Oh, no, that was just a typo, single negative it if you will. Oh, and my quote was just something interesting I decided to stick in–what made me add it in was actually my writings in relation to Peter. You really didn’t have any mix into why I put that quote there.

If you quote something without much if any introduction or explanation, it is going to be assumed that you are presenting it as a defense of whatever it is you are saying. But I would like to point out that the so-called Christian Right is using “tactics” completely open to them in a free society, ie., petitioning their government, supporting legislation, supporting candidates and contributing to public debate. Unless they are holding guns to people’s heads and calling for a revolution, I cannot justify silencing them any more than I can justify silencing any other group of people based solely on the fact that I disagree with them. Somehow we manage to even allow the KKK to have to have its demonstrations, as offensive as I find everything about them. And it seems to me that is preferable to outlawing everything.

We have become too uncomfortable with disagreement in this nation.

“Yet you seem to defend those who would force theirs on me.” Nah, not really. I was just seeing if you could understand where it’s coming from–I just like progression of knowledge and furthering my understanding. Defending a case I particularly don’t agree in gives me a greater understanding of it as well. Now if I were to argue against it, I’d be in a much better position than I would be in without this. A good example is that elsewhere, I am currently in a debate against somebody who claims proof against God. He thought he was in good shape since he said he stumped religious folks I guess. He got all his proofs decimated if you would.

I’m not really interested in debate as a mere mental exercise. But I guess it explains why most of your arguments seem to stick to the same ones I read in condensed criticisms available in multiple places on the web.

And again, I wanted clarification on the Soviet part. What time frame are you talking about? What abuse are you referring to? Do you mean during the cold war? Do you mean the Soviet Union near when it was ended in 1991? I then assume you know that it was, in fact, only anti-religious to forms of religion that they didn’t like (like religions other than Russian Orthodox)? Or are you talking of a different time period? Current Russia isn’t actually atheistic… So… I… need… more… information…

Of course the Soviet Union persecuted the religions they saw as threatening more heavily than others. Like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But they persecuted the Russian Orthodox church as well. It took Lenin awhile, but he made his move against the Orthodox church.

Needless to say, Lenin had no plans to respect the freedom of religion. But until the famine, most of the persecution of religion appears to have been taken on local initiative. Most religious property was ordered expropriated, although in fact clergymen usually continued to occupy and use their church buildings. Parents lost the right to give their children religious education - although again, during the Civil War years, this does not seem to have been enforced. (Interestingly, while the state subsidies to the church greatly declined, the Orthodox Church under Lenin essentially remained a bureau of the state). Serious government persecution of the Orthodox Church began with the famine, which gave Lenin the chance to bring the Orthodox Church into line. He demanded that the Church hand over valuable relics to help famine victims (or so he said). The Church resisted, resulting in around 8000 executions of persons resisting the confiscation of relics. Similar but milder persecution began against Jews, Catholics, and to a lesser extent, Muslims. (These religions, however, had less to lose than the Orthodox Church, because they had no subsidies for the Bolsheviks to cut off). Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions

As to the so-called bodysnatchers, are you doubting their existence? Most of what I have found refers to it, but assumes a bit of prior knowledge. Most of the offenses were raids against burial grounds, but I have also seen instructions on how to cover up bullet wounds, and the like. Here are a few sources I found on a quick search (hard to imagine you came up with only a few references when my first search came up with over 89,000.)

This is probably the best, and notes that the controversy had lasted up until quite recently with museums fighting the return of remains to Aboriginals. Some nice quotes:

First, a general reason behind the grave robbing and the eventual murders:

The half-century or so after 1860 also witnessed a remarkable surge of interest in procuring Aboriginal remains for science. Darwinian sciences’ construed Aboriginal people as distinct “primitive types” or “races” in the time-scale of human evolution. They offered, among other things, what seemed a powerful explanation of the history of Aboriginal mortality since 1788 in terms of the sad, but inevitable, extinction of a biologically inferior race. By the same logic, the procurement of remains was an urgent necessity. If science was to understand the anatomical and morphological peculiarities of Aboriginal people before they disappeared through death and miscegenation, it had to obtain “racially pure” bodies in sufficient numbers to meet contemporary standards of scientific proof. The dilemma facing the “comparative anthropologist” was light-heartedly touched on by Professor George Busk, a surgeon and naturalist keenly interested in human racial difference, when reviewing several new works of craniometry in 1862:

A Gorilla or a Chimpanzee can be caught and sent alive to the Zoological Gardens, or killed and forwarded in a cask of rum to the British Museum, but loud would be the outcry were similar attempts made to promote the study of Anthropology (Busk, 1862, p. 348).

