A while back the House voted to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Then over this last weekend the Senate voted to repeal the policy as well. The major news agencies are lauding it as some great civil rights victory. It was on every channel I looked at while I was waiting to go to my granddad’s 90th birthday dinner. I have been watching one of my favorite sites, the Foundry Blog at the Heritage Foundation, but I have not seen any response yet. I know my Representative, Pete Olson, stands against the repeal, but I also know Representatives such as Ron Paul have been fighting for its repeal for some time. So who is right? If I am anything I am often blunt and to the point so I will just say it. If you are a Christian and you support the repeal of this policy or other similar policies that would promote homosexual activity as acceptable behavior then you are wrong. If you are a libertarian who believes that the founders would have supported a repeal of such a policy then you are wrong as well. And if you are a progressive then you more than likely don’t care what the Bible or the Founders said…but you are still wrong.
Now that I got that out of my system here is why I take the stand that I do. For Christians it should be very simple. Homosexual behavior is one of the things that the Bible is extremely clear on. From God’s original design to its affirmation by Jesus and later Paul. Here is what the Bible says.
The Original Design
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”( Gen 2:18)
And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ”This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:22-24)
The Old Testament – God views it as a sin
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)
The entire Chapter of Genesis 19, which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Cities destroyed by God because of their sexual immorality, specifically pointed out are their unnatural (homosexual) sexual behaviors.
A recount of the story…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)
Jesus References Old Testament
He answered, ”Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:4-6)
But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. (Mark 10:6-8)
Paul addresses homosexual behavior
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:23-27)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, (1 Corinthians 6:9)
So the Bible is pretty clear on its view on homosexual behavior. The next argument that I usually hear (and usually from libertarians) is that none of that matters because civil government is separate from religious matters. As a Christian, this is not supported biblically. We as people love to take credit for things, but civil government was instituted by God to promote the good and punish evil. There are numerous passages in the Bible that teach us this point, starting with the Old Testament. The first is found in Genesis when God says that the punishment for killing another human being is death. It continues with the Mosaic Law and then is addressed again in the New Testament. Here are 3 definitive passages that illustrate this point in the New Testament.
Jesus answered him [Pilate], “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” (John 19:11)
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Romans 13:1-7)
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. (1 Peter 2:13-14)
For those who have chosen liberty (today’s definition) as their God instead of following the Bible, you will surely hear that the Founders would not support such an infringement on people’s freedoms. This is a pretty distorted view of the Founders and what they believed. Entire books have been written (and ignored) on the subject. I would like to point out that they certainly believed their new country was indeed granted by divine providence.
The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. – George Washington
Here is another one of my favorites from George Washington, which basically says that you can hardly call yourself a patriot if you try to separate government from religion…pretty strong statement.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which least to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indespensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness”
You could take similar statements from just about all of the Founding Fathers, but we do not have time here. I do believe that a statement from a body…such as the Continental Congress would be worthwhile so here is a good one.
“Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness: Resolved, that it be, and it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effective measures for the encouragement thereof” (October 12, 1778)
So the founders had it right. Civil government should be used to promote the good, and, of course, punish evil. Before judicial activism took hold, our civil government actually did punish evil. Now evil has become relative. People forget that Jefferson and Madison enacted the death penalty for bigamy and polygamy. Jefferson proposed castration as a penalty for sodomy. Laws on such sexual behavior came from their Biblical belief that marriage and thus sexual relations should be between one man and one woman. Laws that supported the idea were upheld by earlier courts such as Davis vs Beason in 1890 and Murphy vs. Ramsey in 1885. In the latter ruling the court declared
“Certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self governing commonwealth…than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; [the family is] the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guarantee of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.”
Other cases such as The Commonwealth vs. Sharpless in 1815 upheld laws against pornography saying the defendant was corrupting the morals of the youth and people of the commonwealth. So you can see that those of the founding era were actually much tougher on legislating morality, something people say we should not try to do today. Which is silly to say really because all laws are legislating morality. Consider John Witherspoon’s statement on the subject.
“Consider all morality in general as conformity to a law”.
The real question is whose morality are we going to legislate. I say we use the Bible, what say you. I hope the same.
So those that support the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell have a difficult realization to face. Do they support what the Bible says and what the founders supported or do they support the progressive mindset and what activist judges have created. For Christians it should be easy. Same goes for progressives. But for some libertarians I know, they could be testing the very definition of irony.
{ 21 comments }
Check this article out:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/2010/12/afghan-sex-practices-concern-us-british-forces
Do a search: The First Scandal Adam and Eve.
What an odd pair of comments.
Re the post; bravo! well researched and written. I like how you focused on God’s word and showed how the Founders applied them. Indeed our nation can only survive if it is moral, and all true morality is rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage.
But let’s understand what this debate about gays in the military is and is not about. The debate about gay marriage in the civilian world is about a lot of things, but marriage isn’t one of them. Likewise, the issue is not whether gays can serve without disrupting military readiness. Progressives couldn’t care less about the military or marriage. What they want is to force the acceptance of the gay lifestyle as equal to hetrosexuals. They want to forbid discussion of these issues, and shut down businesses and churches that refuse to play ball.
Progressives could not care less about either the military or the institution of marriage. They see them as tools that they will use to force their ideas upon society.
Anyone who objects will be vilified instantly. “Bigot!” “Neanderthal!” “Hatemonger!” Are what you’ll get. Dare to bring up scripture and they’ll scoff and roll their eyes.
But we should not be surprised, for our Lord told us in Matthew 10:34 ““Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
And John 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
Very good point Tom. Look no further than Obama’s safe school czar, Kevin Jennings. He founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN holds workshops around the country that help people try to change curricula at schools starting with kindergarten to make it inclusive for homosexuals. Teach them early as possible that nothing is morally wrong with the lifestyle. Before long people start to believe it.
Early progressives such as Dewey did the exact same thing to remove knowledge of our founding principles from society…replacing them with their own. Now most people do not even know what those founding principles are.
Please view my pro-Bible youtube.com song/video titled, “Messiah loves homosexuals”. Research and see if it accurately tells the Bible story of Genesis chapter 19. Please share it with others. The word, “gay” is used with a double meaning as a play on words with the two major meanings for the word found in Webster’s Dictionary. The key word for homosexual-gay people is at the end of the song…. repent. Jude 1:7
Before you go about asserting how you think other people should live their lives, you first have to show that you are immutably “right”.
Faith, by definition, is illogical – in the first instance it requires you to make a logical fallacy of blind assertion – i.e. “god exists” for which no testable evidence exists (otherwise, it would have been tested, found not wanting, and published for all the benefit of humanity).
If you insist that logical testable evidence DOES exist, then you are either lying (since it does not), or you are ignorant of either logic, or the scientific method – and you are therefore basing justification of imposition of your dogma on lies, and/or ignorance.
Not only do you need to show that your religion/god exists, you also have to show that your god/religion is “right”, and it is the ONLY right religion. You need to be able to do this in the context of an absolute, external metric – i.e. you can’t logically say that “the bible says it’s right, therefore it’s right”, because even though it DOES do this, it’s pure circular logic, morover ALL religions do exactly this, so you have to be able to show why saying this for “Other” religions is wrong, and “yours” is right.
Simply saying “god says gay sex is bad” is not appropriate. It is cowardice, because you’re not actually providing a reason that YOU can defend on your OWN grounds – you are providing a reason from your god who we cannot obviously have a discussion with to find out exactly why he objects to it.
Finally, to state that the bible is “clear” on homosexuality is also a mistruth. The bible is very ambiguous. the ENGLISH translations of the bible are explicit, sure… but this actually depends on WHICH VERSION of the bible you read, since the ACTUAL WORDS CHANGE in each version. The HEBREW version of the bible is not so easily translated as the subtleties of hebrew language are certainly not easily extensible into english. Therefore, to state that the bible is “clear” is true only if you are talking about ONE particaular version, and ignore the rest, and more generally, if you ignore the fact that hebrew itself is very complex and necessarily relatively nebulous.
so – to claim that your english copy of the bible says anything at all about how you think other peolpe can live their lives is utterly disingenuous. firstly, you can’t actually logically validate your god at all, let alone what you think he is telling you. secondly, you don’t actually have a very clear idea of what your god is saying anyhow, because the original hebrew is quite different to the translated english, as is evidenced by the ongoing series of bible “versions” – to claim that some text is “clear” on a matter, where that text changes every few years, is really just being wilfully dismissal of salient points – that it’s not clear at all.
“. Teach them early as possible that nothing is morally wrong with the lifestyle. Before long people start to believe it.”
Amusing, tcs.
Can you describe to me, taking into account the multi-religious demographic of your country, why it is morally wrong, as you imply?
yes, tcs, I’m asking you to prove that homosexuality is “morally” wrong, and I’m also asking you to use an intelligent, accessible, secular metric – unless of course you think that everyone should convert to your religion… you DON’T think that do you tcs?
how would you feel if you were told that you should convert to islam? not too happy i suspect, so please don’t tell me that you think people should adopt your philosophy, it’s hypocrisy.
How to begin. I guess by saying that I am not asserting how I think people should live their lives, I am simply showing how God says we should live our lives. It is relevant because the United States was formed as a Christian nation. As far as science. You cannot prove God with the scientific method. It is called faith for a reason. Brings to mind a great quote.
“Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.”
Sometimes we can be too smart for our own good. Nothing I will say will probably change your mind about God if your heart has been hardened. But if you are interested there are numerous books that cover the historical accuracy of the Bible since you seem to be a factual only believe what you can see kind of guy [except evolution
] Maybe that would lead you to faith.
I can; however, briefly address your assertions that the current Bible is not an accurate translation of the original texts. I can also briefly address this policy with reference to American history and the role the founders believed Christianity should have in our government.
