Are Atheists Air Brushing History?

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Is that post not a testament to the idea that a person's religion cannot be blamed for their actions? If Hitler's theistic philosophy, Christian or otherwise, cannot be blamed for his actions, then neither can Stalin's atheism. And I believe both of those statements are true.

You have tried to connect atheism with Marxism and Darwinism, yet I think when it all boils down to it the lesson to be learned is that atheism is not to be blamed for the genocides, neither is theism or Christianity to be blamed for the Inquisition or the Crusades. Evil men commit these atrocities, not "isms".

I'm just trying to point out that you've been trying to blame atheism for the "worst atrocities in history", but atheism is not to blame. The atheists who claim Christianity is to blame for atrocities are also in the wrong.

I do agree with Dawkins' theory that faith is the "root of all evil", but not faith in God or in the non-existence of such. Faith in your beliefs being superior to that of others' beliefs is the root of evil. (I cannot seem to say it enough, can I?)

reply to post by an3rkist

Originally posted by an3rkist
reply to post by Bigwhammy

 

Is that post not a testament to the idea that a person's religion cannot be blamed for their actions? If Hitler's theistic philosophy, Christian or otherwise, cannot be blamed for his actions, then neither can Stalin's atheism. And I believe both of those statements are true.

Fair enough. But Dawkins has really been on the warpath. I admit I have intentionally overstated my case in response. Really all I set out to do is defend my faith against false allegations.

You have tried to connect atheism with Marxism and Darwinism, yet I think when it all boils down to it the lesson to be learned is that atheism is not to be blamed for the genocides, neither is theism or Christianity to be blamed for the Inquisition or the Crusades. Evil men commit these atrocities, not "isms".

I basically agree with you. However, I believe that if someone truly believes they will be held eternally accountable for their life, they would not act as a Stalin, Mao or Hitler. If they believed in God and punishment after death that would incredibly foolish.

I'm just trying to point out that you've been trying to blame atheism for the "worst atrocities in history", but atheism is not to blame. The atheists who claim Christianity is to blame for atrocities are also in the wrong.

As I stated above I think there is a relationship to atheism in the accountability factor. But my real goal was just to get to what you are saying. I think that is the enlightened view.

I do agree with Dawkins' theory that faith is the "root of all evil", but not faith in God or in the non-existence of such. Faith in your beliefs being superior to that of others' beliefs is the root of evil. (I cannot seem to say it enough, can I?)

Well I get the gist of your position. But what if you were to insist to me that you have faith in the superiority of communism. With history as our example is it indeed evil for me to believe that a democratic republic is superior? I think not. I think there is "right and wrong" and "good and evil"; sometimes the lines are murky. Sometimes we are relegated to the "lesser of two evils". I think it is ok to have strong convictions.

Have you ever heard the famous line,"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything" ?

-peace



[edit on 3/28/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Okay, let's back up a moment.
It isn't that each individual atheist will respond like Stalin, nor that each individual christian/pagan/darwinist, will end up like Hitler.
In fact, the problem isn't the world view, it's the bottom line, which is
whether or not your view supports sanctity of life, all life and not just the
life that is convenient.

EDIT: Guess I should preface that by pointing out by all life, i mean human life.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by undo]

reply to post by undo


Which is where the whole Darwinism can of worms comes into play. Christians believe that every human being is an image bearer of God. Atheistic evolutionists like Dawkins believe we are just animals "dancing to the rhythm of our DNA". So Dawkins outrage at the 911 terrorism is really only outrage against the genetic disposition of the terrorists. They can't help it its just a product of the chemistry and molecules in their brains. Isn't that is what the philosophy of materialism leaves you with for morality?

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
With history as our example is it indeed evil for me to believe that a democratic republic is superior?

Yes it is, if it means you're going to invade other countries and force them to practice it. Christianity is not a democracy, so you cannot say that everybody would prefer a democracy over a tyrannical regime. Nobody has any justification in forcing anyone to do anything, or even to try too hard to convince them of something.

Have you ever heard the famous line,"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything" ?

Yes, and you can stand your ground without shoving everybody else out of the way, my friend. (Not accusing you, just commenting...)

[edit on 28/3/08 by an3rkist]

Whammy, if you are really, really honestly interested in such questions. There is a talk by the darwinian communistic atheist neurophilospher Patricia Churchland on't web somewhere. It covers issues like morality, genetics, free will, and the things you touch on.

