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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 4, 2006 22:35:53 GMT -5
Why aren't my messages appearing on the board? I'd hate to think they're being deleted.
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bare
Maverick's Chew Toy
Posts: 47
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Post by bare on Mar 5, 2006 11:35:37 GMT -5
sorry about that vertigo, didnt mean to inspire a book
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Post by vertigo on Mar 5, 2006 23:27:18 GMT -5
Porphyry, let's just lay some ground work here. I get that philosophy is a map. You choose presuppositionalism for whatever reason you choose it. Then you become 'horribly offended'. Well, you chose that, didn't you? You are choosing to be offended. Well, lie in the bed you made.
Why are you arguing that Hitler is not a Christian? One religion is as dangerous as the next, if you happen to define Christianity slightly differently, that doesn't save Christianity, it just moves the goal posts, as usual. Gone is the correspondence with the Bible, etc, we now have "Christianity is about love". Oh, bah humbug. Will you now proceed to claim that Christianity is not about works, like so many do? Or how about "Christianity is/has been really useful"?
Yes, from one arbitrary principle we can extrapolate the entire moral character of religion in general. Why didn't I see it before?
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Post by vertigo on Mar 5, 2006 23:46:28 GMT -5
Oh, one more thing, Poryphyry, I know the arguments are sloppy. Let me concisely state my point:
Religion leaves the door open for a leader to direct the herd. Whether or not one particular flavour of religion advocates pacifism, it still motivates action, and that is dangerous. Also, as the principle can always be warped and eroded and changed, I don't buy any attempts to salvage some pristine core of love-based Christian doctrine.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 6, 2006 20:45:43 GMT -5
Vertigo, I feel that you're not paying attention to what I'm saying as much as you could. Your first few lines of incoherent babeling gives way to this sentence, 'You choose presuppositionalism for whatever reason you choose it.' You cannot advance your own arguments, Vertigo, unless you recognize some basic facts, like first, what that argument is even saying. Who said what? What did they mean? How many times do I have to spell this out for you? When will you get a clue? Do you just play dumb all the time and act like the other person is wrong? You accused Christians of acting from presuppositionalism, then I said that the argument was presupposing God's EXISTENCE TO REFUTE IT AS ABSURD; being incompatible with human free will. I didn't see any Christians presupposing God's existence any more than the atheist who posed the question in the first place! It was hypothetical; if God exists and has foreknowledge of my sin, why should I ask forgiveness? If God exists, He gives human persons free will, if God exists, He is outside of time and it is impossible to speak of Him having 'prior' knowledge. Let's presuppose God exists for the sake of granting that this being, His attributes are consistent with logic. We were not debating an ontological argument or His very existence, but free will and divine foreknowledge. Do you understand this? God is justified in condemning sinners if they do not repent, even if He knew of their sins before they committed them because, after all, it's THEIR sin. Then you rant about how you dislike religion again. I should expect that, it's an atheist board, but you can't really stick to the topic can you? Let's see about your claim that when Jesus says 'love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you' (Mt. 5) this is one arbitrary principle and does not represent the true moral character of the Christian tradition. First off, you didn't provide any alternate interpretation of this, nor quote difficult passages that counter your opinion. You're not too good at defending your view here, only making excuses. Instead of one, here's all of the other teachings of Christ. In Matthew 5:44-47, Jesus says, 'love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and unjust. For you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?' Sounds to me like he's teaching the OPPOSITE of war and violence. Then in Matthew 7, Christ speaks of Judging Others. 'Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. . . You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.' I suppose the reason you judge me without knowing anything about my Lord's teaching is because Christ is wrong because he promotes violence as you say. In Matthew 10:14, The Commissioning of the Twelve, Jesus sends the twelve Apostles out to spread the good news. Conspicuously absent is any embarrasing directives by Christ to punish and hate others that are different. Actually, Christ says 'Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words- go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.' In the preceding paragraph, Jesus says that He is sending them like sheep among wolves. 'When they persecute you in one town, flee to another' (verse 23). Going back to Matthew 5, Jesus teaches the people the Beatitudes: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for rightousness, they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of rightousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' In Matthew 21, Teaching about Anger, Christ says this, 'You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, "You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgement" But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement.' No, the Christian faith is about works. Christ says in Matthew 7:21-23, 'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name? Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.' What do you have to say to all this? That these are arbitrary statements? They are not arbitrary, it's a lot more than people like you were willing to read before they came up with their opinions they simply mouth from others. That was just the book of Matthew. How about Mark, Luke, and John; they have the words sufficient enough to refute your baseless crap about how religion is dangerous. You do not make sense Vertigo, your argument is weak and I advise you to stop using it and get another pathetic line for me to refute. This statement of yours, 'Whether one particular flavour of religion advocates pacifism, it still motivates action, and that is dangerous.' Okay, that doesn't make a bit of sense Vertigo. So action is dangerous. Motivating people in any way to do something is dangerous. Well, the facts refute you better than any argument I could make.
