic fucker (in which case he deserves our hatred not our worship?

Of course, the simplest answer is that it is just a myth from the infancy of our civilization


Yet again Occams Razor tells us that it's all made up and it was just the victors rationalizing the vicious slaughter of their enemies post hoc. It happened everywhere at that time.

Only an idiot would claim that it is morally justified.

The great big number is there for effect.  The rational part of the argument is that atheists murdered people for atheistic/materialistic purposes.


They justified their actions based on atheistic/materialistic principles.  Neither of your arguments change these facts.


I make no such claim.


My point if you review my post is that atheists who complain that some theists justify murder based on religious principles are like the pot calling the kettle black since the same is true of atheists following atheistic/materialistic principles.


The choice to do evil to promote ones selfish interest is a better explanation and yours seems flawed.  Genetic expression and natural selection is supposed to promote conservation of species, but murder is counterproductive.  I haven't seen any cows going around committing herforcide lately.

And yet Moses did it for good?

RF, in your world view, God could have allowed Stalin all those murders for the "greater good".

After all, you often claim there is a plan, though you don't know it.

So, you still have a problem: you still apologize for one hideous act and condemn another identical act.  The only difference is that you declare one good. You simply appeal to us to accept that God commanded one, but only sanctioned the other through inaction. (You will appeal to FW, but certainly God would know if he speaks to Moses, he would know that Moses would heed him)

I just don't know how you would make that case to the children being hacked to death? "Child, you are guilty because God has declared it. You must die."

Almost identical words were spoken by Osama Bin Laden, Andrea Yates and other appalling figures.

In fact, Stalin used similar words, but instead of "God", he used "State".

You are in rare company, RF.  Thankfully for all of us.

Scripture is quite clear about that.  Yes, the history seems accurately recorded.


Not even close, not in my world view.  Scripture is quite clear about this too.  Jesus fufilled the Covenant law, so no such orders would be appropriate or justified.  No way to justify Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao or even your actions on this board.


No, god has made his plan quite clear.

 

They are not even similar.  You have no hope of demonstrating they are identical.  There are a few similarities in a broad sense only.  That there are self-evident differences is enough to end your argument they are identical right here.

If you can demonstrate that Moses did not witness God parting the Red Sea and he did not eat mana from the sky, or drink water from the rock springs then I will agree that Moses is the same as Stalin.

Callum, you are right.

Once more you make the fundamental, fundamentalist error.  The 'principles' of murderers such as Stalin, Pol Pot etc are NOT atheistic or materialistic.  They are simply principles from which any idea of god is missing.  Like quamtum physics, the periodic table of elements, and western medeicine.   The lack of god in Stalin's 'worldview'  was not a driving principle - unlike the presence of God in the worldview of say Pat Roibertson, Osama bin Laden, Torquemada etc.  The best you can argue is that the absence removed a constraint on other principles.  Your 'facts are as usual skewed judgments.


quote][

The choice to do evil to promote ones selfish interest is a better explanation and yours seems flawed.  Genetic expression and natural selection is supposed to promote conservation of species, but murder is counterproductive.  I haven't seen any cows going around committing herforcide lately.
[/quote]

Francis Crick made the perceptive comment that 'Mother Nature is smarter than you'.   You (again, I have to say, "once more") make your habitual error in your understanding of natural selection.   Murder - or rather the killing of other members of ones own species - may not necessarily be counterproductive.  It would depend upon the environment at the time.   However, since my attempt at aphorism was obviously misinterpreted, let me spell it out:  It doesn't matter what the culture/morality/zeitgeist etc may say, basic human needs and passions will come to the fore.  Thus, even rampant loonies with a will to power and the right force of personality will still float to the top, if the social and natural environment give them the chance.  Nat. Sel. is not primarily about conservation of the species, it is about survival of the individual best suited to the environment at the time - the ultimate in market economics. The outcome is the conservation of what is best suited in the species:  which means that the species, of course, changes.  (And, before you go off into another of your uninformed narrow misinterpretations, if the survival of the individual means 'pooling' some of its individuality, that will happen.  Thats how we get social creatures)

(At least talking on these topics I don't feel I have to go take a shower such as after reading after your 'justification' of the murder of whole tribes)

The error is that you so badly want to sever the relationship between the atheistic/materialistic worldview and many of the 20Th century mass murderers that you are willing overlook the obvious reality that these people had atheistic and materialistic principles and used them to justify their actions.  You can point to other factors all you want, but you can't change the facts. Read the words of Hitler and Marx.



