Dislike and distrust of atheists?

[gnostic]

The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record.

When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus.

It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.

Josephus had even been born when Jesus supposedly died and was resurrected. So he is definitely not contemporary to Jesus.

As to the Testamonius Flavium, that's definitely a forgery.

The only thing we know that it is genuine is the mention of James being Jesus' brother.

There is an account to John the Baptist's execution, but John was never linked to Jesus or to the Christian movement.

As to Herod the Great, Josephus has plenty to say about the scandals, betrayals and murders committed by him or his family members, but not once did he ever massacre in Bethlehem.

Also, the timing of the governorship and census of Quirinius conflicted with gospel of Luke.

Josephus stated that Quirinius had only carried out the census when Augustus removed Herod Archelaus (reign 4 BCE to 6 CE) from Judaea (6 CE), turning Judaea into a Roman province 10 years after Herod's death (4 BCE). There were no earlier census when Herod was still alive, and Quirinius was never appointed governor twice in Syria. Saturninus (9 - 7/6 BCE) and Varus (7/6 - 4 BCE) were governors of Syria when Herod was alive and Jesus was born. And no one was ever governor of Syria twice when Augustus was emperor (27 BCE to 14 CE).

Who do you think is more accurate? The gospel and Josephus?

In this case, I would have to say Josephus, because we don't know anything about the author of the gospel. But with Josephus, we know was born in noble Jewish family, who has tied to both with the aristocrats and with the temple, so he would have access to public records at the palaces and temples. And due to his friendship with Titus, he had access to Roman records that no gospel authors would have.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You are currently arguing that a theologian's exegesis of Genesis and Ecclesiastes containing direct scriptural references owes nothing to Christianity. I don't find that a rational position to hold.

No. I deny that anything that depends on scripture in part or whole has nothing to do with Christianity.

If a politician quoted Marx and said he had been influenced by Marx would you go out of your way to try to prove he was mistaken and he hadn't in fact been influenced by Marx at all?

No, and irrelevant to the discussion. If a politician quoted Marx and said he had been influenced by Marx, I would judge the accuracy of his comment by the degree to which his ideas reproduced Marx's. To the extent that his ideas varied from Marx's, I would say that he was influenced by other sources.

Some Greek ideas were humanistic, but the Greeks didn't create Humanism because it would have made no sense in their worldview. Amazingly, the missing components are found in Christianity. Anyway, Christianity was massively influenced by Greek thought which is very significant to its evolution and the evolution of European theology and philosophy.

Once again, how does this matter? I've asked you to clarify your position. I don't recall you accommodating that request. So I will tell you what I think it is: Humanism could not have arisen without the ideas of Christianity having come first. I still disagree.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Humanism is basically a mash up of the 2 (liberal Christian ethics and Greek Rationalism) which is completely unsurprising given they are the 2 biggest influences on European thought.

You simply keep inviting and making a place at the table for Christianity. Yet you don't provide these core Christian concepts that humanism was waiting for. Which do you think are foundational ideas in humanism? How about that we are all sinners, or that we need salvation, or that we are saved by grace, or that we are going t heaven or hell in the afterlife, or that Jesus died for our sins. Is it any of those?

How can you possibly be arguing that one body of thought is the mother of the other?

Have you looked at the Affirmations of Humanism? They're a nice summary of the major values held by humanists. Please show me the biblical chapter and verse that these ideas derive from, the first five of the affirmations. The rest can be found at http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/12

[1] We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.

[2] We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.

[3] We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.

[4] We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.

[5] We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.

*****

Regarding [1], the Bible tells us that, "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, "He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness," which informed the church fathers through the centuries:

"Since God has spoken to us it is no longer necessary for us to think." - St Augustine

"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason." - Martin Luther

[2] outright contradicts central Christian tenets

There is no such idea as [3] or [5] in the scriptures

And [4] is also outright contradicted by scripture:

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."- Romans 13:1-2

"Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient" - Titus 3:1

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Mainly that I believe Humanism required certain intellectual foundation that are not common to most societies yet were found in European Christian society.

