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Author Topic:   Moral high ground
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 241 of 318 (645949)
12-31-2011 9:05 PM
Reply to: Message 226 by hooah212002
12-30-2011 10:16 PM


Re: Group Comparisons
hooah writes:
I don't agree with your "groups" and how you grouped them together. To be honest, I didn't read your post past group two.
I.E. Hooah refuses to admit that group one, whom he detests, comprises of a culture's best, least troublesome and most productive citizens, as per group comparisons.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 226 by hooah212002, posted 12-30-2011 10:16 PM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 242 of 318 (645952)
12-31-2011 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by NoNukes
12-31-2011 5:01 PM


Re: Group Comparisons
NoNukes writes:
Which of these groups of people is more likely to have a member who would bomb an abortion clinic, the 1996 Olympics, a church with four nine year old girls attending Sunday school, or to lynch a black man for whistling at a white woman, author the Turner diaries, have sex with underage male parish members while operating a ministry aimed at converting homosexuals to heterosexuals, bilk millions of dollars out of followers with a time share pyramid scheme, .
Of course after they do these things, we decide that they were never real Christians.
NoNukes, you need to go back and reread my description of group one. None of the above fit the description of that group.
You need to understand that we're talking by and large, as well. By and large none of the other groups hold a candle, so to speak, to group one. A dozen or so, a class group of millions does not comprise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by NoNukes, posted 12-31-2011 5:01 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 243 of 318 (645953)
12-31-2011 9:32 PM
Reply to: Message 237 by anglagard
12-31-2011 2:42 AM


Re: Group Comparisons
anglagard writes:
Buzsaw writes:
Group one: Regular Sunday go meetin fundi NT believers who pray regularly, read the Bible daily, work, attend religious functions often; i.e. your hated Biblio-fundies.
What a perfect description of Hong Xiuquan, #5 in the sweepstakes for an individual responsible for the most deaths in human history.
How far fetched can you get, Anglagard? You're totally off the wire, applying one single strawman, having no resemblence of my description of group one, comprising of millions.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 237 by anglagard, posted 12-31-2011 2:42 AM anglagard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 249 by anglagard, posted 01-03-2012 1:37 PM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(6)
Message 244 of 318 (645956)
01-01-2012 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 239 by AdminPD
12-31-2011 9:08 AM


What are you doing in there?
quote:
Thoreau replied, Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?
BTW, PD, you seriously need to get off that Purple Majesty Crap.
It seems to me that Buzsaw is wrong in his position, but right to support it with hard questions and critiques directed at his interlocutors: How can you debate the moral high ground without addressing the person standing on it?
The thread is about more than counting bodies.
Thank you, ma'am. Happy New Year.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message by continuing in this vein.
AdminPD
Edited by AdminPD, : No reason given.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 239 by AdminPD, posted 12-31-2011 9:08 AM AdminPD has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 245 of 318 (646002)
01-01-2012 5:38 PM
Reply to: Message 231 by Chuck77
12-30-2011 11:43 PM


Re: You cant create the utopia until you free people from religion and get rid of it.
We don't drag other threads into other threads nor do we quote members from other threads to make points in other threads...Capesh?
Nonsense. I wouldn't hesitate to quote anything relevant posted in this forum.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message by continuing in this vein.
AdminPD
Edited by AdminPD, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 231 by Chuck77, posted 12-30-2011 11:43 PM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 246 of 318 (646003)
01-01-2012 6:22 PM
Reply to: Message 231 by Chuck77
12-30-2011 11:43 PM


Re: You cant create the utopia until you free people from religion and get rid of it.
Chuck77 writes:
Since you're somewhat new here and still green behind the ears here's a little advice
Thanks for the advice Chuck, I am new here but not quite green enough not to notice the banned symbol next to your name or recognise cant when I see it. Enjoy the enforced rest.
To get back on topic.
Given that god has created us in order to die (but could obviously have done it differently), why is how many either side of this argument kills of any relevance to morality? Surely simply by just creating the mortality of all life, he has made killing a trivial issue in his own terms? So who are we to think any differentlty?