I'm sure you will disagree with her argument, but essentially whether we truly have free-will or not, we can justify taking people out of society by their behaviour easily enough. Doesn't matter if a psychopath has a genetic condition. If they commit unlawful actions and are threat to others, they should be placed somewhere out of the way. What we should do is study the brain and behaviour in sufficient detail to maybe, in the future, enable such people to be decent socially well-adjusted people.

Come a long way since daemons and stuff.

ABE: If any inquisitive individuals are honestly interested in this issue, I think this is the video. There are 6 parts to this one presentation. However, I might be wrong, she has a few on this youtube user's account - possibly all worth a watch. Looks like the one though...

Google Video Link

ABE: bah! Not embedding properly, googlevid it is then.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by melatonin]

Yes, and you can stand your ground without shoving everybody else out of the way, my friend

That's the issue at stake here.
There's no room for any version but the atheist one. They believe this view is
proven by empirical process and evidence, but have you looked at some of this evidence?

Here's an excerpt by that ever controversial Zecharia Sitchin, who, due to his connections can get away with saying these kinds of things without being so completely ostracized by society that his books aren't publishable. Some of us are not that lucky, but I appreciate the opportunity to read his research, theories and frank commentary (not that I always agree, but he's made many fine points). He also has evidence that the ancient past is being airbrushed and has been for a very long time. I also don't agree with all his assessments on that, but he's made really good points there as well. Where he loses the trail and wanders off, is where his most controversial and least proveable theories arise, but this is one example where the trail is clear and surprising:

The Bible asserts that the Elohim said: “Let us fashion the Adam in our image and after our likeness.” But if one is to accept a tentative explanation for enigmatic genes that humans possess, offered when the deciphering of the human genome was announced in mid-February, the feat was decided upon by a group of bacteria!

“Humbling” was the prevalent adjective used by the scientific teams and the media to describe the principal finding – that the human genome contains not the anticipated 100,000 - 140,000 genes (the stretches of DNA that direct the production of amino-acids and proteins) but only some 30,000+ -- little more than double the 13,601 genes of a fruit fly and barely fifty percent more than the roundworm’s 19,098. What a comedown from the pinnacle of the genomic Tree of Life!

Moreover, there was hardly any uniqueness to the human genes. They are comparative to not the presumed 95 percent but to almost 99 percent of the chimpanzees, and 70 percent of the mouse. Human genes, with the same functions, were found to be identical to genes of other vertebrates, as well as invertebrates, plants, fungi, even yeast. The findings not only confirmed that there was one source of DNA for all life on Earth, but also enabled the scientists to trace the evolutionary process – how more complex organisms evolved, genetically, from simpler ones, adopting at each stage the genes of a lower life form to create a more complex higher life form – culminating with Homo sapiens.


The “Head-scratching” Discovery

It was here, in tracing the vertical evolutionary record contained in the human and the other analyzed genomes, that the scientists ran into an enigma. The “head-scratching discovery by the public consortium,” as Science termed it, was that the human genome contains 223 genes that do not have the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree.

How did Man acquire such a bunch of enigmatic genes?

In the evolutionary progression from bacteria to invertebrates (such as the lineages of yeast, worms, flies or mustard weed – which have been deciphered) to vertebrates (mice, chimpanzees) and finally modern humans, these 223 genes are completely missing in the invertebrate phase. Therefore, the scientists can explain their presence in the human genome by a “rather recent” (in evolutionary time scales) “probable horizontal transfer from bacteria.”

In other words: At a relatively recent time as Evolution goes, modern humans acquired an extra 223 genes not through gradual evolution, not vertically on the Tree of Life, but horizontally, as a sideways insertion of genetic material from bacteria…


An Immense Difference

Now, at first glance it would seem that 223 genes is no big deal. In fact, while every single gene makes a great difference to every individual, 223 genes make an immense difference to a species such as ours.

The human genome is made up of about three billion neucleotides (the “letters” A-C-G-T which stand for the initials of the four nucleic acids that spell out all life on Earth); of them, just a little more than one percent are grouped into functioning genes (each gene consists of thousands of "letters"). The difference between one individual person and another amounts to about one “letter” in a thousand in the DNA “alphabet.” The difference between Man and Chimpanzee is less than one percent as genes go; and one percent of 30,000 genes is 300.

So, 223 genes is more than two thirds of the difference between me, you and a chimpanzee!

