Is the moral standard of humanists better than God's?

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Nonsense. If the Church et al. considers them non Christian, why should you ?

I assume you meant to ask, "... why don't you as well?" Who says that the church considers them non-Christian?

Even if that is correct, that the church also engages in the same No True Christian argument, it is irrelevant. Try to imagine hearing that argument come from Muslims about Muslim terrorists: they're not Muslims.

Let me illustrate your double standard here to you. When I just used the phrase, "Muslim terrorist," did you bristle at it like you did at the term "Christian terrorist"? I'm going to bet that you didn't. If not, why not? What's the difference? Why does terrorism erase your Christianity but not you "Muslim-ity"?

There is no difference to me, but there is to you and, if your claim was correct, the church as well. The difference is that you and the church promote a pro-Christian but not a pro-Muslim agenda, and I have no reason to do that or make that distinction.

Those core beliefs include not doing what they did. Thereby, by your own method they cannot be Christians.

That's your position, not mine.

If you Google "core Christian beliefs," you will see a variety of sites that list items like this:

• Jesus is the Son of God and is equal with God (John 1:1, 49; Luke 22:70; Mark 3:11; Philippians 2:5–11)
• Jesus was born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:26–35)
• Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life (Hebrews 4:15; John 8:29)
• Jesus was crucified to pay the penalty for our sins (Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 15:2–4)
• Jesus rose from the dead (Luke 24:46; Mark 16:6)
• We are saved by the grace of God; that is, we cannot add to or take away from Christ’s finished work on the cross as full payment for our sin (Ephesians 2:8–9)

These are all metaphysical concepts. None relates to behavior, all to belief.

I couldn't care less about "authority" and why you even brought it up I don't know.

Because your tone assumes an authoritative position in the discussion. You post as if you think that your opinions about Christianity are authoritative. You give yours, I give mine, and then you complain that I disagree as if I have a duty to accede to you.

I also believe you are totally hostile to the principles and beliefs of Christianity, and thus to those who hold them and practice them.

I am opposed to organized, politicized Christianity, and not its principles or beliefs, but its actions. That is a result of my American experience. I despair at the anti-scientism, the misanthropy and nihilism, the mean-spirited homophobia, the incessant efforts to pierce the church-state wall (a very timely objection), the sense of Christian privilege (how dare you atheists put up a billboard next to ours, wish others a happy holiday instead of only Merry Christmas, want to put up a holiday display nest to our creches, or give an invocation that a Christian is supposed to give), the persecution complex (the world's only oppressed majority), labeling atheists as immoral people that have no reason to be ethical and therefore are not, the war against sex education, and more. I am concerned about an ideology that teaches that world destruction is a good thing - something to be welcomed and gleefully anticipated.

I see no value to having this institution in our presence, and a lot of harm. It's divisive and tribalistic. It's like kudzu, attempting to invade and overgrow everything else. It is an unwelcome neighbor.

What else apart from politics would bring you and I to argue like this? Baseball? Plans to colonize Mars?

A logic syllogism proves how wrong you are. Christians cannot commit murder, Bill committed murder, therefore Bill could not have been a Christian when he committed murder. The simplest syllogism, but it proves how illogical your position is.

I reject the major premise. Your syllogism is valid (if the premises are correct, so is the conclusion), but not sound (the premises are not correct, so the conclusion cannot be).

I think many of your humanist/atheist ideas are destructive and even depraved.

Go ahead and name a few of my depraved ideas.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Only God knows if they [the 9 Supreme Court justices who decided Roe v Wade, all of whom professed to be Christians] were Christians

No, I know as does everybody else.

Once again, this is you trying to clean up your religion by pushing away the parts that embarrass you. Of course they were Christians.

Incidentally, you've just introduced a new definition of Christian: Somebody that the Christian god considers Christian. That's obviously not meaningful to an atheist.

I think you said you lived in Costa Rica.

No, I do not live in Costa Rica, but I have expatriated from America.

If so, you made a wise choice.

Thank you. I agree. I had a good life then, but I have a better life now.

 

[ChristineM]

No, I know as does everybody else.

Once again, this is you trying to clean up your religion by pushing away the parts that embarrass you. Of course they were Christians.

Incidentally, you've just introduced a new definition of Christian: Somebody that the Christian god considers Christian. That's obviously not meaningful to an atheist.



No, I do not live in Costa Rica, but I have expatriated from America.



