@mbaren58 No Protestant - indeed, no person - denies that Peter, Paul, John & co. delivered oral sermons. The question is, what is the only "canonical" record of the substance of what they taught? Obviously, it's just the written word. There is no preserved "oral" tradition in the RCC, aside from a corpus of evolving theological thought that's clearly developed greatly over time - even within our own short lifetimes. There are no extra-biblical words of Jesus that you've preserved, none at all.
@mbaren58 It isn't a ? of which "tradition" has supreme authority - the ? is whether this "tradition" even exists. If you can't recite a pure, preserved oral tradition, then it doesn't exist. An oral tradition is exactly that - a discrete body of knowledge that has been preserved and passed along mouth-to-mouth. It's obvious that no such thing exists in the Catholic Church.
@mbaren58 Those vids were out for 2 years, and it'd been months since a single commentator posted anything that hadn't been said 1000X before. I'm too busy to answer the same crap repeatedly. I never removed a single comment, except those with profanities. Unlike your guys - OneTrueChurch, SteveSilva, etc. These dudes remove comments they can't refute and block users who are smarter than them. That's what religious fanaticism depends upon.
We can only hope that atheism continues to grow and that young people reject their Christian indoctrination. The more churches that close, the better.
@christo930 The trouble with atheism, at least in America, is that you think that tried-and-true ideas like "you shouldn't have sex with everyone you meet" and "drugs are bad for you" are just superstitions that theists randomly invented to placate their deity. Of course, I hate to stereotype anyone - but studies do show this assertion to statistically true (i.e., that atheists are less moral in terms of sex partners, drug use, etc.). Of course, you'll assert that such things aren't immoral.
@xinosaj I don't know where you get your statistics, but they are wrong. Atheists are under-represented in crime, committing less than 1% of crime while being over 10% of the population. Evangelical Christians have more teen pregnancy than atheists, more abortions, higher rate of divorce, higher crime rate, higher poverty rate, lower educational rate and on and on. You just automatically assume the stuff you say because it makes sense in your head, but there is nothing to back it up.
@christo930 I said drugs and sex partners. Plenty of research exists on that. You generally use that as an atheist selling point! In regards to crime...atheists tend to hail from elite circles that benefit from American institutions that are essentially organized crime (ie, Wall Street), so street crime is not necessary. What evangelicals do doesn't change that Dawkins-Harris types are a silly bunch themselves.
@xinosaj You're saying it, but you have no evidence let alone proof. If there is "plenty of research" you should have no problem finding this information and passing it on (Discovery institute studies don't count). I don't know what makes you think Wall St is loaded up with atheists. Atheism has a correlation with education, that is the more educated somebody is, the more likely they are to be an atheist. Atheists tend to be most concentrated in the sciences, not finance.
@christo930 Google "atheists are immoral" and read the 2nd search result to get started. There are also some books on cognitive psychology that find that the religious suffer from more obsessional thoughts but that atheists are more likely to break rules. But why do I even need to point this out, when just about any atheist blog (like, say, Greta Christina's) makes those exact points as selling points for atheism? I'm just repeating your own maxims to you.
@xinosaj About the other stuff - atheists hold the top positions in finance. This is anecdotal, but it's very true. 2nd, most folks in sciences come from well-off families (or else they're rediscovering prayer in desperation over how to pay for those $100K loan bills), and sadly, most well-off families got that way by screwing other people, since well over 90% of rich people by exploiting others, whether it's through renting, parasitic investment vehicles, etc. Not many get rich thru work.
@xinosaj And it's also doubtful that atheists fare so well in the crime dept, either, or the marriage dept. For starters, many atheists cohabitate and never marry (so no divorce), or are young. Also, while atheism *technically* is a mere lack of theism, in America it really means an adherence to a coherent philosophy best called "scientific materialism," which only a person with good educational opportunities will ever hear of. The "practical atheists" in poor circumstances are unlikely to...
@xinosaj ...self-identify with an ontological theory about physical matter - and as your own apologists like to claim, a far larger slice of the population are "practical atheists." I can hardly think I've erred by simply repeating what Greta Christina says about the joys of atheism - that it opens the door to all sorts of liberating bisexual escapades - with a different take on where it leads.
@xinosaj What in the world is a practical atheist? You may find this hard to believe, but there are no atheist leaders, we are not a coherent group. I don't even know who this person you are talking about is. Instead of going what you think you work out in your head, try doing some real research. Google search terms like "atheists are immoral" don't tend to bring up unbiased results. Why not search on good without god?
@christo930 A practical atheist is someone who simply doesn't live in any way influenced by belief in god, whether this person consciously denies the existence of god or not. Hey, if you're just a loner with no in-group of any kind, that's not an issue of any particular concern - you can live that way cuz of unique historical circumstances that won't last much longer. Do and think whatever you like. But just don't complain when you're vastly outnumbered by others.
@xinosaj So how does someone live who believes in a god versus someone who doesn't? Are all gods equal? Do all people who believe in any god live in a certain way that is different and or better than someone who just takes your atheism one step further and rejects YOUR god?
I never said I was a loner, I said that atheists aren't a coherent group anymore than blonds aren't a coherent group.
@christo930 There are various kinds of theists, and probably most - overwhelmingly most - think they need to live in a certain way cuz their god is watching. Others live in a certain way cuz they note that reality tends to remove those who don't. I have no doubts that atheists have the intellectual ability to note that things like promiscuity and addiction have bad ends. But they tend to have to learn the hard way.
@xinosaj Again,where do you come up with this stuff? How can you possibly just spout this stuff out? What in the world makes you think that atheists don't marry or are all young? Who tells you this shit?
@christo930 According to stats, evangelical Christians have a 27% divorce rate, and atheists 24% - within the realm of statical error. And yet you cite it - from Barna, the pollster you dismiss in regards to atheist morality. I know many, many cohabitating atheists, and the same Barna stats show atheists are mostly young. Can't have it both ways, dude. Can't cite Barna to zing believers but diss him when he zings you.
@xinosaj Where do you come up with this stuff? Most wealthy people come from modest backgrounds despite what you might think. How is renting out a property or apartment morally wrong or parasitic? You want to talk parasitic, let's talk about faith healers and televangelists and even local preachers who are far more wealthy than anyone in their congregation.
@christo930 Again, what fundamentalists do has no bearing on whether you're silly or not in your own terms. Societies of all stripes contain injustices and exploitive practices that allow some to skim off the productive work of others. Renting, mortgages, and investment vehicles that let you take endless dividends out of a company's productive output, no matter how many times you've been repaid, are practices in our society that funnel wealth upwards into the fewer and fewer hands. Since those..
@xinosaj ...who benefit from these institutions almost invariably see to it that their children get better educations, utilizing their wealth, the highly-educated "atheists" you speak of are the product of these families' success. People from such backgrounds have no need to engage in high-risk violent crime. But, since a poor person with no interest in spirituality is unlikely to identify with an abstraction like "atheist," it's doubtful the claim about crime is even meaningful.
@xinosaj What in the world makes you think that wealthy people don't commit violent crimes? Property crimes would probably be higher in the poor, but not overall violent crime. People of all stripes are violent. YOU are the one claiming atheists have no morals and have nothing to back it up.
@xinosaj So you get to write off criminals and just say they aren't part of your ideas? So where are people supposed to live if they can't rent and nobody can give out mortgages? Where are you going to live while you save up the money to buy a house outright? I wish you could see how crazy some of thing you say are.
@christo930 No, I never said that criminals aren't part of my view. You made the claim that atheists are more moral and educated than religious people, and used some 2nd-hand stats that source to George Barna, even if you don't realize it, to make the point. I merely pointed out that 1) "atheism" in typical American usage refers not to mere lack of belief, but a very concretely-defined philosophy with all sorts of positive assertions about reason, matter, etc. An uneducated person wouldn't...
@xinosaj ...even be able to cite the rudiments of this philosophy, let alone identify with it - thus the term "atheism" is self-selecting for the highly educated. If we used the old-fashioned category of "godless," lumping both the highly educated atheist and the uneducated god-apathetic in the same category, it's highly doubtful there'd be any moral advantage for the non-believer, if not a pronounced disadvantage. 2) Highly educated people tend to benefit from society's institutions...
@xinosaj ...and society's institutions, for good or ill, tend to funnel wealth upwards. Hey, the rich themselves (like that guy who wrote "Rich Dad Poor Dad") say that the way to get rich is find ways to make others work for you while you just draw a passive income. Those who are in society's in-group have no need to take the high risks associated with petty crime. 3) The atheist "moral advantage" is questionable when you realize that atheists just dismiss whole moral categories as irrelevant...
@xinosaj ...For example, atheists claim homosexuality is OK and religious are immoral for thinking otherwise. Barna stats seem to bear this out. And as an added note, the spokesmen of the new atheism, like Harris and Hitchins, have the same policy ideas as John Hagee, a genocidal pentecostalist who wants to annihilate Muslims for Israel. If the supposed best atheists say the same things as the arguably worst Christian, then what's the benefit besides guilt-free extramarital sex?
@xinosaj Are you insane? godandscience org? There's a real unbiased place to get information about what atheists think and do. Atheists have only 1 thing in common, a lack of belief in a god or gods, nothing more.You really misunderstand what atheism means and you forget that most atheists were raised religious.
@christo930 Infidels.org or Greta Christina's blog aren't exactly beacons of glimmering sanity, either, Christos. As a point of fact, the godandscience article links to a Barna poll, and while Barna does come from a theistic point of view, you happily quote Barna's stats about evangelical misbehavior when you like, so you may as well take Barna's assessment of atheists, as well. The whole "atheists are just non-believers" ruse is just a way you guys dodge discussing yourselves.
@xinosaj So now you are lumping me in with religious people? I haven't quoted a single thing and I certainly haven't referenced anything from Greta Christiana's blog or infidels.org No matter what you WANT to think, atheist ARE simply non believers with no other meaningful ties.
@christo930 I'm open to the idea that you're an animist who thinks ghosts live in rocks. If atheists are mere non-believers in deities, then such people are "atheists" too. I don't believe in an anthropomorphic god. I don't argue whether there's an ultimate reality that's indescribable; how does one argue that? But 99.99% of the time, "atheist" describes a belief system that all reality is physical matter, all knowledge is scientific, and reason will save the day. Those are positive assertions.
@xinosaj Exactly. We aren't a coherent group. But if someone believes that ghosts live in rocks, then they can't be an atheist because atheists don't believe in ghosts because we don't believe in an afterlife.
@christo930 You see, now you've expanded "Atheism" from those who don't believe in gods to those who effectually believe that all reality is physical matter. It's just a rhetorical trick that "atheism" isn't a distinct philosophy without positive assertions. It's possible to phrase atheism in entirely positive terms - 1. All reality is physical matter, 2. Reason proceeding from materialist assumptions is the root to all knowledge, including moral, 3. People must be freed from superstition.
@xinosaj The reason why I don't particularly respect atheists is because assumption 1 is far from being proven, or even being provable, assumption 2 is just not true, since our minds aren't adapted to knowing enough variables and their effects to make such determinations and morality always tends to rest on unprovable assumptions when you get down to it, and assumption 3 is debatable since various religious tend to outbreed the atheists.
@xinosaj I do not make assertions and I DO NOT assert that no gods exist. I certainly can't prove that no gods exist. OTOH, I can show that the bible and other holy books are loaded with inaccuracies and outright mistakes and falsehoods.
