I know we may not get many, but here is something I would like you Theists to answer. And then we can debate your answers.
If all you Apologetic Absolutist are so hell-bent on this concept of your God giving man free will to accept him or not, then why are you also so damned hell-bent on saving our souls (when we DON'T) even if it kills us? Did not your precious Jesus teach you to ONLY teach the gospel and NOT force it down everyone's throat? Matthew {28:19} Go ye therefore, and teach all nations… Mark {16:15} Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature… Notice the highlighted keywords. Teach. Preach. Neither word means force. As asked many times, "Who are the ones acting like the dreaded Illuminati?" And notice the verse from Mark states "every creature." Why aren't you Absolutists worried more about all the other other animal "kinds" as you are about us atheists?
rmfr
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First off, modern Christians rarely force people to convert with violence. Any specific examples? Muslims do have a problem in that area, but by quoting the Bible you imply that Christians try to force their religion on others. And secondly, are you serious or just trolling?
"First off, modern Christians rarely force people to convert with violence. Any specific examples? "
Have you heard of the Ku Klux Klan? How about the Mormons? Try being a protestant or Catholic in Ireland in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there was the genocide by Serbia christians again Serbia Muslims.
Anti-balaka groups destroyed almost all mosques in the Central African Republic unrest.In 2014, Amnesty International reported several massacres committed by the Anti-balaka against Muslim civilians, forcing thousands of Muslims to flee the country. Other sources report incidents of Muslims being cannibalised. ***There have been reports that many members of Anti-balaka groups have forcibly converted Muslims and animists to Christianity.
The Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla army, was engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in 2005. It has been accused of using child soldiers and of committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, and using forced child labourers as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves. A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism, it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.
***To name just a tiny few.
"by quoting the Bible you imply that Christians try to force their religion on others."
Mathew 10: 34
34 Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn ‘A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.…
The late Christopher Hitchens had a quote that seems apropos...
“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”
I don't care if modern democracies and laws have neutered their power, christianity is as barbaric as all other religions when it has the power to be.
The Mathew quote is hyperbole obviously based off Jesus’ actions elsewhere. It’s like if I said “he really brought the hammer”.
The Kluklux clan are a bunch of racists. I have never heard of them forcibly converting people although in a way they kind of do since they attacked Catholics. But Christians in general condemn that, especially today.
At this point the Ireland animosity towards north Ireland and England is less religious and more cultural. After all, most Irish aren’t die hard Catholics. The beginnings of those conflicts definitely was religious, granted.
I don’t know much about the two African situations. They are definitely in response to Muslim terrorists. I’ll grant you if the reports are correct the Christians are acting horribly and the Bible would admit it: no murderer or fornicated will enter into heaven.
Atheism can be far worse than just about any religion.
@ Dumb Ox
"The Mathew quote is hyperbole obviously based off Jesus’ actions elsewhere. It’s like if I said “he really brought the hammer”.
Ah the old "context argument. Unless its something you want obeyed in which case it is "the read the text" argument. LOL...switcheroo like all apologists.
Hey Dumb Ox,
I feel disregarded, ignored, tossed aside, spurned, evaded, undervalued, scorned, cast aside. You come back more than two days later to repond to Sheldon's response on Wed, 05/02/2018 - 15:13, but you ain't got any for my response made on Wed, 05/02/2018 - 23:23? Well, I never... I think I'm going to get the vapors from such an affront. ****Imagine a sweet Southern Belle flapping a hand fan about to faint...**** ;)
So I guess you are only focusing on Sheldon? Picking on him? Why not me? I was the Original Poster. I mean you picked on my OP, but have nothing to say about my response to your IFR? Wow, guess I slapped you a little too hard with the proverbial glove, huh? You will need to scroll down to see my first reply.
Or is it because I could not be on these forum boards constantly waiting for the IFR and respond immediately to it? Well I have a job that keeps me from home at least three days a week, sometimes four. This past week I had a medical episode that made me miss this week of work. Even then I have had doctor's appointments to keep up. If the problem is that you only converse with the first to respond to your IFR, as I said, I never...
I have other responses/questions:
And to which **actions elsewhere** are referring? Need more input.