Thank you. I agree. I had a good life then, but I have a better life now.

He appears to create his own definitions to suite his sensibilities. Christian is cherry picked only to include only what he thinks is good and righteous narrow minded and agreeing with his concept of what faith ought to be. Atheism on the other hand is open to all the hatred, ignorance and abuse he can muster.

He is a true christian hypocrite.

 

[shmogie]

The answers are available:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/nonreligious-children-are-more-generous

Atheists are the most generous—even without heavenly reward!

One study. I found many more that say the opposite. One however did show that atheists who have social contacts with Christians give more than other atheists. Another said that theists lumped together gave vastly more than atheists. Some studies do not consider general donations to a church. However, virtually every Church has free charitable activities, food banks for the poor, clothing for the poor, free health programs for inner city residents, the funding for which comes from those general donations or tithes to the Church. I am sure your conclusion is wrong, Christians give more

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

One study. I found many more that say the opposite. One however did show that atheists who have social contacts with Christians give more than other atheists. Another said that theists lumped together gave vastly more than atheists. Some studies do not consider general donations to a church. However, virtually every Church has free charitable activities, food banks for the poor, clothing for the poor, free health programs for inner city residents, the funding for which comes from those general donations or tithes to the Church. I am sure your conclusion is wrong, Christians give more

Your hunches aren't convincing.

Nor your recollections of something you read, but didn't make available for others to confirm your interpretation.

Why do you suppose that most churches won't let anybody see their books or publish audits? Try to find church audits on the Internet.

Would your pastor let you see your church's books? I'm assuming that the answer is no. It almost always is.

If not, can you think of a good reason?

If you volunteered to pay for an audit of your church, where they could investigate collections, deposits, and all spending, would they accept your offer? I'm pretty sure that if I ran an organization that was dependent on donations from others, and I was doing work that I could be proud of, I'd be anxious to publish my fiscal records to reassure my donors that their money was being spent properly, and very concerned about the message I would be sending if I refused to divulge those numbers.

Incidentally, our local bridge club prints out a profit and loss statement every month and an annual report that lists revenue, deposits, account balances, and expenses by category. You can see it pinned up on a cork-board in the bridge club, or on its Internet web site.

Nobody needs to ask for it. It's in the bylaws for the treasurer to prepare, publish and archive the reports.

And why not? We have nothing to hide. We report all income and pay all taxes owed. There's no hiding income since it can be calculating using an independent record showing how many people played every game of the year, data forwarded to the American Contract Bridge League and stored there as well.

And it's not going to be easy to cheat on taxes given that our operation is so transparent.

Nor do we have a reason to. We're not for profit.

Does your church do that? If not, why not? How can we account for this difference between most churches and our bridge club? Why aren't our values the typical church's values as well? That's a reasonable question that deserves a serious answer. What legitimate reason is there for this difference?

 

[shmogie]

Your hunches aren't convincing.

Nor your recollections of something you read, but didn't make available for others to confirm your interpretation.

Why do you suppose that most churches won't let anybody see their books or publish audits? Try to find church audits on the Internet.

Would your pastor let you see your church's books? I'm assuming that the answer is no. It almost always is.

If not, can you think of a good reason?

If you volunteered to pay for an audit of your church, where they could investigate collections, deposits, and all spending, would they accept your offer? I'm pretty sure that if I ran an organization that was dependent on donations from others, and I was doing work that I could be proud of, I'd be anxious to publish my fiscal records to reassure my donors that their money was being spent properly, and very concerned about the message I would be sending if I refused to divulge those numbers.

Incidentally, our local bridge club prints out a profit and loss statement every month and an annual report that lists revenue, deposits, account balances, and expenses by category. You can see it pinned up on a cork-board in the bridge club, or on its Internet web site.

Nobody needs to ask for it. It's in the bylaws for the treasurer to prepare, publish and archive the reports.

And why not? We have nothing to hide. We report all income and pay all taxes owed. There's no hiding income since it can be calculating using an independent record showing how many people played every game of the year, data forwarded to the American Contract Bridge League and stored there as well.

And it's not going to be easy to cheat on taxes given that our operation is so transparent.

Nor do we have a reason to. We're not for profit.

Does your church do that? If not, why not? How can we account for this difference between most churches and our bridge club? Why aren't our values the typical church's values as well? That's a reasonable question that deserves a serious answer. What legitimate reason is there for this difference?

