New Ad Campaign: "The Defeat Of Barrack Obama"

[Chronos]

In what way are americans exclusively able to pursue complete personal fulfillment? What is the definition of complete personal fulfillment?

Bump again.

What is complete personal fulfillment? At least help me with that.

When the tax rate is reduced to zero, the id will be maximized and complete personal fulfillment shall be achieved. A totally hands-free, nerve-shattering, near-death orgasm. Then ... complete silence.

But I spent the next hour in awe. How could anyone have that poisoned a mind?

If [it] has a tax, [it] is communist.  Period.   

If there weren't any taxes, these people wouldn't have anything to bitch about. They might otherwise dissolve into the ether.

[Seppuku]

Christians die for their enemies, they don't kill them.   If it weren't for the Christians, we would still have slavery and lynchings.

I'm afraid you couldn't be further from the truth. Jesus & friends might have died for their enemies (in the stories at least), but Christians tend not to.

On slavery. The Bible has rules of slavery and its teachings allow for slavery. It's late so I can't be bothered to dig out the teachings, but I can come back with them if you'd prefer?

But the defense for black slavery in America? The Curse of Ham was used. The explanation used to explain why there are 'black people' is because of the curse of Ham as the sons of Ham were cursed with blackened skin and they carried the sins of Ham. Black people had to be subject to white people because of the curse they inherited. That is what European & American Christians used to defend black slavery.

On killing. Christians still kill in the name of God and the bible today and are backed by what the bible teaches. Because I've talked about this before, I will quote myself to save time. This is about the violence/injustice done by Christians because of their Christian beliefs, which they use(d) the bible to support.

The Spanish Inquisition. Torturing people for God.
The Crusades. Invading countries and murdering its people in the holy land, for God.
The Witch Hunts. Many cruel and deadly methods of determining who's a witch and who isn't, followed by the death of said witches. In some countries, witches were even burned to death. What's even more disturbing about this is that this still goes on today. The bible instructs that witches be killed.
Exorcisms. People who could be diagnosed with a mental illness are treated as people who are possessed - this isn't healthy for them. And there's been several known cases where people have died because of an exorcism. It's not all throwing holy water and yelling "the power of Christ compels you!", they can get very physical.
JW - Blood Transfusions are unethical. Because of this sect, parents refuse their kids treatment where a Blood Transfusion would be necessary, which would save their life.
Christians who preach that natural disasters are caused by sin. Aid is given in terms of handing out bibles and scripture because they want to convert people who are in a disadvantaged situation, rather than offering them actual aid and support.
Christians who refuse medical treatment for themselves or their kids or other family members. Instead of calling the doctor they call a priest so they can be cured by prayer and not medicine. Because prayer doesn't work, this often leads to people's conditions getting worse and even dying.
Christians who prefer to teach abstinence over safe sex. People are immoral because they have sex before marriage, so they'd rather teach kids about NOT having sex, but finding they do it regardless. In some faith even contraception is *wrong* meaning people end up getting pregnant when they're too young or contracted an STD. Heck, because of lack of propr education, they don't know what 'safe' sex is as Christians are so opposed to teachings kids about 'sex'. The important lesson for them is: don't do it until you're married.
Christians who are against women's health.  Because of their strong anti-abortion views. They base their understanding of a human on when they believe they get a "soul" brain activitiy or stages of development where they're just tissue doesn't matter. So if there's complications, which would damage women's health? That's right, they can't have an abortion legally. They might get one illegally, which can be dangerous.
People who believe they are cured by prayer and thus don't get medical treatment. There was even a thread on this not-so-long ago. People suffering from AIDs told by the Church they were cured.
The view that non-believers are evil. This results in discrimination, even on violent levels. There's atheists here who can relate a story to that. We even have the story of Goodkat, a non-believer who used to post here who stopped because of his violently aggressive and bigoted Christian father.
The view that homosexuals are an abomination. Plenty of discrimination against gays. Still. Violence towards them too, plenty of that. Parents who so adamently believe their son or daughter is an abomination they force their religious guilt trips on to them, leading them into hating themselves, into depression and even suicide.
The Curse of Ham. Before slavery was abolished, what did Christians used to say? It's okay to enslave black people because they have been marked with the Curse of Ham, hence their skin is black. Slavery is also supported by the bible.
Killing Abortion Doctors because life is sacred. Related to, life begins at conception, thanks to Christians believing the soul is formed then, so in their mind all they're doing is killing murderers and defending innocents.


