Shadow,
Just last Monday, a few of us on this thread went through some soul searching as to whether or to what extent we should expend our energies on name calling. Accusing me of believing the earth is flat is not the same as calling me a ‘dropkick', but it’s on about the same level of mentality. No one here is claiming the earth is flat. And as for no one taking me seriously, I notice that you take me seriously enough to quite often respond after I post a comment.

Science is often good at determining how things work. It is less capable of explaining how they occurred or how they came to be. That’s the domain of historians. The reason for this is the scientific method’s reliance on repeatability. Unfortunately history can’t be repeated. For example, archaeologists may try and use scientific applications to investigating historic events and get into arguments with historians. Archaeologists spend most of their time in the humanities and classics departments rather than on the other side of the university where those are dealing with the hard sciences.

Relda,
Sells has no problem with Darwinism or evolution and says we should ‘leave it to the scientists’. But which scientists? Leave it to a majority vote? Gone are the days when anyone can claim (and it is usually the humanities types doing so) that no serious scientist accepts creation over evolution.

Fractelle,
You are willing to quote me but seemed to miss what I said.

I specifically did not say that atheists were immoral. I did not say atheists have bad behaviour or commit more crimes. I was questioning the basis of their moral conduct. Or in other words, when they do good works, what is their moral basis? Their nature inclining them towards empathy and compassion derives from what?

Here are a few suggestions: residue of societal customs based around a Christian heritage and the Ten Commandments, an intuitive sense of obligation placed into our conscience reflecting the moral nature of humanity’s Creator. Or is it something else completely?

Davidf
I am also a bit unclear about your basis for what you’re saying.

On one hand you seem to have given up belief in any God and are negative towards all religions or any systemised world-view. You spoke of the virtues of someone “uncontaminated by Christianity or any other religion.” And you say that, “People believe in many different religions or no religion. To teach any of those ideas as truth is almost certainly spreading error.”

On the other hand, you are devoted to some Jewish form of belief or adherence. You say, “‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ along with other injunctions in the New Testament is taken from the Jewish Bible. One can say of the new Testament: What is new is not good, and what is good is not new.”

So I’m wondering what is the basis of your views, and your yardstick for ascribing something as good or not good. Is it one taken from atheism, or is it a theistic faith? It is clear that you make certain value judgements for you declare that a God who condemned his son to torment is not a God to believe in.

On the topic of Christians blaming the Jews for Jesus’ death, Mel Gibson took criticism for his alleged anti-Semitism for his movie portrayal of Jesus’ death. But he made it clear that those who were to blame included the Jews, the Romans, and Jesus’ disciples; no one escapes blame, including Jesus himself.

George: >>Christianity is not a continuation of Judaism.<<
Right or wrong, I never claimed Lustiger said this. Please cheque what I wrote. Lustiger spoke of his PERSONAL journey from Judaism to Christianity.

Luckily I - as well as many other Christians and Jews - do not find convictions sincerely held by people of different religions/world-views “insulting“, even if we strongly disagree with them.

Dear George,

I fail to understand you. Why should the fact that a conviction is sincerely held prevent it from being insulting?

To quote you:

He saw his conversion as a continuation of his Jewishness.

Lustiger made a religious conversion. To regard a conversion to another religion as a continuation of his religion (from what I know of Lustiger by Jewishness he meant the Jewish religion) implies to me that religion B is a continuation of religion A.

david f,
OK, I should not have used the word “continuation”, Lustiger probably formulated it differently. By Jewishness he obviously did not mean the religion, since he changed it, but his Jewish ethnicity or cultural background he grew up in. I think it is accepted now that many, if not most, of the early Christians living in Rome, prosecuted by Nero etc., were ethnic Jews.

>>Why should the fact that a conviction is sincerely held prevent it from being insulting?<<
Nothing can prevent you from feeling insulted by other people’s convictions. What I meant was that different people find different things insulting (c.f. the Mohammed caricatures), and that I (and others) are not insulted by things that for honest people are part of their world-view (i.e. not just malicious remarks or mockery).

There are people that I would not consider honest - e.g. the Nazis - but those are extreme cases. Except for these, I and many others (including Jews and Christians) respect comprehensive world-views (please do not ask me to define them) we cannot share, and try to learn from the reasons given by people who convert or otherwise change their world-view.

I see now I should not have mentioned Lustiger to you. My apologies.

Dan,

It is possible to claim that the earth is flat if one simply ignores the contrary evidence.

Your assertion that science is not very good at working out how things happenned is false, and sole purpose of which is to discredit the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution. Thus the flat earth comparison.

Forensic science applied to criminal investigations is exceptionally good at piecing evidence together and to build a case beyond reasonable doubt. The requirement that a crime be recreated to be proved valid, would ensure a 0% conviction rate.

Likewise, the body of forensic evidence of fossil records while it will never be able to build a 100% perfect picture, has shown beyond reasonable doubt that man developed through an evolutionary process.

What remains is to work on the details.

George: There are people that I would not consider honest - e.g. the Nazis.

We disapprove of the Nazi beliefs, but they were honest about those beliefs. They were not taken seriously until too late.

Dan: “On one hand you seem to have given up belief in any God and are negative towards all religions or any systemised world-view.”

I am positive toward the systemised world-view employing the scientific method as the best way of knowing about the structure of our world.

Dan: what is the basis of your views, and your yardstick for ascribing something as good or not good. Is it one taken from atheism, or is it a theistic faith?

Supernatural belief or its lack has nothing to do with morality.

Morality evolved before humanity. Bees sacrifice themselves for the hive. Wolves help their injured and sick fellows. Humans invented God and connected that invention with morality.

One moral guide found in and out of religion is “What I would not like done to me don’t do to others”. Therefore I oppose torture. I also feel obligated to try to change things for the better. That involves actions against militarism, racism and environmental destruction. It involves opposition to any tyranny over the mind and body of humans along with promotion of critical thinking, education and a more equitable distribution of resources. Another moral guide is, “Be kind and question authority.”

Dan: “On the topic of Christians blaming the Jews for Jesus’ death…”

From Bishop Spong’s website (http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/):

“And the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children'" (Matt. 27:25)&#8232; No other verse of Holy Scripture has been responsible for so much violence and so much bloodshed. People convinced that these words conferred legitimacy and even holiness on their hostility have killed millions of Jewish people over history. Far more than Christians today seem to understand, to call the Bible "Word of God" in any sense is to legitimize this hatred reflected in its pages.”

The historical record exists. It doesn’t matter who Gibson blamed.