What religion has contributed to the world this month (December)

[mr blur]

[cleanhippie]

1. What frightens me the most, is that Christianity went through the same thing a few hundred years ago

And the only thing keeping modern Christian fundies from doing the same thing today are the secular laws we have in place.

I wonder if our fundies were able to do what Islamic fundies are doing, would our religious moderates stand idly by and allow it as the Islamic moderates do.

[Peace_Sells]

2. Yes

they wouldn't do a damn thing to stop it. Moderates are cowards and will always bow to power to save their own skin. They're apologists and enablers who will always find some excuse for the psychopaths.

[2ndAmForComputers]

3. I think you're trying too hard.

[Thats my opinion]

4. Nobody in this group

affirms the sort of things you have searched the earth for. We too look at them with disgust. So let's talk about the things and issues we here hold.

[cleanhippie]

5. No one affirms it, but many enable it.

[mr blur]

6. I haven't "searched the earth" for anything. You're confusing me with someone else here.

So let's talk about the things and issues we here hold.

?

Oh please. What would they be?

The latest example of someone who doesn't believe being unpleasant? What Dawkins said this week? How you progressive theologians will save the world?

Or do you mean that you could start a thread with another serving of word salad and then disappear for a while before returning to moan about how misunderstood you are and how the wicked atheists are out to trap you?

I'm simply following the standard procedure around here: start an OP chosen to annoy as many people as possible without actually committing myself to anything or actually discussing religion or answering a direct question.

Or is that only allowed for theists?

[DryRain]

7. "Nobody in this group" What "group"? Did you see this post in this "group"?

I said there was a time in place at that point in history that God directly demanded it. God can kill whoever he wants, I'm certainly cool with that, he's the reason I'm alive.

....

and a few lines later...

The only way I'd ever kill someone from a demand of God would be if the evidence was absolute and seen by other people.. I'm pretty sure God would understand, at least I hope he would.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=63492

Someone who claims to be a Christian is "cool with that" when his God can "an kill whoever he wants".


So faith in a Christian God enables folks to believe that killing is "cool" (and leads to births of more Christians like him), and that "God would understand" that "The only way I'd ever kill someone from a demand of God would be if the evidence was absolute"

Use of one's faith in a God to promote one's own rationalizations for anything within the realm of human activity seems a mighty weak branch to walk out on, but that's just me. But that seems to be what each of the examples in the video portrayed.

Now tell us again why we must strictly limit our discussion of a faith in a God to the God you decide we should be discussing in a forum about religion, and why and how we are supposed to limit our discussions to the elements of faith in a God, while ignoring all the other ways that faith in a God can be and was used in December 2012 on this planet. Some Christians who post here might not be in agreement with your limitations of how to view even only the Christian religion, as my linked post will provide evidence.

[Decka]

8. Ah, someone quoted me, very nice, let me address

Someone who claims to be a Christian is "cool with that" when his God can "an kill whoever he wants".

Indeed. He is God. Meanwhile, humans cannot.

So faith in a Christian God enables folks to believe that killing is "cool" (and leads to births of more Christians like him), and that "God would understand" that "The only way I'd ever kill someone from a demand of God would be if the evidence was absolute"

Nope, That's not what faith in the Christian God means at all. Killing certainly isn't "cool". I'm amused you even went there. Humans shouldn't seek to do it. Meanwhile, the "God would understand" line was referring to me hoping He would understand if I refused to kill. Now that I look back on it, it's a poorly worded sentence.

Use of one's faith in a God to promote one's own rationalizations for anything within the realm of human activity seems a mighty weak branch to walk out on, but that's just me. But that seems to be what each of the examples in the video portrayed.

That's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. But if God is real, it makes quite a bit of sense. It just depends on what governs your life.

[DryRain]

9. Ah, someone quoted me, very nice, let me address

Ah, someone quoted me, very nice, let me address

Don't take it too too far with that ego! More than two of us were absolutely gobsmacked by your assertions which use ONLY FAITH in your own Christian God over reason and rationality when justifying killing other human beings.

Indeed. He is God. Meanwhile, humans cannot.

Attitudes like this would have led to millions more killed and incapacitated by Polio, Cancer, Measles, Mumps Rhubella, Malaria, AIDS.