An analysis of the functions of these genes through the proteins that they spell out, conducted by the Public Consortium team and published in the journal Nature, shows that they include not only proteins involved in important physiological but also psychiatric functions. Moreover, they are responsible for important neurological enzymes that stem only from the mitochondrial portion of the DNA – the so-called “Eve” DNA that humankind inherited only through the mother-line, all the way back to a single “Eve.” That finding alone raises doubt regarding that the "bacterial insertion" explanation.


A Shaky Theory

How sure are the scientists that such important and complex genes, such an immense human advantage, was obtained by us --“rather recently”-- through the courtesy of infecting bacteria?

“It is a jump that does not follow current evolutionary theories,” said Steven Scherer, director of mapping of the Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine.

“We did not identify a strongly preferred bacterial source for the putative horizontally transferred genes,” states the report in Nature. The Public Consortium team, conducting a detailed search, found that some 113 genes (out of the 223) “are widespread among bacteria” – though they are entirely absent even in invertebrates. An analysis of the proteins which the enigmatic genes express showed that out of 35 identified, only ten had counterparts in vertebrates (ranging from cows to rodents to fish); 25 of the 35 were unique to humans.

“It is not clear whether the transfer was from bacteria to human or from human to bacteria,” Science quoted Robert Waterson, co-director of Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center, as saying.

But if Man gave those genes to bacteria, where did Man acquire those genes to begin with?

Source
www.sitchin.com...

[edit on 28-3-2008 by undo]

reply to post by melatonin


Mel that might be Dawkins finest hour. He doesn't treat most folks like the Bishop. It is not representative of his usual tone. Which is typically like this very short 3 minute clip:

Originally posted by an3rkist

Yes it is, if it means you're going to invade other countries and force them to practice it. Christianity is not a democracy, so you cannot say that everybody would prefer a democracy over a tyrannical regime. Nobody has any justification in forcing anyone to do anything, or even to try too hard to convince them of something.

Nobody is forcing anyone to be Christian. Where did that come from?
So was it wrong for the United States to stop the Nazis? Oh please... Is it wrong to force child molestors to stop?

Moral relativism does not hold water.

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Mel that might be Dawkins finest hour. He doesn't treat most folks like the Bishop. It is not representative of his usual tone.

I completely agree and made the same point earlier.

Dawkins can be nice. So can Fred Phelps, I'm sure, when he is not on one of his hateful rants. But the 'civil' conversations they have do not excuse or delete their antagonistic behavior elsewhere. It does sadden and confuse me to see how Christians can blast Phelps for his behavior but then see atheists running to the defense of the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens and their hate speech by attempting to excuse it by posting their 'good sides.'

I hate to use the term brainwashing but that is how it is looking on my end. One should be able to rebuke such repugnant behavior even if the spokesman is on 'their team.' It appears the behavior is being condoned when excuses are made for the offending party.

:shk:

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Whats wrong with that?

I don't get where you are coming from. The guy is making a valid point. He's saying that different religions have different names for a deity, and that by accident of birth location what people believe to be their deity is ingrained into them - and hes saying that he may be wrong about god, but he's turning the question back on the person who asked it and asking them what will they do if they, themselves are wrong and there is no god.

Can you explain what you find so offensive about that clip?

I hate to use the term brainwashing but that is how it is looking on my end.

No doubt. I realize people who believe it think it's more believeable than the explanations in ancient history, but frankly, throwing away some 5000 years of history so you can believe a new one where the explanations are getting more and more unbelieveable, and which was itself based on incorrect data by a bunch of guys coming out of the dark ages....

These guys were functioning with science that said things like:

The bible can't be true because humans can only be created via intercourse and uteran gestation.

The bible can't be true because men and beings can't fly in the sky or the heavens.

This goes on and on. The more science proves these things ARE possible, the more they fight to say "God" is not part of it. So even when they prove the bible has many scientifically possible events in it, disproving their original reasons for not believing it in the first place, they still reject it.

This reminds me of that fake evidence that was submitted for the court case. And the problem of not back tracking on the "ancient greeks" couldn't write theory and so on and so forth.

The closer they get, the farther away they are. It's a weird phenomenon

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Mel that might be Dawkins finest hour. He doesn't treat most folks like the Bishop. It is not representative of his usual tone. Which is typically like this very short 3 minute clip:

Typically? And you know this how? Do you stalk him or something?

I haven't seen the vid yet, it isn't embedding properly, for me at least. I wouldn't be surprised it's the Haggard vid? If so, yeah, he also doesn't take fools gladly, especially when they talk nonsense about issues on which he is an expert.

