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At 8/26/03 02:42 PM, Adept_Omega wrote: So is feminism. If a person respects a woman, should they be dragged out of church and beaten?

See the person you are arguing with is the creation of the common support of a religion that supports evil. Even if you don't believe in it, you strengthen it's numbers and make it look more valid. I don't consider you a Christian, the person you are arguing with though? Probably is.

So is tolerance of Jews. If a person tolerates other religions, should we cast them aside like broken merchandise?

Actually that's a belief of Chamberlain that was passed down to Hitler and his legions (based on the fact that they believe that Jacob was white, thus the people of Israel (his descendants) were white and not Jews). And lived on through their followers. According to the actual biblical teachings, it's gentiles that earn the most ill will, not Jews. The tolerance of other religions thing however is in fact scripturally correct, if anyone teaches you of other religions or worships other gods you are to stone them to death. In actuality the Christians who try to distort the image and power of God by claiming he's a good and merciful god are the true blasphemers according to most fundamentalist Jews. Since it's better to teach of other gods, than it is to take the image of the one true god and lie about who he is for your own purposes.

So is acceptance of other races. Ah hell, why don't we all join the KKK so we can be bishops?

Depends on the race. But the bible definitely promotes racism, including the idea that God has a chosen race, and that you should command genocide upon various different races.

Honestly, do you think homosexuality is any different than the last three human rights struggles? If anything, you have less against them, because in comparassion to anti-feminist views, the bible has barely any references to homosexuality at all. You'd think with all the clamor there'd be a lot more about it in the book, no?

It only takes one commandment of law to set the foot down on an action. There really doesn't need to be anything more than "they are an abomination kill them, and it's their own fault". That's not vague, and there is no real room for misinterpretation. As far as the feminism goes, I think it's natural from a religion that claims that everyone should be punished for the actions of Adam and Eve, whose only real crime was choosing intelligence and knowledge over faith. And as Eve was supposedly more guilty (and more intelligent) is it any surprise that sexism was a natural development of this religion? What I don't get is why you still stand by it when you know a lot of the pain and atrocities it's caused.

At 8/26/03 09:04 PM, RoyBatty wrote: Although Deism is actually more of a pre-atheism that was caused by a lack of debate support for atheists before Darwin’s theories came around and caused a semi-viable (at least viable enough to show there are other options) alternative to creationism.

Interesting... but just because I am Christian does not automatically entail that I'm a creationist, mind you. Let's see if you keep running with that creationism vs. evolution ball...

:Although Deism is still around, most deists that are familiar with both creationism and Darwinism have become agnostic or atheist, due to the natural questions that arise from examination of nature as a reflection of god’s will.

Yep, you do.

:Deists generally believed their god was good, but how can you believe that when he creates something like a disease that tortures an innocent person for 2 weeks and then kills them (among other general shows of apathy or injustice)?

... you haven't blatently said "You're a freaking creationist!" yet, but you're laying such a heavy implication on it that I'm just going to make the assumption that you're making... that... assumption. :P

The answer is simple. Evolution, which is improbable by the system to which it is bound (The system of logic), but would be feasible with divine influence capable of overcoming improbabilities, would be responsible for disease. No, I don't believe God boomed "LET THERE BE DISEASE" and made these bad things -- I'd argue that God played a mostly laisse faire role, gently and subtly intervening only to keep the evolutionary process from degenerating to chaos -- not wiping out entire species of virus so we don't have to be bothered finding cures for them. That's not subtle, nor laisse faire.

:So if you still consider yourself partly Christian, then what exactly is it from Christianity that you do still believe?

What is it specifically that I believe?
-Jesus was the son of God
-God is loving in nature, but acts more as a moral support and guide than as an interviner -- some OT and NT action is scene because it leads up to the birth of Jesus, but whenever he can reasonably avoid it, it's laisse faire.
-The NT holds much, though not complete and total, credibility.

:And what is the source for the idea that those teachings come from Christ, and how do you really know it’s credible, when every witness to his existence and character are obviously biased, and have already been caught in the trap of contradiction?

Thank you for using the word "every". It shows us that you have a schema about Christians.

The Bible holds a lot of merit (the NT at least), the Urantia Book (pro-evolutionary, pro-humanist religious texts of a Christian nature, thank you very much), and reasoning on the nature of the universe and exsistance. And how? When you speak of credibility so fondly, it makes me wonder -- how can you call anything 100% credible? Everyone has biases. People, books, self-reasoning, all biased. Firsthand experience? Mental processing allows for bias. This said, how can you be sure of athiesm? All your sources are biased, too. If using sources that have a certain bias to them is grounds for making one's beliefs unsuitable, then I suppose everybody should become agnostic, eh?

Why are you so certain your group is so diverse? I mean there are lots of denominations yes, there are individuals within certainly, but isn’t the core the same? And isn’t that core belief really what is at the heart of the problem? The belief in the Christian god and that he’s worthy of worship, despite the fact that even your holy texts describe him as a warmonger who rules by fear, and who believes that fear and belief in him is more important than morality.

And yet you claim to not be biased. 'Either you entirely believe the bible, including the parts about warmongering nonsense written by scared, stupid, and supersticious people, or you entirely don't, because if supersticion is wrong, then that throws everything else you believe in into question. There CANNOT be a shade of grey!' -- That's your whole argument paraphrased. It's nonsense.

Also, there's the Urantia Book -- but I won't get into that now, you wouldn't put any weight on that argument anyway because it's not a damn Christian stereotype you get to fall back on that you assume without merid that I adhere to, isn't that right?

And also I used to be a Christian, so my perspective of this isn’t flawed by looking from an outside perspective or by stereotyping. I’m not stereotyping who Christians are; I’m stereotyping what they are supposed to be if they are really Christian. If a Nazi told me he wasn’t a racist, and I said then why be a Nazi, and he said there is a lot of diversity in Nazis you shouldn’t stereotype, am I the one at fault? Or should he maybe find something else to belong to?

Comparing me to a Nazi? That's mature.

'Really Christian'? You have a very, very narrowminded view of Christianity as being a blind, mindless following of one specific scripture by the word. And apparently you won't allow for any other definition of the word "Christian" than "narrow minded bible thumping Nazi" and claim I'm not a Christian because of your views.

Also, you have a terrible comprehension of the definition of outgroup homogeny. It means that people not within a group percieve that group as being more similar than they really are. For example, "almost all gays are promiscuous horny bastards who can't hold down a relationship" is quite often assumed by straight right-wingers.

All in all, you're saying I'm not a Christian because I do not adhere to your definitions of Christianity. Well, you know what? I don't really care about your definitions of Christianity, so this argument is pointless. Wouldn't you agree?

Sorry to poke my nose in here but this will be quick...
Adept, I would like to hear your opinion about a current debate I'm getting into with a Christian related to this subject:
http://exwitch.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1816

At 8/26/03 09:13 PM, RoyBatty wrote:

Yet the early Christian church was formed before the gospels were written, before Paul's letters, the gospels, and the old testaments were packed together in one religious text and handed around as "The Bible". This being the case, it seems that Christianity merely entails...

A) A belief in God

No it entails the belief in the Christian God, not just any god, and that God has traits that are described in the bible, and without those traits, there is no reason to choose this god over any other gods.

I did not say a god, I said "God", "God" being the Christian God's name (ever so creatively. And yes, I'm aware that it was originally "Yaweh", but not many people know that, plus it sounds silly.)

So the early Christian church, before having the bible as a reference for God's traits, having cast aside the pharasees' old testament based views of the nature of God, was not Christian by your account. Hooray.

B) A belief in Jesus as the Son of God

Jesus, according to the bible, teaches that this is his claim to authority, so yeah I would agree with this based on the bible, but those same authors who came up with this idea, also fed us other contradictions and commanded adherence to OT law.

'came up with this idea'? Now you're implying it's made up.

They made OT references, because not everything in the OT is corruption or superstition -- yet Jesus himself tells them to not worry about parts of the old testament at some points. You take Christianity and try to staple the old testament's hateful messages to it to better fit your mindset against Christians. It just doesn't work. The OT is flawed, but has a few intact passages remaining.