@christo930 Actually, a "god" of some type is almost certain to exist. Gods like Zeus or the Mormon "heavenly father" are nothing more than humanoid beings with vast powers. Most atheists cite M theory as a metaphysical justification for atheism, believing that all possibilities, however remote, simply happen in an infinite multiverse. But a humanoid being more powerful than us is almost certainly possible, which means a being that can meet some definition of "god" is almost certain.
@xinosaj Also, it seems certainly possible that a brane in M space could attain unified self-consciousness, which means that a vastly powerful and incomprehensible god - something akin to Shiva, Yahweh, or Allah - must exist. So the little gods - Zeus, Mormon Elohim, and Thor - might have reasonable analogs, and the capital "G" Gods are apt to have something akin to themselves as well. Maybe all gods exist.
@xinosaj You have absolutely no evidence of any of this or a reason to think it. String theory is way too early and we have no real evidence that it's valid. There is absolutely no reason to believe that any god like Shiva or Yahweh (Allah is Yahweh) exists and if they did exist, by definition they would be outside of the universe.
Anyway, none of this matters because your video isn't about nuanced views of god(s), they are about religion.
@xinosaj I guess if you want to label an alien civilization that is more advanced that we are "gods" then it's possible. But even if they exist (for which there is no evidence), they most certainly don't even know we are here any more than we know they are there. Most people who believe in a god, believe in a personal god or a deist god, both of whom created the universe supernaturally.
@xinosaj You misunderstood me. Atheists don't believe in ghosts of people, but they can still believe in other spirits, just not a human afterlife. If you believe in a human afterlife, you aren't an atheist. There might be exceptions to that rule (every rule has exceptions).
@christo930 Interesting concept, but I disagree. Ya see there is some evidence (near death experiences, past-life regression, paranormal activity) that tend to lean towards an afterlife, but I dont see the evidence of an old white bachelor in the shy sitting on his throne with his son who is him along with a bird.
@MercuryRis Near death experiences are pretty well understood and can be induced by magnets and g-forces. THere is no evidence of paranormal activity or past-life regression. But as soon as there is evidence for these things, you can sign me up.
@christo930 I used to think that. Yet I totally understand your opinion. But how do you explain American toddlers speaking Sumerian or a sex year old knowing the exact anatomy of a WWII plane withour even seeing one? I know you have your rational explanation and I respect that. I just had too many things to happen to believe otherwise, and that doesnt make me bow down to a skydaddy.
@MercuryRis I've yet to see examples of these phenomenon. I have read stories of children who talked about people who lived before and got 1 or 2 details right and everything else wrong. There is a story from british TV right on youtube about a kid who supposedly knew a family on some Island and when they finally went there, all kinds of details were flat out WRONG. Show me a verified case where they really do know something, then we can start from there.
@christo930 Now you're expanding atheism to mean that an atheist must be a materialist, with a number of flat-out assumptions about the nature of consciousness, etc. That makes atheism a concretely defined philosophy with positive assertions of its own that can be questioned. The point about ingroups is simple - the oil runs out, civilization reels. Religious gather in churches with a leadership structure. What do you have? A college math department?
@xinosaj Society doesn't just run around churches, but I do believe that churches do have an advantage of community. However, there are community centers, clubs and other things that function the same way. We also have what you have, family, friends and community. To think that only churches are community/social centers is just naive.
@christo930 Oh, I don't disregard it at all. That's what makes atheism so boring. It's just a bunch of traumatized fundamentalists jumping up and down claiming that there is no anthropomorphic God who's just like a big dude. Well, duh. Hard to believe that's enough to make a publishing career for 30-something perpetual grad students who've never held real jobs, like Sam Harris, or mediocre scientists whose actual scientific work is not of particular note, like Richard Dawkins.
@xinosaj You make too many assumptions. Where do you come up with this shit? I was never a fundamental Christian, I was a moderate Catholic. Richard Dawkins isn't a research scientist, he's a media guy encouraging science to the general public. I don't know too much about Harris other than he's a neuroscientist.
Justifications for concepts of god (all of them)=an appeal to emotion (which is by itself fine)
When that appeal to emotion hits the logic of reality & OTHER PEOPLE's concept of god there is a NATURAL CONFLICT...this is simply inevitable.
In order for individual to resolved this conflict (while lacking logic) one must seek the approval of others....you now have tribalism...you now are no longer a liberal, you are a fearful, angry, elitist conservative
@Hopeful71 Your putting religion into too small a box. (you said all of them) There are plenty of religious liberals, in every sense of the word. There are even very liberal Christians and Muslims. Though there do seem to be fewer of them as you get more dogmatic in your approach.
@Hopeful71 Loyalty to one's in-group is a basic human instinct and people who lack this instinct are arguably mentally ill. The only reason we have people in north America who seem to lack this instinct is because our society's managers have worked tirelessly to condition the majority against "bigotry" and "prejudice" of any stripe - even as the minorities and newcomers remain full of bigotry and prejudice. Theism is just a tendency to express the workings of the universe through the metaphor of
@xinosaj ...human will and emotion (that is, things work the way they do because of what God wills and feels). While such notions are obviously suspect (and the finer theologies of religions themselves always assert God's ineffability and transcendence, so one can question common theism as a believer as much as an unbeliever), the human instinct for in-group loyalty does not spring from theism necessarily. In fact, one can argue that Pauline Christianity was the first movement against this.
When I was a believer I accepted evolution and science. What started me on to look at the church in a more critical light was the poor treatment of gays and rejection of Scientifically Proven facts. when I looked at religions as mans way of filling in the gaps they did not know with a god or superstitious things just started to make a lot more sense.
Faith is believing in something despite fallacies and contradictions within that belief in the face of enormous support and evidence for an opposing idea.
While I understand that the demise of Christianity may seem a bad thing to you, your own video shows some of the ills of faith. Christianity is not needed for a moral nation, and the US can become a healthier place. What is there to fear from living a moral life without religion?
@archapmangcmg While you might find it easy to point out "ills of faith," you fail to consider all of the many great things that faith has brought to the world.
Faith in something bigger than yourself is enriching. Perhaps you don't believe and that is fine - but don't go on a quest to destroy other's sacred beliefs. That is not moral.
@mostlymichaelcanada There is nothing beneficial in religion that we cannot obtain as good or better elsewhere.
You say there are 'many great things that faith has brought' but don't provide any evidence of this, merely taking it ON faith that faith is a virtue, that destroying delusions or "sacred beliefs" is immoral.
@archapmangcmg 485 characters to try to prove something to you? If you seek proof, then you have no idea what faith is or what it can bring.
Sorta like Neo being shown what the Matrix...in words, impossible. Unfortunately, its something you must see to believe. Same goes for all of the amazing things that faith brings into the world.
@archapmangcmg My faith has brought me many great things and has made me very strong.
It sounds like you've got some anger issues with God. Thats cool. But really, if your looking for some proof, just open your eyes and look around you.
Even hard core athiests have used science to seek proof and they found the proof *they* were looking for. If you seek proof, then go search for it. I know not what proof would truly satisfy you.
@mostlymichaelcanada Oh please, not the 'anger issues with God' stuff. I can't be angry with something that I don't believe in. It's just a red herring.
I've looked for any rational justification to believe in God and found not one thing that does it.
Something like God showing up (I mean, if God want human love, it seems like such an *obvious* thing to do!) would be a great start towards that, as would having the universe obviously designed rather than giving the appearance of natural origin
@mostlymichaelcanada Now, you did at least offer one thing 'has made me very strong', but no details. I confess I'm curious why you'd consider faith a good thing when you can't offer up any details as to why. I am in constant contact with many strong people without faith, so again, I'm wondering:
What does faith give that nothing else does?
So far I haven't seen anything good, only the harm of gullibility, leading to religious and ideological wars and horrors enjoying popular support.
@mostlymichaelcanada "- but don't go on a quest to destroy other's sacred beliefs. That is not moral."
Uh...you do know that the 3 Abrahamic faiths (Jew, Christian, Muslim) are ALL on a "god appointed quest" to destroy everyone else's 'evil' beliefs...including each others. right? so how are these cults moral?
"Faith in something bigger than yourself is enriching."
No it's not. It's debilitating. It's a refusal to grow up and see the world for what it is - not what you wish it to be.
@TheHigherVoltage Jews don't proselytize. Just sayin'. I once thought about converting, but the process took so long, my doubting nature got the best of me.
@seeqer66 Jews DID proselytize, AND convert at sword point, it's recorded in their own histories. They aren't innocent of the genocides and forced conversions either.
Just expanding your knowledge base. Oh, and before anyone tries to claim otherwise, the one who told me of these dark spots in Jewish history was himself a Jew, correcting MY error of the time thinking the Jews were innocent of the charge.
@archapmangcmg Ummm... No you're not, and that was a very long time ago. You said, "they are". I wouldn't have considered converting, unless, I actually KNEW something about it.
@seeqer66 Also, some Jews do attempt to convert, again, personal experience contradicts your claim. I understand they're not as bad as some other groups, but that's again not to say they're innocent of the practice. TheHigherVoltage was correct before, it's mostly that the Jews today have had the proselytising beaten out of them by Christians over the last couple millennia.
I'm glad you know a little of Jewish history, at least, but to me their history would be its own major problem to converts
@archapmangcmg I've never, in my life been proselytized to by a Jew. Unless, you're talking about the "Jews for Jesus". They may be Jewish by heritage, but not by belief. They're taken about as seriously as Christians treat Fundamentalist Mormons. As far as their history is concerned, it's no better or worse than any other tribal religion of the time. It's just managed to hang on a bit longer.
@seeqer66 I've never met any of the "Jews for Jesus" for which I'm thankful, but I have met Jews that were trying to convert, from what I could tell they would have been at least mostly sticking to conventional doctrine in other matters.
It's not all Jews, but it's not none either.
And agreed, it is just a tribal religion, but we are still talking about glorifying of genocide and enforced conversion in their past without them renouncing the religion that gave them that history.
@TheHigherVoltage The only quest I see is the one where people here try to destroy other's belief's. And yet, you are the same people who say that you should have the right to free thought.
As I've always maintained, whatever your belief or lack of, we should all respect each other. If you think people with faith of any kind are retarded, then let them be. They aren't really hurting you.
@mostlymichaelcanada If you don't see the quest BY the religious to indoctrinate others, then I suggest you turn on Fox News, or hear the Pope, or open the Bible, and see for yourself the calls to spread the message. The Muslims are commanded to do so, the Christians are repeatedly required at ALL TIMES to defend and spread the faith, and so on. Respect people and ideas that have earned that respect. Some beliefs SHOULD be thrown in the trash, like racism and sexism
@mostlymichaelcanada We are hurt by their faith because of faith-based opposition to life-saving research, to rational approaches to tragic, life-changing decisions for pregnant teens, their opposition to sex ed and condom usage that spreads plagues and pain and misery.
No, we can condemn their faith when it clearly does hurt people like it is.
The problem lies at the very hart of religion, including Christianity. While Christ’s message was basically a humanitarian ideology, at the hart of the Christian myth still lies a truly revolting concept, original sin. They are all based upon authority and dishonesty regardless if the message is hidden by humanitarian sentiment or not. Choose Secular humanism instead, Leave your dogma at the door.
