Ed Christianity Foments Villainy

[Leumas]

I am fully aware that Christianity can be and is used to justify actions that are harmful.

Good... QED!!!

But this is true of just about any philosophy or religion, so you aren't really saying anything groundbreaking here -that's just human nature.

"Your honor my client is guilty but so are many others guilty too"... is not a valid or rational defense.

But thanks again for admitting that your client is guilty.

Christianity can also be used as a force for good in the world by people who interpret the message to be about love and forgiveness -by using Christ and God as "motivation," to overcome the inherent wickedness of human nature. Those people exist too.

Have you read the OP... yet again you seem to have not read the OP... you may like to read this version of it since you are having so much difficulty reading the original....

Villains and brigands and Kings and filthy priests and their filthier confessors and seminary school graduates can very very easily use the tenets of christianity to justify themselves and to ratify themselves and to sleep well at night.... in fact look at the history of the POPES of the RCC... it is rife with the most vile humans that ever existed.... yet they were the Popes.

Can you please answer these questions.

Oh, I've read what you said.

You say Christianity is evil to the core. It not only foments villainy, it actively encourages it. The proof of this is directly in the Bible.

And I gave it in the OP did you read that??

<snip irrelevant stuff>

I disagree with your central argument, that Christianity is inherently evil and encourages evil behavior. The message of Jesus is one of love and forgiveness and you really have to ignore and literalize large chunks of the Bible, New Testament in particular, in order to miss that.

That is only because you have been duped as Jesus said himself that he meant for you to be

• Mark 4:11-13 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without , all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

But for the villains and brigands and Kings and filthy priests and their filthier confessors and seminary school graduates and the POPES.... these verses are the "mystery of the kingdom"

• Matthew 4:19 And He said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.
• Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters , yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
• Luke 19:27 And these enemies of mine who were unwilling for me to rule over them, bring them here and slay them in front of me
• Matthew 10:34-35 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And apparently, any disagreement with this fundamental iniquity of Christianity is dishonesty (perfidy and mendacity, as you say, which seems a bit redundant, but whatever) and bad reasoning.

Given that this is your position, I really don't see how you could possibly think there are "good Christians."

The above is risible mendacity and is proven by this post.





.

 

[xjx388]

Good... QED!!!




Defense lawyer: Your honor and gentle folks of the jury... is my client GUILTY... sure he is .... but so many other people are guilty too
Prosecution: Your honor... objection ... this is.... uhhh
Judge: Sustained....
Jury: GUILTY!!!




Good.... QED!!!




Nope it does not... and maybe you cannot do it... but villains and brigands and Kings and filthy priests and their filthier confessors and seminary school graduates can do it very very easily.... in fact look at the history of the POPES of the RCC... it is rife with the most vile humans that ever existed.... yet they were the Popes.

Can you please answer these questions:

The problem with your questions is that you have placed your own interpretation on the words of the Bible and declared it universal and unquestionable.

First question: It is wrong, in most flavors of Christianity, to say that one can willingly sin, with the premeditated intent to confess/repent after sinning, and expect blanket forgiveness. That isn't true repentance.

Second question: Your two religions are actually both describing different flavors of Christianity! Option one is closer to what most Christians actually believe about the fundamental message of Christianity. Remember that accepting Jesus as your savior isn't just some words you say to a priest or in your mind. True acceptance of Jesus would reflect directly on your behavior. You would turn from sin. You wouldn't commit the sin and then ask for forgiveness -that only works with parents!

Option two is kind of saying the same thing as option one. "...you have to believe in this one god and do what he wants the way he wants it done." Well, "the way he wants it done," is for you to choose not to sin. You can't willingly sin and expect his grace to forgive you. Your "faith and obeisance," will be reflected in your actions. How can you say you have such strong faith when you continually act against what God wants?

