Examples of Christian respect for critical thinking, and individuality

[DOTR]

The Christian Church is why the West rose above the savagery of the rest of the world.

 

[DOTR]

 

[Votto]

The Christian Church is why the West rose above the savagery of the rest of the world.

Before Christ entered the world, the world was a brutal place.

You had slaves and slave masters. There was no charity. That notion came after Christ influenced the world. Before that it was survival of the fittest as the weak were thrown to the lions as crowds cheered.

I suspect as society forgets the influence of Christ the more it will gravitate towards the brutality of the ancient world. Perhaps the movie Hunger Games are but a glimpse into our future.

 

[DOTR]

The Christian Church is why the West rose above the savagery of the rest of the world.

Before Christ entered the world, the world was a brutal place.

You had slaves and slave masters. There was no charity. That notion came after Christ influenced the world. Before that it was survival of the fittest as the weak were thrown to the lions as crowds cheered.

I suspect as society forgets the influence of Christ the more it will gravitate towards the brutality of the ancient world. Perhaps the movie Hunger Games are but a glimpse into our future.

Very true. But I dont think the Hunger Games is prophetical. it is more propaganda. We can still avoid it.

As for my people, children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err,
and destroy the way of thy paths.
Is 3:12

 

[Czernobog]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

 

[Czernobog]

The Christian Church is why the West rose above the savagery of the rest of the world.

Before Christ entered the world, the world was a brutal place.

You had slaves and slave masters. There was no charity. That notion came after Christ influenced the world. Before that it was survival of the fittest as the weak were thrown to the lions as crowds cheered.

I suspect as society forgets the influence of Christ the more it will gravitate towards the brutality of the ancient world. Perhaps the movie Hunger Games are but a glimpse into our future.

Really? so slavery ended with the coming of the Nazarene? Boy I'll bet there were some Africans during the founding of our nation who would have really wished that the colonists had gotten that memo. No charity? Have you ever read Plato? Socrates? Confucius? Buddha? I think you are less educated about history than you think.

And I'm not even going to give that Hunger Games reference the courtesy of a response.

 

[Votto]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself? I think it actually gives credibility to who and what he was. After all, anyone can sit down like Mohammad and write how great and perfect they were. Instead, Jesus relies on the witnesses of others to tell the story, a much more believable form of credibility in my estimation even with their warts and all, like Peter who denied him 3 times to save his own skin. The Bible is also unique in that it is a collection of works spanning thousands of years with common themes of faith and love that resonate in all the books.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

 

[Votto]

The Christian Church is why the West rose above the savagery of the rest of the world.

Before Christ entered the world, the world was a brutal place.

You had slaves and slave masters. There was no charity. That notion came after Christ influenced the world. Before that it was survival of the fittest as the weak were thrown to the lions as crowds cheered.

I suspect as society forgets the influence of Christ the more it will gravitate towards the brutality of the ancient world. Perhaps the movie Hunger Games are but a glimpse into our future.

Really? so slavery ended with the coming of the Nazarene? Boy I'll bet there were some Africans during the founding of our nation who would have really wished that the colonists had gotten that memo. No charity? Have you ever read Plato? Socrates? Confucius? Buddha? I think you are less educated about history than you think.

And I'm not even going to give that Hunger Games reference the courtesy of a response.

You do realize that Plato and Socrates owned slaves, right? In fact, slaves were the only way a democracy could survive in ancient Greece. Men studied and debated the issues of the day while their slaves worked tirelessly to take care of the homes and daily needs. How else could they cast an informed vote?

Today, the slaves are allowed to vote. Unfortunately, however, the slaves are uninformed how to vote. Instead, they rely on a two party system which mirror each other and a press and educational system that sells them on one or the other party. Meanwhile, the rich elites run the show, just like in ancient Greece.

Naturally, there is some examples of ancient charity but by in large no where close to what there is today. Today charity is such a focus that it has become forever linked to our political discourse.