And some quotes from a local magistrate involved in the murders:

To what strange uses are our noble primeval inhabitants to be devoted! At your prices I could have procured about œ2000 worth in the last six years. I shall start on the warpath again! Hope to succeed in slaughtering some stray skeleton (Mitchell Library MSS 1589/2/193)

The shooting season is over in Queensland and the ‘Black Game’ is protected now by more humane laws than formerly. So it is impossible to obtain reliable skulls & skeletons (Turnbull, 1991, p. 115).

From Ancestors, not Specimens: Reflections on the Controversy Over the Remains of Aboriginal People in European Scientific Collections

Not a pretty point in history. It had a lot to do with colonization and the desire to “prove” Britain right in the conquest of lands, however interestingly in the absence of “Manifest Destiny” which pushed Americans across the continent, the British simply found another rationalization based in the increasingly “scientific” view of humans and Darwin’s publication of “Origin of the Species.”

Oh, I think that will do. The other references which look most interesting are not actually available online. There are some handlings in books, a whole video and some interesting research articles in newspapers, but I only have their bibliographies, not access to the actual information.

Laurie, again? View it as you will. It is a senseless tangent and getting more senseless every time it comes up. Ignore it. Forget I ever said anything. It really doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with anything.

There has been a consistent problem here. Is that when I ask a question of something, you’ve never answered. Actually, you answered twice, once being the new & old testament thing (and walla, it’s actually the strongest argument you’ve made this whole time). I ask why doesn’t the bible change to more match the true meaning–ignored. Why don’t you and others try out other religions as well–ignored. I ask for more information regarding the body snatchers of Darwin Australia–ignored. Hell, I even asked for clarification on the Soviet thing and I didn’t even get that. These are just some of the recent examples, it’s been happening the whole time. Each topic is either ignored, or side-stepped. Meaning your next post really didn’t cover what I asked.

And I never said I took anything as an attack against me, but against religion, and don’t attempt to divine my reasons, ie., that it “hit home somewhere.” My reasons are exactly what I’ve stated. I’m getting impatient with the continual introduction of tangents which stray from the actual point.

“Yet you seem to defend those who would force theirs on me.” Nah, not really. I was just seeing if you could understand where it’s coming from–I just like progression of knowledge and furthering my understanding. Defending a case I particularly don’t agree in gives me a greater understanding of it as well. Now if I were to argue against it, I’d be in a much better position than I would be in without this. A good example is that elsewhere, I am currently in a debate against somebody who claims proof against God. He thought he was in good shape since he said he stumped religious folks I guess. He got all his proofs decimated if you would.

It’s boring if your always on the same side. Understanding both sides of the issue is a crucial thing missing in society today. People don’t listen anymore, they never change, they don’t ever think that there is another way of thinking of things.

And again, I wanted clarification on the Soviet part. What time frame are you talking about? What abuse are you referring to? Do you mean during the cold war? Do you mean the Soviet Union near when it was ended in 1991? I then assume you know that it was, in fact, only anti-religious to forms of religion that they didn’t like (like religions other than Russian Orthodox)? Or are you talking of a different time period? Current Russia isn’t actually atheistic… So… I… need… more… information…

Also, it’s more like you still cannot drop the Laurie thing. Look, if you commented on what was being said I’d have no problem with it. Like if you said, “But atheism tends to suppress all religious things while Christianity typically doesn’t…” (a valid comment, incorrect as it is) there would be no issue. But this isn’t the case. You interjected by removing context, ie you failed to place what I said into context. It’s much like if you were talking to somebody, and she said hamsters are brown. And then you replied that some hamsters are actually gray. And then I interjected that I knew some hamsters are gray. This is pretty much, exactly what you did.

