You are like the person who insists that they are a vegetarian, and just happens to eat meat at every meal.
No, I am not. First of all, I am not a Christian, I'm just defending a viewpoint. Secondly, that's a terrible analogy. Your analogy would work if I said that someone in the Christian culture could exclusively go to a Hindu temple, pray to Hindu gods, and celebrate Hindu holidays while still accurately calling themselves Christian. But that's not what I said or meant, and that should be clear.
Your saying that posers and wannabes have completely Usurped the word Christian. Because by your definition, Atheists, Muslims and Satanist can be Christians too. It has no meaning when you say it because it no longer labels anything.
My definition is that someone who follows the teachings of Christ at least in portion and identifies themselves as Christian should be considered a member of the Christian faith and culture. A member of any of the other cultural groups you listed (atheist, Muslim, Satanist) could become a Christian as well, by identifying themselves as Christian, participating in Christian groups (including their own families), and being accepted by those groups.
I'm saying that faith is cultural, it's not a checklist.
I think your response was very even-handed, and I think you did cut to the essentials of the Christian belief system from an etic, objective point of view.
The only thing I take issue with is the idea that that is actually how the world works. Not everyone who calls themselves Christian will follow your formula. The culture of Christianity is much wider than the list of rules you made, and cultural affiliations are choices people make individually.
To tell someone they are not Christian because they don't believe in Hell, even if they go to a Christian church and were raised in a Christian family, celebrate Christian holidays, wear a cross, pray to Jesus, etc. is ludicrous.
If I were a Christian, I would hate you and see you as an incredibly bad person.
No, if you were the kind of Christian you apparently think most people are, you would hate me and see me as an incredibly bad person. The only thing your post does is define what you think a real Christian is. What you define as the basic tenets of Christianity are not necessarily the basic tenets to everyone else. It's a huge religion with many followers and many different interpretations.
There is no legislative body that defines MOST words. That doesn't mean that if you say you Tea-bagged someones daughter, that it doesn't mean a very specific act.
I'm simply holding that the true core tenet of Christianity is following the teachings of Christ, and not necessarily all of them, and not necessarily the teachings of all the other people who built their faith around him. More people who call themselves Christians will fit my definition than will fit yours. Doesn't that make it a better definition?
I'm sorry but you are wrong. There is no legislative body with any true authority that can deem you a real Christian or not, no matter how hard they may try.
I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environment, where you think all Christians actually believe everything you listed.
Some of them just want Christ Consciousness. You know, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek.
This is not a new realization. It's one of the tenets of functionalism in sociocultural anthropology, and it's been around a long time. Religions and belief in the supernatural serve a purpose to the culture that adopts them. That isn't news.
Maybe the real point of TFA was that we now understand the mechanism by which those beliefs get selected?
Which is why I added the xenophobia comment. I know the difference, but I was arguing the original point. The original post attempted to put forth that all religions other than Christianity were racist because they include clauses in their holy texts to war against non-believers.
I was actually arguing AGAINST THAT and couching the original author as racist by HIS OWN DEFINITION. It wasn't my definition.
And your analogy regarding Communism doesn't fit. One: it isn't my logic, it was the original author's. Two: Communism is not a religion. Three: conquering and ruling the world plays no part in our argument.
It's evident that you are strongly anti-Muslim. The person you responded to clearly didn't say "muslims don't believe in the quran." You have again put quotes around something no one else but you has said.
He said that your quote was something that most modern people don't believe. Whether or not what he said is true, it's what you should respond to if you want to argue effectively.
Although I agree with you that teaching your children that members of their religions are GOOD and everyone else is BAD in some way is a negative thing to teach, it is a feature in most religions, not just Islam.
First, let's take a look at how the meaning of the quran is built up. It is the LITERAL word of their "god", and here's what he has to say about interpretation...So this means the quran contains 2 things : (1) stories and (2) laws, to be interpreted literally.
Right. Religious texts generally contain both stories/parables and explicit instructions for living your life. So far, there is no distance between Christianity and the other religions you were railing against.
Now let's give some context, shall we :
"[8:55] The worst creatures in the sight of GOD are those who disbelieved...
[8:61] If they resort to peace (as defined in the "dhimmi" system), so shall you, and put your trust in GOD. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient..."
What I put in bold is not in the original text. Which means you added it in, likely to bolster your argument. The passage simply says that if the enemy is peaceful toward you, you should be peaceful toward them.
While this doesn't negate the fact that the text is telling its believers to fight the non-believers, it does soften it. Please don't distort the truth just so you can "win."