OK. It's what you believe.

If you want others to believe it as well, you'll need to make the case.

I also don't agree with your progressive teleology by which Humanism must necessarily appear in human society (let alone that of any other intelligent alien civilisation). Seems a bit like Divine Providence to me.

OK again

Seems a bit like mathematics, and the concepts of justice, the Golden Rule, and rational skepticism to me. I expect them all to emerge eventually in any intellectual and moral culture. The specific manifestations will bear the marks of the birthing culture - but the idea of being fair and questioning received wisdom would undoubtedly emerge from any starting place.

This is a major area of disagreement between us, and one which we will likely never resolve.

But reason and empathy only exist in a cultural framework that defines what is reasonable or empathetic. A century ago, reason and empathy led people to support eugenics and favour Communist dictatorship via a different concept of ethics

How is that relevant? I've already mentioned that the process requires tweaking. Some well intentioned ideas have had disastrous and unexpected collateral effects. Eugenics programs and alcohol prohibition are probably two of them.

I don't see your point as serving as either an argument against the process of rational ethics, or support for the idea that Christianity was a necessary precursor to the emergence of secular humanism.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I don't think Christianity was the only possible source, there is no reason why there is only one path to any idea. Humanism required necessary precursors though and the necessary precursors were found in Christianity combined with Greek philosophy.

It required the right cultural conditions, which in this case were provided by Christianity and were not common in most societies, even is some of them were present in some societies.

This is why I asked you to clarify your position - exactly what you are claiming. Was Christianity necessary for the emergence of secular humanism or not. Now you seem to be agreeing with me.

After a few weeks and a few tens of thousands of characters, we're no further along than when we started. You're still asserting a necessary role for Christianity (although at other times, only a permissive role), and your argument appears to be limited to the fact that the Enlightenment occurred in the West, where Christianity dominated and monarchy supported by Christianity had predominated.

Sorry, but I see the latter as a rejection of the former. Where the Bible commands to worship one particular god, Enlightenment philosophy substitutes church state searation and both freedom of and from religion. The constitution doesn't tell us not to covet or to honor our parents. That is considered none of government's business.

This was a radically different worldview that owes no debt to Christianity.

Here is how indebted one prominent Enlightenment philosopher felt to the ancien régime:

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." – Diderot

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

@ Robin

Sorry. Try this instead:

If you want to see why we are so far in dept. Go to this link:

Leibniz's Argument from Sufficient Reason

Scroll down to spending distribution. You will see that social programs went from 20% at the start of the early secular hippy movement and then at 2015 when those hippies are all grown up, it is now 65%. All other spending went down, despite the fact that our military protects half the world.

I know where the debt came from. We watched it explode in the 21st century. Hippies weren't involved. Men in suits and white shirts were.

A revolution is when a group vies for a significant portion of the power another group has, not that a few people in any particular group exist. We have had secularists since we were just colonies, however their power grab really began in earnest in the 50s.

You want to blame secularists for America's debt? Was it really that expensive the keep Americasafe from theocracy?

IMO Trump will be a disaster, his only merit is that he wasn't as sadistic and evil as the Clintons are.

America narrowly dodged a bullet there. I understand that those sadistic Clintons like to roast puppies alive.

Who knows what Trump is doing with Russia, but at least Hillary's e-mails won't be a problem. And we may have a universe of conflict of interest in Trumps personals holding while president, but that pesky Clinton Foundation won't be seeing any more contributions for a person in office giving a speech.

And Benghazi! OMG Benghazi! I'm still reeling over Clinton giving the enemy the keys to the compound and floor plans of it.

 

[1robin]

@ Robin

Sorry. Try this instead:

No, you know how to properly format a post. You do so correctly most of the time. It was just that one I couldn't make sense of. I normally look at my post after I hit send just to make sure it is formatted correctly. The times it isn't have always been because I made some mistake with the word "quote".