:So they also make a statement about the character of Christ, and as such you should pay attention to that as well if you are going to pay attention to the requirements for Christianity that the bible describes.

There you go again with the damn bible. The bible is not a rulebook, it is not ultimate. You have this terrible bias about how a Christian 'should' asked, entirely based off conservative Christian views. A case of outgroup homogeny if I ever saw one.

C) A general accordance to some moral rules. (Not specific because we know that many early Christians cast aside some of the views imposed on them by the pharasees)

Actually the Pharisees cast out the rules they were teaching as well. They couldn’t practice the laws they were preaching because Roman law wouldn’t allow it. If they went around killing everyone the bible told them to kill, the Romans would be forced to put them to death as well. So the Pharisees commanded adherence to the law of the OT, but in general they didn’t follow it. Jesus points this out in Matthew 23:2, as part of a verse where he commands his people to follow the laws that the Pharisees are teaching. There were some times when the Jews did push for death sentences for other Jews who broke the laws, but the final go ahead had to come from Roman authority, and generally was given as long as it was in group shit, because the Romans respected the Jewish autonomy until the Jews attacked the Roman government. So what moral rules did these early Christians follow, and can you prove that they followed any moral rules? I mean how moral could anyone be who pushed for a coup against the Roman government (which the Christians helped the Jews with) to bring back Israeli biblical law, complete with a theocracy over Roman law and democracy? I mean yeah the Romans had their flaws (strongly depended on who was at the head of the government at the time), but during no Roman regime was there ever a set of laws that equaled the tyranny commanded by the Tanakh, and to my knowledge, never during Roman rule did anyone commit absolute genocide to any races. Nor command the 6 counts of genocide in one sentence. So how moral were these people?

I never said that they were all moral behaving -- just because your religion has certain beliefs doesn't mean you adhere to them.

It’s based solely on the supposed teachings of Christ. And the only source of those teachings is the bible. So effectively yes.

Your whole problem in a single sentence. "The only source of those teachings is" -- meaning that the only source of one's beliefs come from a book, meaning that you kick into your all-or-none routine.

You are NOT describing Christianity. You are describing CATHOLICISM, a DENOMINATION of Christianity.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_defn.htm

The problem is simple. Your definition of "Christian" differs from mine. We might as well be talking about entirely different religions, for that matter.

At 8/26/03 10:34 PM, Anpu wrote: Sorry to poke my nose in here but this will be quick...
Adept, I would like to hear your opinion about a current debate I'm getting into with a Christian related to this subject:
http://exwitch.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1816

It's okay, Roy's beginning to wear on my patience anyway. Damn ADD...
I think I'll take a break and go check this out for a while... thanks.

At 8/26/03 10:45 PM, Adept_Omega wrote:

At 8/26/03 10:34 PM, Anpu wrote:

It's okay, Roy's beginning to wear on my patience anyway. Damn ADD...
I think I'll take a break and go check this out for a while... thanks.:

Well if it makes you feel any better this is the only debate I've seen on here worth watching. And you're very welcome, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Why should they let him stay If I was them I'd kick his ass right out the front door and say have a nice life..............

At 8/26/03 11:02 PM, BWO wrote: Why should they let him stay If I was them I'd kick his ass right out the front door and say have a nice life..............:

*bows* Thank you for sharing your absolute wisdom with us lowly mortals, oh brilliant one.

At 8/26/03 10:45 PM, Adept_Omega wrote:

At 8/26/03 10:34 PM, Anpu wrote: Sorry to poke my nose in here but this will be quick...
Adept, I would like to hear your opinion about a current debate I'm getting into with a Christian related to this subject:
http://exwitch.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1816

It's okay, Roy's beginning to wear on my patience anyway. Damn ADD...
I think I'll take a break and go check this out for a while... thanks.

Adept, you're truly one of the few gems remaining on the Politics Forum. I'm going to go back and re-read the things you've posted and hope more like you come along.

At 8/26/03 11:02 PM, BWO wrote: Why should they let him stay If I was them I'd kick his ass right out the front door and say have a nice life..............

Some people put more weight on who a person is than what they are... and I feel that's the best way to do it.

Though I can see where you're coming from, I can't bring myself to agree with you.

I think allowing this man to become a bishop is just stupid. Any church that follows the Bible should never allow something like this to happen. It's a sin and sin of any kind should never be encouraged.

At 8/27/03 12:04 PM, nonotme wrote: I think allowing this man to become a bishop is just stupid. Any church that follows the Bible should never allow something like this to happen. It's a sin and sin of any kind should never be encouraged.

Alright... this point in line, let's take a look at what a 'sin' exactly is.

A deviation from the word of the bible, and therefor a deviation from their beliefs? Then let's see what the criteria for bishopdom is, exactly.

Leviticus 11: 9-12 -- You must not eat anything that lives in the water and does not have fins and scales.
Thus they cannot have ever eaten: Shrimp, Oysters, Squid, Seaweed (as found in many oriental foods), any type of oceanic plant, caviar, etc.

Leviticus 18: 22 -- No man is to have sexual relations with another man.
Thus celibate homosexual unions are perfectly acceptable, as are active lesbians, assuming sexism isn't a motivator.

Leviticus 21: 5 -- No priest shall shave any part of his head or trim his beard or cut gashes in his body to show that he is in mourning.
Thus I certainly hope the Pope hasn't shaved. Would hate to be caught in a web of hypocrisy.

I could come up with a trillion more from Leviticus alone, but for fairness' sake, let's look into some other books of the bible.

Here's an interesting one.

Matthew 6: 1 -- Make certain you do not perform your religious duties in public so that people will see what you do. If you do these things publicly, you will not have any reward from your Father in heaven.
Thus, if you follow the bible by its word, this entire Christian anti-gay movement is unbiblical, as are many other Christian behavioral patterns. Ironic, ne?

Matthew 23: 23 -- "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of seasonin herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others." ~ Jesus Christ
Isn't it funny how people can forget the core message of the scriptures and simply look for small sections through which they may persecute others? How merciful is this?

James 2: 2 -- Suppose a rich man wearing a gold ring and fine clothes comes to your meeting, and a poor man in ragged clothes also comes. If you show more respect to the well-dressed man and say to him "Have this best seat here,", but say to the poor man, "Stand over there, or sit here on the floor by my feet," then you are guilty of creating distinctions among yourselves and making judgements based on evil motives.
Thus, on a similar note, should you create distinctions based off of sexuality, a view only promoted by the holiness code that Paul himself said Christians are no longer bound by, and pseudological reasoning of other scriptures that do not point to homosexuality at all, then you are defying the bible.

Now I ask you -- do you follow the bible to a T? Or do you admit that some sections of the old testament may be flawed, even as we see now they are over-written by the New Testament?

Although Deism is actually more of a pre-atheism that was caused by a lack of debate support for atheists before Darwin’s theories came around and caused a semi-viable (at least viable enough to show there are other options) alternative to creationism.

Interesting... but just because I am Christian does not automatically entail that I'm a creationist, mind you. Let's see if you keep running with that creationism vs. evolution ball...

Let’s just point out that because you think you’re a Christian, doesn’t really mean you are one. And since creation is one of God’s main claims to power and righteousness, if you are saying you rule that out, I don’t even know why you bother with a deity. And once again you are jumping to conclusions. I wasn’t doing anything with the creationism vs. evolution ball, I believe in neither theory. The reason I mentioned this entire thing was for the purpose of helping you get a start on the history and development of deism. And I was clarifying that in fact deism became rare because of the problems with creationism. And although Darwin didn’t produce an answer, he produced an alternative that was just as viable (and less contradictory) as the creationism theory. This gave an alternate argument that non-believers could use when the question came up, and it opened the door to thought. See before Darwin came into the public eye, an atheist could say well “I don’t believe in God”, and a Christian would refute him with “well how did we get here then?” the atheist have no alternative theories generally would simply say “well I don’t know”, and the Christian would respond with “well I do”, and then all of the people in witness would share a chuckle at the atheists expense. For this reason atheists were considered lost and idiotic to many during this time period, which is why deism was a more popular stance for freethinkers to take. But as Darwinism took foot on the people’s eye, it gave ground to conjecture as to the merits of creationism, and gave an alternative. This opened up the ground for debate, and even those who didn’t believe in Darwin’s theories could at least say, well science could prove alternatives, I mean even Darwinism is more viable than the creation story (which contradicts itself numerous times). So it opened the door for people who wished to think outside of the box of Creationism that they were all brought up on.