@ChiefMaverick515 Me, the author, takes this viewpoint - American religion is ridiculously dysfunctional. Evangelicalism is silly (although not nearly as frightening as Mormonism, traditionalist Catholicism, or other overtly theocratic and anti-democratic theisms are, which liberals and atheists would do well to note). But American atheism is nothing more than the solipsistic egotistical musings of whiny pampered Millennials who don't even realize that people who lack an in-group are dead...
@xinosaj ...meat the second things turn to sh*t, and that traditional morals aren't so easily dispensed with once you do away with an anthropomorphic God. (Sadly, it really is a bad idea to have sex with lots of people, as just one example.) My own views on spirituality are essentially a sort of negative theology, that ultimate reality is not describable. But I do think there is an ultimate reality and spiritual experience that some human beings are capable of. Hope that clears things up.
Wow, so we arelosing? Am guessing with everything going on that ends up being against Fundamentalism and the bible in the "emergent" postmodern way of seeing things betrays the same actions they accuse others of in being an imperial religion. Let me ask this, when allthose Christians in the Byzantine empire were torured and killed for their faith or the Christians sent to Rome understanding they would die-what is the big freaking deal? Peoplehate Jesus Christ and by extension hate Christians.
@daveme7 These things were prophesied by Christ in the scriptures and somehow do not think Christ gets concerned because more poeple hate Christians and by extension Christ. So now we have someone falsely accusing in a video that all conservatives followthis person or that person. I am guessing it never occurs to you that all the bad things you accuse people of is having the same exact judgmental attitude you decry?
@daveme7 Don't get me wrong. Obama is a stooge and that stuff like abortion and gay rights are just distractions to keep us from questioning our military misadventures, the take-over of America by financial elites, etc. There are principled people coming from a conservative perspective - I respect much of what Pat Buchanan's written, and Paul Craig Roberts is invaluable. My big problem with evangelicals isn't that they may lean conservative on issues - it's that they're so easily misled by....
@xinosaj ....right-wing politicians whose goals are anything but genuinely conservative (in the sense of preserving the rights in the Constitution). On doctrine, I DO criticize Dispensationalist apocalypticism and a naive literalism that dismisses science. Hey, I don't even need to get into evolution - I can disprove literalism by referring to Cosmology. Biblical literalism, if consistent, would make the sky a hard metallic dome with God literally living right on the other side. Airplane...
@xinosaj ...pilots and weathermen would be as big "deniers" of the Gospel as evolutionary biologists. Of course, you'll claim that expressions about "Heaven" and the "firmament" in the Bible are just literary figures of speech, and falsely claim that they were always understood as such, even with Luther, Calvin, and a host of others on the record stating that the earth is the center of the universe, etc. If that makes me "emergent," so be it.
So when do we take the bbleliterally? Only when Christ fulfills prophesy and it sliteral and other times no? People s[peakofliteralism as if somehow it is a bad thing to beleve God willdo what he said he would do in his word. Most understand the bible has Genre's such as parallelism and metaphors or in my favorute ideal-repetition-particularly in the same discourse is something one would understandis very important. What one figures i.e. Morrison teaching thisin his book The Genesis Record
So ascribing one persons opinion who claims to be a literalist in Christian fundamentalism does not mean all fundamentalsts agree with him. Truthfully, anytthng done to try to brng Christ sooner most of thew time would be seen as sinful and doubting the bible. So some pentacostal frui loop who also denied Christ was the Messiah does not speak for everyone. Abortion: This came from Eugenics which comes from a Theosophical ethic based on evolution. Funny howmodern postmodernism is.
Were entering a new age and Christianity is not part of it. 2000 years of damage in enough. All of us had ancestors that were either killed or forced to convert, and that time is over. All the scandals, the terror, the abuse...I had enough. Good-bye, Christianity.
@MercuryRis The new age I see is a terrible 21st century where industrial society breaks apart due to resource scarcity and we enter the 22nd with something like 2 billion people left alive on the globe. Will people turn to cults in droves? Maybe. Sadly, I don't expect the cultural left to do particularly well...survival situations don't favor homosexuals, those inclined to substance addiction, and people who generally assert their individual prerogative to screw in any way they like...
@xinosaj The new age I see is one of mass cumminication, reason, science to promote health, agricuiture cultivation to feed the masses and people's presonal relationships with their god and each other without judgement. New resouces will be discovered and ample resources will be cultivated to suit our needs. Many will die as we get there, mainly through ignorance and the lack of resources in overpopulated areas. But there will be no rapture, no jesus to save them and no apocolypse.
@xinosaj I see a different 21st century. One where people can follow their own spiritual paths and education will show that's OK. A world where science, reason, techology and medicine will m ake our lives easier, and where people wont be discriminated. A place where we can, if we choose, become enlightened. we always had drugs alcohol and deviant behavior. Yet even in humanist periods we held our morals...i.e. age of reason.
@MercuryRis That's a nice-sounding future you posit, but unfortunately it's one that's going to take a lot of juice, and we're running out of power as it is. Alt.energy just doesn't have the stuff to keep us going. Hoard guns and food and try to get your local community ready for the collapse of our current system (good luck getting folks to even face it). Maybe you can chant "om mani padme hum" as you grow potatoes. Form is emptiness, dude, and emptiness is form.
@xinosaj Ive been hearing people like you for who whole life, and Im nearly 40 now. Im also a historian and know from a historical perspective we had good and bad times, and we always persevere. If not, ill die and join the spirit world, itll happen sooner or later. You dont know the future, just like the Romans had no concept of technology, you or I hav no concept of future energy resources that will save us once discovered.
@MercuryRis Actually, I'm in my 40s, and in my early days, a blue collar man could support a family of 6 and send kids to college. Now, a blue collar man is lucky not to be in a shelter for "working poor." I used to skate on lakes that now never freeze. When an odd disaster like a hurricane happened, society could mobile and overcome it in a matter of weeks. What about now? And you - who apparently consider pandemic gender confusion and blithe denial that stupid actions like drug use and
@xinosaj Sorry, I have no idea what youre talking about. In the early days before the 1960s blue collar kids rarely went to college. Im first generation. I come from a blue collar neighborhood and they often live beyone their means...3 vehicles, swimming pool, disneyworld vacation, ARM mortgage, etc. Hurricane Camille in 69 took years to overcome, so did the 1938 hurricane.
@MercuryRis Well, wow, you must live in some fantastic alternative America - no doubt the same America where illegal immigrants make our lives better by "taking jobs we don't want," where life gets better and better every year, and our biggest problems come from having too much prosperity. I imagine that we're from alternative universes (did Al Gore win in 2000 in your world?) and that some miracle of quantum entanglement allows us to meet on UTube. Cuz in this universe, life is nothing like...
@xinosaj ..what you describe in yours. Things like the collapse of the American middle class, the rise of a depraved financial oligarchy determined to strip-mine America of all remaining value, peak oil, hurricane Katrinas, oil wars, and global warming leading to famine and water shortages across the globe are all very well documented, daily experiences. (Oh, and I live in the NE, and no, it didn't take us 60 years to overcome '38. Maybe 2.)
@xinosaj Don't think me hostile...I just can't imagine how someone can consider an America with a crumbling financial system, with nearly 20% real unemployment, the collapse of the rule of law evidenced by the gov'ts inability to reign in the corrupt finance/health industries and illegal immigration, and an unsustainable suburban infrastructure that is crumbling as we speak, etc., to be some great stride towards "tolerance and enlightenment." The alternatives I speak of aren't even worse....
@xinosaj ...they're actually better. I talk about rebuilding local communities (no more 2-hour commute or need to own a $30K machine that will only last you five years), building better homes that don't use up non-renewable resources, and living a more natural human life, as opposed to now spending all our lives sitting in traffic and being deep in debt just to do so.
@xinosaj and i dont know what you mean by gender confusion. Homosexuality has been around since the Ancient Greeks and were often killed for it over the centuries. The Nazi's branded them with a purple triangle. Pandemic gender confusion? Isnt that a little extreme?
@MercuryRis As a slam of American pop-culture lunacy, no, not really - don't get me wrong, I'm a centrist democrat. I just wish progressives were more concerned with things like establishing good public transportation and health care reform that works, and less with risible sideshows like "Gay marriage," as if all the feigned moral outrage in the world can somehow change the hard physical reality that LGBT tendencies are just maladaptive evolutionary byproducts.
@xinosaj Oh, and it's fair to point out that "homosexuality" as you conceive it isn't attested to in ancient writings - what is attested to is either a) bisexual behavior that's really more about social dominance than sexuality (as in Rome), or b) people crossing traditional gender roles in tribal societies, in the context of shamanistic spiritual beliefs (such as the Berdaches). Homosexual "orientation" between "egalitarian" partners is a modern conceit.
@xinosaj Actually that's not entirely true. Two Greek Polis, Thebes and Cortinth, I believe, were very liberal about homosexuality and allowed it in their armies. They beleived it made a better army and it never did harm morale. Many cultures in the ancient world were accepting of it, and not in the guise of pediphilia. The Greeks married because unmarried man were taxed heavily.
@MercuryRis My Age of Aquarius friend, I think you're making the mistake of interpreting the past in light of the present. Now we have this concept of "sexual orientation," which is just a pseudo-scientific artifact of our culture's obsession with "personal identity," and reading it into the past, interpreting incidents of past behavior that were understood very differently in their own day according to your modern notions.
@xinosaj And we're right where we're supposed to be, and like the past shaping the present, this will shape our future. Its human cultural evolution, and I do believe we're seeing the signs of a new age, yes. And I understand historiography and know theinfluences happening to shape ancient cultures, my point is they knew and understood same sex. Its not a new phenomenon.
@xinosaj ...early sexual experimentation have dire consequences as signs of growing societal "enlightenment" and "tolerance" - think that America is getting better? Well, I don't see it. Of course, you could find some great new energy source, and I hope you do. But you're already way behind - we're well into the economic collapse already, propped up only with funny money counterfeited by the government. That's what galls me about optimists - when the bad thing is ALREADY here, no point in denial
@MercuryRis what do you have against jesus? what did he ever do to you that makes you dislike christianity? Roman Catholics were responsible for the crusade and all the murders in the past and if you do some reasearch you will discover that Roman Catholicism is not true christianity but rather a heresy. true christians follow the commandments and humble themselves like Jesus. this generation is so fucked up. Look at all the disgusting movies and video games that are easily accessable to our kids
@idiomas123ify Its not Jesus, its his followers. You want to see fucked up? look at what they did. They wiped out philosophy math and science until the Renaissance, killed people from the 3rd century on, then came over here and wiped out the American Indians, brought over slaves, burned and hanged women as witches and preach from the pulpits about peace nowadays? Its ALL bullshit coming from a sick, twisted murderous father god who gets off on eternal torture. THAT's disgusting.
@MercuryRis I might add many of these events were caused by self-righteous Protestants, such as the Salem Witch Trials and the genocide of the Pequot Indians, with passages taken right fom the Bible. THEN to add insult to injury Christians have the nerve to preach hell and justify THEIR sins because theyre "saved" beacuse its faith, not works. The religion is dying, and I say let it.
