everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[ScienceLovesGod]

I agree. Whether you are a believer or not, anyone can see that Catholicism is in direct violation of the Scriptures.

Quick question... Jesusologismaphy... joke or not? I mean... seriously, have I missed a trick here? I'm learning all the time, everytime I turn theres a new religion. It was only a few weeks ago I found out about a growing religion called "The Family" that basically believes they should imagine fucking jesus at every chance they get with as many partners as they can.
No, I'm not kidding.

No, I made it up. It means I believe in Jesus. And... WOW. That's insane. I'll have to look into that... or maybe I shouldn't...

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

anyone can see that Catholicism is in direct violation of the Scriptures.

Well,not quite anyone. About a billion Catholics disagree.. You seem to be implying that Catholics are not 'real' Christians.

That argument is a no true Scotsman fallacy, beloved of dogmatic believers.

[Aiza]

A better analogy to what you're actually doing would be if Hindus had killed and suppressed thousands of atheists and I ranted at Catholics about it, because they are theists, and there aren't any Hindus on the board to argue with.

Well....what if the Catholics explicitly identified themselves as "theists" and had some giant "theist forum" and a thread called "everyone seems to be hating on theists". I think it would be perfectly fair to talk about theists killing and suppressing atheists, even if no one shared an ideology (I hope!) with the killers.

Being a theist is highly correlated to having been taught there is a God, yes. Do you have any evidence otherwise at all? As I already noted, the study would exclude atheists who did get a religous education.

You are the one making the claim. I think you'd pick it up just from cultural osmosis, particularly in 1928.

Yet you paraded them in a thread about people hating on atheists, starting about the fifth post in, before anyone said any such thing. You didn't refute something, you started something.

I mentioned only the stats which might contribute toward unsavory "angry atheist" stereotypes: being more aggressive, impulsive etc. I have a ton of studies outside of that, if you are interested in them as a religious atheist I could PM you a lot more.

Antonia?

Probably just Anthony, I don't know too many Sisters who feminize their religious names outside of maybe adding a "Mary" on the front if they want.

Best of luck. I guess we won't have your company anymore after you join up.

I won't be joining up for another year (I hope so anyway...), though this upcoming year is going to be super busy anyway. Who knows though, we do get 9 days off to visit family every few years (and every year after we take final vows). Maybe I'll stop by and get the token "stop wasting your life on a sky wizard!" responses.

The church allows for salvation only if you repent for it [deathbed conversions basically]. I have no intention of repenting, however, since it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to live my life as an atheist, only to turn around and repent out of a fear of damnation...which is ultimately what happens with everyone. The fear of death and the hope for eternity and the worry of what they think will come after.

The Church allows for salvation for those who seek God wholeheartedly and who do good as well as their conscience allows, even if they do not belong to the Church. Your own "deathbed" conversion doesn't allow for salvation unless it also comes with a Baptism and/or Confession/Penance (if they already had been Baptized as a child) since repentance out of "fear of Hell" or "want of Heaven" is imperfect. Only way that deathbed conversions work would be perfect contrition which is hate of all sin out of love of God.

Also to butt in to your other discussion, there IS documented evidence that most parents teach the idea of god to their children in some way, I've actually seen it but fuck me I can't find it.

Sure, which is why some 99.9% of those in prison circa 1928 had received some instruction about religion. The problem is that number tells us nothing about theism or atheism.

Also: Yes, we DO have the authority to interpret scripture; we are literate, possessing reasoning abilities and higher cognitive functions for discernment.

Literacy is not enough. You need to know the languages, the history, the literary traditions (how and why people wrote), cultural mores, etc. If you want to understand within any religious context (and not just understanding say, the story of Job), you need to also know the Tradition and theology around the text.

Saying otherwise is like saying we do not have the authority to interpret the US Constitution.

We actually don't. Thats the authority of the Supreme Court, and even they can disagree and quibble over it, with plenty of 5-4 splits. And that's for a document only 300 years old and written in our native tongue! Regular citizens have absolutely no authority (much to the chargin of some, I'm sure)

Scripture is a product of the Church. The ones with the authority to interpret it are the Magisterium. Christianity is a 3-legged stool: Tradition, Scripture and Magisterium, and removal of one leg causes the rest to topple. There are tens of thousands of Protestant denominations.