There has been a consistent problem here. Is that when I ask a question of something, you’ve never answered. Actually, you answered twice, once being the new & old testament thing (and walla, it’s actually the strongest argument you’ve made this whole time). I ask why doesn’t the bible change to more match the true meaning–ignored. Why don’t you and others try out other religions as well–ignored. I ask for more information regarding the body snatchers of Darwin Australia–ignored. Hell, I even asked for clarification on the Soviet thing and I didn’t even get that. These are just some of the recent examples, it’s been happening the whole time. Each topic is either ignored, or side-stepped. Meaning your next post really didn’t cover what I asked.

Actuality, most of my posts haven’t actually been an attack on religion. It’s been on certain thought trains. It could be construed as an attack on religion… say if a Buddhist came in here, he wouldn’t see it as such. The only reason you see it as such is probably because it hit home somewhere. I show my posts to a Christian friend and we have marvelous discussions about everything–he doesn’t see it as an attack on him. Eh. Discussions in human form are so much better than these simple crude posts… oh well.

Yet you seem to defend those who would force theirs on me. Just because you believe in no God does not suddenly give you the right to do that which you perceive what you believe the religious to be doing.

I didn’t say that the Soviet Union was a place of nothing but atheists. The Soviet State was an atheist state and went to great lengths to suppress religion. I’m confused at your confusion. Certainly you have a little more sense than to believe that because a place has Christianity or other religions present somehow makes it a religious state?

I refuse to go in circles any more. My point was never to “prove” religion.

And is this a typo?

And again, I’d like to mention that I do not hold the view that people shouldn’t be barred from teaching children religions.

Or are you exemplifying the fact that you would indeed have me censored, although that appears such a touchy issue for you? And not only in public, but in the very private sphere of my own home, in my relationship with my own children?

It scares me that someone who has so little understanding of what I actually believe somehow thinks he has the ability to instruct me on my own beliefs.

And why on earth would I interject myself between you and Peter? It has already been made clear enough by you in almost every comment you’ve made that opinions directed at others are not for me to answer, else I get called an ignorant fool in every subsequent comment.

You still cannot drop the Laurie thing, and still do not accept that my inserting my own statement for my own reasons has nothing to do with my ability to read Humphrey’s little piece. And still doesn’t bring us to how you conclude that he is talking only about the teaching of murder when he says no such thing. The only example he gives is not teaching Darwin, and the need to teach a scientific worldview…with anything else being abuse, held akin to mutilating little girls.

I think it is you who reads without understanding, interpreting all within your own framework.

It really is pointless to go in the same circle again, however.

Unless you have something new to contribute, and preferably something topical to the actual post, we may as well end it here.

“The topic addressed was, ‘Christianity is exclusive.’” No, it wasn’t. I said Christianity is exclusive, you claimed that all religions are exclusive. And I proved you wrong in that abstract religions are not exclusive. Are you going to counter that?

“God as Creator, has the authority and right to determine the rules and regulation.” Right, and he determined that there will be homosexuality on this Earth. So, why are you arguing with that?

“He commanded them to be fruitful and multiply.” You are incorrect. He commanded the fish and birds to be fruitful and multiply. He ordered no such thing of Adam and Eve… in fact, he only created Eve to help Adam–he didn’t intend humans to multiply in the first place. Once their immortality was removed, only then was mention of offspring given. Furthermore, you condemn swingers when they are doing just what you say God commanded?

Evil? Oh goody. Here, since you seem to love pushing religious intolerance… How was Satan in the Garden of Eve? Why did God allow this demon there? Why did God see this happening and not stop it? How about this, were did Satan come from in the creation order? Before, so Satan was created before, and he wasn’t created in the lands. The order is all messed up anyways. The firmament creates the light, so God would have created that first. Then with the firmament created light. And if God is all powerful, why did it take 7 days to create Earth? Why didn’t he just say poof and have it all done? Furthermore, why did he next a rest day? He’s all powerful, there is no way he’d be tired.

