I'm guilty of not "getting" it either. Should really stop super-skimming. Acebloke makes a very good point.

This blog post seems just as biased as blaming all Muslims for terrorism.

yeah tottaly man i agree with this post all religons have terriosts its not just muliusms

Acebloke wrote:

Whenever a Christian who says "God made me do it" is convicted of Philadelphia, murder, etc his religion is never questioned.

I think that's because he's already been labled insane/crazy. I don't want to get into the "spritual" aspects of his statement, but I know for sure that it wasn't God who told him to,depending on where your foundation is (Mine being the Bible) you'd know that God would never tell someone to kill X number of innocent people. That guy "mistaked" that voice to be God because he lacked Bible knowledge and assumed these "voicse"/"thoughts" he was having were from God.

Since I am a Christian, I'd prefer not to be banned (Thank you very much sir. xD) because I hate being banned..>.< (Unfortunantly, Christians will be banned sooner or later because the Bible talks about it in the last days, which are pretty close.)

I do feel for the innocent Muslims getting caught in the crossfire of what really is being targeted, the extremist. Unfortunately a lot of Muslims think it's ok to beef with Christians, why are we the primary target? T.T Seems because Islam at it's roots is simply anti-christian. I'd honestly fear a world of Muslim control as Christians would be killed almost immediately and it would almost be justified in the minds of most Muslims I would think. Weird though, I don't think Christians are a threat to Muslims so again, why beef with us? Christianity displayed by Jesus was harmless so I don't see our threat.

"Unfortunately a lot of Muslims think it's ok to beef with Christians, why are we the primary target?"

Its quite funny because whenever I try to talk to Christians about _their_ interpretation of Muslims I'm always banned for it. In reality, Christianity is the largest religion and the only real worldly accepted religion other than Islam. Others such as Hinduism while having a lot of followers isn't accessible to the general public as they are restricted to a specific culture or race.

Christianity of course spent most of its history based in Europe with various anti-Jew and anti-Muslim legislation so its the easiest to comment on and make comparison.

"Seems because Islam at it's roots is simply anti-christian. I'd honestly fear a world of Muslim control as Christians would be killed almost immediately and it would almost be justified in the minds of most Muslims I would think. Weird though, I don't think Christians are a threat to Muslims so again, why beef with us? Christianity displayed by Jesus was harmless so I don't see our threat."

And this pretty much backs up my point of posting this. Islam is feared, Christianity is not.

Jp wrote:

You've never read actually read the bible, have you? Try a browse through the old testament and keep a count of how many different tribes the Christian god orders genocided.

The first part of your statement is true, and the immediate first thought I had. However, I think genocided is the incorrect term - thinking back in 1 Samuel when God orders Saul to destroy the Edomites (I think, I can't remember for sure which nation it was) and everything they owned, it was not just to kill "innocent" people. It was because the evil brewing there was so huge that anybody living there had already been tainted and had to have been disposed of - it says that Satan went straight through even the animals, and therefore each animal needed to be slayed as well.

Exaggerations like what you made is under a bias, and whilst you and I have exclaimed and respected each other, I wouldn't allow it to be called "genocide" in any sense.

Note: The "Christian" God in your sentence should also be translated to Abrahamic in this sense, because Christianity, Islam, and Jews all share the Old Testament.

I like when people try to make God out to be some ruthless slaughter-hungry being. Every nation or tribe he had destroyed was for a valid reason. He didn't just say to himself one morning "You know what, I think I'll obliterate Sodom and Gommorah today just for the lulz."

The people who obeyed God were blessed and protected. The people who disobeyed God were cursed. It's as simple as that. The people God had annihilated were liars, thieves, murderers, adulterers etc. - the same things we condemn people for doing in our day and time.

CauTi0N wrote:

The first part of your statement is true, and the immediate first thought I had. However, I think genocided is the incorrect term - thinking back in 1 Samuel when God orders Saul to destroy the Edomites (I think, I can't remember for sure which nation it was) and everything they owned, it was not just to kill "innocent" people. It was because the evil brewing there was so huge that anybody living there had already been tainted and had to have been disposed of - it says that Satan went straight through even the animals, and therefore each animal needed to be slayed as well.

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/atrocities.html

Exaggerations like what you made is under a bias, and whilst you and I have exclaimed and respected each other, I wouldn't allow it to be called "genocide" in any sense.

There is no other word for Deuteronomy 7:1-2 and 20:16-17. This isn't a matter of 'bias'. This is a matter of the Abrahamic god explicitly ordering the Israelites to murder seven different tribes in their entirety. What other word could you possibly have for that? Invoking a magical (and unsupportable) claim that they're all evil demon worshippers and therefore deserve death is neither a defence nor, frankly, an opinion that could be expressed by anyone other than a psychopath or someone engaging in doublethink.