As for the Bible translations. The different versions of the Bible for the most part are just updating the language to make it more readable for the current generations. The different Bible versions do not promote any different ideas or concepts on this topic or any other. Some are updated language. More recent versions (such as the ESV) have some small clarifications from older versions (such as the KJV) because older manuscripts were discovered. But there are no differences in the ideas presented. You also infer that the Bible was just haphazardly translated. If you look into it you will find that it has always been a very intensive process. Words are taken in their context and verified with how they were used in other places in the Bible and in society at the time. On top of that, this particular topic is discussed in both the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but the New Testament was written in Greek. This clarifies God’s view on homosexuality even further. For instance, in Romans Paul uses the term “para physin”(contrary to nature) when discussing homosexuality. This same term is used in secular literature during that time period to describe homosexual behavior.
The role of Christianity also has to be taken into context of our founding as a Christian nation. The founders believed that the Bible should be the model for teaching our citizens on how to be good citizens. They encouraged the Christian religion in schools and in government. Through the years liberal activist judges have misinterpreted the Constitution and ignored its intent to remove Christianity from every aspect of life that they could. From a secular sense (what you requested) the results have been devastating. All the following data is from 1962/63 when legal positivism was really embraced in the courts.
• Birth rates for unwed girls (15-19) rose from 15 per 1,000 to 45 per 1,000.
• Violent Crime rose from 300,000 offenses to 1.9 million offenses.
• STDs (ages 10-14) rose from 14 per 1,000 to 54 per 1,000.
• Average SAT scores have dropped from 970 to 910
• Single parent households have risen from 4.7 million to 12 million
There are numerous other studies that look at the traditional family structure and its effect on the above statistics as they are all interrelated. There are others that look at sexually transmitted diseases. But the bottom line is this is what happened when we started not following God and his instructions to us in the Bible. There have been real world measureable consequences for deviating from the Bible’s teachings.
Your last comment is a clever trick question. You want me to prove homosexuality is morally wrong using a secular metric. The only problem is there is no secular metric. Secular morality is relative. Progressives such as your self do not believe in absolute moral standards. Back in the civil war era progressives believed slavery was ok, later they believed that separate but equal was ok…today they believe killing a six month old baby in the womb of a mother is morally ok. The question you should ask yourself is where to you get your moral standards from? All the answers of a consensus of society will eventually lead you back to the conclusion that it comes from each individual conscience. So where does that conscience come from? From God perhaps or just a bunch of chemical reactions evolved over billions of years.
“I am not asserting how I think people should live their lives, I am simply showing how God says we should live our lives.”
this, tcs, is exactly my point – given that a) the bible is ambiguous, 2) that christianity is not the only religion and 2) that it’s impossible for you, or anyone to validate your god, here is how you SHOULD have written that :
“I am simply showing how I interpret the message from the God I blindly assert exists, that says how I should live my life”
See what I did there? I recognized that your god’s message is vague, highly interpretable, that your god is YOUR god, not mind, not bob’s, not abdul’s, not shikah’s, not Cheng’s. YOURS. I also recognized that you have no way to validate your god’s existence, and you must blindly assert it. I also recognized that since YOU are interpreting YOUR god’s message, YOUR interpretation applies ONLY to you. Not me, not bob, not abdul, not shikah or Cheng. YOU. YOUR life.
you therefore have absolutely NO right to tell me, bob, shikah or cheng how we should live OUR lives. Not one iota of a right, in fact.
“It is relevant because the United States was formed as a Christian nation.”
This is actually debatable, and is vigourously debated elsewhere online, but it’s moot in this case. Your nation could have been formed pagan if you like, wicca or druid, it’s moot because your country is NOT 100% christian. There is bob, who might be agnostic. Abdul who is muslim, shikah who is hindu, and cheng who is buddhist. They ALL live in the usa. REGARDLESS of how your nation formed, it is NOW diverse. NOW. not ~250 years ago. NOW. Some would call diversity a beautiful thing – mostly people who understand how important diversity really is, which excludes almost all theists.
“As far as science. You cannot prove God with the scientific method. It is called faith for a reason. ”
You can’t prove god with anything, period. identifying “proof” is a logical process and it’s very hard to come by outside of pure mathematics: the scientific method doesn’t actually prove anything at all, it’s not something that the SM tries to do. The SM uses LOGIC to make DEDUCTIONS.
You can’t VALIDATE your assumption of the existence of god – therefore, any conclusions you make about his existence (or not) are INVALID. Asserting your god exists is just as fallacious as asserting he does not exist. Note that I make neither assertion.
“Nothing I will say will probably change your mind about God if your heart has been hardened.”
Well that’s true, but not for the reason you think. I don’t require words to be shown something is factually correct. I require evidence. I don’t “beleive” the sky is blue on a sunny day. It is. It has nothing to do with what I believe. I can SEE the sky is blue because it’s there in front of me. The minute your god fronts up and proves he is god and not a super-intelligent alien, I’m all prayer baby – but true, nothing YOU can SAY is convincing.
“The different versions of the Bible for the most part are just updating the language to make it more readable for the current generations”
And to correct things like the 6th commandment so that god isn’t seen to be breaking his own commandments, but generally, yes, this is the case.
So….
when you pick up a “version” of the bible, how do you know that it has been “appropriately” updated for you? do you make sure you have “bible 2011″? “bible v2011.1024″?, “bible Gen Y”? What if a gen y picks up the NIV, or worse, the KJV? they’ll turn to page 500 and see “thou shalt not kill” – and then see all the killing your god does, and say .. “hang on.. what version is this.. oh wait, it’s one of them old ones??..oooh, no wonder it makes no sense!, gimmie one of them sensible, immutable bibles that tell me how to live my life!” Is that what you expect to happen?
The point remains, your bible, touted as a fixed and immutable text, is neither fixed nor immutable. It evolves – but WHILE it evolves, it’s STILL touted as being fixed and immutable – someone is lying somewhere. I think it’s every single christian on the planet (again).
“The role of Christianity also has to be taken into context of our founding as a Christian nation”
ugh.. comments like this really piss me off.
why does christianity have to be taken into context of YOUR nation? your tiny little blob of people.. what is it? something like 300 million people?
in a planet with… 2 BILLION christians?
since when is christianty to be taken into context of YOUR nation? why YOUR nation?
You, my little droog, are exactly why the world laughs at americans – “christianity belongs to the usa”.. what a fucking joke. yeah, there’s another profanity you can delete you pretentious muppet. in fact, you should just delete this entire paragraph, YOU’LL read it at least, which is actually the point of writing it. Christianity has NOTHING to do with the USA, nothing at all!, It is not mentioned in the bible, it is not the origin of the bible, it is not the major driver of christianity, it is not the spiritual center of christianity. If the USA suddenly vaporized, christianty would continue without a hitch, haveing lost only a measly few tens of thousands of followers out of it’s 2 BILLION. Get your tounge out of USA’s ass you arrogant twat.
I’ll assume you’ve deleted that paragraph, and I’ll continue.
hmmm,
Statistics! ah, statistics are fun aren’t they?
Did you know that there is a DIRECT relationship between the increase of consumption of ice cream and drownings? It’s actually true, of course this means that icecream makes people drown right?
no not really. It means that icecream is preferentially eaten in summer, which is also when people go swimming more frequently.
See what I did there? I showed you that correlation does not prove causation. You, apparently, skippeed that class at the academy… wait, they DO teach jarheads basic statistics don’t they?
So you identified a bunch of statistics, over an unidentified time period, with an unspecified population growth, without citations. Well done. Until you DO specifiy these things, your statistics are actually meaningless. They mean nothing at all until you show the dependent parameter – that is, time. As it stands, you’re implying that over a 12 month period, 7 million families suddently split up, that suddenly four times as many people got stds, and that people suddenly god slightly stupider.
There’s rules about citing stats, you violated all of them.
You also have to think. You’re not doing it.
For example, if you claim that five times as many marriages split up this year compared to last year, then I could JUST AS VALIDLY point out that previous to this year, five times as many people lived in matrimonial hell, living a life of suppressed and oppressed misery, the consequence of them terminating forced, unpleasant marraiges is that they are now very happy , which is actually a good thing.
If you’re going to claim that the termination of a marriage is a BAD thing, you need to FIRST understand WHY the marriages might be splitting up – abuse might be, and is, a good reason. but of course, you ignore all this and just rattle off stats as if they mean anything at all. they don’t mean “anything”, they mean SPECIFIC things.
“But the bottom line is this is what happened when we started not following God and his instructions to us in the Bible”
I see, so the obvious extension to this assertion is that non-christian countries are hellholes of debaucherous, AIDS-ridden young girls who have problems putting two numbers together?
Places like.. uh. japan? with one of the largest GNPs in the planet, one ofthe largest populations and is almost exclusively shinto and/or budhhist?
places like china, with a higher net energy consumption, lower per capita energy consumption, faster rising GNP and lower international debt than the USA, and is also almost exclusively Buddhist?
Places like Dubai? a completely capitalistic powerhouse… that is EXCLUSIVELY muslim?
The bottom line kid, has nothing to do with religion – clearly. religion is a product of society, not a cause. If you’re going to assert that rejecting christianty leads to failure of economy, you have to then explain why non-christian countries are such economic powerhouses.
Again, we see that you’re not actually looking at the facts, just some things that you made up, or were told to say.
“Back in the civil war era progressives believed slavery was ok”
right.. which is why progressives started the civil war. right okay – sigh.
“today they believe killing a six month old baby in the womb of a mother is morally ok”
they do? citiation needed please – yes, something like “our survey of every single progressive on the planet shows that they will all happily murder a sixmonth old foetus” (kid, get your nomenclature in order, a “six month old baby” refers to a baby six months AFTER birth, a “six month old foetus” refers to a baby after six months of gestation and is still in the womb. If you’re going to use english to make a point, make sure you know what the words mean).
“The question you should ask yourself is where to you get your moral standards from?”
I get them from you. I get them from my mom and dad. I get them from school, university. I get them from my neighbours, friends.. but most of all, I get them from MYSELF. indeed, I don’t have to be told that it’s not good to cause injury, becuase, injury hurts. I didn’t need a god to tell me that – apparently you do?
“it comes from each individual conscience. So where does that conscience come from? From God perhaps or just a bunch of chemical reactions evolved over billions of years.”
oh.. you actually said something useful.
I’m amazed, but why did you leave it till the end?
