The Glade 4.0

Those scriptures are holy for at least three major faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) accounting for over half the world's population between them. I also don't have anyone here promoting the virtues of Hinduism or Buddhism, so I have nobody to argue against there. Suffice it to say I have issues with those faiths, too. Not nearly as many, though I suspect that's more due to a lack of intimate familiarity rather than some concept that eastern religions are better.




I have absolutely no tolerance for blue-laws in secular government, either. There is a difference between laws that protect rights and promote the smooth working of society, and laws that exist merely to promote ideology and morality. The former is acceptable, the latter is not.



I really wish I could argue for anarchy. There is absolutely no such thing, in my view, as a "legitimate authority" by which one adult human being should be able to tell another what to do. However, it's necessary. So we keep authority as limited as possible.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Except that the idea of separation between religion and secular government is, in societal terms, radically new.

You're quoting items written several thousand years ago, when government and religion were essentially the same thing. Defiance of the law and conversion to another god were therefore punishable by death, just as treason is punishable by death now.

Additionally, many of the items quoted relate to how to wage war, not specifically to why. Given the authorship from humans themselves, why would they not suggest waging war along the methods and guidelines of their times (i.e. taking slaves, total war, etc.)?

Perhaps what you're trying to really argue against is literalist interpretations of the Old Testament and Torah?

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Indeed. Which is the only reason people in western society are not being executed for sodomy today. Just take a look at the oppression in the average Islamic republic.

I mentioned earlier that I believe our rapid scientific progress over the last couple centuries is in no small part due to the decline in religious power in western government. Likewise, given the opportunity, western organized religion would still oppress those who violated its dogmas with law.

We've muzzled the rabid dog. It's still rabid, and still snarling.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Personally, I think the order of causation goes the other way.

All but the last three are outdated and have been superseded.

Regarding the others:

Romans 1:24-32: This lays out some unacceptable behavior, and then makes the following statement:



Brutal, to be sure. The VERY NEXT STATEMENT, Romans 2:1 is as follows:



The Bible is designed to lay out a moral code and instructions on how to bring yourself to God. It must, therefore, in so doing, identify unacceptable behavior.



The Bible consistently praises women and condemns mistreatment of them. Would you expect a religious text, written by men nearly 2000 years ago to declare women's equality? This is certainly a problem for women, but is viewed by most as outdated.



I see no issue with this. It is instructions to perform your required tasks, regardless of whether your master/boss/manager is easy going or a pain in the ***. This is still good advice. It's certainly not advocating mistreating your servants.

At any rate, you need to ignore A LOT of text to come to your drawn conclusions. Want to go quote for quote? You provided 3 (IMO only 2 that count). Here's three to counter:

Romans 2:1
Peter 2:17
and of course
John 2:1-11

It might be a bit of a feedback loop...a loss of power allows scientific advancement which causes further loss of power, etc. However, if the Catholic Church had had its way, the earth would still be the center of the universe, with everything revolving around it. Scientific knowledge that went against established doctrine was illegal and wrong. They didn't relent because they saw the truth of it, they relented because they didn't have the power to prevent its spread anymore. Eventually they did see the truth, but if they'd been able to squash every astronomer who looked at the sky and said "I think this is wrong," we'd still have the sun travelling around the earth.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I just want to go on record as stating how awful it is that other people believe strongly about things that I don't believe in. The world would be a better place if everyone believed exactly the things that I believed.

Indeed. It's like that George Carlin line about sharing the road with idiots and maniacs.

It's more a statement on speaking fanatically about fanatics.

And any book that calls naturally occurring, common biological sexual behavior between consenting adults "unnacceptable" has serious issues.



I would expect a book that claims to be the inspired word of God to give God's exact opinions. Unless God, too, used to be a bigot but has since moved toward equality? Likewise, your dismissal of the "old testament" scriptures as meaningless implies that you think your God was formerly a murdering, genocidal tyrant, but changed somehow. Is your Bible inspired of God or not? Were the laws of Israel God's laws or not?

Let's see what the new testament thinks of the old testament. (There are actually dozens of these references, I just grabbed a few).

Matthew 5:17-19
Mark 7:10
Luke 16:17
2 Timothy 3:16
2 Peter 20-21



The word your bible translates "Servants" was the word used for slaves in the greek language it was written. This is yet another bible verse legitimizing slavery.







