RPG Superstar 2013
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I think you've made it pretty clear that context means little to you, you're not comfortable having your predispositions challenged with facts, so I am not sure what I can do for ya.
I'm not on sloppy ground as regards the DRK. Since you can't find jsutification for that in the Bible, it's pretty tough to ague that was the case before a few kings decided the Bible purposed them to be in charge. The Bible in fact says much the opposite. While it's true that what people think the Bible says over centuries of careful translation, textual criticism, etc is important, the clear manipualtion of religion (as distinct from Christianity or the Bible) hardly justifies the assetion that Christianity is socially malleable. People have always abused religion. People can run as Ronald Reagan conservatives for office and then vote to raise taxes, payback union supporters, and give nuclear weapons tech to potantial rivals. That doesn't change conservatism. It means a bad egg poorly represented timeless (insofar as it's an example) principles.
You did not point out a verse in the Bible that has anything to do with sex slavery. But you do continue to assert that you did. Aksing me to read the first few words of a verse doesn't change the culture they were written for, or doesn't change the nature of the cultures around the Hebrews when it was written. ALso, your snark about God still working on morality is amusing, but doesn't really mean anything. The most forgiving culture towards slaves was the one led by faith in God.
Jubilee did not necessarily apply to non-Hebrew slaves, you are correct. Sometimes a prisoner of war would be fed, clothed and put to work the rest of his life, as distinct from eaten or raped until dead. What an awful people!
Since you enjoy taking single verses out of context to demonstrate some sort of barbarism about Christianity, I thought I might go ahead and point out all the single verses related to love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, holiness, freedom, etc. But I have a better idea. How about you answer an honest challenge. For a few weeks you read the Bible as a neutral document. You aren't looking for anything adversarial, and yuo are expecting it to jump out and turn you into some kind of zealot. You read the books of the NT in context, try to understand the intent of their Author, and give it an honest run. I know most people will say they ahve already done that, but no one who can list five verses about how the NT is not a book about love and devotion can make that claim.
DO you have the stones, or does that make your preconceptions nervous?
For the evolution discussion, that common cold is, technically, a disease rather than an organism. The particular organism causing the disease (let's say rhinovirus) will indeed mutate into more adaptive, resilient rhinovirus (microevolution). However, nothing's yet convinced me 100% on that rhinovirus becoming, say Penicillium candida (because I love me some Brie!), or later still a tsetse fly (macroevolution, at least as much as I have studied thus far). I'd welcome some specific direction to further research, however, as I always like to speak from a position of knowledge rather than supposition.
I did a quick Google search on how viruses may have evolved and came up with this article. The thing I found most interesting about it is the theory that viruses may have actually evolved from bacteria, rather than the other way around. It actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Viruses survive by inserting themselves into our cells' DNA, forcing them to produce copies of the virus. In fact, it's a little like cancer, which incidentally, has been shown to be transmittable in some species.
As far as macroevolution versus microevolution, it's a bit of a misnomer, since 'macroevolution' is really just the result of 'microevolution' occurring over an extended period of time. As far as further research is concerned, if you're in college, I would suggest taking a paleoanthropology course. I know for me, it illuminated so much that I did not understand about natural selection, or the tools that archaeologists use to date bones.
If you're not in college, National Geographic recently published an article that discusses many of the known hominids from whom we descended. They also did one on whale evolution, which I found utterly fascinating.
Finally, you may want to check out a book, called Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist. I'm not sure if it's the book I read, but if it is, the author tries very hard to demonstrate that there needn't be a conflict between the theory of natural selection, and belief in Christianity. Rather, the two can exist harmoniously together, as I believe they should.
I don't think that any of these readings are the end-all-be-all on the subject of evolution. However, I think they can provide a jumping off point for you, if you're really interested in learning more. I do think that if you keep an open mind, you'll find that natural selection is a beautiful theory that explains much about our world, and that it need not conflict with a belief in God, or Christ's teachings.
