Let's Give The Muslims A Day Off

[Marsellus Wallace]

I was expecting the KKK, but i read the article title again..."never hear about".

[DeistPaladin]

Let's also not forget that secular values were by and large borne out of Christian values.

You just lost 10 credibility points for repeating one of the sleaziest claims of Christian apologists.  

Seriously, pure sleaze that frankly you should apologize for. It's an offensive claim. 

First of all, "secular values" by definition don't come from religion. You ought to at least come out and claim that we use Christian morals or live in a Christian society. That too would be offensive but at least you'd get some points for honesty.

Second, from Copernicus to Darwin, science has only advanced after overcoming resistance from Christianity. Christianity has always been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age. Now before you say, "that was the Catholics", the Protestants proved themselves just as bad when they had the opportunity. 

As for social issues, from slavery to women's rights to gay rights, Christianity has always aided and abetted the oppressor and stood in the way of social progress. Even on the slavery issue where abolitionists were self-labeled Christians, it was the slave owner who was supported by scripture. 

My own video on this topic:





That Christianity has been dragged kicking and screaming on every issue I can think of, from social to science, into the modern age and then has the gall to try to claim responsibility for our advances from the Dark Ages they inflicted upon us is not just wrong. It's obscene. 

[Faith No More]

Let's also not forget that secular values were by and large borne out of Christian values.

Perhaps by Western standards, but much of what you can find of value in the bible can be found in Eastern writings pre-dating it.  On top of that, I bet you'd be hard pressed to find anything moral in the bible that the Greeks hadn't hashed out already.  

[Mudhammam]

Let's also not forget that secular values were by and large borne out of Christian values.

Perhaps by Western standards, but much of what you can find of value in the bible can be found in Eastern writings pre-dating it.  On top of that, I bet you'd be hard pressed to find anything moral in the bible that the Greeks hadn't hashed out already.  

I think you'd find a lot more similarity between pagan morality and something like the ethics advocated by Nietzsche than you would between them and Christianity.

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Let's also not forget that secular values were by and large borne out of Christian values.

You just lost 10 credibility points for repeating one of the sleaziest claims of Christian apologists.  

Seriously, pure sleaze that frankly you should apologize for. It's an offensive claim. 

First of all, "secular values" by definition don't come from religion. You ought to at least come out and claim that we use Christian morals or live in a Christian society. That too would be offensive but at least you'd get some points for honesty.

Second, from Copernicus to Darwin, science has only advanced after overcoming resistance from Christianity. Christianity has always been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age. Now before you say, "that was the Catholics", the Protestants proved themselves just as bad when they had the opportunity. 

As for social issues, from slavery to women's rights to gay rights, Christianity has always aided and abetted the oppressor and stood in the way of social progress. Even on the slavery issue where abolitionists were self-labeled Christians, it was the slave owner who was supported by scripture. 

My own video on this topic:





That Christianity has been dragged kicking and screaming on every issue I can think of, from social to science, into the modern age and then has the gall to try to claim responsibility for our advances from the Dark Ages they inflicted upon us is not just wrong. It's obscene. 

Many of the founders of the scientific method, and some of the most important discoverers in history, were Christians. That Christian states persecuted anyone they deemed heretical, or supported bigotry, is a problem that goes deeper than religion. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit how much credibility I have in your eyes. That you can't differentiate between Christian apologists and the fact that many influential thinkers were deeply religious or operated within cultures that were predominately Christian, is your problem, not mine.

[Pyrrho]

Can a person follow the teachings of Christ and seek to violently harm another person at the same time, in the same place, in the same respect? I thought logicians realized that was a contradiction centuries ago. Unless you're saying that Christ advocated violence, which is not a passage I have read. Can a person follow Muhammad and harm another person? Well, you do see what Mohammad allegedly wrote and how he lived. So, it kind of seems like a false equivalency to me.

You obviously never were a good Christian.  One does not have to resort to the book of Revelation in its discussion of the second coming and the day of judgement.  Here are the words of Jesus, according to Matthew 10:

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.


It doesn't get much clearer than that.  There are also numerous times that Jesus seems to take a great delight in talking about how those who reject him will burn in hell.  The above is followed with:

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.


All of that is, according to Matthew, the words of Jesus himself.

In Mark 7, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for not killing children who do not honor their parents, as they are commanded to do in the Old Testament (Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21); again, this is Mark 7:

9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.


