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On April 30 2013 13:49 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2013 13:44 wherebugsgo wrote:On April 30 2013 13:37 sc2superfan101 wrote:On April 23 2013 04:19 wherebugsgo wrote:
Christianity as an institution has done nothing more than stifle progress throughout history. There are plenty of facts that I have already cited that support that assertion. How much do you give to charity every year? How is this relevant? + Show Spoiler +For the record: In the past year I've donated blood twice, and ~$100 to Oxfam and Amnesty International.
As a college student with no job, I wish I could donate more, but $20k a year in tuition after scholarships makes that quite difficult.
I certainly don't persecute or harass or intimidate people for not being atheists, unlike the numerous people who have told me over the years that I'm going to hell for not believing in what they believe, or that I have no soul/heart in their eyes, including members of my own family. You said the Christianity as an institution has done nothing but stifle progress. Clearly you meant excluding the Catholic Church being the world's largest charitable organization, all the Christian scientists who cited their belief as the reason for their practicing science, the millions of doctors who cite their belief as being the primary motivator for their research and healing, the creation of empires, the cultural morality of the West, and all those other examples of Christianity as an institution being a force of progress. You can have problems with the way certain Christians have acted, and have problems with the way the institutions of Christianity have acted without resorting to such completely ridiculous hyperbole. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any institution that had as positive effect on progress as the Christian institutions.
The minimal charity Christians do does not make up for killing and persecuting people for not being Christian.
In fact, most of the "charity" that Christians do in third world countries nowadays is nothing more than "join us, or starve."
What do you think missionaries do? It's simply an advertising ploy, nothing more.
Secular organizations such as the Red Cross are far more progressive than Christian organizations. Whatever little charity they do is heavily overshadowed by the decades of persecution, stifling of civil rights, war, and blatant corruption caused by or inherent to these religious organizations.
Churches spend the majority of their tithes on operation, not charity.
It's kind of like saying the United States is a good player in the Middle East because we give Middle Eastern countries and the people there aid. Sure, that's true to an extent. However, we also killed nearly a million people in Iraq, all because of a war we started, to take out a leader we supported in the past. So what if the United States has done some minimal good in the Middle East? Overall, our country is responsible for serious atrocities in the region. Negligible "charity" is not going to erase that.
The same goes for the two major Abrahamic religions of today, Christianity and Islam. They're both on the whole despicable.
e: also, if you are Christian, think about this:
I can make the same arguments for Muslim giving that you have for the Christian side. If you are Christian, I would bet a lot of money you don't actually think of Islam the same way you think of Christianity, despite the fact that their charitable contributions are almost wholly the same.
e2: edited some stupid mistakes. I'm tired o_O
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On April 30 2013 13:55 wherebugsgo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2013 13:49 sc2superfan101 wrote:On April 30 2013 13:44 wherebugsgo wrote:On April 30 2013 13:37 sc2superfan101 wrote:On April 23 2013 04:19 wherebugsgo wrote:
Christianity as an institution has done nothing more than stifle progress throughout history. There are plenty of facts that I have already cited that support that assertion. How much do you give to charity every year? How is this relevant? + Show Spoiler +For the record: In the past year I've donated blood twice, and ~$100 to Oxfam and Amnesty International.
As a college student with no job, I wish I could donate more, but $20k a year in tuition after scholarships makes that quite difficult.
I certainly don't persecute or harass or intimidate people for not being atheists, unlike the numerous people who have told me over the years that I'm going to hell for not believing in what they believe, or that I have no soul/heart in their eyes, including members of my own family. You said the Christianity as an institution has done nothing but stifle progress. Clearly you meant excluding the Catholic Church being the world's largest charitable organization, all the Christian scientists who cited their belief as the reason for their practicing science, the millions of doctors who cite their belief as being the primary motivator for their research and healing, the creation of empires, the cultural morality of the West, and all those other examples of Christianity as an institution being a force of progress. You can have problems with the way certain Christians have acted, and have problems with the way the institutions of Christianity have acted without resorting to such completely ridiculous hyperbole. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any institution that had as positive effect on progress as the Christian institutions. Killing and persecuting people for not being Christian does not make up for the minimal charity Christians do.In fact, most of the "charity" that Christians do in third world countries nowadays is nothing more than "join us, or starve."
And thus, you betray your ignorance. I don't think a person who gives $100 a year and donates blood twice is in a very good position to cast negative judgement upon people who have given up their entire lives to go live with fucking lepers. And if you an find a single instance of a Christian missionary saying anything even closely resembling "join us or starve" than I will show you ten thousand instances of the exact opposite occurring.
What do you think missionaries do?
They give more to charity than:
Secular organizations such as the Red Cross
and only ask to be allowed to preach a little while they are doing it. Oh no! Boo hoo! The guy handing you food wants you to listen to him for a while. Name one instance of Catholic missionaries withholding food and aid unless the people converted and you MIGHT have a point. Go ahead. One instance. Shouldn't be too hard for you.