Edit: I'm realizing now that I'm responding to a post that was waaaaaay back. Oh well. :-)
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RPG Superstar 2013
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When you become the sort of person who can be shown how Exodus 21 is not about sexual slavery, and your response is "I just showed you a verse about sexual slavery" without response to my actual comments, your cose-mindedness becomes your own problem. There's no reason for us to go around and around any longer. I tried. I didn't hit you with my Bible or make up stuff. And I didn't pull anything out of context to jsutify some untenable position. You are clearly very happy with your self-perception that you have the Bible figured out, and faithful students of it don't get it. Good luck with that.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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EDITed
I acknowedge it is still possible for someone to commit eisogesis while aware fo the dangers of that behavior, but in this case that simply isn't true. You are adding the concept of sexual slavery to the text, while I am not. I understand the slavery of the ancient Hebrews. It should seems reasonable that anyone pursuing an understanding of Christianity, and/or pursuing an aopologetic of Christian morality would have to study this issue.
But you don't study it. You are inserting your own interpretation of English words without examining the culture, the history, or the language the text was written in. Let's be clear: I am reading nothing into the text. You are saying that because the text refers to sale of a daughter as a servant, there's sexual slavery involved. This is not necessarily true from the text, and we know it was not true in practice. You don't want to see that, but you should open your mind to actually studying the subject matter, especially since your personal reckoning about Christianity is rooted in what you think you know, and how that inforamtion seems to you.
But I am only asking you to look at the material honesty and critique the faith as it presents itself. I cannot stop you from stopping your search because your surface conclusions meet with your preconceptions, nd I can't do more than urge you to look at Biblical Christianity in practice, rather than loking where a few people have abused power in history and assuming that's what Christianity was at the time. I hope you choose a full exploration rather than looking for inforamtion that suits you and just stopping there.
The most forgiving culture towards slaves was the one led by faith in God.
In the antebellum US, a nation that religious conservatives invariably tell us was led by faith in God until evil secularists took over, slavery was many things but it was hardly forgiving. Slave owners whipped their slaves routinely, circulated pamphlets among themselves about how to whip them to increase production, and so forth.
But I suppose those weren't True Christians (TM).
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RPG Superstar 2013
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@Samnell: my reference was to salvery as practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Slavery as practiced in post-colonial America was punishable by death in ancient Jewish culture.
@Lillithdude: There are no contradictions, and I once again tell you I ahve studied this subject. You continue to say the same thing over and over.
The text doesn't say anything about sexual slavery. At all. You are inserting that. The text refers to selling your daughter as a slave, which could ave been several things. Sometimes, it was an arranged marriage, which is STILL not sexual slavery. Other times she might be a nanny. What you want is for the text to justify awful behaviors that didn't occur. What you want is there to not be adifference in types of slavery. And yet there are.
The Hebrew practice of slavery allowing for slaves to live, exercise freedom, purchase their liberty, or be freed by government mandate during Jubilee was the most ethical and kind practice of slavery ever. It was not the practice you condemn. So for you to say God's idea of morality must not have been complete if He allowed slavery is to continue to ignore culture and context, including the nature of slavery in that day. Since slavery was not pracitced as you continue to assume, most of the ills you attach to slavery weren't in practice, so the moral question of slavery is not as sever. If I had property and I wanted to marry a woman, I might offer myself as a slave to that man. By working to enrich his holdings, I profit his estate and prove myself a worthwhile member of the family, or show my character, or pay off whatever a wealthier, less liked fellow might offer for her. I am still referred to as a slave. Ergo, slavery is a different concept, spanning multiple practice based on whether I am a free indentured man, or a prisoner of war, or a family member who dishonored the family name, or a criminal.
You are trying to level your expectations for humanistic morality against a 4000 year old culture, which no contextual understanding of that culture and no willingness to learn how it differs from your preconceptions. You are mandating I study it neutrally, and assuming I didn't but then you arent the one educating me about how the culture worked, or voicing sensitivity to the concept of eisogesis.
In short, I have already performed the neutral study you requested. I am specifially informed and have passed on that specific inforamtion to you. Your response is to say that telling you a fact and demonstrating that fact is true are not the same thing, which is pretty lame rhetoric, and a standard impossible to justify without getting in the TARDIS and taking you there. Oh, except a wealth of anthropological information and a study of the language and culture of the people in question, which I already did for you.
