I note the Christian apologists on the forum don't mention the elephant in the room, the Catholic Church, the biggest user and abuser of all times. They though it was safe to throw up a couple of non-descripts, with runner its Hillsong, and Is Mise the Seventh Day Adventists. One a money grabbing bunch who's leader and mega rich founder was exposed as covering up the actions of his disgusting pedophilic father! The other mob were easily exposed as the wacko's from Waco. A couple of sorry examples fellas, you'll have to do better.

Hi Joe, my position is ALL religions are off the planet, including Islam, by their very nature they attract crazy people. When it comes to religion Americans can be as loony as the best of them. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate Christian Cult committed suicide because they believed there was an alien space craft following the comet Hale–Bopp, and they were going to get on board and fly to heaven. Jay pointed out that its only say 2% that attend the mosque, and we can apply that to the church as well, regularly. Lets thank the nonexistent god for that.

Doesn't seem to be getting across, so I'll repeat.

"Is Mise, they don't need too, they carry out sieges where dozen die"

Where did the SDAs carry out a siege?

I'd really like to know.

Hi Paul,

There are no gods. Gods don't create ethical systems, societies do, and then sanctify them through religion. But ethical systems can't be completely controlled: hence all manner of splits and schisms and sects - and notions which might build on one of those ethical principles, but go off in a non-religious direction, despite efforts by religious authorities to control them. In other words, ethics can involve power as well as religion, but can evolve away from those reactionary bases.

MY point was that, like it or not, our ethical principles (I presume you have some?) aren't just dreamed up from nothing: they have origins, indirect and very attenuated as they may be, with some earlier ethical bases, in and amongst the various strands of our histories. I mentioned the Greeks, Romans (they DID do something for us), the Judaic traditions on which Christianity was partly based, the Indians, Phoenicians, the tribal nature of pre-Christian Europe.

They all contributed to our civilisation as it is now, and to its many ethical strands, via the slowly and painfully-constructed Enlightenment values, what one may call Enlightenment ethics.

All those ethical bases, worked and re-worked during the last five hundred especially, contributed. But of course, many ethical principles, of justice, freedom, love and equality, have severed their dependence on any religious links long, long ago.

To get BTT: the ethical bases of Islam are also varied, but from many quite different sources: Arab desert-tribal organisation, Persian, Indian, north African and Central Asian influences, absolutism, rigid attention to one written source, misogyny, brutal 'evangelism', and a casual attitude to human life. Those basic principles may be justified by religion but also throw up, among others, the fascist version of Islam known as Salafism, which is not necessarily religious, rather than about the raw and violent seizure of power. Not much justice, freedom, love and equality there.

As an atheist and ex-Marxist, I'm comfortable with acknowledging that much of Western ethics derive indirectly from the sources I mentioned above, often with violent opposition from religious authorities. That's history for you :)

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,

Thanks for that, its a good account of what is so. Despite the good positives in religion, and there is much in the way of that in religious people, I find it difficult, on balance to say religion in general has been a plus for mankind. I believe much of what has been achieved in the name of religion would have came about simply by the inherent goodness of man. The vast majority of people do not commit murder not because it is against the law, or against the teaching of religion, but because they believe it to be morally wrong to do so.

Sorry, Is Mise you'll have to talk to runner on that one he's got all the haps on those sorts of things. Yep, no question about it Branch Davidians, aka The Seventh Day Adventist, were the wacko's at Waco and involved in a siege and shoot out. In this case I do believe they were on the receiving end. Is there a Seventh Day Adventist Church in your area, what's it like on the inside? Do you attend regular, or only for hatch n' match n' and dispatch n'?

I'd really like to know!

Paul 1405,
Who said the Catholic Church is the biggest user and abuser of all time? Compared to what? Can you cite some comparisons, perhaps with the Islamic Madrassa system in Asia or the Jewish Yeshivahs?
Are Catholic schools more of a rip off than Islamic or Jewish ones? Which religion bilks more out of it's followers and which returns the highest percentage of tithes and donations as charity?

Paul,

Having comprehension problems again I see.
The besieged are not the ones carrying out the siege, the ones carrying besieging are the ones carrying out the siege.

So when did the SDAs carry out a siege?
You're the one that said that they did so you're the one who ought to give a reference.

On another point the crimes carried out by Christians are totally irrelevant when compared to those committed and being committed by Muslims.
The Christians are in defiance of their founder's teachings, the Muslims are following their founder's teachings; therin lies the peril.