??? Where do you get your info? I grew up in the middle of KKK country in SENCland. Even had one as a next door neighbor for the first three years in SENCland. Sorriest bunch of Islamic Christians I have ever seen. I am just glad it was the church that abused me so badly. That I could survive. With the KKK they would have just burned me at the stake or hung me by neck 'til dead.
Let's take out the first one and we are left with "no fornicated will enter into heaven." I guess that means if you are raped beyond your control, you cannot enter into Heaven? Yes, I am making fun of a typo, and doing so on purpose...
Ta! Ta!
*hand smooch* *blow*
rmfr
Firstly I would like to say that I feel disgusted with how you were treated as a kid. Secondly, I haven’t responded to you yet because I wanted to be more careful and take some time to think. I responded to Sheldon before I even saw your post.
1. Rapists should be given the death penalty imo. This includes priests.
2. The Catholic Church handled the pedaphilia case horribly.
3. Your were treated awfully as a child.
However, you are not the norm, especially today. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it just is t the norm.
Please provide data to indicate what this ‘norm’ consists of.
@Dumb Ox
I would disagree. The more conservative a Christian home the more violent it is. Children are beaten for sinning and for not going to Church.
@Cog Re: "Children are beaten for sinning and for not going to Church."
You ain't kiddin'. When I was growing up, I had several friends who belonged to highly religious/christian families. Can't even begin to count the number of times I saw some of them get their asses beat severely for something as insignificant as not saying, "God bless you," if somebody sneezed near them. It was ridiculous.
No shit. My aunt and uncle would've put me out of their home if I told them I was an atheist. Glad I don't live with them anymore. But seriously, the norm is definitely not moderate in this country. And certainly not in Africa. Moderate Christianity is only the norm in Europe and Canada (which is basically Europe but further west).
Oh, Jared, if they had put you out, I’d have taken you in, laddie.
I live in the an extremely conservative Christian home. No one has been beaten. I personally know of many other homes like mine. I don’t need data to back this up because it’s basically common knowledge that most conservative Christian homes don’t have tones of child abuse. Do any of you have statistics that say otherwise?
@Dumb OX: First off, modern Christians rarely force people to convert with violence
From what I hear from Catholic friends, nuns, priests, and other clergy in religious schools can get pretty violent with kids that ask the wrong questions.
And then there was ethnic cleaning in the Balkans, though in that case they were really trying to convert live Muslims into dead Muslims rather than live Christians.
But most Christian conversion these days seems to be targeted at children and takes the form of physical or emotional abuse.
@Dumb Ox Re: Trolling
*clearing throat* Ahem.... Mr. Ox, sir. Rest assured Arakish is definitely not a troll. Matter of fact, he is one of the more respected members on here. And if you were to take off those rose colored religion glasses for a moment and actually read the OP again, you might just see it makes perfect sense. Love ya. Mean it. *smooch*
"First off, modern Christians" Why did Christians have to become modern? Something wrong with Christianity as it is? Shouldn't a religion from God transcend time?
Well if you hadn't noticed, Christians nowadays do a whole lot less conquering, slaving, mutilating of genitalia, and general bad stuff as those of old did. Also, they use a lot more medicine and a lot less praying, a lot more contraceptives and less praying, a lot more science and a lot less praying... Don't worry, they're still dumber than a bag of wet hammers, but they're way more streamlined.
""First off, modern Christians" Why did Christians have to become modern? Something wrong with Christianity as it is? Shouldn't a religion from God transcend time?"
Yes it should, so what can we infer about a message claimed to be from an omniscient omnipotent deity that is indistinguishable from the ignorant ravings of superstitious Bedouins that entirely reflect the prejudices, culture and ignorance of the very epoch in which it was supposedly revealed?
Do take your time...and try not to ask loaded questions that are such an obvious own goal.
Canada bears the shame of a horrible travesty on thousands of native children. Read this ...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/a-history-of-residential-schools-in-canada...
Because they think you're going to go to hell for eternity.
