End of Christianity...

[1inStripes]

Thats the problem. Everyone wants it to be all warm and fuzzy all the time, but it isn't, and it shouldn't be. If it was, why would there be a Heaven to gain, and a hell to shun?

[R13]

Your Bible comprehension is pretty lacking Im afraid. Read more than one verse to get the full meaning. Your Psalms quote is dictation/praise from one of David's musicians Asaph.

The order in Samuel is to go and crush Amalekites who were a rival tribe who had repeatedly attacked the Hebrews. They were basically atheist, and God ordered Saul to take the Hebrews and wipe them out.

Its not an inferiority complex. Its that those who chose not to accept his ways can be dealt with severely if they do not abide by his commandments.

Of course, it was picking and choosing from the Bible. Christians do it all the time and Gotch picked and chose those quotes from the Koran. IMO God should try to spread the word and love a little more, instead of just using his "powers" to crush all of these people. Lose a lot of credibility when you order these killings in one part and in another its "may the Lord of peace be with you".


Reminds me of the 10 commandments of George Carlin. There's a lot more than just the Ten though, that's the problem...it's outdated in many parts and people pick and choose what they want to follow. Too many no-no's for a normal person to follow,

[1inStripes]

No not really, although we all sin daily. Like I said though, if it was all warm, fuzzy and easy, we wouldn't have the people who don't want to believe in it.

[Gotch]

*"It's hard to try to argue when someone has that much resentment towards a religion and chooses not to recognize the faults of his own..but if you must..."*

Assumptions?

I'm not involved in the exchange due to a hatred of anything, rather an effort to prevent misinformation and an attempt to correct falsehoods.

You assume I am a Christian. You really don't even have evidence of that. I do in fact have a Christian based belief system, but the best advocate I've ever seen or heard for the position I am taking happens to be an atheist University Professor from the U.K.

The truth needn't be backed by any religious affiliation. The truth is the truth, history is history, what actually happened actually happened and no amount of anti Christian sentiment and incredible exaggeration on your part can change past events nor the truth.

You still avoid answering my question about the eating of Pork, Jesus endorsing an eye for an eye, or the stoning of adulterers. Instead you try to make generalizations and post opinions.


The scriptures you posted bring nothing to your position or to the debate. They are in fact just as I described and explained in a previous post. The passage from Deuteronomy concerns a specific target and a specific point in time. It is not an open-ended command to kill and continue to kill as are the Islamic passages I posted.....

The passage from Samuel that you posted concerned four specific targets (individuals) as I remember, and yes these are a recounting of history.

But then I've already been through that and you simply ignore the facts......

*"But all of that is just historical account of course, God didn't say kill any infants or wasn't really that jealous. Though you write off almost every major instance in history when Christians were the instigators and did the slaughtering. No, not them. Of course the numbers are in the favor of the muslims, you ignore every part of Christian history when they have killed millions upon millions. Can't reason with that denial logic."*


Why don't you give me the historical accounts concerning these "millions upon millions".

*"First of all, it was based on figures for life expectancy, educational levels and per capita income. How does that pertain to this and morals? I have no idea, but lets pretend it does. So to answer your question, yes you should have went on. It would have shown that the U.S. ranked 15th on this list that somehow has relation to morals. It would have also shown that those nations I mentioned were all ranked ahead of the U.S. Why is that important? Because even though these countries have the 90 percent christians, the US has more christians than all of those countries combined. So in this moral study that has nothing to do with morals, this country which is very populated with christians - more than all of those combined - ranks 15th and behind the heavily atheist populated nations I mentioned."*


Do you even look at your own posts?

You named Japan, France, and Sweden.

About 75% of Sweden's population belong to the Lutheran church.

The nearest things we have to true atheist countries would be China, North Korea, Cuba. All of these are (OFFICALLY) atheist.

The U.S. ranked 12th not 15th on the poll I was working from.

Our 78% Christian population isn't really very high compared to many other nations.

You need to take a course on statistics. Total numbers would not factor here....only percentages.

[Gotch]

"Christians do it all the time and Gotch picked and chose those quotes from the Koran."

What you simply are failing to understand is that those quotes from the Quran are an Open-ended command to continue with actions as set froth. There is a huge difference.

It's like the difference between a father recounting to his sons the time he killed a couple of enemy combatants in the Gulf War, and the same father instructing his sons to kill any Arab they encounter.

There is a big difference.

[Gotch]

"My whole point was that just because you believe in Christianity, it doesn't make you a better person or have better morals. I think the whole thing is ridiculous, but as i've said, I understand why people cling to it. IMO when we stop leaning on Christianity, we'll be a lot better off."

