Atheism has no dogma or doctrinal teachings, so beyond the lack of belief in a deity an atheist may believe or disbelieve literally anything. Thus what one one atheist does has no bearing on atheism.
Christianity has long established dogma of antisemitism over centuries, and that is the context under which the Holocaust was perpetrated in a central European country that was almost entirely Christian at the time and had been for centuries, in a continent that was itself majority christian for centuries.
How long are you going to ignore my point that being a christian was a requirement for the German SS, who of course ran the extermination camps?
Or the point about a 1939 census showing over 94% of Germans were Christians?
Each time you repeat this point and ignore these facts reinforces how dishonestly you're approaching the topic, to satisfy your own bias against legitimate criticisms of christianity.
Then there is the bible depicting a deity that performs and encourages its followers to commit, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and sex trafficking women and girls. And of course the bible, and even Jesus's endorsements of slavery?
You can pretend it's me you have a problem with Jo, but do you really think we can't all see you're dishonestly evading questions you don't like.
I'm sick of your relentless dishonesty here Jo, and dodge me all you want, but I seriously doubt I am alone in noticing.
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@Sheldon----- But But But But But But - (The outboard motor on Noah's Ark) I thought antisemitism ended with the new covenant. You know, when Jesus said.... umm.......errr...... uh........ "He loved the Jews, just like his father!"
I have been following the conversation Sheldon, and this, sadly, is another typical theist behavior, of noticing the hits and ignoring the misses. Jo sincerely believes that being a christian equates to being a moral and nice person. And since Jo is 1) heavily invested in being a theist, and 2) not willing to deal with the cognitive dissonance of dealing with the fact that some christians have knowingly done extreme horrors, up comes the wall of denial.
He does not want to acknowledge the truth.
@ David Killens
I have not done what I am being accused of.
These are just accusations with NO evidence presented.
I will be perfectly clear.
Being a Christian does NOT equate with being a moral and nice person.
Some Christians and some Christian groups, Churches, etc., HAVE done extreme horrors.
History IS replete with Christians doing extreme horrors.
I do NOT deny this, in fact I confirm it, and can corroborate it.
I have personally known Christians who have done horrible things.
Did I state it strongly enough?
Did I leave anything out?
Do you acknowledge that many NAZIS were also christians?
@ David Killens
YES
Thank you.
@Jo
On more than one occasion you have told us that Nazism/antisemitism and Christianity are mutually exclusive; which seems to contradict what you just told David Killens.
@ Nyarlathotep
When I said that I was trying to point out the differences between Nazism and Christianity (specifically the Bible).
Maybe I should have said the principles in the Bible and Nazism are mutually exclusive, or something like that.
Can someone love your neighbor as yourself while you are murdering them.
Can someone believe we are all created in the image of God while simultaneously believing some are untermensch.
How can someone love Christ, a Jew, while hating all Jews?
The original reason this came up was to address the guilt by association fallacy.
I was never trying to say that all Christian are good and all Atheists are bad.
Did anyone actually think that I believed that in 2,000 years of Christianity, and millions of Christians, that none of them ever did anything wrong?
I hope everyone is sitting down for my next statement.
I have not only been wrong, but done wrong.
Unfortunately we don't have access to what you should have written, we only have access to what you actually write. So when you REPEATEDLY tell us A is true, then turn around and tell us A is not true; you are inviting accusations of dishonesty. Perhaps these accusations aren't accurate and you are just making mistakes; but each time you contradict yourself, you are pouring gasoline on that fire. And you've done this many times already.
@Jo Re: "I hope everyone is sitting down for my next statement. I have not only been wrong, but done wrong."
...*dubious look*... Aaaaaaaand you want a cookie or something for admitting that? Oh, hey! Better yet, why don't we all throw you a party?... *contemplative look*.... Nah. Maybe just a cookie will suffice.... Well, that is, if Cog hasn't eaten them all already. He's such a damn glutton when it comes to cookies... *checking snack cabinet*... *shaking head in disgust*.... Uh-huh, just as I thought. Sorry, Jo, no cookies... *shrugging shoulders*...
