← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · SummersDay
Thread ID: 12212 | Posts: 158 | Started: 2004-02-08
2004-02-08 09:28 | User Profile
[color=magenta][size=4]THE GENOCIDAL GOD OF THE JEWS.[/size][/color]
[color=blue]1 Samuel 15:2[/color] Thus saith the lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
[color=blue]1 Samuel 15:3[/color] Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but [color=red]slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.[/color]
[color=blue]Numbers 21:2[/color] And Israel vowed a vow unto the lord, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then [color=red]I will utterly destroy their cities.[/color]
[color=blue]Numbers 21:3[/color] And the lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and [color=red]they utterly destroyed them and their cities:[/color] and he called the name of the place Hormah.
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 2:34[/color] And we took all his cities at that time, and [color=red]utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, [/color]of every city, we left none to remain:
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 2:35[/color] Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 3:6[/color] And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, [color=red]utterly destroying the men, women, and children,[/color] of every city.
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 3:7[/color] But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 7:2[/color] And when the lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; [color=red]thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them;[/color] thou shalt make no covenant with them, [color=red]nor shew mercy unto them:[/color]
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 20:16[/color] But of the cities of these people, which the lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, [color=red]thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:[/color]
[color=blue]Deuteronomy 20:17[/color] But thou shalt [color=red]utterly destroy them;[/color] namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; [color=red]as the lord thy God hath commanded thee:[/color]
[color=blue]Joshua 6:21[/color] And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, [color=red]both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass,[/color] with the edge of the sword.
[color=blue]Joshua 8:25[/color] And so it was, that all that fell that day, [color=red]both of men and women, were twelve thousand,[/color] even all the men of Ai.
[color=blue]Joshua 8:26[/color] For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, [color=red]until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants[/color] of Ai.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:28[/color] And that day Joshua took Makkedah, [color=red]and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain: [/color]and he did to the king of Makkedah as he did unto the king of Jericho.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:29[/color] Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah: [color=blue]10:30[/color] And the lord delivered it also, and the king thereof, into the hand of Israel; and [color=red]he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it;[/color] but did unto the king thereof as he did unto the king of Jericho.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:31[/color] And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel with him, unto Lachish, and encamped against it, and fought against it:[color=blue] 10:32[/color] And the lord delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, which took it on the second day, [color=red]and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein,[/color] according to all that he had done to Libnah.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:33[/color] Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish; and Joshua [color=red]smote him and his people, until he had left him none remaining.[/color]
[color=blue]Joshua 10:34[/color] And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and all Israel with him; and they encamped against it, and fought against it:[color=blue] 10:35[/color] And they took it on that day, [color=red]and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day,[/color] according to all that he had done to Lachish.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:36[/color] And Joshua went up from Eglon, and all Israel with him, unto Hebron; and they fought against it: [color=blue]10:37[/color] And they took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and [color=red]all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining, [/color]according to all that he had done to Eglon; but destroyed it utterly, and all the souls that were therein.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:38[/color] And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir; and fought against it:[color=blue] 10:39[/color] And he took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, [color=red]and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining:[/color] as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir, and to the king thereof; as he had done also to Libnah, and to her king.
[color=blue]Joshua 10:40[/color] So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: [color=red]he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the lord God of Israel commanded.[/color]
[color=blue]Joshua 11:11[/color] And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, [color=red]utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe:[/color] and he burnt Hazor with fire.
[color=blue]Judges 21:10[/color] And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and [color=red]smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.[/color]
2004-02-08 11:26 | User Profile
What's your point?
The lesson I see here is that the God of Israel isn't the nice, sweet, effeminate idolotrous image currently worshipped in most suburban American churches, both Protestant and Catholic.
No, as the Scripture passages you cite indicate, Yahweh can be one mean such-and-so, and indeed lesser pagan gods like Thor and Mars are mere wimps in comparison to Him Who Am.
These ancient genocides are merely a foretaste to what He has in store for His enemies, may their childrens' brains be dashed against the rocks (that's in the Psalms!).
But, before we go there, you may wish to review some of the threads on this point. This subject has been throughly masticated here, and by no less a person than our resident pagan, the estimable Wintermute.
I suspect (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you're assuming here that Christianity actually preaches the wimpy god of Suburbia, and you're citing to these passages is an attempt to shame the Christians here into rejecting the God of Abraham as inconsistent with the ever-so-nice image of the milquetoast Christ of your local parish.
As they say in Tennessee, that dog won't hunt, at least not here, I'm afraid. The God who ordered the genocides of the Old Testament is my God, and indeed is the God of Abraham and the Creator of the Universe, may He be forever blessed.
Don't mess with Yahweh, my friend. He's ordered some very harsh measures, indeed.
Just ask my predecessors in the Holy Inquisition.
And just to anticipate this whole line of discourse before it starts, we traditional Christians are much, much more savagely vital than any of the various neo-pagan systems that have arisen to challenge the Faith, including Nazism. Keep in mind that we worship a crucified man as God Incarnate, and feed on His Flesh and Blood nearly every time we get together. We're cannibals.
And neo-pagans are a bunch of wimps disguising their overweening, ersatz, greeting-card "cultural Christianity" behind a pubescent bad-boy image.
Walter
Walter
2004-02-08 19:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]What's your point? ...[B]The God who ordered the genocides of the Old Testament is my God...[/B][/QUOTE]
That might be the point. Jews have never considered their god public domain. Those genocides were at the behest of one tribe and they ain't euro-peens.
This could start a flame war of hilarious proportions, tho -- Yahweh be bad! No, Jupiter be badder! No, wait'll you get to Balder, no...
You don't want to make atheists that happy, do you? :lol:
2004-02-08 20:01 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Don't mess with Yahweh, my friend. He's ordered some very harsh measures, indeed.
[/QUOTE]
Looks like Yahweh pays attention to the zhids much more than the Catholics lately, as far as ordering harsh measures is concerned.
Mixing Yahweh with Jesus creates Judeo-"Christians". It's about time to separate and bury the Yahweh's idol among pig carcasses.
2004-02-08 20:47 | User Profile
I still haven't made up my mind about Christianity per se, but I'm convinced that the Old Testament is mostly mythology, apologists' mental contortions notwithstanding. Its anthropomorphic depiction of God as one who commands that the innocent be brutally killed is obviously at odds with the notion of a perfect God. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and completely without flaw, then He doesn't want or need to slay the innocent in order to accomplish a "higher good." In fact, if God feels that He needs to achieve a "higher good," then doesn't that mean He was lacking something in the first place? Doesn't that contradict His perfection? How can a Being that is infinitely good seek a higher good? Is there any goodness that exceeds infinite goodness?
As AntiYuppie correctly pointed out, the way the Jews depict God in the Old Testament essentially makes God out to be Jewish. His concept of justice is very similar to that of today's Jews -- i.e., Jews are better than everyone else, and they are answerable only to the Jewish God.
On the plus side, the ancient Hebrews' God didn't come up with the horrible concept of eternal damnation. He certainly didn't threaten anyone with it when He gave the Hebrews the Mosaic Law -- I guess God didn't think it was important enough at that time. The idea of hell evolved much later and was put to good use by ruling Church authorities. What threat is more effective at ensuring obedience than that of eternal hellfire? Never mind that the doctrine of eternal punishment is patently unjust. All human beings have finite intellects, finite powers of will, and a very limited grasp of God; hence, for a human being to commit an infinitely malicious sin, and thus deserve infinite punishment, seems quite impossible.
2004-02-09 00:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]AIPAC: Arrogant Israelis Purloin American Cash[/QUOTE]
[color=red]AIPAC: Arrogant Israelis Pocket American Cash[/color]
2004-02-09 10:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ragnar]That might be the point. Jews have never considered their god public domain. Those genocides were at the behest of one tribe and they ain't euro-peens.
This could start a flame war of hilarious proportions, tho -- Yahweh be bad! No, Jupiter be badder! No, wait'll you get to Balder, no...
You don't want to make atheists that happy, do you? :lol:[/QUOTE]
We've already had similar flame wars, and I think all were finally forced to admit that in comparison to Yahweh, Jupiter is a piker.
As to your first point, who cares what the Jews think about "their" exclusive rights? I don't. The Bible I read tells me that they blew it, and that they've been displaced by the Church as Yahweh's people, at least in a primary sense.
Indeed, it was this notion they had about exclusive rights to the brand that lead to the rupture in the contract in the first instance.
As always, it's nice to hear from you.
Walter
2004-02-09 10:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]Many Christians suffer from the delusion that they worship the same "God" as the Jews do. A cursory comparison of Christian and Jewish theology shows that this is not at all the case. The Christian deity is abstract, universal, and not tied to any ethnicity or nationality (nor for that matter anything anthropomorphic). In contrast, the Jews clearly identify their deity as a Jew...on various forums I have seen Jews proclaim "God is Jewish!" Their ridiculous "g-d" is really a tribal deity, a "big Jew in the sky" not intended for non-Jewish consumption. The Jewish tribal deity has more in common with a voodoo doll (due to its ethno-totemic nature) than Western concepts of divinity.
When Europeans read the Old Testament, they do so through the cultural and cognitive filters of their own weltanschauung, and mistakenly believe that their understanding of God and divinity is somehow congruent to that of the Old Testament's authors. The contrast is much more explicit in the Talmud, which makes it clear that Judaism's "g-d" is one of a tribal cult rather than anything we might understand or identify with. The Old Testament can and was assimilated into a western cultural context (with a great deal of interpretation and forced metaphor), something which is impossible to do with the Jewish oral tradition which makes the tribal totemism of "Judaism" explicit.[/QUOTE]
I think that you're mistaking the Suburban god for the real thing.
There is but one God of Abraham, and he's the same in both the OT and the NT. Jesus preached a fiercely tribal God, it's just that there was a new Tribe called the Church. Jews have been superceded. It's really just that simple.
God has His enemies, and He has His friends. With Him you're either His or you're not. As Gordon Gekko put it in the film "Wall Street" - "if you're not inside, then baby you're outside."
Amen to that.
As (I believe) Hillaire Belloc wrote, there really isn't such a thing as Christianity. There is only the Church and her God.
You (understandably) approach this thing with your mind only, but faith precedes reason, which is but the handmaiden of our Faith. Try to look at it with your religious faculties on full bore. I think you'll see what I mean.
Regards,
Walter
2004-02-09 14:22 | User Profile
You (understandably) approach this thing with your mind only, but faith precedes reason, which is but the handmaiden of our Faith. "Faith precedes reason"? I must disagree.
Let me play the Devil's Advocate here. If by "faith" you mean "belief in the absence of evidence" (as opposed to "faith" in the sense of "fidelity," which is a different issue altogether), then why is faith in Christianity superior to faith in Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, or any other religion? Adherents of those religions are just as certain of the correctness of their own viewpoint as Christians are of Christianity. And if you say the evidence for Christianity is stronger, then you're going by reason rather than faith.
Now, faith can certainly produce some real-world results in a few situations -- e.g., the placebo effect, which has been scientifically verified and of which "faith healing" in various religions is an example -- but reason is what gives human beings their humanity. It's what brought mankind out of the Dark Ages, when the Church -- the "guardian of all truth," in the words of the Malleus Maleficarum -- was so certain that there were such things as witches that anyone who questioned as much was considered to be in danger of eternal damnation. A lot of innocent men, women, and even children were cruelly tortured and burned on account of that "truth." All I can say is, if witchcraft worked, then a lot more people today would be taking advantage of it to fill up their bank accounts. But when it comes to real-world, verifiable results -- e.g., sending men into orbit, putting a billion transistors onto a tiny silicon chip, or using gamma rays to excise a brain tumor -- reason utterly dominates. There's a tremendous amount of faith in the world, including many people who are willing to die for their religion, but I have yet to see anyone so much as bend a paperclip through prayer, let alone accomplish what reason has.
2004-02-09 14:29 | User Profile
I remember years ago reading an underground comic called HORROR STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. Drew the ire of a few Believers convinced that "God is love" or some such twaddle.
No, "God" is whatever you need at the time to justify whatever you have on your itinerary that day. Perhaps there [I]is [/I] a superintelligent being out there that transcends life & death & time & space & can create and destroy universes with an eyeblink, but it is awfully hard to picture [I]any [/I] book, written in longhand by [I]any [/I] man, accurately capturing its nature, reasoning and/or motives. Particularly silly (to me) is the idea that he's a sort of combination Shiva and Santa Claus - He knows everyone on Earth by name, knows who's been naughty and nice, and occasionally commands the Nice to kill all the men, women and children among the Naughty - tossing them the livestock as a gratuity the way you'd tip an energetic bellhop.
Perhaps if He's as sarcastic as He sure seems to be, he will command the most pious of His flock to mop up after the regulars are through and finish off the small children and infirm grandmothers.....(by the way, swing two infants at a time headfirst into the rock - it saves a [I]ton [/I] of time).
2004-02-09 15:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Their ridiculous "g-d" is really a tribal deity, a "big Jew in the sky" not intended for non-Jewish consumption. The Jewish tribal deity has more in common with a voodoo doll (due to its ethno-totemic nature) than Western concepts of divinity.[/QUOTE] That's right -- the putative pioneers of monotheism are really henotheists. Christianity was the first intolerant religion, whose God asserted dominion over those who worshipped him as well as those who did not.
Coincidentally, I was reading John Murray Cuddihy's discussion of this very issue this morning -- pages 43-47 of [I]No Offense: Civil Religion and Protestant Taste".[/I]
2004-02-09 17:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE]When Europeans read the Old Testament, they do so through the cultural and cognitive filters of their own weltanschauung, and mistakenly believe that their understanding of God and divinity is somehow congruent to that of the Old Testament's authors. [/QUOTE]
Two words for you, Antiyuppie: [B]Oliver Cromwell[/B].
Here are two more: [B]El Cid[/B].
How about these three words (including article): [B]Ivan the Terrible[/B]?
[B]Jan Sobieski[/B]? [B]Bogdan Chmielnicki[/B]? [B]Stenka Razin and his Cossacks[/B]?
The God of the Serbs sounds to me suspiciously like this Yahweh fellow you seem to find so distasteful. The God Whom the Greek resistance fighters worshipped was one bad dude. Same for the Christian Armenians, who stopped a barbarian Turk army many times their size just 20 kilometers from downtown Yerevan in 1918, and crushed a Soviet-equipped Azeri army in Karabakh with old rifles and all sorts of hate in their eyes. I know - I was in Yerevan when that went down in 1989.
What in the world are you talking about?
Again, these "Europeans" you apparently have in mind must exclude the likes of Cromwell and El Cid - because those men did oh-so-many "questionable things" (great line from the film [I]Blade Runner[/I]). You know why they did it? Because those men had a fiercely tribal God who acted suspiciously like the the mean old Yahweh of the OT, and not like the pussy I was preached by limp wrists in Roman collars. I can't blame you, I guess, for thinking that little girly god is our god, BUT THEN WHY WOULD YOU PREFER IT TO YAHWEH?
At least assuming that you want to actually WIN (you do want to win, don't you?).
This overweening nicey-nice "weltanschuang" you're talking about IS THE PROBLEM.
M'kah?
No, Antiyuppie, if we're serious about winning our freedom and securing our futures, we're going to have to jettison all this anorexic, nice god of Suburbia and worship the God Who slew leviathan before the foundations of the world.
Yahweh, the God Who dreamed up Evolution. Reality Himself.
You know, I get a real charge out of all these tough-guy WN's wetting their pants that - gasp! - nice "European" white men could worship a God Who has enemies and delights in dashing their childrens' brains against the stones (it's in the bloody Psalms!).
(Reverting to Franco-ese) - "awe aw the wittle nicens neo-Nazis upset? Ooooo, how vewy sad!"
Gimme a break. Christendom was built on the bones of her enemies.
In hoc signo vinces, baby.
Let's all be men enough to celebrate, rather than ignobly to lament, that glorious fact.
Walter
2004-02-09 17:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]...they've been displaced by the Church as Yahweh's people, at least in a primary sense.[/QUOTE]
Of course this is correct, Walter. Our God is a God of love, hence Jesus the Christ, but He certainly does not tolerate or abide sin. And you're right, these days many of the mega-churches focus only on the former and not on the latter.
John 1 answers the question of whether Christianity and OT Judaism worship the same God.
2004-02-09 17:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Christianity was the first intolerant religion, whose God asserted dominion over those who worshipped him as well as those who did not.[/QUOTE]
Damned straight Christianity is intolerant. So was Christ Himself. It's one of the things I find most attractive about it.
It's interesting that you seem to prefer a "tolerant" god, and find Yahweh's unabashed partisanship somehow unappealing.
Am I correct in that assumption?
If so (and please correct me if I'm wrong), then why aren't you trying to promote "tolerance" on Free Republic instead of promoting virulent tribalism here?
Folks, all of this sweet "tolerance" drivel is the work of our ancient enemy. It's your very own "Marxitis." It is fundamentally at odds with our goals. If we want a strong tribal identity, we need a strong tribal god. If we want to lose this fight for our survival, we should adopt a nice tolerant, loser god.
Simple as that.
While we're at it, seems to me it only makes sense to go with the Winner, since He seems willing to go with us. But what do I know? Hey, I just want to win, you know? Maybe ya'll have some higher purpose than that, if so please clue me in.
Perhaps we could borrow our tolerant god from the local chapter of the ACLU? They have a nice, shiny "tolerant" god for all us gentiles, I'm sure.
I'm reminded of the line from Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna screams at Arjuna: WHENCE THIS IGNOBLE COWARDICE? FIGHT!
Walter
2004-02-09 17:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Of course this is correct, Walter. Our God is a God of love, hence Jesus the Christ, but He certainly does not tolerate or abide sin. And you're right, these days many of the mega-churches focus only on the former and not on the latter.
John 1 answers the question of whether Christianity and OT Judaism worship the same God.[/QUOTE]
Preach it brother Tex!
Walter
2004-02-09 17:29 | User Profile
It was the white men of the past who crushed their enemies. Religion was just a crutch to wrap the basic Darwinian struggle for survival into something more elevated in order to get confidence that "God is with us". Us = our tribe. The moment men of the West got pussified, fat and lazy, their religion followed.
The Bible is a book that can give inspiration to many things, many sects and many interpretations. It's up to the mere man to do the interpretation and speculation. And if speculation without emphasis on tradition and history is the only remaining thing left, no wonder we have the insane multitude of the sects split from the main Protestant trunk.
There is a clear contradiction between the zhid G-d of OT and Christian God of NT. One has to go through mental convolutions to reconcile the two. But reconciliation, or better to say a wink-wink, nudge-nudge approach, is what Christianity had to go through to establish itself. And the moment zhids were allowed to point out the inconsistencies and play the role of the Elder Brothers in Faith, and the moment traditional churches got weaker, or got replaced by the snake-handling bible-interpreting no-sense-of-history zealots, Judeo-"Christians" came out of the woodwork.
2004-02-09 17:43 | User Profile
Religion was invented when the cave man saw fire for the first time and fire became a God, then there was rain and a thunder rolled across the sky and that became the voice of God........ We create our own Gods and place them on a pedestal in order to worship them, this comes about out of our own insecurity about ouselves...... I believe in "THE FORCE", from Star Wars, that wich is everything and is everywhere, it is as it was and will allways be. The spirit of religion is a good one but man has turn it into a money making machine and a way to controll people. Man dosen't need a human to tell him what is right and what is wrong,,,,,you heart and your conscience should tell you this. Churches, and any other building under a different name, was made by man for man and not for The Force...... How many people do you see walking around saying all the time "I am a catholic, I am a prostentant" like the Jews are doing? To be a Jew used to be to have a religion, but now is to belongs to the name of a race of people and nothing to do with religion......... Ponce
2004-02-09 18:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE]It was the white men of the past who crushed their enemies. Religion was just a crutch to wrap the basic Darwinian struggle for survival into something more elevated in order to get confidence that "God is with us". Us = our tribe. The moment men of the West got pussified, fat and lazy, their religion followed. [/QUOTE]
You know you're on the right track when you get it exactly backwards like you do here.
The west went wrong because its relgion went wrong, and not vice versa.
All "culture" follows from "cult." We humans are simply built that way.
We must choose our religion carefully, because the pre-rational myths contained in our cult will form every aspect of our culture.
If we worship the intolerant God of El Cid, we'll become his invincible army and our victory will be assured. If we worship the ersatz nice god of Billy Graham, we'll become sell-outs like his son and the rest of the Judeo-Christians, and our granchildren will be named Rashid.
I choose the God of El Cid.
How about you?
2004-02-09 19:12 | User Profile
You CHOOSE the God of El Cid. Your religion doesn't DICTATE that you do so. Never HAS.
2004-02-09 20:59 | User Profile
I see no point in arguing about "which religion is best." If we're going to base our beliefs on that criterion, then we might as well start over and invent our own god from scratch.
The only reasonable questions when it comes to determining one's religious beliefs are: What is the evidence for this belief system versus other belief systems? Do my beliefs make logical sense? Are they self-consistent? Are they consistent with the world as we know it? Anything else is just wishful thinking, the building of castles in the air.
