Atheists destroy churches, attack the faithful

[aleCcowaN]

Yes, earlier I called for all nations to join in the human rights watch’s recommendations.

Not surprised that people missed that given how much time has been devoted to off topic nonsense.

You, an anonymous run-of-the-mill internauta (Internet user) who hides behind a funny name -which changed once or twice- called for all nations to join ...


By that, you have made the wider topic of this thread, even wider. We're now in full course into Saturnalia waters.

 

[Aridas]

Yes, earlier I called for all nations to join in the human rights watch’s recommendations.

I looked for a bit, but I didn't find any specific recommendations from the HRW regarding how to address it. There was something of an off handed mention of sanctions in one of the articles, but that was greatly overshadowed with the assessment of how China expects not to face repercussions given its increasing global influence and has actually avoided some UN condemnation already because of such.

If you posted their recommendation before, would you be kind enough to direct me to where you posted it or repost it?

 

[Thor 2]

No, I don't believe. I know that you won't find any place in the Quran demanding that people fly planes into buildings. I also know that very few Muslims actually do. And that many Muslims condemn those who do.

Oh, so we have a Quran scholar in our midst now. I hesitate to question your superior knowledge, however I have seen many excerpts from said writings that encourage violence. Nothing specific like "You shall fly planes into buildings", but given the largest flying object Mohamed knew of, was the winged horse he used to commute I guess that's understandable.

According to Quran scripture, dying in the cause was not a bad thing also:

Consider not those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive with their Lord, and they will be provided for. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but are left behind [not yet martyred] that on them too no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve. They rejoice in a grace and a bounty from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers..

— Quran, [Quran 3:169]

 

[dann]

According to Quran scripture, dying in the cause was not a bad thing also:

Yes, and Christianity celebrates martyrs, too. And so do countries: dying in the service of your nation, with or without combat. And other causes.
Was that your point?!
Or was it just because you couldn't find anything about flying planes into buildings? Or about being serviced by prostitutes before you go to see your maker - or not?

 

[dann]

I rather doubt that dann has ever attended a single church service, but here (s)he is, proclaiming himself an expert on believers.

No, not really. I think that you are the one who proclaims your expertise and, once again, for whatever reason, claims that I know nothing about Christianity, have never met any Christians and never attended a single church service.
You couldn't possibly be more wrong, and I don't really know what your point is here. You seem to be involved with me in a competition about who has had more to do with Christianity, you or I. I don't really care, I'm not in any competition with you about this. I've just been explaining why, in spite of all your alleged dealings with Christianity, you got everything you think you know about religion wrong.

 

[wareyin]

No, not really. I think that you are the one who proclaims your expertise and, once again, for whatever reason, claims that I know nothing about Christianity, have never met any Christians and never attended a single church service.
You couldn't possibly be more wrong, and I don't really know what your point is here. You seem to be involved with me in a competition about who has had more to do with Christianity, you or I. I don't really care, I'm not in any competition with you about this. I've just been explaining why, in spite of all your alleged dealings with Christianity, you got everything you think you know about religion wrong.

You've certainly claimed that I am wrong, yes. You have not actually supported your claims, and what you have said certainly shows your unfamiliarity with what you are claiming to understand better than others.

You may note that I am not talking about Christianity, but about believers and theists. Weren't you the one complaining about confusing religion with theism? Yet here you are, confusing Christianity with theism. Perhaps you aren't quite the expert you think you are? Perhaps your uninformed and unsupported claims of how wrong others are might just be wrong as well?

 

[jimbob]

You've certainly claimed that I am wrong, yes. You have not actually supported your claims, and what you have said certainly shows your unfamiliarity with what you are claiming to understand better than others.

You may note that I am not talking about Christianity, but about believers and theists. Weren't you the one complaining about confusing religion with theism? Yet here you are, confusing Christianity with theism. Perhaps you aren't quite the expert you think you are? Perhaps your uninformed and unsupported claims of how wrong others are might just be wrong as well?

