Everyone who is not willfully blind can see what is coming. That leaves out, of course, the Pope and the Catholic bishops.
“Atheist Richard Dawkins Warns Against Celebrating Demise of ‘Relatively Benign’ Christianity in Europe,” by Leah MarieAnn Klett, Christian Post, March 22, 2018:
Atheist author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has warned against celebrating the demise of Christianity, calling it a “relatively benign” faith compared to others, amid reports the religion is “dying” in Europe.
“Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme: ‘Always keep a-hold of nurse For fear of finding something worse,'” The God Delusion author tweeted to his 2.74 million followers earlier this week….
Previously, Dawkins, who was famously canned from a Berkeley campus appearance last year after organizers learned about his criticisms of Islam, admitted he has some concern about the decline of Christianity, “in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death,” Dawkins said.
Speaking on another topic during his appearance at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Dawkins warned that Islam as a religion poses a threat more than others.
“It’s tempting to say all religions are bad, and I do say all religions are bad, but it’s a worse temptation to say all religions are equally bad because they’re not,” the atheist author said.
“If you look at the actual impact that different religions have on the world it’s quite apparent that at present the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam,” he stated, contending that moderate Muslims suffer more at the hands of Islam and its teachings than anyone else.
CogitoErgoSum says
Will he still be an atheist when his foxhole is surrounded by Muslims wanting to kill him?
Westman says
Why would that cause him to think differently? I’m not supporting Dawkin’s atheism but looking at the way he limits his mind to logical thinking – this is more likely:
(mind bubble)”If there is a God, he could save me from these people who want to kill me. However, I know of no incident where this has happened. 130 kids likely prayed in Paris and they are now deceased. So I’ll just have to do my best. Many people die in war and I may be one of them.”
Athough it would with myself, I don’t think the Foxhole Analogy has any validity with a true Atheist like Dawkins.
CogitoErgoSum says
True. I guess he would think of it as survival of the fittest. He could count himself as being one of nature’s failed experiments. Maybe atheism is not something that helps make one stronger and able to survive harsh conditions.
Westman says
“He could count himself as being one of nature’s failed experiments” LOL, hilarious and brilliant!
gravenimage says
If Richard Dawkins were murdered by a mob of Muslim barbarians, why would he consider himself a failed experiment? Even if you do not like Atheists, surely you consider him more decent than murderous Muslims?
Mark DeFord Eletion says
He raised a daughter, which makes him somewhat of a biological success. Perhaps much more than that, humanity in general was improved by his existence.
CogitoErgoSum says
Mark, my comment was my attempt to think as Dawkins would think on this subject and I think I failed at doing that. I regret that. Perhaps my additional comments below will help explain the way I myself think. (Thinking is hard and I’m going to try not to think for other people anymore.) And, yes, I do want to think that Dawkins’ existence has and will make the world a better place.
kouldb says
No dear. It’s survival of the smartest in cases like this.
CogitoErgoSum says
Yes, dear.
Chand says
Mark DeFord Eletion says “He raised a daughter, which makes him somewhat of a biological success. Perhaps much more than that, humanity in general was improved by his existence.”
That’s right, Mark.
mortimer says
Westman, Dawkins has yet to be in a foxhole. If and when he is in a foxhole and the Muslims are coming for him as a blasphemer, it is ONLY THEN that his reaction will be known.
gravenimage says
I’m not sure why so many here are choosing to slam Richard Dawkins, rather than applauding his recognition of the threat of Islam.
CogitoErgoSum says
I’ll think of him as being like Schrödinger’s cat, both dead and alive at the same time.
CogitoErgoSum says
Maybe we can do an experiment. We’ll put Dawkins in a box with a group of Jihadists and then see whether he’s alive or dead when we open the box.
mummymovie says
I second the comment by gravenimage.
We are going to need all of the allies we can get in this monumental struggle to save Western civilization.
Ray Jarman says
For over forty years I was an atheist and I spent four years in Phan Rang and Pleiku, Vietnam, and on many occasions fighting Charlie and trying to stay safe in a bunker, I never changed my belief system. Even today if I were to be on a debating team and the subject was religion, I would be able to argue more rationally from the atheist point of view. I would bet a weeks salary that Richard Dawkins would not start believing in God. Before I found my testimony in God, I had to have the wish to do so and I prayed many hours before I could say that I had begun to find the road to our Heavenly Father. To believe in God, one must possess faith, especially for someone who had never really had it before.
As someone stated, I don’t understand why Dawkins is being thought of as evil. He is being honest and he is stating that the cult is much worse than Christianity or any other religion and even that most cult members are killed by cult members.
Savvy Kafir says
I’m pretty sure Richard Dawkins would not suddenly become a believing Christian (or whatever) if he were about to be butchered by Allah junkies.
He might hate Islam even more, in those last moments, but it wouldn’t even occur to him to embrace another form of superstition, in a desperate attempt to save himself or an eternal soul that he doesn’t believe exists.
Andy says
Petition
Create a Freedom of Speech Act and Bring an End to “Hate Speech” laws
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/203615
gravenimage says
Agreed, guys.
blitz2b says
Jay Boo says “…this is great news….”
A little too late wouldn’t you say?
The hope of sustenance of the western civilization amid the ongoing chaos because of the rapid growth of Islam everywhere across western Europe should now only be considered wishful thinking.
In Europe Christianity was indeed a bulwark against the growing menace of Islam, which through the efforts of Dawkins and his “intellectual” ‘ilk was successfully eroded to rubble.
Now that the pond that he helped poison is running low on fish, Dawkins is becoming aware of the inevitable fact that he now has to deal with the growing crocodile therein.
Do we really have to ally ourselves with the ones who consider us intellectually inept?
I’d say let the two giants in the room fight it out…
For centuries Christianity had a good run in Europe, now it’s time to admit what Christ said was going to ultimately come true… “… my kingdom is not of this world…”
It’s now time to take the back seat and concentrate on the spiritual rather than the temporal…
blitz2b says
gravenimage says “….I’m not sure why so many here are choosing to slam Richard Dawkins, rather than applauding his recognition of the threat of Islam….”
Hmmmm ….let’s see maybe it’s because for decades his primary target was the God of Christianity.
Do you remember this infamous quote from his book “The God delusion”
“…The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully….”
Now that this capriciously malevolent Judeo-Christian bully has effectively been neutralized all over Europe, and a more serious contender, Allah the capriciously malevolent god of Islam is rapidly replacing the former, Dawkins is increasingly becoming aware that this new diefic bully and his demonic minions asserting their dominance in the midts of western civilization, will not be taken down as easily as the passivity of Christianity and Christians so he resorts to nostalgia and patronizing of his former much easier target.
Maybe Christianity was eventually destined to be doomed in Europe, however Dawkins can surely take the credit of quickening the process.
Terry Gain says
I have no problem with those who do not have the gift of faith in Christ. As long as they fo not oppose Christianity and support Islam. I admire Dawkins for having the courage to speak out against Islam, which is objectively evil.
Save Europe says
Spot on ?
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
+1
tim gallagher says
I agree with you Terry, Save Europe and Flavius and also with gravenimage,, above, when she makes the point that Dawkins recognises the evil threat that Islam is to all non-Muslims. He, and other atheists, like Sam Harris, Pat Condell, etc are on our side in the necessary fight against Islam. I like how Dawkins is also appreciative of Christianity’s fairly gentle and benign influence and seems to recognise it has high moral ideals, although I believe that Diane Harvey’s comment (below) is correct, that Dawkins has spent a lot of his time and energy trying to destroy Christianity’s and other religions’ credibility. Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered to attack Christianity so fiercely if he knew it was a mostly benign influence on society. But, he’s awake to Islam’s nature which is the main thing for the safety of non-Muslims everywhere.
sally says
It would be equally true to say that we do not have cases of athiests blowing us up or stoning or mutilating us. Let’s not pick on them when they make sense. It would be better to have a strong Christian presence than a lot of atheists simply because they could and they have in the past sent Islam packing back to its own territory. Atheists are unlikely to organize against Islam. We should at least not bash them when they side with us!
gravenimage says
All true.
Carol (the 1st) says
Good to hear. It’s like a big bonus addition to the French list (WHY does this 100 Intellectual list not seem to have a memorable and catchy title??). Bless Dawkins for not mincing words.
BTW IQ Al-Rassooli also wrote about the 100 Intellectuals:
http://americaoutloud.com/european-voices-of-sanity/
At the bottom there’s a nice link:
Imagine no more Islam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGRKUthVyv4
Kay says
Islam is a much worse religion than atheism.
CogitoErgoSum says
Eddie, belief in God gives me an answer as to why I exist. Until science gives me convincing proof that there is another reason as to WHY I’m here, I’m going to stick with God. It’s called faith. Not saying everyone has to agree with me and it’s an interesting discussion as long as everyone stays cool with the disagreements. I’m fine with atheists and agnostics believing whatever they want.
blitz2b says
Eddie says “…Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs…”
Your insinuation that it is only the ones who doubt the existence of a God have the faculty of reason, coupled with an expectancy of proof from the “unreasoning” theist id’s a sheer sign of your own arrogance typical of a Neo-Darwinistic, militant atheist.
If you wish to dialogue with a theist, tone down the arrogance.
R holroyd says
Then there is the atheist whofell out of a boat and cried God help me.!!
CogitoErgoSum says
How about the guy who said, “I’m an atheist, thank God.”
Frank Riley says
He played quite a big part in the weakening of Christianity, a religion he might now hope will come to the rescue. However it seems we are no longer up to that task, in fact, in my opinion, still hastening its demise in promoting a generally misguided perception of what’s going on.
Savvy Kafir says
Yes, he would still be an atheist. The myth of “No atheists in foxholes” has been disproven many times.
And someone like Richard Dawkins would not be able to convince himself to believe in anything like the Christian god even if he wanted to, out of desperation. Once you understand how & why religions are created — and how the natural world has evolved, without divine guidance — there’s no going back to religious faith.
CogitoErgoSum says
What is your evidence that religion is not something that helped rather than hindered man’s survival? True, the first Christians allowed themselves to be martyred by the Romans, yet the Roman Empire disappeared and Christianity survives (so far). Look at the Jews also. There’s no going back to something that seems so integral to survival?
Tricia Stuercke says
Exquisitely proposed & answered! The Judeo-Christian way of life, if followed strictly as a BEHAVIORAL guideline for humanity ~ apart from the spiritual ~ is BY FAR the most universal, complete, strife-free way for people to live in unity & harmony as a society, community, family…I challenge people to read The 10 Commandments ~ just consider the ones that don’t mention God, of course: imagine they were proposed as a guide for peaceful societies by a secular group you admire…if looked upon secularly, WHAT can anyone disagree with? If people didn’t LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, or KILL, how much better would the world be?!
Add Jesus’ teachings in THE NEW TESTAMENT about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, not hoarding wealth, treating others as we’d like to be treated, fair & respectful employer/employee relationships, seeking forgiveness when we’ve wronged someone & making amends, etc…THIS WORLD WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE PEACEFUL & HAPPY!
TheOldOligarch says
”The myth of “No atheists in foxholes” has been disproven many times.”
When, how, and by whom?
”Once you understand how & why religions are created — and how the natural world has evolved, without divine guidance — there’s no going back to religious faith.”
Yes, I remember when I was arrogant enough to believe I ‘understood’ such things. Spoiler alert: the collection of soundbites you half-remember hearing Dawkins, Harris and co saying does not constitute an ‘understanding’.
Blaine says
O wise one, please forgive us, the majority of humans on the earth for whom the Christian “revelation” has failed. A person like yourself is not swayed by silly evidence of numerous atheists who have died as atheists in battle and organizations such as http://militaryatheists.org/ . Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders are cowards compared to a Christian champion like you.
You were more arrogant in the past. That is proof that there is no God.
You must really be special. Though you give God a pass for murdering innocents (remember a flood) and allowing torture of innocents every day, you know more than any human can– that God has always existed and has no cause. You’re really convinced of Christianity, not like those suicide bombers who fake a belief in Islam. You’re nothing like the majority of people whose religion is determined by geography.
R holroyd says
Tricia…..
And then we all just die.
Savvy Kafir says
OldOligarch — It’s so ironic when religious people refer to the “arrogance” of non-believers. People who think they know the mind of God, based upon one dusty old book, chosen for them (in the vast majority of cases) from a pile of dusty old books via an accident of history & geography & political expediency, have no business calling someone “arrogant” just because that person is unconvinced by the evidence presented for God or a particular religion.
Over the centuries, many brave atheists have faced death and still been unable to believe that the Christian god (or any other) is more than a myth. Just Google “atheists in foxholes” if you need examples. Christopher Hitchens is one of the more recent & well-known examples.
My familiarity with “Dawkins, Harris and co” is much more extensive than a “collection of half-remembered soundbites”. I’ve followed their work closely for years, as their ideas & reasoning support the conclusions I came to myself long ago; but those brainy guys are much better at laying out the arguments for science, evolution, religious skepticism, and morality without religion.
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are among the very few people on the political left who are very critical of Islam, and who understand the threat it poses to the civilized world. (Which is how this conversation got started in the first place, although a few snarky Dawkins-haters seem to have missed that point.)
Because he speaks out on the subject of Islam more often and in more detail than Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris has received a sh*t-ton of vitriol and hatred from his fellow liberals. He is (generally) a very courageous guy, who has taken far more abuse for his honest, informed appraisals of the Religion of Peace than most people could withstand. (Although his recent efforts to distance himself from Robert Spencer was a very bad decision in my opinion, as I stated here at the time — a decision I believe was the result of shaky nerves, after being pounded for years by f*cking tsunamis of criticism from his fellow liberals.)
In fact, almost all of the progressive “counter-jihadis” I know of (myself included) are atheists, agnostics, pantheists, or some flavor of unbeliever. In this fight, we find ourselves allied with conservative Christians and devout Jews because we recognize that, in the 21st Century, Islam is unique in the threat it poses to every free society, every (truly) liberal ideal, and every (truly) progressive agenda. And no one is more frustrated or infuriated by the politically-correct, Islam-friendly idiots of the Regressive Left than we are.
Mark Swan says
Why have nations of the West dominated the globe for the last five hundred years, when for centuries they lagged behind great civilizations in India, China and the Moslem world? Why were a few small countries on the western fringe of the great Eurasian continent able to spread their culture all around the world when other cultures did not? Why did a group of daring navigators from Western Europe—Columbus in 1492, Vasco de Gama in 1499, Ferdinand Magellan in the 1520s and others—launch the Age of Discovery with globe-girdling voyages in tiny ships, instead of men such as the great Chinese Admiral Zheng He, who sailed thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean in huge treasure ships nearly a century earlier?
Questions like these have puzzled scholars for centuries. However, the deliberate removal of courses in Western Civilization from schools and universities and a failure to discuss the role of religion or the Bible have obscured key elements in the remarkable rise of the West. As a result, many today are largely ignorant of one of the most dramatic turning points in the history of the world—a transformation of global proportions that has been termed by some as “the miracle of the West.”
What led to the rise of Western Civilization? How did it happen, and what does this pivotal event reveal about God’s hand in history?
Numerous scholars have proposed ideas to explain the remarkable rise of the West. In his book, Historians Debate the Rise of the West, Jonathan Daly chronicles many of their theories. For instance, some believe that geography and climate favored Europe. The acquisition and use of navigational instruments and advanced ship design, as well as the development of more powerful armaments made important contributions. Other scholars have pointed out that more efficient economic systems and methods of production and the growth of global trading networks aided the West. Others cited the respect for law and private property, the free exchange of ideas that fostered innovation, and competition that fed the growth in science, technology and capitalism.
In contrast to thinking in the East that glorified the past and sought to maintain the status quo and harmony in the present, the West focused on progress and by learning to harness the forces of nature for the betterment of mankind—and for profit (Louis Rougier, The Genius of the West, pp. 89–91).
Taken together, these and other factors operating in Europe, “transformed the balance of the world within an amazingly brief period of time… The magnitude of European cultural achievements in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries…arouses a sense of wonder and amazement” (William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, pp. 574, 598). Yet, as historian Christopher Dawson has pointed out, “none of these causes seems adequate to explain the magnitude of the European achievement” (Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, p. 15).