By not doing the same when I challenged you, but then demanding I do it, you show yourself to be unwiling to learn something new. By choosing not to see that, yourender yourself unable to evalutate any religious or philoso[hical truth. You already know everything you need to know, which is a dangerous and silly premise from which to operate.
@Samnell: my reference was to salvery as practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Slavery as practiced in post-colonial America was punishable by death in ancient Jewish culture.
Is it not then your position that the antebellum US was a culture: "led by faith in God"?
I ask because it sounds like you're claiming that religion (or at least your religion and its antecedents) results in rather better treatment of slaves. Yet you rightly don't seem to think very highly of slavery as practiced in, for example, Virginia.
Am I misunderstanding you on either of these points?
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RPG Superstar 2013
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My original point was that the Bible (and by extension Christianity) does not tolerate or make room for slavery in the worst sense of the practices, whether that be South Carolina or ancient Egypt.
While I believe colonial and post-colonial America had a strong reformation faith among its leaders, there's no reconciling man-selling with Scripture, and anyone who thought to use the Bible to defend whipping slaves or exchanging money for people as property was jsut trying to jsutify a brutal and sinful practice.
The corrolary to that was that the practice of slavery in ancient Hebrew culture is no where near the same, and in fact a limitation on avaialbel words to descirbe dissimilar practices requires careful examination of the culture and practices of the day. Studying the Bible, indluding the rules for slaves in Exodus tells us that there are different kinds of slaves, and different practices for slavery in the region. Just seeing the word 'slave' or a reference that someone is another person's 'property' doesn't give you the full picture, unlike recent history, where a person was actually treated as property, with limited input on how they could be punished or freed or whatnot.
Ancient slavery wasn't that different in all cultures and in all ages, and certainly the Jews must have had bad apple slaveowners just as any culture would. But the banket assertion that the Bible condones slavery, or sex slavery, or that Christ supported the beating of anyone other than Himself, is extremely (and in some cases purposefully) ignorant of Scripture and by extension, of Biblical Christianity.
While I believe colonial and post-colonial America had a strong reformation faith among its leaders, there's no reconciling man-selling with Scripture, and anyone who thought to use the Bible to defend whipping slaves or exchanging money for people as property was jsut trying to jsutify a brutal and sinful practice.
There isn't?
44“However, you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you. 45You may also purchase the children of temporary residents who live among you, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, 46passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat them as slaves, but you must never treat your fellow Israelites this way.
That doesn't condone exchanging money for people and treating them as property? Because if it does not, what would you take as condoning such? Granted this doesn't quite condone selling ancient Jews as slaves, but non-Jewish are still people. I doubt Virginia would have condoned selling whites as slaves, but it certainly condoned selling non-whites as such.
So far as whipping goes:
20“If a man beats his male or female slave with a club and the slave dies as a result, the owner must be punished. 21But if the slave recovers within a day or two, then the owner shall not be punished, since the slave is his property.
I guess you can get out of the whipping charge; it would be hard to call bludgeoning the same as whipping. But that's escaping on the flimsiest of technicalities. Either the Bible condones beating slaves or it does not. It transpires the Bible does condone it, so long as you only incapacitate the slave for a day or two. Does that really make it better?
But the banket assertion that the Bible condones slavery, or sex slavery, or that Christ supported the beating of anyone other than Himself, is extremely (and in some cases purposefully) ignorant of Scripture and by extension, of Biblical Christianity.
Are you asserting that reading the Bible makes you ignorant of the Bible? Because what do these passages, which even use the word "slave" condone if it is not slavery? I really do not understand your position, unless your understanding of Biblical Christianity is rather selective with how Biblical it is.
It's no news to me that there were Christian abolitionists, just as there were Christian slaveholders. Both used the Bible quite freely to defend their positions. Saying that one can't square slavery with scripture plain isn't true. It's right there in the book, and that the squaring took place is a plain historical fact. The abolitionists also squared abolitionism with scripture. Religions are pretty plastic.