Again, it is Jesus himself in this, not some other Bible personage.

In Acts 3, we have Peter saying (you can see that it is Peter from verse 12 and earlier):


22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.


So basically, all nonChristians are going to be executed.  This sound a lot like what ISIS does, except this is for Christianity instead of Islam.  This is something we can look forward to, when some Christians try to bring about Biblical prophecy.

Hebrews 11:

35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:


Torture will be used to help people get a better afterlife.

So, if one is really a follower of Jesus, one will be violent, and take up the sword.  That is what Jesus says.  Peaceful people can go to hell, for being disobedient.

[Mudhammam]

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Even someone without a background in Christianity should know better than to mutilate literature this badly. Jesus did bring a sword: against him and his followers. 

It doesn't get much clearer than that.  There are also numerous times that Jesus seems to take a great delight in talking about how those who reject him will burn in hell.  

I am not a supporter of Christian ethics because I appreciate certain aspects and their influence on Western values. Of course the notion of hell is heinous. 

The above is followed with:

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

That's precisely what happened. Christians were ostracized by their Jewish family members and had to make a choice between which beliefs they would follow, one that called for sacrificing everything for the sake of spreading the Gospel or one that retained whatever former comfort they had before. 

9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

That's a stretch. Yes, Jesus apparently believed in the Old Testament, but he's speaking out against disrespect towards the elderly, as it appears to not only have been tolerated but encouraged. He's not advocating the stoning of children.

22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.


So basically, all nonChristians are going to be executed.  This sound a lot like what ISIS does, except this is for Christianity instead of Islam.  This is something we can look forward to, when some Christians try to bring about Biblical prophecy.

All the Abrahamic religions teach judgment day. I'm against that concept. That's not the same as calling for believers to smite the heads of infidels wherever they find them. 

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My views are essentially no different than those put forth by John Stuart Mill:

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Before pronouncing what Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to decide what is meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a complete doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and higher… St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a pre-existing morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What is called Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality, was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin… That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but I do not scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it, had contributed to the formation of European life and character, human affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are. Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) “thou shalt not” predominates unduly over “thou shalt.” In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man’s feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established; who indeed are not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids, but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for any amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place, infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read the maxim—"A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State.“ What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, highmindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of obedience.
I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics… Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; that they are irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality requires; that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them… But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction, which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those secular standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics, receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathizing in the conception of Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than any one which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it does contain…. The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested against; and if a reactionary impulse should make the protestors unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.

(Bold mine)

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[Pyrrho]

...

That's a stretch. Yes, Jesus apparently believed in the Old Testament, but he's speaking out against disrespect towards the elderly, as it appears to not only have been tolerated but encouraged. He's not advocating the stoning of children.

...

Jesus in Matthew 5:

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.


If he is serious there, he is serious about following the laws involving the stoning of children, and all of the other stuff in the Old Testament.  Of course, Christians typically pretend that Jesus did not really mean what he says, about every detail of the law being in effect, "Till heaven and earth pass" and "till all be fulfilled."  They don't like it, and pretend it means something else.  That Jesus did not follow it all means nothing, since he is supposed to be above the law anyway.  One needs to follow the law better than the Pharisees, who are the ones not stoning the children when they are commanded to do so.  Otherwise, "ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

[Mudhammam]

Pyrrho, Christians had the debate about the role of the Jewish law in their faith post-Jesus. In the first century. What do you think caused Paul and Peter to go their separate ways? And why do you think I'm obligated to defend every passage of scripture you throw at me because I recognize the role of Christianity in the development of Western culture/secular ethics? That's not rational.

[Pizza]

Different, yes, but not entirely.  The consequences of both are violence in the name of a deity.  Let's not forget that when unfettered by secular humanistic values, Christianity was just as barbaric as Islam is today.  

Jesus can preach non-violence and empathy until his throat is sore, but when his plan is to come back and slaughter the unbelievers, it renders anything he had to say moot.

Let's also not forget that secular values were by and large borne out of Christian values.

Actually we should thank the Greeks for that. I love those wacky pagans. 

[Cephus]

Adam Everett Livix, a Christianist from Texas, was arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of plotting to blow up Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem).

Sounds vaguely familiar...

It is very familiar, Israel has a constant problem with crazy American fundamentalists trying to blow up the Dome of the Rock so the Jews can rebuild the temple and bring about the end of the world.  Livix wasn't the first and will not be the last to try.