Dawson also notes that the British historian Lord Acton once commented, “Religion is the key of history.” While modern secular scholars tend to dismiss the influence of religion in history, biblical principles did play a critical role in the rise of the West.
Max Weber, a prominent German sociologist, “emphasized a constellation of historical features he considered unique to Europe.” especially the “radical change in religious outlook—from Catholicism to Protestantism.” Such factors “brought the West to materialistic prominence in the modern world” (Historians Debate the Rise of the West, pp. 8–9).
The Protestant Reformation shows detail of massive change in Europe’s religious landscape, as well as the many doctrines, teachings, and practices that infected European “Christianity.”
However, buried amid the distortions, remained some surviving biblical values and principles that did make a mark on European culture in a powerful way.
Jonathan Daly has noted that some scholars, such as Dr. David Landes, credit the presence of such biblical principles for instilling an appreciation of hard work, widespread literacy (for both men and women), thrift, diligence, and other ethics into European civilization.
Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion, writes that modern scholarship is “far too reluctant to acknowledge the positive effects” that such religious influence had on the culture of the West. He goes on to explain that science as we know it flourished in Europe instead of elsewhere “because Europeans believed in God as the Intelligent Designer of a rational universe” that operated on laws that could be discovered and put to practical use (How the West Won, pp. 5, 13, 315–317).
In contrast, in Islam, the universe did not operate on laws but according to the will of Allah—which was not conducive to the development of science—thus the innovations in the Islamic world were driven by Jews and other Christian sects.
While the Chinese developed printing, mechanical clocks and gunpowder, they never exploited the potential of these innovations because they threatened to disrupt the stability of their society. Islamic caliphs outlawed mechanical printing for religious reasons (ibid., pp. 12–13, 33–45).
Yet even these insights are not sufficient to explain the rise of the West.
Above all else, Europe’s rise to prominence was enabled by Christian Values.
It is not a coincidence that the rise of the West occurred just as Asian societies turned inward and “suddenly became immobile… [They cut themselves off from a changing external world just when European expansion was beginning” (Geoffrey Barraclough, Turning Points in World History, p. 24). Once the West started to rise in the sixteenth century, “it seemed that nothing could hold it back” (Historians Debate the Rise of the West, p. 23). But why did one civilization rise and the others decline—almost at the same time?
These values did help us and we could be an example and a help to all the peoples of the world.
Though we cast aside many of those ways and concepts as the centuries passed, some of those ways, concepts and ideas survived to become a part of the foundation of Western civilization that has transformed the world over the last five hundred years. The dramatic rise of the West—one of the most important turning points in the history of the world—illustrates the effectiveness of those ways.
There are such “social values” today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do – that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.
– Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
26th President of the United States
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
“Why have nations of the West dominated the globe for the last five hundred years…?”
That’s an easy question to answer: at the core of it was the Ancient Greeks’ need and obsession to explain things without invoking “Deus ex machina”; their need to find a common sense explanation without reverting to ‘the unseen.’
Each subsequent culture that admired and adopted this “need and obsession” flourished because ideas that work give results. And these cultures passed on the proverbial torch to the next. Eventually, with these Greek ideas, a critical mass was achieved.
Yes Christianity endowed these cultures with altruism, an altruism that dulled tyranny and improved the lives of those living within the territories controlled by these cultures. But Christianity is a religion of unconditional altruism and this, as Gibbon stated, dulls the martial spirit, which is needed for a civilization to defend itself.
But it is the original Greek ideas that made this stellar progress possible. It’s what they teach you in Classics courses and there is no good reason not to believe it.
You will note that Richard Dawkins is an adherent of this way of thinking. And that is why, when it comes to Mohammadism, he is in agreement with you.
Aardvark says
The early Roman Catholic church banned first-cousin marriages.
This led to a rise in the IQ of Western European nations, followed by the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution.
Islam encourages first-cousin marriages, and Islamic countries have remained in medieval ignorance.
Search for IQ by country, and you will find that Islamic countries are about 20 points lower in IQ than Western ones.
Matthieu Baudin says
“…Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion, writes that modern scholarship is “far too reluctant to acknowledge the positive effects” that such religious influence had on the culture of the West. He goes on to explain that science as we know it flourished in Europe instead of elsewhere “because Europeans believed in God as the Intelligent Designer of a rational universe” that operated on laws that could be discovered and put to practical use (How the West Won, pp. 5, 13, 315–317)…”
Stark’s later writings provide some of the most illuminating (perhaps the most penetrating) analysis of the growth and success of Christianity from it’s inception through to it’s present day rapid adoption by the Chinese diaspora. ‘The Triumph of Christianity’ brings forward and consolidates most of his scholarly life’s work.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
Smart atheists avoid foxholes at all cost.
gravenimage says
Actually, I think patriotic Ahteists are as likely to defend their societies and values as are people of faith.
Mark Swan says
Of Course They Are—I agree with you gravenimage.
kouldb says
Indeed. Well said.
Jimdandi says
Perhaps you can explain, then, just where life came from. Life cannot come from non-life. Bible says, “In Him (Jesus) was life”.
Chand says
+ 1, Savvy Kafir
christianblood says
He is absolutely right since he believe that Christianity can be a bull-work against fascist, radical islam. I suggest that He visits Russia.or Greece, especially Russia!
.
Save Europe says
I can say I will still be an agnostic when the ‘scumbags’ surround my fox hole, and unlike other people of my ilk, I’m both a patriot, and a non cultural Marxist. I certainly don’t loathe Christianity, even slightly, but do loathe another ‘certain’ supposed religion ?
christianblood says
Save Europe
Good point! There are no atheists/agnostics when bullets fly around fox holes! Everyone says, O my God, please help me! Hahaha!
(I was there and saw it all!)
Savvy Kafir says
There have been many atheists in foxholes, with bullets flying. Google it.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
I think it unfair to bundle atheists and agnostics together. Atheists and the religious both value certitude far more than an agnostic and therefore resemble each other more than they resemble the agnostic. Agnostics are ‘okay’ with not knowing the answers to most questions.
gravenimage says
Christianblood seems to have completely missed Save Europe’s point, and think he is saying the complete oppposite of what he is.
gravenimage says
Good post, Save Europe.
Ian Marshall says
Take your point, Cogito, but, yes, I`m sure he would. It`s a matter of intellect, and is not subject to emotion or self-preserving instincts.
Anne says
Of course he will. Truth is truth, always. People who have chosen truth, science, and logic do not abandon those things to fall back on bronze age fairy tales and myths.
Mak says
Why would that change?
The facts of this war are simple. It’s islam vs. everyone else. I’m not a religious person at all. But I certainly am not blind to think that Christianity is in any way similar to islam. Christianity and Judaism have very good values behind them. And that’s good. And I have no problems letting people believe what they want if it inspires, motivates or helps them.
Then there is islam. This is an ideology that prescribes various penalties for all the other groups. It’s philosophy is “convert or die.” So with a simple bit of logic it’s clear to see why all other groups must ban together.
Not only do we have to fight islam itself but we also have to fight the willful idiots (both atheist and religious) who insist on saying “islam is a religion of peace.” Yeah, sure it is. Denying facts isn’t a wise idea. Especially when that denial can get you killed.
So I stand with all my fellow mankind who want to abide by the “live and let live” philosophy and stand against the “convert or die” religion of islam.
gravenimage says
+1
TheBuffster says
I agree 100%, Mak.
Diane Harvey says
Tragically amusing coming from the likes of Dawkins who has done more than his level-headed best to disparage Christianity in his attempts to turn others away from any faith. Now he discovers that he rather likes a society framed in terms of Christianity since that faith doesn’t mandate conversion to its tenets under the penalty of mortal/earthly death. File this under “Reaping What You Have Sown” or “I’ve Been Successful and I’m Not Sure I Like It.”
Left-Wing Anti-Jihadist says
It’s your comment that’s ‘tragically amusing’, given that before the atheistic Enlightenment tamed Christianity in the West, Christianity had been precisely a religion that mandated ‘conversion to its tenets under the penalty of mortal/earthly death’.
bloggerd says
Are you sure it was Christianity or so-called Christian leaders? The texts used for the Christian cannot be used to support death for leaving the faith. Paul said Demas abandoned the faith and there was no death penalty. Judas killed himself not the disciples.
Left-Wing Anti-Jihadist says
You’re right about the Christian texts; they do not advocate death for leaving the faith (as far as I’m aware). But the politically established ‘Christianity’ that prevailed throughout the middle-ages did support the death penalty for both heresy and apostasy.
The ‘so-called Christian leaders’ of this period included such luminaries as Saint Thomas Aquinas, who said that a heretic should be put to death if he refuses to recant his heresy.
That said, I am in entire agreement with Dawkins on the relative benevolence of contemporary Christianity compared to the horrors of Islam.
Frank Scarn says
Left-Wing Anti-Jihadist still showing his hatred of Christianity with his “as far as I’m aware” remark. You think there’s anyone else out there who might be aware of such Christian texts? If there were, you lefties would have found them years ago. And celebrated. Left-wing tolerance rules!
Indiana Tom says
But the politically established ‘Christianity’ that prevailed throughout the middle-ages did support the death penalty for both heresy and apostasy.
Which the established leaders may not have been too Christian.
The ‘so-called Christian leaders’ of this period included such luminaries as Saint Thomas Aquinas, who said that a heretic should be put to death
Who cares?
When you get to Charles and John Wesley, let me know.
DBM echo says
Ah, your left wing is showing.
Along with the left’s long-standing hatred of Christianity. Go on,, answer bloggerd and find the texts in Christianity that mandate that sort of treatment of the non-Christian. We’ll wait.
Tricia Stuercke says
Christianity’s history encompasses more than 2000 years! The HERETICAL, hideous actions of a group of people CLAIMING to be acting with the “authority” of The Church in an area of the world during A PERIOD of those 2000 yrs, DO NOT speak for or override the ACTUAL, TRUTHFUL, CONSISTENTLY MORAL & ETHICAL PRINCIPALS of CHRISTIANITY. The 10 Commandments CLEARLY state “THOU SHALT NOT KILL”. Jesus taught that when you share the faith with someone, if they weren’t interested in Jesus’ Way, “shake the dust off” & move on; The Muslim “Holy Books” CLEARLY TEACH the followers of Islam TO tax, threaten, destroy, torture, rape, & kill “infidels” who won’t convert, as their “hero”, “prophet”, & founder Mohammed did…NO COMPARISON! Jesus spread His Way through the heart & hand…Mohammed FORCED his way via the SWORD!
Savvy Kafir says
Tell that to the thousands of people who were tortured to death or burned at the stake by devout Christians, for explicitly religious reasons, with the enthusiastic support of millions of other very devout Christians.
Indiana Tom says
Tell that to the thousands of people who were tortured to death or burned at the stake by devout Christians, for explicitly religious reasons, with the enthusiastic support of millions of other very devout Christians.
Are you sure they were devout Christians?
So where is all this action you mention condoned in the New Testament?
I am waiting.
Tricia Stuercke says
You can’t blame THE FAITH, if people CLAIMING to be of that faith ARE ACTING AGAINST THE OFFICIAL TEACHINGS OF THE FAITH! People can CLAIM all sorts of things… IF THE ACTUAL DOCUMENTS & BOOKS CONTAINING THE ACTUAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER OF THE FAITH DO NOT BACK UP THE ACTIONS OF THE CLAIMANTS, THEN THOSE CLAIMANTS ARE ACTING AGAINST THE TEACHINGS OF THAT FAITH! JESUS DID NOT DO, TEACH OR CONDONE SUCH EVIL ACTIONS!
MOHAMMED DID DO, DID TEACH, & DID CONDONE SUCH EVIL. THE OFFICIAL HOLY BOOKS & DOCUMENTS PROVE WHAT I’M SAYING IN BOTH CASES. BEDRIDDEN & BATTLING LUPUS FOR THE MAJORITY OF 2 DECADES GIVES ONE UNIMAGINABLE HOURS OF READING & RESEARCH TIME, WHICH IS WHAT I’VE DONE. WE ARE ALL SINFUL HUMAN BEINGS… THE DIFFERENCE LIES IN WHETHER CERTAIN SINFUL ACTS COMMITTED “IN THE NAME” OF A FAITH ARE TRULY THE ACTUAL TEACHINGS & PRACTICE OF THAT FAITH’S FOUNDER. RAPE?
FORCED MARRIAGE? SODOMY OF YOUNG BOYS? JESUS, NO ~ MOHAMMED, YES. WHEN “CHRISTIANS” ARE DISCOVERED TO HAVE HAD SEX WITH CHILDREN? DISMISSED, PUNISHED, & ABSOLUTELY AGAINST CHURCH TEACHINGS! MUSLIMS? MOHAMMED HIMSELF WAS WELL KNOWN FOR HIS SICK SEXUAL ABUSE OF LITTLE BOYS, & ISLAM IS FULL OF CREEPY IMAGERY OF NAKED LITTLE BOYS & ALONG WITH A JIHADI’S “PROMISE” OF VIRGINS IN PARADISE, THERE’S CLEAR ADDITIONAL PROMISE OF ALL THE NAKED LITTLE BOYS HE COULD WISH FOR! READING IS ONE OF HUMANITY’S GREATEST GIFTS…I’M NOW LOSING MY SIGHT TO THIS DISEASE & THE LOSS OF READING WILL BE ONE OF MY DEEPEST HEARTACHES…READ AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, WHILE YOU CAN! TV IS A WASTE…LEARN ALL YOU CAN WHILE YOU CAN SO YOU CAN MAKE A FULLY EDUCATED, 100% CERTAIN SET OF CHOICES ON HOW TO BEST LIVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. WHEN GOD FINALLY LETS ME REST AFTER BATTLING VICIOUS PHYSICAL AGONY FROM AGE 30-50, I’LL THROW MYSELF AT THE FEET OF THE HOLY TRINITY & GIVE THANKS FOR THIS DISEASE! HUH? BECAUSE I HAD TO BE FORCED (APPARENTLY) TO FIND HIM & HIS WAY. I CAN DIE COMPLETELY AT PEACE…WHAT A BLESSING! BEST WISHES TO YOU!
christianblood says
Tricia Stuercke
God bless you! You made great points concerning islamic death-cult and its founder!
Savvy Kafir says
That’s true. Before the Christian religion was tamed & de-fanged via centuries of interaction with atheists, agnostics, deists, pantheists, and other progressive types, it bore more than a passing resemblance to Islam.
It wasn’t EXACTLY the same in every way. (So no need to point that out.) But it was FAR more like Islam back then, in terms of how it was actually practiced, for many centuries, by millions of Christians.
The Dark Ages were VERY dark; and they were a direct result of an obsession with the most unwholesome aspects of the Christian religion.
gravenimage says
Actually, the Dar Ages were caused by the barbarian invasions, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and *the rise of Islam*.
In many ways, it was the Christian Church that carried–albeit imperfectly–the light of learning during those dark centuries.
Indiana Tom says
Before the Christian religion was tamed & de-fanged via centuries of interaction with atheists, agnostics, deists, pantheists, and other progressive types, it bore more than a passing resemblance to Islam.
Political Roman Catholicism had an authoritarian government streak.
Political Roman Catholicism had no basis in New Testament scriptures..
TheOldOligarch says
You don’t know anything about history and are a moron, on what basis do you make such sweeping statements? I doubt you’ve ever within thirty feet of a primary historical source.
Terry Gain says
Savvy Kaffir
You know as much about Christian doctrine as the Left knows about Islamic doctrine.
CogitoErgoSum says
Wikipedia has compiled a list of people burned by Christians as heretics. I notice that the earliest burning starts at 1076 and the last is in 1689. It took about 1,000 years for the burning to start and then it stopped after about 600 years. Was it because Christian beliefs changed or was it because political systems changed? The wall between Church and State is a brilliant idea …. and Christians started out with the wall, lowered it for a while and then started building it up again. It seems like a good idea to keep that wall built up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_burned_as_heretics
Mark Swan says
CogitoErgoSum—you make a good point that a church state will not work, for mankind.
