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Christopher Hitchens Dies At 62
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times:
"Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62. He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion. Mr. Hitchens's latest collection of writings, Arguably: Essays, published this year, has been a best-seller and ranked among the top 10 books of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review."
Among Greeks, probably best known for one of his less-blockbuster books, 1997's The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification .
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well he had kids, so not exactly...
Any religion that promotes supernaturalism or offers mythology as a substitute for reality is bad.
That takes almost every religion out of the equation. About the only thing left is a few schools of Zen Buddhism, and most people call that a philosophy, not a religion.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
I remember a reviewer observing that Christopher Hitchens writes books faster than most people read. I suspect that was true.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
You forgot the "god hates fags" part.
I come to slashdot hoping to read some great comments about Hitchens and the first post i see moded up is someone being an religious apologist? Hitchens was much more than his atheism. Much much more. What a disgrace mods.. seriously.
Nonsense. All religions are bad. Even Buddhism has its extremists (Google for examples.)
The problem is that any philosophy that claims to have a God-given truth inevitably turns evil because you can't question God-given truth. When you can't question beliefs, you can't hold believers accountable and corruption sets in.
Hitchens himself criticized Buddhism in "God is not Great". You should read that book.
Surely he only finds out if he was wrong.
In comparison, Theravada Buddhism is almost completely different. It promotes the idea of people thinking themselves and not just accepting what someone else tells them to. It doesn't believe in some imaginary persons or miracles - Buddha has actually lived, and isn't viewed as some kind of more than a human. It also teaches you to respect other people and in karmas law. The whole religion isn't so much an religion but good guidelines for life.
Right. So, not all religions are bad - the ones which aren't really religions can be good.
If it can reasonably be called a religion, it's bad. "Promoting the idea of people thinking themselves" is not religion in any meaningful sense of the term.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I think you've confused "atheism" with "puritanism". Easy mistake to make, I'm sure.
Perhaps that branch of Buddhism sees Buddha as just another dude walking the earth, but Buddhism generally deifies Buddha as a dude who walked the earth and eventually attained the status of a higher being. If you want what Buddhism espouses, but want to eschew all deifying aspects of religion, look in Taoism.
To quote Farscape, specifically Noranti answering the question "Do religions hate each other where you come from?":
"Oh, good heavens no. Religions are grand lofty ideals. Religious followers, now that's another story."
Religion is like just about anything else. It can be used for good (e.g. helping the poor) or for evil (e.g. killing "heathens" who won't convert). In both cases, the credit or blame should go to the person doing the actions, not the religion itself.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You are so right...atheism was such a small part of what he wrote and spoke about. It certainly was the topic that sold tickets and books, but he commented and wrote about nearly every topic related to culture and civilization. Love him or hate him, he was always interesting and thought-provoking.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I don't really understand your comment. Not believing in an afterlife, one should try to enjoy real life. His attitude (whether well-founded or not) was that he did that. I think you've been misguided on the way atheists think.
Not to mention the implication that those who believe in the afterlife would think, "I can shorten my life as much as I want".
--
Person 1: There are bad aspects to X.
Person 2: No! Here is a good aspect to X!
--
Also as he would have wanted: Twitter allegedly removes #GodIsNotGreat from trending topics after the Christian contingent erupts.
Um, GP said Abrahamic religions, none of those are particularly "Abrahamic", unless maybe the FSM ordered an Italian chef to sacrifice his first born meatball.
Monstar L
The whole "be nice to people" is a small part of Christianity. Furthermore, it is not in any way necessary to have Christianity (or any religion at all) to want to "be nice to people". While Christianity might implore you to be nice, it also carries with it severe baggage; homophobia, misogyny, intolerance, and fear. Seriously; if you told your child that you were going to throw her in the furnace for being bad, it would be child abuse; tell your child that God will throw her in a furnace for all eternity and all of a sudden it's OK. Christianity is a festering sore on our moral development, the sooner we can be rid of it, the better. I will close by passing on Hitch's legacy in the form of a question that he was fond of asking believers: Name one good, moral action that could not have been conceived of by a person of no faith. Tough question, right? Ok, here's an easier one: Name me one wicked action that was committed in the name of religion. Chew on that one for a little bit, and the cognitive dissonance might wake you up from your intellectual coma.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Idiocy fell on his watch.
We all know that Hitch
was nobody's bitch,
so let's thank him by raising a scotch.
Skeptical Limericks
Even at that, Zen Buddhism has been used to justify a great deal of nastiness; off the top of my head I can tell you that, despite being nominally Shinto, the army of the Empire of Japan was heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism. The whole kamikaze thing, while nowhere near as widespread as some would have you believe, was nevertheless directly influenced by the teachings of Zen Buddhism.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Christopher Hitchens, you were a gentleman and a scholar. You will be missed dearly.
You were a rare man. Thank you.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling, but I'll assume serious. Are you implying that a theist who believes in an afterlife would be more cavalier with their physical health since they consider life on Earth as merely a speed bump on the trip to eternal salvation? I know that holds true for many evangelicals with regard to our natural resources and the health of the planet (("F**k the earth, god gave it to us to rape and pillage so don't complain to me about my Hummer!"), but most religious people I know are generally not smokers and drinkers.
Why would an atheist avoid physical (guilty) pleasures like drinking or smoking? Would a longer, more boring life be preferable to a shorter, exciting, experience-filled existence? I would say the more surprising thing about the fact that he drank and smoked is that he is knowledgeable about the scientific body of evidence related to the detrimental health effects. He made an informed decision to spend what he knew was a finite existence doing things that gave him pleasure rather than squandering that time twiddling his thumbs.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Slashdot has always taken at least a partial interest in the wider world, with many articles on the technological or social angles of events. Hitchens often spoke about such events, and you might regard the linking as abstract or tenuous, but others will not. Technology is often cited as being part of a wider movement that unleashes forces for good, and unbinds people from tryannical and oppressed lives. Hitchens nominally shared *and* very publicly worked for the same thing.
Its only right such a man is noted. The fact it made slashdot is all the better.
We`re all equal
Basically all the Republicans except for Ron Paul last night in the debate were frothing at the mouth and chomping at the bit to bomb some Muslims.
Because over 1 billion people are our enemy and we are going to go to Holy War with them because the Dominionsts like Bachmann, Perry, et alia, believe it's necessary.
Or some such nonsense.
Goddamn, these people are fucking dangerous.