As for "intolerance versus tolerance," there's a time and a place for both approaches. For instance, those of us on this site are generally very intolerant of those who are enslaving and destroying our race through their lies and deceit. Obviously intolerance is justified in that regard. But when it comes to beliefs -- religious, political, or otherwise -- tolerance is the ONE AND ONLY sensible position to adopt. If a certain doctrine is correct and true, then it has absolutely nothing to fear from the most mercilessly rigorous questioning and testing. A viewpoint that cannot tolerate challenge is weak by definition.
Besides, it is impossible to force people to believe anything. Peoples' beliefs are shaped by their upbringings, intellects, and (hopefully) by the available evidence. Threats cannot lead to genuine belief. At most, they can cause a person to delude himself into thinking he believes.
The fact that nearly all denominations of Christianity teach that blind faith in Christian dogma is necessary for salvation actually tends to undermine that faith. Why? Because (1) belief is involuntary, thus men are not morally responsible for it, and (2) an omnipotent and loving God certainly would not require or demand human "faith" to do anything. Even if it's true that Christians need salvation for the crime of being born unable to avoid sin (whose fault is that, anyway?), why should blind belief be necessary to obtain the benefits of Christ's sacrifice? If a doctor gives an infant a vaccination shot, does the child need to believe the shot will work in order for it to be effective?
One last point. Christianity as outlined in the New Testament may be basically correct, although I have strong doubts about that. But if it is correct, then its unequivocal message is that Christians are required to love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, and do good to those who hate you. That includes the Jews, of course. In short, the plain message of Christ was largely one of pacifism and submission. Those who believe in the Bible may not like this, but that is precisely what the Bible says, and not liking it doesn't change it. Christianity says: Don't be concerned at all with your well-being on earth; just submit and be passive, and only worry about where you'll end up after you die.
2004-02-09 22:30 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]I see no point in arguing about "which religion is best."
Maybe, but there is a point in arguing over "what is the Truth?"
If we're going to base our beliefs on that criterion (which religion is best), then we might as well start over and invent our own god from scratch.
I agree, but if we invented it it wouldn't be very inspiring. And besides we already have that, it's called paganism.
The only reasonable questions when it comes to determining one's religious beliefs are: What is the evidence for this belief system versus other belief systems? Do my beliefs make logical sense? Are they self-consistent? Are they consistent with the world as we know it? Anything else is just wishful thinking, the building of castles in the air.
"Reasonable" "evidence" "logical" "self-consistent" "know" -- that's a lot of loaded words subject to many a varied definitions. Again, with these questions you're only going to be addressing paganism it seems to me.
But when it comes to beliefs -- religious, political, or otherwise -- tolerance is the ONE AND ONLY sensible position to adopt. If a certain doctrine is correct and true, then it has absolutely nothing to fear from the most mercilessly rigorous questioning and testing. A viewpoint that cannot tolerate challenge is weak by definition.
I think there's a chasm of difference between challenge, tolerance and acceptance. If one is in possession of 'the Truth', then I would think they would want to promote and defend it against challengers.
Besides, it is impossible to force people to believe anything. Peoples' beliefs are shaped by their upbringings, intellects, and (hopefully) by the available evidence. Threats cannot lead to genuine belief. At most, they can cause a person to delude himself into thinking he believes.
Pure subjectivity that can't be proven one way or the other. Who are we to determine whether someone else truly believes or merely thinks he believes?
The fact that nearly all denominations of Christianity teach that blind faith in Christian dogma is necessary for salvation...
I don't know your experiences, Angler, but this isn't mine at all. The most blatant example of 'blind faith dogma' I've witnessed here is that of atheist evolutionists.
...actually tends to undermine that faith. Why? Because (1) belief is involuntary, thus men are not morally responsible for it,
No, belief is a choice, thus you are morally responsible. Choose wisely.
and (2) an omnipotent and loving God certainly would not require or demand human "faith" to do anything. Even if it's true that Christians need salvation for the crime of being born unable to avoid sin (whose fault is that, anyway?), why should blind belief be necessary to obtain the benefits of Christ's sacrifice?
The 'fault' of original sin is man's. More specifically, Adam and Eve. What would be the point of 'sacrifice' if belief was not necessary?
One last point. Christianity as outlined in the New Testament may be basically correct, although I have strong doubts about that. But if it is correct, then its unequivocal message is that Christians are required to love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, and do good to those who hate you. That includes the Jews, of course. In short, the plain message of Christ was largely one of pacifism and submission. Those who believe in the Bible may not like this, but that is precisely what the Bible says, and not liking it doesn't change it. Christianity says: Don't be concerned at all with your well-being on earth; just submit and be passive, and only worry about where you'll end up after you die.[/QUOTE]
Matthew 28:19 - Christ's Great Commission is hardly a commandment given to us to be submissive and passive. It is a bold, evangelizing and conquering commandment for those believers who possess the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, which gives them the strength to carry it forward.
Read the quote in my signature from the 1st Virginia Charter. Does that sound like it was written by some Casper Milktoast? Woe to those who fight against the Conquering Cross.
2004-02-09 22:45 | User Profile
One Russian saint said: love thine enemies, smash your country's enemies and shun God's enemies.
2004-02-09 23:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler] But when it comes to beliefs -- religious, political, or otherwise -- tolerance is the ONE AND ONLY sensible position to adopt. If a certain doctrine is correct and true, then it has absolutely nothing to fear from the most mercilessly rigorous questioning and testing. A viewpoint that cannot tolerate challenge is weak by definition...[/QUOTE]
Good point, but it's less tolerance we're addressing than good common sense & diplomacy. And European man has always built this into his political systems one way or the other.
Back when you read Plato he tells the story of his ancestor Solon who goes to Sais in Egypt, to swap notes with the local wisemen. They introduce each other with what seems useless chatter to us -- but is actually an important lesson in manners and politeness during that era.
The head priest informs Solon that a local patroness, Nieth, is similar to Athena, and that the people of Sais felt a kinship with Athens on her account. Solon is reassured that he is among similar souls who honor the same codes as he, and the conversation continues. From that point on Solon has been made a "local-by-courtesy". At no point would Solon (or the Egyptian host) have said that the two patroness goddesses were the same, they were being polite. Hosts and guests.
Christians in the Middle Ages were apt to behave the same if there was a similar need. In diplomatic circumstances a German Lutheran prince might note that he was a brother-in-Christ to a Roman Catholic Frenchman. Again, they'd be right. They would also be glossing over some heavy differences, but if they had the need to do so, they would.
We're being the same way here. We acknowledge our distinctions which wise men always know will exist. But then, like Solon and his hosts, we accentuate what we have in common, the vital concern that has brought us various types together.
Who said you can't learn nuthin' from Plato? :yes:
2004-02-10 05:04 | User Profile
I think there's a chasm of difference between challenge, tolerance and acceptance. If one is in possession of 'the Truth', then I would think they would want to promote and defend it against challengers. Sure, they should defend it -- by reason and debate, not by force or threats.
No, belief is a choice, thus you are morally responsible. Choose wisely. If I don't "choose wisely," but I do my best nonetheless, then whose fault is it that I wasn't born with sufficient wisdom to choose the right option?
At any rate, I don't doubt that a person has a choice to say he believes in something or other, but the decision to truly, genuinely believe in that thing is not a choice.
Let's say someone hooks you up to a mind-reading machine so he can read your thoughts accurately. He then puts a gun to your head and commands you to believe that he is Napoleon Bonaparte. Will you be able to save your life by forcing yourself to believe that he is, in fact, Napoleon? Nope. At least not unless you're capable of something like self-hypnosis, which most people are not.
Besides, the question remains: Why should the intellectual act of believing or not believing have anything to do with morality whatsoever?
I don't know your experiences, Angler, but this isn't mine at all. The most blatant example of 'blind faith dogma' I've witnessed here is that of atheist evolutionists. Well, the Bible does say, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." That sounds like the glorification of blind faith to me.
I do agree that those who deny outright the existence of any God are generally relying on blind faith and/or poor reasoning. That's why I'm not an atheist -- I think it's very probable that a Creator exists. Certainly that's at least as much of a possibility as a self-existent natural universe.
Evolution is another matter altogether. I believe in evolution for the same reason I believe in all other well-supported scientific theories -- because I know for a fact that the modern scientific method works extremely well. I have read the arguments of so-called "creation science," and they are all nonsense. Heck, even the highly-conservative Catholic Church, which condemns all sorts of seemingly-harmless acts as sinful (e.g., the use of condoms by married couples) and which only recently apologized for its persecution of Galileo, has admitted that the weight of the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. A couple of hundred years from today, people will look back on those who rejected evolution in the same way we in present times look back on those who were certain that Galileo was false, that witches could cause storms and ruin crops, etc.
The 'fault' of original sin is man's. More specifically, Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve sinned, that's their fault, not anyone else's. A perfectly just God would neither desire nor need to make offspring suffer consequences for their parents' sins. He could have simply punished Adam and Eve, then created another man and woman in their place -- this time with the strength and wisdom to resist temptation! Or, if God never wanted Adam and Eve to sin, then perhaps He should never have let that talking snake into the Garden of Eden in the first place. How do those who are "saved" know that another talking snake won't find its way into heaven, or that some in heaven won't use their free will to rebel? And if God will prevent the possibility of sin in heaven, then why didn't he just do that with Adam and Eve?
This undoubtedly sounds like I'm questioning God, but I'm not; I'm questioning those who claim to have written the Bible on God's behalf. We have NO evidence to go on but the word of ancient Jews. It seems to me that the perfect Creator of this vast, incredible complex universe would have to be a whole lot smarter and more just than He is portrayed in the Bible. If God is going to punish me for the "crime" of using the brain I was given at birth, then He isn't worthy of being worshipped anyway, no matter how powerful He is. Real truth and real love don't need to rely on fear or threats as a crutch.
2004-02-10 05:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ragnar]Good point, but it's less tolerance we're addressing than good common sense & diplomacy. And European man has always built this into his political systems one way or the other.
[snip]
We're being the same way here. We acknowledge our distinctions which wise men always know will exist. But then, like Solon and his hosts, we accentuate what we have in common, the vital concern that has brought us various types together.[/QUOTE]That's true, and it's worth bearing in mind. I certainly hold no grudge or hard feelings toward anyone for their religious beliefs. But religion is very divisive, even among different Christian denominations, and therefore I think it should be deemphasized in the pro-White movement. I'm not saying it should be swept under the rug or that people shouldn't talk about it openly; I just think that, like you said, points of universal agreement should be emphasized.
2004-02-10 06:55 | User Profile
I reviewed the posts from yesterday, and there were so many good ones that I won't have time to respond with the attention they deserve.
I will say this. Underlying many of these positions is one unspoken assumption: that each individual is somehow rightly empowered to answer these ultimate questions of which god to worship for himself.
I join St. Augustine in rejecting that notion.
As my right honorable friend mwdallas points out, human groups are actually organisms, and by nature they unite under common belief systems. Pace Margaret Thatcher, we do not exist solely as individuals. The collective exists. We are a single organism.
This false notion of absolute individual autonomy in matters of belief is exactly the thing that underlies the terrible atomization that threatens our very existence.
Clearly, the very idea that each individual is rightly authorized to decide such ultimate questions for himself directly contradicts the scientific fact of the deeply organismic nature of man. Such heresy negates our common identity and dissolves our common bonds. It undermines the spiritual wall of separation between us and others. It is the very thing that makes us so very vulnerable to cohesive organisms like the Jews.
The Spanish Inquisition crushed the Jews and the Moors precisely because it didn't allow doctinal deviation, thereby reinforcing Spanish identity and erecting formidible walls of separation between the host Spanish nation and its parasites. That's how, against all the odds, the Spanish Inquisition removed from that organism we call the Spanish nation the Muslim and Jewish parasites. The fierce Catholicism of El Cid and his men was the winning-est of all winning ideas.
Now, if you want to win, then go with the winning idea. :alucard: If you want to lose, go with whichever losing idea (tolerance, ugh! I can't believe anybody here actually said that) that happens to tickle your fancy at the moment.
The estimable Madrussian rightly points out that I choose the El Cid tradition of worship and belief, and I do so consciously and without apology. So what if there are other interpretations of the same texts? Big whoop. I choose El Cid's system BECAUSE I WANT TO WIN. Its resounding success proves its fundamental soundness beyond all doubt.
Do you want to win?
Or do you want to be nice? Nice and dead like a dinosaur? Why not be tolerant? Hmmmm? Why not?
Let's see, how does that argument go? "Hey, everybody has the right to think and believe exactly as they will! Therefore, their thoughts deserve everbody's respect!! And if you don't respect the utter absence of all group standards, then you're intolerant!!! Since you've broken the most basic law of our society, you'll have to be crushed!!!!! No tolerance for intolerance!!!!!!
C'mon guys, that's exactly the circular argument you're pitching here. If you worship tolerance, then that's the ultimate value, and THEREFORE society can tolerate anything (sodomite "marriage", murder of babies through abortion, miscegenation, foregin domination) except intolerance. It's freshman in college philosophy stuff, really.
Do you want to win?
Some of your responses can only give one pause on this ultimate question. Look in your hearts, and decide.
The honored NeoNietzsche poses the rhetorical question "who is the war god of the WN's?" The simple fact is that Charles Martel answered that question better than any before or since. The answer is obvious.
His name is Yahweh, the Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is raising an army for a final assault on the gates of Hell.
As Jesus said, he who has not a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one.
Fall in ranks! Present arms!! Charge!!!
Walter
2004-02-10 07:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]One Russian saint said: love thine enemies, smash your country's enemies and shun God's enemies.[/QUOTE]
Beautiful.
I would add only that one is to bless one's enemies because by doing so you magnify their punishment. It's like pouring "hot coals" on their heads.
Now, who was the meek and mild guy who came up with that little gem, hmmmmm?
Walter
2004-02-10 07:35 | User Profile
[QUOTE]I choose El Cid's system BECAUSE I WANT TO WIN. [/QUOTE] Looking good so far, Walter.
[QUOTE]As Jesus said, he who has not a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one.[/QUOTE] Jesus said a lot of things, not all of which are consonant with your version of his "message".
Regarding tolerance of ideas, well, I'm reminded of 90% of the kids I grew up with. Most [I]in[/I]tolerant of anything outside their own extremely narrow gangsterized worldview (not to mention most of em were absolutely sure they knew [I]everything [/I] they's ever need to know by age 17 or so). Distrusted anything they didn't understand. Do I need to point out most of them are dead or in jail? The problem isn't "tolerance", it's [I]brainwashing disguised as "tolerance"[/I]....doing what they're told and learning what they're taught. In fact "tolerance" is the wrong term altogether - it's intellectual curiosity that's needed (and scarcer than Jewish defensive tackles ).
And remember. the thing to bear in mind is when Walter says "we do not exist solely as individuals. The collective exists. We are a single organism" what he is actually saying is "if we do this [B]my [/B] way". The idea that he might need to conform to somebody [I]else's [/I] idea of the collective good has never crossed his mind, God bless him.
2004-02-10 07:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]The idea that he might need to conform to somebody [I]else's [/I] idea of the collective good has never crossed his mind, God bless him.[/QUOTE]
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
2004-02-10 08:49 | User Profile
I will say this. Underlying many of these positions is one unspoken assumption: that each individual is somehow rightly empowered to answer these ultimate questions of which god to worship for himself. That's not an assumption; it is a fact. It makes no sense to adopt a model of a society as a single organism, then bestow upon some individual or small group the authority force the rest of the group to think in a certain way in order to fit that model. If a group is really meant to be unified, then it will function as a unit without needing to be forced. In the case of Whites, all that's needed is proper communication to awaken all those who are asleep.
Furthermore, neither I nor any other self-respecting person will ever allow our beliefs to be dictated to us. I have that right because I granted it to myself, and I will not relinquish it for any reason. Religious tyranny has been tried in the past, as when the medieval Inquisition persecuted great men like Galileo and suppressed their work. (This sort of thing still happens today in some Muslim countries, which is why they're so weak in war. You can pray all you want, but without good weapons created by science, you're screwed.) As a result, the progress of science has probably been set back several hundred years. Each time one of our loved ones dies of cancer, we can thank the religious tyrants of the past for it. Self-respecting Whites will never, ever stand for that again, and rightfully so.
As things now stand, Whites (indeed, all people) are enslaved by the Jew, and we have a right to free ourselves. That is the sole belief necessary to our cause.
2004-02-10 09:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]It makes no sense to adopt a model of a society as a single organism, then bestow upon some individual or small group the authority force the rest of the group to think in a certain way in order to fit that model.
Is this not how a properly functioning family operates?
If a group is really meant to be unified, then it will function as a unit without needing to be forced.
Tell that to a father whose children are being bombarded daily with messages from the surrounding culture undermining his role as leader and unifier of his own family.
Furthermore, neither I nor any other self-respecting person will ever allow our beliefs to be dictated to us. I have that right because I granted it to myself, and I will not relinquish it for any reason.
I'm certainly sympathetic to this point of view, but at the same time I have to consider that this belief is more than likely fairly unique to our own American experience. I don't think this is the case throughout the world, much less throughout history. In the scriptures themselves we find numerous references to men coming to belief and their entire households being converted, such as the example in Acts 16 of the Philippian jailer. As an aside, this same passage can be used to make a strong case in support of paedobaptism in my opinion.
2004-02-10 15:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Purity of heart is to will one thing.[/QUOTE]
Amen again, Brother Tex.
I think that Ragman and Angler are proceeding from a fundamentally flawed assessment of our true predicatment.
"Tolerance versus intolerance" is not the real issue for, as we have seen, "tolerance" is really just convenient cover for the "intolerance" of outsiders who want to drown us whites in a sea of brown. Challenge "tolerance" of anything, and you'll find yourself in a reeducation camp. The whole idea of "tolerance" - at least in its current manifestation - is profoundly kosher. You do understand that, do you not?
And the grim reality is that the thoughts of the great majority of our people are controlled by the modern kosher media more thoroughly than the Holy Inquisition could even have imagined. But this is always the case throughout history. Most men have neither the time nor the mental faculties to engage in anything approaching sustained thinking on matters as abstract as philosophy and theology. Nature designed most of us to be Indians and not chiefs, and that's just the way that is.
Thus, the question is not whether men will be free to think and believe as they see fit, but rather which group will succeed in imposing their values on the sheeple. The question is only who will rule.
Look around you, and tell me that isn't so.
Do you like democracy (or "democwacy" as our own beloved but egreiously misnamed Franco might put it)? Do you like the way our own sheeple think now? How 'bout that Superbowl, hey? Are they your equals? Should they be free to vote their fingers into my wallet? I don't think so.
My position is that whites must be ruled by their own white elite, and not by outsiders. And that's the only choice that really exists.
It is clear then that the question is only which group will rule - all this talk of two hundred million free thinkers must be recognized for the obvious nonsense it is and cease, at least among us.
The Founders bequeathed us a Republic, with political power vested in a small group of white, literate, propertied and overwhelmingly Christian men. They imposed their rule on their women and children, just as they did on the savages who inhabited the forests beyond the frontiers and on the Negro slaves. It was their home, and they ruled it.
We must do the same.
And that means dumping these silly notions of human equality.
2004-02-10 15:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Looking good so far, Walter.
Jesus said a lot of things, not all of which are consonant with your version of his "message".[/QUOTE]
Please cite specific texts from the NT supporting your postion.
Walter
2004-02-10 15:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Furthermore, neither I nor any other self-respecting person will ever allow our beliefs to be dictated to us. I have that right because I granted it to myself, and I will not relinquish it for any reason. [/QUOTE]
Angler: That simply isn't true. Look around you. The great majority of men (and even more so, women) buy their opinions on everything from spaghetti sauce to music to religion to politics CANNED.
They believe whatever they are told. Do you deny that?
[QUOTE]I'm certainly sympathetic to this point of view, but at the same time I have to consider that this belief is more than likely fairly unique to our own American experience. I don't think this is the case throughout the world, much less throughout history. In the scriptures themselves we find numerous references to men coming to belief and their entire households being converted, such as the example in Acts 16 of the Philippian jailer. As an aside, this same passage can be used to make a strong case in support of paedobaptism in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
St. Augustine had it mostly right. The basic beliefs of any people are too important to leave to outsiders or merchants. We must seize back the propaganda organs into our own hands, and a little coercion is also permissible, as long as it doesn't go too far.
Error has not rights.
2004-02-10 16:35 | User Profile
Oh, you know....mercy, forgiveness, turning the other cheek; let the one without sin cast the first stone; meek inheriting the earth; and Matthew 25, for one specific example.
[QUOTE]Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
[I]For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. [/I]
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?"
And the King shall answer and say unto them, [I]Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me. [/I] [/QUOTE]
This type of stuff is at odds with your insistence on Christ as some form of divine drill instructor toughening up the sheep for the important work of shipping nigras back to Africa, I would say. In fact, the Son of Man sounds downright [I]socialist [/I] - that "Kingdom of the Lord" sounds like it might even be one of those multicultural deals where all sorts of racial cohabitation might be going on.
2004-02-10 19:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Oh, you know....mercy, forgiveness, turning the other cheek; let the one without sin cast the first stone; meek inheriting the earth; and Matthew 25, for one specific example.
This type of stuff is at odds with your insistence on Christ as some form of divine drill instructor toughening up the sheep for the important work of shipping nigras back to Africa, I would say. In fact, the Son of Man sounds downright [I]socialist [/I] - that "Kingdom of the Lord" sounds like it might even be one of those multicultural deals where all sorts of racial cohabitation might be going on.[/QUOTE]
You miss the dual code.