Of course there were people who claimed to be Christians performing cruelties that
were not Christian acts—they did it against their rules—Muslims perform cruelties
in following their rules.
This Idea that Christian understanding was changed by enlightened others is interesting.
Yet the book they have to base this understanding on has not changed.
CogitoErgoSum says
Mark, I see God as eternal truth that does not change; however, mankind does change. Our ability to understand the truth changes over time. Ancient people had limited knowledge and understood things according to the best of their ability. My hope is that human beings will always seek the truth and nothing will stop that. Now, some people have tried t to stop it but I don’t think Christianity is or ever was about stopping people from seeking the truth.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely CogitoErgoSum.
Chand says
+1, Savvy Kafir
Whowantstoknow? says
… Islam kills and yet somehow, inspite of all the moral opprobrium, it still seems to succede. Christianity is “tamed”. Christians of old were “murderers” too, apparently. Islam got its fair share of digs in. Charles Mattel had to fend them off in the 7th Century and Vienna was besieged what? Three times? So the whole of the Eastern Roman empire fell to it, but those murderous Christians kept them out of Europe and Russia too. The “taming” , when it came, like all human affairs of power was a bloody process too – or have we forgotten the history of the late 18th to mid 20th Centuries? The massacres of the Jacobins, of the Bolshevicks … etc?
So Christianity was “tamed” . Better murderers with better pitches and more guns. Now those murderers are no longer revolutionaries. They have become “Statesmen” and their ideas are taught in universities across the West and writ large in this or that constitution. Ideas like “freedom of religion”. Yet the call to prayer can be heard everywhere where those ideas are most at home too (and it will get louder) and where are the legions that tamed that old world many of you are so quick to scorn? Unborn, perhaps? Its more fun, after all if their are no consequences, right 68ers? Or marching for the rights of Mehmet and his pals, maybe? All the people on this website are marked with dirty words by people who proclaim the tenets of those long-dead revolutionaries with more fervour than ever before (and they have friends in high places too). Whereas all the enlightend resistance have are a few blogs and one very brave, isolated and increasingly uncomfortable President (a miracle in and of itself, seeing as how corrupt the incorruptible pinnacle of human secular civilisation had apparently become). Yet are you extreme in your views? Heaven’s no. You are practically bourgeois. You don’t even want to deport the buggers as such. You all worry about the panty-wastes on the other side – what might they think, or say? How did they get their again? In their ineptitude they still can – and do – run rings around you as a movement it seems and in the end Islam will run rings round them too. We talk about the fall of the Western world – a lot – but we are not going to integrate the idea any time soon. The Muslims? Political Islam? What are they doing? Moving in. Anyone gonna stop them? Didn’t think so. That would be uncivilised. That is what barbarians do. Well, I’d take 100 of the men who fought at the side of Charles the hammer over a million of what passes for manhood in the West today. Islam is a crock. Anyone with the God given intelligence above the level of your average Maghrebi can figure that out with the minimum of effort – literally pick up and read – but you know what? Our ideas are not so hot either if people shaped by that religion for I don’t know how many centuries are taking over by default. No. Our “enlightened” ideas it turns out are the evolutionary equivalent of congenital erectile dysfunction with a bad case of sterility for good measure. When the other half of the idolaters in the West convert – if they’ll take you (they never did like heathens much, odd really)- I guess you can have a good hard chuckle about those “murderous” Christians, while you drink day old tea. Feed off a carcass long enough some other predator is going to get the jump on you. Well boys and girls, at the rate things are going, I’d brush up on my ass-kissing in Arabic if I were you.
Whowantstoknow? says
Charles Martel, obviously. Damn auto-correct!
Baucent says
Not, an “atheist enlightenment” many of the thinkers were men of faith, you can’t understate the influence the Reformation begun by Luther. But the point above applies equally to you; you rather like living in a society that has at least nominally been formed on the values of Christianity. At least Dawkins is willing to admit that.
Jack Diamond says
Reminds me of Oswald Spengler near the end of his life appealing to the Pope to stop the Nazis, after spending his life disparaging the “weakness” of Christianity and affirming the manly, proud, pagan virtues.
Be careful what you want. Civilization is more fragile than you think.
gravenimage says
I disagree with Richard Dawkins on many points–but no, this nonviolent man is not a Nazi.
Jack Diamond says
Disparaging Christianity all your career and then wanting or expecting it to be a bulwark against a rising totalitarian movement is my point. Be careful what you want.
He is to be commended for calling Islam an evil religion and facing the uproar. But, as Hugh points out, his critique of Islam is shallow. It is much more malignant than even he imagines.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely Jack Diamond.
Hari Singh says
This is hypocrisy on his part as he is encouraging and supporting the demise of Western Christianity.Muslims don’t read his books. Christian clerics are in part to blame as well despite the theists winning the arguments in university debates with non-theists.
The vicars don’t preach these strong anti-atheistic arguments to their flock. Christianity in Europe is supine.
For arguments to defeat Dawkins see the books of William Lane Craig, a professor of philsophy and a born again Christian.
Petra says
Well put Hari. Richard Dawkins has been a leading figure in the secularisation of Britain, and has ridiculed Christian belief for years. A few years ago he admitted that he likes the Christmas service and considers himself a “cultural Christian”. Now he beginning to see that Christian faith with its respect for an individual’s freedom to believe or not believe is much more benign than Islam with its desire for everyone to be forced to convert. Is he beginning to regret his actions? Or even beginning to have faith? Perhaps we should pray that he has the humility and wisdom to fully embrace Christianity, and lead at least some of his atheistic followers back to Jesus before it’s too late.
Sharyati says
What so wrong with Atheism Hari? These are my arguments against god based on the Vedic philosophy of Sankhya, which though falls within the Vedic pantheon of philosophies, is atheistic
!. Why did god create the wordld?
2. If he created the world out of boredom or out of a want of something to do, he himself suffers existential anxieties like humans. Not good god eeh?
3. If he created it out of kindness for souls to exhaust their karmas(I am talking from a Hindu point of view of re-incarnation) and attain moksha i.e. escaping the state of being reborn and abide in one’s deep self, he has done a totally bad job as we can see, how cruel and death ridden the world is. Even orphanages and homes built by humans seem more kinder than the world of god
4. From 3 we can conclude that, if even we assume a creator god exists because we need an intelligence to fashion matter into the universe just as we need a potter to make a pot, he is not merciful or graceful as devotees of gods of all religions don’t seem to be saved in times of danger despite frantic prayers or submissions. Atleast 99.99% times it fails
5. Very rarely people through deeper practices like yoga or incantations(AKA mantras) can reach out to higher beings called devas(Not gods) in Hinduism. But this requires strict spiritual discipline and cannot be practiced by the general populace. These privileged few are able to enter deeper and more higher states of consciousness. In those states they experience bliss untied to the body and external matter. Also physically they attain rare powers, like those seen in Himalayan yogis, which i myself have seen. They can remain breathless for close to one hour, their heart beats drop down, their food intake decreases and thus metabolism decreases and thus bodily wear and tear reduces. They thus remain relatively young and aging reduces. Thus spiritual seeking need not have a god and one can look inward through practice and proper methods. This is the gist of Sankhya and Yoga
6. The conclusion of all the above points is that there is no clinching proof to show irrevocably that there is a kind merciful god existing, who intervenes in human affairs. If we assume he exists, at best he is a creator and an accountant, giving people their due desserts. That is all.
Chand says
Some of those ancient Indian philosophers were brilliant, Sharyati.
Sharyati says
Chand you support it because it is atheistic. But remember the one’s i talk about are based on the Veda even if they do not accept god. So they belong to the orthodox category. If i remember there are 6 heterodox schools of Indian philosophy not based on the Veda they are
1. Charvaka. Can be roughly equated to present day materialism, accepts nothing more than the senses. Does not believe in Moksha or an after life. The body is the be all and end all. No belief in re-incarnation
2. Jainism: Though this did not accept the Veda, it accepts karma, re-birth. Believed asceticism was the path to free oneself from repeated birth and deaths. Also accepted the existence of eternally blissful souls. Placed too much emphasize of non violence to the detriment of Indian society Did not accept a god as its core tenets but present day Jains worship hindu gods.
3. Four schools of Buddhism. All of them are accept karma, rebirth and asceticism as means to moksha. But all of them are atheistic and do not accept the existence of separate sentient souls. They believed nothing existed and the perceived world was an illusion.Sounds wickedly similar to the orthodox Advaitic Vedanta philosophy but very different at the core.
Chand says
Yes, Sharyati, i am an atheist. But I am still interested in all varieties of human thought and philosophy. I am basically interested in nature, including human nature.
Sharyati says
Chand when you mean atheist do you mean that you do not believe in any god of any religion??Or selective atheism that condemns and criticizes only hindu gods as practiced by pseudo sickular parties like the Dravidian BS parties in TN, the congress, the TMC etc etc. I know the Dravidian BS paties very well. They are atheists with respective to Hindu gods, but come ramzan and Christmas, you cannot find such disgusting Abrahamic bum lickers like them. They wear their prayer caps attend iftars, or become gofers and pander and debase themselves in front of Christians by playing santa claus. But their own native culture of the land they reject
Z says
You know things are dire when a Aethiest says a religion should not die
Winston says
As an agnostic (not an atheist) I find myself in agreement with Hillaire Belloc.
Westman says
Thanks, Winston, for pointing out Hillaire Belloc.
“Islam essentially survives, and Islam would not have survived had the Crusade made good its hold upon the essential point of Damascus. Islam survives. Its religion is intact; therefore its material strength may return. Our religion is in peril, and who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines? … There is with us a complete chaos in religious doctrine…. We worship ourselves, we worship the nation; or we worship (some few of us) a particular economic arrangement believed to be the satisfaction of social justice…. Islam has not suffered this spiritual decline; and in the contrast between [our religious chaos and Islam’s] religious certitudes still strong throughout the Mohammedan world lies our peril.” – Hillaire Belloc
We foolishly sent our petro money to Islam and what did it produce?
CogitoErgoSum says
I’ve said before that I believe man has two natures or sides. One is physical and the other is spiritual. In the West the physical side has become dominant and the spiritual side has atrophied. We’ve ignored something that helps in the competition for survival of the fittest and it may be something that is very important in helping us avoid extinction.
Save Europe says
Saudi Wahabbism and Salafism…..
Savvy Kafir says
Westman — You make an excellent point about petro-money and Islam. Our petro dollars have enriched the Muslim world and made it a far more dangerous and effective enemy.
The development of locally-produced alternative energy technology & infrastructure should be one of our top priorities in the war with Islam.
gravenimage says
Not all Atheists and Agnostics hate religion; they simply do not themselves believe. That is true of a number of Agnostics and Atheists here at Jihad Watch.
CogitoErgoSum says
I welcome what he said about Christianity but those who dish it out should also be willing to take it. In all seriousness, I do wish him well. I hope he has a sense of humor ….. even if it’s dark humor.
CogitoErgoSum says
I do agree with some of the things he has to say …. but, “too intelligent to be religious” seems rather arrogant to me. Maybe he’s not intelligent enough to understand some things about religion. I hope he never stops making new discoveries about the truth. I consider his comment as reported above as being one of them. BTW, I would call him agnostic even though he says he is closer to being an atheist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ5QG3MUTtg
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
I think it unfair to bundle atheists and agnostics together. Atheists and the religious both value certitude far more than an agnostic and therefore resemble each other more than they resemble the agnostic. Agnostics are ‘okay’ with not knowing the answers to most questions.
Westman says
“…contending that moderate Muslims suffer more at the hands of Islam and its teachings than anyone else.”
And why don’t they leave in massive numbers?
It’s the world’s largest example of Stockholm Syndrome or gambler’s hope. They are already too deeply invested socially, monetarily, and spiritually in Islam to abandon it without losing their current personal identity – and additionally, face physical violence for leaving Islam.
Dawkins is correct – Islam is the most dangerous religion on the planet.
As we watch the resurgence of Christianity in Russia, even adoption by the state, it seems apparent that Islam might find itself to be the cause of a future resurgence of Christianity in Europe.
Chand says
“And why don’t they leave in massive numbers?”
How does one ‘leave’ one’s religion? By a mass public ceremony, signing some declaration, and getting some media coverage as evidence?
Some Muslims probably quietly abandon their religion. Some are disinterested and just pretend to follow. Some might abandon and not admit that to non-Muslims or strangers.
dhans says
Mr. Dawkins is finding out that a belief in nothing does not answer the question of what is true.
Westman says
Worse, yet, reliance on atheistic logic, without the input of ideology-based values that inform universal human worth and sanctity, will lead directly to evil.
Islam has terrible logic, yet, still creates evil because it only places value and sanctity upon believers.
Lucretius says
I think he does believe he has the answer to what is true. But I think he’s beginning to realize, rather reluctantly, that his truth can have the effect of undermining the morale of the civilization that gave him the liberty to pursue science. He thinks the truth is that the diversity of life, from single-celled organisms to multicellular animals and plants, is the result of a long, complex, and highly chancy history. There is no divine or cosmic aiming at human life, nothing special about it to be concerned whether it comes or goes, whether it is transformed into something else—one certainly can’t say “higher” or “lower” about any such change—or abolished altogether. Everything is aimless becoming, and what basis is there for judging any change? There is no divine anchorage in the world storm. He may want to condemn Islam for being a lie and oppressive, but how can his world view justify doing that? What if holding to a commonly accepted lie like Islam allows one to combine with fellow believers to politically prevail and demographically outrun those who subscribe to “living for today” and the other precepts in John Lennon’s “Imagine”? It’s just another natural event.
Chand says
But whatever the consequences of the pursuit of truth, Lucretius, it will still have to be pursued. What is the alternative? Believing in some unproven claim just because it gives us an illusion of philosophical comfort? That would be laziness and cowardice.
Chand says
My last post was in reply to
dhans who says
“Mr. Dawkins is finding out that a belief in nothing does not answer the question of what is true.”
Chand says
Don’t think Dawkins believes in nothing. He is constantly eliminating the untrue. He believes in dissecting what is claimed. And this process never ends.
In science a theory has to be falsifiable, following Karl Popper. Newer discoveries or better explanations negate earlier ones, constantly.
Tjhawk says
As a young sceptic, I did some battling against Christianity. Of course, that’s because that was all I knew. As I became more mature, I figured out that there were cultural foundations that I could admire without buying into the entire theology. About this time I got exposure to islam, and I realized:
Holy $h;+!! There really are monsters out there!
Since then, I have focused my resistance on islam and have laid off on Christianity a bit. This was more a process of learning and growth than hipocracy.
Criticism of Dawkins should be tough because he is a public philosopher who actively tries to shape public opinion. He should have figured this out decades ago.
gravenimage says
+1
Westman says
1+
housemusic1@frontier.com says
Mr. Dawkins is a “reasonable man”…..I support his opinions.
Faith and Belief serve to divide mankind in political entities.
Reason and facts will serve everyone.
Savvy Kafir says
Agreed. Religious superstition — an especially evil form of it — is the root cause of the problem addressed by Jihad Watch. If humanity had abandoned superstition centuries ago, we would not be in this mess.
Lydia Church says
The good news is that people’s beliefs are a work in progress, still being sculpted by the observations and experiences in life. I have hope for anyone who is not willfully blind and still has breath in their lungs!
It ain’t over till it’s over!
: D
gravenimage says
🙂
jack cade says
Perhaps Dawkins has just learned that Muslims don’t believe in evolution.
Jack Diamond says
They make one believe in devolution though.
Tjhawk says
Does anybody remember Devo? (short for devolution)
Whip it !! Whip it Good !!
CogitoErgoSum says
I hadn’t heard “Whip It” by Devo for years so I looked it up on YouTube and also found a parody of the song called “Ship It” by Weldon Jenkins. He did it good. Both songs make me laugh. Thanks.
gravenimage says
🙂
mummyovie says
Totally!
Hugh Fitzgerald says
There are lots of atheists at this site, who have never had any trouble distinguishing Islam from other faiths as uniquely malign and dangerous. I think Dawkins should not be attacked for his timing (admittedly he’s two decades late) but welcomed, for at long last coming to that grim conclusion. His anti-Christian credentials make his owning up to a special horror of Islam that much more telling. if I were he, I’d concentrate entirely on Islam and how it stunts mental growth.
gravenimage says
Hear, hear, Hugh!
