Zombrex wrote: » You have been given plenty of figures already, such as Christian Europe being a constant state of war for most of its existence,
or the African Christian militias killing their own people, [/qutoe] Leopold of Belgium was NOT an African expansion on behalkf of Christianity! If i missed anything else please list it. you have simply ignored them because they don't fit your nonsense idea of reality. what are yu claiming i ignored? I didnt ignopre anything. You are lying if you say i did because i did not! Care to prove what you claim i ignored? Eventually when it has become clear that you have no interest in actually engaging or responding to rebuttals, all one can do is laugh at your nonsense. what rebuttals? Care to list them?
you have simply ignored them because they don't fit your nonsense idea of reality.
Eventually when it has become clear that you have no interest in actually engaging or responding to rebuttals, all one can do is laugh at your nonsense.
Bannasidhe wrote: » Yes, I have checked all of the footnotes - as I said, I have lectured on this for many, many years
Here are a few non-wikipedia articles and sources / in case anyone want to get pedantic about sources.
As for my reference to Hitler, Himmler etc - this was again in direct response to PDN's linking of the work of Newton, Galileo (PDN was the first to mention them - not me) and Locke as derived from Christianity as they were educated by Christians - I simply pointed out that Hitler, Himmler and Stalin were also the product of Christian education but he seemed strangely disinclined to claim credit for their work.
Not once did I ever claim that positives did not emerge from European Christianity - I merely demonstrated that a particular statement made by a particular poster was demonstrably factually untrue.
ISAW wrote: » This is meant to be a counter argument. why dont you produce some actual figures and we can compare Christian regmes with atheist ones?
Zombrex wrote: » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0
koth wrote: » Atheist= belief there is no such thing agnostic = not sure/dont know deist= belief ther is a higher power theist= belief ther is a personal god A person can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. Agnostic refers to knowledge not belief.
Morbert wrote: » There are crossed wires here. The speed of light postulate of special relativity is regarding the local speed of light. Spin around on the spot, for example, and you will see the stars rotate around you much faster than the speed of light.
So galaxies can recede at faster than the speed of light because the expansion of the universe is an expansion of spacetime itself,
King Mob wrote: » F. None of the above.
" The closest you can get would be a combination of A and B with modification and better wording. The options you are offering do not properly cover what I and most atheist positions are, hence your definitions are useless.
Morbert wrote: » I feel your pain
himnextdoor wrote: » You seem confused: 'a disbelief in the existence of a deity' is not the same as 'a belief that no deity exists'.
Your attempt to twist the meaning of the word 'atheist' by replacing the word 'disbelief' with 'belief' is ironic really if you bear in mind your reaction to the suggestion that since only 32% of people polled classified themselves non-atheist, 68% can be said to have classified themselves as atheist.
Disbelief requires no data; no mental processing; it takes up no space.
Atheists lack faith and therefore the mental framework that is required to 'house' the 'God effect'; the mechanism of 'belief' is missing from their mental 'toolkit'. An atheist is unable to believe in God (no comparative data for it) therefore the question of the non-existence of a God that is supposed not to exist is rendered meaningless. A non-belief in a positive is not always the same as a belief in a negative.
Oh, and for an example of Christians not being involved in wholesale slaughter just have a look at the Middle-East, and Africa.
Bannasidhe wrote: » Oh dear - is that really the best you can do? Is that what passes for debate and discussion in this particular forum?
Anyone who demonstrates that your pontifications on European history have no basis in historical fact is treated to some thinly veiled insults, a few slight digs followed by some bizarre claim that they have proven your point.
Your needlessly highlighted passage are an attempt to link educated people to the church - I believe I mentioned the monopoly Christianity had on education in Europe so of course scholars were educated in church controlled universities. There weren't any other kind - the church forbade it.
Would you also claim that all Irish people are Catholics - or just the 99% who attended national schools under the control of the Catholic Church?
Your assertion was that Christianity was responsible for the technological advances in Europe - your 'proof' of this is that every intellectual in Europe was apparently a Christian. Considering that prior to the Reformation every Christian in Europe was also a Catholic (or risked a visit from the Inquisition) shall we also try and say that all advances prior to 1521 were Catholic advances?
If that was the case - makes you wonder why Luther (and Hus and Wycliffe and Calvin, and the Cathars, and the Anabaptists, and the Lollards etc etc ) had such a problem with Rome - patron of the arts and sponsor of technological advances as you claim it was.