Yep, you do.

No I didn’t.

... you haven't blatently said "You're a freaking creationist!" yet, but you're laying such a heavy implication on it that I'm just going to make the assumption that you're making... that... assumption. :P

Again your assumptions are off base. I was making a commentary on the development of deism, and how it more commonly swayed into other forms of free thought due to the problems created by the idea that God was either the creator of evils in the world, or turned a blind eye to the suffering of people due to his actions and the people who claim to represent him on earth. And just because you aren’t very good at reading the directions I’m going with things doesn’t excuse your constant assumptions. I never claimed you were either, and I don’t consider you a Christian, so I had no reason to assume that you necessarily clung to pure creationism.

The answer is simple. Evolution, which is improbable by the system to which it is bound (The system of logic), but would be feasible with divine influence capable of overcoming improbabilities, would be responsible for disease.

First of all I’m not a Darwinist either. I believe that evolution and adaptation do happen, but I don’t think they explain creation, since obviously there needs to be a starting point. And for this reason, Creationism is absurd in my eyes as well. We will probably never know how life started, and it has no effect on our current lives, so I see no reason to dwell on what is forced to become circular thinking. I mean the logic that created both theories is that humans couldn’t just come from nowhere. But both have the problem that they still lack a viable starting point. I mean if humans couldn’t just be, then God couldn’t just be. I mean he can’t will himself into existence if he has no existent will to work with right? Creationism doesn’t explain anything, and the biblical version is flawed beyond belief. Darwinism has merit, but is also flawed and full of gaps and errors, and never cures the initial problem of how did the first life get there. Neither theory is viable in my opinion. By the way, what you just described is very similar to what modern Deists believe as far as creation.

No, I don't believe God boomed "LET THERE BE DISEASE" and made these bad things –

So he never intended for there to be disease? He either created it, directed the evolutionary chain to develop it, or chose not to prevent it even though it was within his power to do so. How are any of these good actions?

I'd argue that God played a mostly laisse faire role, gently and subtly intervening only to keep the evolutionary process from degenerating to chaos -- not wiping out entire species of virus so we don't have to be bothered finding cures for them. That's not subtle, nor laisse faire.

So you argue again for the negligent father version of God. The negligent father, who’s laissez-faire apathy would turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering of the people. All of the people whose lives have become a living nightmare because he chose to turn a blind eye to their pain. Basically he’s the rich banker who lives five blocks away from a starving family, passing them every day and thinking that his neglect will eventually cause a trickle down effect in their favor while they starve to death. Right? That’s the best your god can do? What did the virii evolve from? Did he choose to help their evolutionary process? Did he decide that pain and suffering should be caused by their presence? And this God you describe doesn’t seem like he would want worship. I mean why would he care if you worshipped him anyway? Doesn’t he just want to play his little games with our species? Playing with genetics, toying away with what new diseases he can torture us or watch torture us, and seeing how well we react after thousands die a miserable death. How is this any better than commanding the murder yourself?

What is it specifically that I believe?

-Jesus was the son of God

Where did you get that idea? Who wrote this down for you, could you give me some references? If being the son of God means something, then surely the character of god must mean something too. Taking from the source that tells you that Jesus is the son of God, could you please show me some points as to the character of this god, Something that would make his son something special? Do you believe that God sent Jesus to the earth for a purpose? Doesn’t that destroy the laissez-faire concept?

-God is loving in nature, but acts more as a moral support and guide than as an interviner

So you believe that the presence of Jesus on earth wasn’t an intervention attempt? He wasn’t acting on behalf of God? Do you believe that Christ believed in the Tanakh scriptures that the Pharisees were preaching? Do you believe that he believed his father to be the same as the Jews’ YHWH? Can you show me some support for your idea that God is loving? What does he love? Who does he love? How does he choose who he loves? How is he a moral support, and can you show me some references to him supporting positive morals? (especially since I can quote from the same sources and show him supporting negative ideas) So you don’t believe in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah I take it? Adam and Eve? Did he ever intervene in wars? Did he meddle with the life of Job? Did he really intervene in the affairs of man to wipe out the earth with a flood? Do you think that Jesus believed that Moses really brought the law to the people? Do you think that Jesus respected the prophets and authors of the Tanakh?

-- some OT and NT action is scene because it leads up to the birth of Jesus, but whenever he can reasonably avoid it, it's laisse faire.

Yeah he just couldn’t fight the urge to wipe out entire races of people huh. Why does the Tanakh, complete with laws that Christ claims as authoritative and from God, command all of these atrocities? Were these not interventions in the ways of mankind? Laissez-faire is a system for the people who really don’t care about the well being of everyone and it turns a blind eye to the suffering of many. It’s not what I would call a complimentary term to refer to your deity with.

-The NT holds much, though not complete and total, credibility.

How so? And why not complete? If it’s not complete, how do you decide what was true and what wasn’t? What exactly makes you the judge of what was and wasn’t true? How many times can a person lie to you before they stop being credible? And which parts do you find credible. Please provide scriptures.

Thank you for using the word "every". It shows us that you have a schema about Christians.

I have a schema about how I deal with facts. That’s about it. And I have a schema when it comes to dealing with people or writers who consistently are caught in lies and contradictions. And the people who wrote the scriptures, book by book, fall into that category. I think you have a schema about how you deal with people who think the bible isn’t credible, you simply start making assumptions left and right about our beliefs and how we came to our conclusions without ever thinking of it from the perspective the individual people may be introducing to you. If I had a schema about “Christians” I would have dealt with you the same way I dealt with the hatemonger who posted above you. I wouldn’t bother wasting my breath trying to show you that there are alternatives to tacking your faith onto antiquated systems of ideology that have caused 90% of the problems in our society. If I didn’t see you as an intelligent person who had potential I wouldn’t be wasting my breath, so obviously I do NOT have a schema about Christians, so why don’t you cut the shit.

The Bible holds a lot of merit (the NT at least),

Like what? Name a concept that stems from the bible, that wasn’t present in the world before the bible, that was a worthy addition to our world. Show me this vast merit.

the Urantia Book (pro-evolutionary, pro-humanist religious texts of a Christian nature, thank you very much), and reasoning on the nature of the universe and exsistance.

The Book of Urantia is Christian huh? So you believe it to be more Christian than the bible then? Most of the Urantian ideas are actually a lot more Nag Hammadi and Qumran based than anything remotely Christian. Just because it mistranslated some Dead Sea Scrolls to include Christ into their teachings doesn’t give them any credibility, nor does it make them any more Christian than Crowley. Plus the book reeks of con if you read up on it’s history and contents, and the fact that it directly quotes and intentionally misconstrues context with scriptures from other books, while pretending to be oblivious to the sources these stories were taken from. It pretends that it’s delivered and entirely written by alien hands; it pretends that Michael is the same as Christ (loosely taken from Dead Sea concepts), and it pretends to be taken from the testimony of a mental patient. This mental patient just happened to repeat and twist concepts currently under heavy interest to the mainstream of people (due to the semi-recent discoveries of both the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea Scrolls, and the huge interest in their contents and the relation between them and Christianity). If anything the Urantians were fonder of the Qumran religion than Christianity, and the SDA members probably talked them into including Christ so they could try to convert the rest of their church. Don’t get me wrong, I find the book of Urantia very amusing and it was fun to read (although time consuming), but I find it as more of a sci-fi buff trying to make a religion out of a joke. I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as a credible source, and I wouldn’t call it “of a Christian nature” Heh. Anyway, the debate on Urantia is a very time consuming and currently unrelated one so I’ll let this one rest for now. I do theorize that it was either a human attempt to bond together all the religions and races for the purpose of peace or a really big, thoroughly developed joke, so I’d rather not attack it to heavily, even though I believe they used dishonest methods in their attempt to accomplish their goals.

And how? When you speak of credibility so fondly,

You’re not fond of credibility eh?

it makes me wonder -- how can you call anything 100% credible?

