Pope Affirms Right to Convert Non-Believers to Christianity

Hume »

Mon May 19, 2008 10:39 am Agree: 2   Disagree: 1

I have no problem with what the pope said, because I have a similar right: to encourage believers to de-convert.

Face of Christianity Will Soon be Black, Says Scholar

Hume »

Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:36 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

I've never seen any transparent Christians, but I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it?

Obama's 'Typical White Person'

Hume »

Thu Mar 27, 2008 4:44 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 0

Harald Hardrada: Also, you want to talk about pastors with ties to extremist organizations, Mike Huckabee recorded a speech for the most prominent white supremacist group in the country, the Conservative Citizen's Council. Why didn't establishment talking heads speculate on how much Huckabee agreed with them for two weeks straight?

Obama's 'Typical White Person'

Hume »

Thu Mar 27, 2008 4:26 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

Harald Hardrada: Obama has had to be ten times better than the average white presidential candidate just have a good chance at getting the Democratic nomination, much less getting elected. Consider: Would George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, and Walter Mondale have even been serious contenders if you just switched the color of their skin to black? No. They would have done worse than Carol Mosely-Braun, because they had all the charisma of rocks.

Obama Seeks to Quell Flap Over Pastor

Hume »

Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:19 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 4

Do Christians not read the Jewish prophets anymore? The Bible damns Israel over and over again, and right-wing preachers have damned America for decades now, but its a huge honkin' deal when a left-wing minister does it? All this outrage is either ignorant or phony, I can't tell at this point.

Obama's 'Typical White Person'

Hume »

Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:44 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 4

Ms. Hughes, the color you are blind to is not black, or brown...it's white. It's good that you would love to see a black man as president, but that would make the ratio 43 straight white, male presidents to 1 straight black male president, 0 black female presidents of any sexuality, 0 hispanic presidents of any sexuality, not to mention no middle class or working class presidents

It is only by standing up to our racial anxieties and looking them square in the face that we as white people can recognize the amount of privilege that being white brings in our society. That won't happen until black pastors can say the same sort of nutty things (and some truth: look at that litany of presidents above and ask how anyone can deny that rich, white men, as a class are in control of the country, just as Rev. Wright said) that white pastors say every day of the year without the establishment media and a significant portion of the country freaking out. The alternative is to give John Hagee exactly much obsessive scrutiny as Jeremiah Wright has received. Personally, I'd prefer the second one, simply because its good to get a complete picture of what religion is like in this country.

'Christian Perfection'

Hume »

Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:13 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Muggleborn: There are many places where such ignorance of us is occurring right now. Mongolia, for example, or Romania. Anywhere where neither of us has ever been. They have never heard of us. As far as they are consciously aware, we might as well never have existed, and they certainly don't spend any time worrying about that fact. In fact, its impossible for every person in the world to have heard of you, no matter who you are. Is your life less meaningful because you will never be known by everyone who might have known of you? It doesn't bother me, because I've accepted that impossibility, and you probably have too, even if you have never consciously thought about it before. And if you can't expect even people who exist right now to know of and remember you, how can you justify expecting that of people not even born yet? That's not really fair.

But then, anxiety over death as the end of what we've come to think as the "true" us-consciousness- is very powerful. How can we handle that? We can do what you've done-believe things in the hopes that those beliefs will exempt us from the cycle of life and death-or we can humbly accept our place in the natural order, which is what the stoics recommended (I highly recommend that you read the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius if you haven't already). The more humility we partake of, the less our egos will drive us to do and believe irrational things in futile efforts to escape the inevitable, and we can focus on doing the best we can with what we have. We can ease up on the guilt over mistakes and missed opportunities when we realize that no one is keeping score or planning to confront us with the tally. That guilt is just a distraction that saps our ability to learn and do better in the future.

Lessen the guilt and anxiety, and the need to believe in gods, saviors, resurrections, afterlives, and spirit worlds will go, too.

Obama's Pastor and the Traditional Religious Left

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:30 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 2

FullGospel: Remember, Osama Bin Laden is still alive because Bush sent most of our military resources after Saddam Hussein rather than concentrating on finding Osama in Afghanistan.

Gorbachev Dispels 'Closet Christian' Rumors; Says He is Atheist

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:00 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

itchybum: why distasteful? Should atheists be ashamed to declare that they are atheists?

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:54 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

sbs: That was deep, man.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:50 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Adam: What kind of proof would convince you that God does not exist?

'Christian Perfection'

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:43 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Muggleborn: What if Christianity is wrong, and there is no possibility of "salvation" for anyone? There would be no need for morality to be "meaningful in the everlasting sense," right?

'Christian Perfection'

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:11 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Interestingly, the Stoics were naturalists who didn't really care whether there were gods or not (but they did think that the stars were gods).

