No True Scotsman

[Lek]

It's common for non-believers to condemn christianity for atrocities committed or perceived to be committed in the name of christianity. They use this to assert that christianity is an evil force in the world. A christian is defined as one who follows Christ. Therefore I ask if a nation or individual is truly following the teachings of Jesus Christ would they have committed those atrocities?

What teachings exactly?

First of all, I'd venture to say that most Christians don't even know what the Bible says about anything apart from certain choice passages they've been quoted routinely. I'm sure you've heard the joke about how Christians treat Jesus like a software package: scroll down without reading and click "I agree" at the end. It's no small irony that if you want to know what the Bible says, you're best bet is to speak with an atheist.

Second, those Christians who have read the Bible can still come to radically different conclusions about what Jesus, or other figures in the Bible, taught. The fact that Michael Moore and Fred Phelps can/could both consider themselves to be followers of Jesus only underscores this point. Now you may take issue with their interpretations of scripture but that's the point. It means what you think it means. People who follow Jesus look in a mirror and see him as a glorified self-reflection. Jesus was a capitalist, a communist, a rebel, an authoritarian, a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, black, white, etc.

Third, the belief in Hell and the Christian faith-based scheme of salvation makes a lot of Jesus' more gentile sayings rather moot. In fact, I argue it is this very central doctrine of Christian thinking that makes it so dangerous.

If you really do believe that Hell is a real place where you really do go if you have not been saved by Jesus, the stakes are as high as they can be. If you do a little killing and a little torture to save more souls for all eternity, isn't that a small price to pay? What if murdering some unrepentant nonbeliever helps save your child from eternal Hell, how about now?

The bi-polar universe of Christianity doesn't help. There is no "Bob, the Neutral Christ". If you are not a follower of Jesus, then doesn't that narrow it down who you are serving or at best being duped by? This is why Christian fundamentalists see Satan's influence in all things outside their narrow definition of what Christianity means to them, sometimes even with things that are contradictory, such as science and New Age woo or Islam and homosexuality.

So since you can literally demonize your neighbors and the stakes of Hell are so urgent, you have the perfect recipe for sectarian atrocities, regardless of what Jesus said.

As an aside, if you can read the Gospels with a critical eye, it becomes apparent that Jesus' moral teachings are highly over-rated but that's a lengthier discussion for another thread.

What you're saying here can be applied to any system of beliefs. A person's interpretation of what he's been taught from family and society can be interpreted and twisted the same way. But that doesn't invalidate the true teachings that he received. Spend some time in a courtroom and see how many misinterpretations of the law there are. That doesn't make our laws a bad thing. If you're interpreting Jesus' teachings as saying to go out and commit atrocities, you are not following Jesus because he never said that.

[Bad Wolf]

Am I on ignore, why have you stopped responding to my posts lek?

[Esquilax]

Slavery in Jesus' society was a different institution than in America. They were usually prisoners of war or voluntary slaves. Jesus' concern was that they be treated righteously.

See, now this is interesting: after defining a christian as one who follows Christ, you turn around and demonstrate that you apparently don't, because Christ wasn't a fan of lying.

I'm pretty amazed nobody picked you up on this before now, but what you just claimed is bullshit; the rules for slavery, the biblical commandments about it that Jesus never repealed but reinforced, say that slaves can be bought "from the heathens around you." That says nothing about prisoners of war, or voluntary slavery, it just says to go to other places that have slavers and by from them.

It also says later that the wife and children of a slave belong to the slave's master, which doesn't take into account their consent at all, and in fact kids cant give consent to that anyway. We then proceed to be given a loophole wherein we can enslave a temporary slave forever by entrapment, giving him a wife and kids so that his emotional attachments override his desire to be free and he stays. These people aren't prisoners of war or volunteers, they're fucking slaves.

And as for being treated "righteously," the New Testament tells slaves to obey their masters, even the cruel ones. All masters, everywhere, and this is added to another old commandment that you seem to ignore that was never repealed, which says we're allowed to beat our slaves to death, so long as they linger for a couple of days between beating and expiring.

So... what? Did you just lie to us? Or do you not know your own bible as well as Esquilax the atheist does? Either way, doesn't that mean you aren't following Christ, and are therefore not a christian by your own definition?

[Chad32]

What teachings exactly?

First of all, I'd venture to say that most Christians don't even know what the Bible says about anything apart from certain choice passages they've been quoted routinely. I'm sure you've heard the joke about how Christians treat Jesus like a software package: scroll down without reading and click "I agree" at the end. It's no small irony that if you want to know what the Bible says, you're best bet is to speak with an atheist.

Second, those Christians who have read the Bible can still come to radically different conclusions about what Jesus, or other figures in the Bible, taught. The fact that Michael Moore and Fred Phelps can/could both consider themselves to be followers of Jesus only underscores this point. Now you may take issue with their interpretations of scripture but that's the point. It means what you think it means. People who follow Jesus look in a mirror and see him as a glorified self-reflection. Jesus was a capitalist, a communist, a rebel, an authoritarian, a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, black, white, etc.

