Simple question?

Quote: Nareed

Tertullian, the Christian Apologist, claimed the blood of martyrs was the seed of the church. This means the Romans had to kill Christians if the church was going to bloom. It fits, doesn't it? Can you say it's not so? Shouldn't you be grateful the Romans were so brutal?

The blood of the martyrs is indeed a powerful moment for growth in the Church and we have seen much of our greatest and largest periods of growth watered by the sacrifice of the saints. However it is not the only way. The Church can bloom through its service to the poor, its preaching, the sacraments, humility, and the witness and testimony of good holy people. Please note that I am glad you may recognize that the only way the Church does not grow is through the sword, forced conversions, or by assimilation into the world.

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I thought that is God's will.

The exact opposite. As St. Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive!"

Quote: FrGamble

Remember it is not the weapons that cause the problem, it is the ideas. The unimaginable horrors of the 20th century were not cause by new and fancy weapons they were caused by the idea that we can use human beings as objects or destroy them to gain or hold onto power. To do this you have to first unseat God, judgement, justice, and morality. This is why religion and the Church were always the first to be attacked or assimilated and brought into line. Once God and religion are out of the way or quieted we can do whatever we want, in our last century many horrible people did just that.

First you are telling me that the most recent century was the most bloody because of atheists and their powerful weapons.

I point out that if these powerful weapons had been in the hands of the religious through the history of man, that things would have been a lot bloodier.

Now you shift and say it isn't because of the weapons. Well, how about the other way around? How bloody do you think the most recent century would have been if only bronze era weapons were available?

How can you claim how bad these non religious wars are, if you remove the weapons as a factor, but do not remove the effect of the weapons in the war?

Then you make the unbelievable claim that religion and the church were always the first to be attacked or assimilated. Rather than finding a counterexample, I thought about it. I will mostly agree with you, as long as you didn't mean to limit religion to your own. Mostly, because I am sure there is at least one instance of a non-religous group being attacked, first-strike fashion, by a religious group.

But I will mostly agree with you, because since most of the groups involved in these wars believed in some religion, one of the groups was always the first to be attacked. Unfortunately it was almost always attacked by another religious group.

Lastly, god and religion does not stop people from doing what they want, against the apparent teachings of the religion. I have thousands of years of history to back that up.

Once god and religion are out of the way, moral systems will continue to be put into place, taught to children, and ignored by people who do not agree.

What is the difference between a moral system put into place by the religious, and by the agnostic or the atheist? Both offer punishment in your current life, but the religious offer eternal damnation. I don't see how you can say that is not motivation through fear.

Quote: FrGamble

The blood of the martyrs is indeed a powerful moment for growth in the Church

there you go. God required the early Christians to be persecuted. Blaming the Romans is pointless. Using such brutal persecutions to justify your own is cynical.

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Please note that I am glad you may recognize that the only way the Church does not grow is through the sword, forced conversions, or by assimilation into the world.

Oh, please. It's when it grows most. Had Constantin not compelled all high officials to convert, nor Theodosius forced the elites to do so, and all the emperors in between, except Julian, encouraging similar means, the best you could have aspired to would be a second-rate religion that made sacrifices to Jesus in the name of the current emperor.

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The exact opposite. As St. Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive!"

With head bowed down, prostrated on the ground and kissing the god's ass.

Quote: Nareed

there you go. God required the early Christians to be persecuted. Blaming the Romans is pointless. Using such brutal persecutions to justify your own is cynical.

You didn't read the whole sentence.

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Oh, please. It's when it grows most. Had Constantin not compelled all high officials to convert, nor Theodosius forced the elites to do so, and all the emperors in between, except Julian, encouraging similar means, the best you could have aspired to would be a second-rate religion that made sacrifices to Jesus in the name of the current emperor.

