Christianity Is Dangerous

[One Bad Pig]

While rhetorically entertaining your assertion is demonstrably false.

I felt that one false assertion deserved another.

My point is that skeptics (others) see what we're doing.

And they selectively see the hypocrisy while ignoring the good. Your point?

I cannot ask you to believe I'm the only one that gets it while making the case that many others do get the point.

I'm not sure who you think believes that nothing has ever been done wrong in the name of Christianity.

[One Bad Pig]

1) Christians are humans.

So are skeptics, buddhists, Muslims, and solipsists.
You seem to have dodged my point. Kudos for almost engaging with it, unlike your sidekick.

[seer]

You can debate that with Darth Executor.

And again, you're simply doing what every sect does, and that is partitioning yourself off into a sub-group that washes its hands and walks away from the mess. While that might be accurate we cannot expect a skeptic to appreciate it. You're fighting a valid perception with a theological obscurity delivered via words, church charters and cleverly worded rebuttals. This works well within the flock but for how well it is working outside the flock, well, I'll let you ask any atheist here if they find that impressive. PRO TIP: They don't.

I'm sorry MG if the facts don't persuade you or those outside of the faith - but I can't cure stupid.

My point, regardless of any slicing and dicing you may want to perform, is that the skeptic has very solid, rational, and well founded reasons to be afraid of Christianity ever gaining any power anywhere. After all the carnage why would they care about your equivocation about it?

So should we all fear atheism because of what Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao did?

Here is what you're asking a skeptic to believe: For 1,500 years most of the theologians/leaders/popes/pastors didn't really get it, but I do.

More nonsense. A lot of Christians over the centuries did in fact "get it." A lot of Christians over time really did try following the teachings of Christ, and many didn't. But that tells us more about the wickedness of men than the doctrines of faith. We are all personally accountable to God - I'm not accountable for all the evils of men who claimed the name of Christ. Just as my atheist neighbor is not accountable for the sins of Stalin.

[Trout]

So are skeptics, buddhists, Muslims, and solipsists.
You seem to have dodged my point. Kudos for almost engaging with it, unlike your sidekick.

2) Define Christianity and give three examples.

[seer]

Any human group in power is dangerous, depending on who they are they will be more dangerous than others.

Amen, just look at our preset liberal administration with the spying on US citizens.

[One Bad Pig]

2) Define Christianity and give three examples.

Monotheistic religion whose practitioners claim Jesus Christ as Lord.

Examples?

Jews
Hellenists
Romans

[Meh Gerbil]

I felt that one false assertion deserved another.

Feel free to state my assertion for the rest of the class.

And they selectively see the hypocrisy while ignoring the good. Your point?

So 1500 years of slaughter is okay because of Mother Teresa?

I'm not sure who you think believes that nothing has ever been done wrong in the name of Christianity.

What I'm trying to get to here is that it is ridiculous for Christians to pretend, as they often do on these forums, that skeptics are nuts because they fear the consequences of Christianity. It isn't unfair for a skeptic to call us out on these things. It isn't rude or unenlightened for them to reject our message, regardless of sect, because of the horrible crimes that litter our history.

Stop blaming the skeptic.

[Meh Gerbil]

It's an admission of the facts, it's also a way to point out that there is a difference between atrocities like what went in in Communist Russia, as opposed to the Crusades. Christianity is built on the fact that man is fallen and in sin. This fits pretty well with the idea that many who Christians can, and often will do what is wrong. Any human group in power is dangerous, depending on who they are they will be more dangerous than others.

If that is true then you can agree with me that it's time to stop blaming the skeptic for being wary of Christianity.
The idea that Christianity is a dangerous force is a reputation that is well earned.

Again: It isn't irrational for a skeptic to be terrified of a Christian government.

[seer]

The idea that Christianity is a dangerous force is a reputation that is well earned.

So we should fear atheism because of what past atheists like Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Mao, and their millions of followers, did over the years?

Again: It isn't irrational for a skeptic to be terrified of a Christian government.

What would be "terrifying" about a government based on the teachings of Christ in the New Testament?

[Meh Gerbil]

So we should fear atheism because of what past atheists like Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Mao, et al did over the years?
What would be "terrifying" about a government based on the teachings of Christ in the New Testament?

I'm not concerned about the reputation of atheists, in large part because they don't claim to follow a particular teaching which means huge variance among their beliefs is to be expected. Contrast that with Christians, who for some reason find the command "Love Your Enemies" to be this confusing riddle that must be carefully parsed and evaluated over hundreds of pages of commentary only to reach the conclusion that killing Muslims is a really sweet idea.

By the way, if you'd care to point to a government based upon the teachings of Christ in the New Testament I'd be anxious to know of it.
If it doesn't exist then you've just scored a point for the skeptics.

[Darth Executor]

One thing that is beginning to annoy me a little bit is the tendency of Christian apologists to wave off 1,500 years of abuse in the name of Jesus Christ as if it were a trifle, a unfortunate misunderstanding, or a theological tiff. Church history is rife with the systemic rape, torture, enslavement, and murder of opponents of the one truth faith. Often, these cleansings were carried out against people whose faith system was quite nearly indistinguishable from those of the oppressor. It is a sordid, sick history of the presence of hell on earth.

It's unfortunate Christian apologists wave those 1500 years off. They should be defending them.

I've seen the apologists attack this issue by pointing to the eradication of slavery in the USA. This argument is one of many that just doesn't gain any traction, after all, it is just another case of Christian on Christian violence. Should the skeptic really be impressed that it took a Civil War for a Christian nation to eradicate slavery? Let's be serious.

