What I’d find interesting is the notion that perhaps the underlying teachings of Christianity are depraved and those individuals that ignore those teachings and pursue their own (laudable, kind) agendas are doing so while using a pretense of Christianity as a front because it’s the readily available (to them) vehicle for doing so and it has social reinforcements as opposed to being ‘godless’ which is still heard here and there as an insult at some level, especially maybe to such people.
Just a sincere thought, not intended as an insult or a sarcastic attack.
Just as a general point about the bad points of religion; it’s not the evil people that’s the problem. Like people have said, evil people are going to be evil religion or not; they’ll just find another outlet. Without religion there’d be one less option for that, but i’m uncertain how much that would decrease evil overall.
The problem is with the good people. I have little doubt that most of the people who are anti-abortion are reasonable people (or at least as reasonable as us pro-choicers are). I disagree with those against gay marriage, but aside from this particular fault I am sure they can easily be decent people. The problem is that by providing a set of standard rules, religion can lead good people to do or at least help evil causes. Without religion, there would still be evil. But would there be such emnity against abortion? Gay marriage and adoption? Euthanasia? Less religion won’t help us with our problems with evil people. But it would help otherwise good people from supporting (IMHO) bad causes.
Possibly, except that religion isn’t monolithic. Plenty of religions have no rules against gay marriage, including Christian ones like the Society of Friends, which is on the whole completely pacifist. I think government is more of a problem in that regard because that’s where the rules really come from. In a democratic republic, the majority rules. (It should also be noted that there are atheists against gay marriage, and in fact there are gays against gay marriage.)
Once again, the utter unwillingness to lay the blame for anything on religion. Christianity is one of the most malignant, destructive belief systems ever to exist, with the blood of millions and the suffering of billions on it’s hands, and you handwave away all it’s evils as an aberration of a few individuals.
Christian CAN’T reform humanity or anything else. Quite the opposite; it has seriously corrupted humanity.
In other words, the bad people aren’t REAL Christians, so the evil that they do doesn’t count. The fact that they do it in the name of Christianity, and they follow it’s teachings in doing so doesn’t matter. :rolleyes: You could use that argument to argue for the innate goodness of everything, up to and including Nazism; by your “logic”, if a single adherent of a belief system is a good person, that belief system is good.
Whether you like to admit it or not, the ruthlessness, aggression, intolerance, amorality, and general nastiness of Christians throughout history is straightforwardly implied by it’s underlying philosophy and cosmology. It’s the people who do good in it’s name who are perverting it.
No, the production and encouragement of that kind of personality is endemic and innate to Christianity. They are a central part of it. That’s part of what makes it so destructive.
The Society of Friends is the Quakers, right? I’ll take your word for it on them, and certainly there are many religions which are accepting and even people in religions otherwise against gays are tolerant. But pacifism is itself what I would consider a bad rule. Violence is sometimes necessary.
I suspect that my problem with this stems very much from a pretty fundamental idea of mine that rules are inherently bad. Rules are designed to apply to certain situations, but can be taken out of context far too easily, or can be used as a reason to not examine an issue thoroughly. Rules are good for saving time, but that’s it, and I don’t consider some topics worth saving time on.
My problem with religion specifically in this sense is that it takes one foundation which is strongly believed in - the belief in the god or gods in question - and tacks on a lot of other issues which gain the benefits of that strong belief and (to an extent) unquestioning following. As an athiest my thoughts on issues are (mostly) pretty seperate. Someone couldn’t, for example, apply to my disbelief in gods to get me to agree with abortion or not. But religious people can have their passion and drive as provided by their belief co-opted for various different causes.
I think that at heart i’m pretty much a libertarian… in an ideal world. Sadly I don’t think it’s workable in reality. I suspect the only difference between you and me in this particular regard is that I have a worse opinion of humanity.
That there are. But the vast majority of the resistance is religious in nature. And many of those athiests and gays (or gay athiests) are against it on the ground of it perhaps provoking a bad response, or because of a belief in democracy and majority rule, rather than being against it per se, and might change their minds in a country where the majority actually are for it.
It’s not a rule. Just a personal choice among most.
Me too. That’s one of the things that attracted me to Christ. He opined frequently about rules, such as those about the Sabbath, when He was reprimanded for picking grain on the forbidden day. His response was that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Or when He was told that He should do the ritual hand washing so that He would not be made unclean by the food He was about to eat. His answer was, “It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of his heart.” Christ replaced rules (ethics) with love (an aesthetic). Or as He put it, “I have fulfilled all the laws and commandments. And now by this will men know you are my disciples, that you love one another.”
But that’s just politics within the field of religion. Look closely, and you’ll see it. The politicians in this case are the religious leaders who benefit in wealth and power from the implementation of rules and laws. When people are afraid, they are willing to pay for their security, whether the robe worn by the fearmonger is a long black one or a long white one.
Believe me, I’m not shilling for libertarianism here. I’m just saying that if a rules system is your chief complaint against religion, where the rules are enforced by the threat of hell, then you should be wary as all get out about a rules system that is enforced by the threat of prison or death. If you wiped out every religion on earth, the politicians within them would just move over to government.
true recognition is not required for enlistment for this side, just to be deceived into thinking you are enlisting in one of Satan’s false faiths. Atheists can be captured and placed into spiritual bondage, just like a non-combatant person can be taken by a military force, look at our war of 1812, where our (non-military) sailers were taken by the british and forced to serve. Actually atheists have little defense against this.