Did I? Where? Show me. Just because there are different levels of credibility doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t discriminate against the sources that have the least amount. I mean say we have two witnesses. One on the side of the plaintiff, and one is the defendant himself. Now say the witness for the plaintiff is caught in 10 lies while on the stand, and the during the defendant’s testimony he isn’t caught lying at all. Now both could logically be lying, but one of them has shown that he has no credibility, and his testimony certainly won’t convict the defendant will it?

Everyone has biases. People, books, self-reasoning, all biased. Firsthand experience? Mental processing allows for bias.

The degrees of bias are a lot different however. And not everyone has a bias on every subject. Obviously the people who are trying to sell the religion are the farthest bias point. Some people view religion with a fascination and keep their eyes open, and their minds sharp. They can look over a religious text and note the discrepancies therein, and they could also point out the things that have merit, then some people can choose to leave their bias out, and others can come to conclusions that were so far against their bias they can no longer be biased. This was the case for me, since I originally was a Christian when I read the bible. I was biased in favor of the bible, but I had significant problems with the Christian interpretation of the text that was right in front of them, and I eventually left the religion to join other religions which more accurately read the text, but still believed in it (Luciferianism and Gnosticism, and eventually as far as becoming an Ophite). I then started to realize the contradictions within the context were just as frequent as the moral problems, and I gradually realized that the bible itself wasn’t very credible, and certainly not worth putting faith in or basing my life on. So then I went on to other religions that didn’t believe in the bible, and basically went through a whole horde of different religions before I settled with the thought that I really didn’t need a religion.

This said, how can you be sure of athiesm? All your sources are biased, too.

What sources? I don’t have any sources for my atheism; I adopted the term long after I adopted the mindset. Did I even say I was sure about atheism? I’ve already ran the spiritual circuit, I simply came to the conclusion that since no god of any religion fits the logic of the world and my moral structure that I wouldn’t pick any of them, and I’m not superstitious enough to believe in the need to create a god to fill the gaps in my knowledge. I think it has very little relevance on my life, and I feel that eventually science will probably figure the things out that we already haven’t. I never said that there cannot be a god, I just see no reason to invent one, and I don’t personally believe it’s very likely.

If using sources that have a certain bias to them is grounds for making one's beliefs unsuitable, then I suppose everybody should become agnostic, eh?

Close. If all sources have a bias to them, then why not just create your own beliefs separate of any other sources? Why do you need other people’s sources to tell you what to believe? Why not just live by what you feel is right and wrong and not worry about a deity? Why must you believe in a god? Why does it have to be a god invented by others? What makes their concepts of god more valid?

And yet you claim to not be biased. 'Either you entirely believe the bible, including the parts about warmongering nonsense written by scared, stupid, and supersticious people, or you entirely don't, because if supersticion is wrong, then that throws everything else you believe in into question. There CANNOT be a shade of grey!' -- That's your whole argument paraphrased. It's nonsense.

Do you know what biased means? Can you show me where I claim not to be biased on the subject of God? Did I somehow claim that I supported Christianity and I wasn’t biased against a religion that commands all of the things I stand against and has been the number one enemy of every civil rights movement in existence? So you just called the people who told you of your god stupid right? Did I not read that right? The authors, who bring you knowledge of the character of God, are stupid, scared, and superstitious. Gotcha, oh yeah makes me want to go jump on their bandwagon. There maybe a shade of gray somewhere around this topic, but it certainly doesn’t dwell within Christianity itself.

Also, there's the Urantia Book -- but I won't get into that now, you wouldn't put any weight on that argument anyway because it's not a damn Christian stereotype you get to fall back on that you assume without merid that I adhere to, isn't that right?

If you put more stock in the Urantia Book than you do the bible, why not claim to be Urantian instead? I realize that it claims it’s not it’s own religion, but really it is. It has all the makings of a religion without the actual claims to it. Just jump on that bandwagon while you’re at it, at least it doesn’t promote barriers to civil rights right? And Urantia is not Christianity, that’s why it doesn’t fit the stereotype, because it denies the teachings that are in the books that were actually created around the time periods involved.

Comparing me to a Nazi? That's mature.

A) If anything I was making the statement that the non-racist wasn’t really a Nazi and thus shouldn’t be part of Nazism, similar to you not being a bigoted homophobic intolerant murderer, and thus shouldn’t be part of Christianity. Basically in my eyes you are akin to a black Nazi. You are defending that which you hate, and that which by definition doesn’t accept you. B) Nazis were Christians, the KKK are Christian, and Neo Nazis are Christian. You defend the religion that allows these people to absorb followers. Congratulations.

'Really Christian'? You have a very, very narrowminded view of Christianity as being a blind, mindless following of one specific scripture by the word. And apparently you won't allow for any other definition of the word "Christian" than "narrow minded bible thumping Nazi" and claim I'm not a Christian because of your views.

I don’t think it was any specific scripture, but you’ll interpret however you want for the sake of pretending I’m doing whatever makes you feel better about not addressing my arguments. I stick to the common terminology of Christian because there is nowhere I have seen that allows a Christian to do what you are doing, and decide that God was someone else, decide that you can decide that verses that are three lines from verses you don’t agree with are somehow credible. Basically you act like anyone can join any sect, reshape everything the sect stands for and decide that everyone else’s definition of the sect are now invalid because they don’t agree with your interpretation. I mean if I called myself a Nazi, but I liked Jews, hated racism, liked gays, didn’t believe in God, thought Chamberlain was a nutcase, thought propaganda was dishonest and wrong, and didn’t even really like Germany. Would I really still have a right to be a Nazi? Or have I become something else, no matter what I claim? And don’t get stuck on this Nazi <-> Christian comparison thing because everything Hitler did, God has commanded at one time in the bible to someone else or even the same people generally. So get off your fucking pedestal.

Also, you have a terrible comprehension of the definition of outgroup homogeny. It means that people not within a group percieve that group as being more similar than they really are. For example, "almost all gays are promiscuous horny bastards who can't hold down a relationship" is quite often assumed by straight right-wingers.

I understand the concept, and I told you I used to be in the group. I am an ex-Christian, hence it doesn’t apply to me. And you sounded like you might be implying that I was part of another group that I see as more diverse, and I included the fact that I’m not even part of any group just in case. And I lived in a gay community in San Diego, so I also have no misconceptions about that group either.

All in all, you're saying I'm not a Christian because I do not adhere to your definitions of Christianity. Well, you know what? I don't really care about your definitions of Christianity, so this argument is pointless. Wouldn't you agree?

I don’t think you’re a Christian because you don’t adhere to any definitions of Christianity. You made your own, and if you’re going to redefine Christianity, why not just make your own religion?

I did not say a god, I said "God", "God" being the Christian God's name (ever so creatively. And yes, I'm aware that it was originally "Yaweh", but not many people know that, plus it sounds silly.)

I don’t think you acknowledge who the Christian God was; he was supposed to be the same as the Jewish YHWH. You don’t seem to think any of the traits the Jews accredited him with are true. Where would the Christians get off (Jesus himself being a Jew and a believer in YHWH) deciding that the Jews were wrong about their definition of the character of God? If they were going to say it was a different god, then why claim it was the Jewish god? If I walked into an Islamic church, declared myself a Muslim and told everyone that Allah suddenly hated everyone of Middle Eastern descent, wanted to destroy Jerusalem, and only liked white people. Would it then be the deciding factor on the character of Allah?

So the early Christian church, before having the bible as a reference for God's traits, having cast aside the pharasees' old testament based views of the nature of God, was not Christian by your account. Hooray.

Where is the proof that the early Christians cast off the Tanakh view of God? Can you show me where any Christian in the bible say, this god of war these Jews follow he isn’t really god, we’re redefining him? The Christians were preaching to the Jews, they were very careful not to cast off the Jewish descriptions of God since they were trying to sell Jesus to them as the messiah. Jesus only right to make the claims he did was in being the son of this god, and this god was very clearly defined in the minds of the people he was preaching to.

'came up with this idea'? Now you're implying it's made up.

“Now” I’m implying it’s made up? I’m a fucking atheist, what gave you the idea I thought it was anything but made up?

