God

[Dennis_Mahon]

ok like i said i cant give you an exact death toll... sorry i dont keep track of those figures... so im assuming by your post that you believe those events happened for reasons other than religion? or perhaps no one died in them? or perhaps they were not cruel or did not attempt to inforce religion upon someone who did not believe in that religion?

I never said that I didn't believe any of those things; what I asked is why we should believe you when you claim:

also why is it if religions are not ultimately a bad thing... then why have most of the bloodiest wars and attrosities been commited in the name of religion?

when you readily admit that you can't back that assertion up. Care to answer the question?

next so there really is no need to understand a religious text simply wanting to go out and preach is enough? so that would put us back to literal translations of say and eye for an eye.... or any other countless passages... but thats all ok right?

Isn't that exactly your position? After all, you did assert:

if its true that god, alah, jesus... whatever you believe in exists in all things why do people feel the need to build churches and attend sermons and choose to accept one persons interpritation of something that should be interprited by each individual

Exactly which side of this argument are you pursuing?

 

[TLH3rdDan]

ok simply cause you seem to be pushing the issue here is some info for you: salem witch trails http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/learn.html

"With the exception of Giles Corey, who was pressed to death, the following were hanged:
Bridget Bishop
George Burroughs
Martha Carrier
Martha Corey
Mary Easty
Sarah Good
Elizabeth Howe
George Jacobs, Sr.
Susannah Martin
Rebecca Nurse
Alice Parker
Mary Parker
John Proctor
Ann Pudeator
Wilmott Redd
Margaret Scott
Samuel Wardwell
Sarah Wildes
John Willard "

9-11: do i really need to post numbers?

crusades: cant find a death toll but here have fun reading up on them http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1k.html

lets see oh yes the spanish inquistion: http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/64.htm have fun reading that one.

anything else you need?

 

[Dennis_Mahon]

Well first off, I take the 300,000+ death toll from the Spanish Inquisition with a huge grain of salt; it certainly flies in the face of the research done by Prof. Henry Kamen, of the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Madrid. But for the sake of arguement, let's say they figure is correct. Further, since we don't have figures for the Crusades, let's assume that it was roughly double that of the Inquisition, and then add the figures from 9/11 and the Salem which trails. Rounded up, that equals approximately 1 million people killed "in the name of religion".

The National Holocaust Museum places the death toll of Jews killed by the Nazis during WWII somewhere between 6-12 million.

That event alone shows that your claim is, in fact, wrong.

 

[TLH3rdDan]

if you really want to bring up the jews... they have been persicuted by christians and muslims and many other religions for years due to the fact that they refused to change their beliefs... now im sure we could set here all night and look up facts about how many times someone has tried to erradicate the jews based simply on their religious beliefs or cultural practices...

thats a nice rough estimation on the crusades death toll i would probably estimate it higher since most of the christian armies were between 20 and 100 thousand and since it doesnt make any claims to the size of the opposing armies which i would assume given the area incompassed by those lands it would be at least the same size as the christian armies... not to mention the countless civilians... ohhh by the way did you fail to see that these wonderful religious wars lasted for 200 plus years...so do i need to go back to the romans as well? when they began conquring the whole of europe and enforcing religion upon them? not to mention the current holly wars going on in the middle east that have been raging for centuries... all in the name of religion... sorry for limiting my previous examples to mainly christianity... they are not the only ones responsible... again this is an endless debate its been going on for a long long time before any of us were born... and i have a feeling it will continue long after we are all dead and gone...

 

[TLH3rdDan]

ohhh just a little side note on your figures there for the holocaust... dont forget that the 12 million estimation... includes catholics, handicaped, poles, slavs, homosexuals, russians, you name the race if they didnt fit the nazi ideal of perfection they were killed... by the way that ideal of perfection mean racial, political, and religious,.

 

[Johnathan Napalm]

None of any of that changes the fact that it is the people who were responsible for the crimes committed, and not the religions. No religions preach hatred, and destruction.

