Friday, May 3, 2013

More Warfare Thesis Lies, This Time From CNN

The Battle Continues

When nineteenth century evolutionist Andrew Dickson White constructed a false history of science, casting evolutionists as the latest in a long history of heroic truth seekers who faced religious intolerance and opposition at every turn, he set in motion a powerful genre that would be difficult to stop. From White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom to the mythical Inherit the Wind, a fictional account of the famous 1925 Monkey Trial that evolutionists use to indoctrinate students such as Judge Jones, to today’s pundits and even President Obama, the false Warfare Thesis, which pits religion against science, is too powerful and alluring to allow the truth to get in the way. And so it is no surprise that with all the news surrounding the new Pope taking charge, evolutionists would be sure to reinforce and remind everyone of their whig history we are supposed to believe. Enter Florence Davey-Attlee and her recent CNN piece where she wrote, among other things that:

Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher who argued that the universe was infinite, was burned at the stake.

The key to a good lie is to leverage the truth as much as possible. In this instance, we have two truths juxtaposed to make a lie. You see Bruno did argue for an infinite universe, and he was burned at the stake. But those are two distinct and separate facts. The implication is that the Church burned Bruno at the stake because of his scientific investigations about the universe—a perfect example of the Warfare Thesis. And it is a perfect example because it is false, as is the Warfare Thesis. But that doesn’t mean evolutionists won’t teach it.

185 comments:

  1. Nice piece. Evolutionists understand dirty politics and propaganda better than most. That's their only forte and saving grace, if you can call it that. But it won't last much longer because it wasn't theirs to begin with. Thieves!

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  2. it is indeed a agenda to attack christianity using the charge it opposed science. It truly is a attack on the Christianity and not a neutral , wrong, interest in the history of ideas.
    The cAtholic church had wrong ideas and defended them wrongly.
    In reality it was the protestant reformation that created a higher intelligence in mankind and this led to higher accomplishments in inventions and discoveries. Falsly called science.

    i welcome all atrtacks and it gives right of those attacked to make a defence.
    Will CNN allow a rebuttal??

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    1. Historically the Roman Church in the period considered (the XVII century) opposed the scientific enquire in name of the Doctrine. Where the Church had the control of the University (like in Italy) new theories like Copernican System were banned and scientists censored. At that time several Protestant regions in Europe constituted a refuge for many scientists and allow the diffusion of new ideas that were prohibited in Roman Catholic countries.
      At the present it seems the contrary happens, where an anti-scientific attitude is more typical of the Evangelic fundamentalism. The present prudent approach of the Roman Church vs. science research is sure a consequence of the past resounding conflict that opposed the born of the modern scientific methods and the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) Doctrine in the XVII century, where Galileo and Giordano Bruno trials (also with differences) are the most emblematic episodes.

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    2. @Germanicus
      I must disagree with your assessment of the 16th and 17th c. Roman Catholic Church with regard to its stance toward science. It has always taught that since creation was the work of God, faith and science can never contradict each other. Were there unfortunate episodes of individual scientists being persecuted? Sure but more so for theological reasons and not for scientific ones. For instance Galileo's offense was to try to interpret Scripture in light of certain astronomical findings.

      During the lifetimes of both Galileo and Bruno, the Roman Church was proud to count the following priest/scientists among its own:

      Christoph Clavius proposed the Gregorian calendar
      Christoph Scheiner (1573-1650) sunspots data still of use to scientists today
      Niccolo Zucchi (1586-1670) built the first reflecting telescope 50 years before Newton
      Gaimbattista Ricciolli (1598-1671) first to observe a binary star system; mapped the surface of the moon; 35 of the moon's craters are named after Jesuit astronomers
      Francesco Grimaldi (1618-1663) first to study the "diffraction of light" which led to the understanding of light as a wave
      Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) "Mersenne prime numbers"; credit for inventing, on paper, the definitive basic geometrical form of the modern telescope; made many discoveries in sound and considered to the "father of acoustics"
      Bl. Nicholas Steno aka Niels Stensen (1638-1686) fundamental contributions in anatomy, paleontology, geology and crystallography; developed a detailed theory of the origin of fossils and of sedmentary rock *that was very controversial at the time*;listed among the founders of geology; Steno's Laws; raised a Lutheran but through his study of early Church history converted

      Only three years after Bruno was executed, the Academy of Lynxes was founded under the patronage of Pope Clement VIII. This was the precursor to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Its purpose was to develop "a method of research based upon observation, experiment, and the inductive method" aka the scientific method. I'd be happy to provide many other Catholic scientists from before, during and after the Galileo/Bruno era who made major contributions to science yet never experienced any opposition from the Church.

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    3. Uknown,
      it was not my intention to deny the merits, which exist, of the Catholics scientists (but also of the Roman Church as institution) in the development of what we call the modern scientific methods also in that period, but it is not acceptable to minimise (as you do) the importance of the affairs especially around a so important topic as the Copernican Theory. There were not only “unfortunate episodes of individual scientists” but an ideological fight to defend a certain way to interpret the Scriptures and Tradition that at that time was integral part of the Doctrine. The effects of these affairs left deep signs in the relationships between Roman Church and scientific community for many centuries. Only in 1992 the Pope “expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church tribunal that judged the scientific positions of Galileo Galilei”.

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  3. It is interesting to note that Atheists who angrily shake their fist at God in this world and repeatedly invoke deep (infinite?) time as their savior against 'religion', and who fail to make their peace with God in this temporal life through man's true savior, Christ, will, when they enter eternity, regret with all their might that there truly is such thing as 'deep' time. But this 'deep' time that they will regret with all their might will not be in the temporal sense that they imagine it to be.

    Big Bang Theory - An Overview of the main evidence
    Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3
    Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36.
    Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548.
    http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

    "When this paper was published (referring to the circa 1970 Hawking, Penrose, Ellis papers) we could only prove General Relativity's reliability to 1% precision, today we can prove it to 15 places of decimal."
    Hugh Ross PhD. Astrophysics - quote taken from 8:40 mark of the following link
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF1xSErF_f4

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    1. Moreover, on top of the fact that temporal time has been shown to have a beginning, time, as we understand it temporally, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole 'time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light' concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same 'thought experiment' that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.

      Albert Einstein - Special Relativity - Insight Into Eternity - 'thought experiment' video
      http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/

      "I've just developed a new theory of eternity."
      Albert Einstein - The Einstein Factor - Reader's Digest
      http://www.readersdigest.co.za/article/10170%26pageno=3

      "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass."
      Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

      Amazing --- light filmed at 1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second! - video (so fast that at 9:00 Minute mark of video the time dilation effect of relativity is caught on film)
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoHeWgLvlXI

      'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.'
      Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony

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    2. CH said:
      << You see Bruno did argue for an infinite universe, and he was burned at the stake. But those are two distinct and separate facts.>>
      If you are arguing that Giordano Bruno was burned not only or not mainly for scientific reasons, I can find an agreement with you. But to claim that these are completely distinct facts it is historically false. The claim of the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity was part of the charges made by the Inquisition against Giordano Bruno and he was burned also for this. Giordano was also a follower and promoter of the Copernican System, also if he approached these topics more from a philosophic point of view than a scientific one, at least in comparison to Galileo.
      Buy the way, I have read the CNN article that has as focus the present behavior of the Catholic Church on the major issues related to science and Christian teach that are the genetic research, the procreation techniques and the contraception. Interesting, but it is a newspaper article that is good only to start a discussion. To conflate the first two introductive sentences as a part of a conspiracy against the Christianity is a little paranoiac from you.

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    3. There is no question that plurality of the worlds and their eternity was one of the charges of heresy against Bruno, for which he was convicted and burned at stake. His books were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, as were Galileo's.

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    4. There is no question that his being found guilty of heresy required more than his belief in an infinite universe. Bruno was a pantheist and also open to denying the divinity of Christ. It is therefore inaccurate to insinuate he was killed for believing in an infinite universe (to this day not scientifically established).

      People should educate themselves more on Religion if they wish to write on it (as the cnn writer and commenters here). expressing pantheistic views and denying the divinity of Christ would be the chief reason to find him guilty of heresy. Where the catholic church was unbiblical was killing the man over it. The only prescription against heresy in the New Testament is isolation from fellowship not death.

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    5. BA it gets worse. We have people like Krauss trying desperately to invoke Quantum Mechanics as the origin of the universe out of nothing when he can't even begin to address how QM fields would work without created space or time.

      As Cornelius often says its all religious. They want a God that is elegant, mathematical and capable of great miracles (everything out of nothing trumps all biblical miracles combined) as long as it calls for no personal responsible to such a god.

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    6. Germanicus:

      Historically the Roman Church in the period considered (the XVII century) opposed the scientific enquire in name of the Doctrine.

      That is an absurd misrepresentation of history and yet another good example of the Warfare Thesis.


      At the present it seems the contrary happens, where an anti-scientific attitude is more typical of the Evangelic fundamentalism.

      If you are unable to represent accurately the current times, in which you live, how can you represent the past? Evangelic fundamentalism is not anti-science, it is a defense of science. It is opposed to religious theories that mandate bogus science as truths, most notably evolution. You may disagree because you believe the world arose spontaneously, all by itself. But please don’t project your own bizarre, personal beliefs into the debate, and conclude that anyone opposing evolution must be “anti science.” If you are looking for anti-scientific attitudes you might want to look at those who mandate an unscientific spontaneous origins theory in the name of religion.


      If you are arguing that Giordano Bruno was burned not only or not mainly for scientific reasons, I can find an agreement with you. But to claim that these are completely distinct facts it is historically false. The claim of the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity was part of the charges made by the Inquisition against Giordano Bruno …

      “Not only or not mainly” is a misrepresentation. There were all kinds of theological charges brought against Bruno, far more serious as far as the church was concerned. Denying the Trinity dwarfed any cosmological views:


      To conflate the first two introductive sentences as a part of a conspiracy against the Christianity is a little paranoiac from you.

      If it is wrong for me to contrive a conspiracy where there is none, then is it wrong for you to contrive such a charge in the first place?

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    7. "The claim of the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity was part of the charges made by the Inquisition against Giordano Bruno and he was burned also for this."

      This is a misrepresentation of the process. In a heresy trial many charges can be brought. In the end if you are found guilty you are found guilty of being a heretic REGARDLESS of each individual charge. Plural worlds were the least of his problems. Even to day he would be considered a heretic without reference to plural worlds.

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    9. CH: "Evangelic fundamentalism is not anti-science, it is a defense of science. It is opposed to religious theories that mandate bogus science as truths, most notably evolution."

      Did you write this with a straight face, Cornelius, or did you smirk? For the irony is thick. It's not a defense of science, it's a defense of a religious doctrine. Biola's doctrinal statement leaves no doubt:

      "The existence and nature of the creation is due to the direct miraculous power of God. The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of kinds of living things, and the origin of humans cannot be explained adequately apart from reference to that intelligent exercise of power. A proper understanding of science does not require that all phenomena in nature must be explained solely by reference to physical events, laws and chance.

      Therefore creation models which seek to harmonize science and the Bible should maintain at least the following: (a) God providentially directs His creation, (b) He specially intervened in at least the above-mentioned points in the creation process, and(c) God specially created Adam and Eve (Adam’s body from non-living material, and his spiritual nature immediately from God). Inadequate origin models hold that (a) God never directly intervened in creating nature and/or (b) humans share a common physical ancestry with earlier life forms."

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    10. CH
      You can try to argue and change the wording as you want, but your sentence that:
      "But those are two distinct and separate facts"
      … is simply not true as one charge (among others) was the Bruno’s claim of existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity. It was a heretical statement according to the Doctrine and it was used against him to justify the requested sentence.
      I have no problem to agree the statement of Elijah2012 that define in his/her first post the CNN passage on Bruno “inaccurate” as an over-simplification of a more complex fact. The conspiracy that you see in the CNN article is your paranoia.