--
BMO "I believe in peace, bitch" - Tori Amos
Whether or not you agree with his stance on the Iraq War, it is a grotesque oversimplification to say that he was a shameless shill. His views on the war were extremely well reasoned and definitely worth listening to; differentiating him from the brainless talking heads on Fox News. While I never happened to agree with his stance on the war, I always found his thoughts on it to be extremely informative, thought-provoking, and challenging. This man was there, he saw what was really happening. He went out of his way to seek out and confront totalitarianism throughout his career. For you to sit back from the comfort of your parent's basement and say that he can rot in Hell for expressing an opinion that is different from yours is disgusting and shameful. Fuck you, and fuck the people who modded you up.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
people mention bombing abortion clinics, beating up gays, sorry how many times does that happen out of 2 billion Christians, maybe it more of a problem with American's then Christian's, as that type of behaviour does tend to be US centric.
The majority of Christian's i have met are actually nice people, they help the homeless, they do a lot of chariabtle work, of course there are a lot of people who proclaimed to be religious and aren't nice, but that's like saying you met an arsehole who work for starbucks, so by definition all Starbucks employees are arsehole's.
On slashdot you expect a higher level of discussion, but it's quiet funny how when you mention religion it descends into bigotry and prejudice. Again im not religious but i have no major problem with Christianity, it basic doctrines are right, i.e be nice to people, dont murder people.
People seem to forget the abolition of slavery, the fall of Communism, many of the social right's w have today where from Christian organization's in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Good thing there is no such thing as hell, eh?
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Hitchen's criticisms of all religions primarily boils down to their impacts as a whole to large portions of society, and how the larger defined body of Buddhism in the world is just as bad as Christianity. There are so called Buddhist sects are just as intolerant and violent as Christian ones, and ask their followers to cast off thought and reason and simply listen to their teachings. It's this abandoning of reason that's the problem with religion, and while one might define that for an individual person religion was good... for example, Jesus was a good guy who did good things and was better for his beliefs... but for society as a whole, religion has had negative impacts and is used for evil and hypocritical purposes. The Abrahamic religions do this far more efficiently than Hinduism and Buddhism but the latter are not, as a whole, innocent religions.
And that's not to mention the supernatural. Emphasizing the supernatural over reason is immediately a problem because it leads to be people not questioning the supernatural and simply accepting it.
I could find you a sect of Christianity that is equivalent to Theravada Buddhism, but there is a fine line between philosophy and religion. There's also a fine line between humanism and a well thought out philosophy that emphasizes reason. Where you want to draw the line is another debate entirely, but using Theravada Buddhism as a way to counter Hitchen's argument about religion is equivalent to using an anecdote to counteract statistical evidence. Invariable, as religions grow and spread they are twisted and used for evil and force people to abandon reason. Some smaller religions and philosophies emphasize reason, but the moment you put reason below anything else, you open up people to the principle that at some point, they are allowed to stop thinking for themselves.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Yes but it is the wrong question. This question is asking if religious persons are morally superior to non-religious persons. I have often heard that claim but I don't believe it is true, nor it is relevant to me. The relevant question in my view is, "Name one good, moral action you took that was motivated by religious belief, that you would not otherwise have done." In other words, ask not whether religion makes "people" more ethical, ask whether religion makes me more ethical. And BTW that is very easy to answer.
And name one wicked action committed in opposition to religion. Also easy.
I hope there is more to Hitchens' book than that. Very likely. Frankly as a religious person myself I am interested in reading it. I believe it was Aristotle who said the unexamined life is not worth living. Answering questions like these is in my opinion good for anyone's moral development, whether they prefer a religious or humanist approach.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The whole "be nice to people" is a small part of Christianity.
It is in no way a small part of Christianity. See Matthew 22:36-40: 36 âoeTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?â 37 Jesus replied: âoeâLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.â(TM)[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: âLove your neighbor as yourself.â(TM)[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.â
While Christianity might implore you to be nice, it also carries with it severe baggage; homophobia, misogyny, intolerance, and fear. Seriously; if you told your child that you were going to throw her in the furnace for being bad, it would be child abuse; tell your child that God will throw her in a furnace for all eternity and all of a sudden it's OK.
You don't get "thrown in the furnace" for being bad. Salvation is based upon having faith in Christ's death & resurrection as atonement for your own sins. God gives you the choice to reject him. The consequence of that choice is eternity without God.
Christianity is a festering sore on our moral development, the sooner we can be rid of it, the better. I will close by passing on Hitch's legacy in the form of a question that he was fond of asking believers: Name one good, moral action that could not have been conceived of by a person of no faith. Tough question, right? Ok, here's an easier one: Name me one wicked action that was committed in the name of religion. Chew on that one for a little bit, and the cognitive dissonance might wake you up from your intellectual coma.
His first question is an absurd one because there's no such thing as objective moral truth in an atheistic context. Hitchens's idea of morality basically boils down to stuff he likes and stuff he doesn't like. How's that for cognitive dissonance?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I'm not condemning Hitchens for having an opinion that's different than mine. I'm condemning Hitchens for promoting a war that's left at least a hundred thousand civilians dead.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I know you are a troll, but I see this idiotic point made often enough, and I feel that there are enough non-trolls on /. who hold similar views that I would like to address it. While I am sure there exist atheists who want to attack religious freedom, 99.999% of what religious nut-jobs call attacks on religious freedoms are really just a defense of secularism, which is the source of ALL religious freedom.
It is NOT infringing on your religious freedom to abolish a National Day of Prayer, it is simply re-establishing a secular government, which is the only type of government that can truly defend religious freedom. The same goes for getting organized prayer out of school or trying to get "Under God" out of the pledge.
The point it, nobody has the "freedom" to subject others to their point of view. You would not like it if we did it to you, and thankfully, we are not. We are not trying to get the schools to teach that there is no God. We aren't trying to get "Under God" replaced with "Under No God". We simply want the establishment to stop infringing on OUR religious freedom, or more specifically, our freedom to choose not to have a religion.
Is that really so much to ask? I mean, sure, I know that there will be a whole lot more atheists if we take religion out of the public sphere a bit, but what does that say about your cause? People stop believing it if it's not shoved down their throats 24/7? This is a tired, destructive meme that needs to be taken out back, shot, burned, and turned into fertilizer.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Evil? What do you mean by that?
Evil implies harming, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient or if it can be set up. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some malevolent deity or master.
I think someone needs to re-read Leviticus. Yahweh most certainly hates homosexuals.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I could say the same thing about atheists. Frankly if someone is trying to be a decent person I think they deserve congratulations and encouragement regardless of whether that effort is motivated by religious or humanist beliefs.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
This was the passing of a brilliant man, but why is it an article on slashdot? I am unaware of anything Christopher Hitchens wrote that was directly related to any of the subjects that slashdot usually covers.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Espousing the value of holding up scientifically verifiable data over ancient superstitions is something of interest to many geeks/nerds.
Sure Hitchens made a name for himself for his efforts against religion. But those pale in comparison to his greater achievement: helping to bring the world the Iraq war.
