Do you believe in God(s)?

[isaacx]

Just so people know, the one of homosexual part is :

Romans 1:26-27

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

[otters]

Because you guys torture scientists, rob people of their life savings with TV personalities, and bomb abortion clinics.

Whereas you guys commit mass murder, terrorism, and general crimes against humanity.

Dark ages, crusades, witch burnings, the Inquisition...

Communist and Nazist governments have accounted for ninety million deaths in the past century. Most of those were perpetrated by Mao (nonreligious) and Stalin (nonreligious).

These would be the commonly used examples of the "countless lives ruined, wasted, and lost over the centuries where nobody had the courage to question their faith without being killed." Like... come on, dude. How does that not instinctively come to mind? If you bring up "atrocity" and "Christianity" in the same sentence, no one in their right mind is going to come back with "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

Not exactly. If you're, say, a hardcore atheist, and someone brings up the words "atrocity" and "Christianity," you're going to think about a bunch of crazy nutcases. If you're a normal person, you're not going to link them together right away, or maybe at all.

Atilla seems pretty cool, anyway. I'm also sure that there's a good many Christians who are actually intelligent people. Humans just have this tendency to notice the vociferous minority.

Definitely, I agree. You and Slappy are the worst: pretty much everyone else, Dave, Atilla, Tanner, are basically civilized in Debate.


...? I'm not saying we're oppressed. I'm saying that the atheist side is often much less respectful of the Christian side than vice versa.

Shaking your fist at "the atheists" isn't really directing your efforts at an easily definable group of people.

"The atheists" is a much more well-defined group than "the Christians" is, especially when it comes to sundry atrocities. There's quite an impressive mass of denominations and cults in the religious community, and condemning Christianity for the action of a certain extremist group is pretty ridiculous: a lot less ridiculous than me condemning the atheist community as a whole for the actions of a dictator.

If you are not deluded, than what are you?

...correct.

But when people misuse Christianity

OH! I understand your argument now!

...I think we agree, then. I don't like the misuse of religion any more than you do. What bothers me, and what I think I'm getting from your argument, is that you're blaming Christianity in general for it. If I'm wrong, stop me.

If you all respect my belief, then why is the name of God being mentioned in arguments about human rights?

When do you get called deluded and dangerous by the Christian side in a debate like that?

[SlappyMcGee]

If you are not deluded, than what are you?

...correct.

But when people misuse Christianity

OH! I understand your argument now!

...I think we agree, then. I don't like the misuse of religion any more than you do. What bothers me, and what I think I'm getting from your argument, is that you're blaming Christianity in general for it. If I'm wrong, stop me.

If you all respect my belief, then why is the name of God being mentioned in arguments about human rights?

When do you get called deluded and dangerous by the Christian side in a debate like that?

I'll respond to your responses to me:

1) You were curious as to how I could say that you are deluded. In the nature of debate, I guess the stating that you are deluded is one of my opinions, and I wasn't stating it as fact. From my perspective, you have deluded yourselves into believing this, but that is not necessarily fact.

2) I blame Christianity for enabling this kind of attitude. I think that a lot of people misuse religion without realizing it. If people are entirely convinced that stuff is true, without concrete proof, they might start to be convinced that other things are true without concrete proof. For instance, say I was Christian Bob. Bob reads that we aren't supposed to worship false idols. Bob believes this is true, because the Bible said so, but he also believes that this includes LeBron James. Bob convinces other people not to watch Basketball based on his interpretation of the text. He's now convinced that this is what God meant. Eventually, he manages to get Basketball taken off of TV because he finds it offensive. Now, look what's happened in this silly metaphor; Someone has read some text that doesn't have any concrete evidence to be true, and come up with an idea that doesn't have any concrete evidence behind it, and used that idea to force his will on others, backed by his interpretation of a line.

Basically, I dislike the idea of believing in a book without proof because I believe that it will lead to believing that other things are true without evidence. And also, the misuse that you and I agree on.

And I don't think your argument against atheists is solid enough. We have shown you many instances of wars started by Christianity. Sure, they were started by Christians, but the wars themselves were started by a belief in Christianity. Atheists don't believe in anything that wasn't inherently proven to them; we don't start a war because we believe God is telling us to. We start a war because we have something to gain or lose from the war. So, sure, some atheists are just born nuts. But, on that same token, some Christians are just born nuts. My concern is that some people go crazy as a product of the Christianity.

So, calling someone deluded and dangerous in a debate for being an atheist, by likening them to other deluded and dangerous atheists, is like trying to draw comparisons between a largely divided group. When we try and tell you guys that believing something without proof is dangerous, we're commenting on your ethos and giving examples about how others with a similar ethos were. Atheists, on the other hand, each have our own goals and intentions that are completely variable to eachother, and incomparable from a religious standpoint.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Because you guys torture scientists, rob people of their life savings with TV personalities, and bomb abortion clinics.

Whereas you guys commit mass murder, terrorism, and general crimes against humanity.