You keep saying this like it is true. The reality is the Church only truly grows and is established in humility, service, and witness of the joy of a life lived with Christ. The persecuted faith of Christians was already spreading around the known world before it reached Constantine in that strange event. When Christianity is forced upon people whether through violence (which almost never happened) or through social constructs or pressure you find yourself with lukewarm Christians who are the cause of such problems. Using a mask of religion to justify all manner of sins. If Christianity was able to avoid being connected so intimately with the state for that period and would have continued to spread naturally as people discovered the truth and depth of who Jesus Christ is then the whole world would be Christian now and at peace. As you can see in more modern times, once the Church lost the Papal States and was divorced from worldly power it has enjoyed regular growth and increase. The more we can become poor servants preaching a message of love and truth like Our Lord Himself the greater the Church becomes. If only this break with worldly power would have happened before the Reformation, we would all still be one Church and I guess there wouldn't even be a reason for the reformation.

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With head bowed down, prostrated on the ground ...

in adoration, praise, and gratitude to God.

Quote: FrGamble

You didn't read the whole sentence.

I read the whole post.

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You keep saying this like it is true.

Because it's true.

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in adoration, praise, and gratitude to God.

In plain English: with you nose deep inside god's rectum.

But if that's what you want, fine. Just stop trying to convince me it's in any way dignified.

Quote: Nareed

In plain English: with you nose deep inside god's rectum.

FrG has his whole head so far up
his fictitious gods butt he can no
longer think straight. It's a sight
to behold when religious zealots
try and defend their idiocy.

Just replace Jobs murdered wife
and Job will be happy as a lark.
Loved ones are just pieces on a
chessboard to the sadist yahweh.

Quote: Dalex64

First you are telling me that the most recent century was the most bloody because of atheists and their powerful weapons.

It was.

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I point out that if these powerful weapons had been in the hands of the religious through the history of man, that things would have been a lot bloodier.

Now you shift and say it isn't because of the weapons. Well, how about the other way around? How bloody do you think the most recent century would have been if only bronze era weapons were available?

I never said it was only because of the weapons. I think that was your argument that revolved around who had the weapons. You seem to naively think that if the ancient world had the weapons we have today there would have been more bloodshed. You are wrong. Even if last century all we had was bronze era weapons there would be just as many deaths just much less efficient than gas chambers. You see the ideas of these evil leaders and their followers were not about conversion or protection of land, which were mainly the past generations. No, the modern era saw the arrival of unbridled evil of extermination. Genocide was the goal of the Nazis. Complete and utter destruction of anyone in the path of my power and control was the goal of Stalin and other dictators. In the Christian era why would anyone even dream up the idea of a nuclear bomb whose only purpose was annihilation and destruction? The idea then was not kill someone or think them worthless because of their religion, race, sexual identity, or country. The people you engaged never loss their dignity and in the fighting nor did you.

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But I will mostly agree with you, because since most of the groups involved in these wars believed in some religion, one of the groups was always the first to be attacked. Unfortunately it was almost always attacked by another religious group.

I have heard it before that we cannot call these governments that caused such evil atheistic because they believed in god. My response is that they replaced God with themselves (the first and oldest sin). They corrupted God and made him into their likeness. Any true religion, not just my own, but Protestants including Dietrich Bonnhoeffer (who in my mind is a saint), Jews, and Muslims who held to the true God were attacked and killed. I even remember Nareed arguing that the Soviet Union was not really atheistic, even though they explicitly state they are, because they basically stole all the trappings of religion and just but the State as God. Anyway I think you can see clearly what happens when we either eliminate God from the picture or form Him into our image. The result is the greatest tragedies human history has ever seen. When I say this I'm not just talking about the millions and millions and millions who died, but the real tragedy of the ideas man can come up with when he pretends to kill god.

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Lastly, god and religion does not stop people from doing what they want, against the apparent teachings of the religion. I have thousands of years of history to back that up.

True, we constantly struggle to do what we know is right and always have. This is what we call Original Sin an concupiscence.

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Once god and religion are out of the way, moral systems will continue to be put into place, taught to children, and ignored by people who do not agree.

What is the difference between a moral system put into place by the religious, and by the agnostic or the atheist? Both offer punishment in your current life, but the religious offer eternal damnation. I don't see how you can say that is not motivation through fear.

