@izzythepush,
Izzythepush we modeled computers an artificial intelligence on ourselves. Scientist that design artificial intelligence look to man’s brain to understand how it processes information. There is a saying that garbage in results in garbage out. Words are a form of input. If I press a “W” on the keyboard I expect the keyboard to input a “W” to the computer not a “T.” Dictionaries do the same for people when we say “cult” anyone can get a dictionary and see what the accepted definition of the word “cult.” If one person used the word “cult” to mean a 5 piece string quartet and another used the word cult to denote a religious cult it would be like having a keyboard that input a “T” each time you hit the “W.”
It is not that I want you to think as I do but I am definitely here to argue for my point of view. But if we cannot even agree that the dictionary definition of a simple 4 letter word is correct it makes it hard to communicate. For instance you might argue why your church should be exception to the rule not that the rule is wrong.
Wild exaggerations? Have you yet asked anyone to read Psalms 137.9 without parts of Psalm 137.8 added in and see what they thought it meant?
Next let’s hear what you think are lies. The Catholic Church meets the accepted definition of a cult. It is much like you hit “w” and expect to see “T.” Do you believe the dictionary is lying?
@spendius,
Spendius, I have spent good portion my life taking the part of the powerless against power whether it was as a union President against management abuses of employees some of which could not even read a contract or victims of companies which bilk the elderly. I enjoy leveling the playing field when I can.
When someone else is victimized other people minimize the impact on other people’s lives. The only ones that tends to realize how devastating the impact of a major crime are those that have suffered the same crime, empathy can only take you so far.
But child rape is one of the most devastating of all crimes because it is one of the few crimes where the victim grows up to be the victimizer. Father Porter raped 200 boys, by now those boys have grown to adulthood and may have raped 200 boys each. That is 40,000 possible rape victims from just one Priest in the first victim generation in the second generation we could be looking at a possible 1.6 trillion victims if there were enough to go around.
If we had disease that was spreading that fast we as a society would do far more to stop and definitely not try to bury it as the Catholic Church did. I will always believe that the vampire legend was built on child molester’s realization that once victimized that they become a molester themselves and the only way they can be stopped from molesting is to be put to death.
Spendius I do not have a specific problem with Christianity but with any and all forms of religious ignorance Christianity just happens to be the most argued in America in other countries it would be other religions.
Now I'm curious about how those "Christians" cherrypick verses of the Bible to believe or disbelieve. Since there's nothing of doctrinal importance that anthropological evidence could support, is it like "To each, his own"? Believe whatever doesn't embarrass you?
It's different in Buddhism, because the Buddha never claimed divinity or divine revelation. He was just a man, and men can be wrong about some things while being right about others. So, yeah, he didn't know anything about atoms or the inverse square law, but he had some good things to say about how you can improve your experience of life.
But God? Jesus? They're supposed to be Divine, Omniscient, Omnipotent, etc, etc. OK, not all Christians believe that God dictated the Bible word-for-word. So the Bible was written by men about God? Then if it's manmade, what's the difficulty in seeing that it's just another bunch of myths made up by man? Especially when it's so full of outlandish and contradictory fables?
How about when the Bible directly quotes God/Jesus? Not paraphrases or speaks about him in the third person, but directly quotes him. If one of those direct quotes has no more credibility than any other part, then how do you choose what to believe and what to disbelieve? The best answer I can figure out so far is the embarrassment angle.
Maybe something like: The OT has the most embarrassing crap, so discount it altogether, even though Jesus was adamant that he wouldn't. The NT has some pretty embarrassing stuff, too, but you have to keep something, so you grab the warm-fuzzy, feel-good, pie-in-the-sky, let's all love each other Good Samaritan parts, but discredit the parts where Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword, etc, that doesn't mesh well with contemporary ethics or your fantasy of a supernatural daddy/friend. It's convoluted. Sounds like a lot of high-maintenance selection bias work just to keep it cobbled together.
@FBM,
Quote: but discredit the parts where Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword, etc,
When did I do that FB? I'm all for shoving Christianity up your arse with a battering ram.
@spendius,
I re-read that post just to make sure I hadn't mentioned you specifically. If what I wrote doesn't describe you, then why get uptight about it? If it does describe you, how about just addressing the questions themselves instead of blowing up over it?
