Christians vs Atheists in California Nativity Debacle

[Sabby]

That would have swayed them about as much if they were raised Roman Catholics :P I really do not understand this one from either side of the fence. I've seen Athiests and Christians throw Hitler and Stalin back and forth like a hot potato trying to make it look like it belongs to the other guy, but it really doesn't matter...

Let's say Hitlers an Atheist. We have undeniable proof that he did not believe in any God of any kind, rejected the life style that period Christianity favored, and personally felt that Jewish genes should be removed from the planet to benefit Evolution. That just says he's an idiot and genocidal maniac who doesn't say Grace at dinner.

[Beguile's Mistress]

What about Stalin and Mao?

[Sabby]

I actually don't know them like I do Hitler... what with him being the closest thing to Satan allowed in school text books. I think pretty much everyone has a serviceable knowledge of Adolf Hitler. Stalin and Moa, however... is it because I grew up in another country that I have no idea who Moa is and confuse Stalin with Castro (who I only know in parody anyway)?

[vtboy]

What about Stalin and Mao?

You are not seriously suggesting, I hope, that the atheism of these mass murders was the productive cause of the genocides they perpetrated.

All three also had dark hair.

[Sabby]

I don't know about Moa, but didn't those other two have moustaches as well? Well kept moustaches at that... I know how maintaining a certain style of facial hair can integrate itself into your life. It becomes a part of the way you live.

You might even say... it was a doctrine.

Just saying ;) It's a slippery slope from 'my moustache is just and right' to 'woe to thee that wears curls'

[Beguile's Mistress]

I'm not suggesting anything at all.  Merely trying to see how atheists view this people who had influence on their governments, subordinates and the citizens of the countries they governed all of whom promulgated, assisted in, committed or excused these mass murderers and their cohorts.

There are arguments on both sides of the fence that speculate that these men and their supposed atheistic philosophies are at least in part responsible for their personal decisions regarding the eradication of millions of human beings for any reason they held viable.

[Callie Del Noire]

You are not seriously suggesting, I hope, that the atheism of these mass murders was the productive cause of the genocides they perpetrated.

All three also had dark hair.

You tar the majority with crimes of a few, it could be argued what is good for the gander is good for the goose. All three WERE athetists. Personally though, I think it was more a case of 'kill all who might oppose me' in the case of Moa and Stalin and severe crazy with Hitler.

I find it interesting that so few people realize that Stalin EASILY killed more people than Hitler did in his camps.

Don't know enough about Mao's actions myself.

[Caela]

As I recall, all that OT stuff about Adam and Eve, the Flood, Lot's wife, Moses and the Ten Commandments, David and Goliath, Abrahan and Isaac, Job, etc., etc., is preached from Christian pulpits, as well as Jewish ones.

I am not a biblical scholar by any means, but I don't believe I've ever heard that the NT superseded the OT or that the former authorized disregard of the contents of the latter. I also suspect that Joshua, a Jew, likely observed the religious rituals and prohibitions of his day and his people. In my view, notwithstanding the NT, Christians take a serious risk if they wear mixed fabrics, place more than one beast of burden under a single yoke, or sacrifice blemished animals.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Just cause the Christians preach it doesn't mean they should be and knowing the past of your religion is never a bad thing IMO.

As for my comment about the NT, superceding the OT, it's because the OT is meant to specifically be a pact between God and the tribes of Isreal. It's meant to be the law and how they are supposed to live to be found pleasing in God's sight until Messiah comes to forge a new path to God's grace. It didn't apply to Gentiles at all unless they converted to Judaism so, unless you're Jewish it still wouldn't apply to you. If you're a Christian then you are supposed to believe that Christ is the risen Messiah and it's through his life, death, and resurrection that you now come to God's grace...so the OT doesn't apply to you either because you no longer need that pact to come into God's grace, a new pact has been forged.

Think of it sort of like a contract. You have the original and in it there's a clause that says a new contract will be drafted when certain conditions are met. From a Christian perspective, those conditions were met through Christ's resurrection which was the writing of the new contract which trumps the old one per that clause in the original.