 

[Czernobog]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Yes, I have, it is a psuedoscience that relies on confirmation bias to justify its "findings". For example, an archaeologist might discover the remains of a few buildings from the first century near the assumed location of Nazareth, and then suddenly, from the Christian community of scholars, there is a claim that Nazareth actually existed! This is a confirmation bias specifically because such scholars are ignoring all the evidence which shows the contrary, that there wasn’t any Nazareth during Jesus time, is actually much more likely to be the case. Rene Salm, for example, has collected all the archaeological and historical data on Nazareth he could find, and his conclusion is that there was no such place during the time of Jesus. And the same is true of nearly all of the "findings" of "Biblical archaeologists". Their finding ;proove nothing but their own desires to confirm what they already believed. As you pointed out, there is not a single reference to "The Philistines" as an ancient world empire. They simply did not exist.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Sure. It should be respected for what it is - a book of stories written by men, dictating rules, devised by men, on how one should live in their opinions, no different than the Edda, the Quran, or The Art of War.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

Or the story is complete, and utter bullshit. OAre there references to the historical personage of Jesus? Sure. However, they are limited, at best. All they mention is that he was crucified, and he engendered a cult that believed outlandish things about him. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of the religious texts written about him.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

If the Bible is not the flawless word of God, then it is useless. After all, who gets to be the arbiter of which parts are accurate, which pars are allegorical, and which parts are just plain wrong? And, by what authority? Sorry, your suggestion that the Bible is wrong, but should still be given the authority of divine source is simply not logical.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself?

Who says he didn't? You do realize that there are som 400+ texts from the same period as the four Gospels that the Nicean Council chose not to include in the Bible? Many of them are runmoured to still be housed in the archives of the Vatican. We only know that Jesus did not write about himself in the texts that the religious overlords, when they decided which books they wanted the masses to have access to, chose to include in the "Official" version of the Bible.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

You get that most of the pre-christian gods are no longer worshipped, not because no one wanted to worship them, but because Christian "soldiers" put them to death, if they did, right?

Look up the actual history of Patricuis (St. Patrick) sometime. He is not the peaceful, loving priest, who helpfully "drove out the snakes" from Ireland. He was a warrior priest, and the "snakes" were the pagan druids, which he "ran out" bu wholesale slaughter. It was genocide. The Irish were given a choice, convert to Christianity, or Patrick would come, with his holy army, and would wipe them out of existence. And this was the common practice of Christians whenever they encountered followers of pagan religions. I'm not entirely certain that is such a great endorsement of Christianity.

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

I would submit that there are many factors that are responsible for the social issues facing us that have nothing to do with atheism, or secularism.

And, Moses never existed. Period.

 

[Darkwind]

I call bullshit. **CoughphotoshopCough**

 

[Votto]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Yes, I have, it is a psuedoscience that relies on confirmation bias to justify its "findings". For example, an archaeologist might discover the remains of a few buildings from the first century near the assumed location of Nazareth, and then suddenly, from the Christian community of scholars, there is a claim that Nazareth actually existed! This is a confirmation bias specifically because such scholars are ignoring all the evidence which shows the contrary, that there wasn’t any Nazareth during Jesus time, is actually much more likely to be the case. Rene Salm, for example, has collected all the archaeological and historical data on Nazareth he could find, and his conclusion is that there was no such place during the time of Jesus. And the same is true of nearly all of the "findings" of "Biblical archaeologists". Their finding ;proove nothing but their own desires to confirm what they already believed. As you pointed out, there is not a single reference to "The Philistines" as an ancient world empire. They simply did not exist.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Sure. It should be respected for what it is - a book of stories written by men, dictating rules, devised by men, on how one should live in their opinions, no different than the Edda, the Quran, or The Art of War.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

Or the story is complete, and utter bullshit. OAre there references to the historical personage of Jesus? Sure. However, they are limited, at best. All they mention is that he was crucified, and he engendered a cult that believed outlandish things about him. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of the religious texts written about him.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

If the Bible is not the flawless word of God, then it is useless. After all, who gets to be the arbiter of which parts are accurate, which pars are allegorical, and which parts are just plain wrong? And, by what authority? Sorry, your suggestion that the Bible is wrong, but should still be given the authority of divine source is simply not logical.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself?

Who says he didn't? You do realize that there are som 400+ texts from the same period as the four Gospels that the Nicean Council chose not to include in the Bible? Many of them are runmoured to still be housed in the archives of the Vatican. We only know that Jesus did not write about himself in the texts that the religious overlords, when they decided which books they wanted the masses to have access to, chose to include in the "Official" version of the Bible.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

You get that most of the pre-christian gods are no longer worshipped, not because no one wanted to worship them, but because Christian "soldiers" put them to death, if they did, right?

Look up the actual history of Patricuis (St. Patrick) sometime. He is not the peaceful, loving priest, who helpfully "drove out the snakes" from Ireland. He was a warrior priest, and the "snakes" were the pagan druids, which he "ran out" bu wholesale slaughter. It was genocide. The Irish were given a choice, convert to Christianity, or Patrick would come, with his holy army, and would wipe them out of existence. And this was the common practice of Christians whenever they encountered followers of pagan religions. I'm not entirely certain that is such a great endorsement of Christianity.

