Jefferson supported the teachings of Jesus, but he didn’t believe Jesus was the Christ (or not in any way comparable to what Christians mean by that title). And many things which are recorded in the Christian Bible, which Christians believe are central teachings of Jesus, Jefferson rejected as having been inserted later; e.g., John 14:6 (“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”) or John 10:30 (“I and my Father are one.”) or John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”) See the Jefferson Bible; I don’t believe you’ll find any of those in there.
Jello:
You are correct that Paine was very critical of Christianity, the Bible, and organized religion in general. He also said “To do good is my religion.” However, he does seem to have repeatedly affirmed a belief in God; see this Internet Infidels page on Paine. That others called Paine an atheist is merely testimony to the fact that believers have frequently misused the term “atheist” as a sort of general pejorative. Certainly Paine’s writings show just how great the gulf can be between Christians and Deists, despite their common belief in a God.
Similar things can be said about Jefferson: he wasn’t a Christian, he was harshly critical of organized religion, especially the clergy, and he was “accused” by his enemies of being an atheist, although he did believe in God. Jefferson did at least explicitly deny the calumny that atheists are automatically immoral or wicked. In a letter to Peter Carr (his nephew), August 10, 1787, Jefferson wrote:
MEBuckner, this thread proves once again that you are one of the most helpful and informative people on the SDMB.
Well, I’m pretty good with a search engine and vB code, anyway.
I’m sorry, but haven’t I accepted that there are Atheists in China and one million in India . Is that not sufficient? What would you like me to say?
This post made me think you were looking for excuses, and that anyone with Caucasian ancestry was officially Caucausian, therefore looking for loopholes.
Apparently I missed the one when you applauded the research and intelligent responses. In my previous post I was going by this post. Sorry for the omission.
You either didn’t understand what I wrote or you just ignored it.
1)In your response you wrote that Christians have been persecuted in the Soviet Union. Have you ever lived in Soviet Union? Well, I have. Christianity is the major religion in Russia and the state stands behind it. Judaism and other religons are persecuted daily. Why do you thinks thousands of Jews immigrate to U.S. every year? I’ll tell you why. In Russia or Ukraine, if somebody finds out that you are Jewish or any other minority religion, you need to watch your back. But of course you don’t know anything about that. Why don’t you read some literature on Soviet Union or better yet why don’t you experience it for yourself.
2)You said, “Why are the atheists responding in this forum?”
They are responding to you to inform you; not to convert you. There is a big difference between informing and converting. They are trying to show you where you logic went awry and to make you think.
Well, back when it still existed, the Soviet Union was definitely hostile to Christians. Post-Soviet Russia has made a few stabs at oppressing some Christians; the difference is that now the calls for repression of Christian believers are made in the name of Christianity, namely, the Russian Orthodox Church.
There was an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday about how the Russian Orthodox Church is trying to supress foreign denominations such as the Salvation Army. Here’s the article:
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_a3d4a8495686c1b5009c.html
grienspace said:
I find people without a sense of humor scary.
David, as a moderator, I don’t think you truly believe that your last statement lends itself to advancing the truth of the debate. Perhaps the comment is more appropriate in the pit. I notice that the corresponding thread in the pit was getting quite civilized for a while. If I scare you, you do have the power to ban me. BTW, a lot of humour is inappropriate, particularly when it is directed at specific groups of people, or puts people in unfortunate circumstances down.
grienspace said:
Actually, it advances the debate quite well, by showing how “tolerant” you really are and how overly serious you take yourself. And your reply further shows this by trying to tell me where I should have posted that message.
ROFL! Like I said, you take yourself waaay too seriously.
Sure it is. The IPU, however, is not. Like I said, get a sense of humor, and stop taking yourself so seriously. Lord knows after all you’ve said here and the way you’ve ignored many people who’ve responded to your OP, many of us don’t take you very seriously at all.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by David B *
Actually, it advances the debate quite well, by showing how “tolerant” you really are and how overly serious you take yourself. And your reply further shows this by trying to tell me where I should have posted that message./
[quote]
I see.The debate is really about me and my character. How erudite.Whenever the substance of an opponents debate becomes difficult, its easier to just impugn his character.
You can speak for many of the straight dopers can you? As far as I’m concerned any argument advanced by a proponent who justifies his stand by claiming his views are shared by the majority is suspect. He is appealing to a false logic. That is a typical ploy of high school lunch room debaters. But then we musn’t take ourselves to seriously must we? By the way, your charge that I’ve ignore many people is a joke isn’t it? I’ve spent more time than anyone else in this debate responding to baseless charges let alone legitimate counterpoints.
grienspace said:
I’m glad to see that you’ve finally admitted to your usual course of action. Indeed, anybody who reads this thread from beginning to end (throwing in the BBQ Pit thread you started as well) will see that this is exactly what you have done. Good job!