Ha! When the hell did we do that?
One of us may have, but it sure as shit wasn't an organized effort rallied under the banner of a unifying system of beliefs like the Crusades. And that's still failing to address the issue that any given atheist is in no way associated with any other.
Seriously, because I don't think this has come across to you as important enough a point, I'd really like you to take the time to consider again what it means to be in an "other" category. An a-theist is something other than a theist. Let's compare this to "a dolphin" and "something other than a dolphin". You can say that Hitler, an atheist, did some horrible shit, and I'll completely agree with you. But the second you start expecting me to do the things a non-dolphin has done (e.g. Hurricane Katrina), I'm gonna give you a really funny look and maybe insinuate that you're a little crazy.
Adherents of an organized religion, on the other hand, all have a unifying fundamental agreement about the nature of reality that effectively tells them exactly how the universe operates and which human rights atrocities are completely acceptable. Even if you don't agree with this, history sure as shit does -- World War II was one atheist, whereas all of the shit the Church has organized over centuries was consensual, and in the case of the Crusades, dependent upon volunteers. Atheists don't have such an agreement. Attributing any part of Hitler's mindset to the general population of atheists would require you to completely skip over any consideration of how any atheist today, or even in Hitler's day, would feel about the crimes that psychopath committed. You call yourselves sheep -- and I'm going to ask you to believe me when I say I'm really not using that term in a condescending manner at the moment -- and it's much easier to herd sheep than it is to herd cats.
If this didn't make complete sense, it's because vodka is delicious. If price is any indication of quality, this, like, 3-liter bottle of Finlandia (something I had never heard of) used to go for upwards of $35 before it went on sale for $20, and it's the best purchase (of liquor) I have ever indirectly made.

Dark ages, crusades, witch burnings, the Inquisition...

Communist and Nazist governments have accounted for ninety million deaths in the past century. Most of those were perpetrated by Mao (nonreligious) and Stalin (nonreligious).

Ha, right, like religious wars are somewhere under, or anywhere near as low as that figure.

These would be the commonly used examples of the "countless lives ruined, wasted, and lost over the centuries where nobody had the courage to question their faith without being killed." Like... come on, dude. How does that not instinctively come to mind? If you bring up "atrocity" and "Christianity" in the same sentence, no one in their right mind is going to come back with "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

Not exactly. If you're, say, a hardcore atheist, and someone brings up the words "atrocity" and "Christianity," you're going to think about a bunch of crazy nutcases. If you're a normal person, you're not going to link them together right away, or maybe at all.

Any "normal person" who hasn't heard of the Crusades, Inquisition, Salem trials, the Dark Ages, or the circumstances of Galileo's death is an idiot. You're insulting all the normal people. When you think of atheist nutcases, you think of individuals who deluded the masses and forced cooperation, whereas the "few Christian nutcases" you're attributing the previously mentioned historical events happens to include several dozen Popes and the cooperation of several hundreds of thousands of clergymen and aristocrats.

...? I'm not saying we're oppressed. I'm saying that the atheist side is often much less respectful of the Christian side than vice versa.

Dude, I don't see atheists throwing death threats at Christians because of what they believe. I've been looked down on and threatened all my life because I'm a think-for-yourself-er. And I live in California. Can you imagine what I would be like if I grew up in the Bible Belt? And you don't see why I wouldn't be just a wee bit resentful of your "harmless belief in your delusion"? Fuck you.

Shaking your fist at "the atheists" isn't really directing your efforts at an easily definable group of people.

"The atheists" is a much more well-defined group than "the Christians" is, especially when it comes to sundry atrocities.

Gonna have to stop you right there.
I do not see how you could back this up. There are two parts to this statement, really. One is that a given group of atheists has anything unifying them nearly as strongly as Christians do, as you've failed to ever argue this when anyone has brought it up beyond simply saying it's so. We don't have weekly atheist meetings, and many of us believe some really off-the-wall shit, or generally have views of reality that are completely alien to each other. But all Christians have this Jesus, Heaven-and-Hell, Ten Commandments, Bible thing.
And secondly, let's not forget that the proportion of Christians in prisons for violent crimes to atheists in the same position is forty times greater than the proportion of Christians of the street to your random atheist. If we're talking "sundry atrocities," religious nuts easily have atheists beat. Especially when you consider just about any part of Islamic doctrine.

[capt_weasle]

I think everyone is getting a little carried away, here.

incluye: Stop being a generalizing asshole. Blah blah blah, atheists are horrible people.

"Whereas you guys commit mass murder, terrorism, and general crimes against humanity." You don't have to be religious to commit mass murder. It doesn't even matter if Christianity is influencing this action. It all depends on the person you are. Example: "What!? You mean if there are more people on this planet, there will be less resources for me and my family? I saw that in this SCIENCE journal! I shall now kill everyone I deem worthless - because they are using up our valuable resources - in the name of SCIEEEEEEEENCE, for the noble purpose of helping the ones I love!" You see? If you are an idiot, there is nothing to stop you from being an idiot, except perhaps something shiny, but that is beside the point. Also, terrorists are overwhelmingly religious. Of course they aren't Christian, but religion in general often has the side effect of stupid. Not to mention that the Koran tells people they can kill anyone in the name of Allah (I'm probably paraphrasing here). General crimes against humanity are called "general" for a reason. Calling atheists bad, bad people because of some general crime is too vague to use. It's like calling them jerks because they have twenty three pairs of chromosomes.

"Communist and Nazist governments have accounted for ninety million deaths in the past century. Most of those were perpetrated by Mao (nonreligious) and Stalin (nonreligious)." Yeah, so? Look, the crusades and witch burnings in the name of God or whatever was stupid, and the countless other people who kill and happen to be atheist or what have them who killed a bunch of people was also stupid. This is not a game of who-killed-more-people.

