Religious moderates enable religious extremists

[Esquilax]

I agree that's it's not "religion" it's the good within humanity which is through God. But you think it's chemical reactions, instinct, evolution or whatever and we just follow our programs like machines. Thee is no good, no evil, no freewill and no point.

You've been told what I believe on this subject in other threads, so stop lying. (See, Lion, this is what I'm dealing with with this guy. He constantly and willfully misrepresents what I believe, despite input by me to the contrary.)

Also, if you can't demonstrate your god contributes this human goodness, you have no right to be asserting that it's the sole reason for that goodness.

Christianity helped to end the slave trade and promote human rights.

They also helped propagate it in the first place, and defend it against abolition. You know, like one would expect that people would, if god wasn't actually the source of human goodness and his book is filled of fantasies that can be spun any way you want? Funny, how that plays out.

Yes homosexuality is a thorny and divisive issue in certain Churches though it doesn't mean inequality is promoted they just believe it to be a sin, like sex outside of marriage would be sinful.

"This isn't an inequality thing, certain churches just don't want gays to have equal rights under the law."

This is actually what you're saying. Just telling me it's not an issue of equality doesn't change the fact that it demonstrably is by definition.

Not generally as much on average but they still feel some compulsion to do good and help others certainly.

Rather puts a dent in your theory that we all believe all humans are machines and there's no good and evil, doesn't it?

Human brilliance comes about from being made in the image of God. You can give equal credit to both.

And the only one deserving of that credit is the human, until you can show that your god exists.

Go ahead, tell me that there's no scientific proof you can give for god. I've already told you that's not the only proof I'd accept. Say it anyway, like you always do.

You may as well prove atheism is true though I would say the evidence is against it.

Oh, I can do that very easily: I don't believe in a god. The verification is my own mind, and what I think. I do not believe in a god, and henceforth my atheism, the lack of belief in a god, is true.

Easy!

Atrocities were committed due to or in association with atheist ideology, see for instance the French Reign of Terror. If you want to go on raw numbers then atheism is associated with millions more deaths than religion. Of course you can't pin this on a "disbelief in God" because no-one would kill anyone based on what they don't believe.

What's an "atheist ideology?" Atheism is a position on a single issue, and I'm willing to bet that you can't produce a single tenet of an atheist ideology that would actually map to what atheism is and not, say, your drastic misrepresentation of it.

Only because you loaded it as "disbelief in God". Otherwise it would be easy to point out the death toll of Communist socialist anti-religion regimes which you well know is staggering.

Antitheism is the anti-religious component, not atheism. And atheism is a disbelief in god by definition: A- prefix denoting a lack of something, theism- belief in a god. Atheism: lack of belief in a god. The term you're looking for, the denial one, is gnostic atheism, which I and most of the others here are not, and the anti-religion one is antitheism, which also isn't me and most of the others.

Besides, as I've noted elsewhere, even if you change what atheism means, that doesn't obligate us to take up the new beliefs. We'd still believe what we always have believed.

Motivated by pure human sin yes.

So, to be clear, the bad stuff is all human, but the good stuff is all stuff god gets the credit for?

Much like atrocities committed in the name of religion are drastic misunderstandings of God it's the same kind of thing.

Not according to the words in the bible. You know, the ones about killing all those of different religions?

The Nazi's "euthanized" it's mentally and physically disabled citizens, the people who would be a drain on their economy. They also attempted to conquer an empire where their own people would rule and have dominance over the lesser races, gain all their land and resources and so on. You can say they had the right idea if you want to disregard all our God given morality. It's not the good of the human race that would matter but the prosperity of your own tribal unit in competition with others. The strongest survive and the weakest die.

And I'm saying they were wrong morally, and that if they were indeed using evolution as a source, they were misunderstanding that. You're thinking of social Darwinism here, which has nothing to do with biological evolution, or atheism. Hell, the regular kind of evolution doesn't have anything to do with atheism.

Incidentally, you're just flat wrong, anyway: a list of books banned by the Nazis in 1935 had "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)" on it, and Hitler himself was said to have been a proponent of microevolution, if anything:

Where do we acquire the right to believe that man has not always been what he is now? The study of nature teaches us that, in the animal kingdom just as much as in the vegetable kingdom, variations have occurred. They've occurred within the species, but none of these variations has an importance comparable with that which separates man from the monkey — assuming that this transformation really took place.

Whatever else, he was definitely a proponent of intelligent design:

The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator.

Isn't it amazing what a small amount of research will do? Oh, you wouldn't know: it's clear you didn't do any.

Cue No True Scotsman fallacy in three... two... one...

You can't really fault what they did in any practical sense you can only fault them on their morality.

Why? Because you said so?

I already told you, with supporting evidence, that whatever they did, it wasn't done on behalf of atheism or evolution, so just completely ignoring that isn't going to help your case.