So, you have finally recognized that there is, at least, a dichotomy. It’s probably a polychotomy, but we’ll stick with this for now and assume that one or both of the alternatives is vague enough to encompass all of them.
So which is it? Which of the two are logically supported? Which of the two are experimentally supported?
(I’ll give you a hint, it’s not “god”)
““Back in the civil war era progressives believed slavery was ok”
right.. which is why progressives started the civil war. right okay – sigh.
unless, by “progressives” you think it only means “democrats”.
Other people, like me, and half a dozen online dictionaries, think it means
“favoring or promoting reform”
or “gradually advancing in extent”
or “liberal: a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties”
or “favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters: a progressive mayor. ”
or “making progress toward better conditions; employing or advocating more enlightened or liberal ideas, new or experimental methods, etc.: a progressive community.”
and so on. and so on, and so on.
Unless you mean “demoncrats”, which would actually be …w ell a VERY silly thing to say (given that necessarily political parties change their spots, and to suggest that what are demonstrably agressive progressive policies now mean that clearaly un-progressive policies ~150 years ago are actually “progressive” (despite them clearly not being so)).
I’m just wondering how you rationalise slavery as being progressive exactly? “protecting civil liberties”? or “promoting civil reform”? exactly? – yes, please do be explicit.
For those that have read your last comment, I apologize for the language. I am not going to delete your paragraph, but I will ask you again to please keep it clean.
First, I will say that we are in agreement on Faith. I am not going to try to prove the existence of God using man’s scientific methods. One you would just throw out any physical evidence I provide without analyzing it because you are pretty set in your presumptions. Two, I can offer solid evidence in support of the existence of God, but it will not be definitive until the second coming. He will show himself then, but then it is too late. The Bible records God’s first coming in human form. But that is not what this post is really about. My real target audience is Christians in the United States who do not realize they are supporting pagan ideas of the past. They real topic is a policy within the United States.
I think you misunderstood my point about the relevance of Christianity in America. It is important because Christianity influenced the development of America, not the other way around. Maybe the way I worded gave the wrong impression. For over a century progressives have tried to push Christianity out of America. Many of the problems our country has today are due to these progressive policies. Conservatives such as myself are trying to bring America back to our founding principles.
Progressives do try to argue that America was not founded as a Christian nation, but the evidence is stacked against them. If you look at the political writings of the founding era you will find Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Locke were quoted the most, but not nearly as much as the Bible itself. Those outside the country also noted America’s Christian founding…from Harriet Martineau in 1837 (and no friend of Christians)
“There is no evading the conviction that it [Christianity] is to a vast extent a monstrous superstition that is thus embraced by the tyrant, the profligate [immoral], the weakling, the bigot, the coward, and the slave…The institutions of America are, as I have said, planted down deep into Christianity. Its spirit must make an effectual pilgrimage through a society of which it may be called a native; and no mistrust of its influences can forever intercept that spirit in its mission of denouncing anomalies, exposing hypocrisy, rebuking faithlessness, raising and communing with the outcast, and driving out sordidness from the circuit of this, the most glorious temple of society that has ever yet been reared.”
As far as the Bible itself. It has not evolved over time. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that the Bibles we have today are extremely accurate to the original texts. Once again no theology has changed through history and no theology changes with the different versions. All the versions you listed are considered good translations. As is done in science anytime a translation is completed and released as a new version of the Bible it put through a thorough review…manuscripts used..etc. It is taken very seriously. There are plenty of resources for Christians to ensure their Bible is an accurate translation of the original manuscripts, but like I said before…unless you get an outlandish version from a non-Christian sect, there is no difference in theology. For the most part it is just personal preference.
The statistics. I gave the start date but did fail to give the end date. The end date was in the mid 1990’s. The data was collected by US agencies (Commerce, HHS). The data gives a general trend and it is directly related to the removal of the Bible from public life because of what the Bible teaches. It is much different than comparing something like ice cream and drowning. Your marriage comment was interesting. The great thing about Christianity is that it addresses the cause, not the symptom of the problem. That is something our Founders understood. In this case by following Biblical teachings you would not end up in that kind of marriage to begin with.
As to the situations in other non-Christian nations. There are no absolutes when humans are involved. However, if you look at freedom indexes you will find some definite trends. You also have to look at these countries histories. Japan for instance has been influenced heavily by the Christian West due to its history. But it was also devastated economically because it pursued Keynesian economic policies pushed by progressives (in the 90s)
You also discussed the term progressive. When I mention progressives I mean in those who introduced the progressive ideas that countered our founding principles in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and of course who influenced that philosophy from earlier periods. Progressives pushed these ideas through both political parties and outside of a few time periods it has dominated politics in America. You find progressives in both political parties but you do not find many conservatives in the Democratic Party. There are of course mixtures such as President Bush. He was a social conservative but was center left on big government issues. So that is my reference.
Looking at early Enlightenment figures, Gibbon, Hume, and Kant defended slavery because they thought they were inferior. These were the early thinkers who believed there should be no permanent moral standards. The ideas that developed from that philosophy is progressivism as that is one of the founding principles of the progressive movement in America. The Founders put provisions into the Constitution that would eventually lead to the end of slavery. Lincoln himself was a conservative. Progressives also fought against civil rights. So if you are thinking of progressives in terms of those who pursue equal rights on this particular issue then you could call them progressive, but if we are referring to the term in the context of the political philosophy rising in America, they were conservatives.
To abortion. I used the term baby on purpose. A fetus is a human being. Personally I cannot see how someone can look at an aborted fetus and not see it as a human. It has a human form. It has a heartbeat. The Bible is clear on this, but so is science. The only way someone can support the act of abortion in my view is if they do not value human life. Saying it is not a baby is really just a rationalization of something very evil. As far as liberals support of the practice. They support it by funding it. Obama’s first action in office was to allow federal funding of abortions overseas by reversing the Mexico City Policy. He also re-opened support to the UN Population Fund which supports China’s one child policy. The Democratic states its support of pro-choice policies in its platform. They openly fund and support Planned Parenthood. It, of course, has an extremely dark history. It was founded by Margaret Sanger to control population, specifically minorities such as African Americans. That is why I say progressives support abortion.
sigh..
I’m sure you get told this over and over again, but what you’re demonstrating here is not anything approximating a rational debunking of anything at all, but a total misunderstanding of science, the scientific method, scientists, Thermodynamics and evolution.
Yes, all of them.
It would take far too long to correct you on all of them, and to explain why what you’ve said is wrong. Let me point out a few things:
Science is 100% logical – this is why the system works. things are not “proven”, things are “supported”. The scientific method bows to fact, operates on speculation, and produces theory.
Note the point “bows to fact”. This is crucial
Scientists (on the whole, notwithstanding their humanity) apply the scientific method. Nothing more. If you can, therefore, factually support your hypothesis, then it must be explained.
Therefore, if you can factually support your god hypothesis, then I MUST accept it. It has nothing to do with what is “presumed”, “assumed” or even personal feeling. If you can produce facts that logically support your god, I have no choice but to accept it. You ASSUMPTION that I am “pretty set in my ways” is total tripe, and is nothing more than a demonstration of your flawed understanding of how logic and science ACTUALLY work.
Yes, christianity heavily influenced the development of USA, but the USA does not DEFINE christianity, as your previous post implied.
You guys love to use the word “progressive” as if it’s an insult. It’s not, unless you think that a country that is “regressive” is a good thing. if you think I’m a “progressive”, does that therefore mean you are a “regressive”? I fail to see why “progressives” thinking anything at all has anything at all to do with the fact that the usa is multinational, multi-denominational etc. etc. you’ll find, in any case, that the fastest growing philosophy is atheism anyhow (according to recent gallup polls).
The bible hasn’t evolved?
You declare this right after saying “The different versions of the Bible for the most part are just updating the language to make it more readable for the current generations”
hmmm, make it more readable for the current generations…
So why can’t these updates have been written 3000 years ago?
answer? because the authors had no idea what kind of language would be “more readable” – they had to WAIT until the environment dictated the most appropriate language to use, so that the messages of the bible could be properly delivered…
THAT sounds pretty much exactly like evolution.
The problem of course, is that you actually don’t know what evolution is, so you can’t say what is, and what is not evolution – I assure you, modification that is guided by an ambient and usually unpredictable external environment is EXACTLY evolution.
If you don’t agree, fine, but you’ll need to tell me your definition of evolution.
The FACT that god no longer prevents “killing” as opposed to “murder” is a point in case – the meaning of both of these words has not changed in the last 200 years – yet the way the bible uses these words has – prior to the NIV god was breaking his own commandment – conveniently, now he does not. Did god change? no, did your bible? yes.
Re. stats, yes, you failed to give an end date, but it’s not an “end date” we need, it’s TWO starting dates. I’ll assume this is what you mean – so over a 1962-1995, a 33 year period (roughly a 1.5 generations), when the population of the usa increased from 179,323,175 to about 281,421,906, i.e. it almost doubled.So pretty much all of your absolute statistics wash out into insignificance anyhow.
There are just so many minefields you’re deliberately ignoring when you cite statistics, You’re basically raping the tool to push a non-existent point, and then you’ve gone and made probaly the most hilarious blind assertion possible.
“single parent-families increase because there are less christians”? what?
How about – um, the fact that women are more empowered now thatn before, and don’t feel the paternal godly hand that insists they have to stay in a malfunctional marriage? what era are you in kid? oh.. clearly, you’re in the 1960′s – a period notorious for oppression of women into loveless marriages. Christianity addresses the cause? erm… yes, because to a large extent, christianity IS the cause of people staying in loveless marriages – since christianity has already peaked, and people are more liberal and free, they are not trapped in abusive, loveless marriages “for the sake of god” any more. Marriage, you’ll find, has less to do with god and more to do with streamlining beauracracy that is a vestige from an ancient, oppressive and paternalistic era… i.e. the 1960′s.
I think it’s very funny that you think people should stay in loveless marriages. Stupid, and funny – of course, I’m not in a loveless marriage, otherwise I’m sure I wouldn’t find it so funny.
