Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Walk with your girlfriend in public? Then the law says anyone can kill you.
Blaspheme? "Morally corrupt"? Yeah, it's open season on you, too.
TEHRAN: The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered "morally corrupt."
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According to the Supreme Court's earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran's Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.
The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.
But hey, it's Islam, right? Not like our good Sky-Daddy worshipers would ever want to impose their laws on us in the same way. Right?
Jim Downey
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Well, that wouldn't be Christianity, now would it?
Unlike Islam, Christian scripture condemns the use of force against non-believers except in self defense. Forced conversions are an even bigger no no. See Matt 10:11-16 and Luke 9:51-56, if you actually care about what the Bible defines as the only **correct** opinion a Christian can have on this subject. Islam, however, has a different deity. Completely different personality.
It sounds like you're
It sounds like you're looking for a "true scotsman". Plenty of Christians don't seem to follow passages telling them to be tolerant of others, just like some Muslims ignore passages like this:
109:1 Say: O disbelievers!
109:2 I worship not that which ye worship;
109:3 Nor worship ye that which I worship.
109:4 And I shall not worship that which ye worship.
109:5 Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
109:6 Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.
By the way, citing a section from Mathew that includes 10:14 and 10:15 doesn't seem to be the best example of Christian tolerance.
10:14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
10:15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Stop confusing humanity with God
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are deliberately being obtuse by conflating man with God there. Those commands are clearly against what Downey worries that Christians might want to do. See, this is why atheists often look like morons when talking about religion.
If a Christian does this, they are breaking divine commandments. Christ said "do not do this," they then do it, ergo they are not acting under the authority of Christ.
If a Muslim forces their religion on you, they are being obedient to their teaching which says, to paraphrase part of the Koran, "fight the unbeliever until all religion is only for Allah."
Big difference in the entire approach. Christian does that, it's not behavior that is tolerable according to the religion. A Muslim does it, he's doing right in his religion's teaching. Simple enough for you?
What you demand isn't tolerance, but acceptance. Christians who live-and-let-live with homosexuals are tolerant. Muslims who blow up buildings on top of homosexuals in Afghanistan are an example of "intolerant" behavior. Tolerance does not mean accepting someone's actions, but rather allowing them to do it anyway.
As to the true scotsman fallacy, that's not really relevant here. The fact is that regardless of what any church will acknowledge, the Bible is the underlying definition of a "true Christian" because that is where the concept of a "Christian" comes from, just as the Koran is the most fundamental of the Islamic texts on what constitutes a Muslim. It is a cheap shot to say that because all Christians are imperfect, that it's acceptable to slip here and say that there is not something deeply unChristian about using violence to promote your religion. If anything, someone who believes that it's right to put a gun to someone's head and shoot them dead if they don't confess Christ is going to be so deeply at odds with so many aspects of the Torah and Gospel that they couldn't possibly be taken seriously except as a psychotic blasphemer.
And yet...
...the Popes, then the accepted 'voice of God on Earth', sanctioned not only the Inquisition, but a series of Crusades which at least had some aspects of forcing others to convert to Christianity or die. And then there is the treatment of the Jews at the hands of Christians...not to mention the various violent suppression of Christian heresy, nor the religious wars & purges waged in the aftermath of the Reformation.
So, sorry, in spite of what the Bible says, there's plenty of blood on the hands of Chirstianity. (And that isn't even getting into the various and sundry wars and massacres that YHWH directed "His Chosen People" to conduct against unbelievers in the Old Testament.)
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
lump 'em together
Unless you're willing to take the blame for anything that's done by an atheist, I wouldn't say it's fair to say there's blood on the hands of "Christianity." There's knuckleheads of all beliefs.
Go to the source.
Or
Or
OK, that's all Old Testament, and I can just hear you saying that isn't what you believe, even though it is the acknowledged basis for Christianity. So, here's a couple of Psalms:
And a little something from Mathew:
Knuckleheads, Bisch?