Thing is, how does doing wrong and being wrong make you any different from ANYBODY ELSE WHO HAS EVER LIVED ON THIS PLANET? Also, you made that statement as if we were all suppose to be in some sort of surprised shock at your revelation. Fact is, I have been wrong more times than I can even begin to count during my life. Sometimes severely so. And I have also done some truly horrible things. Granted, some of those things may have been honest mistakes, or maybe were done unintentionally out of ignorance or a lapse in rational thinking. But there have been a few things that I did with absolute purpose and intent knowing full well exactly what I was doing was wrong. Thankfully, many/most of those things I was able to make amends for in some form or fashion. Unfortunately, there are a few actions I took that I will never be able to make right with the subject(s) of those actions. In those cases, the best I can hope to do is maybe make up for my behavior in other areas of my life, avoid doing similar harmful things in the future, and by doing all I can to help others when able.
Here's the thing, though... With me, I am the one responsible for my actions. I am the one who has to live with the consequences of those actions bearing on my conscious. I am the one who has to learn the lesson from those actions and do my best to never repeat them. I AM THE ONE WHO IS TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY IN EVERY WAY, SHAPE, AND FORM ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERYTHING I DO AND EVERY DECISION I MAKE. On the other hand, you (along with countless other Christians across the globe) always have a scapegoat and a way to purge your conscious of guilt. I literally physically cringe any time I ever hear somebody say something to the effect of, "That poor boy! Bless his heart. He has always been such a wonderful faithful Christian. It couldn't have been his fault he robbed that bank and killed that security guard. Satan must have led him down the wrong path. We'll just pray that the Lord will give him strength to make it through the court hearing and for the judge to have mercy on him." Oh, but it gets worse! According to your bible/god and to the Christianity I was taught, all that "poor young man" has to do is pray to your god and ask forgiveness, and he is then totally absolved of any wrong-doing. Even if he goes to prison for the robbery and murder, his god says he is as innocent as a newborn baby, and his conscious should be clear as a bell. Plus, that "poor young man" gets his reservation in heaven confirmed. Meanwhile, maybe that security guard he killed was an upstanding citizen doing honest work trying to support his family and had never committed any crimes in his life. But he was an atheist, meaning (according to your bible/god) that security guard bought an express ticket to hell to be punished forever. Sure.... Sounds like a totally fair deal!... *rolling eyes*...
Bottom line is, for the most part, Christians always have a way to justify their actions as either being done "in the name of their Lord", in which case their conscious is clear and they feel justified in committing those actions. OR, they have a scapegoat (Satan) to blame for actions they do not want to take responsibility for doing. THEN they get to ask their god to forgive them so that their conscious can be clear again. Either way, there is no incentive for NOT doing wrong. That's a fairly screwed up system if you ask me. Interestingly enough, this is actually something I realized when I was just a little kid. Back then, though, I just did not have the education or the life experiences to be able to totally understand it or properly articulate it.
So, you've done some wrong in your life. Congratulations. Welcome to the human race. It's okay, though, because all you have to do is pray to your god to forgive you (NO MATTER HOW TERRIBLE YOU HAVE BEEN), and your slate will be wiped clean. "Once baptized, always saved," is what I was taught. So, basically, you have a free ticket to do whatever horrible things you ever want to do, and your precious and loving Sky Daddy will make it alllll go away. Meanwhile, those of us who do not believe in all that nonsense will continue to be adults and hold ourselves accountable/responsible for our own actions and conduct within society. Personally, I do not need the promise of a paradise to bribe me, nor the threat of hell to terrorize me, into doing what I believe to be the right thing. But - hey- whatever floats your boat, dude. To each his own.
@ Tin-Man
"how does doing wrong and being wrong make you any different from ANYBODY ELSE WHO HAS EVER LIVED ON THIS PLANET?"