“There are no absolutes when humans are involved.”
indeed, so why do you try to impose them? you assert that marriages are failing because people are not christian. This is an absolute. Then you tell me that there are none.
So – are marriages failing because people are not christian, or not?
of course, the answer is no – and you’ve already said this “There are no absolutes when humans are involved.” – yet you ignore your own advice and go an pretend there are anyhow. This is a logical fallacy, known as a “double standard”.
“Japan for instance has been influenced heavily by the Christian West due to its history”
heavily? erm….
no. not heavily. The number of christians in japan is utterly miniscule. Less than a percent – so your point is certainly a lie. or more probably, you simply have no idea what you’re talking about.
“due to it’s history”?
The last ~50 years where america occupied part of one of the asshole ends of japan and are actively rejected by the majority of the current Okinawan population, and was a major platform for the current political party, thwarted only by the arrogant flat rejection of the idea by the usa?
Again, we see that you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.
I really have no idea why you keep babbling about things that you are totally ignorant.
sigh, onto the last atrocity of logic:
“To abortion. I used the term baby on purpose. A fetus is a human being”
I wonder who’s definition you’re using here. Yours? sure. yours.
I think it’s clear you actually haven’t thought about what is, and what is not a foetus.
Is a cell a foetus? A Single Zygote?
what about a spermcell? an ovum?
“It has a human form”
What hasn’t happened here is thought – by you.
mammal foetuses are almost identical. You claim that human foetuses have a human form, therefore a goat foetus has a human form. Strawman? no, a logical result from your opaque, and poorly thought out concepts.
So, since a goat is clearly not a human, you need to decide WHEN you think a “foetus” is a “human” – you need to DEFINE it. is one week okay? the foetus is clearly nothing like a human (or did you think that a foetus instantly assumes a human form when it is fertilized??).
You’ve also removed the conversation from something intelligent and informed by deliberately inflaming it with emotive words and language – a cell is not a baby. Sorry. it’s no more a potential human than the goo in your ball-sacks.
What I think is funny is that again, you fail to see the bigger picture.
“Progressives” support abortion in the same way that regressives support slavery. It’s not an explicit support, it’s an implicit support. “progressives” support human rights. Theists do not – obviously, since you think that children who are raped and have no way to look after a baby should have it – you also think that women who are raped for the 15th time, in 3rd world country and can’t feed their other 15 kids, should ALSO be forced to have the child.
The irony is this – you think you’re on the side of human rights – you are, in fact, publically raping the concept, in the town square, with a baseball bat, and you think that you’re doing a good thing. your theologically imposed abuse of human rights has nothing at all to do with rights. It is all about what YOUR god wants YOU do to.
Which brings me back to my original, unanswered question.
Given that your god is unprovable, highly interpreted by you, please irrefutably explain why you have a right to impose your god’s wishes on anyone else.
Thanks.
oh, and answer it this time can you?
oh, and kid, “progressives” is a positive term, I told you already – your use of it in a kind of “us and them” context implies that you’re the opposite – i.e. a “regressive”.
enjoy!
Oh, and incidently,
why do you keep deleting my posts about your flawed understanding of the 2LOT and evolution?
Is it because you don’t want to understand?
or that, despite the so very obvious proof to the contrary, you think that you’re not flawed?
Of course you are, and it takes a matter of a sentence or two to prove it – I just want to know why you prefer to remain ignorant. And you DO prefer to remain ignorant, you work so hard to preserve such ignorance!
Anon…I am not deleting all your comments. I deleted two and I told you about it and why. You were posting on my About page. One was repeating your points on evolution and one was on Iraq and Afghanistan. I did let you make your points on the older posts before closing them. At the time I closed them you were just repeating the same concept over and over so like I said I found it counterproductive. What your comments did make me realize is that I have posts nearly two years old (like the one you were commenting on) that I had not closed so while I am making other modifications to the site I am closing them. Surely that is understandable to most.
Since you brought it up again I wanted to give just a few links with reference to evolution before I comment on the relevant comments to this post.
First, there are scientific publications refuting the theory of evolution.
Here is a list of some. http://www.discovery.org/a/2640
There are credible scientists that refute the theory of evolution. Here is a list of some. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
Here is another organization that supports this type of scientific research http://www.discovery.org/csc/
Here is another resource with references. It is slanted towards the Creationist viewpoint, but gives a good overview of the major holes in the theory from a Creationist point of view. May not be something you want to read Anon, but thought I would put it here in case others do. http://www.conservapedia.com/Evolution
Like you said, not proving anything, just supporting and refuting. Giving hypothesis and testing them.
Now on to the comments for this post.
Taken in context, I do not believe I implied that the United States defined Christianity. I believe you were just reading a little too much into what I was saying. But on that point, the United States has certainly had influence on the spread of Christianity. And almost all of the elements of how the country was designed were influenced by Biblical principles.
I explained my definition of progressive. When I am using it I am referencing the political philosophy that arose after the Civil War. That era is actually called the progressive era in American history. I certainly did not give them that name, because what they introduced was not progressive, but regressive. So, no, I do not see progressives as per my definition in a positive light. If you look at their principles, what they proposed was pretty similar to something Plato proposed in the Republic. Here is a good quote on what Plato believed,
“In the Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato insisted that the gods create superior human beings who are fit to rule-he called them the Guardians- and inferior human beings who are to be ruled. The inferior classes have few if any rights, and much of the Republic is proto-fascist in its advocacy of strong men, eugenics, and absolute obedience to the State”
Out of curiosity what poll showed that the fastest growing philosophy is atheism? If true that would explain a lot actually.
Yes, updating the language used. Anyone that has read a version such as the KJV knows that it can be difficult to read because people during that time period speak differently than people speak today. Thus, the reason it was not updated in modern English 3000 years ago was because they did not speak the modern English we speak today in the United States. I hope that clarifies what I am saying. That does not mean that the theology of what is translated is any different than the original manuscripts or other versions. I mostly use the ESV now. As an example their translation philosophy was as follows:
“The ESV is an “essential literal” translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, its emphasis is on “word for word” correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original”
You gave the example of kill versus murder found in the 10 commandments. First, I would just like to say that God cannot break commandments that he gave to man for man to follow. But looking at the texts themselves, the Hebrew verb “ratsakh” is used meaning the unlawful or immoral killing of another human being and also causing the death of another human being through careless or negligent behavior. This verb is never used in the OT for killing in war. So if you take the word used out of context you can apply it incorrectly. If you read the text and then the Christian scholarship associated with it you will understand the correct context of the word. The meaning never changed. Christians that have studied the Bible understand this so that is why it is not a major issue for us.
Stats. Not all of the statistics I gave were absolutes. They list per 1,000. The others increased significantly more than the population rate so I think that makes them relevant. I am not ignoring any minefields here. I believe you missed (or maybe ignored) my point on the Bible addressing the problem with marriage. I said it addresses the cause of bad marriages by specifically teaching the process of dating, what to look for in a mate…etc. The Bible just doesn’t teach stay married forever. The worldview on this process is dramatically different than what the Bible teaches. Because of this people end up in marriages such as the ones you described. When you look at this particular issue you really can’t pick out one date because the process of removing the Bible from the public sphere has been gradual and started will before the date I gave, but even still, that particular timeframe is significant.
I say there are no absolutes for numerous reasons. One, humans have a natural sinful nature so as hard as someone may try to live by Biblical standards we all inevitable screw up because no one is perfect. There will always be those who may be atheists but are not bad people. Unfortunately for them being good does not help you out much in the end (Christian worldview, of course). This holds true with just about anything. To include things such as statistical anomalies. But like I said when you look at general trends definite things usually stand out. When I mentioned Japan I was not talking about changing the people’s religions because that is not what happened. Because of our interaction after WWII, some of the principles of our Biblically inspired free society influenced them. That is the connection I was making and one of the reasons they would show a higher score on something like a freedom index.
Your comments were exactly what meant with my point on abortion. Here are some pictures.
http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/pictures.html
Just trying to add a little reality to technical scientific terms.
On progressives and slavery. Based upon your definition of progressive, some supported slavery, some did not. Like I said before, rarely are there absolutes. But once again I am referencing those that influenced the progressive political philosophy in America when I use the term…not a generic definition as you continue to reference. The name of the movement was given to it long before I was around. Those men listed were Enlightenment writers who certainly influenced the progressive principles in America. As far as abortion, I think progressives support has gone beyond implicit. In addition to the things I mentioned, they paved the way through an activist judiciary to make the practice legal. That is significant.
On Human Rights. The very idea of human rights is Biblically based. I don’t think it is a fair statement to say theists do not support human rights considering this. Once again you reference the symptoms in your examples. The Bible addresses the cause. This is an important distinction because you cannot have change without addressing the cause. It’s the same reason that Democratic Party welfare reforms have never worked.
As for your final question. You have to look at it in the context of the country we are discussing. America was founded on Christian principles. It allows religious freedom so anyone can practice any religion they wish without persecution, but it was designed as Christian nation. The founders believed that the Christian faith should heavily influence the government and its institutions and it did for a long time. They believed that the government was beholden to a higher authority, God and his Word. They were also very vocal about the fact that the country was designed solely for a moral society. Without this it would fail. The last 100 years have proven them correct. The progressive agenda (which counters America’s founding principles) have created too many problems to count. The founders actually warned us about most of them. They predicted they would happen if their principles were abandoned. My goal is not to impose my wishes on others, but to remind them of our founding principles, why they worked, and show why what progressives are trying now does not work. Along the way I also fight to keep them from eroding any more than they already have. As a Christian I also try to spread my faith. In the end everyone has free will and will decide on their own. Perhaps not the answer you are looking for but it is my answer.
The question could apply to you as well. Evolution is not provable so please explain why you have a right to impose your pagan views on anyone else. But you’re not, right. You are just trying to pursuade people to your point of view.
Let’s take your points one at a time shall we?
Firstly, you seem to be confused about what constitutes a peer-reviewed publication.
A “BOOK” is published, yes, but it is NOT peer reviewed. Your confusion on this distinction is exacerbated by the lies that the CSC is trying to perpetuate. A “book” on god, does not mean god exists, it means that someone thinks he exists.