I could also agree that American slavery was just about as perfectly and purely evil a form of slavery as has ever been conceived, so monstrous and brutal that a superstitious sort could be forgiven for thinking it conceived specifically by a superhuman malignancy for no purpose save the infliction of pain. It does not follow that all forms of slavery are this bad. Slavery as practiced in Africa and by Africans against Africans did not always get this extreme. But buying and selling people as property and exploiting them in so doing is exactly what slavery is. There's no good version of it, period. The fact that the Bible gives a few extra protections to some slaves doesn't really exonerate it.
That does not, of course, mean that the authors of the Bible were just a pile of superhumanly evil jackasses and we should be very glad they're all safely dead now. They're products of a really horrific culture, almost worse than anything we could conceive. We're lucky to be alive now instead of then and thus the beneficiaries of centuries of moral progress.
Which does not, of course, mean that people who elect to follow some of the Bible's provisions are moral degenerates. Or that some who elect to follow other of the Bible's provisions can be excused from it because an ancient book gives the go-ahead. Or that those who ignore the lot are necessarily moral paragons. Or that those who pick and choose are. Rather it seems to me we must see which provisions are being carried out and defended and evaluate each on its own merits.
I would think it easy, even trivial, to say that the slavery stuff can be consigned to the ministrations of the sewage treatment plants. I'm not saying it should be deleted from the book, but we can discard it as irrelevant to us (at best) and go on with our lives. Likewise we could keep all the good blessed are the peacemakers stuff. We need only be honest about the fact that we are picking and choosing, and why we are doing so.
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Nothing should be deleted from the book. Polishing it would make it a dishonest and iperfect message.
You'll note again that the practice of 'purchasing salves' among the Hebrews was much more commonly an issue of paying a debt or taking on a servant in forgiveness of a debt. Foreigners who couldn't fit in or were maybe prisoners of war could 'benefit' from slavery, insofar as the alternative for miles around was being murdered or eaten or whatever.
I think maybe the most important parts of the misunderstanding are
a) I'm not saying slavery is okay by todays' standards. Let's not walk away from this thread thinking "Steve is justifying slavery", that would clearly be counter to my purposes. But if you took a prisoner out of jail today, and compared his stmaping license plates to a Hebrew slave's working the fields, there'd be some parallel. Hebrew slavery meant different kinds of servitude for different reasons.
b) THe translated and transliterated texts have to been seen for when they were written, and not judged by our use of the same language today. A great example of this is going back a hundred years and using the term gay to describe someone. A slave during the times the Latin Vulgate was translated is probably (but not always necessarily) different than how we think of slavery now. When the Hebrew was translated to Latin, slavery was not the same concept, either. The idea of oing into an indebted household and purchasing a slave, and the idea of buying captured people from their own tribe, are not the same, but the term slave applies to both.
A lot of eunuchs in those cultures were also referred to as slaves. Ancient Egyptians sometimes had ranking slave officials who managed the servant's affairs. These slaves ate well, learned the arts and attended functions. Eunuchs (in some cultures) voluntarily participated in castration for religious reasons. Still slaves, despite an element of free will or privelege.
It isn't that God's morality has changed over time - clearly not. But Man's imperfect morality ahs developed some over time, sure. And most significantly, how we interpret and use language has changed a lot over time. By wanting to believe an thing, and only responding to how we think of older terms today, we risk being willfully wrong about something. We should not.
Nothing should be deleted from the book. Polishing it would make it a dishonest and iperfect message.
I am not suggesting that anything be deleted from the book. Nor, for that matter, am I suggesting that the staggering immorality depicted therein be soft-pedaled.
You'll note again that the practice of 'purchasing salves' among the Hebrews was much more commonly an issue of paying a debt or taking on a servant in forgiveness of a debt. Foreigners who couldn't fit in or were maybe prisoners of war could 'benefit' from slavery, insofar as the alternative for miles around was being murdered or eaten or whatever.
Yeah, maybe Hebrews against Hebrews. But Hebrews against anybody else? It looks like something quite close, at least in broad strokes, to what went on in the American South was in fact going on.
I am a bit surprised that you're willing to come out and say that the slaves should have been a little bit grateful since they could have just been killed. I very much doubt a non-Hebrew slave who can be kept for life and beaten at will, raped, etc as nothing more than a piece of livestock to its owner would have been terribly consoled by the thought that they could be dead instead. When the best one can say in defense of a course of action, however half-hearted, is that it beats being killed and eaten, I don't think it can be more damned by the faint praise.