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    11. oleg:

      Did you write this with a straight face, Cornelius, or did you smirk? For the irony is thick. It's not a defense of science, it's a defense of a religious doctrine. Biola's doctrinal statement leaves no doubt:

      Those aren't doctrinal claims as you misrepresent them to be. Nor is it anti science. What can be safely said to be "anti science" is your insistence that evolution is a scientific fact.

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    12. Cornelius,

      Of course these two paragraphs are part of the doctrinal statement. They weren't part of the original articles of faith written by the founders. They were added later as "theological distinctives [that] indicate the organization’s understanding of and teaching position on certain points that could be subject to various interpretations." They express the official position of Biola and anyone applying for a job is supposed sign a written statement indicating agreement with it.

      And yes, the statements explicitly are anti-science, particularly the part that declares shared ancestry with earlier life forms to be "inadequate." Common ancestry with apes and other animals is what science indicates.

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    13. CH: “Not only or not mainly” is a misrepresentation. There were all kinds of theological charges brought against Bruno, far more serious as far as the church was concerned. Denying the Trinity dwarfed any cosmological views.

      Cornelius, are you seriously arguing that the church wasn't being "anti-science" by burning Bruno because it did so on the grounds that he denied the Trinity, not on the grounds that he thought that there were an infinite number of worlds just as important as our own, thus rendering the idea of a triune God, comprising one terrestrial human person, absurd?

      And that this technicality dwarfs the atrocity of burning him alive at all?

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    14. Germanicus:

      one charge (among others) was the Bruno’s claim of existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity. It was a heretical statement according to the Doctrine and it was used against him to justify the requested sentence.

      I didn't know that. Can you provide a reference for that?

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    15. cornelius 'the monstrous liar for jesus' hunter projectile vomited:

      "The key to a good lie is to leverage the truth as much as possible."

      And you should know since you're one of the world's foremost practitioners of lying, although none of your lies are "good".

      "If you are unable to represent accurately the current times, in which you live, how can you represent the past?"

      Buy a mirror, and a clue!

      "Evangelic fundamentalism is not anti-science, it is a defense of science."

      LIAR!

      "It is opposed to religious theories that mandate bogus science as truths..."

      LIAR!

      "..., most notably evolution."

      Evolution is NOT a theory, IDiot! The theory of evolution is a theory, and it is NOT religious! Did you buy your alleged PhD from a diploma mill? If you paid more that 50 cents for it you got screwed!

      "You may disagree because you believe the world arose spontaneously, all by itself."

      You're not only a LIAR but you're quite insane too!

      "But please don’t project your own bizarre, personal beliefs into the debate..."

      Look who's talking!

      "..., and conclude that anyone opposing evolution must be “anti science.”"

      You're an ape, and a truly filthy one at that. Get used to it!

      "If you are looking for anti-scientific attitudes you might want to look at those who mandate an unscientific spontaneous origins theory in the name of religion."

      You're a lying, fanatical, evangelical, fundamentalist, creationist nutcase with delusions of godhood.

      "Those aren't doctrinal claims as you misrepresent them to be. Nor is it anti science."

      LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! As Oleg pointed out and as I and others have pointed out before, those words are directly from the doctrinal statement of biola, where you are employed! And every stinking thing about that doctrinal statement and biola's agenda is anti-science!

      "What can be safely said to be "anti science" is your insistence that evolution is a scientific fact."

      What can be safely said is that you and your ilk are a menace to society. I am totally fed up with your lies and erroneous accusations. You and your ilk are everything (and more) that you condemn. You're a despicable excuse for a man.

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    16. CH: I didn't know that. Can you provide a reference for that?

      EL: the best online source I can find is here, and gives these as the statements Bruno was asked to recant, and refused:



      1 - The statement of "two real and eternal principles of existence: the soul of the world and the original matter from which beings are derived".

      2 - The doctrine of the infinite universe and infinite worlds in conflict with the idea of Creation: "He who denies the infinite effect denies the infinite power".

      3 - The idea that every reality resides in the eternal and infinite soul of the world, including the body: "There is no reality that is not accompanied by a spirit and an intelligence".

      4 - The argument according to which "there is no transformation in the substance", since the substance is eternal and generates nothing, but transforms.

      5 - The idea of terrestrial movement, which according to Bruno, did not oppose the Holy Scriptures, which were popularised for the faithful and did not apply to scientists.

      6 - The designation of stars as "messengers and interpreters of the ways of God".

      7 - The allocation of a "both sensory and intellectual" soul to earth.

      8 - The opposition to the doctrine of St Thomas on the soul, the spiritual reality held captive in the body and not considered as the form of the human body.

      As a result of this refusal, he was charged with heresy.

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    17. Ah, here we are, from the Vatican website no less,Cornelius:



      SUMMARY OF THE TRIAL AGAINST GIORDANO BRUNO
      Rome, 1597

      Paper volume, 320x240mm, ff. 429 (ancient, partly wrong numbering and not inclusive of many white folios), bound in parchment; on the back: VARIA. Censurae.
      ASV, Misc., Arm. X, 205, ff. 230v‑231r

      In one of the volumes of the fond “Miscellanea Armadi” (Arm. X, 205), maybe made up of the collection of different documents by the famous canonist Francisco Peña, Auditor and then Dean of the Rota (he died in 1612), there is a precious document, searched for a long time, then kept secret for a long time and finally found on the 15th November 1940 in the Pius IX fond after 15 years of unsuccessful investigation by the Prefect of the Vatican Archives, Angelo Mercati: the summary of the trial against Giordano Bruno. Thanks to Angelo Mercati, the summary was published, with a long and sound introduction issued in 1942.

      Since the volume or the volumes of the Roman trial against Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), once kept in the archives of the Holy Office, were irremediably lost, this document, which derives from the originals (on the margins of the document you often find citations of the pages of the lost trial), is the most precious testimonies we have to understand the long and troublesome inquisitorial event the famous Dominican friar underwent. Some abstracts of Giordano Bruno’s works, his interrogations, some of the records of the Venetian trial in 1592 against the famous preacher and some other documents copied from the original trial converged in the summary, which was probably used by the Assessor of the Holy Office of that period.

      The humane vicissitudes of Giordano Bruno ended with the Roman trial (1593-1600) and with the sentence of proven heresy, which, due to his resolute and extreme statement of not being guilty, changed into capital punishment, executed at Campo de’ Fiori on the 17th February 1600. In one of the last interrogations before the execution of the sentence (maybe in April 1599), the Dominican friar was questioned by the judges of the Holy Office on his cosmogony conception, supported above all in the “La cena delle Ceneri”(Ash-Wednesday Dinner) and in the “De l’infinito universo et mundi”. Even then, he defended his theories as scientifically founded and by no means against the Holy Scriptures (left side, from the first line: Circa motum terrae, f. 287, sic dicit: Prima generalmente dico ch’il moo et la cosa del moto della terra e della immobilità del firmamento o cielo sono da me prodotte con le sue raggioni et autorità le quali sono certe, e non pregiudicano all’autorità della divina scrittura [...]. Quanto al sole dico che niente manco nasce e tramonta, né lo vedemo nascere e tramontare, perché la terra se gira circa il proprio centro, che s’intenda nascere e tramontare [... ]). (Circa motum terrae, f. 287, sic dicit: Firstly, I say that the theories on the movement of the earth and on the immobility of the firmament or sky are by me produced on a reasoned and sure basis, which doesn’t undermine the authority of the Holy Sciptures […]. With regard to the sun, I say that it doesn’t rise or set, nor do we see it rise or set, because, if the earth rotates on his axis, what do we mean by rising and setting[…]).
      In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, at the dawning of the new astronomy and at the decline of Aristotle’s philosophy, sixteen years later, Cardinal Bellarmino, who then contested Bruno’s heretical theses, summoned Galileo Galilei, who also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, which, luckily for him, ended with a simple abjuration.

      If your eyesight and Italian are better than mine, you might even be able to make out the text in the document itself.

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    18. Heh. So Florence Davey-Attlee was correct after all and Cornelius Hunter was wrong.

      Let's see if he apologizes and retracts his error.

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    19. Thank you Elizabeth

      for having taken care of the request of references of CH. I am on travel and in absence of my books I couldn’t do better with a quick internet research.

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    20. Germanicus:

      I'm unclear how your books would overturn what all the other materials have to say. So far your points have been misrepresentations. As for the Vatican reference given by Elizabeth, it clearly explains that the cosmogony questioning came at the tail end:

      The humane vicissitudes of Giordano Bruno ended with the Roman trial (1593-1600) and with the sentence of proven heresy, which, due to his resolute and extreme statement of not being guilty, changed into capital punishment, executed at Campo de’ Fiori on the 17th February 1600. In one of the last interrogations before the execution of the sentence (maybe in April 1599), the Dominican friar was questioned by the judges of the Holy Office on his cosmogony conception

      Bruno's guilt clearly was not based on his cosmogony. If he had never said anything about cosmogony in his life, he still would have been found guilty, as another Catholic reference explains:

      Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.

      http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

      There is a long history of whig history told by evolutionists to contrive their Warfare Thesis. It has long since been debunked by historians, but unfortunately it remains alive and well in the media.

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    21. Oleg: Common ancestry with apes and other animals is what science indicates.

      Jeff: What data indicates such common ancestry, and how?

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    23. CH
      Again you can twist and change wording, but my point remains fix. Your sentence was wrong, and this proves only your paranoia.
      The Inquisition requested to recall:
      2 - The doctrine of the infinite universe and infinite worlds in conflict with the idea of Creation: "He who denies the infinite effect denies the infinite power".
      5 - The idea of terrestrial movement, which according to Bruno, did not oppose the Holy Scriptures, which were popularised for the faithful and did not apply to scientists.
      And this is a documented fact.
      How much the single points contributed to the sentence can be speculated, and of course the involved parts tend to present themselves in a better light. But sure these points were important to merit two places in a list of 8.

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    24. Cornelius, are you disputing that Bruno was asked to recant 8 statements and that two of those were the statement that the earth moved, and the statement that there were infinite worlds?

      If not, why was he asked to retract them, do you think?

      And do you think his refusal to recant had anything to do with his conviction?

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    25. I understand that soem historians now feel that the primary motivation for the persecution of both Bruno and Galileo was political. Bruno suggested that the Church support the English, the mortal enemies of Spain. The Vatican felt political pressure to eliminate Bruno. They were afraid of a repeat with Galileo.

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    26. Natschuster

      please present your references if you want to have a discussion.
      You can understand that "soem historians now feel" is not a good startpoint.

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    27. Here's one:

      http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/galileo-reconsidered.html

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    28. Thank you Natschuster.

      The article presents the book of Nick Wilding about a first biography of Galileo published in England in 1664. Mostly a curiosity, but nothing relevant to the trial itself.
      As far as the part that you highlighted is concerned , this is only partially addressed in a side comment that it is presented (maybe part of the book of Wilding) without any detail or reference to documents. This doesn’t allow me any further discussion.

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  4. Well, I am pleased to see Elijah2012 at least acknowledging that there is absolutely no justification for burning people alive under any circumstances. A pity for those unfortunates that the Catholic Church did incinerate over the few hundred years the practice was in full swing.

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    1. "Well, I am pleased to see Elijah2012 at least acknowledging "

      As if it was somehow strained for me to do so? lol. Is this the old atheist standard of trying to bunch all christians or religious people into a single group so you can make sweeping generalization on all religion? Tsk tsk. Something new every once in awhile would not hurt.

      It should be simple to see but Christianity is established by the people and writings that founded it - not what people did with it hundreds of years later.

      You can at least acknowledge that if its not too much of a strain.

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    2. cornelius 'the abortionist worshiper' hunter asked:

      "Are you pro-abortion Alan?"

      That's pretty funny, in a sick sort of way, coming from you cornelius, since you believe that your imaginary, allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect god specially created humans in its own image, and yet female humans have spontaneous abortions (aka miscarriages) and so do animals that experience pregnancy. Your so-called god is the most prolific, pro-abortion abortionist of all time, right? And since you believe in, worship, and promote that so-called god, that makes you pro-abortion on a massive scale, doesn't it?

