patrick.net

Heraclitusstudent says

the texts do not specify

Technically, they do offer elaborate descriptions, but those don't solve the problem. The purportedly omnipotent deity has power to answer prayers, but decides for himself when he will answer them. So, if Omar tried to pray away the gay, and asked why his prayers had not been answered, the Imam's answer would be that it isn't the right time yet. When is the right time? When he proves himself worthy. On June 12, he became everything he and his family wanted him to be, by accomplishing his particularly special mission on earth. All is now right with the world, according to Islam: the Muslims get the house and life insurance money, and the infidels burn in hell, and the shaheed gets to enjoy his 72 virgins, as described, according to the charlatan Mohamed's fraudulent promise.

Heraclitusstudent says

Except of course Christianity doesn't teach it's all forgiven provided you go postal and start shooting in the crowd.

What Christianity teaches is irrelevant. What matters is how Christians behave.

According to the Christian god a person is morally obligated to allow a home intruder to rape his or her entire family to death and not lift a finger in violence against that person. Yes, this is exactly what the Christian says, and this is the justification.
1. It is always immoral to kill or harm another regardless of your reason. Life is created by the Christian god and no human should take it or desecrate a person's body with harm.
2. All the suffering in this life, including your entire family being raped to death, is utterly insignificant compared to an eternity of either perfect bliss or unimaginable torture.
3. You should forgive and love the raping murderer even while he is raping and murdering your family.
4. You and your entire family will be rewarded in heaven for all the suffering you endure in while following the commandments of the Christian god including taking no violent action to stop the home intruder from raping and killing your family. The more you suffer, the better because the greater the rewards in heaven will be. It's also morally good that you suffer because not using violence to stop the suffering is the right thing to do according to the sole unquestionable moral authority in existence.
5. Any punishment the home intruder receives should only be doled out by the Christian god, but you should hope the person who raped your family to death repents and joins you in heaven because that is the Christian's god will and if you are a devote Christian you'll look forward to playing Parcheesi with him and your family in heaven for the rest of eternity.

This is what Christianity teaches, and there isn't a Christian in all of human history who accepts this teaching. The more devote Christians are gun enthusiasts who would want a person to try to break into their home and rape their family just so they have a justification to murder the "bad guy" and be a hero. Devote American Christians want to murder bad guys and "save the day" even though this life is supposed to only be a test of faith according to their religion and they are failing that test of faith by attacking the intruder.

So no, the Christian mythology gets no credit for making the world a less violent or more moral place. In fact, all religions especially Christian ones have held back the advancement of morality for thousands of years. Scientific study of morality and social living including in non-human species and mathematical development of Game Theory are the truly effective tools for better understanding morality and applying it to both simple and very complex situations. Put simply, morality is a scientific, not religious, subject and only science can make us live together better.

Dan8267 says

So no, the Christian mythology gets no credit for making the world a less violent or more moral place.

I'm not sure a rant against Christianity is warranted here.
I'm not saying Christianity is exempt from the perversions I described. Clearly it shares into the same corrupted vision of the universe. Every natural instinct if a sin in this tradition like it is with Islam. Nature has fallen.

Nonetheless it is far more benign and less virulent than Islam is, both in terms of teachings and based on how its adherents behave.

Dan8267 says

1. If you think a right can be abused, then you don't really think it's a right.

It seems like a right on paper, but in practice, I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment that it isn't truly a right.

Dan8267 says

2. I have applied my logic to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment hasn't been in effect since at least WWII since as it is written and as it is intended, the Second Amendment means you can have nuclear arms. After all, nuclear arms are arms and the Second Amendment says the right to bear "arms" not "guns". There is nothing special about guns that would make the Second Amendment apply only to them and not any other type of arm.

That's at least one significant reason why I'm not inclined to consider the second amendment a right, in practice.

Dan8267 says

3. The Second Amendment is just plain stupid having been written at a time when all people had were muskets and pitch forks

Once again, I also fundamentally agree with this sentiment, that the second amendment is somewhat antiquated; its shortcomings, while not addressed fully have at least been addressed periodically over the years, albeit imperfectly. Having said that, the founding fathers also did not understand that there is no such thing as bad publicity and that publicity is valuable compensation for illegal acts in the context of a terrorist act. The First Amendment needs to be modified to allow the media to be punished harshly for giving of terrorists free publicity. I would like to see such vigor in pursuing the first amendment reform as is the case with the second amendment.

HydroCabron says

Cliven Bundy and his buddies are arguably as much terrorists as the Orlando asshole

guy might be a kook but who did he kill again?

curious2 says

On June 12, he became everything he and his family wanted him to be, by accomplishing his particularly special mission on earth. All is now right with the world, according to Islam: the Muslims get the house and life insurance money, and the infidels burn in hell, and the shaheed gets to enjoy his 72 virgins, as described, according to the charlatan Mohamed's fraudulent promise.

Yep. We must have the same policies in these cases as the British and Israelis had. Demolish the family member's homes or at least seize any insurance and asset transfers done in the lead up to the killing, with broad unspecified timeframes based on when the radicalization happened (otherwise terrorists will just space these things outside the date range, ie 90 days)

Dan8267 says

According to the Christian God a person is morally obligated to allow a home intruder to rape his or her entire family to death and not lift a finger in violence against that person. Yes, this is exactly what the Christian says, and this is the justification.