Yes, I can – after having seen what they’ve said about you here.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t really care what you are concerned about. I also didn’t “justify” anything – I simply made a point about how seriously you are taken here. Deal with reality, grieny.
Nope. But your “debate” in this thread certainly has been.
Yadda yadda yadda. Stop talking about what you supposedly did and actually back up some claims and address the points. I’ll grant you one thing – you’ve been going off on tangents for long enough that I barely even remember what points you were supposed to be addressing. And, frankly, you’re not worth going back to look.
Run along now.
David, your superior debating skills overwhelm me. You can make salient points in a debating forum while admitting you have lost track of the thread of this debate. Actually, if that’s the way you feel about me, then you are wasteing your time even posting your rants here. For someone who has a control position in the SD, you demonstrate very little in leadership. But then one doesn’t expect too much from the word police. I generally find bureaucrats a boring and resentful lot without initiative and prone to criticize. Hey,you want me to run along? Then lock up this thread. I promise won’t complain to anyone. You have the power don’t you?
Grienspace, a couple points ot bear in mind:
-
“Moderator” does not equal “leader,” no way, no how.
-
Neither David nor any other mod or administrator has a policy or habit of abusing power. Nor do the mods have the authority to ban someone without reason. They lose their jobs that way.
2a) In this thread, David is not speaking ex cathedra, he is speaking as just another poster. Thus, if you have problems with what he is saying, it’s solely that, and not with his position as moderator of this forum.
- Words are important, connotation is important, communication and clarity are important. You have no reason to get pissed off when people do not understand you. Doing so only makes you look bad.
First, something I need to get off my chest:
A- = prefix, meaning ‘without’
Theos = god(s)
Atheos = denying the gods (Gk)
This is a long post. Apologies for my inability better to condense my thoughts.
grienspace:
Above is the original post. Here is a claim imported, by me, from the pit:
grienspace:
The only declarations from the original post that I can identify as not an opinion are:
“I know I could be wrong…”
“…I will venture to say…”
and
“I just never hear of atheists in the third world except in communist countries.”
This declaration could be taken as fact if supported:
“…a vast majority of atheists have been raised in a predominantly christian culture…”
However, it wasn’t, and hasn’t yet been, so I treat it as opinion, or, more accurately, speculation.
Therefore, the bulk of the original post is made up of opinions. Whether or not they, as an aggregate, make up a proposal that can lead to a reasoned conclusion remains to be seen.
Setting aside quibbles over racial percentages in the ancestral heritage of atheists, and sidestepping the merits of being religious vs. being an atheist, here’s what I think the original issue/claim was (or, more to the point, here is the claim, as I interpreted it, about which I have been thinking as I perused this thread; other issues within the topic may have been more salient to other posters):
There is a greater number (or proportion of the population) of atheists in predominantly christian societies than in societies in which any other religion is practiced by the majority. This is a testament to the tolerant nature of christianity. Therefore, christianity is the most tolerant of world religions.
(The literal reading of the original post, that atheists in christian societies are more anti-christian than anti-some other religion, is essentially a platitude and has been described as such in this thread, so I disregard it.)
Neither the original post nor the body of those that debated it has acknowledged that society is made up of more than a religion. There are political and economic realities that are far more influential and powerful than the presence or absence of religion. Western societies (Western Europe and the erstwhile English colonies that didn’t get kicked out of the land they invaded) have, relative to most other parts of the world, liberal political and economic systems. They hold vast wealth, again relatively speaking, due in great measure to historic and continued colonisation and exploitation of those countries with lower levels of processed capital (e.g., factories and manufacturing plants vs. primary resources like bananas, minerals, and coffee). Not only that, but the wealth of these countries is (or has been until recently) far more evenly distributed than the wealth in poorer and less democratic countries (Indeed, one of the factors determining “Third World” status is a vastly unequal distribution of wealth within the population). This means more people with economic power, and therefore more people with social power. The greater the percentage of people with economic and social power, the greater the social and political freedoms.
[edited from my diatribe: brief social history detailing the rise of the middle class in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, relevant to supporting claim re social freedoms stemming from greater economic equality, but omitted as windy.]