All of those things apply to in-group relations. Forgive your brother seventy times seven times, and so forth apply to relations within the Church.
As to enemies, the fact that Jesus also put His enemies, the Pharisees, in hell for eternity shows that quite another paradigm applied to them. Did Jesus bless the Pharisees who cursed Him? I think not.
Jesus did institute the law of reciprocity in regards to those not inside the Church and not enemies like the Pharisees. Remember that Pharisees - both ancient and modern adherents of the Talmud - reject absolutely the law of reciprocity to outsiders. If a gentile does a Pharisee a good turn, repayment in kind is forbidden (unless necessary to help Jews).
The parable of the Good Samaritain is all about that. Jesus taught that if anybody - even despised outsiders - do you a good turn, then you owe him the same in kind as if he were an insider. In fact, elsewhere Jesus added a noble dollop of generosity to that - if any man will walk with you one mile, then you walk with him two.
So, the inside-outside dichotomy is the central part of the ethic, but Jesus restored the Natural Law rule of reciprocity to well-wishing outsiders, unlike the Pharisees who uniformly hate all outsiders. If a Negro Muslim wishes me well, then I'll repay him with two times over in kind.
The title "Cardinal" is merely honorific, you understand, and so this is just IMHO.
By the way, this notion of hell is a difficult thing for some folks to handle. I ask you, though, whose vengence is (at least in terms of its intent) more horrible - that of the German Nazis or Russian Communists who claimed jurisidction only over this world, or that of the meek and mild Jesus who claimed the right to send souls to a lake of fire for eternity? The answer is clear.
Again I must assert, Christianity is intolerant and prone to terrible vengence, which makes it a most suitable vehicle for our purposes.
Walter
2004-02-10 20:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wintermute]I'd say it was time to put the Old Lady down, but with all the child sex cases draining those ample coffers, and the rabid syncretism common in South America and Africa, where every observer (including the Pope) agrees that the future of the Church lies, I think we can expect a cash poor but quite colorful retirement for the Whore of Babylon.
And not a moment too soon.
Wintermute[/QUOTE]
Daniel?
Daniel Goldhagen, is that you?
:)
2004-02-10 20:39 | User Profile
The heavy artillery is finally in the range. Where's NN?
2004-02-10 22:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]My position is that whites must be ruled by their own white elite, and not by outsiders. And that's the only choice that really exists...[/QUOTE]
Amen.
But we have the sticky business of removing the current treasonous white elite before we can get to that.
One thing at a time.
2004-02-11 07:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ragnar]Amen.
But we have the sticky business of removing the current treasonous white elite before we can get to that.
One thing at a time.[/QUOTE]
Yes, duty before pleasure, as it were.
Then the real fun begins. :furious:
Walter
2004-02-11 16:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Yes, IR does miss the dual code, primarily because it isn't there. [/QUOTE]
Of course it's there. Ygg had a good thing on this - not that he's a major Catholic theologian, but I think he did a good job of showing that Christians owe duties to other Christians that they don't owe to outsiders. Jesus saw Himself as God Incarnate up against the forces of darkness. He had his (mostly feckless) followers whom he strove mightily to prepare for their mission. It's us against everybody else with Jesus.
And rightly so.
[QUOTE]Even if it were, it has nothing to do - at all, at all - with race. You can't impose a racially based code of care or duty on the words ascribed to Jesus. If, as you say, the new Tribe is the Church, then we must forgive and assist our Mexican (or Pakistani, or Zulu) brothers in Christ in ways that we cannot assist our non-Christian White neighbors. Think about it. You're familiar with the last two millenia of Catholic theology. Find me one theologian who agrees with you about the dual code. [/QUOTE]
Again, that's simply not true. Open the New Testament and you'll see that it begins with a geneology. That's no accident - because the entire Bible is all about race, race, race. Blessings follow bloodlines. St. Paul boasts of being of the Tribe of Benjamin. As we've discussed many times previously, Catholic theology has always incorporated the idea of the "nations" in its system of salvation. Our individual identities can only be understood in terms of our nationality, and our nationality is an integral and indispensible component of our salvation. Nations are real entities, each with its own guardian angel. Here are the relevant articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
[QUOTE]56. "After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the 'nations', in other words, towards men grouped 'in their lands, each with (its) own language, by their families, in their nations'.[Gen 10:5 ; cf. Gen 9:9-10, 16 ; Gen 10:20-31 .]"
"This state of division into many nations, each entrusted by divine providence to the guardianship of angels, is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity [Cf. Acts 17:26-27 ; Dt 4:19 ; Dt 32:8 vLXX.] united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.[Cf. Wis 10:5 ; Gen 11:4-6 .] But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.[Cf. Rom 1:18-25 .]"
"The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel.[Cf. Gen 9:16 ; Lk 21:24 ; DV 3.] The Bible venerates several great figures among the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchisedek - a figure of Christ - and the upright 'Noah, Daniel, and Job'.[Cf. Gen 14:18 ; Heb 7:3 ; Ezek 14:14 .] Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to 'gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad'.[Jn 11:52 .]"[/QUOTE]
See my [URL=http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_123001.htm]letter to VDARE[/URL].
[QUOTE]Yes, but will you feel the same way after your doctor takes you off the testosterone replacement therapy?[/QUOTE]
Uncalled for, but since you're my pal you get a pass this time.
[QUOTE]Don't write checks with your mouth that your hidebound, parasitical, and soon to be majority nonwhite church can't cash, y'hear?[/QUOTE]
Which checks are you talking about? I don't understand this, please explain. I'll go with hidebound, definitely hidebound. Parasitical? No. The clergy certainly is, but the Church Herself is a force for good in the world.
[QUOTE]The Roman Catholic Church was never anything besides the Roman Empire in drag, living on past its alotted day with the threat of hellfire and some spare change from indulgences. [/QUOTE]
I have nothing against the Church's identification with the best of the Roman Empire. The only reason you read Plato, pagan, is because Christian monks saved him from you barbarian ancestors. Show a little respect.
As to living past its allotted day, dream on. The Church grows and grows, while your side ever diminishes.
As to the implication that the Church is somehow a "sissified" (in drag)form of Rome, please explain Charles Martel, El Cid, Jan Sobieski, and so forth and so on.
The Faith is the vital lifes blood of Christendom. You're just spouting off here.
[QUOTE]I'd say it was time to put the Old Lady down, but with all the child sex cases draining those ample coffers, and the rabid syncretism common in South America and Africa, where every observer (including the Pope) agrees that the future of the Church lies, I think we can expect a cash poor but quite colorful retirement for the Whore of Babylon.[/QUOTE]
As to clerical paedophilia, it's clear we have a problem but is the solution to accept the religion of Sparta with its institutionalized paedophilia, as you would seem to urge on us? Absurd. As I've pointed out several times in the past, you assume certain points of Christian morality that are UTTERLY AT ODDS with your own professed paganism, and then turn around and attempt to judge Christianity by them.
Paganism is the cause of increased sexual immorality, it is certainly not the antidote. Pagan (gnostic) influences lie at the root of most of our problems, including the loosening of sexual mores in our culture. St. Paul in Romans associates paganism with immorality of all kinds, including sexual immorality. The Church soaked in a lot of these external cultural influences, especially since Vatican II and the lowering of our defenses. But that's another story.
[QUOTE]And not a moment too soon.[/QUOTE]
Don't count us out yet. We've been through far worse, and not all that terribly long ago. We came close to snuffing it in the deeply pagan French Revolution, at least in Europe, but we're still here. The battle against paganism continues, and if we judge by history the next round will be ours.
Hopefully, we will have understood by then that there's only one way to deal with Albigensians.
Warmest regards,
Walter
2004-02-11 17:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]... That's no accident - because the entire Bible is all about race, race, race... As we've discussed many times previously, Catholic theology has always incorporated the idea of the "nations" in its system of salvation. Our individual identities can only be understood in terms of our nationality, and our nationality is an integral and indispensible component of our salvation. Nations are real entities, each with its own guardian angel. Here are the relevant articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: ... [/QUOTE] Which begs the question: Is the Pope a Catholic?
Seriously Walter, where this line of argument flounders for barbarous heathens like me is that you would be hard pressed to find any major figure in any established Christian denomination who would defend your position in public. You canââ¬â¢t effectively defend an institution by describing ideals it doesnââ¬â¢t hold in practice. Thatââ¬â¢s the problem as I see it; Religion is as religion does.
2004-02-11 17:44 | User Profile
Walter has to go back centuries to find what may qualify. But even then, an argument can be made, it was about fighting and converting the heathens and for the country, without any explicit realization of race matters. Now that the old notion of country no longer holds as a result of invasion by aliens, there is nothing that religion can do to resist that.
2004-02-11 18:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wintermute]Yes, IR does miss the dual code, primarily because it isn't there. Even if it were, it has nothing to do - at all, at all - with race. You can't impose a racially based code of care or duty on the words ascribed to Jesus. If, as you say, the new Tribe is the Church, then we must forgive and assist our Mexican (or Pakistani, or Zulu) brothers in Christ in ways that we cannot assist our non-Christian White neighbors. Think about it.
You're familiar with the last two millenia of Catholic theology. Find me one theologian who agrees with you about the dual code.
One.
Yes, but will you feel the same way after your doctor takes you off the testosterone replacement therapy?
Don't write checks with your mouth that your hidebound, parasitical, and soon to be majority nonwhite church can't cash, y'hear?
The Roman Catholic Church was never anything besides the Roman Empire in drag, living on past its alotted day with the threat of hellfire and some spare change from indulgences.
I'd say it was time to put the Old Lady down, but with all the child sex cases draining those ample coffers, and the rabid syncretism common in South America and Africa, where every observer (including the Pope) agrees that the future of the Church lies, I think we can expect a cash poor but quite colorful retirement for the Whore of Babylon.
And not a moment too soon.
Wintermute[/QUOTE]
W,
Who's the dude in your avatar?
2004-02-11 18:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Now that the old notion of country no longer holds as a result of invasion by aliens, there is nothing that religion can do to resist that.[/QUOTE]
I would vehemenently disagree with that. The confident assurances that come in knowing that one is under the blanket of grace and in possession of the 'True Truth' is invaluable for resistance of any kind. With paganism our people will be no higher than any third world pig worshipper living in mud huts and sacrificing children. With atheism we might as well just kill ourselves and end the misery.
Take up the Cross, mr and advance in the Truth eternally confident.
2004-02-11 18:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=friedrich braun]W,
Who's the dude in your avatar?[/QUOTE]
I recognized him instantly. It's Adam Ant, lead man for the pop group Adam and the Ants. They made some interesting music in the earliest days of MTV; songs like "Ant Music" and "Stand and Deliver". THeir music was very percussion-heavy and had a primitive and tribal feel. I LOVED it back then, but I haven't heard it in years. THey truly had their own unique (no modifier, W) sound.
He went on to do a solo album, featuring the hit "Goody Two Shoes", which was mediocre compared to the group's music. I expect one of the band members besides "Adam" was responsible for the group's interesting sound, though I've never looked into it. Maybe he lost his inspiration when he took off the makeup.
"Adam" has recently had some trouble with the law...I seem to remember a weapons charge at a British pub.
I didn't mean to cut in line, Wintermute. You probably have more to say about this. I was surprised to see his pic as your avatar. It brought back some pleasant memories of my misspent youth.
2004-02-11 19:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]With paganism our people will be no higher than any third world pig worshipper living in mud huts and sacrificing children. With atheism we might as well just kill ourselves and end the misery. [/QUOTE]
Wow.
Are our pre-Christian racial forefathers really no "higher" than a lying, scatology-obsessed JewForJesus or a recently baptized Somali immigrant? Nevermind Chesterton or CS Lewis. My heart, or maybe my blood, screams NO!
2004-02-11 19:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Walter has to go back centuries to find what may qualify. .[/QUOTE]
Well, in the West perhaps. Although even there you have Salazar's Portugal, Franco's Spain and De Valera's Ireland. We also had the Church organizing resistance to the Soviet Union just 15 years ago, and there was a militant wing of that. So, I don't agree that this is unheard of here..
In the East those military traditions are just beneath the surface.
In downtown Moscow right off Red Square there is a monument to the fallen Russian volunteers at the Battle of Plevna. This was late 19th Century, war for Bulgarian independece, I don't remember the exact dates. But this thing is just extreme - it's a tiny Orthodox chapel with statues on the outside showing various militant Christian themes. One is a very Asian looking Turk with sword in hand tearing a Bulgarian baby from his mother (probably for recruitment into the slave army made up of whites). Another is a Russian volunteer with rifle on his shoulder kneeling before an Orthodox priest holding an icon in one hand and ordering him into battle with the other.
To repeat, you take the Suburban god from the real thing.
[I]But even then, an argument can be made, it was about fighting and converting the heathens and for the country, without any explicit realization of race matters. Now that the old notion of country no longer holds as a result of invasion by aliens, there is nothing that religion can do to resist that [/I]
Again, tell that to El Cid. Tell that to Ivan IV of your own country who defeated the Asian Tatars and memorialized his victories by building a trophy church on Red Square (St. Basil's). Tell that to the English armies that conquered the world in the name of the "white man's burden."
Your argument takes no real accounting of the historical facts.
2004-02-11 19:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Take up the Cross, mr and advance in the Truth eternally confident.[/QUOTE]
Preach it, man.
The simple fact is that nationalism is fully in keeping with Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, and the Natural Law.
Nationalism is right. And the Truth will prevail.
Walter
2004-02-11 19:35 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Thatââ¬â¢s the problem as I see it; Religion is as religion does.[/QUOTE]
I agree.
We've always had problems with our clergy, who tend strongly toward dicklessness. I really hate - no I ABSOLUTELY LOATHE - our own American clergy, with several important exceptions.
I forget the name of the Irish duke who, when asked by Henry IV why he burned down a church, replied "I wouldn't have done it, your highness, but I thought the bishop was in it!"
Amen to that. I'd like to burn - well, 'nuff said.
But they're just bumps in the road. Look at the (schismatic?) Catholic Mel Gibson - he did more in the last year with his Christian film than all the neo-Nazis combined did in the last 40 to awaken whites to the perfidy of our ancient enemy.
Christ is our King, and if we get right with the Lord, he'll lead us to victory. America is a white, Christian, and English-speaking nation, and it has a Natural Law right to protect itself, including by the use of force. I really believe that the Natural Law, Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium all dictate that a white, Christian, and English-speaking America is God's will for us today.
Walter
2004-02-11 19:48 | User Profile
Walter,
in all the examlpes you gave the enemy belonged to a different religion, and was an enemy of your country. Find me ONE example where it was explicitly about race alone.
You never answered my question what would be the faith-based race argument rallying Christians against the mestizos and negroes.
Just like I said, when the nation-state and religion were synonimous (like Russian and Orthodox were interchangable in the time of old), religion was an effective tool against the invaders. But that's not the case anymore.
2004-02-11 19:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]I would vehemenently disagree with that. The confident assurances that come in knowing that one is under the blanket of grace and in possession of the 'True Truth' is invaluable for resistance of any kind. With paganism our people will be no higher than any third world pig worshipper living in mud huts and sacrificing children. With atheism we might as well just kill ourselves and end the misery.
Take up the Cross, mr and advance in the Truth eternally confident.[/QUOTE]
You seem to admit that religion is just a blanket giving you confidence (and grace), but you have to rely on your common sense and that religion isn't a manual for everything in life. Which is close to my position.
2004-02-11 20:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE]As to living past its allotted day, dream on. The Church grows and grows, while your side ever diminishes. [/QUOTE]
???
Your Church, if it [I]is [/I] growing and growing (which I kind of doubt), owes its fecundity to Latin America and the Third World. Now, if I were a devout Catholic I would be overjoyed at this development, since a soul saved is a soul saved and I can't seem to locate the passage where Christ notes that a European soul is worth three Mexican ones. Somehow I don't think that's what you're driving at, though.
Good to see Chuck Martel make another cameo appearance in a Walter Yannis post, however. (It had [I]been [/I] a while....)
2004-02-11 20:33 | User Profile
Walter,
Please indicate why a Catholic should oppose Third World immigration of fellow Catholics.
2004-02-11 22:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Marlowe]"Adam" has recently had some trouble with the law...I seem to remember a weapons charge at a British pub.[/QUOTE]
Marlowe,
You remember right. He was detained under the Mental Health Act. I don't know what happened to him after that.
2004-02-11 22:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]I would vehemenently disagree with that. The confident assurances that come in knowing that one is under the blanket of grace and in possession of the 'True Truth' is invaluable for resistance of any kind. With paganism our people will be no higher than any third world pig worshipper living in mud huts and sacrificing children. With atheism we might as well just kill ourselves and end the misery.
Take up the Cross, mr and advance in the Truth eternally confident.[/QUOTE]I'm not an atheist -- just a skeptic/agnostic -- but even if I didn't believe in God, I certainly wouldn't kill myself for that reason. In fact, I'd be more inclined to live my life to the very fullest, since that would be the only life I'd expect to ever get. (Not that I don't try to live my life as well as possible anyway....)
As for paganism, I agree that it's silly. No argument there.
Now, regarding Christianity, I'd be very interested to know how you are certain that it is the "one true faith." Or what makes your "one true faith" any more positively true than any of the other "one true faiths" out there?
Islamic suicide bombers (whom I have no quarrel with, by the way, as long as they're blowing up Israelis) are absolutely, positively certain that they will go to heaven and receive 72 virgins each when they die. Their actions demonstrate their convictions. How do you suppose they came to be so certain of something for which they have absolutely no evidence?
(Incidentally, I fail to understand how it's possible to both have faith in something and be certain of it. Doesn't faith, by definition, imply uncertainty?)
2004-02-11 22:55 | User Profile
Wonderful post, Walter . So happy to see you spend the time and effort to lay forth the Truth so succinctly, by grace of God. Christ is Risen, via con dios.
2004-02-11 22:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Marlowe]Wow.
Are our pre-Christian racial forefathers really no "higher" than a lying, scatology-obsessed JewForJesus or a recently baptized Somali immigrant?... My heart, or maybe my blood, screams NO![/QUOTE]
Your heart & blood would be correct.
This business of tree-worshipping human-sacrificing pagans is stock Bible school cliche. How did such morons build great civilizations? They couldn't have. Simple logic tells you they had to have a moral code, a just legal system, ethics, and the basics of the scientific method or we wouldn't be here.
Slandering our racial forefathers is what at least some monotheists do full-time, and mayhaps a chiche-free discussion of this would be in order one of these days. I mean Christians leaving behind their pagan-cliches and others leaving behind their Christian-cliches and examining what the historic and archeaological records really say about Our Common Ancestors.
Such a discussion would be useful, uniting, and therefore seems highly unlikely. :unsure:
2004-02-12 01:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]You seem to admit that religion is just a blanket giving you confidence (and grace), but you have to rely on your common sense and that religion isn't a manual for everything in life. Which is close to my position.[/QUOTE]
Religion per se does not provide grace or confidence. It is God that has demonstrated his love for us by offering redemption through belief in His son Jesus the Christ, who was sacrificed to atone for our inherent total depravity. The third person of our Triune God, the Holy Spirit, is what calls us and gives us the very ability to believe. This is most certainly true.
To me, religion better describes the practice of worship particular to one's understanding of the above truth and the customs surrounding it. Accordingly, it should envelop and give meaning to one's entire life and not just be something one does on a Sunday, only to be put aside come Monday. 'Common sense' or recognition of natural law is reflected by the 10 commandments which were again given to us by God as guidelines for living so that it may be well with us here on earth. They also further give witness to the fact that we cannot come to God by our own hand, but must have His grace.
If you are so inclined of course, you would do well in the effort to come to a greater understanding of these things by beginning with a reading of Luther's Small Catechism.
2004-02-12 01:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Now, regarding Christianity, I'd be very interested to know how you are certain that it is the "one true faith." Or what makes your "one true faith" any more positively true than any of the other "one true faiths" out there?
Well, the first and primary reason is that this is what Jesus the Christ proclaimed himself. "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me."
Secondly, every other religion or faith found in the world is based on what man must do for its god. Christianity stands alone in that it is entirely based on what God has done for man.
Of course there are numerous other reasons such as the Resurrection and it being rooted in the historical, etc., but those are a quick two.