So Christians can wear mixed fabrics, yoke up as many animals as they want, and there's no need for any more sacrifices, blemished or not! :D

As for the first paragraph, touche and I concede to your point, your very accurate point. :P

As to the second, it still goes back to what has already been said. It is too vague and relative to the preconceptions and motivations of the reader to really so definitively be taken as such. People of course claim that is how it is to be taken, a great deal of more modern day thinkers of biblical texts are stating to say this nowadays, this is true. And yet, nowhere is it explicitly stated in this holy book of moral laws, this handbook to being a Christian, that that is how it is supposed to be. It is again, another thing that people have personally interpreted from the text, from their own desires and are putting it out there as the answer.

Simply put, the Bible is being used to justify another viewpoint...again.

Unfortunately, people will use a lot of things from religious texts, to psuedo-science, to twisting actual scientific results, to quotes from respected leaders (past and present) to try justify their viewpoints. Some of them you can swing around to a more humane point of view and some will scream like raving lunatic no matter what you say to them. Some people simple refuse to be wrong or admit to being misinformed no matter what you tell them. Those people you simply wash your hands of, and spend your time in a more productive manner.

[Torch]

I find it interesting that so few people realize that Stalin EASILY killed more people than Hitler did in his camps.

Don't know enough about Mao's actions myself.

Well, if we're going for an official Dictator Death Toll, I think Chairman Mao wins by a landslide.

The latest revised estimates (including famine victims, along with executions, gulag deaths and so on) for Stalin are in the 20 million range. Mao's victims (mostly from executions and starvation) range from 40 to 70 million.

[Oniya]

I've heard it said that one can find a Biblical quote to justify anything.  After all, gay marriage and marijuana were legalized on the same day.

Leviticus 20:13 – “if a man lays with another man, as with a woman, he should be stoned.”

*This badly-needed breath of humor brought to you by the Department Of Useless Biblical Trivia.*

[Sabby]

Quoted so friggen hard.

[vtboy]

You tar the majority with crimes of a few, it could be argued what is good for the gander is good for the goose. All three WERE athetists. Personally though, I think it was more a case of 'kill all who might oppose me' in the case of Moa and Stalin and severe crazy with Hitler.

I find it interesting that so few people realize that Stalin EASILY killed more people than Hitler did in his camps.

Don't know enough about Mao's actions myself.

I tar the majority with crimes of a few? Are you off your meds today, Callie?

I'm not suggesting anything at all.  Merely trying to see how atheists view this people who had influence on their governments, subordinates and the citizens of the countries they governed all of whom promulgated, assisted in, committed or excused these mass murderers and their cohorts.

Speaking as an agnostic who veers very close to atheism, I will tell you that I abhor Hitler, Stalin, and Mao (my list of despised homicidal despots is much longer, but these three should suffice for now). And, yes, of course the citizenry of their nations should have acted to stop them, at least while they were still able to do so.

In regard to Hitler, by the way, there is precious little evidence he was an atheist, and more than a little that he considered himself a Christian. Further, the Nazis attempted to establish a Protestant Reich Church which would effectively unify the Protestant churches of Germany and make them an organ of the Nazi party (like virtually every other institution in Nazi Germany). Though the effort met with mixed results, it stands in marked contrast with Stalin's and Mao's approaches which were to eliminate all religious institutions.

Martin Niebuhr, a cleric famous for his post-war poem about how the Nazis came for him after he failed to object to their coming after everyone else, was an early advocate of Nazism and its brand of anti-semitism. He was eventually sent off to a concentration camp where, after some time, he allegedly had his spiritual awakening. He was punished, however, not because he opposed the Nazis' oppression of the Jews (he did not), but because he opposed their attempts to dictate church doctrine.

Loathsome scum, all.

[Stattick]

Suppose the allegations that all three were atheists or had atheistic leanings for some of most of their adult lives are accurate how did that philosophy (atheism) contribute to the mass murders of ethnic and religious groups, the suppression of child bearing by the government and the attempts to eradicate certain deviants and defectives (so-call by them) from the gene pool?  Conservative estimates support a death toll of 26,000,000 million between Hitler and Stalin alone.

Atheism isn't a philosophy. It's an opinion. On one thing. When asked, "Do you believe in God?", atheists say, "No". That's all there is to atheism. To call atheism a philosophy is like trying to claim that people that don't drive is a philosophy. Some people don't drive because of well thought out philosophical reasons. Some don't drive because they don't like it. Some don't drive because they're not allowed to. Some don't drive because they've never had the opportunity. There's a huge spectrum of reasons why people don't drive, and they don't have any philosophical, rational, or religious underpinnings in common. The same is true of atheists.

