no, i'm not saying that Stalin killed people solely because they were Christians. the world is generally more complicated than that. it may have been that he had them killed in spite of the fact that they were Christians. the motive was a purge. get rid of people. make a statement. Communism has been, at its essence, a godless philosophy. not believing in God probably makes it easier for someone who has considerable power to have others killed. it's pretty easy to say Stalin was crazy, Hitler was crazy, Pol Pot was crazy and reduce the decisions they made to patent craziness. what's more difficult is to discover the roots of their amorality. i don't claim to know the subtle nuances in these cases, but i feel confident in saying that godless Communism provides a sounder platform for persecution and genocide, in contemporary society, over the last century, than any other political/philosophical system. that premise makes it possible to make the draw the conclusion that any jihad or so-called holy war is fueled not by fervor for God, but the reverse. if you ask me what sparked the Spanish Inquisition, i won't say fervor for God. i will say that it was demonic oppression.
the rhetoric in the bold passage is stark: don't explain the Gospel well enough that someone can understand that not one person who is in heaven is good by any absolute standard. let the prospective convert compare his salvation to the worst person he can imagine and maintain the fiction that God isn't really just.
Having others killed has nothing to do with Communism. Some of the best examples of communist societies are religious sects. Even today there are very strong hints of communism in most religions.
You very well might say that. But it would pretty much be viewed, correctly, as a cop out -- a way of escaping the natural and obvious conclusion. You are willing to on the one hand say that the evil is inherent in communism, but it's not in organized religion. It's a completely and obviously inconsistent approach to these issues. It's a completely erroneous premise. ("sounder platform"). If you want to argue "scoreboard" on who has killed the most, that is fine. But I don't think thre is any less ease in using religion as an instrument of destroying others than a political idiology.
I am sorry, you are trying to say that Hatuey, after seeing the spaniards annihilate his people and throw his tribe's children into pits filled with wild dogs, was supposed to be open to any conversion arguments? I am not sure what you are trying to say. My reason for citing to the haunting comments of Hatuey are more focused on how the fundamentalist may appear to others. And ultimately, the challenges that non-believers have in following the tenets of organized religions (or any ideal) corrupted by power and fanaticism.
But see, that's what you're not getting. When someone else does something bad, its because they are an evil atheist. When a Christian does something bad, its because they're a good person who is under demonic oppression. Is that clear enough for you?
You are intolerant then of any Christian that accepts the basic creeds of the church from the Council of Nicea on down. It's amusing how Ratdog can type-cast all religious believers as batguano insane and see that as the caring, liberal point-of-view. The sort-of absolute and rhetorical devotion to tolerance you see in these threads is a two-way street ... and few of us are on it because it leads to a dead-end where nothing means anything and vice-versa.
It actually leads to a Godard movie, tapas, some very acceptable red wine and a decent lay. I highly recommend it.
The one who equates "tolerance of ideas" with rejecting all religious beliefs as silly or irrational.
Well, I DON'T believe in tolerating all ideas. People--that's another thing. Tolerance of other people and respect for them as human beings--including respect for their way of doing things and so forth--is an important prerequisite for a functioning civil society. But that's for another discussion. For now--you're twisting ratdog's words, and I'm pretty sure you're doing so knowingly.
