weird news morphing into theology debate

[sunday]

3 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Overall, the World Wars were more devastating because they were global and weapons more advanced, but in terms of savagery, the wars of religion were much worse.

Please have a look at this.

[Rick]

4 hours ago, Adam Peter said:

Eph 1:11 ? Rom 9:23 ? Acts 13:48 ? Prov 16:4 ?

 

4 hours ago, Adam Peter said:

Eph 1:11 ? Rom 9:23 ? Acts 13:48 ? Prov 16:4 ?

?

[Rick]

On 1/19/2021 at 6:50 AM, Ssnake said:

It's not limited to Christianity, don't get me wrong. It's the one religion with which I'm most familiar, hence I'm referring to it more often. But the argument is always the same.

Adversity: It's a test of faith. 

Good fortunes: It's a confirmation of faith.

 

Religion has nothing to do with facts or reason. That's nothing I'm holding against it. But the attempts of spiritual people to argue with science or logic why their religion is true simply can't work. If you could prove the existence of god, it wouldn't be a matter of faith. That's also not to say that religion is useless. Like other ideologies it can be applied in productive and destructive ways. But there's no innate reason to recognize any particular religion as true/superior to any other except the teachings of said religion. And don't get me started about the clergy.

Do you hold secular leaders to the same standard as the clergy?

[Rick]

9 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Well, this is all great unless you look at history. The European wars of religion were as devastating as the world wars and it was all between Christians. Crusades amyone? particularly those in the Baltic. Belgian Congo - all done by Christians, etc. in contrast, the multi-god Romans were tolerant and inclusive. It should be noted that enlightement in the West only happened after Church and State were separated, and not by a choice of the Church.

Part two.  It should be noted that enlightement in the West only happened after Church and State were separated, and not by a choice of the Church.

Define "enlightenment in the West?"

[Ssnake]

50 minutes ago, Rick said:

Do you hold secular leaders to the same standard as the clergy?

I asked you to not get me started, but here you go:

 

Secular leaders can be voted out of office.

Secular leaders don't have their own jurisdiction (unlike, say, the RCC in Germany, which they blatantly use to cover up the pederasty in rank and file to transfer those out of country that they can no longer protect).

Also, I can safely ignore when secular leaders try to regulate my private life, especially if they try to play the high and mighty card of moral superiority.

 

So, indeed, I'm holding them to different standards because their position of power rests on a very different fundament.

 

...an addendum, when I became a soldier I still was a member of the Lutheran church. Along came some priest who very publicly forbade soldiers to attend mass. I observed carefully what would happen: The higher ups of the church did not send him on a different duty. They did not reprimand him. They did not publicly speak up against him, or his teachings. So I concluded that he did it with implicit or explicit consent. The clergy had already abandoned me when I made it official a few months later, and left the church. Since they didn't want me because of my profession but would welcome anyone else, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't pay admittance to their sermons (we have mandatory church tax in Germany) when I could be denied entry at any time just because of the clothes I happened to wear at the time.

My mother stayed in church. When she died, the local curch denied access to the funeral chapel because _I_ was no longer a church member. All right, they made their position clear: It's about the moolah, not the soul.

[Ssnake]

38 minutes ago, Rick said:

Do you hold secular leaders to the same standard as the clergy?

Also, I can't help but notice that you're changing the subject.

[RETAC21]

13 hours ago, sunday said:

Please have a look at this.

Death toll per capita and year for the impacted territories? Show me where population dropped by 66% in the World Wars. There's Hiroshima, Nagasaki ans Stalingrad, period.

[RETAC21]

8 hours ago, Rick said:

Part two.  It should be noted that enlightement in the West only happened after Church and State were separated, and not by a choice of the Church.

Define "enlightenment in the West?"

It's what you understand as Western democracy. i will also point out that you are not addressing the subject.

[sunday]

7 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Death toll per capita and year for the impacted territories? Show me where population dropped by 66% in the World Wars. There's Hiroshima, Nagasaki ans Stalingrad, period.

Not all the world is Germany. Genghis Khan wars were responsible for a higher percentage reduction of world population.

