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The Forum > Article Comments > Christian liberty: are you serious?? > Comments

Christian liberty: are you serious?? : Comments

By Darren Nelson, published 11/5/2018

Christianity is by-far-and-away the most compatible religious faith or spiritual belief with Liberty.

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mhaze,

I re-read what I had said earlier about dumb luck to see if your misunderstanding was the result of sloppy wording on my part. Mostly because that’s the type of misunderstanding you would later interpret as a to-ing and fro-ing or a supposed attempt to re-frame debate.

“Even if they’re right, though, Christianity hardly deserves a pat on the back for what amounts to dumb luck.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=19729#349416)

Phew! What a relief!

I had preceded my comment with, “Even if they’re right, though…”

Even if they’re right? Even if who’s right? And about what? Luckily, that was explained in the preceding paragraph:

“People who claim that Christianity was the bedrock of civilization, or the foundation of liberal democracy...”

Yep, all appeared to be good at my end. So, what went wrong then? I went back to your post to see if there were any clues, and that’s when I saw it:

http://imgur.com/a/UAq6HLk

Oh boy.

Even creationists put ellipses when they omit a context-providing section of a quote they’re mining. Surely, I thought, mhaze isn’t more dishonest than a creationist!

Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, I copied and pasted your post into MS Word for a word count. Perhaps you’d run out words for that post? That wouldn’t explain the missing ellipsis, but I thought I’d check anyway.

343 words. *Tsk, tsk* You could have fit it in.

Oh, the lengths we have to go to when the person with whom we are dealing cannot be trusted to debate honestly!

As you said to Toni Lavis:

“...it’s certainly easier to make up [another’s] views and then disparage them...” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=19729#349437)

At least Toni Lavis is joking around when he does it, though.

<<The level of historic illiteracy required to allow someone to utter such a sentence is astounding.>>

Yeah, you’re telling me!

You know, you might actually do a little better in debates if you stopped assuming that everyone else is so stupid and uneducated.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 18 May 2018 9:48:11 PM
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A final thought, mhaze.

When I provided a list of possible motivations as to why you falsely equate atheism with theism, you replied with:

<<Or none of the above.>>

However, everything you say continues to suggest that your motivation is one of the possibilities I listed or a combination thereof. In fact, your very next claims (addressed in a previous post of mine) suggest that the third possibility was correct.

But first there was this:

“...atheists, despite their own self-image as individualistic free thinkers, seek the herd...” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=19729#349407)

The above suggests that you want to drag atheism down to the same level as theism by suggesting that atheists are equally bound by in inescapable drive. What you failed to realise, however, is that the atheist’s starting point makes them less likely to seek a herd, and does not influence where they go from there should they do so. Therefore, to paint atheists as equally religious is patently absurd.

In your latest response, you have seemingly sought to get around this by claiming that we all hold a faith-based belief of some sort (a rather pessimistic view of humanity, if you don't mind me saying so):

“We all have beliefs based on faith rather than clear evidence. We all convince ourselves that the evidence for those beliefs is good enough to justify the belief. For theists it’s the deity (and possibly other things). For atheists it’s something else. Just as theists aren’t necessarily part of a religion, some atheists won’t be part of a religion.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=19729#349437)

This isn’t necessarily the case for atheists, though, and even if it were, their faith-based positions would not be (and are not) determined by their atheism.

So, whichever of my listed motivating factors applies, it’s at least one of them, and your attempt to explain why your false equation wasn’t false only confirmed this.

Your argument is similar to Jordan Peterson’s claim that everyone is religious (debunked in the video linked to below), and employs the same fallacious tactic of equivocation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMhP59FnXgw
Posted by AJ Philips, Saturday, 19 May 2018 8:45:51 AM
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//Well it’s certainly easier to make up my views and then disparage them than to actually address anything I’ve said.//

Like you do with atheists, you mean?

I notice you've avoided addressing my comments about being a member of the Scouting movement whilst being atheist. What's the matter, mhaze? Did the Scouts not fit in with your one-dimensional stereotypes of things atheists like?

Your breath-taking lack of insight is a never-ending source of hilarity, mhaze. Keep up the good work.

//in my youth I was into war-gaming, using rules developed by the British army to train their officers. Re-examining history by recreating things like Waterloo, Cannae and Barbarossa.//

Wow, you must be fun at parties.

//As such we looked down on D&D-ites as mere fantasist as against we realists. Funny how that extends into adulthood!//

Awww, that's so cute. Mhaze thinks he's a realist, guys. XD

//OTOH we have a bloke who effective said, "Be excellent to each other"//

Yet people all over the world still love Jesus... go figure.

//Athens wasn't a democracy, at least not as we think of one... For a start women were excluded.//

By that argument, the West won't be a democracy until it implements universal suffrage.

Prisoners can't vote. I guess we're not a democracy then, mhaze?