@MercuryRis You must have not read everything that I wrote because i clearly stated that the Roman Catholics were responsible for the crusade and the murders in america. true christians do NOT murder, do NOT enslave. True christians Love thy neighbor as thyself. True christians follow the commandments as I previously stated. Roman catholics are psuedo-christians especiallt the ones of the past. I highly suggest that you read the bible so you have a better understanding of the truth.
@idiomas123ify And to this I say bullshit. iRead YOUR bible because youre ignorant, and on top of that read your history. Hosea=ripping babies from wombs, sanctioned by YOUR god. Genocide, rape, slavery, Jesus never spoke against slavery. Your beloved Bible is based on a Catholic meeting with the Roman emperor in 312 called Nicea.
@idiomas123ify Stop blaming the Catholics for your sins. Im not talking about the Cursades at all. How about Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell, Salem Witch Hunts, John Major's slaughter of the Pequots...if you knew any history at all youd know none of these events were Catholic inspired. Christians kill and its not under the umbrella of the pope.
@MercuryRis True Christians do NOT murder! If they did murder then they were never truely Christians. Christianity nor Jesus murdered Witches...but rather people did....That was their decision...if they had understood the commandments then they would have never done those things. Stop blaming the religion of christianity for acts that were completely based on the free will of others. Christianity brings me Love, happiness, truth, morals, and hope. Amen to you brother I will pray for you.
@idiomas123ify Now just hold on here. Why are you to say they are or are not Christians? According to you Christians, faith is the only component and works and actions do not matter. Manyn of the people mentioned have killed because of their FAITH in Jesus and God. Have you not read the Old Testament? GOD instructs them to kill. Read Exodus, Leviticus, and Hosea. The religion is based on bloodshed. Would YOU sacrifice your child to god if he asked you to?
@MercuryRis According to me a TRUE christian is one who loves and accepts Jesus as lord and saviour and obeys the commandments. Both are required. christians did not kill the caninites..The jews did. They killed them because God said so and by the way the caninites were evil people that were in the way of Gods mission. Sometimes evil is necessary but in turn something good is a result of it. Lol your last question is a clever one of you athiests. I will answer it though.
@idiomas123ify Gods the father and god the son are both God. By the way, your Christians are so ignorant. Just because I dont follow YOUR god doesnt make me an atheist. You just did the exact same thing that pisses you off. You lumped me with the atheists, as I lumped murderers in with you Christians. Fine, you think Im an atheist, i think all the people I mentioned are Christians.
@idiomas123ify I cant tell you what I am, but I can tell you what I believe. There is a god, but he set the ball rolling. There are advanced beings that help us on the way, and we are judged by how we treat each other and this world. We were given minds to learn and expand and love and grow, and when we die, we evolve if we did well, devolve if we dont, by our own actions...
@MercuryRis So you are an agnostic?...and yeah advanced beings such as " aliens" or angels? Your belief is semi-biblical but it seems that you can't swallow the idea of Jesus being lord and saviour...Is there any written record of where you get your ideas?
@idiomas123ify You see, there were about 50 messaihs at the time. He was just one of the bunch. There's no evidence he did what he did, or if he even walked the earth. AND there are inconsisitances on the gospels, AND historically I understand why early Christians even wrote the scriptures, about 100 years after the "resurrection" I might add. Jesus did nothing new, original or great....
@MercuryRis Add to this Rome wanted a monotheistic religion to streamline the empire because the current pantheons were becoming too eclectic. There were three contenders: Christianity, Mithraism, and the Cult of Sol, mainly Apollo. They all had a huge amount of followers. Mithraism almost won, but Christianity adapted the attributes of both the other religions to appease the three groups, and ultimatelu please the emperor.
@MercuryRis The only reason why you, be and all of us arent preaching about Mithra or Apollo is because Constantine needed the Christians to helped defend the sacked empire, eliminate the Capitoline triad and continue his legacy. Christianity, in other words was part of a giane re-org.
@MercuryRis This is why the images of Jesus to this day are actually renditions of Zeus and Apollo. Other attributes were added to add to the "messiah" i.e. the Virgin birth. he was one of about 70 virgin births. He was not the first to die for our sins, not the first to persorm miracles and not the first to promote monotheism. And the early Christians were very, very different from you lil buddy...
@idiomas123ify No, but Christians, instructed by God, according to them, slaughtered the early Greeks in their own temples, wiped out matheatics, science, philosophy, etc. Now we know God, according to the bible instructed people to do this before, who are you to say God didnt sanction all the brutal murders. Dont dare ignore the Father...
@MercuryRis I would sadly kill my son if God told me to but before I did I would inquire and make absolutely sure that it was God that was telling me to do this. God really didn't want Abrahams son to be murdered..He was merely testing Abrahams loyalty to him and it turned out that God stoped him from doing it. He passed the test! God works in mysterious ways my friend. Just have some faith.
@idiomas123ify I would never, ever kill my child for a god. And what about Jepta's daughter? You guys are always to quick to point out Abraham, what about Jepta?
@MercuryRis We are suppose to love God above all others. So...you love your daughter more than God the father who created the both of you? By not sacrificing your child you disobey God and fail the test.
@idiomas123ify Yes!! why the heck would i EVER love a god that instructed me to do that?? test or not!? Yes, I would disobey god! why is that so hard for you to believe? See how awful this is? the commandment says not to kill, then he breaks the commandement and instructs murder. And why all the tests? Is this god that insecure? I would die before i murdered by child because at least then i die the way a father should. Too bad people cant realize what an egotistical sick god this is.
@MercuryRis The child would be with god in heaven a place far far far! better than earth. Life is a test my friend we have to earn our way to heaven. God can break the commandments because the commandments are not meant for him they are meant for us humans therefore they do not apply to him.
@idiomas123ify Well then why not murder them all? Andrea Yates drowned her 5 kids exactly for that reason...they were killed before the age of accountability. And again, she prayed and read it from scripture.
My understanding of the truth is 500% better than yours. I have rtead the Bible and for your information, my Bachelors is in late antiquity so I know what happened then. Try looking for the truth. Your religion is a lie to control the masses, and for you it worked.
Also, here are a few thoughts in response to this video:
1) I agree wholeheartedly that the Religious Right has done more harm than good to the perception of Christians in the U.S.
2) But I think we need to be careful not to become cynics. I think a lot of good things are happening, and there ARE older people who "get it." Let's not make the same mistake of the 60s and marginalize our elders by lumping them all together. This isn't, as I'm sure you know, about "young vs. old."
United States of America was never a Christian state, neither Protestant, nor Catholic. The United States Declaration of Independence based upon not religious ideas (Thomas Jefferson was an Atheist), but based upon the paradigm of Liberalism, and the United States of America of Slavery was also not a "Christian" federation...
In fact, US never was a religious state, it's a really stupid idea...
In America, we allow people to hold their religious beliefs free from government interference. The "post-Christian" label is used by our academics to describe the the attitude of the common person in the street, not the attitude of the government. Since Hungary is in the heart of eastern Europe, aren't most of you people hard atheists, anyway? Wikipedia shows you have the same percentage of self-proclaimed atheists as the US.
When were the American citizens "Christian"? Never. In the Middle of 60s, Blacks were denied from traffic by Whites, in 70s, American hippies declared their "sexual revolution" and so on. You were never Christians, my brethren...
Additionally, Hungary is a really post-Christian state, because our Ancient State in Medieval Age based upon pure Catholic laws and traditions. Traditionally we are Regnum Marianum (the "country of Mary The Virgin").
This vid's purely American in perspective and orientation, and you're not using the terms as they are commonly understood here. But for what's it's worth, I just Wikipedia'd Hungarian history, and read about how you persecuted Jews, were allied with Hitler, hosted the Inquisition, and had all kinds of wars and uprisings. Not worse than many other nations, perhaps, but certainly nothing to boast about.
Then you are using commonly wrong terms about this question, because a Christian Society feeds upon Christian culture, law and other Social standards. United States was a Liberal Country from the beginning without any religious attitude, and Liberalism was neither a Christian, nor religious ideology. Therefore, you are using wrong terms when you are talking about "post-Christian" America, because you were never Christians.
So you hate America because we let people worship as they wanted rather than torturing them if they didn't embrace the Catholic faith, and you hate our constitution because it doesn't tell us to kill Jews. Nice to know. I'm going to donate $5000 to an evangelical Hungarian mission right now to ensure that your young people get Bibles and missionaries to ensure they grow out of such fascist, inhuman, and frankly demonic notions.
Unlike Yankees, Hungarians are not descendants of robbers and murderers. Unlike your ancestors, we have never killed neither Jews, nor other peoples only for their origin, and our ancestors had doesn't maintained Slaves from Red and Black men. Our kind was never a killer, and we have never wiped out full tribes Red Indians. Additionally, we are not building an empire from flesh and bones of innocents, especially at Middle East.
Although Hungary was really an ally of Hitler's Reich, this alliance was a necessity for the cause of economical crisis. Until Hungary's German occupation, Jews were never persecuted, except some minor laws. I know the history of my nation and I'm really ready to debate it with you, but please read some other texts about this theme. Wikipedia is not a credible source for debating historical terms.
Thanks for your offering for a "donation", but you should turn into your mind before it's too late. Take a look at your heart and let you clean yourself from dirts of sin!
Much of what has passed itself off as "Christianity" in America has become the ruin of spirituality for a generation--and an embarrassment to sincere seekers everywhere.
As harsh as that sounds, it is also a disturbingly charitable assessment, unfortunately.
The blind have been leading the blind--and both have fallen into a pit.
I respect and appreciate your encouragement to young Christians to be good examples to the world, but here's the issue - you aren't showing Christ by doing so, you're showing humanity.
And while I don't want to discourage you from helping others, I do hope that no one concludes from your behavior that the underlying supernatural beliefs have any truth to them.
Compassion and generosity are wonderful, but if you want us to believe, then you really just need to produce some evidence.
If you think taking a stand against abortion and sexual immorality makes you a right wing fanatic that is destroying the world, then you are just another victim of the economy of evil.