Christians on the other hand have all kinds of commonalities. They all believe that at least parts of the Bible are literally true. They believe that the book was divinely inspired. They believe that salvation can only come through Christ. They believe that the Bible has relevance in today's world, and it's teachings should be studied. So Christians as a whole have a lot more commonality than atheists. One is a group that has a single trait in common, that has no more in common than a group of people that have naturally curly hair. The other is a group that has lots of commonalities, akin to fruit in a world that has lots of fruit and a lot of things that are not fruit.

To compare the "group actions" of Christians to atheists is to draw a false equivalence. One is a group that has many actual, real things in common, while the other is a group that has nothing in common except for a single trait. Actually, it's the lack of a single trait that the atheists share. A better analogy would be to compare Christians to fruit, with each different sort of Christian religion being a different sort of fruit; Catholics are apples, Methodists are pears, Baptists are grapes, Mormons are bananas, etc. Meanwhile atheists are something other than fruit; secular humanists are trees, atheist Buddhists are eyebrows, nihilists are stereo speakers, etc.

There's another clue here too: it's proper English to capitalize the names of religions, such as Methodist, Mormon, Catholic, or Christian, as they are proper nouns, a name of a religion. One does not capitalize atheist, except at the beginning of a sentence, since it isn't a proper noun. It doesn't denote a religion, philosophy, a group with common traits, or a community of similar people. It only denotes a group that for many, many different reasons doesn't believe in God, and doesn't otherwise speak of their cultural, philosophical, or religious similarities at all.

[vtboy]

Just cause the Christians preach it doesn't mean they should be and knowing the past of your religion is never a bad thing IMO.

As for my comment about the NT, superceding the OT, it's because the OT is meant to specifically be a pact between God and the tribes of Isreal. It's meant to be the law and how they are supposed to live to be found pleasing in God's sight until Messiah comes to forge a new path to God's grace. It didn't apply to Gentiles at all unless they converted to Judaism so, unless you're Jewish it still wouldn't apply to you. If you're a Christian then you are supposed to believe that Christ is the risen Messiah and it's through his life, death, and resurrection that you now come to God's grace...so the OT doesn't apply to you either because you no longer need that pact to come into God's grace, a new pact has been forged.

Well, I, for one, am willing to be educated.

So, if I understand you correctly, the Ten Commandments are binding on Jews, but not Christians. Interesting. But, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who put them up on courthouse walls in this country are disproportionately Christian.

[Slywyn]

secular humanists are trees, atheist Buddhists are eyebrows, nihilists are stereo speakers, etc.

To try to bring a little amusement in here, this line made me laugh for reasons I'm not sure you intended. Or, if you did, you are very clever.

[TheGlyphstone]

There's another clue here too: it's proper English to capitalize the names of religions, such as Methodist, Mormon, Catholic, or Christian, as they are proper nouns, a name of a religion. One does not capitalize atheist, except at the beginning of a sentence, since it isn't a proper noun. It doesn't denote a religion, philosophy, a group with common traits, or a community of similar people. It only denotes a group that for many, many different reasons doesn't believe in God, and doesn't otherwise speak of their cultural, philosophical, or religious similarities at all.

Only one problem with this - pagans. As a group, They're much closer to Christians than atheists, despite being more of a catch-all term for 'non-Abrahamic religious' but it's rare that you see someone referred to as a Pagan, rather than a pagan.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I'm not comparing atheists to any person affiliated with a religion.

I'm comparing sins of the past, as is being done in this thread, with those who follow the same "opinions" as their forebears.

You can't have it both ways.  If you want to point the finger at the past you must point it at all of the past and not rationalize your stance on things if you want to be taken seriously.  It is way to easy to fall into the hypocrisy sink hole.

To clarify:  I do not hold people today responsible for the actions in the past any more than the many atheists I know personally are represented by those I see online.  As one of my atheist friends, a professor of philosophy, likes to say he practices the RTRR principle.  When discussing anything he likes to be respectful, tolerant, reasonable and rational rather than an idiot (his words).  It's kinda the way I like to try to roll.

If you feel that people affiliated with a religious body are a slap in the face to you try to get to know us as most of us are today and not in the shadows of the arrogant, power grabbing politicians of past and present who use religion as a tool and have no relation to that religion other than how they can use it.  The rule you use to judge is also used to measure you and when you bend down to pick up the stone ask yourself if you are perfect before you throw it.


EDIT:  I should say that the rule we use to judge is the rule we are judged by.