Third, the belief in Hell and the Christian faith-based scheme of salvation makes a lot of Jesus' more gentile sayings rather moot. In fact, I argue it is this very central doctrine of Christian thinking that makes it so dangerous.

If you really do believe that Hell is a real place where you really do go if you have not been saved by Jesus, the stakes are as high as they can be. If you do a little killing and a little torture to save more souls for all eternity, isn't that a small price to pay? What if murdering some unrepentant nonbeliever helps save your child from eternal Hell, how about now?

The bi-polar universe of Christianity doesn't help. There is no "Bob, the Neutral Christ". If you are not a follower of Jesus, then doesn't that narrow it down who you are serving or at best being duped by? This is why Christian fundamentalists see Satan's influence in all things outside their narrow definition of what Christianity means to them, sometimes even with things that are contradictory, such as science and New Age woo or Islam and homosexuality.

So since you can literally demonize your neighbors and the stakes of Hell are so urgent, you have the perfect recipe for sectarian atrocities, regardless of what Jesus said.

As an aside, if you can read the Gospels with a critical eye, it becomes apparent that Jesus' moral teachings are highly over-rated but that's a lengthier discussion for another thread.

What you're saying here can be applied to any system of beliefs. A person's interpretation of what he's been taught from family and society can be interpreted and twisted the same way. But that doesn't invalidate the true teachings that he received. Spend some time in a courtroom and see how many misinterpretations of the law there are. That doesn't make our laws a bad thing. If you're interpreting Jesus' teachings as saying to go out and commit atrocities, you are not following Jesus because he never said that.

Of course I could interpret my father's teachings differently than my sister, but we don't spend out whole lives debating on how to do what he wants us to do.

As far as laws go, those are changeable because few people actually believe that a law passed a hundred years ago should apply just as well in this culture as it did in the culture of a hundred years ago. or a thousand years ago. And so forth.

This is the reason I believe the worst thing the followers could have done was claim that their god was perfect and unchanging. Because of this, they weren't allowed to say how sorry he was about things we clearly think are wrong now like slavery and genocide. We could cut him some slack for doing evil things if he wasn't supposed to be perfectly good, merciful, just, ect.

Culture changes. Laws and commandments must change with them. That's the primary reason why there are different interpretations of the book, and why people say he didn't condone slavery when he really did, or say that slavery was different when it was just fine to permanently own people from other regions. Or permanently own someone by giving them a wife first.

[Tonus]

It's common for non-believers to condemn christianity for atrocities committed or perceived to be committed in the name of christianity. They use this to assert that christianity is an evil force in the world. A christian is defined as one who follows Christ. Therefore I ask if a nation or individual is truly following the teachings of Jesus Christ would they have committed those atrocities?

I would be more willing to consider this objection if so many Christians didn't appeal to the popularity of Christianity so often. We often see them tell us that the vast number of people throughout history --and even to this day-- who believe in the Bible should be considered as evidence of its veracity. But it doesn't seem to take much to get those same Christians to begin disqualifying massive swaths of those same people as not really being Christian.

Also, it seems to me that you cannot disqualify a person in such a manner simply based on poor behavior, because nearly all Christians admit that they are imperfect, fallen, unworthy sinners who only achieve salvation through Christ's sacrifice. If the only Christian is a sinless human, then there have never been any Christians. And if not, then you can't just dismiss the abominable actions of some Christians because they crossed some threshold that you decided to define.

If the Bible has the power to change people's lives and re-shape them into something better, then every time you dismiss someone as not being a true Christian you are showing us another example of god's word FAILING to do just that. And I'm not talking about some 'hard-hearted atheist' or anything like that. I mean people who insist that they are Christians and who believe in Yahweh and his book the Holy Bible. And you are saying that it simply isn't having sufficient impact in their lives, though you are willing to count them when you want to play up god's popularity.

[DeistPaladin]

What you're saying here can be applied to any system of beliefs.

Not really because the whole package of Christianity includes more than Jesus' sayings about peace and love. It includes the doctrine of Hell, the struggle between Jesus and Satan and the faith-based scheme of salvation. You can't just focus on some loving things Jesus said and ignore the implications of a belief in the Devil or in Hell. For that matter, you can't just ignore what Jesus himself had to say about Hell.

The foundation of your implied argument behind your question in the OP seems to be a classic case of Cherry Picking but please do correct me if I have it wrong. You seem to be saying "Jesus said 'turn the other cheek', 'love thy neighbor' and 'do unto others...' so obviously no one who's a Christian could commit a sectarian atrocity". Is that your assertion?

A person's interpretation of what he's been taught from family and society can be interpreted and twisted the same way. But that doesn't invalidate the true teachings that he received.

Well there's the problem, isn't it?