I will always remember the steadfastly careerist way Hitchens reached across the political divide to join hands with the neocons in the Bush administration to boldly hype up false intelligence to make the war in Iraq a reality. Thanks to Hitchens the Iraqi people no longer live in fear of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now they live in fear of torture and death at the hands of Iraqi government and/or various politico-religious militias. Always better when a government monopoly is replaced by a competitive market, eh?
The war also removed the burden of a functioning electrical grid or sanitation systems – facilities that would be superfluous for the 6% of the population, or 2 million Iraqis, who have been internally displaced by the war.
None of this would have been possible without the efforts of pro-war propagandists like Christopher Hitchens. I hope for his sake, that he's right and there is no god.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but come on. There obviously have existed atheists who wanted to attack religious freedoms. Consider what the Maoist regime did to the Buddhists in Tibet.
I completely agree, though, that the current political climate of America is swayed very far in favor of the Christians, who simultaneously view themselves as under attack. Which, to me, is less hypocrisy and more a very controlled manipulation campaign that started when the Evangelicals teamed up with the Republicans and will probably end in one of two ways: Either some 1984-esque dystopic future where the "chosen" await rapture and the rest toil, or nuclear winter.
Okay, I need to go take my meds now. Imagination... too... powerful.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Are you fucking kidding me? You don't think that we have any innate sense of right and wrong? You don't think that we have any sense of solidarity with one another? Are you really willing to debase yourself that thoroughly? The fact that we don't have perfect, clean cut, black and white answers to every moral question is no proof against this; that is simply NOT how reality works! You have provided a perfect example of the destructive effect that religion has on our collective consciousness; this sort of binary, black and white, good and evil thinking is what causes the religious to make such bad decisions that are antithetical to reality. In real life, the vast majority of moral decisions are gray and murky, mired in context and implications. I think we can, however, all agree that when religion is given the only say, that the results are uniformly horrifying.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I think it is nice that you brought up Dominionism*. Is is a movement that Christians as a whole are either willfully ignorant of or manipulated to the point that they are forced to agree, with the stakes being their own souls. Not looking this movement in the eye is modern American Christendom's single greatest failure; they allowed fascists to sneak in and pervert their highest ideals.
*For those not familiar with it, Dominionism, it is derived from a passage in Genesis: "and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
There is even a Dominion Church that actively advocates, very literally, world domination. Yes, the Evil Genius world domination. Many of these churches require that you walk through their book store before entering and exiting the sanctuary (at least in the two I have been in), making it the "Cracker Barrel Restaurant and Old Country Store" of Christendom. They even ask business owners to join their Dominion Business Network. In a couple US cities you'll find yourself driving past a Dominion Carwash, Dominion Title Loan and Dominion Fried Chicken, all business network members who are obligated to send non-taxable donations for inclusion in the Business Network Directory (I'd love to know if it also covers any licensing fees for use of the Dominion name).
What do you mean, "you can't question God-given truth", specifically?
I mean this, specifically: Extremists who believe they have God-given truth will take all kinds of nasty actions up to and including genocide to silence those who question them or disagree with them. I also mean this: Any religion which claims to have some sort of God-given truth will inevitably spawn extemists. That's simply a fact of human nature.
So although you might argue that religion itself is not the problem (extremists are), I disagree. Religion itself is like a loaded handgun left lying around. It's a danger in and of itself because it will inevitably be used for evil.
Right.... except that it isn't hard at all to find that different people have interpreted it differently. A quick google search will bring up some interesting articles on the topic. Interesting if you find biblical interpretation debate interesting. I usually attribute my interest to the sort of bemused fascination that comes from having been an atheist who went to catholic schools...
The main quote on the topic is:
Some bibles have reinterpreted this to "Homosexuality is a sin", which would include lesbian acts, etc. Clearly thats a debatable stretch, but, before even debating that part, arguments about the context of the statement lead to different conclusions:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibh4.htm
Under that interpretation, its kind of hard to use that as a condemnation of all gay sex.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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He specifically said he would have no last minute conversion, so no he did not wager ... ..the religious nuts will claim he did anyway ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
If you even bothered to read the summary, the answer was "no." And your hope isn't for his sake: it's really for yours -- the fact that somebody else believes in your fantasy serves only to bolster your belief.
Additionally, have a look at this.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
No, I'm saying that I been both an atheist and a Christian and I think the Christian me is a more generous and courageous person. Not that the atheist me was especially bad.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
...it seems the tone of religious arguments on Slashdot shifts dramatically as the US wakes up.
Really, the vast majority of fervent Christians start popping out of the woodwork here as morning rolls around in the Land of the Free.
He isn't a troll, he's sarcastic. Most Christians aren't into "bombing abortion clinics, beating up gays, starting holy wars, etc" just like most atheists aren't into attacking religious feelings. Yet for some reason, this sane point is currently modded up then down to 0 again, and the guy who in actual fact states that most Christians are "bombing abortion clinics, beating up gays, starting holy wars, etc" is +2.
So yeah, there are a few idiot atheists out there. Luckily, they're confined to moderating Slashdot and only leave their basements to pay the pizza delivery boy.
I second that. Unfortunately, the "religious nut-jobs", although a minority, are quite loud and are the voices that others hear the most. This leads to the confusion between what the nutters are saying and what Christianity is really about. Most of the objections I see raised by atheists are about the way Christians behave (or a perception of how they should behave), and don't often delve into the real core beliefs. That's unfortunate because some very interesting conversations do not occur because of the superficiality of the arguments (from both sides).
I don't have a dog in this fight, but come on. There obviously have existed atheists who wanted to attack religious freedoms. Consider what the Maoist regime did to the Buddhists in Tibet.
It was not about the Buddhists, but about Tibet.
"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
~Douglas Adams
It's not your metaphysics, it's that you're an asshole. The difference should be clear.
We lost the Soviet Union as our boogy-man so we need a new enemy to distract ourselves. The alternative is having to turn inward and we might not like what we see.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The distinction between the sinner (who God loves) and the sin (that is unacceptable to God) is made quite clear in the New Testament. The Bible does not say that God hates homosexuals. The Bible states that homosexual behavior is sin, along with sex before marriage, failure to respect your parents, and witchcraft, among other things. God hates sin because it separates him from his creation, which he loves.
It should be pointed out that CHRISTian means a follower of Christ, not an adherent to the old Jewish law.
I'm agnostic, but I grew up Evangelical Christian and I went through two years of bible college classes while in high school.
I'm pretty familiar with the Bible and its teachings, and I can categorically say that anyone who claims that God hates any particular category of sinner is not following the teachings of Christ, and therefore is not a Christian.
That said, bastardized christianity HAS been the rationalization for a horrifying litany of evil.
I would argue that this is more because of its ready availability as an excuse that everyone would accept than its inherent aptitude.
Any system of belief can and will be perverted by those seeking personal power.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
I think we can, however, all agree that when religion is given the only say, that the results are uniformly horrifying.
