patrick.net

curious2 says

Dan8267 says

There is no upside to irrationality and delusion.

Religion appears to correlate positively with birthrates, so in that sense it is adaptive.

And that would have been an up side in the Stone Age. Today there are 7 billion soon-to-be 10 billion people on the planet, and we have enough clean drinking water for 2.3 billion of them. It's a down side today.

curious2 says

Nearly every advance in science has resulted from disproving the delusions that preceded it, including those held by seemingly rational scientists.

Which demonstrates that science is a self-correcting mechanism. Religion clearly is not. It's as bad as it's always been and not getting any better. Meanwhile, it's promoting foolishness that threatens the very survival of our species and is hampering the development of morality and ethics, two fields harmed irrevocably by religion.

Strategist says

Stop knocking Christianity all the time. They are pussycats compared to Muslims. I

And rapists are pussycats compared to torturers. But why should we tolerate either crime, especially if the lesser crime enables the greater one?

P N Dr Lo R says

Human nature hasn't changed in 2,000 years, but it's Christianity that offers redemption.

Charlatans have always offered great things. They never deliver. Jesus was a fraud. So has been every pope ever.

P N Dr Lo R says

Dan8267 says

Allowing homosexual couples to adopt children is the free market solution, and allowing homosexual couples to compete with heterosexual for parenthood would be a good thing anyway.

As Judge Judy would say: "You're making it up as you go along."

By definition, letting the free market decide is a free market solution. Making up a line of reasoning that follows deductive logic is still indisputable truth. Your counter-argument contains no material.

justme says

Dan8267 says

You are in direct contradiction with yourself. Free speech and religion are mutually exclusive. Case example, boy arrested for showing disrespect to Christian god.

That's not correct logic, dude. You are tacitly assuming that religious freedom includes the right to restrict free speech. It does not.

The example indisputably demonstrates that tolerating the existence of Christianity does cause the courts to restrict free speech including precisely the kind of speech the First Amendment was written to protect. Ignoring facts does not make them go away. Also, facts aren't logic. They are facts. They are backed by evidence and have nothing to do with logic. It is a fact that Christianity has caused our court system to undermine and violate the First Amendment. No logic is needed to support that fact as it is supported by empirical evidence.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Stop knocking Christianity all the time. They are pussycats compared to Muslims. I

And rapists are pussycats compared to torturers. But why should we tolerate either crime, especially if the lesser crime enables the greater one?

Because it's a waste of time going after the lesser evil when the greater evil stands before you.

Strategist says

Dan is right on this. What is blasphemy?

Blasphemy is the ultimate expression of free speech. It's worth dying for, and it's certainly worth killing tyrants for.

Strategist says

Because it's a waste of time going after the lesser evil when the greater evil stands before you.

Tell that to every cop who believes in the Broken Window Theory. They do argue that prosecuting the lesser evil prevents greater evils, and they have evidence to back that up.

NuttBoxer says

What did God ever do to you Dan to make you so bitter?

Nothing. The Christian god is a fictional entity and as such has never done anything to anyone. However, its followers have committed the greatest atrocities in all of human history and continue to do great harm to America today.

Strategist says

Dan8267 says

You are in direct contradiction with yourself. Free speech and religion are mutually exclusive. Case example, boy arrested for showing disrespect to Christian god.

Stop knocking Christianity all the time. They are pussycats compared to Muslims. If that 14 year old showed that kind of disrespect to Allah in the Mid East, he would instantly get beheaded.

Christianity preaches love and forgiveness.
Islam preaches beheadings.

Dan8267 says

NuttBoxer says

What did God ever do to you Dan to make you so bitter?

Nothing. The Christian god is a fictional entity and as such has never done anything to anyone. However, its followers have committed the greatest atrocities in all of human history and continue to do great harm to America today.

Christianity is why America still exists today, you are a blind man Dan. Your dislike for Christianity has made you blind to reality. You support everything that ruins societies, and anti anything that brings society together. Christianity brings cohesiveness, LGBT crap destroys society.

FortWayne says

Christianity preaches love and forgiveness.

Islam preaches beheadings.

Christianity and Islam preach nothing. They are fictional works. People preach, not religion. Both Christianity and Islam have quotes that say people should be nice, and the leaders and followers of both religions ignore those directives and do evil in the name of their religion. Both Christianity and Islam also have quotes saying horrific things including promoting rape, murder, slavery, and genocide. You Bible, both old and new testaments, is full of calls for evil doing. Hell, both testaments are pro-slavery. The question of slavery is the easiest moral question in the universe. If you can't get that right, you aren't a moral authority. Christian hypocritical morality is a joke.

FortWayne says

Christianity is why America still exists today, you are a blind man Dan.