Was this supposed to have sound ?
ubersteigen 4 months ago
@mbaren58 No Protestant - indeed, no person - denies that Peter, Paul, John & co. delivered oral sermons. The question is, what is the only "canonical" record of the substance of what they taught? Obviously, it's just the written word. There is no preserved "oral" tradition in the RCC, aside from a corpus of evolving theological thought that's clearly developed greatly over time - even within our own short lifetimes. There are no extra-biblical words of Jesus that you've preserved, none at all.
xinosaj 7 months ago
@mbaren58 It isn't a ? of which "tradition" has supreme authority - the ? is whether this "tradition" even exists. If you can't recite a pure, preserved oral tradition, then it doesn't exist. An oral tradition is exactly that - a discrete body of knowledge that has been preserved and passed along mouth-to-mouth. It's obvious that no such thing exists in the Catholic Church.
xinosaj 7 months ago
@mbaren58 Those vids were out for 2 years, and it'd been months since a single commentator posted anything that hadn't been said 1000X before. I'm too busy to answer the same crap repeatedly. I never removed a single comment, except those with profanities. Unlike your guys - OneTrueChurch, SteveSilva, etc. These dudes remove comments they can't refute and block users who are smarter than them. That's what religious fanaticism depends upon.
xinosaj 7 months ago
Ive been in the Church you see in the beginning,it is in Fells point Baltimore.
xxzerawriotxx 10 months ago
We can only hope that atheism continues to grow and that young people reject their Christian indoctrination. The more churches that close, the better.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 The trouble with atheism, at least in America, is that you think that tried-and-true ideas like "you shouldn't have sex with everyone you meet" and "drugs are bad for you" are just superstitions that theists randomly invented to placate their deity. Of course, I hate to stereotype anyone - but studies do show this assertion to statistically true (i.e., that atheists are less moral in terms of sex partners, drug use, etc.). Of course, you'll assert that such things aren't immoral.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj So all I can say is, have at it and let me know how it goes.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj I don't know where you get your statistics, but they are wrong. Atheists are under-represented in crime, committing less than 1% of crime while being over 10% of the population. Evangelical Christians have more teen pregnancy than atheists, more abortions, higher rate of divorce, higher crime rate, higher poverty rate, lower educational rate and on and on. You just automatically assume the stuff you say because it makes sense in your head, but there is nothing to back it up.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 I said drugs and sex partners. Plenty of research exists on that. You generally use that as an atheist selling point! In regards to crime...atheists tend to hail from elite circles that benefit from American institutions that are essentially organized crime (ie, Wall Street), so street crime is not necessary. What evangelicals do doesn't change that Dawkins-Harris types are a silly bunch themselves.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj You're saying it, but you have no evidence let alone proof. If there is "plenty of research" you should have no problem finding this information and passing it on (Discovery institute studies don't count). I don't know what makes you think Wall St is loaded up with atheists. Atheism has a correlation with education, that is the more educated somebody is, the more likely they are to be an atheist. Atheists tend to be most concentrated in the sciences, not finance.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Google "atheists are immoral" and read the 2nd search result to get started. There are also some books on cognitive psychology that find that the religious suffer from more obsessional thoughts but that atheists are more likely to break rules. But why do I even need to point this out, when just about any atheist blog (like, say, Greta Christina's) makes those exact points as selling points for atheism? I'm just repeating your own maxims to you.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj About the other stuff - atheists hold the top positions in finance. This is anecdotal, but it's very true. 2nd, most folks in sciences come from well-off families (or else they're rediscovering prayer in desperation over how to pay for those $100K loan bills), and sadly, most well-off families got that way by screwing other people, since well over 90% of rich people by exploiting others, whether it's through renting, parasitic investment vehicles, etc. Not many get rich thru work.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj And it's also doubtful that atheists fare so well in the crime dept, either, or the marriage dept. For starters, many atheists cohabitate and never marry (so no divorce), or are young. Also, while atheism *technically* is a mere lack of theism, in America it really means an adherence to a coherent philosophy best called "scientific materialism," which only a person with good educational opportunities will ever hear of. The "practical atheists" in poor circumstances are unlikely to...
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...self-identify with an ontological theory about physical matter - and as your own apologists like to claim, a far larger slice of the population are "practical atheists." I can hardly think I've erred by simply repeating what Greta Christina says about the joys of atheism - that it opens the door to all sorts of liberating bisexual escapades - with a different take on where it leads.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj What in the world is a practical atheist? You may find this hard to believe, but there are no atheist leaders, we are not a coherent group. I don't even know who this person you are talking about is. Instead of going what you think you work out in your head, try doing some real research. Google search terms like "atheists are immoral" don't tend to bring up unbiased results. Why not search on good without god?
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 A practical atheist is someone who simply doesn't live in any way influenced by belief in god, whether this person consciously denies the existence of god or not. Hey, if you're just a loner with no in-group of any kind, that's not an issue of any particular concern - you can live that way cuz of unique historical circumstances that won't last much longer. Do and think whatever you like. But just don't complain when you're vastly outnumbered by others.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj So how does someone live who believes in a god versus someone who doesn't? Are all gods equal? Do all people who believe in any god live in a certain way that is different and or better than someone who just takes your atheism one step further and rejects YOUR god?
I never said I was a loner, I said that atheists aren't a coherent group anymore than blonds aren't a coherent group.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 There are various kinds of theists, and probably most - overwhelmingly most - think they need to live in a certain way cuz their god is watching. Others live in a certain way cuz they note that reality tends to remove those who don't. I have no doubts that atheists have the intellectual ability to note that things like promiscuity and addiction have bad ends. But they tend to have to learn the hard way.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj Again,where do you come up with this stuff? How can you possibly just spout this stuff out? What in the world makes you think that atheists don't marry or are all young? Who tells you this shit?
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 According to stats, evangelical Christians have a 27% divorce rate, and atheists 24% - within the realm of statical error. And yet you cite it - from Barna, the pollster you dismiss in regards to atheist morality. I know many, many cohabitating atheists, and the same Barna stats show atheists are mostly young. Can't have it both ways, dude. Can't cite Barna to zing believers but diss him when he zings you.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj I haven't cited anyone.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj Where do you come up with this stuff? Most wealthy people come from modest backgrounds despite what you might think. How is renting out a property or apartment morally wrong or parasitic? You want to talk parasitic, let's talk about faith healers and televangelists and even local preachers who are far more wealthy than anyone in their congregation.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Again, what fundamentalists do has no bearing on whether you're silly or not in your own terms. Societies of all stripes contain injustices and exploitive practices that allow some to skim off the productive work of others. Renting, mortgages, and investment vehicles that let you take endless dividends out of a company's productive output, no matter how many times you've been repaid, are practices in our society that funnel wealth upwards into the fewer and fewer hands. Since those..
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...who benefit from these institutions almost invariably see to it that their children get better educations, utilizing their wealth, the highly-educated "atheists" you speak of are the product of these families' success. People from such backgrounds have no need to engage in high-risk violent crime. But, since a poor person with no interest in spirituality is unlikely to identify with an abstraction like "atheist," it's doubtful the claim about crime is even meaningful.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj What in the world makes you think that wealthy people don't commit violent crimes? Property crimes would probably be higher in the poor, but not overall violent crime. People of all stripes are violent. YOU are the one claiming atheists have no morals and have nothing to back it up.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj So you get to write off criminals and just say they aren't part of your ideas? So where are people supposed to live if they can't rent and nobody can give out mortgages? Where are you going to live while you save up the money to buy a house outright? I wish you could see how crazy some of thing you say are.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 No, I never said that criminals aren't part of my view. You made the claim that atheists are more moral and educated than religious people, and used some 2nd-hand stats that source to George Barna, even if you don't realize it, to make the point. I merely pointed out that 1) "atheism" in typical American usage refers not to mere lack of belief, but a very concretely-defined philosophy with all sorts of positive assertions about reason, matter, etc. An uneducated person wouldn't...
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...even be able to cite the rudiments of this philosophy, let alone identify with it - thus the term "atheism" is self-selecting for the highly educated. If we used the old-fashioned category of "godless," lumping both the highly educated atheist and the uneducated god-apathetic in the same category, it's highly doubtful there'd be any moral advantage for the non-believer, if not a pronounced disadvantage. 2) Highly educated people tend to benefit from society's institutions...
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...and society's institutions, for good or ill, tend to funnel wealth upwards. Hey, the rich themselves (like that guy who wrote "Rich Dad Poor Dad") say that the way to get rich is find ways to make others work for you while you just draw a passive income. Those who are in society's in-group have no need to take the high risks associated with petty crime. 3) The atheist "moral advantage" is questionable when you realize that atheists just dismiss whole moral categories as irrelevant...
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...For example, atheists claim homosexuality is OK and religious are immoral for thinking otherwise. Barna stats seem to bear this out. And as an added note, the spokesmen of the new atheism, like Harris and Hitchins, have the same policy ideas as John Hagee, a genocidal pentecostalist who wants to annihilate Muslims for Israel. If the supposed best atheists say the same things as the arguably worst Christian, then what's the benefit besides guilt-free extramarital sex?
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj Much of that upward funneling is through the church. Just look at the catholic church for one example.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj Yes you did.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj Are you insane? godandscience org? There's a real unbiased place to get information about what atheists think and do. Atheists have only 1 thing in common, a lack of belief in a god or gods, nothing more.You really misunderstand what atheism means and you forget that most atheists were raised religious.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Infidels.org or Greta Christina's blog aren't exactly beacons of glimmering sanity, either, Christos. As a point of fact, the godandscience article links to a Barna poll, and while Barna does come from a theistic point of view, you happily quote Barna's stats about evangelical misbehavior when you like, so you may as well take Barna's assessment of atheists, as well. The whole "atheists are just non-believers" ruse is just a way you guys dodge discussing yourselves.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj So now you are lumping me in with religious people? I haven't quoted a single thing and I certainly haven't referenced anything from Greta Christiana's blog or infidels.org No matter what you WANT to think, atheist ARE simply non believers with no other meaningful ties.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 I'm open to the idea that you're an animist who thinks ghosts live in rocks. If atheists are mere non-believers in deities, then such people are "atheists" too. I don't believe in an anthropomorphic god. I don't argue whether there's an ultimate reality that's indescribable; how does one argue that? But 99.99% of the time, "atheist" describes a belief system that all reality is physical matter, all knowledge is scientific, and reason will save the day. Those are positive assertions.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj Exactly. We aren't a coherent group. But if someone believes that ghosts live in rocks, then they can't be an atheist because atheists don't believe in ghosts because we don't believe in an afterlife.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 You see, now you've expanded "Atheism" from those who don't believe in gods to those who effectually believe that all reality is physical matter. It's just a rhetorical trick that "atheism" isn't a distinct philosophy without positive assertions. It's possible to phrase atheism in entirely positive terms - 1. All reality is physical matter, 2. Reason proceeding from materialist assumptions is the root to all knowledge, including moral, 3. People must be freed from superstition.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj The reason why I don't particularly respect atheists is because assumption 1 is far from being proven, or even being provable, assumption 2 is just not true, since our minds aren't adapted to knowing enough variables and their effects to make such determinations and morality always tends to rest on unprovable assumptions when you get down to it, and assumption 3 is debatable since various religious tend to outbreed the atheists.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj I do not make assertions and I DO NOT assert that no gods exist. I certainly can't prove that no gods exist. OTOH, I can show that the bible and other holy books are loaded with inaccuracies and outright mistakes and falsehoods.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Actually, a "god" of some type is almost certain to exist. Gods like Zeus or the Mormon "heavenly father" are nothing more than humanoid beings with vast powers. Most atheists cite M theory as a metaphysical justification for atheism, believing that all possibilities, however remote, simply happen in an infinite multiverse. But a humanoid being more powerful than us is almost certainly possible, which means a being that can meet some definition of "god" is almost certain.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj Also, it seems certainly possible that a brane in M space could attain unified self-consciousness, which means that a vastly powerful and incomprehensible god - something akin to Shiva, Yahweh, or Allah - must exist. So the little gods - Zeus, Mormon Elohim, and Thor - might have reasonable analogs, and the capital "G" Gods are apt to have something akin to themselves as well. Maybe all gods exist.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj You have absolutely no evidence of any of this or a reason to think it. String theory is way too early and we have no real evidence that it's valid. There is absolutely no reason to believe that any god like Shiva or Yahweh (Allah is Yahweh) exists and if they did exist, by definition they would be outside of the universe.
Anyway, none of this matters because your video isn't about nuanced views of god(s), they are about religion.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj I guess if you want to label an alien civilization that is more advanced that we are "gods" then it's possible. But even if they exist (for which there is no evidence), they most certainly don't even know we are here any more than we know they are there. Most people who believe in a god, believe in a personal god or a deist god, both of whom created the universe supernaturally.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj You misunderstood me. Atheists don't believe in ghosts of people, but they can still believe in other spirits, just not a human afterlife. If you believe in a human afterlife, you aren't an atheist. There might be exceptions to that rule (every rule has exceptions).