Life, don't talk to me about life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 231 by Chuck77, posted 12-30-2011 11:43 PM Chuck77 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by crashfrog, posted 01-01-2012 6:37 PM Tangle has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 247 of 318 (646004)
01-01-2012 6:37 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by Tangle
01-01-2012 6:22 PM


Re: You cant create the utopia until you free people from religion and get rid of it.
Thanks for the advice Chuck, I am new here but not quite green enough not to notice the banned symbol next to your name or recognise cant when I see it. Enjoy the enforced rest.
Wow, early candidate for Burn of the Year!
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message by continuing in this vein.
AdminPD
Edited by AdminPD, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 246 by Tangle, posted 01-01-2012 6:22 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Butterflytyrant
Member (Idle past 4422 days)
Posts: 415
From: Australia
Joined: 06-28-2011


Message 248 of 318 (646155)
01-03-2012 1:33 PM


Hello everybody,
there are too many posts up since the last time I looked at this for me to do indidual replies. I would be covering the same ground many times.
So this is a reply to many posts.
PD - Message 124
Using your supplied definition of religious
Religious
1: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity
2: of, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances
It greatly depends on how you interpret a lot of the words in the definition you supplied. Would god not be ensuring faithful devotion to an acknowledged deity by killing those he believes to be disobeying his rules?
Wouldnt killing people for not following his instructions be 'relating to religious belief or observances'?
Genesis 7 - The one who created the people destroyed the people because he didn't like their behavior.
Gods religious motivation for killing the people he viewed as corrupt was to advance christianity. He wanted to keep the true worshippers alive. He wanted to kill those who did not worship him. Thats one of the more common religious motivations.
God killed these people because they were not following his rules. They were corrupt in his eyes. He made a godly judgement and decided to kill them all. A divine act. I would imagine that a divine act of retribution, after a judgement by a divine being, for breaking divinely mandated rules would be a religious act.
But you will disagree I am sure. WHen you do, in your reply please include the correct definition of the following words -
religion
religious motivation
god
And also, I would like to know how you are able to seperate God from Christianity.
You claim that saying that Stalin was an athiest but his killings were not motivated by athiesm makes sense. But Stalin is not the central figure of athiesm. There is no equivelant of God in athiesm. He is a deity. The deity. The creator or christianity. There is a big difference between God and Stalin. I am sure you dont or wont see that though.
PD, from
Message 143
BFT is adamant that deaths from the Bible should be included for those people who believe the Bible is historically correct.
If they believe that they have occured, and they are putting forward an argument of moral superiority due to death count, then yes, they should be included. They should be included in the discussion with that person. I dont see why, when I am in that discussion, I should be able to just brush away someones beliefs and say, 'your holy book is not true' so you cannot have developed your opinions regarding morals on it. That does not make sense. If it is a fact that they have developed their moral position on the book, then the book needs to be addressed.
God is not a religion, he is a supreme being.
Yes, the central figure of a specific religion. The one and only. Anything god does is religiously motivated. God is the christian religion. (or judaism, Islam etc depending on who you are talking about). If Gods acts are not religious, what are they. People talk about the divine acts of god, acts requiring gods will. These acts further the christian faith. They are religious acts. Regardles of the semantic word game bullshit that you want to play. If god does it, he has excersised his divine will. What are his acts if they are not religious?
In the flood account. The supreme being destroyed the people he created. He didn't like the way the majority turned out. What's the supreme being's religious reason?
What an oversimplified interpretation. You usually go into great detail and depth but this time you have chosen to be really simple, why would that be. Oh yes. Becasue it supports your position to oversimplify it.
Reasons god flooded the earth
quote:
The Genesis 6 account gives certain details about the days of the flood:
the fallen sons of God corrupted the earth with false doctrines by intermarrying with humans and thus teaching them their ways
God sent preachers to plead with the people to change their ways, but they would not repent. He therefore said told Noah that He would not always strive (diyn/plead/contend) with them (v 3)
God therefore said that He would reduce human lifespan from centuries to 120 years because
there was great wickedness in the earth and people’s spirits were full of evil from their youth (v 5)
the people of the earth were corrupt (shachath/morally corrupt) - Gen 6: 11, 12)
and there was violence in the earth (Gen 6: 11,13)
(Source:Why did God destroy the earth in a flood (Specificsgiven) | Power of Prayer, Praise and the Word of God)