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

I would submit that there are many factors that are responsible for the social issues facing us that have nothing to do with atheism, or secularism.

And, Moses never existed. Period.

No, the Philistines did, in fact, exist.

Where Did the Philistines Come From? - Biblical Archaeology Society

And here is evidence of where Jesus may have grown up in Nazareth.

Has the Childhood Home of Jesus Been Found? - Biblical Archaeology Society

 

[Czernobog]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Yes, I have, it is a psuedoscience that relies on confirmation bias to justify its "findings". For example, an archaeologist might discover the remains of a few buildings from the first century near the assumed location of Nazareth, and then suddenly, from the Christian community of scholars, there is a claim that Nazareth actually existed! This is a confirmation bias specifically because such scholars are ignoring all the evidence which shows the contrary, that there wasn’t any Nazareth during Jesus time, is actually much more likely to be the case. Rene Salm, for example, has collected all the archaeological and historical data on Nazareth he could find, and his conclusion is that there was no such place during the time of Jesus. And the same is true of nearly all of the "findings" of "Biblical archaeologists". Their finding ;proove nothing but their own desires to confirm what they already believed. As you pointed out, there is not a single reference to "The Philistines" as an ancient world empire. They simply did not exist.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Sure. It should be respected for what it is - a book of stories written by men, dictating rules, devised by men, on how one should live in their opinions, no different than the Edda, the Quran, or The Art of War.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

Or the story is complete, and utter bullshit. OAre there references to the historical personage of Jesus? Sure. However, they are limited, at best. All they mention is that he was crucified, and he engendered a cult that believed outlandish things about him. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of the religious texts written about him.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

If the Bible is not the flawless word of God, then it is useless. After all, who gets to be the arbiter of which parts are accurate, which pars are allegorical, and which parts are just plain wrong? And, by what authority? Sorry, your suggestion that the Bible is wrong, but should still be given the authority of divine source is simply not logical.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself?

Who says he didn't? You do realize that there are som 400+ texts from the same period as the four Gospels that the Nicean Council chose not to include in the Bible? Many of them are runmoured to still be housed in the archives of the Vatican. We only know that Jesus did not write about himself in the texts that the religious overlords, when they decided which books they wanted the masses to have access to, chose to include in the "Official" version of the Bible.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

You get that most of the pre-christian gods are no longer worshipped, not because no one wanted to worship them, but because Christian "soldiers" put them to death, if they did, right?

Look up the actual history of Patricuis (St. Patrick) sometime. He is not the peaceful, loving priest, who helpfully "drove out the snakes" from Ireland. He was a warrior priest, and the "snakes" were the pagan druids, which he "ran out" bu wholesale slaughter. It was genocide. The Irish were given a choice, convert to Christianity, or Patrick would come, with his holy army, and would wipe them out of existence. And this was the common practice of Christians whenever they encountered followers of pagan religions. I'm not entirely certain that is such a great endorsement of Christianity.

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

I would submit that there are many factors that are responsible for the social issues facing us that have nothing to do with atheism, or secularism.

And, Moses never existed. Period.

No, the Philistines did, in fact, exist.

Where Did the Philistines Come From? - Biblical Archaeology Society

Your proof that they exist is the pseudoscience? How about some archaeological evidence that does not come from a group already practising confirmation bias?

 

[Votto]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Yes, I have, it is a psuedoscience that relies on confirmation bias to justify its "findings". For example, an archaeologist might discover the remains of a few buildings from the first century near the assumed location of Nazareth, and then suddenly, from the Christian community of scholars, there is a claim that Nazareth actually existed! This is a confirmation bias specifically because such scholars are ignoring all the evidence which shows the contrary, that there wasn’t any Nazareth during Jesus time, is actually much more likely to be the case. Rene Salm, for example, has collected all the archaeological and historical data on Nazareth he could find, and his conclusion is that there was no such place during the time of Jesus. And the same is true of nearly all of the "findings" of "Biblical archaeologists". Their finding ;proove nothing but their own desires to confirm what they already believed. As you pointed out, there is not a single reference to "The Philistines" as an ancient world empire. They simply did not exist.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Sure. It should be respected for what it is - a book of stories written by men, dictating rules, devised by men, on how one should live in their opinions, no different than the Edda, the Quran, or The Art of War.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

Or the story is complete, and utter bullshit. OAre there references to the historical personage of Jesus? Sure. However, they are limited, at best. All they mention is that he was crucified, and he engendered a cult that believed outlandish things about him. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of the religious texts written about him.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

If the Bible is not the flawless word of God, then it is useless. After all, who gets to be the arbiter of which parts are accurate, which pars are allegorical, and which parts are just plain wrong? And, by what authority? Sorry, your suggestion that the Bible is wrong, but should still be given the authority of divine source is simply not logical.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself?