Now, if you read Jack Chick tracts or listen to some of the more vocal modern evangelists, you might come away thinking that all you have to do is say you accept Jesus on your deathbed. No. That simply isn't true, at least not according to most people who call themselves Christian.

Galatians 6 " 7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.."

That pretty clearly summarizes the idea that doing good is the natural outcome of "sowing to the Spirit." Your idea about Christianity seems to be that it allows people to continually "sow to the flesh," and expect God to overlook that. No. One must be like Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 3: "You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." And how do you do that? By being living examples of Christ's message of love.

Like I said, too bad this was all just made up, because there is a lot of good philosophy in there.

 

[Leumas]

....As I said, you can do this with just about anything. I see people doing this with the Constitution.

You being a true atheist ... you cannot see the point... the point is that the Bible is not "just about anything" for people who are not atheists.

If the holy word of the almighty all knowing all loving ever present creator of the universe and everything in it ... can be used the same way as "just about anything"... then QED!!!

 

[xjx388]

<SNIP repetitive arguments that get us nowhere>

The above is risible mendacity and is proven by this post.

Here is your definition of a good Christian:

"If he is a theist and can wriggle and wring his religion to justify doing good deeds despite being an adherent of his religion."

To me, that is completely backwards. A theist who wriggles and wrings the Christian religion to justify evil deeds is not merely a bad Christian, they aren't actually a Christian at all.

Further, that definition merely confirms that for you, most adherents of Christianity are evil, at least passively. Your view is that to qualify as a "good Christian," they have to fight against the core, evil message of their religion and wrest some good out of it. Again, that's completely backwards in my view.

 

[Leumas]

The problem with your questions is that you have placed your own interpretation on the words of the Bible and declared it universal and unquestionable.

I suggest you read the OP again... and as I said ... you might want to read the easier version.... here have a look.... this might make you understand the OP a little easier....

What most people fail to understand is that Christianity is a WARRANT for villainy.

I will say that again Christianity RATIFIES evil. Any villain aspirant loves Christianity. That is why Constantine adopted it.

A person who TRULY and seriously believes in the TENETS of Christianity knows that Jesus loves villains ninety nine more times than he loves their victims.... yes... Jesus makes it very arrantly clear that he loves and cherishes villains who believe in him 99 times more than their victims and if any of the victims of the villains stopped believing in Jesus (or never did) then Jesus will TORTURE FOR ETERNITY those victims and will allow the villains to watch the torture and revel in it while Jesus is jubilating the villains and joyously welcoming them to his bosom in heaven....

According to those parables a villain can have a life-long career in vitiating humanity and rapine and vile actions leaving countless victims in his wake agonizing and screeching with pain and steeped in misery without Jesus even lifting a finger to stop it. But when this villain decides to retire from his career of vitiating humanity, all he has to do is ask Jesus for forgiveness and be baptized, even in the last hour... and he will assuredly be welcomed into the bosom of Jesus with 99 times more joy than his victims who despite Jesus' abject failure to stop their agonies remained believers....

So anyone who reads the New Tall tales with a discerning critical eye can see that as far as Jesus is concerned, a mass murderer will be more joyously welcomed into Jesus' bosom than 99 victims he extirpated and if any of those victims were non-believers in Jesus then they will be tormented for eternity while the villains who ravaged them watch their agony as entertainment while lying on Jesus' bosom in heaven.

Christianity is a religion TAILOR-MADE for villains and brigands and vile priests who ravage humanity.

 

[Myriad]

@Myriad
You seem to misunderstand the point he's making. The point he's making is that with all those miracles and prophecies, Jesus is trying to get people to worship him instead of Yahweh. In fact, depending how you read Paul, Jesus may be some sort of substitute for God now.

The Old Testament is full of prophets doing miracles and showing signs and wonders. No one was saying all prophets should be killed, only false prophets and prophets advocating different gods.

Should Jesus have been killed for things Paul wrote about him generations later?