In fact, Timothy 2:5 is pretty unambiguous in that: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

I don't disagree with this. The Church is also made up of men (and women), and I am a member. The Church is the Body, Jesus Christ is the head. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the neck, still part of the body but the part of the body closest to the head.

And yes, I know the whole thing that Jesus founded the Catholic Church...except that Catholic means "universal," not "made of a hierarchy where certain men are more in authority than others."

The Apostles had more authority than the other followers. In Acts we see the early Church also was hierarchical: it had bishops (episkopos), priests (presbyteros), and deacons (diakonos), as does the Catholic Church today.

And another thing, what is with the Catholic church calling their priests "father?"

The statement in Matthew 23 is understood as hyperbolic within Sacred Tradition, trying to teach humility and remember that God is the ultimate source of authority and teaching, and warning not to inaccurately assign fatherhood or assign fatherhood to a great degree. Priests genuinely are spiritual fathers. (Pope (or "Papa" in Latin) also means father). He also says to call no man on earth "teacher" or "master", but elsewhere "teacher" is used by the Apostles (and by Christ)

Even if you did want to pretend it is literal, Protestants still call their male parent "father" as well, as well as their teachers "teacher". "Mister" comes from the word "master", and "Doctor" also comes from the Latin word for "teacher".

"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Matthew 6:7

The key word there is "meaningless". The Rosary is anything but! It is possible to pray the Rosary very halfheartedly, but that is not how it is meant to be prayed.

And Catholicism says that Mary was a virgin and remained one after Jesus was born

Nowhere does it say those children are of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are two major traditions on this point: one is that those "brothers" are actually cousins or some other relative; and the other is that they were children of St. Joseph's from a previous marriage.

Snakes talking and an apple inducing sin [now if it was a bundle of grapes THEN I'd be like 'oh fuck yeah, that was the fruit of sin'] and all of humanity supposedly coming from two people without inducing catastrophic congenital illnesses that would have wiped us all out after our tenth generation or so and the world being created 6000 years or whatever ago despite all evidence to the contrary...........

That's what happens when you try to interpret Scripture without understanding any sort of proper context.

Its very surface level, and I won't try to address everything here, but for example. The snake has been interpreted to be a symbol for Satan or temptation from the earliest times of Christianity, there is no apple in Scripture (but its used in paintings and such), either way the fruit is not meant to be a literal fruit, and the world being 6000 years old is also nowhere in Scripture nor is it held by most Christians.

[Tempus]

The snake has been interpreted to be a symbol for Satan or temptation from the earliest times of Christianity, there is no apple in Scripture (but its used in paintings and such), either way the fruit is not meant to be a literal fruit, and the world being 6000 years old is also nowhere in Scripture nor is it held by most Christians.

Good point about the fruit - it's never specified what it is. To me at least, much of those things can be taken in a non-literal manner, and still make sense in a reality where there was no literal Garden of Eden. However, internal inconsistencies appear when some parts are interpreted literally and others metaphorically / symbolically. If one literally believes Jesus died around 0AD and we have Jesus' lineage that goes back to Adam and Eve (a metaphorical couple) - how do we make sense of this? Jesus actually existed but has metaphorical ancestors? And why, if Adam and Eve are symbolic, do we literally inherit original sin? Why do all humans inherit the sins of our metaphorical ancestors? If eating of the tree of knowledge is symbolic of some past mistake by our ancestors then what is that mistake and why do all humans suffer for it? I know that, for example, we inherit diseases regardless of whether we think it's "fair" or not - I'm actually curious as to whether you see sin in a similar manner.

Alternatively, if one believes Adam and Eve really did exist we can calculate the age of the human species from the lineages presented in the Bible which amounts to (roughly) 6000 years ago. If these lineages are incorrect or don't really mean that Jesus has human ancestors then why are they even included in the first place?

---

On an unrelated note: recently, while re-reading my posts, I've felt compelled to an addendum or sorts stating I'm not writing this an angry or "ha-haaa GOTCHA" tone - they're not supposed to read that way. Without excessive emoticons (which themselves can come off as condescending) it can be hard to convey one's own non-aggressiveness.