@Zardoz,
It's got nothing to do with dictionary definition, but how you choose to interpret that definition. To most people a religious group centre around one figure would mean a Jim Jones/David Koresh/ Sun Myung Moon. You've deliberately broadened that to ionclude the pope, but the pope is just the head of a hierachy like any structure. The present pope is no different from his predecessors, he's not the chosen one,
You lied when you claimed that the majority of Catholic schoolboys were sexually abused.
@FBM,
FBM wrote:
It's different in Buddhism, because the Buddha never claimed divinity or divine revelation.
Of course not, you've already mentioned the one true faith.
FBM wrote:But God? Jesus? They're supposed to be Divine, Omniscient, Omnipotent, etc, etc. OK, not all Christians believe that God dictated the Bible word-for-word. So the Bible was written by men about God? Then if it's manmade, what's the difficulty in seeing that it's just another bunch of myths made up by man? Especially when it's so full of outlandish and contradictory fables?
Where did Jesus claim to be divine? It was others that did that. It's fairly obvious the Bible was written by men, but you have an all or nothing approach, you don't let people look at what may be relevant today, and what is not. What you call cherrypicking others would call rationalisation, and you really don't like that.
FBM wrote:How about when the Bible directly quotes God/Jesus? Not paraphrases or speaks about him in the third person, but directly quotes him.
What about it? We're talking 3rd 4th 5th hand information written hundreds of years after the event in a hostile atmosphere, all direct quotes need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
FBM wrote:The NT has some pretty embarrassing stuff, too, but you have to keep something, so you grab the warm-fuzzy, feel-good, pie-in-the-sky, let's all love each other Good Samaritan parts, but discredit the parts where Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword, etc, that doesn't mesh well with contemporary ethics or your fantasy of a supernatural daddy/friend. It's convoluted. Sounds like a lot of high-maintenance selection bias work just to keep it cobbled together.
You make this personal don't you? Why are you so angry about what other people may or may not believe? Personally I don't give a **** what others do or don't believe, although I've always found preachy people annoying. Just what is it that compels you to tell others what they must believe? Why do you have to preach all the time?
Read the title of this thread again. Who's preaching to whom?
Many/most Christians say the Bible is the word of God, then they quibble about the parts they don't like. It's inconsistent, contradictory and intellectually dishonest. I say again, I'm not telling anybody what they have to believe; I'm telling you what they've told me they believe, then responding to it.
If you'll read my last reply to spendius, you'll see that I'm trying to keep it impersonal. But that doesn't mean I have to be clinically cold about it. Christians don't hesitate to try to convert me (read the thread title one more time, please); they came a-knocking yet again just earlier today, so why should I endure criticism for speaking my mind about it?
I'll pass by in silence the inadequacies of Buddhism. As for the "new testament," the books and verses which became the authorized canon at the Nicene council were in fact chosen by Origen of Alexandria almost a century earlier. Origen was one weird duck, too--alleged to have castrated himself to rid himself of fleshly temptations. Although he was always in trouble with the church fathes, he was much admired by Pamhilus, whose protege was Eusebius, the author of the Nicene creed. Even Eusebius, the old liar, was considered in his day to be a closet Arian--a heretic by church doctrine.
So what anyone can allege is the source of scripture is really irrelevant. What matters is what contemporary Christians believe. FBM is absolutely right that they cherry-pick their preferred verses. The verse from Matthew about the law which he quotes is important, not as evidence of what the putative Jesus may or may not have believed, but as evidence of how Christians pick and choose the verses of scripture which are consonant with what they believe. To that extent, identifying what Christians believe is merely a matter of paying attention to what they say they believe. A vicious god of the old testament is only important when considering those Christians we call fundamentalists, who tend to worship that god--and even they play fast and loose with scripture.
There are at least as many flavors of Christianity as there are avowed sects.