Heck, your parents told you to clean up your room, study hard, work hard, don't do drugs, don't drink and drive. But you don't listen. Whose fault is that? Yours! It isn't your parents' teaching that is flawed.

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Johnathan Napalm
Qiz has already made a blanket condemnation of religion and religious people. So that part is already KNOWN. Henceforth, I was rebutting his statement based on this KNOWN fact. It is ignorant and arrogant for atheists to make blanket presumption about people who they do not know. I made no condemnation on atheists' way of life or belief, only a rebuttal to their

But this is the problem--you're generalizing from a statement made by one atheist to the opinions of all atheists. The plural "atheists" and the use of "their" are the issue.

So, I still see the irony.

 

[TLH3rdDan]

and once again ill say that we should just agree to disagree... i have my views you have yours... im not going to change yours... nor are you going to change mine... how ever this has been rather interesting... but i need some sleep lol

 

[Rich Parsons]

Originally posted by Dennis_Mahon
Rich Parsons:


What exactly is your source for that statement? History records that Nicolaus Copernicus (also known as "Rheticus", due to his familial origins in Feldkirch, in ancient Rhaetia, Switzerland) died at Frauenburg, 24 May, 1543, from what appeared to be complications from a stroke. He was at no time imprisoned by the Church, nor forced to recant his position on the heliocentric system; indeed, if it were not for the entreaties of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Clum, and other leaders of the Church, the "Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits" might never have been writen, his theory instead being transmitted secretly to his students as the Pythagoreans did. Heilocentric theory only came to criticism seventy-three years later, when Galileo broke his agreement with the Church. It was forbidden by the Congregation of the Index on 5 March, 1616, and reinstated in 1620 after editing. The original manuscript was dedicated to Pope Paul III, and is in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.

DOH!

Please allow me to say I did not remember all the details while I was at work and unable to check references and being interrupted while trying to post. How dare them expect me to work while they are paying me?

Seriously, it was Galileo who was condemned and convicted of Heresy. The execution of this sentence of life imprisonment was carried out with some sympathy and it was house arrest under direct inspection of the Inquisition! (* If you call that being sympathetic *)

Yes Galileo, did much work to prove Copernicus's works and theories.

Check here :
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html


I hereby officially apologize for being wrong in my quote and stand corrected on that point only.


:asian:

 

[MartialArtist]

My savior is a Jewish carpenter

And all the wars brought on in the NAME OF RELIGION was in reality, brought on by human ignorance, arrogance, and just plain old stupidity. People corrupt religion when they add a social hiearchy that tramples over the doctrine. A rebuttal is that the doctrine is a result of the people, but to obviously contradict doctrine isn't right. For instance, the Bible says "around the circle of the earth." I don't know whether it refers to the shape, but other than that, it has nothing on the earth's shape, yet people drew conclusions from it and persecuted people like Galileo.

How many wars/deaths have been brought on in liberty's name? A woman during the French revolution said something along the lines of that. WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War, War in Kosovo, War against Terrorism... All have a general root on the idea of liberty. Not to mention the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, etc. But is liberty bad? Or the people who do things under liberty's name?

 

[Shinobi]

My beliefs....


Coming in late here in the middle of debates. I believe I am God. Not THE God, or only ONE God, I am my own God. I look at my life like this: I can choose to act irresponsible, stupid, lazy, ect. OR I can choose to act Responsible , smart, ect. My parents never forced any Religion on me so I allways just Believed in what felt natural to me. Which is me vowing to do everything in my ability as a Human to do. If I act irresponsible, I root out the isuue, and correct it. If I lack knowledge on a subject, I Educate myself on it.


I dictate my own life. For example, I make the rational choice to obey the Law, to show up to Work on time and act professional, ect. I treat others as they treat me. If they show respect towards me I reciprocate. If they choose to disrespect me, I stand up for myself. I allways try to do what is right.