[RETAC21]

2 minutes ago, sunday said:

Not all the world is Germany. Genghis Khan wars were responsible for a higher percentage reduction of world population.

Like the world wars, true in absolute terms, but in relative terms, not so much, with drops of about 50% including displacement of population and poor record keeping leavng substantian uncertainty about how many were actually killed.

[seahawk]

8 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I asked you to not get me started, but here you go:

 

Secular leaders can be voted out of office.

Secular leaders don't have their own jurisdiction (unlike, say, the RCC in Germany, which they blatantly use to cover up the pederasty in rank and file to transfer those out of country that they can no longer protect).

Also, I can safely ignore when secular leaders try to regulate my private life, especially if they try to play the high and mighty card of moral superiority.

 

So, indeed, I'm holding them to different standards because their position of power rests on a very different fundament.

 

...an addendum, when I became a soldier I still was a member of the Lutheran church. Along came some priest who very publicly forbade soldiers to attend mass. I observed carefully what would happen: The higher ups of the church did not send him on a different duty. They did not reprimand him. They did not publicly speak up against him, or his teachings. So I concluded that he did it with implicit or explicit consent. The clergy had already abandoned me when I made it official a few months later, and left the church. Since they didn't want me because of my profession but would welcome anyone else, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't pay admittance to their sermons (we have mandatory church tax in Germany) when I could be denied entry at any time just because of the clothes I happened to wear at the time.

My mother stayed in church. When she died, the local curch denied access to the funeral chapel because _I_ was no longer a church member. All right, they made their position clear: It's about the moolah, not the soul.

I can understand your sentiment towards the Lutheran church in Germany. When my uncle died the priest found it extremely fitting to show up at the chapel with the car windows down and playing party music, which he continued to hum while welcoming the mourners. I finally decided to leave after my grandmother had a stroke and was in desperate need for a place in a nursing home. As her husband had been director of a church owned hospital, they knew she was not poor and so suggested that a good sized donation would improve her chances to get a place in the Christian nursing home. That was the day I decided to leave and which I did shortly after. The letter I got afterwards just confirmed this decision. It was mostly saying that you are showing an unsocial behaviour, do not care about the old and sick and will rot in hell ever after.

[sunday]

16 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Like the world wars, true in absolute terms, but in relative terms, not so much, with drops of about 50% including displacement of population and poor record keeping leavng substantian uncertainty about how many were actually killed.

Then there is the consideration of the Thirty Years War as a war of religion, especially after Catholic France began first to support the enemies of Catholic Habsburgs, then to fight them directly.

[RETAC21]

1 minute ago, sunday said:

Then there is the consideration of the Thirty Years War as a war of religion, especially after Catholic France began first to support the enemies of Catholic Habsburgs, then to fight them directly.

Let's be clear, religion is an excuse in wars, just like ideology, but Rick's point is that other religions are worse because wars, which is a case of the mote and the beam.

[sunday]

1 minute ago, RETAC21 said:

Let's be clear, religion is an excuse in wars, just like ideology, but Rick's point is that other religions are worse because wars, which is a case of the mote and the beam.

What is your point, then? To deny Rick a rhetorical victory?

[RETAC21]

5 minutes ago, sunday said:

What is your point, then? To deny Rick a rhetorical victory?

No, Rick's argument is that Christianity is the one and only true religion because it's the only religion of peace. I am just pointing out that the argument he uses against other religions can also be used against Christianity and therefore it's not valid. 

If you want to call it a rhetorical victory, be my guest, but if it's the foundation of his faith, then he's on shaky ground.

[sunday]

It could be said that Catholicism brought peace to the Americas, eliminating atrocities like the flower wars.

Protestantism, on the other side, was similar to Islam in that they believed in extending the faith by the sword, or the repression by the State.

Edited January 21, 2021 by sunday

[Rick]

9 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Also, I can't help but notice that you're changing the subject.

It was a curiosity question on my part and I agree with your decisions and actions on this.  My reply to your two posts on this subject is based on my ignorance of German religion. Is it possible to join a different Lutheran church or a denomination? Fwiw, I disagree with a national church tax.