And IF Jesus was a gnostic -- which is one big IF, but it's a possibility, as there ARE gnostic gospels -- then he's definitely saying that the God of those guys' ancestors is a lesser demiurge, and they should strive to raise themselves towards the real divinity.

Both are stuff that, yes, should have gotten him stoned.

Maybe, but we're looking at the Bible, not historical scenarios. It's also quite possible Jesus didn't exist at all. Harry Potter doesn't exist, but if you told me he was a Jedi I'd still say you were wrong.

Now mind you, Xianity has had the time to find some convoluted explanation around that. Starting with the idea that Jesus and the Father are the same God, hence, he isn't REALLY telling anyone to follow a different God.

Again, I don't think the idea Jesus should have been killed for things people wrote about him generations later makes much sense, logically or legally.

But still, just clarifying what Leumas was saying there, since his style of... seemingly random highlighting, and even more random snipping, don't seem to help. No, he's not ignoring the part where that prophet tells you to serve other gods.

I think he is, because he claimed the passage would justify executing Jesus for advocating (arguable) violations of Old Testament commandments. Did the Jews try to execute everyone who violated a commandment, or who urged another individual to violate a commandment in specific circumstances? Obviously not, or there wouldn't have been any Jews (as no teenagers would have ever survived the Fifth Commandment). The death penalty prescribed in the quoted verses applies to prophets who advocated different gods, not people who said things like "how 'bout let's not be total dicks to men who don't have total dicks." That's the important qualifier that the abridgment concealed.

 

[xjx388]

You being a true atheist ... you cannot see the point... the point is that the Bible is not "just about anything" for people who are not atheists.

If the holy word of the almighty all knowing all loving ever present creator of the universe and everything in it ... can be used the same way as "just about anything"... then QED!!!

Well, as atheists, we all know that the Bible was written by people and is not any kind of "holy word." It is flawed and full of contradictions. We understand this and how it can be used as an instrument of evil. We certainly didn't need this thread to inform us of that simple fact.

But -and this is hard for atheists to do- we need to put ourselves in the mindset of the believers. If you really look, you will find that the vast majority of people who call themselves Christian do not find ways to justify evil in their "holy scripture." For most everyday adherents, they use it to find a way to be better people.

Further -and again, this is hard for atheists to do- we need to "play on the same field," as the believers if you are going to have a meaningful discourse with them. You have to "play by their rules." It does no good to tell them their religion is evil. They aren't judging "good and evil," by the same standards as atheists are. You have to understand that in order to reach them.

 

[Myriad]

[*]He made the point about Jesus not telling people to follow other gods as is in the full text.... BUT I GAVE HIM THIS ANSWER which he has very perfidiously ignored.... and which shreds his point... and kept repeating his perfidy as if I never answered him.

I ignored that "answer" because it's utterly irrelevant. What did Jesus say about the matter? How was anyone in Jesus's time supposed to use what "John" wrote about Jesus generations later as a basis to execute Jesus? What an appalling idea.

(Now, if you were prosecuting "John" for advocating a different god you might have a case!)

Of course, it's kind of a moot point because the only people in Jerusalem around AD 33 with the authority to execute anyone, the occupying Romans, seemed to care a lot more about whether Jesus said he was a king, than whether he thought he, YHWH, or someone else was a god.

 

[Leumas]

Here is your definition of a good Christian:

"If he is a theist and can wriggle and wring his religion to justify doing good deeds despite being an adherent of his religion."

To me, that is completely backwards. A theist who wriggles and wrings the Christian religion to justify evil deeds is not merely a bad Christian, they aren't actually a Christian at all.

Further, that definition merely confirms that for you, most adherents of Christianity are evil, at least passively. Your view is that to qualify as a "good Christian," they have to fight against the core, evil message of their religion and wrest some good out of it. Again, that's completely backwards in my view.

Let me give you a parable so that you might see but not perceive.... just like Jesus

Four people walking down road.... they come across a carrion...

