As we all know, we grow older and our bodies essentially break in at least some ways almost from birth. Before the fall, we did not. Afterward, we began to die ON THAT DAY.
Empirical? This is literary analysis, not a science experiment. He should have provided citations, but the Gospels and Paul's epistles explain these concepts.
Do you even know what the context of this conversation is? Let me refresh your memory:
Interestingly contrary to what you've posted, the more I read the Bible, and the more I learn from science and history, the more they seem to join and support the other.
If he can't back up his claims with empirical data, he's just repeating groundless theological conjecture. Which is NOT SCIENCE. Which is the point of this thread. Again, do try to keep up.
Any deficiencies in the morality of the old testament is always explained away as "oh, those were just flawed people, but God was still good and right." You can rub their nose in the part where God orders his minions to dash babies against rocks, but they just push their head further into the sand. You can lead a person to sense but you can't make them sensible.
I hear that. Rationality is a scarce commodity in some circles. Especially when it contradicts their favorite Bronze Age myths.
Who's sillier: someone who literally believes the Bible, or someone who thinks God is going to use some sort of cloning machine that meets Slashdot specifications?
Who is sillier, someone who believes in Iron Man or someone who believes in Superman?
Wow. Not only are you wrong in assuming the ark needed to be made of steel,
Not I, ye of little link reading.
Some deviations have been necessary such as building the Ark out of American Cedar and Pine over a steel hull (otherwise it collapse under its own weight) rather than the enigmatic gopher wood specified in the Bible.
From the link the grandparent posted. Do try to keep up.
you speculated that it would be too small (there are lots of studies existing on this; the ones that use actual numbers claim it's plausible)
Now it's my turn: [CITATION PLEASE]
And it's pretty obvious. Calculate the volume of your ark. Now, go measure the body mass of just the occupants of your local zoo. Now, add in the food stores needed for the length of time Noah was floating about(the zoo keepers can help you here). You've already likely run out of space, unless your local zoo only houses a couple of ferrets and a raccoon. Now do this for every land ecosystem on the face of the planet. 'Nuff said.
and we have, indeed, found lots of evidence of flood levels around the world in the proper time frame. The best physical evidence is in the Middle East, which lends credence to the theory that it was only a local event, but we have flood narratives from many, many religions.
Great. You have flood narratives from many cultures. Many cultures who lived next to many rivers which often flooded. The mind boggles as to why they would have similar myths. You would think that cultural and historical commonalities would lead to analogous beliefs about gods, diseases, weather, seasons and other natural occurrences. Oh, wait, they do.
Oh, and what exactly would the "proper time frame" be? I'd like to see the evidence you are proposing.
Jesus said a lot of things, but I believe the most important was when he was asked what was the most important commandment was, he gave two. But I'll even shorten it down further to just one, so that if there is ANYTHING that even a non-believing individual could and should take away from the Bible, please take away this one thing:
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."
Thank you, that is all.
And, as I said, if you winnowed out the utter crap of the rest of the book, there are nuggets of wisdom.
The acquisition of knowledge is viewed as a sin, while blind obedience to dogmatic creeds is exalted.
Proverbs 1: "Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish".
And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." - Gen. 2:16-17
Why, isn't that verse the root of the whole concept of Original Sin, which is in turn the whole point of the sacrifice of Jesus?
As to "blind obedience to dogmatic creeds", far from being exalted in the New Testament, those creeds were sorely questioned by Jesus. In fact, he was arrested for "working on the Sabbath" and then executed for heresy.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. - Mat. 28:19-20
Yup, that Jesus was big on freethinking. No obeying creeds for him!
If I write a work of fiction, am I a murderer for killing off the main character in the last chapter? If I write a computer program, do I murder when I kill off a child process? If I create a universe populated with images of myself, how is it wrong for me to kill them or do anything I want with them? Do you not own the work of your own hands?
The universe is a fiction with you as the main character. Spoiler alert: the main character dies. The only suspense is when.
Why, yes, if you somehow managed to create sentient beings, you would be a murderer for killing them. You'd be worse than a spoiled child killing his pets out of peevish perversity. Or are you suggesting that you believe that your god created us as deluded automatons, fit only to be used as mindless toys and destroyed at his leisure? How twisted are your beliefs, exactly?
You'll notice that, despite the many attempts to rid the world of Bibles, it always seems to reappear(much like Israel - I believe it's the only country to be destroyed/dissolved and reform, ever).
Oh, and just for the record: Poland. And, depending on how you define dissolution and reformation, virtually all of the rest of the European countries.