"You and Slappy are the worst: pretty much everyone else, Dave, Atilla, Tanner, are basically civilized in Debate." Hey man, don't be spreadin' the hate man. Telling Tsukatu he is an asshole does not help your case. You are trying to show Christians to be good, well-learned, turn-the-other-cheekophiles. You aren't doing a very good job of it. Who's the generalizing asshole now, BITCH? (tee hee)

"I'm not saying we're oppressed. I'm saying that the atheist side is often much less respectful of the Christian side than vice versa." Eh. I don't really see groups of atheists standing outside of churches holding signs saying "Darwin Hates fags God, and stuff". Even though there are atheist gaining notoriety for those campaigns in Europe (Spain? I don't remember. Something about bus signs saying there isn't a God. Or was that in America? I haven't a gosh darned clue. Also, my google is... er, broken, so don't hate), there are still way more religious people hating on non-religious people. But that could be because the majority of people are religious (I wouldn't know, really. My google is broken.)

"There's quite an impressive mass of denominations and cults in the religious community, and condemning Christianity for the action of a certain extremist group is pretty ridiculous: a lot less ridiculous than me condemning the atheist community as a whole for the actions of a dictator." [paraphrase]You guys are being totally ridiculous. I'm just being a little ridiculous.[/paraphrase] Huh?

Slapps: I think I actually covered your perspective somewhere in incluye's section, but whatever.

"Basically, I dislike the idea of believing in a book without proof because I believe that it will lead to believing that other things are true without evidence." Once again, I'm pretty sure anything can cause people to go nutso, although I can see why you would think that religion has a slightly higher tendency to push people in the wrong direction.

"And I don't think your argument against atheists is solid enough. We have shown you many instances of wars started by Christianity." Wars can happen for an infinite number of reasons. In the past 1000 years or so they have just been tied to religion, like, a lot. Let me move on to my next point...

"Sure, they were started by Christians, but the wars themselves were started by a belief in Christianity." But the belief started because someone chose to believe it. And that person believed it because they are susceptible to believing things easily. And they do that because they are human, and so on and so forth. Hold on, I'm getting to my complete point here...

"Atheists don't believe in anything that wasn't inherently proven to them; we don't start a war because we believe God is telling us to." So they fight because one guy has a bigger plot of land than some other guy...

"We start a war because we have something to gain or lose from the war." I'm glad you get that, but I think what you don't see is that religious-based wars aren't necessarily started because of their belief. You see, very few wars are solely based on some spiff about religion. People are people. So one guy wants a piece of land, so he uses some religious text or authority to justify his raid, when all he really wants is a slice of that sexy land, because he has compensation issues. If religion didn't exist, it wouldn't stop him from taking that land if it was really seducing him like that. He would just use some other crazy ass-excuse (oh snap! subtle comic reference!) to invade.

"So, calling someone deluded and dangerous in a debate for being an atheist, by likening them to other deluded and dangerous atheists, is like trying to draw comparisons between a largely divided group. When we try and tell you guys that believing something without proof is dangerous, we're commenting on your ethos and giving examples about how others with a similar ethos were. Atheists, on the other hand, each have our own goals and intentions that are completely variable to eachother, and incomparable from a religious standpoint." So basically, everyone can be crazy. You say you can't compare Christians to atheists because atheists are a more divided group. I say we can compare them because we're all human (and thus equally likely to be crazy). Also, Christianity is quite divided. Let me point you towards this Wikipedia article. Not to mention all of the sub-sub-groups who call themselves Catholic but really aren't, and those crazy Mormons who call themselves Christians, despite the fact that most Christians don't want to touch them with a ten foot pole. I'll go far enough to say that atheists are way less divided than Christians. Atheism holds two groups, the kind who don't believe in a god, and the kind who don't believe in a god. Sometimes it's hard to know what a Christian believes, because there are so many things that are debated within churches (like pre-destination or whether you can lose your salvation or not).

Tsukatu: I think you would appreciate this article[url] (It's from Cracked, so try your best t ... ject Lines.

[Atilla]

If you're, say, a hardcore atheist, and someone brings up the words "atrocity" and "Christianity," you're going to think about a bunch of crazy nutcases. If you're a normal person, you're not going to link them together right away, or maybe at all.

Er, I think most educated people can link "Christian" and "atrocity" to come up with "the Inqusition", "the Crusades", "IRA bombings", "abortion clinic bombings", "Westboro Baptist Church", and any number of other horrible things Christians (as individuals) or Christian organizations have done at various points in history. Placing your hands over your ears and pretending such things have never happened is... not a sensible response, to say the least.

That said, I don't think arguing about whose despot killed more dude is a good way to decide whether something was harmful or not. I'm fairly sure male leaders have killed more people than female leaders, but that doesn't mean that all men are evil bastards or that humanity would benefit from the annihilation of all males. Crazy despots aren't really the most representative sample. It is, however, possible to argue to that large religious organizations - in particular, the Catholic Church, the largest and oldest - have caused more harm than good. When some loon goes around killing people, it's representative of one person's madness; when the Church institutes an official policy of killing people which lasts for centuries, it reflects much more on their religion (or at least on the organized aspect of that religion). It is generally not possible to make this argument with regard to atheists because atheists do not have official spokespeople or a unified belief system. The Pope speaks for Catholics, but nobody officially speaks for all atheists.

I'm saying that the atheist side is often much less respectful of the Christian side than vice versa.