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Interesting concept, but I disagree. Ya see there is some evidence (near death experiences, past-life regression, paranormal activity) that tend to lean towards an afterlife, but I dont see the evidence of an old white bachelor in the shy sitting on his throne with his son who is him along with a bird.
MercuryRis 8 months ago
@MercuryRis Near death experiences are pretty well understood and can be induced by magnets and g-forces. THere is no evidence of paranormal activity or past-life regression. But as soon as there is evidence for these things, you can sign me up.
christo930 8 months ago
@christo930 I used to think that. Yet I totally understand your opinion. But how do you explain American toddlers speaking Sumerian or a sex year old knowing the exact anatomy of a WWII plane withour even seeing one? I know you have your rational explanation and I respect that. I just had too many things to happen to believe otherwise, and that doesnt make me bow down to a skydaddy.
MercuryRis 8 months ago
@MercuryRis I've yet to see examples of these phenomenon. I have read stories of children who talked about people who lived before and got 1 or 2 details right and everything else wrong. There is a story from british TV right on youtube about a kid who supposedly knew a family on some Island and when they finally went there, all kinds of details were flat out WRONG. Show me a verified case where they really do know something, then we can start from there.
christo930 8 months ago
@christo930 Now you're expanding atheism to mean that an atheist must be a materialist, with a number of flat-out assumptions about the nature of consciousness, etc. That makes atheism a concretely defined philosophy with positive assertions of its own that can be questioned. The point about ingroups is simple - the oil runs out, civilization reels. Religious gather in churches with a leadership structure. What do you have? A college math department?
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj No I am not. Atheists are people who don't believe in a god or gods. Most atheists are materialists, but like I said before, it's not 100%.
christo930 11 months ago
@xinosaj Society doesn't just run around churches, but I do believe that churches do have an advantage of community. However, there are community centers, clubs and other things that function the same way. We also have what you have, family, friends and community. To think that only churches are community/social centers is just naive.
christo930 11 months ago
@christo930 Oh, I don't disregard it at all. That's what makes atheism so boring. It's just a bunch of traumatized fundamentalists jumping up and down claiming that there is no anthropomorphic God who's just like a big dude. Well, duh. Hard to believe that's enough to make a publishing career for 30-something perpetual grad students who've never held real jobs, like Sam Harris, or mediocre scientists whose actual scientific work is not of particular note, like Richard Dawkins.
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj You make too many assumptions. Where do you come up with this shit? I was never a fundamental Christian, I was a moderate Catholic. Richard Dawkins isn't a research scientist, he's a media guy encouraging science to the general public. I don't know too much about Harris other than he's a neuroscientist.
christo930 11 months ago
based on title alone. iam glad we are entering a post-christian era. people are catching on to the fairy tales of old.
flpete 11 months ago
Justifications for concepts of god (all of them)=an appeal to emotion (which is by itself fine)
When that appeal to emotion hits the logic of reality & OTHER PEOPLE's concept of god there is a NATURAL CONFLICT...this is simply inevitable.
In order for individual to resolved this conflict (while lacking logic) one must seek the approval of others....you now have tribalism...you now are no longer a liberal, you are a fearful, angry, elitist conservative
Religion does not mix with liberal
Hopeful71 11 months ago
@Hopeful71 Your putting religion into too small a box. (you said all of them) There are plenty of religious liberals, in every sense of the word. There are even very liberal Christians and Muslims. Though there do seem to be fewer of them as you get more dogmatic in your approach.
seeqer66 11 months ago
@Hopeful71 Loyalty to one's in-group is a basic human instinct and people who lack this instinct are arguably mentally ill. The only reason we have people in north America who seem to lack this instinct is because our society's managers have worked tirelessly to condition the majority against "bigotry" and "prejudice" of any stripe - even as the minorities and newcomers remain full of bigotry and prejudice. Theism is just a tendency to express the workings of the universe through the metaphor of
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...human will and emotion (that is, things work the way they do because of what God wills and feels). While such notions are obviously suspect (and the finer theologies of religions themselves always assert God's ineffability and transcendence, so one can question common theism as a believer as much as an unbeliever), the human instinct for in-group loyalty does not spring from theism necessarily. In fact, one can argue that Pauline Christianity was the first movement against this.
xinosaj 11 months ago
Christianity is Killing America
tytlyf 11 months ago
It's not quite here yet, but I am eagerly awaiting the day that the US becomes a post-Christian nation.
Reed2win 11 months ago 2
God is dead and christians are the ones who slew him. I say good riddance to bad rubbish.
DeimosSaturn 11 months ago
When I was a believer I accepted evolution and science. What started me on to look at the church in a more critical light was the poor treatment of gays and rejection of Scientifically Proven facts. when I looked at religions as mans way of filling in the gaps they did not know with a god or superstitious things just started to make a lot more sense.
666nonbeliever 11 months ago
Yes, I urge all younger Christians to understand how stupid and silly all religions of the world are, including the one you follow now.
Futureplanet 11 months ago 2
Faith is believing in something despite fallacies and contradictions within that belief in the face of enormous support and evidence for an opposing idea.
underballbutter 11 months ago
Finally...This country was founded on freedom from religion. Let's get back there before these priest fuck up all our children.
kurtcochran 11 months ago
While I understand that the demise of Christianity may seem a bad thing to you, your own video shows some of the ills of faith. Christianity is not needed for a moral nation, and the US can become a healthier place. What is there to fear from living a moral life without religion?
Take care, and good luck with thinking through.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@archapmangcmg While you might find it easy to point out "ills of faith," you fail to consider all of the many great things that faith has brought to the world.
Faith in something bigger than yourself is enriching. Perhaps you don't believe and that is fine - but don't go on a quest to destroy other's sacred beliefs. That is not moral.
mostlymichaelcanada 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada There is nothing beneficial in religion that we cannot obtain as good or better elsewhere.
You say there are 'many great things that faith has brought' but don't provide any evidence of this, merely taking it ON faith that faith is a virtue, that destroying delusions or "sacred beliefs" is immoral.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@archapmangcmg 485 characters to try to prove something to you? If you seek proof, then you have no idea what faith is or what it can bring.
Sorta like Neo being shown what the Matrix...in words, impossible. Unfortunately, its something you must see to believe. Same goes for all of the amazing things that faith brings into the world.
mostlymichaelcanada 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada Hey, you can prove things in 485 characters, or over repeated comments, or link to a site, or send a pm.
Now, what things can you name that faith brings that nothing else does, and is a good thing?
If you can't prove it, can't even name it, then you can't know it's even real, and we CAN call you on your delusions.
Proof is good, but is faith any good at all? Why should I want anyone to have faith?
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@archapmangcmg My faith has brought me many great things and has made me very strong.
It sounds like you've got some anger issues with God. Thats cool. But really, if your looking for some proof, just open your eyes and look around you.
Even hard core athiests have used science to seek proof and they found the proof *they* were looking for. If you seek proof, then go search for it. I know not what proof would truly satisfy you.
Good day.
mostlymichaelcanada 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada Oh please, not the 'anger issues with God' stuff. I can't be angry with something that I don't believe in. It's just a red herring.
I've looked for any rational justification to believe in God and found not one thing that does it.
Something like God showing up (I mean, if God want human love, it seems like such an *obvious* thing to do!) would be a great start towards that, as would having the universe obviously designed rather than giving the appearance of natural origin
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada Now, you did at least offer one thing 'has made me very strong', but no details. I confess I'm curious why you'd consider faith a good thing when you can't offer up any details as to why. I am in constant contact with many strong people without faith, so again, I'm wondering:
What does faith give that nothing else does?
So far I haven't seen anything good, only the harm of gullibility, leading to religious and ideological wars and horrors enjoying popular support.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada "- but don't go on a quest to destroy other's sacred beliefs. That is not moral."
Uh...you do know that the 3 Abrahamic faiths (Jew, Christian, Muslim) are ALL on a "god appointed quest" to destroy everyone else's 'evil' beliefs...including each others. right? so how are these cults moral?
"Faith in something bigger than yourself is enriching."
No it's not. It's debilitating. It's a refusal to grow up and see the world for what it is - not what you wish it to be.
TheHigherVoltage 11 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage Jews don't proselytize. Just sayin'. I once thought about converting, but the process took so long, my doubting nature got the best of me.
seeqer66 11 months ago
@seeqer66 Jews DID proselytize, AND convert at sword point, it's recorded in their own histories. They aren't innocent of the genocides and forced conversions either.
Just expanding your knowledge base. Oh, and before anyone tries to claim otherwise, the one who told me of these dark spots in Jewish history was himself a Jew, correcting MY error of the time thinking the Jews were innocent of the charge.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@archapmangcmg Ummm... No you're not, and that was a very long time ago. You said, "they are". I wouldn't have considered converting, unless, I actually KNEW something about it.
seeqer66 11 months ago
@seeqer66 Also, some Jews do attempt to convert, again, personal experience contradicts your claim. I understand they're not as bad as some other groups, but that's again not to say they're innocent of the practice. TheHigherVoltage was correct before, it's mostly that the Jews today have had the proselytising beaten out of them by Christians over the last couple millennia.
I'm glad you know a little of Jewish history, at least, but to me their history would be its own major problem to converts
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@archapmangcmg I've never, in my life been proselytized to by a Jew. Unless, you're talking about the "Jews for Jesus". They may be Jewish by heritage, but not by belief. They're taken about as seriously as Christians treat Fundamentalist Mormons. As far as their history is concerned, it's no better or worse than any other tribal religion of the time. It's just managed to hang on a bit longer.
seeqer66 11 months ago
@seeqer66 I've never met any of the "Jews for Jesus" for which I'm thankful, but I have met Jews that were trying to convert, from what I could tell they would have been at least mostly sticking to conventional doctrine in other matters.
It's not all Jews, but it's not none either.
And agreed, it is just a tribal religion, but we are still talking about glorifying of genocide and enforced conversion in their past without them renouncing the religion that gave them that history.
Take care.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage The only quest I see is the one where people here try to destroy other's belief's. And yet, you are the same people who say that you should have the right to free thought.
As I've always maintained, whatever your belief or lack of, we should all respect each other. If you think people with faith of any kind are retarded, then let them be. They aren't really hurting you.
mostlymichaelcanada 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada If you don't see the quest BY the religious to indoctrinate others, then I suggest you turn on Fox News, or hear the Pope, or open the Bible, and see for yourself the calls to spread the message. The Muslims are commanded to do so, the Christians are repeatedly required at ALL TIMES to defend and spread the faith, and so on. Respect people and ideas that have earned that respect. Some beliefs SHOULD be thrown in the trash, like racism and sexism
And their faith hurts us all
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada We are hurt by their faith because of faith-based opposition to life-saving research, to rational approaches to tragic, life-changing decisions for pregnant teens, their opposition to sex ed and condom usage that spreads plagues and pain and misery.
No, we can condemn their faith when it clearly does hurt people like it is.
archapmangcmg 11 months ago
@mostlymichaelcanada "If you think people with faith of any kind are retarded, then let them be. They aren't really hurting you."