A foolish statement backed with no evidence made by someone with clearly no grasp on reality. You can pretend all you want that America is a theocracy founded by Jesus, but that doesn't change historical fact. Our nation was founded on the dual crimes of genocide and slavery. Any greatest we achieve them is due to breaking with our past, something that happened because of mass influxes of immigrants who drastically changed American culture over the past 200 years.

[stupid comment limit]

FortWayne says

Christianity brings cohesiveness

Cross asks judge to acquit him, saying Jewish community shootings justified

In a rambling motion filled with anti-Semitic statements, Frazier Glenn Cross asked a Johnson County judge to acquit him of murder charges, saying the slayings were necessary.

"I was compelled by necessity to strike at what I perceived to be an intolerable public threat to my people, knowing what I know about the Jews," Cross wrote in his motion.

Kansas man kills to Indians

About 60 children were playing at a church across the street from the bar when the shooting happened. Jeramie Albin, a volunteer for the youth program at First Baptist Church, said Friday that he didn't think much about a noise that sounded like "somebody dropped a bunch of books."

Then he learned about the shooting.

The church immediately went into lockdown. Volunteers herded children into the church basement, careful not to scare them, while police officers arrived on the scene. For the next 20 minutes, volunteers led songs to distract the children from police lights outside and helicopters overhead.

The Indian government said its diplomats would monitor the Kansas investigation.

That's some cohesiveness.

You know what really works to unify the world? Rational thought and science. These two things know no political boundary. The same laws of physics that apply here, also apply on the other side of the universe. Science and rationality units not only different humans, but all sentient life. It even gives us a language to commute with any possible alien life.

Dan8267 says

Again, how is religion in general and Christianity in particular not harmful to our society?

Dan should run for President. He could make America safe again by banning the fake religion of Islam.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Because it's a waste of time going after the lesser evil when the greater evil stands before you.

Tell that to every cop who believes in the Broken Window Theory. They do argue that prosecuting the lesser evil prevents greater evils, and they have evidence to back that up.

They are probably right, but do you really think going after Christianity will stop Islamic terror?
We need to unite to fend off an existential threat from Islam.

carrieon says

Dan should run for President. He could make America safe again by banning the fake religion of Islam.

All religions are fake and fraudulent, and I would ban them all. And doing this in a major country like America would greatly diminish the power of religion everywhere. It comes down to this, either we eliminate religion by the end of this century or mankind goes extinct. Technology is simply to advance to be used by a world with massive irrationality. Religion is like giving a five-year-old a loaded gun to play with. You end up with a dead kid.

Strategist says

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Because it's a waste of time going after the lesser evil when the greater evil stands before you.

Tell that to every cop who believes in the Broken Window Theory. They do argue that prosecuting the lesser evil prevents greater evils, and they have evidence to back that up.

They are probably right, but do you really think going after Christianity will stop Islamic terror?

Yes, and for exactly the same reasons the cops are right about the Broken Window Theory. It's the same situation, the same math, the same problem, and the same solution. The Broken Window Theory is either right or wrong, not both. It's not Schrödinger's cat.

FortWayne says

destroys society.

I wondered whether to boither responding to this, and initially chose not to, but some other troll posted the same lie, and it does illustrate a problem of religion. In this context, "religion" can translate as, "stubbornly repeated counterfactual belief." NO society, anywhere in human history, has ever been destroyed by LGBT. It has never happened, but the exact opposite has happened. Rome prospered with homosexuality as both a Republic and then an Empire. Of Nero's five marriages, two were to men. Rome continued to prosper for longer than the USA has even existed. Then, Rome became Christian, banned homosexuality, and subsequently declined and fell. Also Sparta had institutionalized homosexuality in the military; it continued to prosper for centuries, until eventually being defeated by Athens, which had also many famous examples of homosexuality, including Socrates. This is actually the reason why I call @FortWayne a troll: he knows these facts, but persists in lying about them. In my opinion, he does that to assuage his guilt about homosexual thoughts. His Catholic indoctrination taught him to hate himself, and he atones feverishly by trolling. It's a waste of time, stupid and annoying.

But, it is not nearly so bad as Islam, which commands believers to kill people who don't believe. Literally 100% of the countries that have marriage equality have Christian majorities. That is not a coincidence. The equal protection of the laws goes back to the Old Testament (both Leviticus and Numbers), and the New Testament says to love your neighbor and even your enemy. For this reason among others, Christianity prospers while Islam remains mired in backwardness.