2004-02-12 04:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Exelsis_Deo]Wonderful post, Walter . So happy to see you spend the time and effort to lay forth the Truth so succinctly, by grace of God. Christ is Risen, via con dios.[/QUOTE]
I told someone at one time that I did not have a religion, and he asked me "don't you believe in God"?,,,,,,, my question is, what does religion has to do with "God"?,,,,,,, I choose to call it "The Force" from Star War. Now then, I am asking this of a Jew that knows his religion,,,, one of the names of you God is Elohim, but, Elohim is the plural of Elah wich is the singular for God,,,,,soooooo,,,,, when you say "Elohim" who are the God's that you are talking about? I am confuse on this point. Thanks...... "When the truth comes into the light, the lies will hide in the dark",,, Ponce
2004-02-12 04:37 | User Profile
Ponce, the truly eternal is not something can be classified, it cannot be described by words, nor refuted by words.. but there is only ONE way to spiritualize yourself, and that is by first understanding that not that long ago there was an entity on this Earth called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not the product of sexual intercourse, as we all are. God's angels visited the Holy Mother, who was just a 15 year old girl at the time. She had been in the Jewish rite ready to wed Josph of the House of David. She was stoned for having child, even after Gabriel told her she was chosen by God to have the Messiah. Joseph led the rest of his life fulfilling Gods Will, but he was only the mentor of the young child. He treated Him as a son, and Joseph is a Guardian of Our Faith. There are so many lies spread .. total lies, Mary and Joseph NEVER had intercourse ( called sex in modern times ). They never " did it ". But the newly-crowned so-called Jews and others want to defile them by saying they did. They even go as far as to say that Jesus had brothers. This thought years ago would have made you burn publicly. Jesus had no brothers. THey called everyone brothers back then, and James was actually a cousin of Jesus. Just stay true to your Heart, look up to the sky, and ask the Almighty for acceptance, because by living in this prison of flesh, we are truly damned damned to death a real forever death. Beg Jesus to come into your heart, beg him to save you and be your best friend, and read the Gospel to understand what the real men who followed Him had to deal with, and think of Them, the Apostles, as your brothers , they had so many sufferings and triumphs !! Through Christ only are we saved from the gates of eternal death ! Alleluliah !!
2004-02-12 05:16 | User Profile
Anyway,,,,,, I spent 7 years as an intern in a Catholic school so that I do know my X from my Y's in the Bible, and a few X's to top it all. The one that you call God never asked anyone to build him a church that was the doing of man,,,,,,, I live in the forest of Oregon and everyday I take a walk in the woods, the canopy of the trees is the cealing of my church and and singing of the birds is the singing of angels,,,,,, You people believe in Heaven because you are afraid to die, plain and simply. I myself have been dead three times and then they brought me back to life, as far as I am concern I was asleep and then I woke up, that was all. To me heaven is what what we make of ourselves here on Earth and not after death, so enjoy it now and dont worry about the future. You don't need a "preacher or a rabbi" to tell you what's right or wrong, let your concience be your guide.,,,,,, but I still want to know the difference between Elohim and Elah.
2004-02-12 06:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Well, the first and primary reason is that this is what Jesus the Christ proclaimed himself. "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me." But how do you know Jesus said that? And even if he did, that doesn't necessarily make it so.
Secondly, every other religion or faith found in the world is based on what man must do for its god. Christianity stands alone in that it is entirely based on what God has done for man. That may be correct, but I don't know -- it seems to me that Christianity does, in fact, make a lot of demands on the believer. (To be fair, most of those demands involve common-sense morality that even atheists acknowledge.) In any case, uniqueness among religions does not imply correctness.
Of course there are numerous other reasons such as the Resurrection and it being rooted in the historical, etc., but those are a quick two.[/QUOTE]If there were any real evidence of a Resurrection having taken place, then that would indeed be a very good reason to believe. Unfortunately, there isn't any such evidence. That's why you don't see books affirming Christianity in the "history" section of the library, but in the "religion/spirituality" section.
For example, in Josephus' writings the passage that mentions Jesus is of doubtful authenticity; most historians, both secular and Christian, have concluded that it shows evidence of tampering. (E.g.: Why would Josephus, a non-Christian Jew, refer to Jesus as "the Christ"? That indicates a belief that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah. If Josephus believed that, he would have been a Christian, and he certainly would have written more about Christ than he actually did.)
As for the pagan historian Tacitus, his information about Jesus seems to have come from second-hand sources; he recorded what Christians of the time believed, not what he knew to be true.
Speaking of rising from the dead, Lazarus was said to have been raised from the dead in front of a substantial number of observers. If that miracle happened, then why didn't word of it spread throughout the Roman empire? Even non-believers would certainly have been familiar with the story.
Then there are other unexplained difficulties. The fact that even the gospel accounts of Jesus' Resurrection differ from each other is probably the most serious. If God inspired the writing of the Bible, then why didn't He make it more convincing by, say, having a single, self-consistent Gospel? If God wants people to believe, then He could have done that. If He doesn't want some people to believe, then non-believers are doing His will and, thus, are not worthy of blame.
Believe it or not, I still haven't totally ruled out Christianity. I've absolutely ruled out the Bible as God's inerrant word -- I'm as certain of that conclusion as I am that 1+1=2 -- but there may indeed have been a man named Jesus who was God's Son and who rose from the dead. That much is at least a possibility. There's always the chance that some historical evidence will be unearthed that removes reasonable doubt.
In the meantime, I don't fear the hell with which non-believers are threatened. Here are a few reasons why:
(1) The unlimited punishment of finite beings of limited intellect, limited awareness of God, and limited willpower and potential for malice, is necessarily unjust and thus incompatible with a perfect God. If a perfectly just God exists, then eternal punishment cannot.
(2) God surely would have mentioned hell to the ancient Hebrews when He gave them the Ten Commandments, if such a place existed. (As I'm sure you know, the King James translation often writes the English word "hell" in place of "sheol" in the Old Testament, but sheol was the Hebrews' concept of a netherworld where the dead were neither punished nor rewarded.)
(3) My putative God-given conscience tells me in no uncertain terms that there is nothing immoral or blameworthy about making a sober, honest assessment of the evidence for a belief system, then coming to a conclusion based on that assessment.
(4) Skeptics are not being skeptical of God, but only of men who claim to have been inspired by God. God surely understands this. Skepticism is not a deliberate offense toward Him. In fact, some skeptics (e.g., Thomas Paine) have said that the Bible makes a kind of blasphemous caricature of God.
(5) It's entirely plausible that the doctrine of eternal damnation was invented by the early Christians as a way to promote the propagation of their religion via fear.
(6) The New Testament quotes Jesus as advising us to "fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna". This implies that the punishment of hell might simply be the annihiliation of nonbelievers, a view that would make Christianity much more believable.
These are just my honest thoughts, no offense to anyone intended....
2004-02-12 06:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=friedrich braun]Walter,
Please indicate why a Catholic should oppose Third World immigration of fellow Catholics.[/QUOTE]
Please see Catechism of the Catholic Church Articles 56-58 cited above.
I get the feeling that nobody here seems to read that, or at least to let its full ramifications sink in. But I guess that shouldn't be surprising, inasmuch as it also seems to be roundly ignored by 99% of Catholics DESPITE THE FACT THAT ITS IN THE CATECHISM.
I'll say it again. Nationalism lies at the heart of Catholic theology. We exist not only as individuals, but also as "nations" - groups of individuals defined by the indicia of blood ("in their families"), culture ("with their languages"), and sovereign territory ("in their lands"). Nations are in a very real sense separate creatures with their own existence, which is why they each have a guardian angel just as do we individuals. We are saved as Irishmen, Serbs, Russians, Armenians, Greeks and so forth, and most emphatically NOT only as individuals. As Tex pointed out above (another point that few here seem to get), Christ commanded his followers to preach the Gospel and convert "nations." Note well that He did not say "individuals." He said that the missionary efforts are ordered to baptizing NATIONS. This is fully in accord with Catholic theology, it goes without saying. Thus, Catholic theology is profoundly nationalistic.
Okay, so what is the American nation? What are our common indicia of blood, culture? What are the perimeters of our sovereign territory? As to the former question, it was always understood, at least until the 1960's, that the American nation is European in blood (Lincoln had a good thing on this), Christian in religion, English in language and legal traditions. The perimeters of our sovereign territory were defined clearly by international agreements.
The Mexican nation is a separate nation. They are Indian and Spanish in blood (mostly mixed now), Spanish in language and law, Christian in religion, and they occupy a vast territory between the Yucutan in the south and the Rio Grande in the north.
It is plain then that the Mexican and American nations are separate and distinct entities, and Catholic theology - supported by Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, and the Natural Law - require that they maintain their separate existence and not allow these lines to become unduly blurred. As you will see from Catechism Articles 56-58, such a thing is the very Sin of Babel. Powerful sin motivated, again as clearly set forth in said Articles, by a drive for power and wealth entailing a diminishment of the Monotheist light and an embrace of the pagan darkness.
Again, this is clear from the above-mentioned Articles.
Please let me know if I've answered your question satisfactorily.
Walter
2004-02-12 06:45 | User Profile
So in other words if a white American were to legitimately fall in love with and marry a dark-skinned Mexican that would be a violation of Church doctrine...?
2004-02-12 07:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE]This business of tree-worshipping human-sacrificing pagans is stock Bible school cliche. How did such morons build great civilizations? They couldn't have. Simple logic tells you they had to have a moral code, a just legal system, ethics, and the basics of the scientific method or we wouldn't be here.
Slandering our racial forefathers is what at least some monotheists do full-time, and mayhaps a chiche-free discussion of this would be in order one of these days. I mean Christians leaving behind their pagan-cliches and others leaving behind their Christian-cliches and examining what the historic and archeaological records really say about Our Common Ancestors.[/QUOTE]
With all respect, that's a strawman argument.
The Church is the vehicle that transmitted the best of European pagan civilization to us. Nobody admired the Greeks more than Augustine, Duns Scotus, and Aquinas. Nobody admired Roman law more intensely than Thomas More. St. Patrick told his new converts to always keep in mind that they weren't just Christians but were also Romans.
The Church traditionally made the classics an integral part of a Christian education.
Indeed, the loss of the ancient classics is associated n modern times with the decline in the power of the Church. Dewey was no Christian, after all.
The slander of the ancients comes not from the Church - never has and never will. The slander in fact comes from neo-pagans in whose puny minds all tradition is suspect.
Walter
2004-02-12 07:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]So in other words if a white American were to legitimately fall in love with and marry a dark-skinned Mexican that would be a violation of Church doctrine...?[/QUOTE]
This is more of a theoretical question, since the simple enforcement of the current immigration laws would solve the problem for all practical matters.
But it's still a good question.
I see nothing in Catholic teaching that would directly prohibit such a union between two baptized Christians.
However, that's not the point.
Marriage is a fundamentally social institution, and are subject to the laws of each nation passed in accordance with the Natural Law, in in Christian countries in keeping with Scripture and Tradition. As we have seen, these include a powerful presumption toward maintaining the purity of bloodlines and cultural heritage. The marriage laws are most central to our lives, and so they should reflect fully these principles.
In sum, this is a legal matter for the civil authorities, the laws of which are guided by Christian principles. It's a jurisdictional question - the Magisterium doesn't dicatate marriage laws, and Rome's interfering unduly in such matters can cause more harm than good (Henry VIII, for example).
As to our own marriage laws, they're a mess precisely because we as a society turned away from traditional Christian teaching in regard to them. We had a much stronger society when there were laws against inter-racial marriage, just as divorce was granted only upon a strong showing of fault (which was itself a major concession to human frailty wrought by the Reformation). Note that the miscegenation laws were replealed contemporaneously with the advent of no-fault divorce laws, and that's surely no accident. Indeed, both of these terribly destructive developments are manifestations of the same neo-pagan impulses, but I'll leave that aside for the moment.
Now, clearly, the anti-miscegenation laws are natural and good, per the arguments above. Indeed, they were always seen as arising directly from the Natural Law, Scirpture and Tradition.
I read somewhere recently (don't remember where) that the Most Catholic King of France forbade black-white marriages in Haiti, and the French Church supported this fully. It was clearly bad for the French nation, and the civil authorities are bound under Church law to pass and enforce laws that protect their national identities and enhance the general welfare of the people. The fact that the question arose from the greed of some French planters who didn't want to pay white workers fair wages preferring rather to kidnap human beings from Africa and impress them into slavery is another question altogether.
Anyway, I would favor laws discouraging interracial marriages. Again, simple enforcement of our territorial sovereignty would make the great bulk of these problems go away.
As to immigration, I think that the general principle is that assimilation into the European, Christian, and English-speaking American nation is the goal, and this process is best facilitated by absorbing outsiders who share these indentifying indicia with us most closely. PJB said something about it being much easier to Americanize an white Australian than a Somali Muslim. That's obvious, but its one of those obvious things nobody will say.
Blacks are furtherest from us genetically as a matter of empirical scientific fact, and if I had my druthers (and I don't) I'd outlaw basically all such unions. Asians and Meztizos are much closer to us (and do not suffer the mental impairments that our African brothers suffer) far enough away that we should be very reluctant to take many of them, but certainly the ban wouldn't have to be nearly as absolute as that on black-white unions.
Again, just enforce the border as we should, and end the stationing of imperial troops in Asia (many of these marriages happen there) - in short, return to a basic Christian nationalism and reject the Sin of Imperial Babel - and most of these problems will disappear.
The problem was caused by a turning away from traditional Christian principles, which suggests that the solution is to return to our traditional Christian roots.
Walter
2004-02-12 08:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis] The Church traditionally made the classics an integral part of a Christian education. [/QUOTE]
Definitely so. My first introduction to Sallust and the mechanations of Cataline and his fellow conspirators was at the hands of a Jesuit priest forty years ago as of this coming May - time really does fly!
[QUOTE]Indeed, the loss of the ancient classics is associated n modern times with the decline in the power of the Church. Dewey was no Christian, after all.[/QUOTE]
In fairness I would add the classics have suffered in every institution in the modern age. I didn't address this part.
I was responding to the notion that the Indo-European peoples ever matched the fantasy some people seem to insist on: The human-sacrificing Druid, the head-smashing pharaohs and the tree-worshipping Odinist. These are the real straw men. We know they were better than that, and they created order from the chaos of their time. And they are our relatives. It matters that the ancestors did the best with what they were given. Let the same be said of us, and much will have been said.
[QUOTE]The slander of the ancients comes not from the Church... The slander in fact comes from neo-pagans in whose puny minds all tradition is suspect.[/QUOTE]
There we are in complete accord. Mostly they've been sold a load of commodified rubbish and haven't the mental equipment to realize it.
2004-02-12 13:49 | User Profile
Walter,
The Catechism doesn't prohibit immigration of any sort. It merely states the obvious, i.e., nations exist.
Secondly, since the Catholic Church faces a decline in membership and attendance in the (formerly) western world it has had to increasingly rely on immigrants to fill its empty pews. This is one of the main reasons why the Catholic Church is in effect the biggest advocate of mass immigration, i.e., immigrants from the developing world (i.e., the worldââ¬â¢s failed polities inhabited by coloured masses) in Europe, North America, etc.
I wrote this post on another board after learning of a pastoral letter from one Archbishop Harry J. Flynn who condemned in it "racism" as a grave sin. I'm reproducing it below.
[I]Modern-day Christian Church hates you, White man!
Anyone quoting that notorious fraud, communist agitator, shameless plagiarist, and lascivious sex-maniac Martin Luther King jr. should be automatically viewed with the deepest of suspicions.
Notice how the self-loathing Catholic Church leader (Archbishop Harry J. Flynn) only mentions White racism (a neologism invited by Jew Trotsky when he wasn't busy murdering White gentiles in the Soviet Union) as a sin, if he had at least included the far more prevalent anti-White racism witnessed in todayââ¬â¢s world, one might have acknowledged his consistency. But never will you hear these limp-wristed degenerates (shouldnââ¬â¢t he be more concerned about his pedophile priests sodomizing young boys? And letââ¬â¢s not forget the Catholic Churchââ¬â¢s flagrant lies and disinformation and cover ups following the revelations of sex abuse at the hands of its decadent clergy) denounce the racism of Black violence against Whites, or that such violence is forty times as great as White violence against Blacks.
Whatââ¬â¢s at the heart of this pastoral letter is really the fact that the Catholic Church has ceased since at least the late 50s to be a White manââ¬â¢s Church and is increasingly becoming a Third World entity ââ¬â the Catholic world is exponentially becoming non-White with most conversions and growth occurring the Africa and Asia and Latin America. Since the Catholic Church faces a decline in membership and attendance in the (formerly) western world it has had to increasingly rely on immigrants to fill its empty pews. This is one of the main reasons why the Catholic Church is in effect the biggest advocate of mass immigration, i.e., immigrants from the developing world (i.e., the worldââ¬â¢s failed polities inhabited by coloured masses).
Miscegenation (or, as I prefer to call it, biological genocide) is also strongly favoured nowadays as a solution to ââ¬ÅWhite racismââ¬Â (in reality a desire for self-preservation). However, this phenomenon is unfortunately not limited or restricted to the Catholic Church, the same is happening to American Protestantism, for e.g. who can forget Rev. Billy Grahamââ¬â¢s submission on behalf of race mixing as a panacea to Americaââ¬â¢s perennial race problem? ââ¬Å Billy Graham goes one further and says that the only solution to our race problem is for us to breed with non-whites until human differences disappear. He says we must take alien peoples into our hearts and our homes and, yes, "into our marriages." See [url]http://www.amren.com/masterx.htm[/url]
Smarten up White man; present-day Christianity wants your destruction![/I]
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Please see Catechism of the Catholic Church Articles 56-58 cited above.
I get the feeling that nobody here seems to read that, or at least to let its full ramifications sink in. But I guess that shouldn't be surprising, inasmuch as it also seems to be roundly ignored by 99% of Catholics DESPITE THE FACT THAT ITS IN THE CATECHISM.
I'll say it again. Nationalism lies at the heart of Catholic theology. We exist not only as individuals, but also as "nations" - groups of individuals defined by the indicia of blood ("in their families"), culture ("with their languages"), and sovereign territory ("in their lands"). Nations are in a very real sense separate creatures with their own existence, which is why they each have a guardian angel just as do we individuals. We are saved as Irishmen, Serbs, Russians, Armenians, Greeks and so forth, and most emphatically NOT only as individuals. As Tex pointed out above (another point that few here seem to get), Christ commanded his followers to preach the Gospel and convert "nations." Note well that He did not say "individuals." He said that the missionary efforts are ordered to baptizing NATIONS. This is fully in accord with Catholic theology, it goes without saying. Thus, Catholic theology is profoundly nationalistic.
Okay, so what is the American nation? What are our common indicia of blood, culture? What are the perimeters of our sovereign territory? As to the former question, it was always understood, at least until the 1960's, that the American nation is European in blood (Lincoln had a good thing on this), Christian in religion, English in language and legal traditions. The perimeters of our sovereign territory were defined clearly by international agreements.
The Mexican nation is a separate nation. They are Indian and Spanish in blood (mostly mixed now), Spanish in language and law, Christian in religion, and they occupy a vast territory between the Yucutan in the south and the Rio Grande in the north.
It is plain then that the Mexican and American nations are separate and distinct entities, and Catholic theology - supported by Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, and the Natural Law - require that they maintain their separate existence and not allow these lines to become unduly blurred. As you will see from Catechism Articles 56-58, such a thing is the very Sin of Babel. Powerful sin motivated, again as clearly set forth in said Articles, by a drive for power and wealth entailing a diminishment of the Monotheist light and an embrace of the pagan darkness.
Again, this is clear from the above-mentioned Articles.
Please let me know if I've answered your question satisfactorily.
Walter[/QUOTE]
2004-02-12 14:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Walter,
The Catechism doesn't prohibit immigration of any sort. It merely states the obvious, i.e., nations exist. [/QUOTE]
Of course not, I never said it did. Immigration can be a very good thing. It's just that it must be done with a view to the rights of those collective entitites known as nations. I for one would love to see all the persecuted whites of Zimbabwe move to Milwaukee. Mexicans aren't nearly as close to us by blood and culture, and so we rightly exclude most of them.
[QUOTE]Secondly, since the Catholic Church faces a decline in membership and attendance in the (formerly) western world it has had to increasingly rely on immigrants to fill its empty pews. This is one of the main reasons why the Catholic Church is in effect the biggest advocate of mass immigration, i.e., immigrants from the developing world (i.e., the worldââ¬â¢s failed polities inhabited by coloured masses) in Europe, North America, etc. [/QUOTE]
I agree that the Catholic clergy is a major propoent of mass third world immigration. Once again, I refer to my letter published on VDARE. The point is that our fag Catholic clergy is doing this IN THE TEETH OF PLAIN CATHOLIC TEACHING.
Again, Catholic teaching is strongly nationalistic, and so can provide a solid and well-thought-out ideological framework for our know-nothingism.
If we agree on that, then I think that we agree.
[QUOTE]I wrote this post on another board after learning of a pastoral letter from one Archbishop Harry J. Flynn who condemned in it "racism" as a grave sin. I'm reproducing it below.[/QUOTE]
That's very interesting, but again the point is what Catholic teaching is, not what a lot of sodomites in Roman collars say it is. And Catholic teaching is profoundly nationalistic, as I've demonstrated (I hope) conclusively above.
Our lavender clergy say a lot of things that simply aren't in keeping with Magisterial teaching. The letter you cite is one good example. Another example is my own egregious (former) Archbishop of Milwaukee, the sodomite Weakland. He's gone now because he stole diocesan money to pay hush money to his butt boy, but not until he issued all sorts of pro-fag stuff and desecrated a Christian cathedral. Note that the good Catholics of Milwaukee weren't upset about him being an arse-bandit, but they sure were pi$$ed off when he absconded with $40,000 in their money our of a multi-gazillion dollar budget. Shows you where our priorities are.
"I wouldn't have burned the church, your highness, but I thought the Bishop was in it!"
Walter
2004-02-12 15:25 | User Profile
Walter,
Your brand of Catholicism doesn't exist anymore. What we have in the West is a Church that actively works against White interests. How many times has the current Pope apologized to Jews, for e.g.?
In fact, your stance on several issues put you outside today's mainstream.