      "Determining the prevalence of miscarriage is difficult. Many happen very early in the pregnancy, before a woman may know she is pregnant. Treatment of women without hospitalization means medical statistics misses many cases.[14] Prospective studies using very sensitive early pregnancy tests have found that 25% of pregnancies abort by the sixth week LMP (since the woman's last menstrual period),[52][53] however, other reports suggest higher rates. One fact sheet from the University of Ottawa states, "The incidence of spontaneous abortion is estimated to be 50% of all pregnancies, based on the assumption that many pregnancies abort spontaneously with no clinical recognition."[54] The NIH reports, "It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant." (from Wikipedia)

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    3. elijah nosedived into his convenient blindness by saying:

      "It should be simple to see but Christianity is established by the people and writings that founded it - not what people did with it hundreds of years later."

      Actually, the ignorant, arrogant, insane, barbaric dominionists who puked up the terrorism manuals that are called the bible, koran, etc., were successful in leaving monstrous 'teachings' (written and/or oral) that have been 'faithfully' practiced and/or enabled by many millions of god zombies ever since.

      Like all god zombies, you just pick and choose the convenient parts to make it look as though your barbaric religion is beneficial.

      Delete
    4. LOL....there comes a point where hatred just poisons the mind and results in entire passages of drivel. You have reached that point and gone beyond.

      You can find nowhere in the first century Christina documents where anyone is ordered to kill anyone so in total desperation you try and pour vial to substitute for evidence.

      Christianity's benefit has proved itself far more than atheism every has or will. The legal system, most hospitals, the very morals you pipe on about murder are all derived from western Christianity. You live in a mostly civilized society on the good graces of Christianity - a fact that is undeniable no matter how you try to do so..

      Delete
  5. Mr Fox

    "A pity for those unfortunates that the Catholic Church did incinerate over the few hundred years the practice was in full swing"

    Yes, Inquisition killed 2000-3000 people during few centuries which is of course wrong.

    Stalin used to kill that many every day between his breakfast and lunch.

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  6. The church burned people alive expressing dissent

    That is indefensible.

    Saying "well, Stalin killed people too" or "but abortion..." is utterly irrelevant.

    The church burned people alive for expressing dissent.

    Do you get it now?


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    Replies
    1. I am not sure you get it Elizabeth. The comparison is relevant as long as no one is attempting to make any defense. Religion in general cannot logically be implicated in the inquisition while atheism is not implicated in the actions of Stalin.

      Lets face it those are the under and overtones of these discussions. As a protestant I find it even more onerous when an atheist such as Fox implies I have to be forced to concede the evils of the inquisition when I have never and will never own the RC as my church and consider much of its history as perverse and heretical itself.

      Atheists like to leave off the fact that Christians were protesting the RC long before they ever arrived on the scene to do so with any vigor. Thats why they called us Protestants.

      The fact that the RC was more committed to maintaining its power and obedience to its orthodoxy than to opposing science (and I would say even propagating Christianity) is that some of its most persecuted were being persecuted for BEING Christians that read their Bible and listened to it more than the priests would have them. It hardly was an anti science stance.

      IF atheists could find Stalin persecuting atheists for being atheists their attempts to extricate atheism from what he did would be far more successful.

      Delete
    2. Elijah, I'm sure you agree that because X does an evil thing, that does not make Y's doing of the same evil thing any less evil.

      Yes?

      The catholic church put (or caused to be put, if you are going to be nit-picky, but it makes no moral difference) many people to death by burning - a hideous sentence - because they dissented from official doctrine.

      Protestants did likewise.

      It is absolutely no defence to say that, well, they didn't actually condemn them to die by burning, they only imprisoned people for that, it was heresy they burned them for.

      Nor is it any defence to say that, well, protestants/communists/whoever did it too.

      Cornelius posted an OP accusing a CNN reporter of promoting some "Warfare Thesis" because she made a minor implied error over the exact nature of Bruno's indictment, completely ignoring the fact that she was absolutely correct about Galileo, and about the fact that Bruno was burned alive because his ideas challenged the church's teaching (whether those ideas were "Philosophical" or "Theological" was actually the matter at issue during his trial; I don't even buy it that because the church decided it was "theological" that it was, but that's irrelevant - they burned him alive anyway).

      It remains the case that the church (like other ideological institutions, including the Stalinist regime) brutally suppressed intellectual dissent.

      That is something for us all to condemn.

      I would have thought.

      Delete
    3. Was it really "intellectual dissent"? Or was it just belligerence that you have mistaken for intellectual dissent?

      And evos have people fired and careers ruined for their intellectual dissent.

      Delete
  7. Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church didn't burn anyone alive. It was the civil authorities to whom the Church handed over the guilty. Let's keep in mind that the persecution of "heretics" was carried out by both Catholics and Protestants alike. Heresy was viewed as upsetting the social order and was dealt with accordingly.

    Chesterton was correct when he said that Original Sin is the only self evident dogma.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church didn't burn anyone alive"

    Sheesh.

    And, yes, let's keep in mind that the catholic church wasn't unique in torturing dissenters to death.

    That makes it so much better, yes?

    Good grief.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church didn't burn anyone alive. It was the civil authorities to whom the Church handed over the guilty. Let's keep in mind that the persecution of "heretics" was carried out by both Catholics and Protestants alike. Heresy was viewed as upsetting the social order and was dealt with accordingly."

    I'll have to agree with Elizabeth on that one . The first sentence is a distinction without a drop of merit. Maybe you meant to say something else?

    I won't enter into protestant vs Catholic ways of handling heretics except to note that as I have read it Bruno was found an heretic by the Lutherans but not sentenced to death for it. I might be wrong but it wouldn't netter.

    No amount of appealing to the social order of the day overrides the fact that there is not even the slightest hint anywhere in the New Testament that heretics should be killed. If these were strictly biblical christian communities they would find no justification whatsoever to killing them in their social order.

    The problem was the perversion of Christian teaching not the Christian teaching itself. The utter most the New Testament calls for is for you to stop associating with a heretic.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Calvinist. He joined the Calvinists, then disagreed with them, and was excommunicated by them.

      He basically argued with everyone, and promoted the idea of ecumenism, essentially.


      Delete
    2. elijah said:

      "...there is not even the slightest hint anywhere in the New Testament that heretics should be killed."

      Obviously you haven't noticed that the bible is not just the new testament, and the so-called 'teachings' by christians aren't limited to the new testament either.

      Oh, and you obviously haven't read the new testament. Here, let me help you with an example:

      "28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." (my bold)

      I think it's safe to say that "heretics" are included there.

      Delete
    3. sigh.... try reading more son. In the new testament it is God that will meet out judgement. Yes God holds the reigns and if you sin against him you deserve for him to take back the life he gives at any time but it is GOD that does it not man.

      Nowhere does it say that men should go ahead and kill heretics. You are just flat out lying and your attempt to find a passage saying so continues to be a total fail.

      Delete
  10. I'm not defending burning people alive. I'm just trying to offer some perspective. Sheesh!

    Ms. Liddle, why don't you answer CH's question to Alan Fox about whether you're pro abortion. I'm interested to know if your indignation toward unjust and painful deaths is genuine or merely selective.

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  11. I do not find that it puts the burning of people alive for expressing dissenting ideas into "perspective" to have someone raise the issue of abortion.

    Unless you are suggesting that people deliberately torture unborn babies to death because they think they are harbouring heretical beliefs, and want to both punish the baby and set an example to anyone who might be tempted to such a thought crime.

    But since you ask, I will answer your question, irrelevant though it is to Cornelius' OP or my point:


    I don't know anyone who is "pro-abortion", Rex. I am not.

    But I do think that abortion can be the least bad option in many circumstances, and that terminating a pregancy in the earliest stages is not commensurate with killing of a human person. My view is that the more advanced the pregnancy, the graver the moral balance between the welfare of the mother and the life of a potential person.

    Which is, of course, why only a tiny percentage of abortions occur in the third trimester, and why I support good access to contraception, emergency contraception, and early-termination services for women.

    I myself have suffered many spontaneous abortions. Though I grieved for all of them, in no way do I consider them the death of children who ever existed; rather they were the death of the possibility of a child who never would exist. Indeed, for many years, I grieved each egg that left me unfertilised. What was different about the fertilised ones is that they had got a little further along the road to becoming a child.

    My indignation toward unjust and painful deaths is certainly genuine; I think foetal pain is a consideration, and should be minimised on the rare occasions when an abortion is late enough that it may be an issue. I do not think it is "unjust" to end a pregnancy any more than I think it is "unjust" not to attempt to fertilise every one of my eggs. I do not hold the belief that an egg becomes a person at the instant of conception.

    I do think that we need to draw a legal line to define a person, and because birth is the time at which the baby's welfare can be addressed as a separate issue to that of the welfare of the mother, I think the best place to draw that legal line is birth.

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    1. "Unless you are suggesting that people deliberately torture unborn babies to death because they think they are harbouring heretical beliefs, and want to both punish the baby and set an example to anyone who might be tempted to such a thought crime."


      and here I was thinking that the issue was the murder of human beings. Now we have it that it is the reason that they were murdered that modifies the "sin" of it. so it would not be quite the equivalence if we bring pain or murder without reference to their beliefs but perhaps because of our own . You've done just as bad a moral gymnastic spin move as you accused unknown of doing

      In fact your entire post there was just a long old justification monologue and you have illustrated why Cornelius brought it up. Its clear that atheists wish to leverage moral outrage associated with the killings of heretics and pin it on religion but they wish to skirting the atrocities their own ideologies have been associated with.

      Thats the whole reason for Mr Fox's statement and why Cornelius asked him about abortion and someone else brought up Stalin, Lets not play coy here.

      As for life and abortion - Would we anywhere else not scientifically classify an organism with a beating heart as life? No we wouldn't. If we accept that its life what is its identification by species - human obviously. All the rest is just twists and turns and dancing on a pin.

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    3. Elijah: and here I was thinking that the issue was the murder of human beings.

      EL: It is. In this case, the deliberately agonising murder by burning alive of human beings.

      Elija: Now we have it that it is the reason that they were murdered that modifies the "sin" of it.

      EL: Yes, it does. Accidental murder, isn't even called "murder". Nor is the killing of one person to save another.

      Elijah: so it would not be quite the equivalence if we bring pain or murder without reference to their beliefs but perhaps because of our own . You've done just as bad a moral gymnastic spin move as you accused unknown of doing.

      EL: There is no "moral gymnastic spin" here, Elijah. Why would I want to "spin" anyway? What I'm interested in is discerning what is right, not in "spinning" things.

      My original point, however, is that given that we all agree (I hope) that putting someone to death by burning is an atrocity, and that we all recognise that this was done by the church, and that it was done in order to suppress dissent, Cornelius' attempt to "spin" the CNN article as an attack on religion as the enemy of science by objecting that Bruno wasn't technically burned for science, seems, well, surprising, at least.

      Religion has been both friend and enemy enemy of science and freedom thought over the years, and still is. Religious institutions have also committed deliberate acts of brutality in the name of religion (as other ideologies have, also).

      I wouldn't have expected anyone to want to "spin" that away, and to do so in order to attack the straw man that CNN or someone somehow has a "Warfare Thesis" they want to promote for some reason, seems just paranoid.


      Delete
    4. bpragmatic, your thread at AtBC is waiting for you. Let's see what you've got. You're not going to chicken out, are you?

      Delete
    5. We already know that the chumps at atbc have nothing because if they did they would journey out from that swamp and tell people about it.

      Yet all we get are no-nothings like thorton and TWiT.

      Go figure...

      Delete
    6. "EL: Yes, it does. Accidental murder, isn't even called "murder". Nor is the killing of one person to save another."

      EXACTLY elizabeth thats why I said MURDER. Bringing up accidents is just a side step and a rather poor one. You continue in great form with the logic gymnastics. Do clinics perform accidental abortions?

      "My original point, however, "

      Nice to know that when put to the task it is only original points you make that you can stand behind

      "Cornelius' attempt to "spin" the CNN article as an attack on religion as the enemy of science by objecting that Bruno wasn't technically burned for science, seems, well, surprising, at least."