Where do you get these idea's? Every Church I have attended has a treasurer who makes a quarterly financial report which is printed in the Church bulletin and a copy is included with the order of service on the worship day closest it's release. This is common for a number of Protestant denominations with which I am very familiar. I assume it is the same for all Protestant denominations. I have no knowledge of What Catholics do. Your conclusions are simply wrong. As to the giving of atheists, I will post for you the studies so you can see them

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Every Church I have attended has a treasurer who makes a quarterly financial report which is printed in the Church bulletin and a copy is included with the order of service on the worship day closest it's release.

That is different from my experience.

Can you post one of these reports from your church along with census data - membership size? I'd like to see what fraction of the total claimed receipts go to the needy. I'm sure that you have that data available given the treasurer's report.

What do you make of these reports? Fortunately, the Brits require financial disclosure, do both of these coe from there

[1] From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aplank/Criticisms_of_Mother_Teresa

"The Missionaries of Charity do not disclose either the sources of their funds or details of how they are spent. In 1998 an article in the German magazine Stern estimated that the order received about US$50 million a year in donations. Other journalists have given estimates of US$100 million a year. Critics have argued that this money cannot have all been spent on the purpose for which it was donated - aid to the sick and the poor - because the order's facilities, staffed by nuns and by volunteers and offering little in the way of medical facilities, are very cheap to operate and cannot cost anything like these sums to maintain.

"Critics have maintained that the majority of the money donated to the order is transferred to the Vatican Bank in Rome, where it is used by the Catholic Church for its general purposes, or is transferred to non-Christian countries for missionary work.

"In Britain, where the law requires charitable organisations to disclose their expenditures, an audit in 1991 concluded that 7% of the total income of about US $2.6 million went into charitable spending, with the rest being remitted to the Vatican Bank."

Seven percent of the contributions to a multinational hospice went to charitable spending? Praise the Lord!

[2] From Mormon LDS Budget Humanitarian Aid for the Poor

"The LDS Church refuses to disclose its financial information except for in countries where it is legally required to do so, such as Great Britain

"The church asked UK members to donate money to help the tsunami victims. Guess how much of the UK members donations went to tsunami victims? No, really, guess. OK, you ready for the answer? Nothing.

"The Mormon Church is spending less than 1% of its income to help the poor.

"In the 14 year period from 1984 – 1997 the Mormon Church reported cash donations for non-Mormon charity at $30.7 Million, or an average of 2.19 Million per year ... approximately .2% of its holdings."

********

Those are two huge enterprises. Crumbs go to the needy. Should we expect better from the rest?

 

[InChrist]

Those are two huge enterprises. Crumbs go to the needy. Should we expect better from the rest?

Most reputable evangelical Christian charities and churches submit themselves to ECFA oversight and financial accountability. The Catholic or Mormon Churches do not fall into this category.

ECFA Standard 5 - Transparency

Churches

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Most reputable evangelical Christian charities and churches submit themselves to ECFA oversight and financial accountability. The Catholic or Mormon Churches do not fall into this category.

ECFA Standard 5 - Transparency

Churches

OK, and thanks for that. Good to know that that matter is of interest to some.

 

[stevevw]

Well, I agree with most of what you have written. I was simply addressing the very large charitable contributions made by Christians, either singly or collectively in organizations. I think, but couldn't say for sure, that Christians
give more per person. Many churches have programs like stop smoking clinics or providing food and clothing for the indigent. These things are always ignored by the Christian haters.

Yes, I agree and even atheists support this. Though people like to criticise religion most organised religions are just that, they are set up and organised to be in the helping business and that's basically all they do. They live and breath helping others as its a big part of their creed whether they like it or want to do or not. If it wasn't for some organisations like the Sallies or St Vincents De Pauls and the many churches who help the needy society would be worse off. The Sallies started the movement of helping the poor in London when no one else was. That's not knocking non-religious charities but apart from some most are not set up that way and there are other factors that distract from their work. Nowadays there are a lot of businesses and big companies especially that are more open to what society thinks and it is important to be socially responsible as part of their marketing campaigns because this can impact on their reputation. This is good but it is different to being completely dedicated to others and sacrificing time and money and that's not to say churches rip people off as well.

 

[stevevw]

Liberal policies made it possible for me achieve economic security. They provided me with a free public education, student loans for university, and the GI Bill.

