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People should also be free to point out Christianity's benefits, continuities, ethical advantages, and role in the history of logic or reason. Ockham, Bolzano, Liebniz, Cantor, and Godel were all Christians. Also be free to contradict the nonsensical historical myths atheists online tend to propagate.
Right. See, the OP was talking about Christian threads in the R&P forum always having "the other side" give their point of view. I was just pointing out why that happens; since this is not the Christianity forum, criticism of Christianity is not against the rules. I didn't say "you can't post positive things about Christianity," I just said your best bet is to try the Christianity forum if you want a positive-only thread.
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Besides this isn't the atheist or ex-Christian forum. If we can have a thread like "why are you a Unitarian", with relatively little bashing, why is Christianity always just a source to push one's hostility here? Because this hostility certainly doesn't relate to many denominations or anything real in the world of the last 100 years. There is no "Christian Republic" at present that stones adulterers or persecutes Bahais or pagans. The most devoutly Christian nation on Earth is perhaps the Philippines and although it has its problems its hardly a totalitarian or genocidal state.
100 years of relative calm doesn't really mean something is good, especially since the idea is that it's supposed to have always been good...
To compare Christianity to Unitarians, well Christianity just has a lot more strict dogma that people feel they must adhere to, and anything that contradicts it (other than itself) is evil and should be stopped. And the Christians that aren't this way have to interpret their bible and church teachings less than literally.
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The only thing I can think of is that people here are more likely to exposed to Christianity so more likely to have Christians hurt their feelings. (Yeah there's the litany you list, but that could apply to almost any ideology or religion if you look at it from a certain perspective) Or a rather obsessive need for things to be clear, simple, and logical. Or some other emotional problem.
There's certainly some truth there. Christianity generally affects people on this forum much more than other religions, due to amount of exposure. And there are a lot of well-meaning Christians that think they are doing good but actually affect others negatively, "hurt their feelings" (or flat out oppress them), and as the quote goes, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” -Steven Weinberg
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Originally Posted by BergenCountyJohnny
Translation - Don't post positive things about Christianity outside of the Christianity forum because rabid Christian-hating atheists and agnostics will descend upon such a thread like a swarm of ignorant locusts and lay it to waste with their favorite weapons - invective, hackneyed propaganda, and Youtube videos, all of which count as "proof" in the eyes of such ignorant people, and are delivered complete with frothing at the mouth. And they will be as arrogant as ever about it, you can count on that.
You described me to a T, yup, I even froth at the mouth. Nice bias.
Celebrities, now? Why, professor? Would you cheer if octomom were atheist?
Oh... as low as necessary to reach all the way down to the intellect of those who claim atheists have created havoc all through history. Versus, you know, the charming and humanitarian outcomes of dogmatic Christianity.
And again, when one is arguing with the dregs of logical and rational discourse, how low does one go?
I was actually looking for a much better video that you've probably seen in the past, which lists such types as Einstein, Hawkins, Dawkins, etc, and many other notable thinkers who deny divinity. I agree, why necessarily appaud all these celeb types, but it was a good try.
I have more time right now, so (google google google....) Ahhh yes; here it is, for the more intellectual amongst you. There's got to be a few.....
(I particularly like the quote by G. Bernard Shaw about a drunken man...., or R. Feynman's quote about God being invented simply to explain mystery. You know, for those who can;'t stand unansweed questions and so prefer fairy tales to scientific investigation).
Enjoy! (or not; I know; compassionate and well organized intellect is daunting and very frightening to some... Dawkinsophobia, for example)
Translation - Don't post positive things about Christianity outside of the Christianity forum because rabid Christian-hating atheists and agnostics will descend upon such a thread like a swarm of ignorant locusts and lay it to waste with their favorite weapons - invective, hackneyed propaganda, and Youtube videos, all of which count as "proof" in the eyes of such ignorant people, and are delivered complete with frothing at the mouth. And they will be as arrogant as ever about it, you can count on that.
Or, alternately, we can post thoughtful, well organized point-form discussions, followed by honest realistic questions, which are then ignored or to which deflective or fantasy answers are snearingly provided.
(BTW, we're routinely ignored or gloatingly sneared at over on the Christian sub-forum, so ne-ahhh back at'cha!)
I tried, about 8 months ago, to show how science works, in a mutli-page, almost blog-like (my error, apparently, given the limited attention span of most arrogant Christians) quuiet non-combative discussion of how I had run some core drill sampling studies in my professional geology past, in order to simply provide some safety information on a mine site. I continuously asked if the readers understood or had any questions about each section. No response, except cat-calls from Christians.
Then I noted how the results were "proofed", and how we made deductions based on the hard evidence, and then how we extrapolated it back to years before (we initially thought...) any hydrological data was accumulated and documented. We came up with some conservative conclusions, which, to no-one's surprise, some data that we thought was lost, exactly and precisely confirmed our predictions.