He did die. And yes, before evening came. And then he lived on for 900+ years. Confused?
He died spiritually. The Bible tells that man is made of three parts("made in the image of God", ever wonder if that meant God looked like a human?); body, soul(made up itself of three parts - mind, emotion, will), and spirit(in that order, outermost layer to innermost - think of three rings, one inside the other - body is outermost, soul is middle, spirit, the core). The first two were corrupted(also dead, in a sense) when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and the last flat-out died. Humans were dead spiritually, and so had no link or business with God anymore - God, being holy, couldn't interact with us without a proxy anymore. That was the meat of Christ's job - restore that link, and on top of that, make it better. Besides a number of other things just as important that I'm too lazy to post, but there, you have the main idea.
Hilarious! For someone who asked me for a citation, you sure are good at tossing out unsubstantiated crap! How about backing up any of that ad hoc tripe with some empirical evidence? Can you do anything aside from quote your single source?
First of all, I don't see why an entity that created a universe can't grow a human from a rib. It's strange that you questioned that particular episode in the Bible; was there a particular reason behind that, by the way?
Doesn't match the evidence. That's why it's a silly notion.
Congratulations. You proven that, given a steel hull, Noah could have built an ark which could float. Oh, and is still far too small to contain even a decent fraction of the land creatures of the Earth, even ignoring the food problem. Oh, and which supposedly floated around on a worldwide flood which mysteriously left no worldwide evidence behind. Truly, an awe inspiring feat.
Though I'll understand if you reject my first answer out of hand.
The Bible is the "straight dope". I don't see where you're coming from on that point - clarify for me please?
Isn't it obvious? He's asking why God couldn't give a straight account of creation, instead choosing to inspire convoluted myth structures with no analog to the actual events of history.
As for the translation issues, that's a moot point. You and I know full well that English had no presence at the time of writing, and wouldn't have been worth much to the people of the time. If it's communication errors/mistranslations/lost or dropped meanings and texts thing you're worried about, I think God, being who He is, will be(has been) able to get His point across and steer His letter to humans clear of destruction. He's pretty good at that. You'll notice that, despite the many attempts to rid the world of Bibles, it always seems to reappear(much like Israel - I believe it's the only country to be destroyed/dissolved and reform, ever). Alright, questions answered, and more besides. Have you more?
I also notice that we have religious writings from other cultures of that age. We even have pornography from way back then. God must be protecting all of that, too. Or maybe the explanation is simply that we have a fair amount of documents from then, and that, given the historical position of the Jewish people, it is relatively unsurprising that their writings survive until the present day.
First, the two versions of the creation myth don't match. The origin of man is placed last in the first version, and before the creation of other life forms in the second. There is no mention of forbidden fruit in the first. And there is no separation between the creation of man and woman. There was no point at which there was just one man and one woman. Furthermore, even taking the first version as an extremely attenuated account of the actual development of life, it gets the order wrong. Plants are created before the sun, moon and stars. The seas were populated after the land. It's just a hodge podge of mythical explanations which bear no resemblance to actual events or the actual structure of the universe. That's without going into the concepts of Sheol, the Firmament and other such physical explanations. It's myth, not science.
The morality of the Bible is repulsive. Women and children are treated little better than chattle. Blind obedience is exalted(Abraham and Isaac). Genocide is a commandment from God. Ritual vicarious atonement is practiced as blood sacrifices, which the Christians later claim as a precursor to Jesus' sacrifice. The New Testament would seem better if it didn't add in the concept of Hell, reinforced the earlier misogyny and make claims which can be empirically proven false about the efficacy of Christian prayer.
The theology is degrading. It starts with a concept of man as a deviant, broken being in need of salvation. The supposedly omnimax deity which created him deems it sufficient to only enable that salvation through the bloody, ritualistic murder of his son/self. The acquisition of knowledge is viewed as a sin, while blind obedience to dogmatic creeds is exalted. I could spend hours talking about the nastiness of the lesson of Job, or the concept of infinite punishment inflicted on a finite being for finite offenses in a finite frame of reference or any of the other myriad things which make it so hideous.
Sure, the ethic of reciprocity is good. The story of the Good Samaritan is laudable. But none of it makes up for the loads of ignorance and degradation you have to wade through to find such nuggets. I assume that if you are the Bible devotee that you claim, my descriptions are sufficient for you to place what I am talking about.
