(February 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm)Shell B Wrote: Even if what you say above is true, which I will argue in a moment, that doesn't mean that Christianity introduced equality, compassion and sanctity of life, or even that it represents it.

Do you think Aristotle was the first person to feel sympathy for the poor and express it? Have you not considered the civilizations that came before Ancient Greece? Furthermore, you have wandered off your original argument that compassion, equality and sanctity of life were introduced by Christians. You've now shown that compassion was introduced long before Christianity.

Compassion is not a concept that only describes feeling sorry for the poor. I am sure that compassion has existed as long as the concept of family or motherhood has existed. In other words, animals had it before we did. As for equality, check out Sumerian law. Women and men were equal, a concept Christians fought for a very long time. Sanctity of life? What is sanctity of life to old school Christians? Kill them if they piss you off? Pretend he's a witch and then you won't have to pay your debt because we'll burn the motherfucker?

Indeed, i guess i didn't explain myself well there. The concepts of equality, sanctity of life and compassion as we understand them today were present in a way, but they were nowhere as evolved and more importantly as central as Christianity made them to be. They were brought up and made as primordial values by the Church. For example, for equality, everyone is absolutely equal because everyone is a sinner. For sanctity of life, everyone's life is worth equal because we are all "made in God's image". For compassion, Jesus' utter and complete devotion to help those who can't help themselves was a step further than what the populations at the time were used to.
Utter bullshit of course, but bullshit that did shape our modern sense of morality.

And i think my position is not clear enough: i think Christianity IS harmful and IS a bad thing for humanity to have, that is without question. However Christianity (and religion as a whole) is not entirely a horrible cult of murderers and bigots, and its ranks are not entirely composed Jesus freaks and irrational zealots. A large number of theists are good decent people and as such making blanket statements about their religion being the root of all evil and calling them retards simply because of their religion and nothing else is simply something i object to.

(February 25, 2011 at 11:22 am)Rwandrall Wrote: Just because some do horrible things in the name of an ideology, does not necessarily mean that the ideology is entirely flawed and evil.

Well, that argument can be made as well: God makes man. God knows man will sin in the garden before making him. God knows that he himself will cast a curse on his entire creation for sinning in the garden. God knows that Israel will be disobedient, obedient and then back again dozens of times and for many generations. God, for some reason, reconfigures his own plan for salvation of mankind, that of animal sacrifice to now include his own son as the sacrifice (or himself, or whatever ...). He knows that he will now require man, following Christ's death, to believe in his son and receive eternal life or refuse to believe and spend eternity in hell. He knew all of this before speaking anything into existence, yet, still threw us into a spiritual mouse trap by sheer force (kind of like Job) and without thinking that just maybe some of us would cringe at the thought of one man being tortured, executed and paying for the debts of an entire race. Jesus said some good things about helping the poor and weak among us, but we all know those things do not build the basic foundation of Christianity.

(February 25, 2011 at 2:29 pm)everythingafter Wrote: Well, that argument can be made as well: God makes man. God knows man will sin in the garden before making him. God knows that he himself will cast a curse on his entire creation for sinning in the garden. God knows that Israel will be disobedient, obedient and then back again dozens of times and for many generations. God, for some reason, reconfigures his own plan for salvation of mankind, that of animal sacrifice to now include his own son as the sacrifice (or himself, or whatever ...). He knows that he will now require man, following Christ's death, to believe in his son and receive eternal life or refuse to believe and spend eternity in hell. He knew all of this before speaking anything into existence, yet, still threw us into a spiritual mouse trap by sheer force (kind of like Job) and without thinking that just maybe some of us would cringe at the thought of one man being tortured, executed and paying for the debts of an entire race. Jesus said some good things about helping the poor and weak among us, but we all know those things do not build the basic foundation of Christianity.

I disagree. It's not the basic foundation of Christianity, but to help the poor and the helpless it definitely is a very central principle to Christianity. All men being sinners and all not believing in Jesus going to Hell forever are also central principles of Christianity. But still, some of their teachings are fundamentally good. Many are not. And since cherry-picking is what the greater part of theists do, a lot of theists keep the "help the helpless" part and ignore the "non-believers go to Hell part".

(February 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm)Rwandrall Wrote: I disagree. It's not the basic foundation of Christianity, but to help the poor and the helpless it definitely is a very central principle to Christianity. All men being sinners and all not believing in Jesus going to Hell forever are also central principles of Christianity. But still, some of their teachings are fundamentally good. Many are not. And since cherry-picking is what the greater part of theists do, a lot of theists keep the "help the helpless" part and ignore the "non-believers go to Hell part".

Helping the poor and helpless should be a central tenant of any compassionate human being's philosophy. If Christians keep the help the helpless part and not the hell part, then they, in practice, don't seem much different than well-meaning atheist volunteers. Of course, Jesus also said sell everything, leave your family and follow me. Not very ideologically sound either. Your keyword is "entirely," and while it's not entirely flawed, it's mostly flawed, but even the commendable parts are hardly exclusive to Christianity, and some straight stolen from elsewhere ("Do unto others ...").

(February 25, 2011 at 1:06 pm)Rwandrall Wrote: Christianity also went against human and animal sacrifices for example. Again, nothing is all black or all white.

