The Atheism Thread - Part 6

[KevanG]

Imagine if David Copperfield had lived 2000 years ago and was playing the same tricks on people then as he is now.

He would be Supreme Ruler of the World.

Or a god.

Maybe David Copperfield is really Jesus.

And if he lived a few centuries ago he'd be burned as a witch. One generations messiah is anothers devil.

 

[Marvolo]

Whenever I hear Bill O'Reillys voice, I instantly get heartburn.

I can't even imagine the amount of anxiety and nerve medicines O'Reily is on. Everything seems to send him into a fit.

 

[KevanG]

Has he ever done an interview with Tyson?

 

[jaymes_e06]

And if he lived a few centuries ago he'd be burned as a witch. One generations messiah is anothers devil.

Witches are women he would probably be revered as the second coming because of his genitalia.

 

[KevanG]

Witches, Warlocks, demon spawn, soul selling spawn of evil. They had titles for everything back then.

Look at what we do today to people who say they're the son of god. They get locked up. Or get a reality show.

 

[regwec]

Anyone who wants a refresher course on religious intolerance and brutality should revisit the heart warming tale of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Leiden

 

[Piper Maru]

Anyone who wants a refresher course on religious intolerance and brutality should revisit the heart warming tale of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Leiden

That is horrifying.

 

[KevanG]

I think it's adorable.

Wait, no. What's the opposite of adorable?

****ing insanely horrific.

 

[Marvolo]

Has he ever done an interview with Tyson?

I don't think so, but one time Tyson was asked what he thought about O'Reilly:

"Neil DeGrasse Tyson Destroys Bill O'Reilly" [YT]a5dSyT50Cs8[/YT]

 

[Marvolo]

Anyone who wants a refresher course on religious intolerance and brutality should revisit the heart warming tale of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Leiden

Jesus went postal on money lenders in the temple. I wonder how he'd feel about three corpses of sadistically tortured men hanging in cages on the side of a church? My guess is anger and disgust.

 

[KevanG]

Oh yeah?



EXPLAIN THAT!

 

[Marvolo]

Oh yeah?



EXPLAIN THAT!

Indirect sunlight doesnt kill vampires. Duh! Hasn't Neil seen Angel?

 

[Marvolo]

I posted this in the agnostic thread but it bears reposting:

I just read this in Founding Faith by Steven Waldmen:

Behold the sheer viciousness of the Puritan approach:
• William Brend, “a man of years,” was locked in beaten black and as into a jelly, and under his arms the bruised flesh and blood hung down, clotted as it were into bags; and it was so beat into one mass, that the sign of one particular blow could not be seen.”

• Josiah Southwick compounded the crime of being a Quaker with refusal to remove his hat in the presence of a magistrate (Quakers kept their heads covered in deference to God). The General Court directed “the executioner” to strip him from the waist up, “tie him to a cart-tail, and whip him ten stripes out of Boston and deliver him to the Constable of Roxbury” who was, in turn, supposed to repeat the procedure and deliver him to the constable of Dedham, who would do it again.41

• Alice Ambrose, Mary Tomkins, and Ann Coleman had taken to preaching their gospel at the Piscataqua River. They were arrested, “stripped naked, from the middle upward, and tied to a cart, and after a while cruelly whipped…, whilst the priest stood and looked on, and laughed at it.”42

.Mary Dyer should be known by any American who loves religious freedom. A young mother living in Boston, Dyer in 1637 had been attending Anne Hutchinson’s Sunday meetings. Viewing the group as heretical, the Puritans saw an opportunity to send a message after Dyer gave birth to a deformed stillborn baby. Her minister, the Reverend Joseph Wilson, preached from the pulpit: “We have been visited of late by the admonition of the Lord. One Mary Dyer of our midst, who has lately become addicted to heresy, has produced not a woman child but a monster. God himself has intervened and pointed His finger at this woman at the height of her sinful opinions.

My own words follow:

Mary Dyer was convicted of wrongdoing and banished from Massachusetts. She later returned and when confronted she refused to repent and was hanged. Do you all want to know what her and the others only crimes were? They were Quakers in Puritan Massachusetts in the 17th century when it was illegal to be Quaker. Some other punishments for being Quaker:

For the crime of being a Quaker who refused to leave Massachusetts, the punishment on the first offense was usually whipping; on the second offense, an ear was cut off. For a third offense, the criminal would be executed

 

[regwec]

Horrible, but the "universal" Catholic church has an exemplary record for cruelty and sadism. The routine torture and murder of conversos under the inquisition, the burning alive of religious dissenters in Bloody Mary's England, and the massacre of indigenous peoples in South America, is just a brief epitome.

I'm certainly not arguing that one sect is better than the other, but pointing out in the interests of balance that they are both intolerant, bloodthirsty and cruel.

 

[Thundercrack85]

You know, for a while there, I thought all humans were well... evil, and that that was the reason why all our institutions were so horrible. But over time I have come to realize that most humans are simply not bright. They're not evil. Just not particularly insightful.

More importantly though, I realized that in nature, the strongest rule. Psychopaths, sadists, bullies, etc. And perhaps that explains why to this day, most humans live under despotic, corrupt rule of some sort. But the point is, these horrible people impose their ideologies on the masses.

The more say the masses have in religion, the less disciplined, and extreme they get. In fact, liberal democracies are probably more destructive to extreme religious dogma than communism.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

Horrible, but the "universal" Catholic church has an exemplary record for cruelty and sadism. The routine torture and murder of conversos under the inquisition, the burning alive of religious dissenters in Bloody Mary's England, and the massacre of indigenous peoples in South America, is just a brief epitome.

