Loftus: Are We Angry Atheists? (page 9)

BurnTheShips

My second point is that it is not true that Christianity was not present in China in both the early and medieval era's.

I never said it was. I am aware that Christians had reached these places very early on. My point is that China was never a Christian culture.

I suggest that Christianity just did NOT appeal to the Chinese mindset based on Confucianism and Daoism.

I think this argument is flawed. There are other factors at play, here. For example, a third or maybe more of S. Korea is Christian, which is also a Confucian/Taoist culture.

Riffing on PSac's post, secular/atheist regimes have killed more people in the last 100 years than all religions combined in the last 10,000. So if you guys want to use that argument, be my guest.

BTS

PSacramento

"If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." Albert Einstein.

That is indeed the "point" of the Gift of Grace, we don't do good because we want recompense or fear punishment, we do good out of love for our fellow man, ourselves and God.

ziddina

"I've heard people claim that they were once atheist, now christian, and almost to a person they describe their atheism as springing from "anger at god". ..."

Ooooo - Kaaaay, SixofNine, but you've been speaking with a very select group of former atheists who have several major experiences in common...

There are other atheists who've never become angry at "god", but rather, realized that "he/she/it" couldn't exist ...

Me, for example...

My atheism had its beginning when I was 8 - 9 years old, sitting in the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, and the brother read Exodus 19: 16-19 from the bible...

Read it yourself, before you proceed in this post...

At the age of 5 I was a "rockhound"; by the age of 7 I'd become fascinated by volcanoes. When that brother read that scripture, the very first thing I did was whisper - rather loudly - "That's a volcano...." Then I became even more excited, because I'd learned by that time that many ancient volcanic eruptions can be traced by local legends - note that - LEGENDS....

I turned to my parents - maybe my mother - and whispered excitedly, "THAT'S a VOLCANO!!!"

She, being a person who preferred reading slop romantic novels - "soft-core porn for bored housewives" - shushed me.

But by then, it was too late. I'd realized that, IF this bible 'god' was the REAL 'god', then 'he' would have KNOWN that 'his' people were paying homage to an erupting mountain - AND that "Moses" had done an incredibly stupid thing in drawing them TO THE FOOT OF AN ERUPTING VOLCANO!!!!

The "real" 'god' would NOT have allowed 'his' followers to mistakenly pay homage to a mere erupting mountain... Nor would 'he' have put them in danger of TOTAL EXTINCTION [oh, WHERE is a pyroclastic flow when you NEED ONE???] if 'he' were going to have a "peoples for his name"...

When I learned that the bible is one of the YOUNGEST 'holy books' - collection of holy books - on the planet, and that there were MANY other 'gods' and 'goddesses' in existence LONG before this Middle-Eastern male's "god" came along, well....

That was the 'capper', as far as I was concerned... That "Berekhat Ram" figurine; the other ancient - and I do mean ANCIENT - goddess and god figurines ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 to 232,000 years old - the antiquity of these "deities" FAR OUTSTRIPPED the 'age' of the bible "god"...

Which means 'he' absolutely CANNOT be the "true" god... There were SO MANY OTHERS that came before 'him'!!!

"He's" just another version of deity to worship... Part of a VERY LONG LINE of "deities" that humanity has created to pay homage to...

Once a person researches the history of religion, one almost automatically becomes an atheist...

Unless one blindly focuses only upon the short-term history of this Johnny-Come-Lately Middle-Eastern 'god', exclusively...

Zid

Nickolas

Quite, those Laws were indeed being practiced and yet they needed to be "codified" and "written in stone", which goes to show how fast and loose they must have played with those laws.

My point exactly, PSacramento. The only things "new" in the 10 Commandments are the first four dictums, in which God is obsessing about being worshipped. Some might argue the first four commandments are the true raison d'etre and the remaining six were included to speak to a civil order that was already being (for the most part) observed in order to lend some credibility to the whole.

ziddina

"Indeed, and why aren't there Chinese or Indian colonies orbiting Alpha Centauri? Their history had no Christianity..."

Specious... Those cultures had their own versions of religious and cultural intolerances and inhibiting factors...

Berengaria

Here's a perfect example of why atheists might be angry. Continually having the notion that everything decent, artistic, orderly..........beneficial, is the result of not just religion, but christianity, shoved down our throats. I don't believe for one instant that law order and decency are the fruits of religion. I agree with Nikolas,

Not killing, raping, stealing, cheating and otherwise screwing over your neighbour was what allowed civilisation to develop, not religion.

Human compassion is human, not divine.

I don't see that art music or architecture are a result either. Specific examples of art music and architecture yes, but not just generally.

Because history has NOT shown us that at all, quite the contrary according to just the 20th century ( Stalin, Mao, Po, etc, etc)

Spanish Inquisition, Salem Witch trials, Catholic/Anglican England 1500's, Crusades.............

BurnTheShips

Once a person researches the history of religion, one almost automatically becomes an atheist...

Interesting. I haven't found this to be the case, personally. I think it is foolish to assume that the one automatically follows the other. If anything, history affirms the universality of the religious/spiritual experience in humans, going all the way back to the Stone Age.

BTS

BurnTheShips

Specious... Those cultures had their own versions of religious and cultural intolerances and inhibiting factors...

It is not a specious argument to make towards the "chart" posted earlier (which singles out Christianity). That "chart", is what is specious.

Thank you.

BTS

PSacramento

My point exactly, PSacramento. The only things "new" in the 10 Commandments are the first four dictums, in which God is obsessing about being worshipped. Some might argue the first four commandments are the true raison d'etre and the remaining six were included to speak to a civil order that was already being (for the most part) observed in order to lend some credibility to the whole.

Well, I don't think that was the reason, LOL !

And for what its worth, there is only one commandment to worship God, the prohibition against idols and the sabbath and not using the name ofGod in vain don't have much to do about worshiping God per say.

And there are 7 other laws: Honour father and mother

No stealing

No killing

No adultery

No baring false witness

No coventing of the neighbours wife

No Coventing of ANYTHIG that is thy neighbour ( doesn't belong to you).

Nickolas

I don't see that art music or architecture are a result either. Specific examples of art music and architecture yes, but not just generally.

Art and architecture, particlarly in Christian Europe, often reflected Christianity because the Church had the power and the money to shape both. It is not religion that caused art and architecture to evolve but the evolving brains of the artists and architects. Religion established only the boundaries, artificially restricted to agree with and promote its own doctrines.

Loftus: Are We Angry Atheists?

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