You mean aside from sacrificing the Christ child for the benefit of future generations, I presume. The relationship of blood sacrifice in Jewish and Christian theology, and specifically the emergent Christology of the first millennia is a complex and subtle one, but I think it takes an absurd distortion to claim that Jews around the time of Christ, including Christian Jews, had abandoned the notion of sacrifice -- human, animal and other. Jesus himself did not oppose the temple's practice of sacrifice, and the temple curtain tearing at the end of Christ's story has been persuasively argued as a shift in the nature of sacrifice -- not an abandonment of it. If anything, they didn't abandon sacrifice because they were against it, but because the ultimate human sacrifice had been made, and anything else cheapened that sacrifice. Nonetheless, I think that the concept of sacrifice for God is very much alive in Christendom, from tithing, martyrdom, and veneration of saints all the way to the chastity pledges of modern teenagers.

(February 25, 2011 at 7:49 pm)apophenia Wrote: Nonetheless, I think that the concept of sacrifice for God is very much alive in Christendom, from tithing, martyrdom, and veneration of saints all the way to the chastity pledges of modern teenagers.

And of course, surrendering your entire will to Christ.

(February 25, 2011 at 8:46 pm)everythingafter Wrote: And of course, surrendering your entire will to Christ.

It's the entirety of that whole surrender shit and fuedal crap that flies against the democratic ideal of égalité that allows the common man a voice.

Living under the threat of a cosmic tyrant's boot is about as compatible with democracy and liberty as being thin and yet being fat. It's a contradiction in nature.

(February 25, 2011 at 9:44 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: Living under the threat of a cosmic tyrant's boot is about as compatible with democracy and liberty as being thin and yet being fat. It's a contradiction in nature.

Totally concur. To reference Hitchens, it's a bit like living in North Korea.

The thing is, VERY few Christians actually follow the Bible literally. As Bill Maher said, people don't look over their fence on Sunday morning, see their neighbor mowing the land and think "working on Sunday ? I really should KILL HIM !"

In very large numbers, despite the threat of Hell, Catholics divorce, have pre-marital sex, commit crimes, masturbate, re-marry, possess material riches that they keep for themselves, do not go to Church...

So how can they be considered as living under a celestial dictatorship if they actually only follow the rules that they want to follow ? It's more a celestial what...advice ? suggestion ?

"Helping the poor and helpless should be a central tenant of any compassionate human being's philosophy." Yeah, but nowhere in a law book is it said you should help the poor. It is not an actual rule like it is in Christianity. The number of charities and orphanages and shelters that are funded by religious groups is undeniable. If you really can't believe that some people are inspired by their faith to help their fellow human beings, then there's really nothing i can say.

"Living under the threat of a cosmic tyrant's boot is about as compatible with democracy and liberty as being thin and yet being fat. It's a contradiction in nature." So how do you explain that every democracy has some religious members in them that obey the Laws ? What does it say if the Law made by man is more important in their eyes than God's law ? It means they are more scared of jail than of Hell. Doesn't that say a LOT about how seriously they take their religion ?

The ones who actually follow the Bible literally are a very, very small minority. Maybe a big minority in the US, but every-fucking-where else, they are really rare.

(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: The thing is, VERY few Christians actually follow the Bible literally. As Bill Maher said, people don't look
over their fence on Sunday morning, see their neighbor mowing the land and think "working on Sunday? ...
So how can they be considered as living under a celestial dictatorship if they actually only follow the rules that they want to follow ? It's more a celestial what...advice ? suggestion ?

I agree there. But then, of course, they really don't believe do they? If they did really believe every word of their book, they would act much differently and more dangerously. Kind of like fanatic Muslims. I guess this would be a question for them, but if they aren't willing to follow their doctrine to the letter, why is there any sense in calling yourself a Christian. Most, pathetically, simply refer to themselves as a Christian in some nebulous sense-of-belonging kind of way. I don't have much sympathy for the idea of moderate Christianity. I think they are all wasting their time, but the moderates even more. But I think we can say even moderates still believe that there is a god up there who governs everything, intervenes in people's lives and will one day separate the wheat from the chaff. If they don't believe that, they have ceased being Christian.

(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: ... but nowhere in a law book is it said you should help the poor. It is not an actual rule like it is in Christianity. The number of charities and orphanages and shelters that are funded by religious groups is undeniable. If you really can't believe that some people are inspired by their faith to help their fellow human beings, then there's really nothing i can say.

No, I think if someone's faith inspires them to help others, that's great. But in almost every case I've seen as a former churchgoer, helping people build schools or churches is a secondary goal to trying to reach them for Christ. Believers aren't in Africa and China and everywhere else for purely humanitarian reasons. Spreading the message is at least one of the two main goals in almost every case of Christian missionary work, and usually, the main goal. It is, after all, the Great Commission. And also, if that's not a person's goal as a member of the Protestant or Catholic church, they are Christian in name alone.

(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: The ones who actually follow the Bible literally are a very, very small minority. Maybe a big minority in the US, but every-fucking-where else, they are really rare.

Then they shouldn't follow it at all. But again, I suppose that would be a question for them, not you.