They made OT references, because not everything in the OT is corruption or superstition –

A much smaller portion of the Tanakh doesn’t fit into those categories. And the parts that were generally quoted by the people of Christ were the laws, and occasionally stories of past prophets, and retellings of stories from the books of history (often the source of contradictions).

yet Jesus himself tells them to not worry about parts of the old testament at some points. You take Christianity and try to staple the old testament's hateful messages to it to better fit your mindset against Christians. It just doesn't work. The OT is flawed, but has a few intact passages remaining.

Do you know what laws the Pharisees were teaching? Do you deny these events?

[Matthew 23:2 Saying] The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

Does Jesus appear to be telling people not to worry about the OT laws that the Pharisees were teaching? I mean just because he’s a hypocrite, and wouldn’t actually follow through with it when the Pharisees put him to the test, doesn’t mean that he didn’t command people to follow those laws. What were the Pharisees “bidding people to observe”? What was “Moses seat”? Did Jesus just not tell people to “observe and do” what the Pharisees were teaching them? Why would Jesus teach this if he believed as you do?

More later, I've fit as many characters and posts as I could, given the board limitations, wish we could disable those settings for this forum :P

Continuing:

There you go again with the damn bible. The bible is not a rulebook,

According to who? Who decided it wasn’t a rulebook? I think it specifically was supposed to be a rulebook, I believe the intent of the authors were to make it a rulebook, I don’t believe they put in you should probably follow these ideas, but if you don’t feel like it then good for you anywhere in it. I think by every author’s intent, by most of the Christians interpretations, certainly by the historical Jewish interpretations, it was meant to be a rulebook. And I don’t see how you have the right to change that, and assume I’m wrong because I recognize it for what it is. Damned bible huh? Interesting choice of words…

it is not ultimate. You have this terrible bias about how a Christian 'should' asked, entirely based off conservative Christian views. A case of outgroup homogeny if I ever saw one.

I established my hatred of Christianity while still part of the church; your accusations are unfounded and petty attacks to try to discredit my arguments through anything but logic.

I never said that they were all moral behaving -- just because your religion has certain beliefs doesn't mean you adhere to them.

Their separatism from the Jewish church was for a reason. I question the morals of that decision. And I was including Jesus in that group of people who were trying to bring back Tanakh law. If he didn’t believe in it and didn’t want it to go back into power, he wouldn’t have commanded people to follow it, called the Pharisees hypocrites for teaching it but not following it, or said specifically that he came not to destroy the law. And I wasn’t addressing just the morals of the group, I was addressing the morals that they were putting into scripture as well.

Your whole problem in a single sentence. "The only source of those teachings is" -- meaning that the only source of one's beliefs come from a book, meaning that you kick into your all-or-none routine.

It is the only real potential source of Christ’s teachings. Think about it. It’s the only one that was made around that period that referred to Christ. Only two historians, neither of which claimed to have met Christ, even reference Christ from around that time period. One of which was involved with the Jewish wars, and had Christian allies, and may have actually been part of the Christian church (as it was underground at this time) and even he didn’t claim any of Christ’s teachings. None of the Dead Sea Scrolls referenced Christ. None of the Jewish writings during the time period talked of him or his teachings (although later on when the Talmud was written, and Christianity had gained momentum, they decided to come back and attack his character and his teachings), the Romans; a society that was infamous for marking it’s history, down to the times people went to the bathroom in certain cases, never mentioned anyone specifically fitting the description of Christ, never mentioned any of the supposed miracles that happened with such vast audiences (that no one was witness to), etc. The only real source from around the time period (and even it came pretty far after, and after the church had been established) was the gospels. Anything else that claims to know the teachings of Christ has no actual link to the life of Christ, and thus has even less validity than the gospels. I mean if some nutball decides to reshape Christianity tomorrow by writing down his version of the revelation (that him and 10 of his friends probably made up) are you going to assume they are more legitimate than the gospels? Oh yeah, you believe in Urantia don’t you, well maybe you would.

You are NOT describing Christianity. You are describing CATHOLICISM, a DENOMINATION of Christianity.

And your most ignorant comment in this whole discussion. Catholicism includes the Apocrypha and numerous other non-canonized scriptures in the Catechism and they follow the Pope’s and other people’s words over the bible often. Most of the protestants main beef with Catholicism is how many non biblical sources they use, out of all the denominations of Christianity, only the Mormons have less adherence to the bible, and don’t get the ignorant idea I don’t know the differences between denominations, apparently you don’t.

At 8/27/03 01:05 PM, Adept_Omega wrote: Matthew 23: 23 -- "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of seasonin herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others." ~ Jesus Christ

Well now you are going to have a hard time arguing that Christ didn't teach people to follow OT law, not only did you quote a verse from the same chapter as I did, but you also quoted a verse that agreed with the premise of the verse I quoted. "Without neglecting the others", or "and not to leave the other undone" of course referring back to 23:2 and the other laws the Pharisees should focus on. Is it a problem that they are more worried about tithing than killing people? Jesus basically says they should pay more attention to following the whole of the teachings, not just the part they agree with and can easily do. Aren't you kind of arguing against yourself here?

Isn't it funny how people can forget the core message of the scriptures and simply look for small sections through which they may persecute others? How merciful is this?

Yes isn't it? Or the small sections which state that God is good and ignore the actual character of God described by the rest of the book? :)

Four, five posts in a row? For crying out loud, get a grip. There's no need to be so over-zealous. Well, nevermind that, let's start with the easiest one and work our way up.

At 8/27/03 07:57 PM, RoyBatty wrote:

At 8/27/03 01:05 PM, Adept_Omega wrote: Matthew 23: 23 -- "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of seasonin herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others." ~ Jesus Christ

Well now you are going to have a hard time arguing that Christ didn't teach people to follow OT law, not only did you quote a verse from the same chapter as I did, but you also quoted a verse that agreed with the premise of the verse I quoted. "Without neglecting the others", or "and not to leave the other undone" of course referring back to 23:2 and the other laws the Pharisees should focus on. Is it a problem that they are more worried about tithing than killing people? Jesus basically says they should pay more attention to following the whole of the teachings, not just the part they agree with and can easily do. Aren't you kind of arguing against yourself here?

First things first: I wasn't arguing from my perspective, I was arguing from my opponent's perspective.

Even so, I agree, he taught some OT perspective -- yet we see very specific and sharp cutting of the old testament as well:

Mark 15: 10-11 -- Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand! It is not what goes into your mouth that makes you ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes it unclean."

This was shortly after an argument with the pharasees about the ritualistic eating ceremonies described in the bible. It is a flagrant attack on OT conservatism.

Matthew 5: 38 -- "You have heard that it was said 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too."

"An eye for an eye" is a famous old testament quote as well.

I could cite more, but you get the idea. ... No wait, you don't. You're too narrow minded, prescribing to a single definition of "Christian" and assuming that anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus is bound to your flawed mindset.

Yes isn't it? Or the small sections which state that God is good and ignore the actual character of God described by the rest of the book? :)

The small sections being *entirely* different books written by *entirely* different authors in *entirely* different time periods.

Here, let me explain.

Let's suppose that Newton's book, Principis, formulating his three laws of motion and gravity, was only available to the public through one way -- in a book that took "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler and "Principis" by Newton* and bound them together. "Mein Kampfy Principis." -- Never mind the absurdity, this is hypothetical.

The only means through which you can find these texts is "Mein Kampfy Principis" by Issac Newton and Adolf Hitler.

Now, I'm assuming you don't support the anti-semitist views held by Adolf Hitler. And I'm assuming you believe that gravity and laws of physics exsist.

So you read "Mein Kampfy Principis" by Issac Newton and Adolf Hitler. You believe there is merit to Issac Newton's works, theories, and word. But you disagree with Adolf Hitler's view.

Two different authors. Two different scenarios, histories, eras, and mentalities. Yet by your line of reasoning, refusing to believe anti-semitist views found in one part of the book but believing the three laws of gravity would be incorrect, selective reading. "Mein Kampfy Principis" is the only means you came about knowing of the laws of gravity! If one part isn't true, it throws all the content into question. You must believe either A or B.