I am not disputing that there are believers like that. What you seem to be denying is that there are devout Christians who are not fundamentalists, but still believe in the resurrection, and try to live by the New Testament.

It's not for me, and as my son says, in some ways believing that some of the bible is wrong but that other parts are right makes less sense than believing all of the bible. However that is a different question.

 

[The Big Dog]

I looked for a bit, but I didn't find any specific recommendations from the HRW regarding how to address it. There was something of an off handed mention of sanctions in one of the articles, but that was greatly overshadowed with the assessment of how China expects not to face repercussions given its increasing global influence and has actually avoided some UN condemnation already because of such.

If you posted their recommendation before, would you be kind enough to direct me to where you posted it or repost it?

Here is the report and recommendations

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/09/china-massive-crackdown-muslim-region

 

[wareyin]

There's also an old general truth that I've heard about being passed on between pastors that most of the members of a congregation will end up thinking about things like what they intend to have for lunch instead of actually listening to a sermon or making any serious effort to actually directly put recommendations into action.

I would think that we can agree that being taught weekly (at a minimum) to think and act a certain way, in combination with being surrounded by others who also think and act in that manner will influence most people to think and act in the manner being taught, yes?

Again, even within a religion, there can be significant variation. As for choosing what to believe versus being taught... it's not a distinction without a difference, but your rendering of it seems overly simplistic and leaves out the part where a person can certainly choose to believe the things that they were taught as a child and that those beliefs start any evaluation with the incumbent advantage and frequently also benefit from the selection of values that the parents worked to instill into their children.

From my perspective, the claim that everyone simply chooses what to believe is so overly simplistic as to be wrong. You seem to agree that some Christian (and other) religions brainwash their young, and this is a very difficult thing to overcome. Despite dann's uninformed claims, what we believe is not the equivalent of choosing to wear a green shirt or a blue shirt on any given day.

I, on the other hand, am most familiar with the Brethren in Christ and the like, which are distinctly less radical and extremist, even if they are still somewhat fundamentalist. I'm also familiar to some notably lesser extent with a number of other significantly varying branches of Christianity and a few other religions.



Ugh. It's not as bad for the BIC, but yeah, it's still pretty much brainwashing. I, at least, was raised in a congregation where the pastors usually preferred a somewhat more intellectual and good morals approach, regardless, rather than directly embracing YEC (some of the other congregations embraced it more, though), the Omphalos hypothesis, and general ignorance. Of course, I also went to a public school that only specifically taught about religion in a somewhat secular way, even if students were not especially restricted from gathering to practice their religions. It still took a couple years to largely undo what brainwashing had been done to me, though, and the social consequences for me were quite mild, really, as far as I'm concerned (but then, I'm also mostly a hermit by nature).

Yet more firsthand evidence that people's religious beliefs are not decided on a whim. Some of us do escape what we were raised to believe, but it isn't a simple choice, and it is often a years long difficult process.

 

[wareyin]

I am not disputing that there are believers like that. What you seem to be denying is that there are devout Christians who are not fundamentalists, but still believe in the resurrection, and try to live by the New Testament.

It's not for me, and as my son says, in some ways believing that some of the bible is wrong but that other parts are right makes less sense than believing all of the bible. However that is a different question.

There are certainly devout Christians who are not fundamentalists. I've already pointed out 3 flavors of Christianity that I know well which are not. What I am denying is that believers simply choose what to believe, and are not in any way influenced or taught in their beliefs by clergy (whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other faith, just to remind people that I am not focusing on Christianity). People that have never attended a religious ceremony, or live in "massively irreligious" societies are simply demonstrating massive lack of understanding of religious beliefs and believers when they make such claims.