God, the creator and central figure in a religion, the key religious figure of christianisty, judaism and Islam, passed divine jusdgement for breaking religious rules. He created a supernatural flood, and saved only people he decided were true followers of his religious rules. He wanted to kill all those who did not adhere to his religious rules. That is the religious motivation.
with regards to Samson,
quote:
Judges 14:19 - And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house.
AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD CAME UPON HIM and then he flew into a rage and killed 30 people. He was given strength by god in oreder to kill people. God directly intervened in order to help sampson kill people. I would put that on the religion side. He killed them for a stupid reason too. Read the chapter. It even gets worse. Later on, god gives him stregth again and he murders another 1000 men. With gods help, he murders people.
Saying that because God did it or because it is in the Bible makes it a religious reason is no better than saying because an Atheist did it makes it an atheistic reason.
Are you seriously equating God, with any random athiest. Does God occupy any special religious position?
Would you not agree that the deaths in Noahs flood are a direct result of the dogma of christianity? The rules of God had been broken, so they were punished by god. Without the rules of God (and without god), there would be no flood and no deaths. Without athiesm, Stalin would still have starved all of those Ukranians. Without religion, would Hitler have chosen the Jews to go to the gas chamber?
quote:
"It is of no matter whether or not the individual Jew is decent. He possesses certain characteristics given to him by nature, and he can never rid himself of those characteristics. The Jew is harmful to us... My feeling as a Christian leads me to be a fighter for my Lord and Saviour. It leads me to the man who, at one time lonely and with only a few followers, recognized the Jews for what they were, and called on me to fight against them... As a Christian, I owe something to my own people." Adolf Hitler
The deaths at gods hands were commited because they contradicted Gods beliefs.
God killed them because they did not meet the definition of a good or true christian.
That certainly sounds like it is religiously motivated to me.
PD from Message 147
We are working with stories in the Bible and since I said people or person, we are talking about humans. Where in the Bible do they refer to God as a person as in human individual? Are gods presented as humans in the Bible stories?
from wiki -
quote:
Holy Trinity -
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons (Greek: ὑποστάσεις):the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial (Greek: ὁμοούσιοι). Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being (Greek: οὐσία).The Trinity is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith.
According to this doctrine, God exists as three persons but is one God, meaning that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have exactly the same nature or being as God the Father in every way. Whatever attributes and power God the Father has, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have as well. "Thus, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are also eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely loving, omniscient.
quote:
Jesus is the most important person who has ever lived since he is the savior, God in human flesh. He is not half God and half man. He is fully divine and fully man. In other words, Jesus has two distinct natures: divine and human. Jesus is the Word who was God and was with God and was made flesh, (John 1:1,14). This means that in the single person of Jesus is both a human and divine nature, God and man. The divine nature was not changed when the Word became flesh (John 1:1,14). Instead, the Word was joined with humanity (Col. 2:9). Jesus' divine nature was not altered. Also, Jesus is not merely a man who "had God within Him" nor is he a man who "manifested the God principle." He is God in flesh, second person of the Trinity. "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word," (Heb. 1:3). Jesus' two natures are not "mixed together," (Eutychianism) nor are they combined into a new God-man nature (Monophysitism). They are separate yet act as a unit in the one person of Jesus.
(Source:http://carm.org/jesus-two-natures)
So yes, Jesus is a human person. And Jesus is god in human form.
You seem to want to seperate the OT and NT books as if they are totally disconnected and can be dealt with individually. I dont have a bible without the old testament books in it.
CS from Message 158
So which deaths in the Bible are they going to count as religiously motivated? (that is what we/they're counting, right?)
You counted the victims of the flood earlier, but don't you think those shouldn't be counted as religously motivated since they were not caused by someone who was motivated by religion?
God killing people for not following his rules. For being corrupt in his eyes. Divine judgement, supernatural flood, save the faithfull, kill the people who are not following the rule of God. That sounds like a religiously motivated act to me.
Man doing the will of god = religiously motivated.
God doing the will of god = not religiously motivated???
does that make sense to you?
God was perpetuating the existence of his chosen faithful people.
PD from Message 166
