Changing Times? Page 2

Started by Shanghai Alice October 23rd, 2010 2:11 PM
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  • 26 replies
Age 29
Male
Seen June 1st, 2013
Posted April 27th, 2013
2,276 posts
14.4 Years
I try to steer clear of hard religious debate unless it's part of the argument. Which in this case, it is.
I was thinking of that animal rights thread in the first place. Somebody said Bible and you jumped on them and said that wasn't good enough, or something to that effect. And then I walked in. -___-


There will always be arguments against people who believe in different things. The only thing that would stop it is if we all believed in the same set of values. The beef comes in with the what ifs... what if we were all atheists? How would that compare to a society of Christians? This isn't rhetorical, I'm curious how you think the world would look in both cases.
Heh, it's hard to try and simulate either of these in an earthly context.

Assuming religion never existed, or was a thing of the past, long dead, I think that it would be much different place. Science really would be all there was, if you looked past the essentially selfish values of each individual. Sure, you'd have your odd man out on occasion, somebody who would preach about a certain set of morals, but my first thought would be that he's in the business for himself. Perhaps not even monetarily- Maybe his philosophical meanderings make him think that it's simply service to himself to spout this stuff, or to follow these rules. Everything would be more or less self-centered. And what follows from there? Crime, vengefulness and abuse. Murder. Not war, as such, but definitely chaotic behavior.

With a Christian society, you have a different set of problems. No, theocracy is not one of them. You have the problems of church leaders becoming little overlords, hostilities between, say, your Baptists and your Churches of Christ. Probably not shootings or brawls, but a lot of tension as far as communication or cooperation goes. An atheist or something in such a setting would probably be ostracized just because of the strangeness and unfamiliarity of his beliefs. But then, we wouldn't have that problem in this situation, would we?

Now, if people obeyed the real spirit of the Bible, all the ideals and values Jesus taught, we wouldn't have any of that. People would still have differences, but they would be set aside for the sake of cooperation and peace, and outsiders would be accepted as they are. They would be urged to convert, certainly. People would make it plain that they want to bring them into Christ, but they would not force them.

This coincides with the whole "which society would be better" idea. I know you know my stance with that. On the surface, I'm about all about choice. I have no right to tell you what you should believe or what you can and can not do with your body, and I would expect the same courtesy. In essence, I'm happy we've won on this debate - on the other, I wish more people agreed.
Do you have the right to tell a person what their politics should look like? "You should just vote against yourself this one time, so that people have another choice." I doubt there are many who would say it in so few words, but that's what it all feels like. My point, if your guiding principle is "choice", you shouldn't be arguing about the choices of another person, no matter what they're stifling or what they're promoting.


And Christianity was always out to unify others... by forcing them to conform to Christianity. The priorities are out of whack. Maybe it's changed, but I think only among recreational Christians. If you go to the hard fundamentalists, I'd be willing to bet many of them think we atheists should be put to death. Slightly ironic, if you ask me.
Come off it. If a person thinks the way to bring unify everyone is force, they are wrong in that. Listen to me here, Christianity at large is not out to force people to do anything. We do want people to convert, but of their own volition, and for their own sake. It's the choice of the person to listen to what we have to say.

And how much are we talking here? You are making some major assumptions about the nature of other people, based on them being fundamentalist Christians.

I have many Christian friends, and am rarely overt about my atheism. I ask questions, about the talking snake and Jonah in the whale or... etc, etc. I'm never satisfied by the reasoning, though.
I can answer those two to a somewhat-reasonable degree, I think.

I don't think so. I support physician assisted suicide, too. I support abortion on the basis of the woman's choice, not that I don't believe a fetus to be a life. While I frown upon partial birth abortion (because I don't think laziness should be advocated), I would go so far as to say that until the baby comes out, abortion should be legal.
The line seems very fine to exist between "perfectly acceptable" and "infanticide".

Imagine your life without science. You've lost... what? Ability for longevity of you and your family, you've lost a lot of fun, television and communication, travel, internet and knowledge. Now imagine your life without religion. What have you lost? A thought process. That's not so bad, is it?
Science and Christianity are not incompatible. Other religions, I can't vouch for. If atheism disappeared, we haven't lost much. Many major scientific discoveries were made by Jews and Catholics, so the drive to learn is certainly there. When reasoned about, God is not, was not tyrannical or cruel with people. Why avoid Him? Freedom from acknowledging supernature, and a thirst for knowledge. What else does it bring to the table?

What does it tell about me? We've been going at this general topic for a few months, if not longer. We've always been relatively civil, haven't we? I try to be, at least. I'm sure I hold back some of the same words and replies that you do. ;)
It wasn't about civility- you're fine on that front. It just seems very much like a conclusion that someone in your mindset would come to.
Back from the Hidden Land~
My Pokemon tabletop RPG project. Looking for feedback and ideas!