To the Christians here...

Nova Land said:
Empathy is related to what I am talking about, but it is not what I was referring to. It is amazing that we are able to feel pain at other people's pain, and joy at other people's joy -- and it is certainly something worth writing more about if you care to do so -- but it is a different ability than the one I was describing.
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It seems to me that it is exactly what you are talking about. Maybe my personal definition is too broad, I dunno... How are empathy and what you were referring to different?
 
Huntster said:
Because we have no choice?
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No, YOU have no choice, because you are a member of the group that NEEDS the other group. I, on the other hand, am a member of the group that is NEEDED. So I get to choose whether or not to wait for YOU guys. For some reason, my peers have choosen to wait... I don't agree with this choice though... sucks to be me!

Huntster said:
Slavery still occurs, despite your "enlightenment". So does the abuse of women, in this society as well as those many choose to condemn for such.
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Overwhelmingly with the blessings and encouragement of one religion or another, I might add.

Huntster said:
Are you seeking Heaven on Earth today?
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As close as I can get, yes. I don't like playing by other people's rules, I want to make my own. That applies to your god as well.

Huntster said:
Think it will occur while you live physically today?
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Nope. But the reason has more to do with people like you trying to stop people like me than lack of ability or enthusiasm.

Huntster said:
Think your demands for such will bear the ultimate fruit?
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What demands? The only demands people like me make are of ourselves, and we fullfill them.
 
Huntster said:
Even if you reject religion, the government will force it's interpretation of morality "down your throat".

What are you fighting?
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Not if the government chooses to stay out of the morality business, like many western ones do. The ones that ARE in the morality business have a suspiciously strong tie to some religion.... go figure.
 
Hold on there, you doubt that religion and bigotry are correlated? Have you ever heard of the KKK, RCC, Al-Queda and Nazi's? Do you think that anti-jew violence is done by atheists? From my perspective, it's a fact that religion and bigotry are correlated, the onus is upon you to disprove established facts.
 
rocketdodger said:
Not if the government chooses to stay out of the morality business, like many western ones do. The ones that ARE in the morality business have a suspiciously strong tie to some religion.... go figure.
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I can't think of many governments that aren't in the morality business. Some are more libertarian than others, naturally. Yet even religious morality tends merely to give way to secular pieties about right and wrong.

You haven't mentioned which governments you have in mind, but I suspect that the differences have more to do with the particular religion to which they are tied, rather than the fact that they are tied to some religion.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Hold on there, you doubt that religion and bigotry are correlated? Have you ever heard of the KKK, RCC, Al-Queda and Nazi's? Do you think that anti-jew violence is done by atheists? From my perspective, it's a fact that religion and bigotry are correlated, the onus is upon you to disprove established facts.
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Yes, I doubt that religion and bigotry are correlated. Examples of groups in the extremes for both do not prove a correlation among the mass populace. Your perspective is biased.
 
ReFLeX said:
Yes, I doubt that religion and bigotry are correlated. Examples of groups in the extremes for both do not prove a correlation among the mass populace. Your perspective is biased.
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It's only biased by reality and experience. Slavery was condoned by the religious, particularly the christians. Bigotry by the religious towards heretics is particularly predominate. Most religious people don't trust or like atheists. Religious people tend to not like people of other religions. The only thing that tends to temper this bigotry is secularism, that is.. taking one's own religion less serious. The more religious a person is, the more bigotted they are.
 
thaiboxerken said:
The more religious a person is, the more bigotted they are.
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Not at all. By this description, the Pope would hate Protestants more than the Irish Republican Army does, and most imams would hate America more than al Queda does.

The issue is that you're defining "religious" as being bigoted- therefore, by definition, more "religious" people are more bigoted. (You can easily see why this argument is fallacious.) I think the reason you're making this distinction is that it's the bigoted religious extremists that make the news. The media covers the fanatic Christian who goes on TV and describes his hatred of Jews, Hindus and Muslims, but doesn't discuss the Catholic priest who spends his life in quiet devotion to God. The media reports on the terrorists that believe the Koran teaches them to murder innocent people, but not the hundreds of millions of Muslims who follow the Koran without twisting its message into hatred.

