How Conservative is Princeton

[Poisonous]

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No it means you don’t understand history. Even if a single solider could read the Catholic church had the means of getting into Heaven because they regulated who could recieve last rites and the sacrements that Church teaching said was neccessary to enter into Heaven. So even if thousands of soliders could read they would not challenge the pope himself.
If you ever read or actually study the politics of the Church and the Reconquista you would know that it was not based on Biblical principles but on principles of power and economic conquest that was fueld by ignorance of the actual words of The Bible and manipulation by Church officials like Torquemada.</p>

<p>I will put it in a way that you will probably agree with. George Bush instituted policies that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis does that mean that the US government is corrupt? Or maybe that the constitution is corrupt? He used as a JUSTIFICATION WMDs but does that mean that the WMDs existed? Nope. Likewise the clergy that called for torturing and war used The Bible as a justification despite the fact that The Bible does not call for these actions and people consented to thier will, just as the US army consented to the President’s will.

I’ll try to steer the argument off of the tangent that we seem to be going down. You said that Christians “don’t kill people of different religions anymore”, but I argued that the Crusades and Reconquista are examples of Christians killing people for Christianity after the Old Testament. Your retort was that these incidents “did not have a basis in the bible”. Now, you should see that I never argued that the bible specifically said, “go kill Muslims and retake Acre and the rest of the holy land” or “kick the Muslims and Jews out of the Iberian Peninsula”. From an atheist’s point of view, this is simply irrelevant. What matters is that the bible could logically motivate Christians to murder in the name of religion.</p>

<p>Let me explain. Using your analogy, the justification for the Iraq war DEFINITELY had a basis in the existence of WMDs. In a similar manner, the church’s justification for the crusades and Reconquista, and the way that they were able to convince millions of Christian scholars to partake in them, DEFINITELY came from the bible. The US Government analogy is flawed though, and here is why:</p>

<p>Is the US Government corrupt? Because we know there were no WMDs and they falsely mislead us, yes. Is the US Constitution corrupt? No, because it wasn’t used as a justification for war, and therefore it has no relation to our argument. Was the church corrupt though in using the bible as justification for war with the Muslims? The sad truth is that no, in this very specific case they were not. The WMDs did NOT exist, and that made the US Government corrupt. But, the bible passage ordering the killing of other religions DOES exist. The church knew this, and so did the educated Christians of the time. Whether or not this covenant was theoretically nullified after Jesus is irrelevant, because Christians continued to employ it practically, and therefore the statement that Christians “don’t kill people of different religions anymore” is simply untrue. The members of these two incidents were CHRISTIANS, and therefore to prove that Christians did not kill members of other religions after the New Testament, you must prove that these millions and millions of people weren’t Christians, and not argue that a certain interpretation of the bible says this doesn’t happen anymore. It did, it does, and it will in the future.</p>

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Your posts are showing a complete lack of knowledge of history and of logic. Yes if someone threatens your country you kill them aka WW2.

This is where I have a problem with Christianity. I do not believe that if “someone threatens your country” you should necessarily kill them. Could you imagine the number of wars that the US would be in now if that were the case? You are preaching carnage.</p>

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If you knew the Hebrew of the Torah you would also know that killing is a distinct word from war. The Israelite country waged war against others for resources, just like modern day countries do. The dichotomy is that while we used national borders as distinctive aspects the Israelites used religion as it was the only thing that bonded them, and therefore other religions were literally anemic to the identity of thier state.

We are actually in agreement here! Religions were used by old nations as a reason to wage war. I think this is a strong reason to be wary of religion, no matter the time period. But, the original passage, Deuteronomy 17:1-7, is NOT talking about war. It is talking about KILLING. The passage states that people of other religions living among you should be killed just for being of another religion. Therefore, your point that the Israelites were acting through cultural identity to wage war on other nation-states in response to this passage does not hold up with the verse. They were stoning people that did not conform to their beliefs, which I and other atheists find immoral. These people could easily have been practicing their religions in privacy, as the passage only requires “two or three witnesses”, and not out trying to start revolutions. Why then, do these people deserve death? And why would an all loving and understanding God command it of the Israelites?

There is no acting involved. In the course of this debate you have shown that you have very little knowledge of history including making errors like this:</p>

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“And then let me say that Dbate has this complete inability to see a response when it screams at him in the face. In response to your contention that religion owns “marriage” because it’s a religious idea, I came up with the hypothetical suggestion to ban Sundays for non-Christians by the same principle. Anyone can see how ridiculous that this line of argument of “owning” “marriage” was in the first place.”

Showing that you don’t know that Sunday has nothing to with Christianity and is even pagan in nature.</p>

<p>I asked you to show that gay couples are equal to straight couples in a biological way and so far you have failed to do so, I eagerly await your response. </p>

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<p>I laughed when I read this. In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t write the statement about gay couples. So I didn’t make that error, you wrongly accused me of it. I would like an apology.</p>