Right, because we all know atheists are just rude. That kind of generalization totally isn't disrespectful or insulting at all. After all, without a god, how can atheists have morals or follow proper standards of behaviour, right?

"The atheists" is a much more well-defined group than "the Christians" is, especially when it comes to sundry atrocities. There's quite an impressive mass of denominations and cults in the religious community, and condemning Christianity for the action of a certain extremist group is pretty ridiculous: a lot less ridiculous than me condemning the atheist community as a whole for the actions of a dictator.

What? No. That's ridiculous. That you are even making this argument demonstrates a complete failure to understand atheists and atheism.

In general, every atheist is an atheist alone. When Tsukatu says what he thinks about Christians, he is representing the views of Tsukatu. Not of me. Not of atheists as a whole. As I said, atheists have no official spokespeople. The opinions or actions of one do not represent atheists in general at all. This is in stark contrast to priests and churches and so on, who - in many religions, at least - are supposed to be the official word on what that religion represents, complete with the Divine Seal of Approval (TM). Given that such people's statement of doctrine is regarded as definitive, we can use that doctrine as a platform for criticism of the whole belief system. Compare to political parties: if the leader of the Republican Party gets up and says "We need to send more troops to Iraq", we can take that as largely representative of Republicans and the Republican movement, even though not every Republican necessarily agrees. Atheists, on the other hand, are all independent voters - there's no Atheist Party, no single statement of what we believe. All we have in common is that we don't vote for the major parties.

To reiterate, atheists do not have a unified belief system in any regard, other than that they don't believe in gods. I am no more responsible for the ramblings of other atheists than I am other people with green eyes or other people with testicles. There is no Atheist Council which says what atheists approve of and what they don't. We don't meet in secret atheist clubhouses to decide which religion we're going to bag this week. We are not a hive mind. We have nothing in common but our lack of religion. Treating us as a monolithic entity, with each responsible for all the others, is completely unjustified.

When do you get called deluded and dangerous by the Christian side in a debate like that?

Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how many times I've seen Christians argue that atheists have no conscience or sense of ethics and that widespread atheism would cause the entire world to plunge into darkness and depravity? Or argue that atheists are all crazy egotists who think themselves "above god"? Or that we're all anti-religious Nazis and won't back down until every church is burned to the ground? Did you know that in America, people disapprove of atheists more than they do of African-Americans, Muslims, and even homosexuals? And we all know how much God-fearin' Americans love terrorists and unnatural perversions of God's good order.

Even though there are atheist gaining notoriety for those campaigns in Europe (Spain? I don't remember. Something about bus signs saying there isn't a God. Or was that in America? I haven't a gosh darned clue. Also, my google is... er, broken, so don't hate), there are still way more religious people hating on non-religious people. But that could be because the majority of people are religious (I wouldn't know, really. My google is broken.)

It was in the UK, and the proposed notorious and terribly disrespectful slogan was "There probably isn't a God, stop worrying and enjoy life."

Also, the rest of your post is... a bit difficult to read and slightly insulting. Not helping matters, I feel. Could you space your quotes and stuff out a bit more?

[SlappyMcGee]

I'd just like to quickly respond to what Capt_weasle said to me.

The point I was trying to make with the chunk of words you commented on was that when somebody from our side of a fence wants something, they have to state their intentions and go after it. For instance,

"I would like to control more land."

Now, if that same person were a Christian, one of two things could happen that I disapprove of:

1) They could be come convinced that God wants them to control more land, and here's the problem I was trying to allude to about delusion. If someone can willingly believe that the Bible is true, then they can likely believe that this is also true without any proof. So, Christian1 says:

"God wants me to control more land." and genuinely believes it.

2) They don't necessarily believe God exists, or they are skeptical of the Bible, but they do know that a lot of other people believe that the Bible is true, and God is all powerful and almighty and Omega, and if PseudoChristian says:

"God wants me to control more land. Really." The same people who would believe the Bible without proof might delude themselves into believing that this was true as well, especially so if they had something to benefit.

Ultimately, this isn't a statement against Christianity, per say. I am only trying to show what kind of behavior that an unjustified belief can bring, and also trying to show how the misuse of religion is an extremely bad thing.

[otters]

I've been pretty badly short-sighted in this debate so far: I'm assigning the views of "the atheist/Tsukatu" to everyone except me (and isaacx, who isn't helping anything), and I shouldn't be doing that. I also acknowledge that I've been generalizing far too much. The "atheists are so disrespectful" has also been directed at everyone here, although I see how wrong that is now.

incluye: Stop being a generalizing asshole. Blah blah blah, atheists are horrible people.

Please don't tell me that's all you're getting out of my argument.

Who's the generalizing asshole now, BITCH? (tee hee)

Yeah, sorry. I kind of got carried away.

I've also been looking only at the Christian side that I've experienced in my life so far: that is, the mannerisms of the average Christian Joe who goes to my church and my school (the communities of some of the awesomest people I know).

That said. I understand a lot of the arguments now, especially regarding the Crusades. After all, it's true. When you look only at the bad things that a faction has done, it's easy to build an argument against them. Forget the so-called "good things" that people driven by Christianity have done, like the Salvation Army, the basis of public education, shit like that. I'm sure good things can arise from the basic impulse to be a good person (which doesn't logically arise from atheism, though, not really) as well.

Ha, right, like religious wars are somewhere under, or anywhere near as low as that figure.