Abiogenesis is a fact, even within Creationist ideologies. The only question is the mechanism. No matter what, suggesting an untestable, ad hoc explanation like a deity is not a scientific explanation. It is quite sad, since when you boil it down, you have one side researching likely mechanisms and furthering our understanding, and the other intoning "goddidit" with not a shred of empirical data to back it up.
I've studied the Bible. The cosmology is wrong. It requires a very "liberal" interpretation to wring out something approximating the truth. The morality is repulsive. The theology is degrading. Frankly, the good you can take from the "Good Book" could be summarized in a very short pamphlet. Not sure why anyone takes it seriously, aside from cultural indoctrination.
But a clearer understanding is that you make disciples of people, not nations. The idea is go into these nations, teach, and make disciples of them. But this is done by changing hearts and minds, not forcing people to become Christians and therefore isn't extreme at all.
I'm afraid not. Christians have historically forced people to convert, often at the point of a sword. It's common to attempt conversions of people who are in emotional or physical distress. It's common to indoctrinate children with it before they have the mental faculties to even understand the concepts. It's accompanied with threats of eternal damnation and promises of absurd delights. This is the normal mode of operations for all of the Abrahamic religions, from Christians to Muslims to Mormons to Jehovas Witnesses to *insert your favorite group here*.
How were they to make them disciples? By teaching. Not by war, terrorist threats, and force.
Bullcrap. The Paul you so lovingly quoted below also threatened eternal damnation upon everyone who didn't follow his beliefs:
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. - 2 Thess:8-10
Or how about the whole freaking chapters of Romans 1 and 2? Threatening me with eternal, infinite suffering is only more tolerable than threatening to blow me up because I don't believe in crackpot theories of Hell, while I can see for myself the reality of a car bomb.
Christianity understands that one has the right to reject the Gospel as well. "Almost though persuadest me to be a Christian" as recorded in Acts 26:28. Did Paul issue a jihad to force Agrippa to become one? Did he mount a terrorist attack to capture Agrippa and force him to accept discipleship or die? No.
Of course not. He didn't have the political power to do so. Once Christians did, however, that tolerance disappeared. It only reappeared when they were neutered by outside forces and forced to play nice. Even now, it only takes the slightest provocation for Christians to start killing each other and anyone else who they perceive as a threat.
So there is no extreme behavior. That others since the first century church have done so in the name of Christ goes back to a previous point, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21.
You should look up a term in wiki. It's called the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Since you apparently missed my earlier reply, chapter and verse, with a handy link so you don't even have to crack your home bible.
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
As for Christian ethics, sure, they are cool, if you divorce them from the deranged concepts of virgin birth, heaven and hell, demon-driven disease, weird hatred of fig trees, misogynistic tendencies, the desire to "bring a sword" to the world and all of the other strange and irrational claims that those ethics are draped in.
I would agree with much of what you say but that. Christians aren't commanded to eliminate other faiths. Rather, to convert the unsaved. It's about changing minds and hearts. The word "eliminate" brings to mind more extreme behavior. That was probably not your intent, though.
Really?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
Seems pretty clear cut and extreme to me. There is no room in that command for leaving people to their previous beliefs. Just like Islam.
But of course Christians and patriots don't go all jihad on people, so really the government is even more pathetic than first thought.
Yeah, Christians are little white lambs who never hurt a soul. The history of Western civilization is drenched in the blood of all the peace-mongering that those Christians engaged in.
And I remember the last celebrity that the right-wing "patriot" movement coughed up. What was his name? Timmy Mcveigh, or something like that?
Because those people are voters who have some sway over how the country I have to share with them is run? I consider that more than enough reason to confront such juvenile beliefs when held by adults.
Read it several times. I bought into it before I was exposed to some actual logic. A weird false trichotomy and an argument from natural law is not what I would call intellectual arguments.
Really? Plantinga's proof is a bad joke. It's just the same as every other attempt to salvage the ontological argument. You can attack it on a variety of levels, not just the weird piece of modal logic he uses to derive his conclusions. Plantinga may be a smart fellow, but he uses stupid rationalizations to support his beliefs.
Slashdot Mirror
As we all know, we grow older and our bodies essentially break in at least some ways almost from birth. Before the fall, we did not. Afterward, we began to die ON THAT DAY.
Got some fossil evidence to back that claim up?
Empirical? This is literary analysis, not a science experiment. He should have provided citations, but the Gospels and Paul's epistles explain these concepts.
Do you even know what the context of this conversation is? Let me refresh your memory:
Interestingly contrary to what you've posted, the more I read the Bible, and the more I learn from science and history, the more they seem to join and support the other.