These are clearly laws... This violence can temporarily be reduced to only psychological violence (ie. threats and terror), but it can never end...
I see nothing in the text indicating that the violence can "never end." Unless it's the little caveat you added into the text which I bolded.
"[9:111] GOD has bought from the believers (the muslims) their lives and their money in exchange for Paradise. Thus, they fight in the cause of GOD, to kill and get killed."
Explain to me how you can believe this to be the literal word of god, and not commit acts of religious violence, because this is something I do not get at all.
Explain to me how this is any different than Christian religious persecution during the Inquisition, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials, etc.
My main point of contention was that you were claiming that Islam and Hinduism (and you've provided no evidence for Hinduism) were essentially racist religions, while Christianity was the only non-racist religion. All you've done is provide more evidence that Islam emphasizes a difference between believers and non-believers, without even so much as mentioning Christianity in your reply.
That *should* disturb you. Hopefully enough to honestly check for yourself whether it's true or not. To check this using actually valid references, to read about this, the history, the applicable laws, and what changed when and how.
So your fundamental reply is simply to go through the entirety of human history and then I will agree with you? Hang on...
Ok, all done. Nope, still can find a number of examples that bring the religions' violence on par with each other.
Specifically of intrest to answer this question are the "dhimmi" system in islam (and how portions of it are applied by current governments, e.g. the death penalty for leaving islam) and the "caste" laws of pre-modern India. If you want to be truly horrified at how bad religious law can get, then check out the "honor"-laws, specifically about the resolution of murder between samurai and plebs, in the Japanese feudal period. Then compare this to, oh, say the Magna Charta, or canon law.
The Magna Carta? Canon Law? Did you deliberately choose such weak examples to compare? Or are you not aware of the centuries of persecution, or the code of law in Deuteronomy or Leviticus?
I hope you actually do this, and are not "horrified" because of simple facts. Nobody's horrified that the sky is blue, you should not be horrified that people of different cultures are... (tadaa)... different, and think different.
I don't even understand what these comments are related to. I never said I was "horrified," so I'm not sure why it's in quotation marks. And I certainly didn't say anything a
Christianity is not an exception to the rule, and certainly not an utter one. Your argument is biased and offensive. It is unreasonable to cast an entire religion as racist, especially based on one line with no given context. A religion consists of its holy texts, its followers, its prophets, and its history.
Christianity most certainly has been involved in racism, and as a direct counter to your specific argument, texts in both the Old and New Testament refer to wiping out specific groups of people. The entire final book of the New Testament is about those that don't believe in Christ. They end up facing their judgement and eternal torture.
It is disturbing to me that in your efforts to cast Christianity as the only non-racist religion, you have simultaneously cast Hinduism and Islam as racist in their entirety.
That sounds like racism to me, or at least xenophobia, which is just a step away.
I have a theory that violence in the media, and games especially, may actually be beneficial to society (completely untested, so I guess it's a hypothesis). With the increased sophistication of our society, individuals are getting further and further from the need to kill their own food or participate in tribal warfare, or even to defend themselves physically from the wild and the elements. As humans, however, we're equipped with the survival instinct. It's foolish to think that we wouldn't want to express that urge, especially after millenia of social conditioning to do just that.
I think that violence in games allows us to act out what we're hardwired to do in a society that doesn't approve of it. Maybe we should force our murderers and rapists to play violent sims, so they don't act out their fantasies.
Mr. Wizard had a huge impact on me as well. I remember watching him, 3-2-1 Contact, and later Bill Nye and Beakman's World. There was an episode where he had some hydrophobic sand that he'd poured into a fishtank. It floated on the surface and when he plunged his hand into the water, it coated it like a glove. Pulled his hand out, it wasn't wet.
However many years later, and I am doing after-school science programming for a company called Mad Science. We have a kit with the sand in it, and I get to do the same experiment myself, and pass it on to another generation. It brings me back.
I think it's key for members of a developed society to have a clear relationship between power and privacy. As an individual, if you are wanting to attain a position that holds power over others (such as a police officer, politician, judge, etc.) you have to be willing to sacrifice an equitable amount of privacy for the good of society.
For interactions between a citizen and a policeman/woman, it isn't reasonable to grant the ability to legally record what occurs to the officer but not the citizen. The officer is already the one with more power in their relationship. Without the citizens being able to monitor policemen/women, the relationship between power and privacy becomes greatly imbalanced, and abuses will occur with greater frequency. There are more than enough historical examples (and a few in the news right now) that illustrate why monitoring the force that monitors us is necessary.
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You are like the person who insists that they are a vegetarian, and just happens to eat meat at every meal.
