Priests/believers in the army?

[Freethinker]

There are so many different points of reference (atheists, Christians, capitalists, communists, etc, etc, etc, …) that it is improbable to reconcile them all as each has their own belief and knowledge sets.

Not all have "beliefs". "Belief" is only needed when FACTS are absent. As such, there is actually only ONE factual "knowledge set". Most groups choose to ignore it and use faith and belief instead.

 

Then there are the Atheists. :-)

[Freethinker]

I do not believe that Saddam Hussein could've prevented the invasion of Iraq through peaceful means, he had an unreasonable enemy.

Bush

You forget we also had an unreasonable aggressor starting the Iraqi war....

Ditto

[Freethinker]

Freethinker; Your too intelligent to refer to all believers as racists, aren't you.

I try very hard to always place the blame where it lies. CHRISTIANITY.

 

NOT on those that call themselves Christian, usually by error. I admit I sometimes make the error of not making the proper distinction or making it plain enough.

I believe that mentioning skin color as a religous platform is really not what you meant, at least one can't claim that,

Blanket "religious"? No, but specifically Christian? YOU BET! The bible has long been one of the primary sources for justification for prejudice of every type and strongly behind racial prejudice. Remember, the Southern US support for slavery was Christian and biblical and it still is. Read ANY KKK lit. The KKK is a stronly Christian based group.

just because someone believes in a supreme being that he or she is a racist. Please tell me you didn't mean what it sounds like you were saying.

Not as such, as I have expanded on. However, any time some group claims knowledge of some particular supreme being myth, they immediately want to claim some form of superiority over those with other beliefs and especially over those lacking any such belief based ignorance.

[sanctus]

history was kind to Stalin

 

 

 

 

history was as well kind to napoleone,mao,pinochet....

 

and you are kind as well to stalin as you write with a big "S" ;)

[Freethinker]

Let me say that I am personally ashamed of the way some act, just because they think they somehow are superior. Weather because of religious beliefs or nationalistic feelings of superiority, or any other stupid reason. I only ask, please do not include me, just because I have my own faith.

The only way one could be included in those that think "they somehow are superior" because of religion is if they make religious claims as fact, while never able to actually provide even the first shred of evidence to support it.

 

er...

We will all be witness to this when Christ returns for the church, Thank you.

[Freethinker]

Actually, it is not unconstitutional, the constitution merely prevents the government from creating any... I believe that the law more prevents the government from preventing people from practicing their religion, it does not create a seperation of church and state, something which I support although I recognize that there is no direct statement of such in the constitution.

Ya that's what those that wish to see their favorite religion keep getting Government hand outs and priviledge power always say. But what did the author of the 1st actually say about it?

 

Every new & successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance. -- James Madison,

 

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States ... -- James Madison,

 

The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State. -- James Madison,

 

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? -- James Madison,

 

Because the bill (Madison vetoed a bill granting public lands to a Baptist Church) in reserving a certain parcel of land in the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and a precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment." -- James Madison,

It says nothing about paying for various religious persons to aid our armed forces.

Is "paying for various religious persons to aid our" Congress close enough?

 

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment...? -- James Madison,

 

Well? "Does this not"?

[RiverRat]

Not all have "beliefs". "Belief" is only needed when FACTS are absent. As such, there is actually only ONE factual "knowledge set". Most groups choose to ignore it and use faith and belief instead.

 

Then there are the Atheists. :-)

 

Here is the word 'knowledge' or 'knowledge set' again. It seems as though you have intimate data that will finally put to rest the God/No God arguement that has exisited for eons. Otherwise I say you only have a 'belief'. ;)

[sanctus]

What's the difference between a belief based on facts and a belief based on superstition? Well the first one becomes what we call a fact, the secont rest a belief, therefore being atheist is not a belief....

[Freethinker]

“Yes, with the already overwhelming confusion over why the claimed all loving god allows such attrocities in the first place, why they are laying their dying, obviously ignored by their god”

 

Will this same line of reasoning include a simple scenario devoid of any moral or political connotation (ie… a golfer struck and killed by lightening or someone that slips and falls of a cliff to their death). It appears in the atheist view (if God existed) everyone would die of old age and there would millions of ‘miracle’ on a daily basis that saved people from an unnatural demise ?

Ah, OK then. Hard to figure just what you are trying to say here. "If god existed, would an Athiests view be..." Let's try to sumerize the answer as

 

If an all loving, all powerful god exists, evil would not.

“Logical? What is "logical" about intentionally including additional superstitious nonsense which is already primarily responsible for the cause behind their deaths?”