I don't really understand this sentence. The Crusades accounted for about a million and a half deaths, the Salem witch hunts for maybe 300. Am I missing something?

I concede, though, that the religious community is certainly easier to define by the whole church-attendance-believing-in-God thing.

Basically, I dislike the idea of believing in a book without proof because I believe that it will lead to believing that other things are true without evidence.

I agree, but honestly: how serious is that going to get?

That basketball example was kind of out there. First of all, no normal Christian is going to regard LBJ as a physical manifestation of a false God. While I may be blaming atheism as a whole for a bunch of terrible things, it looks like you're (not you personally, Slappy, Suki mostly) doing a lot of the same: assigning the things committed by misled extremist groups to the entire Christian nation.

We start a war because we have something to gain or lose from the war

I completely agree! The thing is, looking at a Bible and praying (as strange as that sounds) might have stopped one of those guys from starting a war, or the Purge, or concentration camps, etc.

"God wants me to control more land. Really." The same people who would believe the Bible without proof might delude themselves into believing that this was true as well, especially so if they had something to benefit.

That isn't the way it works, though! A Christian doesn't immediately leap to the conclusion that God wants them to do something. You can't logically do that. A more logical procedure would be:
1. I want more land.
2. There's none available.
3. I pray.

Depending on the outcome, you can either let it go for now or try to negotiate with your neighbor. It makes sense to me.

I've been looked down on and threatened all my life because I'm a think-for-yourself-er.

Well, I guess I can't realistically experience that. Point taken.


A think-for-yourself-er, though? Guys...look. We're not MUST READ BIBLE FOLLOW ALL PARABLES TO LETTER GRAAGH WANT BRAINS Scripture-zombies. We're normal people, with a strong moral undercurrent and a special Book to help guide us through tough spots.

[Amadeus]

SlappyMcGee wrote:
"God wants me to control more land. Really." The same people who would believe the Bible without proof might delude themselves into believing that this was true as well, especially so if they had something to benefit.


That isn't the way it works, though! A Christian doesn't immediately leap to the conclusion that God wants them to do something. You can't logically do that. A more logical procedure would be:
1. I want more land.
2. There's none available.
3. I pray.

Depending on the outcome, you can either let it go for now or try to negotiate with your neighbor. It makes sense to me.

Perhaps Christians aren't acting logically, rather justifying their actions via a God... for example the Westward expansion in the United States in which tens of thousands of American Indians where forced from their homes or killed. These settlers claimed that God commanded them, a more 'pure' and 'civilized' race to exterminate the native peoples and conquer thousands of square miles of land. Adolf Hitler created a religion in which the German god was pleased by nationalism, the horrors of the Holocaust followed. An ancient empire (I'm not sure which) burned 3 million children in the name of god, as sacrifices. Aztecs slaughtered thousands of captured prisoners at a time as a blood offering for their god. What I believe Slappy is saying is that people often use religious context to justify actions, convince the masses, and excuse horrific events.

[SlappyMcGee]

I think you and I are seeing eye-to-eye on many of the points I'm bringing up about the misuse of Christianity and even you're starting to realize what I mean when I talk about my concern about believing in something without proof, but you opened up a different can of worms with your last post that I'd like to explore. You say that when you want more land, exampled, you realize that there is none available and you pray. Do you not believe it is more appropriate to do for yourself than to rely on an invisible force to guide you, to provide for you? If you think that God will take care of you and you do not cease things for yourself, you will miss out on many opportunities that could have been capitalized on had you not counted on someone who, once again, you have no viable reason to believe exists?

[otters]

If you think that God will take care of you and you do not cease things for yourself, you will miss out on many opportunities that could have been capitalized on had you not counted on someone who, once again, you have no viable reason to believe exists?

I hate to pull a SkyPanda yet again, but you see in my example there was none available. What would you do? Steal it from your neighbor? If I see a good opportunity, I'm going to take it. If I really want something, but I can't get it, then I pray.

These settlers claimed that God commanded them, a more 'pure' and 'civilized' race to exterminate the native peoples and conquer thousands of square miles of land.

I can't find that anywhere online. What's your source?

What I believe Slappy is saying is that people often use religious context to justify actions, convince the masses, and excuse horrific events.

Actually, until right now, we were debating about Christianity. You didn't mention it there.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

That said. I understand a lot of the arguments now, especially regarding the Crusades. After all, it's true. When you look only at the bad things that a faction has done, it's easy to build an argument against them. Forget the so-called "good things" that people driven by Christianity have done, like the Salvation Army, the basis of public education, shit like that. I'm sure good things can arise from the basic impulse to be a good person (which doesn't logically arise from atheism, though, not really) as well.

WOW. Boy, did you hide a brick in that snowball or what...
Now you're talking about secular ethics. I'm pretty sure we've talked about that before, and I'm certain that I've been through it several times in the history of this forum. Are you sure you want to throw this into the discussion here?

While I may be blaming atheism as a whole for a bunch of terrible things, it looks like [atheists are] doing a lot of the same: assigning the things committed by misled extremist groups to the entire Christian nation.