And we *all* have to stand against the threat of Islam–it threatens *everyone*–Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Neo-Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists–everyone. I stand with you all.
livingengine says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT0REzamVcg
Terry Gainb says
GI
You can add Muslims to that list.
gravenimage says
Yes–Muslims slaughter each other on a regular basis, as well.
Savvy Kafir says
Very true. Islam is an equal-opportunity oppressor. It’s a threat to believers and non-believers alike, and must be resisted by all of us — or all of us will lose.
Save Europe says
Agreed ?
WPM says
I have no hate and respect Atheist the thing Dawkins brings out is my vacuum theory .Many atheist hold their disbelief in God as a matter of logic, when this logic is question by people of faith the atheist defends his belief in no God with logic ,if their is any doubt to his logic he bring faith that his logic is fall safe. Many atheist guard and defend their belief in no God as strongly as believers in God. They make atheistism into a kind of “faith” of it own .With Christians ,Jews and most major faiths in this world of the 21 century they can by their teaching, leaders ,followers accept the presents of atheist to live in society as equals on all levels of treatment and rights .The golden rule is the rule of law that Christians should follow as per their rules of their books ,leaders and followers .Without believing in anything Christian, Jewish ,the golden rule is weaken people to fill the vacuum of no faith in a trouble upset world people turn to something for stability a strong supremacist faith that brings the false promise of order by crushing all who are not of it {Islam , communist , and Nazism all follow this kind of Faith ]. By going after any who do not believe in it as the solution to all life,s problems ,by blaming life,s problems on the “other” projecting. With Islam there is no room for Christian , Jew ,Atheist to live as full citizens with equal rights as equal people they must be either converted, kill or tax to death “subdued”. That what Dawkins has come to see ,that Christians are an ally of his” faith” Atheist because they believe in no harm or foul of it {if you believe there is no hell what harm in not following}. Christians do not put a death sentence on Christians who become atheist ,they do not believe in lying and treating them as less then full citizens with all right of free men in an open society.
Savvy Kafir says
I agree. Very good points, Hugh!
dave says
Aethiest is a harsh word with a negative association. I prefer the term non-superstitious.
Jack Diamond says
Then how about “superior being?” “Non-superstitious” isn’t condescending or patronizing to people of faith, no not at all…
How about we unite against a common threat and show some respect to one another?
gravenimage says
Absolutely, Jack.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely Jack Diamond and gravenimage.
Savvy Kafir says
“Non-believer” is a more neutral label. It doesn’t sound condescending, like some others; and it doesn’t have all of the negative connotations that “atheist” does.
And I agree that we all need to unite against the common threat of Islam. Definitely. Seeing many of the commenters here attack Richard Dawkins, an atheist/non-believing critic of Islam from the political left, got my hackles up. But we all need to stay focused on the enemy that threatens to drag the entire world back into the Dark Ages. The war with Islam requires all of the energy we can muster.
Peter says
Dave
One effect of using “non-superstitious” to descried atheists, is the corollary that religious people are superstitious. And as such, using it, would be ( in your logic) a harsh word with a negative association towards a certain group.
But maybe you are OK with that?
Are you an atheist?
I’m just trying to understand your mindset.
TheOldOligarch says
It’s an English term with a meaning, nobody cares if you don’t like the baggage.
theanimalthatthereforeiam3 says
Yes, even the atheists like Dawkins are in panic mode and still they make the mistake of calling Islam a religion instead of the hateful ideology which it is; as it is any survival of Christianity in Europe will be in only the Eastern European countries and that will be a major battle in itself; our so-called intellectuals, philosophers and so many others who have prided themselves on being seekers of truth have been far too slow to awaken or have taken cowardly stances based on fear and neutrality; now it’s become too late for them to realize that they should have spoken up much sooner and been the leaders when western civilization needed them most.
Ren says
Islam is not even a religion. It is fascism disguised as a religion.
Kay says
That’s what it looks like to me. Rules that people can’t but must follow and destructive power.
Robert Mann says
It’s not news that some atheists find pragmatic convenience in Christian ethics as expressed in, say, C20 Britain or New Zealand. Anyone who realises, as Dawkins does and is brave enough to say so, that Islam is incomparably more evil than Christianity will desire to go on living under legal systems based in Christianity. What Dawkins & ilk refuse to do is to admit that the practical political benefits cannot long continue unless enforcement & revision of civil law is more actively assisted by the church, short of theocracy.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Jack, do you believe in évolution like Darwian assumption that man evolved from Ape or the theory that universe existed by Big bang or accident or Existentialism that existence is the cause of existence ? mithraist christianity cannot counter these false théories.Islam could do It as Muslim philosophers did like Gazali Who dismissed thé assumptions that secret of création can be determined using pure logic and he came up with theory of scepticism in logics, which a French philosopher Descart developed. That is why atheism hardly exists among muslims as It is the case among mithraist christians whose religion is too irratiational and as such many in the West are not satisfied with its doctrines líke Godman and begotten son of God.Then people with good rational calculation in the West are now shifting to Islam, which could satisfy their curiosities.with that christianity Will die in the West and Islam takes over.
CogitoErgoSum says
Ibrahim, Christians believe in a god that is the Truth. Muslims believe in a god that deceives. Muslims can never be sure of what is true so looking for it is a waste of time. Christians can be sure that the truth exists and looking for it is never a waste of time because where the truth is, God is also. Could this be why scientific discovery grew so much faster in the Christian lands than in Muslim lands? I think so.
Keys says
Cogito, your point is one Ibrahim ought to ponder often.
Allah is the greatest of deceivers by “his” own admission.
Ibrahim believes Allah is not deceiving Muslims, “the greatest of people”.
Itace, beware of the flatterer and deceiver; not to mention that Allah loves death, and is a murderer.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Cogitoergosum, the fallacy in mithraist christianity can be found thus :1satan God(1+1+1)=Godman =3gods, which is nonsense
CogitoErgoSum says
You place limits on God, Ibrahim. I do not.
Save Europe says
What is Godman? Are you referring to your Satanic Moon God?
gravenimage says
Save Europe, Ibrahim itace muhammed uses “Godman” to refer to the Trinity. He is too dimwitted to grasp this simple concept–but he is fine with slaughtering Christians over it.
Naildriver says
What’s absurd, Itace, is to shroud a concept of God with Mohammed’s criminal inclinations, as a Jew hating pervert who blabbers whiney verse after verse of his petty opinions, demented behavior decrees, and, supremacist assertions to a pathetic nomadic peoples, with hatred, vengfulness, and idiocy — and promises the devotees with sexual orgy.
gravenimage says
Jay Boo, water can exist as a solid, a liquid, or a gas–as ice, water, and water vapor.
I very much take the rest of your points, though.
Bacherbazistan says
Ibrahim, I suspect you’re on this site regularly because you are looking for a way out of Islam (at least subconsciously). Check out the site of Coptic Priest Fr Butros Zakaria http://www.fatherzakaria.net/
He has been so successful in converting Muslims that he is one of the most hated men in the Islamic world. May you find the conversion and peace you are seeking.
Tricia Stuercke says
Great suggestion, beautifully presented…he’s an AMAZING, BRAVE MAN! He recently came for a very hushed, quick event at my parish…I was in alone in the Adoration Chapel in prayer just before closing time & had the LIFE SCARED OUT OF ME momentarily when my solemn, deep prayer was suddenly startled by huge bomb-sniffing German Shepherds! After a brief scream, & the security team apologizing profusely, I was laughing so hard! But, yeah ~ his security team is quite impressive…I pray The Lord keeps him safe for many years to come!
gravenimage says
+1
Paul says
@Iblis Incited Mohammedan,
Your ‘prophet’- no matter how many people count themselves as
Mohammedans – was STILL a satanically possessed blood thirsty
maniac who raped a nine year old girl. The fact that that he was
such a psychotic sexual deviant is STILL the PRECISELY WHY
you love him so much. To deny Mohammed and the cult of
Mohammedanism would mean you giving all that up, which, of course,
you never ever will. We get it.
Karen says
Do you believe in a religion that says Allah changed Jews into apes, pigs and rats?
Paul says
Cue a load of drivel from @Iblis Incited Mohammedan and
his usual nauseating diversionary tactics that will send you to
sleep (if he does answer it).
In a nutshell, he does believe in it, because as illogical as
Mohammedanism is, it gives him licence to be the sadist and
pervert that he is and that makes him very happy.
Karen says
Nauseating diversionary tactics…..yes, that is an apt description. While others engage in discussion, sometimes heatedly, he gets right to the name calling. Boring and childish.
gravenimage says
The vile Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Jack, do you believe in évolution like Darwian assumption that man evolved from Ape or the theory that universe existed by Big bang or accident or Existentialism that existence is the cause of existence ? mithraist christianity cannot counter these false théories.
………………………………
Of course, many Christians see no conflict between science and faith. But Muslims like Ibrahim itace muhammed reject reason and logic–as well as goodness and decency.
More:
Islam could do It as Muslim philosophers did like Gazali Who dismissed thé assumptions that secret of création can be determined using pure logic and he came up with theory of scepticism in logics, which a French philosopher Descart developed.
………………………………
What claptrap. Al Ghazali is known as the *Destroyer of Philosophy*–Muslims are actually proud of this. The idea that this thug influenced the Enlightenment is absurd.
http://newenglishreview.org/Paul_Austin_Murphy/Al-Ghazali%3A_Muslim_Destroyer_of_Philosophy
More:
That is why atheism hardly exists among muslims as It is the case among mithraist christians whose religion is too irratiational and as such many in the West are not satisfied with its doctrines líke Godman and begotten son of God.
………………………………
The reason atheism hardly exists among Muslims is that pious Muslims *murder Atheists*–especially those who dare to leave Islam:
“Bangladesh: Atheist writer hacked to death after threats from Muslims”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/02/bangladesh-atheist-writer-hacked-to-death-after-threats-from-muslims
This is just one story.
Christians do not do this–nor do Jews or other people of faith.
More:
Then people with good rational calculation in the West are now shifting to Islam, which could satisfy their curiosities.with that christianity Will die in the West and Islam takes over.
………………………………
Ibrahim itace muhammed has said this before–but it is utterly false as well as irrational. The fact is that more Muslims are *leaving* Islam in the West than are converting to it. The only reason for the growing presense of Islam in the West is the invasion of Muslim immigrants.
Karen says
gravenimage, the “Clarion” had an interesting article about Muslim apostasy in Europe just this week. The numbers are likely higher than officially reported, given the intense fear many Muslims would naturally feel about admitting their apostasy, and facing potential death at the hands of other Muslims. Talk about a “backlash”.
Ibrahim, read it, if you dare face the truth. I wouldn’t count Europe out just yet.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Karen. Yes–under freedom, even allowing for the threat from pious Muslims–more Muslims leave that oppressive and violent creed of Islam than convert to it.
This is actually very heartening.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
poor ignorant Gravenimage, she could not get the point Ghazali was making in his book “Tahafutul falasafa(the incohérences of philosophers )”raising shortcomings in Greek philosophy not drawing dichotomy between matters within human compréhension like physical sciences and matters outside human compréhension like the origin of this universe,not à destroyer or rejecting philosophy as alleged by ignorant Christian orientalists debunked and dismissed for long. See an article by Nuh Aydin to be found at http://www.fontainmagazine@google.com
gravenimage says
Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
poor ignorant Gravenimage, she could not get the point Ghazali was making in his book “Tahafutul falasafa(the incohérences of philosophers )”raising shortcomings in Greek philosophy not drawing dichotomy between matters within human compréhension like physical sciences and matters outside human compréhension like the origin of this universe,not à destroyer or rejecting philosophy as alleged by ignorant Christian orientalists debunked and dismissed for long. See an article by Nuh Aydin to be found at http://www.fontainmagazine@google.com
…………………………
Firstly, it is not “ignorant Christian orientalists” who praised Al Ghazali for his destruction of philosophy in Islam, but pious Muslims themselves. He is widely respected for just this to this day.
Al-Ghazali stated that one must be well versed in the ideas of the philosophers, but only to reject their ideas. He also claimed that Muslim who believed in philosophy were not just heretics, but actual rejectors of Islam.
Moreover, he completely rejected the study of science, saying there is no such thing as cause and effect, but that all observable actions were the arbitrary actions of Allah. Here is how he describes burning a piece of cotton:
“…our opponent claims that the agent of the burning is the fire exclusively; this is a natural, not a voluntary agent, and cannot abstain from what is in its nature when it is brought into contact with a receptive substratum. This we deny, saying: The agent of the burning is Allah, through His creating the black in the cotton and the disconnexion of its parts, and it is Allqah who made the cotton burn and made it ashes either through the intermediation of angels or without intermediation. For fire is a dead body which has no action, and what is the proof that it is the agent? Indeed, the philosophers have no other proof than the observation of the occurrence of the burning, when there is contact with fire, but observation proves only a simultaneity, not a causation, and, in reality, there is no other cause but Allah.”
No wonder there has never been a devout Muslim who won a Nobel Prize in science.
No wonder, as well, that Ibrahim itace muhammed himself is so woefully ignorant of even basic anatomy, claiming that FGM–cutting out a woman’s clitoris–has no effect on her ability to experience sexual pleasure (although it somehow keeps her ‘chaste’): that uncircumsized men have foreskins that are large, hard, and painful to women; and that all Christians are “smelly” despite having overall much superior standards of hygiene to Muslims.
And, of course, the link Ibrahim itace muhammed presents obviously does not work–there is no such URL.
The actual article he tried to link to is here:
http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/did-al-ghazali-kill-the-science-in-islam-may-june-2012
Of course, Nuh Aydin is correct in saying that it was not Al Ghazali’s work alone that destroyed the study of science in the Muslim world–but then, no one has ever claimed that it was. It is Islam itself that destroyed the study of science and the natural world–Al Ghazali was just one of the major proponents for such ignorance.
By the way, there are other grotesque articles at The Fountain, such as this one:
“Jesus & Muhammad: Commonalities of Two Great Religions”–this article says that if they had met, that “Jesus and Muhammad would have got along splendidly”–as if Jesus would have apporoved of caravan raiding, pedophilia, kidnapping, rape, and mass slaughgter! *Ugh*. But then, he claims that Jesus himself was Muslim, so this should not suprise.
The author descibes himself as a “Mu’ahid”–a non-Muslim who does not have to be killed by Muslims because he has submitted to Islam. In a Muslim society, he would be a dhimmi. *Ugh*.
gravenimage says
Also, note that Ibrahim itace muhammed has no problems with Muslims murdering apostates. And this is not just by ommission–he has said the explicitly here in the past.
Keys says
itace distinguishes between “matters within human compréhension like physical sciences and matters outside human compréhension like the origin of this universe”.
Is the nature of God “outside human comprehension like the origin of this universe” ?
How does itace know there is only one God ? How does itace know that God is one, and what that means ?
And how in hell does itace know that Mohammad is Allah’s final prophet and perfect man, and is not a liar like Allah ? How does he know that Mohammad did not project himself as “the greatest of deceivers” onto Allah ?
Hunh ?
Chand says
gravenimage says “The reason atheism hardly exists among Muslims is that pious Muslims *murder Atheists*–especially those who dare to leave Islam”
Yes, Ibrahim, gravenimage is right. About six prominent cases of fundamentalist Muslims attacking and killing atheists or secularists, most of them Muslims themselves, have occurred in Bangladesh in the last two years or so.
Save Europe says
Atheism….. (OR freedom of free thought)….. doesnt exist for Muslims because they’re scared they’ll be murdered by people like YOU. Truly, the ‘religion’ which is so thin skinned, and cannot tolerate even negative critiquing!!!!
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Another blunders from ignorant Gravenimage on causality. Ghazali never said there is no cause and effect in natural sciences like burning in fire. He said the true cause is Allah Who empowers fire to burn,human manipulation of striking matches, for example, is just cause agent.