[Stattick]

To try to bring a little amusement in here, this line made me laugh for reasons I'm not sure you intended. Or, if you did, you are very clever.

I was having a little fun, and wrote what felt right. But I'm probably not quite clever enough to be able to take full credit for your mirth.

Secular humanists have quite a few different philosophies that they may or may not adhere to, but have a similar overall philosophy. This reminded me of trees. Some are fruit trees, some are nut trees, some are evergreen, some are deciduous, some grow slowly and strong, while other grow fast but weak.

Some Buddhist monks shave their eyebrows. But no matter how much they do or don't want their eyebrows to come back, they keep growing back, in roughly the same shape, just to be shaved off again. It reminded me of the reincarnation that Buddhists believe in.

Nihilists on the other hand... always seem so LOUD. And they seem to take so much pride in that it's so hard to pin them down to just one thing, because it always seems that they're trying to say two separate but similar things at the same time... like stereo speakers.

Catholics are apples, Methodists are pears, Baptists are grapes, Mormons are bananas, etc.

Catholics are apples: well, one of the most common fruits associated with the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Bible was the apple. The apple is associated with the fall from grace, the loss of innocence, and the need to regain grace (through religion). It is the beginning of things. And since the Catholics claim to be "the first" major form of Christianity, and "the one true faith", I thought that the apple seemed to be appropriate.

Methodists - I almost wrote Lutherans in the original, and I should have stuck with that, it would have worked a little better. At any rate, these Protestants believe that THEY'RE the true form of Christianity, coming along and "fixing" what the Catholic church got wrong. The pear is the other fruit associated with the Tree of Good and Evil, so by picking the pear, I was implying that Protestants not only think that THEY'RE the true faith, but they're also correcting those silly Catholics, because it was obviously a pear and not an apple.

Baptists are grapes. You know, because they wine a lot. Also, as an ex-Southern Baptist, I can tell you that Southern Baptists tend to be a very angry religion. And that reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath. Sorry, I was being punny. :P

And Mormons are bananas.  XD

[Stattick]

Only one problem with this - pagans. As a group, They're much closer to Christians than atheists, despite being more of a catch-all term for 'non-Abrahamic religious' but it's rare that you see someone referred to as a Pagan, rather than a pagan.

I nearly always capitalize it. But I'm Pagan. On the other hand, one can refer to pagans that aren't Pagans. There's the difference; pagans are non-Christian of any sort, while Pagans have a particular religion and philosophy (non-Christians of a specific sort). Many Pagans or Neo-Pagans are of a particular type and can and/or will differentiate what group they're a member of, much like many Christians will distinguish themselves by claiming to be a particular type of Christian such as Lutheran or Episcopalian.

[vtboy]

I'm not comparing atheists to any person affiliated with a religion.

I'm comparing sins of the past, as is being done in this thread, with those who follow the same "opinions" as their forebears.

You can't have it both ways.  If you want to point the finger at the past you must point it at all of the past and not rationalize your stance on things if you want to be taken seriously.  It is way to easy to fall into the hypocrisy sink hole.

To clarify:  I do not hold people today responsible for the actions in the past any more than the many atheists I know personally are represented by those I see online.  As one of my atheist friends, a professor of philosophy, likes to say he practices the RTRR principle.  When discussing anything he likes to be respectful, tolerant, reasonable and rational rather than an idiot (his words).  It's kinda the way I like to try to roll.

If you feel that people affiliated with a religious body are a slap in the face to you try to get to know us as most of us are today and not in the shadows of the arrogant, power grabbing politicians of past and present who use religion as a tool and have no relation to that religion other than how they can use it.  The rule you use to judge is also used to measure you and when you bend down to pick up the stone ask yourself if you are perfect before you throw it.


EDIT:  I should say that the rule we use to judge is the rule we are judged by.

I hope you understand the distinction between, on the one hand, criticizing religious doctrine and pointing out instances where its influence has been pernicious, and, on the other hand, attacking believers who have not been so influenced. There seems to have been a conflation of the two by some in this thread. 

[Beguile's Mistress]

I hope you understand the distinction between, on the one hand, criticizing religious doctrine and pointing out instances where its influence has been pernicious, and, on the other hand, attacking believers who have not been so influenced. There seems to have been a conflation of the two by some in this thread. 