The reason I asked about the same standards for the church and the secular is a) I don't know in Germany how much the church and politics are intertwined and b) some people do not hold the two accountable to the same standards. I fully agree the church should be held to the same standard regarding secular laws as the politician and I agree with your statement of "I'm holding them to different standards because their position of power rests on a very different fundament."

I think an advantage the U.S. has over Europe concerning religion is that the U.S. has never had a "national" church, such as the old Church of England. We have avoided the turmoil of intertwining of government establishing a national church. 

There is a great quote by Sheldon Vanauken on Christianity. “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians--when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things, perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy, to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity--and possibly nowhere else. If that were certain, it would be proof of a very high order”
Thank you. 

 

[seahawk]

Can you not make the same quote about any religion? Once you come into contact with something like a church (be it small or be it large) you are looking at something man made and made by man to control man.

[JasonJ]

On 1/19/2021 at 9:35 PM, seahawk said:

...

Imho humans depend on the guidance of God and that can only be found through studying the bible and through Jesus. And by studying I do not mean like a school book, but studying with your heart and your soul, so that the enlightment of God can touch your soul and transform your primal state into a becoming a true human being and a child of God, the only creator. Those who reject his spirit are nothing but animals. Those who reject his spirit are nothing but animals.

 

This is going to be a very dry bone cheesy sounding answer, but it should be said.

 

I am not an animal.

 

Also, has consideration been put into the affect that a statement like your paragraph has? What naturally is implied is that all those that do not "open up to God" or worse "reject his spirit" are consequently inferior, as in animals, and thus the natural social governance of the society is that those that are not believers are past down to second class citizenship.

 

A person should not have to be put into a defensive about their own personality and belief when particularly they have no record of criminal behavior or are not heavy users of various vices. But a non-believe is faced with that statement hanging over their head in society, then that is an unwarranted social pressure that a person has to defend themselves against.

 

And the trap about having to defend one's own personality and belief is that by defending it inevitably has the effect, even if completely unintended, having the result of being an attack on the other person's belief in Christianity because at the center of the, or lets call it discussion, is what reality is and so with a non-believer (or different religion too really) is butting heads with a Christian, the reality cannot satisfy both sides.

[JasonJ]

22 hours ago, Rick said:

Part two. One fact we can all agree on is when you have people, you have problems. Which of the three groups above does the best job of solving this?

Of the three groups of believers above, which group has done the most good in establishing/influencing: hope, individual rights, compassion and education? 

Of the three groups above, which has the most world-wide positive influence on creating a positive economy?

Of the three groups above, which is more hated by people? Persecuted by more countries?

In reverse order, you can see that Atheism, aka secular, is the worst. Using U.S. terms: Communists, Nazis, Fascists, et all, have done the most wrong on this earth. When people are risking their children's lives to leave such hell-holes in order to get out, one has to be willfully deceitful not to see that Atheism is truly evil. 

Pantheism-- mostly Asian -- is not much better than Atheism. Broadly speaking it is self-centered and "heaven" is obtained, if at all, via various re-incarnations. Some of the most poverty stricken areas of the world are a result of Pantheism. Many Pantheist believe in order to obtain "heaven" must must achieve many various processes. For example Zen has many "rules" to follow, more than in The Old Testament.  A good example of the failure of Pantheism is the success of Mother Teresa. 

...

Just like with Christianity, there's quite a variation with non-believers.

 

The atheism your talking about is state-atheism. Likely carried so as that no religion can serve as a challenge to dictatorship control. People of state-atheism have little experience with actual religion and not be their own choice but because that environment created by the state.

 

A different form of atheism is that which exists in countries that fully permit the whole spectrum of religious freedom. So atheists in these countries arrive to their atheism o the basis of their own life experience and reasoning. Some of these people may have had paths with a lot of religious experience or with little. I also think that part of the source of Christianity is that it helps people bear with the hardships of life. But the modern life has made life only "hard" but really much more comfortable than in the past. So more and more people are able to get by with no longer needing the sort of spiritual reassurance provided by Christianity. So those people just have a cheap form of atheism. So there is a difference that can be identified between cheap atheism and the atheists with much more religious experience or reasoning thought.