I don't want involved in this debate, so I will say this. My life is mostly on a platform of non judgement. If someone chooses a different Path then me, as long as they leave my Beliefs alone, I respect theirs and leave it be. If for instance Jeff the Mechanic choose to go to Church every Sunday, that is great. He doesn't bother me, and in turn is given the same. Now if someone comes running up to me waving Religious material in my face bothering me, then I do judge them as a fanatic who is being rude.


Act like a Human and show Courtesy and everythings fine.

Just my view on things.

 

[qizmoduis]

Originally posted by arnisador
But this is the problem--you're generalizing from a statement made by one atheist to the opinions of all atheists. The plural "atheists" and the use of "their" are the issue.

So, I still see the irony.

Not only that, but I most certainly did NOT condemn all religions and religious people. I did, however, express my opinion that religions are psychologically harmful in some ways.

That's not a condemnation of religious people. If I wish to express opinions of religious (or non-religious) people, I will do so on an individual basis based on their observed behavior.

So, on to the current sub-topic: can a religion be held responsible for the semi-collective actions of it's adherents?

It depends. Is the Catholic church of the middle ages responsible for the persecution and murder of Jews? Absolutely. It was doctrinal that Jews were directly responsible for the death of Jesus. Churches, until very recently, were very real, and very very powerful political entities. In many cases, they were more powerful than individual national governments. They controlled every aspect of a person's life, from the food they ate, to the jobs they performed, to the sexual positions they were allowed to utilize. Everything. A person's position in life was absolute, because it was granted by God Himself. A king was a king, and a slave was a slave, because God said so. At least, according to the church. It was doctrine. It was extraordinarily powerful. When Jesus said that faith could move mountains, he wasn't kidding. Those with faith can be used by those who know how to manipulate that faith. The evidence screams down through the millenia of religious-inspired violence to this very day.

You cannot separate doctrine from scripture, and you cannot separate the church from it's people. You especially cannot separate a church's words from it's deeds. Make no mistake, a religion isn't just a bunch of beliefs, but is in fact a power structure that operates on the level of those beliefs, and by manipulating those beliefs.

Is it arrogant of me to express this? I don't see why. Perhaps my delivery is wanting? Is it arrogant when a christian claims to know, despite all evidence to the contrary, that an invisible, intagible super-being exists and is responsible for the creation of the universe? Is it arrogant when a muslim claims that christians are wrong in their beliefs, for similar reasons? Why is it often the atheist and/or skeptic that is accused of arrogance, for the simple fact of not believing in something that to him, makes absolutely no sense, or for showing where some beliefs are contrary to demonstrable and observable facts?

My stance on god-belief is quite simple. The theist says: there is a god. I respond: prove it. Is that arrogant? If it is, why?

I like Shinobi's response. It's the way I conduct my life as well. But if someone asks for my opinions or my beliefs, I will describe them.

 

[Cruentus]

One of the "problems" that the human race has had for quite a long time is the mixture of church and state. Religion gets blamed for this problem, but I would argue that it is not the fault of the religion, but the fault of the people who decided to integrate it into their government system, and use it as a means to control people.

Name almost any atrocity that "religion" by itself gets blamed for, and I'll bet that the atrocity was caused by a mixing of church and state. Remember, the Spanish inquisition was NOT the Catholic Church, or Christianity; it was the spanish government. The Crusades were considered a "religious war," but the reality is that Spain and other areas of Europe didn't want to get taken over by another Government system. Granted one group was motivated by "christianity" and the other "Islam," but that doesn't change the fact that it was two different government systems that were actually at ends. "Rome," ladies and gentlement, was also a "state" not a religion.

Now, I am not saying that all religious leaders were innocent in these examples that I have mentioned, but I am saying that we need to look at ALL the facts. The FACTS are that there are more to blame these atrocities on then just making "religion" the scapegoat. I find that people often would prefer to make religion's the scapegoat, however, because it lessons the guilt they feel for not following any moral athority beyond their own desires. For these people, no amount of evidence can be brought to the table that will change their minds.

