i will not speak for cp, who seems to have things well under control for themselves (herself? said husband..), but: that death was to make a point. on what level did jesus 'have to' die on the cross? to the level that the jews 'had to' sacrifice animals to attone for sins. allegory in action. demonstration of the pacifism and strength of the individual described in his three years of teaching.

false. false false false false false. false. false. man. seriously. false. what a bizarre statement to even make....

aside from Freethought, right? freethinkers....
seriously, no one else finds those words odd? freethought is not freedom of thought, and belief structure sits in every limiting idea.

its not the 'practices of [our] ideology' that we would speak out against. for me, it is the way that the base of my ideology has been maligned for the gain of individuals and groups who desired to have and maintain power. that you cannot make this distinction, i assume, is a prime cause of the statement i just responded 'false' to (repeatedly).

if i may interpret the 'werent true christians' statement for you, i would tend to argue that they had more dominant agendas than the ones proposed by the christian philosophy. they had no interest in the (very obvious) tones of equality, peace, and sensibility that jesus taught. they wanted power, saw a dominant figure, and proceded to usurp.

if you honestly believe that a belief in god is the thing that is _causing all of the harm you are thinking of then i have a bridge id like to sell you. no amount of destruction you could be describing could have been stopped by a lack of belief in god. power is power, and it will attempt dominance. i say it a million times: for atheists, you guys sure give god an awful lot of credit.

Also, Christians do change denominations for different reasons, one being a want to be a truly biblical type Christian, and when that happens...suffering happens eventually. You have not been there averyv...

When a nice Christian converts a non-Christian to Christianity, or stokes the spiritual fires of a luke warm Christian, what garauntee do we have of what kind of Christian, the new convert will be later? None.

I love my parents and some of the other people at my church, they are some what liberal for Evangelicals....but they spread the disease and others may become sick from the disease...Christianity..

No. I think it is better that people use reason and empathy that is free of "God says". I will do what I can to fight it, whether that be deprogramming Christians to atheist, non-theist, or no holybooks. What ever it takes. I am anti-religion, but if in de-programming some people become atheists in the process I will not be sad about that. Not at all.

Theists like you are rare, so theists like you are irrelevant, to my anti-theism. Theism usually is more often than not "God says"

That is dangerous as history and the present proves.

Yes, yes, yes. Simply Naysyaing is not an answer. You make a non-answer to darth-joshes statement.

The bible is the cornerstone of Christianity and it is where "God says" all Christians venerate that book ergo all Christians give that book power. All Christians use that book for authority in thier actions as Christians. Until ALL Christians can make the bible not teach intolerance and bigotry....faith is bigotry in and of itself...then yes ALL Christians are responsible for all the lousy interpretations that comes from the bible.

Since the bible is incoherent in regards love and tolerance, intolerance and bigotry it should not be considered relevant for today. It should not be Gods book. Yes ALL Christians are responsible for all that comes from Christianity.

Information can be used to manipulate people. This doesn't give us reason to get rid of the information. All it does is give us reason to encourage people to think for themselves.

These people would do whatever they can to get what they want, with or without religion. Even if we took away religion, there's nothing to stop them from creating their own religion and taking advantage innocent people who believe blindly.

Faith does not hinder a person's ability to think or question. If you take away faith or religion, I think you would find that a lot of people would continue to take on a herdlike mentality.

But tools are inanimate objects that can't be blamed nore held accountable. The only ones that should be blamed are those who make a consciouse descision to take up the tool to use it do wrong.

This is where both atheists and theists should stand together, to encourage people to question religion as well as anything else. The problem is that not only are people not questioning religion. It's that their only information about religion is hear-say(sp). They heard it from someone else weather it be a preacher, priest, a friend, or some manipulater, instead of going directly to the source of their faith.

I'm a Christian and I haven't seen nore heard of Christianity hindering someone from thinking or questioning. I have heard of religiouse people doing this. But again people are to blame and not religion.

I'll check this stuff out. But you have to understand that my belief in God is based on my own personal experiences with Him.

I'll analyze WHY I assert that all of christendom is responsible for its adherents.

One example:
Pope John Paul II apologized for the catholic church's mistreatment of Galileo. (October 1992)

Did John Paul enact any of those atrocities himself? No.
Did anyone living when the apology was made have anything directly to do with Galileo's torture? No.
However, they and he felt responsible because they were affiliated with the same church.