i think that the distinction mainly lies in the fact that spiritual perspective derives ultimately from God-consciousness. one either has a properly centered God-consciousness, or one doesn't. if you don't get who God is, and respond accordingly, you open yourself up to demonic oppression, and the farther away from an accurate sense of who God is, the more severe the oppression may be(come). that's why lots of paranoid schizophrenics are deluded in the direction of thinking they are Jesus, or another "religious" figure. they are under demonic oppression which takes the form of delusion. why do you think the 4 gospels talk about Jesus' ridding people of demons? those people had such a distorted image/picture/sense of who God was that they became oppressed or possessed by a demon that was able to influence behavior, including thinking. you think that such a concept is nuts, but it isn't. from God's perspective, atheism is evil. denying the person of God is blasphemy. whether you agree with that or not, that is how God would characterize it. worshiping false gods, in the OT, accompanied by the kinds of practices that such worship involved, invoked God's wrath in the form of annihilation at the hand of the Hebrews. King David exterminated the Amalekites, who disappeared from history. the name Amalekite is the equivalent of atheist in Hebrew tradition. there are evils beyond denial of the person of God, obviously, and such evils are part of who people are. you cannot be a person and not have evil thoughts or actions. it's our nature to think and do evil. the relative magnitude of the evil is primarily a human construct. to God, evil is evil. that is not to say that he may not punish someone more severely because of the degree of evil represented, but i'm not in a position to make any comment on that account. my evils have been dealt with by Jesus' place in my life, but i'm hardly one to suggest that one particular evil should be weighted heavier than another. it would be wrong to declare that all atheists do more evil than any Christian. that is clearly a false statement. the main distinction is that atheists have no claim to forgiveness, while Christians acknowledge that they have nothing to claim on their own and lay their claim upon Jesus. from that perspective, they seek to know God and to know Jesus, so that God can eradicate the evil in their lives and replace it with His good. the first epistle by John states that idea this way: "If we confess our sins, he is just to forgive them and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." this cleansing is both a process and a judicial determination. the process is called "sanctification" -- becoming more holy over time. the judicial determination is called "justification" ( declared righteous, meaning that God looks at Christians as if they had not committed evil acts ), God can do that because Jesus paid the penalty for those acts. if you deny God, then you are essentially saying that you are not accountable to a standard beyond your own making. the more power you can amass or control, the less accountable you are to the standard that others might make. from a political perspective, this is why Idi Amin and others like him are able to commit the atrocities that they are known for. for all intents, Idi Amin viewed himself on an equal footing with any human or divine power, and gave himself an Islamic title ( Al Hajii ), meaning that he had completed his pilgrimage. over time, he became more and more erratic, and it is possible that he was demonically oppressed. the number of killings he orchestrated in Uganda may number 500,000. if you look specifically at the people who were responsible for the greatest number of political murders in the last 3/4 century, who among them could be said to have followed any god but more importantly who were following Jesus? now, i know the temptation is very strong to name George Bush, but don't succumb.
Stilton, there just seems to be so much in what you are saying that stems from some very basic inconsistencies between how you are willing to look at things. I have no problem with you defining spirituality as closeness to god and unspirituality as far from God. That's your definition. It just doesn't add anything that I can see to what we are discussing. I'll give you that if you give me this: li think that the distinction mainly lies in the fact that the communist perspective derives ultimately from a belief in collectivism. one either has a properly centered collectivist spirit, or one doesn't. if you don't get what communism is, and respond accordingly, you open yourself up to captalist oppression, and the farther away from an accurate sense of what econmic justice is, the more severe the oppression may be(come). It's making up our own definitions but it get's us nowhere. My best friends younger brother, soon after we graduated from college, started cutting himself with knives. The family tried to get custody of Andy, but the state appointed an attorney for Andy, and the family was not allowed to get him at least some kind of help. A few months after he dropped out of college, he stuck a gun in his mouth and blew his brains out. He didn't imagine that he was a religious figure. He just heard voices that drove him mad, as far as anyone could tell. There was no demonic possession. I find it kind of odious that you chose to make such a statement. Saying you speak for God is blasphemous in my book. And lots of other Christians as well. The moment man