Sunday, November 29, 2009

A funny irony about our "christian" nation

Ahh yes, America. Our blessed christian country. Good thing we pray to the right God here. You know it's quite funny how in America when we see those backward muslims in some dark corner of the middle east or central asia, stoning or whipping some woman in public because she might have had sex outside of marriage or engaged in adultery, we are appalled and shocked. We love to call the muslims out on how uncivilized they are or how backward and sexist they are, but if you consider that the christian Bible, says adulterers and unmarried women who've had sex shall be put to death by stoning and even worse set on fire alive.

So how can we "christians" be appalled when we see those in the middle east doing almost exactly what the holy scripture says they should do? It clearly says in the Bible that for a woman who enters a marriage in which "the tokens of virginity be not found...the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die."(Deuteronomy 22:20-21) Wow. So the west has caught up with the fact that actually stoning someone today for having sex before marriage seems a bit extreme, but parts of the middle east haven't, and when they do so we criticize them for not behaving morally when indeed the holy Bible, the text for which this great country was(supposedly)founded on says to do just that which the muslims in the middle east are doing. So who are the hippocrates here?

Saturday, November 28, 2009

A nice point

"Freedom of speech is meaningless, unless it's for the person who thinks differently."

A Philosophical argument part 2

The theist will say that man-made laws are arbitrary and can be erased and re-written at any moment and thus, whatever is right and wrong is only temporary. He will argue further and say that God's laws and morals are timeless and written in stone and are therefore not subject to the changing winds of political parties and leaders.

I disagree. While is do agree first that yes man-made laws can be changed at a moments notice and are therefore only binding when they are enforced and in power. I also believe that God's laws change over time too and that they are not permanent and that evolving morals can be a good thing.

First a person or persons can re-write a religion, I mean literally re-write the doctrine on which the religion is based on. All you have to do is look at the different sects with in the religions. Joseph Smith founded the Mormon church in upstate new york on a vision he had, and re-wrote the christian faith with new rules and regulations. The Shiites and the Sunnis disagree and a great number of things even though they all pray to essentially the same God. In fact, Islam is a complete re-writing of Christianity and Judaism.

Once slavery was excepted as the norm, then it wasn't. The Bible justifies slavery, but intelligent thinking, moral people decided it wasn't justified under any circumstances, and they changed moral attitudes toward slavery. If biblical morals were written in stone, we'd still have slavery and we'd still be stoning people to death for adultery and working on the sabbath.

Do you want to live in a society like that?

A Philosophical argument

A christian cannot say that the source or moral truth is God, or that there are no absolute morals without God.

Let me explain.

If a christian were to say raping and torturing a child is morally wrong he is missing the one part that should be added to the end that allows for the child to be raped and tortured if God commands him or her to do so. The jews on their way out of exodus were commanded by God to kill and rape all the other tribes that stood in their way to the land of Israel, the land that God gave to them. It was morally right for the jews to do so at that time and therefore it's possible that God can command some people again to kill other people.

So, the christian must say that killing and raping a child is morally wrong except when God orders you to do so. So basically when God orders you to do so, then everything is permitted.

The Bible says...

The Bible says that we shall kill unmarried virgins, homosexuals, those who work on the day of the sabbath(whatever day that may be), but then it says "Thou shall not kill" and that only those free of sin can "cast the first stone." So, I'm confused, am I to kill sinners by stoning or burning them to death, or not? If I do, will I be exempt from prosecution because I am following the commands of the Lord? Will that work in a modern day courtroom?

Is it just me or does the God of the Bible command us to do some pretty wicked things in his name? Well as they say "the Lord works in mysterious ways."

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Ten Commandments

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'


What about Thou shall not rape? Or Thou shall not molest children? Or Thou shall not worship money(not just your neighbors)? Or Thou shall not have or keep human slaves? What a jealous God who devotes the first 3 commandments to himself and not some of the supposed universal truths that we live by today that I think would be better and more useful than to condemn worshiping another God.

Can morality exist with out God?

The argument is made by religious people again and again. “Without religion we wouldn’t know right from wrong.” I deeply disagree and let me tell you why. First off what is right and wrong? Is it relative to the culture, I think so. I don’t think that there are universal rights and wrongs. I can say that it is wrong to kill and steal and rape, the most basic evils that just about every society condemns. But what about killing in war, or self defense? Is it ok to kill in defense of your country, your religion or your freedom? There are times where it can be argued that killing is justified in some circumstances.

As to the basic question of whether we need divine information to know what is right or wrong, think about this point. Think if how complicated our man-made laws are here in the U.S. regarding every aspect of our society from children to the elderly to the credit cards in our wallets, to the dying, to the unborn. Our man-made laws are extremely complex so much so that you have to practically be a lawyer to understand your credit card agreement. Think about the internet, when this new technology came out we had to sit down and come up with rules and regulations and laws regarding what would be right and wrong on the World Wide Web. Would there be an expectation of privacy? Would it be free and open and not controlled by a monopoly? Would there be penalties for stealing information online? What would happen to child pornography senders and receivers?

We had to sit down and write all these rules about what is right and wrong, and we didn’t need divine intervention. In other countries their rules differ on what is right or wrong. My argument is simple: if we intelligent primates can think up extremely complex laws regarding every aspect of our society then we must have been able to think up the ten commandments or all the morals in the Bible, Torah, and Koran and all the other religious texts.

My new role model

I've been obsessed with writer Christopher Hitchens for the past few months. He is an public intellectual and an outspoken "anti-theist." He wrote the book "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" which I have actually not read yet. The book has caused controversy and Christopher went around the country debating many theologians from the major religions over whether God was great. The debates are very exiting. In my opinion Christopher articulates the best argument against religion that I've heard so far. He destroys every one he debates with logical arguments and he words them so good with a little pinch of humor that makes his lectures insanely interesting.

I think that he is a very bright voice for reason and if you're interested in the subject of religion you should definitely check him out.

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