I know where the debt came from. We watched it explode in the 21st century. Hippies weren't involved. Men in suits and white shirts were.

The hippies of the 50s and 60s went from protesting against their own country (like Clinton did), growing up to be community agitators in the mold of Saul Alinsky, then eventually into politics. They opened the flood gates of illegal immigrants and started buying votes with entitlement programs. There is a great trap to politics. You usually do not get elected by promising to take stuff away, but the guy who promises new programs to take from some and give to others will literally buy votes. The same dynamic accumulates these programs over time until you get trillion dollar debts, our credit rating going down for the first time (under Obama), and our debt verses GDB ration being the worst it ever has been. It is usually described by the Thelma and Louise analogy. Conservatives are heading towards the fiscal cliff at 100 miles an hour, and the liberals are at Mach 2 and accelerating.

You want to blame secularists for America's debt? Was it really that expensive the keep Americasafe from theocracy?

GOVERNMENT SPENDING (help me Understand)

Which piece of that pie says anything about a theocracy? It does contain what I said it did however.

Looks exactly like what I described. The massive (and still increasing) rate we are piling up began around the exact moment the secular revolution took place in the late 50s.

You do not seem to know much about Christianity, you seem to be in fiscal denial, and you do not seem sincere.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Stay on one page at a time. We were discussing the nature of Americas founding. I provided dozens and dozens of quotes from the founders and framers that show that the US was built upon a Christian foundation. It is your job to supply evidence and arguments which over turn all those quotes, not to ramble about random subjects.

Getting testy? You're barking orders. Why?

I have no duty to address those quotes beyond what I did. They're irrelevant. They do not show what you claim they show. No quote could.

As I was just arguing with Augustine, you'll need to show me these foundational Christian ideas that emerged as the US Constitution. That will convince me. I just listed several counterexamples. I would ask you what I asked him - exactly what are you claiming is the relationship between Christianity and Americanism, by which I mean things like democracy, egalitarianism, limited, divided and transparent government, the rule of law, and guranteed personal rights and freedoms.

That's the basics of American government as the Constitution's authors rendered it and its signatories affirmed. They envisioned free, autonomous citizens, not subjects. It's a radically different view of government than the Bible's authoritarian model.

Incidentally, somebody else has already provided a list of quote contradicting yours. They also prove nothing. The proof is in the pudding. Look at the Bible and look at the Constitution. Nothing else is relevant to judging the degree to which one resembles and derives from the other.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

@ Robin

Digression, or as you so charitable call it, rambling on about random subjects.

Also, if you want to bring histrical quotes to the table, please use a mutually acceptable resource dedicated to teaching history,not a Christian apologetics site. They don't have the best reputation for honesty. I'd have to fact check every one of those quotes if I took them from an apologetics site, and then read them in context to see what relevant context was deleted.

Your Patrick Henry quote, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!" was one I dug into a few years ago. It's a fake quote. Your resource had access to that information just like you and I. They just don't care. Given those values and methods, I think that I'm justified in asking you to pick neutral resources, not ones with a Christian agenda. Pick the kind of site that I would need to go to to fact check the ones you pick instead.

Remember: There is nothing true known only to Christians. If it's on a Christian apologetics website and its true, you'll be able to show it to me on a website with no religious agenda. And if it only appears on Christlian apologetics website like the Patrick Henry quote, then it's - well - find something else.

From Misquoting Patrick Henry: The Internet and Bogus Sayings of the Founders | The Huffington Post

"Finally, and perhaps most notoriously, is the spurious Henry quotation that “it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!” Again, this is a perplexing case because Henry certainly was a devout Christian, but the quotation itself is of relatively recent origin. The quotation apparently came from a magazine commentary on Henry’s faith in 1956, which later writers took as a quotation from Henry himself. Popular Christian historian David Barton once regularly used this statement in his writings and speeches, but he came under such fierce criticism that he retracted it (and others) as an “unconfirmed” source. The quotation still appears regularly in Facebook and Twitter posts, and, remarkably, in presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich’s 2011 book A Nation Like No Other (p. 76). And this from the only candidate with a history Ph.D.!"