Secondly, and this is the biggie, you theists love to bring it up because you think it means something.
To “refute” something, does not mean “to disagree”. If you think it’s hot, and I think it’s cold, we can publish our opinions in the newspaper all we want, neither “refutes” the other, they simply disagree.
Do you understand this point?
To “refute” something means that you present material that DIRECTLY contradicts the opposition’s point.
Do you understand THIS point?
The citations you list are FULL of things like “meyer proposes xxxxx”..
“xxxxx” is fine, as a proposition, and in fact, this is how all science starts – by a proposition, BUT THE NEXT STEP IS THE IMPORTANT ONE.
If you want to “refute” evolution, then refute it, simply stating illogical unfounded and unsupported speculations is NOT a refute!
Do you understand THIS point?
“There are credible scientists that refute the theory of evolution”
Indeed, and if you understood the scientific method AT ALL, then you would understand that ALL scientists MUST OBJECT to the theory in some way. why? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW SCIENCE WORKS.
TCS, this is how the scientific method works.
1. You present a point….
2. THEN YOU VERIFY IT.
3. make a prediction – go to 2.
So far, you guys have not progressed past point #1. Evolution has done this loop so many times it’s actually pointless to count it – and it’s been doing it for more than 100 years without a hitch.
‘intelligent design..” what a joke. Perhaps you can explain to me why you think a body with almost every single joint is a third-class lever, is in any way “intelligent”?
Oh, and tcs, don’t feed me yet another cut-and-paste, I want YOU to explain to ME how YOU think it happens, and the irrefutable rationale for intelligence.
TCS, the problem here, as is always the case, is not that you think intelligent design “refutes” evolution – but that YOU DON’T ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND HOW SCIENCE WORKS.
I suggest you LEARN how it works before you try to continue to push this twaddle beyond junior highschool level.
onto your other post.
“Out of curiosity what poll showed that the fastest growing philosophy is atheism? If true that would explain a lot actually”
I agree, it would explain, for example, why humans are happier now than they were under the oppression of a violent and abusive church, headed by a violent and abusive god.
What is more telling about your point is that YOU haven’t actually LOOKED. You’ve been ranting under some flawed assumption. You’ll also find that not only is atheism the fastest growing philosophy for the last few years, but that christianity is the dominant religion IN USA PRISONS. I’ll let you think about the ramifications of that – either christians have a penchant for crime, or criminals have a penchant for christianity.
“First, I would just like to say that God cannot break commandments that he gave to man for man to follow”
This is actually a favourite topic of mine, since god so clearly does actually murder innocent people on a number of occasions in the bible.
The first genocide occurs during the slaughter of the residents in the cities of the plain. My understanding, (admittedly gleaned from the KJV, which you’ve admitted is a flawed translation, yet is regarded world-wide as the “standard”.. anyhow, ) is that your god slaughtered about 5 cities in torrents of flame, brimstone etc. etc. etc. – and how many people walked out of there alive? one. Only ONE person survived that horror. Your god’s rationale is that they (meaning the being he created, with a free will etc.) were not doing what he told them to (which kind of begs the question about why he bothered to give them free will in the first place, if he only wanted them to use it in a certain way.. anyhow), were a sinful lot.
Apparently, this includes people under the age of something like 5, who had no idea what a god was, or a sin, but they were, apparently, nonetheless, sinful and deserved to be burned to death.
Of course, there are other examples of your all-loving god so “mercifully” burning and drowning almost all of his creations, on the grounds that they didn’ use the free will he gave them in the way he wanted them to use it. .. but then again, if you’re going to tell someone how they can and can’t use their free will, it’s not really Free is it?
anyhow, you might be happy worshipping a such a hypocritical, angry and violent god, but ‘Im not. In fact, I take pride in the fact that when I read the bible, I actually READ it, not simply scan through it nodding my head and saying “amen” when I turn the page. I say “why?” – again, using a free will that your god objects to so much..
“One, humans have a natural sinful nature …”
Actually, you have to define “sin”, before you can make this statement.
So – please define it,in absolute terms. oh, you can’t? no, you can’t because you just said you can’t. therefore, you can only define it in terms of YOUR BIBLE. which, as we know, is unprovable.
Therefore, you are attempting to define an “absolute” in terms of something that is not actually definable.
Surely you see the logical fallacy that you’re proposing?
“we all inevitable screw up because no one is perfect”
Again, you need to define a benchmark by which you assert perfection – is it your god?
the god that drowns the entire of humanity save a few? the one that sits by and watches innocent people suffer, simply because they exercised their free will? is the god that himself admits to jealousy?
oh wow.. you stoop low don’t you? what a pathetic attempt to shock. To show dismembered pictures of foetuses. But I notice you totally avoided my point in your hurry to show pictures that ALSO totally miss the point.
I’d like you to answer these questions directly, and tcs, stop faffing about. I want a clear, explicit answer please.
1. at what age do you think a foetus becomes a human?
2. given that you think abortion should not be allowed because a foetus has a “human-like” appearance, do you therefore permit abortion up to the date you specify in #1? if not, why not?
3. Do you understand that young women are raped? do you think it “just” to force them to have a baby they had no control over?
4. Do you understand that some women get “accidently” pregnant? usually through lack of care on their behalf? Do you think it is fair to the child to force them to have a mother who was not prepared for, nor intending to have a child?
5. Do you understand that over population, starvation and poverty is a critical problem in most countries around the world, and that many women are having more children than they, or the country, can possibly support? Do you think it’s appropriate to inflict that kind of demand on the planet, and humanity in general? Note we’re not talking about one or two here, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands.
“Based upon your definition of progressive, some supported slavery, some did not”
It’s not “my” definition of progressive, it’s actually everyone elses’s. I simply pulled it from the dictionary. To be hones, I’ve NEVER actually USED the word “progressive”, simply because it’s a moot term. the fact you are a capitalist means you’re hedging your bets on the future – i.e. you’re a progressive. ALL capitalists are progressives, for most of the time.
And finally, on to gay rights.
The very idea of the bible is human rights….
fail. Epic fail and here is why.
You know this god guy? yeah, he’s picked out a few people that will be “saved”. These are the people who worship him. What about the others? they don’t get “saved”, they are due what ever “punishment” they get. Apparently the exact nature of the punishment depends on who you’re talking to, it varies from burning in hell, an eternity of purgatory, or armageddon. I don’t care which you want, the fact that the punishment varies is amusing enough, but what is outstanding is that YOUR GOD SAVES ONLY PEOPLE WHO CHOSE THE RIGHT GOD.
Apparently your god does not approve of your constitution, which allows freedom of religion. Most notably, unless he changed religion at the very last minute, your christian god is perfectly happy to watch one of the most magnificent and beautiful people who ever lived, suffer for eternity. Mahatma Ghandi, is almost unarguably the most magnificent humanist in living history – does your god care? well, apparently not. Your god looks on while MG suffers for all his good work to his fellow human. the same goes for Albert Enistein,
Your bible doesn’t even believe in freedom of logical thought (“a fool hath said there is no god”), so while you might THINK your bible is all about human rights – it is actually, not even slightly consistent with human rights – beyond the most superficial that is. Your god, most notably, objects vehemently to religious freedom.
On to my final question – I’m not sure you actually understood what I was asking, since you again attempted to justify the bigotry of your god in terms of your country. Again, your god has nothing at all do to with your country – sure, your country may, or may not have been founded on christian principals, but that is ACTUALLY NOT RELEVANT. Your country IS NOT CHRISTIAN. period.
you are implying that anyone who comes to your country MUST worship your god. Again, a wonderful example of how you assert your christian to be compliant to human rights, yet you hope to impose a religious law on others (in direct violation of your constitution, AND the UN constitution of human rights – so you’re clearly NOT using the expression “human rights” in it’s conventional sense).
Leave your country out of it. I am talking about the broad sense. Humanity. not “americans”. “USA americans” afterall, comprise only 1 twentieth of the world’s population, and are utterly miniscule by any metric.
Your point appears to be that “since *I* think we were founded as christian, then god wants us to be a christian country’ – since you fail in the assertion that you were founded as christian. you also fail in your conclusion. EVEN IF your initial assertion is correct, your conclusion is a total non sequitur anyhow.
Along with the five questions I have written above, I want you to also answer this one explicitly.
6. Would you object if somone told you that you, your familiy and all your friends MUST worship Muhammad? If your answer is yes, please explain why you think it is just to impose a religion on any one at all – oh, and do it withough invoking the fallacy “because we’ve always done it like that” – which is your current argument (not least of all, because clearly, christianity is not necessary for a country to flourish).
“The last 100 years have proven them correct”
This is in the context of what you see as a gradual failing of your country. Again, you’re imposing the non sequitur that christianity is necessary for a country to flourish. Obviously this is not the case. I really have no idea why you keep making this connection. It’s wrong, it’s not supported and it’s utterly invalid.
Moreover, christianity has one of the more notorious histories of violence and “regressiveness” – of course the colloquially known “dark ages” is an example – the period where scientists were burned or ostracised, when young women were incinerated, non-compliants were tortured etc. etc. etc. Much of this was done with the full knowledge and agreement of the pope of the time, and it extended over a century or so.
Fortunately, not so many people think that sickness is a demon. But tragically, it still happens and people die painfully as a result- such is the power of imposing ignorance on people.
“The question could apply to you as well.
Evolution is not provable ”
True – but since you don’t understand science, you don’t understand that even the structure of an atom is not “provable”. Fortunately, we understand it well enough to supply you with electricity. Similarly for gravity. Do you complain when we impose the theoretical structure of an atom on you, and supply you with warmth, heating, electricity, internal combustion engines, solar power? etc. etc. etc.?
“so please explain why you have a right to impose your pagan views on anyone else. But you’re not, right. You are just trying to pursuade people to your point of view.”
Indeed, I am not “right”, but the secret you’re not told is that I don’t actually have any idea HOW we are not right – the job of a scientist is to ASSUME we are NOT right, and found out HOW we are not right – then make the correction.
I don’t “impose” my view on you at all. What I “impose” is logic. Rationality. Reason.
