Christians stand with two thousand years of darkness and bafflement and hunger behind them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQiyltvIcEQ

Philip Tang,

<<Go tell it to the Pakistanis, Burmese monks, Sudan refugees, Iraqis, Palestinians, victims of senseless shooting in unis, victims of rape and child abuse on a large scale never seen before.

Not only is AJ ignorant of the facts going round him...>>

Not only did I mention that there would be the occasional setback (earlier), but notice that none of the people you're talking about live in secular democracies?

But, Philip, we've already been through all this in another thread, haven't we?

<<...probably evolved the wrong way!>>

Another topic I've raised with you is the tactics used by Creationists when they feel threatened - ad hominem attacks is one of them.

George,
Apologies if you think I over-reacted.
I don’t know if it was the facts I presented or the way I presented them that you found offensive but they were indeed mostly facts and not opinions.

Perhaps, like you, I should have included an emphasis on “some” and not suggested that was representative of the whole picture.

However, unlike you I was born just after the War but my immigrant Russian/Polish parents spent the last half of WW2 interred as prisoners in a German labour camp where they experienced many things.

The attitude they passed onto me was that people should not only know the truth but are entitled to know the “whole truth” about that era – not the often romanticised and simplified Hollywood version we are subjected to. They vainly hoped that this would prevent such horrors happening again but were obviously mistaken.

However, I can't blame them entirely for my beliefs.

My own contribution to my attitude is to be aware of any organisation (political, social, or religious) that loses its way and places itself above the interests of individual members of that organisation.

I think that's pretty reasonable.

wobbles,
<< if it was the facts I presented or the way I presented them that you found offensive >>
Neither, nor; as I wrote it was your first sentence, but never mind. This time there is certainly not one sentence in your post that I could object to.

I had no first hand - not even second hand like you - experience of the Nazi horrors. My parents, living in a Central European country, were - not being Jewish - sufficiently unimportant to come into the Nazi (or their collaborators’) limelight. However, I had my experience with the Communists, although this certainly could not be compared with what your relatives went through. I was thrown out of the university (because of my “religious superstitions”) and had to work manually for a couple of years, that was all.

A couple of decades later - when for some reasons I was trying to recall these events - I could remember many names of people who helped me, but could not recall the name of the person who was conducting the interrogations etc. And I was very happy about this lapse of my memory. Of course, I am not talking here about justice, only about a mental disposition that I think is healthier than being absorbed in hatred that is seldom rational, and can easily involve “innocent bystanders“.

I read a lot about the Holocaust, etc. but perhaps no book impressed (and shocked) me so much as Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. A psychologist, allegedly comparable to Freud and Adler, and Holocaust (Auschwitz) survivor gives here a matter of fact (as seen by a psychologist) description of the hell those people had to go through that he was a witness to and, being a psychologist, could have a deeper insight into. Notwithstanding this, the book ends with the following observation:

“After all, man is that being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

I’m happy you agree Pericles. You should’ve read Kelly’s article though, its from this that these silly arguments are taken.

On your various arguments let me ask:
What parts of the NT do you accept? How do you personally know myth from biography? How familiar are you with the genres? And for those that you consider myth can you provide evidence?

The difference in meaning between creation and discovery is about as clear as two english words can be.

>>Many Christians have taken it upon themselves to do adopt this view. Is this pure coincidence?<<

It would have to be coincidence given the consistent teaching of Christianity. Christians read that we’re made in God’s image, and that Creation is intrinsically good – only people of a Gnostic bent believe all desires, and the material world, are dirty and evil. Christians won the debate with the Gnostics early on.

Disobedience distorts human nature – its from this that our desires become disordered. Virtue is the victory in the civil war between ordinate and inordinate desires.

Explain how atheist definition of evidence is not selective please.

>>Codswallop. If anything, there are too many answers.<<

I agree, Kelly doesn’t.

Your last sentence is confused. Do you mean someone of religious commitment ought not speak as if their beliefs are true? Islam has the death penalty for apostasy are you confusing Christianity and Islam? It is from within the Judeo-Christian civilisation that we have freedom of conscience, religion, and speech – nowhere else.

Assuming you’re saying Christians don’t bother about the rational grounds for belief let me challenge you. If you were honest you would be able to articulate Christian belief, show why Christians think they’re correct, outline the historical evidence for Christian claims, and do justice to the arguments for the existence of God.

In this way you would avoid the suspicion of hypocrisy and demonstrate that you don’t just dogmatically assert your suite of beliefs. Judging by what you have written in here I’m confident I’d make a better case for atheism than you.