I'm all for a stern, racist, jew-hating Catholicism of the Middel Ages, but that's long gone, and ain't coming back. What we have now is a self-loathing, apologizing, anti-White, faggoty, degenerate, pro-immigration, philo-Semitic, destructive entity.
2004-02-12 16:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=friedrich braun]Walter,
Your brand of Catholicism doesn't exist anymore. What we have in the West is a Church that actively works against White interests. How many times has the current Pope apologized to Jews, for e.g.?
In fact, your stance on several issues put you outside today's mainstream.
I'm all for a stern, racist, jew-hating Catholicism of the Middel Ages, but that's long gone, and ain't coming back. What we have now is a self-loathing, apologizing, anti-White, faggoty, degenerate, pro-immigration, philo-Semitic, destructive entity.[/QUOTE]
No, it does exist. It is in fact the Catholic Faith, as I've shown ad nauseum above.
I agree that it's not mainstream, as you call it, but that just means that there is massive apostasy. This isn't the first time the Church has faced massive apostasy - think of what St. Athenasius faced.
The Truth is Eternal, and it will win the day.
Mel Gibson is a case in point. Just give the people a glass of the waters of pure doctrine, and they'll come in droves.
Walter
2004-02-12 18:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Believe it or not, I still haven't totally ruled out Christianity. I've absolutely ruled out the Bible as God's inerrant word...[/QUOTE]
Then you have ruled out Christianity, I'm sorry to say.
I hope you find what you're looking for, Angler.
2004-02-12 19:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Then you have ruled out Christianity, I'm sorry to say.[/QUOTE]I don't see why that has to be the case, especially since most of mainstream Christianity does not take the Bible literally. Biblical fundamentalism is overwhelmingly concentrated in the United States; it's a minority view with respect to the global Christian community. But of course fundamentalists are as entitled to their views as anyone else, and I respect your opinion.
I hope you find what you're looking for, Angler. Thanks, but the search for objective truth is never-ending. There's always more to discover and learn.
2004-02-12 20:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]I don't see why that has to be the case, especially since most of mainstream Christianity does not take the Bible literally.
See especially # 3:
[url=http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=563]Of the Holy Scriptures[/url]
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.)
[Adopted 1932]
We teach that the Holy Scriptures differ from all other books in the world in that they are the Word of God. They are the Word of God because the holy men of God who wrote the Scriptures wrote only that which the Holy Ghost communicated to them by inspiration, 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21. We teach also that the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is not a so-called "theological deduction," but that it is taught by direct statements of the Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:16, John 10:35, Rom. 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:13. Since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, it goes without saying that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth, also in those parts which treat of historical, geographical, and other secular matters, John 10:35.
We furthermore teach regarding the Holy Scriptures that they are given by God to the Christian Church for the foundation of faith, Eph. 2:20. Hence the Holy Scriptures are the sole source from which all doctrines proclaimed in the Christian Church must be taken and therefore, too, the sole rule and norm by which all teachers and doctrines must be examined and judged. -- With the Confessions of our Church we teach also that the "rule of faith" (analogia fidei) according to which the Holy Scriptures are to be understood are the clear passages of the Scriptures themselves which set forth the individual doctrines. (Apology. Triglot, p. 441, Paragraph 60; Mueller, p. 684). The rule of faith is not the man-made so-called "totality of Scripture" ("Ganzes der Schrift").
[B]We reject the doctrine which under the name of science has gained wide popularity in the Church of our day that Holy Scripture is not in all its parts the Word of God, but in part the Word of God and in part the word of man and hence does, or at least, might contain error. We reject this erroneous doctrine as horrible and blasphemous, since it flatly contradicts Christ and His holy apostles, set up men as judges over the Word of God, and thus overthrows the foundation of the Christian Church and its faith.[/B]
If most of 'mainstream' Christianity has abandoned the fundamental and critical doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, then it doesn't take much to figure out why the 'mainstream' churches have become so weak and ineffective, does it?
Thanks, but the search for objective truth is never-ending. There's always more to discover and learn.[/QUOTE]
I suggest Soren Kierkegaard's [u]Concluding Unscientific Postscripts[/u] for truths about searching for objective truth.
2004-02-12 21:07 | User Profile
I don't mean to be obnoxious or divert the topic, but the Bible contains many inconsistencies and scientific errors which make the literalist stance quite hard to defend. For example, in Genesis our planet is created chronologically prior to the Cosmos itself.
Also, what is the decisive epistemological criterion which makes Jesus' claims to Godhood valid and soul-stirring and the mental hospital inmate's claims to Godhood invalid and pathetic?
I really cannot regard the Bible as anything more than a collection of Hebrew myths and legends. Humans, essentially infantile creatures, need something to cling to unconditionally for emotional strength, but is Jewish minstrelsy really the answer? I'm sure our historians in the distant vasty future will ponder how an astonishingly large portion of the Indo-European peoples of the world could accept and define themselves according to the strange contortions of ancient Semitic literature, abandoning the manly open-mindedness and upright thirst for knowledge of the Greeks only to unnaturally mimick a religion only barely conformable to our instincts with its insistence on feminine concepts such as "faith".
I recommend Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, by Frank Moore Cross as a psychological corrective.
2004-02-12 22:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=UnsleepingFlame]I don't mean to be obnoxious or divert the topic,
No worries, UF. That's what the board is for.
but the Bible contains many inconsistencies and scientific errors which make the literalist stance quite hard to defend. For example, in Genesis our planet is created chronologically prior to the Cosmos itself.
Your opinion, of course. I have yet to see any so-called inconsistencies and/or 'scientific' errors that haven't been soundly refuted by knowledgeable apologists elsewhere.
Also, what is the decisive epistemological criterion which makes Jesus' claims to Godhood valid and soul-stirring and the mental hospital inmate's claims to Godhood invalid and pathetic?
Jesus the Christ rose from the grave and conquered death. In the end, that's all it really boils down to. Pretty decisive criteria if you ask me or if you could ask the thousands who went to their death in a refusal to renounce that belief in the years that followed His resurrection.
...only to unnaturally mimick a religion only barely conformable to our instincts with its insistence on feminine concepts such as "faith".
I consider that a strength and not a weakness. Faith may be a feminine concept, but there's not a one of us that doesn't have faith in something. The only question is what is faith's object.
2004-02-12 23:58 | User Profile
The Bible was started about 80 years after the death of Jesus and it went on for 250 years, those who wrote it only choose that wich was in accordance to their belief....... I say those who wrote it because there were at least 4 authors, then one man,or woman, took a litlte bit from each writer and some of his own and put it all together. If you study the Bible you will see that it sometimes repeats itself, but from a different perspective, like, who came first? man, woman, plant or animal,,,,, you can read two diferent versions on this...... the same as the Noas boat and his animals. The Bible is true but is nothing more than a history book. The Bible as the Gods and saints was made by man for man and not to honor God. God ,or The Force as I call it, dosent need a "holy" book or a "church" in order to know who he is.............
2004-02-13 01:17 | User Profile
"We reject the doctrine which under the name of science has gained wide popularity in the Church of our day that Holy Scripture is not in all its parts the Word of God, but in part the Word of God and in part the word of man and hence does, or at least, might contain error. We reject this erroneous doctrine as horrible and blasphemous, since it flatly contradicts Christ and His holy apostles, set up men as judges over the Word of God, and thus overthrows the foundation of the Christian Church and its faith." But you see, Tex, this is a major part of the problem as I see it. I have yet to see an argument for Christianity that doesn't involve blatantly circular reasoning. The above excerpt is a perfect example. In a nutshell, it's saying this:
We reject the idea that the Bible is flawed in any way, no matter what the objective evidence, because the Bible was inspired by God. We know that the Bible is God-inspired because the Bible contains the words of Christ, whom we know from the Bible to have been Divine because the Bible is inerrant. Furthermore, to question the Bible is to undermine the Christian faith, and we refuse to engage in any reasoning that does not start from the premise that the Christian faith is true.
Can you honestly deny that the reasoning in the excerpt you provided is circular? That's the problem with apologetics: 99% of the time it starts from the assumption that Christianity and the Bible are correct. Nearly all the apologists I've read fail to understand that the Bible must be PROVEN to be the word of God before it holds ANY weight in an argument. Until there is sufficiently strong evidence that the Bible is God's Word, it has no more use in debate than the Koran or any other old book. And the extra-Biblical evidence for Christianity is, to put it mildy, scant.
You mentioned in one of your latest posts that a lot of people died for Christianity in its early days. I don't deny that. However, a lot of people have willingly died for other religions and beliefs, and that doesn't make those beliefs true. In the case of Christianity, the fear of damnation and the hope of paradise are powerful motivators even in the face of horrendous torture and execution.
Today, skeptics like me are so certain that there are logical problems with Christianity that even the threat of eternal hellfire is not sufficient to shake that certainty. Can anything the early Christians were threatened with compare with the threat of hellfire? I doubt it. So if the early Christians' willingness to take extraordinary risks for their beliefs can be weighed as evidence for the correctness of their beliefs, then surely unbelievers' willingness to brave an infinitely greater threat must count as even stronger evidence for their position. Who would risk going to hell if he really believed it might exist?
2004-02-13 01:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ponce]The Bible was started about 80 years after the death of Jesus and it went on for 250 years, those who wrote it only choose that wich was in accordance to their belief....... I say those who wrote it because there were at least 4 authors, then one man,or woman, took a litlte bit from each writer and some of his own and put it all together. If you study the Bible you will see that it sometimes repeats itself, but from a different perspective, like, who came first? man, woman, plant or animal,,,,, you can read two diferent versions on this...... the same as the Noas boat and his animals. The Bible is true but is nothing more than a history book. The Bible as the Gods and saints was made by man for man and not to honor God. God ,or The Force as I call it, dosent need a "holy" book or a "church" in order to know who he is.............[/QUOTE] Are you a Deist by any chance, Ponce? I might be one myself, since I cannot rule out the existence of some God. Here's a good website about it that includes lots of good writings by Thomas Paine:
[url]http://www.deism.com/[/url]
2004-02-13 09:14 | User Profile
No offense meant - well, maybe a [I]smidgen [/I] - but no-one should bisect "Jesus Christ" with a "the" unless they're wearing suspenders and fanning themselves. I dunno.... it's so [I]Scopes monkey trial[/I].
2004-02-13 16:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]How can grown men, of obvious intelligence, believe in such fairy tales? [/QUOTE]
Of what? Atheism? That there is no God?
I too scratch my head how intelligent men could believe such a thing.
2004-02-13 16:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Can you honestly deny that the reasoning in the excerpt you provided is circular? That's the problem with apologetics: 99% of the time it starts from the assumption that Christianity and the Bible are correct. Nearly all the apologists I've read fail to understand that the Bible must be PROVEN to be the word of God before it holds ANY weight in an argument.
Proven according to what or whom? You are the dis-believing skeptic, A. The burden of proof is on you, not on we believers. The Bible is 66 books written by 40 some odd authors over a period of a couple thousand years!
You obviously begin with a pre-disposed anti-supernatural bias and this will cloud any 'proof' you are looking for.
2004-02-13 16:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]No offense meant - well, maybe a [I]smidgen [/I] - but no-one should bisect "Jesus Christ" with a "the" unless they're wearing suspenders and fanning themselves. I dunno.... it's so [I]Scopes monkey trial[/I].[/QUOTE]
We each have our own individual preferences of course, but I've come across too many people who really believe that 'Christ' was Jesus' last name.
Plus, I just like the way that sounds -- Jesus the Christ. It's much more descriptive really.
2004-02-13 17:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] I too scratch my head how intelligent men could believe such a thing.[/QUOTE]
Actually, no belief required. Occam's razor.
2004-02-13 17:21 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Actually, no belief required. Occam's razor.[/QUOTE]
Is this an absolute, amigo?
2004-02-13 17:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wintermute]Well, if it isn't - then what does the "H" stand for?[/QUOTE]
"Historically true" of course.
2004-02-13 19:30 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wintermute]Hmmmmm.
It doesn't sound Aramaic.
But I'll take your word for it.
Wintermute[/QUOTE]
I think that you're wide of the mark here.
Evolution gave us many survival tools, the most uniquely human of which are reason and imagination.
But these are quite distinct tools. For lack of a better analogy, reason is perhaps like a sharp knife and imagination (including religious imagination) is more like, say, a movie projector. They're both essential for our survival, but they evolved for quite separate uses. The knife is useful for all sorts of things, but the movie projector is the thing that tells us what we should use the knife for.
Hume (if memory serves) said that reason is the handmaiden of the emotions, and scientific investigation bears this out. E.O. Wilson discusses this at some length in his "On Human Nature." I urge you to re-read that if it's been a while.
Consider the experiments with people who had that membrane that connects the two brain hemispheres - what's it called, the corpus collosum?? - damaged or removed such that the left and right brains couldn't communicate with each other. I recall that they showed one fellow an orange together with a picture of a bird, and when asked (his left hemisphere) what he saw, he said "the Baltimore Oriel." Brilliant. And so very beautifully human.
So, the way our brains work - and this is a fact that we cannot hope to transcend - is that our emotional centers experience some impulse and then our imagination projects stories that potentially explain the feelings. Reason sort of whittles away at the potential stories like an editor on the cutting room floor, and out pops the final version of the movie we call religious myth.
Reason operates within the parameters emotion and imagination establish for it, and it tackles exactly those tasks emotion tells it to. The point is that reason in a sense stands on the shoulders of emotion and imagination - whatever it sees it owes directly to the fact that it is supported by giants. Reveting to my original analogy, it's the knife, it's not the man wielding it.
It seems to me, then, that at bottom religion results from our deep emotional impulses to feel connected with the universe - to feel that it all makes sense, that there's a purpose to our suffering. That's it - [I]to feel that there's purpose to this suffering[/I]. If we lose that we wither and die, both individually and as a people, and so Evolution designed us to find a purpose. Chekhov's play Three Sisters captures this beautifully. Why do we suffer, they asked? The three sisters had lost their Christian myth, and so they thought up various things (including getting a job at the post office and moving to Moscow), none of which worked. Our religious imagination comes up with all sorts of stories, and our reason sort of whittles them down in a process that is rightly called apologetics. But the most basic impulses come from depths we cannot hope to fathom - and indeed that we cannot challenge as a simple matter of logic.
Thus, it seems clear to me that our religious feelings and imagination - certainly the most the fundamental facts of our existence - precede reason, and thus reason may not challenge them directly lest it knock out the very foundations upon which it would operate.
Reason works for our emotions and religious imagination, and not the other way around. Of course this was understood by all the great Catholic thinkers beginning with St. Augustine. "I believe so that I can understand." Indeed, reason can apprehend the world only in a truly mythical context, but inside the greatest of all mythical contexts - Chrsitianity - it can apprehend Eternity Himself and raise unto Him the Cathedral of Chartres.
I think that many of the arguments above are typical of this error. "Christianity can't be right because we know that virgins never have babies and so it all must be a fairy story." Occam's razor, right? Well, wrong. Occam's razor is a wonderful sharp knife that works so well at the tasks that emotion and imagination set for it, but it cannot question the wisdom of its boss in the tasks it is set to do. At least, not in any ultimate sense. Reason is simply to subsidiary a thing for that.
Faith in the Virgin Birth is posited before we begin philosophy - syllogism must always assume ultimate postulates. Faith commands philosophy to theologize, and brings us to understanding.
Aquinas, Aquinas. How desparately our world needs you.
Walter
2004-02-13 21:08 | User Profile
I still say you're nuts - but that was beautifully stated, Walter. One of your best-ever posts.
2004-02-13 22:01 | User Profile
In other words, religion is a crutch. Very few skillful knife-wielders among the zealots, by the way. Like il ragno said, seemed to be the rebelious kind, mostly.
2004-02-13 23:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Proven according to what or whom? You are the dis-believing skeptic, A. The burden of proof is on you, not on we believers. The Bible is 66 books written by 40 some odd authors over a period of a couple thousand years! [/QUOTE]No, the burden of proof is unquestionably on the one making the claim for his religion. Otherwise, I could apply your reasoning to non-Christian religions and say that I should believe in Judaism or Islam unless I can prove them false. For that matter, neither you nor I can prove, or even present evidence, that Zeus doesn't exist. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. And the greater the consequences of the claim (e.g., the need to change one's life significantly in order to satisfy the demands of his religion), the greater the justification for demanding proof.
The Bible is composed of a number of books that were chosen out of a much larger number of extant writings. Each piece of writing was determined to be "inspired" or "not inspired" by a simple vote by a group of men who were working under orders from Emperor Constantine. My understanding is that he offered to pay them if they could come up with a unifed compilation that would provide a means to unite the Roman Empire under the single religion of Christianity. So, naturally, those guys voted to include those books which happened to contain certain themes. They may have even edited the books as well, a possibility that even Bible believers must acknowledge. After all, if there is no way anything in the Bible could have been tampered with, then why is there a warning to those who would do so at the end of the book of Revelation?
You obviously begin with a pre-disposed anti-supernatural bias and this will cloud any 'proof' you are looking for. I do not have an "anti-supernatural bias." I simply have a bias against believing in something for which there is no evidence, especially if such belief requires me to change my life and act against my natural instincts (e.g., by "offering no resistance to one who is evil" or "subjecting myself to the civil authorities").
There is, however, a distinction between "the supernatural" and "that which is unsupported by evidence." If supernatural entities exist, there is no reason why they can't act upon natural objects, thus producing evidence. (I consider the very existence of the universe to be evidence for a supernatural Creator, though it does not constitute proof. It's possible that the universe is self-existent; I just find it more intuitive to believe in a transcendent, self-existent Being that created the universe.)
2004-02-14 00:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Of what? Atheism? That there is no God?
I too scratch my head how intelligent men could believe such a thing.[/QUOTE]
When someone says " I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD" he is saying a contradictory statement, he is saying that there is a God but that he dosent believe in him. Think about it,,,,,,,, he is admitting that there is a God but refuse to believe in him.
2004-02-14 01:11 | User Profile
JohnHoward,
Very well put...and a serious question that deserves an answer. A little heads up --- You are not going to get a coherent answer. As for myself, I'd sooner worship and love the alien in the Sigourney Weaver movies.
Enkidu
2004-02-14 01:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]Even if I were inclined to believe in, worship, or follow a god (which I am NOT), why on earth would I choose the Jewish god? [/QUOTE]
Well, the Christian who owns the forum has a different take on the subject, but he also seems to believe in free speech, which is getting to be a rare commodity. (Ask the war protesters in Des Moines!)
For the specifics, my guess is that most European-Americans worship a god unrelated to their place and their bloodlines because it is punched into them from childhood that he is the "way, truth & light" and that's that.
It's difficult (for some even life-threatening) to overcome such conditioning. And the boys in the backrooms of Babylon and Rome knew this as well as we do. ("Give me a child till the age of seven and he's mine for life no matter what else he learns.." was old when the Jesuits picked it up.)
Simply, most people don't "choose" the Jewish god at all, and most will never question it.
2004-02-14 05:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]I still say you're nuts - but that was beautifully stated, Walter. One of your best-ever posts.[/QUOTE]
Thank you. Coming from you I'm deeply flattered.
I really need to get my spell checker fixed, though. I can't load the English dictionary in there for some reason.
Walter
2004-02-14 05:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE]For the specifics, my guess is that most European-Americans worship a god unrelated to their place and their bloodlines [/QUOTE]
My dear friend Ragnar, what in the world are you talking about?
The Christian religion is in no way conntected to Europe, either by blood or geography?
You ignore 2,000 years of history to arrive at such a startling conclusion.
Walter
2004-02-14 05:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Enkidu]JohnHoward,
Very well put...and a serious question that deserves an answer. A little heads up --- You are not going to get a coherent answer. As for myself, I'd sooner worship and love the alien in the Sigourney Weaver movies.
Enkidu[/QUOTE]
Not me.
I could, however, easily worship and love Sigourney Weaver. Especially in the first movie, Alien. When she got ready for her long nap.
That girl deserved a little worship and love, IMHO.
Walter
2004-02-14 05:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE]The entire Bible narrative is just mythology anyway. [/QUOTE]
You misunderstand the basic point.
Mythology isn't "just" anything.
It's the Thing Itself.
Walter
2004-02-14 10:08 | User Profile
Mr. Yannis, you have shown why Augustine is no longer taken seriously. Why must it be assumed that what we as human animals, insectlike pieces of inconsequence in the mind-bending vistas of space and time, [I]wish to believe[/I] must necessarily be true? Your subjectivism places no limit whatever to the possible objects of (mis)belief. You leave us to rely only on the reptilian region of the brain which knows not the constraints of the executive rationality proper to a fully-developed human being. The unadorned logic of your argument goes as follows: If it is pleasing or conveniently flattering to believe something, therefore it [I]must[/I] be true. This sounds rather like the philosophy of a child prone to temper-tantrums, or a madman fettered to his artificial inner world. Judaic-Christian "Faith" merely ratifies the unhealthier impulses of the human ego and mendaciously projects them on to the vast in-humanitarian cosmos.
I think either the Church must reform radically, which would involve ignoring the self-degradatory and anti-aristocratic elements in Christ's teaching; Or our race must develop a post-christian religion based on a stern evolutionary realism devoid of the presentday suicidal moralism.
2004-02-14 11:29 | User Profile
Angler,
My sincerest apologies for a delayed response to your numerous queries. Life has been more than a bit hectic for me and my family as of late.