All of which is to say that a greater incidence of atheism in England, France, Canada, the U.S., or other liberal democratic country in which christianity is the religion of the majority than in less liberal non-democratic countries in which christianity is not the religion of the majority is not a testament to the great tolerant nature of christianity. (Read it again: it’s there; it’s just badly written.)
grienspace:
Here and in the pit the validity of this statement has been disputed. May I just add my approach and say that political and economic realities, not religion, were/are the impulses behind persecution and atrocities in these and other countries.
David B:
Yes, in the name of their religion, but if you look closely at most such pursuits, you’ll find that the leaders of such movements/invasions/Crusades/wars sought a benefit other than the conversion of heathens, and this benefit was, yes I’m a broken record, political and/or economic. The little people (soldiers, missionaries, etc.) operating under the name of such movements are often/have often been true to the declared ideals of the movement, but that doesn’t mean the movement wasn’t actually about something else to the powers behind it.
“Must save the souls of all them heathens in Africa” … “Women can’t work outside the home and must be fully covered when in public because the Koran says so” … “It’s o.k. to slaughter/enslave these people because they have no souls/are not saved”
All of the above statements constitute justifications for actions or the implementation/maintenance of a system that politically and/or economically benefit(s) the powers advocating them (the statements).
(Of course, this is still a sorry testament to the potential roles and uses of religion around the world and throughout history.)
grienspace:
My point.
On another topic:
grienspace:
I also live on the west coast of Canada, and though I’ve no doubt we benefit mightily from living in a “cultural mosaic,” I have never thought, let alone claimed, that living here gives me “a general understanding of foreign cultures in general.” Traveling in Southeast Asia and West Africa has given me something approaching an understanding of foreign cultures, enough of an understanding to know that life in Canada does not grant me such an understanding [digression](And the term “global village” is a marketing tool and little more)[/digression].
For instance, living in Canada did not clue me in to the fact that christianity is one of the major religions of many African and Asian nations and is the dominant religion of Central and South America. See http://www.adherents.com for way more information than you’ll want. On that page, various sources list christianity as practiced by anywhere from about 40% to about 49% of the population of the continent of Africa. Percentages in individual countries vary widely. As many derivatives/brands of christianity are also listed, the actual numbers of believers in Jesus as Christ may be much higher. (Note that statistics indicate there is great overlap, in some countries, of traditional religions and christianity. In my observation, many christians in West Africa also practice some variety of traditional religion, usually a brand of animism or voodoo.)
FYI
From an article in Time South Pacific, February 14, 2000, by Simon Roninson:
Care to speculate how many atheists in Africa (or how many “anti-christian atheists” vs. “anti-animism atheists” or “anti-muslim atheists”)? Me neither (although you can get some numbers at adherents.com). What is of far greater interest to me is the level of economic justice and subsequent political and social justice on the continent (and elsewhere).
p.s.
MEBuckner, (with a salute for this and other pearls) see my sig.
It occurs to me that one reason why more people might make a concious decision to move away from Christianity is because it has a lot of requirements and can make a considerable intrusion into one’s life.
For example, Hinduism does not require one to go to a weekly religious service. One simply goes to the temple whenever one wants to worship and stays as long (or as briefly) as one wants. There are no Bible study groups, alter guilds, choir practice or pressures to donate money. There is no priest minding his flock and calling on them if he notices they have not been practicing the faith in the way the church deems appropriate. My experiences with Hindu people have shown me that the amount of dedication to one’s faith in that religion is an entirely personal matter and no one is going to demand that as a Hindu, one follows certain rules (except the prohibition against eating beef. That one could get you in trouble).
In short, if a Hindu decided to question the existance of the gods, he could do so in his own way and his own time, with no outside pressure to make up his mind; no one trying to influence him. I would suspect that if a Hindu decided on soft atheism, he would have no reason to denounce Hinduism. He just wouldn’t go to the temple anymore and would probably remove the religious posters from his house. Unless he became a dedicated hard atheist, there just wouldn’t be any reason to make a big deal about it.
So perhaps it’s the case that there are more atheists who were raised Christian because Christianity is the least tolerant religion, forcing people who are unsure to make a clear choice.
Lucky:
Actually, the original premise has been pretty well shot to hell. There are, for example, over a dozen atheist, humanist, freethought, and skeptic groups in India that are listed on the International Humanist and Ethical Union web site. The site also lists groups in other parts of Asia and in several countries in Africa.
aviddiva:
For the payment of a modest per-post royalty, of course…
does this mean any non-caucasian can become white by becoming an atheist? bummer!
Dal Timgar