As pointed out above that logic doesn’t hold with demonic possession.
Being a follower of Christ is not easy - don’t let anyone fool you, though some have it easier then others. It is a hard time, Jesus Himself said if you want to be my decipel you have to take up your cross and follow me. He also said the world will hate you because it first hated me (paraphrase). There is a lot of responsibility and accountability also, so in that sense yes it can be ‘dangerous’ but God will also prove Himself to you it will not be unclear, you will know for sure - so in that respect to deny God would be a very foolish thing at that point, if you are unclear you won’t be accountable. The responsibility of your faith is God’s at that point and faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
I’m not so sure. I mean, yes, there are people who take advantage of strong belief, but it isn’t just that. But I wouldn’t say all religious people are affected so. I like to think of myself as an atheist who’s formed opinions without listening to noted atheists (IOW, i’m just pig ignorant on famous atheist types ;)), so I don’t find it hard to believe there are people who’ve come to their thoughts on their own.
It’s not just that it’s a rules system, it’s that one strong belief is attached to many issues. If you find an atheist that’s a strong proponent of protecting the environment, for example, and say to them “I like the strength of your convictions. I’d like you to campaign for pro-abortion rights for me”, they’re going to say “Er, thanks, but how I feel about the environment, the strength of my convictions, can’t just be transferred to a different issue like that”. How they feel about the one issue and how they feel about the other is seperate. With a religious person, however, that strength of conviction is carried over. The depth of their feelings over their deity in question does get carried over to many issues; it’s like an automatic-strong-belief card. In the context of rules in general, it is as if you had a really, really strong belief that one particular rule was correct; and then applied that strong belief to all the similar rules, and (to an extent) without applying as stringent thought to those issues.
As for them switching into government; yeah, they probably would. But we have some there already. If governmental politics weren’t already a hotbed of this kind of thing, then I might be more wary, but with the potential benefits I really don’t think the losses would be all that great.
I’m not denying that people could be tricked into it. I’m saying recognition is required for enlistment - the actual acceptance of a role. What you talk about in terms of the military is more like press ganging, which certainly would make sense to happen with atheists. But there can be no acceptance of Satan for us. Tricked into it? Yes. Fall into it without Satan’s actual provocation but just as lucky for him? Sure. Move ourselves to accept him? Can’t happen, because we don’t think the guy exists.
I’m sorry, which part do you mean?
Well, we kind of are held accountable if we aren’t clear, since I believe under your views you need to believe (and thus know) to be saved? At least now I get to blame the Holy Spirit for my lack of faith and not me.
That’s the condition of the fallen state of man, why we need Jesus to come back to God, surrender our ‘godhood’ to Him and bring things back into order, He is our God and we are His people.
I assumed man couldn’t follow Hammarabi’s code either without sin. Jesus removed the curse of the law, while I’m sure Hammarabi just removed some fingers or the like if you violated it.
No. It can’t just be a choice to be a rule; what I would call a self-imposed rule is when someone decides that they will always react to something in a certain way. A statement of future intent, really, rather than just a momentary statement of choice. “I would like to eat some cake” would not count. “I will always eat cake when it is avaliable” would.
While this may be true, you have admitted public already that you acknowledge your inadequacy and a need to find a ‘God’ in previous posts, so you are now somewhat accountable, some truth has been revealed to you. I do believe that is a leading of the Holy Spirit.
Atheists have no protection against demonic possession. They can be demonized without understanding it.
That depends on if atheism is a faith or not, I could see it as a spirit of the Antichrist.
Inadequacy of knowledge, sure. I don’t recall saying I had a need to find a “God”, though. And I believe that what you mean rather is “god” and not “God”, or the a is wrong.
Ah, I thought you said that demonic possession required enlistment. I would define enlistment as needing an actual acceptance of what was happening. If you define enlistment as including being brought into the ranks against your will or even without any knowledge of those ranks, then your point is well taken and it’s just a semantic quibble.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by this. Could you expand?
While I have frequently been demonized by people like you and did not understand it , I have yet to to be subject to demonic possesion. Nor have I ever seen a scientifically verified case of demonic possesion. Of course maybe it is just my neighbor’s dog Sam that tells me this…
Perhaps I was thinking about someone else, but I thought you posted that you recognize your inadequacies as a human (that we all have), to which I responded you should get yourself a god then, to which IIRC you agreed and asked be for suggestions. But yes at this point it is pretty inadequate in the context we are talking about.
One can be taken into the enemy’s kingdom and used for Satan’s purpose w/o knowing it.
The spirit of the Antichrist is a lying spirit that has been sent out to deny the divinity of Jesus to man, which can take several forms, denial of God could be seen as one such of those forms.
Bold mine
I’m sorry you feel like you have been demonized by believers, but what you claim it is not physically possible in a demonic sense.
As for you have yet to be subject to demonic possession, I’m glad to hear it, but also concerned that you may not recognize it to be able to make such a statement.