These are all things that are off of the top of my head and the worrying thing is, there's a lot of things I am missing. Bear in mind I am NOT listing bad things Christians have done/still do (otherwise I would have included Hitler & Nazism) but bad things Christians have done/still do BECAUSE of their religion. You wouldn't believe the amout of bible quotes people use to support the above.

...snip...
[edit]
Also, I feel I should mention the gay atheist, Alan Turing. The only thing that was 'destructive' about his life was the prejudice made against him for being a homosexual. For a brief summary of his life: http://www.whof.net/2012alanturingyear.htm.

Then consider many of the bible's actual teachings on violence (I can come back with biblical quotes if it'd help), most of it is Old Testament stuff, but Jesus himself talked about how people should follow the Old Testament, there are quote from Jesus from different gospels to back that up. I'd say one that sticks out in my mind is the one because how he hasn't come to change the law but to deliver it.


But what bothers me is that we have to keep telling Christians of attrocities done in the name of the religion because they are blind as to their religion's history and even what goes on today.. Not so long ago I was talking to a guy somewhere who was so convinced that no ill had been done as a result of his religion that he challenged me to find 1 single example of where Christians have hurt people. So I brought up the witch hunts in Nigeria. Evangelical Church, literalist interpretation of the bible, bible says there's witches, people believe the bible's true, bible says kill witches, so they kill anybody they think is a witch. The guy's response. "They're not true Christians" and yet they were only doing what they read in the bible and told that the bible was the infallible word of God and must be taken literally.

The irony is, the same guy believes Islam as a whole is evil because of what the Qu'ran says. But the Bible and Qu'ran aren't so different. Usually the logic is, if it's a Christian doing screwed up shit, it's because they're not true Christians, but if it's a Muslim, it's because Islam is a religion of death as it's what the Qu'ran teaches. Yet non-extremist Muslims use the exact same defense as Christians when talking about the attrocities done for their religion. It seems people live in denial about their own religions, just because they feel how they choose to follow it is good and righteous.

[nogodsforme]

I wonder if the average Christian would be able to tell if a particular passage in favor of violence, slavery, oppressing women or unbelievers, etc, came from the bible or from the Quran? And by the same token, which book a particular passage promoting peace and harmony came from? A controlled experiment might prove informative.[1]

Regarding the statement, "if people do bad things, they are not really Christians": funny how the Christians want to distance themselves from all the hundreds of slavemasters who attended their [segregated]churches faithfully, read the bible daily, prayed several times a day, referred to Jesus and god all the time in their letters and other writings-- and forced their slaves to do the same. They also bought, sold, owned, raped and murdered human beings. So they are not Christians.

But these same folks want to claim the founding fathers as "Christians who founded a Christian nation": even though most of them were Enlightenment intellectuals who did not attend church, did not pray, thought organized religions were illogical and unnecessary, read the bible mainly as literature, did not think Jesus Christ was god, or that god interacted with human beings, did not believe in miracles, and did not think religion should have a major role in government. (Some also owned slaves, because back then that was the thing you did if you were a wealthy businessman.)[2]

1.

I think Muslims would do better on this test, because AFAIK they actually read the Quran. The more thoughtful Muslims I know have to do a lot of fancy dancing and apologetics to be able to accept what their holy book says. "Things were different back then" is one frequent response to particularly egregious passages.... So, Muslim folks, which things are still in effect today and which parts can we now ignore? Crickets.

2.

A while back people found that many Americans thought that passages taken from works like the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence were actually from the Communist Manifesto. Not to be confused with any religious work...

[DKEN]

     Seppuku, Christians are sinners just the same as anyone else.  The sin nature never goes away in this life.  The real problem is finding out who the "real" Christians are and who are not.  Matt. 13:24-30 is a parable of Jesus about how there are lots of people who call themselves Christians but are not.  He says to let them go instead of trying to root them out, because you might root out real Christians who are misbehaving temporarily.  In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 says that Christians are to judge the people in their own church and states what things they should be judged on.  The World (people that are not Christians nor profess to be) God will judge according to the apostle.  That is not my job to find witches and kill them.  I am not told to stone anyone, those are OT commands to a specific people, the Jews, not NT Christians.  The new commandment that Jesus gives to His followers is specific in John 15:12-15.
     Many of the wrongs you say Christians have committed, I cannot deny.   Many of them were not Christians but I can't tell you who is who.  I can only be responsible for myself and my family.

