Dark, I'm back from my trip and I'll now try to answer your questions. To the first question I have to say that I am not intimately familiar with Judaism like I am christian theology so I don't know. I'll have to study that. You ask several questions related to "evil/bad". I will answer using "bad" since I don't believe in "evil" in the tradition sense used by christians. I believe that ANY system which teaches it's OK to brutalize individuals based on their philosophical beliefs is bad. I care not a whit if the brutalizing is done by deity or minions. You in no way need to be a theist to hold such beliefs (Stalin comes to mind of course) but while such beliefs ARE easily proven to be biblically intrinsic to christianity, I am doubtful in your ability to produce much evidence equally linking such belief intrinsically to democracy as was your claim. My moral standards are drawn first and foremost from the perspective of how I would like to be treated by others. Secondarily but yet very important is the realization that no two of us are the same and perhaps in some situations how I would like to be treated is NOT the best way to treat others -- in this situation I TRY to the best of my understanding to treat them as I would wish to be treated if I were in their shoes. Any deity who holds that this is not enough can kiss my ass and destroy me any way he/she/it pleases. JB
Hello Doubter. Sorry for the delay in response. I'll happily go with your posted definition of murder and move forward. It's hard to find more innocent individuals in the world than the children and unless you don't study the bible we both know that the all for one, one for all holy trinity is big in BOTH old AND new testaments into the slaughter of children (start in Genesis and just work your way down to Revelations). Need more "demonstration of innocence" that that? Beyond the children, if I do my best to treat others fairly ,kindly and sincerely in this life I consider myself to be an "innocent". The christian god will slaughter/punish me and anyone like me out of some twisted form of vengeance for my lack of belief or even skepticism regarding his existence.
If you want to see a constructive dialogue - critique russell. If you want to waste your time again, Critique this response line by line. Why I disagree with just about every counter point you crafted, who cares. I only recently even began to wonder what makes atheists tick. I have not even a shred or pretension or actually expertise in the area. (do not confuse this with my understanding of the definition of atheism or the arguments athiests make) For the sake of knowlege lets assume everything I said was incorrect. (So there is no debate from me) WHY ARE THE TWO QUOTES FORM RUSSELL WRONG? 1. CRIMINAL NOT THE VICTIM 2. Without a belief in God... Finally, If you did your research, on the competing views of some of the worlds religions, I think that is great. And since we already had our debate on the widely accepted (in scholarly circles) historical existence of Jesus. I really do not need to debate you here again.
QUOTE 1:Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim. Why is this wrong? The correct question is, why is it right? I cannot answer either question without some more context. This is not an argument, only a statement. QUOTE 2:It was Bertram Russell the atheist who once said, "Unless you assume the existence of God, then the purpose and meaning of life is irrelevant." Again, this is not an argument. Its only an assertion. It does not stand on its own. Find and post the argument that led to this statement and then we could discuss it. JEM: "Finally, If you did your research, on the competing views of some of the worlds religions, I think that is great. And since we already had our debate on the widely accepted (in scholarly circles) historical existence of Jesus. I really do not need to debate you here again." LOL.... widely accepted? Are you kidding me? That is a blatant falsehood. In fact, his existence is WIDELY DEBATED if anything, and if were intellectually honest, its impossible to assert it is even likely he existed, given the fact that not a SINGLE CONTEMPORARY HISTORIAN in his OWN BACK YARD even mentioned him, when they DID mention other miracle workers of the time. What a joke. The evidence is pathetically weak, and what little evidence there is, has proven to be tainted by theologians in the future who thought it was perfectly fine to LIE as long as you "spread the word". Imagine that! The "son of god", who performed all these miracles, COMPLETELY IGNORED BY HISTORY. What ARE the chances??? The fact that you have no problem eagerly swallowing such complete nonsense clearly demonstrates you bias. peace axeman
I hope you took a laptop and did a little backtesting while on the road! I'd like to carry this discussion to Doubter to its logical extreme if you don't mind. You obviously object to the idea of the "murder of the innocents" I'll call it. But that brings up a whole nudder area of discussion: if you have trouble with God taking life in any circumstances, then do you have trouble with the biblical concept that "all life was born to die"? If there is a God, then our fair planet was clearly created under that immutable law, so let's start at square one. Do you have a problem with God creating all life with varying life spans, both intraspecies and interspecies?
While I am not expert on what makes an athiest tick. I cite a well known perhaps ieven one of the fathers of modern intellectual eliteist athiests. That you care not to argue his statements which are the manifest conclusions of being an atheist. proves the point. As an athiest apparently you and turok belive it is valid argument to say I disagree and not even support your assertions. It is ironic that your line of "reasoning" proves the argument. Think about the philosophy I just gave you.
Yes, imagine a man killed in relative obscurity who within a few centuries of His death had built a following of between 1/10th and 1/3rd of the Roman Empire. Kind of peculiar how an obscure son of a carpenter did what the Goths, Macedonians, Greeks and North Africans could not do with hordes of armies and monies, eh? Yes, what ARE the chances? Some people would say about zero.
The perfect definition of a cult. A group of confused people who follow a fabricated idol. Reminds me of just about every other religious cult out there. peace axeman
What cult has converted w/o violence a huge % of a population of a huge land mass? I can't think of one off hand. The only other comparable example is Communist China which has developed a believing population of at least 60 million new believers in the last half century. But, again, that's Christian...