"A": Says let's share it
"B": says are you crazy it is fetid and rife with filth I want nothing to do with it
"C": says ok and takes 1/3rd and starts cutting away the putrid parts trimming away the obviously filthy stuff and cooks it and eats it.
"A": takes his 1/3rd and proceeds to eat it raw ignoring the filth and muck.
"D": takes his 1/3rd and picks the filth and gunk and starts eating that and then grabs a passerby and SELLS him the relatively cleaner 1/3rd of the carrion​

Can you collate the persons in order of who is least disgusting to most disgusting???
Do you affirm that there was filth and muck in the carrion but prefer to remind us that there was good meat still there???​

 

[Leumas]

I ignored that "answer" because it's utterly irrelevant. What did Jesus say about the matter? How was anyone in Jesus's time supposed to use what "John" wrote about Jesus generations later as a basis to execute Jesus? What an appalling idea.

(Now, if you were prosecuting "John" for advocating a different god you might have a case!)

Of course, it's kind of a moot point because the only people in Jerusalem around AD 33 with the authority to execute anyone, the occupying Romans, seemed to care a lot more about whether Jesus said he was a king, than whether he thought he, YHWH, or someone else was a god.

 

[acbytesla]

You being a true atheist ... you cannot see the point... the point is that the Bible is not "just about anything" for people who are not atheists.

If the holy word of the almighty all knowing all loving ever present creator of the universe and everything in it ... can be used the same way as "just about anything"... then QED!!!

No its that way for theists as well. Just ask a Baptist about a Catholic.

 

[stanfr]

Did you partake in the communion despite your fake confession and consequently a continued state of sin without sacramental absolution??

Didn't they teach you about this in the classes for preparing for your confirmation???

I can't recall, I was too busy checking out the cute girl in my confirmation class.

Also... consider this... what if a naughty boy like this grows up to still believe in the tenets of christianity... and decides to join seminary and become a clergy... and he learns more in depth about the NUANCES of the facts in the OP... and tells himself...

Self... it is ok to succumb to the sordid temptations I feel burning inside me... because all I have to do is confess and repent and Jesus will still welcome me as the lost sheep in his parable.​

Would he be wrong in thinking that way... I do not mean immoral... I mean not in full compliance with the tenets he was taught???

What if Michael Jackson had become Pope?
I'm sure that very scenario has happened, but yeah it would be 'wrong' in thinking that way.

Let me ask you another question... there is only two answers ... as you are fond of saying...

There are two religions

• Says that you can believe in any god or gods you want and do any rituals you want... the only tenet is to not harm any people and not to cheat and not to lie and not to etc. etc. ... after death you will be judged not according to any beliefs or rituals you performed... but according to the net balance of good and evil you did.
• Says that you have to believe in this one god and do what he wants the way he wants it done... when you die you will be judged NOT according to what you did or did not do or how much good or evil you did... you will be judged according to the amount of faith and obeisance you had for this one god.

Which of these two religions do you think will foment less evil and more good???

.

That's easy-- "A"
Of course, there are nuances--since there is a popular parable that speaks to that very question (verse escapes me) in which the person who says 'yeah i'll go clean the bathroom, honey' and then leaves it a mess, enters the 'kingdom of heaven' long after the person who says "no way, I'm busy" and then cleans it up anyways.

 

[Leumas]

Well, as atheists, we all know that the Bible was written by people and is not any kind of "holy word." It is flawed and full of contradictions. We understand this and how it can be used as an instrument of evil.

Good... QED!!!

But -and this is hard for atheists to do- we need to put ourselves in the mindset of the believers. If you really look, you will find that the vast majority of people who call themselves Christian do not find ways to justify evil in their "holy scripture." For most everyday adherents, they use it to find a way to be better people.

But the villains and brigands and Kings and filthy priests and their filthier confessors and seminary school graduates... do... and the Popes and Mega Church owners and Televangelists... they do too.... and they are the vast minority.

