ISIS

DDHvi wrote:The existence of a universe with information instead of random data.

If it is all time and chance, there is no reasonable reason for reason or logic to fit the cosmos.

Wait, what?

That´s horribly illogical so i guess you just proved that you don´t exist?

DDHvi wrote:I can't see how a cosmos that fits logic and reason can come from time and chance.

Seriously? Maybe you should look at how logic and reason was derived in the first place?

Oh right, its based on observing the world, the "cosmos"...

Tenshinai wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:There is no evidence that any god, or gods, exist.
There is no evidence that they don't.
Holding a fixed belief in either position is irrational.

Militant atheists don't see the contradiction.

Seriously. I also have absolutely no evidence of the great flying spaghetti monster, but by your logic, because there´s also evidence that it doesn´t exist, denying its existance is irrational!

The inability of proving somethings nonexistance does NOT equate to proving its existance.
Especially considering that by default, proving somethings nonexistance isn´t even possible.

Funny how you just proved yourself to be irrational, while denigrating your make-belief enemies as irrational.

Try reading what I write instead of ranting about things I never said. Read this, carefully, and understand it, before flying into another blind rage:

There is NO EVIDENCE.
There are NO FACTS.
It is impossible to reach ANY conclusion.
It is irrational to believe that you have.

I have not reached any conclusions on the subject, nor have I pretended to. YOU have projected irrational beliefs onto me, as you are prone to doing to anybody who dares to disagree with you. It's obnoxious and childish, and a waste of all our time.

Did you ever actually study history or are you simply throwing out personal beliefs?

Christianity was politically acceptable after it survived the first few centuries of Roman persecution so the claim dogma couldn't be enforced is dubious. Of course Christianity wasn't restricted solely to the old Roman world - Celtic Christianity for instance was independent of the Roman Catholic church. Orthodox Christianity by contrast was subject to the whim of the Byzantine Emperor, at least until the Muslims finished conquering the Eastern Roman Empire. Of course since we are talking medieval barbarians, and restricted access to Bibles, the conduct of those identifying as Christian can be debated!

As for the claim that Christians "borrowed" pagan holidays, haven't you heard that claim's been questioned even by pagans. Easter is associated with the Jewish Passover festival for instance and Christmas' date can be traced back to at least the 2nd century. Individuals within cultures tend to be influenced by said cultures so it's entirely possible that common elements were used without being borrowed per se.

Tenshinai wrote:

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Before that, Christians had been trying to pacify and civilize
barbarians, with some success.

Riiight...

Roman style, where everyone who isn´t part of "us" are by default "barbarians".

Your "pacify and civilize" was conquest by barbary and massmurder most of the time, with the occasional little genocide thrown in for good measure.

So, it seems to me that both of these Western Religions were
tolerant of others for their first thousand years,

No they were not. Christianity simply did not have the power to enforce its dogma for a LONG time.

That´s why they came up with the "lets borrow all the nonchristian celebrations and holidays and make them extra holy, yay!" idea.
Seriously, if you actually look at the "christian holidays", you will find that ALL of them are based on previous "stuff".

It wasn´t really until 13th century that nonchristian religions started truly disappearing in Europe.

This is probably a borderline zombie reply, but I do hate when folk confuse religion for ideology. The greatest atrocities of the 20th century were committed not by those screaming Allahu Akbar, but by those subscribing to the dictates of Communism and Facism. The Soviet Union for instance even included freedom of religion in their constitution however in practice Christians were sent to the gulags, the asylums or otherwise not granted the freedom purportedly guaranteed by the constitution. While it's true some folk may try to use ideology to justify their actions, I'd suggest a great many others do their acts because they believe their ideology is justified.

Daryl wrote:I doubt that you will get an argument from anyone here regarding the depravity of ISIS. There may be some discussion as to how best to contain it before eventually eliminating it. Another point could be is it a genuine world wide threat like NAZI Germany was in the 1930s, or a localized atrocity that wouldn't find traction away from its roots?

