An Unscientific Theory On Religion Forums

[Earthling]

Wrong, research leads to truth, not lies

Me thinks the protest too much.

 

[Earthling]

@RothschildSaxeCoburgGotha

Try some basic research

Christian terrorism - Wikipedia

Religious terrorism - Wikipedia

I'm not here to defend or deny Christian or religious terrorism.
The Bible calls it's results a "river of blood." And promises to destroy all of it.

 

[ChristineM]

You don't need a PhD. I've done the research, you haven't.

Which is scientific> My approach or yours.

Don't make me laugh. You lost credibility in poist #7 of this thread

My approach is to follow results of scientists and engineers, yours seem to be follow YouTube conspiracy videos

 

[ChristineM]

Me thinks the protest too much.

You would, you are the one embarrassed for disrespecting the dead with lies and are too ????? to be honest

 

[ChristineM]

I'm not here to defend or deny Christian or religious terrorism.
The Bible calls it's results a "river of blood." And promises to destroy all of it.

You made a claim, an insulting claim, and you bottle out of defending that claim by paraphrasing a bronze age book. Wow the personal responsibility is outstanding

 

[Earthling]

You would, you are the one embarrassed for disrespecting the dead with lies and are too ????? to be honest

Let's see. You are in France. We are talking about the 911 attacks. The same applies to the London 7/7 attacks. Why so emotionally involved. Were there recent terror attacks in France? There was, wasn't there?

I don't know anything about those. I wouldn't be surprised if they were fake, but I have no idea.

 

[Earthling]

You made a claim, an insulting claim, and you bottle out of defending that claim by paraphrasing a bronze age book. Wow the personal responsibility is outstanding

Not familiar with the term "bottle out" but . . . look. Just do the research. Don't be so childish.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Over the last 22 years or so I've been for the most part pretty active on forums like this, religious forums, and I've noticed something over the last decade. I see it here as well. The predominate participant in religious discussion are irreligious. Outspoken or militant skeptics of the Bible and spirituality. Now I understand that my message tends to alienate everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, and truth be told I prefer discussions with atheist because they are more practical than the average believer, who is idealistic IMO, so I'm not complaining, but I am of the opinion that the reason for this is that the believer is quite comfortable in America, but the atheist (in one form or another, I use the term skeptic) is a somewhat repressed minority, politically and socially.

Do you think there is any truth to that?

On forums about religion in general? Yes, I think so.

I think that there's plenty of religious discussion online by religious people, but it tends to be on forums devoted to their own religion specifically.

IMO, most religious people aren't really interested in ecumenicalism, so the people most interested in discussing "religion in general" are people on the outside looking in.

 

[ecco]

By fake Christians and Jews I mean people who pretend to be Christian or Jew and really are not.

It's amazing and really funny how many Christians of many different sects accuse other Christians of not being REAL Christians.

I always wonder and usually ask: Who are you to define who or what constitutes a REAL Christian?

It's an understandable mistake. In fact when I first came here I had to check Christian as my religion because it was the closest of the choices available. Some think that in order to be a Christian you have to agree to the Nicene Creed. That's nonsense. According to the Bible you have to be baptized. Matthew 28:19-20 / Acts Of The Apostles 2:14 / Acts Of The Apostles 8:12

Who's going to baptize me? The apostate Christians who've adopted pagan teachings? The Jehovah's Witnesses who are false prophets? I'm on my own. I think that's the way it should be.

Which brings us back to my original question:

Who are you to define who or what constitutes a REAL Christian?
Who are you to designate some as apostate?
Who are you to designate some as false prophets ?

 

[ChristineM]

Let's see. You are in France. We are talking about the 911 attacks. The same applies to the London 7/7 attacks. Why so emotionally involved. Were there recent terror attacks in France? There was, wasn't there?

I don't know anything about those. I wouldn't be surprised if they were fake, but I have no idea.

I dont care about your ignorance, people died in those "fake" attacks, and what strawman has the county got to do with it?

Why emotional? I'm not, i just cannot stand liars and have little tolerance for deliberate ignorance.

 

[ecco]

They didn't do it.

Who they? Someone was piloting the plans. They didn't survive.

 

[dianaiad]

OK, so we are not talking about Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.