Dan, your gradient image reminds me of Richard Dawkins' "mount improbable." It works on the scale of evolutionary time, but very few people convert voluntarily from Christianity to Islam. It's a bit like calling cannabis a "gateway drug:" the empirical evidence doesn't support the claim. Rather, the charlatan Mohamed hijacked the Judeo-Christian tradition and weaponized it into Islam, a doctrine of conquest globalizing the Jewish conquest of "the Holy Land." Mohamed got very few followers until he could bribe and/or blackmail them by conquest. As Churchill wrote, Islam "was originally propagated by the sword", which forced people to submit to it, and basically the only way to get people to believe it is to inflict it upon them via parent-to-child transmission.

curious2 says

NO society, anywhere in human history, has ever been destroyed by LGBT.

Yet many societies have been destroyed by Christianity in both Europe and the Americas. Just look at all the Native American societies wiped out by Christian invaders. Somehow I doubt that Fort Wayne will then conclude that a society should shun Christians.

curious2 says

It works on the scale of evolutionary time, but very few people convert voluntarily from Christianity to Islam.

Doesn't matter. The existence of Christianity still acts as a gradient enabling other, more violent religions to prosper. Again, it's the Broken Window Theory.

curious2 says

As Churchill wrote, Islam "was originally propagated by the sword", which forced people to submit to it, and basically the only way to get people to believe it is to inflict it upon them via parent-to-child transmission.

Sounds exactly like Christianity after the Constantine adopted it.

curious2 says

NO society, anywhere in human history, has ever been destroyed by LGBT. It has never happened

That is completely not true. It has been destroyed by LGBT, by failure of morality. LGBT is a symptom of failing morality.

If you don't know, look at history of Roman empire, or read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. You probably don't remember history where men could rent young boys for sick pleasure, how they could rent young girls. And it's coming back, liberals already legalized some of it in CA recently. Those are all historical accounts of societies that failed, and nothing but worst kind of misery fell upon the land.

Dan8267 says

curious2 says

It works on the scale of evolutionary time, but very few people convert voluntarily from Christianity to Islam.

Doesn't matter. The existence of Christianity still acts as a gradient enabling other, more violent religions to prosper. Again, it's the Broken Window Theory.

So you blame Christianity for the crimes of ISIS. Wow.

FortWayne says

That is completely not true. It has been destroyed by LGBT, by failure of morality. LGBT is a symptom of failing morality.

Was Nazi Germany a moral society? It was a Christian society and very anti-gay.

Were the Spanish conquistadors moral? Were not the genocides of Native Americans by Christians a huge moral failure? Or are you going to blame that on the gays as well.

It's gay bashing, not gay consensual sex, that is immoral. But your attitude does demonstrate that all religions including modern Christianity in the west cause immoral behavior and dehumanization of people who challenge your narrow-minded culture, and thus should not be tolerated.

How can people argue that there isn't a huge cost to our society for Christianity when there are plenty of people like Fort Wayne because of it?

I'm 100% with Dan on this. I've been an atheist for 40 years.

Strategist says

So you blame Christianity for the crimes of ISIS. Wow.

If Christianity never existed, nor would Islam which was based on it. The world is highly interconnected. Your inability to understand that is a failing of your simple-mindedness. Of course religions don't act in a vacuum, and Islam's history is highly intertwined with Christianity's history. And ISIS in particular is a direct result of Christian George W. Bush's "crusade" -- his own words.

Just because you take a simple view of the world does not mean the world fits that simple view.

junkmail says

I'm 100% with Dan on this. I've been an atheist for 40 years.

I can proudly state I have been an atheist since puberty. Religion never made sense to me then, it does not make sense to me now.

Dan8267 says

And ISIS in particular is a direct result of Christian George W. Bush's "crusade" -- his own words.

It's a myth. Islam has always been a barbaric religion. Only Muslims can be blamed for anything to do with Islam. Stop blaming others.

Hardly a myth.

Former U.S. Military Official Says George W. Bush Created ISIS

The Iraq war was "a huge error," he said, adding that the fall of Saddam Hussein presented an opportunity for groups like ISIS to grow.

"As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him," he told the magazine. " ... The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision."

For The Record, Yes, George W. Bush Did Help Create ISIS

Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies. Bakr went underground and met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Anbar Province in western Iraq. Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth, had previously run a training camp for international terrorist pilgrims in Afghanistan. Starting in 2003, he gained global notoriety as the mastermind of attacks against the United Nations, US troops and Shiite Muslims. He was even too radical for former Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi died in a US air strike in 2006.

Although Iraq’s dominant Baath Party was secular, the two systems ultimately shared a conviction that control over the masses should lie in the hands of a small elite that should not be answerable to anyone — because it ruled in the name of a grand plan, legitimized by either God or the glory of Arab history. The secret of IS’ success lies in the combination of opposites, the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of the other.

So no, you don't get to rewrite history.