Dude... we've only brought up Church-sponsored efforts on the Christian side of things in which all involved agreed to participate for religious reasons. If any given pope decided to commit some war crimes on the side, with no religious affiliation but as a personal project, and we decided to blame Christians for his actions, then you'd be justified in accusing us of associating his evil mindset with general Christian behaviorisms. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn't look to their Church of Atheists and, using their influence in the Atheist heirarchy, order all of their atheist clergymen to ravage their respective countries in the name of Atheism. Their actions, terrible as they were, did not have to do with their atheism; they just happened to be atheists, and that could have influenced their goals, but the entire cause was not affiliated with atheism. The historic events I'm getting tired of repeating, however, were solidly and unquestionably affiliated with Christianity. It was organized and led by Christians because of Christian beliefs, carried out by Christians who were members of a Christian organization that had nothing unifying it besides Christianity, and they did it because they were Christians for Christian reasons, all the while the participants raved about how they were doing it because they were Christian.
In short, this is not a case of attributing the mindset of extremists to a general population; it was the general population.
And you wanna hear something funny? General intolerance and hostility to progressive thinking in the modern day is still not attributing the views of a few extremists to the general population, because it's the general population of Christians that is intolerant and hostile to progressive thinking. The majority of US citizens say they will refuse to vote for a presidential candidate who is an atheist. Evolution is still rejected in favor of Creatonism in half of our nation. The same goes for abstinence-only sex education instead of comprehensive sex-ed. And to top it off, some excerpts from my favorite survey:
"Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in 'sharing their vision of American society.' Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry."
"[Atheists are] seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public."
"[Atheists] play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past [in that they provide] a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society."
"Close to half of Americans, 48%, (were) unwilling to support an atheist for president."
"When asked to identify the group that 'does not at all agree with my vision of American society,' 39.6% of respondents listed Atheists, well ahead of Muslims (26.3%); Homosexuals (22.6%); and Jews (7.6%)."
"The survey presented respondents with the following statement: 'I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group.' Once again, Atheists were at the apex of this negative-image cohort at 47.6%, followed by Muslims (33.5%); African Americans (27.2%); Asian Americans (18.5%); Hispanics (18.5%); Jews (11.8%); conservative Christians (6.9%) and Whites at 2.3%."
""None of these correlations [between disapproval of atheists and other minority groups] is large. We believe this indicates that the boundary being draw vis-a-vis atheists is symbolic, a way of defining cultural membership in American life, and not the result of a simple irrational unwillingness to tolerate small out-groups."
[ Source ]

That isn't the way it works, though! A Christian doesn't immediately leap to the conclusion that God wants them to do something. You can't logically do that. A more logical procedure would be:
1. I want more land.
2. There's none available.
3. I pray.

That would be fine! That would be totally and completely fine, if it actually happened historically.
Instead, major religious bodies seem to have added on a fourth step:
4. When prayer doesn't work, murder all opposition and take what you want by force anyway.
I mean, it's that or "thank goodness that God heard my prayers and spoke through me to assemble legions of bloodthirsty fanatics to sack the middle third of Europe!" Cuz that's totally how prayer works.
And if we even begin talking about religion in general as opposed to Christianity specifically, then it just gets unfair. Did you know that Afghanistan established a new law very recently than allows a husband to starve his wife if she doesn't fulfill his sexual needs? I mean, how fucked up is that?

A think-for-yourself-er, though? Guys...look. We're not MUST READ BIBLE FOLLOW ALL PARABLES TO LETTER GRAAGH WANT BRAINS Scripture-zombies. We're normal people, with a strong moral undercurrent and a special Book to help guide us through tough spots.

My problem comes from the fact that that moral guidance apparently regards non-Christians as inhuman. If I (as Obby has told me in the past, and it seems to me that you'll agree) am incapable of acting morally because I reject God, then I can only imagine that you see me as some sort of gremlin or bugaboo, or some agent of Satan that wanders the Earth infecting the pious with doubt and luring doe-eyed Christian girls (which taste great, by the way) from the light of the Lord. I honestly think that if you were in some situation in which you had control over who in a body of people should die, that you would have no reservations whatsoever about choosing all of the atheists.
And if we want to get back to the issue of respect, despite what I think you're about to accuse me of, I would not do the same to you. I know atheists I would rather see dead in the place of some Christians I know. Religious adherence does not directly influence my choice; I think it's best to judge on a case-by-case basis. Not only does your respectful attitude toward atheists come across as ingenuine when you see your cold, abiding hatred underneath, it also makes it that much more insulting. But I've told you in the past that I respect you (in contrast to yungerkid, though I don't actually remember why it is I felt that strongly about him) because you believe what you do for a reason and you aren't intimidated away from arguing for what you think is right. And you'll notice I'm not throwing any ad hominem at you (which makes it all the more confusing why you keep accusing me of being less respectful than Tanner and Slaps), but merely being vocal about a subject that I take very seriously, all the while I'm being told by you that I'm incapable of being a moral person.
Besides which, as I've said, if you are actually respectful toward atheists (probably somewhere outside of this forum, because you don't really demonstrate it here), you're a rarity.

[Amadeus]

Incluye, my source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

"Manifest Destiny is the historical belief that the United States is destined, even divinely ordained,[1] to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean" and that "Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans since continental expansion implicitly meant the occupation of Native American land"

[lord_day]

I'd just like to step in for a moment with a quote from George Bush Senior.

No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

While this quote doesn't go any way to proving anything about Christians as a whole, I do think it's pretty scary how close minded a man who was the American president could be, and it does give an idea about the general attitude of American Christians - as backed up by the figures Tsukatu published. The fact that he was the president reveals something about the American mindset.

[otters]

I honestly think that if you were in some situation in which you had control over who in a body of people should die, that you would have no reservations whatsoever about choosing all of the atheists.

