Since Vladimir Putin left office in May of 2008, the new president of Russia has been Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, and just like Putin, Medvedev belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if our mainstream media focused a bit of attention on the very Christian nature of the mindset of the leader of Russia right now. Which religion are Georgians now?

Wikipedia says that the Jewish community of Georgia is one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Here’s the breakdown:

Today most of the population practices Orthodox Christianity of the Georgian Orthodox Church (81.9%). The religious minorities are: Muslim (9.9%); Armenian Apostolic (3.9%); Russian Orthodox Church (2.0%); Roman Catholic (0.8%). 0.8% of those recorded in the 2002 census declared themselves to be adherents of other religions and 0.7% declared no religion at all.

So this is basically theists against theists. Where is their loving god, indeed?

Russia has a long history of invading and controlling Georgia, along with several other republics it once had total control over. Now that it’s not the USSR, but a smaller, leaner Russia we’re talking about, we Atheists can point the finger and say “The Atheists aren’t in charge there anymore. The Christians are. So when will the killing stop??”

The new Reds are Christians?!

Joe Zamecki
Austin TX

On Dave’s point specifically, I’m hard-pressed to disagree. On this other hand, I don’t know what good putting their trust in themselves — and not the sky faeries — would have done them in this case, so it doesn’t merit a good illustration of the dangers of operating with their head in the clouds.

Sure our government might’ve done this sort of thing too, but I wouldn’t support it. Russia has attacked several border nations now, and added up, it amounts to bad political and military decision making with terrible consequences.

If doing something really really bad can’t be considered a reflection on the religion of a devout Christian, then what’s it take?

Joe Zamecki
Austin

Are we so sure what the Russians are doing is out of line though? Osettia was an independent nation before they were, er, brought into the USSR. They were granted independent status again shortly before the break-up of the USSR. Then Georgia decided they wanted them for their own and attacked. S. Ossetia fought back and had been treated as an independent since 1992 — that’s 16 years, a long time to get used to the idea of being independent by anyone’s measure.

So we’ve got this independent nation, who is pro-Russia, a large percentage of whose citizens also have Russian citizenship. On the Russian border. Except for the irrelevant say-so of the UN, they are a sovern land — that Georgia officially claims them isn’t particularly relevant, right?

So Georgia recently decides to start attacking again. Russia defends it, then decides to ensure that Georgia isn’t in a position to do this again for a while.

How is this different than the first gulf war? They’re the Russians, so they “must” be wrong, right? This action on their part has been completely mild compared to that. What’s more, S. Ossettia involved their OWN citizens their OWN border.

It’s absolutely mind-numbing how utterly hypocritical the US government is being on this matter.

“She told the court and the psychologist that she had heard voices threatening the children and she wanted to protect them. She killed them because she believed she was protecting them from these evil powers,”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404041,00.html

I think you missed a really important memo about atheism:

I believe that this never-ending argument of “there is a God” vs. “there’s no such thing as God” has been going on for far too long!

Who exactly is trying to argue that there is no God?

There is a huge difference between “I believe that no God exists” and “I don’t believe that a God exists.” The first is a negative assertion that can never be proven and is completely illogical to accept as fact. The second is the default position that we’re all born with. It is one that asks for evidence and withholds judgment until there is sufficient evidence either way. I’ve never met an atheist who accepted the first statement (though I’m told they exist, they’re called Strong Atheists, note the capitalization), and I’ve never met an atheist who rejected the second.

The only reason the debate continues is because theists attempt to force their views onto the general public and onto their children. If we ever dropped the issue, we’d all be atheists in 2 generations.

never met an atheist who accepted the first statement (though I’m told they exist, they’re called Strong Atheists, note the capitalization)[...]

Now you have. I believe that no deities exist. I also believe that no invisible pink unicorns, smurfs, leprachauns or elves exist.

It is no more an illogical statement to say such than it is to agree that no operational definition of said deity(ies) can be formulated.

History illustrates that the number of places that a god could be hiding is decreasing as more information becomes available. (The god of the gaps)

If there were a “scale” of discovery that was similar to the scales we use for temperature, we can extrapolate that there is no god in the same way we extrapolated the position for the 0 value of the Kelvin scale.

My reasoning is that no God, as defined by human beings, could possibly exist because by simply defining what a God is, contradicts the concept of a God and our understanding of what it is to exist.

God(s) can’t exist, because by definition, they cannot not meet the criteria for our understanding of existence.