Nope, unless someone makes them 'king,' or 'dictator,' and then I wouldn't hold my breath that we aren't. There is just something about that sort of power...you know the saying "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I have my own private theory about how this works in theist vs atheist leaders.

I would say that none of the above carried out their atrocities in the name of atheism. I could argue that the 'religion' was the state, a bit like North Korea is now. People bow to the leader, the leader is the 'god'.

I would also say that I have never heard the word sceptic used to describe the dictators you talk of.

...and I would say that their atheism did not STOP the atrocities, either, and isn't that what most strong-minded, 'militant' atheists claim? That the world would be much better off without religion?

I would also say that saying the WORDS "in the name of atheism" isn't required here. Using terms like 'in the name of reason,' or 'for the good of the people,' and terms like 'religion is the opiate of the people," and actions that are aimed at getting rid of religion are done 'in the name of' atheism as surely as any theist has ever proclaimed "in the name of God."

See, the problem here is that atheism is DEFINED BY the fact that there is theism; if it were not for theism, 'atheism' (without, or against) theism simply would not exist. However, theists do not require atheists to exist.

Atheism is, then, a reaction in opposition to theism, as soon as the atheist starts thinking of himself in those terms. "I am an atheist" is defining himself in terms of belief in God...he doesn't have such a belief, but he wouldn't have to SAY so if that belief didn't exist somewhere and in someone. The topic simply wouldn't come up.

So, any act by a leader that is all about getting rid of religion is 'in the name of' atheism, by its very nature. As well, if 'atheism' (or its subsets) could and would solve the world's ills, we wouldn't have this rather nasty history of atheistic governments being murderous, would we? Their brand of atheism would have prevented such things.

Sorry, rambling.

 

[ChristineM]

Not familiar with the term "bottle out" but . . . look. Just do the research. Don't be so childish.

How pathetic, you have no idea who i am, all you know is you insulted the dead, murdered in religious motivated terror attacks.

P.s. no idea? Do some research

 

[dianaiad]

No atheist political leader has ever killed in the name of atheism. Period.

Mao destroyed and banned religious institutions to eradicate dissent towards the government. That is a political move not an attack carried out in the name of not believing in gods. Plenty of atheist dictators killing people in droves, but not in the name of atheism, more for power and political gain.

That's also true of murderous theocracies, except perhaps the Mayans...and I'm not certain about them.

The PROBLEM here is that the atheism of those governments I mention didn't STOP the murders, did it? I have another post here (perhaps the one just above this one) that addresses this in more paragraphs: I won't repeat it here.

 

[Altfish]

Nope, unless someone makes them 'king,' or 'dictator,' and then I wouldn't hold my breath that we aren't. There is just something about that sort of power...you know the saying "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I have my own private theory about how this works in theist vs atheist leaders.



...and I would say that their atheism did not STOP the atrocities, either, and isn't that what most strong-minded, 'militant' atheists claim? That the world would be much better off without religion?

I would also say that saying the WORDS "in the name of atheism" isn't required here. Using terms like 'in the name of reason,' or 'for the good of the people,' and terms like 'religion is the opiate of the people," and actions that are aimed at getting rid of religion are done 'in the name of' atheism as surely as any theist has ever proclaimed "in the name of God."

See, the problem here is that atheism is DEFINED BY the fact that there is theism; if it were not for theism, 'atheism' (without, or against) theism simply would not exist. However, theists do not require atheists to exist.

Atheism is, then, a reaction in opposition to theism, as soon as the atheist starts thinking of himself in those terms. "I am an atheist" is defining himself in terms of belief in God...he doesn't have such a belief, but he wouldn't have to SAY so if that belief didn't exist somewhere and in someone. The topic simply wouldn't come up.

So, any act by a leader that is all about getting rid of religion is 'in the name of' atheism, by its very nature. As well, if 'atheism' (or its subsets) could and would solve the world's ills, we wouldn't have this rather nasty history of atheistic governments being murderous, would we? Their brand of atheism would have prevented such things.

Sorry, rambling.

You are indeed rambling.

The fact that people are atheists says nothing about the people who make this claim. They may be good, bad, tall, short, bald or full of hair. Atheism is NOT a way of life, it has no creed.

So people who do not believe in a god have done atrocious things, so have people who believe in a god. The difference is that very often the theists do bad things in the name of their god. Atheists usually do it in the name of power, control, oppression, etc.