      Sorry but this is bluster and nothing else. Cornelius' point is that the piece sets up a science versus religion context as it most surely does just reading the first two paragraphs and that it does so using at least one very dubious historical example.

      I would not characterize it as an attack on religion but it is in a vein suited to those who do and faulty history as with the cause of Bruno's murder plays into their rhetoric.

      Plus I might add you are playing a bit of a slander game here as if Cornelius somehow agrees to the death of Bruno. Tragic , vicious and wrong it still is an event that took place hundreds of years ago and there is nothing we can do about it now. Cornelius point is specific to the present to the game being played today that overlooks how humans behave across various institutions and societies in order to paint intellectuals opponents in a particular light to wit

      "Religion has been both friend and enemy enemy of science and freedom thought over the year"

      When? Where? How? This talk is what materialists like to use as if there is some blanket tent called "Religion". It has the same specificity as someone would say - politics has been friend and foe to science. Its meaningless and deceptive without asking Which political party at what particular time. Was it in the platform of the party or just what some members of party did? By skipping these basics of questions materialists get to group their opponents into this big tent filled with strawmen they can attempt to bring condemnation on.

      You might just as well say white people have been pro slavery throughout history. The generalization is the same and its not done innocently or accidentally. Its an undeniable concerted effort among those out front in Atheism to perpetuate a one religion means all narrative. Meanwhile they cry foul when Stalin's atheism is referenced and run to make the very same distinctions they run away from when tlking bout "religion".

      Finally your attempt to modify the seriousness of murder and suffering on the basis of squelching dissent is logically and morally bankrupt. Pain and suffering inflicted for our personal gratification and convenience is every bit as serious and immoral as inflicting it to squelch dissent.

      Delete
  12. OK wait- the geocentric PoV was the scientific PoV at the time of Galileo. It was the Aristoleans at the universities who wanted Galileo stopped. That was because he was upsetting their science. And they had already convinced the Church that science and te Bible both supported the geocentric PoV.

    IOW Florence needs a history lesson...

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    1. Joe G

      It is a deja vu. I thought we have already clarify this point in January 2013, but now we have to start again from the beginning.
      At the time of Galileo the philosophy of Aristotle was known in the west culture mostly through the work of Scholars such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas that interpreted and systematized Aristotle's works in accordance with Christian theology.

      Delete
    2. Ptolemy- you forgot about him.

      And again geocentricism was the science at the time- not philosophy...

      Delete
  13. Is it really "unrealistic" to think that people should control themselves? Meaning that perhaps abstinence- the Church's stance- is the best way to control STDs and early, painful deaths.

    And if you are against the use of contraception then you are against or interfering with the biological sciences?

    The use of condoms interferes with natural selection. Talk about interfering with the biological sciences. What would Charles say?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it is unrealistic. Cf. all of human history. Also, anyone else find it hilarious that Joe G is advocating for self-control?

      Delete
    2. Oh, and Joe, no, it's not interfering with the "biological sciences". The biological sciences are fields of study, entirely unaffected by contraception. It IS interfering with biology, but then so does agriculture. So does soap. So what? Are you really so stupid as to think that if people think evolution occurs, they are then required to treat it as a guide to morality?

      Delete
    3. LoL! So everyone throughout human history has come down with a STD because he/ she was unable to control themselves?

      And unlike didymos, JoeG has never had a STD.

      As for interfering with biological sciences- my bad- the article sez that contraception is a stocking pont between the Church and biological science, or some such crap.

      And if darwinism is true then there isn't any such thing as morality. That is just a fact.

      Delete
    4. joey 'the muslim-IDiot-creationist' gallien blurted without thinking, as usual:

      "Is it really "unrealistic" to think that people should control themselves?"

      Well, joey, you've certainly proved that it would be totally unrealistic to think that you will ever control yourself.

      Hey joey, have you ever had sex just for the fun of it? Did you permanently stop having sex with your wife the moment you found out that your second, and last, kid was conceived? Have you ever had sex with anyone besides your wife?

      Did you wait until you were married before having sex with your wife and were you both virgins when you got married? Have you only had sex with your wife two times, the two times you conceived a child? Have you ever used a condom or any other kind or method of birth control? How about your wife?

      Oh, and your comment to didymos about an STD is mighty muslim of you.

      Delete
    5. joey said this too without thinking:

      "And if darwinism is true then there isn't any such thing as morality. That is just a fact."

      Hey joey, you recently said on your blog that:

      "1- CSI pertains to ORIGINS and Darwinistic evolution takes place AFTER the origins"

      So, you're admitting that "Darwinistic evolution" (what you usually call "Darwinism") takes place but only "after the origins". Tell me joey, was morality software designed, created, and front loaded by allah into the very first (original) life form, and is that original software what determines and controls morality in humans and all other life forms on Earth and throughout the universe now and in the future?

      Delete
    6. TWiT:
      So, you're admitting that "Darwinistic evolution" (what you usually call "Darwinism") takes place but only "after the origins".

      I admit that is what evoTARDs say. However it is clear that darwinian evolution just breaks and deteriorates.

      Tell me again how what you said was supposed to refute my claim about darwinism and morality?

      Delete
    7. TWiT:
      Well, joey, you've certainly proved that it would be totally unrealistic to think that you will ever control yourself.

      Your projection is duly noted.

      And again what does your post have to do with anything I said?

      Or are you upset because you have a STD and I never have?

      Delete
    8. joey 'braindead' gallien said:

      "I admit that is what evoTARDs say."

      No, that is what you said.

      "However it is clear that darwinian evolution just breaks and deteriorates."

      And you're admitting AGAIN that "darwinian evolution" takes place. You're just stupidly claiming that it "just breaks and deteriorates".

      Hey joey, how can "darwinian evolution" that "just breaks and deteriorates" take place if everything was originally designed created, and front loaded by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect god? And since being perfect would include having perfect morals, how can there be anything but perfect morals in that omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect god's creation, and especially in humans, which allegedly were/are specially created in its image?

      Delete
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    1. My "agenda" was making fun of Joe. Why, what's yours bprag?

      Delete
    2. Other than resorting to ad hominem and ad consequentiam, that is.

      Delete
    3. LOL! Chubby Joke Gallien returns with his latest sockpuppet "bpragmatic"

      See Joke, no matter how many different socks you make your idiotic raging nincompoop style always gives you away. Always.

      Delete
    4. While bprag seems to have the same sort of winning personality as Joe, I'm not so sure we're dealing with a sock. Bprag seems to have more writing ability than Joey. Not much, granted, but some. Joe also tends to stick around and make a go at fighting it out, but bprag (based on his posting history here) is more of the hit-and-run type, typically launching a single volley of invective before vanishing into the mists of the internets.

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  15. didymos:
    My "agenda" was making fun of Joe.

    YOU, make fun of me? Now THAT is funny- please be sure to tell me when you are making fun of me. So far you have been shown to be a total clueless loser

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    Replies
    1. Self awareness isn't your strong point, joey.

      Delete
  16. See what I mean Cornelius? Some terse but good disussions was going on and then in came the kiddies starting the mud slinging as they always do. Look at all the childishness above. Moderation is needed very badly or perhaps just turn off comments. It detracts from each and every one of your posts.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Don't read the posts. It is easy enough to self moderate. Leave the rest of us alone. Or go to UD, it is a paragon of moderation.

      Delete
    2. velik did you go viewing this weekend?

      Delete
  17. "raging nincompoop style"

    LOL now theres some language that marks you as peer with professional scientists as you claimed in the other post. I am sure all scientist go around using "nincompoop" as a signal of their advanced education.

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    1. nin·com·poop: noun \ˈnin-kÉ™m-ËŒpüp, ˈniÅ‹-\

      : fool, simpleton

      Ninconpoop is both a correct and accurate description of Joe Gallien as determined by his ridiculous anti-science and antisocial behavior. Behavior which has been well documented over the last decade.

      It is funny to see you knee-jerk defend your fellow ID-Creationist while ignoring his comments like other posters having STDs. But you always were a flaming hypocrite as well as a proven liar.

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    3. UM where was the confirmation that Educated scientists use such language again?

      Delete
    4. Ask your Creationist buddies, when they're not busy calling people twats and accusing them of having STDs that is.

      Elijah2012 the lying hypocrite.

      Delete
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    1. bpragmatic

      Twat said:


      Uh oh, you're in for it now!

      Elijah2012 will be along any minute to attack you and demand you be banned for using naughty language!

      You wouldn't want to be seen as a big hypocrite again, right Elijah2012?

      Delete
    2. Hey bpragmatic, besides being a coward, are you a christian?

      And is "Twat" a biblical term?

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    4. Hey bpragmatic, did you come to the belief that the the biblical character "Jesus" actually existed and "has more to say about reality" by finding and studying scientific evidence, or by blindly believing the impossible fairy tales that the bible and god zombies tell you?

      And speaking of funding and leeching, how much money do you suppose religions have leeched and continue to leech off of their followers and the rest of the public? Yeah, even the rest of the public (which includes agnostics and atheists) since religions don't pay taxes as they should:

      http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=cragun_32_4

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  19. I have a few questions for people who criticize the Bible on moral grounds.

    1. What is your basis for saying that morality exists?

    2. What is your basis for determining what os moral or immoral?

    3. You don't believe the Bible is true, so maybe none of the bad things recorded ever happened, so what exactly is the problem?
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    1. natschuster May 5, 2013 at 12:06 PM

      I have a few questions for people who criticize the Bible on moral grounds.

      1. What is your basis for saying that morality exists?


      That depends on what you mean by "exists".

      I believe it exists as a concept in the minds of human beings because I have discussed it with other people.

      Does it exists as something other and somewhere other than in the minds of? Not as far as I'm aware.

      2. What is your basis for determining what os moral or immoral?

      My own moral guidelines, which reduce essentially to The Golden Rule.

      3. You don't believe the Bible is true, so maybe none of the bad things recorded ever happened, so what exactly is the problem?

      The Bible is presented, amongst other things, as a source of moral guidance. Whether true or not, it contains stories which illustrate behaviors of which we are supposed to approve and which we are clearly expected to emulate.

      Some, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan encourage us to to be kind, charitable and helpful to our fellow human beings, especially when they are in need. They are not a problem.

      Others, however, especially in the Old Testament, recount acts which, by today's standards, would be considered as a crimes against humanity or atrocities. Yet they are also reported as if we should approve of them. How can that be when they contradict what the New Testament teaches? Why has Christianity not repudiated them just as the Lutherans have repudiated Martin Luther's anti-semitism?

      They are a problem, especially if you are claiming some kind of overriding moral authority for Christianity.

      Delete
    2. "The Bible is presented, amongst other things, as a source of moral guidance. Whether true or not, it contains stories which illustrate behaviors of which we are supposed to approve and which we are clearly expected to emulate"

      You made this up in your mind. there is no such prescription for all passages of scripture. David stole a man's wife and had the man killed. We are not called to emulate this. Jews in a few battles killed all of their enemies but nowhere in their history do we have any indication they were to emulate that behavour or they would have always done so.

      There are no approved atrocities in the Old Testament. Invariable what materialist point to is that in some case God the giver of life required that his enemies be relieved of what he had given them and did so knowing all there was about them and yes even their children. The sitution and the degree of revelation were exceedingly rare but materialists desperate to make it point of "emulation" try to make it into a contradiction when there is none. You won't like it but it IS God's prerogative to take life as he will everyone here at some point. It is not an atrocity for him to take back what is his. The only atrocity is if he did not require it and someone purposed to claim he has when he hasn't.

      The point missed by materialists because of their lack of understanding and research into what they oppose is that over two thousand years ago the Bible itself teaches that he will never call for life to be taken again except by his own "hands" directly. Every attempt to tie brutalities later in the name of Christianity are utter failures because they seek to ignore not points of "emulation" but DIRECT COMMANDS TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES not kill them.

      When anyone can show me where Stalin violated a direct command of atheism in killing the many he did they will have a more reasonable logical point.