That's really disturbing. You know me even worse than I supposed.

Did you know that Afghanistan established a new law very recently than allows a husband to starve his wife if she doesn't fulfill his sexual needs? I mean, how fucked up is that?

Now it's becoming reasonable for me to compare this to condemning all atheists for the actions of one. Not only are the ideals of Islam vs. Christianity almost completely different, but the thousands+ of religions have even less to do with each other than a group of people who don't believe anything at all.

If I (as Obby has told me in the past, and it seems to me that you'll agree) am incapable of acting morally because I reject God, then I can only imagine that you see me as some sort of gremlin or bugaboo, or some agent of Satan that wanders the Earth infecting the pious with doubt and luring doe-eyed Christian girls (which taste great, by the way) from the light of the Lord.

Well, believe what you want. I'm not sure at this point how many of my views I can make you believe I hold. That's pretty out there, in any case.


Then we have statistics, statistics, statistics. What point are you trying to prove? That was unrelated to our debate. (Also, the source was American Atheists; how neutral do you think that's going to be?)

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Then we have statistics, statistics, statistics. What point are you trying to prove?

In short, this is not a case of attributing the mindset of extremists to a general population; it was the general population.
...
And you wanna hear something funny? General intolerance and hostility to progressive thinking in the modern day is still not attributing the views of a few extremists to the general population, because it's the general population of Christians that is intolerant and hostile to progressive thinking.

(Also, the source was American Atheists; how neutral do you think that's going to be?)

Negatory, it was reported on by American Atheists, which sourced an ABC article about a Gallup poll.

Still waitin' on response to any of the rest.

[otters]

First, what's your definition of progressive thinking?

Besides which, as I've said, if you are actually respectful toward atheists (probably somewhere outside of this forum, because you don't really demonstrate it here), you're a rarity.

Hmm, alright.

Not only does your respectful attitude toward atheists come across as ingenuine when you see your cold, abiding hatred underneath, it also makes it that much more insulting.

"Cold, abiding hatred." Hmm. Looks like you're overreacting. You piss me off a lot because you have excellent arguments, and I always wish that life would just let me win without putting up a struggle. I don't think I hate you, or anybody here, or anybody I know, for that matter.

And you'll notice I'm not throwing any ad hominem at you (which makes it all the more confusing why you keep accusing me of being less respectful than Tanner and Slaps), but merely being vocal about a subject that I take very seriously, all the while I'm being told by you that I'm incapable of being a moral person.

I don't know why this feels like a side of you I haven't seen before, but it's true. I was probably wrong, again.

Although "incapable of being a moral person" is ridiculous. At most, I've said that an atheist "has no basis for morality," which does not from any stretch of the imagination result in "cannot act as according to a basically accepted moral system."

I would like to edit one more quote: as follows.

It was organized and led by misled or corrupt Christians because of misinterpreted Christian beliefs, carried out by misled or corrupt Christians who were members of a pseudoChristian organization that had nothing unifying it besides misinterpreted Christianity, and they did it because they were misled or corrupt Christians for misinterpreted Christian reasons, all the while the participants raved about how they were doing it because they were Christian.

Even I realize how much of a cop-out, lame sort of counterargument this sounds at first. "Oh, they did bad things? They weren't real Christians." That's troublesome. I doubt that some of the people who started wars, etc. were real Christians, but I can't judge them on that. Everyone is susceptible to guilt, greed, bigotry, bias, and misunderstanding, and if you let some of those take you over you're pretty screwed, whether you believe in anything or not. The difference is whether you're the admittedly dangerous cut-now-measure-later type of faith-head, which many people are.

And you wanna hear something funny? General intolerance and hostility to progressive thinking in the modern day is still not attributing the views of a few extremists to the general population, because it's the general population of Christians that is intolerant and hostile to progressive thinking.

About half of them, actually.

[Seneschal]

Sorry for being an ass earlier.

And you wanna hear something funny? General intolerance and hostility to progressive thinking in the modern day is still not attributing the views of a few extremists to the general population, because it's the general population of Christians that is intolerant and hostile to progressive thinking.

About half of them, actually.

Actually, considering that only 76% of Americans are Christian [Source], it's actually more like 2/3.

[SlappyMcGee]

Sorry for being an ass earlier.

And you wanna hear something funny? General intolerance and hostility to progressive thinking in the modern day is still not attributing the views of a few extremists to the general population, because it's the general population of Christians that is intolerant and hostile to progressive thinking.

About half of them, actually.

Actually, considering that only 76% of Americans are Christian [Source], it's actually more like 2/3.

Actually, I'd like to contest two things in that post there:

1) I think that America is a horrible example for the world at large with Christianity.
2) I also think he meant half of all Christians were intolerant and hostile, rather than half of people were intolerant and hostile Christians.

[Seneschal]

Actually, I'd like to contest two things in that post there:

1) I think that America is a horrible example for the world at large with Christianity.
2) I also think he meant half of all Christians were intolerant and hostile, rather than half of people were intolerant and hostile Christians.

Fair enough, but which country would you pick as a better example?

[Donfuy]

Actually, I'd like to contest two things in that post there:

1) I think that America is a horrible example for the world at large with Christianity.
2) I also think he meant half of all Christians were intolerant and hostile, rather than half of people were intolerant and hostile Christians.

Fair enough, but which country would you pick as a better example?

The whole damn World.

