Yep - read that. He said there is a difference. How does that translate to "Christians are better"?
The obvious claim being that the Christian homes are better morally than the non-Christian homes.
Oh heck, why don't I just ask him? Hey Intrepid, what do you mean by "perceiving right and wrong differently?" Because I gotta tell ya, if you're trying to say that Christians have some superior sense of right and wrong, you're on your own.
Sure that's a great idea, anytime I question the words of a given religionist, another religionist will simply ask the given religionist to reinterpret their text to suit their idlelaztions.
I am making no claims whatsoever as to what Christians may or may not say or believe as a group. Only what has been said on this thread as to a given poster's claims.
mesquite wrote:Intrepid wrote: I have also seen young children brought up in Christian and non-Christian homes and there IS a difference in their perception of good and bad. I am not saying that all Christians are good. Just as in anything you have your bad apples. However, when children are brought up in a truly honest religious family they get exposure to others with the same moral values. They have a wider exposure to those things that are considered right and good. No, I am not talking about fanatical religionism.
Sounds sort of like you think Christians have some sort of lock what is right or wrong, good or bad. That is not something that I can relate to from my life experiences and it is not something that I can see in evidence from the posters on A2K. IMO your statement that I have highlighted above, works just as well without the word
religious.
By excluding fanatical religionism, I take it you mean those that take biblical text more seriously and literally.
Not at all. I am only going by my experience. I would not be so bold as to state that this is the norm everywhere.
Wilso wrote:To put what Set said another way. He's a dangerous weirdo who denigrates any person who doesn't share his dementia.
Anything that you post is in the same horrid vein. How do you expect to be taken seriously by intelligent people?
Setanta wrote:It would appear that Intrepid is saying that Christians are better qualified to pass on what is good, and what is evil. This, of course, automatically excludes Jews, so one must assume that Jews had no reasonable notion of good and evil, but that it was supplied by the rise of the Jesus cult.
I'd suggest that Intrepid sees in children who are raised in christian (or putatively christian) homes agreement with what he is prepared to ordain as good, and therefore is very pleased with his own judgment.
I do not believe that I said Christians are better qualified. In fact, if you care to read my post, I said that there are some bad Christians. You brought up the Jewish people...not me.
Again you misjudge and misinterpret. I was talking about a large group of people, not myself.
Those who make a habit of bashing the Christian faith know nothing of what some people really think.
J_B wrote:mesquite wrote:Intrepid wrote: I have also seen young children brought up in Christian and non-Christian homes and there IS a difference in their perception of good and bad. I am not saying that all Christians are good. Just as in anything you have your bad apples. However, when children are brought up in a truly honest religious family they get exposure to others with the same moral values. They have a wider exposure to those things that are considered right and good. No, I am not talking about fanatical religionism.
Sounds sort of like you think Christians have some sort of lock what is right or wrong, good or bad. That is not something that I can relate to from my life experiences and it is not something that I can see in evidence from the posters on A2K. IMO your statement that I have highlighted above, works just as well without the word
religious.
By excluding fanatical religionism, I take it you mean those that take biblical text more seriously and literally.
Intrepid, I agree with you in many ways, but I think the beginning of your paragraph contradicts the ending of it. By equating a Christian upbringing to an honest religious one, you do a disservice to all other religions. I do think children raised within a faith tradition have a greater exposure to an equivalent set of morals, but I don't think Christianity has a lock on promoting morals and values.
As a new parent I searched out a faith tradition for my children for that very reason. We ended up UUs, which is more heavily entrenched in promoting morals and values than any other faith I found. It's exactly why we chose it.
J_B, I agree with you. My intention was certainly not to ignore or do a disservice to other religions. I respect other religions and I apologize for this faux paux.
snood wrote:Intrepid - just for the record, I read the same posts as every one else, and I didn't take away from it that you think Christians are better than everyone else, or that they're the only ones who know right from wrong.
Thank you Snood. I was not saying that, as you wisely picked out. I said that there is a difference. I have never said that Christians are better, or worse, than anybody else. I am only speaking to what works for me.
Chumly wrote:The obvious claim being that the Christian homes are better morally than the non-Christian homes.
What makes you better that you can decide what somebody else "obviously" meant?
snood wrote:Oh heck, why don't I just ask him? Hey Intrepid, what do you mean by "perceiving right and wrong differently?" Because I gotta tell ya, if you're trying to say that Christians have some superior sense of right and wrong, you're on your own.
Christians are
not superior, in my mind. I embrace Christianity, but I have never said that Christians are better than anybody else. Also, I don't think that anybody can make a claim for an entire religion. As I said before, there are good and bad apples in every religion.
Somebody's perception of anything does not make them better. It just means that they will follow what is right to them.