No, I am not. First of all, I am not a Christian, I'm just defending a viewpoint. Secondly, that's a terrible analogy. Your analogy would work if I said that someone in the Christian culture could exclusively go to a Hindu temple, pray to Hindu gods, and celebrate Hindu holidays while still accurately calling themselves Christian. But that's not what I said or meant, and that should be clear.
Your saying that posers and wannabes have completely Usurped the word Christian. Because by your definition, Atheists, Muslims and Satanist can be Christians too. It has no meaning when you say it because it no longer labels anything.
My definition is that someone who follows the teachings of Christ at least in portion and identifies themselves as Christian should be considered a member of the Christian faith and culture. A member of any of the other cultural groups you listed (atheist, Muslim, Satanist) could become a Christian as well, by identifying themselves as Christian, participating in Christian groups (including their own families), and being accepted by those groups.
I'm saying that faith is cultural, it's not a checklist.
I think your response was very even-handed, and I think you did cut to the essentials of the Christian belief system from an etic, objective point of view.
The only thing I take issue with is the idea that that is actually how the world works. Not everyone who calls themselves Christian will follow your formula. The culture of Christianity is much wider than the list of rules you made, and cultural affiliations are choices people make individually.
To tell someone they are not Christian because they don't believe in Hell, even if they go to a Christian church and were raised in a Christian family, celebrate Christian holidays, wear a cross, pray to Jesus, etc. is ludicrous.
If I were a Christian, I would hate you and see you as an incredibly bad person.
No, if you were the kind of Christian you apparently think most people are, you would hate me and see me as an incredibly bad person. The only thing your post does is define what you think a real Christian is. What you define as the basic tenets of Christianity are not necessarily the basic tenets to everyone else. It's a huge religion with many followers and many different interpretations.
There is no legislative body that defines MOST words. That doesn't mean that if you say you Tea-bagged someones daughter, that it doesn't mean a very specific act.
I'm simply holding that the true core tenet of Christianity is following the teachings of Christ, and not necessarily all of them, and not necessarily the teachings of all the other people who built their faith around him. More people who call themselves Christians will fit my definition than will fit yours. Doesn't that make it a better definition?
I'm sorry but you are wrong. There is no legislative body with any true authority that can deem you a real Christian or not, no matter how hard they may try.
I'm pretty sure that by definition, anyone who tries to live by the teachings of Christ is free to call themselves a Christian. This is regardless of whether or not they live by all of them, or live by the rules of the religion his ideology grew out of.
Just splitting hairs. But I think it's important because otherwise you set up a polarizing environment, where you think all Christians actually believe everything you listed.
Some of them just want Christ Consciousness. You know, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek.
If I had mod points I would fix the bad job someone did. While this is not a sponsorship of your post, it certainly wasn't "off-topic."
Can someone give me some insight into why splitting the company into two is supposed to help AMD?
Because everybody knows a dual-core company is better than a single-core one.
They should have just gone ahead and split into four!
This is not a new realization. It's one of the tenets of functionalism in sociocultural anthropology, and it's been around a long time. Religions and belief in the supernatural serve a purpose to the culture that adopts them. That isn't news.
Maybe the real point of TFA was that we now understand the mechanism by which those beliefs get selected?
Which is why I added the xenophobia comment. I know the difference, but I was arguing the original point. The original post attempted to put forth that all religions other than Christianity were racist because they include clauses in their holy texts to war against non-believers.
I was actually arguing AGAINST THAT and couching the original author as racist by HIS OWN DEFINITION. It wasn't my definition.
And your analogy regarding Communism doesn't fit. One: it isn't my logic, it was the original author's. Two: Communism is not a religion. Three: conquering and ruling the world plays no part in our argument.
It's evident that you are strongly anti-Muslim. The person you responded to clearly didn't say "muslims don't believe in the quran." You have again put quotes around something no one else but you has said.
He said that your quote was something that most modern people don't believe. Whether or not what he said is true, it's what you should respond to if you want to argue effectively.
Although I agree with you that teaching your children that members of their religions are GOOD and everyone else is BAD in some way is a negative thing to teach, it is a feature in most religions, not just Islam.
First, let's take a look at how the meaning of the quran is built up. It is the LITERAL word of their "god", and here's what he has to say about interpretation...So this means the quran contains 2 things : (1) stories and (2) laws, to be interpreted literally.
Right. Religious texts generally contain both stories/parables and explicit instructions for living your life. So far, there is no distance between Christianity and the other religions you were railing against.