WPM says
To Ibrahim iface Muhammed
Try looking up and watching Hamed Abdel Samad a man raise by an Imam to become a Imam who turn his back on Islam as a false faith in Box of Islam youtube series. He knows all the Koran in ancient Arabic as well as the Hadiths ,and takes it apart as a violent books of lies and contradictions .He also wrote a book called Islamic Fascism I think you would find it interesting.
WPM says
He Hamed Abdel Samad is in hiding because he is under a death threat not from Christians ,Jews ,or Western government ,but from Islamics because he says he is now an Atheist .
Hugh Fitzgerald says
I’ve looked into Dawkins’s views a bit more, and I now realize I was much too charitable. He now recognizes Islam as malignant, but the exact nature and scope of that malignancy escapes him. He doesn’t understand, for example, the duty of permanent Jihad, which explains the war against Israel by Muslims and Arabs, a “situation” rather than a “problem” that admits of a “solution.” He appears to believe in the “Palestinian people.” He has nothing to say about Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacism, and how that understanding could be exploited to help widen the fissure between Arab and non-Arab Muslims.
gravenimage says
True, Mr. Fizgerald–but he is still endlessly smeared as an “Islamophobe”, anyway:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-dawkins-islamophobic-berkeley-event-cancelled-islam-muslim-uc-university-california-a7860281.html
And he did say that “Islam is the greatest force for evil in the world today”, which is spot on.
I consider him imperfect in his understanding of the threat of Islam–but still hope that some people who would never visit Anti-Jihad sites may being the process of waking up after reading him.
gravenimage says
begin
Chand says
Although you are right about many issues, Hugh, including your exposure of Islam being a vehicle for Arab supremacism, I think Dawkins is right about the plight of the ‘Palestinian people’
Dawkins was right when he asked: “……can you explain why Palestinian Arabs should be the ones to pay for Hitler’s crimes? You surely aren’t going to stoop to some kind of biblical justification for picking on that land rather than, say, Bavaria or Madagascar?
Mark Swan says
Who has said that the problems between the Palestinians and Israel has anything
to do with Hitler’s crimes—Other than Mr. Dawkins?
Chand says
It is obvious, Mark Swan. The process of creating of a Jewish homeland came to a head after the Holocaust, which was a culmination of the long history of anti Semitism in Europe.
Mark Swan says
You so quickly take the side of the Palestinian Arabs.
You agree they are the ones being asked to pay for Hitler’s crimes—
by whom are they being asked to do this?
This Jewish homeland idea began long before Hitler’s Mass Murder of European Jews.
Jews have lived in that land continuously from more than 3200 years ago, until the present day, though Jews were not always in political control of the land, and Jews were not always the majority of the land’s population.
The State of Israel is not solely Jewish, just over 80% are Jewish.
Around 1/3 of the worlds Jews live in Israel.
About half of all Jews there are Mizrachim, descended from Jews who have been in the land since ancient times.
Most of the rest are Ashkenazic, descended from Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after Israel was founded or fled persecution in Eastern Europe starting in the late 1800s, from Holocaust survivors, or from other immigrants who came at various times.
The breakup of the Ottoman Turkish empire resulted in about 40 new countries, including 22 Arab states.
That land did not exist as a Palestinian state—nor does it exist, yet, as such.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Zionism did not begin with, nor was it helped by, the Nazi murders. The return of Jews to ‘the Land of Israel began in the late 19th century, and continued steadily from then on..The Balfour Declaration recognized what had already begun — an attempt to create a “Jewish National Home” that could then become a Jewish State. Far from “creating” Israel the Holocaust, killing off so many of those who might have gone to Palestine, made it that much harder for the Jews in Palestine to defend themselves when, on May 15, 1948, the armies of five Arab nations attacked. The Holocaust did not further, but impeded, Israel’s success. Imagine what the state would have been like if even half of the six million murdered Jews had gone in the late 1930s or early 1040s to Israel.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely Mr. Fitzgerald—what a good way to put it into perspective.
Jim Austin says
Given what’s likely to replace Christianity, Dawkins warning should be take seriously.
utis says
Islam is an enemy of free thought. Even the dhimmi must bow to shariah. Everyone else is a free target, and atheists are at the front of the crowd. We all flourish in an atmosphere of real tolerance; Islam sucks the air out of everything on many levels.
Karen says
Well, ok, that’s nice. Ironic note; Dawkins is the product of centuries of Christian civilization which put him where he is today, so perhaps he could toss a little bone of acknowledgement in that direction too.
Benedict says
If we hope Christianity as a lesser evil, a minor inconvenience or a cultural bulwark will protect us against the ultimate evils of Islam we are in for a rude awakening. Christianity is not at the disposal for human contempt, cowardice or cultural celebrations without severe consequences.
It’s not the impotent Allah and his deluded prophet that are not mocked; they are just instrumental in the bum-yielding mockery and quranic inspired terror that’s so characteristic for Islam. It’s the triune God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in whose angry hands we are.
Just a hunch.
gravenimage says
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death,” Dawkins said.
…………………..
So true.
Eric jones says
In my years of living I have found nothing better than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Eric
Karen says
Agree, Eric.
Ren says
Even an atheist realizes that islam is evil.
gravenimage says
Bill Maher has the general idea, as well–as did the late Christopher Hitchens.
And there are a lot of Agnostics and Atheists here at Jihad Watch, as well–including the incomparable Hugh Fitzgerald.
6woods says
I’m an atheist and the derisive and patronizing remarks by many so-called Christians on this site are very disheartening. I come to this site to find solidarity and comfort from like- minded people against the monstrous ugliness that is islam. However, now I’m concerned that many of the posters here oppose islam simply on religious grounds, in the same way muslims are against everyone else simply on religious grounds.
Religious posters here seem to dislike atheists for the same reason that they dislike muslims- that we don’t believe what they do.
As an atheist, I firmly believe in peoples’ right to believe what they want, as long as they don’t try to violently force others to believe the same. Islam does this, which is why I loathe this putrid ideology. Some posters here seem to feel that atheists deserve to be victimized by islam. This is horrifying. I may not be back.
Wellington says
I’m an agnostic, 6woods, and may I respectfully suggest you shouldn’t get too upset with some Christians who comment here. After all, none of them want to harm or kill you for believing or thinking as you do (neither harm or kill me or anyone in the name of Christianity for not being a Christian or for criticizing their faith, contra Muslims big time). So what, I would ask, if some Christians dislike atheists (and agnostics)? And if some Christians, as you asserted, oppose Islam simply on religious grounds (of course many, many Christians oppose Islam for sundry reasons), why isn’t this enough? I say most anyone opposing Islam, whatever the reason or reasons, I look upon as an ally in the fight against the one religion that in its theological blueprint validates the use of force to spread itself and which is a mortal enemy of freedom.
Reconsider and stick around. You’ve made some good comments here. Make some more. We need most everyone in the fight against Islam and what it intends for us all. Coalitions of all kinds throughout history have exhibited tension at times among a coalition’s participants. Same here. No big deal I would argue. Besides, there are many Christians who are not judgmental in any annoying kind of way. Many. I myself know several. Perhaps you do too.
Mark Swan says
Wellington is absolutely correct in what he has said here—to you 6woods, please
reconsider and stick around.
CogitoErgoSum says
I agree with Wellington. I am Christian myself but my father was an atheist. He was a good and decent man that I loved. I welcome knowing what you and everyone else has to say. As Mark says above, stick around. If for no other reason, do it for the sake of (get ready for it) … diversity … diversity of thought.
Paul says
Respect to Atheist Richard Dawkins. He is most certainly
a cut above many Cultural Marxists who call themselves ‘Christians’
like many quislings in the church. I know who I much prefer. Here’s
Dawkins on fine form, giving a slimy Mohammedan apologist a tough
time on a BBC chat show :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1dMyhXJkNY
gravenimage says
Thanks for the link.
Paul says
Glad you like it 🙂
infidel says
What a SLIME BALL that Islamic cleric is and how he obfuscates, dodges, weaves like a Slippery Shah.. These are the games the so called Mod Muslims are adept at..
Paul says
That’s right. Deception is their game until they can finally usher
in hell on earth. He was never going to volunteer any of that
information until he was forced to do so by Dawkins.
The slimy POS.
TheOldOligarch says
Arch-Atheist slowly realizes that nobody is ever going to give a shit about this tepid, lukewarm secular civilization he wants to build, where there is no higher consideration than one’s individual interests and diversions. Once Europe completes it’s transition from a Christian civilization to an atheist one it will be consumed by Islam within two generations, the Muslims believe in something at least, it’s the only advantage they have but it looks to be decisive.
gravenimage says
You are mistaken that no Atheists have moral beliefs.
Paul says
You’re right. As well as Richard Dawkins, you just have to look
at people like the late Christopher Hitchens and Pat Condell for
examples of very moralistic Atheists.
Again, I much prefer those people to the likes of this potato
headed POS (and he’s a priest!) arguing with the brilliant
Raheem Kassam about the ‘migrant crisis’.
Well, I don’t mean so much “argue” as acting in a petulant and
highly hysterical manner with criminally negligent disregard for
his compatriots :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIqbz2BH4UQ
TheOldOligarch says
I never said no Atheists have moral beliefs. My point was that since the Atheist can offer no possible defence of why his set of moral beliefs are metaphysically more valid than any other, an Atheistic society will fail to offer sufficient resistance to an aggressive foreign society that really does believe it’s precepts have objective significance.
We’re seeing that play out now. Honestly even without Islam as an enemy the new secular civilization that people like Dawkins have been trying to build would collapse even under it’s own weight since it seems incapable of even replacing it’s own population on a sustainable.
This shattered, anemic, demoralized secular West we live in now has no future, that’s true with or without the vulture of Islam circling it’s soon-to-be corpse.
Indiana Tom says
Problems with the Red Green Axis Marriage? Oooohhh….nnoooos!
Islam_Macht_Frei says
Every atheist I can think of – Sam Harris, Bill Maher, Hitchins, and of course Dawkins, recognizes Islam as singularly evil and threatening. That’s why the Left goes ape Shiitte over these atheists – they can’t be lazily dismissed as merely shilling for their religion over Islam, as they are truly neutral observers and their comments on Islam are objective. The Left hates that whole dynamic. And it’s why Maher is vilified by many, despite having pristine leftist credentials on almost every issue. The weird thing is how fealty to Islam trumps women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, free speech, commitment to diversity and minority rights where ever these are trashed under Islam.
Paul says
Mohammedanism trumps EVERYTHING. While it’s okay to
vilify whites over the long since abolished slave trade, leftists
completely ignore Arab Mohammedans going into Africa and
enslaving black people as we speak.
Everything they say is selective. Everything they do is disingenuous.
They are wilfully deceived and their goal is to deceive the rest of the
world in order to bend everyone to their will and destroy white people,
advance Mohammedanism and then chuck all other groups and
minorities under the bus. Cultural Marxism is the cause and
Mohammedanism is a symptom. An unholy alliance indeed.
Benedict says
It’s the calling and the function of the Left to prepare the way for Islam. Like John the Baptist, who was/is a forerunner for Christ, so is the Left a forerunner for Islam. The phenomenon is through and through spiritual and religious.
Benedict says
PS:
The hate for Christ, who was of the Jews, is the ultimate anti-Semitism and in the final analysis that’s the profound sentiment that unites the two religions: Leftism and Islam. Ultimate they will be at each others throats because that is the fate of and the judgment upon evil: it will destroy itself.
Benedict says
PPS:
Leftism is feminism gone mad and Islam is male chauvinism gone mad and they will meet in a kiss of death.
CogitoErgoSum says
Benedict, I like that about feminism and chauvinism gone mad. Yes!
Paul says
Well put Benedict, I wouldn’t argue with any of that.
Arthur says
In my opinion, Richard Dawkins has analyzed humanity and found no scientific support for belief in religion. However, as an evolutionary biologist, he has missed his biggest lesson in life: belief in religion is clearly a trait which results in positive natural selection. List off all the great atheist empires: so far as I know, they are limited to leader worship regimes such as communism (Lenin/Stalin) and North Korea. Maybe Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan fit there too. But even in these regimes, the leaders themselves are elevated to the status of a god and are worshiped (perhaps involuntarily) in order to bring cohesion to the community. How do they fare once the leader dies? How did communism fare? After a few generations it collapsed.
I think that Richard Dawkins is a hypocrite for missing the very obvious conclusion that religion results in greater societal cohesion and defense, extending to the kind of individual self-sacrifice that emboldens armies and discipline. He is like a cardiologist, having finally understood all manner of disease of the heart, who then rejects good diet and exercise because he arrogantly finds himself, “above it all.”
Clearly, Europe is proving that even a relatively educated, sophisticated society which carries common “humanistic” moral values is no match for even the most base of religions. I would love to challenge Dawkins on this in one of his panels.
Dawkins proselytizing atheism is like a lion calling for the removal of all lion claws and teeth. One can conclude, scientifically, that society should believe in religion even though scientifically the same person cannot conclude that religion is truth. Ironically, religion only works when you believe it is the truth.
Religion may actually provoke wars in some instances, but evolution allows the victor, not the intellectually arrogant, to reproduce. I would also argue that orthodox Christianity, as societal construct is more highly naturally selected than Islam, so long as it does not revert to appeasement and pacifism.
(But as for myself, I’ve always (truly) believed and am educated in science, too. I have no desire to abandon Christianity in favor of atheism, not even for atheism’s negative selective effects!)
Chand says
Arthur says “However, as an evolutionary biologist, he has missed his biggest lesson in life: belief in religion is clearly a trait which results in positive natural selection”
“I think that Richard Dawkins is a hypocrite for missing the very obvious conclusion that religion results in greater societal cohesion and defense,”
Natural Selection is an amoral process. It has produced amazing creatures and also awesome suffering. It is neither good nor bad; neither desirable nor undesirable.
In human societies, social and tribal cohesion have given evolutionary advantages and our propensities for religion is thus instinctive as religion provides such social/tribal glues. Over time tribes and societies that were more aggressive or made more intelligent use of resources for military advantage overtook others.
But people like Dawkins do not have any agenda of espousing one religious system over another, even if one provides an evolutionary advantage. They just expose things as they are. And I agree with his take on Islam and Christianity.
After all, we are one human race and this is one planet and we all swim or sink, together.
Mark Swan says
Natural Selection is just a theory ( an idea of or belief about something arrived at through speculation or conjecture).
“After all, we are one human race and this is one planet and we all swim or sink, together.”
Yes—we should all come to understand this—I agree.
Michael Poulin says
” Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
FIDES ET RATIO
JOHN PAUL II
Michael Poulin says
Math can give us an equation that describes a perfect circle, yet no perfect circle has ever been observed in nature. This seems to argues toward the existence of some type of “perfection” which cannot be directly observed but only imagined in the mind a conscious being. So we are here imagining perfection,convinced by math that it is true, yet we can’t “prove” that this perfection actually exists! Yet I have yet to meet anyone, atheist or theist, who does not believe in circles!
Ian H says
But regardless of opinions as to the utility of religion in society, the ultimate question for each of us is simply “do you believe”. And if the answer to that question is no then that is the end of it. Arguments that we should somehow decide to believe because religion has some sort of dubious positive benefit to society are about as convincing as someone trying to persuade themselves that they are in love because being in love is good for one’s emotional stability.
CogitoErgoSum says
And if the question is yes, what then? Shouldn’t that be the end of it also? As with love, it’s a personal matter.
Arthur says
I agree, you can’t decide to believe because you think it has societal benefit, that’s true. The particular irony being that it isn’t a rational decision for most of us. But the elitists see themselves as the managers of society. They think it their business to direct society to believe specific things and arrange their propaganda, NGOs, protests, and school lessons accordingly. What they believe personally probably isn’t even relevant to their propaganda.
I argue simply that an evolutionary biologist should recognize the possibility that religion has been positively selected for essentially all of human history. Trying to dissuade people from their beliefs may actually be harming society.
It’s like telling a little girl she is ugly. You might be factually correct, and it may be protected free speech, but is it wise? Is it the right thing to do? Do your intentions really matter?
Robert says
There is nothing like Moderate Muslim
It’s a Delibarte Silence.
Don’t fool People.