"You must be born again"
       Jesus.
(John 3:7b

[JeffPT]

     "You must be born again"
       Jesus.
(John 3:7b

From Bart Ehrman.  Lecture series on the historical Jesus.

The conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus in John 3, in which he says, “you must be born again,” depends on a play on words in Greek. The Greek word for “again” also means “above”; Nicodemus thinks Jesus means the first, but he really means the second. This word play cannot be replicated in Aramaic, the language that Jesus would have been speaking. The conversation could not then have occurred in this way

Also from Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted... page 155

In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, Jesus has a famous conversation with Nicodemus in which he says, “You must be born again.” The Greek word translated “again” actually has two meanings: it can mean not only “a second time” but also “from above.” Whenever it is used elsewhere in John, it means “from above” (John 19:11, 23). That is what Jesus appears to mean in John 3 when he speaks with Nicodemus: a person must be born from above in order to have eternal life in heaven above. Nicodemus misunderstands, though, and thinks Jesus intends the other meaning of the word, that he has to be born a second time. “How can I crawl back into my mother’s womb?” he asks, out of some frustration. Jesus corrects him: he is not talking about a second physical birth, but a heavenly birth, from above.
     This conversation with Nicodemus is predicated on the circumstance that a certain Greek word has two meanings (a double entendre). Absent the double entendre, the conversation makes little sense. The problem is this: Jesus and this Jewish leader in Jerusalem would not have been speaking Greek, but Aramaic. But the Aramaic word for “from above” does not also mean “second time.” This is a double entendre that works only in Greek. So it looks as
though this conversation could not have happened—at least not as it is described in the Gospel of John.

Long story short... Jesus never said what born again Christians think he said.  The whole 'born again' thing is a farce.

[DKEN]

Christians die for their enemies, they don't kill them.   If it weren't for the Christians, we would still have slavery and lynchings.  I'm sorry that I'm not good at cutting and pasting or we could find lots of evidence to that fact.  I don't recall many evolutionists giving their lives for the cause of freeing the slaves.

Now we're getting silly.

Homie, Origen of the Species didn't even come out until 1859, right around the time when we were entering the civil war.  I really see no reason to confuse these two issues.  And nah, you can (rightly) claim that if it weren't for Christians we wouldn't have abolished slavery and lynchings but you're ignoring the fact that it was Christians doing the enslaving and lynching.

This is absurd.
[/quote]
I'm sorry. You are right Timo.  I should have said atheists, not evolutionists.  You have to admit that there were atheists going back along way before the fantasy of evolution.

[screwtape]

I should have said atheists, not evolutionists.

You should have said, "I don't recall many atheists giving their lives for the cause of freeing the slaves"?  You are trying to make a point about moral superiority based on that?  Unless they identified themselves in a time when they rarely did, how on earth would you know?  Jesus christ on a stick, man. It was not that long ago where it was acceptable to imprison a person for not believing in god, and in some parts of the world, it still is.

the fantasy of evolution.

You are being silly again.

[Timo]

I'm sorry. You are right Timo.  I should have said atheists, not evolutionists.  You have to admit that there were atheists going back along way before the fantasy of evolution.

I'll let someone else unpack how idiotic the "fantasy of evolution" claim is.

To the rest of your point though, it's kind of a complicated subject though, since we're talking about personal views and views that one might not wish to share.  We're also talking about views that can and usually do change over time.  I mean, do we get to count someone like Susan B Anthony who eventually came out as an agnostic but identified as nominally Christian for much of her life?  But I'll just leave it there since I really don't think your responses in this thread warrent that kind of consideration.

In this thread, you have maintained that professed Christians that were also proponants of various forms of white supremacy and anti-black violence were not really Christians.  And here you're claiming that without Christians there would have never been an end to this, challenging me to name some atheists that helped to make it happen.  You've essentially redefined Christian to refer only to those professed Christians that history now looks kindly upon, thus absolving Christianity from any responsibility for white supremacy, even when its proponents were professed Christians.  Honestly, I really don't have too great a problem with the first move.  There have been people throughout history that have made that sort of argument, Frederick Douglass being perhaps the most eloquent.  But if you make it, I don't think you get to make the second move. 