Now let's give some context, shall we : "[8:55] The worst creatures in the sight of GOD are those who disbelieved... [8:61] If they resort to peace (as defined in the "dhimmi" system), so shall you, and put your trust in GOD. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient..."
What I put in bold is not in the original text. Which means you added it in, likely to bolster your argument. The passage simply says that if the enemy is peaceful toward you, you should be peaceful toward them. While this doesn't negate the fact that the text is telling its believers to fight the non-believers, it does soften it. Please don't distort the truth just so you can "win."
These are clearly laws... This violence can temporarily be reduced to only psychological violence (ie. threats and terror), but it can never end...
I see nothing in the text indicating that the violence can "never end." Unless it's the little caveat you added into the text which I bolded.
"[9:111] GOD has bought from the believers (the muslims) their lives and their money in exchange for Paradise. Thus, they fight in the cause of GOD, to kill and get killed." Explain to me how you can believe this to be the literal word of god, and not commit acts of religious violence, because this is something I do not get at all.
Explain to me how this is any different than Christian religious persecution during the Inquisition, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials, etc. My main point of contention was that you were claiming that Islam and Hinduism (and you've provided no evidence for Hinduism) were essentially racist religions, while Christianity was the only non-racist religion. All you've done is provide more evidence that Islam emphasizes a difference between believers and non-believers, without even so much as mentioning Christianity in your reply.
That *should* disturb you. Hopefully enough to honestly check for yourself whether it's true or not. To check this using actually valid references, to read about this, the history, the applicable laws, and what changed when and how.
So your fundamental reply is simply to go through the entirety of human history and then I will agree with you? Hang on... Ok, all done. Nope, still can find a number of examples that bring the religions' violence on par with each other.
Specifically of intrest to answer this question are the "dhimmi" system in islam (and how portions of it are applied by current governments, e.g. the death penalty for leaving islam) and the "caste" laws of pre-modern India. If you want to be truly horrified at how bad religious law can get, then check out the "honor"-laws, specifically about the resolution of murder between samurai and plebs, in the Japanese feudal period. Then compare this to, oh, say the Magna Charta, or canon law.
The Magna Carta? Canon Law? Did you deliberately choose such weak examples to compare? Or are you not aware of the centuries of persecution, or the code of law in Deuteronomy or Leviticus?
I hope you actually do this, and are not "horrified" because of simple facts. Nobody's horrified that the sky is blue, you should not be horrified that people of different cultures are ... (tadaa) ... different, and think different.
I don't even understand what these comments are related to. I never said I was "horrified," so I'm not sure why it's in quotation marks. And I certainly didn't say anything a
Christianity most certainly has been involved in racism, and as a direct counter to your specific argument, texts in both the Old and New Testament refer to wiping out specific groups of people. The entire final book of the New Testament is about those that don't believe in Christ. They end up facing their judgement and eternal torture.
It is disturbing to me that in your efforts to cast Christianity as the only non-racist religion, you have simultaneously cast Hinduism and Islam as racist in their entirety.
That sounds like racism to me, or at least xenophobia, which is just a step away.
Hopefully I don't end up in either of those places.
I have a theory that violence in the media, and games especially, may actually be beneficial to society (completely untested, so I guess it's a hypothesis). With the increased sophistication of our society, individuals are getting further and further from the need to kill their own food or participate in tribal warfare, or even to defend themselves physically from the wild and the elements. As humans, however, we're equipped with the survival instinct. It's foolish to think that we wouldn't want to express that urge, especially after millenia of social conditioning to do just that.
I think that violence in games allows us to act out what we're hardwired to do in a society that doesn't approve of it. Maybe we should force our murderers and rapists to play violent sims, so they don't act out their fantasies.
Mr. Wizard had a huge impact on me as well. I remember watching him, 3-2-1 Contact, and later Bill Nye and Beakman's World. There was an episode where he had some hydrophobic sand that he'd poured into a fishtank. It floated on the surface and when he plunged his hand into the water, it coated it like a glove. Pulled his hand out, it wasn't wet.
However many years later, and I am doing after-school science programming for a company called Mad Science. We have a kit with the sand in it, and I get to do the same experiment myself, and pass it on to another generation. It brings me back.
He will be missed.
For interactions between a citizen and a policeman/woman, it isn't reasonable to grant the ability to legally record what occurs to the officer but not the citizen. The officer is already the one with more power in their relationship. Without the citizens being able to monitor policemen/women, the relationship between power and privacy becomes greatly imbalanced, and abuses will occur with greater frequency. There are more than enough historical examples (and a few in the news right now) that illustrate why monitoring the force that monitors us is necessary.