You have, I noticed, completely missed the point that advances such as the Renaissance occurred after information suppressed by the Christian authorities became available again in Europe. Including the Reformation.
That these rediscovered ideas led to scientific experimentation and new political theories which undermined the domination of Christianity as the only game in town is ignored as it doesn't conform to your pseudo-history.
Shall we ignore all other patronage apart from that of the Church?
No Charles I and the Royal Societies? No mention of Sophia, Elector of Hanover, her daughter Sophia Charlotte Queen of Prussia and Caroline Queen of Britain as Von Libnitz's patrons? What about the de Medici? How about the role of the German princes in protecting Luther from Rome?
Shall we mention that Hitler was a Catholic - he was educated at a Catholic School in Lambach, Austria?
Or do you want to cherry pick who you claim was a Christian and who wasn't?
King Mob wrote: » Lol. Not only do you have no idea what I believe, you don't even seem to know what this survey you are so attached to actually says. I specifically explained which of your narrow definitions kinda sorta apply, you ignored that point.
I've tried several times to describe my position, but you are not interested in listening, nor do you have a point. So trying to explain it again or more simply would just be a waste of time. But please, continue to tell me what I believe.
ISAW wrote: » which is still NOT A i.e NOT atheist as defined and quoted in the research! when I refer to "atheist3 and when they do they are referring to the people who answered A. As long as we are clear on that you can call yourself anything you like. By the way F "none of the above" comes under "dont know" and is covered by the survey. It is still not A and therefore not atheist as objectively defined.
muppeteer wrote: » Apologies if I appear "lofty", it is not my intention.
King Mob wrote: » F. None of the above. The closest you can get would be a combination of A and B with modification and better wording.
The options you are offering do not properly cover what I and most atheist positions are, hence your definitions are useless.
PDN wrote: » Anyway, stimulating as I'm finding this conversation, I'll have to bow out now. I'm flying out to work on a project in a location where, for centuries and until very recently, they were free from the stultlfying repression and anti-intellectualism of Christianity. As a result I won't have access to electricity or the internet for the next couple of weeks.
PDN wrote: » I think you're falling into the trap of feeding the troll, Benny. There are atheists who will use this thread to engage in discussion - and others that use it to simply bait Christians and throw out vague or generalised insults.
Benny_Cake wrote: » Sorry, is there some kind of cruelty index that I'm unaware of? With regard to suffering, it might help to familiarise yourself with what Christians actually believe. A good place to start might be the many fine Christian organisations which are working to relieve human suffering. As for your final sentence, both are bad. If you can find a single Christian here who thinks that either of those acts are ok on the basis of the Gospel, I may.concede you have a point. I'd doubt it somehow.
PDN wrote: » Fair enough, apology accepted. Btw, you can use the same point for many bad things as well as good things. I could say (as I have on many occasions) that without Christianity there would be no Crusades, Inquisition, or 9/11. But then, if you and the chorus were consistent, you would argue that this only happened because Christianity borrowed ideas from other people. Or, of course, you could make the claim that these things would all have happened anyway, even if there had been no Christianity. The problem with counter-factual history is that it allows people's prejudices to dominate over reason or logic. So we get one-eyed reasoning that says: "Yeah, all the good things would have happened if there was no Christianity, but none of the bad things would have happened".
PDN wrote: » Thank you for proving my point so eloquently. For someone who claims to be a historian you seem to have real difficuloty with understanding what it is written in front of your eyes. My one straightforward point (in response to himnextdoor) was that Christianity was pivotal to the development of so much of modern life. You appear to be trying to argue against some other position that neither myself nor anyone else here has taken - namely that Christianity came up with everything as original ideas. You could have saved yourself a whole lot of typing if you had actually taken the time to read my post.
marienbad wrote: » To be honest Fanny Cradock , while Christianity may have given comfort on an individual basis throughout the first millenium , overall I believe its influence was negative...
marienbad wrote: » That is obviously my shorthand version , if you want to continue the conversation -then no problem.
marienbad wrote: » Michelangelo- Titian- Bernini - Palestrina- Giotto would have followed their gift no matter what- talent like that dos'nt give them a choice. They just would have had different patrons.
marienbad wrote: » Can you tell me what ideas , philosophy , message that is unique to Christianity ? That was not already known and discussed or practiced in some shape or form somewhere else?