You brought the verses in as evidence of deaths motivated by religion. I disagreed because IMO stories are not valid sources of data for this type of comparison. You persisted, so now I've asked that you show that within the context of the stories that the deaths were actually motivated by religion since you wish to count them as true. You brought them in as evidence.
This means you still dont get it. I do not wish to count the religious stories as true. The oerson who beliwves them to be true needs to count them. You seem to keep missing that regardles of the amount of times i tell you.
IMO, not a good hypothetical. The Christian using the Bible as fact would add to his numbers if he is actually using all the ones you listed (although I doubt if he would). My count should be lower. Why would I want to correct him when I'm ahead?
Thats the second time you have use IMO in the one post. To quote Larry Flynt 'opinions are like assholes, everybodies got one'. You doubt that a hypothetical person would act in a certain way??? How well do you know this hypotheitical person? This is a good insight into your tactics. You would be dishonest in order to win a debate.
Why would you correct him? Because winning a debate using deception is not worth shit.
Out of curiosity, has there actually been a Bible Literalist who counts the deaths from those stories in their numbers concerning moral superiority?
There probably would not be many. But that is the point. Not counting some deaths in order to win a debate does not amke someone right. A bible literalist, who believes the bible is a history book, who also claim moral superiority due to death tolls, needs to face up to the deaths in the bible.
You seem to doubt that there are people who believe that the bible is a history book and that they stand on higher moral ground because atheism has a higher death toll.
Check out these websites (for as long as you can stomach the bullshit anyway).
MILITANT ATHEISM EXPOSED: DEFEATING MILITANT ATHEISTS‘ AGENDA WITH FACTS AND REASON
from that page on the flood of Noah -
quote:
For hundreds of years after Adam’s creation, humanity pursued a course of rebellion set by the two first humans. Sin abounded on the earth but God did not intervene. After a long period of time, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6: 5). And God concluded that mankind did not deserve to exist any longer and thus the fatal verdict: I will destroy them with the earth (V. 6). But eight people found favor in God’s eyes: Noah, his wife, his three children and their wives.
Thus the human race was kept from total destruction, and we are here today as a result of the righteousness of the few, but, most of all, as a result of God’s endless mercy.
What if God had not spared Noah and his family? What if God had simply said: Enough with these incorrigible humans; no more time will be wasted on them; I will destroy them all, once and for all?
Needless to say, if this had been God’s verdict, the plan of God involving humans would have ended then and there;, the rest of human history would have never taken place and we would have never had a chance to exist, let alone long for eternal life.
But God did spare a seed in Noah and his children, and He did go on with His plan that later involved His Son’s coming to earth and His death for all of humanity.
from the same website -
quote:
Thus the two greatest forces that shaped Hitler’s mind and that moulded his proud, arrogant and cruel spirit were both anti-Christian. Nietzsche, the major force that shaped Hitler’s unstoppable cruelty, was undeniably an atheist.
Did Hitler, therefore, believe in some kind of undefined Divinity? It appears that he did; but we must say so with some reservation, as he may have used references to God to ingratiate himself with the majority of Germans who professed to be Catholics or Lutherans. After all, Machiavelli instructs that, most of all, a successful leader must "appear" religious.[iv] Thus it is conceivable that Hitler may have put this principle into practice.
Therefore, though Hitler may have not been an atheist, one thing can be asserted with absolute certainty: Hitler had no place in his life and politics for the Christian God, as his beastly cruelty clearly manifested. It is relevant to mention that Hitler's evil actions were surpassed by the arch-atheist, Stalin.
This guy believes that the Bible was a history book and he had this to say regarding athiesm and moraltiy -
quote:
Lacking any transcendent objective authoritative code of morals (unless one considers Darwin's Origin.., to be such), atheism operates out of an objectively baseless morality, and can only assure us it will do what is reasonable to them, in contrast to such as go by the Bible. Atheists also typically insist that social Darwinist Hitler was a Christian (contrary to Biblical Christianity, and Hitler, like atheism, had plans to eliminate Christianity in any form), while vehemently protesting against atheism being linked to men like Stalin. Yet the fact is mass murderers like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot and multitude more were in-deed acting out of atheism's basis for morality (or lack thereof), doing what was pragmatically reasonable to them in slaying and subjugating their multitudes.'
How soon we forget. The Stalinist Purges produced 61 million dead and Mao's Cultural Revolution saw 70 million casualties, while Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge killed up to 6 million with the support of atheistic China. These casualties were just those of their own people! Atheist Lenin saw the massive Russian famine as a good thing, as he felt it would help eliminate the people's faith in God.
