I’ve long and long had a fondness for the (departed) Harold Camping, a theologian of some repute, even if he blew it major-league, with his prediction of the End of the World in April of 2012. Oops.
He was very big into sola scriptura, and repeated, often, that the Bible is God’s Word, spoken by the very mouth of God, and thus is the Perfect guide to all truth and knowledge. But once, someone asked him how he knew this, and he admitted, frankly and with no shame, that his belief was based on faith.
It takes some effort for certain of the faithful to admit this simple truth. It is based on faith. The only thing wrong with this is when they blunder and try to claim that it’s based on some other foundation. That leads to scientific creationism and madness.
It’s the same problem…no logical foundation. Primarily, elements of faith are demonstrably false or logically fallacious (i.e. appeal to authority or a burden of proof fallacy). Scripture contains a handful of verses which have actual archaeological evidence supporting a grain of truth underlying them but the rest of it is very problematic. There are some narratives which could theoretically be accommodated by particular historical contexts. For example, the story of Joseph at the end of Genesis could potentially fit within the contextual realities of Ancient Egypt’s Dynasty 13. Such a thing could be possible but there’s no evidence supporting this; it would just be conjecture. In other cases, the claims made within the text are simply baloney. For example, Genesis claims Abraham has encounters with the Philistines. The problem with that is we have extensive extant archaeological evidence telling us when the Philistines, along with their material culture, arrived in Canaan and it would be impossible for those stories to be true. The text also asserts flat earth cosmology. Modern apologists try to deny this based on a single verse but when one examines all the verses which speak to this question together, it’s readily apparent they describe a flat earth. Of course, that’s a result of the age of the text. A spherical earth was not contemplated until Classical Greek times. Before then, some version of flat earth cosmology was universally believed by ancient cultures. Really, it’s a wonder why people lend credence to these texts. Clearly, they’re not reliable. It’s not just the Old Testament either. The New Testament has a host of problems as well.
No, that’s not at all special or unique. God and Moses are just as or more violent than Muhammed, and even Jesus beat the crap out of the temple money changers (you might read it differently, but that’s just an interpretation).
Wow. The guy is a “refugee” living in Germany, where he attacks innocent people and yet he rants (about westerners, I assume) “coming to our homes, killing our families, and getting away with it.” How’s that for gratitude for being taken in? Oh, but he’s probably just another one of the many confused individuals. They’re coming out of the woodwork. You wonder why so many are so damn crazy, eh?
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In the video released by ISIS and filmed before the stabbing, the teenager says he will carry out the attack and threatens ‘infidel’ countries.
Knife in hand, he then announces in Pashto, an Afghan language, he would carry out an ‘operation’ in Germany, and presents himself as a ‘soldier of the caliphate’.
He says: 'I am one of the soldiers of the Islamic Caliphate, and I am going to conduct an attack in Germany. It is about time to stop you from coming to our homes, killing our families, and getting away with it.
You have any links about recent Christian terrorists killing people in the name of God? But but but…the inquisition, Salem witch trials, some b.s. out of the old testament…
I go to The Church of What’s Happening Now! and look forward to you providing some evidence that Christianity is breeding, right now, the kind of crazy assed killers that Islam evidently is.
Are you arguing that there’s something special about the tenets of Islam and its texts as compared to the tenets of Christianity and its texts? Or are you just arguing that there’s a disproportionate correlation between terrorism and Muslim individuals right now? If it’s the latter, then I don’t think you’ll find much disagreement in this thread.
I’m asking dream regent for examples of recent terrorists attacks, like maybe since the first of this year, committed by Christians. He keeps comparing Christianity and Islam, and trying to spin that the one is as violent as the other, but in this enlightened world today, it’s just not so.
You want to demonstrate that Islam is fundamentally flawed whereas Christianity is not, right? Both these religions are far more than a thousand years old. Looking at less than 0,1% of their history for evidence end excluding the rest does not strike me as sound methodology.
I would note that I have suggested from time to time that it’s not Islam, but the cultures they live in, but I am no longer as certain about that as I was.
I really never gave Islam much thought at all until 911.
If you’re restricting the timeframe to the 2016 calendar year, you’ve got (as you do every year, all the time) the ongoing terror campaign of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Congo, Sudan and CAR.
(Cue the goalpost-shifting as the Islamophobia-defenders fall back on reiterating “well, but there are many more contemporary terror attacks being carried out by radical Islamists”, which of course nobody has disputed at all at any point in this thread. :rolleyes: )
That’s why the comparison to Christianity is valid here: it proves that a major faith can change – the leopard can change its spots – and that a religion that once was violent can, over time, become peaceful.
Our correlative correspondent believes that this can’t happen with Islam, even though it did happen with Judaism and Christianity. He seems to think that Islam is unique in this respect. That’s why Christianity’s own evolution is relevant: it shows that faiths are mutable with time.
This is called a straw man. When you apply a temporal limitation of what people are doing “this instant”, you are objecting to a claim no one has made. Everyone else appears to be speaking of the fundamental nature of these religions.
You skipped past post #854, apparently? There are some recent Christian terrorists for you, killing people (and otherwise terrorizing them, e.g., by requiring them to convert to Christianity or be summarily killed) in the name of God.