People do bad things and some people do really horrendous things.  Hold the person accountable for the transgression not the organization.  Not all cops are dirty, not all politicians are corrupt, not all people who say they believe in a higher power want to convert you and not all atheists are godless heathens if any of them are.

Religion and politics are seldom discussed with objectivity because they are personal.  Therefore, being respectful of your fellows in conversation is a must.  To do otherwise could invalidate you opinion.

[Caela]

Well, I, for one, am willing to be educated.

So, if I understand you correctly, the Ten Commandments are binding on Jews, but not Christians. Interesting. But, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who put them up on courthouse walls in this country are disproportionately Christian.

Technically speaking, the Ten Commandments were never binding on anyone but those of the Jewish faith. The OT is Jewish law, it never applied to anyone of any other faith or descent. It would be like saying that German law applies to me, as an American citizen, while still at home in the States. Some of them are pretty decent universal's (not murdering, not wasting time and energy coveting what other people have, not bearing false witness etc.) but they certainly don't apply, as religious tenets, to anyone else.

[Caela]

People do bad things and some people do really horrendous things.  Hold the person accountable for the transgression not the organization.  Not all cops are dirty, not all politicians are corrupt, not all people who say they believe in a higher power want to convert you and not all atheists are godless heathens if any of them are.

Religion and politics are seldom discussed with objectivity because they are personal.  Therefore, being respectful of your fellows in conversation is a must.  To do otherwise could invalidate you opinion.

+1

[Sabby]

People do bad things and some people do really horrendous things.  Hold the person accountable for the transgression not the organization.  Not all cops are dirty

Yes, but we have Internal Affairs. Not all cops are dirty, but it is the responsibility of all in the department to learn from past corruption and stop it from happening again. They don't watch yet another incursion of dirty cops and say "Boy howdy those individuals make all us public servants look like assholes. Best to just disapprove of their actions and move on"

Religion and politics are seldom discussed with objectivity because they are personal.  Therefore, being respectful of your fellows in conversation is a must.  To do otherwise could invalidate you opinion.

It's... really not. The whole 'don't discuss my religion, it's personal' is one of the catalysts for Christianity's stranglehold on the States :/ Things remain personal as long as they are kept between you and those it immediately involves. I like Call of Duty. This is personal. Me and my small group of friends all like Call of Duty. This is personal for each of us. We all come together and talk about our mutual love for Call of Duty. Now it is a communal issue, for a small community, and how our love of the game effects us as a whole is an entirely separate matter to how we as individuals enjoy them.

We all start a weekend group where we eat pizza and play some lan.

Now it turns out one of us thought Modern Warfare 3 was superior to Black Ops 2. Well, the rest of us agree that Blops2 is the best of the series, and that guy is simply wrong. We all opt to play Blops2 for this weekends get together, but this one individual would like us to play MW3 instead.

His personal opinion that MW3 is the better game is still his own personal belief and he is entitled to it, but the matter of MW3 vs Blops2 within the group is not sacred. We can and should discuss it.

He does not get to say "Leave my opinions alone, they are personal to me, you not incorporating my beliefs into the group is bullying", because that's a child acting as if we are taking away his ability to feel the way he does :P You want to play some MW3? Go home. Play it. Have fun. You want to play it at the weekend LAN? Better have some good reasons, because we're not changing our plans just because you feel strongly.

[vtboy]

People do bad things and some people do really horrendous things.  Hold the person accountable for the transgression not the organization.  Not all cops are dirty, not all politicians are corrupt, not all people who say they believe in a higher power want to convert you and not all atheists are godless heathens if any of them are.

Religion and politics are seldom discussed with objectivity because they are personal.  Therefore, being respectful of your fellows in conversation is a must.  To do otherwise could invalidate you opinion.

It is more than appropriate, in my view, to hold organizations, religious or not, accountable for their doctrines and for the actions taken by members in furtherance of those doctrines. I trust you would not quibble over holding the Nazi party, the CCCP, and the KKK accountable for the atrocities they have wrought.

Organizational accountability aside, I am getting a little tired of having to repeatedly deny the straw man argument that I hold A responsible for the acts of B simply because they belong to the same church. My earlier point in this thread was that scripture is not the pellucid moral beacon many claim it to be, as its teachings are vague and contradictory, and have provided warrant for bad acts as well as for good. How did you translate this into my holding all members of a religious group accountable for the bad acts of some?

If you take respect for others in the conversation to heart, please exercise a little more care to understand what they have written, and avoid ascribing to them views they have not expressed.