That was my point. It was a sarcastic response.
I was responding to the statement that "Jo sincerely believes that being a christian equates to being a moral and nice person."
I also "I AM THE ONE WHO IS TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY IN EVERY WAY, SHAPE, AND FORM ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERYTHING I DO AND EVERY DECISION I MAKE."
"Bottom line is, for the most part, Christians always have a way to justify their actions as either being done "in the name of their Lord", in which case their conscious is clear and they feel justified in committing those actions. OR, they have a scapegoat (Satan) to blame for actions they do not want to take responsibility for doing. THEN they get to ask their god to forgive them so that their conscious can be clear again."
Yes, but that is not how it works. Do you think God is mocked? That as a man sows, he does not reap?
Would God not see through the sinning, asking for forgiveness, just so he can go sin again?
"Once baptized, always saved," is what I was taught. So, basically, you have a free ticket to do whatever horrible things you ever want to do, and your precious and loving Sky Daddy will make it alllll go away."
Yes, some teach that, but it is not in the Bible. No free tickets.
@Jo
"I hope everyone is sitting down for my next statement.
I have not only been wrong, but done wrong."
I commend you on an admirable act Jo, but it is nothing special or worth taking note. Admitting to making a mess is admirable, but cleaning up the mess is what matters.
To claim Nazism and Christianity are incompatible is a no true Scotsman fallacy; the notion of not a real or true Christian is implied. Who gets to decide who is and who is not a a 'real' or 'true' Christian? You? Up to the seventeenth century people tried to solve that question by killing anyone who disagreed with them .
Even today many sects hurl the insult of 'not a real Christian" at each other. Mercifully, they are no longer allowed to burn people alive. There is no doubt in my mind that some would if they could.
Being a christian is a matter of belief not action . Some Protestant sects teach that salvation is gained through faith alone.
A person is a Christian if they believe the tenets of The Nicene Creed (original version, 325 c e)
If that person then ignores the commandments and goes around murdering anyone, he is a bad Christian ,but a Christian still.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
No True Scotsman fallacy:
"No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample.[1][2] Rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group).[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
@ Jo
The truth stings does it not? The evidence is in every single one of your posts. If you insist I shall go back through them and pick just one example of everything I have accused you of doing.
Understand me Jo, every single thing I wrote about you is verifiable.
We have debated long enough now that you know I am not to be trifled with.
Nyar is famous for text comparisons and I have no doubt if I miss any he will supply the deficit.
Jo, you have acted in bad faith since your first post.
You have made no attempt to learn but return time after time, not with fresh questions but the same erroneous claptrap cloaked in new words.
That's not true, read my post, you have repeatably claimed to have logical reasons to believe a deity exists, you have never once addressed the fact that you have repeatedly used known logical fallacies.
When asked to reference ten beliefs you hold without any objective evidence, and that form no part of your religious beliefs you couldn't cite even one, thus your bias in insisting your theism doesn't require objective evidence is manifest.
You claimed Nazis can't be not Christians, and then refused to address the fact that 94% of Germany was christian during the Nazi era, and that it was a requirement to be a christian in order to join the German SS, who ran the death camps.
You claimed the bible didn't condone or endorse the Holocaust because it doesn't mention antisemitism, yet the bible and the deity in it quite specifically endorse genocide, and encourage its followers to commit acts of ethnic cleansing, and the bible repeatedly endorses slavery, so why would the Nazis as christians not think slave labour was perfectly moral.
Oh Lol
We all can read Jo's attempts at justifying his untenable positions;
He has espoused and condoned genocide rape and murder
He has supported biblical racism by saying it just doesn't exist
He has failed to logic his god into existence
He has failed to historicise his magical saviour into existence
Jo has misled, been mendacious and ignored facts that jibe with his presented beliefs. He has misrepresented and cherry picked quotes from authors to present beliefs that they do not espouse. Many of his posts has misquoted or misrepresented an atheist poster from this site. Both Sheldon and myself have remonstrated with him on this obviously dishonest, repeated, ploy he uses.