Note: The "Christian" God in your sentence should also be translated to Abrahamic in this sense, because Christianity, Islam, and Jews all share the Old Testament.

True that.

I think you're misinterpreting Acebloke's post. He's not actually saying that we should blame Christianity as a whole for the actions of a raving nutter. He's saying that there's a double standard - that if the raving nutter was a muslim, Islam as a whole would be blamed, but because he's Christian, people just go "Oh, he's just a nutter".

Oh, and the blog you linked to is being slightly disingenous. Most of the countries they're referring to persecute other non-state religions just as hard. They're not so much persecuting Christianity as they are persecuting non-Whatevers. The other problem is that most of the countries they're referring to are third-world shitholes, whereas much of the hue and cry being raised against Islam is in industrialised, Western nations, which frankly should know better. Much of the persecution it describes is carried out by non-state actors. Finally, it reaches the bottom of the barrel when it describes a university only giving students course credit for courses with some actual basis in fact as 'persecution'.

Not that I approve of Islam - but I have no particular problem with it that I don't have with Christianity.

EmpirezTeam, you describe a deity that is little more than the ultimate tyrant. Even if such a being existed, I would no more worship it than I would worship Hitler. You're frankly misinformed on the events described in the OT, which regularly involve innocents being ordered slain by God - consider, for example, the killing of the firstborn in the Exodus story. Were those children and babies guilty of any crime? Consider the story of Abraham and Isaac, which appears to be trying to impart the lesson that if god orders you to do something, you do it, no matter how ethically revolting it is. Consider Job.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

The babies didn't necessarily do anything wrong - the point was they were the sons and daughters of heathens, and more importantly, people who had God's chosen people as prisoners.

So they deserved to be killed? You're defending the actual murder of actual innocents here, and frankly it's a little scary you don't see it that way.

...and with each plague came a chance for the Pharaoh to repent and let the Israelites go.

Exodus 4:21 "When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go". Some chance to repent.

Note that the vast majority of people who get punished over this matter had as much to do with the Israelites being imprisoned as I do. The entire thing is indefensible as any kind of morality play.

I think you forgot the part where Isaac isn't really sacrificed. Again, nothing about this is tyrannical especially when no one died here. This was nothing more than a test of Abraham's obedience, it wasn't God looking for a chance to murder Isaac due to ruthlessness or just plain boredom.

So let me get this straight: god orders Abraham to sacrifice his son to him, Abraham starts to do it, and then god goes "Nah, was just a test. You passed, by the way", and you see nothing wrong with this? You don't see that a being that demands utter absolute obedience, even to the point of doing deeply inethical things simply because you were ordered to, is tyrannical?

God wasn't the one who afflicted Job - Satan caused all that to happen.

And god not only let it happen, he accepts the bet.

And after Satan had been proved wrong by failing to get Job to blaspheme, God had healed and blessed Job with everything he had lost and more.

...Except the servants that were killed, and Job's sons. Did they deserve to die? How can you justify God explicitly allowing their murder?

I don't see how that's comparable to cramming Jews into gas chambers after being brainwashed into believing they were the reason why your country lost a war and were cursed. But you're free to explain how.

"When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them."

...None of the above is tyrannical or was done without a valid cause. God punishes the disobedient and blesses his honest followers as I said before.

Good to see we agree, then. The principle difference here is that I think arbitrary punishments just for not obeying orders is kind of the definition of tyranny.

Or if you're an atheist, you're most likely incredibly biased to the point that you're willing to take any example of murder in the bible to label God "revolting". Your lot is good for that.

Yeah, us atheists are great for having consistent ethical rules.

Incidental note: Everyone here may find Bible or Quran? interesting

Wait, do you actually believe that the book of Job is a true story?

Except the servants that were killed, and Job's sons. Did they deserve to die? How can you justify God explicitly allowing their murder?

Saying things like this is as dumb as PETA complaining about the fable of Androcles and the Lion because a thorn in a lion's paw is an unethical depiction of violence against animals. If you read the fable and ask "did the lion deserve the thorn in his paw?", you missed the point. If you then go on to completely dismiss the story because of the unfairness of thorns being put in paws, you reeeaaallly missed the point.

I don't understand why things are being interpreted so literally here. Overly literal interpretations are what create these fanatics who kill people. The conclusion is not to say "the overly literal interpretation is accurate, but immoral, so you should completely disregard the story (and the book containing it)", the conclusion is "don't take things so literally!"

It's like going to a TSA agent at the airport and asking "can you get through the security checkpoint with a knife in your bag?" and the agent freaks out and hauls you away, assuming you have a knife in your bag. Having a knife in your luggage was just a hypothetical situation, but some people can't imagine abstract situations like that.