It was all labelled pseudo-science by the usual hack Christians, and all denounced as nonsense witho0ut them even reading it, even though the Dept. of Mines, OSHA and others all accepted it and found it to be very useful.
Such are the usual insolent and insulting responses, typifed in BCJ's silly post here, of scientifically illiterate and knowledge-phobic Christians. After all, to accept the truth would be to realize their life's belief system is all based on mystical supernaturalism, denials and fairy tales.
Lovely basis for life!
So, go ahead: criticize science. it simply shows your vast lack of intellect and understanding, all for the sake of ancient mythology that has absolutely not a scintilla of empirical proof, other than your "faith".
I do agree that many of the Christians here are rather weird and I don't relate to them either. Still tarring all Christianity because of some weirdos seems fundamentally unfair.
And I still don't see the problem with having a "positive" thread about Christianity. Or Islam or Sikhism or Baha'i or Atheism. Especially as we have threads that are explicitly about bashing some of those. This is where I feel frankly better than many of the current crop of atheists. I can see some good and wonderful things in most of the other Great World Religions even when I totally don't relate to them. The atheists I read as a kid, like Clarke or Asimov, were willing to see a certain utility or good in some religions even if they ultimately hoped they'd die out.
Now it seems atheists have become like members of Society of St. Pius X. Religions are just erroneous and error has no rights. Tolerance of error is moral indifferentism and condemned in Weinberg's "Syllabus of Primitivist errors" or something. I miss the nuance of atheists of yore.
You start your post by criticizing atheist for using too broad a brush in painting the portrait of Christianity, and you end your post by using the same broad brush to paint the portrait of atheism.
But I will only quibble on this one small point: The Atheist behavior you complain of is mostly limited to message boards on the internet, while the behavior of Christians that atheist complain of happens regularly in every day life in America. So you should consider yourself fortunate for being in the dominate position.
Significant sciences, theories, or fields started or popularized by Christians include
Big Bang theory - Georges Lemaitre, Catholic priest.
Computing - Charles Babbage. He wrote On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation.
Entomology - William Kirby, an Anglican. A quote by him is "The author of Scripture is also the author of Nature: and this visible world, by types indeed, and by symbols, declares the same truths as the Bible does by words."
Genetics - Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk.
Immunology - Edward Jenner, Anglican.
Microbiology - Antonie Van Leeuwenhook, who is possibly an ancestor of mine. Calvinist.
Mineralogy - Georgius Agricola. Apparently forced to resign a position because he remained Catholic in a Protestant land.
Modern atomic theory - Either John Dalton (Quaker, when Quakes were all still Christian) or a priest named Father Boscovich.
Quantum mechanics - Max Planck. Didn't believe in miracles, but was a Lutheran who wrote about religious topics.
Stratigraphy - Blessed Nicolas Steno. A convert who was beatified in the Catholic Church for his religious work.
You start your post by criticizing atheist for using too broad a brush in painting the portrait of Christianity, and you end your post by using the same broad brush to paint the portrait of atheism.
You're right. I just meant a certain portion of atheists, but I did seem to tar them all at the end. That was wrong.
Thomas, regarding your list of thinkers who are also spiritualists; I concur.
But...
It is the fundamentalist, literalist, dogmatist, arrogant, combative, unlistening, denialist (I'm running out of adjectives, but there ARE more that do apply...) types who insist the sun is made of crystals, that Noah jammed 600 Million animals onto his barge for 18 months, that the entire mass of the known universe rotates around the tiny grav-mass of this Earth, etc.
It's not even their vast and boundlessly delusional thinking; it's the absolute and measurable danger of such thinking that shows up in school boards, at Sunday Schools, in biblical tracts, in door-to-door witnessing, in Sunday morning TV evangelism designed specifically and only to extract money from naive but fearful innocents, in Christian teaching videos and AiG denials and stupifyingly error-filled explanations of science's achievements, of insults to all of science's honest, painstakingly careful, ethical and curious fellow citizens, and in their hostile C-D posts.
Let's have a nice quiet philosophical discussion about spiritualism's role in thought, in man's philosophical ascent and his destiny, and in it's value to our sense of well-being and ethical standards, and in our sense of personal security.
But it can't happen here; the literalist fundies won't hear of it. And they are, I've now realized over the past year, in no mood to ever change their thinking, no matter what's said by anyone.
They are lost to it all. Truly, intentionally and forever.... lost.
if it were not for the practice of my religion i would have perished long ago.
no different than fencing its a practiced skill of principles that has sure rewards.
practice practice and you get on a nice improvement curve.
Let the critics make their there comments; for one who is honestly attempting to live right and just, is innocent of any wrong doing.
What is right and what is just?
In any religious belief, even in non believers, if Godly type of love is exercised, that is all that is required.
That being done, Gd is definitely in the works!
Blessings, AJ
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"We have nothing to fear but fear itself!"
Would you cheer if octomom were atheist?
Dawkinsophobia, for example) 
Well then!
Mental inertia, unchangeable.
