Dear Not_Now.Soon,

You are a missionary and are behaving like other missionaries I have met. You believe in God. Fine. That is your belief, but don't expect other people to believe in God because you believe in God. Don't expect other people who have already thought deeply on the matter and have concluded that God is a human invention to rethink.

In this thread there was a discussion as to whether Jesus existed. Whether he did or not the account of his life and death in the New Testament did not happen. There have been no genuine miracles which have been attested without a doubt.

You wrote: "To love your neighbor as yourself. According to Jesus these are the two greatest laws that all the other rules in the law given through the prophets hinge on."

Leviticus 19:18 KJV: Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I [am] the LORD.

Jews don't need Jesus for that insight. It is in the Jewish Bible. The Jewish Jesus was citing what Jews know.

Jains, Hindus and Buddhists do not need Jesus for that insight. They have Ahimsa which extends love not only to one's neighbour but to all living creatures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

"Ahimsa ... means 'not to injure' and 'compassion' and refers to a key virtue in Indian religions. ... Ahimsa is also referred to as nonviolence, and it applies to all living beings—including all animals—in ancient Indian religions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder

Hillel said "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

You might profit by the last three words.

Not_Now.Soon,

If you’re interested in the role Christianity played in the rise of Western civilisation, I’d recommend the following:

- So You Just Can’t Bring Yourself to Believe: A Right-Wing Atheist’s Guide to the Next Best Thing, by Conservative McRightwinger

- Judeo-Christian But Definitely Not Islamic: How You Can Interpret History to Appear Inclusive While Still Remaining Divisive, by Rightie de Nationalist

- Diverting Attention From the Irrational Beliefs of Your Religious Political Allies: A Conservative’s Take on Christianity in the West for the Non-Believer, by Rightist McAltright

- Race and IQ: How Even Beliefs that Aren’t True Demonstrate the Supremacy of Whites, by Fascist McWhitey

In all seriousness, though, if you want some reading on the history of Christianity, I’d recommend ‘Lost Christianities’, a book by Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman. It’s a real eye-opener.

But, if you really want to communicate your beliefs with atheists, or try to convert them, then I’d recommend you first read Sam Harris’s ‘A Letter to a Christian Nation’. It was written as response to all the responses he received after releasing his book, ‘The End of Faith’, and gives a good explanation to Christians of how they come across to non-believers when they proselytise, and why their beliefs are seldom ever taken seriously.

NNS,

You might like to look at these various aspects of the issue:
Essay by Dalrymple, in my opinion, the greatest essayist of our age… http://www.city-journal.org/html/what-new-atheists-don%E2%80%99t-see-13058.html

This essay by Arnold Toynbee… the greatest historian of his age… http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/toynbee.html

Bernard Lewis book “What Went Wrong” is mainly about the reasons why Islam, which was far in advance of Christendom in say 1453 AD, failed. By extension it is therefore an examination of why the West succeeded.

Parts of Landes book “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” touches on the same issue.

Also let Mr Google be your friend. Google “Christianity Western Civilisation” and you’ll find an enormous number of articles on the issue.

Toni,
“If you put something out there, it's free for everyone to read, ignore, or comment upon as they see fit.”
No argument. Read what you want, ignore what you want. But reading a portion and then mischaracterising that as my entire view don’t expect a civil response. I see it as very uncivil and bordering on dishonest to attribute views to me that I don’t hold and have explicitly argued against. Don’t read it all if that’s your want. But don’t assume that you then understand my views sufficiently well to mock them.
At the least its uncivil…at the most dishonest.

"Selective readings of history and post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies remain unconvincing lines of argument."

How do you know that's my line of argument if you haven't read my line of argument?