Who says he didn't? You do realize that there are som 400+ texts from the same period as the four Gospels that the Nicean Council chose not to include in the Bible? Many of them are runmoured to still be housed in the archives of the Vatican. We only know that Jesus did not write about himself in the texts that the religious overlords, when they decided which books they wanted the masses to have access to, chose to include in the "Official" version of the Bible.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

You get that most of the pre-christian gods are no longer worshipped, not because no one wanted to worship them, but because Christian "soldiers" put them to death, if they did, right?

Look up the actual history of Patricuis (St. Patrick) sometime. He is not the peaceful, loving priest, who helpfully "drove out the snakes" from Ireland. He was a warrior priest, and the "snakes" were the pagan druids, which he "ran out" bu wholesale slaughter. It was genocide. The Irish were given a choice, convert to Christianity, or Patrick would come, with his holy army, and would wipe them out of existence. And this was the common practice of Christians whenever they encountered followers of pagan religions. I'm not entirely certain that is such a great endorsement of Christianity.

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

I would submit that there are many factors that are responsible for the social issues facing us that have nothing to do with atheism, or secularism.

And, Moses never existed. Period.

It is my position that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Important themes, like faith and the coming of the Messiah, are repeated over and over again by various authors spanning thousands of years.

I think the most impressive prophesy I've ever read is Daniel 9:24-27. It is a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. Rabbi scholars recognize it as such and calculated the time of the coming Messiah to be at the time Jesus walked the earth. Sine they rejected their Messiah they concluded that the Messiah tarried because of the sinfulness of Israel. In their Talmud, the forbad the common man from trying to calculate the coming of the Messiah in fear that some may be deceived.

Of course, feel free to scoff at their calculations, but why would those who reject Christ calculate the time to point to the time of Jesus?

 

[Votto]

You need an intellectual challenge?

Well now, let's see.

You come on here with the sole purpose of attacking the Bible, saying that it is 100% BS. However, you then gave credit to the Bible and almost seemed to praise it for it's doctrine to welcome any "aliens" who may venture in their country and not to oppress. So, on the one hand, you do see value in the Bible but have chosen instead to flush the entirety of the Bible down the commode in favor of atheism. What is odd, however, is that you only seem to praise two countries, Sweden and Denmark as being proof enough that atheism is superior to the rest of the world, this despite you not living there and probably not even visited. Very odd. And yes, we get it, both countries have pretty good economies compared to the rest of the world, as if their economies would take a nose dive if religious folk moved in?

Two points. First, just because someone is able to quote the Bible, you presume that equates to "praise" for the Bible? Really? let's be clear, I have never suggestred that the Bible does not contain some positive suggestions for how to behave ethically. Guess what? I have also read the Quran, the Satanic Bible, The Book of Mormon, and many others. Most of them contain some positive suggestions for how to live one's life.. "The Prince" includes useful ideas. Tsun Tsu has some fantastic advice for political leaders. However, I do not believe that any of them were written, or even "inspired" by some mythical magical skyman. They were written by men. Their narratives were imagined, and written by men. They were, every one of them, the creation of men. Which is why everyone of them also include portions that are absolutely contrary to healthy living. In the case of the religious texts, it is why almost all of them also include narratives, and stories of events for which there is not a single shred of independent corroboration - and let us be clear; theists keep insisting that, because the places spoken of in the Bible have been discovered to have actually existed, that is proof that the people, and events occurred; it's not - and many of which defy the laws of physics. It is also important to note that theists - particularly Christians - have, throughout history, constantly moved the bar for acceptance of the Bible as reliable. From the time that the bible was written, it was considered to be the literal truth, and every single event recorded in the Bible was considered to be unquestionably accurate, and true. Over the last few centuries, any Christian that expects to be taken seriously has consistently, as science has been proving that the events of the Bible were actually impossible, relegated the bible to "Allegory, hyperbole, and metaphor". Were any science book, or any other work so consistently disproved, they would be discarded as works of fiction, and completely unreliable, yet Theists, in their need to continue to believe in a magical skyman, repeatedly redefine the nature of the narrative of their holy books in order to justify continuing to accept them as "accurate", and relevant. It rather begs the question, just how much of these books need to be demonstrated to be inaccurate, and impossible, before Theists give up on their holy books, and admit that they are works of fiction - works of fiction with some very good philosophical ideas, to be sure, but works of fiction, nonetheless.