If he can't back up his claims with empirical data, he's just repeating groundless theological conjecture. Which is NOT SCIENCE. Which is the point of this thread. Again, do try to keep up.
Any deficiencies in the morality of the old testament is always explained away as "oh, those were just flawed people, but God was still good and right." You can rub their nose in the part where God orders his minions to dash babies against rocks, but they just push their head further into the sand. You can lead a person to sense but you can't make them sensible.
I hear that. Rationality is a scarce commodity in some circles. Especially when it contradicts their favorite Bronze Age myths.
Unfortunately, it's also wrong and misguided. But whatever makes you feel better.
I notice you didn't bother refuting any of it. Typical. Feel free to cling to your delusions. Whatever makes you feel better.
Who's sillier: someone who literally believes the Bible, or someone who thinks God is going to use some sort of cloning machine that meets Slashdot specifications?
Who is sillier, someone who believes in Iron Man or someone who believes in Superman?
Wow. Not only are you wrong in assuming the ark needed to be made of steel,
Not I, ye of little link reading.
Some deviations have been necessary such as building the Ark out of American Cedar and Pine over a steel hull (otherwise it collapse under its own weight) rather than the enigmatic gopher wood specified in the Bible.
From the link the grandparent posted. Do try to keep up.
you speculated that it would be too small (there are lots of studies existing on this; the ones that use actual numbers claim it's plausible)
Now it's my turn: [CITATION PLEASE]
And it's pretty obvious. Calculate the volume of your ark. Now, go measure the body mass of just the occupants of your local zoo. Now, add in the food stores needed for the length of time Noah was floating about(the zoo keepers can help you here). You've already likely run out of space, unless your local zoo only houses a couple of ferrets and a raccoon. Now do this for every land ecosystem on the face of the planet. 'Nuff said.
and we have, indeed, found lots of evidence of flood levels around the world in the proper time frame. The best physical evidence is in the Middle East, which lends credence to the theory that it was only a local event, but we have flood narratives from many, many religions.
Great. You have flood narratives from many cultures. Many cultures who lived next to many rivers which often flooded. The mind boggles as to why they would have similar myths. You would think that cultural and historical commonalities would lead to analogous beliefs about gods, diseases, weather, seasons and other natural occurrences. Oh, wait, they do.
Oh, and what exactly would the "proper time frame" be? I'd like to see the evidence you are proposing.
Perhaps you have missed the point.
Jesus said a lot of things, but I believe the most important was when he was asked what was the most important commandment was, he gave two. But I'll even shorten it down further to just one, so that if there is ANYTHING that even a non-believing individual could and should take away from the Bible, please take away this one thing:
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."
Thank you, that is all.
And, as I said, if you winnowed out the utter crap of the rest of the book, there are nuggets of wisdom.
The acquisition of knowledge is viewed as a sin, while blind obedience to dogmatic creeds is exalted.
Proverbs 1: "Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish".
And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." - Gen. 2:16-17
Why, isn't that verse the root of the whole concept of Original Sin, which is in turn the whole point of the sacrifice of Jesus?
As to "blind obedience to dogmatic creeds", far from being exalted in the New Testament, those creeds were sorely questioned by Jesus. In fact, he was arrested for "working on the Sabbath" and then executed for heresy.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. - Mat. 28:19-20
Yup, that Jesus was big on freethinking. No obeying creeds for him!
If I write a work of fiction, am I a murderer for killing off the main character in the last chapter? If I write a computer program, do I murder when I kill off a child process? If I create a universe populated with images of myself, how is it wrong for me to kill them or do anything I want with them? Do you not own the work of your own hands?
The universe is a fiction with you as the main character. Spoiler alert: the main character dies. The only suspense is when.
Why, yes, if you somehow managed to create sentient beings, you would be a murderer for killing them. You'd be worse than a spoiled child killing his pets out of peevish perversity. Or are you suggesting that you believe that your god created us as deluded automatons, fit only to be used as mindless toys and destroyed at his leisure? How twisted are your beliefs, exactly?
Have fun in Hell.
Yes, the eternal answer to criticism of Christianity. When you can't make a logical reply, resort to fear mongering and threats. How pathetic.
You'll notice that, despite the many attempts to rid the world of Bibles, it always seems to reappear(much like Israel - I believe it's the only country to be destroyed/dissolved and reform, ever).
Oh, and just for the record: Poland. And, depending on how you define dissolution and reformation, virtually all of the rest of the European countries.