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  20. Quote Ian:

    ""2. What is your basis for determining what os moral or immoral?

    My own moral guidelines, which reduce essentially to The Golden Rule.""

    Why are your moral guidelines better than the Bible's? Or Hitler's? And the Golden rule does allows suicidal people to commit murder.

    The acts mentioned in the Bible that you consider atrocities, were commanded by God. That's why Bible believers don't repudiate them. The same Bible that records the acts, records the commandments from God as well. So what is your basis for saying that your morality is better than the Bible's. At least a Bible believer can say that his morality comes from the Creator of the Universe.

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    1. "The acts mentioned in the Bible that you consider atrocities, were commanded by God. That's why Bible believers don't repudiate them. The same Bible that records the acts, records the commandments from God as well. So what is your basis for saying that your morality is better than the Bible's. At least a Bible believer can say that his morality comes from the Creator of the Universe."

      Wow, you god zombies are really screwed up.

      And thanks for admitting that your so-called god is a sadistic, murderous monster. You're obviously very proud to believe that that monster is where your 'morals' come from.

      Do you have any children? If so, and your so-called god commanded you to torture and kill them to test your 'faith' or for any other reason, would you unhesitatingly torture and kill them while chanting 'praise the lord'?

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    2. What's really sad nat is that you need a book to tell you you should act morally instead of figuring it out for yourself.

      Delete
    3. The Whole Truth:

      What is your basis in logic or science for saying your morality is better than that of the Bible?

      If someone did something really bad to your children do you believe that they should be punished somehow? IF the answer is yes, why are you less of a monster than the God of the Bible?

      Thorton:

      Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Jeffery Dahmer etc, etc, etc also figured it out for themselves. And I imagine that if I didn't have the Bible, I imagine I would have some sort of moral sense, But that is all it would be.

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    4. natschuster

      Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Jeffery Dahmer etc, etc, etc also figured it out for themselves.


      So because other people got it wrong that means you're incapable of getting it right without help?

      If someone did something really bad to your children do you believe that they should be punished somehow?

      Hey nat, how many little children and unborn babies did God kill in the great Noah's Flood? Just a ballpark number.

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    5. Thorton:

      How do you know they got it wrong? They think they got it right?

      Delete
    6. Interesting. According to natschuster's morality Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Jeffery Dahmer got it right?

      You ignored my question about how many little children and unborn babies did God kill in the great Noah's Flood too. Well?

      Delete
    7. Did I say they got it right? I thought I was asking how do you know they got it wrong.

      And I don't knwo how many children were drowned in the flood. What is your point?

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    8. natschuster

      And I don't knwo how many children were drowned in the flood. What is your point?


      Was it moral to murder all those little children and unborn babies in the Flood?

      Delete
  21. natschuster May 5, 2013 at 2:12 PM

    [...]

    The acts mentioned in the Bible that you consider atrocities, were commanded by God. That's why Bible believers don't repudiate them. The same Bible that records the acts, records the commandments from God as well. So what is your basis for saying that your morality is better than the Bible's. At least a Bible believer can say that his morality comes from the Creator of the Universe.


    I think my morality is better, certainly better than that revealed by those acts in the Old Testament. But I can't prove it, not by any objective standard. No one can.

    You say that Bible believers don't repudiate the apparent atrocities in the Old Testament because they were commanded by God. You say that Bible-believers can at least claim that their morality comes from the Creator of the Universe.

    The question is, which morality? The lesson of the Bible are contradictory.

    From what you say, it seems to follow that Bible believers will do anything provided they are convinced it is commanded by God - without question. If that is true then any one of them, if they had the means, would wipe out almost the entire human population of the Earth - save perhaps for a chosen few, of course - if they believed God ordered it.

    That's the difference between us. Skeptics don't accept without question, they don't wouldn't act without question. Who is more moral?


    ReplyDelete
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    1. "From what you say, it seems to follow that Bible believers will do anything provided they are convinced it is commanded by God - without question. If that is true then any one of them, if they had the means, would wipe out almost the entire human population of the Earth - save perhaps for a chosen few, of course - if they believed God ordered it."


      ROFL. I'm sorry but it is just so funny to have an anti theist pretend as if he knows what believers hold to regardless of all the contradictory evidences and the fact that he shows himself to be utterly clueless on the subject. Your "seems" is however accurate because it references the view that you have constructed in your own mind.

      If you knew the first thing about Christianity it is that we are prohibited from making up our own rules in defiance of commands given by Jesus himself. We can't be Christians and directly disobey Christ and claim to be following him. Materialists such as yourself (you are no true sKeptic because you are hardly sKeptical of anything but religion) go to great lengths to entirely ignore the commands we have been given to love our enemies not kill them.

      Did you also know that we are forbidden from adding commands to Christianity or taking them away? We can get no revelation from God to kill or persecute others that contradicts the message of the New Testament and be practicing Christians. So for the ENTIRE history of Christianity we are forbidden from doing what you just claimed "Seems" to be the case and you got there not by an intelligent analysis of all the evidence but by the deliberate exclusion of the facts.

      Now are there times for killing? Yes and will we all live happily ever after? No. He is God and he is Judge. The fact that he made you or me doesn't require he put up with us forever. He can show mercy but if and when he determines the mercy is being taken advantage of or will not result in changes of heart he can pass sentence and do what he deems right without any human agency.

      The fact that that is not a position you like does not make it contradictory any more than a judge passing sentence on one person because of circumstances and giving another party a second third or fourth chance at another time is at odds. It is not contradiction to exercise ones discretion.

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    2. elijah, you obviously have never read the bible. It's the so-called 'holy book', but actually a terrorism manual, that you christians get your atrocious morals from.

      Delete
  22. Could you provide some examples of the contradictions, please?

    Now, the Bible records how Abraham tried to convince God not to destroy Sodom. ANd Moses pleaded with God not to destroy the Israelites. See, they did question what god was doing. Believers do question. And I;m not convinced that all skeptics would question. Lots of atrocities were commited in the name of Marx, Mao, etc. by unquestioning fanatics.

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    1. Ah, so "Believers do question." but they still accept and promote that whatever "God" does or commands, no matter how atrocious, is moral, merciful, benevolent, and loving.

      Oh, by the way, hitler was not an atheist.

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    2. Nat, if someone is an unquestioning fanatic they are BY DEFINITION not a skeptic. Did that not occur to you?

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    3. Didymos:

      I was under the impression that the point being made was that only religious people can be fanatics.

      Delete
  23. The Whole Truth:

    You believe that humans are not significantly different than chimps. Chimps eat each other. That's not immoral. Its just behavior. SO when humans kill each other for any reason or for no reason at all, why don't you just chalk it up do behavior?

    And I'm really not sure what I would do if God told me to kill my children. What is your basis in logic for saying not killing children is more or less moral than killing children?

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    1. "And I'm really not sure what I would do if God told me to kill my children. "

      So, I'm sensing a little conflict here. You seem a bit ill at ease with the idea that "Divine Command" == "Morally Good" in all cases. Well, in any case, we'll be sure to keep Child Protective Services in your area on alert, just in case God decides to give you a ring.

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    2. natschuster said:

      "If someone did something really bad to your children do you believe that they should be punished somehow? IF the answer is yes, why are you less of a monster than the God of the Bible?"

      So, everyone and everything that "God" has ever abused, enslaved, raped, tortured, and/or killed, or 'commanded' its sadistic and murderous followers to do those things to, had and have it coming because your so-called 'holy book' says so, eh?

      Do your children realize that they are in murderous danger from you? Have you told them this?

      "And I'm really not sure what I would do if God told me to kill my children."

      How about the children of other people, nat? Would you unhesitatingly abuse, rape, enslave, torture, and/or kill them if "God" commanded you to do so? And would you do those things to a fetus if "God" commanded you to do so?

      Do you pull the wings off of flies just for kicks?

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    3. natschuster asked:

      "What is your basis in logic for saying not killing children is more or less moral than killing children?"

      I'm sane, nat, not psychotic like you and your fellow god zombies. I don't need to believe in and fear an imaginary, monstrous, murderous, threatening sky daddy to know that killing children is wrong, and especially when that sky daddy is a prolific child murderer according to its alleged 'word' in a so-called 'holy book'.

      You and your fellow god zombies are the ones who need a non-murderous basis in sanity.

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    5. natschuster makes a foolish attempt at reading my mind:

      "You believe that humans are not significantly different than chimps."

      The 'significance' of the differences between humans and chimps is debatable, depending on the points of the debate. Chimps have some societal rules but humans have more. Chimps and humans are related but that doesn't mean that humans are chimps. However, many people, including many god zombies, behave in ways that are much more atrocious than chimps or any other primates.

      I'm curious, since your allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect, loving, merciful, benevolent, moral "God" allegedly designed and created chimps, but 'specially' designed and created humans in its own image, why do any humans do anything that isn't perfect, loving, merciful, benevolent, and moral?

      Oh yeah, the 'fall'. Excuses, excuses.

      Hey nat, were the cannibalistic members of the Donner party atheists? How about the cannibalistic residents of Jamestown? Do you suppose they said grace before eating human body parts?

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    6. I still don't see how you know what is right or wrong based on logic. All I see is opinion. I still don't see any basis in logic for your morslity being better than the Bible's.

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    7. TWT

      "I'm sane, nat, not psychotic like you and your fellow god zombies. I don't need to believe in and fear an imaginary, monstrous, murderous, threatening sky daddy to know that killing children is wrong, and especially when that sky daddy is a prolific child murderer according to its alleged 'word' in a so-called 'holy book'.

      You and your fellow god zombies are the ones who need a non-murderous basis in sanity."

      How do you know your sane? How do yuo know it is wrong?

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    8. Didymus


      ""And I'm really not sure what I would do if God told me to kill my children. "

      So, I'm sensing a little conflict here. You seem a bit ill at ease with the idea that "Divine Command" == "Morally Good" in all cases. Well, in any case, we'll be sure to keep Child Protective Services in your area on alert, just in case God decides to give you a ring.""

      Of course I'm conflicted. My inate moral sense tells me it is wrong. But that is my opinion. I can't prove it is wrong. I would imagine God knows better.

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    9. Nat
      Of course I'm conflicted. My inate moral sense tells me it is wrong. But that is my opinion. I can't prove it is wrong. I would imagine God knows better.


      The question how do you really know it is " God"? If the answer is the Bible,how do you know it is really the Word of God and not the Koran? The usual answer is Faith, in which case your morality is just as subjective as anyone else's. Barring a direct visitation from God, you are making a subjective choice of what is True.

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    10. natschuster said:

      "My inate moral sense tells me it is wrong."

      WHAT? Your "inate moral sense"? How can you have an "inate moral sense" that is separate from 'God's' morals if morals only come from 'God'?

      Would you ultimately neglect your "inate moral sense" and kill your children if your imaginary 'God' commanded it, because "God knows better"?

      Man oh man are you ever screwed up. That you would even be "conflicted" about following a murderous command from an imaginary, monstrous 'God', or doing the right thing by not even entertaining such a thought of killing your children, let alone actually doing it, shows how psychotic and dangerous you are. Commit yourself to a competent hospital for deranged lunatics, TODAY.

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    11. natschuster said:

      "I still don't see how you know what is right or wrong based on logic. All I see is opinion. I still don't see any basis in logic for your morslity being better than the Bible's."

      The only "basis" I need is my conscience and my sanity. My conscience has evolved throughout my life due to the experiences I've had. Many people never have a conscience or have a limited one, usually because they were born that way or because they have been abused/neglected or have been taught/enabled to be selfish manipulators/users/abusers.

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    12. The Whole Truth:

      Are you in favor of legalized abortion?

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    13. I really don't like that women get abortions just because a kid would be inconvenient, especially if they could use birth control pills, etc., to prevent conception in the first place.

      However, I also understand that the world is way overpopulated, that there are a lot of unwanted kids already born, and that a kid born to someone who doesn't really want it is not a good thing for the kid or society. I also understand that religion won't fix it.