Again, what are the True Teachings of Jesus ™?

Naturally, you think you're the one who got it right. Maybe you think Micheal Moore and Fred Phelps both got it wrong? Or just one of them? Or maybe both are right on different points? Perhaps so but how can we be sure? The source of the alleged teachings (and I say "alleged" because we have nothing directly from Jesus but, if Christian claims are correct, the hearsay testimony of Mark, penned at least 40 years after the ministry) isn't available for comment or clarification.

Jesus himself never sees fit to explain anything to anybody anymore. He once did, if Paul's testimony is to be taken seriously. The Book of Acts of the Apostles is drenched in overt communications from Jesus and displays of divine power. The Book of Revelation is, as the name implies, a divine revelation. Yet, for whatever reason, Jesus has implemented a strict policy of radio silence in the last 2000 years.

In sum, the problem with your counter-argument is that interpretation IS the only way we can know what it means to be a "True Christian" ™ and the wild variety of Christianities in the world today attest that identifying and parsing the "True Teachings of Jesus" ™ is a matter of controversy.

Spend some time in a courtroom and see how many misinterpretations of the law there are. That doesn't make our laws a bad thing.

Well, since you invoked the court room allusion...

Imagine Jesus is on trial for War Crimes.

Now, imagine me as the prosecuting attorney and you as the defense attorney. I think we can agree that the facts of the case include:

• Followers of Jesus committed atrocities
  
• Jesus, as an omnisceient being, knew of these atrocities.
  
• A word from Jesus would have stopped these atrocities.
  
• Jesus is capable of sending such a communique to either the religious leaders and/or their minions.
  
• Jesus chose to do nothing to stop them.
  

As the prosecuting attorney, I will argue that the lack of a direct order to commit said atrocities does not absolve Jesus. He had both the knowledge and the ability to stop his followers from getting out of hand and chose not to. At best, this would be criminal negligence and, at worst, complicity by silence.

I have argued before that if Jesus is who Christians say he is, than he is the least fit being in all the universe to stand in judgment over anyway and, on Judgment Day, he should beg our forgiveness, not the other way around.

If you're interpreting Jesus' teachings as saying to go out and commit atrocities, you are not following Jesus because he never said that.

Did Jesus tell us about Hell? And what awaits us there? And the only way to escape it?

[Lek]

I would be more willing to consider this objection if so many Christians didn't appeal to the popularity of Christianity so often. We often see them tell us that the vast number of people throughout history --and even to this day-- who believe in the Bible should be considered as evidence of its veracity. But it doesn't seem to take much to get those same Christians to begin disqualifying massive swaths of those same people as not really being Christian.

Also, it seems to me that you cannot disqualify a person in such a manner simply based on poor behavior, because nearly all Christians admit that they are imperfect, fallen, unworthy sinners who only achieve salvation through Christ's sacrifice. If the only Christian is a sinless human, then there have never been any Christians. And if not, then you can't just dismiss the abominable actions of some Christians because they crossed some threshold that you decided to define.

If the Bible has the power to change people's lives and re-shape them into something better, then every time you dismiss someone as not being a true Christian you are showing us another example of god's word FAILING to do just that. And I'm not talking about some 'hard-hearted atheist' or anything like that. I mean people who insist that they are Christians and who believe in Yahweh and his book the Holy Bible. And you are saying that it simply isn't having sufficient impact in their lives, though you are willing to count them when you want to play up god's popularity.

What I'm saying is that if a christian commits an atrocity, even though he's a true christian, if he's is acting counter to the teachings of Jesus, then you can't blame christianity for the act. The person is acting on his own accord, not according to the teachings of Christ.

[Cato]

What I'm saying is that if a christian commits an atrocity, even though he's a true christian, if he's is acting counter to the teachings of Jesus, then you can't blame christianity for the act. The person is acting on his own accord, not according to the teachings of Christ.

True Christianity, as you describe it, is morally bankrupt. In addition, if it isn't a sufficient deterrent for bad behavior then it serves no practical purpose for believers, let alone those of us that can't accept its doctrine.

What's left is a tool for a few to control the gullible masses that are afraid to confront the nothingness that is our destiny.

[Lek]

Did Jesus tell us about Hell? And what awaits us there? And the only way to escape it?

Yes, he did.

---

True Christianity, as you describe it, is morally bankrupt. In addition, if it isn't a sufficient deterrent for bad behavior then it serves no practical purpose for believers, let alone those of us that can't accept its doctrine.

What's left is a tool for a few to control the gullible masses that are afraid to confront the nothingness that is our destiny.

Actually. I think that those who committed atrocities were not true christians, because christianity is a deterrent to that kind of behavior. But my point is still valid either way.

[Cato]

Actually. I think that those who committed atrocities were not true christians, because christianity is a deterrent to that kind of behavior. But my point is still valid either way.

No, it isn't. By your definition there is no such thing as a True Christian.