Second reasoned analysis:
Here is one of my favorite 'old' arguments:
http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/apology.html

Third culminated theory:
Samuel Loveland developed an idea to keep all of christendom informed concerning problems and progress of the ideology. It was called the Christian Repository. Unfortunately we see that idea was thrown to the wayside long ago(160 yrs ago). His idea was bastardized into individual denominations having their own 'repositories of thought' and the words are still used today. However, I doubt that many have read them since most christians that we have encountered either ignore or simply don't read the whole KJV bible. Or they choose to make up their own brand because they can't stand another.

Now I don't know about everyone else, but I'm sick of apologies and would like some proactive results/progress being made in holding people accountable on Earth rather than waiting for their punishment in the afterlife. Otherwise, I am completely justified in my mind that christianity is an ideology to be hated because as a former christian, I understand the 'draw' of the drug called jesus. The very keen sense of righteousness that faith has in its wake exudes from every pore on the christian skin.

It's okay. If I'm wrong then 500 years from now an atheist can apologize for my actions. right?

Dammit. I used two metaphors in that last paragraph.

i am not responsible for any person, any belief, any perspective that is not my own. to hold one arbitrary, totally maleable idea in common with me (i.e. belief in god, even jesus) is not in any way at all to associate me with that person. i have nothing to do with them, their perspective, their education, their feeling, desires, agenda, or any other ephimeral, limited point on the scatterplot that is experience. they are not my responsibility, i do not know them, and i claim neither to understand them as individuals nor how the arrived at their position. and specifically, very specifically, i do NOT claim them. and so i say:

i am a christian in the sense of 'little christ' and nothing more. i love jesus. i adore jesus and praise his being, facticity notwithstanding. i am no one but myself, and claim no responsibility for actions not taken directly by me, tho i accept my actions and their effects very directly.

i attempt to remain conscious of the after-effects of my actions (my use of money, my attention to individuals, etc) so as to maintain a justifiably removed position from any individual who would claim likeness to my stance in name alone. additionally, i would like to note, i am defending that name _against them. not for them.

none at all, in fact. i have no desire to convert anyone to christianity. i have, in the past, been a catalyst for an individual eventually assuming the stance of a christian. i do not convert people. i do not associate myself with memes. (tho i recognize that, by the definition of a meme, i am associated with them) things such as these, from the base of religion or otherwise, undercut understanding for the more immediate result of personally desirable emotional reaction. memes are no more than a worthless illusion of a potentially valuable idea.

in typical life, and you must understand that this is not that, most people do not recognize my religious affiliations. i am an staunch individualist, and many have expressed surprise that i am not an atheist. i have no thought to this in one direction or another, tho i think it is worthwhile to our conversation

your anti-theism, then, is not likely 'anti-theism' at all. the admission of "God says" from a source defined by humans ('a church' much more directly than 'the bible', at least in the modern sense) indicates an issue independent of (tho associatable with) theism. as previously stated, "God says" is terribly easy to put into terms of ANY power structure.

Oh my. You instantly became my idol right there. Could I be allowed to flip through those records? Please? I love punk rock records.

ChristianPunk needs to go listen to GBH - Prayer of a realist
City baby attacked by rats is a masterpiece.

this is just the kind of closed-minded babble ive come to know and love from people who define punk on the lyrics of somebody else. say what you want about punk. your rules dont matter to me.

What a hypocrit. You believe the words of somebody else AKA the Bible. I am not saying this is a rule btw. It is just a fact. Don't you remember what happened when xtianity tried to take over heavy metal? Let me remind you...Stryper-To Hell With the Devil. Was that metal to you? Ok then, I don't want to hear your babble.

Punk is inferior to metal, anyway, though the Christophile pestilence infests it in some small doses.

If this is what you believe, you fundamentally misunderstand the philosophical, ideological, and aesthetic developments of metal since the emergence of black and death metal. I do not wish to derail this thread, however...

I wish it were that easy. I dont think we'd have all this worldwide pissing contest between religions if it were merely an "excuse". People treat religion as if they were defending their mother being called a whore! It's that old neandrothal attitude of defending one's honor.

Religion needs to be treated as for what it is. It is a weapon and humans have always used it as a weapon.

I'd like to see the day when religion would be treated like a favorite sports star or favorite pop star. At worst they get trash talked but no one dies over it.

If you are saying that religion is used as an excuse then the only way it cant be used as an excuse is if it is not there. Baring genocide, which is sick anyway no matter what label it would be aimed at, the only way to end an "excuse" is to challenge people to think about what they believe through reason and critical thinking skills.