Yes, you could use your own forms of reasoning, but those would all stem from your exposure to Mein Kampfy Principis. Ultimately, that is the source of your beliefs, and you must believe it all or believe none of it. It is the foundation of your beliefs, and you cannot be considered as a believer of the laws of gravity because you don't accept anti-semitism.

-- What's that? That argument is insane? Of course it is -- and it's the exact same argument you're passing off. Replace "Newton" with "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", "John", or "Jesus" and "Hitler" with a variety of supersticious old guys with beards, "laws of gravity" with "the concept of a loving God" and anti-semitism with "the concept of a psychotic, warmongering God", and the same scenario.

*Principis or "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" was published in 1687 and is one of the most influential books ever published. In it, Newton formulated his three laws of motion and his law of gravity.

At 8/27/03 05:32 PM, RoyBatty wrote:
Some people view religion with a fascination and keep their eyes open, and their minds sharp. They can look over a religious text and note the discrepancies therein, and they could also point out the things that have merit, then some people can choose to leave their bias out, and others can come to conclusions that were so far against their bias they can no longer be biased.

I'm aware of discrepancies within religious texts. Had the bible been written entirely by one author, in one time period, one era, I'd certainly think it was absurd. Yet the bible is merely a collection of many different people's religious texts. I could take multiple texts from any subject and bind them together in a book, and there would be a very, very high chance there would be contradiction within that book. Whether it be about science, the economy, or religion, it doens't matter -- multiple authors contradict each other, and hold different views, claim to see different things or have different interpretation. The bible is just the same -- it's a collection of books from religious thinkers. Just because the bible is the book that introduced me to the subject doesn't mean I have to listen to every author that happened to be thrown into the mix.

:So then I went on to other religions that didn’t believe in the bible, and basically went through a whole horde of different religions before I settled with the thought that I really didn’t need a religion.

Certainly, it's not needed, and it shouldn't dominate one's life, I agree. That doesn't mean I'm going to cast aside my beliefs because they aren't completely necessary per see, so the implication (but not direct statement) made by your story is pointless.

What sources? I don’t have any sources for my atheism; I adopted the term long after I adopted the mindset.

You are your own source. Through one way or another, the concept of atheism being true came into your mind, even if by your own reasoning. In that case, self-reasoning is the source of your beliefs.

:I’m not superstitious enough to believe in the need to create a god to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

So now everybody who believes in an intelligence beyond the bounds of our finite universe is superstitious?

Close. If all sources have a bias to them, then why not just create your own beliefs separate of any other sources? Why do you need other people’s sources to tell you what to believe? Why not just live by what you feel is right and wrong and not worry about a deity?

This is essentially what I do -- you must not percieve how I think. Other people's sources can certainly be a strong influencer -- if you close yourself from all other people's sources, then you become close minded. I don't think of religious texts as a 'rulebook' so much as a 'guide' -- I've explained this before, so 'using other people's sources to tell you how to live' is a flawed statement. 'Finding merit in them and adopting a number of their beliefs' is more accurate. There is no objective law to follow, and there are always exceptions. All my religion-based arguments I adopt I make sure I can agree to outside of a religious context -- hence, I'm not a homophobe, sexist, etc. But just because I don't believe every word of a multi-author, extremely diverse book covering many completely different scenarios and eras doesn't mean I don't follow the teachings of Jesus.

Why must you believe in a god? Why does it have to be a god invented by others? What makes their concepts of god more valid?

Why must you believe there is no god? What makes the concepts presented in the bible less valid? Because the apocalyptic literature and old testament is written by paranoid old guys?

End of part 1

:Did I somehow claim that I supported Christianity and I wasn’t biased against a religion that commands all of the things I stand against and has been the number one enemy of every civil rights movement in existence?

Biological psychology has quickly become an enemy of feminism, and has encouraged assumptuous views of homosexuals and minorities. Are you an opponent of that too? How about Skinnarian psychology, which is strongly held by opponents of equal rights for homosexuals? Are you saying there is no merit in anything that doesn't adhere to your beliefs 100%, and I should be using the same mentality?

:So you just called the people who told you of your god stupid right? Did I not read that right? The authors, who bring you knowledge of the character of God, are stupid, scared, and superstitious. Gotcha, oh yeah makes me want to go jump on their bandwagon.

You refer to them as being very homogenious. This is definitely not the case. I was referring to the extremists who got thrown in the book with the intelligent ones. Apocalyptic literature, old testament ramblings, etc.

There maybe a shade of gray somewhere around this topic, but it certainly doesn’t dwell within Christianity itself.

So you admit, you can't see religion as anything but a black and white issue.

If you put more stock in the Urantia Book than you do the bible, why not claim to be Urantian instead? I realize that it claims it’s not it’s own religion, but really it is. It has all the makings of a religion without the actual claims to it. Just jump on that bandwagon while you’re at it, at least it doesn’t promote barriers to civil rights right? And Urantia is not Christianity, that’s why it doesn’t fit the stereotype, because it denies the teachings that are in the books that were actually created around the time periods involved.

I take it you haven't read the Urantia Book.

The Urantia Book speaks very much about Jesus and his life -- and Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus. If I put all my weight on the old testament you keep referring to, I might as well be Jewish -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy together made up the Torah, and has many references to the 'warmongering God' you describe. Christianity puts its weight on the New Testament, specifically the teachings of Jesus.

How is it contradictory to believe in Jesus while finding both books to have credibilities, both books speaking of Jesus as a person.

B) Nazis were Christians, the KKK are Christian, and Neo Nazis are Christian. You defend the religion that allows these people to absorb followers. Congratulations.

Of course there are always extremists. There are crazed militants for almost every category, to suggest that religion would be exempt from that is sheer madness. Atheists have their share of screwed up people too, should I say you support all those messed up people by supporting Atheism? Jeffery Dohmer was gay, but I don't yet at people for defending homosexuality, no more than I could use Timothy McVeigh as a reason to fight heterosexuality. You can't look at psycho, messed up sects and then use that as a rational to criminalize people who prescribe to the branch of beliefs they originated from.

End of part 2

Four, five posts in a row? For crying out loud, get a grip. There's no need to be so over-zealous. Well, nevermind that, let's start with the easiest one and work our way up.

Uhh, I hate to break this to you but this is a debate right? Debates are best done on a point by point basis, I’m simply continuing the debate on the most efficient basis. How are you any less zealous when you continue debating with me? And I haven’t been any more forceful than you have, I’m just not conceding the debate when you haven’t refuted any of my points. I don’t see that as over-zealous, I see that as debating.

Even so, I agree, he taught some OT perspective -- yet we see very specific and sharp cutting of the old testament as well:

He taught the OT perspective completely, he just did it subtly and contradicted himself. In 23:2 he just had stated that “Whatsoever” they bid you observe (the Pharisees), that “observe and DO”. “Whatsoever” is an all-encompassing term. It doesn’t mean just listen to the elements of the law you choose to, it means that whatever they are telling you to do, do it, but don’t follow after their actions, because they don’t practice what they preach. Do you deny that “whatsoever they (The Pharisees) bid you observe” referred to the Tanakh laws? Just look at any reference to the Pharisees in the gospels, they constantly quoted from the law, it becomes very apparent what they were bidding people to observe even if you didn’t know who the Pharisees were.

This was shortly after an argument with the pharasees about the ritualistic eating ceremonies described in the bible. It is a flagrant attack on OT conservatism.

And you don’t find this the slightest bit hypocritical? 1) Christ tells the people to follow the laws (the Pharisees did sit in Moses’ seat after all) that the Pharisees were teaching. 2) The Pharisees were teaching people to follow the dietary laws (and many others, but we’ll just address this point for now) 3) Christ claims they Pharisees are hypocrites because they don’t practice what they preach. 4) Christ in 23:2 preached that you should follow these laws 5) When faced with actually practicing what he preaches, he makes an excuse and attacks the law even though it was meant as a commandment from his “father”. How is it not hypocritical to tell people to do something, then not do it yourself? Isn’t this specifically what he was attacking the Pharisees for?

"An eye for an eye" is a famous old testament quote as well.

