Interesting!

When did you guys talk to Ray Comfort? I'd love to hear a clip.

And didn't someone argue against his "banana bullshit" theory?

my friend, i bring you one of the funniest pieces of bullshit ever concieved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of90cKxSeuw

and i remember someone retorted in a seperate show (was it Brian?) that the zucchini was perfect for the asshole and a certain virus or form a cancer was perfect for T-cells in children

Gandhi VS God

1890-1948 ............................................................................... timeless

Topic: On Morality

Well, on the surface, you'd figure that this contest would be rather one sided: We have in one corner, a meek, humble man who would be the first to concede that he is a sinner. In the other corner, we have an omniscient, omnibenevolent super deity, who's reportedly gone undefeated in just about any sort of contest you could contemplate, since the dawn of time. (Well, he has one draw, if you count the old testament account of god's wrestling match with Jacob...)

But, let's at least take a look at what each has is on record for saying, regarding some very important moral matters, before deciding. Then I will ask Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg, eminent psychologist and creator of a theory of moral reasoning, to choose the winner

On Honesty:

"The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." - I Kings 22:23

VS

Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

On Physical Threats and Coercision

"But God will shatter the heads of his enemies..." - Psalms 68:21

VS

One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman. The more efficient a force is the more silent and the more subtle it is.

On the Use of Physical Force as a Means of Justice

Slay and utterly destroy after them, says the Lord, and do all that I have commanded you.
- Jeremiah 50:21

"Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger...Whoever is found will be thrust through and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished." - Isaiah 13:9, 13:15

"I will strew your flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with your carcass. I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood..." Ezekiel 32:5

'Pass through the city after him, and smite; your eye shall not spare and you shall show no pity; slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women...'" - Ezekiel 9:5

VS

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Love is the subtlest force in the world. Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering without the intoxicating excitement of killing. Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.

Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence. Satyagraha and civil disobedience and fasts have nothing in common with the use of force, veiled or open. The force of nonviolence is infinitely more wonderful and subtle and powerful than the use of violence.

On Women and Equality

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman but woman for man." - 1 Corinthians, 11:8

"As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." - 1 Corinthians 14:34

"Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord." - Ephesians 5:22

"Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." Timothy 2:11-14

VS

There is no occasion for women to consider themselves subordinate or inferior to man. Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacity.

On Slavery

"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from the nations that are round about you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but over your bretheren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness." - Leviticus 25:44

VS

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

On Respect Towards All Life

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. - Genesis 9:2

VS

And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. Genesis 6:7

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated...I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."

Now, to decide our winner, Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg

Greetings Web denziens and pursuers of the truth. Here is my decision, based upon my theory of moral reasoning:

My (Kohlberg's) classification can be outlined in the following manner:

LEVEL STAGE SOCIAL ORIENTATION
Pre-conventional 1 Obedience and Punishment
2 Individualism, Instrumentalism,
and Exchange
Conventional 3 "Good boy/girl"
4 Law and Order
Post-conventional 5 Social Contract
6 Principled Conscience

God, is operating on the first level of moral thinking - a sort of reasoning usually found in pre school children. In the first stage of this level, people behave according to socially acceptable norms because they are told to do so by some authority figure (e.g., parent or teacher). This obedience is compelled by the threat or application of punishment.

The second stage of this level is characterized by a view that right behavior means acting in one's own best interests.

The second level of moral thinking is typical of the morality generally found in society, hence the name "conventional." The first stage of this level (stage 3) is characterized by an attitude which seeks to do what will gain the approval of others. The second stage is one oriented to abiding by the law and responding to the obligations of duty.

The third level of moral thinking is one that I (Kohlberg) feel is not reached by the majority of adults. Its first stage (stage 5) is an understanding of social mutuality and a genuine interest in the welfare of others. The last stage (stage 6) is based on respect for universal
principle and the demands of individual conscience. It is this stage that Mr. Gandhi , is operating on.

To learn more about Gandhi try this website:

http://www.cbu.edu/Gandhi

Gandhi was a racist asshole who slept naked with naked little girls. Don't worry, he didn't have sex with them - that was the point. It some some religious bullshit that if you can sleep naked with naked little girls and not have sex with them then you'd be powering up your sperm or some shit like that...

He was a sick freak, did lots of weird things like that... And he hated blacks like mad. Called them all sorts of bad things.