If you go back to the original post it said "...Militant Sceptic…"; not militant atheist. You and other people have brought the word atheist into this discussion, I'm still talking about sceptics.

 

[ecco]

The LEAST one can get out of this is the obvious; it's not religion that causes the problem, not when getting rid of religion not only doesn't solve the problem, it raises the death toll.

Just a couple of small examples...
Question: Why did English Protestants kill English Catholics?
Answer: Religion.

Question: Why do Sunnis kill Shiites?
Answer: Religion.

His atheism didn't STOP him from killing anybody, did it?

No it didn't. Likewise it wasn't his atheism that was the driving factor in his killings.

Isn't that the claim...that getting rid of religion would make the world a better, more rational, kinder and 'truer' place?

It would be one less reason to kill - so, yes.

 

[ecco]

I can take a standard piece of structural steel square stock, and heat it till it begins to glow which is around 1000-1250*F and with my pinky fold that piece of steel in half.

Ouch!

 

[Sunstone]

Over the last 22 years or so I've been for the most part pretty active on forums like this, religious forums, and I've noticed something over the last decade. I see it here as well. The predominate participant in religious discussion are irreligious. Outspoken or militant skeptics of the Bible and spirituality. Now I understand that my message tends to alienate everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, and truth be told I prefer discussions with atheist because they are more practical than the average believer, who is idealistic IMO, so I'm not complaining, but I am of the opinion that the reason for this is that the believer is quite comfortable in America, but the atheist (in one form or another, I use the term skeptic) is a somewhat repressed minority, politically and socially.

Do you think there is any truth to that?

I think you're pretty much right in your impression that atheists (or nontheists, more generally speaking) are more active on RF than theists. But I'd suggest for your consideration the primary reason might be that atheists often enough come better prepared to "do battle" in defense of their believes than theists. That is, they have spent more time than theists thinking in adversarial terms about their beliefs, and so are better prepared to jump right into debating people about them.

I am sure that's no real reflection on how much time either side puts into simply thinking about their beliefs. Theists I've known are mostly just as active as atheists in that way. But theists are not usually as active or adept (at least at first) in defending their views, or sometimes even in attacking views they don't agree with.

Atheists have the advantage here of necessarily going against the majority opinion, even of those near and dear to them. Theists usually have the disadvantage of having mostly experienced being around people who agree with them to at least some substantial extent.

That, and the significant fact that on RF at least, most "in-the-know" theists are intimidated at first by the sheer magnitude of my manly beauty -- which can so understandably be quite overwhelming to anyone who realizes I'm a nontheist. I mean, it's obvious, right? True is beauty. QED: I win every debate I get into -- even those debates I merely seem to lose (which is admittedly nearly every debate I get into).

 

[ecco]

There are roughly 40 major variants of the bible in circulation today, although this number is small it is suggested there are around 200,000 distinctly different printings of the bible in existence.

But they are all Christian Bibles. There are no non-christian bibles.

 

[Earthling]

Who they? Someone was piloting the plans. They didn't survive.

Before a plane can leave the runway it has to have a public document stating exactly who is on the plane and where they are seated. The documentation for all of the planes had no mention of the people who were allegedly hijackers.

During the Kennedy administration the government proposed a false flag operation where remote control planes were flown into building and blamed on the Cubans, killing American citizens. Kennedy rejected it. It was called Operation Northwoods. Many witnesses on the ground at WTC said the planes weren't commercial airliners, they were military planes which appeared to be customized. At the Pentagon a small plane crashed into the fire shed, just a small distance from where the final impact of a missile appeared to strike a short time later. There was little debris considering a jetliner is supposed to have hit it. The are where the 'plane' hit was too small and there was no sign even of the heavy engine. The area where the 'plane' struck was also under construction so sparsely populated at the time, though a woman who worked there said that it wasn't a plane, it was a missile. She said the FBI later came to here hospital room and made sure that she was aware that it wasn't a missile, it was a plane.

Professional pilots say that a plane couldn't have crashed into the Pentagon as presented by the government and media because the flight maneuvers to do so would be impossible even for an expert pilot. The 911 hijackers were said, by their instructors, to barely be able to fly a small plane.

It was all set up by the government to look like Muslims did it so we would support the war.