A rape victim is tried for being gang raped and faces sentencing that includes whipping. Here a school teacher lets her 7 year old students name a teddy bear with a common Muslim name and is on trial to determine how many lashes she will receive. (see link in title to this posting)Won’t America be better off when our theocrats gain control and can rule us with the same type of morality? I just can’t wait. It will be really wonderful when we can stone clerks at Home Depot because they put up a sign declaring “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. When we can nail all those “so-called jews” in Hollywood to crosses for those crass, sexist, violent films. When we can burn scientists at the stake again for declaring the earth is millions of years old instead of the truth (6 thousand years) or for declaring that life evolves instead of being supernaturally created out of beach sand and a magical rib.Yes sir, the glory and bounty from He who may not be named will be truly wonderful once we achieve the same level of grace through ignorance as other theocratically ruled nations in the world.Peter Nuhn
jshanewhite- Like your points. For the records that would be Matthew 5: “(17)’Do not think that I (Christ) came to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (18)For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law until all is fulfilled. (19)Therefore whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great.’” (NKJV).
And as if that wasn’t great enough, there’s what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which is that all scripture (sic) is given by inspiration of god blah blah blah. A little hard for me to reconcile that with “toss the Old Testament out the window” although in other regards, such as his insistence that Gentile converts didn’t have to adhere to Mosaic dietary laws and circumcision, Paul seems to contradict this. Hmm, a schizophrenic deity?
My favorite is actually when Christians try to brush off the crimes committed by god and his followers in the OT as “well, that was the OT”. Well, let’s try that one on for size in the modern-day legal system, shall we? I guess we’d have to let BTK go, after all he hadn’t killed anyone for a while and was a nice deacon or whatever at a Lutheran church, wasn’t he? HELLO! When is there EVER a statute of limitations on murder and concubinage? (I’m referring in the case of the former to Noah’s flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the slaughter of the firstborn in Egypt [NOT cool, I'm firstborn!], and the many slaughters committed by the Hebrews in Midian and Canaan, and in the case of the latter to the practice displayed in Numbers 31 of keeping virgin girls as sex prizes). We don’t let serial killers off the hook for years in prison and signs of remorse, and the Christian god has shown neither of those. Hence, he’s still guilty as sin, if you’ll pardon the ironic pun.
Jack- I’ll try not to be too trite/cliched here, but your equivocation of atheism+power=bloodbath is flat-out libelous and if I may say, hilarious (or would be except that I don’t find much to laugh at here). Pick up a few books on the subject of the Soviet Union under Stalin in particular and China under Mao if you haven’t done so already (not saying you haven’t), and you might realize something: Communism in these places was a RELIGION. A political, atheistic religion to be sure, but a religion nonetheless. Do you have any idea of how deep the personality cults of leaders like Stalin and Mao ran? Look at the paintings of Mao’s smiling face beaming like an oversize sun over a valley of the Chinese workers’ paradise and tell me that’s not hagiographic art.
Needless to say, I don’t follow either Stalin or Mao.
Oh and by the way, there were quite a few less people alive in the days of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials to kill, as opposed to the POST-INDUSTRIAL era in Russia and China in the twentieth century. But since you brought up both of those, those aren’t the only crimes committed in the name of religion. What about the destruction and/or enslavement of indigenous cultures throughout the world by Christian Europeans, missionaries sanctioning the destruction of the artistic and spiritual heritage of peoples from the Caribbean to highland New Guinea? What about the razing of temples and erection of churches in Mexico, or the razing of temples and erection of mosques in Iran and Indo-Pakistan? Yes, I know, the latter was Islam but the point remains a valid one. Hint: if you’re going to lump us together with Stalin, Lenin and Mao I get to lump you with Columbus, Cortes, Hitler (a confirmed Roman Catholic who was never excommunicated and had two popes and numerous Lutheran and other Protestant clergy on his payroll), Muhammad, and other theistic conquerors!
Why is Christianity on the rise in so many places? Ever occur to you there might be some discernable historical factors? Like, just for instance, European colonization in Africa and the devastation it left in its wake? What about the alienation in Russia from the old order of the Tsar and the Russian Orthodox church, and the desire to get away from an oppressive Soviet past, think that might have something to do with the rise of Evangelical-type churches such as the Baptists? Latin America, well fuck, they’ve had civil wars, U.S. proxy intervention, all kinds of shit, and the old post-colonial orders have disintegrated in places like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru… the list goes on, and I can go into more detail if you wish. (Do you? I’ve taken a couple classes on this so I really do know something of what I’m talking about here).
Europe: well shucks but I think you shot yourself in the foot here! I think they’ve grown tired and disaffected from Christianity- who could blame ‘em?! You think witch-burnings, inquisitions, and religiously-fueled wars would be enough to do it for anyone, coupled with advances of a secular society- they’re outgrowing their need for it. Why is “witchcraft” on the rise there? People trying to get in touch with something new that will satisfy their needs. Hell, vs. Christianity who can blame ‘em! Honestly, you say it like it’s a bad thing, some dirty word even. You might have done well in medieval-Renaissance Germany. Islam? Of course it’s on the rise there! The birth rate’s been slipping and they’ve been experiencing an influx of immigrants from Africa and Asia, places like former French West Africa, Algeria, Iran, etc. etc. etc., places that, last I checked, are Muslim!
Toad, thanks for the opportunity for a little riposte and debate. I’m really not attacking you here, but I think you should retool your approach. Nothing you’re saying is really that new to me, or probably to any of us, and it only pegs you as a rather self-righteous and somewhat sanctimonious fundy. Hate to break it to ya but that’s how it comes across. Anyway later man, ~Atheopithecus, the godless Ape.