Meaningfulness v meaninglessness; theism vs atheism;

[Autumnlicious]

Something revisionist...

[Minimalist]

The "cover ups" are not so bad as they sound. People cover up crimes like this for all sorts of reason, not all of which are evil.

You have just been re-classified as "total fucking idiot."

Go blow your pope out your ass. Moron.

[Ubermensch]

Ubermensch its called propaganda. Here is a quote frome Mein Kamf on Hitler's idea of propaganda.

"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)

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How about you silly athesit (not that all atheists are silly) try to prove that Hitler was a Christian with personal statements of his orthodox belief and his behavior? Did Hitler go to Mass? Did he do anything that would suggest that he actually was a Christian with Christian convictions? Did he do anything that might suggest he HATED Christianity, like perhaps kill Christians, destroy churches, threaten the Pope and break nearly every teaching of the Catholic Church?

Yes that surely is propaganda, well done on pointing that out. 10 points to Gryffindor. What is your point?

The Catholic Church has consistently condemned Nazism to this day and will continue to in the future, including all the Popes since Hitler. Many many priests and Bishops lost their lives condemning nazism. The Pontiff did not condemn it in his day for fear that it would cause the destruction of the Vatican and the loss of even more Catholic lives around the world. Many people do not realize that what the Pope says can cost the lives of thousands, indeed millions.

Alright, I will concede that. Yes, the church has condemned Nazism and its acts. But only after the fact, not during, when it really truly mattered. This singular act of cowardice shows me that the church quite clearly does not believe what it teaches. Why should the pope care about material things like churches? God is in every mans heart. Why should it matter if catholics die? They're going to heaven.

You have no idea how true it is that the words of the pope kill thousands.





Also if I may, I'd like to point out that most of the Crusades were organised for fun and profit on behalf of whichever pope was in power at the time. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that Christians were being oppressed and slaughtered in the holy land. In point of fact, the middle east at that time was far more religiously tolerant than Europe was and had a number of homegrown christian sects. Finally, one crusade, I cannot remember which one, ended with the crusader armies attacking the other bunch of Christians that hung around in that area, the Byzantines, this was done for fun and profit by the vatican.

[dqualk]

Also if I may, I'd like to point out that most of the Crusades were organised for fun and profit on behalf of whichever pope was in power at the time. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that Christians were being oppressed and slaughtered in the holy land. In point of fact, the middle east at that time was far more religiously tolerant that Europe was and had a number of homegrown christian sects. Finally, one crusade, I cannot remember which one, ended with the crusader armies attacking the other bunch of Christians that hung around in that area, the Byzantines, this was done for fun and profit by the vatican.

This demonstrates that you know nothing about history. Please research stuff before you say it. That goes for your cronies as well. The fact is that the Byzantine Christians held those lands until the Muslims invaded it, and the fact is that they were continuing to conquer the rest of the Byzantine Christian empire, and ultimately they succeeded, thus the Ottoman Empire and eventually the Turkish state. Grow up. There is no doubt, and there is a plethora of evidence that pilgrims were being slaughtered, raped and stolen from regualarly. There were tolerant Christian kindgoms, and tolerant muslim kingdoms and there are intolerant ones at any point in time. You blind youself to the facts out of your hate for Christianity. You want so badly for it to be exceptionally evil that you refuse to use your own atheist standards of judging something value relative to other things. The fact is the Church is relatively one of the best institutions of all time. Yes it has done bad things, but ultimately, relatively its good has far outwieighed the bad compared to other institutions. The Church invented health care, adoption agencies, the university system, in fact atheism is the red headed step child of Chritsianity. It was christianities tolerance and love for reason and the truth that allowed atheism to flourish. Why do you think atheism is limited to the Christian west for the most part?[/b]

lol you atheist living in fairy land where the Church is held to some crazy standard, but whatever makes you happy, whatever you want.

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Second, in modern times we see your church ( used to be mine but I quit when I was 20 ) condoning pedophilia among its priests, Before your head explodes understand that I agree that not ALL priests are pedophiles but in far too many cases the power-structure that is all the church is enabled these sick bastards to continue because they were far more concerned about how badly the church would look ( and how much money it would cost them!) than they were about the children who were being institutionally sodomized.

lol this is retarded and unfounded. The Church always and everywhere tried to stop child abuse. In all her ways. Even the bad bishops who moved priests thought that the priests were no longer predators. This was a common belief among stupid phsychiatrists, that people can be rehabilitated without punishment. Silly. The Church's canon law was very much against moving priests, the bishops ignored canon law. It would be like being mad at the american government because someone murdered someone and hid the body well, so teh law enforcment was not able to apprehend the criminal, then when the facts go public, and the police get the criminal, you still blame the system for not knowing, when there was no way they could have known. When the Pope et al. found out about the abuses they defroked and removed people from ministry, immediately. Grow up, and read the facts, that you atheist claim to care so much about. Prove it!

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For the record, it really pisses me off when people try to downplay molestation and rape in the church by pointing out that teachers do it. Teachers are punishable by law. Most of the time, not all of the time, rapes by teachers are not covered up in the sense that the teacher gets away with it. The opposite happens with priests. That is a bullshit argument. One does not excuse the other.

Well you are not following my arguemtn, moletstaion etc. is a grave evil. The Church's canon law called for very strict measures to be taken against predator priests, bad bishops ignored canon law, kept the evil a secret, and thank God!, they were finally exposed as bad bishops. And removed from ministry, for good reason. No you are VERY wrong, teachers get there evil covered up ALL the time. Many people get away with evil things. They do it by hiding it from the right people. This is exactly what those bishops and priests did, they hid it from the right people. Had a good bishop found out he would have immediately intervended which is exactly what ultimately happened.