But take heart and do not despair! Assuming you really want answers, and I have to make this conclusion absent any evidence to the contrary of course :), let me give you two links to some pages just flat-out chock full of just the kind of information you are looking for:
[url]http://www.tektonics.org/index2.html[/url]
[url]http://www.christian-thinktank.com/[/url] (see especially the 'common objections' section)
2004-02-14 15:41 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Angler,
My sincerest apologies for a delayed response to your numerous queries. Life has been more than a bit hectic for me and my family as of late.
But take heart and do not despair! Assuming you really want answers, and I have to make this conclusion absent any evidence to the contrary of course :), let me give you two links to some pages just flat-out chock full of just the kind of information you are looking for:
[url]http://www.tektonics.org/index2.html[/url]
[url]http://www.christian-thinktank.com/[/url] (see especially the 'common objections' section)[/QUOTE]No sweat at all, Tex. Family has to come first.
Thanks for the links, but I have already read quite a bit of material on both sites. My opinion of Tektonics is, I have to admit, not very high. While the site's owner makes an admirable effort, as the quantity of material on his site clearly shows, his arguments still suffer from a variety of deep flaws -- not the least of which are circularity and the tackling of straw men. I have yet to see one that is not easily demolished.
The Christian Think-Tank site, on the other hand, is much more impressive. It is undoubtedly the best Christian apologetics site I have ever come across. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I myself posted a link to that very site on the Christianity forum here at OD a few months ago for exactly that reason.) I still find certain key arguments presented there unconvincing, but at least they avoid the more obvious logical fallacies that pervade other apologetics websites. That site has definite potential, and I will return to it from time to time to look for new material.
Rest assured, this is a question I pursue with an open mind. I certainly have no inherent bias against Christianity -- after all, I was raised in the Catholic faith and believed in it quite strongly for my whole life up until less than a year ago. It's not that I didn't always suffer from doubts here and there, but I never imagined that I would one day view Catholicism, or Christianity in general, with the level of skepticism I have now.
2004-02-14 18:03 | User Profile
Is your Avatar from "They Live?"
I believe you were the OD'er who recommended it, correct?
I went out and bought a copy, and found it cool.
It's just amazing that John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness, Halloween, The Thing) got away with this. The thing was so obviously a thinly-disguised analogy of Jewish influece in Hollywood that my jaw kept dropping to the floor.
There's a scene where the protaganist finds the secret underground complex in LA, and there's "alien" writing on the wall that looks to just like Hebrew.
The alien at the dinner with the "native elites" talks about all they've gained in their "multi-dimensional corporate expansion."
Amazing.
And interesting that I hadn't heard of it before you (if I remember correctly) recommended it.
It's definitely a "B" sci-fi flick, but it's very important as a sort of comic book rendition of the arguments found regularly here on OD.
Walter
2004-02-14 18:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]The Bible is composed of a number of books that were chosen out of a much larger number of extant writings. Each piece of writing was determined to be "inspired" or "not inspired" by a simple vote by a group of men who were working under orders from Emperor Constantine. My understanding is that he offered to pay them if they could come up with a unifed compilation that would provide a means to unite the Roman Empire under the single religion of Christianity. So, naturally, those guys voted to include those books which happened to contain certain themes. They may have even edited the books as well, a possibility that even Bible believers must acknowledge. After all, if there is no way anything in the Bible could have been tampered with, then why is there a warning to those who would do so at the end of the book of Revelation?[/QUOTE]
The Church produced the Bible and, yes, they edited the books, as the Holy Spirit guided them. This is no secret. Some of the books weren't even written by the hand of the Apostles but by their disciples some years later. Again, no secret there and is irrelavent to their authority. The issue really is whether one accepts the Bible as the inspired word of God or not. If you reject it, then you are free to engage in paganism, atheism, or whatever. If one trusts God, then accepting that the Holy Spirit used men to produce the Scriptures is not some great controversy.
I might mention that the Church accepted the Apocrypha as a legitament part of the Holy Scriptures. But these books are categorically rejected by many churches. Another issue is the almost universal acceptance among some people of the King James authorized Bible as the ONLY legitament version. A crazy notion, for the obvious reason that Christians got along for 1600 years without it! The fact is Jesus and the apostles quoted the Greek texts, now known as the Septuagint, not the KJV, yet most churches reject the Septuagint and prefer Bibles like the KJV which are based on the much later Jew-tampered Masoretic text. I'm not saying the KJV shouldn't be used ever, but only if one understands that there's nothing special about it and is aware of its flaws. Maybe this rejection of the Greek Bible is what's referred to in the Book of the Apocalypse? I don't know.
Maybe you could take a look at this. Answers these things better than I can
Bible & Church History [url]http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Orthodox-Faith/Bible-and-Church-History/index.html#bible[/url]
-
2004-02-17 03:53 | User Profile
I truly fear for you who do not Believe. How you can even live is beyond my comprehension, Thank God. It is one thing to question Christianity, and a more circumspect thing to try and disprove it, then once you through Satan's spirit become learned, without conscience participating in orgies of fleshly sin through your own mind or in reality, gore fests which we call Wars, while the Elite put you and your families into war as pawns on a chessboard. Its happenned for the last 200 years, and the truth will always be suppressed, distorted and twisted... Damn You ...... yes you Original Dissent member. Damn You. Damn YOU. It kills me that there are actually people out there who on this board refute Christianity !! FACT - FACT -FACT - no fact will ever convince these walking zombies, they are ACCURSED !!!
2004-02-17 07:36 | User Profile
There's a person....there it is - [I]there's the anointing[/I]....and your steps have been so - so [I]backward[/I]....but God is here today to tell you to let GO of your unbelief, and trust in Him today....[I]thank [/I] you, Lord, [I]ha shee bee ha batto[/I]....there's a person that God is speaking to..... whose whole....LIFE...has been goin' backward...but bless God, if you'll believe and take a step of FAITH [I]He [/I] will begin to direct your steps FORWARD!! [I]It's not the end, it's your biggest beginning!![/I] If you'll believe my prophets, saith the Lord....I'm talkin' 'bout a [B]thousand-dollar vow [/B] of faith today - I'm talkin' 'bout making a vow .....makin' a covenant vow, like Jacob made a vow....[I]and [/I] payin' it....remember, it's to God....some of you been sendin' some hot checks, bless God, (chuckles) I'll tell ya - don't write any more hot checks, please! Just wait'll the money's in your account....
-[I]verbatim transcript of the Robert Tilton show, circa 1990. In 1990 Tilton cleared nearly $80 million, appearing nationally several times daily on over 600 UHF & cable stations.[/I]
PS - somebody remind me to transcribe the footage where he scrunches up his face all ecstatic-like and intones like a man posessed, "[B]You are not goin' t'have diarrhea any longer - that's God speakin' to someone right now.[/B]" Hilarious!
2004-02-17 07:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Is your Avatar from "They Live?"
I believe you were the OD'er who recommended it, correct?[/QUOTE]Hi Walter. Sorry for overlooking your questions up until now -- I kind of temporarily forgot about this thread.
Yup, that's Roddy Piper in They Live. I don't actually recall recommending that movie to anyone here -- I think someone else was doing that with his posting signature -- but I do recommend it anyway.
They Live definitely does leave something to be desired in terms of realism (especially in the gunfighting scenes), but I think it's a genuinely fun movie anyway. And then there's the political subtext! It really is uncanny how well it fits our situation with organized Jewry. While it may be the case that Carpenter was merely making a statement about the greed and manipulativeness of unethical capitalists, the shoe fits even better on organized Jewry, regardless of whether that's by design or accident.
2004-02-17 08:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wild_bill]The Church produced the Bible and, yes, they edited the books, as the Holy Spirit guided them. This is no secret. Some of the books weren't even written by the hand of the Apostles but by their disciples some years later. Again, no secret there and is irrelavent to their authority. The issue really is whether one accepts the Bible as the inspired word of God or not. If you reject it, then you are free to engage in paganism, atheism, or whatever. If one trusts God, then accepting that the Holy Spirit used men to produce the Scriptures is not some great controversy.[/QUOTE]I basically agree with your words above with the exception of the last sentence. To me, accepting that the Bible was divinely inspired is not a question of trusting God, but of trusting men. Any statement to the effect of, "If you trust in God, then you'll believe in the Bible," begs the question of whether or not God had anything to do with the writing of the Bible in the first place. The simple fact is that there is no more evidence for God's involvement in the Bible than there is for His involvement in the Koran or any other religious tome. Either the Bible is a fraud, the Koran is a fraud, or they are both frauds.
il ragno's post about Robert Tilton illustrates a good point. Even when I fully believed in Christianity, I knew that Tilton was a fraud. It as obvious to me even as a young child that Tilton and similar TV clowns (my "favorite" today is Benny Hinn) were nothing but predators who prey upon the gullible and steal their money. So, if unscrupulous men are willing to take advantage of peoples' religious credulity today, then how do we know we can trust the men who wrote the Bible centuries ago? Were people any more honest back then?
Again: the issue in not trust in God, but of trust in men. That's just the reality of the situation. If God spoke to me personally and told me to trust Him, I can assure you that I would do exactly that, in addition to anything else He told me to do. But just because someone else tells me he was spoken to by the Almighty, that doesn't make it true.
2004-02-21 04:27 | User Profile
Ego= Sin. Perception as given in your five senses : Sin. You plural are brash : Sin. Your doubt : Sin. Your questioning of miracles : Sin. Keep going. Keep Sinning. I want you to destroy your birthright. I want you to live, and then die, Permanently. I am ready to once again make man abhorrent to God. I have been telling you, influencing you, seeping into your minds as u sleep and wake, eating holes of fulfillness in your physical awareness. Feel comfortable.
I will wean you away, as I have for untold Ages. I will make you believe in yourselves, to think you even have any right to exist. Elevate your judgement. Elevate your preception. Carry it forward to its ultimate degree while I imbue all my knowledge upon you. And rot in hell.
2004-02-26 04:02 | User Profile
Isn't it a hard pill to swallow dear Wintermute .. It should not be hard for one who can regonize within himself that he is a created being. You want to raise the subject, I am more than happy to accomodate.. chained by the limits of the English language, very difficult. The English language is most horrible. Wintermute, you are old school like I am . I respect you. But I only respect your intelligence, as a fruit fly is intelligent. I know your past pagan leanings, and you are a good woman. God is beyond your understanding. If you had a God you could understand and manipulate, would He?She be a God ? I pity you I truly pity you ! I want to meet with you.. if that is what you need. Wintermute, hold fast, be good, and run away or stop those who in your midst lay sacrifice to Baal . The separation apart from Baal worship is IMPERATIF. I know the benefits of allegiance and the free money. Can you stomach the seed of Satan can You 3 hide behind God 's eyes ?
2004-03-02 04:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=wintermute]Hey, Excelsis!
I wanted to bring attention to your words, since it's so rare for modern Christians to confess, as their spiritual ancestors did (Aquinas and Tertullian, most notably), that roiling, white hot hatred and ill will are still the burning motives behind the Christian faith. I have nothing but the strongest desire that you will be saved, Saved Eternally Wintermute !! May we meet in Heaven May We ! Let me say a real connected Mel was all wacked out on drugs and begged the Church a few years ago, and they tutored him. He is what he is, he is not a representative of the HRCH. For various large reasons, we have given Mel the umbrella .. The things I say are so mis interpreted .. the sad thing is truly that your soul is on the line. I know when I feel respect, Ive had it with Wintermute for two years now .. but for the others.. i havent seen the moo-vie and I am not sure if I will. I told you, that ANY atempt to depict Christ in any way shape or form is AUTOMATICALLY SACROSANCT. Automatically an abomination. I still believe that , and will not subject my heart into this false depiction because I have prayed and felt deeply all the sufferings of Christ. As I see Him. As He enters my Heart. The mere thought of an actor portraying Jesus is Blasphemy, HIGH Blasphemy. Sign of the times..
2004-03-02 04:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]I can visualize you in your cramped chamber muttering Talmudic incantations and curses, in your Egyptian robes, while the demonic filth of Hebrew inscriptions and superstitions drip from the defiled walls; it is little more than a burial vault containing a corpse....
Events and landmark figures of the 20th century demostrated that the Judeo-Christian god (YHWH) is impotent, false, and non-existant.
A Jewish fairy tale...
Thus, we are set free of both gods and men![/QUOTE]Mister John Howard, a victim of lies, one who believes in evolution and what the media tells him, suckpoop of the media which tells him what to think, feeling comfortable because at this age 2004 he feels capable of making out his retirement, while he has Grandchildren he kisses every weekend who are going to inherit a world of total ensalavement. Cash out without a cashier, total surveillance. Weather control . Implant your Grandson with the Chip. Up the Nose.
2004-03-02 05:09 | User Profile
I always enjoy a good belly laugh when I read the views of these allegedly "rational" atheistic types who sneer at Christians for believing what the Bible says.
When viewed as a purely historical text, perhaps it is true that the Bible does contain gaps, inconsistencies, and implusible claims, but it doesn't contain nearly as many of these things as the Darwinian "theory" evolution or the so-called Big Bang "theory" of the origins of the universe.
Yeah...believing that human consciousness and all matter and energy originated purely as an accidental by product of a massive, uncaused explosion in deep space is just so much more rational than saying "in the beginning God."
Give me a break.
The religion of scientific rationalism is just that -- a religion.
2004-03-02 05:20 | User Profile
VF,
your message and avatar are an interesting combination, given the recent debates on OD :lol:
2004-03-02 05:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]VF,
your message and avatar are an interesting combination, given the recent debates on OD :lol:[/QUOTE] Are you telling me that there is stilll someone who thinks the letargies of Charles Darwin and his Jew followers like Karl Marx ( who starved to death his own children ) is even relevant to me ? A mass murderer ? I have the singular my Italian ancestor fought in the Civil War. Ellis Island was for noobs. We all have to live here, we adopted the English language, as bad as it is. But now we give it all away. I truly wonder why its important at all Death is our Welcome Let us Die These lessers, let them feed as animals do .. There was Never Glory in the Flesh Letting it go is appealing to me As it always must be
2004-03-02 12:08 | User Profile
MR, you took the woids right outta my mouth there!
[QUOTE]I truly wonder why its important at all Death is our Welcome Let us Die These lessers, let them feed as animals do .. There was Never Glory in the Flesh Letting it go is appealing to me[/QUOTE]
OK -but [I]you first[/I], God Boy. Put your money where your mouth is and put a .38 where your mouth is. Seriously, how do you pull that hair shirt [I]on [/I] over that halo anyway?
So Tex and Walter's God Squad is growing apace. It now includes a Baptist, a Catholic, a Swastikyterian (or is that a Third Reich Adventist?) and an honest-to-goodness Penitente, who packed his own lash. Any Mennonites in the back? Unitarians? Oh, and Assemblies of God members - please check your phony crutches at the door, there are no healings scheduled for tonight's meeting.....
2004-03-02 13:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Valley Forge]I always enjoy a good belly laugh when I read the views of these allegedly "rational" atheistic types who sneer at Christians for believing what the Bible says.
When viewed as a purely historical text, perhaps it is true that the Bible does contain gaps, inconsistencies, and implusible claims, but it doesn't contain nearly as many of these things as the Darwinian "theory" evolution or the so-called Big Bang "theory" of the origins of the universe.
Yeah...believing that human consciousness and all matter and energy originated purely as an accidental by product of a massive, uncaused explosion in deep space is just so much more rational than saying "in the beginning God."
Give me a break.
The religion of scientific rationalism is just that -- a religion.[/QUOTE]
What is the yardstick of "rationality," VF - how does one decide as between theories in order to choose the best of yet imperfect theories.
Would you please give us an account of why the explosion theory is given credence? Also, please explain what comparable basis "in the beginning God" has as an explanation. And you might explain what "explain" means.
These questions should get you started toward an understanding of the basis for some of the sneering at Christians.
2004-03-02 14:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Valley Forge]I always enjoy a good belly laugh when I read the views of these allegedly "rational" atheistic types who sneer at Christians for believing what the Bible says. One need not be an atheist to discount the Biblical accounts of creation, the flood, etc. Even many (and probably most) Christians hold that such Biblical accounts are essentially akin to parables that were written to teach certain theological and moral lessons. Only Biblical literalists insist on engaging in tortured mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious conclusion that much of the Bible cannot be literally correct.
When viewed as a purely historical text, perhaps it is true that the Bible does contain gaps, inconsistencies, and implausible claims, but it doesn't contain nearly as many of these things as the Darwinian "theory" evolution or the so-called Big Bang "theory" of the origins of the universe. I'm afraid you are mistaken here.
It is a known fact that evolution through natural selection occurred; there is oodles of evidence in the form of fossils and DNA analysis. The only room for meaningful debate regarding evolution is in the details of how it occurred. Mainstream Christianity recognizes this and has generally accepted evolution as God's means of creating living beings.
As for the Big Bang (a theory which was first proposed by a priest, I believe), there is plenty of solid empirical evidence that the universe was created in that manner, such as the cosmic microwave background radiation and the observed expansion of the universe. Therefore, we're stuck with the Big Bang theory. Could God have created the universe by such means? Of course. Is God necessary in the picture? That's not certain, but there is some chance that the universe could be in a perpetual state of expansion and contraction. (If the universe is currently on a course of infinite expansion, as may astrophysicists currently believe, then that would of course severely undermine the "oscillating universe" scenario.)
Yeah...believing that human consciousness and all matter and energy originated purely as an accidental by product of a massive, uncaused explosion in deep space is just so much more rational than saying "in the beginning God."
Give me a break. If God exists, then He could have created the universe through the Big Bang, as noted above. If God does not exist, then that simply means that there is some other self-existent "first cause" of the universe. Some have suggested that the laws of physics and logic are the only "god".
The religion of scientific rationalism is just that -- a religion.[/QUOTE]If you're making the point that science cannot disprove the existence of a Creator, then I agree with you completely. The existence of God is a metaphysical question.
On the other hand, if you're attempting to place science and religion on an equal footing with respect to their value at obtaining known truth, then you could not be more wrong. Science yields verifiable results in the real world, while religion does not. Which keeps homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer -- religion or science? Which has cured more sick people? Which has put man on the moon? There is just no comparison.
If God exists, then I'm convinced that science is the best means of getting to know Him. To trust in science is essentially to trust in reason and empirical evidence. If those things cannot be trusted, then neither can the Bible, since we can only know the Bible and any messages it contains by reading it (the empirical aspect) and then reasoning from what we read. If we cannot trust our senses and our reason, then we cannot know anything, including the Bible. Even if I receive a revelation directly from God, I am incapable of knowing it was from God without reasoning to that effect.
Belief in the Bible is NOT direct trust in God, but trust in the men who wrote the Bible and who are featured in its stories. If someone knows that the Biblical writers were inspired by God, then I'd love to know how they know that. To believe in science, on the other hand, is to believe in the tools that God, if He exists, must have given men as a means of acquiring knowledge.
2004-03-02 16:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Belief in the Bible is NOT direct trust in God, but trust in the men who wrote the Bible and who are featured in its stories. [/QUOTE] Or trust in the people -- one's parents et al. -- who vouch for the men who wrote the Bible.
2004-03-02 16:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]One need not be an atheist to discount the Biblical accounts of creation, the flood, etc.
No, just a prideful humanist with a hyper-inflated belief in one's own abilities and accomplishments.
Even many (and probably most) Christians hold that such Biblical accounts are essentially akin to parables that were written to teach certain theological and moral lessons.
I don't.
2004-03-02 17:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]So Tex and Walter's God Squad is growing apace. It now includes a Baptist, a Catholic, a Swastikyterian (or is that a Third Reich Adventist?) and an honest-to-goodness Penitente, who packed his own lash. Any Mennonites in the back? Unitarians? Oh, and Assemblies of God members - please check your phony crutches at the door, there are no healings scheduled for tonight's meeting.....[/QUOTE]
What's your point here, IR? Do you have one or are you just trying to be insulting?
2004-03-02 17:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]So Tex and Walter's God Squad is growing apace. It now includes a Baptist, a Catholic, a Swastikyterian (or is that a Third Reich Adventist?) and an honest-to-goodness Penitente, who packed his own lash. Any Mennonites in the back? Unitarians? Oh, and Assemblies of God members - please check your phony crutches at the door, there are no healings scheduled for tonight's meeting.....[/QUOTE]
Why are you sneering at Christians, IR?
After all, you're the one that believes that swirling masses of gas randomly interacting in deep space can eventually turn into people if given a sufficient amount of time.
If you really believe that that theory of origins is more logical and well founded than Christian theism, by all means go ahead and tell yourself and the other atheists whatever lies make you feel comfortable.
2004-03-02 17:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]It continues to baffle me how otherwise rational White Men will enslave themselves to the Hebrew Ideal.
Rational? Rational? Give me a break. How could you be enslaved to something so trifling as rationality? We were meant for so much more than that, my bitter atheist friend.
I find it much more liberating and intellectually honest to credit the lineage of "man" with crawling out of Darwin's primordial slime and through eons of struggle finally to stand upon two hind legs, begin to think, and to develop weapons, tools, and machines that made us the Masters of the Earth.
Talk about leaps of faith. Ha! One has to be a fool to believe that shlock.
I will give no Jewish myth-god-pervert credit for that!