(All quotes from Skeptic's Annoted Bible.)
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
A little more context for you, there
As I previously quoted, however, forced conversion was barred by Christ Himself. The sword He speaks of here and now is metaphorical, as it relates to the teachings of Christ which are quite radical compared to other religions. The teachings of Christ have had a remarkable habit of setting people against one another, for no good reason, in so many cases since they were revealed. In fact, the degree to which third world Christians face violent attacks from non-Christians bears witness to the fact that Christian teachings are in a metaphorical sense a sword that has cast division among people.
Forced conversion was barred
perhaps but then I have to ask: Did god change his mind at some point or is god a split personality needing serious meds or is killing an appropriate biblical judicial substitution for someone who won't convert?
"You better start giving me some inner peace before I mop the floor with you." - Homer S.
or
"Pinky, you excel at random." - the Brain
Excuse me?
You can interpret that however you want and many people have, throughout history continuing to today, interpreted that to mean a strong-arm tactic is demanded by god.
Jim points out many OT examples as well. Got a problem with the places where god tells the Jews, His People (because the rest humanity, his creation, wasn't good enough for his 'love'), to kill, rape, plunder, forcibly circumcise, etc.? Or where he turns a woman into a pillar of salt for turning around to take a look at the biggest conflagration ever? Or where god's love is exhibited by holding all humanity accountable for all time for the sins of one woman? Or where god pulls his big funny and says after a couple of thousand years, uhh, nope, Ha-ha (Nelson Muntz is god, apparently), that's not the way it is, here is my son for your brutal tortures and slow murder - before I send him to hell for a couple of days to be ripped, burned, shredded, and mutilated by Satan (my nemesis - even though omnipotent I am not smart enough to figure out a way to take care of ol' Nic myself) so that I don't have to send any of you to hell anymore... unless of course you think this is all hooey.
Or is the god of the OT not the same god as in the NT? If not, then perhaps JC ain't the one prophesied after all... or, as with everything open to individual interpretation, you can simply change the starting line for where the 'real' story of the bible begins... you can even skip some chapters to suit your tastes - that's what the Council of Nicea did (of course, they didn't just stop at books, or chapters, but got right down to reinterpreting the words themselves - as did thousands of scribes to follow)...
Enjoy trying to piece together my rant but that's just the warm up. Why is it atheists tend to know more about the religionists own texts and histories than the believers themselves?
"You better start giving me some inner peace before I mop the floor with you." - Homer S.
or
"Pinky, you excel at random." - the Brain
Islam is not our friend
Recently in one of the books that I have read there was a page and a half of Koran quotes detailing just what the muslims think of us unbelievers and what they want to see done to us either directly or to have Allah do to us in the afterlife. 'Burning by fire' seemed to be a common theme. To the true believer we do not qualify as fellow human beings cohabiting our planet, we are simply unburned fuel. I suppose this puts us one step away from muslim women who are viewed as nothing more than baby making machines who are to be kept ignorant, illiterate, unemployed and essentially imprisoned in their homes, but hey at least they will be alive right?
So will someone pleae tell me again just why it is that something spoken by a seventh century arabic trader is necessarily true and worth dying and killing for? While you are at it could you tell me what I did to deserve being born into a species that is 80% stark raving mad?
Blaspheme what? Me and Mine?
It's kinda like "Dune". The Mujahadeen. Great nomads. Great antagonists. Really good at undermining one another. All for the the glory of Invisible Supernatural Spook. Well, may his appetite be filled.
I read the news today, oh, boy
An AP story from a far away place today tells of a young boy cutting off the head of an alleged traitor. A young boy. Said to be younger looking than twelve. Teach your children well.
I read the news today
Oh, boy.
craziness
Is it crappy that stuff like this doesn't even phase me anymore? I'm reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Infidel and it's full of stuff like this. "Impure" people and believers who think that insulting the prophet is just cause for a death sentence.
But it's the religion of peace, don'tcha know...