One word before I begin: Godwin's Law. :banana:
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Originally Posted by
ray
Mrdoom may i ask what your religious principle is?(besides nihilism)
Nominally, I am an atheist, that being a component of nihilism by definition. However I do not agree with the principles of secular humanism as so many other atheists do. I see it as Christianity repackaged without the theology. I reject socialism and democracy as well, those being products of secular humanism's (and by extension Christianity's) egalitarian trend.
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Originally Posted by Dreamcaster
I agree actually. Moderating is the key, and guess what; Christianity does teach moderation. That's why laziness is a sin. You make it seem like Christianity doesn't teach people to be independent, but that's furthest from the truth.
"Laziness" is relative. There are times for action and there are times for inaction.
How can you apply one single standard to a wide range of individuals?
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Hatred is a very destructive force. Look at the Nazis, Rwanda, etc.
The Germans also greatly loved their Fuhrer, their State, and their Aryan race. Love can be as destructive as hatred, and both can also be put to good use.
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hatred can burn like a raging forest fire. A small spark can become an inferno. Teaching unconditional love is a form of prevention meant to stem the tide of that fire.
You equate hate with fire, and speak of the destructive nature of fire. But fire is also a source of life and constructive energy as well as destructive. That is what makes it such a great symbol of versatility. Fire can temper metals, cook food, and create light, amongst other things.
"Unconditional" love is an imaginary fiction. We make judgements and stipulations all the time.
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Based on what you just said you could justify hating anyone. I'm sure the Nazis felt their hatred was justified. Perhaps I should just start hating bisexuals and atheists because they "try to rain on my (your) parade."
More power to you.
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Christianity teaches love of one's enemies because hate is sooo easy.
Perhaps that's because feeling negative emotion is a natural part of being human. Love can be easy, too, when it is due.
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The extreme of one emotion is meant to cancel out the other.
Extremes? Who ever said anything about extremes? Hatred and love are not dualistic (the range of human emotions is not a sliding scale between love and hatred (as Donnie Darko so elegantly put it), but multi dimensional), nor are they absolutes.
If you're trying to maintain a healthy attidute by "balancing" two opposing extremes in a tug of war in the hope that they "cancel out", little good will come of it, unless you like having emotional and psychological issues.
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It prevents our minds from being clouded by the anger that leaves us all emotionally vulnerable.
And in turn you cloud your mind with "unconditional" love.
I imagine you've seen or read William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
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Are you saying that you don't make mistakes; because implying that you don't sin is suggesting just that? The idea that we are born imperfect is meant to humble us. It reminds us that we aren't God. We are perfect because we were created by God, but we aren't infallible. If we all believed we were perfect we could justify anything. Anything we suggest by the nature of such an argument would be justifiable. There would be no such thing as wrong.
That would depend on what your ideal of "perfection" is. I also reject the notions of "sin".
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Completely untrue. Christianity is about love and compassion for one another.
"Suffer not a witch to live". :bowdown:
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The fact that we see God as our "Father" and that we are his "children" is meant to help us to make that personal connection.
It sounds more like coping mechanism to act as a surrogate for your real father.
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We learn to see ourselves through others; that's why it's wrong to hate someone else, even your enemies. To hate anyone, even your enemies is like hating yourself. We see ourselves through others. This is why we believe in being altruistic.
I don't see how that demonstrates that hatred is "wrong".
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You make it seem as though Christians are so uneducated, which is once again... furthest from the truth. People don't embrace Christianity because their stupid. We see the alternatives, we simply chose Christianity in the end. Why is that so hard to believe?
It's hard to believe because culture is not uniformly diffuse, nor do religious parents often present a wide range of religious options to their chilren. They present their own religion as the only option.
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That's completely untrue. Because during that period of time it wasn't any religion that was flourishing, it was Christianity.
But not because of anything intrinsic to Christian doctrine, except for its broad range of targeted consumers.
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You imply that people can just rally behind anything, but this isn't true.
Oh but they can. In fact, people actively seek for things they can rally behind. Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, patriotic frevor, school pride. We have a psychological need to fit in, and to have one undeniable truth that we can base all of our assumptions about the universe upon.
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It was the sacrifices of the christian marters of that time that ultimately inspired the people; the idea that people so strongly believed in something that they refused to deny it.
That's the symptom of a "true believer" syndrome.
Was it because these martyrs were martyrs, or was it because they were Christian? To put it thus: had the world been primarily Islamic, and had these martyrs been Islamic, would the outcome had been different?
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This inspired people to rally behind it. People don't just die for anything.
You'd be surprised at what people will shorten their life spans over.
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If the principles of Christianity were so weak as you suggest it would have died out long ago, yet it's still here still strong. If just any religion could have replaced it, it would no longer be one of the biggest faith in the world.
You assume that people are on the whole rational individuals. You also assume that truth or utility has anything to do with the prominence of an idea.
For an idea to spread, it doesn't have to be true, or useful; it just has to be marketable.
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And I imagine your one of these lions because if your not your a sheep.
I'm a mountain goat.
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Sheep don't need taming because their already tame and the only sheep who are vulnerable to the lions (unholy beasts) of society are the sheep that stray from the Shepard. The sheep that remain close to the Shepard remain under his protection, and the Goliaths are slain long before they reach the sheep by their own self-destructive nature. Sheep aren't tame because they are weak, they are tame because they are strong and that strength comes from the Shepard (the one true Lion). It is the strength to cloth society, thus protecting them from the element of oblivion. it is the power to heal society from the hatred spewed by unholy lions.
Very poetic.
However even the shepherd can be killed. Cultures, religions, nations, and political ideologies rise and crumble. Even Christianity will one day come to and end, or change beyond recognition.
The sheep are nothing without the shepherd. The lions and wolves are ultimately dependant upon the sheep for sustinence, but are not beholden to them, and have independance.
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So what are you exactly, politically?
I am a nihilist.
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See now, that's exactly the kind of philosophy that causes a holocaust.
Rejecting morality doesn't mean you act like Skeletor. Hitler was a deluded fool who thought he had yet another Big Idea to sweep the world with.
Killing 100,000,000 people isn't wrong. Nor is it right. From certain perspectives it can be beneficial, in others it is a great harm. In any case, if you do start mass killings, don't be surprised when some self-righteous coalition of nations retaliates.