I “impose” sense. I “impose” observationally AND logically supportable hypothesis. I “impose” things like medicine, agriculture, plasma TVs, Empire state buildings, Boeing A380s, internet.
your god imposes intolerance, punishment, ridicule and condemnation. It is factually shown that prayer does nothing at all that can be distinguished from pure random chance (see the american heart journal).
so –
your view – “do what I say, or you will be punished for eternity”
my view – “support what you say before you say it, then we can make things like internet and central heating”
Interesting, isn’t it? until the renaissance, people thought that the bubonic plague was a demon, now we know it was a flea? did we learn that by prayer? nope, we learned it by applying logic and reason.
I’m still waiting for you to validate this failed assertion:
“My goal is not to impose my wishes on others, but to remind them of our founding principles, why they worked, and show why what progressives are trying now does not work”
You are arrogantly implying that you country used to “work” because of christiantiy. similarly, you are ignorantly implying that your country now “fails” because of “progressives”.
One problem you’re up agains here is the fact that, inexplicably, you’re using the word “progressive” in an ancient context; “the political philosophy that arose after the Civil War” to describe the modern parlance:
“favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters” (dictionary.com)
“favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters” (urban dictionary.com)
Now, normally when we use words, we might try to look up and discover how they ACTUALLY used, rather than how we THINK they are used. You can define “red” as “blue” all you like, but you’ll have a lot of problems talking to flower salespeople.
My point is, – you are not using the CURRENT usage of “progressive” – it’s not even clear what you mean anyhow, since your reference is language-usage of the mid-1800′s!!
Time to update your dictionary, don’t you think?
While you try to claim that you motivation for wanting people to be christians is: “because we have always done it this way” (i.e. “but it was designed as Christian nation”) is actually an entirely logically invalid point.
1. Countries flourish without christiantiy
2. Countries fail WITH christianity.
This actually has notithing at all to do with “progressives” – either 160 years ago, or now. If you’re going to assert that your country flourished because of christianity, and then failed because of it’s increasing absence, then you have to make a logical, robust connection between success and christiantiy, AND failure and absence of christianity.
Now, the OTHER problem you’re up against is that NO CONNECTION EXISTS!.
in fact, there are indications of exactly the reverese: the most brilliant scientists in your country are not christian, or religious at all. Prisons in the usa are most commonly populated by christian prisoners. Countries where christiany is actually a minority DOMINATE the list those with the highest-GNPs. In fact, the USA is something of an anomoly in that case – since christian-dominated countries tend to fall somewhat further down the line. As I said, Japan (which you have clearly failed to reserach) are extremly successful, as is China, many western-european countries such as the netherlands (which is mostly secular) etc. etc. etc.
So – while you like to make these claims, tcs, the problem is that they are actually FACTUALLY FALSE. You, or anyone, can read about them, but you actually HAVE to bother. Theists make a point of NOT bothering.
So – your two problems:
1. you don’t use words the way that the dictionary uses them, and then try to imply that you’re still doing something that is sensible.
2. you’re making statements that fly in the face of fact and reason.
both of these, however, is something that thesits do with astonishing regularity.
do you wonder why some of the most brilliant people in your country – those that are paid to think logically – reject your god outright? Do you think it’s because they’re stupid?
I can assure you – they are not stupid… so what does that lead you to conclude, regarding the inverse?.. I’ll let you, and your readers, if any, ponder that one.
Still curious what country you are from. It is of interest to me, and I am sure others as well, because this post references American policy. That was one question you never answered. You seem extremely interested in our policy despite the fact that you also have told us how limited you think American influence is. I am going to assume you are British.
On the term progressive. My use is consistent with how others use it within the political spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
The philosophy that was introduced by those such as Merriam, Dewey..etc, and pushed by Presidents such as Wilson, Roosevelt is the same philosophy that is supported and used by today’s progressives such as our current President. So it is very relevant and properly used.
I cannot have a failed assertion about my own purpose for posting what I do unless you somehow know my purposes better than myself. My posting on a blog that you are not required to read nor are required to act upon is not forcing anything but rather is simply giving my point of view. We live in a free society so the people as a whole decide what direction our country should go. Everyone is free to try to persuade others. It happens all the time in politics…the result of the last election was part of that. Conservatives such as myself made strides in convincing others that the progressive philosophy is leading us in the wrong direction. Your argument is one that I see all the time from the political left. When we do not agree with their agenda we are trying to impose our views on everyone, but when they do not agree with ours they are not imposing their views on us. It is quite funny actually, but I guess that is just how it is.
You made numerous assertions in your most recent comment that were not supported by anything. I know many of the things you mentioned are not true because I know where you probably got the information from. Specifically the prisoners in the US and the economic stability of European countries. It isn’t always if someone considers themselves a Christian in a poll…it is if you are following what the Bible says. If you say you are a Christian and do not follow the Bible’s instructions you are still going to end up in trouble. I would also add there is a major difference between intelligence and wisdom. A brilliant scientist can still be unwise. Logic, reason and scientific achievement will get you all the way to Hell (from the point of view that you do not believe in of course…one day you will find out for sure though)
Many of the things you continue to bring up are a bit off topic from the post, but I will try to address them.
First, the link I gave was a list of peer reviewed publications and research in the case of the books. I will let people read those and decide for themselves. It is refuting because they do offer scientific evidence in their dissenting views. The other link shows the greater problems with evolution that have not or cannot be addressed. You can throw out all the technical scientific terminology that you want, but that does not make these issues disappear. Once again people can read about those and decide for themselves. What areas do you object to the theory of evolution?
You did not give the poll for atheism as the fastest growing philosophy or for Christianity being the dominant religion in prisons. I am not sure where you got the first poll from, but I can assume where you got the prison poll number from. Many polls were taken asking for their religious affiliation. As I mentioned before someone saying that they are a Baptist or Catholic in a poll does not make that person a Christian. The bottom line is that if they were following their professed Christian faith they would not have been arrested in the first place. Polls such as these neglect the fact that only 30-40% of these prisoners actually attend religious services in the facility and other things such as Christian prison ministries that help change these men and women’s lives for the better once incarcerated. Specifically in the United States because the post was geared towards US policy, statistics show increases in things such as crime, STD’s…etc. Those are not good things and they happen more when the population adheres to a secular worldview rather than a Christian worldview. It is a pattern that is easily seen in the US.
With regards to God’s Judgment you brought up the key difference between the secular worldview and the Biblical worldview. In your view human nature is generally good while the Biblical worldview believes that human nature is sinful. From the Biblical view every person (from conception) is sinful, and deserves God’s judgment. In the story you reference (Gen 19) there are no innocent people. We do not deserve any mercy, but it is given anyways. That is where the mercy comes in. Throughout the Bible God shows restraint. This is the Biblical viewpoint, which I know you do not believe in, but when you say God murder’s innocent people you are misrepresenting Biblical doctrine. Also God does not object to free will as he created it. But it does come with responsibilities and consequences for our actions just like in our society. You may have the free will to steal or murder, but there are consequences. As a side note, I never said that the KJV was a flawed translation. When the word killed is used instead of murder it can be misleading with today’s language, but not when it is studied properly. The theology in the KJV is not flawed. Also I would encourage you to read that section again because you got many of the facts wrong. Look at the length of time those places had been sinful and the pleas to spare them if they could just find a few God fearing men which God agreed to…they did not find any.
Sin from the Biblical perspective is absolute because it comes from God in the Bible. I was referring to statistical absolutes before, which is logical. That and secular moral standards because they change all the time because they are not based upon anything solid. They change with popular opinion.
The pictures of abortions are reality. They are why pro choice groups in the United States fight to prevent things such as these and ultrasounds from being shown to women when deciding.
“Politicians should not require a doctor to perform a medically unnecessary ultrasound, nor should they force a woman to view an ultrasound against her will” NARAL President Nancy Keenan
“Ultrasound has exposed the life in the womb to those of us who didn’t want to see what abortion kills. The fetus is squirming and so are we” Abortion advocate William Saletan
I did not avoid your point at all. I would say you are avoiding reality by sticking to scientific terms and avoiding the humanity aspect. You know that I believe that humans are humans at conception. The rape question is changing the subject. The subject is about the baby, not the circumstances of the mother. Is it right to punish the baby by murdering it because of someone else’s actions. God has a purpose for everyone. As far a civil government’s role of preventing abortions…I would support outlawing abortions except for saving the mother’s life and rape. The reason behind this is because these conditions account for less than 1% of all cases in the US. It would be a move in the right direction and would save countless others that would have been aborted. Your final question is changing the subject again. Yes, we should address the issues you listed but making abortion legal to address it does not make sense. Should we get rid of drunk driving laws and address this problem by only supporting AA programs. No, it should remain illegal with consequences while we also address the causes by supporting these programs.
Human rights were supported in the Bible long before they were secular ideas. Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea were promoting equality for all human beings in the Old Testament. That was very different than other cultures of their time. It is also taught throughout the Gospels by Jesus and his followers. Here are some relevant passages.
Equality- Isa 10:1-2; Jer 5:26, 28-29
Human Liberty- Ex 20:2, Lev 25:10, Duet 30:19, Isa 61:1
Freedom of Choice- Deut 30:19, Josh 24:15, Matt 11:28, Rev 22:17
Freedom of Religion- Matt 22:21, Luke 12:13-14
In Matthew 26:52 Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back into its place “for all who take the sword will perish by the sword”. By this Jesus was telling his followers not to advance the Kingdom of God by force. You mentioned many problems from the Catholic Church history and those things were indeed wrong. Not only were those actions wrong Biblically, the entire structure of the government and the Church was wrong. That is why the founders of America designed our government to separate the affairs of the church and the affairs of the government. That does not mean that meant to prevent Christian influence of the government though. Their writings are very clear on this topic…writings which have been ignored by recent progressives in office. There have been mistakes by Christians in the past (many of which were Christians in name only I am sure as they did not follow the Bible), but I do not think it even comes close in comparison to atheist driven governments. Here are some.