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Post by vertigo on Mar 6, 2006 23:35:58 GMT -5
Poryphyry, it is really quite simple. Since you are so versed in refuting arguments, I'm going to assume that you'll understand when I say this: religion is anti-life. There is an afterlife and works are required to get there. That motivates action. Action motivated by an afterlife fantasy (in general) is dangerous.
I am arguing before a specific religion. Quoting from the Bible is after the fact.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 7, 2006 2:19:28 GMT -5
Vertigo. How is religion anti-life? That is the dumbest response I've ever heard by an atheist. Think about it, you can't maintain this outrageous over-generalization of all religion as violent. You didn't respond to my Scriptural evidence that Christ taught peace and love. It's there for everyone to see, and you had no dignified response. You muttered something about how you want to argue before specific religion now, and quoting the Bible for me is not permitted. Why? The Scriptures are the beliefs of Christians, thus the beliefs of a religion. Would you deny that Christianity is a religion? Your claim is that all religion is anti-life but if you read Scriptures you'll find that this is just not so for Christianity and since Christianity is a religion, you cannot say that all religion is anti-life. You can say that motivation by some afterlife fantasy is dangerous, only if you are serious about determining the motivations of each religion. Since you disregard the specifics of what Christians are motivated to DO, (e.g. cheritable works of mercy, turning the other cheek, etc READ THE GOSPELS IT'S ALL THERE) then you disregard any real conclusion regarding the ends of religion. The logic that religion motivating people to do SOMETHING, is dangerous is absurd. I told you this doesn't make sense before. You argue from presuppositionalism here, that any motivation by people who believe in an afterlife will result in violence or is dangerous. How is it dangerous? Especially when I tell you that the directives of Christ to 'get into heaven' involve non-violence. You can't deny this. I challenge you to find a teaching of Christ that requires violence to get into heaven. If you find it, and you won't, you'll be able to make the claim that Christianity is prone to violence.
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Post by guerrillasaint on Mar 7, 2006 2:41:06 GMT -5
God gives life abundantly.
It isn't just about works it is about acting upon your belief in God. Not just saying you believe in God but trust in him by doing as he commands you to do.