If you simply accept that your God has the right to take human lives at his/her will, where is the spark of curiosity to cure? Where is the human desire to do better in this world than that world your grand-parents were born into? Acceptance of death as "God's will" is the ultimate in defeat for the nature of human curiosity and invention. With that attitude, we would all still be living on the plains of mid-Africa, hunting and foraging, withour wooden and stone tools, or perhaps still living in trees with our fellow apes the chimps and bonamo's. Human beings, through natural selection and evovultion, alone, prove that a will of a Christian God, as you describe his/her will, is void and invalid. Your Christian God, who can kill at will, is a made-up fantasy with super-human powers, which are so often contradicted by the evidence of the history of this planet, and all the creatures that live within it, including, foremost amont the evidence, we human beings. We overcome adversity, genetic and environmental, at each and every chance we get, and we continue to do so, even in as unjust a world as we now inhabit. We don't give up and let any mythical God be the decider.

That's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. But if God is real, it makes quite a bit of sense. It just depends on what governs your life.

Well, when you say "if God is real" you have to admit that there is not one singe scintilla nor ounce of measurable, observable, repeatable, non-falsifiable evidence for the God you claim MIGHT exist. You are simply hedging your bets! You are using a God for which there is no evidence to govern your life and justify each and every decision you might make, wisely or foolishly. Whatever the decision is, wise or foolish, you can simply say "God is with me", so whatever happens, you're never personally responsible.

We skeptics and agnostics use our own sense of reason, ethics, our life experience, the learning and education we have amassed from thousands of years of any and all books and literature, (not just one Bible), and our own rational brains to deny the possibility that there is EVER a rationalization to take the life of another living breathing human being, other than to defend one's own life or the life of other human beings from imminent and immediate destruction. Our rationale has nothing at all to do with a belief in whatever might be, (and certainly not from what ONLY MIGHT be, despite lack of any concrete or testable evidence at all).

I hope you see that Allah and your God both offer you and those other folks out there a convenient way to avoid the responsibility of living an ethical moral life, whenever you folks want to justify your killing, stoning, bullying, or harming in any way, any other human being. To some Christians, their God justifies them denying rights to gay folks, justifies them denying women the rights to control their own reproductive system, and justifies killing some of those others in an electric chair or with magic man-made chemicals robotically injectied in the veins. For those folks who believe that Allah is THEIR god, stoning is appropriate, as is marying 13 year old girls to a man of 40 or 50 or whatever, as his second or fifteenth wife or whatever.

We skeptics refuse to go along with faith in a god of any sort as justification for human behaviors, no matter how wonderful and altruistic, and no matter how ugly and despicable. No god is involved, only human beings. That way, we know who is responsible, and never have to put the responsibility for our lives upon something mythical or unproven out there.

[Decka]

10. No ego here!

Don't take it too too far with that ego! More than two of us were absolutely gobsmacked by your assertions which use ONLY FAITH in your own Christian God over reason and rationality when justifying killing other human beings.

I said God can kill humans, I said nothing about humans killing humans. I made up a theoretical situation before when given an extreme ultimatum, but I'd never condone or suggest anyone kill. I think it's safe to say God wouldn't want me doing that anyways, nor would I ever wish to.

Well, when you say "if God is real" you have to admit that there is not one singe scintilla nor ounce of measurable, observable, repeatable, non-falsifiable evidence for the God you claim MIGHT exist. You are simply hedging your bets! You are using a God for which there is no evidence to govern your life and justify each and every decision you might make, wisely or foolishly. Whatever the decision is, wise or foolish, you can simply say "God is with me", so whatever happens, you're never personally responsible.

Certainly admitted, although some interesting studies I've heard suggest otherwise, I don't get into them. However, in my opinion this is just the way a being who created and judges humanity would set it all up. We don't understand our universe much at all. Any person who claims to be of solid science would be foolish to completely discount a creator in this mysterious universe we live in.

We skeptics and agnostics use our own sense of reason, ethics, our life experience, the learning and education we have amassed from thousands of years of any and all books and literature, (not just one Bible), and our own rational brains to deny the possibility that there is EVER a rationalization to take the life of another living breathing human being, other than to defend one's own life or the life of other human beings from imminent and immediate destruction. Our rationale has nothing at all to do with a belief in whatever might be, (and certainly not from what ONLY MIGHT be, despite lack of any concrete or testable evidence at all).

While I know the skeptic and agnostic creeds, you stated it well. We just have a very different view of human life as regards to it's value to the divine. Let me be clear, the only time killing a human life is okay is when God does it (as humans are taught and instructed to love others) Meanwhile, a nonbeliever is astonished at how someone can possibly say such a thing. Well, to us believers, humans aren't the apex. The divine is, and it's by quite a bit. To you, life is however long you're on earth. To us, life is eternal, and thus this life here on earth is a blip on the radar screen. To you, human death is a horrible thing at all costs. To us, if God takes us, it's believed he's done so for a reason, and hopefully are taken to a much better place.