Well, skeptics were still enslaving people in the last century. In fact, they still are enslaving people. It'll take a lot of work before skeptics can gain the trust of Christians. It's probably never gonna happen because there is no pressure on them to act in an universalist manner with regards to Christianity, whereas Christians (and particularly white Christians in the West) are expected to accept every identity group under the sun.

As for the Civil War, they ended slavery because the Northern industrialists wanted blacks as cheap labor. Many migrant workers got far worse treatment than the slaves in the south did, because a slave was an investment that a slaveowner would try to protect whereas some dirty Irishman was easily replaced by the next FOB sucker shipped in. The Civil War is nothing to be proud of, but not for the reasons you mentioned.

Another ridiculous argument usually involves laying out before the skeptic some long winded explanation about how the various sects of Christianity are different from one another. The problem is that every single branch of Christianity has violence in its past, with perhaps the exception of the Anabaptists, who were largely exterminated by other sects - we've a history of people claiming the name of Jesus Christ to kill pacifists! This approach is a train wreck.

I don't know much about the Anabaptists but pacifism is evil, and given the way modern pacifists stab their brother in the back to protect those who would harm them I can understand why some people might want to kill them all.

The abuse continues to our current day. From the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which was systemically covered up for decades, to the bat-poop nuttiness of Protestant Fundamentalists, who engage in the most glaring forms of psychological abuse every Sunday at 10:00am - to the really weird and sick stuff that rolls around under cover of darkness - the history is ongoing and it is a sad, sick, perverted heap of sin. Don't try to sell me the idea this stuff isn't ongoing, I was in a Fundy church that involved thousands of people. I saw the abuse up front and in person.

Yeah Protestantism sucks. You should convert to Holy Orthodoxy instead.

So here is the burr for me.

And the self-flagellation and sucking up to people who hate you and would never show you the same courtesy you show them if they had any real power begins.

When a atheist comes to TWEB and starts taking about 'Theocracy' and fears about the 'Christian Right' and how Christians are bigots who are anxious to use power to destroy other human beings that atheist isn't some off the wall dingbat who is making stuff up. The dude just got up this morning and read the paper. Our marketing problems aren't his problems. Frankly, I hope Christians NEVER get power in any government on this planet again - and if you need examples as to why I feel that way I'd be happy to take you to a couple of churches I know. The sermons they deliver there will make you physically sick.

Well, if I have to pick between some High Pope bashing an atheist's head in (which, I might add, never actually happened) and some Neckbeard Tyrant beating my head in (which has actually happened, sans neckbeard), I'll go with door number 1, John.

The skeptics/atheists/militant-feminist-lesbian-meth-smokers are afraid of Christians for perfectly justifiable reasons.

I wish they were actually afraid of Christians, the world would be a much better place.

We need to recognize that the fear is grounded in REALITY and that many of these people have experienced abuse first hand.

We need to recognize that they experienced abuse (though my definition of abuse is probably a lot narrower than yours) because good Christians refuse to hold a strong pimp hand. The Catholic Church, for example, is overrun by a homosexual conspiracy. And no, this isn't some nutjob conspiracy theory. Most of the child abuse largely consisted of gays cruising for teenage boys, not actual pedophilia.

How does Pope Francis respond? "Who am I to judge"

Meh_Gerbil Christianity in a nutshell. Weak, pathetic, and enabling of the worst atrocities. The response to the pedo scandal should have been:
a) Reinstate the Inquisition. Drag every abusive priest back to the Vatican, try him and have him summarily executed.
b) Repeal priest celibacy. Make marriage mandatory for priesthood.
c) There are ways to detect gays and pedophiles. Have any potential priest sit in a room while some quack wires him up then shows him gay/child porn. If he gets hard, don't let him in.

It is absurd that we expect abused people who are fully aware of church history to come in here and be perfectly polite.

Politeness is overrated anyway.

It is a miracle any of them talk to us at all.

Not really. Most atheists are simply servants of Progress. They have to talk to us to destroy Christ's influence so that their Masters Below can get a better grip on us. Despite the self-serving propaganda, atheists floating around "thinking for themselves" are a lot easier to fool into doing your bidding than bullheaded religious people whose thoughts are firmly rooted in tradition and react caustically to any deviation.

[Cerebrum123]

If that is true then you can agree with me that it's time to stop blaming the skeptic for being wary of Christianity.
The idea that Christianity is a dangerous force is a reputation that is well earned.

Um, no, because it's not Christianity causing all this. You are mistaking correlation with causation.

Again: It isn't irrational for a skeptic to be terrified of a Christian government.

The skeptic should be wary of any government, and not just irrationally afraid of one subgroup that could obtain power.

[Darth Executor]

I'm not concerned about the reputation of atheists, in large part because they don't claim to follow a particular teaching which means huge variance among their beliefs is to be expected. Contrast that with Christians, who for some reason find the command "Love Your Enemies" to be this confusing riddle that must be carefully parsed and evaluated over hundreds of pages of commentary only to reach the conclusion that killing Muslims is a really sweet idea.

Killing Muslims is a very good idea when they're trying to kill all your men and convert your children and women to the mad ramblings of some desert dwelling pedophile.

Also, I don't see much variance among atheist beliefs. Especially politically.

By the way, if you'd care to point to a government based upon the teachings of Christ in the New Testament I'd be anxious to know of it.
If it doesn't exist then you've just scored a point for the skeptics.

It shouldn't exist because the New Testament is not a manual on how to run a government. At best it's a manual on how to live your life under an overwhelmingly powerful foreign occupation.

[Soyeong]

It's rational to fear any government that abuses power. Trying to tie that to a particular faction will get you nowhere. Saying it's 1500 years of slaughter is absurd.

[Cerebrum123]

It's rational to fear any government that abused power. Trying to tie that to a particular faction will get you nowhere. Saying it's 1500 years of slaughter is absurd.

We REALLY need the amen button back.