Okay, first of all for there to be a moral system in place you have to ground it in something so it becomes universal and valid for all. Without God this is impossible. You can try to ground morality in the power of the state, but we all rightly have a fear of that and I have human history to show what a bad idea that is. You could try to ground morality in strict reason and logic, but as we can see on this forum not everyone is very logically or even agrees that logic and reason can arrive at truth. To ground morality in science is a dangerous path that leads to all kinds of terrible things such as the killing of people who are not genetically how society wants them to be. Or you could try relativism, which is pretty much the law of the land right now and you can ask yourself how that is working out?

Secondly you seem to be pretty naïve about the punishment offered by any atheistic system or morality. We know that earthly punishments in this current life do not always come. Where is the justice in that? Hell and eternal damnation is not about fear, but just the straight up reality that evil gets defeated in the end and the bad guys lose. Every moral system is based on this, but the loophole is those who are powerful, crafty, and straight up bad enough to get away with it. Do they escape judgement? Inherent in all of us, in our gut we know the answer to that question is no. Religion reminds people of this truth in its moral system.

Finally, I just want to say another point of creating a moral system is getting people to be inspired to follow it. Your threats of punishment in this current life ring hallow and we all know that. However, you have a bigger problem with an atheistic moral system. There is nothing to tell you to follow it other than truths you can't really base on anything or even call truths. You might say, "follow this morality because if everyone does then society will be great, so it benefits you in the long run." What if that person doesn't value society or himself? Isn't he following his own atheistic moral code to go around punching people in the face, what makes yours better or more true than his? Yeah, basically it is impossible to have a moral system that is put into place by an agnostic or atheist.

Quote: Evenbob

FrG has his whole head so far up
his fictitious gods butt he can no
longer think straight. It's a sight
to behold when religious zealots
try and defend their idiocy.

Just replace Jobs murdered wife
and Job will be happy as a lark.
Loved ones are just pieces on a
chessboard to the sadist yahweh.

I think this may be one of my last posts to you my friend.

Just to be clear I did not mean to infer that Job starting over again with a new wife and children would be the same as if it never happened or that he would be happy as a lark. I know well from personal experience and just because I am a human being that you can't just replace those you love, never ever. However, I have found you can be happy again.

With you, and in a certain sense with Nareed, I feel that anything I say is twisted around and exaggerated to the point where I don't recognize it and it is an offensive caricature of a straw man. This might be a strange analogy but I feel a little like what Obama must feel when he reads what the far right say about him. I remember before his first election people told me that because Obama voted against some bill in Chicago about making sure a fetus that is accidently delivered during a late term abortion gets immediate medical care that he was for infanticide. Obama himself tried to address this by appealing to people's good sense and asking if someone really thought that he wanted a baby to die without care or that he wanted to kill infants. There were many reasons that he had both politically and practically to not vote for that bill and doing do did not mean any doctor, I pray, would let a child die after it was born. However, the more he tried to convince people to use their common sense and give him the benefit of the doubt the more they turned against him. Some people are just so angry, so bigoted, that even when you try to defend yourself it just makes it worse.

Quote: FrGamble

However, I have found you can be happy again.
.

It's the fact you refuse to condemn your
gods behavior that I have a problem with.
It's fine with you that he made Job miserable
with the loss of his family just to prove a
point. Of course it's fiction, but it's your
reaction to the fiction that's bothersome.
It shows me your attitude is, no matter what
you think your god is responsible for, even
burning witches at the stake, you're just fine
with. And that's exactly the reaction of the
clergy in the Burning Times, their god could
do no wrong. It's fine with the clergy of the
Church that you've driven Gays and transgender
people to suicide with your intolerance. Your
god can do no wrong.

So you think I'm okay with burning people at the stake and driving gays to commit suicide?!?

It is good to know how little you think of me and confirms that you think the worst of me and my Church and there is nothing I can say to change your mind. I really wonder how and why I should continue a conversation with someone who hates me so much as to think so poorly of me.