 

[kellyb]

From my perspective, the claim that everyone simply chooses what to believe is so overly simplistic as to be wrong. You seem to agree that some Christian (and other) religions brainwash their young, and this is a very difficult thing to overcome. Despite dann's uninformed claims, what we believe is not the equivalent of choosing to wear a green shirt or a blue shirt on any given day.

Now, see, towards the end of my "journey" with theism, I totally was just deciding what to believe. First I decided around age 14 that the rightwing Christianity I was surrounded by, was the actual Antichrist as predicted in Revelations, and just I refused to go back to Christian school or church. It was a sort of Mexican standoff between my parents and I over whether they'd rather let me enroll in public school, or send me to Juvie for truancy.

From there, I sort of toured the denominations for years, trying them on for mental size, following my heart, coming up with my own theologies, etc. It took me till I was 25 to have the thought "What if NONE of it is true? What if I'm really just brainwashed, still?" and take the initially-bad-acid-trip-like plunge into atheism.

 

[kellyb]

There are certainly devout Christians who are not fundamentalists. I've already pointed out 3 flavors of Christianity that I know well which are not. What I am denying is that believers simply choose what to believe, and are not in any way influenced or taught in their beliefs by clergy

"Mellow" churches LET you just believe whatever you want. In some pastor's eyes, THEY THEMSELVES don't know what the deal is with the Bible. In the denomination Obama and Hillary Clinton say they belong to, they're iffy on if there was even really a resurrection.

 

[wareyin]

"Mellow" churches LET you just believe whatever you want. In some pastor's eyes, THEY THEMSELVES don't know what the deal is with the Bible. In the denomination Obama and Hillary Clinton say they belong to, they're iffy on if there was even really a resurrection.

Clinton is a Methodist. Obama is just claimed Protestant, though he has attended Methodist churches. Methodists (at least those I am familiar with) certainly believe in the resurrection.

 

[kellyb]

Clinton is a Methodist. Obama is just claimed Protestant, though he has attended Methodist churches. Methodists (at least those I am familiar with) certainly believe in the resurrection.

I personally suspect Obama's been a closet atheist for a great many years, but that's a topic for another thread.

This is the denomination I was thinking of, tho:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/holy-trinity/

Barack Obama has been associated with Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ (a single church which is part of the United Church of Christ denomination) for about twenty years,

http://www.ucc.org/about

Since 1957, the United Church of Christ has been the church of firsts, weaving God’s message of hope and extravagant welcome with action for justice and peace. Together, we live out our faith in ways that effect change in our communities. The UCC's many "firsts" mean that we have inherited a tradition of acting upon the demands of our faith. When we read in Galatians: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"—a demand is made upon us. And so we were the first historically white denomination to ordain an African-American, the first to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, and the first Christian church to affirm the right of same-gender couples to marry. We were in the forefront of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights movement. Our response to the demands of our faith is woven into the history of our country.

You might be right about Clinton. I could have been misremembering. (I think she's a closet atheist, too, tho, lol)

 

[Aridas]

Here is the report and recommendations

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/09/china-massive-crackdown-muslim-region

Ahh. Thank you. It looks like I had found this article, but somehow missed the recommendation part while not fully awake.

In the face of overwhelming evidence of grave abuses in Xinjiang, foreign governments should pursue a range of multilateral and unilateral actions. They should also pursue joint actions at the UN Human Rights Council, creating a coalition to gather and assess evidence of abuses in Xinjiang, and imposing targeted sanctions on Party Secretary Chen Quanguo and other senior officials responsible.

I'm in agreement with this course of action.

 

[wareyin]

I personally suspect Obama's been a closet atheist for a great many years, but that's a topic for another thread.

This is the denomination I was thinking of, tho:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/holy-trinity/



http://www.ucc.org/about

From the What We Believe page on that site: "In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord,he has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to himself."(highlighting mine)

It certainly appears that they believe in the Resurrection.


edited to add: I didn't scroll down far enough. They definitely believe in the Resurrection: We believe in the triune God: Creator, resurrected Christ, the sole Head of the church, and the Holy Spirit, who guides and brings about the creative and redemptive work of God in the world.