Thus organized militant atheism has a bloody legacy that is recently worse than even false formal religions (though modern weapons helped). If false religion was the opiate of the people, atheism was their poison.
(Source: Free Christian Web Hosting & List Hosting | Worthy of Praise)
This apologetics website discusses all deaths since the beginning of human history -
quote:
It is often argued by humanists and atheists that religion is responsible for most of the suffering caused by war in human history.
The page mentions Hitler, Mao and Stalin on the athiest death toll side. But they do not include any of the biblical deaths even though they believe they were factual. Why? because this would piss on their arguements.
These following pages contain the same sort of shit -
http://christian-apologetics.org/...omprehensive-debate-list
Page not found - Apologetics Press
Even Dinesh D'Souza gets on the bandwagon -
quote:
Of course I agree that murderous regimes, whether Christian or atheist, are generally seeking to strengthen their position. But if Christian regimes are held responsible for their crimes committed in the name of Christianity, then atheist regimes should be held accountable for their crimes committed in the name of atheism. And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a new man and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist.
check out the many and varied youtube vids -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP1KpNEeRYU
heres a channel for it -
https://www.youtube.com/user/atheistcrimes
This page from Creation Ministries International website lists defenses of the deaths in the bible. The article is called "Is the Bible ‘evil’?
Moral accusations against God and Scripture fall flat". The artilce advises that all of the deaths attributed to God are for 'capital offenses' so are not murder so are not morally wrong. The article misses a few major killings though.
Check it out here - Evil Bible fallacies - creation.com
heres another one connecting evolution/atheism and hitler - The Charles Darwin / Adolf Hitler connexion & correcting misinformation re slavery, racism - creation.com
and another, this one covers Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin etc -
Deconstructing Darwin: Darwins impact - creation.com
and another - Stalin - creation.com
and another - Christian vs evolutionary atrocities - creation.com
and another - Freedom Defender: Atrocities of Atheism: Episode V -- The Evil Empire Strikes Back
heres a book about it - Atheist Personality Disorder: Addressing a Distorted Mindset - John J. Pasquini - Google Books
So yes, there are people who need to address the issue. And Creation Min is even making a small attempt at doing so.
CS from Message 168
Well, what the hell do you mean by "religiously motivated". I think it means that you did something because of your religion.
An action primarily performed to increase the power of a religion. An action for a chosen deity. An action to please a chosen deity. An action performed at the request or instruction of a deity. An action performed by a deity.
Its not about the end result at all. Its about the motivation for the act. If your religion is what motivated you to do the act, then that act was religiously motivated. God doesn't count as "religious" so he cannot be religiously motivated. Its not that complicated and its not a semantic distraction.
Nice dance. If the motivation of the act is to kell lots of people for not following the instructions of a god, then it is religiously motivated. Remove religion from the bible, thus removing the deity and who will die? God can perform actions that are religiously motivated. Did Jesus not promote religion? I would suggest that Jesus (part of the Trinity) promoting religion would be religiously motivated.
quote:
Therefore in all things it behoved him (Jesus)
to be made like His brothers, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of His people."
(Heb 2:17)
Jesus is the High Priest. That would certainly make him religious.
Holy shit, man, calm the fuck down. Argue the position, not the person.
I mostly type with my feet up on a desk with a scotch in easy reach. I have fallen asleep in this position. I cant get much more calm. How come swearing means you are argueing the person? How come an accusation of argueing the person means that you automatically get to ignore all of the points brought up in that section of the post?
I hope I didnt miss anybody.
To putmy position on the table again. I think that the arguement that people of a given religion occupy the moral high ground because of their faith is ridiculous. I dont believe the arguement itself even makes sense. However, I do hear the arguement fairly often. The arguement needs to be dealt with in different ways depending on the person you are dealing with. If you are dealing with a bible literalist, who believes that the bible is a history book, then you can quite quickly and easily put their position down by listing the deaths in the bible commited by god with the intention of furthering or strengthening christianity (or Judaism if you are speaking to a Jew). Simply stating that their religious book is not a history book is not going to win you the arguement against someone who believes it is. If you are not speaking to a person who believes the bible is a history book, and they bring up hitler, stalin etc, you can use the historical evidence that exists against their position.
Happy New Year