There is no scripture I've ever read that says that. In fact, if you see a wrong being done and stand by, you are just as guilty as the person doing it:
http://www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVSermons/WhenGoodMenDoNothing.htm

Try pulling that at my house, I'll introduce you to my intruder alert system. It's got high accuracy, and is the best cure for recidivism known to man, the bullet.

Dan8267 says

I have applied my logic to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment hasn't been in effect since at least WWII since as it is written and as it is intended, the Second Amendment means you can have nuclear arms.

No, it doesn't, and that explains why your logic is that of a binary machine programmer and not a judge of laws and evidence. The statue of justice holds a scale, not a PC. You have to weigh evidence and reason towards the most likely conclusion. I enjoyed Rew's comment about a "need to be armed with ships of the line and horse", which I doubt the founders intended.

If you believe in original intent, as Scalia claimed to, then you start with the kind of arms the founders could keep and bear, i.e. carry, and those would be flintlock pistols and muskets, each capable of firing a single shot before reloading. If you stick within that same order of magnitude, you might get to something like the assault weapons ban that we had from 1994-2004. SCOTUS recently let stand a 2nd circuit decision upholding a similar ban at the state level. High capacity magazines (10+) and semi-automatic fire are an order of magnitude greater than what the founders could keep and bear, and nuclear weapons were not even theoretically possible at that time.

If you don't believe in original intent, then you can apply whatever logic you like, but if you're a bodybuilder bulking up to carry your own personal ICBM, you won't get many to agree with you now that Scalia is gone.

NuttBoxer says

Dan8267 says

According to the Christian God a person is morally obligated to allow a home intruder to rape his or her entire family to death and not lift a finger in violence against that person. Yes, this is exactly what the Christian says, and this is the justification.

There is no scripture I've ever read that says that

The gospel according to Luke 6:27-36

27“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

NuttBoxer says

Try pulling that at my house, I'll introduce you to my intruder alert system. It's got high accuracy, and is the best cure for recidivism known to man, the bullet.

Which is why Christianity has done NOTHING to make Christians more moral. You are confirming exactly what I said.

Dan8267 says

This is what Christianity teaches, and there isn't a Christian in all of human history who accepts this teaching. The more devote Christians are gun enthusiasts who would want a person to try to break into their home and rape their family just so they have a justification to murder the "bad guy" and be a hero. Devote American Christians want to murder bad guys and "save the day" even though this life is supposed to only be a test of faith according to their religion and they are failing that test of faith by attacking the intruder.

So no, the Christian mythology gets no credit for making the world a less violent or more moral place. In fact, all religions especially Christian ones have held back the advancement of morality for thousands of years.

curious2 says

If you believe in original intent, as Scalia claimed to, then you start with the kind of arms the founders could keep and bear, i.e. carry, and those would be flintlock pistols and muskets, each capable of firing a single shot before reloading.

The original intent of the Second Amendment was that the people could overthrow the federal government by force if necessary. The founding fathers had just staged a revolution and they believed that future revolutions might be necessary.

I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.

Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787

If we go by the letter or the spirit of the Second Amendment, any arm available to the federal government would have to be available to the people.

The founding fathers could not have anticipated the incredible advancement of technology over the past 200 years. It should not be surprising that a temporary constitution, intended to be rewritten every generation, would have in it a provision that was sensible in the 18th century but utterly ridiculous in the 20th century.

Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. It may be said, that the succeeding generation exercising, in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to nineteen years only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived, that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:459, Papers 15:396

Call that binary thinking if you like but I'm not advocating the wisdom of uninfringed arms. In fact, I'm demonstrating that applying the Second Amendment in any time in the past 70 years would have been insane. The fact remains that the framers of the Constitution did not carve out special treatment of guns as opposed to other arms. No twisting of history can square that circle. If you elevate the Second Amendment to the level of a religious dogma, then you must accept nuclear arms being protected just as much as firearms. If you make a distinction between arms based on how destructive they are then you reject the very principle that the "right to bear arms be uninfringed" and where you draw the arbitrary line is a matter of debatable preference, not principle.

If anything, admitting that the state can, does, and must infringe the right to bear arms by limiting what kinds of arms can be borne is the very definition of non-binary thinking. By the way, you can represent any fuzzy logic in base two and execute fuzzy logic in binary digital circuits. Using two discrete states does not force one into dichotomies, false or otherwise. Real life programming isn't what I think you think it is.

In any case, it is painfully obvious that our society would be destroyed if we actually let anyone have any arms they wanted. All it would take is one crazy to end everything. So none of us truly believes that the right to bear arms should have no infringements. The only question is where to draw the line. I object to the unquestionable assertion that guns, for some unspecified reason, have a sacred status that does not apply to any other arm. They are just points on a continuum of destructiveness.