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Post by vertigo on Mar 7, 2006 10:06:50 GMT -5
Please listen to me. I am not saying that all religiously motivated action is dangerous, I'm saying that the fact that religion motivates action is dangerous. Read this multiple times until you understand it. I am arguing before specific actions in specific cases.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 7, 2006 11:21:15 GMT -5
Atheists like Vertigo never cease to amaze me with their stupidity. They say one thing and never really mean what they say, they keep pushing their meaning into a more narrow and narrow context until there is no point in their statement. Here is why you are making no point at all. You're an atheist and you were trying to argue that religion is dangerous. You said this on page 1: 'Get it out of your head that religion is harmless.' Now you're saying that NOT ALL religiously motivated action is dangerous, but that since religion motivates action, it is dangerous. If it is not true for all religiously motivated action, then you cannot say that 'religion is dangerous' as a generalization. All you can say is, 'religion CAN be dangerous' not 'religion IS dangerous' and nothing more if you do not look at specific religious teachings of religion. ANYTHING can be dangerous. Anything can motivate a person to act, and that action can either be good or bad. You constantly refuse to acknowledge this. Rather, you just wish to portray religion as dangerous to push your agenda of fighting against it. I've given you many of the teachings of Christ; love of enemies, do not judge, do not hate your neighbor, do not kill. You refuse to recognize specific cases of religious teaching. Because you refuse to recognize the specific cases of religious teaching and you say that religion CAN be dangerous, you cannot know that Christianity teaches nothing that is dangerous. Yet, this is the fact and you are purposely avoiding this altogether because you know you're arguing a pointless fact, ANYTHING CAN BE DANGEROUS IF ABUSED. I'd like to point out though that Rev. Richard Wurnbrand saw atheists tourchering prisoners in communist Rumania saying the following: "There is no God! No hereafter! We can do whatever we want!" Atheism can be dangerous as well, but I don't go around generalizing and saying that 'atheism is dangerous.' How would you respond to me if I said that your atheism is dangerous because it motivates people to believe that they can do whatever they want. When you argue that you have morals I say, 'No, I'm arguing before specific actions and specific cases,' so you cannot refute me. Clearly I'm just avoiding the FACTS that not all atheistic attitude is dangerous. Thus I cannot say that atheism is dangerous just as you cannot say religion is dangerous because you cannot say that ALL religiously motivated action is dangerous.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 7, 2006 11:30:57 GMT -5
Also, Vertigo, you gloss over the facts which are needed to prove your case. You argue based on your own principles without evidence. And what happened to your opinion that religion is anti-life? Do you still believe that? Christianity (a religion) is very pro-life, and in fact, they are accused of being anti-choice when they refuse to allow a woman to choose to kill her unborn.
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Post by vertigo on Mar 7, 2006 14:40:25 GMT -5
If that were to be the case, man would be dangerous and malicious by nature, which we know not to be (generally) true because we live in a cooperative society. One only has to look at Israel and Palestine to see religion's record.
Religion is dangerous because it can motivate dangerous action. Religion is like a ticking time-bomb, it could turn bad at any time. Because the goal-posts can always move, arguing that your modern palatable variant of Christianity abhors violence doesn't matter.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 7, 2006 18:13:38 GMT -5
Once again, you make a generalization that religion is dangerous. But when you say that religion CAN motivate dangerous action, you show that the generalization does not follow for all religion. Yet despite saying it COULD go bad at any time, you assume this possibility makes religion dangerous. How many times do I have to repeat that this logic of yours does not follow. And you must recognize that the teachings of Christ represent the religion of Christianity, not how people follow them throughout the years. You are mistaking HOW PEOPLE FOLLOW A RELIGION for THE RELIGION ITSELF. If you cannot find one teaching of Christ that promotes this so-called 'dangerous action' then you have no business saying religion is dangerous in general because the religion of Christianity is an exception. Yet you refuse to acknowledge the teachings of a particular faith like Christianity when that is exactly what you need to do to prove that the RELIGION is dangerous, NOT the way PEOPLE FOLLOW IT. The way people follow it gives a prime example of why people are dangerous and malicious by nature. Since it is obvious there are no teachings of Christ to start a war, these actions were done on man's part. Do you get this? Will you concede? It's simple logic. You will also retract your statement that the Catholic faith is a palatable variant of Christianity which now abhors violence but didn't in the past. Find an example of Catholic documentation that demonstrates a Pope declaring war on someone based on religious grounds, that it is God's will, and not a matter of practical necessity that everyone else agreed on. You can't just claim that my faith doesn't matter when my faith is a religion and applys to your over-generalization that all religion is dangerous.
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Post by vertigo on Mar 7, 2006 19:47:17 GMT -5
If I were to tell people they needn't look left and right before crossing the road because they need only have faith, would you consider that dangerous? I would.
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Post by porphyry6734 on Mar 7, 2006 23:21:38 GMT -5
You're not even answering my objections. Your example of telling people not to look left and right before crossing a street is dangerous, but how does it apply to religion? How does it prove that Christianity is dangerous? You say religion is dangerous because it can motivate people to do anything, yet Christ's teachings are, if followed, love and self-sacrifice. How is Christianity dangerous? Answer that question. I don't care if you want to speak only of religion in general since that is not sufficient to prove the generalization that all religion is dangerous. You have yet to give any evidence of Christianity being dangerous.
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