wrote God's words, those words got corrupted. The moment man chose to pick and choose the books that would become the Bible, the message was further corrupted. For some reason, God decided that those who misunderstood his word would continue to cry blashemy when others did not read the Bible as they, with there imperfect minds, thought it should be read. In Genesis, God created his children, and then damned them. A caring God would not do such a thing. I chose not to believe that he damns anyone for not reading his corrupted message a certain way. So? You have a historical document of the winners (at least in terms of those who could transcribe history) justifying their deeds through their myths. And you have a new testament where such actions are virtually repudiated. It's also in our nature to justify our evils though many different things, including religion. See the Crusades. See the Conquest of New Spain. See the Mormon's incest. See 9/11. I am pretty much completely lost. It appears you have a code related to evil. And therefore what? Assuming what you say is true, the Atheist are no worse off, because they don't need forgiveness. Why would they claim something they don't need? Seeking to know God and knowing God are to different things. Proclaiming to know such things makes no one closer to acheiving them. That's not remotely true. Whether ethical standards or otherwise, literally all civilized people have codes of conduct that they put above their own personal well being. Chirstians simply have the nerve to say that there system is higher because it's what God says. Even if God told man how to create God, man still created God. Other than Hitler, Mussolini, Truman, all of the Central and South American strongmen? Everytime Bush throws the mantle of Christianity over himself it makes me want to throw up. And in my opinion, if you are a Christian and you don't feel the same, you are a ************ Christian. There is nothing that has rocked what little faith I have more than to see Bush celebrated as a Christian, and his values celebrated. He is a prodigal who should be whipped and sent wandering for his salvation.
Sorry, but you select to whom you are accountable. You choose your friends, your peers, those to whom you will submit your accountability. If someone says that the standard is higher than what you will assent to, you dismiss them as being irrational absolutists. Please don't deceive yourself.
first of all, it grieves me that someone suffered from such a set of influences, internal or otherwise, that he took his own life. but please be honest and forthright about this. you don't have any more idea than i do whether the "voices" he heard had an evil source outside of his mind or whether they were solely self-generated. we don't know that much about the complexities of mental disturbances. so much of it seems to be biochemical, but why is that? it's only blasphemous if i say that God says or is other than what he says or is. if i accurately portray him or represent his dicta, then i'm reporting. if reporting is blasphemous, then we're all guilty. this kind of sophistic argument has been advanced among self-appointed cognoscenti for centuries. it's a lie that you choose to believe because it supports other views that you have. this view is opposed to what the entire Bible teaches. it's sad that you have decided to pigeonhole God in such a way. for some reason, a real god who has real standards that you must obey is too horrible for you. the fact that he sent Jesus to die for your failures to live up to those standards seems to have escaped your notice. that's the essence of God's love for you and me. that he would make a sacrifice that we cannot begin to fathom because he in his omniscience knew that our failure was inevitable. for some reason you would like a god who is small enough for you to manage. that god could never save anyone.
Which is why I found it odious that you would use something you don't know about to support your point. No we aren't. Some of us don't profess to either say what he says or even profess to accurately represent his "dicta" (I think you are missusing the term). You can call it a lie, but it's not. Man wrote God's words down. God didn't. Then man picked and chose over the words that man had put down. There is corruption and misunderstanding inherent in that process. I want to understand God. You claim to already do so, and any challenge is so terrifying to you that you have to call it a lie or to proclaim a view is opposed to "what the Bible teaches".
Speak for yourself. I don't decide who makes up the population of the world around me. I have very little control over how my actions affect others--I live in society, not in a bubble. Didn't pick my kids, they just sort of showed up. And again, it's not a choice--I live in the world, and I rub shoulders with people all the time. Your standard isn't "higher," no matter how much you deceive yourself.
Okay Stilton, tell us how this view is "opposed to all that the Bible teachers": "In Genesis, God created his children, and then damned* them. A caring God would not do such a thing. I chose not to believe that he damns anyone for not reading his corrupted message a certain way." Creates children (Adam and Eve) Throws them out (damns them) Only way back in is to accept the savior. (Or to accept the teachings as Stilton would have them accept.) * Okay, I did misuse "damn" which to me implies permanence. Sorry if that is a cornerstone to your statement.