Yes, but that’s not accusing atheists of being evil. I’m an atheist, and I agree entirely with HSHP, because you strike me as exactly the sort of hateful little fanatic who abstains from violence solely because he’s not in a strong enough position to get away with using it. Were this country to experience a Russian revolution style purge of religious belief, I have no trouble at all imagining you begging for a slot in the firing squad when they line the theists up against the wall.
So, because other people make broad, insulting, and inaccurate generalizations about you, that makes it okay for you to make broad, insulting, and inaccurate generalizations about others?
And you’re supposed to be the rationalist in this debate?
How come every time I read another irrational hating post from Der Trihs, I can’t help but think of this poor schlep?
DH, could you please change your handle to Red Shirt Atheist? Because it seems like you’re constantly getting shot down in the opening page of every religious/atheist thread from both sides of the aisle. It seems to be your destiny.
There was no contradiction. You merely interpreted a rather ambiguous phrase in a very narrow way. There is no reason that “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” should mean “leaving the Catholic Church”.
In fact it seems like one of those Schroedingerian intermediate quantum states that can’t be determined until it’s over, or something.
Old Irwin took the easy way out, setting up his experiment with cats. If he’d really wanted to push the envelope, he’d have designed one around whether a given act of apostasy constituted blasphemy against the Holy Spirit…
And you might not. Besides, I don’t think that’s what the phrase means. Even Jesus doubted God’s existence, wondering why He’d been forsaken. And Peter, upon whom the whole Catholic Church is built, denied Him three times.
I don’t think the phrase “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” refers to doubt and denial. Doubt is the absence of knowledge; it means you simply don’t know. Denial is the fear of knowledge; it means you’re afraid of what you know. Blasphemy is the perversion of knowledge; it means you know and you use your knowledge to obstruct God. It cannot be forgiven of you because you have perverted forgiveness itself.
If all you’ve done is doubt and deny, then you are in the holiest of company.
Good grief, there you go ridiculously exaggerating someone’s opinions to make them appear ‘one-step-away’ from murdering bastards. Why, if only you had a country to run, you’d be the next Hitler.
impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.
Judaism. a. an act of cursing or reviling God.
b. pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) in the original, now forbidden manner instead of using a substitute pronunciation such as Adonai.
Theology. the crime of assuming to oneself the rights or qualities of God.
irreverent behavior toward anything held sacred, priceless, etc.: He uttered blasphemies against life itself.
Where do you get your interpretation of it? Jesus was asking god why he had been forsaken, he was not doubting god’s existance. It’s kind of hard to think of yourself as the son of god and not believe your dad exists. And Peter denied Jesus because Jesus’ followers were being hunted down and he didn’t want to join him quite yet, not because he didn’t think Jesus existed.
Besides, I’ve had priests tell me that it was blasphemy. One of them was most vehement about it. He was quite unhappy with my declaration of atheism. Even if any of this is all right or all wrong, it’s still up to the guy to decide what he believes. If he believes that having denied the existance of god is an unforgivable sin then he has to deal with it himself.
From the sense of His ministry. He was forgiving and kind to all who would accept forgiveness and kindness. Only Pharisaic hypocrites, who had perverted God’s law for their own enrichment, received His wrath. They were the ones who commited “the crime of assuming to oneself the rights or qualities of God”. They sought for themselves the worship and adoration of the people.
My earlier point was not that the friend needed to be corrected. Rather, since the friend is troubled by an understanding that is not actually that promulgated by the church, and it his actions in relation to the church that have brought on his concerns, then if one wishes to ameliorate the troubled spirit of a friend, one might point out that the interpretation that is troubling said friend is not, actually, the one held by the church. Whether the belief is true, false, or silly, I would consider an effort to ease that trouble with a bit of information to be a worthwhile endeavor.
I haven’t been around the church proper in a while, but like I said, I’ve heard from several priests that denying the existance of god is blasphemy. Do you have any church proclamations or something on this? One priest in particular was quite angry that I would dare say that I was an athiest, and raised his voice in loud judgement. Now, before anyone says anything, this was not in the middle of Easter Sunday mass, it was at a large college event, and I was pressed on the matter or I would not have said anything at all.
It could be that Nancarrow is right. I think it’s a fair comparison insofar as Hitler dehumanized the people he despised. He described Jews as a stupid race of people incapable of reason, all the while fancying that he himself was the very arbiter of reason — as in this gem: “The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of the clearest reason and if systematically executed represents the most humane act of mankind” — Mein Kampf, Vol 1, Ch. 10
With Der Trihs, same same. We are nothing to him but delusional idiots and intellectual defectives. All of us. He makes no differentiation between worshiping a god of fire and God as Love. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Hindus — we’re all beneath him as he sees it. When a man perverts reason to dehumanize other men, he has taken Hitler’s first step. Fortunately for us, Der Trihs is impotent. God only knows what he might do with power behind his bigotry.
Yeah, Liberal, but I think Nancarrow was comparing ME to Hitler.
And I didn’t see where he was coming from with that, since I was castigating one particular person, not an entire class of people, as I (and others) pointed out.
Ummmm, Nancarrow was rather obviously commenting on Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, not me.
And hearing religious people call me an evil would be mass murderer because I argue with them on a message board is amusing. And if you are right, why haven’t I killed anyone ? I am not powerless; I could buy a gun and kill some random religious people tomorrow. I don’t, because that would be wrong, and reduce me to the level of the religous people I despise.