"Christianity/religion clouds judgment most of the time, plain and simple."

"Sure wouldn't be a bad thing and Christianity will continue to grow smaller here..."'

Point is you seem to be yearning for an atheist controlled government.

That's been tried numerous times. Let's look at some of the results:

Nearly 10 million people intentionally starved to death by the atheist government of Soviet Russian in 32-33.

The atheist government of Soviet Russia repressed the church in order to makes thing better for its citizens, just like you suggest, of course it also murdered at least 20 million of those citizens while they were at it.....oh well, I guess you can't have everything.....

Then we have China, led by it's beloved atheist poet, philosopher, and visionary Mao Tse-Tung. He brought about a Cultural Revolution devoid of the trappings and pitfalls of religion....of course he and his atheist government also murdered at least 70 million people, but darn it...it was worth it to get rid of religion....

We can't forget the smiling atheist, our buddy Pol Pot. He brought a much needed atheist regime to Cambodia....smiling and back slapping all the while...then he had over one quarter of the population murdered.....oh for the good ol' days of atheist rule......

[Gotch]

You know another great leader had an almost identical opinion of Christians that you hold. He wasn't truly an atheist, oh well, at least he was a huge fan of Darwin, plus he knew how badly Christians could screw things up. He had some great quote you might want to memorize.

"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. "

"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."

" Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease."

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."

Eloque wasn't he?.......yeah, old Adolf Hitler had a way of really putting things into words......

[simple man]

No not really, although we all sin daily. Like I said though, if it was all warm, fuzzy and easy, we wouldn't have the people who don't want to believe in it.

It will be warmer and fuzzier for some of us in the end. You can lead a muslim to water, but you can't make him think. The oldest military monument in the US is built to some folks that fought a group of Muslim pirates. Thomas Jefferson started out trying to talk to these folks, pay a price for safe passage, and wound up building a navy once he became president to stop their given duty. When asked why they robbed and enslaved, they said it was the way they were supposed to treat infidels.

[R13]

"I'm not involved in the exchange due to a hatred of anything, rather an effort to prevent misinformation and an attempt to correct falsehoods."

Not the way I see it.


"The truth needn't be backed by any religious affiliation. The truth is the truth, history is history, what actually happened actually happened and no amount of anti Christian sentiment and incredible exaggeration on your part can change past events nor the truth."

And no amount of anti-islamic rhetoric will change it either.


"But then I've already been through that and you simply ignore the facts......"

As do you with the writing off of almost every account murdering by Christians.




Why don't you give me the historical accounts concerning these "millions upon millions".


I've gave you plenty, you've denied them as defensive actions. But I wouldn't want to admit my God is no better than the rest of them either.




"Do you even look at your own posts?"

Do you? Lets see.


"About 75% of Sweden's population belong to the Lutheran church."

True, but you left something out. Less than 4 percent of the Church of Sweden membership attends public worship during an average week; about 2 percent are regular attenders. I suggest you look at the newest study which states....

* 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
* 23% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
* 53% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".

That 75% is a bogus number. Until about 10 years ago, every child born was considered a member of the church if just one of their parents were.

Might I also add that Sweden has about half of a million muslims.



"The nearest things we have to true atheist countries would be China, North Korea, Cuba. All of these are (OFFICALLY) atheist."

Because they have been "officially" announced by the communist gov, big difference.


"The U.S. ranked 12th not 15th on the poll I was working from."

Yours must be an older one, the U.S. has fallen to 15th.
Human Development Reports (HDR) ? United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

"Our 78% Christian population isn't really very high compared to many other nations."

When you have a population of over 300 million, its a lot more than most. That's around 230 million Christians, that's a huge majority. With 230 out of 300 million who are Christians, that's a very significant amount.

You can go with percentage, I guess it supports your "theory" more. When the other country has a Christian population more than the ENTIRE population of those 7 countries combined...I think overall numbers count.


I personally don't see the connection with that survey and the criteria in it having to do with morals, but go ahead and use it.
You keep bringing up these communist countries whose insane leaders need religion to be out of the picture. Of course they are "officially atheist", if I was trying to take over I'd want religion to be done away with too. I never once said anything about an "atheist controlled" gov, its the ppl that I'd rather have atheist/agnostic. The tyranny of the majority here is caused by the Christian majority, it influences legislation all the time. Politicians will do anything to appease the people(majority), but it doesn't represent Agnostics like me.

[1inStripes]

Hmm, maybe there's your problem. A democracy is majority rule, and if you don't like it, lump it or leave it I guess. Thats just the way it is in a democracy. Of course, if you go to some of these other atheist/agnostic leaning countries, you may not have the freedoms that you are able to enjoy here in the US of A as well.