      If anything, religions exacerbate the problems, by fighting against birth control, by encouraging or even commanding people to have as many kids as possible, by treating women as baby factories, by making people believe that the life sustaining resources of the world won't run out because 'GOD' will 'provide', by interfering with proper education so that many kids grow up to accomplish less than they otherwise could or to be ignorant burdens on society, by making people feel guilty about having sex for reasons other than conceiving children, by neither considering nor teaching that overpopulation leads to many other huge problems, by not encouraging adoption enough, and by hording or wasting huge amounts money that could go toward alleviating some of the problems.

      Speaking of horded and wasted money by religions, read this:

      http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=cragun_32_4

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    14. natschuster, you certainly implied that hitler (and others) were atheists, by saying:

      "Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Jeffery Dahmer etc, etc, etc also figured it out for themselves."

      Your implication is that they didn't get their atrocious morals from the bible and 'God' and that their morals were worse than what is expressed in the bible.*

      I don't know enough about the others you mentioned to be sure if they were atheists or not but hitler was definitely not an atheist. He was also against Darwin's theory and he drew from christianity (selectively of course, like every other god pusher) to bolster his agenda.

      It's real easy to know that my morals are better than yours or hitler's, because I would never even consider worshiping, defending, and promoting a monstrous, immoral, threatening, so-called 'God' and associated fairy tales, nor would I ever consider abusing, torturing, raping, enslaving, or killing children.

      I also wouldn't do any of the horrible things that the others you mentioned did or are said to have done. And, I wouldn't do any of the horrible things that many god pushers have done and/or are doing.

      *Actually, the acts that those guys committed or are said to have committed were a lot like what is expressed in the bible, on a much smaller scale. The bible, the koran, etc., are basically manuals for how to commit atrocities and weasel out of responsibility.

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    15. "I don't know enough about the others you mentioned to be sure if they were atheists or not but hitler was definitely not an atheist. He was also against Darwin's theory and he drew from christianity"

      Your post are filled with so much nonsense it would take days to reply to all the nonsense you have written but for you to claim that Hitler drew from Christianity to kill Jews in Gas chambers is just indicative of what trash fills your mind.

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    16. The Whole Truth:

      I keep on asking for your basis in logic for saying your morality is better than the Bible's. All I keep on seeing is opinion. And you seem to be saying that sometimes abortion is okay. Some people are of the opinion that abortion is an atrocity. Are they wrong and you right?

      And if you read "Mein Kampf" book 1 Chapter 11 and book 2 chapter 4, you will find that Hitler did believe in evolution. The same thing can be found in his second book. If you are refering to the rejection of Darwinism by the Reich Librarians' Association, I'm not sure that their opinion reflected that of the entire Third Reich. It could be they had a problem with Darwin's version of evolution since he was English, buthe were okay with Heackel's. I understand that evolution was taught in German Universities If that is true, then the Nazis really had no problem with Evolution.

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    17. Hey natschuster and elijah, go to the site below and try to convince Diogenes that hitler was an atheist and that he didn't draw on christianity.

      http://lampofdiogenes.wordpress.com/

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    18. If you read book 2 chapter 4 of Mein Kampf you will find that Hitler wrote that Christannity was good for organizing society, but that it was time to move on to a scientific raced based system. That isn't convetional Christianity. I never sadi he was an atheist. In "Mmein Kampf" he uses the words Creator and Nature interchangibly. This seems to indicate that he was a pantheist.

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    19. Hey nat, read these (for a start):

      http://coelsblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/nazi-racial-ideology-was-religious-creationist-and-opposed-to-darwinism/

      http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm

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    20. The first post seems to be contradicted by what Hitler himself wrote as I mentioned above above.

      The second post is from his speeches. Hitler was known to lie in his speeches. It's called propaganda. He knew that he Christianity had deep roots in
      Germany, and couldn't be ignored so easily.

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    21. The following is from chapter 4, book 2 of "Mein Kampf":


      The first step which visibly brought mankind away from the animal world was that which led to the first invention. The invention itself owes its origin to the ruses and stratagems which man employed to assist him in the struggle with other creatures for his existence and often to provide him with the only means he could adopt to achieve success in the struggle. Those first very crude inventions cannot be attributed to the individual; for the subsequent observer, that is to say the modern observer, recognizes them only as collective phenomena. Certain tricks and skilful tactics which can be observed in use among the animals strike the eye of the observer as established facts which may be seen everywhere; and man is no longer in a position to discover or explain their primary cause and so he contents himself with calling such phenomena 'instinctive.'
      In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again; and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as 'instinct.'


      It sounds like pretty conventional evolutionary theory to me. Please don't make me cut and paste more. It's a tedious excercise

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    22. Here's the rest that didn't fit above.

      This is more easily understood and more easy to believe in the case of man. His first skilled tactics in the struggle with the rest of the animals undoubtedly originated in his management of creatures which possessed special capabilities.
      There can be no doubt that personality was then the sole factor in all decisions and achievements, which were afterwards taken over by the whole of humanity as a matter of course. An exact exemplification of this may be found in those fundamental military principles which have now become the basis of all strategy in war. Originally they sprang from the brain of a single individual and in the course of many years, maybe even thousands of years, they were accepted all round as a matter of course and this gained universal validity.
      Man completed his first discovery by making a second. Among other things he learned how to master other living beings and make them serve him in his struggle for existence. And thus began the real inventive activity of mankind, as it is now visible before our eyes. Those material inventions, beginning with the use of stones as weapons, which led to the domestication of animals, the production of fire by artificial means, down to the marvellous inventions of our own days, show clearly that an individual was the originator in each case. The nearer we come to our own time and the more important and revolutionary the inventions become, the more clearly do we recognize the truth of that statement. All the material inventions which we see around us have been produced by the creative powers and capabilities of individuals. And all these inventions help man to raise himself higher and higher above the animal world and to separate himself from that world in an absolutely definite way. Hence they serve to elevate the human species and continually to promote its progress. And what the most primitive artifice once did for man in his struggle for existence, as he went hunting through the primeval forest, that same sort of assistance is rendered him today in the form of marvellous scientific inventions which help him in the present day struggle for life and to forge weapons for future struggles. In their final consequences all human thought and invention help man in his life-struggle on this planet, even though the so-called practical utility of an invention, a discovery or a profound scientific theory, may not be evident at first sight. Everything contributes to raise man higher and higher above the level of all the other creatures that surround him, thereby strengthening and consolidating his position; so that he develops more and more in every direction as the ruling being on this earth.

      Delete
    23. Actually, that sounds self-righteously and arrogantly religious, especially since hitler believed that 'man' (or at least aryan 'man') was endowed with specialness by 'God'.

      Delete
  24. "And I'm really not sure what I would do if God told me to kill my children. What is your basis in logic for saying not killing children is more or less moral than killing children?"

    Whatever the basis of my logic, I am not stupid enough to consider doing that. After all, there is a chance that your God is just kidding. Remember Isaac?

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    1. bpragmatic the coward upchucked:

      "You arrogant ass. What makes you think that God would give you the privelege of representing his will to the world. Your stupidity is something you cant comprehend. What a jack ass."

      Well, it's obvious that you believe that your imaginary "God" gives you complete authority to represent its will to the world, since you're doing a fine job of representing that raping, enslaving, sadistic, immoral, torturing, petty, jealous, murderous, genocidal, infanticidal, ecocidal, cowardly monster.

      Your thread at AtBC is still waiting for you, punk.

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  26. "Of course I'm conflicted. My inate moral sense tells me it is wrong. But that is my opinion. I can't prove it is wrong. I would imagine God knows better."

    NAT why give the atheists something to chew on and regurgitate. You don't need to prove it is wrong or right on God's part because GOD NEVER GAVE YOU THAT COMMAND and according to the NT he wouldn't. they are just desperately trying to connect an event several thousands of years ago that was never repeated and in fact proved that God would never have allowed Isaac to be killed in order to to make some point of theirs stick about today

    so LOL you have just got them jumping up and down on their imagination as if he has given you such a command.

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    1. Elijah,
      . they are just desperately trying to connect an event several thousands of years ago that was never repeated and in fact proved that God would never have allowed Isaac to be killed in order to


      This Book is the basis for your claim that your morality is objectively based. Morality is independent of authority, else anyone who believes that God's commands an action is moral. After all the Biblical God commanded Abraham to kill his child, so either God commanded Abraham to sin or it is not a sin to kill your child if God commands it.

      Unless Abraham knew that God was bluffing then it is a lesson that it is possible to outwit God.


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    2. Sorry Vel you show the standard lack of depth atheist always do when they attempt theology. Try reading the whole book.

      A) Revealed both there and in the book of Hebrews Abraham never believes he is ending the life of his son. He believes no matter what happens he will return with his son because if he kills him God will raise him up again. The "bluff" is that no matter what happens on that mountain Isaac will live to see another day. He is aware the entire time that it is a test and one that will have no ongoing consequences to his son.

      B) and more importantly sin is defined as going against the will of God. Care to give us a basis for sin that is wholly materialistic? It will not stand scrutiny. So far the only bluff I can see is you trying to use a theological word with some other meaning that it doesn't have - objective truth without God. If something is God's will it cannot be a sin but before you go aha - read on

      "This Book is the basis for your claim that your morality is objectively based. Morality is independent of authority, else anyone who believes that God's commands an action is moral. "

      You don't know what I claim so stop fibbing my man and your above logic is spurious. Morality is not independent of God's authority but neither as you try and fudge is the basis in what anyone "believes that God's commands".

      Educate yourself. We have an entire set of books in Christianity called the New Testament that determine what we are to believe. This fantasy atheists conveniently conjure up in their mind as a caricature that all christians go on their intuition and private messages from God is grade A crapola. We have standards that are immovable in a book we are commanded not to add to or change the meaning . Besides TV evangelists and some of their followers we believe the book to be so complete in directing us about God we don't need whispers in the night telling us how we ought to live. It is a mark of our obedience how well we adhere to what we have already been told is the will of God.

      This is something you do not like to take into account because if you did all the atrocities you claim are the result of religion would be seen clearly to be nothing but a violation of it.

      Finally if the charge is contradiction most atheists will confuse themselves hopelessly into thinking they have a point. However Abraham preceded the ten commandments with all of its commands by HUNDREDS of years and it is THROUGH the incident with Issac and the giving of the ten commandments hundreds of years later we know fully well that it is NOT the will of God for any child to be sent into eternity by their parents.

      and so dies all the worthless and empty conjectures in this thread.


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    3. Elijah,
      Sorry Vel you show the standard lack of depth atheist always do when they attempt theology. Try reading the whole book


      Sorry Elijah, not an atheist and I have.And some exposure to theology,as well.

      Revealed both there and in the book of Hebrews Abraham never believes he is ending the life of his son. He believes no matter what happens he will return with his son because if he kills him God will raise him up again

      I am aware of that interpretation, so Abraham knew God was bluffing, in which case Abraham had nothing to lose by not going along. It would seem to me the only real test would be if he did not know that Issac would survive,that Abraham had skin in the game.

      and more importantly sin is defined as going against the will of God. Care to give us a basis for sin that is wholly materialistic?

      We are talking about Abraham,was child sacrifice allowed? If it was considered immoral then God was conveying that morality was not objective or absolute,merely God's Will. If Abraham did not know it was immoral then God was enabling child sacrifice as well as punishing other tribes for the same behavior

      So far the only bluff I can see is you trying to use a theological word with some other meaning that it doesn't have - objective truth without God. If something is God's will it cannot be a sin but before you go aha - read on

      You are a bossy one Elijah, perhaps the test was not of Abraham but of God. The Bible is rife with sacrifice,perhaps Abraham was willing to risk his son's life to determine what was the nature of this God. Or perhaps he just feared being consumed in fire himself.

      Finally how could God condemn the actions of other peoples as immoral if He had not commanded them? He certainly wiped out a great many for evil, pre Ten Commandments.

