The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Radicalization of GOP

slavery was universal. there are serious problems with putting 21st century morality onto 15th century bc texts. what you are engaging in is "critical theory". this is an academic discipline dedicated to the destruction of western civilization by tearing down its art, literature, history, and works. you can only truly judge history in the context of its time.
the ancient greeks had slaves, abused and degraded their women, and loved warfare and violence. they also gave us mathematics, an alphabet, art, literature, and philosophy. shall we throw their wisdom away because they fall short of our 21st century morays?

also, why are you guys so hard on christians? our advanced civilization only happened naturally in christian countries. as policy, no christian nation has slaves (sudan, saudi arabia), degrades women ( iran sudan saudi arabia morroco tunisia kuwait etc) or glorifies war. ok maybe there is too much glory in war.

christian countries ended the slave trade, islamic ones invented it.

oh, and try to be more tolerant of other people

The Christian god is neither benevolent or omnipotent. The Bible is the "Word of God" and that kind of verbiage is not benevolent or omnipotent. If God loved us so, would he allow us to be slaves? Would he allow us to die horrible drowning deaths by the hundreds of thousands in a tsunami the day after his birthday?

In your argument, would not an omnipotent being update his word every thousand years or so? Would a benevolent being sentence people that were skeptical of his message to burn in hell for eternity? What about people that are raised in other religions that never get exposed to his word. Oh well, better paint on some BBQ sauce for the eternal smoking you are going to get.

It just doesn't add up for me, and I should not have this supposed morality shoved down my throat. Religion does not belong in government if your are supposed to have freedom of it, and from it.

And as for Christian people ending slavery? Anyone remember the crusades? Or how about if you were a native american?

freedom of religion means that you cant be forced to attend or belong to a church. it doesnt mean that people cant put a cross up. "of" is not "from"

as to your personal beliefs, i frankly dont care either way. if you study history, you will see that i am right. i am not alone in this opinion. you have your college professors and their anti-western bias, or "critical theory" and its offshoots, to blame for your ignorance of history.

the fact that you bring up indians and the crusades reveals your bias. what started the crusades? what about the jihad? the crusades lasted less than 200 years. spain was occupied for 700. eastern europe for 500 by islam.

regarding the indians. they were on the losing side, so what? why dont you cry for the caananites or midianites who were booted from their lands; or the greeks who were deported from asia minor (in the 1920s) by the turks after 2500 years?

see you cant just pick ONE event without historical context. the fact that you picked the crusades and the indians is so cliche its actually quite boring. what next the constitution is worthless because jefferson owned slaves??

Cross this, nativity scene that.. who really cares? What we care about is when you start trying to write your religious morals into law. Like legislating against abortions, gay marriage and so on. Thing is - both are attacks on separation of church and state, and we have to religiously (heh) enforce it or one will be used as a backdoor for another.

Now imagine if instead of Christianity, dominant religion in US was Islam. Imagine if a bunch of southern social conservatives were pushing Sharia law and mandatory hijab instead of anti-abortion and anti-gay agenda. All of these are morals based on religion being pushed via legislation. Would you be as relaxed about this?

I am not religious. Not at all. I think religion is full of hypocrites, but that is my opinion. Cheerio, as someone who sounds like you have religious leanings. I am not hating on you personally, just sharing my view of organized religion.

I am curious what your take is on my Omnipotence vs Benevolence concept. What is your take on my statement:



I have always said that if someone could argue against this concept intelligently, that I would consider changing my view. I am curious as to your take.

First we must assume that any God should be both omnipotent and benevolent. You take it from there. I await your reply.

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I'm just kidding :)

I am not religious at all. But a lot of people are, including people i know and respect. I cant sit by and allow them to be attacked without saying anything.
Also, i despise bullies. it is the easiest thing in the world to pick on christians. there is nothing controversial about it. people who have balls try to pick on muslims. i respect people who do that. plus they deserve it.

despite my irreligion, i still judge some religions better than others. of them, christianity is the best by any measure.

so i really dont care if people believe. its their right to or not to. they shouldnt be ridiculed or attacked for it, at least not without some counter.

its like the safest thing you can do is mock christians. try this: when you write something about a religious person or ideal, substitute in "black" or "asian" for "christian" and read what you wrote again. might give some perspective on tolerance at least. have your own opinion by all means but dont be a dick about it.

Jet, no one can answer those questions, yet they are so simple that every kid who has something terrible happen asks the same question. thats probably why i have no faith tho religion is interesting.

as far as the bible, we all know it was written (and more importantly, edited) by men and thus subject to all the human failings. its interesting that at the council of nicea there was a vote taken, and as a result about a third of all chrishians were instantly made into heretics.

the reason you find slavery references in the bible, and can even quote jesus defending it, is that no one who wrote the bible could conceive of a world without slavery because it had never existed before anywhere on earth. it was even beyond jesus' imagination

oh one other thing regarding omnipotence. in genesis adam and eve are able to hide from god in the garden of eden. he also changes his mind a few times, like at sodom.

so yeah, i cant explain it. ask the next missionary who shows up, or go to some christian message boards. i suspect that they wont have the answers either. thats why they call it "faith" i gues

lets see, where to start. ok first i dont care about gay marriage, and my only concern with abortion is that it is a "right". its not a right, at least not under the constitution because the constitution doesnt mention abortion. btw it doesnt mention marriage either. what that means is that states may legalize it. so i reject the whole premise of found rights.
on the other hand, the constitution (or declaration rather) says we have the right to life, liberty etc. does the baby have constitutional rights or not? if so, when? if not, when does it aquire them?
on the other hand people who have abortions would probably be shitty parents so maybe society is better off. who knows

regarding islam. first, we wouldnt be having this conversation since islam is backward, and i cant think of a single worthy contribution an islamic nation has made to the world since the middle ages. by the way, that worthy thing i mean is the fact that they preserved the knowledge of ancient greece. so it was pretty passive. the whole reason western civilzation is ahead of the world is due to our heritage of reason and our laws, and religion is a major part of that. so your fantasy of the taliban in the south is just a fantasy.

finally, you seem to imply that i and my imaginary coreligionists want to take something away. only liberals want to take things away, havent you noticed? who was behind all these bans:
huck finn
guns
religious displays
school prayer
happy meals (in san fran)
smoking anywhere
trans fats
drilling for oil
fireworks (in CA)
free speech (ie political correctness)

and im sure theres more. think about it. are you on the side of freedom or the side of control? also notice that every lost freedom was decided by scumbag judges or bureacrats. not one was put to the will of the people. that, my friend, is tyranny. and it is much more worrysome than rednecks

Not all religions believe life begins at conception, banning abortion on religious grounds is actually nothing more than religious favoritism though. The whole life beginning at conception dealio is Catholic in origin, and the result of some pretty abstract spiritual thought..

Regarding Islam.. I think it is important to note, that the early Ottomans were a bit more secular, and very tolerant. They ended up keeping a high level of sophistication and wiped the floor with the West. It wasnt until the West started secularizing via the Renaissance and enlightenment that the West started to rise.

Even then, it was the Juxtaposition where the West became more secular and the Caliphate became more conservative that they fell behind. Religious social conservatism being the downfall of Islam, and secularism and especially later the rise of Deism in Protostant lands however coincided with the rise of the West.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Many if not most of the Founders were strong Deists. However on the religious right we are seeing a rise of the type of social religious conservatism that is doctrinally based that started rotting away the social and economic fabric of the Ottomans. We really should be aware and beware.