Davidf,

“Apparently you didn't look up anything about Sharia “

When you seek to disparage Christianity you’ll happily troll back through the past 1500 years to find something, anything, that you can use. (The Crusades…really?). But in defending Islam, you’ll assert that because a few of its outposts have adopted Western (Christian) laws, in the past few generation then Sharia doesn’t exist. I’m not sure the Saudi women would agree, or those women in Iran arrested for showing their hair, or the victims of ISIS etc etc. This break from Sharia in some places is recent and may well be temporary. Is Turkey reverting to kind? Is Indonesia?
I’ll just note the hypocrisy of judging Christianity based on its FULL history, but Islam on SOME of its most recent history.

AJP,
Earlier I’d explained that you hadn’t disproven the deity only disproven/discredited the type of deity that you defined ie that the deity might be different to that which you described.

Now you say :
“Deities can be disproven, depending on how they’re defined.”

and

“there are some deities that can be disproven.”

Glad to see you caught up…..or caught on.

Elsewhere….

“ you had another crack at the ‘fallacy’ line. “
You raised it again. I’ve been happy to let it lie, so to speak.

Dear mhaze,

One don't have to troll back 1500 years to disparage Christianity. It does a pretty good job by itself. Hitler was a great twentieth century monster. The German churches almost all followed him and supported him. Their Christianity did little to oppose the hate and evil he promoted. Although the Catholic Church has excommunicated many Catholics it apparently didn't find reason to excommunicate Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_excommunicated_by_the_Catholic_Church:

"Fr. Roy Bourgeois (also laicized and dismissed from the Maryknoll Fathers) for participating in the ordination of a woman."

Hitler doesn't get excommunicated. Excommunication is only for those who the Church do something they consider really bad.

The reaction of most of the churches to the revelations of sexual molestation of children by clergy was to cover up their crimes. In Australia PM Turnbull recently announced that he planned to make Australia one of the leading arms suppliers. Tim Costello objected, but the churches have been silent in general. Possibly they want to continue to feeding at the public trough with tax exemptions and public money going to support their schools and other activities. Meanwhile the churches subject children to their fairy tales.

Out and out evil appeals to just about nobody so churches can point to hospitals and other benevolent institutions that they operate. However, in consideration of the blood money of the arms trade and other great wrongs of the society in which we live they are largely silent. Unfortunately, other religions follow the same pattern. They don't want to upset governmental support so they support the government. Religion seems only concerned with sex. For morality in general don't look to religion. Their collective snouts are busy slurping goodies from the public trough.

mhaze,

Yes, but this is where the ambiguity of your language potentially creates confusion - almost as if your wording had been purposefully left ambiguous so as to allow you some wriggle room in the event that you were challenged. I’ll show you what I mean…

<<Earlier I’d explained that you hadn’t disproven the deity only disproven/discredited the type of deity that you defined …>>

Yes, but what exactly is “the deity”? Because, “the deity” is what you spoke of in your initial claim to Not_Now.Soon, too:

“The error many believers make on pages such as this or in life generally is to try to explain their belief in the deity by logical reasoning. But that is an impossibility. The deity can neither be proven nor disproven through logic.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8106#251950)

Without a description from Not_Now.Soon of who or what exactly his deity is (and there is a diverse range of opinions on who/what God is within Christianity), “the deity” can only be interpreted to mean ‘any deity’.

Therefore, it was reasonable for me to have given you an example of a deity that COULD be disproven, and your nit-picking over the definition of ‘benevolent’ was irrelevant to that.

<<Now you say :>>

As if anything had changed. That's adorable.

No, how one defines God was always a caveat. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have specified a version of God which could be disproven. You had needlessly diverted us onto an irrelevant tangent with regards to different interpretations of what omnibenevolence means when, either way, I had already demonstrated that at least one form of god could be disproven.

Nice try, though.

You still haven’t pointed to an understanding of the word ‘good’ for which an unlimited amount would result in a world with the level of suffering and evil which we have witnessed throughout history either, by the way.

<<You raised [the fallacy line] again. I’ve been happy to let it lie, so to speak.>>

Indeed I did. However, that does not change the fact that you took the opportunity to repeat a falsehood of yours used slanderous purposes.