That's why there is so much of an impasse in this "debate".

I hope you see that Allah and your God both offer you and those other folks out there a convenient way to avoid the responsibility of living an ethical moral life, whenever you folks want to justify your killing, stoning, bullying, or harming in any way, any other human being. To some Christians, their God justifies them denying rights to gay folks, justifies them denying women the rights to control their own reproductive system, and justifies killing some of those others in an electric chair or with magic man-made chemicals robotically injectied in the veins. For those folks who believe that Allah is THEIR god, stoning is appropriate, as is marying 13 year old girls to a man of 40 or 50 or whatever, as his second or fifteenth wife or whatever.

The actions you mention don't at all sum up what God intends humans to do here on earth... Meanwhile, God denies "rights" to everyone, not just gays. I would sooner have government get entirely out of marriage altogether.

The bible doesn't address abortion, but unless you are okay with a late third-trimester abortion, you believe a women's reproductive system is okay to be controlled to some extent. So you're fine with a 9 month abortion?

The bible also doesn't comment on electric chairs and man-made chemicals. Capital punishment on the otherhand is something I'm unsure of as far as whether we should do or not. I'd prefer life over death.

We skeptics refuse to go along with faith in a god of any sort as justification for human behaviors, no matter how wonderful and altruistic, and no matter how ugly and despicable. No god is involved, only human beings. That way, we know who is responsible, and never have to put the responsibility for our lives upon something mythical or unproven out there.

So we have different beliefs, that's perfectly fine.

[DryRain]

11. So we have different beliefs, that's perfectly fine.

So we have different beliefs, that's perfectly fine.

No, it is NOT "perfectly fine". Not when I see you state things like this.

Any person who claims to be of solid science would be foolish to completely discount a creator in this mysterious universe we live in.

And, then, without pause, ,for the irony of the contrast between such bold self-contradictory statements:

The actions you mention don't at all sum up what God intends humans to do here on earth.

Incidentally, you left out half my description of the human experience on this planet, and substituted rather irrational assertions like:

God denies "rights" to everyone, not just gays.

You know al this HOW??? First Science is a poor teacher for you, but you know what God intends, and then can blithely claim God "denies rights" to some humans? Interesting you are so more well informed than "scientists", about what "God intends" and who has "rights".

God denies "rights" to everyone, not just gays.

No! human beings do that! Somehow you don't see these obvious facts, and are already attributing injustice to your own views of your own God. All babies born have the rights that fellow human beings either choose to give them or do not. God has nothing at all to do with what happens when a child is born, human beings have that responsibility.

So you're fine with a 9 month abortion?

Right out of left field, By the way, I never said a word about abortion, you brought that up, obviously confused between a women's bodily functioning in the realm of reproduction and the tools available to help that woman from ever concieving a child she does not wish to have.

Let's go on. You deny stillbirths? Should women that give birth to dead infants be punished? Some faiths stoned women who did not bear a male child. Some men were free to divorce those women in the Bible and move on, perhaps to the woman's own sister, or any other woman. This is the book that teaches you about your God?

You deny women dying in childbirth because of religious restrictions upon the practice of modern medicine? I think you only have to go to Ireland, in November, 2012, to find a Catholic Hospital that refused to save the life of a mother, based upon their Catholic faith. Here's a link to your belief in God to over-rule modern human rational life-saving activity. Are you in favor of only having sex for procreation? Is that your stance upon what your God wishes for all men and women, (notice I said 'men and women', it takes two to conceive, and two to have sexual relations, or it isn't really sex, now, is it?)?

Husband: Ireland hospital denied Savita Halappanavar life saving abortion because it is a "Catholic country"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57549651/husband-ireland-hospital-denied-savita-halappanavar-life-saving-abortion-because-it-is-a-catholic-country/

I'm not sure what your point is here. You seem to be in a minority among people who profess to be Christians and Jewish folks and Agnostics and Atheists who post here. You seem to rely quite heavily and completely upon your unerring faith in your own version of a Christian God, and one that seems, at least to me, as a recent questioner of the vaule of any religion, (agnostic?) to be rather irresponsible, rather self-righteous, and rather condescending in your views upon women, the infirmed, th ehealth challenged, gays, and perhaps other groups of believers in a god figure.

Perhaps you can start your own thread with a list of your "opinions". You seem to be very devout in whatever they are, and yet surprisingly naive when it comes to the experience of Homo sapiens over the last few hundred thousand years, preferring a relatively recent only 2000 year old Christian God over any of the others, and asserting a rather evidentially unfounded certainty that your devout faithfulness is superior to alll other groups of faithful who have justified injustice according to their own god visions.