Why do so many Christians claim that they ALONE...........

I would say to akaMechsmith that if he does not believe the national leaders I cited were realist and/or rationalists, he has not read what they wrote.

To Cephas I will just say that oddly it is when I went on my 10-year spiritual journey to disprove Christianity as valid, I failed to do so.

But again, I won't fight with anybody about this. And there is little more to be accomplished by you guys saying Christianity sucks and me saying no it doesn't.

People are strange.


Fact is, whatever you believe to be truth, by default, means you feel all those that think differently are wrong.

Don't try and clean it up either. What I have stated here is a fact.

I have seen some interesting sword fights here between folks that want to display their use of logic in a given matter. Some have done quite well for themselves. So much so that they have been able to sustain a false premise through the talented stacking of logical points. One is not considered adept in the art of debate until he or she can forward a false premise and defend it's validity.

I would affirm the following;

"Once a man has arrived at the point he considers truth, views that oppose the same in any way must be considered false by the same man."

:wink:

I prefer the rules commonly used for debate situations, based upon Hedge's Rules of Logic.

Thanks!

So that is your idea of a standard for selecting a president....that there are worse things? Had to dredge pretty low in choosing your competition too. :wink:

The likes of James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson got our country off to a fairly good start, whilst being both real and rational.

Logically, Mesquite, touche'

Foxfyre,

I am not going to fight either. I'm having a good time I thank you and everyone else here for a most interesting conversation.

I did read a translation of "The Communist Manifesto" some forty years ago. Based on my personal and limited experience I did not consider it logical then. I have never considered it necessary to revisit my earlier assessment of it.

The Lenin-Stalin-Kruschev butcheries in the Ukraine (I personally knew four survivors and went to school with their kids) was not logical. It resulted in the destruction of the farms which had fed Russians for decades and the loss of skilled farmers to run them. This led (forseeably) to the Soviet economy being placed at a serious economic disadvantage and resulted in the Soviet Union being relegated to an impoverished standard of living. Stalin weakened himself, his government, his country, and his people. He may have been a realist but IMO his logic was subjugated to his reputed belief in the economic theories of Karl Marx. (Or perhaps he was merely criminally paranoid.)

Pol Pot in no way was being logical if logically in this sense means beneficial to himself, his family or his people. He apparently also had a "belief" that did not square with observations.

Hitler was not being logical when he destroyed his countries economic, and mercantile bases because of his "belief" in Arayan superiority.

These three examples easily show that realisim can easily be abused by an illogical "belief" system.

IMO A realistic assessment of the world can easily be corrupted by illogical beliefs. In one case; "Communism" is an economic system that has as its foundation a "belief" in the perfectability of man. Ever since Cain and Abel had their little tussle the untenability of this belief has been amply demonstrated. So Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were merely being stupid in disregarding the lessons of thousands of years of observing humanity. Adam Smith, Voltaire, and Thomas R.Maltheus were a little more astute.

IMO again Realism without logic isn't worth much. Neither is faith without logic. Since "faith" is basically illogical it stands to reason :wink: that it cannot be trusted. It then follows that the faithful cannot be trusted. Regrettably

akamechsmith wrote


And with that statement you just designated every single president that the United States has ever had, the current apparent Democrat candidate for the presidency, and more than 90% of all Americans as being untrustworthy.

Re: Why do so many Christians claim that they ALONE.........


Here's a (much) better question:

Why are you worried about Christians, when there are muslims in the world? Isn't that a bit like walking around in grizzly country worrying about ducks and rabbits biting you?

Check this out:

http://mountainsurvival.com/news_articles/eaten.html

Those are the remains of a guy who was walking around in grizzly country with a 38 caliber pistol to protect himself from ducks and rabbits (nobody carries a 38 around to protect himself from grizzlies).

Protecting ourselves from muslims? That's a joke, right? Harmless, kindly muslims?

Tobruk, They are all under the dilusion that only they understand the true god. The problem with these illusions is that most people that believe in any religion feel what they think is a spiritual experience. They all think praying to god will change what is inevitable; for good or bad. When it comes out the way they prayed for something, they claim god answered their wishes. If it doesn't, they say it's god's wise choice. They have all their irrational thinking submerged by believing their god listens to them.

Foxfyre, re your post of May 19-10:46

Yes I have, and IMO experience and observation bears me out. Consider

Franklin D.Rooseveldt-- Yalta,( allowing the State to enslave citizens for the benefit of the State) income tax,social security (refusal of the rights of ownership)

Harry S. Truman-- Mcarthy hearings ( violations of the right of free association) Violation of the first amendment- US Constitution.

Dwight D. Eisenhauer-- In God We Trust (violation of the secularity which he swore to uphold)

John F. Kennedy--Make the world safe for democracies-Viet-Nam( refusal to accept the validity of others ideas)

Lyndon B. Johnson-- Viet-Nam (Not allowing a UN mandated election which Ho Chi Minh would have won)

Richard M. Nixon-- Dollar devaluation (stealing from the people) Watergate (lying to the people)

Gerald Ford--Caretaker

Jimmie Carter--Hostage situation--Dollar devalued. Incompetent military- (Stealing from the people- Failed as Commander in Chief)

Geo Bush Sr.-- Kuwait--Desert Storm, Left an aggressive, brutal, egomaniacal dictator in charge when it was easily possible to depose him

William Clinton-- Kosovo, Monicagate,Sudan (Allowed massacres and genocide for a quick blow job) Stupidity. For a Rhodes Scholar he certainly was a disappointment

G.W. Bush-- Iraq (Jury is still out) Patriots Act. ( which includes the right of the federal government to disallow legal representation to persons accused of terrorism). How long before the Christians disallow the right of a person accused of Atheism to have a lawyer

These are all the Presidents that I can remember Cut me a little slack on Rooseveldt as I was only about four years old when he died.

