The war on faith.

[Matt R.]

Um, Jesus Christ. You know, the source of Christianity? Care to point out where he advocates going to war in the name of his religion?

Saying that Christians, in general, "encourage war" might be the most ridiculous uneducated statement I've ever read. Yes, we may say war is inevitable in certain cases to stop a greater evil. But to say that Christianity "encourages war"... well um, I guess you can believe whatever you want to believe (have faith in your ignorance I guess).

[madnak]

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Um, Jesus Christ. You know, the source of Christianity? Care to point out where he advocates going to war in the name of his religion?

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By his acceptance of the Old Testament, and his support of it as the divine word of God, he advocates war in a very deep sense. But just because the OT is where all the conquerin' happens doesn't mean Jesus was as pacifistic as people claim.

Keep in mind the ancient scholars read the same words you do, and went to war based on them. In fact, they read the original Greek and were therefore closer to what Jesus actually said. Again, how come your interpretation is better than theirs? Better than clergy who devoted their lives to Christianity, the kings who accepted the Christian God as the only authority over them, the priests who went around violently stamping out "evil" as per (according to their belief) the dictates of Jesus? WHY are you right and they wrong? You're going to use the book they studied endlessly to prove that?

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Saying that Christians, in general, "encourage war" might be the most ridiculous uneducated statement I've ever read. Yes, we may say war is inevitable in certain cases to stop a greater evil.

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Oh, like with the Midianites? Or was it the Crusades?

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But to say that Christianity "encourages war"... well um, I guess you can believe whatever you want to believe (have faith in your ignorance I guess).

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Really. Last I checked it was the most religious people who were most in support of unjust wars. And typically it's the religious who ultimately initiate them! Just look at the war in Iraq - are you seriously claiming that it wasn't Christian-motivated, or at least that Christians weren't in favor of it more than atheists? If so, you're not too well-educated yourself.

[Matt R.]

Christian motivated??? I have never, ever heard that the war in Iraq was Christian motivated. The administration claims it was over WMD's. Everyone else claims they are lying and says that it was over oil. Or power. Who on earth (besides you) claims that this is a religious war?!

I have no idea if Christians were "more in favor" of it then atheists. Is there some type of poll that I'm unaware of? If there is, I would venture that it is because of political affiliations rather than religious teachings. Again, you're blaming the religion because people affilitiated with a religion have some viewpoint (even if the viewpoint has nothing to do with the religion itself).

I don't have the time nor the inclination to research the teachings of ancient Greek scholars. To put it bluntly -- I highly doubt any scholars went to war BECAUSE of Jesus' teachings. Again, maybe the rulers of the day claimed Jesus said they should have more power, thus they should kill people. Whatever. All I know is that I went to a Catholic school from kindergarten through high school, and never once was Jesus asserted to be "pro-war". He may have endorsed certain aspects of the Old Testament, but the *primary* message behind a lot of his teachings was to change the way the people of the day thought of the old testament. Maybe you can provide some evidence that Jesus was "pro-war", but I'm sorry if I take 15 years of religious education over the word of an agnostic or atheist. I have no reason to try to look it up without seeing some evidence first, because 15 years of legitimate religious study tells me you are wrong (most of it was directly from texts such as the Bible, so I have no reason to think my teachers were putting a "spin" on anything).

[luckyme]

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I have no reason to try to look it up without seeing some evidence first, because 15 years of legitimate religious study tells me you are wrong

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Tom Cruise ... is that you ??

[Prodigy54321]

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Also,

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This is a form of evidence.

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Other physicists do not work on string theory because they think some other theory is better and string theory is fundamentally wrong. They have their own evidence for doing this. They have faith that their evidence is better than whatever the evidence for string theory is.

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this is not even close to the same as faith in a god..

"I have faith that there will be daylight tomorrow"
and
"I have faith that I will go to heaven when I die"

ar two very different things.

I don't think that we should be considering the first as "faith"

[luckyme]

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this is not even close to the same as faith in a god..

"I have faith that there will be daylight tomorrow"
and
"I have faith that I will go to heaven when I die"

ar two very different things.

I don't think that we should be considering the first as "faith"

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Yep, It's always a disappointment to see people fall back on equivocation when there are grounds for an interesting exchange.

luckyme

[madnak]

I didn't say it was a religious war. But Bush mentioned God many times in the early discussions, and there was a strong perception that it was related to 9/11 (which was certainly religiously motivated).

I forget where the Catholics are now. Care to enlighten me? I know the Pope used to be infallible, word of God blah blah blah, but these days they demote saints and apologize for early actions of the Church, who knows, maybe they don't even try to justify the Crusades! Ahahahaha, just kiddin'. All that rape and pillage, why would they drop the most fun part of their religion? Oh, did I say most fun part? Jesus, how'd I forget the Inquisition? Sure, no religiously-motivated violence for the Catholics.

I'm not claiming Jesus was violent. I don't think he was (if he existed). My claim is that the Christian religion is violent. Different claim entirely. At any rate, I can't handle another txag thread. It's too much. So briefly, do passages in the OT like

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.

But all the girls, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

(the words of God spoken in Numbers 17-18)

not seem violent to you? I won't bother with all the rest, that's the "big red button" of Biblical atrocities (though possibly not the worst).

And then there's all the stuff from NT like:

"I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled."

(Luke 12:49)

Most of the awful stuff in the NT (worse, IMO, than the OT) is about the violence God will bring to unbelievers, rather than men. For that reason there's very little to encourage war or violence directly (though that hasn't stopped various Christian wars). But there are some striking statements of the horrors that Jesus will bring when he returns, and on how harshly God will punish the sinners, and blah blah blah. I won't bring up the fig tree or the money-changers as evidence Jesus was violent, but they're clear evidence he wasn't peaceful.

[Matt R.]

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I have no reason to try to look it up without seeing some evidence first, because 15 years of legitimate religious study tells me you are wrong

[/ QUOTE ]

Tom Cruise ... is that you ??

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luckyme,
I assume you think professor's with Ph.D.'s in religious studies are like Tom Cruise as well? I learned from (mostly) very good teachers. Equating any type of religious education with Tom Cruise's mentality demonstrates your biases and ignorance.

[Matt R.]

Prodigy,
I didn't say they were exactly the same. But they are both faith, by definition. I was simply responding to the assertion that "all faith is immoral and irrational", or something along those lines.

I feel my faith is rational, because I see the good in Christ's teachings. Thus, I think it is rational to learn from him. Some people's faith, because they cannot think for themselves, lead to irrational conclusions and turn them into suicide bombers sometimes.

[Matt R.]

madnak,
So if a legion of computer scientists went on a rampage killing spree, and claim that their killings were "in the name of the God of computer science", does that make computer science "morally wrong"?

Again, Bush uses arguments dealing with Christianity to gain political support from Christians in America. The Church has humans running the whole organization. Last I checked, humans make mistakes. Thus I don't think that church "doctrine" or whatever is always correct. Some people do. Those people generally cannot think for themselves. This is not my problem and I sure as hell don't think you should outlaw Christianity because a few people use it to suit their own motives. If they don't use religion to do so, they'll find some other way.

I still don't think the Bible as a whole is violent in a way to say that it is immoral. Jesus claims God punishes people, sure. If I went around killing people and raping babies I would hope God would punish me in some way when I die. Just because the Bible speaks of punishment does not automatically mean it condones violence in all cases.