Your choice, but watch the insults here.
We are MEN and should be proud of that heritage and not bow or enslave ourselves to a supernatural master of mere Jewish superstition. Why be tricked again?[/QUOTE]
You are the one who is tricked, my friend, with your eyes having been made blind by the father of lies. Mistaking the creation for the Creator, among other errors.
Now I'm sure that your heart has been hardened and the Truth I'm giving you will make no impression, so perhaps you should spare yourself the horrors of reading us poor, deluded souls and find yourself to another board that shares your point of view. There are many to choose from and if you need help finding one, just PM or email me and I'll be glad to provide you with a couple of links.
Go in peace.
2004-03-02 17:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=NeoNietzsche]What is the yardstick of "rationality," VF
I'd say the yardstick of a rational belief is the degree to which the belief can be shown through the rules of logic to correspond to reality -- basically, justified true beliefs are rational.
- how does one decide as between theories in order to choose the best of yet imperfect theories.
One should decide by examining the available evidence and applying the rules of logic.
Would you please give us an account of why the explosion theory is given credence?
It's given credence because a group of human beings who start with the assumption that theism is false give it credence.
Also, please explain what comparable basis "in the beginning God" has as an explanation.
Simple. You have to start somewhere.
Atheists like you start with the axiom that the only thing that exists is the physical universe and that the physical universe needs no prior explanation. Christian theists start with the axiom that the Christian God exists and that God needs no prior explanation.
So, the question is, which of these axioms is most justified by the available evidence.
a) That the universe and human consciousness were brough into existence by accident.
b) That the universe and human consciousness were brought into existence by design [by the Christian God]
I say B is most justified.
And you might explain what "explain" means.
I don't understand your question, but I take it you're patronizing me here. Such rude arrogance is typical of atheists in my experience.
To explain something is to give an account based on logic and the available evidence, is it not?
These questions should get you started toward an understanding of the basis for some of the sneering at Christians.[/QUOTE]
Actually, this little exhange has only made my belief in Jesus Christ stronger.
Listen, until you can explain how something can come from nothing, you, il ragno, and the rest of the sneering atheist contingent have no chance of shaking my faith.
2004-03-02 18:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]No, just a prideful humanist with a hyper-inflated belief in one's own abilities and accomplishments.[/QUOTE]Oh yeah? Well I'm a million times as humble as you are! ;)
Seriously though, I see your point. Only the haughtiest men can admit that they do not already possess definitive answers to life, the universe, and everything. And it takes no pride at all for those who have no real scientific background whatsoever to discount the consensus of the entire scientific community -- the same community whose tradition and methods has brought us all the wonders and comforts of modern life. Indeed, only the most humble person of faith can claim to be so much smarter than all those stupid, Satan-inspired scientists that he can shoot all their arguments full of holes without even having an education in a relevant field. And only he who has utterly subdued his own ego can possibly be fit to tell others, with certainty, what will happen to them after death.
Nevertheless, pride is not relevant to the issue at hand. Even if scientists were uniformly as arrogant as, say, J.P. Holding -- a man who has no problem speaking with commanding authority on scientific issues about which he knows absolutely nothing -- that would not mean they were wrong. The only way to prove whether something is right or wrong is to reason from known facts and axioms.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Where is the extraordinary evidence for the Biblical account of creation? Why does the book of Genesis say that God "moved over the face of the waters" even before creation of the earth took place? Why are the other planets in the universe not mentioned in the Bible -- was there no room to mention galaxies or other solar systems? Where is the firmament in the sky that separates the waters above the earth from those below? Where are the floodgates in the sky? Why does the geological record show no sign of a worldwide flood? Why does the fossil record show a progressive emergence of primitive man from apes, with DNA analysis to back up the incremental changes?
2004-03-02 18:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]we cannot describe the state of "being" back beyond that point in space and time, there certainly was some form existence before the so-called "big bang" (if the big bang theory is correct).
First you say that anything prior to the Big Bang cannot be described using the scientific method.
Then you go on to assert that there must have been "some form" of existence prior to the big bang, although science will never be able to explain it.
Isn't that a contradiction?
2004-03-02 18:06 | User Profile
I've got to go. I'll check in later to respond to the other posts.
Regards,
2004-03-02 18:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Seriously though, I see your point. Only the haughtiest men can admit that they do not already possess definitive answers to life, the universe, and everything. And it takes no pride at all for those who have no real scientific background whatsoever to discount the consensus of the entire scientific community -- the same community whose tradition and methods has brought us all the wonders and comforts of modern life. Indeed, only the most humble person of faith can claim to be so much smarter than all those stupid, Satan-inspired scientists that he can shoot all their arguments full of holes without even having an education in a relevant field. And only he who has utterly subdued his own ego can possibly be fit to tell others, with certainty, what will happen to them after death.
Nevertheless, pride is not relevant to the issue at hand. [/QUOTE]
Pride is the exact issue at hand. Kierkegaard stated that the problem is not unbelief, but an unwillingness to submit to the authority of God. I fully concur with that statement.
There's an essay somewhere on the internet concerning Luther and Reason. I can't find it now, but basically the point is that the ability to Reason has been given to us by God and is not in itself an evil thing. But, Reason has it's proper place (within temporal matters) and only distorts things when given a role above and beyond what it is competent to deal with. Man in his sin of pride has tried to elevate reason and make it into something it is not. Reason is a fine and worthy tool when dealing with temporal matters like government, medicine and industry, but all but useless when dealing with the eternal.
As to what happens to us when we die, the answers are found in the Scriptures which have final and complete authority as God's Holy Word to mankind. One either accepts that or rejects it. There can be no middle ground or picking and choosing.
2004-03-02 18:40 | User Profile
Quote: I find it much more liberating and intellectually honest to credit the lineage of "man" with crawling out of Darwin's primordial slime and through eons of struggle finally to stand upon two hind legs, begin to think, and to develop weapons, tools, and machines that made us the Masters of the Earth.
Talk about leaps of faith. Ha! One has to be a fool to believe that shlock. Do you ever take antibiotics or other medications to treat illness, Tex? Do you allow your children to do so? If the answer is yes, then why do you trust your health or that of your loved ones to "fools"? Nearly every single person who designs and manufactures those medications accepts evolution. Since your expertise in biology must truly be remarkable to discount the opinions of so many experts, perhaps you should put that talent to good use and invent some newer, better antibiotics yourself.
You are the one who is tricked, my friend, with your eyes having been made blind by the father of lies. Mistaking the creation for the Creator, among other errors. Let's say I'm a Muslim who tells you that the Devil has blinded your eyes to the "one truth faith of Islam." How would you respond to that? If the Devil had indeed blinded your eyes, you would have no way of knowing it. Can you be sure that has not happened?
2004-03-02 18:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Do you ever take antibiotics or other medications to treat illness, Tex?
See the above post, although as a rule I do try to stay away from antibiotics as they only weaken our natural immune system. However sometimes they are unavoidable and I thank God for giving man the ability to design them.
Let's say I'm a Muslim who tells you that the Devil has blinded your eyes to the "one truth faith of Islam." How would you respond to that? If the Devil had indeed blinded your eyes, you would have no way of knowing it. Can you be sure that has not happened?[/QUOTE]
Yes, I am completely certain. Did Mohammed rise from the grave and overcome death itself? Jesus did. Further, Christ himself stated that no one comes to the Father (God) but through him. It's just that simple, my friend and you could have that same eternal security this very day.
2004-03-02 18:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Pride is the exact issue at hand. Kierkegaard stated that the problem is not unbelief, but an unwillingness to submit to the authority of God. I fully concur with that statement. Kierkegaard seems to have overlooked the fact that there is no proof, nor even evidence, that the Bible was inspired by God. Hence, to believe in the Bible is to take its human writers at their word.
If God gives me a personal message, then belief will not be an issue, since I will know who gave me the message. Otherwise, it's all second-hand, and I am forced to rely on the word of other mere mortals.
There's an essay somewhere on the internet concerning Luther and Reason. I can't find it now, but basically the point is that the ability to Reason has been given to us by God and is not in itself an evil thing. But, Reason has it's proper place (within temporal matters) and only distorts things when given a role above and beyond what it is competent to deal with. Man in his sin of pride has tried to elevate reason and make it into something it is not. Reason is a fine and worthy tool when dealing with temporal matters like government, medicine and industry, but all but useless when dealing with the eternal. Then what is the alternative to reason when dealing with "the eternal"? Faith, right? Okay -- faith in what? And how do you know that your faith is the correct one?
Reason leads all reasonable people to the same conclusions, as with math, science, etc. Faith scatters everyone in opposite directions, with each person being convinced -- as you are -- that his path is correct. How do you know?
As to what happens to us when we die, the answers are found in the Scriptures which have final and complete authority as God's Holy Word to mankind. The question arises yet again: How do you know this? How do you know that God had anything to do with the Bible? How, Tex?
One either accepts that or rejects it. There can be no middle ground or picking and choosing.[/QUOTE]Sure there can be. I can believe that one part of the Bible is true and other part an insertion or fabrication. Even in more modern times people rewrite the Bible -- didn't the dispensationalist Scofield do something along those lines back in the 1800s or whatever? How do you know something similar didn't happen ~1900 years ago? And if the Bible could not be rewritten or edited, then why is there a warning against doing so at the end of Revelation?
If people can deceive in God's name today, as you know is the case with many televangelists and dispensationalist whackos, then why do you assume that the same sort of deceit could not have been practiced back in Biblical times?
2004-03-02 19:13 | User Profile
Yes, I am completely certain. Did Mohammed rise from the grave and overcome death itself? Jesus did. Proof?
Further, Christ himself stated that no one comes to the Father (God) but through him. I am now stating that I can lift an entire eighteen-wheeler above my head. Does that make it true? And besides, how do we know what Christ said without hearing him say it with our own ears?
It's just that simple, my friend and you could have that same eternal security this very day. But it's not security if I don't know for a fact that it's true. I can't pretend to have no doubts about something when I do have doubts.
2004-03-02 19:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]I agree that there can be no middle ground or picking and choosing about the Hebrew Scriptures and their Christian offspring. But I disagree that they are "God's Holy Word to mankind" but only a collection of Jewish stories and myths adopted by or forced upon us Euros (Euro-Americans).[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. I'm not going to come twist your arm. Just shake the dust off your sandals and move along away from this Christian board. Surely respectful acknowledgement, separation and keeping of distance is an honored value within your White superman code of ethics, is it not? Or do you wish to twist my arm and force me to bend my will to honor your truths?
I'll save you the time and effort -- it won't happen. Go in peace.
2004-03-02 19:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]I did not realize this was a "Christian" forum. If I read the banner it says "blood and soil" and not "Jesus and fear-and-trembling before YHWH."
The blood and soil of America is White and Christian. Surely you know this?
Blood and soil says something totally different to me.
Perhaps you are not American. Now you know.
So I should remove myself from this forum before I'm banned for dissenting from YHWH?[/QUOTE]
Well, that entirely depends on you. It's not my desire to ban you, but at the same time I cannot tolerate continued disrespect and insults to the cherished beliefs of myself and other valued members here on the board. Do you make it a practice to go over to your neighbor's house and urinate all over his front porch? I doubt it. It's simply a matter of respect and I'll admit I've been a little lax in enforcing this lately, but now it is time to tighten things up a bit.
2004-03-02 20:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Just shake the dust off your sandals and move along away from this Christian board. Surely respectful acknowledgement, separation and keeping of distance is an honored value within your White superman code of ethics, is it not? Or do you wish to twist my arm and force me to bend my will to honor your truths?
I'll save you the time and effort -- it won't happen. Go in peace.[/QUOTE]
Well, that's that.
Adios, all. It's been fun.
2004-03-02 20:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Well, that's that.
Adios, all. It's been fun.[/QUOTE]
Take care, IR.
2004-03-02 20:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JohnHoward]Never meant to urinate, but took you at your word -- or so I thought -- because I am totally "blood and soil American." To me that does not equate to being Judeo-Christian.
Well then you're wrong. Who founded and built this country? It sure wasn't cow-worshipping Hindu Indians.
So then "Original Dissent" is actually nothing but more thought police and enforced slavery to an alien god -- or else walk the plank?[/QUOTE]
Sigh...yeah, that's it exactly.
2004-03-02 20:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]But it's not security if I don't know for a fact that it's true. I can't pretend to have no doubts about something when I do have doubts.[/QUOTE]
Haven't forgotten about you, Angler. I'll put up a reply as soon as I have the time to compose a worthy one.
2004-03-02 22:05 | User Profile
TD: Thank you. I can't find contribution information. Is there a way to sticky where to send contributions to OD, so people can find it?
2004-03-02 22:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Well, that's that.
Adios, all. It's been fun.[/QUOTE]
I'd hate to see you go.
2004-03-02 22:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=All Old Right]TD: Thank you. I can't find contribution information. Is there a way to sticky where to send contributions to OD, so people can find it?[/QUOTE]
[url]http://forums.originaldissent.com/announcement.php?f=15[/url]
2004-03-02 23:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] No, what bothers me the most is my southern, protestant Christian brothers not stepping up and arguing their position. If every Christian believer here earnestly contended for the true Faith then the mutterings of the various anti-Christ atheists, agnostics and heathens would be drowned out in short order and there would be no talk of censure and bannings. O brothers, where art thou??? This is your board!![/QUOTE]
Indeed! Come ye forth, ye tender, tremulous, and tautologically-armed Christian brethren!
Behold! The Lions of logic and evidence are being withdrawn from the arena by Caesar such that your bold displays of intellectual valor may now be shown to their best effect.
Wait up, IR.
2004-03-02 23:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]One need not be an atheist to discount the Biblical accounts of creation, the flood, etc. Even many (and probably most) Christians hold that such Biblical accounts are essentially akin to parables that were written to teach certain theological and moral lessons. Only Biblical literalists insist on engaging in tortured mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious conclusion that much of the Bible cannot be literally correct.
Of course. We don't disagree here.
It is a known fact that evolution through natural selection occurred; there is oodles of evidence in the form of fossils and DNA analysis. The only room for meaningful debate regarding evolution is in the details of how it occurred.
According to the theory of evolution, under the right circumstances one species will turn into another species given a sufficient amount of time. Yet...evolution has never been observed in nature. (The scientific method is about measurement and observation, right?) I find that very interesting for a process that's said to be happening all around us, all the time.
Since you said there is tons of evidence for evolution, let me ask you this: what fossil evidence is there that proves that one animal can turn into another animal under the right circumstances?
What DNA evidence is there for this?
Can you link to even one unequivocal example of a "transitional" fossil that represents an intermediary step from one species to another?
Mainstream Christianity recognizes this and has generally accepted evolution as God's means of creating living beings.
I disagree. The churches that believe Darwinism is true tend to be the more liberal ones. They are often the same churches that ordain homosexuals.
As for the Big Bang (a theory which was first proposed by a priest, I believe), there is plenty of solid empirical evidence that the universe was created in that manner, such as the cosmic microwave background radiation and the observed expansion of the universe. Therefore, we're stuck with the Big Bang theory.
Right -- except for one thing. No matter how much evidence there is for a theory, if the theory leads to an absurd or wildly improbable conclusion, it needs to be rejected or at least modified. In this case, the highly improbable conclusion is the conclusion that swirling masses of gas have the potential to turn into people. What do you think the odds are of that? Seriously.
On the other hand, if you're attempting to place science and religion on an equal footing with respect to their value at obtaining known truth, then you could not be more wrong. Science yields verifiable results in the real world, while religion does not.
So? There are many things in reality that can be shown to exist that cannot be observed or measured using the scientific method. The truths of math and logic are two good examples. I think the phenomenon of human consciousness is another. Most people agree that mathematical truths exist and that 2+2=4, but 2+2=4 has never been observed in the real world.
Anyway, just to be clear here, my intention is not denigrate science or scientists. I think science is wonderful. It is, however, not well suited to answering some very important questions, and when we start dealing with foundational issues it is ultimately as arbitary as any religion.
2004-03-02 23:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=NeoNietzsche]Behold! The Lions of logic and evidence are being withdrawn from the arena by Caesar such that your bold displays of intellectual valor may now be shown to their best effect.[/QUOTE]
Nah, just discovering my own inner Ubermensch.
Take care, NN.
2004-03-03 00:08 | User Profile
That's Uebermensch, I believe :hitler:
2004-03-03 00:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]MR, you took the woids right outta my mouth there!
OK -but [I]you first[/I], God Boy. Put your money where your mouth is and put a .38 where your mouth is. Seriously, how do you pull that hair shirt [I]on [/I] over that halo anyway?
So Tex and Walter's God Squad is growing apace. It now includes a Baptist, a Catholic, a Swastikyterian (or is that a Third Reich Adventist?) and an honest-to-goodness Penitente, who packed his own lash. Any Mennonites in the back? Unitarians? Oh, and Assemblies of God members - please check your phony crutches at the door, there are no healings scheduled for tonight's meeting.....[/QUOTE] Il Ragno, we usually agree on issues.. my post was meant to be a statement concerning the fact that the flesh, the bodily mind is not the end-all of our life. I have no intention to put a .38 to my head and finish it lol. Just saying that there is more than what we can see and understand with our senses. Obviously, my post created a response by you which shows your current belief system. God-boy, ok I like that name, and I'll take it with Fortitude. I suppose if I were imbued with your perception, that I would die and that would be the end. So therefore you surely must encourage using babies for scientific research, killing others for organs, and ANYTHING that will keep your corporeal body alive as long as possible. I cannot put myself into that mindset, its against my grain. This life is about love, and the Spirit lives much longer than the flesh. Perhaps in your old age you will consider these facts, not as one on his death bed from being bitter about losing his corporeal life, but as one whose eyes have been opened into the True Existance. With Love, Exelsis_Deo your friend.
2004-03-03 03:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Valley Forge]According to the theory of evolution, under the right circumstances one species will turn into another species given a sufficient amount of time. Yet...evolution has never been observed in nature. ... I find that very interesting for a process that's said to be happening all around us, all the time. To my knowledge, you're right that macroevolution, or the evolution of new species, has never been observed in nature as it occurred. Such observation would be quite difficult for humans, of course, because such a process almost always occurs over thousands of human lifetimes. Nevertheless, we can conclude that it has occurred from the evidence that is available, just as we know for a fact that quarks and other subatomic particles exist even though no one has ever directly "seen" one.
(The scientific method is about measurement and observation, right?) Yes, but it also involves reasoning from what is known and making predictions. A theory is validated when it proves itself useful for correctly making predictions about future events or findings. For example, the existence of the positron (the anti-matter counterpart of the electron) was predicted prior to its discovery. In a similar manner, evolutionary biology has made quite precise predictions that were later found to be correct.
Since you said there is tons of evidence for evolution, let me ask you this: what fossil evidence is there that proves that one animal can turn into another animal under the right circumstances?
What DNA evidence is there for this?
Can you link to even one unequivocal example of a "transitional" fossil that represents an intermediary step from one species to another? I don't know if any such fossil has yet been found, but there are many fossils that show significant progression between ape-like forms and Homo sapiens:
[url]http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html[/url]
As more fossils are discovered, the gaps should continue to be filled in. Meanwhile, the only "evidence" against evolution is the fact that not all the evidence for evolution has been found yet -- not a very fair way to judge the theory.
Another article with some good info is online at Scientific American:
[url]http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=2[/url]
I disagree. The churches that believe Darwinism is true tend to be the more liberal ones. They are often the same churches that ordain homosexuals. Maybe, but even if we just look at the single oldest and largest denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, it is rarely considered "liberal" (note its stances on abortion, birth control, homosexuality, etc.) and only recently issued an apology for its persecution of Galileo. (Better late than never.) I'm not as familiar with other denominations, but my understanding is that Anglicans, Lutherans, and others generally have beliefs similar to Catholics. Most Biblical fundamentalism is confined to the USA.
Right -- except for one thing. No matter how much evidence there is for a theory, if the theory leads to an absurd or wildly improbable conclusion, it needs to be rejected or at least modified. In this case, the highly improbable conclusion is the conclusion that swirling masses of gas have the potential to turn into people. What do you think the odds are of that? Seriously. And what do you think the odds are that the Hope Diamond would be formed from well over 10^23 random carbon atoms without having any significant defects? And how about crystals grown from fluid in a laboratory -- how is it possible that such order can come from complete randomness? The answer lies in thermodynamics. Atoms form molecules due to nature's desire to minimize a quantity known as free energy (internal energy minus the product of temperature and entropy: F=U-TS).
Swirling gas clouds turned into planets, not people. From there, atoms formed molecules, some of which formed complex molecules, and so on. This happened over hundreds of millions of years as existing forms of matter "sought" to obtain more stable energy states (much like what happens in crystal growth). Once a certain degree of complexity was reached, selection pressures from the environment began to play a role in the development of further complexity. If you want a better answer than this, you'll want to ask someone more qualified than I am, as molecular biology is not my area of science.
So? There are many things in reality that can be shown to exist that cannot be observed or measured using the scientific method. The truths of math and logic are two good examples. I think the phenomenon of human consciousness is another. Most people agree that mathematical truths exist and that 2+2=4, but 2+2=4 has never been observed in the real world. Sure it has. Take 2 apples in one hand, then 2 apples in your other hand. Now put them together on a table and count the total. You'll find there are 4 apples!