I mean I might prefer being tortured for a few days to being tortured for a few decades, but we wouldn't count that as any kind of excuse for the days of torture. It's plain something one ought not to be doing whatsoever. Like slavery.
a) I'm not saying slavery is okay by todays' standards. Let's not walk away from this thread thinking "Steve is justifying slavery", that would clearly be counter to my purposes.
You are working awfully hard to justify it, or at least talk your way out of the condemnation that we apparently both think it deserves. You first told us that you cannot possibly square slavery with the Bible. This is clearly false, and you must have known it so I don't know why you made the claim to begin with. Now you are saying that you are not trying to justify it, in a post that is mostly about how we're not really to take it as being all that bad.
But if you took a prisoner out of jail today, and compared his stmaping license plates to a Hebrew slave's working the fields, there'd be some parallel. Hebrew slavery meant different kinds of servitude for different reasons.
I will agree that, deplorably, we continue to employ unfree labor as a part of our penal system. Or at least we do in some states. I understand in others prisoners might be required to work, but are actually paid for their work at some kind of wage too. I am not up on all the particulars.
However, it seems you are trying valiantly to dance around the point. The Bible does condone slavery, and in fact condones the customary brutalities associated with the title too, provided the slaves are of the right race.
b) THe translated and transliterated texts have to been seen for when they were written, and not judged by our use of the same language today. A great example of this is going back a hundred years and using the term gay to describe someone. A slave during the times the Latin Vulgate was translated is probably (but not always necessarily) different than how we think of slavery now. When the Hebrew was translated to Latin, slavery was not the same concept, either. The idea of oing into an indebted household and purchasing a slave, and the idea of buying captured people from their own tribe, are not the same, but the term slave applies to both.
That doesn't really help you for people outside the tribe. Maybe non-Hebrews are non-people to you. I really don't know if that's the case, but you seem disinterested in their plight.
A lot of eunuchs in those cultures were also referred to as slaves. Ancient Egyptians sometimes had ranking slave officials who managed the servant's affairs. These slaves ate well, learned the arts and attended functions. Eunuchs (in some cultures) voluntarily participated in castration for religious reasons. Still slaves, despite an element of free will or privelege.
The elite, educated household slave will be a minority in every society. There's only so much demand, especially in largely illiterate societies, for accountants, scribes, and the like. Most slaves, then just as in South Carolina or Virginia, would have been employed in physical labors. The scholar-slaves can't be reasonably taken as representative of the institution.
It isn't that God's morality has changed over time - clearly not. But Man's imperfect morality ahs developed some over time, sure. And most significantly, how we interpret and use language has changed a lot over time. By wanting to believe an thing, and only responding to how we think of older terms today, we risk being willfully wrong about something. We should not.
Steven, you are telling me that God's morality has not changed. (And I agree with you that if what conventional Christian theology says about God's characteristics is true then it would be utterly absurd for his morality to have changed.)
Ok, so if you truly believe that to be the case, and you truly believe the Bible to contain the written account of God's own morality as handed down to, say, Moses. So do you believe then that if a non-Hebrew slave is beaten, but lives through it and is walking around a few days later, that's a-ok?
You say that's not the case, and good for you, but you spent a whole post making excuses for slavery back then. And then you say that God's morality is unchanging. As a Christian, I think you would find that morality in the Bible. (That's where all the other Christians tell me they get it from, but maybe you're different.) The Bible condones slavery. So doesn't it necessarily and inescapably entail that God condones it?
Or is it that some parts of the Bible are God's own perfect, unchanging morality, and others despite being explicit legal and/or moral codes (these are always intertwined, of course) are just fine to ignore since they're the product of a bunch of backwards sorts who added their own crummy glosses in the figurative margins?
Because that would take us back to my encouragement of picking and choosing from the previous post.
I hadn't considered this interpretation of his position and it makes sense. He believes that the Bible isn't all the word of God and he believes that we're -suppossed- to pick and choose the parts we're to take seriously.is it that some parts of the Bible are God's own perfect, unchanging morality, and others despite being explicit legal and/or moral codes (these are always intertwined, of course) are just fine to ignore since they're the product of a bunch of backwards sorts who added their own crummy glosses in the figurative margins?
