That's the Christian version of the perfect prediction scam: you declare a large number of people to be Christians and then later declare those who did bad things retroactively not to have been "true Christians".
Sorry for double post... I see this a lot. Are you saying that there really are no requirements for being Christian? Because historically that simply isnt the case.
Just because I make a statement like that doesnt mean its a "no true Scotsman", you know-- sometimes, it really isnt a Scotsman.
Christianity isn't the "foundation" of morality or peaceful co-existence
Ah, well I've found your problem.
See, Christianity doesnt claim to be that. Some people may make that claim, but you wont find in the Bible that by being Christian you will become sinless or create a world without sin.
Christianity sets out to solve a whole different set of problems, really, and more pressing ones.
Tacitus and Josephus are not in the "big book", they are well known historians.
The bible is also pretty widely regarded as at least substantially reliable historically, even if many dont accept the supernatural bits. Further, its only a "big book" because we compiled it that way. The 4 gospels are separate writings by separate authors from different times-- you cant throw it out as a single source, its several corroborating sources backed up by several non-religiously affiliated historians.
Honestly, you dont seem to know what youre talking about. First off, its not "an allegory"; Narnia is an allegory, as is The Pilgrim's Progress. The parts of the Bible we are discussing are not allegories-- they are either historical fact or historical fiction. Second, the historical accounts given have him giving signs that he is the son of God.
If you reject those accounts because they have miracles in them, and then declare there cant be miracles because there are no historical accounts, well, youve just created a logical circle that I dont suppose Ill be able to break.
Sounds very reasonable to me; better than having it go to the profit of some private business.
You mean the private business that safeguarded it for all that time?
You know banks arent charities, right? That they arent safeguarding your money and providing interest for the general good?
Seems perfectly fair if I agree to hold people's money and take liability for it for many years, and you disappear with no will or anything else, that I should keep the money (assuming no heirs or next of kin) rather than the government-- after all, the government already gets a big piece of the pie, but THIS piece they didnt earn.
Open source versus closed source is not an indication of a trust in a persons professional capacity or ethics. To try to say that this man's mental state is any way indicative of all mental states of open source developers is just offensive and stupid.
And yet GP (gweihir, here) strongly implied that the OPs trolling was indicative of all "opponents of FOSS"-- and got modded +5 for it. Double standard much?
Im not saying YOU'RE wrong, its just wacky how someone can say almost anything supportive of FOSS on this site and get modded up for it.
Youre ignorant if you dont think there is a stigma for being a christian in India. Pulling up a wikipedia article doesnt negate the church burnings or the familial ostracism that commonly occurs over there.
"Christ" doesnt mean son of God, though Christians believe him to. Its kind of odd for an atheist to get into an argument over whether or not Jesus was the Christ, since its a Jewish / Christian religious term and it cant be defined atheistically.
Regardless, ive given you real, actual proofs of his existence, and that at least some of the things attributed to him actually happened. There are a number of proofs both historical and logical to the claims of the NT.
Most clearly, your claim runs into the gigantic problem that it cannot account for Peter and the others all of a sudden suddenly declaring themselves to be followers of this one who was just crucified. They had, upon Jesus' arrest, fled due to feared retribution, and kept a low profile for several days. It stretches the imagination that 3 days later they would deem it prudent to own his name and declare themselves his followers, given the persecution it would entail-- and in fact they received that persecution, as did a very large number of His followers.
How does your model of what happened mesh with that? And by what logic are you discarding 4 confirmatory accounts of the events Christians believe? Do you have some other more reliable piece from that time that contradicts them? Or do you doubt the integrity of the accounts?
We have no more proof that Christ existed and did what he's supposed to have done than Gandalf or Harry Potter.
Tacitus, Josephus, 3 eyewitness accounts (Matthew, Mark, John), an independent verification by Luke (who played the part of an investigative reporter so to speak)....
Most historians generally agree that Christ's existence is not in question here. From Wikipedia
The large majority of modern historians agree that Jesus existed[11][12] and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate
You are of course free to disagree with that, but doing so with nothing to back your belief up would make you hypocritical, as that is what you are accusing US of.
Historical documents, both biblical and roman governmental, are not enough? I mean I suppose if we want to get all metaphysical we can doubt whether the roman empire even existed, or whether anything existed before this particular moment; but generally we look at historical records and the records on Christ's existence are pretty good.