 

Then there is also degree of certainty in atheism or a more humble form which probably could be represented better with the term agnosticism.

 

As for your Pantheism and Asia.. well, Asia is a really big place so its really to simple to describe the place. But well I live in Japan. Coming up to 10 years now actually. In your metric categories, Japan scores very well. Yet it is not a Christian country.

[Rick]

2 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

It's what you understand as Western democracy. i will also point out that you are not addressing the subject.

I'm wishing to read your definition of "enlightenment" before I respond. The European religious wars were fought due to man, ie, government, ie a king's ambition for power an territory. A king used God as an excuse for his ambitions. The subjugated folks were not governed by God's will, but by a man who thought of himself as God, or as the next best thing, his messenger. 

So the Bible has foretold this in 1 Samuel  and  Matthew 22:15-22.

It was not man's reasoning that lead to the "Enlightenment" but Christianity. It was and is Christianity that first state there is only one truth and it comes from God, not man. This solves the problem of authority, God or a king. Man-made laws are as changeable as the human mind while God's are not. Related to rule of law are equality and the sanctity of individual human life. If all people are created in the image of God but fall short of His glory, and if Christ came to offer an incomprehensible sacrifice in order to bring the gift of salvation to all human beings, then all people are spiritually equal in the eyes of God and need the same equality under secular laws. Absent Christianity, such notions are counter intuitive (people obviously aren’t equal -- or some are more equal than others).

This was not thought of first by Hume, Locke,  Rousseau or others of their time but by the Bible. Reasoning is mentioned in:

Isaiah 1, verse 18. Please read all of chapter one though to understand this verse.

Acts 17;2-3 24-25 

More later.

 

 

[RETAC21]

13 minutes ago, Rick said:

I'm wishing to read your definition of "enlightenment" before I respond. The European religious wars were fought due to man, ie, government, ie a king's ambition for power an territory. A king used God as an excuse for his ambitions. The subjugated folks were not governed by God's will, but by a man who thought of himself as God, or as the next best thing, his messenger. 

So the Bible has foretold this in 1 Samuel  and  Matthew 22:15-22.

It was not man's reasoning that lead to the "Enlightenment" but Christianity. It was and is Christianity that first state there is only one truth and it comes from God, not man. This solves the problem of authority, God or a king. Man-made laws are as changeable as the human mind while God's are not. Related to rule of law are equality and the sanctity of individual human life. If all people are created in the image of God but fall short of His glory, and if Christ came to offer an incomprehensible sacrifice in order to bring the gift of salvation to all human beings, then all people are spiritually equal in the eyes of God and need the same equality under secular laws. Absent Christianity, such notions are counter intuitive (people obviously aren’t equal -- or some are more equal than others).

This was not thought of first by Hume, Locke,  Rousseau or others of their time but by the Bible. Reasoning is mentioned in:

Isaiah 1, verse 18. Please read all of chapter one though to understand this verse.

Acts 17;2-3 24-25 

More later.

 

 

I don't think there's anything else to discuss, frankly, you are proposing a theocracy, and denying history, including that of the US and more specifically, the First amendment: First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You are nitpicking what you want from the Bible and leaving the inconvenient out while pointing to mote's in other relgions that also applied to Christianity.

You believe what you believe and I am fine with it, but you can't show you are right and someone following another religion (mainstream, not fringe groups) is wrong. In the end it's a question of faith, not reason.

[seahawk]

I always wonder how you get:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

and

³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

in logical combination.

[MiloMorai]

4 hours ago, sunday said:

It could be said that Catholicism brought peace to the Americas, eliminating atrocities like the flower wars.

Protestantism, on the other side, was similar to Islam in that they believed in extending the faith by the sword, or the repression by the State.

I think the indigenous peoples of the Americas would disagree with your comment.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

of the many peoples that have inhabited the earth the indigenous peoples of the Americas were some of the most blood thirsty and horrific civilizations to exist.  Ritual sacrifice was de rigueur and enslavement was the order of the day.  Any notion that Spain brought bloodshed to the Americas is preposterous on its face.  Spain may have changed how the blood was shed but that is about it...