The war on faith.

[madnak]

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Did you get molested by a priest or something? I can handle healthy debate, but it's pretty clear you have some personal agenda with Christianity. When you start comparing my education in religion at a Catholic school, when you know nothing about the school and what was taught, to Tom Cruise's education and/or fanatical religious opinion, you go from having a civilized debate to being insulting, and, well, looking like a [censored] idiot.

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How is Tom Cruise fanatical? I mean, other than the fact he's religious?

You seem to be mad that I'm comparing Christians and Scientologists. I see them in the same light. The one isn't superior - except that the Bible is better literature than Battlefield Earth.

The fact is, the Catholic Church is one of the most (if not the most) biased organizations on the face of the planet. That's where you claimed to get your education from. Also, you seem to lack knowledge of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and you didn't even know who the Midianites were before you looked it up. This is bread-and-butter stuff if you're looking at Christianity from different perspectives. Look, I'm not going to criticize you if you don't know the Book of Esther cover to cover. God knows I don't. But this stuff is relatively basic, and is some of the first that you see when looking from certain positions (such as the atheist position). Claiming that you've had broad experience with perspectives on Christianity but you've never heard of the Midianites is like claiming that you have experience with cell biology but you don't know what cytoplasm is.

Also I almost guarantee Tom Cruise knows more about the Dianetics than you know about the Bible. He is probably also much better-versed in his version of the apologetics. Tom Cruise has, I'm sure, a very solid education in Scientology. My point wasn't to indicate a lack of education, but rather a bias of education.

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Most of the things you mentioned like the Israelites vs. Midianites are about the Israelites getting vengeance for years of oppession.

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Vengeance isn't violent now? In that case, maybe I'll have to concede and acknowledge your vengeful tolerance...

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Since you think this is so wrong, I assume you think it is okay for a group of severely oppressed people not to fight back, am I right?

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Uh... yes? This question is poorly worded. I don't think Gandhi was a villain, if that's what you mean. My thoughts on defensive wars and justification are irrelevant, especially since I think "justification" is just a human construct in the first place. I'm not talking about defensive war here.

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The "atrocities" that Moses spoke of later (not God) were attributable to Moses.

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You mean the enslavement of the virgins, slaughter of everyone else, those little things? Yeah, nobody's perfect right? What chosen of God doesn't take some sex slaves once in a while? Eh? Eh?

And to avoid any confusion about what God supported, let's talk about that Egypt situation. Hey, let's drop all the horrible plague and famine, and just focus on the killing of the firstborn son of every Egyptian family. Was that Moses's fault too? Or I suppose that poor farmer deserved to lose his firstborn?

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God is not Moses. Christianity does not worship Moses.

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They recognize him as a villain worse than Hitler, due to his violence and intolerance?

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Further, from my admittedly brief skimming of those chapters, it appears you were very careful about how you chose your words. You make it sound like God advocated the raping of little girls.

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God declared that it was okay to rape slaves (oh sorry, "marry" them), and that captives were to be taken as slaves. The Bible is clear all the virgins were taken as slaves (consistent with God's law). Did you read the Deuteronomy? You should read Leviticus while you're at it, great stuff in there. Or do God's laws not count? After all, it was Moses who went to Mount Sinai. And people have the gall to say the ten commandments come from God!

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The only passage I saw was Moses speaking about how the men were to take the women hostages as their wives. Again Moses said this, not God. I'm willing to bet that this was VERY common practice in those days in the aftermath of war.

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A common practice for people like the Midianites, sure. The fact is, there were very few tolerant or peaceful cultures at the time. Rape and pillage were just facts of life. I'll again recommend the Iliad if you want a solid representation of how people saw women and violence.

But a tolerant God, giving these kinds of laws? It makes sense for the Greek pantheon, but not for an omnibenevolent creator.

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This book was written thousands of years ago. I never claimed every little word applied equally today as it applied to the culture of, you know, a very long time ago. Why do you think it should?