Second, you mock my use of Denmark, and Sweden as if I mentioned them as the only modern atheist societies; they aren't. I only use them as representative of modern organic atheist societies, as opposed to the authoritarian societies that all attempted to force atheism on their societies by use of force, and law. Allow me to be clear; authoritarian atheism is just as wrong, dangerous, reprehensible as are forced theocracies. Neither I, nor any rational atheist I know, would ever advocate forcing atheism on a nation's citizens as a matter of law, any more than we do forcing theism on its citizens as a matter of law. Look at the clashes between atheists, and theists in our nation - particularly in the courts. Name a single case where the ath3eists are demanding that some atheist position be dictated to the people? Are we demanding that "One nation under God" be replaced with "One nation under logic"? No, we are just advocating that the religious indoctrination be removed from the pledge. Are we demanding that "In God We Trust" be replaced on our currency with "In Reason We Trust"? No, we just want the religious indoctrination be removed from the currency. And this is true in every case. In not a single instance do atheists want atheist dogma (such as it exists) to replace religious dogma. We just want religion to stay out of the public arena, and allow citizens to decide for themselves how religious, if at all, they wish to be. That being said, Denmark, and Germany is far from the only modern examples - almost all of them positive - to embrace atheists. There is the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Norway, Australia, even Japan, just to name a few. Now, am I suggesting that any of these nations is a utopia that is devoid of any problems? Of course not. Does any rational person actually believe that it would actually be possible to find such a Utopia in the real world? I would hope not; to believe that would make one criminally naïve. However, many of the issues facing those nations is certainly not endemic of atheism. For instance, the problem of violence against women was brought up, as if that is only a problem created by atheism. I would suggest that there are many religious nations - those in the Middle East come screaming to mind - to see that this is simply not the case. However, what these nations do demonstrate is that religion is absolutely not necessary to create a positive, ethical society.

What you fail to do is give the Bible any credit at all for the world being a better place so that places like Denmark and Sweden could flourish. Have you ever wondered where the "weekend" comes from? Why exactly do we get a day or two off every week? Have you ever heard of the Mosaic law and the Sabaath? At the time when the Mosaic law gave people time off work, essentially the entire ancient world was either a slave or they were a select few elites who were the slave masters. This is the natural state of man. But then something inexplicable happened. A new way of thinking was created giving the average man a day off his labors. And no, they did not completely do away with slavery but for the first time slaves were commanded to be set free after so long of service, again, something unheard of in the ancient world. And no, slavery was nothing like it was in the deep South. Men were not devalued as human beings and treated like beasts of burden for the rest of their lives. Instead, it was a way for people to survive a very harsh environment until they could get back on their feet again.

Where did the weekend come from? The Industrial revolution. The typical work week was actually six to seven days, right up until the 1920's. It wasn't a biblical principal that brought about the two-day weekend; it was economics. As farms began failing during the early 20th century, and factories began huge hiring drives to accommodate mass production, and the increase in demand that came with it, farmers began moving to the cities, and going to work for the factories. Unfortunately, these farmers were used to setting their own hours, and resented the factories demanding the long (sometimes as long as 18 hours) days, and the seven day work weeks. A prominent factory owner — Henry Ford — also played a big role. Even though the federal government didn't begin to limit companies to a 40-hour workweek until 1938, Ford began to give his factory workers a two-day weekend in the early 1900s.

Why did he do this? He wanted to sell the cars his workers were making. He realised that his own workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to sell more cars, he decided that his workers needed time off to be able to drive and enjoy them.

So the next time the weekend rolls around and you want to thank someone, thank the labour movement, including labour unions, that existed in the late 1800s. And thank Henry Ford, who recognised that the economy gets a boost if workers have a couple of days off each week to purchase goods and enjoy using them! And you can thank the Christian tradition - not to be confused with the religion - as well as Jewish tradition, but don't thank the Bible, because it had nothing to do with it.

I will stop here knowing that you probably did not even finish reading what I've written, let alone not responding to it with a mindless meme, but I'll give you the chance anyway.