Did you want a particular response to this direct and obvious lie, by the way?
Show me something comparable to Stalin and Mao, at a combined death toll of between 50 million and 100 million of their own citizens, atheist and theist alike. You have essentially two centuries to draw data points from (outside of the bloodbath of pre-religion evolution)--by comparison to religions' "liability" across all recorded history, your results aren't even close.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
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I can't speak for God, but I appreciate people going out on a limb to make the world a better place.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
This question is asking if religious persons are morally superior to non-religious persons. I have often heard that claim but I don't believe it is true
There is a strong argument to the opposite -- a person that performs moral acts out of fear of personal punishment (hell) or expecting a personal reward (heaven) is morally inferior.
All I can do is thank him for his insightful, clever work. He and the rest of the “horsemen” have opened the floodgates of new ideas to a continent thirsty for a voice of reason and honesty. His brilliance and eloquence has brought many of us closet atheists into the open, willing to challenge the ignorance of tribal dogma rampant in this Country. It would have been an incredible evening to spend a couple hours with him chatting over a scotch.
Until he got cancer. Sorry anyone gets cancer, but I wonder if he "found god" before he passed away. For his sake, I hope he made peace with god.
Why would he "make peace" with something he didn't believe in? On top of that, which god do you mean?
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The Atheist? We are all a single being now?
I would say the atheist thinks that this idea of a powerful god creature creating the world is highly unlikely, based on his perceived utter lack of evidence. (I say percieved because, even though I am an atheist, I know other people who, while living in this same objective reality, perceive such evidence... incorrect as they may be :) )
Beyond that, how one approaches life is up to them. Being an atheist neither makes one happy or sad, confident or confident, depressed or maniacal. We are just as much products of our environment, physiology and experiences as anyone else. No atheist has suddenly sprouted pointy ears and lost all emotion but for a period 7 year blood lust.
It really depends what conclusions one comes to about the world and their place in it, and has very little to do with religion.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Name me one wicked action that was committed in the name of religion.
I can't name one wicked action but I can name several.
How about The Crusades (1095-1291) which were primarily against the Muslims but also triggered increased persecution of Jews.
How about:
the Medieval Inquisition (1231-16th century)
the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834)
the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821)
the Roman Inquisition (1542-c. 1860)
How about the numerous witch trials from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
Yeah, nothing wicked there.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Yes. This is human nature. This is why when religion can have its go we are all subject to the innate moral sense of the clerics. This is why in Afghanistan girls have acid thrown in their faces for trying to get an education, and why witches were burned in the Middle Ages. This is why we all need to try to work together and try to balance all of our moral senses against one another, and find the best possible middle ground. It adds nothing to the situation to make a man-made work of fiction the ultimate moral arbiter for all of these matters. Nothing will change the fact that we are primates; we are not capable of perfectly logical or rational thought. We can, however, move forward by recognizing this and moving forward, rather than imposing a silly, barbaric code of conduct that was written by bronze-age goatherders.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Pascals wager has a fallacy so huge I'm surprised you haven't tripped and fallen into it.
He misses the obvious -
What if the real god is Allah, Shiva, Zeus or Odin?
What if the real god is judging us on how rationally we behave in a godless, toy universe he created?
What if the real god hates worship and wants to be left alone?
What if...?
What if...?
Pascal presents the options that Christianity is right, or atheism is right. He misses an infinity of other possibilities, all as likely as christianity (i.e. unevidenced).
On top of which he also discards any idea that living under delusion in a godless universe may have downsides.
Pascal's wager is, to use the modern vernacular, a crock of shit.
This leads to the confusion between what the nutters are saying and what Christianity is really about.
So tell me, is the following represent what the "nutters" say or is it what Christianity is really about?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why don't they just ask God to clarify?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What a washy interpretation . Clearly the liberal interpretation their because some people can't realize their isn't a god, even when he specifically doesn't like you.
To interpret by today's standard is absurd. You MUST interpret it in the context in which is was said.
their god doesn't like gay sex. The ONLY point of interpretation right now is does it include gay men who do not have sex.
That quote also applies to MEN. not women. Cause, who doesn't like watching hot chicks go at it?
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Except Pascal's wager was based on a rather Eurocentric premise: That there could be belief in Christianity, or Atheism. He didn't account for multiple religions, each claiming that their own was the true path to salvation at the exclusion of all others. Messes up the calculations quite a bit.
Instead of
Belief = Salvation OR Nothing
Non-belief = Nothing OR Damnation
with "belief" being the logical choice (the worst that will happen is that when you die there will be no afterlife, and the best that can happen is salvation).
Instead you really have
Belief1 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
Belief2 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
.
.
.
Belief^n = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
Non-Belief = Nothing or Damnation.
No particularly good reason to pick one religion over another, and for very large values of N, pretty much any choice you make is most likely to lead to Damnation, as only one value of Belief can lead to Salvation.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
They were, if you start by assuming the Bible is at least somewhat accurate.
For instance, the next generation of priests after Leviticus theoretically took place basically passed word around that God wanted the Israelites to completely slaughter the various peoples they encountered in Canaan, including the children, just because they weren't Israelites.
Paul also was bigoted against all sorts of people.
That's not to say that either group was unusual in their bigotry at the time they lived.
I am officially gone from
Perhaps "Christianity" above should read "Abrahamism" to reflect the fact that Pascal would have been familiar with Judaism and probably Islam as well.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Why would they be included? There's no dogma in atheism.
Dogma is the main problem: If religion holds that something is the absolute truth, any attempt of questioning it inevitably clashes with religious authority, and does so in a way that rational discourse is impossible. This both greatly retards moral progress, and gives people a way to justify evil actions by clinging to scripture.
The only way that moral progress happens in religious societies is by slowly and painfully inventing ways to work around scripture while still keeping it, by for instance coming up with some convoluted explanation of why a passage formerly thought to be completely serious is actually not for real, because it's an obsolete rule made for an old brutal society, or means something entirely different if you squint just right at it. But those things never disappear entirely, and always remain in existence for people to cling to when it validates their position on some issue.
Christian doctrines differ but I belong to a major denomination of Christianity that believes Leviticus is obsolete. So yes Leviticus is in the Bible but it is not harmonious with all Christian doctine.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
And Hitler was a Catholic -- so what? Stalin and Mao are another thing entirely. While both were explicitly atheistic, they were both completely hostile to all notions of free-thought. While they both banned any other form of religion, it could be said that they in turn made themselves into gods. Free-thought is the key. While ridding ourselves of the shackles of religion is not sufficient to establishing a free thinking world, it is a necessary step.
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There's even a book, Zen at War by Brian Daizen Victoria specifically focused on how Zen influenced Japanese ideology for WWII.
