Posted on 06/22/2007 9:07:12 AM PDT by Caleb1411
For people who claim to be filled with Christian love, these Christians sure do spew a lot of hatred towards atheists.
All dressed up with nowhere to go.
This is a legitimate gripe by Hitchen's. A few Buddhists and Jews marching with some Christians at a pro-life rally was probably done for political expedience rather than an agreement on theology.
It doesn't change the fact that even the most loving and generous of my evangelical friends maintain that if you don't believe in Jesus divinity, you are going to Hell.
Children who are brainwashed at a very young age to believe that they are the creations of mythical skygods who exist only in the scribblings of ancient scrolls and are thousands of years past due for their miraculous return tend to cling on to these false hopes for life.
Unless, they get their hands on a real science book and learn some truth.
The ferocity of these books is sometimes astounding. Here, for example, is Dawkins' view of God: "arguably the most unpleasant character in fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Hitchens of course thinks the Bible is nonsense (see also "The world according to Hitch," June 3, 2006). On Page 102 he writes, "It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events described in Exodus ever took place." Without saying. A slam dunk. On Page 103: "All the Mosaic myths can be safely and easily discarded." On Page 104: All five books of Moses are "an ill-carpentered fiction."
As incredible as it seems (and it does and is), these "gentlemen" believe they are insulting "chr*stianity" by attacking the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew G-d. And apparently this is also what everyone else believes, because there are precious few Jewish voices raised in response while chr*stians do all the defending. Why is it that "anti-Semitism" is the deadliest of all charges yet it never seems to apply to attacks on the Jewish G-d and Scriptures? It's always defined as hostility to Jewish noses, or pawnbrokers, or bankers, or Hollywood, but never has anything to do with opposition to the actual Jewish religion (the lone exception being chr*stian supersessionism, which always manages to elicit a charge of "theological anti-Judaism" while none of these attacks on G-d Himself ever seems to do this). With G-d and the Jewish People being so allegedly unconcerned with each other and the fortunes of each being inversely proportional to the fortunes of the other, the world can perhaps be forgiven for believing that G-d and the Jewish People are either unconnected or enemies.
I note that the Moses-hating Hitchens has actually accused Jerry Falwell of "anti-Semitism." Perhaps he would apply the same label to Moses?
Harris' work has also engendered several Christian responses this year. Doug Wilson's Letter from a Christian Citizen (American Vision) points out that Harris uses morally loaded words like "should" and "ought"; Wilson rightly asks Harris, "What is the difference between an imposed morality, an imposed religion, or an imposed secular ought? Why is your imposition to be preferred to any other?"
Only G-d can say "should" and "ought." People who insist that G-d is a tyrant nevertheless continue to insist that "we have to have rules" and continue to use these words. Apparently it is not the rules but the mere existence of G-d itself that they find so objectionable?
It is often said that while Theists have to deal with the existence of evil that atheists have to deal with the existence of everything else. Actually, this is not so. Without a Creator of All Things, objective good and objective evil (and please note my use of the term "objective") does not and cannot exist. To insist that man is no more than any other animal, and then to act as if a war between nations of men is somehow of more moral significance than a war between two anthills is to insist on a contradiction.
Wilson notes Harris' fondness for Eastern religions, and in particular the "utter non-violence" of the Jains in India. Letter from a Christian Citizen correctly notes that "Devout Jains will wear a mask to avoid breathing in and thereby killing any insect," and then asks whether Harris would commend evangelicals who "forsook the use of antibiotics because of the genocidal devastation it was causing to the microbes within."
Their praise of jainism is perfectly understandable. This is quite literally an atheist religion that considers prayer a sin. It also regards all life as "holy." Considering what many liberals believe, this seems to be the state religion they are promoting.
Scapegoating is also evident in the writing of Sam Harris, who frequently forgets to use reason and instead falls back on words like "preposterous." He asserts certainty about what he admits not knowing: "How the process of evolution got started is still a mystery, but that does not in the least suggest that a deity is likely to be lurking at the bottom of it all."
I must confess to confusion when evolutionists attack "intelligent design" then turn around and say that evolution does not exclude G-d. "Intelligent design" accepts evolution in toto, merely insisting taht G-d actually "guides" it. To attack the belief that evolution is guided by G-d and then to insist that evolution "rightly understood" does not exclude G-d makes absolutely no sense.