The removal of belief in God and religion and all it's power was one of the goals of Communism. Not just against Christianity but you can see for instance the persecution of Buddhists in China. A new state religion based around man or based on blood and soil would then be put in Gods place.

Which would make them antitheists, not atheists.

You could say it was a religious motivation but a purely human made religion to be put in Gods place. What we don't want or need are false idols in place of God.

So why try to make a connection between them and atheism at all?

Excellent, time for some repentance to the Lord then.

A= Acknowledge your wrong doings
B= Be sorry, or feel bad
C= Confess your sins to the Lord (or priesthood authority if the sin warrants!)
D= Don’t do it again

You are entirely too stupid to talk to.

No need to thank me thank the power of the Lord. All I did signpost the way out of the darkness and you allowed God to carry you out.

So, now that we have our snarks out of the way- and I hope, I really do, that what I just read was sarcasm- care to work on the fact that all you did to begin with was a bare assertion?

Because creation is an act of God and we're in Gods image. That's why it's satisfying.

Prove it.

This what you would calla "heavenly reward" it feels good because you draw yourself closer to God.

Prove it.

Exactly, now you have come to understand the true power of the Lord!

Prove it.

So the power of God is working through you even though you try to deny the existence of that which motivates you to do good? You see how the best kind of evidence is internal within you?

So, I've called you on this dishonest theft of human goodness several times now... do you really think that continuing with it is going to make your argument more convincing?

It's not religion that's the cause it's God and our relationship to God who is the cause.

Prove it.

And we get all this from?

The fact that we're beings who have evolved emergent intelligence capable of generating that stuff.

Well no there is a reason for these things, and the reason is God. Why don't you like the idea of having a good reason and explanation for things that happen?

Because a bare assertion from a proven liar isn't what I'd call a good reason, and having an explanation that you insist is correct doesn't make it correct. Do you care about having an explanation, or having the correct explanation?

On this side of eternity yes.

Prove it.

That is what you think! You don't believe in God a higher power or purpose therefore we're that are the byproduct of a natural process what bloody hell else do you think we are?

Don't tell me what I think, fool.

And all of this exists and all the natural processes it took to engineer all this exist because? What it's just randomly here for no reason?

No, not randomly: every individual action is supported by the ones that came before, and the laws of physics beyond them. The individual reactions can be small, almost negligible, but they've had billions of years to scaffold themselves up to the current state of the universe.

It's like if you had a hundred dice, and you wanted to roll all threes with them, so you keep the threes you do get and roll the ones you don't again. You aren't starting from nothing with every roll.

Why does this whole process exist in the first place?

Why would an answer of "I don't know," invalidate my thoughts? Especially given that evolution is proven.

There is a direction to it then? I think we're as developed as biological life can be myself. There is scientific backing that a larger brain to body ratio would be less efficient.

I didn't say there would be a direction, just that we will fade, and with any luck the things that will be selected for will turn out beneficial in the face of environmental and social concerns that we have no way of predicting in the future.

And eventually everything will grind down into the dust of a universe in decay and ruin for which there never was any reason or purpose for it's existence and within which we were just byproduct of organic scum? This is not an uplifting vision of humanities future or current state however you try to cut it.

Good thing you don't know that's what will happen then, isn't it? It's one possible future, but it's equally probable that life survives in some form or another, finds a way to cease the decay, or even starts again.

Besides, why does impermanence make the time we do have depressing? The fact that my lunch will end when I'm finished with it doesn't mean that lunch is useless, or that I can't enjoy it.

You're still interested in all that God represents, you're still interested in some kind of goal or purpose to life. Which you won't have without God.

I have a multitude of goals and purposes in my life, and I don't believe in your god.

It's a shame you're so reliant on brainwashing materialist dogma that you can't see what you yourself believe.

I'm not a materialist. Stop lying to everyone.

Human accomplishment and Gods accomplishment go hand in hand together we are Gods creation we're in relationship with God.

Prove it.

I keep telling you what atheism is about not necessarily what you believe if you don't agree with atheist philosophy. We would be machines made by a fluke of natural coincidence and mechanistically determined. Have a read of Stephen Hawkings the Grand Design to get more insight into this if you don't want to take my word for it you can take his.

So, if christians get to decide what atheism is- in conflict with what the word actually means- does that mean atheists get to decide what christianity is? Because I would very much like christianity to be a good rock-type Pokemon right now.

The proof is internal within you and the evidence is everywhere you look.

Nope.

It takes a dick to fuck assholes and pussies? Just your opinion though as I haven't meekly backed down under your overwhelming reason and ad hominem attacks.

No, an ad hominem would be undeserved and would be the entirety of my argument. I had plenty of other things in there with the insults. And I don't want you to meekly back down; I want you to fucking educate yourself before you go shooting your mouth off about things you don't understand.