Here's another slew of fake quotes, these utilized by the professionally sullied and marginalized Christian apologist and revisionist historian David Barton:

David Barton and fake quotes

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The Atheism people have hardly any valid reason to belong to Atheism

You're correct, which is why I let my membership lapse. I also sent back the decoder ring.

they only deride and ridicule other religions

Sometimes I do other things. Last night, I took the time to have dinner. Later, I slept, but did remember to set my alarm to get up by 3AM to resume ridiculing and deriding Christians.

Incidentally, between the two of us, which one is criticizing the other?

 

[shmogie]

You aren't making any sense with this statement.

"there can be no middle ground between truth and falsehood" is a true statement. Something is either true or it is not true. *You* apparently don't know what an agnostic is. An agnostic professes to not *know* if a God is true or not, which means they have not taken a position on the matter. That does not change the fact that he either exists or he doesn't. You can't half-exist. Saying you don't know whether something is true or not is not a middle ground as it pertains to the actual truth of the question. It is a declaration that you have not taken a position on the question and reserve the right to take one or the other answer in the face of further evidence.

Actually, you are correct. Many agnostics I have known however have made a decision, the decision being they can never have enough evidence to make a decision. They can never know. Therefore, they are perpetually stuck in the middle, though logic dictates the law of the excluded middle. So then, are these types of agnostics illogical ?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Then please give a positive argument for Atheism without reference to other religions.
Regards

Atheism is a "No" answer to the question, "Do you believe in a god or gods?" What argument do I need to provide with that? I don't believe in a god or gods. Did you want me to try to prove that to you?

Atheism is the inevitable result of applying empiricism and rational skepticism to the problem of the existence of gods. It you need a reason to believe things, and none is offered, then you don't believe it. I have no use for any god hypothesis. It explains nothing. The hypothesis makes none of the intractable problems any less intractable, and makes several degrees of magnitude worse. such as trying to explain the complexity of a living cell by invoking an even more complex intelligent designer for it.

That's why I'm an atheist.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus.

It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.

I was just discussing the ethics of Christian apologetics - it's values, methods, and reputation outside of Christian circles - with Robin. Apparently, it's OK to lie if furthering the gospel.

Imagine making this comment openly and unabashedly:

"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." - Martin Luther

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

How can secular folks contend with this disadvantageous position?

Theists need to stop being so darned insecure.

It has never slowed me down, maybe the problem is that you are not an atheist, you are an antitheist, and the resistance you are feeling is a reaction to your own bias and prejudice.

I've also seen theists treat anyone, from atheists to theists of a different flavor, like crap, assuming they are being persecuted because of disagreement. It's not always the unpopular one who's at fault.

Constantly criticizing and challenging even the slightest believed right is making more enemies then friends.

Threatening atheists with eternal damnation doesn't win a lot of gold stars in the PR department either.

When you beat an animal it will likely attack.

A crazed animal will attack their shadow.

Oh please. What nonsense. All you need is evidence for your bizarre statements. Don't just spew opinion, if something is true, it isn't without evidence. You have a habit of venting your anti religious spleen by making outrageous statements that every reader must accept, just because you said it, you think

You haven't been keeping up with the news if you don't think atheism gets the shaft a lot from theists.

Just off the top of my head, many countries will kill atheists outright. In the US some psycho theist beheaded an atheist friend (with friends like that ...). The current President has paid the least lip service to Jesus out of all of them (and as they are politicians, never believe even the most fervent theist among them) and can still whip up fundamentalists into a frenzy by name-dropping Jesus every blue moon or so. Demanding theism from our leaders is stupid as it is irrelevant to the damned job description.