Question for those of faith: do you have any evidence to support the view that those of a religious upbringing are less violent and/or warlike?
Chumly, of course Mayans were raised with an equivalent set of moral values. Equivalent doesn't infer superior or even acceptable, simply equivalent.
When searching out a faith tradition one not only looks for moral values but also how those values are implemented within the faith. Honestly, Chumly, while doing my search for a faith practice for my children, I admit I omitted the Mayans.
The point is, I agree with Intrepid that exposure to a faith tradition that is steeped in morals has some advantages for children. I evaluated and visited many different 'contemporary' religions and didn't find any that I could wrap my arms around without discounting a certain part of the practice. I know many Christians who don't believe in the Holy Trinity - or at a minimum don't accept the Immaculate Conception of Mary and many Jews who don't practice the dietary laws. I didn't want to bring them into a religion that I couldn't fully embrace. The only one I found that was based on the moral tenets of most of the world's faith practices and was non-creedal and dogma-free was UU.
When my girls were very small, I would read parenting articles quoting studies demonstrating that those raised in a religious tradition were less likely to struggle during their adolescence with things like drug use, teenage sex, and other social pressures than those who were raised without such traditions. "Studies demonstrating" does not mean you can't raise responsible caring children without a religious foundation, it simply means "less likely to". "Less likely to" was good enough for me and I began my search.
I don't think Christianity has any more a lock on moral values than any other single religion, which is precisely why I ended up at one that uses all the world's major, and some not-so-major, moral foundations as the sources of its Principles.
Fortunately, we live in societies of laws, and are therefore not dependant up what any particular crackpot thinks is right for him.
Chumly wrote:Question for those of faith: do you have any evidence to support the view that those of a religious upbringing are less violent and/or warlike?
Quakers, Mennonites, and UUs are all professed pacifist religions.
J_B wrote:Chumly, of course Mayans were raised with an equivalent set of moral values.
Show me that the moral set of the Buddhists is equivalent to the moral set of the Mayans. Show me that Mayan's morals of human sacrifice and war are equivalent to the Buddhist's morals of nonviolence.
J_B wrote:Equivalent doesn't infer superior or even acceptable, simply equivalent.
Yup I know what the word means:
a. Equal, as in value, force, or meaning.
b. Having similar or identical effects.
Being essentially equal, all things considered: a wish that was equivalent to a command
They are equivalent within a given faith practice. I never claimed they are equivalent between faith practices.
J_B wrote:Chumly wrote:Question for those of faith: do you have any evidence to support the view that those of a religious upbringing are less violent and/or warlike?
Quakers, Mennonites, and UUs are all professed pacifist religions.
Nope, your claim that some religionists profess to be pacifists provides no evidence whatsoever to support the view that those of a religious upbringing are less violent and/or warlike than those without a religious upbringing.
J_B wrote:They are equivalent within a given faith practice. I never claimed they are equivalent between faith practices.
Nope that is not what you said at all. You said
J_B wrote:Chumly, of course Mayans were raised with an equivalent set of moral values.
. To now claim you meant they are equivalent
within a given faith is not only patently false as it would impute that all people of the same faith maintain the same set of moralities but is clearly not what you wrote and you are simply trying to backpedal on your specious claim that Mayans were raised with an equivalent set of moral values to other religion.
After the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, King Charles and his brother, James, Duke of York (he for whom New York was named), had a lot of debts to pay, which they could not rely upon Parliament to pay. Their largest creditor was Charles Penn, but he died by the time Charles was officially on the throne. So Charles gave a huge swath of North America (as if it were his to give) to the son of Charles Penn, William Penn. William Penn has become a devoté of George Fox, and therefore a member of the Society of Friends--i.e., a Quaker.
The Penns were absentee landlords, but they made good money from their colony. They appointed the Governor, who was charged never to allow property owned directly by the Penns to be taxed. Additionally, Quakers became influential members of the new colony, and were represented on the Governor's council far in excess of their proportion in the community. The wilderness in Pennsylvania (which in earlier times began just west of Philadelphia) was settled by Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and German pietists and members of the German Reformed Church. When the French began to arm and instigate Indian tribes to attack the colonies, the Irish and the Germans bore the brunt of the attacks. But the Quakers in Philadelphia were firmly wedded to William Penn's notion that the Indians be treated as were all other men, were never to be attacked, and that no monies were to be spent on war. So, one of the wealthiest colonies had no militia, and took no military measures to protect the settlers on the frontier. Thousands of men, women and children died, and many were killed in horrible manners, and hundreds taken into captivity to be slaves in the tribes which had captured them.
Religionists don't need to take up arms to make someone else's day miserable.