People murdered by Atheist influenced Governments
USSR: 61 million 1917-1987
Communist China: 35.2 million 1949-present
Mao’s Army: 3.4 million 1923-1949
Nazi Germany: 20 million 1923-1949
Communist Poland: 1.6 million 1945-1948
Communist Cambodia: 2 million 1975-1979
Communist Vietnam: 1.6 million 1945-1975
Communist Yugoslavia: 1 million 1944-1987
Anti Christian Mexican Revolution: 1.4 million 1900-1920
Turkey: 1.8 million 1900-1918
Pakistan: 1.5 million 1958-1987
Japan: 5.9 million 1936-1945
You could rightfully say that these governments were wrong, but by what standard. Because atheists do not believe in the Bible, moral standards are relative. But relative to that culture…relative to society as a whole…how is that consensus met. It just leads to lots of problems. Another couple of notes on your comments. There are not varied punishments according to the Bible. Also the Christian faith is not based upon good works. No amount of good works can get you into heaven. It is by grace we are saved, not works. No matter how good someone believes they are by secular standards, they still fall short of the glory of God..or God’s standards if you will. Our standards are much more lenient than God’s standards. Jesus taught that on several occasions while teaching what the Law really meant to the Jews. But grace is available to everyone. No matter how good or bad you have been in the past. That is the good news. Maybe what you have been told by others has influenced your opinion on what the Bible supports and does not support, but hopefully the verses I listed will clarify the inaccuracies of your comments on Biblical doctrine.
Your final question. God actually institutes all government…Christian or not…for the promotion of good and punishment of evil as I stated in the original post. God had everything to do with the formation of the United States. The founders were Christian outside of a few exceptions and they based the design of our government on Biblical principles as I briefly discussed. The founders themselves said that it was designed for a Christian population (or really one that lived by Biblical morals) only and would fail without one so it is relevant to our country today. By that I am not implying that anyone who comes to the US must worship God, we have religious freedom so people can choose to worship or not worship anyone they want. All that being said there is still a strong Christian influence on our government (granted in one party more than the other) so people cannot be upset when this group tries to influence government. And to answer your question laws based upon religious principles are not in violation with the Constitution. You are misinterpreting the Constitution in the same way that progressives in our government do. The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. This means that the federal government cannot establish a national church as was the case with England and it means it cannot prevent people from exercising their chosen faith. That’s it. Nothing else.
I would object to someone if they told me I had to worship Muhammad, but I will state again that I am not doing that and the American government does not do that so it is a moot point. (Unless somehow by my simple writing I have forced you to now worship God…that is doubtful.) No logic there. God has given us free will though so still no one can force me to worship anything.
I know you are not American so you probably have not followed American history too closely so perhaps my last 100 years comment seems out of the blue to you, but it is not to many Americans. There are too many ideas and programs to cover in detail so I will just list a few. (outside of statistics of general moral decline)
The idea of limited government vs unlimited government is the general argument. Conservatives want a limited federal government that gives more power to the states and the people (where people are closer to the government ruling them) while liberals/progressives want more centralized federal government that gives more power to the federal government and its bureaucracies filled with experts and elites (further from the people). Progressive polices have been winning over the last decades so government has been growing to unsustainable levels and creating polices that do not work. Examples.
Social Security (Unsustainable program that limits people’s choices to invest their own money)
Education (Centralized at Federal level limiting choices and power of parents to educate their children, Money has been poured into this idea and grades have not improved)
Healthcare (Unsustainable program that takes decisions away from the people and gives it to bureaucrats)
Welfare (Similar to Education…tons of money over the last 50 years to address the symptoms of the problem…none of which have reduced poverty)
Regulations (unintelligent regulations that bog down business and kill the economy)
Spending (Out of control spending due to the size of the federal government, Stimulus spending which does not work…never has in history…all of which leads to more and more corruption)
Taxes (increased taxes kills the economy, low taxes promote it)
This is a sample of bad big government ideas that counter our founding principles. All of them are unsustainable which means the country will eventually fail if they are not addressed. All of them increase government and limit personal liberty. Not all of them are Biblical moral standards, but just how to best solve our problems. These are some of the reasons I am saying the progressive philosophy over the last 100 years has proven the founders correct in their warnings because they did warn us of these problems. Europe has similar problems. I get a kick out of GDP talk because I had a similar discussion with a friend with regards to our GDP. He said we were rich because of our GDP and I said how can we be rich…we have less than zero money and we are spending more than we have coming in. Just a funny sidenote.
Till next time.
Firstly, I wonder why my country of origin has any relevance?
The fact that the usa supports the worlds most powerful military makes the usa’s foreign policy of interest to the entire world. the usa government has, apparently, made its business that of the goings on elsewhere – and rarely with anything other than self-serving motivation. My country of origin is utterly immaterial for this fact.
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From your wikipedia reference:
“Progressivism is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform through governmental action”
your references to progressives:
“Progressives such as your self do not believe in absolute moral standards. Back in the civil war era progressives believed slavery was ok, later they believed that separate but equal was ok…today they believe killing a six month old baby in the womb of a mother is morally ok”
Perhaps you could explain to me how MAINTAINING the existing status quo of implementing slavery IS progressivism, and therefore, how CHANGING (see that word?) the status quo FROM implementing slavery is NOT progressivism?
Let me be clear;
we agree that progressivism is an attitude favoring change through governmental action.
THEREFORE – implementing change to the implementation of slavery is ENTIRELY consistent with the definition of “progressivism”.
YET – you maintain that the “progessives” were trying to MAINTAIN a status quo of slavery – which is, you’ll fine, the EXACT OPPOSITE of the definition of progressivism.
Do you understand my point now? you are using the word “progressives” to describe a pro-slavery group who were fighting AGAINST change – which as we see, is the opposite of what the word actually means.
You’ve been exposed here, next time, make sure you’re consistent with your word usage and definition.
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“I cannot have a failed assertion about my own purpose for posting what I do”
erm… I never said “posting what you do” is a failed assertion. I said your motivation for your purpose is justified by a failed assertion. Strange that you didn’t actually get this very obvious point. Let me reiterate and clarify:
“My goal is not to impose my wishes on others, but to remind them of our founding principles, why they worked, and show why what progressives are trying now does not work”
What you think are your “founding principals” is actually very subjective. You’re interpolating between the lines in a way that is obviously slanted by your own bigotry- erm, I mean religious biases. the ACTUAL “founding principals” are not explicitly immersed in god – you just think they are because that’s what you want. Your founders were much more intelligent than you – they understand the benefits of a wide-ranging and open community of any faith. If you can find ANY explicit and unarguable reference to “the christian god”, then you have a point, but there is none. At best you have “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”
I’ll draw your attention to the phrase “their Creator”. i.e. this passage recognises that a muslim does not have the same creator as a christian. (strange because they both claim that theirs is the only creator)…
ergo – and contrary to what you think, the “founding principals” are NOT mired explicitly in christianity. ergo, your explicit wish that everyone become christian is actually in direct contradiction to your “founding principals”.
Again, you’ve been exposed for asserting things that are actually contradictory to evidence, or require additional and unmerited interpretation on your behalf.
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“You made numerous assertions in your most recent comment that were not supported by anything” true, if you like, I can supply the references, but it seems you already know, and I assumed you did – correctly, as it turns out.
and this quip is a bit desperate:
“It isn’t always if someone considers themselves a Christian in a poll…it is if you are following what the Bible says”
rubbish. I do a lot of what the bible says I should do, and I don’t do a lot of things it says not to do – I don’t kill/murder, steal or rape. does that make me a christian? hardly. People were not murdering each other LONG before your god was invented, are they still christians? hardly. However, I don’t advocate that people stone their children for disobedience… (do you? – the bible does).
In any case, I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here – yes, people lie in surveys, is that what you’re saying? that on average, people usually lie during polls, or are you saying that non-christians lie and say they’re christian? or are you saying that christians lie and say they’re not? not very christian is it? What are you saying here, because yet again, it’s not really making any sense when you actually think about it.
“numerous assertions”? erm… perhaps one or two that are easy to find with a bit of research… that’s numerous?
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now onto the second part of your post.
“First, the link I gave was a list of peer reviewed publications and research in the case of the books. I will let people read those and decide for themselves. It is refuting because they do offer scientific evidence in their dissenting views”
Okay, so I had another browse through that list. Let’s break this down for you, since you don’t seem to understand the relevance of what’s missing here.
Firstly, not including references that the DI claims to “support” ID. there are…. 9.
A miserable 9 references on that page. this is such a small number that I can refer to them [1...9]
Out of that 10,
1, 3 are purely speculative – great, now do the research to make the proof.
(2 later).
4 refers to a concept already easily and often refuted (irreducible complexity, see Kitzmiller v. Dover area school district)
5 makes the fallacious connection that since “there are no plausible intermediates” (i.e. since we don’t know their origins), that they must be intelligently designed. … know knowing the origin of something is not proof of intelligent design, it’s proof of incomplete knowledge.
6 is an article in conference proceedings, since you might not know how conferences work, her is how: first. conference is advertised. second. presenters are selected from among those who want to give one, if there are not enough presenters, then all those who requested will probably present. third. a proceedings is written up (sometimes). Now, the outcome here is that for small conferences, pretty much anyone gets into the proceedings – regardless of the scientific rigour of their work. In any case, this article is nothing more than an almost verbatim rehash of that which was already rejected outright – (see also kitzmiller v. dover area school district), where this EXACT argument was almost laughed out of court.
7 onward is “the complete list” whatever that means..
7 – book. resoundingly critizised by active and eminient bilogical researchers (who have a far greater publication record than Dembski)
8 – book published in “free press” Unreviewed.
9 – unreviewed.
only 2 is a valid peer reviewed work…but.. unique? not at all, this is a simple rehash of what almost all designers of computer algorithms already understand. moreover, it DOESNT ACTUALLY APPLY TO EVOLUTION – why? because the paper purports that a search algorithm is more efficient when the parameterspace is already defined. True. We all agree.