Unless you claim that Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and others did aided and promoted survival of the human race your red herring was thrown back.  I am perfectly aware of the narrative of natural selection.  In your zeal to find fault with my words, you have demonstrated one of the principles atheistic materialists use to justify their murders.


 However, since my attempt at aphorism was obviously misinterpreted, let me spell it out:  It doesn't matter what the culture/morality/zeitgeist etc may say, basic human needs and passions will come to the fore.  Thus, even rampant loonies with a will to power and the right force of personality will still float to the top, if the social and natural environment give them the chance. [/quote]

Right, some individuals will choose evil to fulfill their evil purpose, just as I said before.



Nat. Sel. is not primarily about conservation of the species, it is about survival of the individual best suited to the environment at the time - the ultimate in market economics. The outcome is the conservation of what is best suited in the species:  which means that the species, of course, changes.

Interestingly, others quickly describe it quite differently when one points out the multitude of examples where individual behavior contradicts this explanation.


It is interesting that when you are attempting to rationalize the actions of materialists, murder sometimes makes sense and is presumably justified in the context of materialistic principles for organisms to kill like organisms, but when we turn our attention to the army of Israel during Moses' time it is abhorrent, despite the clear indications they were fighting for survival of their nation.

If there is no God of Abraham and Moses' historical account of the exodus is not true, then what Moses claims to have done cannot be justified.  On the other hand if God did offer Moses direct and clear proof of his existence and then directed Moses in his actions, you would be hard pressed to demonstrate it was wrong unless you can demonstrate that God has no authority over life and death. 

Therefore, to support your claim that I have lost all power of reason (on the basis that I defend Moses) you will need to demonstrate there is no God, or at least the creator is not the God of Abraham, or that God did not direct Moses or the historical accounts are false.  If you can't do this, your claim is empty.  Good luck.

R.F., you can't prove that "god" guided Moses through the desert 3000 years ago when a bunch of guys that wanted to control masses of people wrote a book. Were you there or are you basing this on your "faith"? If you are basing it on your faith then you turn the arguement into a catch 22 and no one wins. The bible and EVERY other "good book" have good morals when it comes to their base but, over thousands of years when empirical leaders have changed those books for their own personal and political gain, we have no idea what the original versions said. Not to mention, it was written thousands of years ago when people were dumber than we are today. It is all about reading between the lines and not taking them LITERALLY. They are like Aesops Fables, great morals, but just stories. Now, to the idea that godlessness breeds hate and immorallity, it is a personal decission. Hitler, Stalin, Lenin all made the choice to be greedy with power. Not because they didnt have god in their life. But so did every leader throughout history that sent their people to their death in the name of "god". I don't believe in god but i certainly don't believe i have the power over another persons life to take that life from them. That would be insane but people do it everyday. Many who believe in a higher power also. Believe in yourself and Humanity, because we are the only ones that are going to decide our future. Even it there is something greater than us, it has nothing to do with us. It would be ignorant to think that in the entire COSMOS, there isn't intelligent life. It is just too big, almost incomprehensible. And if something out there gave us this once perfect planet and this life, it gave it to us to do with what we want. Live or Die. OUR decission.

And once more you simply refuse to acknowledge the point made.   As far as I am aware, neither said, "I must go and kill innocents because there is no god".  But I am aware that you are smiling kindly on people who said "I must got and kill innocents because there IS a god".


Which is precisely what I was saying - regardless of the memes of their society, theisist or non-theist. 


I am sure you will find some quotes to back that up.  I can't speak for what you think others might say in different discussions.  But I am sure you think you have a point.


It is interesting that when you are attempting to rationalize the actions of materialists, murder sometimes makes sense and is presumably justified in the context of materialistic principles for organisms to kill like organisms, but when we turn our attention to the army of Israel during Moses' time it is abhorrent, despite the clear indications they were fighting for survival of their nation.[/quote]

I am talking about rationalising why, for example, the first queen bee to emerge decapitates all others in their cells, why a mother rabbit may eat her threatened young.  Within the human species it is generally thought wrong to kill innocents of our species.  I was rationalising as to how some behaviours come about: you on the other hand were justifying why some aberrant behaviour was acceptable.



