Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A though on the religious threads

Troll much?



Added, and just to be clear a denomination does not denote Christianity or lack thereof.

Some like to believe that if someone doesn't subscribe to their brand of Christianity they are not 'true Christians.'

Hitler was a cherry picker, mashing pagan beliefs with a selection of ideas from the bible...but that doesn't make him an atheist.

The implication appears to be that someone of faith would not do terrible things. Which ignores the work of the church during the inquisition, scum like Ivan the terrible, etc....theists who tortured and killed.

To be honest I think he was a wackjob that used anything to justify whatever he wanted...but that doesn't negate the fact that Germany as a nation was predominately Christian when they went on a killing spree.
Not that it matters much for when things degrade to that point religious belief seems to take a back seat right next to civilised.

A wackjob with a set of insane beliefs, a blend of ideology and religion, which he packaged and sold to a nation, causing untold suffering.

Aaah, no true Scotsman.

😂

Went to another funeral yesterday, three preachers spoke at the service, three longtime sellers with well rehearsed SOP lines, felt like i was at a used car lot, sad really, even worse that so many are so gullible.

This guy’s an American philosopher and an atheist. He has a BA in Philosophy from Cornell University, a BPhil from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University. He has an interesting perspective...

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” - Thomas Nagel

One of my dear mother's favorites

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Well, if you stop and actually contemplate the ideas most religions, and all the major ones have, it's pretty scary stuff.

Christianity has the whole "believe or burn" thing going on. The idea that someone who did heinous things, but then found Jesus is saved, yet someone who (possibly without even knowing who Jesus was) lives by all the "rules" in the bible but doesn't "believe" burns forever doesn't make an objective observer jump in line to worship.

It's almost as if the "it's not your actions, but your conformity" thing is about control.......

Ever read the ancient story of the blind men and the elephant??

He's 100% correct. I'm not willing to do the deep dig for the statements, but they're there.
Pissed off a couple good guys enough that they left.

4th Crusade wasn't against Muslims....

Despite their oaths and the threat of excommunication, the Crusaders systematically violated the city's holy sanctuaries, destroying or stealing all they could lay hands on; nothing was spared, not even the tombs of the emperors inside the St Apostles church.[12] The civilian population of Constantinople were subject to the Crusaders' ruthless lust for spoils and glory; thousands of them were killed in cold blood.[13] Women, including nuns, were raped by the Crusader army,[14] which also sacked churches, monasteries and convents.[13] The very altars of these churches were smashed and torn to pieces for their gold and marble by the warriors.[12] Although the Venetians engaged in looting too, their actions were far more restrained. Doge Dandolo still appeared to have far more control over his men.[citation needed] Rather than wantonly destroying all around like their comrades, the Venetians stole religious relics and works of art, which they would later take to Venice to adorn their own churches.

It was said that the total amount looted from Constantinople was about 900,000 silver marks.[15] The Venetians received 150,000 silver marks that was their due and the Crusaders received 50,000 silver marks. A further 100,000 silver marks were divided evenly between the Crusaders and Venetians. The remaining 500,000 silver marks were secretly kept back by many Crusader knights.[16][17]

Neither was the Albigensian Crusade

The Crusaders captured the small village of Servian and then headed for Béziers, arriving on July 21, 1209. Under the command of the papal legate, Arnaud Amalric,[61] they started to besiege the city, calling on the Catholics within to come out, and demanding that the Cathars surrender.[62] Neither group did as commanded. The city fell the following day when an abortive sortie was pursued back through the open gates.[63] The entire population was slaughtered and the city burned to the ground. It was reported that Amalric, when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics, responded, "Kill them all! God will know his own." Historian Joseph Strayer doubts that Amalric actually said this, but maintains that the statement captures the "spirit" of the Crusaders, who killed nearly every man, woman, and child in the town.[64]

Amalric and Milo, a fellow legate, in a letter to the Pope, claimed that the Crusaders "put to the sword almost 20,000 people".[65] Strayer says that this estimate is too high, but noted that in his letter "the legate expressed no regret about the massacre, not even a word of condolence for the clergy of the cathedral who were killed in front of their own altar".[66] News of the disaster quickly spread and afterwards many settlements surrendered without a fight.[65]

A lot of Crusades occurred in Europe before the Reformation, making them effectively Catholic vs. Catholic:

There were 5 Crusades against the Hussites, plus a half dozen more against various bohemian sects.Over 200 years there was a dozen or so crusades against the Poles, Slavs, Netherlands (sound familiar) Lithuanians, Estonians, Fins, and pretty much anyone else North and east of modern Germany. In other words, the Catholic Church had an established history of crusading in the invaded by Hitler. Heck there was 10 more crusades just on the Italian peninsula, all prior to the reformation.

I’m not a fan of organized/institutional religion. My beliefs are mine. I don’t need or want them to be dictated to me by anyone or anything else. Organized/institutional religion has been misused to control, monopolize, and extort the masses. As have other institutions in our history. We see it today in our government and the media.

Anyway I found it interesting that he clearly didn’t solely...if at all...base his atheistic position on a “lack of objective evidence.” His position clearly involves his ‘will’; “...I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God...”. His statement of “I want atheism to be true...” also stands out.

Good Friend Antlers, there's a HandBook on the Subject.

His statement is accurate. In many of the previous religious threads Campfire Christians explicitly stated Catholics are not Christians.

Yeah, I know wabi. There’s actually 27 different handbooks on the subject in the New Testament alone.

He sold it to a Christian nation (62.7% Protestant, 32.5% Catholics, 4.8% other, 0.8% Jewish in 1933) of willing buyers.

Wabi, Religion or no religion, I sense you are a truly good man to your core. Your brand of faith allows you to tolerate us heathens in good humor, your faith in God I respect completely. When I go on my little soapbox, none of what I say applies to you and your like minded brethern. My beef is with the militant Christians who insist, 'my way or the highway'.

Yep.
There are many different christianities, and they are not all equal.

I can't disagree with your observations. There is a plague within the thinking of Modern Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in general that they are intrinsically or at least through cooperation with God becoming more Holy. This projection has been commonplace over the years that I've been reading religious discussions here.

A lot of posts here imply a level of self righteousness in the posters. If a human becomes righteous in the sight of God through his own efforts it's only reasonable for the people projecting that view to share their progress and tell us specifically what they have done and how they accomplished their claim.