When Jo first came he purported to be a seeker of truth, a humble person who wanted to "live in truth". We have discovered that that is not the case, Jo is committed to mendacity and is a stranger to truth, facts or reason.
It is no surprise that he ignores questions to which he has no rational response (which is most of them) a form of dishonesty in which he excels.
Jo also subscribes to 'Biblical Hermeneutics" a form of mental gymnastics that involves cherry picking various extracts from the bible texts (however far removed from context or timeline) to justify a presupposition held by the debater. That it is a vacuous and dishonest practice is therefore not a surprise when we see the calibre of the practitioners.
Apologetics is another form of dishonesty in which our Jo excels. He uses it to condone all the horrendous crimes of his god as described in the biblical texts, when not condoning them he claims the crime did not exist as the victims were deserving of their fate. When this attitude was likened to the exact same attitudes demonstrated by the guards at various concentration camps in the Second War he threw a hissy fit and cried crocodile tears.
This alone shows he has no conscience, never mind an ability to differentiate truth from lies, when it comes to justifying his delusions.
That Jo has persisted on this site shows his persistence in his delusions, I think he should be applauded and given a medal as "a friend of atheism" as I am sure many lurkers in the shadows of these forums would be swayed away from Jo's form of 'faith' if they have an ounce of empathy, compassion and intelligence.
Thank you Jo, keep up the good work.
(Edit for an exaggeration)
@Old man shouts ... Wow! One of the longest posts you have written and such an excellent evaluation of Jo's underhanded skills and lying tactics. I wonder why one comes onto an atheist site just to lie, make excuses, obscure facts, avoid evidence, and basically engage in bullshit while never conceding points that are backed by facts and logic. Are these people so ignorant to reason and logic that they actually believe their inane assertions carry weight in the face of contradictory evidence? I, for one, do not think they are that stupid. I think they are just trolling and trying to get an emotional response so they can pretend "Gotcha!" It is not about participating in a debate. It is all about pulling your strings.
@ Cog
It is also about theists going back to their congregation and bragging about how many atheists they "stopped in their tracks" or in some of the more radical handlers of truth they brag that they have converted at least two or three.....in no case do they admit that their braggadocio is just that.
It is easy to lie when no one will pick you up on it...and then they come here.
@Cog Re: "I, for one, do not think they are that stupid. I think they are just trolling and trying to get an emotional response so they can pretend "Gotcha!" It is not about participating in a debate. It is all about pulling your strings."
BINGO! Much along the lines of what I said in another thread. Aside from the obvious trolls, I find it very interesting that the majority of theists we have visit us here seem to think their dishonest and evasive tactics of "debate" are perfectly acceptable practices. And the true irony of the whole thing (in my opinion) is that they MUST KNOW their actions here represent whatever religion they believe, yet they cannot understand why we (atheists) want nothing to do with their particular god(s) when we call them out on their lack of integrity. In some ways, I actually find it rather amusing. At the same time, though, I still cannot help but wonder what their motivation might be. It should be quite obvious there is NO CHANCE of being able to convert any of the regular atheists here. And if they truly are genuinely faithful theists (Christian, Muslim, whatever...), then HOW do they NOT SEE how their actions totally undermine the religious faith they represent? It is baffling. And, on that same note, if they are NOT really theists, but instead just very clever trolls trying to misrepresent a particular faith, then WHAT is the point? What is the end game? What do those individuals gain by doing such things?
As for dear Jo, he seemed to start out in a sincere and genuine manner. And pretty much every single one of us here have done our best to explain things to him and reason with him. Yet, he has been here with us for-... Wow....- what, several months now? And from what I have noticed, he is STILL asking the SAME dead-horse-beating questions over and over and over (just in different ways) as if we have never explained anything to him at all. AND as if none of us here are smart enough to notice what he is doing. WHY?... Anyway, at this point, just like Sheldon (and most everybody else) I have to admit I am considerably skeptical about Jo and his true intentions on here. He is either intentionally ignoring everything we tell him, or his memory is actually worse than mine.... *shrugging shoulders*...