Further -and again, this is hard for atheists to do- we need to "play on the same field," as the believers if you are going to have a meaningful discourse with them. You have to "play by their rules." It does no good to tell them their religion is evil. They aren't judging "good and evil," by the same standards as atheists are. You have to understand that in order to reach them.

Utter piffle... and is proven hogwash by the writings of just ONE out of numerous people who rive your statement to smithereens.

We certainly didn't need this thread to inform us of that simple fact.

Evidently by the clearly false statements above you did need it as is also evinced by your indefatigable acrimonious struggle against it.

But thanks for telling us all that this forum is pointless and no one need to post anything it.

In the mean time here is more proof of your statements being abjectly wrong.

Conclusion
This study aimed to consolidate current psychological knowledge about deconversion through theory building. The resulting theoretical model of deconversion depicts this phenomenon as a process, a gradual change, in which the degree of belief wanes over time and is marked by significant events. This process reveals an interaction of three interrelated factors: reason and enquiry, criticism and discontent, and personal development. Deconversion therefore appears to be driven by an intellectual impetus, by moral appraisals of beliefs and institutionalized religion, and by overcoming internal conflicts. Furthermore, this process does not occur in isolation but rather within the context of family, friends and community, and also the wider context of society as a whole. These findings are consistent with previous insights from the literature on deconversion.

 

[HansMustermann]

Should Jesus have been killed for things Paul wrote about him generations later?

We were talking about Xianity, though, not about historical accuracy.

I mean, if we're talking about them actually being historically accurate, then, hell, it's not just me; even Ehrman makes a solid case for why they're nowhere near the kind of sources you'd want as a historian. Plus, I've been before through why you should distrust the accuracy of any speeches in written ancient sources. So yeah, from a historical perspective, <bleep> if we know if Jesus actually said what, say, John puts in his mouth.

However, if we're talking Xianity, we're talking about what do the major denomination actually claim, not about what would a historian claim. And virtually all of them (with the exception of a very small gang of religious MJ-ers) will say that those things are literally true. As I was saying in another thread, they may say that what Jesus said on the mountain is metaphorical, but his presence there and saying those things is not. They'll tell you that Jesus was literally, physically there and physically uttered those words in front of a crowd. They're not saying "well, that's just what Matthew says, we don't know if he actually was anywhere near that place or said anything."

Plus, as you say, even without believing in a Historical Harry Potter, we can still discuss some of the things he said in the books.

And I'm telling you that a lot of the things he says or does in the books would realistically get him killed. By the time of John, we've moved away from Mark's hush-hush Jesus, to someone who may as well be wearing an "I'm the messiah, bitch!" t-shirt because that's all he's talking about. Hell, he actually does an armed attack on the temple in John, and not even at the end of it all, but before his ministry.

 

[stanfr]

Well, as atheists, we all know that the Bible was written by people and is not any kind of "holy word." It is flawed and full of contradictions. We understand this and how it can be used as an instrument of evil. We certainly didn't need this thread to inform us of that simple fact.

But -and this is hard for atheists to do- we need to put ourselves in the mindset of the believers. If you really look, you will find that the vast majority of people who call themselves Christian do not find ways to justify evil in their "holy scripture." For most everyday adherents, they use it to find a way to be better people.

Further -and again, this is hard for atheists to do- we need to "play on the same field," as the believers if you are going to have a meaningful discourse with them. You have to "play by their rules." It does no good to tell them their religion is evil. They aren't judging "good and evil," by the same standards as atheists are. You have to understand that in order to reach them.

Agree!
The bottom line is it is about "empathy" --the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and feel their position. It's encompassed in christian philosophy (including the concept of loving your enemy) but the capacity for empathy has no connection to religiousness or non-religiousness. As a former believer it certainly helps me understand how believers think or rationalize, but empathy itself is something different--my wife has always been an atheist and she is better at empathy than I am. Then there are those who completely lack empathy--the malignant narcissists. That is something to avoid...