You should have seen me the other day. Some dudes publish a paper, it's on an area I work in. Their data is completely opposite to all the other literature. Now, as an open-minded person, that's fine. The issue is that when writing the paper, they completely ignored all the other work that doesn't support their data. That's naughty. If I had them in front of me, I would have been slightly peeved to say the least, at them, and the peer-reviewers.

That's life though, eh? No-one said Dawkins is a saint. He's human. But he's also not some rampant daemon either. He and Harries often work together to ensure good science education in the UK. He does respect some people of faith. He thinks they're wrong, of course, oh well. He has less respect for other people of faith. Fine by me, some don't deserve a high level of respect.

ABE: Nefo has seen it, must be my set-up. Bah! Guess it's not the Haggard part of the video. Surprised you never used that.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by neformore



Note I was responding to mels video with the Bishop interview. He didn't dare take that tone with the Bishop. It is disrepectful. He infers that religious belief is stupid and ignorant.

reply to post by melatonin


Calling God a delusion is disrepectful period. Here Dawkins get scolded by Tyson for his demeanor.


[edit on 3/28/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by neformore


he's mocking his student rather than teaching her.

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Nobody is forcing anyone to be Christian. Where did that come from?
So was it wrong for the United States to stop the Nazis? Oh please... Is it wrong to force child molestors to stop?

Moral relativism does not hold water.

Apologies if I worded it strangely, I wasn't implying that anyone's forcing anyone to be Christian. I was responding to your quote about Democracy, and was actually alluding to the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. "If you won't come to Democracy, Democracy will come to you!" You asked if thinking a Democratic republic was superior was evil, and I said it is if you are forcing it on other people. I was making the argument that no organization, theist, atheist, Christian, Democratic, etc. is innocent if they are attempting to force their ideologies on others.

Was it wrong for the United States to stop the Nazis? This is a question I was asked when I was applying for Conscientious Objector Status while I was in the Army. (I failed to convince them I was a pacifist, probably because I'm not one, so they instead sent me to Iraq. Hooray!) Anyway, it's a loaded question, and the answer is one which will bring criticism no matter what. Should the Nazis have been stopped? Yes, they were forcing their beliefs on other people. But that's when it gets complicated...so I'll stop there.

The only time forcing your beliefs on somebody is *possibly* justified is when they are forcing their beliefs on somebody else, such as a child molester or rapist. But trying to change people's personal beliefs about God/lack thereof/Heaven/Hell/anything else unprovable is a sin. Period.

Originally posted by undo

Yes, and you can stand your ground without shoving everybody else out of the way, my friend

That's the issue at stake here.
There's no room for any version but the atheist one. They believe this view is
proven by empirical process and evidence, but have you looked at some of this evidence?

Perhaps you're all reading too much into Dawkins, or maybe I just haven't seen enough of his work. (All I've seen is the video Bigwhammy posted and I listened to the debate also...), but Dawkins doesn't want to kill all the theists or anything. It seems to me he wants to eradicate non-evidence based beliefs, (which would also mean destroying the atheist belief as there is no evidence that there is no God...) And you refer to "they", but I have yet to see this mass army of atheists that are not only re-writing history but are also plotting to exterminate the believers. I think you guys are reading Revelations too much...

[edit on 28/3/08 by an3rkist]

Do you know what's pathetic?

ALL OF US, fighting against each other for some kind of SUPREMACY over this subject!

Wears thin.

It's pathetic when one or more human beings vie for total supremacy over anothers 'statement' on these boards.

This behavior only strengthens the divides between us, and adds absolutely NOTHING to the positive nature that Should be OUR motto - Denying Ignorance.

Unfreakin believeable MY FRIENDS.

~Ducky~

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Calling God a delusion is disrepectful period.

To whom? To god?

Or is it disrepectful to people who think that they can interpret what the divine entity might feel?

And that raises the question of whats more disrespectful - doubting something exists, or trying to interpret how that thing may feel about it?

The former is something that can be labelled as lacking in education, which can be resolved by the deity.

The latter is presumptual and arrogant, surely?

If you mean its disrepectful to christians who believe in god, then the opposite could be said of your insistence on there being a deity - surely thats being disrespectful to atheists?

You can't have it both ways.

reply to post by neformore


I'm not saying YOU personally, nevermore....When ALL of us, finally come down from our haunches and read the post directly above yours....

~Ducky~