[Mister Agenda]

[quote='Aiza' pid='292187' dateline='1338420483']
Well....what if the Catholics explicitly identified themselves as "theists" and had some giant "theist forum" and a thread called "everyone seems to be hating on theists". I think it would be perfectly fair to talk about theists killing and suppressing atheists, even if no one shared an ideology (I hope!) with the killers.[/quote]

Probably one of them would explain that despite the title of the forum, there are hardly any Hindus here and we're getting tired of responding to tirades about them.

[quote='Aiza' pid='292187' dateline='1338420483']
You are the one making the claim. I think you'd pick it up just from cultural osmosis, particularly in 1928.[/quote]

That is a claim in itself. I don't think either of us has a leg to stand on, as I pointed out some posts ago when I mentioned we just have different opinions on the topic. These would be interesting things to study (how likely is someone who has never been taught to believe in God to become a believer?), but I don't know how to prove it either way without such studies having been done.

[quote='Aiza' pid='292187' dateline='1338420483']
I mentioned only the stats which might contribute toward unsavory "angry atheist" stereotypes: being more aggressive, impulsive etc. I have a ton of studies outside of that, if you are interested in them as a religious atheist I could PM you a lot more.[/quote]

But the studies didn't actually show that. Are you keeping studies that better support your hypothesis that people hate on atheists because we're more aggressive and impulsive a secret? Aiza, if you spent as much time looking for studies that show we are morally equal, I think you could double the size of your collection. I'm not sure what's really the case, but I know there are plenty of studies on both sides, so a citation-war isn't getting us anywhere.

If we were having this conversation on the theist board you imagined, I think it would be appropriate to mention that there are stereotypes of theists as intolerant hypocrites, not so appropriate to try to prove that those stereotypes are justified--trying to prove that people actually hold that stereotype would be a different matter. It's a topic in itself that would deserve its own thread. I'm sure another atheist would take the tack you've taken, but would you rather be like that atheist? There are plenty of theists here to take up the banner of douchedom, you strike me as a cut above them.

[quote='Aiza' pid='292187' dateline='1338420483']
Probably just Anthony, I don't know too many Sisters who feminize their religious names outside of maybe adding a "Mary" on the front if they want. [quote]

Interesting. One of my step-aunts was a nun, but I wasn't exposed to Catholicism much growing up. I've always liked the name Mary, it was my mother's.

[quote='Aiza' pid='292187' dateline='1338420483']
I won't be joining up for another year (I hope so anyway...), though this upcoming year is going to be super busy anyway. Who knows though, we do get 9 days off to visit family every few years (and every year after we take final vows). Maybe I'll stop by and get the token "stop wasting your life on a sky wizard!" responses. [/quote]

Glad you'll be around awhile, and hope you do get a chance to drop by for a little faith-affirming criticism.

[Polaris]

anyone can see that Catholicism is in direct violation of the Scriptures.

Well,not quite anyone. About a billion Catholics disagree.. You seem to be implying that Catholics are not 'real' Christians.

That argument is a no true Scotsman fallacy, beloved of dogmatic believers.

Well Jesus was the start of the no true Scotsman "fallacy" so...

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Well,not quite anyone. About a billion Catholics disagree.. You seem to be implying that Catholics are not 'real' Christians.

That argument is a no true Scotsman fallacy, beloved of dogmatic believers.

Well Jesus was the start of the no true Scotsman "fallacy" so...

Well no,he didn't actually.

Anyway,so fucking what? That does not validate anything you say.


Why do you put word fallacy in inverted commas? Are you of the opinion that makes it untrue?

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

No true Scotsman is an informal logical fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule.

Origin

The use of the term was advanced by philosopher Antony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking: Do I sincerely want to be right?.[2]

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
—Antony Flew, Thinking About Thinking

When the statement "all A are B" is qualified like this to exclude those A which are not B, this is a form of begging the question; the conclusion is assumed by the definition of "true A".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman

[Polaris]

Well not that it matters to you, but I don't really have a history of caring what Americans think anyway.

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

[Epimethean]

You're a preachy fucker, aren't you?

[Polaris]

Not at all. I just have a habit of backing up what I say comes from the Bible.