People have lost faith in Secular Intellectual , Atheistic , And Rationalist …
MFritz says
We have been indoctrinated for DECADES now to hate OUR Western culture and OUR Christian religion because the globalists and their leftist goons want foreign people and their cultures to come here as cheap labour. And for us to ignore their obvious intolerance, backwardness and hostility out of fear of being called “racist”.
Matthieu Baudin says
Dawkins collaborative work with the late Christopher Hitchens provided a great insight into the traps that can accompany religious styles of thought. ‘God is not great’ is a worthwhile read for believers, non believers and agnostics alike. The Muhammadan circular belief system has proven to be extremely resilient for 14 centuries and makes a good case study for Dawkins ideas about Meme transmission, a virus like pattern of infection and spread of certain ideas throughout a population.
kouldb says
I’m not religious, but now that his arse is threatened, he wants to shimmy up to the very Christians he’s denigrated & insulted all his life? What a snake. Seriously.
The European says
Richard Dawkins did everything he could in order to deconstruct Christian faith, calling it irrationalist and delusional. Now he is complainig about Islam which is just filling the void people like him have created in the first place. He is like a man who first helped erase the walls of a great fortress. Now that the walls are gone, he gets anxious, wondering what should be done to counter the onslaught of supremacist Islam. I find him rather pathetic. By which means does he want to oppse Islam? Atheism? A nihilistic belief which denies God, Heaven and Hell and the afterlife? If human beings are nothing but a random by-product of evolutionary processes, if the human species will become extinct one day, why do we bother at all about ameliorating, prolongating and preserving human life? I think that fear of death and a yearning for eternity are at the core of both religion and science. The idea of medical and scientific progress has its roots in these two completely irrational elements of human existence: fear of death and a desire for eternity. These two elements are irrational, for, why should be be afraid of something as natural as death and why would we yearn for something which we know is impossible to obtain: eternal life? Modern science and medical research are driven by the same irrationality as religious belief systems, and Dawkins’ atheism is just a belief system that refuses to be called by its name..
gravenimage says
The implication–which I have heard before–that Infidels in secular nations are flocking to Islam is simply not the case.
Far more Muslims are *leaving* Islam–either for Christianity or Agnosticism or Atheism–than are Infidels converting to Islam.
In fact, the main reason for growth of Islam in the West is *not* due to converstion to Islam, but entirely due to the invasion of Muslims into the West and subsequent high Muslim birth rates.
I find the idea that people are simply drawn to *any* belief system–and that it matters not whether it is good and decent or hideously violent and evil–to be both dsigusting and completely mistaken.
Chand says
The European says “Now he is complainig about Islam which is just filling the void people like him have created in the first place.”
Science did not purposely create this Void. This void was exposed when the fog that was the delusional thinking from the past was steadily dissipated by the light of the truth arrived at by the succession of scientists over the centuries, using their brains and burning the midnight oil, struggling to make sense of the world.
And it is an ongoing project, shedding more and more light.
Mark Swan says
Notice three common assertions about the Big Bang model: first, that our universe is billions of years old. The second is that the universe is rapidly expanding. And third that our universe is composed of clusters of galaxies that are threaded together in unimaginably huge, three-dimensional patterns .
Recorded in your Bible thousands of years ago – long before the availability of modern scientific instruments – are these very same characteristics!
This is incredible when one remembers that just a few hundred years ago, people believed the world was flat and that the solar system revolved around the earth!
Only God could have known and recorded such accurate descriptions of our universe thousands of years ago.
How old is the universe? Is it only 6000 years old, as many Bible students wrongly believe?
The Bible tells us that before the universe was created, the Word and God the Father existed (John 1:1-3). Before time even began, They created the heavens and the earth (the word God is the plural ‘elohiym in Genesis 1:1).
Most scientists point to the universe being about 14 billion years old – and this does not contradict the Bible.
God’s Bible reveals a “time gap” between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Notice that Genesis 1:2 could be properly translated that the earth became (hayah) “without form and void.” Simply, Genesis 1:2 occurs long after Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1.
What about our very “modern” notion that the universe is rapidly expanding? Isaiah 42:5 and Jeremiah 51:15 are just two passages where God revealed that He “stretched out” (natah) the universe like one casting out a net.
Hundreds of years ago, people were burned at the stake for claiming that our solar system was anything but a fixed model where everything rotated around the earth.
But thousands of years ago, God revealed in the Bible that the universe is rapidly expanding, as something “thrown” out, just like modern science is finally beginning to fully realize!
And finally, what of the even more recent realization that the universe is structured on an incredible scale with entire galaxies “threaded” together in unimaginably huge patterns? Verses such as Isaiah 40:22 speak of the “heavens” being like a tapestry or a curtain – something that is woven, in an immense pattern. So, a third time, ancient scripture and modern science agree.
True science and the Bible continue to agree! To the skeptic, it is a curiosity. To the atheist, it is a contention. But to those willing to be honest, ancient scripture and modern science not only reconcile, but are irrefutable declarations of God’s glorious handiwork (Psalms 19:1; 97:6), proving His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20).
The Bible clearly states that the universe was not made from pre-existing matter. That fits precisely with the evidence in astronomy and physics. So, if the universe was not made of pre-existing material or matter, how did it come into existence?
Science cannot answer this, but God tells us His method of creation: “He has made the earth by His power” (Jeremiah 10:12). God created the earth—and all the universe—from His power, or energy.
Nuclear physicists have known for years that energy can theoretically be converted into mass and, conversely, that mass can be converted into energy. This is how the mass of a nuclear bomb is released into energy.
So, in the creation event—what some scientists call the “big bang”—the Creator God brought the universe into existence by His power or energy. This becomes the missing ingredient that explains what astrophysicists are observing in the universe.
There is one more crucial bit of amazing information about the creation and origin of the universe, which we can find in God’s word and which has recently been proven in astronomy and physics: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth… who stretches out the heavens like a curtain” (Isaiah 40:22).
The Hebrew verb translated “stretches” is in the present tense. In other words, God is still stretching out the universe.
This fits precisely with what has been observed by the Hubble telescope: the universe is still rapidly expanding.
In the same verse, we read that God “spreads [the heavens] out like a tent to dwell in.” Here, in the Hebrew, “spreads” is in the past tense. God’s Word indicates that in the original creation event, He stretched out the heavens, and that the universe is still being stretched out in continuing expansion, as seen by the Hubble telescope.
Amazingly, science is finally catching up in understanding with the Bible concerning the origin of the universe.
duh swami says
‘If God creates all this suffering, he can’t be good, and if he is powerless to stop it, he can’t be God’…Buddha…visit a nursing home for confirmation…
CogitoErgoSum says
That’s an unfortunate misunderstanding of Christian belief. The Christian belief is that God did not create man to suffer but that God does allow suffering because man chose knowledge of it. Freedom of choice entered the picture when God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they both chose to do so anyway. As a result they gained the knowledge of the difference between good and evil …. but in order to gain that knowledge evil had to enter their world and they had to experience the suffering that evil brings with it.
That story in Genesis does read like a fairy tale but upon closer inspection, it has deeper meaning than appears on the surface. At least it does for me. And I say sadly, yes, I’ve been to visit a nursing home. I hope God had mercy on my father when he was there ….. and will have some for me too in about 20 years or so. (Honor your father and your mother took on a deeper meaning for me at that time also.)
Ray Jarman says
It is called free agency and we were put here to prove our worthiness to live in his presence. It is up to us to make the world better by eradicating the cult of perdition.
gravenimage says
Agree about free agency, CogitoErgoSum and Ray.
Chand says
+ 1 duh swami
Mark Swan says
To berate the Word Of God is Your choice—right now the Bible has very little to
do with you, it is for those that God is willing to teach now, it exists for that right now.
All Humans will eventually be taught from what the word of God teaches. No one
will be judged before they are taught.
The test of spiritual cleanliness is our attitude to the name of God! We are clean or unclean according to whether we take the name of God in truth—or for vanity.
Someone is better off who—because of sincere religious doubts—has dropped the name of God from their vocabulary, than a professing Christian who talks about God continually, but denies Him in their thoughts and actions!
The supposedly religious people who talk about religion and God but refuse to live by his teaching have greater hypocrisy than those who admittedly don’t believe and at least refuse to pretend otherwise.
Mark Swan says
The very real God of the Bible is certainly hearing the literal “groans” of the suffering people. As they—and we—are deeply humbled by the awesome forces of creation that God has set in motion, we will begin to realize that human life apart from the true God is futile.
This may seem “cruel” or “unfair” to those who lack understanding of the awesome power and glory that God has in mind for those who truly serve and obey Him. But it is often the only way human beings are willing and able to learn.
Of course, we should ask many of the writers holding forth against God: “Why do you, of all people, suddenly bring a real God into the picture when most of the time you totally deny His existence.
The next question we should pose, to those who complain about a supposed irrational or malevolent God, is: “Which God are you talking about? The actual God who reveals Himself in the Bible? Or a god of your own un-biblical teaching or human imagination?”
Many who are quick to say “God is dead!” quickly bring Him back to life when tragedy strikes! Then they have someone to blame! The truth of the Bible—which very few believe—is that the Creator of heaven and earth is trying to teach humanity “lessons” for all eternity. He has made mankind in His “image” (Genesis 1:26–28).
God wants to give human beings power, glory and eternal life.
But, with our vain and self-willed human nature, we are not ready for such power and responsibility until we have truly learned awesome lessons through the crucible of human experience and suffering.
Only after he had suffered and was deeply humbled did Job say: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6).
God will get our attention—one way or another. He does not do this in spite, but in genuine outflowing concern to help a people who have been totally obsessed with “me-ism” and materialism. He wants us to wake up and be willing to genuinely seek our Creator and fulfill the supreme purpose for which we are drawing breath.
Ray Jarman says
Mark, When you say, “Many who are quick to say “God is dead!” quickly bring Him back to life when tragedy strikes!,” I am reminded of times such as 9/11 when Americans of all creeds came together but the shame is that it was so ephemeral. Within months, Americans were fighting with each other in attempts to gain political advantage.
Mark Swan says
Yes Ray,
It does show when we ignore God, we lose the ability to appreciate what we are.
Because He knew we would choose to teach ourselves, God has allowed us a period
of time here on this earth, to experiment—even burn our fingers, if need be.
For now, there is a powerful Being here also, who we listen to more than we do God.
The origin of politics—
So it all began…( the seal of perfection…full of wisdom and perfect in beauty )—
( I established You…You were on The Holy mountain of God [Governmental Seat] )—
( You were perfect in Your ways from the day You were created…until iniquity
[ lawlessness ] was found in You…By the abundance of Your trading [ politicking ]…You became filled with violence within and You sinned [ broke the law ]…therefore I cast You out as a profane thing out of the Mountain Of God [ government of god ] )—
( Your heart was lifted up because of Your beauty…You corrupted Your wisdom for the sake of Your splendor )—
( You defiled Your sanctuaries [ most sacred parts of holy places] by the multitude of Your trading [ politicking ] )—
Taken from — Ezekiel 28: 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.
( How have You fallen from heaven…O Lucifer…son of the morning! )—
( For You have said in Your heart…I will ascend into heaven…I will exalt my throne above the stars of God [ Angles ]…I will sit on the mount of the congregation…I will be like the Most High)—
( Who made the world as a wilderness [ uncomfortable situation: a place, situation, or multitude of people or things that makes somebody feel confused, overwhelmed, or desolate] and destroyed its cities…Who did not open the house of his prisoners. )—
Taken from — Isaiah 14: 12, 13, 14, 17
So a very powerful Spirit Being has rebelled…has been found guilty of a serious crime and banished to live on this earth…He roams the earth like a hungry lion…He destroys Our efforts to live in peace among others…He imprisons both Mentally and physically those that live on the earth…He broadcasts His very thoughts through the air…humans are not able to resist this genius at mind ploys…but He is not the almighty God Who made Him…and restrains him…or He would have helped us to be completely destroyed long ago.
Politicking thrives amongst humans…for now…but its allowed period of time is almost up.
God’s plans for man’s future stays right On schedule and will accomplish exactly what He wants…nothing can change it….or stop God from adding many members to His family.
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God…these are sons of God…The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…and if children…then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:14-17).
revereridesagain says
“I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death,”
I AM ATHEIST TOO. Christians frustrate and exasperate me with their constant smug or strident insistence that I believe in supernatural beings when that is just as impossible for me as believing that the law of gravity is optional.
However, they leave me alive and free to argue with them. Such would not be the case under Islam.
For that we have the Enlightenment to thank.
Nevertheless, Dawkins is right.
Savvy Kafir says
Ditto … on each of those points.
mgoldberg says
Just a thought but…. people should check out a youtube interview between the moderator, Dawkins, and Rabbi jonathan Sacks- then the chief Rabbi of England. It was a frank conversation and it was a far ranging discussion of the meaning, validity, purposes of belief, religion and answers some of the obvious questions posed by various posters here. Also, Dawkins might go back and review his own conversations with the Rabbi.
CogitoErgoSum says
I found that conversation on YouTube and found it very interesting. It does very much relate to some of the discussion going on here. Thank you.
Here is the link for those interested in watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK0tpvcIRhU
DP111 says
The font and foundation of Western civilisation, be it science, engineering, philosophy, literature, medicine etc is Christianity.
It is only in Christianity that we have the concept of a knowable God. A God that not only can we know (through Jesus as a person, as an example), but that God’s creation by extension, also becomes knowable. From which follows why science was a subject that was pursued by Christians and not by any other religious traditions. God was not only knowable but was not perverse. Therefore his creation was also knowable,and would not be perverse.
All the greatest scientists of the world were devout Christians.
1. Isaac Newton2. James Clerk Maxwell 3. Copernicus4. Mendel
In Niall Ferguson’s recent book, Civilisation, he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. “But in the past 20 years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”
dumbledoresarmy says
Those Chinese investigators were not the only ones to reach similar conclusions.
Tom Cahill, in “The Gifts of the Jews”, goes back to the source – for Christianity arose from a Jewish matrix. Without the House of Israel, and the Sinai revolution, there would have been NO Yehoshuah of Nazareth; and NO Christianity.
Good companion-piece – an essay by a Jewish writer, one Joshua Berman, entitled “God’s Alliance With Man” (Azure magazine online, 2006)
http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=131
which discusses a number of ways in which the Sinai covenant radically alters the way in which the relationship between divinity and human beings was envisaged; alters it in a way that shaped not only ancient Israel but any society that takes those Biblical texts seriously.
“…Whereas much scholarly discussion has focused on the idea of the people of Israel as a collective, and the covenant referring to an entire nation as such enjoined in a covenantal bond with God, I will argue in what follows that within the covenantal narratives human kingship is bestowed not only upon the entire Israelite polity, but upon each individual member of that polity as well.
“God is a king who enters into a treaty not only with the Jewish people as a lesser king, but with each individual Jew, subordinate yet possessing honor and standing in his own right.
(And I would add that this God, this YHWH, is the diametrical opposite of the capricious divinities of the ancient world, capricious divinities of which ‘allah’ is the latest and by far the worst; for this G-d, when He sets his Name to a covenant, intends to *keep* it all the way to the bitter end, with a relentless and steadfast fidelity. Truth-teller, covenant-keeper. – dda).
“The implications of this claim- that subordinate kingship devolves upon the individual no less than the people-may extend far beyond the scholarly debates.
“The idea of covenant may in fact be indicative of a profound revolution which biblical thinking represented in the ancient world, a revolution which is with us to this day.”
And there is also a bloke from India, Vishal Mangalwadi, who wrote a book called “The Book That Made Your World”. ‘Your world’ being ‘western civilisation’. ‘The book’ being.. The Bible.
gravenimage says
+1
Tom S. says
At this point, everyone has been given ample warning to arm themselves. Go out to your local Appleseed event. Finally, learn about jury nullification and tell a friend or neighbor about it.
Naildriver says
Dawkins perhaps has had an epiphany. He realizes the nature and proclivities of genes might well be in play here in a literal contest with reason.
Islam has a primitive appeal. It speaks to what other religions reject, such as a literal physical violence in matters that offend. It’s a men’s entitlement system — though not one for the benifits of the animal but benifits for a select number of the animal’s genes. Many support Islam as system for an animal inside — the worst animal in man, particularly men.