Christianity, Islam and Jewdaoism all make excuses as to why their super dad tells them they are intitled to something. Be it politics, or land. These people will kill over it, in the name of good vs evil. The evil one is always the other side and not their own.

Name me one religion in human history that has ever brought global peace? Thats the goal they all claim, but what they fail to tell you is that they want it on their terms where all others take a back seat.

So, show me since the start of Christianity it's exemplary perfect score on producing lasting peace? It is the same track record as Islam and Jewdaoism. Why? Because of the stupid and assinine idea of divine intitlement. Get rid of that attitude and maybe we could all get along.

BTW, In your sig

What you are being dishonest about is that there are two issues for the atheist to be offended at.

1. The believers behaivor based on mythology. If I prayed to a cactus and asked it to protect my beer making purple snarfwidget would you not think I am nuts? If I saught out leaders to sit in office who believed in the snarfwidget the way I do, wouldnt you find that offensive?

2. Yes, we also would be offended by God. IF WE ARE PRETENDING for the sake of argument that he existed. Yes I would be pissed and angrey at a being that pit us against each other on a house full of desease, war, famine, genocide and crime only to blame us for it.

If you were a kid and your dad left you in the hands of a child rapist, you confront him, he admits it and blames it on you, wouldnt you be pissed?

Again, two different issues.

1. The logic the theist uses to justify their belief.
2. Is a "what if god existed" cenerio.

'religion' is not the label for the root of this problem. statism is as much at fault for the general scenario as the posture of religious institutions. this has nothing to do with 'god' in absolute concept. this has to do, in my opinion, with institution taking control of such a construct. nationalism, of course, is a much more immediate cause of these 'pissing contests', but even more prevelant (and direct) is control of resource.

ok, first part: agree. treated as for what it is. every individual thing should be treated as for what it is. if it needed to be, it would die otherwise, which clearly isnt the case with religion, and therefore not the case at all.

as far as its inherency as a weapon: obviously false. at least, as i speak, i am neither in the category of 'using religion as a weapon' nor do i 'not maintain a religion'. i am neither a group nor an institution, of course, and so cannot speak for either, but your point lacks scope.

well, id more like to see a day when people didnt talk about things as inane as pop culture or national sports. id be more interested in a day when religion and philosophy were not considered so seperate.

and, of course, you could be of any philosophical mind you like, and people disagree and whatnot, but no one really cares once you leave the coffee shop. things as far reaching as politics should be relegated to absolute necessity and not given the oppurtunity to operate between such massively divisive issues.

could someone explain the difference between an 'excuse' and a 'reason' in this statement? religion may be used as a reason in personal discernment, and there is no excuse for barring an individual from that vantage.

sure. absolutely, in fact. however, if they dont agree with you, for whatever reason, you cant get all pissy with them. people see the numbers different ways for a plethora of different reasons.

ive never had the sense from my church that i was entitled to anything at all. i think a sense of entitlement is manufactured out of those religions, but i dont know how inherent it is.

btw, jewdaoism sounds like the awesomest religion ever. id love to hear more about it

this, in my opinion, is an argument with a directionality problem. religion is not the primary cause. 'evil' is not the primary cause. the concept of the 'evil one' is not the primary cause. the 'other one', which is satisfied by any exclusive group, is a root issue. the scarcity of resource is a root issue as well. also to be considered are images of a 'best society', which are entirely fabricated.

on the level of the soldier, perhaps your assesment holds true. on the level of the general, i highly doubt it.

they claim global peace? all religions claim global peace? i was unaware of that. and name me one thing at all thats brought global peace. and that is for the explicit reason that religion exists? i highly doubt it...

and yes, every institution pressing for any level of domination expects all others to take a back seat. the same is true with science, and unnecessarily, in terms of religion. people can only seem to keep one thing in mind at a time.

again, im pretty sure neither a belief in god nor religion are the primary cause of overarching entitlement,tho the particular brand that you speak of ('divine intitlement') is affected by religion. in either case, religion is a branch of the harmful issue, not an inherent problem in its own right.

i have my religion, and i get along just fine with most. neither philosophy nor religion has ever been a factor with those who i do not get along, and i am fairly opinionated in both areas.

i dont like your flippant invocation of insanity, and think that your offense at my belief is a little offensive in its own right.

i dont care if you pray to cacti, and i dont care what youi think of purple snarfwidgets, and i dont think much of leaders in the first place. now, if people are misappropriating funds for the sake of snarfwidgets, fund misappropriation should be stopped. not for the sake of a belief in snarfwidgets, but for the sake of the scarcity of resource.

so what are you pissed at instead?

i dont understand why humans would be immune to disease, or why a lack of disease (same with famine) would be a more appropriate existance for a god to bea part of. war, genocide, and crime are the faults of individuals whether there is a god or not.

this is both a strawman and a really stupid thing to say.

and, again, what i believe has no bearing on you. how we approach public policy is what matters, and should be dealt with, and there should be good education systems, and lots of other things that have nothing at all to do with religion and will probably never happen.

religion is a divisive non-issue, and fodder for consolidation of power when taken out of the hands of the individual or private group.