My theory is that most people are fundamentally decent but there are a percentage of evil lunatics who use religion to pathetically justify atrocities that they enjoy doing. If that is correct then perhaps we should value their self selection and identification, and take advantage of it to reduce that percentage?

If recent news reports are accurate then their long term viability may be impacted by their moving from banning all education for females to males as well. Bit hard to use or make sophisticated weaponry if you can't read.

Bewildered, I agree with you that ideology was used as an excuse for wholesale atrocities as well as religion, but both examples facilitated large scale evil acts.
I don't agree about the festivals, as there is a mountain of evidence regarding kristians having hijacked previous rituals. I do get annoyed when some pastors are critical of people equating Easter with eggs, but fertility eggs were there first.

This topic is about ISIS so I do think it is fair to point out that in our country exponentially more people have been harmed by people using kristianity as an excuse than by those using islam. (ps: I substituted k for ch as the computer insists on capitalising the c in Christianity, and it bugs me).

You're going to have to elaborate as I can't see how you can conclude your point. Do you mean there is a mountain of evidence or merely that there is sufficient correlation for folk who dislike Christianity to say that Christianity stole ideas? Not really the same thing. I've no idea where the whole Easter Egg thing came from, Wikipedia suggests it's a Mesopotamian thing which spread to the entire Orthodox Church and then to the rest of the world. I don't see adapting a harmless practice which happened to be widespread throughout the ancient world as as hijacking it, nor do I see the fertility egg connection. Interestingly enough there may be some Jewish parallels to Easter traditions, which if true would definitely make sense!

More people harmed by folk using Christianity as an excuse? Again you'll need to elaborate. I've yet to hear of hostage takings or the shooting of people in the street by radical Christians. If you're meaning that for instance Catholic priests or staff at orphanages failed to conform to the standards expected of them for the protection of those in their care then yes that's definitely true, however that's about failure not the use of Christianity as an excuse.

Why does the treatment of Christianity as a proper noun bug you? You're the first to object that I can recall, though I note you also dropped the case for Islam too, and I'm curious why, assuming that's not a mere typo.

Daryl wrote:Bewildered, I agree with you that ideology was used as an excuse for wholesale atrocities as well as religion, but both examples facilitated large scale evil acts.
I don't agree about the festivals, as there is a mountain of evidence regarding kristians having hijacked previous rituals. I do get annoyed when some pastors are critical of people equating Easter with eggs, but fertility eggs were there first.

This topic is about ISIS so I do think it is fair to point out that in our country exponentially more people have been harmed by people using kristianity as an excuse than by those using islam. (ps: I substituted k for ch as the computer insists on capitalising the c in Christianity, and it bugs me).

Bewildered wrote:More people harmed by folk using Christianity as an excuse? Again you'll need to elaborate. I've yet to hear of hostage takings or the shooting of people in the street by radical Christians.

Just this past November, a Planned Parenthood clinic was taken hostage and two people were killed by someone acting in the name of the christian god. There are hundreds more incidents along the same vein, sometimes mere vandalism, sometimes straight-up executions found over the last few decades.

Now, it's impossible to claim that all these incidents combined even come close to the death toll islamic terrorism has taken in the US (after all, there is no christian equivalent to the 9/11 attacks), but christian terrorism is very definitely a thing in the US and elsewhere, and while each incident may be smaller in scale, there's a lot more of them.

Secondly, there's a lot of bias in the reporting of these incidents: A christian terrorist is far more likely to be described as disturbed or mentally ill, whereas muslim terrorists are primarily characterized through their religion.

If you're meaning that for instance Catholic priests or staff at orphanages failed to conform to the standards expected of them for the protection of those in their care then yes that's definitely true, however that's about failure not the use of Christianity as an excuse.

Not what anyone was talking about, really.

Why does the treatment of Christianity as a proper noun bug you? You're the first to object that I can recall, though I note you also dropped the case for Islam too, and I'm curious why, assuming that's not a mere typo.

Why do you believe religion needs to be capitalized?