//Do you realise how pathetic your argument looks when you have to delve this far into the bottom of the barrel?//

Umm... you do realise that the Scandinavians beat them to the punch, abolishing thralldom well before the idea occurred to your beloved Englishmen?

Never mind, your highly selective and one-eyed reading of history is nearly as amusing as a History channel 'documentary'. Carry on.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Saturday, 19 May 2018 12:14:38 PM
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Yuyutsu, Hiduism may have a doctrine of freewill, but it doesn't accept that each individual has the same inherent worth. Christianity does, and so does the modern doctine of human rights, which arises from Christianity. And it is that doctrine, as much as freewill, which gives rise to a liberal/free society. Being free to act, can be the freedom to act in unfree circumstances. People's worth has to be respected for it to be a free society.

Steele, cherrypicking a few examples of slavery having been repealed in certain circumstances doesn't take away from the fact that it was Christians who spearheaded the abolitionist movement on the basis of Christian theology. Misquoting Jesus won't get you around that - the references you make are to Paul.

It really is beyond dispute that Christianity gave rise to the modern western world, universal human rights, and the rules based system of exchange we call the free market. There is nothing else that can be said to do so. It certainly wasn't atheism.

As for atheism not being a religion, that too is absurd. The suffix "ism" gives it away. It is not the default position for humanity, but a system of thought which has the central irrational tenet that there is no god. That is as irrational as saying there is a god. Neither is susceptible of logical proof. We're both in the same boat, whether you like it or not. Although I suspect my concept of God is more rational than your concept of a lack of God.
Posted by GrahamY, Saturday, 19 May 2018 5:52:17 PM
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How could it be, Graham?

<<It certainly wasn't atheism.>>

Atheism has nothing to say about rights, rules, or markets. It is simply a position with regards to a single proposition. Where one goes from there is entirely up to the individual.

<<As for atheism not being a religion, that too is absurd.>>

You have still not provided any reasoning to support your assertion here. You are just digging your heels in again.

<<The suffix "ism" gives it away.>>

The -ism suffix does not necessarily denote religion. It may denote as little as a mere state:

“a suffix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form action nouns from verbs (baptism); on this model, used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence, etc.” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ism)

<<[Atheism] is not the default position for humanity …>>

Perhaps.

Philosphically and rationally speaking, however, atheism is the default position. Disbelief is always the default position for any given claim. We don’t just go around accepting every claim we hear and then wait for evidence to the contrary. If that were the case, then we would end up holding all sorts of contradictory beliefs.

<<[Atheism is] a system of thought which has the central irrational tenet that there is no god.>>

Wrong.

Firstly, atheism isn’t a system of thought. A system of thought, by definition, would require multiple tenets. Atheism, on the other hand, only has one: disbelief.

Secondly, the positive assertion that there is no god is specifically strong, explicit atheism. I’ve already been through this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

<<[Stong atheism] is as irrational as saying there is a god. Neither is susceptible of logical proof.>>

That would depend on what kind of a god you were talking about.

<<We're both in the same boat, whether you like it or not.>>

We? Who here has asserted that there is no god?

<<Although I suspect my concept of God is more rational than your concept of a lack of God.>>

Oh, please, tell us how you figure that!
Posted by AJ Philips, Saturday, 19 May 2018 6:51:32 PM
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Dear Graham,

«Hiduism may have a doctrine of freewill, but it doesn't accept that each individual has the same inherent worth.»

This depends on how you use the term "individual":

According to Hinduism, our individuality is an illusion: yes we seem to be separated islands, but this is due to ignorance and in truth and essence we are not separate - indeed we are God and as such we are all the same thus necessarily equal, with the exact same inherent worth. Christianity says that men and women were created in the image of God, but Hinduism goes further and doesn't stop at humans alone.

So much for our true identity. If however one refers as "individuals" to the humans which we mistakenly assume ourselves to be, then no sophistication or theology is even needed to see that these are not equal: one can easily observe that some humans are shorter others longer, some fatter others thinner, some intelligent others fool, some very capable others limited or disabled, etc. etc.

In that sense, though we all have the same inherent worth, our respective lives do not have the same worth.

Still, I cannot see how human inequality must be incompatible with a liberal/free society. In other words, I disagree that your condition:

«People's worth has to be respected for it to be a free society.»

is a necessary condition so a free society cannot exist without it - other foundations for a free society are quite possible and the Hindu concept of reverence for the one God which you truly are and everyone else truly is (even while the worth of our persons differs), is one such foundation.

Regarding human rights, I am not in a position to decide whether or not they are derived from Christianity, nor do I even wish to discuss whether they are good or bad, but clearly they are incompatible with a liberal society, for in order to give rights to one individual, other individual(s)' freedoms must be restricted.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Saturday, 19 May 2018 10:53:15 PM
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