U.S. in 'beginning stages' of talks on Jerusalem embassy move

[rogue06]

It shouldn't be, but 'Jerusalem as the capital of Israel' is a highly inflammatory point with the Arabs, who also claim Jerusalem as their capital.

True but the very existence of Israel "is a highly inflammatory point with the Arabs" who won't rest until it is annihilated.

[Tassman]

Fighting over use and ownership of this piece of land goes back much earlier than that, long before the existence of modern Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. These subsequent religious views certainly complicate the issues. The several displacements of the Israeli and Jewish people over the centuries by world empires, eg, Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, interrupted their claim to the territory as their homeland. The Crusades increased the involvement of Christianity in the dispute over this land, primarily with Muslims, but the dispute certainly did not begin with the Crusades. Christian anti-semitism in Europe, which eventually contributed to the Holocaust, ultimately motivated Western democracies, especially the United States, to support Jewish efforts to reclaim their homeland, the capital of which is indeed considered holy to three major world-religions, but the conflict did not begin with the Crusades, and initially was not religious in nature.

[robrecht]

But why choose the post-Islamic Crusades as the starting point? ls it merely a desire to implicate Christianity as a/the fundamental component of the problem, as others here have suggested?

[Tassman]

That 2005 survey does not say that 80% of Denmark is atheist/agnostic. It says that at least 43% to at most 80% are, which is a huge swing.

The survey, read correctly, says that non-theist belief in Denmark is 80% overall...ranging from 43% overt atheists with the rest comprising varying degrees and versions of agnosticism.

For the curious, the survey was compiled by atheist advocate and all around anti-Christian, Professor Phil Zuckerman of Pitzer College for The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Of course, as long as his methods are sound there's no need to invoke any genetic fallacies, but thought that was interesting.

Probably a more accurate poll is the one conducted by the European Commission in 2010. There they found that 28% of Danes agreed with the statement "I believe there is a God" 47% agreed with the statement "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and only 24% agreed with the statement "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force" (1% declined to answer).

In actuality the results are virtually the same as the Adherents.com survey.

Of course, the trend towards secularism will end up reversing as the native Western European population continues to shrink, and the gap is filled by the growth of Islam.

Domination by religious fanatics is always a danger in a civilised society but can be reversed by decent education and the application of critical thinking...as has occurred in the West, with the possible exception of the USA.

No he doesn't. He particularly despises Christianity. I very much doubt he hangs out on Jewish, Islamic, or Hindu forums arguing how evil they are.

Religion, ALL religion, is too stupid to "despise" or even dislike....provided it's kept in its place, namely in the Church, Mosque, Synagogue or Temple.

[Mountain Man]

Trump: ""

Sorry, liberals, but President Trump is not an idiot. He's not going to be hasty about such an important decision. There's still a lot of groundwork to do first.

[Adrift]

The survey, read correctly, says that non-theist belief in Denmark is 80% overall...ranging from 43% overt atheists with the rest comprising varying degrees and versions of agnosticism.

What do you mean "read correctly"? It literally reads:

top 50 countries.jpg

Which means that between 43%-80% of Denmark (between 2,327,590 and 4,330,400 Danes) claim to be Atheist, or Agnostic, or Nonbelievers in God, which is a vast range. This is very simple data to read "correctly". That you somehow got out of that that means exactly 80% of Danes are atheist/agnostic is mind boggling. Heck, they even provide an example with Estonia. A nation with exactly 49% of the population (657,580 people) claiming to be Atheist/Agnostic/Nonbeliever in God, yet of that percent, only 11% identify as atheist. Seriously Tassman, you need glasses or something.


Huh? Poisoning the well? You just got done citing me literally saying, "as long as his methods are sound there's no need to invoke any genetic fallacies", which is the very opposite of poisoning the well. I'm giving him the satisfaction of a doubt, assuming his methods are sound.