That's pretty much the standard liberal Christian take on it. If you look closely at fundamentalist creedal statements on the issue, you find the same admission buried inch-deep.
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Those who say "That doesn't make enough sense to ME, so screw that hypothetical sky-fairy, are failing to honestly address the question of whether there is an actual od who can command their obedience. If there's no god, you can say what you want and twist any argument by a believer into something ridiculous. If there is a God, the best answer is to step lightly and look honestly. Making yourself a grand part of the equation in that case is a little silly.
I know I'm a page behind, but come on, Pascal's Wager? Seriously?
Otherwise, I'm excited to see life returning to this thread. :)
Careful -- being on the "wrong" side of this debate makes you a militant atheist and an intolerant troll -- especially when you have the audacity to win. Pointing out the compete lack of evidence is considered particularly hateful.
Warning: Dogpiling may ensue -- call your doctor if you have an- erm, nevermind.
Warning: Dogpiling may ensue -- call your doctor if you have an- erm, nevermind.
The alias-spamming would certainly explain my rather intense bout of allergies this year.
I remember when I first heard of Atheists. The word was spoken on the TV, I think in a documentary about China. It was not explained, so I asked my mother what it meant. She informed me, a bit tersely, that atheists were people who did not believe in God. She clearly didn't approve.
Well ok. I got a rather similar explanation of Judaism a few years previous, swapping God for Jesus. I have since come to learn that having lived her whole life in my terrible little small town she had only a hazy understanding of what either term actually entailed and had probably never knowingly met a jew or an atheist. Fair enough. It's unfortunate, but small towns in the American Midwest are terrible places to learn about diversity. Or surfing. Same reason, really.
But you know, we actually had a small Jewish community. There's even a part-time synagogue and a little cemetery. Not that I knew growing up. They didn't exactly come out and say hi. But sometimes, people do.
18 people made up the Atheist Vuvuzela Marching Band which paraded down Texas Avenue while playing "Jingle Bells" on vuvuzela horns.
Well that's fine. I don't particularly like the instrument or the song, but it's a nice sort of "Hi, we're here and we're not two headed dragons" gesture. It's not the sort of thing I'd be interested much in doing but good for them.
News 3 spoke with the leader of the group who said they weren't protesting Christmas or the parade but were there to announce their presence in the community.The decision to parade though didn't sit well with many of those in attendance.
"Wasn't exactly happy about the Christmas Parade this year, I spent many years teaching my children to love and respect other people and to love the fact that they were children of God and I don't feel that they should be influenced in any other way especially not at a Christmas parade," said Tina Corgey, who is a lifelong Bryan resident.
Corgey brings her three kids to the B/CS Christmas Parade every year.
She said she was disgusted by what she saw on Sunday.
"If you have younger children they weren't going to understand but I have older children, a teenager, 8-year-old and they were curious and they asked questions and it was hard for them to believe and understand that there are actually people out there that don't believe in God," Corgey said.
Apparently the mere presence of atheists influences one away from Jesus and loving and respecting other people. Who knew? And it prompted children to ask questions. Terrible. Disgusting. Her children asked her questions. What could a parent do? Presumably she's raised them better than that and they ought to have known not to ask her things.
I know my opinion's changed. Clearly this was a cruel act that should be condemned. I mean, it leads children to ask questions.
The decision to parade though didn't sit well with many of those in attendance.
I'm amazed at a lot of the sheer ignorance in some of the comments; things like, "Atheists try and force Christian groups to not be allowed to participate, just like they made it illegal to pray in school!" WTF?
1. Their whole point is that the seasonal holiday parade can be a chance for the whole community to come together and celebrate.
2. News flash: it's not illegal to pray in school. You can do it all you want. What's illegal is to require participation in teacher-led prayers. Why this is so hard for people to understand is beyond me.
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The decision to parade though didn't sit well with many of those in attendance.I'm amazed at a lot of the sheer ignorance in some of the comments; things like, "Atheists try and force Christian groups to not be allowed to participate, just like they made it illegal to pray in school!" WTF?