I don't push my beliefs. In fact I doubt anyone other than the folks on RF knows my beliefs. Among family and friends, I don't discuss religion or politics. I find both to be unnecessarily divisive.

Yeah, IRL I don't really get into it with anyone. I just act the way I feel I'm supposed to. If anyone asks why, then I tell them, but I let my actions do most of my talking for me.

Atheists have the same advantages afforded LGBQ, women, and people of colour.

Voted most likely to end up on a youtube beat em up vid?

They can protest in the streets, blog about their experiences, and petition their government officials for change.

Chechnya's bringing back the Concentration Camps for gays....

Don't know if a petition will get through to their government.

[5] "We need to do more than win an election or win the House or win the presidency, my friends: we need to make this beloved country of ours God's country once again." - Pat Buchanan

Which is hilarious since "God's country" is Israel. God never shows any real interest in other countries in the bible except when forced to do so because of Plot Contrivance.

2. Organize an atheist lives matter group, then block traffic and start riots because of the sad, sad plight of atheists.

So, by your tone, I guess you feel the protesters are wrong? They should just sit down, shut up, and not rock the boat?

I mean, I'm not a big fan of protests (tend to be more vague than necessary, plus I find work protests ironic if one is employed), but there's a lot of ... A ... LOT ... OF ... bad things happening that DESERVE protests.

You're basically suggesting that the atheist conceal who he is from the Christian, who feels comfortable wearing a visible a crucifix around his neck, and a "Warning! In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned" bumper sticker on his car.

"If Harry Potter has taught us anything, it's that no one should live in a closet." -- JK Rowling

He will be perceived my many as attacking Christianity and attacking God.

And that God hasn't struck them down with lightning yet is a complete mystery, like He doesn't even care or something.

One should give good and reasonable arguments, if any. Please

One should accept those given, please.

I've seen at least half a dozen threads about how those who like science are essentially faithless liars who don't respect reality, unlike the OP. That's not exactly giving out olive branches of peace, you know.

NO!” shouted Pious Paul. “Jesus! You don’t have time. We have a cocktail party fund-raiser in the temple. And don’t worry about them — they’ve already got health care access.”

Isn't that essentially what the disciples did to Jesus when that gentile woman wanted her kid healed? The female Jesus seriously called a dog (a female dog is a ...)?

she is clearly too stupid to understand that if there is no god, then there cannot be a devil either.

They are different characters. You CAN have one without the other. That's like saying that if you don't have a cheeseburger, there cannot be fries.

Me? Afraid of devils?

If we weren't afraid of getting killed, my brother and I (both "post" Christians), would love to quote The Exorcist as Pazuzu in a random church just to see the looks on other people's faces.

what if I said no.

We are plants? Fungi? Bacteria?

Wait, a lot of our DNA actually DOES come from viruses and bacteria ... never mind .

Remember: There is nothing true known only to Christians. If it's on a Christian apologetics website and its true, you'll be able to show it to me on a website with no religious agenda. And if it only appears on Christlian apologetics website like the Patrick Henry quote, then it's - well - find something else.

Indeed. If something is universally true, then it stands to reason the universe would know about it.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The hippies of the 50s and 60s went from protesting against their own country (like Clinton did), growing up to be community agitators in the mold of Saul Alinsky, then eventually into politics. They opened the flood gates of illegal immigrants and started buying votes with entitlement programs.

Is that right? My high school friends and I were part of that generation. We protested the war, and our protests eventually brought it to a halt. We cheered when Nixon was run out of town. We supported the Civil rights movements and the Women's movement.

But rather than follow the path you charted for us, we went to university and all became professional with gentle dispositions. We have lived ethical lives, taking responsibility for those we love and our communities, and trying to make the world a better place.

We are what those hippies became.

I have never heard Saul Alinski's name except from a conservative, and the first time was a few years ago.