 

It appears that this statement stems from a belief that an overwhelming majority of soldiers do not believe in God.

??? not in the least. I can;t see where you could possibly stretch anything I said, that far out.

It would not be ‘superstitious nonsense’ to a believer.

More correctly, they would not recognize the superstitious and nonsensical nature of it. It remains superstitious nonsense regardless.

To the believer it is Gods will for their situation.

If they actually "believed" this, there would not be prayer. You know, the petition of their god for him to realize his error and act as the individual finds to be a better process.

“And who are these people (priests, ministers) that are so extremely selfrighteous that they actually think they are in a position to FORGIVE these dying soldiers? Forgive them for what?”

 

Actually… The Priests are in a position to forgive (as describe by the holy sacrament). They are in essence a temporal representation of God.

And this holds Official US Government sanction based on what?

 

And again, what are they being forgiven for? For doing what they are convinced their "god and country" demanded of them? They are in need of "forgiveness" for this? That is really screwed up thinking. That someone needs the forgiveness of some self proclaimed representitive of a mythical superstition's entity for doing what this entity wanted them to do! I find it incredible that anyone would actually think this is true, much less makes any sense!

This is similar to the Catholic faith in terms of Communion. Catholics believe they are taking in the ACTUAL ‘body’ and ‘blood’ of Christ (not a simple reprensentation).

Ah yes, transubstantiation. Lets see how incredibly stupid of a thing we can make up and still get people to sucker for it!

 

Not to mention the concept of promoting ritual torture and cannibalism! How wonderful that is!

[pgrmdave]

Ya that's what those that wish to see their favorite religion keep getting Government hand outs and priviledge power always say. But what did the author of the 1st actually say about it?

 

It is irrelevent what was said about it by anyone, all that matters is the constitution itself. I agree that there should be seperation, but I do not think that sending priests to aid our soldiers, which is most likely helpful to the morale and thus fighting ability of our soldiers, allowing more of them, hopefully, to survive, is a breach of the exact wording.

 

Yes, but it would be INDIVIDUALS, or at worst, small groups, not entire nations and ideologies... ... as such a COUNTRY would not need to defend itself against other countries, just a few individuals.

 

But people rarely act as individuals, leaders would still arise, and followers would come to them, willing to do what they are told. A country may still need to defend itself, and may not know when it needs to, so a standing army would still be a necessity.

[Freethinker]

I'm, frankly quite tired of your constant attempt to cast all beleivers in this same light. I'll ask you this one question, are you calling me an oppressor because I'm a believer. What other names would you like to call me, I've heard it all before. You have no base to make such judgements about my character or anyone else just because they believe in a supreme being.

OK, I guess time to repeat my stance. I seem to have to do this regularly.

 

You have mentioned a couple of time about me say YOU are this or that because you are a believer. I had said earlier that I try to be careful to structure my comments based not on PERSONAL attacks, but attacks against the ideology.

 

Christianity is based exclusively on the bible. There is not a single other source of knowledge for Christianity and it's god myths outside of the bible. Not a single one. Ya lots of other material that IS based on the bible, but they are not SOURCES, only attempts to explain. validate/ justify/ ... The bible remains the ONLY SOURCE of knowledge of Christ/ Christianity.

 

Then there are people that CALL themselves Christian. And as you mentioned before, I am very familiar with the bible, internally and externally. As well as the invention of Christianity. Statistiaclly very few "Christians" actually have read any significant part of the bible. Almost none have read ALL of it.

 

NONE follow it! NONE!

 

Why? Because of the contradictions and plain outright errors, NO ONE CAN!

 

"Thou shalt not kill/ suffer a witch to live"

 

"eye for an eye, turn the other cheek"....

 

So do I EVER claim that "All 'Christians' (believers, ....)" do ANYTHING? Absolutely not. Each makes up what they want and then PRETENDS that is what Christianity is. Do I think YOU are "an oppressor"? As I am NOT a Christian and as such do not have a negative opinion of humanity, my first reaction would be to assume you are a good person. NOT an oppressor. Nor would I lable you as one.

 

But we would not find that you are even close to following many biblical tenets. And that is a good thing.

[RiverRat]

What's the difference between a belief based on facts and a belief based on superstition? Well the first one becomes what we call a fact, the secont rest a belief, therefore being atheist is not a belief....

 

I suppose if an extremely limited data set constitutes a 'fact' ... then I indeed concede this arguement. ;)

 

I do not think that any well educated individual on this site can truely say that we as humans know enough about the make up and inner workings of 'everything' in the universe to state atheism as a fact.