When religion is the primary reason for so many bad things, it is obvious that it is the problem. Do you honestly believe that if religion didn't exist that 9/11 would have still happened? Or that there would still be discrimination against women and homosexuals (which the Bible strongly supports!) ?

The point is that while there would be bad things regardless of religion, religion does cause some of the bad that exists in the world. Therefore, without religion, it would not exist.

it has been said before, but i would like to kick my own 'yay' into the pile. the thought that a belief in god is causing terrorism is as ridiculous as any publicly stated cause for terrorism that ive heard.

taking an arbitrary stance against one particular aspect of a problem does nothing for the solution, and, to the contrary, does quite a lot for convoluting the problem.

this 'dodge' thing is getting old. the shortcomings of every theoretical system come from somewhere. theoretical christianity is perfect. so is theoretical communism. people (in large enough groups, given large enough incentive for dominance, other variables) screw it up.

the idea is that we try to understand. just like falling, you can only judge improvement from what you can see. if the concept is sustainability rather than and arbitrary directive of forward, time becomes much less of an object. literally and figuratively. learning from the mistakes isnt the goal, its just part of the game.

i feel like i should salute.

do you have faith in anything, antifaith? if not, i would be truly fantastically amazed. faith is like anticipation of fact. truth override. you think something. maybe you get corrected, faith gets a little lost, finds a new home. "what do you mean newtonian physics doesnt describe reality!?"...that sort of thing?

faith is a tool that may be employed by anyone. it has been used poorly, it has been used well, and it has been mislabeled in both directions many many times. the concept of 'faith' covers a very very wide spectrum, and to categorically dismiss it as a concept is not terribly prudent.

the bible, i could agree, is a double edged sword weilded by the blind. but, in this, i recognize both the bad that it has caused and the positive value of it and the concepts within.

the concept or belief of god is immaterial in this statement. totally arbitrary. some who do believe in god are obstacles. the strong correlation that is being drawn is faulty.

theoretical systems

christianity describes a worldview. admittedly not in the same way that communism does, but it describes a mental model by which the experience of the individual should be compared. i find its tenants valuable, its philosophy appropriate, and in my own life, i have found that what i find in christianity holds true in the world at large, both in my personal microcosm and in the grander schemes of society and history.

it is in the sense of a 'mental model' that i mean the words 'theoretical system'.

theistic faith

theistic faith is not 'god says'. 'god says',as it turns out, is a very poor description for anything, no matter which side of the conversation who is on.

instead, ill say that theistic faith is 'faith in existance of a god with subsequent faith in all aspects that an individual in particular believes about that god (or gods)'.

my argument, whtever you said about my 'equivocating' aside, is that the worth of the individual's faith in the concept they hold is defined specifically to themselves. i, for instance, to my understanding of the makeup of things, the interaction of things, the placement of things, believe in a general order to what is. undefinable in totality, but evident through the persistance and predictablity of our environment. a 'template of intelligence', if you will. a quote taken from this video on creativity machines, discussed at another thread.

to that end, i have not completed my promised post, but it is in the works, and will be available soon enough. however, that video describes my position and gives a practical demonstration of why i think as i do.

to the harm that the belief in god is comiting on society

i just dont buy it. some churces: yes. some individuals: definitely. belief in god as inherent evil plague sitting over humanity? i just dont buy it. ive seen horrible things done, sure. ive seen horrible things done for power and control. my faith, my belief, my philosophy, while built on a belief in a godbeing, is in no danger of enacting overarching dictums forcing or even directly encouraging any particular belief... unlike your more demanding approach, which states that in order that i am up to reason-code, i must abandon my freedom of thought and immediately choose freethought as my new, more appropriate, mode of understanding.

additionally, the absense of a godbeing does not preclude either reason or a better mode of understanding. it also does nothing to stop overarching power structures. or even discourage them.

you made some comment or another about to believe for no reason is to be unreasonable. well, is experience a viable reason? what about understanding? should we divert all individual understanding to a public over-body for approval? i dont think so.