Fanny Cradock wrote: » Yes, I know where it can be found. I linked to it first, remember? OK, so you checked the footnotes - all 64 of them, I gather. Fine. But I still don't understand what the history of education according to a wikipedia article has got to do with PDN's point? As afar as I can see he didn't claim that formal education began with Christianity. Rather, he talked about the development of institutions. But perhaps I am missing something? No. You may not ask :P To my mind he did play the ball and perhaps he played the man after that. But that is all part of the sport, no? In answer to your question above, I take my understanding of PDN's point straight from the horse's mouth. He said that "Christianity opened the way for institutions to develop, institutions that failed to develop anywhere else in the world". It might be a certain bet that you will disagree with this, but I don't see why there remains any confusion. Nor for that matter do I see why there is a need to cite large proportions of wikipedia or bring Hitler, Stalin or Himmler into this. To reiterate, the point being made -- at lest as far as I can see -- is not that Christians don't do bad things or that Christian institutions have not stood in the way of what we now consider to be progress. It's that Christianity (with all that this word entails) shaped Europe in such a way that made certain things we now take for granted a reality - the same things we didn't see develop in other parts of the world. It's interesting that an atheist like Alain de Botton can happily admit that something like the Welfare State arose because, and not in spite, of Christianity. On the other hand, you seem to think that we got here against the best efforts of Christianity. What you you think is the primary achievement (and by this I speaking terms of positive impact) that Christianity has had on mankind and why?
philologos wrote: » Zombrex: Actually, I have zero interest in rubbishing anyones opinion. What I do have an interest is in advocating Christianity as a positive argument, in its own rights and in its own terms.
philologos wrote: » muppeteer: I'm going to address the argument purely in terms of Christianity. The situation of Baba, or Smith or anyone else is entirely different to the case of the Resurrection. It would be ignoring the argument if you're simply going to bring in cases which have no relation to that topic, and to be honest it could very quickly become a waste of both our time. I'm going to address the post in full at some stage tomorrow, and I'll explain exactly my reasoning for this position, but simply put, I'm not going to address other faiths in my argument, I'm simply going to present Jesus and His word.
philologos wrote: » It isn't anywhere near as beneficial for atheism to present negative arguments as it is to present positive arguments for why God's existence is improbable.
philologos wrote: » One requires that one go systematically through each faith and claim that they are false. The other just requires that one phrase general reasoning behind why God's existence is improbable. The latter is a heck of a lot more convincing and useful for people like me. The former isn't convincing at all.
philologos wrote: » King Mob: Atheism is against all theism. That's my point. That's why if you rubbish Christianity, you're not advocating atheism. It's a win for anyone who is opposed to Christianity, someone who advocates for Islam for example.
King Mob wrote: » I think he's mis-applying a version of the false dichotomy. For example we might argue that disproving evolution does not prove or provide support to the idea of creationism and vice versa, and suggesting otherwise is a false dichotomy or dilemma. However he does not understand that atheist is simply a lack of a belief, and would be more akin to the position of believing neither evolution or creationism in the above example.
philologos wrote: » We're dealing in the hypothetical. I don't believe that Christianity has been rubbished. If it were though, it wouldn't do any favour for atheism. It isn't anywhere near as beneficial for atheism to present negative arguments as it is to present positive arguments for why God's existence is improbable.
philologos wrote: » One requires that one go systematically through each faith and claim that they are false. The other just requires that one phrase general reasoning behind why God's existence is improbable.
Zombrex wrote: » Your "simply logic" seems to be that a rejection of theistic claims moves someone no closer to a rejection of theistic claims (ie atheism) I think you can see the problem with that, it is nonsense. If this is your standard of logic I can see why Christianity makes perfect sense to you ...
philologos wrote: » Indicatory evidence is valuable in any respect. There are plenty of unique things about Christianity, which will inevitably set it apart from other faiths. I don't need to go around refuting every single belief system. If I find that there is evidence to back Christianity up, and the more and more that Christianity and the Biblical record are attested to in reality, the more and more confident I can be in believing it.
However, atheism is a different kettle of fish. In order for atheism to be demonstrated to be true, every single other position on God must be wrong, and there should be good reason for this. Atheists in the past have presented positive arguments as to God's existence, and in my opinion they can be reasonably expected to again. An example would be the Problem of Evil a commonly put positive atheist argument as to why they believe that God's existence is less likely than not. I respect that argument far more and find it more valuable precisely because it is a demonstration of why people regard atheism to be an accurate position in reality.
Ethical behaviour simply put, is not relative.
