Kidan
Moderator
Not really, my point is that a religious person, whether that religion is true or not, has a moral backing. They can look at something and say in their mind whether or not their diety would approve of them doing this.
An atheist does not have this. An atheist, professing that their is no diety whatsover, therefore anything I do is ok. Morality, what is good or not good, is not inate. IT is imposed upon us by outside forces. Whether that's religion, society, parents or whatever, morality is a learned behaviour.
Now onto your statement about the children. Yes the kids that has something taken from him, feels wronged. But the child doing the taking does not feel any guilt. That is instructed into him via paddling or whatever punishment the parent/gaurdian choose to use. Humans are not born with a sense of right and wrong. We are selfish, greedy creatures and it's only through the love of (and punishment from) parents and God that we stop being this way. And I never said that no moral compass equals immoral conduct. In fact I made a pointed fact that that was not the issue. The issue was the lack of a overall GUIDE to what should be considered moral, as espoused by the singular question of "Is truth relative?"
Now of course my first question on religious vs secular deaths, are you blaming the religion for the actions of it's followers, when they REJECT what it teaches?
An example. Here in Florida, they just executed an ex-prestrbyian (sp) minister for shooting an abortion doctor and an abortion escort. Now this murder was in cold blood, with no mitigating factors that could cause it to be justifiable. It is murder in the Biblical 10 Commandments vein. Now is that murder a cause of Christianity?
My answer would be no.
So at it's most liberal and give the three more or less universally accepted atrocities caused by Christianity (this is in no way saying that they SHOULD have happened, just that they probably wouldn't have if Christianity hadn't been there). First and formost we have the Crusades, then the witch trails (started 1436? an continued until i believe 17 something, but let's just make it 1836 for round numbers) and finally the inquisition.
the crusades. yes this was the biggest of those failings, there were about ten of them, and noone truly knows, but the best guest estimate is 1.5 people died in those ten wars (i've seen estimates as low as 100,000, which is preposterous to me, up to 5 million, which is equally preposterous, but historical documents counting deaths and the number that left and returned etc. give the number I'm using). then we have the 400 years of witch trails, where about a 1000 people died per 100 years. so that's about 4000 people, and then the inquisition with it's 2000 people killed.
so we're looking at around 1510000 people for those three things in Christianity. Now by adding OT Jews into the mix
Jewish OT Battles we get another 1,283,000
So For Judeo-Christian Religions alone we have about 1.8 million people killed. Compare that to the 50 million killed due to the secular WW2. Then of course we have things such as Islam, and various human sacrifices done by a number of old mid-east myth structures, but even if they add up to the 50 million caused by WW2, we can also add the 40 million from Mao Zeding (1949-1979 or communist china at it's funnest) another 40 million for the mongol conquests, 25 million for the manchu conquests, and then the Taiping Rebellion caused a minimum of 20 million deaths.
How can you make a comparision?
Now to answer you about Religion giving an EXCUSE. Maybe some do. From my studies of Islam, and it's various writings, Bin-Laden has the actual interpretation, where he gets to wage war against anyone that's not Islamic. Yet does this apply to Christianity? No. We are told that we are to love one another. That we are to actively show love. That our greatest commandment is to love others as (if not more) than ourselves. We are taught that we are not true Christians UNLESS we are showing love to others. Anyone who does not do these things, is not truly acting in a Christain manner. Would you blame the hippocratic oath, for a murdering doctor? Likewise would you blame Christianity for a hypocritical Christain?
Medjai-- I have true issues on whether or not Catholicism can be counted as a Christain denomination. IMO at best it can be counted as a Christian cult, but for the ease of discussion, and to keep that concept out of it, I'll include it as a Christian denomination. Yet as for the 'earliest' Christians being Catholic. That is pure Catholic propaganda. Catholicism wasn't founded for a few centuries after Christianity. And a number of Catholic priests (esp. in that time period) were atheists
Onto Hitler. He did no such thing. Just because he was an alter boy does not make him a christian (see above) He blamed jews for every failing that Germany had, and then threw in some misqouted scriptures just for fun. Nowhere in the Bible does it say 'Jews are evil things that must be destroyed' or even anything close. In fact they are still God's chosen people, and we should accept them with love and try to teach them (as we should do for all mankind) the Gospel of Christ. See my notes on the Crusades above. Sept. 11 caused less than 10k deaths. I hate to say it this way, but that's truly small scale for this century in death rates, though it is large scale for a terrorist style attack. All massed suicides are religious in nature? Massed suicides are usually within cults, and as such would not truly be classified as a organized religion, but even still, we could count htem, and at most give 1-1.5 million deaths (and i'm sure that's generous)
As for Stalin (and Mao ) why he may not have killed in the name of atheism. He did enjoy killing Christians for believing in Christ. and in fact preaching the gospel, can still get you tossed in jail in China...