in either case, ive seen no evidence that correlates a belief in god to the detriment of a positive life, and no evidence that suggests that i should not believe in god aside from the thought of a 'positive life'. if you can present evidence, i would like to see it. otherwise, i will consider that you have simply miscategorized the issue and are on a well-intentioned witch hunt.

fear is a reason, and unless you can define 'improvement' for me in some globally definable way, i dont think humanity can improve at all.

asking each other to be 'reasonable' sounds about as effective as each group laying forward their path to peace. unless, of course, we just agree to your terms... which im sure would be most agreeable to you.

anyway, the only improvement i could imagine at this point would be each of us learning to stay out of the other's more personal business, and developing a better understanding of how the metaphors an individual associates with reality affect their interaction with reality. maybe in this way some sort of actual reasonable solutions to actual issues may become known, rather than arbitrary fighting with a definite sense of 'right' despite a marked inability to know absolutely.

and by the way, you arent that clever, so stop being so condescending. i dont treat you like that.

thanks, i appreciate it. you made some good points.

laptop microphones. whatchagonnado?

This weekend I will reply to both you Reddragon, and avery.

Want to make a wager Reddragon? I bet...that...in the end of our dialogues....you...a Christian...like many other Christians...will end up trying to justify slavery, rape, war, kiddnapping women for sex, and all sorts ot horrid things that we find in the bible that is either commanded by, condoned by, or done by.....your God. I think I can demonstrate that the bible has a little somthin' for almost everyone. It is no wonder that the Republicans love Christianity.

Ok but I'll admit right now that I'm ok with slavery. Details later, I guess. Just do me a favor. Don't drop a long laundry list on me all at once. Lets deal with each point one at a time. Ultimatly I expect us to disagree which is usual since Christians usualy see justification for texts where atheists see no justification.

First, I'd like to correct a misconception: this has nothing to do with government presiding or orchestrating scientific research; this has to do with a ban (it's a partial ban, but one that prohibits researchers from progressing from the original lines of stem cells) on a line of scientific research that is potentially the most promising in terms of pharmaceuticals for a large number of degenerative (and other) diseases. The reasoning behind this is based purely in "morality," a PR term thrown around by happy-go-lucky conservatives who don't know the difference between an embryo, a fetus, and a cell. This should have nothing to do with morality. By the way, the proposed method of extracting new stem cell lines would have been active only on embryos that were discarded anyway. This is not immoral, since a few cells (even with the potential to become human beings - something ALL our cells possess) are not a person.

If you agree with my point, just say so. You wrote several unnecessary lines of text that muddled your actual point (which I assume you do not wish to give up too readily). Anyway, if you agree with me on this point, there is no need to reply to this part.

What? What the hell do parents have to do with this? You are dodging and trying to avoid the issue. The point at hand is that thanks solely to religion, and "values," and "morality," children are informed that their innermost urges are forbidden and evil, and sex should be strictly a formal practice to produce offspring. This is detrimental to a child's psychology, and also does not properly inform the child of the risks of sex and how to go about alleviating them. It is also highly ineffective, and is correlated with increases in oral and anal sex (so as not to lose one's virginity). Stop muddling the issue please.

Do not bother to reply if all you have is empty rhetoric. Address the points I raise, and do so clearly.

I just want to jump in and say that there's a big difference between what religion says and what religiouse people say. So when you're dealing with a topic like this you have to distinguish between the two.

My Bible doesn't teach me that my innermost urges are forbidden and evil. Nore do I see anywhere that says that sex is strictly for producing offspring. So we can't point the finger at Christianity(I can't defend other religions here). We have to point the finger at people who call themselves Christians. This means that where you said, "religion, and "values," and "morality" it should be changed to "religiouse people, and their values and their morality". You have to remember that there are two standards when dealing with religion: 1. the standards of the religion, and 2. the standards of the people who follow the religion. In an ideal world the two standards should be the same. But in the real world many times they are not.

I'm noticing how you guys tend to accuse Christians of dodging or muddling or avoiding issues. Personaly I just don't see it(dodging, etc.) happening even though I've been accused. I just assume that this is the result of two people seeing the same thing from different points of view. My advice is don't accuse the person unless you're sure the person is guilty.

I thought perhaps I might *bump* this topic since it is relevant to other topics as of late.

Can a mod resize the image of the etching? It's throwing the formatting of the page off.

I thought the same thing.  Weird, though.  The "Edit" function doesn't show up on this thread so I am unable to fix it.

Sorry!