I'd actually be pretty upset if a religious person really believed that billions of people were going to hell for eternity and then wasn't passionate about saving as many of those people as possible. If I was in a burning building with someone and I asked them politely to leave and they refused, I'd get less polite.
this question is about as interesting to me as the question about how many angels can dance on the head of the pin. I don't care about the answer to that question nor do I care to discuss the minutia of a Christian dogma about free will. To me it's as basic as this, if you want me to care about why god did or did not create free will, the first thing you're going to have to do is to define your god and then proved to me that it exists
It's even worse now since free will as we understand it is unsupported by science.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Oyi1T-HmU
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYqL2Icj5k0
*edit to add: I know YouTube videos aren't credible sources, but sources are cited within, and can be corroborated with a quick Google search.
free will is the biggest and dumbest prank of god..
try to think of it, how can you make someone to choose if you already know it before he/she chooses it?
isn't it dumb and stupid??so much for a omnipotent and almighty god...
nope....(*facepalm overload*)
why so fucking stupid god? why?
Well, I see why you use that username... Except you need to change the second part...
Specific Examples? Yes. Look at all those hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of children being raped and molested by the church. Stories of being beaten into submitting to their all powerful sky-faerie. You may argue that it was the preachers, but I say it was "by the church" because those people represented the churches. And if the church moves to have legal prosecution of these persons blocked, then it is definitely "the church" that did these heinous acts.
And one specific example: ME! During the seven years I was forced to go to church by my mom, I was humiliated, ostracized, excommunicated by several churches, had to endure at least one ass-whooping every week (sometimes two if my mom pressured my father), and to top it all off, I was raped, molested, and beaten "by the church." It may not have been the priests, but it was their apalling children. And since I was a godless heathen child, who was going to believe me? This is something I have kept so repressed, I never even told my wife. It stayed hidden inside my mind for over 45 years. I should have told my wife, but I never did because I had buried so deeply... And now that I have finally decided NOT to keep this shit bottled up anymore, I cannot tell my wife since she has been dead for 20 years. And this disgusts me that I could not share with her something that should have been shared with her...
And the reason why I say I grew up in the worst part of the Baptist Bible Belt (BBB) is because I grew up in SENCland. And in North Carolina those BBBers still have way too much political power. Even if a story came out about abuse by the church (and I have seen a few), the BBB lawyer system can quickly have that story squashed, usually by belittling and humiliating the accuser, before it can become a problem. It is due to this fact that I have a very low opinion of any person who claims to be anything other than an atheist. And that also includes those wishy-washy agnostics. Just as for that man who murdered my family, I am sorry for having such a low viewpoint on other members of the human species; however, you also have to look at it from my viewpoint. Yes, it is very biased, but you Absolutists have no one to blame but yourselves.
And I still do not dare to tell my mother since she is a hard-core Absolutist. Although she has mellowed somewhat, she was still the one responsible for putting me into such a situation where I would get ostracized, excommunicated, beaten, and raped, and molested by such apalling members of the human species as you damned Absolutists. However, despite all the abuse and all the ass-whoopings, I still LOVE her to death. Always shall. And I now dread the day when she passes... And yes, if it came down to it, I would sacrifice myself to protect her life. Even knowing my sacrifice would still ultimately lead to her death by my murderer.
Now, I want your definition of "unconditional love." And please explain how this immoral godless heathen can have more mores than any of you Absolutists.
And believe me, right now, I am taking it easy on you...
And, just to keep you sorry Absolutists from continuing to belittle me, beat me, rape me, molest me, ostracize me, I finally succombed when I was ten years old, after 4 years of horrid and immoral tortures. I pretended to become saved. I pretended to become a believer. And since the teachings were: if you become saved and a believer, then you MUST get baptized. I memorized huge chunks of the Bible just so I could spew its filth and seem to be a devout believer. After getting baptized (they did complete submersion), want to know what I did with my wet clothes afterwards? I threw them into the garbage because I did not even want to have anything to do with clothes after they had been in that unholy water. They even found the clothes later and told my mom. When I was asked by the Pastor and my mom why I threw them away, I gave them the perfect lie. I told them since baptism is supposed to represent an new birth, I just wanted to get rid of all of the old and become new. And they accepted it. On the inside, I was ROFLMAOPOM.
Once I turned 13, thanks to my dad's traditions, I was old enough to decide for myself whether I wanted to attend church any longer. I chose not to, but I still had to keep up the facade of being a saved believer due to my mom. It was not until I joined the Navy that I could throw away that Absolutist bullshit I was pretending to be. Never again.
You'll have to read my book, Riding Some Wild Tangents, to get more details.