An atheist does not have this. An atheist, professing that their is no diety whatsover, therefore anything I do is ok. Morality, what is good or not good, is not inate. IT is imposed upon us by outside forces. Whether that's religion, society, parents or whatever, morality is a learned behaviour.
Now onto your statement about the children. Yes the kids that has something taken from him, feels wronged. But the child doing the taking does not feel any guilt. That is instructed into him via paddling or whatever punishment the parent/gaurdian choose to use. Humans are not born with a sense of right and wrong. We are selfish, greedy creatures and it's only through the love of (and punishment from) parents and God that we stop being this way. And I never said that no moral compass equals immoral conduct. In fact I made a pointed fact that that was not the issue. The issue was the lack of a overall GUIDE to what should be considered moral, as espoused by the singular question of "Is truth relative?"
Now of course my first question on religious vs secular deaths, are you blaming the religion for the actions of it's followers, when they REJECT what it teaches?
An example. Here in Florida, they just executed an ex-prestrbyian (sp) minister for shooting an abortion doctor and an abortion escort. Now this murder was in cold blood, with no mitigating factors that could cause it to be justifiable. It is murder in the Biblical 10 Commandments vein. Now is that murder a cause of Christianity?
My answer would be no.
So at it's most liberal and give the three more or less universally accepted atrocities caused by Christianity (this is in no way saying that they SHOULD have happened, just that they probably wouldn't have if Christianity hadn't been there). First and formost we have the Crusades, then the witch trails (started 1436? an continued until i believe 17 something, but let's just make it 1836 for round numbers) and finally the inquisition.
the crusades. yes this was the biggest of those failings, there were about ten of them, and noone truly knows, but the best guest estimate is 1.5 people died in those ten wars (i've seen estimates as low as 100,000, which is preposterous to me, up to 5 million, which is equally preposterous, but historical documents counting deaths and the number that left and returned etc. give the number I'm using). then we have the 400 years of witch trails, where about a 1000 people died per 100 years. so that's about 4000 people, and then the inquisition with it's 2000 people killed.
so we're looking at around 1510000 people for those three things in Christianity. Now by adding OT Jews into the mix
Jewish OT Battles we get another 1,283,000
So For Judeo-Christian Religions alone we have about 1.8 million people killed. Compare that to the 50 million killed due to the secular WW2. Then of course we have things such as Islam, and various human sacrifices done by a number of old mid-east myth structures, but even if they add up to the 50 million caused by WW2, we can also add the 40 million from Mao Zeding (1949-1979 or communist china at it's funnest) another 40 million for the mongol conquests, 25 million for the manchu conquests, and then the Taiping Rebellion caused a minimum of 20 million deaths.
How can you make a comparision?
Now to answer you about Religion giving an EXCUSE. Maybe some do. From my studies of Islam, and it's various writings, Bin-Laden has the actual interpretation, where he gets to wage war against anyone that's not Islamic. Yet does this apply to Christianity? No. We are told that we are to love one another. That we are to actively show love. That our greatest commandment is to love others as (if not more) than ourselves. We are taught that we are not true Christians UNLESS we are showing love to others. Anyone who does not do these things, is not truly acting in a Christain manner. Would you blame the hippocratic oath, for a murdering doctor? Likewise would you blame Christianity for a hypocritical Christain?
Medjai-- I have true issues on whether or not Catholicism can be counted as a Christain denomination. IMO at best it can be counted as a Christian cult, but for the ease of discussion, and to keep that concept out of it, I'll include it as a Christian denomination. Yet as for the 'earliest' Christians being Catholic. That is pure Catholic propaganda. Catholicism wasn't founded for a few centuries after Christianity. And a number of Catholic priests (esp. in that time period) were atheists
Onto Hitler. He did no such thing. Just because he was an alter boy does not make him a christian (see above) He blamed jews for every failing that Germany had, and then threw in some misqouted scriptures just for fun. Nowhere in the Bible does it say 'Jews are evil things that must be destroyed' or even anything close. In fact they are still God's chosen people, and we should accept them with love and try to teach them (as we should do for all mankind) the Gospel of Christ. See my notes on the Crusades above. Sept. 11 caused less than 10k deaths. I hate to say it this way, but that's truly small scale for this century in death rates, though it is large scale for a terrorist style attack. All massed suicides are religious in nature? Massed suicides are usually within cults, and as such would not truly be classified as a organized religion, but even still, we could count htem, and at most give 1-1.5 million deaths (and i'm sure that's generous)
As for Stalin (and Mao ) why he may not have killed in the name of atheism. He did enjoy killing Christians for believing in Christ. and in fact preaching the gospel, can still get you tossed in jail in China...