You might be right about Clinton. I could have been misremembering. (I think she's a closet atheist, too, tho, lol)

She's a Methodist. They both may very well be closet atheists, but you never know.

 

[sackett]

As long as we're addressing all nations

Yes, earlier I called for all nations to join in the human rights watch’s recommendations....QUOTE]

We may blame the Chinese for their pointless and long-customary brutality, but:

Those Christianists and Muslimites know very well how the Han feel about them. They also know that if they persist in practicing their vapid superstitions, a government like China’s will come down on them more or less severely. If they would examine their beliefs for actual content, and measure the worth of their tiresome religions against the hardship they suffer needlessly, perhaps, if they can act like sensible people, they would abandon their bedtime stories and start living a rational life.

 

[Aridas]

I would think that we can agree that being taught weekly (at a minimum) to think and act a certain way, in combination with being surrounded by others who also think and act in that manner will influence most people to think and act in the manner being taught, yes?

Influence? Of course. That's part of how culture in general works, though. To be clear, though, I wasn't rejecting what you said entirely with what I said. Rather, it was more pointing out that your argument fails because it focuses too much on how a distinct subset operate and thus overstates their importance.

With that said, perhaps a central question in play here, given your response to what Dann said there, is "How much do YOU pick and choose what to believe and how?"

From my perspective, the claim that everyone simply chooses what to believe is so overly simplistic as to be wrong. You seem to agree that some Christian (and other) religions brainwash their young, and this is a very difficult thing to overcome. Despite dann's uninformed claims, what we believe is not the equivalent of choosing to wear a green shirt or a blue shirt on any given day.

If you're associating "choose" with whimsicality, than that's no surprise. However, "choice" is a much more complex concept than that, in practical use. Religion can be reasonably said to stack the deck in their favor, but it cannot truly remove agency from a person, regardless. That your line of argument seeks to deny agency is very much a serious problem with the logic invoked.

Yet more firsthand evidence that people's religious beliefs are not decided on a whim. Some of us do escape what we were raised to believe, but it isn't a simple choice, and it is often a years long difficult process.

Indeed. To repeat, though, you shouldn't have been bringing whimsicality into play at all, unless you consider your beliefs and values to be whimsical choices.

 

[The Big Dog]

es, earlier I called for all nations to join in the human rights watch’s recommendations...

We may blame the Chinese for their pointless and long-customary brutality, but:

Those Christianists and Muslimites know very well how the Han feel about them. They also know that if they persist in practicing their vapid superstitions, a government like China’s will come down on them more or less severely. If they would examine their beliefs for actual content, and measure the worth of their tiresome religions against the hardship they suffer needlessly, perhaps, if they can act like sensible people, they would abandon their bedtime stories and start living a rational life.

It would appear that you are one of those people advocating that the Chinese human rights abuses are a good thing. Plenty of atheists have in this thread.

Chinese human rights abuses, a good thing! Atheism in action, catch it!

 

[Aridas]

We may blame the Chinese for their pointless and long-customary brutality, but:

Those Christianists and Muslimites know very well how the Han feel about them. They also know that if they persist in practicing their vapid superstitions, a government like China’s will come down on them more or less severely. If they would examine their beliefs for actual content, and measure the worth of their tiresome religions against the hardship they suffer needlessly, perhaps, if they can act like sensible people, they would abandon their bedtime stories and start living a rational life.

Congratulations. This is a very, very terrible argument for why someone should abandon sincere beliefs and it plays right into TBD's gleeful hands. Freedom of religious choice (including the freedom to not be discriminated against for not having one) is a remarkably essential principle when it comes to a number of things, like freedom of speech and the advancement of human rights. Not all means justify the ends. Not all means are justified by the ends. Remember the larger picture.