When keeping the idea of church and state in mind , I have come to realize that these atrocities were not because the teachings of the religions were flawed per say, but that people had decided to use religion for the pursuit of power and greed. Since most of the religions that were used in the name of power and greed (Christianity and Muslim faiths to be percise) teach against the pursuit of power and greed, it would conclude that religion, by itself, is not the problem. So, to argue that the teachings of these religions are "flawed," and that is why these atrocities have occured is an empty arguement negating certain key facts.

 

[Cruentus]

You cannot separate doctrine from scripture, and you cannot separate the church from it's people.

This point is where many of the theists and non-theists (I am including agnostics and others, not just athiests) split. I would say that you CAN and you SHOULD seperate church from people....particularly GOD from it's followers and the church. God is one thing, a religion is another, and the people that follow are another. God, to me is the perfect creator. The Religion, to me, is a human way of trying to explain God, God's ways, the world, and how to follow God. Is religion imperfect....yes of course. Is it this evil entity that causes all of the atrocities in the world, of course not. Then there is people.....People are the most flawed, and it is the actions of people that cause bad things to happend. People, on the other hand, also cause good things to happend as well. People are, however, a seperate entitiy from a religion, or from God.

You, as well as others, would disagree. This is fine, and then it just becomes a matter of which makes more sense to whom; and hopefully we'll all find the answer for ourselves for sure. This, however, is the percise point in the arguement where many factions begin to split.

 

[Blindside]

Remember, the Spanish inquisition was NOT the Catholic Church, or Christianity; it was the spanish government.

Um, no. A papal bull by Pope Gregory IX put the Dominican order in charge of the Inquisition. It was also charged with rooting out the Albigensien heresies, which were centered in southern France.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Lamont

 

[Johnathan Napalm]

Originally posted by qizmoduis
Not only that, but I most certainly did NOT condemn all religions and religious people. I did, however, express my opinion that religions are psychologically harmful in some ways.

That's not a condemnation of religious people. If I wish to express opinions of religious (or non-religious) people, I will do so on an individual basis based on their observed behavior.

Your selectivity is amazing. Even after Paul quoted your own sentence by sentence, you still don't get it.

.. Is the Catholic church of the middle ages responsible for the persecution and murder of Jews? Absolutely. It was doctrinal that Jews were directly responsible for the death of Jesus.

Jesus was a Jew. His fellow Jewish establishment wanted to get rid of Him because he threatened their status quo. The Roman administration went along because they didn't care when the Jewish establishment wanted another Jew nailed. To this days, the Jewish religion rejects Jesus as the messiah.

A lot of nations persecuted Jews as well as other weaker races. Gypsies were persecuted. The Koreans were persecuted by the Japanese. The Okinawan were persecuted by the Japanese. Muslim persecuted Slavs. Spaniards repaid their persecution by the Ottoman. One of your forefathers might have participated in the prosecution of Jews and other weaker people. In the middel ages, every body persecute everybody else they could make a scapegoat or bully. That was the way back then.

Churches, until very recently, were very real, and very very powerful political entities. In many cases, they were more powerful than individual national governments. They controlled every aspect of a person's life, from the food they ate, to the jobs they performed, to the sexual positions they were allowed to utilize. Everything. A person's position in life was absolute, because it was granted by God Himself. A king was a king, and a slave was a slave, because God said so. At least, according to the church. It was doctrine. It was extraordinarily powerful. When Jesus said that faith could move mountains, he wasn't kidding. Those with faith can be used by those who know how to manipulate that faith. The evidence screams down through the millenia of religious-inspired violence to this very day.

Again, for the 100 thousand times, it was the people running the church at the time, responsible for the problems.

Jesus didn't teach any of those things you listed. The people running the church at the time came up with those things. These people acted like modern day power hungry politicians.