I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong
Butterfly, AKA, mallethead - Dawn Bertot
"Superstitions and nonsense from the past should not prevent us from making progress. If we hold ourselves back, we admit that our fears are more powerful than our abilities." Hunters of Dune Herbert & Anderson
2011 leading candidate for the EvC Forum Don Quixote award

Replies to this message:
 Message 250 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2012 2:03 PM Butterflytyrant has replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


(2)
Message 249 of 318 (646156)
01-03-2012 1:37 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by Buzsaw
12-31-2011 9:32 PM


Try Again
Buzsaw writes:
Group one: Regular Sunday go meetin fundi NT believers who pray regularly, read the Bible daily, work, attend religious functions often; i.e. your hated Biblio-fundies.
anglagard writes:
What a perfect description of Hong Xiuquan, #5 in the sweepstakes for an individual responsible for the most deaths in human history.
For those who don't know or more likely, don't want to know, Hong Xiuquan was the leader of the Taipeng Rebellion.
Here is the description from the wiki:
quote:
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.
Hong, who had received visions and maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with its capital at Nanjing. The theocratic and militaristic regime instituted several social reforms, including strict separation of the sexes, abolition of foot binding, land socialization and common property, suppression of private trade, and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion by a form of Christianity.
According to everything I have read on the subject, which I believe to be far more extensive than Buzsaw, the following is true about Hong Xiuquan:
Pray regularly - check
Read the Bible daily - check
Work - only if one considers leading tens of millions work - check
Attend religious functions often - try organized often - check
Hated Biblio-fundie - hated by the Qing among others, fundie, well he was pretty strict about that Christian morality - so, check
Now as to the numbers (from List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll):
WW2: 40,000,000-72,000,000
An Lushan Rebellion: 33,000,000-36,000,000
Mongol Conquests: 30.000,000-60,000,000
Qing Dynasty Conquest of Ming Dynasty: 25,000,000
Taipeng Rebellion: 20,000,000-100,000,000
In referring to Hong Xiuquan as #5, I was using the low estimate.
Buzsaw writes:
How far fetched can you get, Anglagard? You're totally off the wire, applying one single strawman, having no resemblence of my description of group one, comprising of millions.
Please provide evidence of the claims of "strawman" or "no resemblance" instead of simply dismissing what you obviously find an unpleasant historical fact.
Edited by anglagard, : Missing link

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis Bacon

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 250 of 318 (646159)
01-03-2012 2:03 PM
Reply to: Message 248 by Butterflytyrant
01-03-2012 1:33 PM


Man doing the will of god = religiously motivated.
God doing the will of god = not religiously motivated???
does that make sense to you?
Where:
'God doing the will of god' 'Man doing the will of god'
Yes, that makes perfect sense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 248 by Butterflytyrant, posted 01-03-2012 1:33 PM Butterflytyrant has replied

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 Message 252 by Butterflytyrant, posted 01-03-2012 2:14 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 251 of 318 (646161)
01-03-2012 2:10 PM
Reply to: Message 219 by Rahvin
12-30-2011 4:31 PM


Re: You cant create the utopia until you free people from religion and get rid of it.
To be fair to making any sense whatsoever, if "atheism" cannot bear moral responsibility, I fail to see how an "atheistic regime" might have any relevance, either.
Being "an atheist" doesn't give you qualifiers with which to count the numbers of things. But by being a part of a regime, you can get into the counting.
The structure of the comparison is set up to apply a judgment of morality on atheism by comparing the regimes that (may or may not) have been "atheistic" to those that (may or may not) have been primarily "Christian." But if we agree that "Atheism" says nothing about morality, then an "atheistic regime" can also say nothing about morality; it must be some other characteristic of those regimes that would drive them to good or evil, because atheism can do neither.
It depends what you're talking about with "atheism"...
A simple lack of belief isn't really something you can get behind. But as a positive belief, you can. An atheist regime can use the same cultural brain washing that a religious one does, but just put, for example, a dictator in place of a god.
Wasn't that one of the points that Hitch made with Stalin, in the video that Mod linked to? Or would you say that that doesn't count as "atheist" if the Tsar is like a god?
Its almost as if its "religious atheism"... so, er, would you count those deaths on the religion side then
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