 

My car is making a noise therefore it is the finican pin (without the understanding of how all the components interact and witout analyzing all possibilities)

 

My kidneys are starting to ache ;)

[pgrmdave]

Take something as seemingly Secular as the US Civil War.

Okay - The Civil war was the inevitable outcome of the economics developed during the industrial revolution. The northern states had more minerals, and more population, and thus were able to produce more manufactured goods, while the south remained largely agricultural. During the two centuries previous to the civil war, the souther economy had flourished, producing tobacco, cotton, and other cash crops on large plantations. Until the Industrial revolution, the North, while it had more cities, was largely dependant on the South for it's raw materials. During the Industrial revolution, the North developed large factories, and the ability to mass produce manufactured goods, which the southerners, if they wanted to maintain profit, had to purchase. The North began to draw more and more wealth out of the South, and the South struggled to keep up economically. When they were threatened with the abolition of slavery, which would have hurt their economy to the point of complete dependancy on the North, they seceeded. Lincoln, after being sworn in, realized that a divided country would have to fight for the west, and he knew that the North still needed the crops from the South, as the mid-west had only recently been settled.

 

While religious groups may have tried to make claims to the war, it was a secular war. Any others?

[sanctus]

I suppose if an extremely limited data set constitutes a 'fact' ... then I indeed concede this arguement. ;)

 

I do not think that any well educated individual on this site can truely say that we as humans know enough about the make up and inner workings of 'everything' in the universe to state atheism as a fact.

 

 

Ok, you are right. But it's anyway a closer to a fact as athiesm is supported by some facts, while relgion iis supported by belief only!

[RiverRat]

Ok, you are right. But it's anyway a closer to a fact as athiesm is supported by some facts, while relgion iis supported by belief only!

 

I'M RIGHT... I'M RIGHT ;) ;)

 

You know what they say about ... "being close" ... it only counts in hand grenades and nuclear weapons (wonder if any atheists had a hand in the developement of nukes ?)

[Freethinker]

I had to wait till I got home to answer this one. I keep my database of info here. And we all know that I don't make claims unless I can back them up. So I am including the data rather than making others ask.

 

What a concept eh?

Can you back up that sweeeeeping generalization with an example. Please show me a paradigm where a Godless society flourished in your virtual Utopia.

Oh that we had ever even gotten close to having one ever in history. But then there has never been an internet community before in history either. Amazing what science and knowledge can do!

 

Besides, this brings up a problem. When someone mentions that they are or a nation is based on something like Christianity, we can draw specific conclussions based on established written resources and as mentioned above, historical presidence.

 

But is there a similar level of understanding when one says they or a country is "godless"? All this is saying is that they do not hold a particular belief based philosophy. It does not speak to what you or the country DOES think, accept, morals or ethics.

 

So when someone suggests a "godless" society, the next question that MUST be asked, is "What philosophy does it then replace (the god based one) with?"

Lets look at the US prison system (violent crimes only).

Ah yes, lets!

Can you honestly say that if you polled each and ever prisoner that there reason for incarceration was directly attributed to God. In your view... in a Godless society... we could practically disband the prison system.

In "The New Criminology," Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10th of 1%. W.T. Root, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said, "Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers were absent from penitentiaries, or nearly so.

 

Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.

 

In Joliet Prison, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and no prisoners identified as non-religious.

 

Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in the state population; but in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 inmates, 855 of them (over half) Catholics, 518 Protestants, 117 Jews, and 8 non-religious.

 

In one 19-state survey, Steiner found 15 non-believers, Spiritualists, Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates.

 

The Elmira, N.Y. prison system overshadowed all others, with nearly 31,000 inmates, including 15,694 Catholics (half) and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing to answer, and 0 unbelievers.

How many stories can be retold about the death row prisoners that 'found' God and repented. It is obvious that in a Godless society these people would not be stopped. In fact, if these death row inmates 'found' God earlier in their lives they may not have committed the crime in the first place.

During 10 years in Sing-Sing, of those executed for murder 65% were Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.

[Freethinker]

'Finding God' seems to be the last resort many refer to when they brush with the great oddity of death. I'd tend to think that if most death row inmates had thought their life would end, they wouldn't have commited the crimes in the first place.

You mean murders don't think they are ever going to die? Ever?

As to Prisoner polling, why limit it to death row?

That's why I included stats on general prison populations, not just death row.

If they had found god prior to commiting the crime, I'm shure they would still have found a way to rationalise it to themselves and commit the act. God or not, criminals are generally people who think they won't get caught, or just don't think and have faith all will go well for them.

Ah yes, the causal connection. Why or even is there a causal connection?