If you dont understand that there are fanatical atheists, you are being willfully blind. There are several sites you could visit that loudly advocate being a militant, confrontational atheist. THere are whole countries who are on the verge of what you would call "fanatical atheist" (ie, they require an oath of atheism to work in government).
I never claimed that all atheists are fanatical, but there is a loud population of them on slashdot, who seem to be rabidly opposed to any system of thought that allows for a deity, and some have advocated startlingly harsh methods of dealing with those who believe in a deity.
And my point is that Christians remain humans, and that not all who claim to be Christian truly are. It almost seemed like the GP was implying that Christianity were to BLAME for naziism, rather than just having its own faults.
Most Christians I've ever come across pretty much think sex is something two married people do to produce babies. Maybe you belong to a cool swingers cult or something,
A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife. 5Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
And what Solomon wrote in Song of Songs:
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. 13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard, 14 nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices. 15 You are[b] a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon.
She 16 Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind! Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits.
Somehow, I dont think theyre talking about horticulture here. The book is pretty explicitly pro "be intimate with your spouse", and theres not a hint of guilt in the whole book.
Views may be foolish without having to call into question the value of a person's intellect. My statement attacks the idea, his statement attacks the person.
Its the difference between discussion and insult, argument and ad hominem. I may think Scientology a destructive and foolish system without thinking the Scientologist worthless or stupid.
And believing in some magical being that can revive his son three days later instead of not letting him die in the first place
That wouldnt have been much of a substitutionary atonement if no penalty were ever paid, now would it? The entire point of Jesus' incarnation was the crucifixion, paying a judical penalty for the sins of others.
Now from what I understand the President can present a budget proposal, but it is Congress that actually controls the purse strings so explain how a Democratic President passes a budget that is controlled by the opposition party congress. He can stomp, arm twist, bully pulpit all he wants, but it is Congress, not the president that pass a bill.
Democratic congress had a couple of years to do so, when they controlled both the House, Senate, and White House. Of course, now that Rs control the House, they make an awfully convenient scapegoat for what no budget is passed.
Regardless, you are incorrect (except in the case of a veto override). It IS the President who passes a law, Congress just gets it to his desk.
Massive debt build up, recession, high unemployment.
For most of Bush's terms, unemployment hovered in the 5% zone, which is basically "normal". It did spike briefly, but on average unemployment was lower under Bush than under his predecessor or sucessor. By no means was the economy "bad".
As for debt, well, when congress approves two combat deployments, yea, that does tend to cost some amount of money.
The only thing theyre "behind" in India / China is evangelism. Theyre not exactly the sorts of countries where you come out and say "hey Im a Christian"; the government and culture tend to look rather poorly on it.
In fact, its suprising you would mention those countries in this context. The atheistic chinese government isnt exactly what you would call a shining example of enlightened behavior when dealing with Christians-- hence the "deep secrecy".
(The moral failings of the German protestants were different but no less serious.)
And Im sure all the German atheists were just wonderful examples of morality. Clearly Nazi Germany was the fault of the religious types, is that what youre shooting for here?
Christian churches have been blaming the ills of the world on "pagans" and non-believers for almost as long as Christianity has existed.
More accurately, we've been blaming humanity for the ills of the world. Its scarce few christians-- and poor examples, at that-- who would blame the worlds problems on everyone else. One of the requirements for being a follower of christ is recognizing your own sin, not the sin of others.
Religion means fighting non-believers and taking power FROM them in Allah's/Yahweh's/FSM's name.
If you are not of a sect, it is your enemy (in a large or small way) like it or not and never forget that. If they had the power they would kill you or torture you into submission as they did before secular enlightment weakened the hold of superstition.
Like back in rome for the first 4 centuries, where by all accounts Christians were model citizens up until they were tortured wholesale by the government.
Not gonna deny the inquisition, or abuses by the vatican, but then humanity has always been adept at latching on to whatever justification was at hand to excuse its behavior. I need only look at the last 100 years, where the majority of atrocities were committed in the name of "the state" rather than in one god or another. Right now in N Korea, we have as atheistic of a society as you can imagine, where people are in honest to goodness concentration camps in the name of "the state" and "glorious leader".
You want a scapegoat for humanity's violence and aggression? You need look no further than humanity itself.
Theres scant little of that on slashdot, no matter what the topic. If youre coming here looking for a civil discussion on religion, you will be sorely disappointed.
