Christianity preaches love, forgiveness, turning the other cheak.
Ever hear of The Crusades?
The Inquisition?
by mP 145 Replies latest watchtower bible
Christianity preaches love, forgiveness, turning the other cheak.
Ever hear of The Crusades?
The Inquisition?
"No one expects The Inquisition!"
Fakesmile
Yah, try moving to israel as a goy. Its a racist country. If you ain't jew by blood or at least converted, it aint going to happen. Even the converted, who don't have any jewish blood are seriously discriminated against.
They decided to deport a bunch of falashas that they were tired of having in their holy country. They are supposed to be part jewish, but they are dark.
S
In preparation for this question, I looked up the history of Criminal Justice and legal history. Legal history is older and has more to do with codifying customs and civic behavior. This reminds me of some of the sayings of Confucious, where the noble-born man would respect the traditional rituals. "If those in the higher ranks of society be devoted to ritual, then none of the common people can dare not to venerate them..." (xiii. 4.) This sounds odd today.
The Chinese were early adopters of course, using prefects to mete justice in their districts. This was about 1500 AD.
The Romans did not even have a criminal justice system. Justice for even violent crimes was left up to the individual citizen to mete revenge.
Murder in the bible was treated similarly. A man who killed another might go to a city of refuge to escape revenge from the murdered's relatives. Judges may have resolved disputes but obviously they did not get involved in sentencing murderers. It may have been a sin against God and there were relatives to appease, but it was not treated as a state matter to resolve.
Incarceration did not become widespread until the 19th century.
Modern Christians of course, happily dismiss the Levitical laws with the golden rule and Jesus' famous statement that he came to fulfill the law. It is taken for granted that the golden rule and divine forgiveness covers them all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history
I believe in law. I also believe in order for it to be just, it must evolve over time. Why would I willingly step back a couple millenia to appease a few fundamentalists?
@ satanus, yup. but in the vein of any good religious group, they have no problem begging us heathens for money.
My recollection is that the former Soviet Union was atheistic, however I am not sure that was true of the people. The Chinese seem to have an ancient religion, Taoism, which I don't think is suppressed by the state. Most of the suppression I can think of relates to Christian missionaries which are perhaps seen as western attempts to infiltrate.
To Unstopableravens,
If your comments are of a serious nature and not sarcastic, (I am hoping you are sarcastic but have a feeling you are not), then let me help you to understand.
Us Atheists concern ourselves with the existence and morality of god because it is an issue that has shaped and continues to shape humanity for millennia. During that time millions
have been oppressed, taken advantage of, guilted, harmed, killed, etc. because of mans irrational desire to believe in a god or many gods, and to claim to have exclusive
knowledge and rights over others because of that belief. Because this is still an ongoing problem that continues to opress people, us Atheists care enough to spend our very precious
and limited time not to try and disprove gods existence, but rather to raise awareness, understanding, and to shed light on the the barbaric beliefs and practices that
are still prevalent in or modern societies. It is because there are those that can't speak out against religion and gods existence, for fear of expulsion or even death, that pushes us to do so.
And, your comment about Atheists only being accountable to themselves, that's a load of bullshit. I am held accountable to my friends, family, workmates, neighbors, municipal
and federal law, all living species and finally, to our planet earth. Every decision I make and action I take can effect any, or all, of the previous entities I listed.
Even if I wasn't held accountable to anyone or thing, I wouldn't go out murdering and steeling because I don't want to. And if the only thing that is holding you back from
murdering and steeling is your belief that god will punish or reward you according to your actions and beliefs, then I question your own morality and would be hesitant to trust
a person like yourself. I hope this clears up some of your prejudices.
nose
All of the inventions of 19 century religions like the JW's (international Bible Students) was a sorry continuation of the confusion, made up beliefs and stupidity of Christian thinking up to then and which still continues. The Christian tradition did not start with first hand direct transcriptions. We have no real idea what the leader of the Christian movement actually said. What we do have are decades of grossly corrupted words because it spread with oral accounts, translated into various languages, by following the Roman trade routes. After hundreds of years Christianity became a blend of paganism, Jewish law/beliefs, Greek and Roman culture.
The WTBTS was doomed from the get go when it simply aped Adventism and put it's own spin on it.
Oddly enough. Atheists/Agnostics, non's, anyone who adopts the principle of treating their fellow humans as they would want to be treated can call themselves a human secularist. Which is a lot closer to what Jesus was supposed to have taught and a big step up from where Christianity is now.
My recollection is that the former Soviet Union was atheistic, however I am not sure that was true of the people. The Chinese seem to have an ancient religion, Taoism, which I don't think is suppressed by the state. Most of the suppression I can think of relates to Christian missionaries which are perhaps seen as western attempts to infiltrate.
If you read the links I provided earlier, it actually demonstrates that the Chinese Constitution guarantees the rights of religion. Where the Chinese draw the line, as do most governments, is when religion tries to undermine the secular rule. The Chinese also limit to what extent a foreign religion can have an influence in their country.
I will reiterate my earlier point and what others have said: if you need a god to force you to be moral and treat your fellow human beings with love and kindness, then you have a personal problem. The fact remains that the vast majority of atheists and agnostics are kind, decent, moral people who contribute much in a positive way to society- and they don't need to be threatened by any god to do it. They do it because it's the right thing to do and they realize all humanity benefits when we treat each other kindly.
Religion, on the other hand, has a rather conspicuous history of influencing otherwise decent people to do some truly horrific deeds. Without their religion telling them these despicable acts were sanctioned by god, I doubt these individuals would have even considered what they were forced to do by their deity's claimed representitives.
Believers often say how people, and they themselves need the accountability of the god as judge belief. However, if their belief in god stopped, they might be surprised to find that their morals don't change that much. In fact, they might feel more empathy than they did as believers.
What does this say about the aforementioned belief? It says that belief in a judging god was actually impairing them emotionally and morally.
S