[Twistkill]

Tsukatu, just out of curiosity, what do you think of me being a Christian? (although I really need to follow it more closely, that's unrelated here) Despite your obvious hatred of Christianity and its history, you've never really been hostile towards me about it. Or maybe this is because I really don't like debating religion and haven't really talked about it with you at length compared to some others.

I think the main problem that creates the barrier between Christians and atheists is the personal nature of it. Christianity is all about a personal relationship with God and having your life focus on him, doing his will, yada yada, you know that already. But that's the conflict; because you've never experienced the Christian walk and dismiss the Bible as a bunch of fairy tales, you can't understand why we stand behind what we do. It's changed my life, how I view people (for the most part), and my general attitude.

I'll admit, I really don't have an answer for you about the crusades and the witch burnings and the other acts of murder committed in God's name. I can tell you that they were being misled. And, despite some of them being clergymen and adamant church-goers, they were still human. I'm still human. incluye, Obby, macaddict - humans. We aren't Jesus; we still succumb to sin. We're just trying to change our old path to became a new creation and strive to live that way.

Really, I just ask you to not judge us - the "modern" Christians, if you will - for some crazy garbage that happened erroneously in the past.

In the end, does this affect our relationships with people? Okay, if a Christian girl wants to date an atheist and after a few months the boyfriend brings up sex as part of their conversations, there are going to be potholes. There will also be bumps with excessive swearing, pornography, and the usual list of suspects. But I'm not going to say no to a bunch of guys who want to grab some drinks and play pool on a Friday night because I could be exposed to their "atheist" lifestyles.

[SlappyMcGee]

I'm still human. incluye, Obby, macaddict - humans.

Anyway, I don't judge you based on the past; I'm not here saying all Christians are horrible because of what a bunch of Christians did a thousand years ago. I'm trying to say that all Christians are wrong (or at least have no reason to believe they are right), and that previously, people with that same ridiculous belief did blank. Nobody is saying you're going to do something like that tomorrow, just that the mindset that you can wholeheartedley devote your life and truly believe something with no proof likes this just makes me worried what else you'll believe without any proof.

Ultimately, I'm not angry at you, far from it. I feel extremely bad for you. You've all fallen victim to a machine that perpetuated itself at first with violence and now sheerly by popular belief and a resistance to challenge popular belief. You're no worse than the people who fell for cults recently, and no better than a Scientologist. You were looking for answers, and these ones were either pressed onto you or seemed easily available.

[lord_day]

Ultimately, I'm not angry at you, far from it. I feel extremely bad for you. You've all fallen victim to a machine that perpetuated itself at first with violence and now sheerly by popular belief and a resistance to challenge popular belief. You're no worse than the people who fell for cults recently, and no better than a Scientologist. You were looking for answers, and these ones were either pressed onto you or seemed easily available.

While Slappy makes his point bluntly, I'm afraid I feel the exact same way as he does. I do see Christianity as a cult, and find your beliefs as ridiculous as that of Scientologists. My father is a devote christian, and it tears me up inside, because he is one of the most intelligent men I know. And maybe Christianity has made you a happier person, and good for you Twistkill. But I'm afraid that still doesn't make it real. I'm pretty Scientology made Tom Cruise happier, and we don't believe in that. In fact we ridicule it. It's a similar thing over here and I feel sad that you live your life working towards a being that you've never seen, heard and have any evidence for another than word of mouth and a book that was written thousands of years ago, and edited multiple times by the Church to suit it's needs. The fact that you are a Christian is because you were born into a Christian family in America. If you'd been born into a Greek family in Ancient Greek, you would have believed in the Ancient Greek gods. Back then the Ancient Greeks were sure of their Gods, but we all look back from the 21st century and we
know they don't exist. No questions about it.

Sorry if I come across offensive, I don't intend to. However, I wanted to get my point across and feel strongly about this topic, because I so often find me self saying nothing in these debates in order to avoid offensive posts.

[otters]

The difference between us (Christians) and you (atheists) is that you're choosing not to see the proof, per se, of God's existence, and therefore honestly believing that we're basing our beliefs on, as you say, word of mouth.

First of all, the Bible is just about the same right now as it was several hundred years ago, when the KJV first came out.

The fact that you say there's no proof for God's existence mystifies me. You've all heard the analogies of a designer in nature a thousand times, but you still can't walk outside, look at nature, and think that it all happened by chance, unless you're unwilling or afraid to hold that view, or you're just deluding yourself into believing it.
You'll know about scientists in high-ranking fields who have been converted to Christianity. The Case For a Creator by Lee Strobel entails a few little details about the origin of the universe. Apparently gravity, the weakest attracting force in the galaxy, is an extremely sensitive instrument. That is, if you built a ruler that measured in standard inches, but which spanned the length of the known universe, and set the strength of gravity to one of the inch marks, moving it to the left or the right one inch would prevent the formation of planets, stars, etc.
Another point is that one obscure little value which I don't know much about: that is, the original space-phase volume (which is allegedly scientifically vital to the Big Bang) was sensitive, during formation, to a factor of one in 10^150, which is more than the number of particles in the known universe. It's like if you tiled the surface of all the planets in several galaxies with one-inch tiles then was allowed to pick up one, that one would have the instructions to a self-supporting universe written on the underside.

Why? Why would anyone do that? "The Universal Lottery! The prize: a habitable universe which supports sapient life! The odds: 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000..."