That said, I would be suprised if you could find more than a very few posts where a non-AC poster was claiming a "fair, honest criticism" to be heresy or disrespectful; more often than not, it is the fanatical atheists among slashdotters who really are being disrespectful (in the ad-hominem sense). Thats not to say that there arent atheists here who cant be civil, but the topics tend to be dominated by jerks with karma to burn and no interest in anything other than ranting.
Or a sign that someone recognizes melodrama and an ignorance of what a theocracy is, as well as some kind of a strawman.
The phrase "atheistic materialism" doesnt have to mean "we're being persecuted at 2nd-century-Rome levels", you know. Its actually a pretty accurate description of any system which denies the possibility of a supernatural.
Please tell me you arent claiming to be Christian, or a follower of Christ. Calling someone "stupid" for not being christian when you yourself could only know salvation by the mercy of another is some kind of supreme hubris, and it would be a shame if you were offering this up as what it means to believe.
I consider atheism (and false religion) to be foolish, but calling people of any faith "stupid" for what they believe leaves some kind of a foul taste in my mouth-- I am sure that of all the things Jesus was about, placing yourself on a pedestal in relation to others most certainly was NOT it.
Scott Walker won by a healthy margin of 7%, and according to wikipedia,
Voter turnout in the election was 57.8%, the highest for a gubernatorial election not on a Presidential ballot in Wisconsin history.[9]
And from its source...
But some Democratic areas also generated unusual turnouts. The city of Milwaukee’s turnout was lower than the statewide average. But it was far higher than it has been in recent contests for governor.
I think youre going to have to accept that Wisconsins by and large wanted Scott Walker.
Point is, don't blame the system; blame the lazy fucking public. Most people do not vote.
For values of "most" that include "the minority", sure.
It's a minor thing that could literally change the world, but hey no can do
Your post reads like someone who cant accept that the voting populace sometimes disagrees with their own views. Get over it.
I do agree with your point that blaming the system is stupid, given that systems that dont involve voting tend to be nightmarish authoritarian police states. If someone really wants to try it out for a spell, there are plenty of countries out there who have advanced far enough to completely do away with it to choose from.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the Christian version of the perfect prediction scam: you declare a large number of people to be Christians and then later declare those who did bad things retroactively not to have been "true Christians".
Sorry for double post...
I see this a lot. Are you saying that there really are no requirements for being Christian? Because historically that simply isnt the case.
Just because I make a statement like that doesnt mean its a "no true Scotsman", you know-- sometimes, it really isnt a Scotsman.
Christianity isn't the "foundation" of morality or peaceful co-existence
Ah, well I've found your problem.
See, Christianity doesnt claim to be that. Some people may make that claim, but you wont find in the Bible that by being Christian you will become sinless or create a world without sin.
Christianity sets out to solve a whole different set of problems, really, and more pressing ones.
Tacitus and Josephus are not in the "big book", they are well known historians.
The bible is also pretty widely regarded as at least substantially reliable historically, even if many dont accept the supernatural bits. Further, its only a "big book" because we compiled it that way. The 4 gospels are separate writings by separate authors from different times-- you cant throw it out as a single source, its several corroborating sources backed up by several non-religiously affiliated historians.
Honestly, you dont seem to know what youre talking about. First off, its not "an allegory"; Narnia is an allegory, as is The Pilgrim's Progress. The parts of the Bible we are discussing are not allegories-- they are either historical fact or historical fiction. Second, the historical accounts given have him giving signs that he is the son of God.
If you reject those accounts because they have miracles in them, and then declare there cant be miracles because there are no historical accounts, well, youve just created a logical circle that I dont suppose Ill be able to break.
Sounds very reasonable to me; better than having it go to the profit of some private business.
You mean the private business that safeguarded it for all that time?
You know banks arent charities, right? That they arent safeguarding your money and providing interest for the general good?
Seems perfectly fair if I agree to hold people's money and take liability for it for many years, and you disappear with no will or anything else, that I should keep the money (assuming no heirs or next of kin) rather than the government-- after all, the government already gets a big piece of the pie, but THIS piece they didnt earn.
Open source versus closed source is not an indication of a trust in a persons professional capacity or ethics. To try to say that this man's mental state is any way indicative of all mental states of open source developers is just offensive and stupid.
And yet GP (gweihir, here) strongly implied that the OPs trolling was indicative of all "opponents of FOSS"-- and got modded +5 for it. Double standard much?
Im not saying YOU'RE wrong, its just wacky how someone can say almost anything supportive of FOSS on this site and get modded up for it.