But I'm curious, where are you getting this idea that Adherents.com is a reputable website? I'm not saying it isn't, but what makes it reputable, or where did you get that idea? The website looks like it hasn't been visually updated since the early 00s, and it's not maintained by a university, or sociologists or anyone in the field of religious studies. Rather, it's the personal website of a guy named Preston Hunter, a computer programmer from Texas, unaffiliated with any university or organization.

Furthermore, the same volume that Adherents.com pulls this data from, The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, also features a chapter from William Lane Craig titled Theistic Critiques of Atheism. It stands to reason that if Adherents.com only cites from volumes whose methodologies are sufficiently sound, then Craig's critique of atheism must be as well. Interesting.

In actuality the results are virtually the same as the Adherents.com survey.

In actuality? One survey claims that between 43%-80% of Danes are agnostic or atheist. The other survey claims that only 24% are atheist/agnostic, with a whopping 75% claiming belief in something divine (some sort of spirit or life force), with at least 24% of that 75% claiming belief in something concretely considered "God". These things are not virtually the same. They are saying very different things.

Domination by religious fanatics is always a danger in a civilised society but can be reversed by decent education and the application of critical thinking...as has occurred in the West, with the possible exception of the USA.

In the last thirty years, Islam doesn't appear to have become less radical in the West. To the contrary, it appears to have grown in leaps and bounds. For example, in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten dated 10/10/2015, Danish Sociologist of Religion, Professor Brian Arly Jacobsen (commenting on a poll on the rise of Islam) states,

It seems that Danish Muslims have become more religious in all dimensions, both in terms of faith and practice. In general, we would expect that the opposite would happen, and that they would eventually come to resemble the rest of the Danes who are not particularly religious

He went on to point out that the opening of 20-30 new mosques over the last 10 years in Denmark was likely a contributing cause to the development of more religious Muslims.

Religion, ALL religion, is too stupid to "despise" or even dislike....provided it's kept in its place, namely in the Church, Mosque, Synagogue or Temple.

What's the name of the Jewish forum you routinely visit? The Hindu one? Surely you've been working under the same username on one of the more popular Islamic forums, right? What's the name of the website? You do realize that the majority of the world is, and always has been religious, yes? All those people are stupid? Only you, and an insignificant handful of other atheists are the intelligent ones? I suppose that after all of these years that sort of hubris shouldn't surprise me. Truly and honestly, you're not so great, Tass.

[Sparko]

Adherents.com doesn't verify the statistics they post. They post any and all statistics. Buyer beware:

"Adherents.com recognizes that different sources may provide slightly different or even contradictory information. Our goal is to impose no interpretation, filtering or distillation on the citations and data sources we encounter. We provide all statistics we find, listing them side by side so that researchers can draw their own conclusions, assisted by the quotes, survey parameters and/or bibliographical references provided here, or by referring to the original sources."

[stfoskey15]

In another thread we ran the calculations and it turned out you were 20X more likely to be murdered by an atheist in the 20th century than by a Christian in the previous 2,000 years combined. On a percentage basis the Inquisition and such cannot approach the sheer magnitude of the havoc visited upon mankind by atheists. Does that mean all atheists are dangerous? No. However, their track record is one of horror.

You got a link to that?

[Tassman]

What do you mean "read correctly"? It literally reads:


Which means that between 43%-80% of Denmark (between 2,327,590 and 4,330,400 Danes) claim to be Atheist, or Agnostic, or Nonbelievers in God, which is a vast range. This is very simple data to read "correctly". That you somehow got out of that that means exactly 80% of Danes are atheist/agnostic is mind boggling. Heck, they even provide an example with Estonia. A nation with exactly 49% of the population (657,580 people) claiming to be Atheist/Agnostic/Nonbeliever in God, yet of that percent, only 11% identify as atheist. Seriously Tassman, you need glasses or something.

[Meh Gerbil]

You got a link to that?

I looked and looked and looked and couldn't find it.

