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I appreciate the discussion, I don't have the answers with 100% certainty, neither does anyone so I'm sure we'll both continue to believe what we currently believe unless new evidence comes in to change it.fiestavike wrote:For the sake of full disclosure I will say that I am not a christian, though I do periodically attend a church. Some of my thinking is certainly influenced by those experiences and teachings and I do tend to have a traditional world view.
What is Hell? In the church I attend it is basically taught that heaven and hell are the same place experienced differently depending on the state of ones spiritual health, or one's orientation toward God. What we will experience after death will be the same thing, but we will experience it differently depending on how we prepare ourselves for death. Do I believe this? It makes some sense to me. I don't have any certitude about it, but it makes more sense to me than "nothingness", the secularist understanding of heaven and hell, or the foolish religious understanding of heaven and hell.
I don't have the data, nor do I have the intent to get it. All I know is that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down and if you're raised like King James the somewhat flamboyant kid makes the perfect target. You can choose to turn a blind eye to it but it DOES happen. I've seen the videos of abortion clinic "protests" and those people can get downright SCARY. There is so much anger and hate involved, while LITERALLY holding SIGNS that say "GOD HATES ####!" and so on. Now look I get that not every christian or spiritual person is that way, but you're burying your head in the sand if you think it's not a problem.
beating up gay people because they are gay is abhorrent. I'm not sure why you assume that the kids doing this are more likely to be of a spiritual or religious mentality. As for picketing abortion clinics, I know people who have done that and have not the slightest doubt that their ONLY concern is the love wellbeing of the woman and her child. You can object to this as attempting to impose one's views but again not sure why you lump this in with either insincerity or hateful violence in the form of gay bashing or bullying. I think if you take a charitable view its easy to see that this is an act (demonstrating at abortion clinics) which at least could (I know with certainty that it frequently is) motivated by love and caring for one another. Most people I know through church opt to take action through pregnancy centers where women and boyfriends/husbands can come to get support and information both before and after they make a decision about whether to abort their child.
And yet believing in God has created some of the worst "disasters" in human history, but when you say it's in god's name you can justify your actions. I mean what we call a radical Muslim will strap explosives to their chests, blow up 56 people on a bus or in a building or whatever and then legitimately thinks he's going to their version of heaven and Allah will reward him with 72 Virgin wives in the afterlife. If he didn't believe in "god" do you really think he'd make that sacrifice?
Ironically, I spent much of my life believing that. I will acknowledge that it is quite possible that there is no God. If it is the case, I see no basis for morality at all, and cannot fathom why you would object to human cruelty on the basis of anything other than self-interest or aesthetics. In a world without belief of and fear of God, I don't forsee equality, tolerance and utopia, but increased cruelty, exploitation, and abuse. As it says in Brothers Karamazov, If there is no God, all things are permissible. this doesn't just mean beautiful and loving things.
Oh if there is a god and it works like the Christian Bible says it does, we are ALL doomed to hell for an eternity.
Trust me when I tell you, if there is a God, I will probably have my own sexual sins and misdeeds to account for.
I think I know what you mean... there is one in this thread...Of course, there are those Christians who reinforce this perception.
I think it's a great point that Christianity as a whole can have a very positive impact on people to do good.fiestavike wrote:
If we are talking in sheer numbers, secularism in the last 100 years has killed more people than religion in the whole history of the world, but what is the point of these discussions? People are awful to each other and always have been. The real question is what causes someone to rise above this muck and be heroic? Who was most likely to hide jews in #### germany? Christians. Who led the fight to end slavery? Christians. Who led the fight against communism? Jews and Christians.
In my experience, if your organization can't "handle media coverage", they will suck on the field anyway... but hey, there's always 2015...
— Donte' Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) February 10, 2014
Fair enough, my stance is that you can raise a child completely void of religion and if you're setting a good example as a parent, the kid is extremely likely to pick up those "traits" of helping people, being nice or not being a dick, and just being a "good" person. However, if the parents and significant influences on the child ARE jerks, bad parents, and / or selfish people then I think the child is also likely to pick up on that. Religion only factors into it as a "side effect", so a good parent who's also religious is the same as just a good parent. A bad parent will be a bad parent and if they're over zealous religious (We'll use the Westboro Baptist nutjobs to make my point) parent then their children will likely also have issues with the current topic of homophobia.fiestavike wrote:
I agree that it happens. I was a kid and went to public schools. I've seen it happen. Kids are pretty mean and F'd up to each other, but I think a kid raised with a concept of right and wrong based in religious morality and church teachings is less likely to be a bully that one not raised with those values.
I actually don't know who was leading the protest, but you could be right. It seems I could do myself a favor in the future seeing who is actually responsible for certain actions I'm not fond of, rather than just lumping it all together as "christian".From the description of the signs you saw in the abortion clinic videos, I'm guess you watched a protest from the Westboro Baptist nutjobs. They account for about .0001 of christians but get about 15% or all press about christians. Is it fair to call it a problem? I suppose, but its a problem that exists within a pretty small percentage of the population.