Sorry, to disappoint, but I not only read your opinions, but pointed out where you were mistaken. No memes necessary. The storm of memes was for dingdong's benefit. When I decided that he was incapable of original thought, and therefore not worthy of real discussion, the memes were all he deserved until I go bored, and blocked him.

Have you ever heard of Biblical Archeology? It is the only scientific field based upon a religious book that I'm aware of. In case you did not know, these are not religious zealots. Instead, these are people who recognize the Bible as a valuable historical source to help unlock mysteries of the past. Case in point is the existence of the Philistine people There is no historical record of them existing EXCEPT in the Bible. Essentially they just read about the account and tried to determine about where they should have lived according to the Bible and started digging and found them. It still goes on today and has reaped incredible archeological finds.

Yes, I have, it is a psuedoscience that relies on confirmation bias to justify its "findings". For example, an archaeologist might discover the remains of a few buildings from the first century near the assumed location of Nazareth, and then suddenly, from the Christian community of scholars, there is a claim that Nazareth actually existed! This is a confirmation bias specifically because such scholars are ignoring all the evidence which shows the contrary, that there wasn’t any Nazareth during Jesus time, is actually much more likely to be the case. Rene Salm, for example, has collected all the archaeological and historical data on Nazareth he could find, and his conclusion is that there was no such place during the time of Jesus. And the same is true of nearly all of the "findings" of "Biblical archaeologists". Their finding ;proove nothing but their own desires to confirm what they already believed. As you pointed out, there is not a single reference to "The Philistines" as an ancient world empire. They simply did not exist.

Does this prove that everything in the Bible is 100% accurate? No. In fact, not all Biblical Archeologists agree that it is all accurate. There are some controversial accounts where not all of them agree. What it does show, however, is that the Bible should be a book that is respected for what it is. The Bible tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the men and women of the Bible. Religious texts that paint their religious heroes as perfect don't interest me in the least. In fact, Moses, one of the biggest Patriarchs in the Bible was a murderer who stuttered so bad he begged God to have his brother speak for him and a temper so bad God kept him from entering the Promised Land. Does this prove that the Bible is accurate, no, but it is much more believable than say the Koran that paints Mohammad as perfect.

Sure. It should be respected for what it is - a book of stories written by men, dictating rules, devised by men, on how one should live in their opinions, no different than the Edda, the Quran, or The Art of War.

Of course, the Bible does paint one man as perfect, and that is Jesus. The only way this is believable is that he was actually God in the flesh. For the first time, we have God speaking to us directly without the use of prophets and writers. Like it or not Christ has become the most influential man on the face of the earth despite never having wealth or a position of power and was killed at an early age to boot. I don't think many really even question if he existed or not since there are other historical references to him outside the Bible.

Or the story is complete, and utter bullshit. OAre there references to the historical personage of Jesus? Sure. However, they are limited, at best. All they mention is that he was crucified, and he engendered a cult that believed outlandish things about him. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of the religious texts written about him.

As for the Bible being 100% accurate, the Bible simply does not make this claim, rather, this has been the claim of many who believe it to be the inspired word of God. The thinking is that if it is the inspired word of God then there must be no flaws whatsoever, but not all of faith agree with that assessment since men who are flawed are often those who give the account.

If the Bible is not the flawless word of God, then it is useless. After all, who gets to be the arbiter of which parts are accurate, which pars are allegorical, and which parts are just plain wrong? And, by what authority? Sorry, your suggestion that the Bible is wrong, but should still be given the authority of divine source is simply not logical.

So why then did Jesus not write about himself?

Who says he didn't? You do realize that there are som 400+ texts from the same period as the four Gospels that the Nicean Council chose not to include in the Bible? Many of them are runmoured to still be housed in the archives of the Vatican. We only know that Jesus did not write about himself in the texts that the religious overlords, when they decided which books they wanted the masses to have access to, chose to include in the "Official" version of the Bible.

In conclusion, considering all of these facts and the fact that the Bible has survived thousands of years of theological rigor and criticism I dare say there is nothing that can be done to silence those who believe. Consider the many religions that have come and gone. The gods of the Greeks are no longer worshipped, nor of the Romans, nor of the Aztecs, etc. In fact, ancient religions are few and far between. Off the top of my head there is the God of the Bible and Hinduism, a very short list. Today, the world is dominated by the God of the Bible in many branches and sects and divisions of religion. In fact, other than Hinduism, it is the only ancient religion left. Now if God is real, I would think that such a God would be a God of the ancients as well as those of today, don't you?