I'm certainly not arguing that one sect is better than the other, but pointing out in the interests of balance that they are both intolerant, bloodthirsty and cruel.

And the icing on the cake: pedophilia.

 

[Marvolo]

Horrible, but the "universal" Catholic church has an exemplary record for cruelty and sadism. The routine torture and murder of conversos under the inquisition, the burning alive of religious dissenters in Bloody Mary's England, and the massacre of indigenous peoples in South America, is just a brief epitome.

I'm certainly not arguing that one sect is better than the other, but pointing out in the interests of balance that they are both intolerant, bloodthirsty and cruel.

Not sure why you're pointing this out when the Catholic church wasn't mentioned in my post.

But now that you bring it up, while true that the Catholic church committed atrocities, the Catholic church did collect and save a LOT of important history and art from destruction after the fall of the Western Roman Empire saving western civilization from a true dark age and that gets them some points.

 

[regwec]

Not sure why you're pointing this out when the Catholic church wasn't mentioned in my post.

I'm bringing it up because your post didn't mention the Catholic church. It would be a mistake to associate institutionalised Christian sadism with the puritan sect alone.

But now that you bring it up, while true that the Catholic church committed atrocities, the Catholic church did collect and save a LOT of important history and art from destruction after the fall of the Western Roman Empire saving western civilization from a true dark age and that gets them some points.

It also sacked Constantinople, and has a dreadful record for book burning and the torture and murder of authors of whom it does not approve.

I really don't think that the Catholic church can, on balance, be held up as a friend of learning or intellectual advancement.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

I'm bringing it up because your post didn't mention the Catholic church. It would be a mistake to associate institutionalised Christian sadism with the puritan sect alone.



It also sacked Constantinople, and has a dreadful record for book burning and the torture and murder of authors of whom it does not approve.

I really don't think that the Catholic church can, on balance, be held up as a friend of learning or intellectual advancement.

This.

 

[KevanG]

I've found that most times institutions like that have tended to either destroy information that they can't use or keep what they can in case they need it at a later time.

 

[Marvolo]

I'm bringing it up because your post didn't mention the Catholic church. It would be a mistake to associate institutionalised Christian sadism with the puritan sect alone.



It also sacked Constantinople, and has a dreadful record for book burning and the torture and murder of authors of whom it does not approve.

I really don't think that the Catholic church can, on balance, be held up as a friend of learning or intellectual advancement.

I never said "friend". It isnt a friend. It was however invaluable in keeping western civilization from collapsing. Youre not gonna find a respected secular or religious historian around who would say the catholic church isnt the biggest reason western civilization didnt free fall after the fall of the western Roman Empire. With its global network and educated monks and its vast resources, priceless works of art and human history were saved and some sense of order was maintained.

In the case of this period in human history it was better the devil you know. The alternative to the Catholic church would have been far more devastating. Im just saying, despite the problems in the church (and they are gonna happen in an organization that's 2,000 years old and spans the world and countless countries and governments) the church has made major contributions to western civilization.

 

[regwec]

I presume the period to which you refer is the fifth century AD? If so, I think the point is overstated. Constantinople and Alexandria were the homes to the greatest Roman libraries, so the preservation of provincial western derivatives was relatively unimportant. As we have seen, the Muslim invaders of the eastern empire proved to be better custodians of classical learning.

I don't dispute churchmen's role in producing most of the contemporaneous written records of the European Dark Ages, but I think the account remains firmly in debit when the church's later history is considered.

 

[Marvolo]

I presume the period to which you refer is the fifth century AD? If so, I think the point is overstated. Constantinople and Alexandria were the homes to the greatest Roman libraries, so the preservation of provincial western derivatives was relatively unimportant. As we have seen, the Muslim invaders of the eastern empire proved to be better custodians of classical learning.

I don't dispute churchmen's role in producing most of the contemporaneous written records of the European Dark Ages, but [bPI think the account remains firmly in debit when the church's later history is considered. [/B]

I would hardly call keeping some order, literacy and education alive in western europe after the fall of the empire relatively unimportant. You are right that the east was a haven of learning, but if not for the church in the west there would have been no order and no unified system which means when learning started flowing from the east to the west kt would have fell on deaf ears. That's what makes the church's involvement such a big part. It allowed the west to pick itself up quicker than it would have if their had been no church. We know what western europe was before Rome came in and that's what it would have been again without the church after the Roman Empire was gone if the church hadnt been there. That's no small thing the church did regardless of their future misteps.

 

[The End]

I was raised catholic, my whole family is catholic, I do not think on the whole the catholic church on the whole is a force for good. Magdalene laundries, anyone?

Anyway, I think Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry settled this question very well.

[YT]hn0tPRjVBvw[/YT]

 

[The End]

Is anyone else amused by how bad religious arguments can be? Not that I think I've ever seen a convincing one, but goodness, how outright bad some of them can be.

I used to look up this stuff all the time; now its just an occasional thing.

But yeah check this guy out. His advice for witnessing to atheists.

[YT]UnJPBCORTg8[/YT]

Set aside all the intellectual arguments

Just start from the position that the bible is true and proceed to tell atheists that they know god exists, and give them bible quotes to tell them they're suppressing the truth

Look, don't tell me what I know, when I'm telling you I don't know it. It's just insulting and disrespectful. When I'm telling you that I don't know that god exists you're telling me that I'm a liar.

I'm interested in an actual pathway to finding out whether or not this is true. Just asserting that it is true isn't convincing.

And OF COURSE the comments are disabled.