Romans 2:1 - Ah yes. One of many scriptures that show the hypocrisy of the bible and those who wrote it. A book of judgement tells people not to pass judgement on others. I love it.

Peter 2:17 - Interesting it singles out believers there, but regardless, more hypocrisy. You know, the Qu'ran, too, tells people to be peaceable with all men, then out of the other side of its mouth says that the infidels should be killed.

John 2:1-11 - Water to wine? I mean, yeah, I'd love to have that power, but what's a miracle fable have to do with this?

Now, let's look at some more interesting New Testament principles:

The guilty are set free by the blood of an innocent victim - Romans 5:9, 12
We are predestined by God to go to heaven or hell, and can't affect this - Ephesians 1: 4-5, 11
God had his son murdered to keep himself from hurting others for things they didn't do - Ephesians 1: 7
God will set the entire earth on fire so that he can burn non-believers to death -2 Peter 3:7

I particularly love the moral message that bible writers got out of the story of Sodom and Gomorrha.

Let's tell the story for those who hadn't read it.

God sends angels to investigate the city of Sodom (and nearby Gomorrha), to see if it really needs to be destroyed. (Because, like, God's not omniscient or anything.) The angels come to stay with the faithful nephew of Abraham, Lot. The men of the city see these cute angels enter the city, and demand that Lot turn them out of his house so that they can rape them to death. Lot, taking the idea of hospitality seriously (and also the idea of the inferiority of women), offers them his daughters to rape instead. The men refuse, saying they want to rape the angels. God strikes the city with temporary blindness so the angels don't get raped. The angels encourage lot and his family to leave the city so God can burn it. (While leaving, Lot's wife turns around to watch the destruction, and gets executed for it by turned into salt.)


Now, how are Sodom and Gomorrah referred to in the new testament?
Jude 7-8
So, here we have a city of murdering rapists. But their real crime was not being murdering rapists, but the fact that they wanted to rape men. The rape of women would have been completely acceptable. No, the real crime of Sodom is that they were too gay.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Intellectual problems with allowing religious belief to supercede science:

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I find your premise flawed. The Greeks and Romans had fully integrated religious and secular governments and still had huge amounts of scientific knowledge. Had those not fallen and the Dark Ages arrived, it's entirely possible the technology curve would have been about 1000 years ahead of where it is.




This goes back to my point of simply trolling the topic. It's not meaningful discourse, and really rather idiotic.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Of course. Any criticism of religion is seen as trolling. Religion is sacrosanct, we're not allowed to point out how it has failed. All religions failings are on men, while the rare things it gets right are God's blessing.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Says who? And who says it's natural? This is just simple disagreement on the purpose of the separation of gender. There's room for disagreement here.



So you're mocking people for holding a strict interpretation of the Bible as it relates to evolution, and then holding a strict interpretation for other issues where it's convenient? I don't believe the Bible is the word of God, and few do. That's why we have books titled after the various authors. It's the books of Peter, and John, not God and God. Even so, the entire point of Christianity is that things changed when Jesus was sacrificed.



Wine brewers are inherently good, and can do no evil. No, I guess I blew the reference. It was intended to be the "he who is without sin cast the first stone" bit.



8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Hmm. This is basically saying that our sins are forgiven through God's sacrifice. Not sure how anyone can read this negatively.



4 According as he hath achosen us in him bbefore the foundation of the world, that we should be choly and without blame before him in love:

5 Having apredestinated us unto the badoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

7 In whom we have aredemption through his blood, the bforgiveness of sins, according to the criches of his dgrace;

8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all awisdom and bprudence;

9 Having made known unto us the amystery of his bwill, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:


10 That in the adispensation of the fulness of times he might bgather together in one call things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being apredestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who afirst trusted in Christ.

Not seeing an issue here.



Well, this hasn't happened yet, so get your **** straight.

I particularly love the moral message that bible writers got out of the story of Sodom and Gomorrha.

Let's tell the story for those who hadn't read it.

God sends angels to investigate the city of Sodom (and nearby Gomorrha), to see if it really needs to be destroyed. (Because, like, God's not omniscient or anything.) The angels come to stay with the faithful nephew of Abraham, Lot. The men of the city see these cute angels enter the city, and demand that Lot turn them out of his house so that they can rape them to death. Lot, taking the idea of hospitality seriously (and also the idea of the inferiority of women), offers them his daughters to rape instead. The men refuse, saying they want to rape the angels. God strikes the city with temporary blindness so the angels don't get raped. The angels encourage lot and his family to leave the city so God can burn it. (While leaving, Lot's wife turns around to watch the destruction, and gets executed for it by turned into salt.)