The teaching of Christianity has nothing to do with this human misadventure.

You cannot manipulate faith. You can manipulate people. People manipulate people.

"Beware of false prophets". When false prophets use religion cover to manipulate the ill informed, the quilt lies in the false prophets, not the vehicle they hijacked.

Hitler hijacked patriotism to meet his end. Does that mean patriotism is evil??

Of course not! How can patriotism be evil in itself?

You cannot separate doctrine from scripture, and you cannot separate the church from it's people. You especially cannot separate a church's words from it's deeds. Make no mistake, a religion isn't just a bunch of beliefs, but is in fact a power structure that operates on the level of those beliefs, and by manipulating those beliefs.

You are simply being argumentative. There is no basis to your position. The people running the church in those times were history. The Bible is still there. If your position holds any water at all, the crusade, the witch hunt, and the persecution of Jews and all the evil deeds you have attributed to the church, ought to be still going on today. The people would still be blindly manipulated like a bunch of puppets.

None of those are still here, because the people behind the church are different today. So the Church today is different from the Church in the past.

It is complete idiocy to cast the sins of the past onto the Christians of today. That is so absurd.

Hey, some of your ancestors must be blood thirsty murderous barbarians, just like those of ours. What does that have to do with you? Nothing! Or would you rather argue that you are genetically linked and hence you are scumbag? lol

 

[Cruentus]

Please describe to me what the purpose of the Roman Catholic Church is. In terms that a layman could understand. Do you take communion or confess to a priest?

If so, why?

If only god can judge you, what need have you for the organized hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church?

Hey, you asked a good darn question, so I thought I would answer you in brief.

The purpose of the Catholic Church covers many grounds, but I'll give you the main purpose. Mainly, the idea behind the Church and the "hierarchy" is to try to keep the teachings of Christ as pure as we can in our flawed world. The church does this not just by scripture alone. I don't remember the exact spot, but I believe that in a letter of Paul to the Theselonians, Paul mentions that we must uphold our beliefs from "the Traditions we uphold, or from a letter of ours." One of the ways that Catholics differ from main-stream Christians is that we don't follow scripture blindly, or by itself. The Bible is a collection of writings that date back thousands of years, and is the original scripts where written in archaic hebrew or aramaic. You have to look at anything that was written down within the context and purpose of the writing. It is important to know when when reading Genisis, for example, that Genisis was a recorded legand which had been passed down for generations orally before written down, and ment to be taken as truth in a figurative sense, not a literal sense. But when you are reading the Gospel according to Mathew you are reading a historacle interpretation from the perspective of Mathew and his followers, and is ment to be taken literally. Or at least this is what Matt and his followers percieved actually happend.

So, Catholics are not scriptural literalists. We rely on scripture, but also tradition and proper interpretation. That is why the church is around; it keeps the truth and the proofs straight beyond what any individual could do on their own. And the hierarchy exists so that it will be difficult for its leader to change the traditions, or interpretations, keeping as close as possible to the intent of the original apostles. At least, that is the intent.

The Catholic Church has long been noted for having the longest standing scholarly study of Christianity that the world has ever known. The Church is also there to study Christianity, and interpret it to lay people as best as it can what it believes is truth. This is important to it's laypeople because an organization as large as the Catholic Church does much more of a thorough job then any individual could when it comes to studying Christianity.

The Church also exists as a place for people to go and worship, and as a vehicle for lay people to grow personally. These are the main purposes of the Church, as I can see it.

Do you take communion or confess to a priest?

Yes, I do.

If only God can judge you, what need have you for the organized hierarchy of the Roman Church?

Good question also. God is the only judge, this is true. But the Church acts as a vehicle for interpreting the Christian belief system. A Priest has every right to tell me, "Paul, you know the church doesn't approve of you murdering people, and in fact, murder is a sin." The Priest has no right to say, "Paul, you know your going to hell of murdering all those people." There is a differance between interpretation (or "Judgement") of actions and interpretation (Judgement) of people.