The ones that don't affect my life, I leave alone. The ones that affect my life - I confront their bullshit.
Anyone's right to swing their fists - ends at the tip of my nose and at the edge of my wallet.
TheHigherVoltage 11 months ago
The problem lies at the very hart of religion, including Christianity. While Christ’s message was basically a humanitarian ideology, at the hart of the Christian myth still lies a truly revolting concept, original sin. They are all based upon authority and dishonesty regardless if the message is hidden by humanitarian sentiment or not. Choose Secular humanism instead, Leave your dogma at the door.
aaronzvz 11 months ago
what side is this video taking?
ChiefMaverick515 11 months ago
@ChiefMaverick515 Me, the author, takes this viewpoint - American religion is ridiculously dysfunctional. Evangelicalism is silly (although not nearly as frightening as Mormonism, traditionalist Catholicism, or other overtly theocratic and anti-democratic theisms are, which liberals and atheists would do well to note). But American atheism is nothing more than the solipsistic egotistical musings of whiny pampered Millennials who don't even realize that people who lack an in-group are dead...
xinosaj 11 months ago
@xinosaj ...meat the second things turn to sh*t, and that traditional morals aren't so easily dispensed with once you do away with an anthropomorphic God. (Sadly, it really is a bad idea to have sex with lots of people, as just one example.) My own views on spirituality are essentially a sort of negative theology, that ultimate reality is not describable. But I do think there is an ultimate reality and spiritual experience that some human beings are capable of. Hope that clears things up.
xinosaj 11 months ago
Wow, so we arelosing? Am guessing with everything going on that ends up being against Fundamentalism and the bible in the "emergent" postmodern way of seeing things betrays the same actions they accuse others of in being an imperial religion. Let me ask this, when allthose Christians in the Byzantine empire were torured and killed for their faith or the Christians sent to Rome understanding they would die-what is the big freaking deal? Peoplehate Jesus Christ and by extension hate Christians.
daveme7 1 year ago
@daveme7 These things were prophesied by Christ in the scriptures and somehow do not think Christ gets concerned because more poeple hate Christians and by extension Christ. So now we have someone falsely accusing in a video that all conservatives followthis person or that person. I am guessing it never occurs to you that all the bad things you accuse people of is having the same exact judgmental attitude you decry?
daveme7 1 year ago
@daveme7 Don't get me wrong. Obama is a stooge and that stuff like abortion and gay rights are just distractions to keep us from questioning our military misadventures, the take-over of America by financial elites, etc. There are principled people coming from a conservative perspective - I respect much of what Pat Buchanan's written, and Paul Craig Roberts is invaluable. My big problem with evangelicals isn't that they may lean conservative on issues - it's that they're so easily misled by....
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj ....right-wing politicians whose goals are anything but genuinely conservative (in the sense of preserving the rights in the Constitution). On doctrine, I DO criticize Dispensationalist apocalypticism and a naive literalism that dismisses science. Hey, I don't even need to get into evolution - I can disprove literalism by referring to Cosmology. Biblical literalism, if consistent, would make the sky a hard metallic dome with God literally living right on the other side. Airplane...
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj ...pilots and weathermen would be as big "deniers" of the Gospel as evolutionary biologists. Of course, you'll claim that expressions about "Heaven" and the "firmament" in the Bible are just literary figures of speech, and falsely claim that they were always understood as such, even with Luther, Calvin, and a host of others on the record stating that the earth is the center of the universe, etc. If that makes me "emergent," so be it.
xinosaj 1 year ago
So when do we take the bbleliterally? Only when Christ fulfills prophesy and it sliteral and other times no? People s[peakofliteralism as if somehow it is a bad thing to beleve God willdo what he said he would do in his word. Most understand the bible has Genre's such as parallelism and metaphors or in my favorute ideal-repetition-particularly in the same discourse is something one would understandis very important. What one figures i.e. Morrison teaching thisin his book The Genesis Record
daveme7 1 year ago
So ascribing one persons opinion who claims to be a literalist in Christian fundamentalism does not mean all fundamentalsts agree with him. Truthfully, anytthng done to try to brng Christ sooner most of thew time would be seen as sinful and doubting the bible. So some pentacostal frui loop who also denied Christ was the Messiah does not speak for everyone. Abortion: This came from Eugenics which comes from a Theosophical ethic based on evolution. Funny howmodern postmodernism is.
daveme7 1 year ago
@daveme7 I have no idea what you're trying to say. I hope you don't speak English as a first language.
xinosaj 1 year ago
Were entering a new age and Christianity is not part of it. 2000 years of damage in enough. All of us had ancestors that were either killed or forced to convert, and that time is over. All the scandals, the terror, the abuse...I had enough. Good-bye, Christianity.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis The new age I see is a terrible 21st century where industrial society breaks apart due to resource scarcity and we enter the 22nd with something like 2 billion people left alive on the globe. Will people turn to cults in droves? Maybe. Sadly, I don't expect the cultural left to do particularly well...survival situations don't favor homosexuals, those inclined to substance addiction, and people who generally assert their individual prerogative to screw in any way they like...
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj The new age I see is one of mass cumminication, reason, science to promote health, agricuiture cultivation to feed the masses and people's presonal relationships with their god and each other without judgement. New resouces will be discovered and ample resources will be cultivated to suit our needs. Many will die as we get there, mainly through ignorance and the lack of resources in overpopulated areas. But there will be no rapture, no jesus to save them and no apocolypse.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@xinosaj I see a different 21st century. One where people can follow their own spiritual paths and education will show that's OK. A world where science, reason, techology and medicine will m ake our lives easier, and where people wont be discriminated. A place where we can, if we choose, become enlightened. we always had drugs alcohol and deviant behavior. Yet even in humanist periods we held our morals...i.e. age of reason.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis That's a nice-sounding future you posit, but unfortunately it's one that's going to take a lot of juice, and we're running out of power as it is. Alt.energy just doesn't have the stuff to keep us going. Hoard guns and food and try to get your local community ready for the collapse of our current system (good luck getting folks to even face it). Maybe you can chant "om mani padme hum" as you grow potatoes. Form is emptiness, dude, and emptiness is form.
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj Ive been hearing people like you for who whole life, and Im nearly 40 now. Im also a historian and know from a historical perspective we had good and bad times, and we always persevere. If not, ill die and join the spirit world, itll happen sooner or later. You dont know the future, just like the Romans had no concept of technology, you or I hav no concept of future energy resources that will save us once discovered.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis Actually, I'm in my 40s, and in my early days, a blue collar man could support a family of 6 and send kids to college. Now, a blue collar man is lucky not to be in a shelter for "working poor." I used to skate on lakes that now never freeze. When an odd disaster like a hurricane happened, society could mobile and overcome it in a matter of weeks. What about now? And you - who apparently consider pandemic gender confusion and blithe denial that stupid actions like drug use and
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj Sorry, I have no idea what youre talking about. In the early days before the 1960s blue collar kids rarely went to college. Im first generation. I come from a blue collar neighborhood and they often live beyone their means...3 vehicles, swimming pool, disneyworld vacation, ARM mortgage, etc. Hurricane Camille in 69 took years to overcome, so did the 1938 hurricane.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis Well, wow, you must live in some fantastic alternative America - no doubt the same America where illegal immigrants make our lives better by "taking jobs we don't want," where life gets better and better every year, and our biggest problems come from having too much prosperity. I imagine that we're from alternative universes (did Al Gore win in 2000 in your world?) and that some miracle of quantum entanglement allows us to meet on UTube. Cuz in this universe, life is nothing like...
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj ..what you describe in yours. Things like the collapse of the American middle class, the rise of a depraved financial oligarchy determined to strip-mine America of all remaining value, peak oil, hurricane Katrinas, oil wars, and global warming leading to famine and water shortages across the globe are all very well documented, daily experiences. (Oh, and I live in the NE, and no, it didn't take us 60 years to overcome '38. Maybe 2.)
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj Don't think me hostile...I just can't imagine how someone can consider an America with a crumbling financial system, with nearly 20% real unemployment, the collapse of the rule of law evidenced by the gov'ts inability to reign in the corrupt finance/health industries and illegal immigration, and an unsustainable suburban infrastructure that is crumbling as we speak, etc., to be some great stride towards "tolerance and enlightenment." The alternatives I speak of aren't even worse....
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj ...they're actually better. I talk about rebuilding local communities (no more 2-hour commute or need to own a $30K machine that will only last you five years), building better homes that don't use up non-renewable resources, and living a more natural human life, as opposed to now spending all our lives sitting in traffic and being deep in debt just to do so.
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj and i dont know what you mean by gender confusion. Homosexuality has been around since the Ancient Greeks and were often killed for it over the centuries. The Nazi's branded them with a purple triangle. Pandemic gender confusion? Isnt that a little extreme?
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis As a slam of American pop-culture lunacy, no, not really - don't get me wrong, I'm a centrist democrat. I just wish progressives were more concerned with things like establishing good public transportation and health care reform that works, and less with risible sideshows like "Gay marriage," as if all the feigned moral outrage in the world can somehow change the hard physical reality that LGBT tendencies are just maladaptive evolutionary byproducts.
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj Oh, and it's fair to point out that "homosexuality" as you conceive it isn't attested to in ancient writings - what is attested to is either a) bisexual behavior that's really more about social dominance than sexuality (as in Rome), or b) people crossing traditional gender roles in tribal societies, in the context of shamanistic spiritual beliefs (such as the Berdaches). Homosexual "orientation" between "egalitarian" partners is a modern conceit.
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj Actually that's not entirely true. Two Greek Polis, Thebes and Cortinth, I believe, were very liberal about homosexuality and allowed it in their armies. They beleived it made a better army and it never did harm morale. Many cultures in the ancient world were accepting of it, and not in the guise of pediphilia. The Greeks married because unmarried man were taxed heavily.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis My Age of Aquarius friend, I think you're making the mistake of interpreting the past in light of the present. Now we have this concept of "sexual orientation," which is just a pseudo-scientific artifact of our culture's obsession with "personal identity," and reading it into the past, interpreting incidents of past behavior that were understood very differently in their own day according to your modern notions.