Just giving you a hard time... ;)
Actually, what is meant by the "existence" of math and logic is a very subtle question. It could be that they are somehow woven into the fabric of reality and being itself in a physical sense. This gets into the realm of quantum computation and so forth -- time and space don't really permit us to get into that here, I suppose. But math and logic can be observed through their effects: if that weren't the case, then we couldn't use them to successfully predict so many countless phenomena. Again, that's how science validates theories: make a prediction based on the theory, then test it, then accept, revise, or discard the theory based on the results of the test. And math and logic have the enviable quality that they have never been shown to be wrong when they are self-consistent.
The nature of human consciousness is also an extraordinarily difficult question, but I'm not quite ready to write off the ability of science to probe it successfully.
Anyway, just to be clear here, my intention is not denigrate science or scientists. I think science is wonderful. It is, however, not well suited to answering some very important questions, and when we start dealing with foundational issues it is ultimately as arbitary as any religion.[/QUOTE]Don't worry, VF, you give no indication of such an intention. And I really don't think we disagree on that much. Remember: I'm not arguing against the existence of God so much as against the literal interpretation of the Bible. I, too, find it easier to believe in a self-existent supernatural being than in a self-existent natural universe.
2004-03-04 18:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Someone: So then "Original Dissent" is actually nothing but more thought police and enforced slavery to an alien god -- or else walk the plank?
Tex Diss: Sigh...yeah, that's it exactly.[/QUOTE]
I guess I'm going swimming too, then!
I have all along felt sympathy for all-y'all Christians, having to face people who don't share your beliefs and argue against them -- when your "standard" is faith not facts. But, as seems so often to be the case with "true believers" your faith can only stand up as long as it's not challenged, as long as you only consort with fellow believers (or allied believers). I think you'll find that Catholics and Dispensationalists, Protestants and fundamentalists will ALL discover that without us, your "common enemy," your brotherhood-in-Christian-arms will fall all to hell! (or internecine bloodshed -- same game, different field).
Tex, I used to respect the heck out of you for being willing to allow people you found personally distasteful to be at your party. {shrug} Guess it just got too hard to bear. Good luck, enjoy your beliefs and may they comfort you as our country dissolves around us. Thanks for a couple of really good years of wonderful fun. I'm made some good friends -- but they don't require that I share their beliefs or leave.
Over the side and gone!
Avalanche
2004-03-05 06:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Well, that's that.
Adios, all. It's been fun.[/QUOTE]
You will be missed, Ragman.
I wish you every happiness.
Walter
2004-03-06 02:00 | User Profile
I know I'm a little late in this thread; and theres still much I need to look over.
However I've noticed the common argument that Christianity and Judaism are somehow related; which they are not.
People often try to claim Christianity's origins and relation to Judaism by citing the Old Testament; yet as Jewish scholar Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser wrote:
"This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among Jews as well as Christians - that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a fallacious impression. [u]Judaism is not the religion of the Bible[/u]." --Judaism and the Christian Predicament" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967) p. 59
Then also the words of Rabbi Maggal:
"...you will notice the great difference between the Jewish and Christian religions. But these are not all. We consider the two religions so different that one excludes the other. ...[u]we emphasized that there is no such thing as a Judeo-Christian religion. There is not any similarity between the two concepts[/u]." --Rabbi Maggal (President, National Jewish Information Service) letter, 21 August 1961
And also those who believe Jesus and the 12 Apostles were Jews read the works done by the Biblical scholars Robert and Mary Coote, who proved that the references to Jesus and the Apostles as being Jews are a result of a mistranslation of the original Greek word Ioudaioi, which simply refers to a resident of Judea. It has no religious connotations, so a Greek pagan living in Judea was as much an Ioudaioi as Jesus and the Apostles. This was further backed up by research done by the Jewish writer Malcolm Lowe and Israeli scholar David Stern.
As for the claim that Christianity brought down the Roman Empire(I don't know if it's been mentioned here or not but it comes up frequently) I would suggest one read St. Augustine's "City of God", where he talks about how Rome faced disaster and near collaspe long before Christ was even born. Indeed Augustine points to at large the decline and collaspe of the Roman Republic and the chaos that insued. Christianity was hardly to blame for any of that since Christianity didn't exist yet.
For those who find St. Augustine too biased, theres the words of the historian Will Durant: ** "The greatest of historians held that Christianity was the chief cause of Rome's fall. For this religion, he and his followers argued, had destroyed the old faith that had given moral character to the Roman soul and stability to the Roman state.......There is some truth in this hard indictment. Christianity unwillingly shared in the chaos of creeds that helped produce the medley of mores which moderately contributed to Rome's collaspe. [u]But the growth of Christianity was more an effect than a cause of Rome's decay[/u]. The breakup of the old religion had begun long before Christ; there were more vigorous attacks upon it in Ennuis and Lucretius than in any pagan author after them. Moral disintegration had begun with the Roman conquest of Greece, and had culminated under Nero; thereafter Roman morals improved, and the ethical influence of Christianity upon Roman life was largely a wholesome one. [u]It was because Rome was already dying that Christianity grew so rapidly[/u]. Men lost faith in the state not because Christianity held them aloof, but because the state defended wealth against poverty, fought to capture slaves, taxed soil to support luxury, and failed to protect its own people from famine, pestilence, invasion, and destitution; forgivably they turned from Caesar preaching war to Christ preaching peace, from incredible brutality to unprecedented charity, from a life without hope or dignity to a faith that consoled their poverty and honored their humanity. [u]Rome was not destroyed by Christianity, any more than by barbarian invasion; it was an empty shell when Christianity rose to influence and invasion came[/u]. --Will Durant "Caesar and Christ" pg. 667-668**
And also Kevin Macdonald: ** [url]http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/dswrev.htm[/url]
ââ¬ÅThe adaptiveness of Christianity also stemmed from its emphasis on several attitudes that were notably lacking in the Roman Empire: encouragement of large families, conjugal fidelity, high-investment parenting, and outlawing of abortion, infanticide, and non-reproductive sexual behavior. The bottom line is that Christian women did indeed out-reproduce Pagan women.ââ¬Â**
And as for one quote by Angler:
I am now stating that I can lift an entire eighteen-wheeler above my head. Does that make it true? And besides, how do we know what Christ said without hearing him say it with our own ears?
With your logic, why don't we apply that to every single historical document? Well we never heard Ceasar personally say "vini vini vici" so obviously he never said that. Indeed I love how people love to pick apart piece by piece the Gospels, yet they fail to do so for anyother historical account made during that period. Just read this about the historian Plutarch: ** [url]http://www.e-classics.com/plutarch.htm[/url]
[u]Plutarch's Greek heroes had been dead for at least 300 years by the time he wrote their lives[/u] (circa 100 A.D.). Plutarch therefore had to rely on old manuscripts, many of which are no longer available. But even the legends of antiquity may be smelted by the power of reason to yield some insight, as Plutarch assures us at the beginning of his life of Theseus. It is up to the reader to use this divine spark to intuit the truth from the details by means of the power of abstraction, which is "passing from a plurality of perceptions to a unity gathered together by reason." (Plato, Phaedrus 249). [u]Plutarch himself had no faith in the accuracy of even the purportedly factual materials he had to work with[/u], as is evident from this comment in his life of Pericles: "It is so hard to find out the truth of anything by looking at the record of the past. The process of time obscures the truth of former times, and even contemporaneous writers disguise and twist the truth out of malice or flattery."**
So Plutarch wrote about people who were dead for 300 years and even doubted the accuracy of his own sources. Yet nobody ever try to deconstruct ever single word he said in his accounts; even though his accounts have as many holes in them as any of the Gospels.
I also love how "scholars" insist the Gospels cannot be taken literally as history; yet take other sources literally as way of disproving the Gospels. Josphesus wrote about events decades after they occured and even about events(like what happened at Macada) even though we was never there. Yet somehow Josphesus is to be taken more literally than the Gospels? Explain this to me.
In fact Greeco-Roman historians saw history as much as drama and storytelling as they did recording historical events; and they often wrote things done to add dramatic effect. If the Gospels have holes in them; it's because the writers based their style of recording the life of Christ too much of the same style used by Greek and Roman historians. This has been noted by many historians; especially when it comes to the Gospel of Luke which is heavy in Greek influence(and even commonly thought to have been writen by a Greek Christian).
But yet Christian scholars know full well the potential holes in the Gospels; for they were written by human hands and subject to human error. Thats why theres four Gospels not just one. Because some Gospels leave out some events while others fill in those gaps. The four Gospels are supposed to back each other up and when taken as a whole one is to find the truth.
IMHO, the Gospels are no more inaccurate than anyother historical document written during that period. Indeed much of the arguments used to try to discredit the Gospels can apply to almost any historical account written before the Modern Era(and even still).
2004-03-06 02:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler] Maybe, but even if we just look at [u]the single oldest[/u] and largest denomination, the Roman Catholic Church,
Although I am a Catholic; although I do believe one should not ignore the Orthodox Church; which has traditions that stretch back as far as the Catholic Church.
2004-03-06 10:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=perun1201]Although I am a Catholic; although I do believe one should not ignore the Orthodox Church; which has traditions that stretch back as far as the Catholic Church.[/QUOTE]
I am convinced that many people, Christians included, really don't understand that until 1054 when the eastern churches and the the church in Rome excommunicated each other over the Rome's demand of papal infallibility, there was only one Church. If you were a Christian, you belonged to this Church. There were no denominations like we have today.
-
2004-03-06 12:36 | User Profile
[quote=perun1201]With your logic, why don't we apply that to every single historical document? Well we never heard Ceasar personally say "vini vini vici" so obviously he never said that. Indeed I love how people love to pick apart piece by piece the Gospels, yet they fail to do so for anyother historical account made during that period. There are two simple reasons why I view the claims made by Christianity (or other religions) with a greater degree of skepticism than other aspects of history: the extraordinary nature of the claims, and the stakes involved.
It is not difficult to believe that Caesar said "veni vidi vici," and it makes very little difference whether he said it or not, since it has no implications for my life. If Caesar claimed to be God, however, then I would be quite justified in asking for evidence. I would be even more justified in requiring evidence if people today were telling me that I should pray to Caesar daily, model my life around Caesar's, obey my corrupt government for the sake of Caesar, etc.
Life is not cheap. Each of us gets exactly one life, and each year wasted in pursuit of a false religion is a year gone forever and ever. Most human beings, in fact, do waste their lives in pursuit of false religions; this must be the case because no single religion can claim a majority of the world's population as adherents. Thus, it's a fact that although most people are convinced they're right about their religion, they're simply wrong. But of course it's always the other guy whose religion is wrong.
Human beings are capable of extraordinary feats of self-deception and self-hypnosis, and most (or maybe all) religions are based on these phenomena. For example, many people avoid getting screened for cancer because they fear what the test will reveal. Just the same, most religious people avoid sincerely questioning their religious beliefs because they're afraid of what their questioning will reveal. It's not rational, but it's human nature to make oneself believe certain things for the sake of comfort. This tendency is greatly magnified by belief in eternal rewards and punishments for belief and unbelief. Skeptics like myself, however, have come to value brutal, merciless honesty with ourselves. If God punishes us for this, then He'll be punishing us for honesty. It's just that simple. I mean, how can I not doubt a book that is loaded with inconsistencies such as the following?
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
-- Mark 1:23-24
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
-- John 4:1-3
Am I stupid for thinking there is a problem with the above verses? And am I supposed to believe that Almighty God couldn't write a more clear, consistent book than this? If an infinite, perfect God inspires a book, shouldn't it be obvious that it was inspired by Him? Couldn't He have made it obvious?
2004-03-06 14:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Am I stupid for thinking there is a problem with the above verses? And am I supposed to believe that Almighty God couldn't write a more clear, consistent book than this? If an infinite, perfect God inspires a book, shouldn't it be obvious that it was inspired by Him? Couldn't He have made it obvious?[/QUOTE]
And your new question, that hasn't already been most thoroughly here addressed, is what?
2004-03-06 18:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=All Old Right]And your new question, that hasn't already been most thoroughly here addressed, is what?[/QUOTE]My questions have been thoroughly addressed? Sorry, I must have missed those discussions. Could you kindly post the corresponding links?
I'm particularly interested in an answer to the apparent inconsistency between the Biblical passages quoted above. John tells us that any spirits that confess the divine nature of the man Jesus must be from God; yet Mark's Gospel shows evil spirits doing exactly that, since they declare that Jesus is "the Holy One of God" (i.e., the Christ).
Even if such a glaring inconsistency can be resolved, it will take an unhealthy amount of semantic hair-splitting and mental gymnastics to do so. That brings up the next question: If God wants people to believe in the Bible, then why didn't He make the Bible more clear and cogent? Being infinitely powerful, He could very easily have made the Bible such that anyone who reads it knows that it was inspired. That is obviously not the case.
These inconsistencies, in addition to about 1000 others, are the reason I find the Bible extremely implausible, and that's why I lean toward the deism of Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, et al.
2004-03-07 07:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]There are two simple reasons why I view the claims made by Christianity (or other religions) with a greater degree of skepticism than other aspects of history: the extraordinary nature of the claims, and the stakes involved.
So fully you admit to having a direct bias against certain source simply because they're of a religious nature. Since you claim your goal here is to find the truth, then you must be equally skeptical of ALL sources of whatever nature and intent they are. For history can make as extraordinary natured claims as any religious text and the stakes involved are still whether or the truth is discovered. Not finding the truth in any historical text is as much a tragedy as not finding the truth in any religious text.
It is not difficult to believe that Caesar said "veni vidi vici,"
And why is that? Did you hear him say those words? Or are you relying on sources that were written several years/decades after his death?
and it makes very little difference whether he said it or not, since it has no implications for my life.
Actually it does. See biographies in the Ancient World were often seen as guides for how one should live their lives. Again, Greeco-Roman historians had agendas of putting forth certain historical figures as models for good behavior and other as examples of how one should not conduct their lives. So yes it does have implications for your life; as was the intent of the original authors. Yet while its well known that Greeco-Roman histories were written with certain agendas invovled; skeptics and such often fail to realize this and often follow them literally while at the same time insist the Gospels and other religious texts cannot be taken literally.
If Caesar claimed to be God, however, then I would be quite justified in asking for evidence.
So again you admit you only become "skeptical" once religion is involved?
I would be even more justified in requiring evidence if people today were telling me that I should pray to Caesar daily
Why exactly? Why is it more justifed to ask for evidence to prove somebody's claim of divinity than it is to prove that Caesar said and did great accomplishments for Rome? After all, whats at stake in both cases is the truth. Yet you seem to think that certain truths are to be taken for granted while others must be questioned harshly; which is exactly what skeptics often like to accuse more religiously minded people. Indeed as one theologian explained it, skeptics are a cult that simply denies the existance of the supernatural.
, [u]model my life around Caesar's[/u], obey my corrupt government for the sake of Caesar, etc.
Thats very much what many of the original biographers of Caesar had intended. Yet again you fully admit that you're less skeptical of this simply because Caesarism is not a major religion?
Life is not cheap. Each of us gets exactly one life, and each year wasted in pursuit of a false religion is a year gone forever and ever.
Indeed. But what does that have to do with this topic?
Thus, it's a fact that although most people are convinced they're right about their religion, they're simply wrong. But of course it's always the other guy whose religion is wrong.
Yeah and? Skeptics feel the same way about people who disagree with their conclusions.
Human beings are capable of extraordinary feats of self-deception and self-hypnosis, and most (or maybe all) religions are based on these phenomena.
Can you actually prove this, or is this just a knee-jerk remark? Need we forget that people often turn away from religion for less than scholarly reasons. Often they turn away because of personal experiance and such. Verdi for example became an atheist because he had bad childhood memories of a priest kicking during Mass. Now were Verdi's motivations for being an atheist for truthful and justified than the people who convert to Christianity? If so, why is that?
For example, many people avoid getting screened for cancer because they fear what the test will reveal. Just the same, most religious people avoid sincerely questioning their religious beliefs because they're afraid of what their questioning will reveal.
Can you actually prove this or is this another knee-jerk remark? Indeed have you ever considered that religious people may actually question their beliefs yet it only seems to reinforce them? Or does questioning their beliefs must lead to disbelief in order to be a valid evaluation in your eyes?
Skeptics like myself, however, have come to value brutal, merciless honesty with ourselves. If God punishes us for this, then He'll be punishing us for honesty.
So again you're admitting to your bias against any religious belief. And again you admit to a form of dogamtism that you accuse religious people of haboring. You feel your way is the right way, and anybody who doesn't seem to follow your path is not being rational or not being honest. Yet in reality being "rational" or being "honest" are simply cover words for "don't believe in religion".
In fact I often notice how "skeptics" and atheists think they're the ones who are smarter than everybody else(who believes in god) and often display the form of intellectual arrogance that these same people often accuse religions of adhereing to. Again, skepticism is really a religion that denies the existance of the supernatural.
It's just that simple.
Oh really? Is that so?
I mean, how can I not doubt a book that is loaded with inconsistencies such as the following?
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. -- Mark 1:23-24
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. -- John 4:1-3
Yeah and what about this? This only really poses a problem to those who read the Gospels literally(which is often the approach of Skeptics and atheists) and fail to note that the Gospel writers were of the Greek tradition of using allegory in religious texts. So basically the approach you seem to be using contradicts intself since thats not how the Gospels were originally meant to be read.
Theres really no contradiction in these verses. Indeed what the verses in John seem to be mostly talking about is that those who believe in Christ's teachings and follow his way are of the flesh of God. Satan and demons know full well Jesus was/is the Messiah, yet they are not of the flesh of God. Simply saying "Jesus is the way" "Jesus is the messiah" does not make you the flesh of God. What, demons have to actually be physically incapable of speaking postively about Christ in order for John to be true? If thats what you're arguing, its very absurd.
And am I supposed to believe that Almighty God couldn't write a more clear, consistent book than this?
You do realize that the Gospels were written by humans?
If an infinite, perfect God inspires a book, shouldn't it be obvious that it was inspired by Him?
Indeed he did inspired it.
Couldn't He have made it obvious?[/QUOTE]
Are you saying it's not obvious because it turely isn't, or is it simply because you haven't done enough to understand it?
2004-03-07 08:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler] I'm particularly interested in an answer to the apparent inconsistency between the Biblical passages quoted above.
Which I have fully refuted.
Even if such a glaring inconsistency can be resolved, it will take an unhealthy amount of semantic hair-splitting and mental gymnastics to do so.
So apparently any argument that refutes yours is clearly an example of an "unhealthy amount of semantic hair-splitting and mental gymnastics". ROTFL!
As I said before, the early Christians were not fundelmentalists, they were algeorists. So your literal interpretations of the scriptures will not work mister simply because thats not how they intended to be read. Although if you really want to play that game, I would suggest you learn Ancient Greek and read the original NT books in their original language.
So if anybody's engaging in an ""unhealthy amount of semantic hair-splitting and mental gymnastics", it's you. For you're taking verses out of context and often trying to pick away at words to try to find any little flaw in them. I love how atheists and skeptics claim to be so much against fundelmentalism yet they're the biggest fundelmentalists I know. In fact they're often more fundelmentalist than the religious ones.
That brings up the next question: If God wants people to believe in the Bible, then why didn't He make the Bible more clear and cogent?
I hope you know you're using subjective reasoning. Exactly what does "clear and cogent" mean? Many people read the Bible and can understand much of what its talking about. So this argument simply cannot be based on any objective reasoning.
Being infinitely powerful, He could very easily have made the Bible such that anyone who reads it knows that it was inspired. That is obviously not the case.
So unless God operates the way you want him to he does not exist or his words are invalid?
These inconsistencies, in addition to about 1000 others, are the reason I find the Bible extremely implausible
Well to be honest; your personal opinion is absolutely irrelevant. And personally I really couldn't care less what you think of the Bible.
, and that's why I lean toward the deism of Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, et al.[/QUOTE]
There are many people who can't understand what those men wrote; so are they wrong as well? Why are they more clear and cognent than the Bible?
2004-03-07 08:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]...the deism of...Jefferson, Franklin...[/QUOTE]
"No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example." - Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson urged local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes;
÷In an 1803 federal Indian treaty, Jefferson willingly agreed to provide $300 to "assist the said Kaskaskia tribe in the erection of a church" and to provide "annually for seven years $100 towards the support of a Catholic priest." He also signed three separate acts setting aside government lands for the sole use of religious groups and setting aside government lands so that Moravian missionaries might be assisted in "promoting Christianity."
÷When Washington D. C. became the national capital in 1800, Congress voted that the Capitol building would also serve as a church building. President Jefferson chose to attend church each Sunday at the Capitol and even provided the service with paid government musicians to assist in its worship. Jefferson also began similar Christian services in his own Executive Branch, both at the Treasury Building and at the War Office.
÷Jefferson praised the use of a local courthouse as a meeting place for Christian services;
÷Jefferson assured a Christian religious school that it would receive "the patronage of the government";
÷Jefferson proposed that the Great Seal of the United States depict a story from the Bible and include the word "God" in its motto;
÷While President, Jefferson closed his presidential documents with the phrase, "In the year of our Lord Christ; by the President; Thomas Jefferson."
"We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings (Bible) that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. . . . I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more clergy of the city be requested to officiate in that service." - Benjamin Franklin
[url]http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=24[/url]