A side note about confession: Some misconceptions about confession is that Catholics believe that you must go to confession to have your sins forgiven. This is not true. Another is that you are automatically forgiven if you go to confession. Also, not true.

Because (for arguements sake) Jesus is not walking around on earth right now, he had given his apostles the authority to forgive sins (check New Testament). Priests are just carrying out this apostolic tradition/authority. The Priest is acting as a mediator between me and God. Sure, I don't have to go to confession to be forgiven, but it's hard to get direct feedback just by praying and asking for forgiveness. And praying by myself doesn't always absolve me of my own feeling of guilt. When I want to get council from someone regarding my actions, I go to confession. It has a similar effect as a tribesman seeking council with a Shaman, or for a modern day contemporary paying big mula to go to a therapist. The differance is, when I go to a Priest I am asking for the Holy Spirit to see me through my sins, and the Priest is asking for the holy spirit to help him to give proper council.

And when I leave confession, am I forgiven? Well, that is truely up to God, not an institution, or another human being.

I hope I answered some of your questions. I am signing off, and I won't be posting again here until tomorrow. I have to limit my time on this forum, otherwise I'll never get any work done!

Peace...

 

[Blindside]

Thanks Paul,

I posted that question, good response.

Lamont

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by Blindside
Um, no. A papal bull by Pope Gregory IX put the Dominican order in charge of the Inquisition. It was also charged with rooting out the Albigensien heresies, which were centered in southern France.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Lamont

I know that I said I was signing off, but one last thing....

Um, yes.

I need to check my history a little to get the details, but I recall the problems occuring when the Spanish Government got involved with Pope Gregory's attempt to curb some of the misconceptions, or "heresies" that were going around. I'm sure some of the Dominican Monks where as fault as well, but remember that this is a time period where news-papers, media, and internet weren't exactly flurishing. If a Pope who is in a building at Vatican City says, "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to send some people out to evangalize, to try to curb some of the misconceptions that are going on?" And then, certian government leaders, coupled with certain members of a religious order decide that this means persecuting and killing, the Pope nor his bishops even aren't necisarily going to find out about it, and if they do it is likely that A. it will be to late, and B. the extent of the detail of how the inquisition handled themselves may never be known by the hierarchy of that time period.

Keep in mind, that members and leaders of the "Church" will always make mistakes, because leaders of any religion are human beings. Remember St. Peter (named Peter from Simon; Peter means "Rock", and Jesus stated "on this rock I will build my church...") was one of Jesus's most important apostles. Yet, he denied Christ 3 times, and this is mentioned in all of the Gospels. He was also "corrected" by Paul in the New testament, who was of much lesser authority. We use these examples to understand that even the most important and worthy individuals will make mistakes. No matter how seemingly perfect, no human being is God. Same goes for any institution.

This doesn't mean that because someone, or even a group of someones, makes mistakes that this means that the religion or belief system should be scraped as being a detriment to society. That arguement is illogical. Once again, the belief system by itself wasn't necessarily the cause of the mistakes that were made.

So, my point still stands: religion alone wasn't the problem, but the people who used religion, while at the same time blantently disregarding some of its key teachings, where the problem. This, as I had said before, often occured by mixing Church and State.

I really have to get back to work now, but if you have any aditional comments, Lemont, please feel free to state them. I will happily address them within the next day or two.

But, just remember, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
- Monty Python

 

[Blindside]

Regarding the founding of the Inquisition, it actually started at being aimed only at Christian heresies, namely the Albigensian and another (Walden something) heresies. Torture was permitted as a means of coercion. This is all under the guidelines put forth by Gregory IX, he also put an incredibly brutal man in charge of the Inquisition; Robert le Bougre. There were Dominican inquisitors in Spain, but the focus was in southern France and Germany.

It wasn't until almost 250 years later and the reign of Ferdinand did the Inquisition become "the Spanish Inquisition."

Lamont