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I don't. I see the Bible in much the same light as the Iliad, and am no more "pissed off" by the events in it than by the actions of Zeus or Athena. However, some people continue to claim that the Bible is divine, and that it represents the true character and behavior of God. I call these people "religious," or more specifically "followers of the Abrahamic faiths." These crazy nuts actually believe in applying the fictional stories of a lost culture to modern life! As such they're highly intolerant, violent, and dangerous.

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Again, I go back to my original claim that Christianity's fundamental teachings never advocate an unjust war. You seem to conveniently gloss over the word "unjust", despite my emphasis on this word at least 2 other times. The Israelites were fighting back, plain and simple.

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You started by saying Christians aren't violent. Now they're violent, but just. Which is it? Of course you can say rape, genocide, torture, and various other things perpetrated at the behest of God are "just" for this or that reason. "Just" is a highly subjective term that means different things to different people, with no rules you can apply it however you like. But such actions don't fit any common definitions of tolerance and nonviolence. Nor do they fit my definition of justice.

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You need to get it through your head that Jesus never advocated violence unless it was just. He spoke of God exacting punishment on the wicked. You seem to think murderers should get off scot free. If the creator of the universe is not capable of determining proper justice for sinful/immoral actions, then I don't know who is.

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Be very careful. It almost sounded like you used the divinity of God to back up your Biblical argument. That is, not only did you almost jump away from your earlier assertion about religion in general (and toward a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint), but you also rode the edge of the fallacy "the Bible is true because God says so, God is real because the Bible says so."

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The main teaching of Jesus in regards to societal interactions is "Do unto your neighbor as he/she would do unto you." *Everything* else he teaches is a consequence of this, and the idea of loving God.

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Specifically, first love God, and only then do unto others. This is the common theme. Jesus says one peaceful thing, then three violent things. The most important commandment of Jesus was to love God, the very God of Abraham that brought plagues, wiped out cities, killed children for making fun of his priests, tortured sons for the crimes of their fathers and nations for the crimes of their leaders, drowned the entire world, and made statements like "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." You use a secondary commandment as evidence Jesus was peaceful, as though it goes without saying.

Also I already acknowledged that I believe the historical figure of Jesus was probably peaceful. Christianity is still a violent religion, and the most common interpretation of Jesus has been a violent interpretation.

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I really, honestly have no clue how you could possibly think Jesus was an advocate of random violence,

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Sorry? Random violence? I don't think I've ever said any such thing.

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or unjust war. His one quote of "I come to bring not peace, but the sword" was completely antithetical to his other teachings if you take it at face value.

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No. Most of the time, where a peaceful statement exists there exist violent statements in close proximity.

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Do you think, maybe, that there was more to it than that one sentence? Or are you content at taking that ONE SINGLE SENTENCE from his entire body of teachings and claiming "Oh, look he wants to kill everyone who isn't a Christian!!" One valid interpretation is that Jesus was predicting that his desciples would not be well received and would encounter violence by those not willing to receive Jesus' message. He was warning about the persecution of Christians. If you read the entire passage surrounding this one sentence, this seems very reasonable.

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Not only have I continually explained that I think Jesus was peaceful (are you reading my posts at all?), I also never claimed that anyone in the Bible advocated killing "everyone who isn't a Christian." Plenty of later Christians have advocated such (the Catholics in particular).

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You know that Jesus spoke in parables constantly right? Why would you take this one sentence, when it is essentially completely opposite to his primary viewpoint, at face value?

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It's one sentence among thousands. How many do you need?

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He *constantly* spoke in symbolism and metaphor. Why do you dismiss his use of metaphor in the one instance that it makes most sense to do so? Oh right, because you don't want to. It doesn't fit your interpretaion of Jesus as a bloodthirty warlord.

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Look, again I know you're bad at logic. That sucks, really. But it doesn't justify these kinds of straw men. I've been consistent from the beginning in this thread that I think Jesus was probably a peaceful guy. What do you think you're going to accomplish by narrowing your position and expanding mine? Make yourself less of a target, and me more of one? Not gonna work. I know what I've said, and it wasn't that Jesus was a warlord, bloodthirsty or otherwise.