Dan8267 says

I'm demonstrating that applying the Second Amendment

You haven't demonstrated that. To the contrary, you've quoted Thomas Jefferson, whom I love but who is not generally considered an author of the second amendment, on the subject of Shay's Rebellion. Granted it's been a while, but if memory serves, Shay's rebellion did not use nuclear arms. Also, Shay's rebellion was definitely put down. So, you've demonstrated that a person who didn't write the Second Amendment praised a non-nuclear rebellion that didn't succeed, and might even have liked the idea that government overreach might result occasionally in some rebellion including bloodshed. It's like the idea that if you kick a dog too many times, he might turn around and bite you and even draw some blood: such a dog can deter you without being able to kill you and eat you.

curious2 says

Granted it's been a while, but if memory serves, Shay's rebellion did not use nuclear arms.

I think you're missing the point. The Constitution isn't suppose to be dogma. Each generation is suppose to determine what changes are needed for society to prosper and accept or reject the ideas of older generations based on their merits in a changing world. Therefore, to pretend that Americans have some sacred right to bear guns because of an amendment to the Constitution that does not even mention guns, but rather all arms, is quite indefensible.

Furthermore, the idea of frequent recurring revolutions as Jefferson and other founders believed was necessary is simply implausible today. As such, the intent of the Second Amendment simply does not apply to the 21st century.

Are you refuting either of these points, and if so, on what basis?

Dan8267 says

on what basis?

The founders kept and bore guns, which they called arms. If you want to call the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments superannuated and no longer applicable, then you may try to repeal them using the amendment process, but you'll get no help in that from me. If you want to know what a real argument on gun control looks like, check Rep. John Lewis from the House floor yesterday. Watching you try to argue Constitutional law and policy is like watching Bernie trying to program a PC.

Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree because we are no longer having a rational discussion about this.

Ironman says

Funny how that happens with every thread you enter and post in.... Why is that??

It doesn't. curious2 and I just disagree on this issue, but even when we disagree we can keep it civilized, which is something a whiny little bitch like you cannot.

By the way, the only post you should be making now is your address in response to Dan8267 says

I accept your invitation. Just reply to this message right now with your home address. I may still be able to get reasonably priced plane tickets. If not, I can always send one of my friends in NJ to say high to you and snap a couple of pictures. Of course you are not going to post your real name or home address because you are a lying coward and an invitation that has no location isn't really an invitation. Now is it? It's a bluff by a coward. But hey, prove me wrong. If you don't, you are demonstrating what a lying little cowardly bitch you are and have always been.

Until then, coward, nothing you say carries weight.

Dan8267 says

The gospel according to Luke 6:27-36

John 2:13-16
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.”

The passage you referenced refers exclusively to these things being done to you, not your family. Are you really that desperate to be right that you'd intentionally misrepresent the Bible?

Dan8267 says

NuttBoxer says

Try pulling that at my house, I'll introduce you to my intruder alert system. It's got high accuracy, and is the best cure for recidivism known to man, the bullet.

Which is why Christianity has done NOTHING to make Christians more moral. You are confirming exactly what I said.

And you've just stated that shooting someone who attempts to rape your family is immoral... Nice set of values psycho.

NuttBoxer says

The passage you referenced refers exclusively to these things being done to you, not your family. Are you really that desperate to be right that you'd intentionally misrepresent the Bible?

The passage I reference clearly states that one should gladly accepting suffering rather than harm others. But hey, you're dodging the point. If a person broke into your house and you lived alone, would you refrain from shooting him to stop him from raping and killing just you? Of course not. So you reject the teachings of your god. So do I. I'm just honest about it. Christianity is stupid and a poor basis of morality. That said, Christianity clearly has had no impact on changing your morality or anyone else's. People who like to kill "bad guys" continue to like to kill "bad guys" regardless of what their religion teaches. Religion has never been effective in understanding or promoting morality. You are living proof of that. You reject the very basis of Christian morality and the idea that the afterlife, not this life, is what really matters.

NuttBoxer says

And you've just stated that shooting someone who attempts to rape your family is immoral... Nice set of values psycho.

No, I did not. And the fact that you think such a statement is psycho is tantamount to admitting that Christianity is crazy. I am completely in agreement that the moral thing is to use the least amount of violence necessary to stop the evil act even if the least amount of violence necessary is fatal. Unlike you, however, I do not take pleasure at the idea of killing someone even someone who is doing a vile act. And that is what makes me morally superior to you.

Nonetheless, according to Christian doctrines, which you well know, your killing of the intruder would cause him to die in a state of mortal sin condemning him to an eternity of torture. By any sane standard, doing that would make you an inherently immoral person having done something far worse than mass rape and murder. So if you believe in the Christian afterlife, you are morally bankrupt for choosing to kill a person in such a state of sin regardless of whether or not he were to kill you and your family. If you don't believe in the Christian afterlife, then the Christian moral teachings are, as you pointed out, psychotic.

NuttBoxer says

And you've just stated that shooting someone who attempts to rape your family is immoral... Nice set of values psycho.

Come on now: rape is about as bad as getting punched in the nose. It's hardly meritorious of gunfire.

YesYNot says

Come on now: rape is about as bad as getting punched in the nose.

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, a moral authority and recognized genius in Christianity, masturbation is far worse than rape.