Dan8267 says

Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies. Bakr went underground and met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Anbar Province in western Iraq. Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth, had previously run a training camp for international terrorist pilgrims in Afghanistan. Starting in 2003, he gained global notoriety as the mastermind of attacks against the United Nations, US troops and Shiite Muslims. He was even too radical for former Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi died in a US air strike in 2006.

No one asked these people to become terrorists and kill babies. It was their choice, inspired by Islam.
Would they have become terrorists if they were Buddhists? Absolutely not. They are terrorists because they follow the path of their terrorist founder, Mohammad.
So no, you don't get to make up myths.

Dan8267 says

Was Nazi Germany a moral society? It was a Christian society and very anti-gay.

Were the Spanish conquistadors moral? Were not the genocides of Native Americans by Christians a huge moral failure? Or are you going to blame that on the gays as well.

Those are unrelated to the topic. We were talking about Romans, the Sodom and Gomorrah. Way to go off on tangent instead of dealing with reality Dan, so typical of you.

curious2 says

Christianity caused the fall of Rome,

Yay Christianity!

The socialists who want to end run the rule of law would be the new religion.

Groupthink taught to 1st graders, major rewritten history, lack of scientific exploration, entitlements and runaway government growth, destruction of innovation and property, smash and grab politics and mafias (yes teamsters and teachers unions for all!)

Read the 10 commandments, our constitution is the spirit of the goodfaith written in these.

These laws are fair to every creed, and even the democrat creed, but the demos essentially against fairness, virtue, and honesty.

Quigley says

It would be far more likely for a Ferrari to be created by an explosion in an auto parts factory.

Not really. Richard Dawkins addressed this objection with the metaphor of Mount Improbable. Evolutionary mutations happen a little bit at a time, over billions of years, with natural selection favoring whatever works. We have four limbs and a vestigial tail leftover from our primate ancestors, who share more than 90% of our DNA. Tiny mutations, over time, add up. If you look only at the leap from molecules to cells, or cells to humans, then it can seem as improbable as leaping up a cliff, but if you look at the long record of incremental change, then you see the gentle slope leading around the side of the cliff and up to the top. The "intelligent design" believers are a type of creationists, and are rejected by most scientists.

FortWayne says

Romans, the Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Romans built the greatest empire the world had ever seen, and the empire lasted more than 1,000 years. Same-sex marriage existed at the time of Cicero, and Rome continued to prosper for 300 years, until Constantine imposed Christianity. Within one century after that, the city of Rome fell, and humanity fell into a dark age.

Even now, many secrets of Roman technology are only being re-discovered. Roman plumbing delivered more water than any city anywhere until New York in 1986. Within the last three decades, the secrets of Roman concrete have been re-discovered. Roman nanotechnology was rediscovered within one decade ago.

Sodom and Gomorrah may never have existed, and besides their story doesn't say what you say. There is no evidence of their existence outside the Bible, which says the sin of Sodom was rape. In the New Testament, Paul criticized homosexuality, which he saw all around him, but none of the quotations attributed to Jesus or the original disciples do. To the contrary, Luke 17:34-36 (emphasizing belief as the requirement for rapture) refers to two same-sex couples, wherein the believers get raptured up. The Christians rejected expressly the prohibitions of Leviticus:

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."

You try to distract from your sins by hating neighbors whom you should love, and your lies defile you.

Strategist says

No one asked these people to become terrorists and kill babies. It was their choice, inspired by Islam.

You missed the point, honey. The point is that a Christian crusade led to the rise of ISIS. So yes, Christianity does make the world a worse place.

You can't fight irrationality with more irrationality.

FortWayne says

Those are unrelated to the topic. We were talking about Romans, the Sodom and Gomorrah. Way to go off on tangent instead of dealing with reality Dan, so typical of you.

Off topic, my ass. Let me remind you of the history of the posts.

First you make the baseless assertions that (FortWayne says)

Christianity brings cohesiveness, LGBT crap destroys society.

Then curious2 refutes this with the empirical fact that (curious2 says)

NO society, anywhere in human history, has ever been destroyed by LGBT.

You then double down on your assertions, again with no evidence to back them up. FortWayne says

That is completely not true. It has been destroyed by LGBT, by failure of morality. LGBT is a symptom of failing morality.

I counter with two more historic examples that Christianity, not homosexuality, has destroyed civilizations. Dan8267 says

Was Nazi Germany a moral society? It was a Christian society and very anti-gay.

Were the Spanish conquistadors moral? Were not the genocides of Native Americans by Christians a huge moral failure? Or are you going to blame that on the gays as well.

So, yes, it is quit relevant. The real history of the world is very relevant to exposing the lies you tell. I can give hundreds of examples of civilizations deliberately destroyed by Christians. You cannot give a single example of a civilization destroyed by homosexuality.

History 100
Fort Wayne 0