Long story short, the conversation started with the fact that more people where murdered by atheists in the 20th century than the 3 Abrahamic religions combined in the previous 1900 years. The rebuttal was that comparing raw numbers like that was invalid because of the huge population upswing in the 20th century (there were more people to kill and more people doing the killing). So then we compared it on a percentage basis, taking the population of 1850 and all previous murders by Christians and compared it to the population of 1950 and murders by atheists in the 20th century. This percentage showed, even with numbers grossly skewed in the atheist's favor, that you were 20x more likely to get whacked by an atheist in the 20th century than by a Christian in the previous 1900 years, combined.

1500 <--- I'm using 1500 as a more conservative, atheist friendly, starting point.
Population: 500 million
Inquisition: ~100,000
Others: 900,000 <--- bonus amount to cover any other nonsense
Percentage: .2

1950
Population: 2.5 Billion
Mao: ~50 million
Stalin: ~20 million
Pol Pot: 2 million
Percentage: 2.8

2.8/.2 = 14X

Incidentally, these figures are highly skewed in favor of atheists. The Mao/Stalin numbers are conservative and Hitler is left out of the equation entirely. The Christian numbers of the Inquisition are the highest estimates and an additional 900,000 are offered up to cover any minor outrages that could be pinned on Christians. A person could estimate the chances of being murdered by an atheist in the 20th century to be 20-30x higher than being murdered by a Christian in the previous 1900 years combined.

I don't advocate this as an anti-atheist argument; however, as you may get your throat cut.

[One Bad Pig]

I looked and looked and looked and couldn't find it.

Long story short, the conversation started with the fact that more people where murdered by atheists in the 20th century than the 3 Abrahamic religions combined in the previous 1900 years. The rebuttal was that comparing raw numbers like that was invalid because of the huge population upswing in the 20th century (there were more people to kill and more people doing the killing). So then we compared it on a percentage basis, taking the population of 1850 and all previous murders by Christians and compared it to the population of 1950 and murders by atheists in the 20th century. This percentage showed, even with numbers grossly skewed in the atheist's favor, that you were 20x more likely to get whacked by an atheist in the 20th century than by a Christian in the previous 1900 years, combined.

1500 <--- I'm using 1500 as a more conservative, atheist friendly, starting point.
Population: 500 million
Inquisition: ~100,000
Others: 900,000 <--- bonus amount to cover any other nonsense
Percentage: .2

The Inquisition number is still rather generous. Even this HuffPo article only estimates several tens of thousands, over a 700-year period. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the Inquisition pales in comparison to religious wars in the past 1900 years.

[Meh Gerbil]

The Inquisition number is still rather generous. Even this HuffPo article only estimates several tens of thousands, over a 700-year period. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the Inquisition pales in comparison to religious wars in the past 1900 years.

The crusades ring in at about 1.7 million people.
Given that I'm doing percentage calculations on a 50 year period vs. a 1900 year period it is hard to deny that atheists are exponentially more dangerous.

I don't doubt you agree with that assessment.

[Adrift]

What? That isn't Zuckermann's own words. That's the site owner's own words. And he even tells you where he gets the term from:

Source: http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

Figures shown above are the total of "soft core atheists" (don't believe in god, but believe there might be life after death) and "hard core atheists" (disbelieve in god and disbelieve in life after death), but do not include agnostics ("softest core atheists": "Might be God... might be a life after death").

Note that these terms are from Greeley's statistical study and are noted here not as an endorsement of the terminology, but so that statistical researchers will be able to identify which columns are the source of the data in the summary tables presented on this page. "Agnosticism" and "atheism" are widely accepted as have different meanings. Based on the questions used in the survey, Greeley's category "softest core atheists" fall under the common definition of agnostics, which is why their numbers have not been included in the "atheist" totals.

© Copyright Original Source

He even bolds where he got the terminology. How did you miss that? And the 1991 Greeley/Jagodzinski survey he's referencing doesn't even list Denmark.

top 10 countries.jpg

Why is it so hard for you to just admit when you're wrong? The longer you attempt to hold your ground, the goofier you end up looking.

[Adrift]

I looked and looked and looked and couldn't find it.

This thread perhaps?

[Meh Gerbil]

This thread perhaps?

Thank you, sir.