 

[HansMustermann]

Leumas, you still seem to be arguing from the perspective that it's supposed to be some kind of legal or at least moral guide, and that it fails if it doesn't do that. In fact it wasn't. Paul outright proposes to throw away the rules wholesale.

You have to understand that these were apocalypse believers. They believed that not only the apocalypse is right around the corner, but it (or at least the messianic age) had ALREADY begun. Ehrman has some great talks about apocalypticists back then. (And it occurs to me that I sure promote him a lot, when I disagree with his main conclusion about HJ)

It's like, dunno, if you were in Hiroshima on Monday 30 July 1945 and KNOW that in exactly one week, the bomb falls. You don't have the time to give a flip about whether Tanaka is beating up his wife, and Daisuke is sleeping with his son's widow, and Yui prostitutes herself, and Subaru actually murdered a man in the riots after the great interwar earthquake, and whatnot. Giving them rules is kinda pointless compared to getting them the f-bomb out of the city. Just follow that guy out of the city, don't worry about anything else.

THAT is the kind of subculture and attitude in which Paul happens. (That and IMHO his claiming textbook schizophrenia syndromes is probably also not helping there.)

So OF COURSE he doesn't give a flip about following the rules, he only cares about getting the message to as many people as possible. The same things that for you are a failure, for him they're not even important.

 

[Leumas]

I think he is, because he claimed the passage would justify executing Jesus for advocating (arguable) violations of Old Testament commandments. Did the Jews try to execute everyone who violated a commandment, or who urged another individual to violate a commandment in specific circumstances? Obviously not, or there wouldn't have been any Jews (as no teenagers would have ever survived the Fifth Commandment). The death penalty prescribed in the quoted verses applies to prophets who advocated different gods, not people who said things like "how 'bout let's not be total dicks to men who don't have total dicks." That's the important qualifier that the abridgment concealed.

Wow... what amazing clueless casuistry....

• John 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
• John 10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
• Acts 7:57-58 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
• 9 And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.

 

[stanfr]

...(massive snip for brevity, and the fact that i have to work to pay my bills)...

And since you think it is all fakery... why are you even here defending it???

(more bills to pay...lots o bills)

Jesus is not cool.... he is an imbecile.... to say the least.


.

I am not defending the fakery--I am trying to point out the mistake of aggressive, overstated, highly subjective conclusions about others' belief systems.
I don't disagree with much if not most of your basic conclusions about christianity or religion in general. I take issue with your specific interpretations of scripture and maybe if I win the lottery I could have fun with a long pointless drawn out discussion of them, but simply put your conclusions are only gonna ring true with fellow atheists (and evidently not all of them either) so other than an exercise for the echo-chamber they serve no useful purpose. IMHO, atheists and critical thinkers need to reach out to others with an olive branch, not a club. Note that does not contradict the need to 'fight fire with fire' as I mentioned earlier--the evil people who use religion as a guise to do harm and self-aggrandise cannot be tolerated by society.

 

[Leumas]

I can't recall, I was too busy checking out the cute girl in my confirmation class.

What if Michael Jackson had become Pope?
I'm sure that very scenario has happened, ...

Do you know anything about the history of the Popes.... there were numerous of them exactly that and worse.... but not just the Popes... bishops and priests and deacons and nuns and and and and from the top all the way down.

That's easy-- "A"

Congratulations ... you are better than the god of the bible and his son.

Of course, there are nuances--since there is a popular parable that speaks to that very question (verse escapes me) in which the person who says 'yeah i'll go clean the bathroom, honey' and then leaves it a mess, enters the 'kingdom of heaven' long after the person who says "no way, I'm busy" and then cleans it up anyways.

I would be very interested in the verse reference...

 

[Warp12]

So as to expose the TURPITUDE that is called christianity .

Who exactly do you think you are "exposing" it to?