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Butterflytyrant
Member (Idle past 4422 days)
Posts: 415
From: Australia
Joined: 06-28-2011


Message 252 of 318 (646163)
01-03-2012 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by New Cat's Eye
01-03-2012 2:03 PM


I dont think your reply makes sense.

I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong
Butterfly, AKA, mallethead - Dawn Bertot
"Superstitions and nonsense from the past should not prevent us from making progress. If we hold ourselves back, we admit that our fears are more powerful than our abilities." Hunters of Dune Herbert & Anderson
2011 leading candidate for the EvC Forum Don Quixote award

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 Message 253 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2012 2:18 PM Butterflytyrant has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 253 of 318 (646164)
01-03-2012 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by Butterflytyrant
01-03-2012 2:14 PM


If "religiously motivated" = "Man doing the will of god", and "God doing the will of god" "Man doing the will of god", then "religiously motivated" "God doing the will of god".
A = B. B C. Ergo, A C
Its simple logic.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 252 by Butterflytyrant, posted 01-03-2012 2:14 PM Butterflytyrant has replied

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 Message 255 by Butterflytyrant, posted 01-03-2012 2:32 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
Butterflytyrant
Member (Idle past 4422 days)
Posts: 415
From: Australia
Joined: 06-28-2011


Message 254 of 318 (646165)
01-03-2012 2:24 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by New Cat's Eye
01-03-2012 2:10 PM


Re: You cant create the utopia until you free people from religion and get rid of it.
A simple lack of belief isn't really something you can get behind. But as a positive belief, you can. An atheist regime can use the same cultural brain washing that a religious one does, but just put, for example, a dictator in place of a god.
Wasn't that one of the points that Hitch made with Stalin, in the video that Mod linked to? Or would you say that that doesn't count as "atheist" if the Tsar is like a god?
Its almost as if its "religious atheism"... so, er, would you count those deaths on the religion side then
With regards to Stalin, if you remove the religious/athiest part of the equation, the death toll would have been near identical. Religion was a side note.
With religiously motivated deaths, removing the religious elements greatly reduces or even eliminates the deaths alltogether.
For example, Anglagard has introduced the Taiping Rebellion. If you remove religion from the equation, how many deaths do you think would have occured?

I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong
Butterfly, AKA, mallethead - Dawn Bertot
"Superstitions and nonsense from the past should not prevent us from making progress. If we hold ourselves back, we admit that our fears are more powerful than our abilities." Hunters of Dune Herbert & Anderson
2011 leading candidate for the EvC Forum Don Quixote award

This message is a reply to:
 Message 251 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2012 2:10 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

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Butterflytyrant
Member (Idle past 4422 days)
Posts: 415
From: Australia
Joined: 06-28-2011


Message 255 of 318 (646166)
01-03-2012 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 253 by New Cat's Eye
01-03-2012 2:18 PM


Oh, i recognise what you did there.
Why i did not get it the first time is that the connections you are makong are imaginary.
Not logical.
Why is man doing the will of god not equal to god doing the will of god?
If god wants to kill little jimmy, so he kills little jimmy or God wants to kill little jimmy, so he gets Stanley to kill little jimmy, then they are equal.
Little Jimmy is dead.
Can you explain why you think that little Jimmy being dead is different if God does it or if god asks Stanley to do it?
Stanley is merely a tool. The same as if God used a gun or a knife.
Your oversimplification does not make sense.

I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong
Butterfly, AKA, mallethead - Dawn Bertot
"Superstitions and nonsense from the past should not prevent us from making progress. If we hold ourselves back, we admit that our fears are more powerful than our abilities." Hunters of Dune Herbert & Anderson
2011 leading candidate for the EvC Forum Don Quixote award

This message is a reply to:
 Message 253 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2012 2:18 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 256 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2012 2:52 PM Butterflytyrant has replied

  
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