1. Their whole point is that the seasonal holiday parade can be a chance for the whole community to come together and celebrate.
2. News flash: it's not illegal to pray in school. You can do it all you want. What's illegal is to require participation in teacher-led prayers. Why this is so hard for people to understand is beyond me.
Why do atheists even care about the winter holiday? It's based on a religious thing anyway. Maybe atheists should just ignore it all together.
Why do atheists even care about the winter holiday? It's based on a religious thing anyway. Maybe atheists should just ignore it all together.
When the winter holiday brings the entire community together to watch a parade -- just maybe these atheists want to be participants in building the community as well? Or should that not be allowed?
Besides, it's based on a pagan religious thing anyway, and just got hijacked for Christ -- so by that logic, Christians shouldn't care about Christmas.
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Why do atheists even care about the winter holiday? It's based on a religious thing anyway. Maybe atheists should just ignore it all together.When the winter holiday brings the entire community together to watch a parade -- just maybe these atheists want to be participants in building the community as well? Or should that not be allowed?
Besides, it's based on a pagan religious thing anyway, and just got hijacked for Christ -- so by that logic, Christians shouldn't care about Christmas.
So, less than 4% of the population should be allowed to makes around 85% of the population feel bad for wanting to celebrate their holiday?
And, at least the Christians jacks a different religious holiday. And that was so they wouldn't lose their recent recruits. Who liked holidays.
All this comes down to is this: atheists want to remove religion from public life, period. Which is fine, I guess. But don't get your panties in a wad when the 85% of the nation who wants to say "Merry Christmas" without some jackass trying to make them feel bad about it don't agree and atheists are just seen as a bunch of grinches.
Seriously, there needs to be a category of "live and let live, don't blame me, I don't care what you do, ho ho ho" atheists so we can be separated from the more annoying and obnoxious breed of atheist who won't stop until everyone thinks the way they do.
Intolerance is a two way street.
So, less than 4% of the population should be allowed to makes around 85% of the population feel bad for wanting to celebrate their holiday?
Participating in their parade with them makes them feel bad for wanting to celebrate their holiday? How exactly do you come to this conclusion?
All this comes down to is this: atheists want to remove religion from public life, period. Which is fine, I guess. But don't get your panties in a wad when the 85% of the nation who wants to say "Merry Christmas" without some jackass trying to make them feel bad about it don't agree and atheists are just seen as a bunch of grinches.
Seriously, there needs to be a category of "live and let live, don't blame me, I don't care what you do, ho ho ho" atheists so we can be separated from the more annoying and obnoxious breed of atheist who won't stop until everyone thinks the way they do.
Find me one atheist who wants to get rid of Christmas. No stawman stuff, either, like "He wants a menorah, too, and therefore he's anti-Christian!!!!" I mean a dude who wants people to not be allowed to celebrate any winter holiday. I'm not one. Nor are you. I've never met one, in fact, nor heard of one outside of people's totally bogus claims that "that's what those atheists want!!!" -- and I hang around some messageboards that anti-theist enough to make the worst people here look like Jehova's Witnesses -- and yet I've never found anyone trying to prohibit Christmas.
For my part, I want to be able to enjoy the holiday without some jackass saying "Merry Christmas! Did you hear me, a$&#*~&? I said CHRISTMAS, not Hanukkah, and if you don't answer back the same way then GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!!!!!!!!" (and, yes, I've had people say this to me. And not at work).
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So, less than 4% of the population should be allowed to makes around 85% of the population feel bad for wanting to celebrate their holiday?Participating in their parade with them makes them feel bad for wanting to celebrate their holiday? How exactly do you come to this conclusion?
When all of the religious stuff is stripped out of the parade, then who is the parade for? The 85% of Christians in this country who want a Christmas parade? Or the 4% who actively (if this thread is any indication) thinks the 85% are too stupid to live and should STFU and accept it?
When all of the religious stuff is stripped out of the parade, then who is the parade for? The 85% of Christians in this country who want a Christmas parade? Or the 4% who actively (if this thread is any indication) thinks the 85% are too stupid to live and should STFU and accept it?