He did die. And yes, before evening came. And then he lived on for 900+ years. Confused? He died spiritually. The Bible tells that man is made of three parts("made in the image of God", ever wonder if that meant God looked like a human?); body, soul(made up itself of three parts - mind, emotion, will), and spirit(in that order, outermost layer to innermost - think of three rings, one inside the other - body is outermost, soul is middle, spirit, the core). The first two were corrupted(also dead, in a sense) when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and the last flat-out died. Humans were dead spiritually, and so had no link or business with God anymore - God, being holy, couldn't interact with us without a proxy anymore. That was the meat of Christ's job - restore that link, and on top of that, make it better. Besides a number of other things just as important that I'm too lazy to post, but there, you have the main idea.
Hilarious! For someone who asked me for a citation, you sure are good at tossing out unsubstantiated crap! How about backing up any of that ad hoc tripe with some empirical evidence? Can you do anything aside from quote your single source?
First of all, I don't see why an entity that created a universe can't grow a human from a rib. It's strange that you questioned that particular episode in the Bible; was there a particular reason behind that, by the way?
Doesn't match the evidence. That's why it's a silly notion.
As for the Ark, the conceptual build is apparently seaworthy. So far, no problems.
Congratulations. You proven that, given a steel hull, Noah could have built an ark which could float. Oh, and is still far too small to contain even a decent fraction of the land creatures of the Earth, even ignoring the food problem. Oh, and which supposedly floated around on a worldwide flood which mysteriously left no worldwide evidence behind. Truly, an awe inspiring feat.
Though I'll understand if you reject my first answer out of hand.
The Bible is the "straight dope". I don't see where you're coming from on that point - clarify for me please?
Isn't it obvious? He's asking why God couldn't give a straight account of creation, instead choosing to inspire convoluted myth structures with no analog to the actual events of history.
As for the translation issues, that's a moot point. You and I know full well that English had no presence at the time of writing, and wouldn't have been worth much to the people of the time. If it's communication errors/mistranslations/lost or dropped meanings and texts thing you're worried about, I think God, being who He is, will be(has been) able to get His point across and steer His letter to humans clear of destruction. He's pretty good at that. You'll notice that, despite the many attempts to rid the world of Bibles, it always seems to reappear(much like Israel - I believe it's the only country to be destroyed/dissolved and reform, ever). Alright, questions answered, and more besides. Have you more?
I also notice that we have religious writings from other cultures of that age. We even have pornography from way back then. God must be protecting all of that, too. Or maybe the explanation is simply that we have a fair amount of documents from then, and that, given the historical position of the Jewish people, it is relatively unsurprising that their writings survive until the present day.
Surely, this is not the best you can do.
Sure.
First, the two versions of the creation myth don't match. The origin of man is placed last in the first version, and before the creation of other life forms in the second. There is no mention of forbidden fruit in the first. And there is no separation between the creation of man and woman. There was no point at which there was just one man and one woman. Furthermore, even taking the first version as an extremely attenuated account of the actual development of life, it gets the order wrong. Plants are created before the sun, moon and stars. The seas were populated after the land. It's just a hodge podge of mythical explanations which bear no resemblance to actual events or the actual structure of the universe. That's without going into the concepts of Sheol, the Firmament and other such physical explanations. It's myth, not science.
The morality of the Bible is repulsive. Women and children are treated little better than chattle. Blind obedience is exalted(Abraham and Isaac). Genocide is a commandment from God. Ritual vicarious atonement is practiced as blood sacrifices, which the Christians later claim as a precursor to Jesus' sacrifice. The New Testament would seem better if it didn't add in the concept of Hell, reinforced the earlier misogyny and make claims which can be empirically proven false about the efficacy of Christian prayer.
The theology is degrading. It starts with a concept of man as a deviant, broken being in need of salvation. The supposedly omnimax deity which created him deems it sufficient to only enable that salvation through the bloody, ritualistic murder of his son/self. The acquisition of knowledge is viewed as a sin, while blind obedience to dogmatic creeds is exalted. I could spend hours talking about the nastiness of the lesson of Job, or the concept of infinite punishment inflicted on a finite being for finite offenses in a finite frame of reference or any of the other myriad things which make it so hideous.
Sure, the ethic of reciprocity is good. The story of the Good Samaritan is laudable. But none of it makes up for the loads of ignorance and degradation you have to wade through to find such nuggets. I assume that if you are the Bible devotee that you claim, my descriptions are sufficient for you to place what I am talking about.