The entire principle of universal human rights is also built on the concept of an objective standard. Some examples would be the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the US Declaration of Independence where Thomas Jefferson wrote:
Human rights are undeniable precisely because they are not ours to give, and not ours to take away. There is an objective moral law that humans generally attempt to adhere to, humans fail to do this many times, but none the less when ethical issues arise, humans go for objective standards, they do not pfaff around with moral relativity. An objective moral law, has a law giver, much as other conventions have a law giver. Subjective morality is rarely if ever demonstrated.
Again. Firstly, archaeology does matter. You're making the mistake that each of these arguments on their own should be absolute proof of God's existence. That's false. In the same way that finding an item of someone elses clothing beside a murdered body does not demonstrate absolutely that that other person killed the person.
What I am suggesting is that the more and more we find that demonstrates the Bible is true, the more and more reason that I have to believe and trust in His Word. That's simple. As for Biblical prophesy. It's not unreliable in the case of Jesus when we have clear mentions of His birth, death, ministry, and His resurrection written 600 years before his death. They can be clearly cited and demonstrated. These prophesies go right down to His death on the cross (Psalm 22), to that He would be buried in a rich mans tomb (Isaiah 53:9). There are literally hundreds of these and they deserve consideration rather than being fobbed off, I could go on, but I want to address the rest of your post. When documents that precede Jesus by 600 years back up the Gospel accounts of His life, that gives them more credence.
Well. Let's look at it, on the basis of my previous 2009 post because I don't believe this was addressed. I had Jim Jones mentioned, I've had Joseph Smith mentioned. These situations differ to the Resurrection clearly. That's why the Resurrection should be considered in its own right on its own circumstances. Most of the comparisons I had discussed on the A&A forum before, simply differed fundamentally to the situation that the Gospel presented. Secondly, I have zero interest in discussing anything else, I want to discuss Jesus.
Firstly, the idea that one person would be deluded about someone that they were with for 3 years is fair enough. It's possible that one person could be. When we go up the scale in terms of numbers, this becomes less and less likely when we consider the 11 disciples as a whole. Indeed, it becomes even less likely when we consider 500 witnesses as Paul mentions. He mentions even that they were still alive and that believers could go to Jerusalem to see them. The delusion argument is limited in its scope. It is extremely unlikely to presume that all were of an unsound mental state, and it is extremely unlikely that up to 500 people would make the same mistake in identifying a man even if for a moment we thought that all 11 disciples were deluded.
Secondly, the idea that the Apostles made up the New Testament as fiction is laughable also given how silly the disciples are presented in it. Indeed, as I've already mentioned placing women as the first witnesses to the Resurrection would have been a very humbling revelation in Jewish, Greek and Roman societies which were inherently misogynistic. If you read the beginning of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for example you'll see exactly how Greek society was.
Thirdly, think about it. You realise that Jesus died, and that was it. There is no benefit in risking your life to tell people that He has been resurrected for the dead and that all can be saved through His name. Motivating one person to risk their lives for nothing is difficult enough. Motivating 500+ people to do the same is considerably more difficult. You would think that returning to Galilee to fish would be the more logical option.
Let me why I say this is nonsense. What I'm doing is looking to the Bible, and seeing how it is evident in the world around us, and how history and archaeology can help us in determining its truth. That's a rather good approach to deal with any text in terms of seeing its truth or falsity. I don't see why you consider that approach to be lacking, and I don't know how else you expect me to argue for the Bible if I can't look to the Bible and say, I see X, Y and Z in the world.
As opposed to the hyperactive there is no rhyme, ultimate cause, or ultimate reason to the world.
As opposed to the idea that the universe created itself, or indeed postulating a multiverse just to explain this one.
philologos wrote: » King Mob: Firstly, I don't disagree that negative arguments can work. I do think that in the presence of many positions on the God question that taking a negative approach isn't as convincing as taking a positive one.
philologos wrote: » In respect to fairies (which isn't at all comparable to God given the basis of a necessary first cause in Creation) there's not very many positions that one can take on it. There's only two as far as I can tell.
philologos wrote: » The problem is very simple - even if you did successfully rubbish Christianity, it does not further atheism ultimately.
philologos wrote: » If you can't follow the very simple logic of what I've said to you, then I don't know what more you need me to say to have it made crystal clear.
philologos wrote: » It's obvious that even if you demonstrated Christianity to be false (and you haven't), then it could serve any thought that is non-Christian on that matter including Islam for example. It is not a good argument for atheism.
Zombrex wrote: » What the heck are you supposing atheism is Phil, because there is no part of that sentence that is correct or even make sense.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/867a9f20e705add43a3ada2e4f4480cc.svg)