He just so happened to love his people and believe in nonviolence.
But he didn't love all people, and nonviolence isn't always the answer.

Gandhi isn't the hero many people make him out to be. Just a warning for future Gandhi arguments.

And don't even get me started with Mother Teresa. EVIL INCARNATE.

Ghandi wasn't perfect, nobody is, and I've heard a few of the claims Sam made about him before though I've never really researched their merit.

The fact of the matter is, you could put Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin together in a triple tag team up against God in a morality standoff, and Hitler & Co. would win.

OK, the RRS site so has to stop letting these "not verified" people post.  So far all have been incredibly stupid - and a few adding to posts that hadn't been responded to in over a year. That part about Jews wasn't supporting Hitler - it was his commitment to total non-violence. At the time he wrote the letter to Hitler, very few people knew about the Holocaust, and most who even heard about it didn't believe it. There was even an alternative history someone wrote about Britain being defeated by Hitler, and Ghandi tried the tactics he used against the British against them - resulting in horrific reprisals. At the end of the story he told the local Nazi governor he was wrong to try it - becuase by then he realized the British were basically a moral civilization, while the Nazis were not. By the way, the Jesus character wasn't the nice guy the Christians try to tell you (assuming you aren't, like many others, actually a Christian and lying about it)

http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/jesus.php

Dammit, I wanted to make a post about the unfairness of hell using good old Mohandas as the prime example, and here I see pretty much the point already made!

Oh well, sleepers, weepers.

Back to the subject, I find it appalling whenever I bring the Gandhi question (that's how I refer to it) and see that, despite his commendable efforts and his commitment to non-violence, people can still say to my face, without blushing or stuttering, that Gandhi "was indeed good but failed at the most important decision a man has to make: believing in Jesus, and therefore he is now in hell, suffering". One guy said this to me, word for word (but in Spanish) and it took much of my strength not to jab his nose in.

How is this fair? Assuming hell exists, and there's nothing to it but flames, pain and eternal darkness dished out indiscriminately, Gandhi would receive the exact same punishment as Hitler, Pol Pot, Caligula and Isabella of Castile (she ought to be there). How does this work? Does satan goes "Ok, people, lets get moving: The guy who stole Chaplin's look, brother number one, the skinny peacemonger, the murderous incestuous nutjob and the antisemitic zealot, get your asses to the lake of brimstone, pronto!"

And it's us atheists that have no morals...

I'm familiar with plenty of nasty stories about Gandhi and the half-assed attempts I've made to study their authenticity have shown that the strongest critique that could be made (that he favored Partition) is without basis.  I hope he didn't abuse young girls, but if that's true, we've got plenty of sanctified perverts to worry with in western culture.

Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit where they tackled the whole Gandhi thing. Apparently, according to them, he was racist. I tried finding the episode on youtube but it just aint there. There were some other things about Gandhi that weren't particularly savoury either. However, I would say he was a great man. Possibly a racist asshole, but a racist asshole who did great things.

racism, in my opinion, is always bad, regardless of time or place, in that it is completely irrational and counterproductive to a peaceful society.  however, just because someone is a racist doesn't automatically make them an asshole.  everybody knows that there have been many periods of human history when what we consider today as racism was held to be "just the way it is."  i'm sure there are views that we as western society, supposedly so liberal, hold today as givens that future generations will find detestable.

i'm an admirer of gandhi.  i'm also an admirer of abraham lincoln (another nonreligious theist--don't believe bullshit urban legends about him "accepting christ" at gettysburg) and many things he said and wrote are horribly racist and ignorant by today's standards, but overall, morally and ethically, i think he was a "good" man.

as far as being in the army goes, well, many british subjects were in those days and nobody ever claimed he sprang from his mother's womb a fully-formed nonviolent.  as for the claim about young girls, i wasn't aware of that till now.

hi, i was just looking up stuff on gandhi and happened by your site. i actually offer the same gandhi test to the zealots. i plan to share the anne frank one. satan is more accepting than god! lol. thanks for sharing!

for the most part, i consider myself a christian out of tradition. its the same reason i consider myself american or black or male, human, etc. i know it has shaped who i am and the way i view the world. i know it unites me with some and differentiates me from others. i suppose i could try to reject every label placed on me but id rather take a stance of acceptance. i believe the same about my God. peace.