If you want to defend Christianity DL, surely you have to talk about Christianity not some unspecified 'xnxx posters'?

Christianity is basically false, is it not? Like all the other religions each of which claims to be the one true faith while all the others are false.

 

That's pretty rich coming from you. When you spew bigotry and broad racial stereotypes, it's all rooted in the "the facts" but when others criticize Christianity's historical and contemporary faults, it's mean spirited and unfair!
With a few exceptions, I think the critiques here have been perfectly well reasoned, but you can't win the argument, so you cry foul.

 

My so called "bigotry" consists of posting well documented facts about racial differences. Because no one can answer my arguments they shout "Racist!" at me.

Contemporary Christianity in its entirety is benign. To find anything to criticize one has to discuss the Westboro Baptist Church, or one has to go back to the Spanish Inquisition. Even the Spanish Inquisition was restricted to one country and one Christian denomination.

Most of what little civilization survived during the European dark ages was sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. Most of our knowledge of the ancient world comes from pagan writings copied and recopied in Christian monasteries.

 

Nonsense. The Westboro Baptist Church is only the most extreme example. You see all manner of xenophobia and reactionary politics promoted by various different evangelical churches, including anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and a primitive fear of science and basic reason. It exhibits itself quite prominently on the right wing of American politics as you well know. The Catholic Church continues to promote homophobia, while it protects sexual predators who used their position of authority to abuse helpless victims. Try telling them how benign the Church is.

Honestly, I don't see this anti-Christian bias you're talking about--this charge seems like another dodge to me. Someone like Dave is opposed to all religions as a matter of principle. I'm open to various different spiritual traditions, but I'm mistrustful of organized religions and the ways that elite human beings try to warp them. I tend to talk about Christianity more simply because that was the tradition I was raised in, but I could make a lot of the same criticisms of Islam, Judaism and the rest in their more extreme forms. I would not go so far as to damn all religions in their entirety and in fact, many do perform good deeds, both in terms of charitable acts and cultural contributions. So it's a complicated picture, but to try to argue that modern Christianity is completely blameless is ludicrous, just more one sided bigotry on your part.

 

I have followed the religious right with interest and a certain amount of sympathy since 1980. I have never heard antisemitism expressed by leaders of the religious right. I differ with Protestant Fundamentalists about biology and astronomy. I regret the support the religious right has given to the Republican Party.

Nevertheless, I agree with the religious right in bemoaning the increase in illegitimacy and divorce since 1959. Children raised to adulthood by both biological parents living together in matrimony tend to do better in life than children raised in other arrangements.

During my life I have attended services in eight different Christian denominations. I have never heard homosexuals condemned in any of those services. Several denominations where I attended services had outreach efforts to help AIDS victims. The only time I even heard homosexuals mentioned in a church service was when an Episcopal clergyman used the parable of the Good Samaritan to recommend acceptance of homosexuals.

The Roman Catholic Church is being justly chastened because of the priestly pedophile scandal, but there is far more to the church than that scandal.

 

To name just one example, John Hagee, pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, preaches the belief that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves by angering God. Of course, in more recent decades, we've seen the growth of "Christian Zionism", the belief that the "ingathering" of Jews in Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. This naturally leads to the support of various military adventures in the Middle East, the "blow 'em all up and let God sort 'em out" kind of mentality.

 

This is just a function of the society the church operates within.

Mainstream church in a benign society = 'benign' church.

But false.

Eight different 'denominations' says it all, don't you think?

 

Just typical for Christians and their hate spreading, tax exempt megachurches to pretend the victims in this scenario. While they have been the perpetrators throughout history.

Forget Westboro Baptist church, they just follow the literal interpretation of the bible, you know, what it actually says they should do.

Let's talk about the pope telling Africans condoms are worse than Aids.
Let's talk about the way fundamentalists treat homosexuals.
Let's talk about women that are pregnant through rape having to go through a Christian picket line at the abortion clinic.
Let's talk about Christians preventing life saving research because they think some frozen cells constitute a life.

These are just some of the atrocities Christians are committing in modern times. The further back we go the worse it gets.

 

Time for quick word from Christopher.

[YOUTUBE]mQorzOS-F6w[/YOUTUBE]

 

I must be a forum God, I dominate with such ease its painful

Bow down ladies and assume the position

as for brothers and white homies

look at me now!

 

i work through the arm of our lord destroying evil with my hatchet

 

i like to dominate the meek. its crows my prowess

 

sgtrange folks up in here dat for sho

 

If I was the admin here I ban those guilty of blasphemy and sacrilege.

 

fuck you

 

It is never appropriate to use words like that.

 

Well it's a good thing you're not admin then. It wouldn't be the first time Christians have tried to silence those with contrasting views. At least you are not advocating imprisonment and death like the good old days of Catholicism.

 

Wow. Please define your terms.

God willing, you'll never be anointed admin around these parts!

 

He was the best.

 

I watched John Hagee's program many times, and he never said that the Jews brought on the Holocaust on themselves when I was watching. He may have said that, but I never heard it.

Christian Zionism causes Christians to support Israel, and consequently the Jews.