Most Christians I know don't dislike Jews- and the ones who do aren't by any means the most religious.

thaiboxerken said:
The only thing that tends to temper this bigotry is secularism, that is.. taking one's own religion less serious.
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That, or actually following the religion's teachings. Christianity isn't a religion about hatred, and Islam isn't a religion about war. To argue that they are is simply ignorant.
 
Admiral said:
Not at all. By this description, the Pope would hate Protestants more than the Irish Republican Army does, and most imams would hate America more than al Queda does.
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What makes you think that this isn't the case?

The issue is that you're defining "religious" as being bigoted- therefore, by definition, more "religious" people are more bigoted.
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Only because it's true. Religions tend to require bigotry as part of membership. For the biblical religions, see the 10 commandments as the doctrine.

The Quran, the Torah and the New Testament all encourage bigotry and hatred towards unbelievers.
 
Originally Posted by thaiboxerken :
Originally Posted by infornography :
I have seen convincing arguments for the belief that hell exists as a physical location and Satan is lord of that domain .
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You may have seen convincing arguments, but I have yet to see one. Care to share?
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I do not mean scientific arguments, I mean biblical evidence. Given your posts I doubt you would be all that interested in biblical debates short of insulting everyone who is earnestly participating.
 
ned flandas said:
Just out of interest, why are you here?

Do you beleive that God has called you here to witness to skeptical people?

Do you just enjoy the banter?

Do you learn from debating with non-Christians?


all the best

ned
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Hi Ned, I actually found JREF when I was looking up the topic of supernatural experiences. Coming to faith in Christ sets people free from all different walks of life. Just because someones skeptical doesn't mean God can't open their eyes, right?

I guess I had hoped to talk to some people here that could say they are spiritual, but maybe like I had been deceived in past by the New Age/ Occult type of beliefs before Jesus saved me.

I share my testimony with anyone I get a chance to. Being set free from spiritual deception is important. Remember deceived people don't know they are being deceived. It's a Christians job to share the truth about Jesus whenever given the opportunity!
 
thaiboxerken said:
It's only biased by reality and experience. Slavery was condoned by the religious, particularly the christians. Bigotry by the religious towards heretics is particularly predominate. Most religious people don't trust or like atheists. Religious people tend to not like people of other religions. The only thing that tends to temper this bigotry is secularism, that is.. taking one's own religion less serious. The more religious a person is, the more bigotted they are.
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Saying that your biases are "reality and "experience" is pretty arrogant. Sorry, but the KKK is not a representative sample of the population at large. Even if you think it makes sense for religious people to be more bigoted, that doesn't make it true. Intuition and experience are not fact. If you can find numbers showing that slavery was condoned more by the Christians than the non-religious that would mean something. Your say-so doesn't. It also doesn't mean anything that religious people don't trust or like atheists. Your attitude suggests that you don't trust or like fundamentalists either. It is a natural human tendency to feel negatively about people who are different than you whether it has to do with religious beliefs or not, so to attribute that to religion specifically you need studies.
 
quote:
Originally posted by curious kathy

Remember deceived people don't know they are being deceived. It's a Christians job to share the truth about Jesus whenever given the opportunity!

heh heh heh, thanks
 
thaiboxerken said:
Biblical evidence?! LOL...
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I think you are misinterpreting what infornography is talking about.

If I'm reading the posts correctly, the remark about having heard "convincing arguments for the belief that hell exists..." is not about whether Hell actually exists. It is about whether belief in Hell should be a tenet of christian religion.

There are some christians who believe in a literal hell and some who don't. Infornography's post (as I understood it, at least) was saying that he had heard christians who believe in a literal hell make convincing arguments that the bible teaches there is a literal hell, and that he had heard christians who do not believe in a literal hell make convincing arguments that the bible does not teach there is a literal hell.

If one is arguing about what the bible says, then the bible is a good source of evidence. Actually reading it, to see what it says, is what a skeptic involved in such a discussion would do. That's why skeptics such as Farrell Till, who argue points about contradictions in the bible, read the bible and quote the bible as evidence in their arguments.
 
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