      You don't know what I claim so stop fibbing my man and your above logic is spurious

      You have already conceded that Abraham called God's bluff,you also seem to be saying that at some point killing your child was moral,it only became immoral when God explicitly forbade it

      Morality is not independent of God's authority but neither as you try and fudge is the basis in what anyone "believes that God's commands...We have an entire set of books in Christianity called the New Testament that determine what we are to believe

      Are not those the Word of God, His Commands? It is your subjective belief those are actually the theTruth. And your subjective belief your understanding of those words is correct. I believe some blood has been shed ironing out differences in those interpretations

      This fantasy atheists conveniently conjure up in their mind as a caricature that all christians go on their intuition and private messages from God is grade A crapola

      Perhaps that is your fantasy about atheists, but are you saying that revelation is a bogus concept?

      It is a mark of our obedience how well we adhere to what we have already been told is the will of God.

      How do you know what you have been told is true? When the Incas sacrificed humans was it moral if " It is a mark of our obedience how well we adhere to what we have already been told is the will of God."

      My point is not that Christianity is immoral or evil, only morality devoid of reason is untethered.

      This is something you do not like to take into account because if you did all the atrocities you claim are the result of religion would be seen clearly to be nothing but a violation of it.

      That is called " No true Scotsman", and many atrocities are the result of obedience the a particular interpretation of what the will of God is. As well as secular interests of the institutions of religion.


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    4. Missed this before - not that it has anything of weight but hey I will bat it back one more time

      "I am aware of that interpretation, so Abraham knew God was bluffing, in which case Abraham had nothing to lose by not going along. It would seem to me the only real test would be if he did not know that Issac would survive,that Abraham had skin in the game."

      Sorry Vel you are still showing you don't know what you are talking about. its not an interpretation its straight out stated in the book of Hebrews that he counted God faithful to raise his son from the dead. The skin in the game is that he would have to believe that God would raise up his son. Thats so painfully obvious it pains me to have to point out your gaff. It was actually that faith being tested.

      "We are talking about Abraham,was child sacrifice allowed? If it was considered immoral then God was conveying that morality was not objective or absolute,merely God's Will"

      You are totally lost. You can't apply your ideas to someone elses belief and then try to make it internally consistent with theirs when it isn't. Thats circular. You still are insisting on an objective morality without God as its basis. The position of All three Major religions is that morality IS the will of God. I actually have no idea if child sacrifice was allowed in Abraham's culture but I do know that it was not moral for a parent to make the decision of when a child dies as that stand s only with God. It would be centuries later before the law was given to Moses that it would be written down forever that he never would require it under any circumstance - just as he intervened to make sure it never happened in Isaac's case. You and I both know it has ALWAYS been the position of religion that God has the right to determine when we live or we die. Unless you are joining your pal Thorton in claiming if God takes a life he is a murderer for taking back what is his to begin with then this gives you no point. The perfectly consistent moral stance is that God and only God alone has the right to take a life. This example will get you nowhere because the evidence is clear that Abraham was perfectly aware that even if he killed the boy God would reverse it and the boy would return alive with him. Abraham did nothing wrong and participated in no sin because sin can only be the violation of God's will.

      Ahem...BTW..I noticed you clean ducked from justifiying your modification to the theological term "sin" and giving us an objective rational basis to sin without God.

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    5. "You have already conceded that Abraham called God's bluff"

      lol I conceded nothing. I used the word "bluff" in quoting you not that I ever considered it a bluff. Y
      "How do you know what you have been told is true? When the Incas sacrificed humans was it moral if ""

      Now finally this is a legit question. It is NOT moral merely because someone thinks its true. In order to determine where God has spoken it does require some study. Does the religion show any special knowledge that only God would know. Are the results of the religion in line with good health etc. Of them all the Bible lays down the reasonable test of prophecy to determine that and the Bible has a remarkable track record on Prophecy which validates it.

      Now I have never said that to a materialist when even knowing he has done not an ounce of study on the subject he will not claim its all horse feathers. You all answer the claim before you have even the slightest clue what is being referred to. Almost none of you know the Bible makes predictions down to the year of modern events. It forecasts political climates, modifications in modern warfare, building statuses in Jerusalem. It predicts things that seeming back then would have been contradictory but are found to to be in the 20th and 21 century. You merely scoff base on ignorance.

      But you are right to ask for a basis because the Bible itself gives a basis. Most materialist spewing things about people jumping up and saying God said this and God said that and so we believe it haven't even read enough to know that the Bible itself tells us to regard no one who says things that do not come to pass. theres a clear standards of evidence but based on what I see of you there is no point in going into it because you are not only unaware you generally don't want to be.

      "My point is not that Christianity is immoral or evil, only morality devoid of reason is untethered."

      Pish posh. How is Christian morality devoid of reason. LOL... Considering the centuries of progress in civilization durung its tenure its proven itself to be EMINENTLY reasonable. Christianity is not separate from reason. It is logical to the core. I could give you evolution, Multiple universes, cosmos out of nothing and God would still be a reasonable conclusion and so would a morality based on that belief.

      This Idea that Darwinism refutes religion even though it cannot answer the bigger questions like abiogenesis, the ultimate origin of the universe and the invention of functional and logical order in everything is totally and absolutely illogical and based on ten parts fantasy to every one part science.

      "That is called " No true Scotsman", and many atrocities are the result of obedience the a particular interpretation of what the will of God is"

      No that is you demonstrating you have no clue about what the no true scotsman fallacy is and making a completely silly comment that proves it conclusively . You are begging bread with the interpretation nonsense. what other interpretations can there be to

      "Love your enemies"
      "Thous shalt not murder"
      "If you are smitten turn the other cheek"
      "Pray for them that persecute you"
      "Bless them that curse you"

      Your utterly silly scotmans argument is equivalent to claiming that if a vegetarian institution claims that its member should not eat meat it is nevertheless responsible and culpable for one of its members breaking rank and going dear hunting and that if it denies that the member is consistent with their charter they are invoking the no true scotsman fallacy

      Now if you can see how utterly silly that would be then apply it to what you wrote in that regard to the founder of christianity's teachings of how enemies should be treated and perhaps see how illogical you are being in misapplying the no true scotsman fallacy.

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    6. Elijah,
      The skin in the game is that he would have to believe that God would raise up his son. Thats so painfully obvious it pains me to have to point out your gaff. It was actually that faith being tested


      While I am embrassed to admit your discomfiture brings me satisfaction, faith without doubt? As you pointed out

      "Revealed both there and in the book of Hebrews Abraham never believes he is ending the life of his son. He believes no matter what happens he will return with his son because if he kills him God will raise him up again"

      For Abraham, it was a multiple choice test with one choice.Per you he never considered another outcome.Without doubt faith is meaningless, faith is believing in spite of doubt. What virtue is believing in the sure thing?

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    7. "While I am embrassed to admit your discomfiture brings me satisfaction, faith without doubt? As you pointed out"

      I admit to being embarassed for you for that act of psychological projection

      "For Abraham, it was a multiple choice test with one choice.Per you he never considered another outcome.Without doubt faith is meaningless, faith is believing in spite of doubt. What virtue is believing in the sure thing?"

      In another post I see where you said you should leave theology alone. I would take your wise counsel because you are terribly bad at it and I say that not to be rude but because I am always amazed and terriblyturned off by the lack of integrity employed when people feverishly argue against something never studied. Thats why I straight up respect even atheists that do not try and touch the whole atrocity of the Bible argument citing they are not versed on theology enough.

      I am not accusing you of this because you may well just be parroting something on a blog. However on the point -

      You don't get to make up definitions of faith to suit your arguments when relating it to Christianity (perhaps in another religion.I don't know of ). There is no such definition in Christianity For faith. Faith can have the full absence of doubt.

      Furthermore I don't know whether its confusion or deliberate deception to conflate the outcome expected and the choice given. Abrahams faith over came what ever doubt he had. When he lift his hand to do the deed we know that from actions. The outcome was due to his faith but it is not the same as the outcome no more than a prayer is the same as an answer to prayer

      The claim that faith cannot totally override and conquer all doubt and still be faith sounds like something you heard said not anything in the Bible. It flat out contradicts it

      James 1:6
      But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

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    8. There's one thing that you're terribly good at, elijah. Being a puppet for your imaginary sky daddy.

      Delete
  27. Elijah:

    Good point. I got caught up in the conversation, so I didn't realize what they were doing. They could answer my question, so they changed the topic.

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    1. The way you guys dance around trying to find excuses for the monstrous acts (according to the bible) of your imaginary god is hilarious.

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    2. if they even were dances and you were not lying and found them hilarious you would not be spewing all this bitterness and hate.

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    3. You tell us all morality comes from your God, yet there are dozens of recorded instances of your God being a sadistic immoral monster.

      Good leaders all lead by example, but in your case your God seems to want "do as I say not as I do".

      Why follow a leader like that?

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    4. "You tell us all morality comes from your God"

      Sorry T I don't need to tell you. Its just a bald bare fact of history. The entire Western world's sense of morality IS historically based on the Bible. Theres nothing you can do about it (I mean besides pretending that your blog comments change things). In fact you yourself believe things just because they were handed down to you and they were handed down from the - Bible

      There are no recorded instances of God being a sadistic immoral monster but there are a few where he exercises the right of taking back what he has given and judges according to his superior knowledge. He is God. He does not need your example and you are not equal to him. If you lay hands on me after I speed on a highway I will have a right to tell you to get your hands off and remove it but a cop will have every right. You both are not equal in roles , duty or authority.

      But then isn't that what really upsets people? That if there is a god they are not the masters of the universe but he is?

      Though you and others fail miserably when you attempt to bring examples up. Let me do so. on one ocassion he ordered that all men women and children be killed and this gets you into a foaming at the mouth rage. A few question though?

      Do you know what they were guilty of or would be guilty of? In fact do you know anything about them? Nothing at all? Nada. He did and does. Are not we all going to die? and in theology is it not God who decides? SO the only issue is whether or not as your compatriot tried to imply christians could use that as an example to kill people on their own today but it fails because we are commanded not to make that decision and not to do so ourselves ever again even if an angel should appear to tell us so. Even in Jewish history that was an unusual command because they were directed of God to show mercy in most cases.

      In that case God made a decision regarding the life he gave and what he knew and you don't about what they would do.

      Plus shocker of shockers it quite possible that for some they went on to live rich lives but then you only believe that we have material physical life so the whole rebuttal of yours on that would be somewhat circular.

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    5. Elijah2012

      Do you know what they were guilty of or would be guilty of? In fact do you know anything about them? Nothing at all? Nada. He did and does.


      LOL! so all those little children and unborn babies God killed in The Flood had it coming to them, is that what you claim?

      Between 15%-20% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, also called spontaneous abortion. I suppose God has a good moral reason for killing all those millions of unborn babies every year too.

      How do you know that women who choose to have abortions weren't just being commanded by God to finish off the ones he missed in the first pass? God works in mysterious ways and you can't know his reasons, right?

      What a convenient excuse! No matter what happens, God did it just because and we can't know why.

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    6. ROFL. the atheists believes all existence ends at death so God is unfair if people die. Oh my you are entertaining though.

      Or wait. Since you think that death is the end of all existence then God has to keep people alive forever right or T will call him a monster? ;)

      Shucks if Christians die "they must have had it coming to them too eh"?

      News Flash - we all die.
      Second News Flash - religion teaches thats not the end of our existence. Unlike you I have children son and yes I actually had a child that we lost at three months

      Difference is I am not some hypocrite on a board indicting God for spontaneous abortions but claiming its cool beans and woman's right when its done with a scissors to the back of the head because the child is "inconvenient". I don't call him a "Fetus". He was and IS my son.

      The Bible teaches me I will meet him one day. Laughable to you? Well of course but thats because you are the master of circular reasoning. You don't believe in an after life so you judge everything by the end of material life and make it the be all and end all of scrutinizing religion. So yes silly T I am aware of babies dying . David of the Bible even had one die a a young age and he said pretty much what I am saying here when he lost him but you wouldn't know that because you talk on subjects (scientific as well) you know nothing about.

      SO here come another one......

      THIRD news flash - It is the teaching of Bible that children who die before they reach an age where they have committed sin go to heaven. Its established among other places precisely by that same David passage where he lost his child and confirmed in the Bible they would be united in a better place.