Tin: At this point it should be clearly obvious Jo, Agnostic Cognostic, are just Trolls. They are repeating the same garbage ad nauseum. Their posts are so boring and repetitive that they will not even be useful to the lurkers on the site. Who wants to wade through all that nonsense? And yet we do wade through it, time and again to point out the fallacious comments, over generalizations, inane assertions and lies. You would think that they would be honing their debating skills and putting forth better and better arguments, but the opposite seems to be the case. The more they are debunked, the more insane their positions become.
@ Cog
Careful next you will be telling me all religious people are psychotic....*readies injection for Cog, just in case he reacts badly* *Notes TM standing by with Net and collar*
@Old Man
...*struggling to untangle net*... Wait! Wait!... *getting more tangled up in net while trying to loosen collar from around neck*... Don't do anything yet!... *cough-gag-choke*... *tripping on net tangled around legs*... *flailing helplessly while falling*.... Oh, shit!... *hitting ground with loud metallic bang*... *desperately clawing at collar and netting around throat*... *strangled voice*... Ahhhggg!... Help... Can't.... breathe....
@Old man shouts: I would never be that fucking stupid! I would; however, admit that some religious assertions are symptomatic of delusions in the diagnosis of psychosis. In fact there are clinicians that assert all or nearly all religion is delusional. I think the evidence is fairly strong for this opinion, however, the moderate, easy going, wishy washy, believing Christians who will not really admit to believing their own bullshit, are a real wrench in the diagnostic process of religious delusion. So the same belief shared by two people can be a delusion in one but not a delusion in the other. FUCK! IF ONLY DIAGNOSING WERE EASY!
I respectfully disagree Cog. Of course there will always be trolls, but IMO the great majority of trollish behavior theists are just stuck in a deep rut. They come from an environment of obedience to authority, and unwillingness to perceive anything but from their theistic viewpoint.
So when they come on here, they run up against so many challenges to the crap they have been forced to accept, cognitive dissonance sets in, and they basically just keep repeating what they have been taught, unable and unwilling to attempt anything different.
I have witnessed something similar in the winter. Some idiot gets stuck on a patch of ice, and just keep flooring the gas and spinning their wheels. I carefully explain that this will not work, they need to do something different. So they nod their head, then return to their old pattern, and just mash the gas, while I just shake my head and walk away, listening to tires spinning on ice.
@DAVID: Not sure what the disagreement was. I have no issue at all with your post. Sounds as reasonable as any I have seen.
@ Old man shouts
I have never "espoused genocide rape and murder."
"We have debated long enough now that you know I am not to be trifled with."
I never desired to, nor attempted to, trifle with anyone.
I am not in competition with you.
I only wanted a debate, and an attempt to convince the other with our arguments.
You seem to be interested in something else.
Is it because I didn't recant that I must be condemned?
@Jo
Have you explicitly condemned the numerous instance of genocide, rape and murder contained in the Bible?
@ Talyyn
I have previously addressed those claims at length.
I will address them again with you if you can give me the reference to your claim of "instances of genocide, rape and murder contained in the Bible".
Please do not just copy and post innumerable verses that you got from some website.
No straw man arguments either.
For example, the numerous conquests of the Hebrews in their take over of Canaan? Or basically just the Flood, which is genocide, whatever the "reasons" behind it? The destruction of Gomorrah and Sodom? The fall of Jericho? Moses going on a killing rampage when he saw that his fellow people worship a gold animal?
And why should I not post the very evidence of these assertions contained in the bible?
@ Talyyn
Do you support nuclear war?
What about carpet bombing and the fire bombing?
Have you ever been a citizen of a country that was an allied power during WW2?
Does our country possess nuclear weapons?
Has it been involved in the war on terror?
Do you see how my questions are similiar to yours?
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