There is a great trap to politics. You usually do not get elected by promising to take stuff away, but the guy who promises new programs to take from some and give to others will literally buy votes.

Trump just promised you that you'd win so much under him that you'd be tired of winning by now. And he promised to take things away from people, like the Affordable Care Act.

The same dynamic accumulates these programs over time until you get trillion dollar debts, our credit rating going down for the first time (under Obama), and our debt verses GDB ration being the worst it ever has been. It is usually described by the Thelma and Louise analogy. Conservatives are heading towards the fiscal cliff at 100 miles an hour, and the liberals are at Mach 2 and accelerating.


GOVERNMENT SPENDING (help me Understand)

Which piece of that pie says anything about a theocracy? It does contain what I said it did however.

Looks exactly like what I described. The massive (and still increasing) rate we are piling up began around the exact moment the secular revolution took place in the late 50s.

Thank Bush for your credit rating. Clinton left the store in good shape.

And what secular revolution of the late fifties? That was in the late eighteenth century, when the colonies rejected theocracy and instituted secular democracy. No more witch burnings, thank-you-very-much.

I know where the debt came from and why. It was run up deliberately to serve a variety of interests themselves of no interest to the American people. I watched it explode beginning in 2001 due to tax cuts for the wealthy, endless and needless war, and irresponsible fiscal policy leading to bailouts and recession. The momentum of that has carried through the last 16 years into an even deeper hole that will continue t be dug through the next 4 years.

That's America, and it wasn't done by hippies.

And none of it helped either of us. It helped rich white conservative men. They've been concentrating wealth at the expense of the middle class at a rapid rate since while trying to erode away at government investment in its human resources.

And feel free to keep all of the Medicare deductions I paid into the system. I won't be using them. Consider them your entitlement from this hippie. Now excuse me while I go out and throw molatov cocktails at the man.

You do not seem to know much about Christianity, you seem to be in fiscal denial, and you do not seem sincere.

LOL. Thanks for the horoscope. Or fortune cookie fortune.

What's fiscal denial? Disagreeing with you?

Non-Christians routinely know more about Christianity than Christians. We have a more objective view of it. We have no need of sanitizing it. I'm more than happy to tell you how vague most scripture is, how much of it contradicts itself, enumerate the moral and intellectual errors of its deity as well as its failed prophecies and unkept promises, not to mention its errors in science and history. I don't need to make any of that go away like the Christian does.

I don't need to use the phrase "true Christian," and I don't need to call all of the Christians in open defiance of their scriptures non-Christian. If you believe Jesus is a god and a few other things about sin and salvation, you're a Christian. If you are also a person that claims to live by the Golden Rule, but doesn't make much of an effort to do so, then you are still a Christian even if your own disavow you.

I'd say that that makes be the better judge of Christianity.

 

[Augustus]

No. I deny that anything that depends on scripture in part or whole has nothing to do with Christianity.

So you would agree that his argument has something to do with Christianity?

Once again, how does this matter?

Humanism only makes sense if you have certain concepts already in existence.

Regarding the Greeks it would have made no sense due to their lack of a concept of Humanity, no sense of being born equal, lack of a progressive view of history, etc.

The combination of ideas that go into Humanism are very rare in historical societies, which is why Humanism still is largely a Western European cultural phenomenon.

As to why I keep mentioning that Christianity was influenced by Greek philosophy, it's because it is important in the development of Christian theology, which adopted many of the techniques and principles of reasoning. Had it adopted a purely literalist hermeneutical framework or a tradition based framework it might have developed very differently, it wouldn't have been such a malleable tradition and you likely wouldn't have had people reasoning from Genesis that slavery is evil.

You seem to have an ultra narrow concept of what can be considered to be influenced by Christianity which appears unconnected to the reality.

You simply keep inviting and making a place at the table for Christianity. Yet you don't provide these core Christian concepts that humanism was waiting for. Which do you think are foundational ideas in humanism?