As usual, the cart precedes the horse.  They are YOUR claims that this thingummy exists and it "has authority over life and death".  They are your justification for suspending the basic morality that most reasonable humanity accepts.  The fact that you cannot see where the onus lies is just one indication of your lack of rationality.  Here is another one - if you heard a voice in your head, as if it were real, telling you that it was god and that he ordered you to go kill all the children in the local High School... would you?  f you say yes, I guess you are damned by all but the most blind of your co-religionists.  If you say no, you are shown not to believe what you are saying here.  If you quibble about the hypothetical situation, you have no faith and doubt the purposes of your god.  Essentially your position is irrational.

Correct.  There is insufficient evidence to prove these historical events.

 
Do you have evidence (not proof, but just a single scrap evidence) for this or is this simply a presupposition?  I claim it is presupposition (some might claim you hold this on faith) you hold.

 
Not based on faith, based on the historical evidence and literary analysis of a written historical record.  There is an abundance of historical evidence that supports the events recorded in scripture and there is no historical evidence to contradict the historical events claimed by the nation of Israel.

 
Is this another presupposition that the Bible has been substantially changed to obscure the original record of early Israel?  Do you have evidence to support your claim?  I can answer this for you. . . No, it is presupposition, it is an article of blind (without evidence) faith you have.



But the writer claims these historical accounts of early Israel are litterally true.  Why should we presuppose they are not true when the writer claims they are true and archeology confirms much of it?  Do you have better evidence that counters the written statements and archeology or is this yet another presupposition?  Is this another article of blind faith you hold?

 
You are changing my claim which is that atheists (who do not hold there is a creator) hold to a materialistic worldview where matter has generated all we see, morality is relative, there is no good and evil just advantage and disadvantage to increase fitness in the environment.  This worldview allows these people to rationalize mass murder to promote a cause (whatever it may be) that they have determinded is better and more fit or advantageous.



I find your belief contradictory to materialism and supportive of theism.  If theism is true, we would predict that those who don't accept it would still behave morally consistent with theism and in contradiction to materialism. 


This is consistent with both worldviews.  In my worldview, this is the individual exercising the free will granted them to misuse things for personal gain.


If there is a creator we owe everthing to that creator.  The creator is more relevant than anything else.



Your ignorance of the size of this universe relative to the improbability of life from non-life is the only way to account for yet another article of faith you hold.  You have no idea how improbable life from non-life is do you?  Just who is ignorant, you or me?  I agree there is intelligence out there but I have no illusion as to its source.  It is practically impossible that materialism accounts for it.


Indeed, but it is seems silly that we are not still accountable for our actions and equally silly to think that we have no purpose other than to live, fiddle around with our environment, treat each other nicely, and die.

I wasn't disputing the fact that the Isrealites were kicked out of their homeland and got lost in the desert. I was disputing that Moses was literally guided through the desert by the words of god, that food literally fell from the sky, that water literally poured through stones, and that the red sea was literally parted so they could walk through it. Is there scientific or archeological evidence for any of this? No, because it is LITERALLY impossible. It is just a story passed down through generations.

So this is what you mean! The old "no absolute morality" chestnut.

So, what you are saying, in essence, is that the only reason you behave "morally" (though I'd hardly call apologising for slaughter moral) is because you believe in God. If you didn't you'd be a Hitler or a Stalin.

You may believe that with no God you can do whatever you like, but the rest of us here are good people. We make moral decisions based on humanist principles (so do you, but you put them in the mouth of your deity).

To say that killing is justified because there is no god is equivalent to saying that it is justified because if god didn't like it he would stop it. Both are sophistry. You can rationalize anything, whether you believe in God or not if you wish to.

A, well said!!!!!

A simple course in metaethics (what principles govern ethical thinking, what is the 'status' of any ethical systen) will tell anyone that there can be a number of basic ethical bases - an external source (not necessarily only the one, which RF seems to think), internal (forms of projection -again there is more than one form), conventional (i.e. a societal agreement - Rouseau springs to mind, but again there can be many) - and probably more possibilties for base.

Where a humanist view fits... well, argue your view!

Thank you.


Well, humanism is based on the idea that the most moral action is that which causes the least suffering. I would argue that this idea is inbuilt and grew out of our need to live as a society.