'Christian Perfection'

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:08 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

This attitude of humble endurance by focusing on virtue originated in 300 B.C. with Greco-Roman stoicism; you can thank Zeno of Citium for it, not Francois Fenelon.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:57 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Chris333: Have a good vacation, but remember to bring me back lots of objective evidence, or I won't believe you ever left!;-) I've got a big post ready, but I am going to wait for you to get back to put it up.

seedplanter: What does the beginning of modern science in a Christian-dominated culture 400-odd years ago have to do with the credibility of Christianity in 2008? Atheists aren't trying to take credit for the development of modern science; what matters is that it works, and it works whether the person doing it personally believes in gods or not.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:58 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Why was my previous post flagged?

Gorbachev Dispels 'Closet Christian' Rumors; Says He is Atheist

Hume »

Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:50 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

Good to see Christian Post issuing the correction.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:44 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Junebug: If Nicole Kidman did appear, there would be the kinds of physical, concrete evidence that we agree Christians have yet to produce. Australia, likewise, has that kind of evidence for its existence. You and Adam both have compared god to aliens, bigfoot, mermaids, etc. Adam, I think, has already made clear that he believes in those creatures (in addition to psychic phenomena), but you point to fictional stories as examples, where the “just missed it” scene is done for dramatic effect. Both of you are correct that god is comparable in terms of evidence to these creatures, and yet I would guess that many Christians do not believe in them with the same kind of vigor that they do in their god, if they believe in them at all. When a person decides to start believing in the supernatural and exotic beasts that likewise lack verifiable evidence, there is no objective, principled place to stop, even when you get into contradictions. Faith cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood, the way science, logic, and evidence can.

A relationship can be any way you want it to be…when it’s an idea in your head, rather than a external phenomena involving another physical person. As I say, faith has no ability to determine what is real and what isn’t.

When I say that Jesus is a myth, I mean that he is a life-death-rebirth deity character (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity) involved in a sacred story believed to be true by its adherents, but I also mean it in the more popular sense that it is equally as credible as Greek mythology, which few believe to be true. The short answer to your question is that I have no reason to believe that “Jesus” as described in the bible existed at all.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:44 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Adam: On the contrary, I fully understand that there are a great many things as yet unexplained by science. That means we don’t know about them or why they are the way they are. That isn’t a license to start believing in spirit realms, anymore than it was when people thought that diseases were caused by god as punishment for immorality, rather than microbes.

Jesus Doesn't Look Like Jesus Anymore, Says Scholar

Hume »

Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:35 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Chris333 (continued),

“You have missed the mark in this section of your argument. God is the standard for morality, He is completely good and powerful and the ultimate source of morals. An earthly example would be the standard meter bar in france (I believe it is in France), this bar defines what the length of a meter is, it is the standard for the meter. In the same way God is the standard for morality, He is the standard by which we can know and discern morals, and by which morals actually exist.”

If god is the source of morals, then god would be “good” no matter what he did, because god can define good in any way he likes. The word “good” becomes, as I said “whatever god wants” and that’s subjective, relativistic morality. It’s still “might makes right” and you can’t proclaim an objective morality and then say “might makes right” is ok for god, but not for humans. If you reject relativistic morality, you have to reject Christianity, or admit that there is no such thing as objective morality for anyone, Christians included, whether you want to believe that or not.

“Regarding your Nicole Kidman allusion, in the case you have described, I would be completely making it up, and even forging evidence. This is completely unrelated to my case. There is good evidence for God aside from my relationship with Him, and I have had a real relationship with Him.”

If you’ve got objective, physical evidence you should present it, otherwise, all you’ve got is the subjectivism that you otherwise reject.

“Let me turn this around on you, suppose I am claiming that I have had a relationship with my wife (not Nicole Kidman) and I am separated from her, I show you pictures of her, I tell you I talk on the phone with her each night, and I tell you that we have been married for years. But you say, "No, I do not believe it Chris333, you are making it up, the pictures are fakes, and you just think you are talking to her on the phone, really you just want a relationship with her so badly that you believe you are talking to her, you only are pretending to be married to her" Why on earth should I change my position? I know exactly what has happened, and I am as sure of my relationship with my wife as I am of anything else. Your denying it means nothing, except for that you are willfully being ignorant.”

Let’s suppose you were going all out to prove that this woman existed and was your wife. If all you could show were a few photos and your testimony, I would be fully justified in not believing you. No marriage certificate, no wedding ring, no joint bank accounts, no joint tax return…there are so many pieces of evidence that result from a marriage that not presenting any other than some photos would be highly suspicious. I’m not being willfully ignorant, you are vastly overestimating the relative value of your proposed evidence. With god, you don’t even have the photos.