Well I should rephrase what I said, I believe people are genuinely a blank slate, or a piece of clay if you will. I believe you can instill things like Ethics, Moral values, the notion of right and wrong, and so forth into someone and you don't simply have to do it with Christianity. But if you get all that stuff from Christianity that's fine too. I guess that's the biggest difference between us right now.
Here we have several disagreements. The biggest one is that you believe people are innately good by nature. I believe people are innately selfish by nature. Probably all of our disagreement stems from this one point.
I would also like to say that the entire concept of right and wrong and your objection to what you perceive as cruelty and injustice in your given example is completely irrational in the absence of a God. In fact, the very notion of free will is nothing more than an illusion if there is no God as we are merely the product of our genetics and upbringing (both things which are out of our control, and every decision from our first to our last is determined by these factors). To the secular materialist free will doesn't even exist, so how can one object to injustice or cruelty? Its actually an absurdity to object to the behavior of another person/nation, etc from a secular view point. The most intellectually honest and rigorous among the secular athiests will freely admit as much.
For sure, it's been fun.
forgive me if I am skeptical of your biblical scholarship. You seem pretty hostile toward religion generally and are unlikely to be an authority of scripture.
I do enjoy the conversation, its nice to have a civil discourse even though we clearly disagree about some things.
Dude I don't like defending the existence of God because I don't feel I need to, but it's difficult not to when you say things like the "concept" of God. Elementary logic assures us that it is IMPOSSIBLE to win, when you bet on nothing. Though I'm Christian, I understand different and varying faiths with the exception of agnostic (or whatever it is when you chose to believe in nothing). If your right... Then we are all in the same boat after death. If I'm right... different story. Without God, and the presence of a spirit/soul, how do you define Love? Is it based on an organisms primal needs of attraction/sex, and companionship? Is that it? Why is a flower pretty? All through physical therapy school, the more science (as it relates to the human body) I learn, the more I discover that life is way too blueprinted to be anything other than a divine design.saint33 wrote: I think it's a great point that Christianity as a whole can have a very positive impact on people to do good.
Many Christians have done some great things in the history of mankind in the name of Christianity. But does that mean they have it "right"? That their god is the real god because Christian morals strongly fit with the popular opinion of what is considered "good". Because Christians fought to end slavery, we should follow their belief that homosexuality is immoral?
The concept of God is a strong force to make large amounts of people believe what ever it is those who created that God want them to believe. If a God is created to get those who follow it to do good, that is great, but that does not mean it is a necessary force to get humans to be good.
This is why we live in a democracy. God is not needed in a democracy. We do not create rules to live within based on the beliefs of what a certain "God" tells us, but rather what we as a society decide. We as human beings are given freedom, and as a society we decide rules to guide us so that we can all experience the same freedoms and live our lives as we choose. If we choose to break those laws, those freedoms are taken away. It is not hard to understand why murder, rape and thievery are immoral and destroy the presence of freedom within a society and thus why we are able to come to an agreement that these things must be outlawed, and have strict punishments for committing these acts. A God whom punishes bad behavior in an after life is unnecessary because real punishments in life already exist.
dead_poet wrote:Retired NFL Receiver Destroys Argument Against Gay Players
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/1 ... 61724.html
Not really. It's primarily about talent (or lack thereof) age and contract status. We've seen time and again teams keep more talented players who have been in trouble with the law and jettison "lesser" or older players who may not be as talented. It's also about the culture they want to cultivate.King James wrote:Ridiculous. Every team gets rid of players or refuse to sign players because of media coverage.
Uhh...pretty sure they didn't release him because of media attention. They released him because he was being charged with murder.Look at the Patriots, they released Hernandez as soon as he got arrested. He some charges but have yet to be actually found guilty. And they far from sucked this year.
So Donté Stallworth, is an idiot. Actually he's been an idiot, he wants to drive drunk and ended up taking the life of a person. He's just upset the Browns didn't want his sorry ####. You picked the wrong person to cite.
<------------ That's the only thing you seem to be competent of doing.Good stuff from the players. Thanks.dead_poet wrote:NFL players reactions
NFL Nation Says: Michael Sam
http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/ ... ichael-sam
Actually it's the perfect reason why drafting Sam wouldn't be a big deal. A GUY ON THE PATRIOTS MURDERED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE!! How is that for a distraction?!!? and yet like you said, they were still good! So clearly distractions don't really matter, it's about FOOTBALL!!!!!King James wrote:
Ridiculous. Every team gets rid of players or refuse to sign players because of media coverage. So every team can't possibly suck. Look at the Patriots, they released Hernandez as soon as he got arrested. He some charges but have yet to be actually found guilty. And they far from sucked this year. So Donté Stallworth, is an idiot. Actually he's been an idiot, he wants to drive drunk and ended up taking the life of a person. He's just upset the Browns didn't want his sorry ####. You picked the wrong person to cite.
That being said, the Vikings have shown that we can handle some media coverage. We still have Priefer right? So if that article is applying that the Vikings will suck because of not being