[Quesi]

@DKEN

The first wave of emancipation was prepared by new ideas and convictions from both secular (“Enlightenment”) and religious sources in the eighteenth century. Political thinkers such as Montesquieu began to argue that slavery violated basic rights belonging by nature (“natural rights”) to all human beings—most obviously, the rights to liberty of person. Other Enlightenment writers, especially in Scotland, condemned slavery on humanitarian grounds—that is, for its cruelty more than its violation of rights. At about the same time, a separate stream of antislavery thought sprang from adherents of certain religious denominations. Writers such as the Quaker John Woolman became convinced that holding slaves was a serious sin; his concern for slaves spread first to other Quakers, and then beyond. By the 1770s, much polite opinion in both Britain and British America had become at least nominally antislavery.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1609-1865/essays/demslave.htm

[jetson]

...before the fantasy of evolution.

What an unbelievably arrogant and ignorant statement.  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you cannot demonstrate even a rudimentary understanding of the theory of evolution.  Do this for me, and I will excuse your arrogant and ignorant statement.  IMO, if you cannot demonstrate an understanding fo the theory, you have no right to call it fantasy.

[Astreja]

Many of them were not Christians but I can't tell you who is who.

Um... If you can't tell who is who, how do you know they're not Christians?

[Timo]

He knows they're not Christians because that would create problems for his argument.

[DKEN]

     "You must be born again"
       Jesus.
(John 3:7b

From Bart Ehrman.  Lecture series on the historical Jesus.

The conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus in John 3, in which he says, “you must be born again,” depends on a play on words in Greek. The Greek word for “again” also means “above”; Nicodemus thinks Jesus means the first, but he really means the second. This word play cannot be replicated in Aramaic, the language that Jesus would have been speaking. The conversation could not then have occurred in this way

Also from Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted... page 155

In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, Jesus has a famous conversation with Nicodemus in which he says, “You must be born again.” The Greek word translated “again” actually has two meanings: it can mean not only “a second time” but also “from above.” Whenever it is used elsewhere in John, it means “from above” (John 19:11, 23). That is what Jesus appears to mean in John 3 when he speaks with Nicodemus: a person must be born from above in order to have eternal life in heaven above. Nicodemus misunderstands, though, and thinks Jesus intends the other meaning of the word, that he has to be born a second time. “How can I crawl back into my mother’s womb?” he asks, out of some frustration. Jesus corrects him: he is not talking about a second physical birth, but a heavenly birth, from above.
     This conversation with Nicodemus is predicated on the circumstance that a certain Greek word has two meanings (a double entendre). Absent the double entendre, the conversation makes little sense. The problem is this: Jesus and this Jewish leader in Jerusalem would not have been speaking Greek, but Aramaic. But the Aramaic word for “from above” does not also mean “second time.” This is a double entendre that works only in Greek. So it looks as
though this conversation could not have happened—at least not as it is described in the Gospel of John.

Long story short... Jesus never said what born again Christians think he said.  The whole 'born again' thing is a farce.

Born from above makes sense to me as well.  Have you been born from above?

[screwtape]

akin to "death from the skies".

[jeremy0]

me: born of the earth.  you:  I'm special - I was born from above.
me: what?  What evidence do you have? you:  You can't prove that I wasn't!!!!!!!!!!!
me: how is one 'born again?'  you: you have to accept Jesus into your heart...
me: is there a special way of doing that?  And, how do you know when it happens?
you: once you accept jebus into your heart you are automatically reborn.
me: does it make you into a baby fetus again or something?
you: no, it's a spiritual birth.
me: bullshit....
you: you can't prove that I'm wrong!!!!!!!!!

[nogodsforme]

jeremy, you forgot the part where we tell them we were born again and prayed and evangelized and all that, but no longer believe any of it. And they say, well, we were never really born again.....

[JeffPT]

Born from above makes sense to me as well.

How shocking that you, a Christian, can perform the mental gymnastics to make this make sense to yourself.  You do realize that yours is the same mind that can square the death of 29,000 children every day from starvation with the notion that a benevolent God exists?  Making sense of 'born from above' in the context of being 'born again' must be child's play compared to that.

Still, in the interest of pure intellectual curiosity and scientific research into the mind of a religious person, I'd like to see how your brain works it out.  Do tell! 

Have you been born from above?

No?  Have you?  Can you prove it? 

This is way off topic now.