I mentioned some of these re:Buddhism but you ignored them.

"Since God has spoken to us it is no longer necessary for us to think." - St Augustine

Do you have any idea of the context of that quote? It's meaningless on its own.

Augustine was a former Manichaen, deeply influenced by Neoplatonist philosophy and one of the most influential theologians and philosophers in the Western tradition. He obviously didn't believe it was unnecessary to think.

Where the Bible commands to worship one particular god, Enlightenment philosophy substitutes church state searation and both freedom of and from religion...

This was a radically different worldview that owes no debt to Christianity.

It also say 'renders unto Caesar...'

The term religion itself based on Christianity and is not even necessarily accurate in terms of other belief systems. That religion can be abstracted from the rest of politics, culture and society and pushed to one side or kept in a box is also something very rare across cultures.

A tangible split between the Church and European political institutions can be dated back to at least Pope Gregory VII and his disputes with Emperor Henry IV (11th C). Religious groups such as the Anabaptists believed that politics corrupts religion and they must remain separate. The Enlightenment split was just the final step in a long process, not something ingeniously radical and earth shattering.

Had it happened in the 18th C Islamic world then it would have been radically different.

How is that relevant? I've already mentioned that the process requires tweaking. Some well intentioned ideas have had disastrous and unexpected collateral effects. Eugenics programs and alcohol prohibition are probably two of them.

You miss the point.

There is no such thing as empathy outside of a cultural context. Empathy is really doing what you think is best for someone else, what you think is best for them is a product of your culture.

In most cases, the same applies to Reason. Neither exists in a vacuum.

 

[Augustus]

You're still asserting a necessary role for Christianity (although at other times, only a permissive role), and your argument appears to be limited to the fact that the Enlightenment occurred in the West, where Christianity dominated and monarchy supported by Christianity had predominated.

I'll keep this bit separate because you keep misrepresenting this point.

What was necessary was certain precursor concepts (Humanity, equality, progress, etc). It doesn't matter if they came from Christianity or Martian Xylopsism, it only matters that they were present in the same society.

Every human can use empathy and reason. The reason the Humanism didn't appear in every society is because these precursors were not present in most societies. They were not present in every society because they are just made up mythical constructs that developed out of a certain mythological framework.

Apart from empathy and reason, do you consider there are any precursors that are necessary for Humanism to develop in a society?

 

[Simurgh]

Kelly of the Phoenix stated, regarding my comment: "she is clearly too stupid to understand that if there is no god, then there cannot be a devil either." the following: "They are different characters. You CAN have one without the other. That's like saying that if you don't have a cheeseburger, there cannot be fries."

ok regardless of the fries, how can this even be equated. burgers and fries are real things that can be eaten together and separately. no issue there. but if i don't belief a god exists, then how can a devil exist? they are both imaginary and exist within a continuum of ascribed values. so, i stand by my assertion that if i don't believe in a god, then i cannot also believe in a devil, since both are just fantasy figures dreamt up by some guys a long time ago to personify good and bad in this world. i don't buy into any of it, hence anyone who assumes that i can believe in a devil while i deny the existence of a god is not too bright. after all, i should be the one to judge what makes sense to me and what doesn't.

 

[dgirl1986]

Secular folks need to rise above it, and show people who fear them that non theists are just normal people. Kill them with kindness.

 

[Simurgh]

Secular folks need to rise above it, and show people who fear them that non theists are just normal people. Kill them with kindness.

why do theists need to be pampered while they attack us non-believers? if theists left us alone and stopped try to convert us, then we would not need to kill them with kindness. having not experienced any kindness from the god-fearing masses, i don't see why i need to rise above anything. religious people should start living up to their lofty standards instead of holding everyone else to them or expect people who disagree with them to live up to even higher ones they themselves do not attempt to live by. it's strange to me that the bible bangers talk about christian morals, yet rarely if ever actually display them.