I am officially gone from
OK let's do this more scientifically then. Do a statistically survey in terms of "net benefit to society". Define "benefit to society" and the "minuses" how you like so we can figure out what and how you're measuring. Whether it's helping the poor, feeding the starving, building/running hospitals and schools or killing people, DUI, etc.
Then take a random sampling of a large number of atheists, christians, muslims, buddhists, etc. See how many are doing the "good stuff" vs the how many doing the "bad stuff" vs how many not doing anything, per capita and net total[1].
Then figure out which belief system is best for society, by your standards.
[1] Net total is also important because if a belief system is not fit and doesn't reproduce itself well, then it's not going to do very much good (or bad), so even if it is a greater net positive per capita, it's not going to benefit society as much as a belief system with much higher reproductive fitness, even if it is a smaller net positive per capita.
Lastly, any claims that atheists are less prone to irrational or delusional thinking and that's why Atheism is so great need to be backed up.
1) Rational thinking is overrated in terms of evolutionary fitness
2) There are plenty of irrational/delusional atheists. For example, Dawkins himself is being delusional when he claims "for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind". From what I see it's unlikely that atheists "nearly always" never get mental illnesses, dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinsons... So does Dawkin's mean that atheists will stop being atheists once they get stuff like age-onset dementia? Live long enough and there's a 1/7 chance you'd get dementia, even if you're an atheist. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071030112105.htm
Except that's not really how it works, because there is not a choice of religion on the one hand and not-religion on the other hand. Instead, there is a choice of either no religion or one from a large number of other religions. Or, as another wise man once said: there are no religious people, just two kinds of atheist. Some disbelieve all religions, some disbelieve all except one.
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Hehe, while I agree with the sentiment, there are those that believe in them all.....
Some weird offshoots of paganism/wicca mostly, some believing in all gods as aspects of each other, some believing (in quite a pratchettesque way) that belief itself forms reality and has power.
Not that I buy into any of that nonsense of course, and you could argue that they break the exclusivity clauses of the major monotheisms and so don't follow them, and... well you get the idea anyway.
Have to agree with geekoid on this. Bending the facts to fit your belief is never the right thing to do. It is simply the wrong answer to "If fact and faith disagree, which should change?".
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
No. "Homosexuality" is condemned nowhere. "Homosexual promiscuity" is. The notion that orientation by definition means one simply needs to fuck whatever it is, is entirely your pet notion.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Did he make a last minute bet?
Why would anyone expect a last-minute conversion?
Apparently people don't believe us when we say we don't believe their fantasies; we're just saying we don't so we won't have to behave.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So although you might argue that religion itself is not the problem (extremists are), I disagree. Religion itself is like a loaded handgun left lying around. It's a danger in and of itself because it will inevitably be used for evil.
i) You're foolish to disagree.
ii) Nutjobs can use anything to further their aims.
iii) A loaded handgun left lying around is just a loaded handgun left lying around. It's no more deadly than a book until its trigger is pulled, and that takes a someone to pull it.
I'm an atheist, but I don't ascribe inherent malevolence to inanimate objects (including religion), regardless of how little I appreciate them. "An idea is not responsible for those who hold it."
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
And Christ specifically said to follow the old ways.
"God hates any particular category of sinner .."
except money lenders..and Pharaohs.. and first born children.
When you have a group belief, those people become easy to manipulate to do things against other people, and the feel it's ok. Cause 'god' is a higher power then law.
" Evangelical Christian and I went through two years of bible college classes while in high school."
actually, that makes you LESS likely to be a rational source.
Try studying the bible as it was put together. The questionable letters that were chosen, The debates about what to include, what to remove. Did they teach you that the letters the used to put together the new testament where from people who weren't alive when Christ** was? Did they teach you the some stories had Jesus added to them? and that it's very likely that the letters weren't about the same person? That the manger story isn't correct? did they teach you that the trip Mary and Joseph* took wasn't possible to do? No, I thought not.
** Assuming the was a Christ.
*Interesting names for someone from the mid east.
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Nutters.
;)
God is not a man and he doesn't live in the sky.
He sees everything that's going on, but not in the sense of the quote. Santa Claus does that
There are many things he doesn't want you to do, but they are summed up in the idea of loving God and loving others as you love yourself. If you do that, your focus is on doing the right things not on just following rules.
God does not send people to hell. People decide to go there themselves. Hell is the absence of God, much like darkness is the absence of light. Furthermore, God is more concerned about the hell we bring to the lives of the people around us and about those who stand around and let it happen.
God does love you.
Churches need money. God doesn't. Any group, institution or government under the control of man will become corrupted, even with the best of intentions, and this includes the church.
Oh... so God sends the sin to hell?
As to whether a christian should follow the laws of the old testament.. well, you just couldn't be more wrong. The roman form of christianity that you leaned doesn't follow them because the romans weren't jews. The bible however, even in its roman form, is very clear on the old laws. (as clear as the bible gets at least)
http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
Lastly, I cannot think of a nice way of saying this but every form of christianity is a bastardized form. Certainly, some are more and some are less so but that changes little.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
Religious faith isn't what causes the bad effects of religion. Misguided belief in failed ideologies does that.
The only way to avoid the bad effects of religion is to avoid misguided belief. The only way to avoid misguided belief is to support your beliefs with evidence. This is inconsistent with faith, which is belief without evidence.
It's not "religious faith" that's bad, it's just faith that's bad.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Was the choice to ignore leviticus a conscious decision or was it divinely inspired?
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He did, they call it Islam.
Then apparently he clarified even more, and they call that Mormonism.
It's a pity that God's definition of "clarity" seems to be the exact opposite of ours.
So let me get this straight: God hates witchcraft. Does that, therefore, imply that witchcraft exists? That one can curse the cows of their neighbors by performing certain rituals?
Or does witchcraft not exist? If that's the case, then what does God hate in that context?
Bending the facts to fit your belief is never the right thing to do. It is simply the wrong answer to "If fact and faith disagree, which should change?".
Seriously? Religions are created by people to express their needs and beliefs; and to build monuments to their superiority. Facts are but a minor nuisance in the face of a robust Proof By Assertion.
Hitchens: God does not exist!
God: Hitchens does not exist!
What a smarmy, self-righteous, nasty thing to say. I know you may even think that you are being nice, but you are really only being astonishingly disrespectful.
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Most high-profile people who are harshly critical of religion tend to avoid or soften criticism of Islam. It's easy to slam Christians and get away with it, but the Muslims can and do kill those who offend them. As we've seen, they'll call for murder and violently riot just over a drawing. Most atheists aren't willing to back up their position with their lives.
Hitchens, however, did not discriminate. He pulled no punches when it came to Islam.
Not only that, if you follow Pascal's wager through to its logical conclusion, it leads to horrific actions.