You get that most of the pre-christian gods are no longer worshipped, not because no one wanted to worship them, but because Christian "soldiers" put them to death, if they did, right?

Look up the actual history of Patricuis (St. Patrick) sometime. He is not the peaceful, loving priest, who helpfully "drove out the snakes" from Ireland. He was a warrior priest, and the "snakes" were the pagan druids, which he "ran out" bu wholesale slaughter. It was genocide. The Irish were given a choice, convert to Christianity, or Patrick would come, with his holy army, and would wipe them out of existence. And this was the common practice of Christians whenever they encountered followers of pagan religions. I'm not entirely certain that is such a great endorsement of Christianity.

As for your nonsupport of authoritarian rule, I applaud this. It is refreshing to hear someone who is an atheist not insist that the state intrude on our lives to make everything fair and moral, which has essentially become a socialist religion without the worship of a super natural God. What I do know though is that the less moral a society becomes the more incapable it is of being free. After all, if society had the morality of a prison full of convicts the only way to maintain a civil society would be to build a wall around them and hire a warden. I've often joked that prison is actually a liberal utopia. There are no guns, housing is free, food is free, everyone dresses the same, medical care is free, and everyday is gay pride day.

In terms of the moral fiber of society, I can only speak for the country in which I live because I'm a witness, and that witness is that as I see the US become increasingly secular, morality has waned considerably. No longer can we not lock our doors at night. Every day you hear of a mass shooting. Children that have been denied prayer in school or even the most basic teaching of morality are now taking guns to school and killing for the first time in US history. Why? Is it all because of religion? If so, how?

Know this, with every law and regulation passed freedom wanes. In the US alone, they pass about 40,000 a year. Are we any better for it? Moreover, are they really needed? Is society so far gone that we need hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations to keep us in line every decade or so? Must the state take our guns away because we are no longer moral enough to own them? Must the free market be wiped out because we are not moral enough to handle economic freedom? Perhaps. Ben Franklin aptly said that the Constitution will last as long as the moral fiber of society will allow it to survive. He recognized that only a moral people are responsible enough to have freedom. Those who cannot regulate their own lives in a moral fashion, will have the state try to do it for them by force.

As for your Henry Ford story, sorry. Moses predates Henry Ford. Try again.

I would submit that there are many factors that are responsible for the social issues facing us that have nothing to do with atheism, or secularism.

And, Moses never existed. Period.

No, the Philistines did, in fact, exist.

Where Did the Philistines Come From? - Biblical Archaeology Society

Your proof that they exist is the pseudoscience? How about some archaeological evidence that does not come from a group already practising confirmation bias?

Confirmation bias? Again, these are not religious zealots. They simply read the Bible and go digging. It is not based on their faith.

 

[HaShev]

Nazareth was home of Jesus & existed in his time .

Nope, the problem Czernbog forgot to also mention is not just the fact the Town did not yet exist, but the fact you people selectively refuse to recognize the archeological finds that prove your assertions terribly wrong, or the fact that your own NT says his home town was Capernaum.
Nazareth was confused by those not knowing Hebrew (like Romans).
NAZARENE means guardians of the NT
Nazarite means of the town of Nazareth.
HaNotzrim means the off shoot =cult.
These words get confused as similar especially with no vowels written.
Archeology finds you ignore=the letters by Rome to their army to build the town of Nazareth around 90ad.
One of the MANY christ figures making up the Jesus image in The NT is claimed from Capernaum not Nazareth.
THE CHURCH loves hiding that fact, because
Capernaum was much like our
San Francisco, a port town where men lay with men and the figure was said to be bi in other texts, but also insinuated in the NT.

Sources:
Capernaum sources hometown liken to Soddom:
Matthew 4:13
Matthew 11:23
Matthew 17:24
Mark 1:21,2:1 etc.....


Bi Jesus:
Lazarus was the rich naked boy who slept with Jesus & was seen fleeing from his cabin.
Most likely financing the traveling Benny Hinn like scam, thus in on the traveling maggis show ruse.

A newly translated Gnostic gospel, entitled The Secret Book of Judas of Kerioth, According to this seemingly authentic early Cainite-Ophite text, translated from the Coptic by Mohammed al-Murtada and Francis Bendik, said Jesus had an active bisexual love life,including relationswith John, Lazarus and Mary Magdelene.
Also validating that: is
in the missing portions of Mark it shows Jesus sleeping with a naked young rich man, but also the NT validates this:
"...there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold of him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." (Mark 14:51-52). Was this the companion that Luke observed with Jesus inside the garden?