Youre ignorant if you dont think there is a stigma for being a christian in India. Pulling up a wikipedia article doesnt negate the church burnings or the familial ostracism that commonly occurs over there.
Source: A close friend whos had to deal with this
Because virtuals have snapshots, whereas physical boxes do not.
"Christ" doesnt mean son of God, though Christians believe him to. Its kind of odd for an atheist to get into an argument over whether or not Jesus was the Christ, since its a Jewish / Christian religious term and it cant be defined atheistically.
Regardless, ive given you real, actual proofs of his existence, and that at least some of the things attributed to him actually happened. There are a number of proofs both historical and logical to the claims of the NT.
Most clearly, your claim runs into the gigantic problem that it cannot account for Peter and the others all of a sudden suddenly declaring themselves to be followers of this one who was just crucified. They had, upon Jesus' arrest, fled due to feared retribution, and kept a low profile for several days. It stretches the imagination that 3 days later they would deem it prudent to own his name and declare themselves his followers, given the persecution it would entail-- and in fact they received that persecution, as did a very large number of His followers.
How does your model of what happened mesh with that? And by what logic are you discarding 4 confirmatory accounts of the events Christians believe? Do you have some other more reliable piece from that time that contradicts them? Or do you doubt the integrity of the accounts?
We have no more proof that Christ existed and did what he's supposed to have done than Gandalf or Harry Potter.
Tacitus, Josephus, 3 eyewitness accounts (Matthew, Mark, John), an independent verification by Luke (who played the part of an investigative reporter so to speak)....
Most historians generally agree that Christ's existence is not in question here. From Wikipedia
The large majority of modern historians agree that Jesus existed[11][12] and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate
You are of course free to disagree with that, but doing so with nothing to back your belief up would make you hypocritical, as that is what you are accusing US of.
Historical documents, both biblical and roman governmental, are not enough? I mean I suppose if we want to get all metaphysical we can doubt whether the roman empire even existed, or whether anything existed before this particular moment; but generally we look at historical records and the records on Christ's existence are pretty good.
If you dont understand that there are fanatical atheists, you are being willfully blind. There are several sites you could visit that loudly advocate being a militant, confrontational atheist. THere are whole countries who are on the verge of what you would call "fanatical atheist" (ie, they require an oath of atheism to work in government).
I never claimed that all atheists are fanatical, but there is a loud population of them on slashdot, who seem to be rabidly opposed to any system of thought that allows for a deity, and some have advocated startlingly harsh methods of dealing with those who believe in a deity.
And my point is that Christians remain humans, and that not all who claim to be Christian truly are. It almost seemed like the GP was implying that Christianity were to BLAME for naziism, rather than just having its own faults.
Most Christians I've ever come across pretty much think sex is something two married people do to produce babies. Maybe you belong to a cool swingers cult or something,
Its not "my views", its what the apostle Paul himself wrote:
A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife. 5Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
And what Solomon wrote in Song of Songs:
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard,
14 nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices.
15 You are[b] a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon.
She
16 Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread everywhere.
Let my beloved come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits.
Somehow, I dont think theyre talking about horticulture here. The book is pretty explicitly pro "be intimate with your spouse", and theres not a hint of guilt in the whole book.
Views may be foolish without having to call into question the value of a person's intellect. My statement attacks the idea, his statement attacks the person.
Its the difference between discussion and insult, argument and ad hominem. I may think Scientology a destructive and foolish system without thinking the Scientologist worthless or stupid.
And believing in some magical being that can revive his son three days later instead of not letting him die in the first place
That wouldnt have been much of a substitutionary atonement if no penalty were ever paid, now would it? The entire point of Jesus' incarnation was the crucifixion, paying a judical penalty for the sins of others.
Now from what I understand the President can present a budget proposal, but it is Congress that actually controls the purse strings so explain how a Democratic President passes a budget that is controlled by the opposition party congress. He can stomp, arm twist, bully pulpit all he wants, but it is Congress, not the president that pass a bill.
Democratic congress had a couple of years to do so, when they controlled both the House, Senate, and White House. Of course, now that Rs control the House, they make an awfully convenient scapegoat for what no budget is passed.
Regardless, you are incorrect (except in the case of a veto override). It IS the President who passes a law, Congress just gets it to his desk.
Massive debt build up, recession, high unemployment.