I think the idea of “eye for an eye” predates the Tanakh. Especially considering the laws of the Tanakh didn’t support the idea. The concept of “eye for an eye” was that the people who did the crime would suffer a similar fate. Rapists would be raped, murderers killed, etc. This would leave most of the crimes in the Tanakh (which didn’t harm anyone) without a punishment. And there wouldn’t be a death penalty for everything. Plus if you look at God’s personal ideas on punishments, they certainly don’t reflect an eye for an eye. Like for instance having a bear eat 42 children for calling a prophet bald. I don’t exactly see “eye for an eye” as a Tanakh belief, and I certainly don’t consider it a Tanakh quote.

I could cite more, but you get the idea. ... No wait, you don't. You're too narrow minded, prescribing to a single definition of "Christian" and assuming that anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus is bound to your flawed mindset.

Oh I always have known about these scriptures, they are the ones you apologetics cling to remember. I just don’t think they say anything more than “hey I’m a hypocrite, I tell people to do something, but I don’t actually do it.” I just want you to ask yourself why he commanded people to follow the laws the Pharisees were teaching in the first place. And what moral implications are there for supporting the OT law during a time of peace and prosperity under Roman rule. (This was before the religious oppression that resulted from the Jewish/Christian attack on the Roman garrison). I don’t really see how you have a problem with my definition of Christian anyway, since you profess to follow the teachings of Christ. Do you or do you not follow the teachings of Christ?

The small sections being *entirely* different books written by *entirely* different authors in *entirely* different time periods.

Nice thought, however I was referring to discrepancies within chapters. Since you’re not a fundie I wouldn’t bother with trying to hold you to the entire canon. I’m talking about individual authors and how they each have contradictions within their own works.

Here, let me explain.

No need, but too late now.

Let's suppose that Newton's book, Principis, formulating his three laws of motion and gravity, was only available to the public through one way -- in a book that took "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler and "Principis" by Newton* and bound them together. "Mein Kampfy Principis." -- Never mind the absurdity, this is hypothetical.

Well this wasn’t at all arguing against my point that every author in the bible lacks credibility in my eyes (and I wasn’t totally obvious about it, so I’ll forgive you), but since you brought it up, we’ll roll with it, since it demonstrates my point a lot more than it demonstrates yours. Now say this book “Mein Kampfy Principis”, happened to be the official book of the Nazi party. Say it also had other writings by prominent members of the Nazi party. Goebbels had a section on how people should think and clear their thoughts for the party, it included Chamberlain’s teachings on how the Jews were pretenders to the Kingdom of Israel, It included Luther’s the Jews and their Lies, a history of the German people (that included Prussian history and the history of the First and Second Reich), and it included another book written by Goebbels that described Hitler as a kind and caring person who was out to save the human race. It borrowed a bunch of cliché timeless phrases for daily life, like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, and “Hitler loves you”. And it of course included Newton’s writings as well. Now also take into consideration that logical people already commonly stated all the nice cliché phrases that taught people to be kind to each other across the globe under the fundamental premise of “don’t be a fucking dick”. Then take into consideration that although they didn’t have Newton’s name on them, his laws were discovered and printed elsewhere (although this is giving you a benefit of the doubt since there is nothing in the bible that wasn’t printed elsewhere first, at least from a factual scientific view). And Newton’s own books are full of flaws in logic, and contradict themselves heavily, as well as contradicting theories in Goebbels and other MKP author’s works, and in Newton’s book, he commands people (the people who trust him because he got the laws of gravity down right (even though if he’s the Jesus figure, everything he did right was done before him as well, the only thing that separated Jesus from the pack was his claim to deification)) to follow the laws laid down by Hitler.

Now also take into consideration the entirety of this work. And what it represents. Now in this work, Newton would be the Jesus figure, and Hitler would be the YHWH figure in MKP, with Newton telling people to follow the teachings of Hitler, but not actually doing them himself, because apparently he’s a hypocrite. Now Hitler commands genocide (akin to Deuteronomy 20:16), he also commands you to murder gays (akin to Leviticus 20:13), he commands you to murder those of other religions (akin to Deuteronomy 17:3-5), he tells you to murder gypsies because they are wizards (akin to Exodus 22:18), he says if anyone else tries to corrupt you into following any other doctrines, no matter how close of family they are, you should kill them (akin to Deuteronomy 13: 6-9), of course I’m not stretching much am I, since those were actually Nazi doctrines. And then on the flip side we have the propaganda by Goebbels that was built to draw people into the party, with verses about how great Hitler was, and how his doctrines will make people happy, etc. And you have Newton saying somewhat credible things, but supporting the teachings of Hitler. Now to make this analogy complete, we have Newton as the actual founder of the Neo-Nazi movement, since he introduces new interest in Hitler’s views, and supports him, and wants people to join the Neo-Nazi party, and preach it across the land. Now you (akin to yourself) decide that you like Newton, he seems like a nice guy, and generally he tells people to be nice to each other, and he seems to agree with that nice Goebbels gent on basic kindness between people. So you decide that you want to be a Nazi. Now you have allied yourself with a document that calls for your death, and a party that hates you, but you defend it to the bitter end, standing by Newton, and never once wondering why Newton decided to back someone as evil as Hitler. So should you be calling yourself a Nazi? Should you ally yourself with this group? Should you hold Newton in such high esteem when he backs up the teachings of Hitler? What kind of person would Newton have to be to teach people to follow Hitler’s teachings? If there are individual elements that you agree with, then wouldn’t you agree with them outside of the party? Can’t you just hold onto those individual elements (gravity/physics) without actually calling yourself a Nazi and making the Nazi party stronger?

I'm aware of discrepancies within religious texts. Had the bible been written entirely by one author, in one time period, one era, I'd certainly think it was absurd. Yet the bible is merely a collection of many different people's religious texts. I could take multiple texts from any subject and bind them together in a book, and there would be a very, very high chance there would be contradiction within that book.

Would you tell people to live by this book of contradictions? Knowing full well that it could be misleading and contradictory after all the compilation errors? If you were god, would you let this book represent you?

Whether it be about science, the economy, or religion, it doesn’t matter -- multiple authors contradict each other, and hold different views, claim to see different things or have different interpretation. The bible is just the same -- it's a collection of books from religious thinkers. Just because the bible is the book that introduced me to the subject doesn't mean I have to listen to every author that happened to be thrown into the mix.

Oddly enough, you should check out some anthologies (like the Thieves World books), the entirely un-divinely inspired authors happen to make a whole horde of books with no contradictions that change the interpretation of anything, and to my knowledge none that I’ve seen whatsoever, and I’ve read them a few times. But I do agree for the most part, I just think this would obviously make this a poor way for God to get his message to people, and no deity with a brain would allow this to be his representation to people he really cared about.

Certainly, it's not needed, and it shouldn't dominate one's life, I agree. That doesn't mean I'm going to cast aside my beliefs because they aren't completely necessary per see, so the implication (but not direct statement) made by your story is pointless.

The story was on the development of my own views on religion, which you questioned. The story wasn’t pointless, or if it were, then you’re asking about my atheism was as well. Perhaps you should take a look at what my statements were in context to before deciding they are inapplicable and out of order.

You are your own source. Through one way or another, the concept of atheism being true came into your mind, even if by your own reasoning. In that case, self-reasoning is the source of your beliefs.

Again you should really take a look at the context that I was responding to. I was talking about multiple sources that you were drawing information from, and then told me that my sources (plural) were biased as well, when in fact I had no external sources, and since I was searching for answers my internal source couldn’t have been biased. If it were, I would have started out as an atheist, and not bothered with the other religions. So again the above story had relevance. I wasn’t biased when I came to that conclusion, I was searching for honest answers. So my single source was not biased.

So now everybody who believes in an intelligence beyond the bounds of our finite universe is superstitious?