Consider: it is of infinite benefit to die and go to heaven. Children who die with faith are guaranteed to go to heaven. Children who do not die have a non-zero chance of growing up and becoming godless atheists, which means that they will not go to heaven - which is, relatively, of zero benefit.
This means that allowing a faithful child to grow to maturity and, potentially, lose their faith is one of the worst things you could do; it is far better to kill them right now, in order to ensure their entry into heaven.
Therefore, if you accept Pascal's wager, you ought to kill your children right now; otherwise they might grow up and become atheists. Not only that, you ought to kill all the faithful children you can find, for exactly the same reason.
Of course, you won't be going to heaven yourself if you do this; but that's a small price to pay, if you save all those children at the same time.
A religion IS the product of it's believers. And most religions state not to follow other religion but their one true religion; which is hatred of other religions.
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You'd think the almighty creator of the heavens and the earth and everything that resides therein would be able to, y'know, get his book of rules right first time round. Wouldn't you?
C-x C-s C-x k
If you need fairy tales to make you a better person then you're certainly not courageous. I'd call that cowardice of the highest order.
The Bible states that homosexual behavior is sin, along with sex before marriage, failure to respect your parents, and witchcraft, among other things.
You're right about Christianity (in general) teaching that "God hates the sin, not the sinner." But an additional problem, I think, is that people are too credulous about what's in the Bible. As others here have pointed out, the Bible doesn't actually condemn homosexual behavior. Rather, it states that male homosexuality is an "abomination", similar to the way that weaving fabric out of two different fibers is an "abomination." It doesn't say anything about female homosexuality. It doesn't ban gay marriage. It does say "a man will leave his family, take a wife, and they will become one flesh," which is I suppose the "biblical" definition of marriage, though it seems to leave out polygamy, concubinage, harems, and forced marriage of raped women, all of which also happen in the Bible.
Similarly, as far as I remember, the Bible doesn't explicitly say pre-marital sex is a sin. It says a lot about how "sexual immorality" is bad (a bit tautological), and it says it's better to get married than to "burn in passion", but for a book that's full of explicit prohibitions ("thou shalt not do X"), it's surprising not to see "thou shalt not lie with a woman before thou getteth thyself married to her."
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
atheism is not a religion. It' is a word to describe someone who doesn't have a belief in a deity.
Stop trying to lower everyone to your level of thinking by intention misleading people.
To not believe in something that has no proof is not a belief.
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So what you are saying is that God needed to add Automatic Updates into religion?
Actually, I would prefer a changelog.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
This is what I love about religious debates: No one can prove their position, so it all boils down to faith. Yes, even atheists profess a faith that there is no Supreme Being.
no, that's not true. we have to explain this to you again.
there is no notion or need of 'faith' to NOT engage in a practice. right now, I'm NOT swimming (for example). am I of a group called non-swimmers? I also don't believe in unicorns. I'm of the non-unicornists (local 707, in fact). uhuh.
to not believe in jesus, to not believe in odin, to not believe in zoroaster, why do you still want to group together people who do NOT engage in practices such as these?
its not 'faith' to not_believe. its an absense of a thing.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Another thing that is made clear in the New Testament is that the Mosaic law does not apply to Christians (well, non-Jewish Christians, more precisely). The main issue then was circumcision, but most everything else was ruled out as well.
This biblical passage is a stub. You can help Christianity by expanding it.
None of which were consistent with the actual content of Christianity.
No true scotsman?
Oh, and by the way, via Google, I couldn't find any reference to the line "hate the sin, love the sinner" as actually being anywhere in the Bible, Old or New Testament.
Yeah... I don't think you'll find that. God loving righteous people and hating sinners is a major theme of the Bible. He just, uh, comes out and says it multiple times.
Psalms 11:5 - The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth
But Christians, as they exist today in the States, typically don't give two craps for the Bible. There's about 20 verses of generic Oprah-isms that they hold dear, and the rest is a pick-and-choose buffet.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Lev 8:22)
Seems to me like it allows you to lay down with mankind, but in a different way than with womankind. Maybe it's a tip about sexual positions. Maybe it's a warning that you should save either anal or oral just for your guy pals, so they can feel special. Maybe it's just a warning that you shouldn't drill a hole in a guy's perineum in order to emulate vaginal sex, because it was a bit too fatal.
That's always going to be true. Why? Because in becoming religious, you adopted religious morality and changed your behavior to fit it better.
So if you became a Christian, in doing that you made your behavior more Christian-like, which from the Christian perspective made you a better person. I don't really see how it could be otherwise. It would be really hard to become Christian without changing your behavior in that direction, or especially in the opposite one.
It doesn't particularly matter which religion you go with. In any case you'll adopt that religion's morality and shift your conduct, and then by simply seeing how your behavior is now closer to the new standard, you can honestly claim you're now a better person according to the new standard. It doesn't really matter what the standard is.
Person 1: There are bad aspects to X. Person 2: No! Here is a good aspect to X!
That's really a caricature of the argument. The hard-care atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins aren't arguing that religion has bad aspects to it, they're arguing that religion has no good aspects to it, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I mean, Hitchens did not title his book, "Is God Great? Maybe We Should Think Carefully About This Religion Thing", he titled the book "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" so its pretty clear where he's coming from.
What I find rather striking is not the thesis, but rather, the unwavering commitment to the idea. Hitchens had, like his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins, a deeply held belief that religion was fundamentally bad, and was unwilling to question this belief. His atheism was unshakable, and he was unable to listen with an open mind to any evidence or argument that contradicted that belief, to concede that perhaps once in a while, people found solace or guidance in religion, or that faith or the guiding principles of the Judeo-Christian religions had in some way contributed to our civilization. He argued with the ferocity of the True Believer who tolerated no dissent. In other words, he was guilty of precisely the narrow-minded, dogmatic, zealous, self-righteous thinking that he condemned religious people for. He didn't just disbelieve in God, he disbelieved in God with a righteous passion, and then went to the masses to spread the word and convert other people to his way of thinking. He was a fundamentalist atheist. He was an evangelical disbeliever. In other words, he was a hypocrite. I'm an atheist, and I think Hitchens was a disgrace to atheism. It's possible to be an atheist but to be open minded and to respect other people, Hitchens did neither.
Sorry, but you are wrong about this.
Col 2:12-16, Heb 8:13, Heb 10:8-9 (and others) refer to obsoleting or replacing the old covenant with the new. Col 2:16 in particular refers to some elements of the old law and says to allow no-one to judge you re: those specifics. The reason a Christian should obey 9 of the 10 commands given in Ex:20 is not that they are in Ex:20, but that they are repeated in the new. Keeping the Sabbath is not, and is specifically excluded in Col 2:16.
You also missed Deut 18, with respect to stoning disobedient children, reading the whole passage, this is not a child who was disobedient, but disobedient and unwilling to accept correction (discipline), i.e., a rebellious child. There are also old testament passages re: killing a child that strikes his parents or reviles (curses) them.