If Islam wins, mankind as we know it is doomed and civilization will become a shambles.
Western museums, libraries, will mostly go up in flames and thugs will reign once again while inbreeding and poverty will reduce the species to a dismal, stupid, warring, and certainly unhappy hell.
The smug and self righteous, the venal and greedy, such as the creative fear mongers we hear on the radio hawking Revalations in the bible in pretense to Christianity will move to Islam as more lucrative.
People should now be beyond alarmed at Islam’s progress since 9/11 — the situation is dismal. Too many think Islam will adjust to law and modern toys, as a kid can be bribed from being annoying with a toy — religious incilnations though, are in the genes and most will accept what religion is avaliable, or most powerful and do its bidding.
Islam is indeed the enemy to us all but it will have to take an intelligent small minority to stop it — as its like a cancer.
DP111 says
I think that China is not only copying the West as fast as it can in engineering, science and even culture, such as music, but will become a Christian country in the not too distant future. In music very many violinists are Chinese. But for China to succeed as a Western nation it has to embrace the foundation of Western culture. Given Chinese temperament, who can say they wont succeed.
Even the present “communist” persecution of Christians is just the right balance to make Christianity flourish.
All the best to them, as it would be a tragedy that Western civilisation was killed off by Islam imported by our idiot politicians, and found no home elsewhere except as a memory.
DP111 says
For that we have the Enlightenment to thank.
Well..
Enlightenment is a product of Christianity in the West. It didn’t spring out of nowhere. Even classical Greek culture would have died out were it not for dedicated monks that resurrected it, and then created a new branch of study – Greek philosophy and Christian morality. Its known as Theology, and has no counterpart in any culture other then in the West .
Thus there were three study courses in classical universities in Europe – Oxford, Cambridge etc
1.Mathematics
2. Natural philosophy – study of nature – Physics etc
3. Theology
Rather then todays Gender studies, media studies etc..
It is far better for a young man not to waste his time and money in todays universities. He is far better off financially and education wise, ignoring them, and did self study.
.
DP111 says
I’m very hesitant to be so forthright in certainty. I think it is necessary to be humble.
The greatest mathematical physicists in the world, who were not exactly short of brains and rationality, such as Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Dalton, Oliver Lodge, Galileo, Copernicus, Gauss, Mendel, among the very greats, all believed in God. So did Einstein – who believed in God but not the way Christians do. Then we have Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Caravagio, to name a few- the greatest of all great artists were also good Christians. Then we have Mozart, Handel, and, how could I forget, Bach, all good Christians.
The Christian faith is the main pillar that have given rise to Western civilistion. All modern engineering, science, music, art, and all that is Western civilisation we know, is essentially the “building” of the church. Symphony for instance.
The spiritual vacuum that has been in place in the West, is being filled by Islam. At the very least, please do not give comfort to an enemy which rightly sees Christianity as its enemy, that will destroy everything – art, music and architecture of what is the West.
Wellington says
“The Christian faith is the main pillar that have given rise to Western Civilization.”
I would argue it is a one of the three major pillars, the other two being ancient Jewish religious thought and what the classical world of Greece and Rome produced, especially Greece.
DP111 says
Almost all Western civilisation is in effect the building of the church. From architecture, engineering, music, art, literature, science, philosophy.
The late Orriana Fallachi, a prominent Italian journalist and author, was a vehement atheist all her life, till she realised that her Atheism was destroying the very basis of our civilisation.
The Christian faith that gave rise to separation of church and state, secularism, freedom of speech, Renaissance, Enlightenment, the scientific, medical and Industrial revolutions, and all the rest. – the rest being Art and Music, for what would they be without Christianity. Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Caravagio, to name a few- the greatest of all great artists were also good Christians. Then we have Mozart, Handel, and, how could I forget, Bach, all good Christians. Our judicial systems that integrated compassion with justice, is a Christian idea.
It is from Christianity and its Jewish roots of spiritual rigour, combined with Greco-Roman inheritance that we owe West’s pre-emenent civilisation. The Greco-Roman legacy would have been lost had it not been for Christian monks.
Naildriver says
Witches were burned at the stake by devoted Protestant Christians in recent historical terms. I do agree Christianity was a catalyst for this modern world and separation of church and state but it didn’t come without a struggle.
This Islamic threat will not be stopped by the Christian church’s, perhaps assisted by some, but most are actually aiding Islam.
I have spoken with a number of pastors and seen almost no understanding or sense of threat from Islam from them. Then the Pope can also be seen as useless too.
Some in Christianity actually see Islam as a means to a come back…to their particular misuse of it: More control and modesty in women, more laws to protect against unwanted observations of free speech, iconoclastic laws as well as broken barriers to church and state – actually already happening.
Or merely a whole group they imagine they’ll have an opportunity to bring into the fold.
It’s way past a religious warrior coming to the West’s rescue. The effort now is to keep enough Christians upon the side against Islam to effect any political move against them … but that is not likely.
Yes, Christianty is much to be acknowledged as crucial but it won’t be a solution againt Islam.
The battle is between reason itself and man’s primitive inclinations. Dawkins knows people have a set of genes that predispose them to join up to any religious system — reason be damned.
Witches are still killed lawfully in Islam. Islam appeals to man’s base animal side as to act as a mob, to kill offensive people to it. Felon and many racist Blacks and brown people covert to it to justify visceral hate of both whites and any reasonable system they created.
If reason fails to reign in this enemy, Islam, the thugs and greedy , mostly male, will proceed to ravage the earth and dumb down the people in it, and hasten the demise of humanity as we know it. Christianity will return to an iconoclastic horror and pay the jizya.
TheBuffster says
“The battle is between reason itself and man’s primitive inclinations.”
That’s it, Naildriver. You hit it on the head.
duh swami says
All religions are corrupt…There may be an ultimate god that created everything but as soon as a religion is founded on it corruption sets in…this is because religions are about God but they are not God so they are subject to entropy and decay…
All religions will eventually die out due to being ‘found out’…
‘Found out’ is why Islam is the fastest shrinking religion …others soon to follow…
Chand says
+1 duh swami
Wellington says
I have to take respectful issue with you, duh swami. Though an agnostic myself and very much inclined to think that man created God and not the other way around, I don’t see all religions as corrupt (certainly Islam is though).
Rather, even with the most enlightened religions, my choices here being, in no particular order, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, is it not arguable that the religion itself is not corrupt but rather the case that since man is imperfect the corruption lies with man and not the religion per se? Also, I wouldn’t count on all religion eventually dying out. This could be a bit premature on your part and also not a good thing. Best to keep in mind what that skeptic, Benjamin Franklin, said, to wit, that if man is bad with religion, imagine what he’d be without it. Islam, of course, would be the major exception to this rule, but the history of the last hundred years or so I believe bitterly proves Franklin’s point.
Hope you are doing well, duh swami. Take care. As ever I remain
Agnostically yours,
Wellington
Naildriver says
Churchill noted that Islam isn’t declining, particularly in Africa, and that was over a hundred years ago — ‘and afflicts a man like rabies in a dog… or some close meaning.
Religion is in our genes — who doesn’t have a relative obsessed or fanatical to something, or a predisposition to some similar system of fear mongering and officiousness — and when connected to the state as Judaism and Islam, coercive and dangerous to a mob’s sensibility. But as Dawkings notes none are as evil as Islam — even remotely. It pits the worst in man ( possibly a collection identifiable selfish genes) against reason or truth, in the most violent ways, particularly with a mob mentality like the feeding frenzy in sharks.
I’ve looked at the major ones too and would choose Christianity — or rather the bare bones of it in the Gospels and NT, but it too sees, and has seen, corruption from Moon in Korea to that jerk on the radio hawking end times and blathering about sin.
In the short term Christianity may be useful if only to detain the would be fanatics found in any society from Islam, and be useful in hardening a line against Islam on moral grounds.
FYI says
Forget about francis or his Bishops defending Christianity (or the Archbishop of Canterbury)!
Is the pope catholic? This “pope” isn’t.
One of the reasons for the decline in Christianity and Catholicism in the west is BECAUSE of the Vatican’s complete failure to evangelize,to defend Christianity and Catholicism:many have abandoned the faith* which means the Vatican and the men in Rome are responsible for something that is ferociously condemned in the Gospel.
After Pope John Paul 2 died{look away now if you would rather be deceived..} changes took place at the top of the RCC.The deception is a cunningly luciferian one that most won’t see but it was what Pope Paul VI was talking about as “the smoke of satan”:it is not the Catholic faith itself but the ecclesiastical freemasonry behind the RCC administration that he was talking about{warned about in Fatima 1917 but of course the Vatican lied about it and tries to this day to hide the truth from Catholics}.These are the men running the church behind the scenes today:francis is merely its phoney frontman-salesman.
First there was a FAILED shepherd(Mr “run away” Ratzinger,pope be xvi)and now we have a FAKE shepherd(Mr Bergolio and his circus of heresy,pope francis 1):Most catholics will choose to ignore or deny this but it has been KNOWN for a long time that this would happen.It is a shame Mr Ratzinger didn’t (clearly) bother to ask God for permission to abandon his post.
francis is not just a phoney but he is preaching heresy by equating allah with God and is busy(like his predecessor) watering down what remains of the Catholic faith.
*No surprise given “Many will give up their faith at that time” matthew 24 v 10
Thanks to the Vatican,failed and false popes and cardinals,bishops and clergy in the RCC,many catholics no longer believe that they have a church.Thus,Rome is responsible for scattering the flock,separating Christians and betraying Christ.It will be a miracle if any of these senior RCC clergymen are saved!
Ezra says
It would appear that even an atheist sees a bit of truth every now and then…..
ArcadiaP says
Like it or not when evil shows itself in such a progressive and destructive manner one cannot but recognize the personal call to wake up to that evil. What to do? Where to turn? What is the proper response to hate and destruction? One primary ( primitive) response ought to be self preservation not only for ourselves but our loved ones. It is innate to recognize the evil, it is innate to do whatever necessary to prevent evil from fomenting. .
Chand says
“………………moderate Muslims suffer more at the hands of Islam and its teachings than anyone else.”
Dawkins has consistently espoused the truth, fearlessly.
Mark Swan says
Mr. Dawkins—-espouses the truth, as he conceives it, in this statement, he recognizes the power
of a religion to be harmful.
““If you look at the actual impact that different religions have on the world it’s quite apparent that at present the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam,” he stated, contending that moderate Muslims suffer more at the hands of Islam and its teachings than anyone else.”
TheBuffster says
It’s an individual’s job to seek out the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the best of his ability.
That’s a tough job. It’s a complicated job and an ongoing one.
It’s tough enough if a person is doing his best to be honest. (I’m using the genderless “he”, by the way. It’s just easier and more elegant.) A couple of honest minds can draw significantly different conclusions from one another. But one thing an honest mind must not do is surrender that honesty and let wishful thinking or someone else take over his mental faculties.
That’s the root of our need for liberty – our need to think independently and honestly, to challenge one another’s errors and our own, in the effort to get as close to the whole truth as we can.
As soon as any religion or philosophy attempts to impose itself by force on unbelievers it becomes the enemy of the virtues required by a human mind to function at its best.
This is why Islam is so evil. From the very first page it attacks with insult and threats of hell anyone who questions it. And it gives examples of the kinds of questions unbelievers ask that Allah, aka Muhammad, considers to be offensive and beneath contempt. They were questions that arose in my mind before I read the words in the book. Perfectly reasonable questions, which Allah/Muhammad failed to answer, except with fallacies, insults, and threats.
That was just in the Mecca part – the early part – of the Koran, and that was bad enough. From there it went in the only direction one can expect from that mental method: to tyranny and violence against those who will not conform.
When people – whether theist or atheist – fail to recognise each individual’s sovereignty over his own mind and the freedom to live by that mind so long as he doesn’t violate the borders between himself and others, then those people and the ideology that drives them becomes an enemy of the best of humanity. They become arrogant tyrants trying to control and mold other human beings without regard for the thing that makes them human.
There are theists and atheists on both sides of the divide when it comes to the principles of liberty. So why don’t we all just recognise the individuals who side with liberty and the ones who side with tyranny, regardless of whether they believe in a god or gods or not. If we don’t hang together… you know the rest.
Brian hoff says
Science explain how the universe from nothing was creat. By current scencist theory the universe shouldnot exist at all as in the early stage of the big bang equal amount of matter and antimatter would have being created and when matter and antimatter meet they destory each other total.
Chand says
Yes, but every now and then an extra particle of matter was created, by baryogenesis, leading ultimately to the existence of matter. For every 30 million matter and anti matter particles annihilating themselves, one particle of matter came to be, leading to all the matter there is now.
Sharyati says
But Chand how do you propose to explain consciousness with your baryogenesis?
Sharyati says
Also how do you propose to explain the interference consciousness in experimental results?Like the change of experimental results through the “Willful interference of consciousness” in the double slit experiments performed by Richard Feynman?
Sharyati says
Also at the point of singularity just before the Big Bang, when matter was in a densely packed state, where from did the “Explosion” to break the big “Rock” come from?How did physical laws come into force from precisely then on?
Mark Swan says
Sharyati,
You do ask very good questions—please excuse my effort here if it is not appreciated.
Human consciousness,
As part of His plan for humanity, God has added an extra element to human existence, which works with human brain to make men and women so much more than the animals they would otherwise be. This element is called “the spirit in man.” Combined with the physical brain, this imparts to human beings a powerful mind, allowing accomplishments far beyond the simple instincts of even the brightest dolphins or chimpanzees.
We read about this spirit in Scripture. As Elihu tells the patriarch Job, “there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding” (Job 32:8). Indeed, it is the spirit in man that gives him knowledge and comprehension: “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?” (1 Corinthians 2:11). This is not an immortal soul; it is an essential God-given element of the mortal human mind, making men and women who and what they are!
Scripture explains that when human beings die, it is this human spirit—not an immortal soul, but rather the God-given element of our human identity—that God recovers. We read: “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). At death, our physical bodies return to the earth from whence they came, but our “identity”—the “spirit in man” that contains the record of our character and experience—goes to God in preparation for the resurrection.
Is the “spirit in man” conscious after we die? No! Scripture plainly reveals that when human beings die, we are not conscious again until the resurrection from the dead (Ecclesiastes 3:18–21; 9:5). We read of those who “sleep in Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). Again and again, Scripture describes death not as a disembodied conscious state, but rather as a “sleep” without awareness (John 11:11; 1 Corinthians 11:30).
Every human being receives the “spirit in man” as part of God’s act of creation. However, for those who become Christians, an even more important Spirit is added to the equation. After repentance and baptism, Christians receive the Holy Spirit. Just as the “spirit in man” gives human beings a “mind-power” unknown to other animals, the Holy Spirit gives Christians a spiritual power unknown to other human beings.
The Holy Spirit, working with the human mind in the physical body, gives each Christian the ability to prepare to be born into eternal life as a member of the Family of God, at the resurrection of the dead.
When we come to understand all this, the mystery of the human mind becomes clear. The mind is not simply an “emergent property” of a physical brain, with free will and thought only an illusion caused by the collisions and combinations of mindless molecules and electrons. Nor is the mind an immortal and purely immaterial component. The human mind is the result of two necessary components: the physical human brain and the human spirit, imparted directly by God! This is the solution to the mystery of the mind! It is the product of the divinely crafted combination of brain plus spirit.
It explains why our marvelous minds are so dependent on the condition of our physical brains, yet also why our physical brains simply are not enough to produce the wondrous human mind!
This is why the animal world—while it can certainly amaze us—is still light years behind humanity in the realms of creativity and communication, and in capacity for reason and imagination. Unlike even the most remarkable of the animals, God designed human beings for a cosmic purpose!
Together, the physical brain and the spirit of man bestowed by God, combine to create the awesome human mind. And it is this mind, yielding to the instruction and care of a loving God, that has the power to come to know, imitate, and one day experience the presence and spiritual reality of its Creator. As is so often the case, God’s word shines its light upon mysteries that science alone simply cannot explain!