A) who claimed the universe was finite? We don’t know, and I don’t recall anyone claiming it was, certainly not me. I have no idea how far it spans. B) The alleged “intelligence” is certainly debatable. C) the creation of gods was in attempt to fill the gaps for things we don’t understand. If you study the history of religion, it becomes very apparent what the causation of deity creation was. Take a look at mythology; every religion is full of signs of how they came to the logic that those things that were outside their scope of understanding had to come from some higher power. For instance Zeus was the excuse for lightning bolts, the sun moved because it was Apollo’s chariot, etc. Even in the bible, the moon was considered to have it’s own light, and Heaven was the dome that covered the earth, with water above it and below it which gave it the blue tint, the Sun, moon, and stars were fastened to Heaven to hold them up in the sky, etc. YHWH created us, Eve was created from Adam’s rib (because you know God couldn’t make her from scratch), snakes crawled on the ground because they were cursed by god in the garden for showing Eve the apple, etc. If you think these are not the works of ignorant, fearful, people who had a false sense of causation, you need to take a step back into reality. They are the very epitome of superstitious. And they passed this superstition on to their children through fear, who passed it on through fear, who continued to pass it on through fear. This same god was passed on all the way to the time of Jesus, and then Jesus used this same god of fear and war, to gain power and credibility for himself. Whether he believed in what he was teaching is up to conjecture, as is his existence, but regardless, the invention of the deity was through superstition.

This is essentially what I do -- you must not percieve how I think. Other people's sources can certainly be a strong influencer -- if you close yourself from all other people's sources, then you become close minded.

Then why don’t you stop labeling yourself as a practitioner of Christianity?

I don't think of religious texts as a 'rulebook' so much as a 'guide'

Then are you respecting the wishes of the authors?

-- I've explained this before, so 'using other people's sources to tell you how to live' is a flawed statement. 'Finding merit in them and adopting a number of their beliefs' is more accurate. There is no objective law to follow, and there are always exceptions. All my religion-based arguments I adopt I make sure I can agree to outside of a religious context -- hence, I'm not a homophobe, sexist, etc. But just because I don't believe every word of a multi-author, extremely diverse book covering many completely different scenarios and eras doesn't mean I don't follow the teachings of Jesus.

Can you give me a list of books in the bible whose authors you do find credible, and whose writings you do believe. We already have the author of Matthew, who else?

Why must you believe there is no god? What makes the concepts presented in the bible less valid? Because the apocalyptic literature and old testament is written by paranoid old guys?

Because the concepts in the bible are full of hatred, bigotry, contradictions, and superstition, that’s why. And there is plenty of apocalyptic scripture in the NT as well, let’s not forget it wasn’t the Tanakh writers that created the concept of the lake of fire.

Biological psychology has quickly become an enemy of feminism, and has encouraged assumptuous views of homosexuals and minorities. Are you an opponent of that too?

Depends on the particular scientist. Many of the people who are involved in inherent psych tend to be biased before their research even begins, many of them make conclusions before they really even get to that stage. If they set out to prove that homosexuality is unnatural, they will find it. I don’t find this to be a credible source, for any of these people to be credible I have to study their research techniques and how they came to these conclusions. And you’ll find that those particular scientists who are impeding these civil rights movements have ulterior motives, most of them are probably Christians, and some are even funded by Christian sponsors.

How about Skinnarian psychology, which is strongly held by opponents of equal rights for homosexuals? Are you saying there is no merit in anything that doesn't adhere to your beliefs 100%, and I should be using the same mentality?

Skinner happens to some views (not many) that coincide with my own, but you don’t see me claiming to be Skinnerian do you? I have my own beliefs, he happens to agree with some, and not with others. If we agreed exactly, I would describe myself as Skinnerian, but since I don’t, I wouldn’t use his beliefs to label myself. Should you label yourself with Christianity if you don’t believe in the entirety of what you know of Christ’s beliefs? To be honest there are very few psychologists who I agree very much with.

You refer to them as being very homogenious. This is definitely not the case. I was referring to the extremists who got thrown in the book with the intelligent ones. Apocalyptic literature, old testament ramblings, etc.

Who came first, the apocalyptic pre-Nazis or the people who borrowed their god? Although, I don’t believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, let’s pretend he did. Do you believe that he falls into this category? Do you believe the authors of the first five books of the bible are full of OT ramblings? These are the people who defined god, created the concept, set the foundation for the teachings, and spread it to other people. Without these people, the words YHWH would never have even reached Jerusalem, and there probably would be no Christ, and he certainly wouldn’t have a savior profile to fit into. So I ask you, do you find the authors of the first five books of the bible to be credible? If no, why not, if so, which ones?

So you admit, you can't see religion as anything but a black and white issue.

Are you saying Christianity is the only religion on the planet? You say I speak in black and white?

I take it you haven't read the Urantia Book.

Ooh another profound statement from the person who has mis-assumed half of this debate.

The Urantia Book speaks very much about Jesus and his life

Yes it certainly does. Isn’t that convenient? Even with a special bonus feature on the parts the gospels didn’t cover, like the parts of his life where Michael, err I mean Jesus hadn’t been recorded previously, and these aliens suddenly thought it was important to bring this up now right? And of course it had so much more relevance to the English speaking, American authors than the Jews or the people of God, or the people who were descended from the disciples, etc. right? And isn’t it also odd that the authors, err I mean observers happen to be disenfranchised members of the SDA who were disappointed when the SDA plans initially went to shit? Isn’t it funny how Sadler just happened to be an expert on how to spot cults, and what elements were and were not easily discredited in cult studies? Isn’t it odd how he happened to be involved with refuting other cults for doing the exact same thing as his group did? Oh yeah, but he claims it didn’t happen that way, that’s right. And we’re supposed to just take his word for it that the aliens wrote the book, no human hand had any influence on writing or contriving the book right? Oh yeah, and it’s science is outdated because they can’t reveal anything too scientific to us, because although they can attempt to tell us of the history of mankind, the future of mankind, the idea of science would just blow our fragile little minds right? Yeah isn’t that convenient? Isn’t that kind of a disclaimer that seems like it comes from someone who has seen a lot of other cults get called on their shit? But this is credible huh, ok gotcha.

-- and Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus.

Was it, I thought you didn’t like that definition. What were the teachings of Jesus? What were the sources? Oh yeah you didn’t answer this question the first time I asked it huh. Well we’ll get to this when you tell me which books of the bible you find credible k.

If I put all my weight on the old testament you keep referring to, I might as well be Jewish -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy together made up the Torah, and has many references to the 'warmongering God' you describe. Christianity puts its weight on the New Testament, specifically the teachings of Jesus.

Christianity is an add on for the OT, it’s not a replacement. The Tanakh is the foundation of Christianity, without it (and it’s god) Christianity has no leg to stand on. And anyone who knows anything about engineering will tell you what happens if you put your weight anywhere but on your foundation. So yes, Christianity must put it’s weight on the OT, otherwise it’s meaningless, and it loses the entire point of it’s creation.

How is it contradictory to believe in Jesus while finding both books to have credibilities, both books speaking of Jesus as a person.

If you find the Urantia book to be credible, you are even more superstitious than I previously believed. And the book of Urantia contradicts numerous stories in the gospels (although granted they contradict each other as well) as well. And don’t you find it odd that if this shit was so important, and it all happened for the gospel writers to know about, that they happened to leave out such enormous gaps in their letters? Like the things that just happened to be more important in a lot of cases, and sometimes more memorable. Why weren’t these included in the gospels? Well I agree some of them were written about previously and plagiarized by the Urantia book, but a lot of those weren’t canonized for a reason. I just don’t see how you see this alleged work of aliens as somehow credible despite the fact that other than talking about some of the same things it has no real link to Christ or his disciples.

Of course there are always extremists.

The difference between these extremists and other extremists are that they have valid excuses. They follow the doctrines and the scriptures. If an atheist was killing Christians, he wouldn’t have any scriptures to quote, he wouldn’t have any excuses. But extremist Christians can just say they were following the laws of the “higher authority”. Doesn’t that make you ask yourself what am I part of that would excuse the actions of such extremists?

There are crazed militants for almost every category, to suggest that religion would be exempt from that is sheer madness.

Yet none compares to the amount of murderous religious zealots. Nobody has more crazies than religion, because no other group gives their craziness legitimacy. When you kill someone in the name of atheism, you can’t quote a scripture, you kill someone for paganism, who do you quote? Who justifies your craziness? Even stringent nationalists almost always back up their Nationalism with a religious craziness (Bush, Hitler), etc. And don’t feed me the Stalin spiel, anyone who knows anything about Stalin would realize he wasn’t an atheist, he thought he was fucking God. He only attacked organized religion because it had attacked him first. It stood in the way of his own megalomania. And he is still a very remote case.