[Yes, they may have for you but they haven't for many others and it is getting worse as time goes by. Liberal policies help create the divide. Actually, its labour policies are usually the ones that support free education and welfare as they are about socialism. Normally with Liberal policies every time, the government wants to find savings they take it out on things like education, health and welfare. But now Labor are becoming the same. The government just announced changes to the HEX loans for students and by the way, it was never free as we have to pay it back later. Haven't been free for 40 plus years. But now the fees will rise from around 30k to near on 100k and will have to be paid back sooner.

If you notice that it's normally the lower class people that are targeted for the cuts. The mentality is that many don't deserve welfare because they are lazy or sponging off the government. People don't deserve free education and health because we can't afford it and everyone should pay because it's about putting your fair share in. Neo-liberal policies are about free markets and everyone should be good enough to look after themselves and if you're not then too bad. So they privatise health and everything else and if you ain't got the money then too bad. At the same time, they raise the taxes on the poor and working class and hardly touch the well off and big business because they are the ones who have the real power, why because they are looking after themselves even more so than anyone else.

What's backfiring is what's in place today.

Yes, I agree but its been slowly happening for nearly 50 years now since the 70s. It just got to a point where the policies have taken their toll. It started with the deregulations of markets and the floating of the dollar etc. Its all about freeing up ways for some to make lots of money and for many others to be suppressed and poor.

I already mentioned my thoughts about the present state of America and recent trends: "Currently, America, which has lately become increasingly conservative and its government increasingly Christian, is dominated by a selfish ideology, which, as a secular humanist and a liberal, is one I reject."

Yes I agree, but isn't Trump spending a lot or reducing taxes in a big way for business. His idea is that reducing costs for business will get them firing again and then creating jobs. Anyway, I don't want to go on too much about politics. The world is just starting to crumble and the economic system will fall again but this time in a big way that it may not recover. Any system that neglects people and lets them suffer and die is doomed to fail. Greed and money are the real gods and cause.

Those are not my values, and I feel increasingly estranged from the land of my birth. It's not the America I grew up in.

It is the same for most of the world.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If you notice that it's normally the lower class people that are targeted for the cuts. The mentality is that many don't deserve welfare because they are lazy or sponging off the government. People don't deserve free education and health because we can't afford it and everyone should pay because it's about putting your fair share in. Neo-liberal policies are about free markets and everyone should be good enough to look after themselves and if you're not then too bad. So they privatise health and everything else and if you ain't got the money then too bad. At the same time, they raise the taxes on the poor and working class and hardly touch the well off and big business because they are the ones who have the real power, why because they are looking after themselves even more so than anyone else.

That's neo-liberalism to you? That's pure conservatism you've outlined there.

I'm a liberal. We don't target the lower class for cuts, we don't consider the unfortunate sponges, we support public education and health care, we think that capitalism should be regulated, we believe that many societal functions are better provided by government than by for-profit interests, and we believe in asking those that benefit most from the system to pay the highest tax rates.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Yes I agree, but isn't Trump spending a lot or reducing taxes in a big way for business. His idea is that reducing costs for business will get them firing again and then creating jobs.

That's trickle down economics. It's a canard debunked several times by recent American history. It doesn't produce the promised results - just more in the bank accounts of those receiving the breaks.

That's where all these new billionaires came from. In the early eighties, when Reagan made this argument, America had two billionaires, Gates and Buffet. George Bush made it again as he was requesting a series of tax breaks for the wealthy right before two wars. The deficit skyrocketed.

 

[InquiringMind]

Is the moral standard of humanists better than God's?

Yes, as they do not pretend their morals come from a "divine source". That alone makes it better.

I agree completely. What morals are God's, differs according to the religion. Humanists view of morals should be universal. At least they will be closer then those decreed by a religions belief.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

God as a morals giver has worked very well for the past 2000 years. I know I know, the Hebrew God is a murderous vengeful jerk according to those that only think they know all there is to know about Christianity and other Abrahamic religions. It's nearly impossible to reason with atheists that have that level of bitterness embedded in their psyche, so I won't attempt to do so here. Christians and Christianity, meaning those that worshiped Jesus after the Ascension are a part of a loving religion. The ten commandants are a good foundation to build a judicial system on. I think Christianity and some of the major religions prep mankind for the next stage of evolution for lack of a better word.

; {>