Yes they do, but so do all religions. And by using the quotes I used, I was trying to show you Absolutists where y'all are the ones who are disobeying the word of your "good book." I was showing where God said to teach and preach, not force down our throats. And if you say you Absolutists are not forcing it down our throats, then why won't you just leave us the hell alone? All I ever see any of you doing is forcing your beliefs system onto others. And yes, by continuously spewing the filth of your beliefs system onto us every fucking day is "forcing your beliefs system" onto others. Preach and teach all you want behind the closed doors of your churches. Otherwise, when out in the public, just shut the hell up.
As Tin-Man put it...
Yeah. I'm just a lowlife troll. Aren't you?
rmfr
P.S. - Thanks bunches Tin-Man.
P.P.S. - And thanks to everyone else here at the Atheist Republic forums. Y'all have been a big support and help in my confrontation with my past. Even as horrid as it was. Thanks.
I agree how you were treated as a child was wrong.
Now however you are saying preaching publicly is the same as forcing beliefs down people’s throtes. That’s wrong. I could say the same about atheists or secular worldliness in general.
But we are not the ones out on the streets with signs creating picket lines and shouting how awful everyone is who is not a believer. Even that is forcing your beliefs onto society at large. As said, if theists kept preaching/teaching to themselves, we atheists would have nothing to complain about.
We have no recourse but to push theists away by posing some very challenging question and ideas they cannot answer. What frightens theists the most is that they are losing is the privilege of forcing their beliefs on non-Christians’ without protest. All theists ever do is force their beliefs onto others.
If I had my way, I would have laws in place that would prohibit any religious based organization and its peoples from having access to anyone under the age of 21 under penalty of death. Of course that is a bit harsh, but it is how I feel. Age 21? You may ask? Hopefully, by this age, this person may have a college degree and developed their mind enough to resist the controlled, systematic, totalitarian theistic indoctrination process which utilizes mental rape, emotional molestation, and psychological terrorism. You may disagree, but this is exactly what theists do to children today, especially during the ages of 4 to 14 when the child is most vulnerable and most susceptible to such indoctrination. Yes, the church uses gentler methods today, but it still utilizes mental rape, emotional molestation, and psychological terrorism.
To teach anyone, especially children, that we are all worthless, sick, immoral, wicked demons. That none can be good, moral, ethical, and treat others as being worthy of being treated as equals without some form of sky-faerie telling them how to live their lives and what they can and cannot think. Most Absolutists believe I deserve to be tortured by having my flesh seared off my bones and regrown only to be burnt off again and again and again for all eternity if I do not believe the same way they do. To teach anyone in this manner is reprehensible. It is morally repugnant.
Which of the below is more damaging?
The whole pogrom of ALL Absolutists is to enslave all of humanity. Just read the books...
I quit because that is making me angry. And no one likes me when I get angry...
rmfr
1 is partially true. However, I don’t believe in total depravity, im Catholic. Our nature is fallen but still partially good. It’s self evident that we have selfish and evil tendencies.
Secondly, preaching publicly is not forcing your beliefs into others. If that were the case, then any pro abortion, pro lgbt, pro gun control, or pro communist protest would be forcing beliefs onto others. So, should no one ever give their opinions and promote them in public? I think not and I’m sure you don’t either.
You only see the harm that comes from religion, Christianity specifically, and not the good. What you don’t realize is that most of the values you hold to are Christian in origin. That we all have the same basic equal dignity is Christian. Go to China or India and you will see what I mean. The first hospitals were started by religious orders. Same with universities and a renewed interest in the classics and in science.
Dumb, you wrote, “The first hospitals were started by religious orders. Same with universities and a renewed interest in the classics and in science.”
That is not true.
Granted I have western AD civilization in mind, but I’m interested in your counter examples. I know Muslims also kept many of the classics alive too. Rome didn’t have hospitals open to the public to my knowledge. Furthermore, there weren’t nearly as many charity organizations in general. I certainly can’t name any.
It took less than three seconds for me to find this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals
@Cyber Re: "It took less than three seconds for me to find this."
Well, maybe Dumb Ox is still using the old dial-up internet connection. You know, kinda like the old phone modem used by Matthew Broderick in "War Games". Those things are really slow.
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