“If you engage in a homosexual relationship, it is your choice, you have not been forced.” This is wrong. It is not a choice to which sex your attracted to. THIS IS PROVEN.

Did you not know, that you are to treat others with hate your not going to heaven? Because you do not understand that God is a being of love? A nice quote here:
“If God hates anyone, then I am waisting my time in worship. My God is a God of love. God convicts each heart not brand names of churches. It is up individuals to accept or reject God and his love. Gay is not a barrier to heaven, the actions of it perhaps a different story. Just remember that theft is not a barrier to heaven either. An unrepresentative heart is. An unopen heart to the Love of God in Christ Jesus, that is your ticket to hell.”

By the way, did God only send his son to save his followers? I do remember, that Jesus died for everybodies sins, not just Christians. Thus, Christians, aren’t the only ones saved.

“He who believes in Him is not judged.” Love it, so the murders, liars, adulterers, swingers, all of them are saved if they believe in Christianity. Because belief in Jesus is all that matters. That kind of belief is the worst for the world, it’s saying that you are okay to murder just because your a Christian. Or that murderers are suddenly saved because they convert in the end… While honest, good people go straight to hell simply because they don’t believe in your imaginary being.

Listen to yourself, your belief system is full of contradictions. First you say that all liars and murderers are going to hell, then you say that those who believe in Jesus are not judged. So which is it? Christianity doesn’t explain the condition of man. Oh, btw, a Christian homosexual… how’s that? Not judged, he’s saved for belief in Christ.

God, by the way, didn’t love the world that much if he demanded his flesh to be sacrificed to appease his murderous appetite. Indeed, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice now was it? Didn’t Jesus just resurrect? Furthermore, Jesus is considered an incarnate of God himself, thus making the whole concept ridicules. “Sacrifice me, to appease me…”

And, for kids, belief in Christ is often forced by the family. And before any of you pipe up, I’m going to say it again. Raising a kid saying that everybody else is going to hell simply because they don’t believe is a mental lock into Christianity. It’s like when people were raised that the world is flat. Nobody wanted to sail too far, they thought they’d fall of the falls at the end of the Earth. To sail out to find what you could find, you had to face your fears.

And I guess I get to say this with you… do you believe in stoning all kids who misbehave? That was an order from God, and you don’t you’re sinning!

———————————————–

Here’s for you Dana.
Let’s see why people can take things other than what you mean it… oh I don’t know, why did you take my comments with the word pathetic as name calling? I didn’t mean it personally, so I don’t understand how you could take things other than how I meant it.

Yeah. Please. Just because you meant it one way doesn’t make people forcefully read it the way you meant it.

And again, the Laurie thing… I guess you really don’t get it. There are some people in this world who like to back up their statements with support and examples… You know, we don’t expect you to take every idea that pops into our head without proof. I told you it wasn’t to the topic, BUT TO LAURIE’S POST. Meaning, like, of course it’s not about abuse, because, like, her post wasn’t about abuse. I didn’t jump to any conclusions, I gave her an example of Christians adopting something they didn’t start. As she was trying to point something that atheists do that wasn’t started by atheists, I pointed something that Christians do that wasn’t started by Christians.
- This particular irrelevant tangent, wasn’t started by me, but by Laurie. So I don’t understand why your targeting me, who was commenting on her post, and acting like it has anything to deal with you or this topic. It doesn’t, that’s the point.

As to anti-sodomy laws, adoption, etc… Okay, let’s get this straight, here we go again, is there a law that states that a married homosexual couple can’t adopt children. NO. NO. NO. Your just traveling in circles here. Christians are fighting to deny married homosexual couples to adopt children.

For the murdering thing, I was just picking an example… which I already commented that you don’t get. It can be anything. You, of course, missed the point and then rambled without ever talking about it. Why, does the Bible not change to fit the heart of the religion? Why, does the Bible contain passages of hate? WHY IS IT NOT CHANGED FOR THE BETTER? I think I put it more eloquently the first time though, so, you should go back and reread it then try again.