Now, how are Sodom and Gomorrah referred to in the new testament?
Jude 7-8
So, here we have a city of murdering rapists. But their real crime was not being murdering rapists, but the fact that they wanted to rape men. The rape of women would have been completely acceptable. No, the real crime of Sodom is that they were too gay.[/quote]

And here is the end of that passage:

17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

18 How that they told you there should be amockers in the blast time, who should cwalk after their own ungodly lusts.

19 These be they who aseparate themselves, sensual, having not the bSpirit.

20 But ye, beloved, abuilding up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

22 And of some have acompassion, making a difference:

23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the afire; hating even the bgarment spotted by the flesh.

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you afaultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

They were unholy, wicked. But have compassion on them, and help them.

It's easy to find fault if you remove context.

I'll post my counters in a few.

I might point at this point that so adamantly attacking a book is actually giving it the power you seem pretty desperate to take from it.

A number of the arguments you make seem to ignore a few simple concepts which undermine your attempts to argue. The foremost is that you take passages from a work of art out of context as a means of defining what that work of art is as a whole. This has never, and will never, be a valid means by which you can judge any work, be it book, painting, TV show, or porn flick. Condemning the Bible on the basis of a few outdated passages implies the same thing that you seem to condemn Christians for, namely, believing the Bible to be the true and immutable word of god.

The fact is that the Bible is a work of man, and regardless of where those men source the material, the words were written by men, writing in accordance with the knowledge they had at the time. You cannot take any ancient document and presume it to have the same meaning now as it had when it was written, especially not in the case of the Bible, which has gone through multiple translations from its original text.

If you don't wish to view the Bible as an authoritative religious document, then don't. But if you don't, don't argue like it is. As with all art, a significant part of the statement that the work makes is what you take from it. If your eyes can only be drawn to what you perceive as evil, then that is what your eyes see, but it is not what the work is.

I would ask, personally, why you would take so much time looking up Bible passages and posting lengthy posts when you know you're not going to convince anyone of anything they weren't already convinced of. It seems a lot of effort spent on tearing others down, when that effort could be put toward much better use.

In the more general, you seem to be attempting to weigh Christianity's sins against a feather, but the fact is that you aren't ever going to find any organization which can pass that test. If your objective is to stamp out all organizations whose ledgers include more evil than good, then you will have a very full and busy life.

Fail! If this had been your argument, I'd have conceded your victory out of amusement and emotional agreement.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That is not how religion treats the bible, and whats more it is not how the bible treats itself.

If we were criticizing the reliability of the bible, I would have long since pointed out that the bible does not exist. At Nicea, the church discarded the holy books and history books and scrolls it didn't like, and kept the ones they did like. This ecclectic and disparate combination of legends, stories, fables, laws, histories, and personal letters was expected to somehow homogenize into a whole that would carry a common theme that explained Christianity. We are then told, by the religion that created it, and likewise, by some of the scriptures themselves, that it is not the work of man, and is, instead, the word of God, Himself, handed down to men the way a man might have dictated to a scribe or secretary. The book is supposedly infallible, as the word of god, every sentence and word in it to be treated as holy, factual, and law.

I realize not all religions treat it this way any longer. And of course, in reality, there is no reason to treat "the bible" as one book. Each section has different merit with regard to what it espouses itself to be, either as a history, or merely a fable or legend. When it is treated the way you , I have no issues with it.

Christianity as a general rule does not treat the bible this way. It is a unified holy book, the inviolable word of God, wholy true to every word. When treated this way, it's full of admonissions for terrible acts, contradictions, and bigotry. We don't treat the collected works of Plato, Homer, Socrates, and Aristotle as a single unified holy book. If we did, it would be just as ridiculous. And so, when dealing with religions that treat the bible this way; those that espouse living by the Bible's edicts and believing in it as holy, it's entirely legitimate to call it out as such.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The post that I am currently writing is the true word of god.

Will you now quote the text of this post out of context in an attempt to prove or disprove that statement, or to condemn me for atrocities committed by people I have never met, and don't agree with?