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Many of you are only making yourself look worse. You demonstrate that you do not post, at least not on this thread, to learn or to open dialouge, you post to insult and in general make a fool of yourself.

Once again my only point in starting this thread was to demonstrate that atheist lack sujective value, and I believe that Theism is a well respected and intellectual position which gives subjective value, so why would one not choose a subjectively meaningful system.

Congratulations are in order for your underwhelming display of hypocrisy and demonstrating yet again you still don't know what atheism means.



Its an amazing achievement. You have the Internet with millions of web-pages of indispensable accurate information at your fingertips and yet you choose to scorn every one of them.

What you're doing here is no different than arguing with engineers what aerodynamics involves when you failed to understand what "air" actually is first. Go back and learn the basics if you want to have a proper discussion.

Listen welsh cake, as much as you would like to avoid responsibility by saying that you are not related to each other, you are wrong! You see, this is the way we categorize anything, especially within a Darwinian world! Things that are similar in a way we can group together. For example, there is no actual yform of tree out there, yet we recognize that it is useful to group trees together so we do it. In the same way it is useful for me to group atheists together, and to make general assumptions and analogies about them as a whole, now naturally this process wont be perfect, as there are always those who do not quite fit within the category, but are unfortunately lumped in. But this is the way the world works. We have to generalize sometimes to make a point.

[LastPoet]

lol you atheist living in fairy land where the Church is held to some crazy standard, but whatever makes you happy, whatever you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXO2hsv2SlE

[dqualk]

The "cover ups" are not so bad as they sound. People cover up crimes like this for all sorts of reason, not all of which are evil. For one thing there was a belief, due to liberal social sciences, that children molesters could reform if they admitted to the crime and took steps to stop it, this was AGAINST Canon Law, which called for very tough measures against the perpetrator.

Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute. I really hope that you meant something other than what it sounds when you said this:

People cover up crimes like this for all sorts of reason, not all of which are evil.

In what universe is it EVER acceptable to cover up a crime such as molestation? The cover ups aren't as bad as they sound?

It is up to the medical and psychological community to figure out whether or not something can be done to a perp once he's caught. But to enact those measures, he has to be caught to begin with. There is clear evidence in multiple cases of 'hush ups' to avoid scandal, and thus men who never got punished either way. No thought for the people who were repeatedly raped, sometimes over the course of decades, by these vicious men who were supposed to remain celibate because their religion said so, and then used the trappings of that same religion to enact horrible physical, emotional, and mental abuse on their victims.

Thank you for giving me the beneift of the doubt as I certianly did not mean exactly what I wrote. What I'm saying is not that the evil committed is not so evil, but that the Church is not so culpable as it seems. Becuase, in my opinion, you cannot rightly blame the whole Church for the actions of idiots. As I've talked about in other posts, with my police analogy.

Here is when, in my opinion it might be ok to cover up something like this: Say a 17 year old girl willingly had sex with a teacher at her school. Nobody finds out except the teacher, the parents, and the girl. They all decide that rather than let this go public, they would rather just keep it a secret, and the guy needs to get some kind of help, and the girl does too. Personally I would rather it go public. But I would not be so harsh on the parents and girl for deciding to do it in such a way. What do you think?

[Autumnlicious]

... The Church invented health care, adoption agencies, the university system, in fact atheism is the red headed step child of Chritsianity. It was christianities tolerance and love for reason and the truth that allowed atheism to flourish. Why do you think atheism is limited to the Christian west for the most part?[/b]

lol you atheist living in fairy land where the Church is held to some crazy standard, but whatever makes you happy, whatever you want.

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[Shell B]

dqualk, it is you that is making yourself sound worse. If anything, the church seeks to quell atheists. Atheism doesn't "flourish." Its prominence has come about through the willingness of a lot of good men to stand true to their beliefs, despite the fact that the church could punish them heavily. Now your stupid ass church cannot kill us blasphemers and lovers of demons. I bet that pisses you off.

[Minimalist]

dqualk Wrote: The Catholic Church has consistently condemned Nazism to this day and will continue to in the future, including all the Popes since Hitler.

It's real easy to get on the winning side once Hitler is gone. When he was around things were less clear cut.

[Ubermensch]

You blind youself to the facts out of your hate for Christianity. You want so badly for it to be exceptionally evil that you refuse to use your own atheist standards of judging something value relative to other things.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I don't hate Christianity at all, nor have I said any such thing. I hold Christianity in the same disdain I hold all religions. Hating it would be a waste of my time and energy. And what atheist standard? Is there some rulebook for atheism out there that you have read and we have not? Does it detail exactly how all atheists are supposed to judge all things? Please, if I'm breaking the rules of atheism somehow you need to tell me so I can keep my street cred.

The fact is the Church is relatively one of the best institutions of all time.

No it's not.

Yes it has done bad things

Yes it has.

but ultimately, relatively its good has far outwieighed the bad compared to other institutions.

I fail to see how wilfully deceiving and enforcing an outdated and archaic system of morallity on millions of people is a good thing. If the church really wanted to do something good, they'd hand pedo priests over to the police, they'd explicitly sanction condom use and they'd openly embrace homosexuallity as not inherently sinful.

The Church invented health care, adoption agencies, the university system

By virtue of having destroyed all other means of education.

in fact atheism is the red headed step child of Chritsianity. It was christianities tolerance and love for reason and the truth that allowed atheism to flourish. Why do you think atheism is limited to the Christian west for the most part?[/b]

No. You are wrong. It has nothing to do with the tolerance of Christianity. It has more to do with the scientific enlightenment of the renaissance (which the church hated since so many of the convictions it held onto and told people were true turned out to be false and stupid), and the emergence of free democratic states with strong civil liberties, which meant that the Church could no longer burn heretics at the stake.