"The question is meaningless until you have a definition of "good" and "moral"." its only meaningless to the religious as they have to follow a script. If you can't work out what's good or bad all by yourself then i guess that person has a problem.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
This concept of separating sin from sinner - act from actor - is incoherent nonsense.
Nonsense. It's a valuable and necessary lesson one needs to learn. An act does not exist apart from an actor, but an actor is not defined by an act. I hate socialism, but many socialists are well-meaning and caring people who simply don't truly understand the consequences of what they're advocating.
Too many people even here on slashdot project all their emotional feelings about a specific act or position onto a person. That's shallow and immature. It's what leads to somebody who posts "Microsoft builds a pretty good IDE" getting a collection of vulgar insults in response.
"I promise you an eternal paradise! All you have to do is..."
Hitchens saw that more clearly than most. And why folks who believe in invisible men in the sky are on Slashdot is beyond me. Don't knuckle under to your lizard-brain fear of mortality and blindly march under someone's bullshit banner on a promise more empty than a scratched off lottery ticket.
Here's the relevant passage, while it isn't as specific with regards to women as to men, it's not an unreasonable interpretation to assume that lesbian behavior is included in the description in my opinion. YMMV however.
Romans 1:26-27 (New King James Version)
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
this reminds me of a debate I had with a Jehovah's Witness (normally I wouldn't, but she was cute, and I needed some eye candy at that time in my life). She was definitely set in her ways and me mine...
me: so how do you justify Dinosaurs? :I don't see how the age of the earth and belief in God have anything to do with one another, but ok...
her: the Devil put them there to deceive us on how old the world is
me: why would Satan do that? Seems like a total waste of time
her: to sway your belief
me
her: see? It has already swayed your belief
me: no it hasn't - I don't believe the world was made in 7 days either, but to me that is figurative
her: no, it's real
me: (shaking my head and looking up a verse in her Bible) hey - there's missing verse here, and this is strangely interpreted
her: there is nothing missing or incorrect in our Bible
me: so you're saying your mistranslation of a translation of a translation of a Bible doesn't have any mistakes?
her: it's not a mistranslation, God made sure our translation was perfect
me: so what is my Bible then?
her: a mistake.
Try studying the bible as it was put together. The questionable letters that were chosen, The debates about what to include, what to remove. Did they teach you that the letters the used to put together the new testament where from people who weren't alive when Christ** was? Did they teach you the some stories had Jesus added to them? and that it's very likely that the letters weren't about the same person? That the manger story isn't correct? did they teach you that the trip Mary and Joseph* took wasn't possible to do? No, I thought not.
What are you under the impression is studied in bible college classes? You're getting them confused with a bible study perhaps.
The entire validity of the Bible as a religious text rests on the assumption that it is, in its entirety "God breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16)
This assumption requires the stipulation that supernatural forces controlled the evolution of the text in its entirety.
When it comes right down to it, the entire story is worthless unless Jesus was literally the Son of God who was conceived in a virgin through supernatural intervention. (Zeus never managed that now, did he?) If he was NOT the Son of God then his death was meaningless and none of the rest of the pile of cards holds any meaning at all.
In the face of those required bottom level assumptions, your petty concerns about the validity of some of the epistles are meaningless. Either God impregnated a virgin, in which case something like making sure the story was preserved correctly over the next couple thousand years would be pretty fucking easy, or he didn't in which case there's no merit in any of it whatsoever.
that makes you LESS likely to be a rational source.
I'm pretty sure a thorough understanding of the subject, along with a degree in Sociology (the science of studying social constructs such as *GASP* religion) and a neutral viewpoint (rational agnosticism) DO in fact make me a pretty rational source. :-)
I generally avoid arguing about religion, since it's so pointless, but I'm feeling bored since i just finished my last college paper ever.
I'm also aware of the conception that agnostics are all self important pricks who just love to troll both sides, and it's entirely possible that I am just being that. However, after my initial antichristian atheistic kneejerk reaction to my upbringing I learned a hell of a lot about both sides, and myself, and realized that atheistic humanism requires just as much conscious belief on my part as Christianity. YMMV, it is fucking religion after all, the great thing about living in the modern era is we each get to choose for ourselves. :-)
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
"We hate your Jehovah, so we're going to have our own little religion, in which a gay saviour will rule the world under a rainbow!"
A savior who never married, and whose best friend was a dead guy he personally raised from the dead, perhaps? He could tell his disciples to eat his manflesh and be into S&M and get trussed up naked on a piece of wood to suffer an imaginary death and then let another one of his male friends stick his fingers into holes in his body.
And THEN the rainbows.
Orthodox Jews say it doesn't explicitly forbid gay sex - it specifically prohibits only MALE gay sex (and it's Leviticus 18:22). It also prohibits incest and bestiality, sleeping with your wife's sister and such, but lesbians are OK. Punishable by death, traditionally.
Of course, this is the old testament God, too - the one that smites pretty much anyone that moves, wipes out towns, turns people to pillars of salt - you know, the "loving" God who also tells us not to kill. WTF, God, we have to live by your rules but you don't have to? No wonder Satan wanted out.
Bah, for nearly 2000 years Christianity has been like a salad bar, with churches and groups just picking and choosing what they want to follow and ignoring the rest. that's probably why the fanatical Muslims hate us, because if the Christians actually followed the entire book they'd be a hell of a lot more like Muslims.
After all when was the last time you heard THIS in a Christian church? "And after Sister Brenda leads us in a rousing rendition of 'Onward Christian Soldiers' I want everyone to pick up some nice fist sized stones for the adulterer stoning, followed by our annual potluck supper"? Because i can't seem to remember hearing of ANY church having a good stoning, even though it says quite clearly you should, along with selling thieves as slaves if they don't have the funds to pay back for their transgression.
Lets face it: Ain't nobody followed that damned book in centuries, they just choose the parts that appeal to whatever group they want to control and toss the rest. See the current attacks on gays and compare it to the many "fine upstanding churches" that were using the bible as justification for keeping blacks as a lower race (the curse of Ham) and you'll see its just the same shit, different target.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It would be if you had used it. Faith is by definition a belief in something without proof. Not believing in anything requires absolutely no faith whatsoever.
God is imaginary
Sort of three answers to that:
1. Early Judaism didn't so much assume that other gods didn't exist as that they were far inferior to Yahweh and/or evil. Witchcraft = the power of the inferior gods. Other gods are bad, so witchcraft is bad.
2. Early Christianity assumed that there were two spiritual powers - God and Satan. Wicthcraft = the power of Satan. Satan is bad, so witchcraft is bad.
3. Later Christianity assumed that witchcraft was just the nutty worship rituals of non-existent gods. Worshiping non-existent gods diverts you from the proper worship of the real God, so witchcraft is bad.