Now, which part of the parameterspace accessible to evolution and natural selection is undefined? NONE of it. ALL ecological niches ALREADY exist BEFORE evolution happens. It is ALREADY defined. so while this paper is true, it hardly has anything at all do to do with evolution – sorry. There’s a fair bit of chatter about this article, you can read why it doesn’t do what the authors surreptitiously (yes, they don’t actually make anything like a strong connection to evolution in the article at all – it’s only AFTERWARD that they make this very tenuous connection – again, not really the hallmarks of an honest researcher…rather laughable really).
tcs, what is clear is that contrary to your claim, none of these actually refute evolution at all – NONE of them “refute” evolution in the least. This is what I asked for, and you are still to deliver. Even ONE article that refutes evolution – just one.. can you manage?
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onward into your dark cave of self-imposed ignorance…!
“You did not give the poll for atheism as the fastest growing philosophy”
yes I did, gallup poll. READ.
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“As I mentioned before someone saying that they are a Baptist or Catholic in a poll does not make that person a Christian”
clearly however, THEY think they’re a christian. And on what grounds do you, somone who whoreships a a bigoted and intolerant god, declare that they are not? based on your subjective interpretation of a deliberately selected, highly interpreted 300 year-old text written in a strange language? intersting. Apparently not only are you able to prove that out of all the gods, yours is the only right one, but that out of all the sects, again, yours is the only right one? how do you do that, exactly? I’d like objective definitions please.
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“In your view human nature is generally good”
I get a bit tired of theists telling me what I think.
“In the story you reference (Gen 19) there are no innocent people.”
yes, so I’m told.
I’m also yet to be told how a newborn is not innocent – afterall, basic demographics will tell us that babies must represent a fraction of any growing population. The implication is that even somone who can’t focus is “not innocent” – someone who doesn’t even have the concept of “self” is inexplicably and horribly killed by their god, for crimes that they didn’t do.
Are you getting my point yet tcs?
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“Sin from the Biblical perspective is absolute because it comes from God in the Bible”
erm.. yes, but I didn’t ask for sin in the biblical perspective, I asked for it in absolute terms. to you know what this means? it means “without reference to a benchmark”.
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“The pictures of abortions are reality”
so are pictures of kids dying from starvation. My point is that you are using an old salesman strategy to cloud the issue with emotion. If you have a logically-robust point, you don’t need to make people cry for it to make sense. You do NOT have a logically-robust point, and this is why you resort to cheap emotive stunts.
As for the rest of your quoted mantras – I agree, noone should be forced to see something they don’t want to see – but this is actually totally irrelevant to the point at hand. Again, you’re introducing irrelevant concepts to try to emotively cloud the issue.
“You know that I believe that humans are humans at conception. The rape question is changing the subject. The subject is about the baby, not the circumstances of the mother.”
ah… now I see what the problem is. You seem to think that a baby can look after itself. You seem to think that the condition of the mother is utterly irrelevant.
Can I just get you to confirm this point- that you think the circumstances of the mother is UTTERLY irrelevant for a newborn?
Once you’ve realized that you’ve said something silly, can you then qualify the extent to which you think a mother should be commit, generally speaking, to the rearing of a newborn. Is it 5% for example? or do you think that it’s any number greater than zero, and probably depends entirely on the unknown temperament of the baby? After you’ve realised that you’re still saying something silly, can you explain to me how well a baby will live that is born to a mother that is really not willing to commit whatever it takes to help a baby grow.
Now – we have this outstanding bit of stupidity out of the way, I hope you realise that if a contrary to your very, very strange assertion, the subject is BOTH about the baby and the mother. To remove the mother from the equation is … just outright bizarre.
“Human rights were supported in the Bible long before they were secular ideas”
you just like to say things that make me laugh don’t you?
here’s a reality check for you – the bible didn’t even exist until a few thousand years ago.
SECULAR ideas existed LONG before your bible was cobbled together. I don’t get it. do you think humanity didn’t exist before the bible? that the bible and humans were created simultaneously, about 1900 years ago when the modern bible was selectively cannonized, half out of bronze-age myths? I really don’t understand how you make these weird points.. just … so very odd.
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“People murdered by Atheist influenced Governments”
yawn….
then you go on to make more, astonishing, false, yet predictable assertion.
“You could rightfully say that these governments were wrong, but by what standard. Because atheists do not believe in the Bible, moral standards are relative”
I’ve seen this crap so many times it beggars belief that you guys still trot it out.
I’m also really tired of saying the same thing over and over again to you guys – you simply don’t understand, through laziness or stupidity, the complete invalidity of what you’ve just said. So… yet again, I will point it out.
1. I’m not going to look up all those genocides, but I’ll wager that none of them were made in the name of “no god”. i.e. you must believe in my no-god, or I will kill you. If I’m wrong, fine, Prove it. Genocide committed by an “athiest influenced” government is not the same as “murdering in the name of atheism”. Do yourself a favor, clean up your act, learn about what it is you’re saying, and stop, please stop, making this really boring, really pathetic bastardisation of fundamental logic. this argument is so weak, and so utterly disingenuous, deliberately hiding information and forcing a conclusion, it actually pisses me off that anyone would stoop to such fake and obstructive desperation. this is a total damn lie, and you know it. How sad, and how disgusting.
2. nice list. Now were is the list of genocides committed by “theistic-influenced” governments?
see tcs? you’re not actually playing the game properly. You fake it. Most people don’t realize because they assume you’re being intelligent – obviously you’re not, because you’re not presenting all the facts, just the ones you want, while similtanously hiding those that disprove you.. again, nothing more than a salesman tactic, and pathetic at that.
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“The founders were Christian outside of a few exceptions”
Therefore, the founders were not uniformly christian.
therefore, your point fails. QED.
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“I would object to someone if they told me I had to worship Muhammad”
Therefore, you are happy with the fact that people follow their own faith, because you know that this is respectful of their own personal wishes. To WANT someone to convert to your faith is to WANT them to ignore their own wishes, which is exactly what you said you don’t want to do.
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“I know you are not American”
actually, you don’t. But yet again, we see the theistic penchant for asserting things about which they are utterly ignorant – no problem, I know that your very existence requires that you do things like this – next time though, be more intelligent can you?
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I couldn’t be bothered rummaging through the rest of your diatribe really. I’m happy to admit that I have almost zero interest in the goings-on of most american policies except where they affect me or people I think about.
but – I was amused by a few things you said, and I’d like you to clarify something for me:
In regards to Healthcare, and education – you claim that the new system limits choices, how exactly, does it do that? More importantly, given that the motivation for the improvement here is to improve accessibilty to more americans, can you suggest how the changes SHOULD have been made, to NOT limit choices, AND ALSO improve accessibility? or do you not think that the increased accessibility is important? If not, can you find out exactly how many people the new system NOW provides for (nominally), and how many it USED to provide for (nominally).
I like it when people make vague claims like “joe shouldn’t have turned left here”, when the reason that joe turned was to avoid a fatal car crash…..
The world exists beyond your imagined borders of your bible and your life. There are more people on this planet than you could possibly imagine. MOST of them don’t worship your god, or your country. MOST of them have barely even HEARD of your god, AND your country.
an interesting point for you to ponder…
A bit of a follow up on a previous comment by Anonymous-em, concerning the following quote, and the author’s subsequent statement:
‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, (1 Corinthians 6:9)
So the Bible is pretty clear on its view on homosexual behavior.
The second half of this verse in the Greek text (Nestle-Alland and Westcott-Hort editions) reads:
οὔτε πόρνοι οὔτε εἰδωλολάτραι οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται
oute pornoi oute eido:lolatrai oute moikhoi oute malakoi oute arsenokoitai
As is well known, the translation given above takes ἀρσενοκοῖται to refer to ‘men who practice homosexuality’. Indeed, the Greek word ἀρσεν refers to a person of male gender, and κοῖται is the famous ‘coitus’ root. However, the word as a whole is often taken by scholars of the Greek language to refer to paederasty, or pedophelia. That is, the participant must be a male child.
I do not claim to know the meaning of the word ἀρσενοκοῖται, but it is quite perverse to say that the bible is CLEAR on its views about homosexuality.
Further, the bible is a text. A text has no views. The AUTHORS of a text most likely have views (although if you have the belief that the bible was literally created by god or something, which would be reasonable for me to assume based on your wording, then the following wouldn’t apply).
One uncertainty which exists with any old text is the authorship. With respect to the New Testament, it is uncertain whether the authors were native speakers of Koine Greek. This further adds to the uncertainty as to the intention of the use of the word ἀρσενοκοῖται .
Of course, if you believe that the bible was not really written by a human in any human language, then I wouldn’t know what to say….
Please tell me how you know what ἀρσενοκοῖται means?
Bible Scholar…Interesting question…Here is my response.
The Greek word we are talking about is “arsenokoites” just to put it in common letters. The easy response is to just to give the definition from the New Testament Greek Lexicon which defines it as “one who lies with a male as with a female, sodomite, homosexual.” So to say that Greek scholars do know what it means (one argument I have seen) or that there is a consensus that it means something other than homosexual relations (another argument) is not exactly accurate.
As with everything, there will be those who do not agree with the general consensus of Biblical scholars, but I believe that in this case those who do so are generally just trying to justify a worldly lifestyle instead of admitting sin, repenting, and living a Biblical lifestyle.
A bit longer explanation is this. Paul, who was the author of the passage, actually coined the word “arsenokoites”. The reason he came up with this compound word instead of just using another word already in use was because he was quoting the Old Testament law in Leviticus 18:22. The word came from the Greek translation of the OT (Septuagint). Leviticus 18:22 says “meta arsenos ou koimethese koiten gyniakos” meaning “with a man do not lie [as one] lies with a woman”, which comes from the Hebrew “mishkav zakur” meaning “lying with a male”.
You also have to look at other passages written by Paul. In Romans 1:23-27 Paul references Gen 1:27 (God’s original design before sin). In Rom 1:26 Paul singles out lesbian intercourse as well. He also uses the greek term “para physin” which is a term used outside the Bible to describe homosexual conduct as something contrary to nature. Combine that with the numerous other OT teachings on homosexual behavior and it is very clear that Paul, who referenced the OT often, was indeed speaking of general homosexual activity as we define it today.
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