Have you ever been to a Christmas parade? Is there any religious stuff in it to begin with? And who, exactly, wants to strip it out? 99.99% of people -- Christian, Hindu, Atheist, whatever -- just want a nice parade. Maybe 2% of the 85% Christians think that means that no one else should be allowed to participate (lest they "taint" it or something, I guess). Why be one of those 2%?
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All this comes down to is this: atheists want to remove religion from public life, period. Which is fine, I guess. But don't get your panties in a wad when the 85% of the nation who wants to say "Merry Christmas" without some jackass trying to make them feel bad about it don't agree and atheists are just seen as a bunch of grinches.
Seriously, there needs to be a category of "live and let live, don't blame me, I don't care what you do, ho ho ho" atheists so we can be separated from the more annoying and obnoxious breed of atheist who won't stop until everyone thinks the way they do.
Find me one atheist who wants to get rid of Christmas. No stawman stuff, either, like "He wants a menorah, too, and therefore he's anti-Christian!!!!" I mean a dude who wants people to not be allowed to celebrate any winter holiday. I'm not one. Nor are you. I've never met one, in fact, nor heard of one outside of people's totally bogus claims that "that's what those atheists want!!!"
For my part, I want to be able to enjoy the holiday without some jackass saying "Merry Christmas! Did you hear me, a~@%&~&? I said CHRISTMAS, not Hanukkah, and if you don't answer back the same way then GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!!!!!!!!" (and, yes, I've had people say this to me. And not at work).
Gee. maybe that person is like that because people that have said "Merry Christmas" have been fired from jobs? Or threatened with censure if they do so at work? Or have had the ACLU sue them because they had a "Merry Christmas" banner up?
I can Google all of this if you'd like, and have a huge post all spoilered so it isn't too long. But, I suspect you know I could do that.
You know better. You know secularists need little prompting to force the issue. And, yeah, I can see why people get defensive about it. They're being told they're s$~$ for saying Merry Christmas. Constantly told they're ignorant. Stupid. Or dangerous.
But, whatever.
Removed a post. Let's not be hostile towards each other and remember the topic includes "civil."
Gee. maybe that person is like that because people that have said "Merry Christmas" have been fired from jobs? Or threatened with censure if they do so at work? Or have had the ACLU sue them because they had a "Merry Christmas" banner up?
I can Google all of this if you'd like, and have a huge post all spoilered so it isn't too long. But, I suspect you know I could do that.
No, I'm going to have to call B.S. on that one.
There is no possible statute under which you could legally fire someone for simply saying "Merry Christmas" -- unless you did the thing I referenced in the last post, and actively antagonized someone you knew wasn't Christian, just to be a dick.I'm going to need some links, I guess, because that all sounds just like the totally false claim that "you can't pray in school." People can, and do. It's mandatory teacher-led prayer that's prohibited. Similarly, a Merry Christmas banner is prohibited only if (a) you use taxpayer dollars for it; and/or (b) you won't allow a "Happy Hanukkah" banner up, even if another group is willing to pay for that.
Just because some emplyers stupidly become over-defensive and send out "don't call it Christmas!" memos in fear doesn't mean that their fears have any basis in reality.
When all of the religious stuff is stripped out of the parade, then who is the parade for? The 85% of Christians in this country who want a Christmas parade?
I suppose I'll be posting this knowing full well I'm just feeding the troll, but here goes anyway.
1) Who wants to strip the religious stuff out of the parade? Certainly nobody from the article. I don't even want that, and I often get the impression that others think me the paid representative of the Atheist Nazi Communist Rapes Your Babies party on the boards. Do I need to report all of us to the party political officer for insufficient orthodoxy?
Dammit, and I was in line for a promotion too.
2) Neither is anybody in the article or here advocating that the parade be canceled.
I love how this thread continues (it hasn't been "civil" since page two), yet others are locked for much less.
Oh, well. Paizo must love their pet Christian bashing thread.
...I'm honestly not quite sure what you're getting at houstonderek, but I am sure the flagging system works if you find something offensive to bring it to our attention. As far as not locking this thread, it's because the majority of the posters can discuss their differences without resorting to insulting each other.