Pick your poison.
Not a condemnation? Are you high?
Leviticus 20:13
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."
You can argue as to what 'lie with mankind' means, but to suggest that ' to’evah ' translated to abomination isn't a condemnation is just dishonest.
That's the Jewish/Muslim bible, and for Christians was superceded by the new testament and the new covenant. God may hate sodomy, but in fact he loves homosexuals, whose sins are no worse than anyone else's. Actually, you might want to look at the list Moses brought down since you're so old tastament -- nothing in the ten comandments about homosexuality, but plenty against wanting what's not yours, against adultery, against slander, against murder. If "god hates fags" he hates the homophobic Newt Gingrich far more, that adulterous, slandering, money-grubbing asshole.
Actually, the new testament is down on rich people more than anyone. I don't think homosexuality is even mentioned in the new testament, is it?
Free Martian Whores!
Show me something comparable to Stalin and Mao
I'll give you one: Hong Xiuquan.
After being exposed to Christian missionaries, Hong had a revelation that he was the younger brother of Jesus, and promptly set out to establish the Great Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. This brutal effort was also known as the Taiping rebellion and was the bloodiest civil war of all time. Death toll estimates vary from 20 million to 40 million, all in China, and achieved through hand-to-hand methods (no firebombing air raids or other industrial mass-murder techniques). Since this was in the 1855-1865 period, the casualties were a comparable fraction of the world's population to the accomplishments of Hitler and Stalin combined. The Taiping rebellion probably was not mentioned in your school history lessons, but should have been. It is unflattering to Christianity, whichever viewpoint you take.
BTW, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Hitler was a Christian (of the lapsed Catholic variety), and is known to have disparaged the paganism espoused by Himmler and a few others.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
if one reads further through Leviticus one finds that eating shellfish and failing to obey your parents are also abominable acts along with many, many other things -including allowing pagans to live I believe...
clearly abominable meant something a little less serious than it means in our day if failing to obey dietary strictures results in mortal sin?
I think this dates back to the time when the Hebrews were just one of many small tribes fighting for supremacy and trying to hold on to their group identity with rules like this.
-I'm just sayin'
What a washy interpretation. Clearly the liberal interpretation their because some people can't realize their isn't a god, even when he specifically doesn't like you.
There is a liberal washy interpretation, but this isn't it. There are some liberal Christians who seem to think that the Bible has something nice to say about homosexuality, which it doesn't.
There are some pretty historically-sound reasons for thinking that this is indeed what the two passages in Leviticus are about, not the least of which is that the point is made explicitly that these laws are condemning what those horrible surrounding nations do. Furthermore, "no guys getting it on with guys" is mentioned in the same breath as "don't sacrifice your children to Molech" (as if this was a serious problem amongst the Hebrews at the time). That is the context in which it was said.
Having said that, the usual liberal interpretation is that the people who wrote the Bible just didn't understand sexual orientation. Hell, nobody understood it until about a century ago. So applying even more historical context, the Bible actually has nothing to say about homosexuality, merely certain sexual activities.
Applying yet more context, you can even see why it may have made sense. Capital punishment made sense in an era before modern prisons. Slavery even made a certain amount of sense in the ancient world when you consider that it was an alternative to killing all of the able-bodied men in the town that you captured. You could argue that in an era before modern hygiene, prohibiting certain sexual practices made sense, too.
Having said all that, this isn't really a question of interpretation. It's a question of application. When the US Constitution says "we the people", it meant non-slave male landowners. Today, it's rightly applied to everyone, even though that's not what it meant in context.
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The reason you won't come around and hurt us or kill us is because the Enlightenment thinkers, and in particular John Locke showed how to pull your fangs. We can only hope that it eventually catches on in many Muslim countries, too, because there are a good many Mullahs who need political/social castrating, just like the West did to all its fire-and-brimstone preachers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
here, let me help you out on this
A child to be killed if he/she curses their parent (Leviticus 20:9)
All persons guilty of adultery to be killed (20:10)
The daughter of a priest who engages in prostitution to be burned alive until dead (21:9)
The bride of a priest to be a virgin (21:13)
Ritual killing of animals, using cattle, sheep and goats (22:19)
Observation of 7 feasts: Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles (23)
A person who takes the Lord's name in vain is to be killed (24:16)
if you see me, smile and say hello.
But assuming you are not agnostic, then you believe there is no god. So you do not have an absence of faith, you have faith in an absence that (IMHO) cannot be proven either way.
Just because something cannot be proven, does not mean it is false. Trees falling in a forest with nobody around, etc., etc.
In philosophical circles, and where people haven't been raised listening to annoying people repeatedly shout that "atheists are all evil militants", the definitions of agnosticism and atheism aren't exclusive. They're:
atheism: I don't believe in the existence of gods
agnosticism: I believe the existence or non-existence of gods to be fundamentally unknowable
You can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. There's no overlap, atheism and agnosticism are answers to completely different questions; atheism answers "do you believe in gods", agnosticism answers "do you believe that the existence or non-existence of gods is knowable". Notice that "atheist" doesn't mean "I know with certainty that God doesn't exist". That's a subset of atheism we often call "strong atheism", but it's just a subset. So you see, there's no "faith" here. Atheism just means "I have no belief in gods", nothing more, nothing less.
There is another definition of agnosticism and atheism, that is:
Statement: God(s) exist.
Atheist (other): false (with certainty)
Agnostic (other): unknown
Theist (other): true (with certainty)
The problem with this is that we cannot, rationally, consider the existence of anything for which we have no evidence to be false with 100% certainty. Nothing. So you're agnostic towards gods; you're also agnostic towards unicorns, leprechauns, Reptilian Obama, invisible teapots, and so forth, because that's the only rational course. This is a silly way of looking at things, however. You can't live life as though unicorns might exist, just because you don't have any evidence against them. So instead we use the other question: do you have belief in gods? As in: do you consider "gods exist" to be true? Using the other definitions again:
Atheist: no
Agnostic A: no
Agnostic B: Uncertain
Agnostic C: yes
Theist: yes
Okay, you've agnostic groups A and C can be merged in with our normal Atheist/Theist definitions, leaving us back where we were, but with a third category:
Do you have a belief in gods?
Atheist: no
Agnostic (type 2): uncertain
Theist: yes
It happens, it can happen with any belief, but it's shaky ground. In this state, you are considering theism to be potentially plausible. If you're doing this without evidence, this is an irrational state, make no doubt.
Short: atheism means "no belief in gods", not "I believe there are no gods". Agnosticism either means "belief in gods is unknowable" or "existence of gods is unknown" or "I'm uncertain where I believe in gods". The first two aren't incompatible with theism or atheism. The third is a shaky middle ground where one is not atheist, not fully theist, but still seems to be swayed by theism for some reason, which may be as irrational a position as theism.