xinosaj 1 year ago
@xinosaj And we're right where we're supposed to be, and like the past shaping the present, this will shape our future. Its human cultural evolution, and I do believe we're seeing the signs of a new age, yes. And I understand historiography and know theinfluences happening to shape ancient cultures, my point is they knew and understood same sex. Its not a new phenomenon.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@xinosaj ...early sexual experimentation have dire consequences as signs of growing societal "enlightenment" and "tolerance" - think that America is getting better? Well, I don't see it. Of course, you could find some great new energy source, and I hope you do. But you're already way behind - we're well into the economic collapse already, propped up only with funny money counterfeited by the government. That's what galls me about optimists - when the bad thing is ALREADY here, no point in denial
xinosaj 1 year ago
@MercuryRis what do you have against jesus? what did he ever do to you that makes you dislike christianity? Roman Catholics were responsible for the crusade and all the murders in the past and if you do some reasearch you will discover that Roman Catholicism is not true christianity but rather a heresy. true christians follow the commandments and humble themselves like Jesus. this generation is so fucked up. Look at all the disgusting movies and video games that are easily accessable to our kids
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Its not Jesus, its his followers. You want to see fucked up? look at what they did. They wiped out philosophy math and science until the Renaissance, killed people from the 3rd century on, then came over here and wiped out the American Indians, brought over slaves, burned and hanged women as witches and preach from the pulpits about peace nowadays? Its ALL bullshit coming from a sick, twisted murderous father god who gets off on eternal torture. THAT's disgusting.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis I might add many of these events were caused by self-righteous Protestants, such as the Salem Witch Trials and the genocide of the Pequot Indians, with passages taken right fom the Bible. THEN to add insult to injury Christians have the nerve to preach hell and justify THEIR sins because theyre "saved" beacuse its faith, not works. The religion is dying, and I say let it.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis You must have not read everything that I wrote because i clearly stated that the Roman Catholics were responsible for the crusade and the murders in america. true christians do NOT murder, do NOT enslave. True christians Love thy neighbor as thyself. True christians follow the commandments as I previously stated. Roman catholics are psuedo-christians especiallt the ones of the past. I highly suggest that you read the bible so you have a better understanding of the truth.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify And to this I say bullshit. iRead YOUR bible because youre ignorant, and on top of that read your history. Hosea=ripping babies from wombs, sanctioned by YOUR god. Genocide, rape, slavery, Jesus never spoke against slavery. Your beloved Bible is based on a Catholic meeting with the Roman emperor in 312 called Nicea.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Stop blaming the Catholics for your sins. Im not talking about the Cursades at all. How about Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell, Salem Witch Hunts, John Major's slaughter of the Pequots...if you knew any history at all youd know none of these events were Catholic inspired. Christians kill and its not under the umbrella of the pope.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis True Christians do NOT murder! If they did murder then they were never truely Christians. Christianity nor Jesus murdered Witches...but rather people did....That was their decision...if they had understood the commandments then they would have never done those things. Stop blaming the religion of christianity for acts that were completely based on the free will of others. Christianity brings me Love, happiness, truth, morals, and hope. Amen to you brother I will pray for you.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Now just hold on here. Why are you to say they are or are not Christians? According to you Christians, faith is the only component and works and actions do not matter. Manyn of the people mentioned have killed because of their FAITH in Jesus and God. Have you not read the Old Testament? GOD instructs them to kill. Read Exodus, Leviticus, and Hosea. The religion is based on bloodshed. Would YOU sacrifice your child to god if he asked you to?
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis According to me a TRUE christian is one who loves and accepts Jesus as lord and saviour and obeys the commandments. Both are required. christians did not kill the caninites..The jews did. They killed them because God said so and by the way the caninites were evil people that were in the way of Gods mission. Sometimes evil is necessary but in turn something good is a result of it. Lol your last question is a clever one of you athiests. I will answer it though.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Gods the father and god the son are both God. By the way, your Christians are so ignorant. Just because I dont follow YOUR god doesnt make me an atheist. You just did the exact same thing that pisses you off. You lumped me with the atheists, as I lumped murderers in with you Christians. Fine, you think Im an atheist, i think all the people I mentioned are Christians.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis I'm sorry that I assummed that you were an athiest...I admitt that i was wrong in that regard. What are you then?
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify I cant tell you what I am, but I can tell you what I believe. There is a god, but he set the ball rolling. There are advanced beings that help us on the way, and we are judged by how we treat each other and this world. We were given minds to learn and expand and love and grow, and when we die, we evolve if we did well, devolve if we dont, by our own actions...
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis So you are an agnostic?...and yeah advanced beings such as " aliens" or angels? Your belief is semi-biblical but it seems that you can't swallow the idea of Jesus being lord and saviour...Is there any written record of where you get your ideas?
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify You see, there were about 50 messaihs at the time. He was just one of the bunch. There's no evidence he did what he did, or if he even walked the earth. AND there are inconsisitances on the gospels, AND historically I understand why early Christians even wrote the scriptures, about 100 years after the "resurrection" I might add. Jesus did nothing new, original or great....
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis Add to this Rome wanted a monotheistic religion to streamline the empire because the current pantheons were becoming too eclectic. There were three contenders: Christianity, Mithraism, and the Cult of Sol, mainly Apollo. They all had a huge amount of followers. Mithraism almost won, but Christianity adapted the attributes of both the other religions to appease the three groups, and ultimatelu please the emperor.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis The only reason why you, be and all of us arent preaching about Mithra or Apollo is because Constantine needed the Christians to helped defend the sacked empire, eliminate the Capitoline triad and continue his legacy. Christianity, in other words was part of a giane re-org.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis This is why the images of Jesus to this day are actually renditions of Zeus and Apollo. Other attributes were added to add to the "messiah" i.e. the Virgin birth. he was one of about 70 virgin births. He was not the first to die for our sins, not the first to persorm miracles and not the first to promote monotheism. And the early Christians were very, very different from you lil buddy...
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify No, but Christians, instructed by God, according to them, slaughtered the early Greeks in their own temples, wiped out matheatics, science, philosophy, etc. Now we know God, according to the bible instructed people to do this before, who are you to say God didnt sanction all the brutal murders. Dont dare ignore the Father...
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis I would sadly kill my son if God told me to but before I did I would inquire and make absolutely sure that it was God that was telling me to do this. God really didn't want Abrahams son to be murdered..He was merely testing Abrahams loyalty to him and it turned out that God stoped him from doing it. He passed the test! God works in mysterious ways my friend. Just have some faith.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify I would never, ever kill my child for a god. And what about Jepta's daughter? You guys are always to quick to point out Abraham, what about Jepta?
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis We are suppose to love God above all others. So...you love your daughter more than God the father who created the both of you? By not sacrificing your child you disobey God and fail the test.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Yes!! why the heck would i EVER love a god that instructed me to do that?? test or not!? Yes, I would disobey god! why is that so hard for you to believe? See how awful this is? the commandment says not to kill, then he breaks the commandement and instructs murder. And why all the tests? Is this god that insecure? I would die before i murdered by child because at least then i die the way a father should. Too bad people cant realize what an egotistical sick god this is.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
@MercuryRis The child would be with god in heaven a place far far far! better than earth. Life is a test my friend we have to earn our way to heaven. God can break the commandments because the commandments are not meant for him they are meant for us humans therefore they do not apply to him.
idiomas123ify 1 year ago
@idiomas123ify Well then why not murder them all? Andrea Yates drowned her 5 kids exactly for that reason...they were killed before the age of accountability. And again, she prayed and read it from scripture.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
My understanding of the truth is 500% better than yours. I have rtead the Bible and for your information, my Bachelors is in late antiquity so I know what happened then. Try looking for the truth. Your religion is a lie to control the masses, and for you it worked.
MercuryRis 1 year ago
Also, here are a few thoughts in response to this video:
1) I agree wholeheartedly that the Religious Right has done more harm than good to the perception of Christians in the U.S.
2) But I think we need to be careful not to become cynics. I think a lot of good things are happening, and there ARE older people who "get it." Let's not make the same mistake of the 60s and marginalize our elders by lumping them all together. This isn't, as I'm sure you know, about "young vs. old."
cbcurtis85 2 years ago
Why will they become atheists? Is atheism the intellectually honest position?
cbcurtis85 2 years ago
if christians become intellectual they will become atheists. so not sure thats a good idea buddy (for your cause)
thegreatestbak 2 years ago
Post-Christian America? It's a joke?
United States of America was never a Christian state, neither Protestant, nor Catholic. The United States Declaration of Independence based upon not religious ideas (Thomas Jefferson was an Atheist), but based upon the paradigm of Liberalism, and the United States of America of Slavery was also not a "Christian" federation...
In fact, US never was a religious state, it's a really stupid idea...
gschenker 2 years ago
In America, we allow people to hold their religious beliefs free from government interference. The "post-Christian" label is used by our academics to describe the the attitude of the common person in the street, not the attitude of the government. Since Hungary is in the heart of eastern Europe, aren't most of you people hard atheists, anyway? Wikipedia shows you have the same percentage of self-proclaimed atheists as the US.
xinosaj 2 years ago
When were the American citizens "Christian"? Never. In the Middle of 60s, Blacks were denied from traffic by Whites, in 70s, American hippies declared their "sexual revolution" and so on. You were never Christians, my brethren...
Additionally, Hungary is a really post-Christian state, because our Ancient State in Medieval Age based upon pure Catholic laws and traditions. Traditionally we are Regnum Marianum (the "country of Mary The Virgin").
gschenker 2 years ago
This vid's purely American in perspective and orientation, and you're not using the terms as they are commonly understood here. But for what's it's worth, I just Wikipedia'd Hungarian history, and read about how you persecuted Jews, were allied with Hitler, hosted the Inquisition, and had all kinds of wars and uprisings. Not worse than many other nations, perhaps, but certainly nothing to boast about.
xinosaj 2 years ago
Then you are using commonly wrong terms about this question, because a Christian Society feeds upon Christian culture, law and other Social standards. United States was a Liberal Country from the beginning without any religious attitude, and Liberalism was neither a Christian, nor religious ideology. Therefore, you are using wrong terms when you are talking about "post-Christian" America, because you were never Christians.
gschenker 2 years ago
So you hate America because we let people worship as they wanted rather than torturing them if they didn't embrace the Catholic faith, and you hate our constitution because it doesn't tell us to kill Jews. Nice to know. I'm going to donate $5000 to an evangelical Hungarian mission right now to ensure that your young people get Bibles and missionaries to ensure they grow out of such fascist, inhuman, and frankly demonic notions.
xinosaj 2 years ago
Unlike Yankees, Hungarians are not descendants of robbers and murderers. Unlike your ancestors, we have never killed neither Jews, nor other peoples only for their origin, and our ancestors had doesn't maintained Slaves from Red and Black men. Our kind was never a killer, and we have never wiped out full tribes Red Indians. Additionally, we are not building an empire from flesh and bones of innocents, especially at Middle East.
And you tell me that I'm a fascist?
gschenker 2 years ago
Although Hungary was really an ally of Hitler's Reich, this alliance was a necessity for the cause of economical crisis. Until Hungary's German occupation, Jews were never persecuted, except some minor laws. I know the history of my nation and I'm really ready to debate it with you, but please read some other texts about this theme. Wikipedia is not a credible source for debating historical terms.
gschenker 2 years ago
Okay, so you killed more Protestants than Jews. How re-assuring...
xinosaj 2 years ago
Thanks for your offering for a "donation", but you should turn into your mind before it's too late. Take a look at your heart and let you clean yourself from dirts of sin!
gschenker 2 years ago
A thought provoking video.
Much of what has passed itself off as "Christianity" in America has become the ruin of spirituality for a generation--and an embarrassment to sincere seekers everywhere.
As harsh as that sounds, it is also a disturbingly charitable assessment, unfortunately.
The blind have been leading the blind--and both have fallen into a pit.
BecomePassersby 2 years ago
I respect and appreciate your encouragement to young Christians to be good examples to the world, but here's the issue - you aren't showing Christ by doing so, you're showing humanity.
And while I don't want to discourage you from helping others, I do hope that no one concludes from your behavior that the underlying supernatural beliefs have any truth to them.
Compassion and generosity are wonderful, but if you want us to believe, then you really just need to produce some evidence.
theunforgivn81 2 years ago
If you think taking a stand against abortion and sexual immorality makes you a right wing fanatic that is destroying the world, then you are just another victim of the economy of evil.
JDZwiers19 2 years ago