Abiogenesis is a fact, even within Creationist ideologies. The only question is the mechanism. No matter what, suggesting an untestable, ad hoc explanation like a deity is not a scientific explanation. It is quite sad, since when you boil it down, you have one side researching likely mechanisms and furthering our understanding, and the other intoning "goddidit" with not a shred of empirical data to back it up.
I've studied the Bible. The cosmology is wrong. It requires a very "liberal" interpretation to wring out something approximating the truth. The morality is repulsive. The theology is degrading. Frankly, the good you can take from the "Good Book" could be summarized in a very short pamphlet. Not sure why anyone takes it seriously, aside from cultural indoctrination.
But a clearer understanding is that you make disciples of people, not nations. The idea is go into these nations, teach, and make disciples of them. But this is done by changing hearts and minds, not forcing people to become Christians and therefore isn't extreme at all.
I'm afraid not. Christians have historically forced people to convert, often at the point of a sword. It's common to attempt conversions of people who are in emotional or physical distress. It's common to indoctrinate children with it before they have the mental faculties to even understand the concepts. It's accompanied with threats of eternal damnation and promises of absurd delights. This is the normal mode of operations for all of the Abrahamic religions, from Christians to Muslims to Mormons to Jehovas Witnesses to *insert your favorite group here*.
How were they to make them disciples? By teaching. Not by war, terrorist threats, and force.
Bullcrap. The Paul you so lovingly quoted below also threatened eternal damnation upon everyone who didn't follow his beliefs:
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. - 2 Thess:8-10
Or how about the whole freaking chapters of Romans 1 and 2? Threatening me with eternal, infinite suffering is only more tolerable than threatening to blow me up because I don't believe in crackpot theories of Hell, while I can see for myself the reality of a car bomb.
Christianity understands that one has the right to reject the Gospel as well. "Almost though persuadest me to be a Christian" as recorded in Acts 26:28. Did Paul issue a jihad to force Agrippa to become one? Did he mount a terrorist attack to capture Agrippa and force him to accept discipleship or die? No.
Of course not. He didn't have the political power to do so. Once Christians did, however, that tolerance disappeared. It only reappeared when they were neutered by outside forces and forced to play nice. Even now, it only takes the slightest provocation for Christians to start killing each other and anyone else who they perceive as a threat.
So there is no extreme behavior. That others since the first century church have done so in the name of Christ goes back to a previous point, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21.
You should look up a term in wiki. It's called the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Since you apparently missed my earlier reply, chapter and verse, with a handy link so you don't even have to crack your home bible. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
As for Christian ethics, sure, they are cool, if you divorce them from the deranged concepts of virgin birth, heaven and hell, demon-driven disease, weird hatred of fig trees, misogynistic tendencies, the desire to "bring a sword" to the world and all of the other strange and irrational claims that those ethics are draped in.
I'm offended by your offensensitivity! http://www.gocomics.com/feature_items/explore?page=1&tag=20973
Good ideas. Toss in some atheist books to make it well rounded. Maybe some Glenn Beck books to rile up the right wingers.
I would agree with much of what you say but that. Christians aren't commanded to eliminate other faiths. Rather, to convert the unsaved. It's about changing minds and hearts. The word "eliminate" brings to mind more extreme behavior. That was probably not your intent, though.
Really?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
Seems pretty clear cut and extreme to me. There is no room in that command for leaving people to their previous beliefs. Just like Islam.
But of course Christians and patriots don't go all jihad on people, so really the government is even more pathetic than first thought.
Yeah, Christians are little white lambs who never hurt a soul. The history of Western civilization is drenched in the blood of all the peace-mongering that those Christians engaged in.
And I remember the last celebrity that the right-wing "patriot" movement coughed up. What was his name? Timmy Mcveigh, or something like that?
Just doesn't go far enough. There should be some bibles, Mormon scriptures, maybe some Watchtowers and other such silly and deranged books.
Because those people are voters who have some sway over how the country I have to share with them is run? I consider that more than enough reason to confront such juvenile beliefs when held by adults.
Read it several times. I bought into it before I was exposed to some actual logic. A weird false trichotomy and an argument from natural law is not what I would call intellectual arguments.
Really? Plantinga's proof is a bad joke. It's just the same as every other attempt to salvage the ontological argument. You can attack it on a variety of levels, not just the weird piece of modal logic he uses to derive his conclusions. Plantinga may be a smart fellow, but he uses stupid rationalizations to support his beliefs.