I obviously cannot speak for Daryl in this, but personally, I regard religious affiliation as not deserving of any specific consideration when it comes to grammar. I wouldn't describe someone as "A Male human", I wouldn't talk about "The Blue sky", so why should I write "A Christian ceremony"?

Bewildered wrote:Did you ever actually study history or are you simply throwing out personal beliefs?

Unlike you, yes i have spent many years studying history.

Bewildered wrote:As for the claim that Christians "borrowed" pagan holidays, haven't you heard that claim's been questioned even by pagans.

No, anyone with even the slightest education on the subject that are not biased, does NOT question that.

Bewildered wrote: Easter is associated with the Jewish Passover festival for instance and Christmas' date can be traced back to at least the 2nd century.

Easter originates with the spring equinox.

And yule, as the original name is for christmas up here, and the name prevails in many places, like here(jul), is much older than that.

Seriously, the christian timing of those holidays are purely for convenience, their claimed christian historical origins are completely ficticious because the events they claim to celebrate didn´t happen at that time.

Did you know the origin for the name "easter"?
It comes from the Germanic goddess Austra or Eastre/Ostara.

Seriously, you should take a very long and hard look at christian holiday traditions, see how much they reflect earlier religion and how much really is "christian".
Let me give you a hint, there´s very little christian additions.

Bewildered wrote:More people harmed by folk using Christianity as an excuse? Again you'll need to elaborate. I've yet to hear of hostage takings or the shooting of people in the street by radical Christians.

I guess you ignore whatever you don´t like to hear then.

Bewildered wrote:Why does the treatment of Christianity as a proper noun bug you? You're the first to object that I can recall, though I note you also dropped the case for Islam too, and I'm curious why, assuming that's not a mere typo.

Capitalising religions just means you push religion as specially important.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Try reading what I write instead of ranting about things I never said. Read this, carefully, and understand it, before flying into another blind rage:

There is NO EVIDENCE.
There are NO FACTS.
It is impossible to reach ANY conclusion.
It is irrational to believe that you have.

I have not reached any conclusions on the subject, nor have I pretended to. YOU have projected irrational beliefs onto me, as you are prone to doing to anybody who dares to disagree with you. It's obnoxious and childish, and a waste of all our time.

Flying into a blind rage? ME? I´m pretty sure that if anyone´s doing that, it´s you.

You call demanding EQUAL REQUIREMENTS OF EVIDENCE irrational beliefs?

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

That is so stupid. So ridiculously stupid that i´m having trouble typing this without laughing.

The problem you´re having is that in the absence of clear evidence, you´re constantly defaulting to the side that have big claims without anything to back them up.

It doesn´t matter if you claim yourself to be impartial or undecided, when your writing clearly states your beliefs unintentionally.

You are completely unable to argue religion from a neutral standpoint.


Me? I don´t care what religion you adhere to as long as you dont force it on others.
But once you start spouting beliefs that clash with logic, expecting others to say nothing is just daft.

I specifically mentioned my country (Australia) in the more harm claim, no where else, and the example is stark. Less than ten people killed by islamic terrorists, and many thousands either killed, or so badly treated that they later committed suicide, by kristians.
We have a Royal Commission (very high level inquiry) going at the moment on this at the moment, and certainly the catholic church is in trouble, but so are the methodists, presbyterians, c of e, and even the scout movement.

Much of it stemmed from having many thousands of "orphans" sent here from the UK, to be raised by various church groups in virtual concentration camps, at the same time our indigenous children were being taken as well and also sent there. I don't think one of these institutions has come out well. The kids were raped, used as slave labour, traded, physically abused and neglected.

I went to a "prestigious" paid c of e boarding school, and what happened there convinced me that the Romans should have had more lions.
As to the capitalisaion I have no animosity to religious individuals, but dislike all religious institutions of whatever imaginary friend they use to fleece people.

Regarding the "mountain" of data, there is so much information regarding the usurpation of established ritruals by the kristian churches that I'm surprised that anyone would doubt it, certainly most kristian leaders are happy to concede the point, after all it wasn't an evil act.