@FBM,
Is John Creasy preachy? You bet he is, but that doesn't mean you're not cut from the same cloth. Whenever I've taken a contadictory stance to anyone or merely played Devil's advocate I've always been branded as having a contradictory belief. A Catholic work colleague insisted I was an Atheist when I took issue with what she was saying. A lot of pro-Israel posters branded me a Moslem when I supported Palestinian self-determination and you're now calling me a Christian. In short all criticism must be from an opposing camp so it can easily be dismissed. Preachy people are all so very much alike, regardless of what belief/non-belief they espouse.
@izzythepush,
I don't suppose there's any chance you're being preachy when you take up all those Devil's Advocate positions? This thread was aimed at atheists. I'm responding, not initiating. If you take up the Christian position, I will treat you as a Christian. If you take up the opposite position, I will treat you accordingly. Believe it or not, I haven't been following your career any more than you've been following mine, I imagine.
@FBM,
If you can give an example of where I've told people what they should or should not believe I'll concede your point.
@Zardoz,
There you go.
Defending the powerless against the powerful, the dictatorship of the proletariat sort of thing, is the favourite route to power for those who haven't the talent for anything else but hand-wringing.
In circumstances where the powerful are atheists such people get slapped down pretty severely. Where the powerful are Christians they have influence.
The fundamental opposition to atheism is motivated by trying to keep the hands of science, logic & Co off reproduction policy and property relations.
Nowhere are the powerless as powerless as they are under atheist and non-Christian regimes. And we do need power structures.
Christianity appealed to the powerless from its beginnings. Its ministers are celibate to avoid nepotism. They take vows of poverty to avoid corruption. The Pope washes the feet of beggars and whatever cynicism is applied to the ceremony it does symbolise a basic thought.
Would you prefer to live in a country where the Sky God is embedded in the culture or one in which that is not the case?
@FBM,
Quote:I'm trying to keep it impersonal. But that doesn't mean I have to be clinically cold about it.
It does. Impersonal means clinically cold. Absolutely.
I keep it impersonal. I am clinically cold about it.
Quote:It's inconsistent, contradictory and intellectually dishonest.
What isn't? Human beings are inconsistent, contradictory and intellectually dishonest. As a fact. I hope you don't think that your remark convinces me that you are not inconsistent, contradictory and intellectually dishonest.
A lady appears on our ads these days, for a dating agency I think, and starts her spiel with "I'm a hopeless romantic". How does one avoid laughing?
BTW--I didn't blow up. I was simply being forceful. Rants about the Inquisition mean nothing to me. Bradley Manning is embroiled with one. Pussyfooting with dissidents is a matter of affordability.
@spendius,
spendius wrote:
Quote:I'm trying to keep it impersonal. But that doesn't mean I have to be clinically cold about it.
It does. Impersonal means clinically cold. Absolutely.
I keep it impersonal. I am clinically cold about it.
"Absolutely"? Are you telling me that I have to believe that, too?
Impersonal means that I wasn't discussing you or any other
specific individual person. I was discussing ideas and behavior that stems from those ideas. If memory serves, you were the first to address me as a person, my motives, my tone, etc, rather than the ideas I was presenting.
That in no way necessitates dispassion. I'm passionate about astrophotography while simultaneously thinking logically and analytically about it. But it's impersonal. It doesn't involve another person.
Quote:Quote:It's inconsistent, contradictory and intellectually dishonest.
What isn't?
BTW--I didn't blow up. I was simply being forceful. Rants about the Inquisition mean nothing to me. Bradley Manning is embroiled with one. Pussyfooting with dissidents is a matter of affordability.
It's just a matter of degree. Anyway, you got upset enough to turn it into a personal matter. I'd much prefer to drop any personal references altogether and get back to discussing the ideas.
@FBM,
Quote:Impersonal means that I wasn't discussing you or any other specific individual person. I was discussing ideas and behavior that stems from those ideas.
Ideas originate in personal needs. If a beautiful and devout Catholic heiress fell for you I think you would be going to communion shortly afterwards and looking forward to a fine, old Church wedding with all the trimmings.
I would. I would try to avoid giving the bishop a knowing wink.
@spendius,
Funny you should mention that! I got married to a young, beautiful Catholic lady years ago. She was/is a veterinarian. Not hurting for money. Her family was really rich, but that's not why I married her. Then I divorced her two years later because putting up with...well, let's just say that the proximity to $$ wasn't worth the day-t0-day strife.