Furthermore, I would ask what worth it is to you that anyone claims to know the word of god, especially when you have at least expressed a disinterest in such a god (I would prefer not to put words into your mouth.)

My point is simply that it says something, in and of itself, that you research the topic under the assumption that the Bible is, in fact, the word of god, rather than treating the text like you would treat Fifty Shades of Grey. Ultimately, it lends credence to the argument that the Bible is the word of god, which I am sure is not your intent.

Being not a Christian, also, I don't think that you can speak for what Christians believe, either as a whole, in part, or otherwise. I have met a wide variety of Christians who seek to live up to the work as a whole, rather than believing the book to be a literal account of history. I know a great many Christians who aren't flat-earthers, who believe in evolution, support gay marriage, and are pro-choice, just as I know others who are the opposite. Deriding someone for following a religion that has wildly different beliefs on a wide variety of issues is not much different than assuming a black man is lazy.

My point is that you have to realize that the picture that you paint of Christianity is incomplete, and horribly biased. You aren't arguing in an effort to present a full picture of what the religion is, what it does, or what it stands for, and because of that, you're doing exactly the kinds of things that you condemn Christians for.

Not at all.

First of all: I was raised christian. I'm a baptized anglican. My father is a minister. I don't have "daddy issues." I have issues with his chosen vocation, but I have a great respect for my father as a man. Separate the person and the belief. I believed until my late teens, then i started searching other faiths, before eventually realizing they were all part of the same problem, regardless of the individual merits of any particular group.

There are several things you need to understand:

You cannot take each individual group and separate them. Religion is the worst components of all of its parts. Religion is the results to human society and the suffering that it has caused. Yes, that includes violence and wars that religion has supported/caused/aggravated, but it's actually far worse than that. It's the sexual repression and psychological trauma it has pushed upon each and every person raised in it. Even Christians who now support gay-marriage are affected - they've come from a religious background where such things were taboo. Sex is wrong and evil. I had moderator privileges removed long ago for insinuating that an easter thread titled "He is Risen!" made me think Jesus was having an erection. It's like sex is somehow unholy and dirty and this is ingrained into our psyche as a culture. Then there's the stifling of creativity and science. There's also the moving goalposts. If, hypothetically, Nitefox says gays are going to hell, and pulls up a scripture to support it, and you criticize his religion for it, someone like you shows up and says i'm not being fair because you know christians who don't believe what he believes, blah blah blah. Also, I pick on Christianity because the people I'm arguing against are christian. But you know, I'll freely admit, these days, Islam is worse. Buddhism and Hinduism aren't much better. When pointing out the problems with religion, you point out... you know... THE PROBLEMS. This means of necessity you're going to be showing cases where it fails. And any religion that treats the bible as the unified holy word of god has already failed.

I've read a lot of books lately, and watched a lot of debates and discussions from people a lot smarter than any of us, and they've left me convinced of one thing: religion itself is a problem. Religion is an authoritarian social structure that tells people it has the answers, morally and often scientifically, and discourages people from questioning them. Even when those answers themselves are not objectionable (more often than not, they are), religion is a barrier that humans must overcome in their search for more knowledge. Religion suggests they can stop seeking, when in reality, the search itself is everything.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So is government. So is family. So is math (if you consider language a social structure). So are large portions of science. It is a way to define our place in the world, and understand our environment.

Then it is also the best components of all its parts, unless you are completely biased.

Nope, not all is trolling. Your particular approach to it is, because 1) you fail to retain a respective discourse, 2) you have a history on the forum of doing so, and 3) in most cases you devolve so heavily into fallacy that it undermines your whole "logic and science are right" that you shouldn't expect to be taken seriously.

I'm all for religious and theological debate, particularly within a social and historical context. I'm not for atheism hating on any religion. That's weak, and undermines the point.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

No, you miss the point.

Theological debate = what color are the faerie's wings. It does not matter. This isn't about hate. It's about the terrible harm religion has done and continues to do to human society and psychology. Atheism doesn't matter. It's about institutionalized superstition and the resulting authoritarianism. You call that "Atheism hating on religion." (1) I'm not an "atheist" in your sense of the word. (2) It has nothing to do with emotion at all. It's demonstrable and obvious harm that religious types here merely sweep under the rug as "people did it."

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

And totally refusing to accept that anything good ever came of it?