For most of Bush's terms, unemployment hovered in the 5% zone, which is basically "normal". It did spike briefly, but on average unemployment was lower under Bush than under his predecessor or sucessor. By no means was the economy "bad".
As for debt, well, when congress approves two combat deployments, yea, that does tend to cost some amount of money.
The only thing theyre "behind" in India / China is evangelism. Theyre not exactly the sorts of countries where you come out and say "hey Im a Christian"; the government and culture tend to look rather poorly on it.
In fact, its suprising you would mention those countries in this context. The atheistic chinese government isnt exactly what you would call a shining example of enlightened behavior when dealing with Christians-- hence the "deep secrecy".
(The moral failings of the German protestants were different but no less serious.)
And Im sure all the German atheists were just wonderful examples of morality. Clearly Nazi Germany was the fault of the religious types, is that what youre shooting for here?
Christian churches have been blaming the ills of the world on "pagans" and non-believers for almost as long as Christianity has existed.
More accurately, we've been blaming humanity for the ills of the world. Its scarce few christians-- and poor examples, at that-- who would blame the worlds problems on everyone else. One of the requirements for being a follower of christ is recognizing your own sin, not the sin of others.
Religion means fighting non-believers and taking power FROM them in Allah's/Yahweh's/FSM's name.
If you are not of a sect, it is your enemy (in a large or small way) like it or not and never forget that. If they had the power they would kill you or torture you into submission as they did before secular enlightment weakened the hold of superstition.
Like back in rome for the first 4 centuries, where by all accounts Christians were model citizens up until they were tortured wholesale by the government.
Not gonna deny the inquisition, or abuses by the vatican, but then humanity has always been adept at latching on to whatever justification was at hand to excuse its behavior. I need only look at the last 100 years, where the majority of atrocities were committed in the name of "the state" rather than in one god or another. Right now in N Korea, we have as atheistic of a society as you can imagine, where people are in honest to goodness concentration camps in the name of "the state" and "glorious leader".
You want a scapegoat for humanity's violence and aggression? You need look no further than humanity itself.
Because even the fairest most honest criticism
Theres scant little of that on slashdot, no matter what the topic. If youre coming here looking for a civil discussion on religion, you will be sorely disappointed.
That said, I would be suprised if you could find more than a very few posts where a non-AC poster was claiming a "fair, honest criticism" to be heresy or disrespectful; more often than not, it is the fanatical atheists among slashdotters who really are being disrespectful (in the ad-hominem sense). Thats not to say that there arent atheists here who cant be civil, but the topics tend to be dominated by jerks with karma to burn and no interest in anything other than ranting.
Or a sign that someone recognizes melodrama and an ignorance of what a theocracy is, as well as some kind of a strawman.
The phrase "atheistic materialism" doesnt have to mean "we're being persecuted at 2nd-century-Rome levels", you know. Its actually a pretty accurate description of any system which denies the possibility of a supernatural.
Please tell me you arent claiming to be Christian, or a follower of Christ. Calling someone "stupid" for not being christian when you yourself could only know salvation by the mercy of another is some kind of supreme hubris, and it would be a shame if you were offering this up as what it means to believe.
I consider atheism (and false religion) to be foolish, but calling people of any faith "stupid" for what they believe leaves some kind of a foul taste in my mouth-- I am sure that of all the things Jesus was about, placing yourself on a pedestal in relation to others most certainly was NOT it.
Democracy doesn't guarantee you a good government,
Relative to the other guys, it absolutely does. It may not be a PERFECT government, but its a far sight better than the alternatives.
Scott Walker won by a healthy margin of 7%, and according to wikipedia,
Voter turnout in the election was 57.8%, the highest for a gubernatorial election not on a Presidential ballot in Wisconsin history.[9]
And from its source...
But some Democratic areas also generated unusual turnouts. The city of Milwaukee’s turnout was lower than the statewide average. But it was far higher than it has been in recent contests for governor.
I think youre going to have to accept that Wisconsins by and large wanted Scott Walker.
Point is, don't blame the system; blame the lazy fucking public. Most people do not vote.
For values of "most" that include "the minority", sure.
It's a minor thing that could literally change the world, but hey no can do
Your post reads like someone who cant accept that the voting populace sometimes disagrees with their own views. Get over it.
I do agree with your point that blaming the system is stupid, given that systems that dont involve voting tend to be nightmarish authoritarian police states. If someone really wants to try it out for a spell, there are plenty of countries out there who have advanced far enough to completely do away with it to choose from.