Laws,
Far from being accidental, life appeared to be the goal toward which the entire universe from the very first moment of its existence had been orchestrated, fine-tuned.
Science has found no reason for the many laws of physics and chemistry, and for the many precise values and relationships, to have come into existence exactly as they are.
From a mathematical point of view, the odds against our universe having just the right laws to sustain life are astronomical. Remember, these laws were in existence at the first moment of creation. Scientists recognize that they had to be.
Have some scientists recognized the significant evidence of intelligence behind the natural laws of our universe? Yes! Albert Einstein, the great physicist and Nobel Prize winner, saw awesome intelligence revealed in the existence of natural law. He wrote that the scientist’s “religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection” (Einstein: A Centenary Volume, ed. A. P. French, Harvard University Press, 1979, p. 305).
As Dr. Hawking acknowledged in The Nature of Space and Time: “The only way to have scientific theory is if the laws of physics hold everywhere, including at the beginning of the universe”.
Is it reasonable, then, to assume that these laws came about from nothing—from random chance?
The existence of such marvelous and predictable laws in nature points to a master intelligence and Lawgiver.
Add to that evidence the existence of unseen spiritual laws, and you double the evidence of a great Lawgiver.
As your Bible reveals: “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy” (James 4:12). Yes, the Creator God is the Lawgiver, both of natural law and spiritual law. “The Lord is our Lawgiver” (Isaiah 33:22).
What is the origin of these natural laws that permeate our universe?
A far superior intelligence is behind the laws of the universe.
A God who created the universe—the great Lawgiver!
The Master Scientist.
Sharyati says
Mark thanks for the time and effort taken to reply. Consciousness is beyond the brain and the brain is only a vehicle to express itself outside. Remember we say it is “My brain”. Who is that subject “I” that claims the brain as “My”? So we are able to detach “Us” from the body consciouslessly claim something as ours. Like for example “My hand”, “My body” etc. Yogis in India, not the yoga that is practiced in indian cities in studios which is no different from that in the West(Just exercise), the genuine yogis who practice Yoga in remote areas like the Himalayas, are able go into deeper states of consciousness thus detaching themselves from the body and do not feel pain associated with the body. They find that state blissful; and do not need externalt things to make them happy. They do not need the body to resurrect. They achieve a state of high contentment abd bliss within and do not need anything else. They enjoy a bliss which is beyond the senses. This is permanent and they do not care for the existence or non existence of the body Not just 50 years a ago a realized sage Ramana had a tumour(On his hand) operated without anaesthesia. Another had catract performed too with anaesthesia .
By postulating that a body is needed for happiness seems absurd, because the body decays and is impermenant riddent with disease etc. So the body cannot be used to attain permanent bliss. One can attain permenant bliss through deeper yogic techniques that need a healthy body but transcend it. Yes i agree that there might be a higher intelligence operating beyond the universe giving its laws. But i do not think it concerns itself with humans. If god is so kind and merciful why such a horrible horrible world, where there is death, disease and destruction?? Why did your god create one person in abject penury and other person with too much prosperity, why does one person have so much beauty while other is so ugly?How do you explain these? Your god seems to be rather arbitrary!! How can one rely upon such a god? Thus god according to me creates or enables immortal souls to be born into situations based on the residues of their previous acts. He is an enabler. To escape misery one has to enter into deep meditation and reach a point were one stops identifying onself with the body but with just pure consciousness. This is has been done by countless yogis in India. I do not feel the need to rely on an utterly capricious god, but enter deep into myself.
This is a link that talks about the effects of yoga
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3482773/
Mark Swan says
Thank you for your reply and explaining some on real Yoga—I will use the link.
You ask a good question about human suffering and injustice—all I can say is
this is not God’s World, not yet, He is allowing humans to experiment in everything—
government, education, religion, economics—everything to learn they can not teach
themselves.
That time is ending very soon—Man and Satan’s government will be replaced by
God’s.
Then and only then will humans everywhere know real peace and joy .
Again, thank you for such a polite reply.
Mark
Sharyati says
Thanks for the interesting discussion Mark. One saying in the bible which i like, and here i do not claim to quote it correctly verbatim, along with the chapter. I did a couple of lower classes(8th and 9th standards maybe) in a Christian school(Adventists/protestants? i do not remember) and and during that time i attended a few bible classes, cant say i liked it, but a particular quote struck a chord in me
“Find the kingdom of god within you”
Or something along those lines. It seemed very similar to what the Veda and Yogic scriptures taught. To me each one has to go beyond his bodily existence to find the kingdom of god. Personally i do not believe there would a physical kingdom of god on Terra-Firma. The reason is simply due to existential issues. As the Christian scriptures postulate the need for bodily resurrection and the body being imperfect in nature, there will always be wants. If not material the want would be higher and existential. Since as per you the soul is not immortal, it means it would be always in want of something even in a resurrected form. Also per Christianity,it can only express with a body. If it was of the nature of bliss, then the body becomes redundant in nature. Due to the above reasons i do not think even in a physical kingdom of God with all humans resurrected back, there would be any absence of existential issues. Of course this is the way i think based on my Vedic/Yogic training. No offense intended to any practicing christian here.
Mark Swan says
Sharyati,
Please understand me—I am not trying to convert anyone—but hoping
to demonstrate the immense potential human being have.
You seem to be very intelligent—the things you point out and ask.
I will try in as concise and brief as I can cover the area you brought up.
Here is what I have learned from four decades of studying (not just reading) the bible.
We are here because God is reproducing, that is the all importance of Human existence, everything of necessity was done for our existence. What is God’s story,
He limits us to what He is doing with us. He does say he has done everything by knowledge, He is the master scientist. I continually use the term Him, when in fact
They is more appropriate, for now, there are two. The Father, and the Son, the One that emptied Himself and was born as a Human. They have plans for a large family, thus the tremendous universe, which is still expanding as I write this.
When God the Father draws a human to Him, it is Christ who judges that Human, they both join their minds with that Human, through the power called the Holy Spirit, the very power used to do all the things found in the entire universe, it is beyond speculation, and our view is limited to the results it brings about. Christ is the One who judges, and logically so, He lived as a Human, and was tempted, just as we are, but did not sin. Sin is the breaking of God’s law. The penalty for this is death. It would take a perfect being to pay that penalty. They knew before they made humans this would be the way.
Humans like Adam, would choose to teach themselves. All Humans would have chose this, and they knew. So to make it possible for Humans to be forgiven sin, there is why Christ had to be beat unmercifully to heal us of physical sin, and He had to die to heal us of spiritual sin.
For now they are allowing humans time for experimenting with everything, Religion, Government, Education, and everything else. That time is nearly up. The time of Man and Satan’s rule will end. Man will be on the verge of destroying all live on earth, if God did not intervene all life would be destroyed. At that point Christ will return to this earth.
Just like now nearly all Humans who ever lived were not taught by God, they will remain asleep (dead). At Christ’s return the ones who were taught and remained faithful until they died, will be resurrected, along with those who were still alive who have been taught and remained faithful, all these will be changed into Spirit Beings, just like God, these real Children will be added to the number with Christ the first born. He will remain their Lord and King.
All the Humans still alive will now be taught by God, during a thousand year period, Humans will still be born and die, they will be taught, with Satan taken away. At the end of the thousand year period, all those that lived and died before the thousand year period, that were not taught yet, will be resurrected, and taught.
After this the teaching will be completed, then comes the judgment, of all who learned the truth of God and rejected it. Then no more Humans.
All those who loved the truth, and remained faithful to it, are now spirit Beings, will then be in God’s Family, a large and very God Family.
Thank you for conversing here Sharyati.
Mark
Sharyati says
Mark thanks for the stimulating debate. I am sure you do not intend to convert, because i understand the language of those who intend too. I have had very bad experiences with them and i know the tone and the language they adopt. Again i thank you for the frank debate we are having without any name calling.
You seem to talk of the original sin. But here are my objections to it.
1. The punishment is not communserate with the crime. How can god throw out Adam and Eve out of Eden because, Eve tasted the fruit from the tree of knowledge? First off how is eating a fruit such a big crime? Man has commited far worser and unthinkable crimes and has been let off the hook. Think of all those war crimes, murders rapes etc. Think of how many criminal could have been let off. Even those who are punished for genuine crimes like murders, bombing etc have their sentences reduced or they are given special pardon and releases, or given parole. If humanity despite of its imperfections can be so forgiving, i would not expect god to go bersek and throw them out. In this case god seems to be worse than a human being. If I stole some money from my father surely he would not banish me!!! Also whats wrong with eating from the tree of knowledge? Knowledge is power and is good. This too perplexes me.
2. The duration of the effects of the sin: The effect is unfairly far far far too too long. Yes Hinduism believes that some curses due to some sins can be passed down the family(Like the father killed the son of another person, may be his sons will be killed likewise), but this is upto only 4 generations. Not till the end of time. I think this is because of the fact that Jesus would loose his value if there was an expiry date and to escape from this uncomfortable position, such a postulate had to be made.
3. Historicity of the original sin: As per science the age of the universe is 4.5 million years. Human civilization has been around for atleast 200000 years as per the official postion(I do not accept that it is still older). And great civilizations like India, Greek, Egypt, Mesopatomian, Babylonian, Chinese etc predated Christ by atleast 5000 years. The myths and the religions of these civilizations do not seem to be aware of such a grave sin. The Rig Veda or the yogic scriptures that are supposed be atleast 5000 years old(Again wrong it is more older than this) does not talk about original sin. How was such a grave sin unknown outside the semitic world? Only when Moses came into the scene and introduced official prophetic monotheism, this concept comes out in front. But even Mosaic law does not seem to harp on this too much like Pauline Christianity. Judaism was all about keeping laws and the covenant. Never about the original sin and repentance. The older Judaic law and even its variants like Kabbalah spirituality does not emphasize this. Now you say that the millions of peoples of these civilzations would be woken up and taught. What was god doing then? Why did he not send his messengers to these peoples? Would it not have been easier that way? It beats me that god found people’s sinning too hot to handle around the 1st century BC and then suddenly decides to send his son, get him killed and save humanity!!!Would it not be easy for the creator of this unfathomably magnificient universe to just wipe sins with his will alone??Jesus seems to be too late to enter the “saving” game!!!….(Contd)
Sharyati says
4. My pet peeve against original sin is it violates the principles of natural justice and compassion: Christianity says all humans are born in sin. This means that an infant too is a sinner for no reason of it’s own. Christianity does not accept re-incarnation. If atleast there was re-incarnation a person who sinned in one birth could carry over that in his next or succeeding births. If the baby dies without being baptized what happens to it?Will it burn in hellfire for eternity?Is this fair? Eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and even Islam do not accept this. Yes Islam seems to be fair in this. All these religions say that sin is associated only after a person attains some maturity and has acquired some disciminative capacity between right and wrong. Even Mohammed despite being a bloodthirsty man slaughtering war lord checked the pubic hairs of his captives at the battle of Badr to spare pre-puberty boys. If even this man had such kindness than i cannot imagine god labelling an infant who can hardly pronounce the word “Eve”, a sinner. Also sin in christianity is defined as transgression of gods law which are arbitrary. I can understand “Love thy neighbour” and “Though shall not steal”. But “Though shall not worship an idol” is not a natural law but seems to be an arbitrary caprice of a jealous being. But in eastern dharmic religions sin is defined as that act that upsets harmony of the cosmos. For example the reason hindus do not eat beef and consider cows to be sacred, is related to animal agriculture. In the west cows are reared over and above limits destroying rain forests, land, water etc. Thus the act of not eating meat is directly related to not polluting land, water and the air. Same is the case with a sin like “Do not urinate in water”, “Do not pollute rivers etc”. These are called acts of Dharma, which means acts that support and sustain. This in concordance with natural justice. The rituals practiced by various Hindu traditions fall in the category. For example the main purpose of sun worship is to ensure plenty of rains in the rainy seasons as the sun is the one that causes water to evaporate and form water vapor that condenses and falls as rain. So see the connection?
5. Continuing the above point, eastern religions postulate that people who were there when the world was created newly, were righteous and did not tend to sin. But as time progressed mankind began to sin. This is in accordance with the the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that the disorderliness of the universe increases with time. The concept of original sin violates this.
Now my objections to Jesus as savior.
1. As said earlier he is a pretty late entrant into the “Saving” game, when comparing the age of human civilizations.
2. How far does Jesus death go in redeeming the sins of an individual? Is it pre-determined that after one accepts jesus his death and blood is sufficent to cover up for all sins committed after acceptance? So a person is no more a sinner atleast in the eyes of god, even after he commits a murder or rape after being “Born again”
3. How far does jesus death go in redeeming the sins of mankind as a whole?So if mankind exists say another 50000 years his death is sufficient to cover up for all those billions of peoples sins?Why create such sinners in the first place at all?
4. Why did god need Jesus to die when as i said earlier that if god could create this monstor of a universe, why cannot he wipe of the sins of humanity who are a but a speck of dust in this cosmos, living on a dot called the earth within one of the million galaxies? Is it too much?Also why did he need a son, when he was trudging alone all these millions years until the 1 century BC?
It is because of all the above said objections i find eastern religions and especially Hinduism(Sure not perfect) and yoga more deeper and profound in thought, These traditions discuss in more depth ,existential issues, though not perfect i agree. But they atleast make an honest attempt. Also yoga is more experiential in nature and ones divinity can be experienced inside onself without the need for a middle man. You called me as very intelligent. No not at all. All i asked was questions that are discussed in the ancient Vedic and yogic scriptures, 5000 years ago. Nothing new here. Thanks for the debate Mark, i enjoyed discussing existential issues with you!!
Mark Swan says
Sin was not original to man until he chose to not listen to God, but to Satan.
What the tree represented was the mixture of good and evil that would come of
human reasoning, and after choosing, it would be confused by Satan’s influence.
The crime committed was disobedience to God which is sin, which brings the penalty of death.
Man should rule over evil not evil rule over man.
Without God’s help human reasoning, poisoned by evil influence, will bring about
wrong actions that produce bad results.
Behavior really does matter.
Humans can easily be forgiven for any sin, regardless severity, if they repent,
which means they stop practicing wrong and learn to practice right, there
is no sin that we can not be healed of.
The knowledge brought about by choosing to teach ourselves, which all humans
would choose, is poisoned by human reasoning, which is influenced by Satan, who
wants to stop God’s plan of reproducing, through humans— is a mixture of good
and evil—they do not mix—the knowledge is useless without God’s guidance.
I am not a part of this world’s Christianity—I set out over four decades ago to
prove or disprove the existence of an authoritive source of truth—when the
Bible turned out to be it I changed my thinking practices in accordance to it.
The original sinner is Satan—a very powerful and intelligent being—who
through his vanity perverted the truth and corrupted his reasoning—he was
removed from the service of God—he is bitterly determined to still defy God.
Satan is a created being—he knows the truth—but he despises it—he is in and
of himself the primary reason such madness exists on earth—man has chosen
him over God, though unaware of this—God constrains Satan, boundaries
are set by God which he can not breach.
Actions produce results—being responsible for actions is tricky—if we ask
for justice—we may very well get justice—but what we should ask for is mercy.
God gave Satan every perfect thing instantaneously—it was of no advantage
for because of his wrong reasoning—he failed miserably.
God will not have any more Satans
what we experience here on earth is nothing to compare with what our
potential future offers.
When this trial period is over—those that love the truth will be amazed.
*The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermodynamically defined process to actually occur, the sum of the entropies of the participating bodies must increase.
*In an idealized limiting case, that of a reversible process, this sum remains unchanged.
Because those around us may believe things we do not, we should never
feel indignant.
You have shown yourself useful in trying to convey alternative thinking.
I too, have always been rebellious against Man’s religion.
I have enjoyed conversing with you—it is seldom we can discuss beliefs.
Thank You Sharyati
Mark
Brian hoff says
I mean science cannot explain the creation of the universe by the big bang which is well established fact that there was a big bang.
The Free Thinker says
After reading Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, my immediate thought was that these two are trying to be junior versions of Bertrand Russel. I really don’t find anything of originality in their thinking.
Wellington says
Interesting thread. I enjoyed going through it.