I wish to point out again an observation I made recently on another thread: that the worship of "critical thinking" and the insistence on "self-evident truths" is a contradiction. If one thinks critically, nothing is "self-evident." If certain things are "self-evident," they have never been critically examined.
I only wish that the atheists of the world would stop embarrassing me by picking on chr*stianity and see that their real threat comes from Judaism/Noachism. Chr*stianity, for all the legalism that has crept into so much of it (and liturgical chr*stianity is especially confused here) is, after all, a salvational religion. Judaism/Noachism, on the other hand (like islam), is statutory. But since "everyone knows" that Jews are irreverent freethinkers who are against religion, no one seems to have noticed this.
I have always found it strange that if one doesn't accepts Jesus' message of love and accept him as the savior, one is condemned to eternal torture. It makes Jesus appear as a narcissist and sadist of the first order.
I'm going to guess that there are millions of systems where it didn't work out that way. However, with the sheer numbers of galaxies out there, and the ranges where it could theoretically work, and the billions of such sites, there may indeed be other intelligent life.
If so, I would suspect at some point in their civilization cycle, they too would have considered themselves a unique wonder.
You obviously haven't been on any ID threads lately. "'Stuck in the Mud' Monkey Worship" was one of the more friendly terms used for evolution.
I’m reading Dawkins’ book now. It’s good.
Atheism is a creed, so is therefore covered under civil rights laws.
Forgive me. I am not an advocate of "intelligent design," but a literalist creationist.
Okay. So G-d doesn't "guide" evolution, but evolution "rightly understood" doesn't mean that G-d doesn't actually guide it after all.
So how does G-d "guide" evolution without "guiding" it?
And has been around since God created it 6000 years ago, but only recently decided to be infectious?
Actually, those examples seems to bolster Hitchens' argument. From initial argumentation and push-back against God, in the end, these three became quite servile to His will.
Don’t say things like that, you’re making us look bad.
If you live your life as if there is no God, for your sake you better damn well be right.
There's a corollary to that: If you believe that there is only one denomination, sect, or faith tradition that is 100% the only one to pick, then you had better well have chosen wisely.
Not every atheist is anti-Christian. We may not have chosen as you have, but generally, we celebrate your right to make your choices freely.
Now you see, this is what happens when people think the only alternative to atheism is chr*stianity. It ain't so. Chr*stianity is a johnny-come-lately.
The only "choosing" involved is G-d's. If your mother was Jewish, you're Jewish and there's nothing you can do about it. If your mother wasn't Jewish, then you're a Noachide and the only way you can change that is to convert to Judaism, though there is no obligation for you to do so.
See, it's not about "salvation." It's a simple statutory situation. Jews have certain laws given to them, non-Jews have certain laws given to them, and at the end of life we'll be judged (and G-d has many more decisions at His disposal than just "Heaven and Hell").
Well said. And it's also not a contradiction for an atheist to believe that Christianity is man's best hope for a positive future, even if he believes it to be objectively false.
I don't know.
But according to some homeschooling creationists, I am an ignorant monkey-worshipping idolater because I seek to understand paleontology and evolution by studying empirical evidence.
I hope I’m not the only one that finds the book of Job a disgusting amoral mess.
An interesting discussion.
I think critics of religion are on solid ground when they critique the theologies, which consist, in large part, of accounts of miraculous and improbable events. Extracting God’s intent from these accounts is not easy. The humans who have written down these accounts have garbled the message.
As a result, the issue of whether religion, per se, has good or bad effects on human behavior is complicated. Some bad things have been done in the name of religion, but so have some good things. Whether the net impact is good or bad is debatable. To the extent that the behaviors urged by religion are good—like “love thy neighbor,” “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and “turn the other cheek”—I think religion would have a net positive impact. To the extent that behaviors urged by religion are bad—like persecuting heretics, crusading against unbelievers, and condemning the harmless nonconforming behaviors of others—I think religion would have a net negative effect. The question is which of these tendencies is greater. I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to know for sure.
Whether a particular religion is having a good or bad effect depends upon the behavior of its adherents. In my opinion, those who do good deeds are likely closer to getting God’s message than those assaulting their fellows.
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