I have found no proof of the bodysnatchers of Darwin Australia. I found one or two articles, but no solid proof. Perhaps you could provide me with some scholarly research information on the topic? But the “missing link” notion is a misconception in the first place. There is no missing link.

Stalin was Hitler’s hero, and quite frankly, yes, religion played a large role with Stalin as well. It’s basically the same thing with Hitler, except he didn’t get as much power.
“Or the atheist Soviet state and it human rights abuses…with nary a need for religious anything to justify” excuse me? What are you talking about here? The Soviet state, isn’t all atheist, there is no solid place with nothing but atheists. I’d like clarification here please.

And again, I’d like to mention that I do not hold the view that people shouldn’t be barred from teaching children religions.

I leave now with a rather large quote:

“I cannot rail against that which I disbelieve. I can only rail against the actions of those who use their belief as motivation to infringe on my rights.

Many times, more vocal believers who misunderstand what ‘disbelief’ entails, accuse atheists of “railing against god”. I hold no faith in ‘god’, I do not absolutely claim non-existence, only that there is insufficient proof to sway me to follow such Bronze-age myths. I do not believe your claims of a ‘god’ to be valid, and as such cannot rail against the non-existent. At issue is not the deity that is the object of your faith; instead I am defending my right of personal choice and the explicitly secular society in which I live, against the things you try to enforce for all in the name of such deities.

Your morality is just that, your own. Your wishes of “god bless” or “under god” are just that, your personal wishes. Your belief that the earth is no more than ten thousand years old, asinine as it may be, is your own belief. I am not obligated to recite reverent words to your god, it is not my duty to follow your morality as it pertains to personal issues such as sexual health, the bedroom or who I may marry, and it is certainly not mandatory that my children learn your mythology based explanations of nature in lieu of testable, proven scientific theories.

Many theistic apologists attempt to convince readers and listeners that the “New Atheism” is just a very popular movement “against god”, it is not. It is the repercussion being felt from centuries of believers trying to force their doctrine upon all of society by promoting their sacred texts in the public square in the form of stone monuments, the application of their bigotry to marriage laws, the appearance of reverent words directed at their god on our currency and the efforts to hinder scientific education because it conflicts with the science ‘ideas’ of frightened cavemen who scrawled their ideas about the origins of all that comes from nature on 2000+ year old parchment.

You see, it isn’t your god I rail against, I do not believe one exists; it is your attempts to force very personal beliefs upon all who live in our collective society that need to be quashed.”
http://www.theinformationparadox.com/2008/08/atheists-who-speak-out-are-not-railing.html

Before you tune in and drop out consider:

God as Creator, has the authority and right to determine the rules and regulations, therefore consequences included, that govern His creation. (For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.)

God as Creator brought Adam (man) from the dust of the earth, and Eve (woman) from Adams rib. He commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. It is for this reason that a man will leave his parents and cling to his wife. It has been the foundation of the human race from the beginning.

Evil? Evil is the corruption of the natural order; the disobeying of God’s administered rules and regulations, also known as sin. Satan was the first to sin and enticed Adam and Eve, whom through their choice (important) to follow Satan’s lead corrupted the natural order, the good, bringing forth disease, pain, suffering and death we see around us.

Upon this framework consider:

If you engage in a homosexual relationship, it is your choice, you have not been forced.
If you engage in adultery, it is your choice, you have not been forced.
If you engage in pornography, it is your choice, you have not been forced.
If you engage in child molestation, it is your choice, you have not been forced.
If you engage in bestiality, it is your choice, you have not been forced.
If you engage in swinging, it is your choice, you have not been forced.

Each of these behaviors are ‘evil,’ a corruption of God’s rules and regulations. As Creator, God has deemed a penalty for this corruption, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,”

So some are offended. That’s not exclusive to homosexuals. It includes, liars, thieves, blasphemers, those whom covet, murderers, idolaters, the whole human race.

The Good News is not just John 3:16, for many forget John 3:17-18:

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

17″For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

18″He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

If you believe in Christ, it is your choice, no one has forced you.
If you disbelieve in Christ, it is your choice, no one has forced you.

No other belief system, even those cloaked in Orthodoxy, can explain the condition of man and provide a salvation free from works.