Its as if RF misunderstands science and evolution to such a degree that he can't see why animals wouldn't be at each others throats constantly.  That without "god given" morality every animal would choose to kill and fight to the death, instead of avoiding conflict.

RF, be honest - have you ever read anything on evolution that hasn't come from the DI or your church?  What about ethics? Is the bloody Bible the only book you refer to?

If you fill your head - if you create the basline - with such blood, hatred and anger, you will see the world in that way.

You have brainwashed yourself into thinking that "but for the grace of god" nothing is possible and it all goes to hell.

Well, God doesn't exist, so look at the world and see what it would look like without a god, and god-given morality.  It would exactly like it is.  If you care to propose another source, you must show how you have become the Great White God hunter and have picked up God's spoor.

OK, so your view is that morality IS from an 'external' source - 'inbuilt' meaning that its in our 'genetic' makeup.  I put quotes round that since obviously some genes may not be 'expressed' or activated.  I suspect there is some latitude here - inbuilt could mean built into our society - the memeplex that mkes our intra-species environment.  i.e. a society or intersubjective defined set of constraints on our behaviour.   Or (soddit) a mixture of the two!

RF misunderstands nothing. This is simply shameless disingenuous apologetics.

No, it's from an internal source. Our genes dictate to a large extent who we are and how we act. We are our genes, if you like.

Without evidence, it seems silly to acept some portion of a historical account and not others.  The author claims it is all true and that the entire nation of Israel were witnesses.  Nobody seems to have disputed it.  It seems incredible but we have nothing to justify accepting some of it but not the whole of it.


Springs in the desert are not imposible, I can make food drop from the sky, and there are forces capable of holding water back.  None of these are LITERALLY impossible.  They are unexplained, but not falsified.


More of your presupposition.  More belief on your part unsupported by evidence.  You hold this as an article of blind faith.

So what you are saying is that if you accept any of it, you must accept all of it?  Since there is no justification for disbelief?

I think he is, but his parsing so much it makes your head spin.

RF knows that if the Exodus, say, didn't happen there would be no evidence. And so, he can always claimed it happened because there is no evidence it DID happen.

Since there is no evidence for RF's claims, he can always claim they happened or exist.

What is odd is that he rejects other historical claims of Alexander the Great, Ceaser, etc.
But especially, he rejects all claims of divine revelation after the prophets died - which include many important people to his Faith - and, he has claimed that he has had a revelation (which I suppose he will recant now).

For example, Joan of Arc was claimed to have had revelations. She was also creditted for swamping a fleet of ships.

RF will claim this is possible? In his Cartoon universe, all is possible.

To RF there is no justification for disbelief - IF HE BELIEVES IT.

True...there are springs in the desert, you can kill and eat birds, and stunamis can happen. But, this doesnt prove there is a god that interacts with us. Most people take it as the hand of god dropped food to the people, the hand of god opened the rocks and out flew water, and the hand of god parted the red sea (which we may have been misinterpreting as the reed sea, a shallow lake close to the red sea which has since disappeared do to the suez canal). To believe this happened, I would then also have to believe in unicorns and the easter bunny. Sorry, just too whimsical for me. applaud to biker dude and daedalus.

There is a paradox here: if it's something reasonable (like a shallow reedy sea) then it ceases to be a miracle. If it is truly miraculous then it must be damn near impossible: in which case it's kind of stupid to believe in it.

Thank you, and an aplaud to you, sir! ;-)

RF, how can you be serious? Oh, wait, again you are disingenuous.

Yes, springs form.  But your Bible says it was not material mechanisms that did it - we all accept that water exists, duh! - your Book says it was God.

Then you say there is no evidence, but that it is Faith, then you say evidence falls on the side of scripture....

Which is it?

No, this is generally the default assumption when an ancient text talks about Gods and miracles and magic powers. Why is it, BTW, that you do not accept Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Hindu etc. myths - only Abrahamic ones.

No, it while it can make sense to accept all if the evidence shows some is true, another rational view is to accept what is supported by evidence and say the rest is undetermined.

I believe I agreed that God is not proven.


Nonsense.  The Biblical narrative does not provide sufficient detail to conclude just how the Red Sea was parted or the springs in the desert appeared or how food fell from the sky.  You are filling in the details with a particular interpretation that helps you rationalize your prejudice in a way that concluding otherwise seems rediculous to you to help convince yourself that your prejudice is justified.