If, as you claim, These were all Christians then I would have to note that when a Christian becomes a politician he can prevaricate as well as a preacher.

My Second point is that if a Christian is perfectly willing to fib when he says he "Knows" Christian doctrine is fact then it follows that he is perfectly willing to fib on more important things, like the aforementioned observations clearly (IMO) show.

Foxfyre, It seems to me that you are a very nice person, one that I would "cross a river with".

May I, at the risk of being impertinent, ask you to examine your "revealation", "epiphany", or "enlightenment" to see if it has any basis in observations.

We Atheists could use a few more literate, thinking disciples :wink:

akaM, your observations are valid ONLY if you can show how any of your examples are an establishment of religion. The Constitution never EVER intended that national leaders should not be religious, should not profess their faith in God, or that no religious symbols or words be used in government.

The Constitution was very clear that Congress should pass no law making it either mandatory to be or not be religious and should pass no law favoring any particular religious belief or non belief over any other. It was equally clear that the government should not prohibit the free exercise (expression) of religious belief.

To strip government of all references to religion of any kind corrupts the beliefs and intent of the Founding Fathers and violates the constitutional intent to protect those of us who wish to be religious however we choose to be. It does not allow us to force others to adhere to our religious beliefs or non beliefs.

Akamechsmith writes:


And now to the second point you made. Thank you for a nice compliment, but I cannot advocate athiesm since I know--yes I KNOW--that there is a God, that He loves me, and that to deny Him denies the truth of my experience. I tried very very hard to be an athiest, but I couldn't do it. And though I have the certainty of my own experience, there is no way to demonstrate or prove it to anybody else who does not believe. I can only suggest to others that they make themselves open to the possibilities.

That's a good point foxfyre. I'm open to the possibility of there being one, even though I remain doubtful. Doubtful I think is a good word for my position on religion. With doubtful, there is still room for a change in the future. I just would need to be thorougly convinced that there was a God. I'm like that with everything I guess.

I just tell everybody to be open to God, Jora, and that means relinquishing any preconceived notions of who or what He is and/or how He may manifest himself and resisting putting any time frame on it. So far it seems those who do that become believers every time.

It doesn't matter what you say, it matters what you can prove. Talk, unfortunately, is cheap and it's no better for the Christian to say Christianity is true than it is for the Hindu to say Hinduism is true. All that counts is being able to back up the statements with cold, hard facts, objective evidence and logical reasoning.

I can do that, can you?

While the government cannot prohibit free exercise of religion, it also must protect those who do not want to be bothered by religion. Freedom of religion also includes freedom FROM religion.



Government cannot promote one religion above another which is exactly what happens when it makes constant reference to one religion (Christianity) at the expense of all others. Because it is not possible to equally promote them all, none should be promoted at all. The government should be, at least as much as possible, a religion-free zone. It helps none and it harms none in that way.

Cephus, You're wasting your time; christians wouldn't understand how discriminatory their christian influence on our politics is on other people who are not christians.

Foxfyre,

My point exactly--- You KNOW what it is impossible to KNOW except by the testimonies of other minds and yours and their imaginations.

If both the testimonies and imaginations are unreliable ( and they have often been shown to be) then it is tantamount to prevarication. Although often unintentional the results of confusing "beliefs" with "facts" is often counterproductive and contributes enormously to the miseries of humanity.

It may interest you to know that I have several times had similar discussions on the science threads. The "Big Bangers" occasionally get annoyed when I ask them to separate facts from theories also.

It's not easy

The human animal is constructed (refer to evolutionary theory) to act on many things (reach conclusions) with reference only to minimal evidence. (If you wait to see if the tiger is hungry it will be to late to jump if he is, If you are to survive you'd better make the "assumption" any tiger you see is hungry. I suspect that this propensity to jump to conclusions is responsible for "faith" in which a person can "KNOW" something with absolutely no evidence at all. IMO it bears examination.

Have a good evening, M.

Jora, I suspect that you may be cursed (blessed) with a similar mindset to mine.

All I ask is to "Show Me" some evidence which cannot be answered more logically than through recourse to something which cannot be show to exist outside of imaginations.

If I imagine (dream) that Dolly Parton spent the night with me I'd expect a blonde hair or two on my pillow. In the absence of evidence; alas it was a dream. It was probably better than life though . Bingo, I just imagined Paradise

Athiest are not notably deficient in that quality either.

All I can say akaMechsmith is that to me God is neither dream nor illusion. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the same certainty is available to you and is availabe to everybody. I respect those who are nonbelievers and will not presume to intrude on your convictions.

But while I have certainty about me, you have only theory about me that you cannot prove.

Fox, It's almost impossible to prove a negative. Your offer makes no sense.