"...he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked on that day..."(Amos 2:16----the Hebrew 'labab' translated 'flee away' here, actually means 'transported with love', and also 'ravished'). Now that certainly fits this episode of the young man fleeing away naked from Jesus outside the garden of Gethsemane.

Who was this young man if not perhaps the rich man whom "Then Jesus beholding him, loved him..."(Mark 10:21). Perhaps it was the rich man Lazarus, of whom "...he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth..."(John 11:11----The Greek 'philos' translated 'friend', also means 'dear' and 'fond of').

 

[Clement]

And I should care why?

I always care when an oppressive organisation brainwashes a large group of people into wilful ignorance, and stupidity. Especially when those people then are able to influence the secular government of the nation.

Oh, like the Democrat party...

 

[Clement]

I want people to think for themselves.

As long as what they think agrees with you...?

 

[Votto]

Nazareth was home of Jesus & existed in his time .

Nope, the problem Czernbog forgot to also mention is not just the fact the Town did not yet exist, but the fact you people selectively refuse to recognize the archeological finds that prove your assertions terribly wrong, or the fact that your own NT says his home town was Capernaum.
Nazareth was confused by those not knowing Hebrew (like Romans).
NAZARENE means guardians of the NT
Nazarite means of the town of Nazareth.
HaNotzrim means the off shoot =cult.
These words get confused as similar especially with no vowels written.
Archeology finds you ignore=the letters by Rome to their army to build the town of Nazareth around 90ad.
One of the MANY christ figures making up the Jesus image in The NT is claimed from Capernaum not Nazareth.
THE CHURCH loves hiding that fact, because
Capernaum was much like our
San Francisco, a port town where men lay with men and the figure was said to be bi in other texts, but also insinuated in the NT.

Sources:
Capernaum sources hometown liken to Soddom:
Matthew 4:13
Matthew 11:23
Matthew 17:24
Mark 1:21,2:1 etc.....


Bi Jesus:
Lazarus was the rich naked boy who slept with Jesus & was seen fleeing from his cabin.
Most likely financing the traveling Benny Hinn like scam, thus in on the traveling maggis show ruse.

A newly translated Gnostic gospel, entitled The Secret Book of Judas of Kerioth, According to this seemingly authentic early Cainite-Ophite text, translated from the Coptic by Mohammed al-Murtada and Francis Bendik, said Jesus had an active bisexual love life,including relationswith John, Lazarus and Mary Magdelene.
Also validating that: is
in the missing portions of Mark it shows Jesus sleeping with a naked young rich man, but also the NT validates this:
"...there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold of him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." (Mark 14:51-52). Was this the companion that Luke observed with Jesus inside the garden?

"...he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked on that day..."(Amos 2:16----the Hebrew 'labab' translated 'flee away' here, actually means 'transported with love', and also 'ravished'). Now that certainly fits this episode of the young man fleeing away naked from Jesus outside the garden of Gethsemane.

Who was this young man if not perhaps the rich man whom "Then Jesus beholding him, loved him..."(Mark 10:21). Perhaps it was the rich man Lazarus, of whom "...he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth..."(John 11:11----The Greek 'philos' translated 'friend', also means 'dear' and 'fond of').

Who exactly are "you people"?

What have I denied? Nothing that I know of. Perhaps I will study the matter but to this point have not done so.

As far as the "Gnostic gospels", I was discussing the Bible in particular, not the Gnostic gospels. As you well know, there are many that are heretical to the Bible.

 

[HaShev]

Sorry generalization in this context
"you people" conveys those head strong people who take info feed to them as fact without budging to new evidence proving that info or account wrong. Hence my saying selectively recognizing archeological finds.
Another example is the refusal to recognize the Baal Passion play tablets sitting in the Brittish museum predating Jesus by over 400 years but accounting the same exact death scene and resurrection from a cave on Baal the harvest god who's birthday is Dec 25th, who's predated symbol was the sun circle cross.
You people=those who dance around evidence that is problematic.

 

[Hawkins]

And I should care why?

I always care when an oppressive organisation brainwashes a large group of people into wilful ignorance, and stupidity. Especially when those people then are able to influence the secular government of the nation.

If so why are you accept the brainwashing of your education.

Scientifically, no one knows for sure that what would happen after death. So as long as it concerns your life,

either you believe with faith that nothing serious could happen after death
or you believe with faith that something serious could happen after death

Either of the above is a religion, that is, a common belief shared by a large group of humans.