      What a bad monster of a God eh?. Takes them out of a world that is filled with violence and puts them in a place of comfort.

      Thats the best you got T?



      Delete
    7. Wow, what a sicko you are. To you it's OK to murder children because you're just helping them to get to their "heavenly reward".

      Worshiping a sadistic monster and advocating the killing of children. You need professional help.

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    8. LOL... just like the kid you are T. Hopelessly lost in your own mind making all kinds of accusations. Nowhere did I advocate the killing of children. YOU brought up spontaneous abortions. No one advocates for that to happen. Look up what it is. I should have known you were continuing to use words you did not know the meaning of as you have in the past.

      anyway I usually post for others and they have moved on to the next post. Don't stay up too late. You got school in the morning.



      Delete
    9. Elijah2012May 7, 2013 at 3:10 PM
      "You tell us all morality comes from your God"

      Sorry T I don't need to tell you. Its just a bald bare fact of history. The entire Western world's sense of morality IS historically based on the Bible. Theres nothing you can do about it (I mean besides pretending that your blog comments change things). In fact you yourself believe things just because they were handed down to you and they were handed down from the - Bible

      There are no recorded instances of God being a sadistic immoral monster but there are a few where he exercises the right of taking back what he has given and judges according to his superior knowledge. He is God. He does not need your example and you are not equal to him. If you lay hands on me after I speed on a highway I will have a right to tell you to get your hands off and remove it but a cop will have every right. You both are not equal in roles , duty or authority.

      But then isn't that what really upsets people? That if there is a god they are not the masters of the universe but he is?

      Though you and others fail miserably when you attempt to bring examples up. Let me do so. on one ocassion he ordered that all men women and children be killed and this gets you into a foaming at the mouth rage. A few question though?

      Do you know what they were guilty of or would be guilty of? In fact do you know anything about them? Nothing at all? Nada. He did and does. Are not we all going to die? and in theology is it not God who decides? SO the only issue is whether or not as your compatriot tried to imply christians could use that as an example to kill people on their own today but it fails because we are commanded not to make that decision and not to do so ourselves ever again even if an angel should appear to tell us so. Even in Jewish history that was an unusual command because they were directed of God to show mercy in most cases.

      In that case God made a decision regarding the life he gave and what he knew and you don't about what they would do.

      Plus shocker of shockers it quite possible that for some they went on to live rich lives but then you only believe that we have material physical life so the whole rebuttal of yours on that would be somewhat circular.

      ------------------------

      Wow, are you nuts or what?

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    10. Hey elijah, what makes you think that you can speak for "God"? How do you know what "He does not need"? How do you know anything about your so-called "God"? How do ANY of you "God" pushers know anything about your so-called "God"? How do you know that Fifi the pink unicorn isn't the one and only true "God"? Or the FSM? Or Zeus? Or a slug named Fred? Or a slab of bacon?

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    11. elijah claimed:

      "The entire Western world's sense of morality IS historically based on the Bible."

      I wouldn't call that a good sales pitch for the bible.

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    12. Then you lack perspective, big time.

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  28. I'm primarily asking questions. I keep on asking what is the basis for your accusations that the Bible is immoral.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Is drowning little children and unborn babies moral?

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    2. "Is drowning little children and unborn babies moral?"

      Ah so have we finally found an atheist that adheres to the idea that abortion is immoral? Inquiring minds want to know.

      To answer your question NAT they desperately try to point to one time events 3 or 4 thousands of years ago, some of which God exercised his omniscience and others which they take out of linguistic and historical context (and a great many times even with no knowledge whatsoever of what the original Hebrew language actually states) in order to claim they are responsible for actions thousands of years later

      all the while flailing about helplessly trying to dodge the responsibility for actions in the last hundred years of their own ideologies.

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    3. natschusterMay 7, 2013 at 7:52 AM
      I'm primarily asking questions. I keep on asking what is the basis for your accusations that the Bible is immoral.

      -------------------------

      If you have to ask, you're either amoral or immoral or both. Get some serious psychological treatment before you kill your children or someone else.

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  29. Your basis in logic for saying that would be...

    And if you are so concerned about morality and such, then I'm surprised you are advocating atheism. If history is any indication, if you succeed in your quest of making the world atheistic, then we can expect to see a marked increase in mass murder. After all, the worst mass murderer in history were atheists, a disproportionate number of mass murderers were atheists, and every time atheists run a country they resort to mass murder. I'm sorry, but the numbers are against you. Now who is a greater threat to children?

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    1. The twentieth-century dictators killed to defend and promote their political ideologies which happened, incidentally, to be mostly atheistic. Mao or Stalin killed in the name of Marxism-Leninism not atheism. Some of the people who fought against them were atheists.

      As for the numbers killed, for a proper comparison it's more then just the raw totals.

      For example, the world population in the twentieth century was far bigger than in the the centuries before Christ. Put simply, there were far more people around to kill.

      In the twentieth century they also had much more efficient means of killing - machine-guns, artillery, bombs, tanks, etc. You can kill a lot more people with an assault rifle than with a bow and arrow. The Crusades, for example, were bloody enough as they were. Imagine how many would have died if the knights had been armed like Rambo and the Saracens carried AK-47s and RPGs.

      I think people are much more willing to die - and kill - if they believe it is the name of some Absolute Truth - be it political or religious - and that is the real problem.

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    2. No you've completely undermined the oft-repeated atheist argument, though.

      Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. claim that belief in God is the fount of all of this evil. Stalin and Mao didn't believe in God any more than Dawkins did. Their ideology was a completely secular one. They were using much of Dawkins' shtick before he was.

      It doesn't matter what "name" they killed in, that's a complete dodge. They were staunch atheists, and they were no less likely to commit all of the atrocities disingenuously attributed to religion by atheist zealots.

      Incidentally, religious people have had the same access to modern warfare technology as atheists over the last 100 years. It's still the atheists who have racked up the most kills in that span.

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  30. I don't suppose you have actual evidence to back up those claims?

    And by the way, nat, according to the bible, the "worst mass murderer in history" is your imaginary, so-called god. Yeah, the 'God' and 'holy book' that you believe in, worship, defend, and promote.

    Have you read the hitler/nazi articles I linked to yet?

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    1. I don't think you have yet figured out what the word "murder" actually means. (Hint: any definition that would also include natural causes isn't the right one).

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    2. What? 'God' is a 'natural cause'? And the people 'God' commands to murder, destroy, pillage, burn, kidnap, conquer, rape, abuse, torture, and enslave in its name are a 'natural cause'?

      Was 'the flud' a natural cause'? How about dashing babies against rocks by 'God's' command?

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    3. Whole Truth, forgive me, but for lack of a more polite phrase, I will dumb the conversation down for you.

      God IS a natural cause. He is responsible for ALL possible causes of death, and mortality in general, which I think you would consider "natural" seeing as it happens to every person ever.

      It's not complicated.

      To say that God murders ANYONE is to say that death from old age is also murder. The end result is the same, and God is responsible. The "murder weapon" is not relevant. It could be cancer, old age, lightning bolt, drive-by-shooting, etc. 100% of us will die, we cannot predict when, and there is no guaranteed minimum lifespan. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and as unhappy as I might be about it, no cosmic fairness-laws were violated. I just died sooner than I thought I would.

      Seriously, these are basic conclusions reached by even the least-contemplative, atheists included (they just leave out the theology.) I don't know if you just don't THINK about things, or if you are only being superficial as a rhetorical means to win an emotional argument. It's embarrassing either way. Here, if you can just comprehend the following statement, you should be fine:

      --Murder is immoral because human agents generally do not have the right to decide WHEN or HOW another person dies. It's not because death itself is evil.--

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    4. Also, "dashing babies against rocks by God's command" is something you made up, based very loosely on a Psalm written in the 1st person describing the anguish of a man who has had that very thing happen to his people. Do you understand that this is why intelligent dialogue with you (assuming that you are always this way) is impossible? You cannot accurately evaluate that with which you disagree, because you are blinded by hate.

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  31. I read them and I responded above. I even pasted quote from "Mein Kampf." Now, murder measn illegal killing. I'm not convinced that God's killing of his own creation is illegal. God's Universe, God's rules.

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    1. If you accept there is a universal right to life for human beings then neither God nor anyone else is allowed to kill without sufficient cause. The sufficient cause is usually taken to mean something like killing to defend yourself or others where there is no reasonable alternative. These don't apply to God since He cannot be harmed or His life threatened in the same way as a mortal human being.

      The fact that God may have created a human being does not mean it is not entitled to the right to life nor does it absolve God of his duty to respect that right.

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    2. Ian, that seems pretty absurd considering that God kills everyone...including those who die of old age. People do not have a "universal right to life" outside of the clearly understood context that they have the right not to be murdered by other humans.
      I have never heard "universal right to life" reinterpreted as "universal right to earthly immortality." Cute bit, that.

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    3. nat and unknown, you should both turn yourselves in immediately, at a maximum security nut house, for permanent incarceration and treatment. You're both insane, and menaces to society.

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    4. Sometimes, you can pinpoint the exact moment at which a person gives up the facade of attempting to compete in a marketplace of ideas...and just lets the hate flow. ^^^There it is.

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  32. Unknown May 10, 2013 at 6:23 PM

    Ian, that seems pretty absurd considering that God kills everyone...including those who die of old age.


    No, what is really absurd is the concept of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving eternal deity who, by definition, is entirely self-sufficient who creates anything at all. Piling absurdity on absurdity, we are supposed to believe this deity created us, even though it had no need to, and wants a special loving relationship with us. As proof of this it kills vast numbers of us or allows to suffer and die in various horrible ways. That's the kind of loving we could well do without.

    People do not have a "universal right to life" outside of the clearly understood context that they have the right not to be murdered by other humans.

    Human rights are guarantees or privileges which human societies agree to extend to some or all of their members. They are only "universal" in the sense applying to all members of society.

    If someone is killed by a bolt of lightning or in an earthquake or just dies of old age, no breach of the right to life is thought to have occurred. If, on the other hand, that person is shot dead by another human being, that is held to be a breach of the right to life and the killer is held to have behaved immorally.

    The first question is, if God were to do the same thing as the killer, is He presumed to have acted immorally? The second question is, if your answer to the first question is "no", are you saying that God is allowed to act both immorally and amorally simply by virtue of being God?

    I have never heard "universal right to life" reinterpreted as "universal right to earthly immortality." Cute bit, that.

    I said nothing about a "universal right to earthly mortality". That's your invention.

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    1. That last sentence should have read:

      I said nothing about a "universal right to earthly immortality". That's your invention.

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    2. Ian, I am going to try to resist being baited into explaining why your straw-theology is bad, because I understand that it's not your central point (okay...maybe just one thing: why does God have to "need" to create us? Why can't he just "want" to? How is "God didn't need to create us-but He did!" an argument against theism?)


      Anyway, I am sincerely trying to help you in your crusade: The "good" atheist thinkers do not make the argument that you are making, and for a good reason. You are implying that "God is a murderer" which is a really dumb and bad argument, especially from a scientifically inclined person.

      Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. The fact that we die is not immoral or evil. Smart people understand this. When a person dies of old age we do not consider that "God murdered him." We consider him to have been fortunate enough to live a very long life.

      "Murder" (as defined by all rational people) refers to the willful taking of a human's life at the hands of another human (and there are circumstances under which that also does not qualify as murder, but that is a different debate.)

      So, to answer your not-terribly-well-thought-out-question, if God were to materialize in human form, brandish a gun, and literally SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE, it still would not be murder, any more that it would be murder for God to kill you by old age at 123. In both instances, you are dead.

      That is why you cannot logically argue that God "murders people" unless you define "right to life" as "right to live immortally on planet earth." No one has that right. We don't even have the right to tomorrow, really. It's a gift.

      Now here's a tip that will help you. Frame your arguments against God in terms of SUFFERING, not MURDER. This is what the professional atheists do, and for good reason. It's a much more tenable argument. I won't elaborate as to why, but if you're tracking with me here, it should be clear.

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