As for the asinine justification that all the bad things done in the past outweigh the good... I say two things:
1. You cannot individualize the good and collectivize the bad. You're basically saying: all the bad they do is general and belongs to Christianity as a whole, while the good they do is local and belongs only to the person doing the good.
2. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Find me a single organization that existed in the 1200s that did even 1/100th of what the Catholic Church did for the poor. Secular charity is a modern invention buddy, shit only gets better for Christians the further you go back.
Furthermore, you neglected to explain the countless examples of progress, even excluding charity, that Christianity as an institution is responsible for. Your only answer was to radically shift the goalposts by saying "Okay, they've done all that, but that doesn't make up for..." Your original statement was that there was not even one instance of Christianity as an institution doing anything but stifle progress.
I can make the same arguments for Muslim giving that you have for the Christian side. If you are Christian, I would bet a lot of money you don't actually think of Islam the same way you think of Christianity, despite the fact that their charitable contributions are almost wholly the same.
...BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHA! Really? Show me some evidence.
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It's great when someone doesn't actually read. Not that I'm surprised or anything - we are on tl.net anyhow. As long as the general public in the West don't understand that secularism and humanism as a whole is still fundamentally a Protestant product, we'll all continue to Christians. The new atheists of our generation comically tout the pretense that they don't believe without evidence, but they're just repeating the exact same mistake that the logical positivists made in the 20th century. If we don't learn our history this is the shit that happens. We get half-baked figures putting out half-baked ideas to mislead an entire generation of half-baked youth and it works pretty much purely because it quenches their thirst to oppose their boogeyman. It's a showcase of failure of a culture. It's not about religion vs atheism (which is a false dichotomy to begin with), but the inability or refusal to examine the structures and grounds of thought that's the main issue with our Anglo nations. The Christianity of America and the nations to which their fundamentalists exported to (various African nations and South Korea) is rotten to the core and deserves all the disdain and scorn that they receive from anyone. The counterproduct that came out against it, our beautifully juvenile new atheism, is similarly full of hot air and intellectually empty.
edit: good god, sc2superfan is here now to peddle his apologetics. I'm evacuating - gg.
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On April 30 2013 14:05 koreasilver wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
It's great when someone doesn't actually read. Not that I'm surprised or anything - we are on tl.net anyhow. As long as the general public in the West don't understand that secularism and humanism as a whole is still fundamentally a Protestant product, we'll all continue to Christians. The new atheists of our generation comically tout the pretense that they don't believe without evidence, but they're just repeating the exact same mistake that the logical positivists made in the 20th century. If we don't learn our history this is the shit that happens. We get half-baked figures putting out half-baked ideas to mislead an entire generation of half-baked youth and it works pretty much purely because it quenches their thirst to oppose their boogeyman. It's a showcase of failure of a culture. It's not about religion vs atheism (which is a false dichotomy to begin with), but the inability or refusal to examine the structures and grounds of thought that's the main issue with our Anglo nations. The Christianity of America and the nations to which their fundamentalists exported to (various African nations and South Korea) is rotten to the core and deserves all the disdain and scorn that they receive from anyone. The counterproduct that came out against it, our beautifully juvenile new atheism, is similarly full of hot air and intellectually empty.
So many words, with so little meaning. So what if your assertion is correct? (The actual assertion not the strange tack-on that it's somehow a bad thing). What do you propose we do about it? What is the "better way"?
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don't evacuate koreasilver, you're the most interesting regular in this thread.
past couple days I've been watching and listening to shittons of amazing theological and philosophical debates and stuff thanks to this thread lol.
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On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2013 13:55 wherebugsgo wrote:On April 30 2013 13:49 sc2superfan101 wrote:On April 30 2013 13:44 wherebugsgo wrote:On April 30 2013 13:37 sc2superfan101 wrote:On April 23 2013 04:19 wherebugsgo wrote:
Christianity as an institution has done nothing more than stifle progress throughout history. There are plenty of facts that I have already cited that support that assertion. How much do you give to charity every year? How is this relevant? + Show Spoiler +For the record: In the past year I've donated blood twice, and ~$100 to Oxfam and Amnesty International.
As a college student with no job, I wish I could donate more, but $20k a year in tuition after scholarships makes that quite difficult.
I certainly don't persecute or harass or intimidate people for not being atheists, unlike the numerous people who have told me over the years that I'm going to hell for not believing in what they believe, or that I have no soul/heart in their eyes, including members of my own family. You said the Christianity as an institution has done nothing but stifle progress. Clearly you meant excluding the Catholic Church being the world's largest charitable organization, all the Christian scientists who cited their belief as the reason for their practicing science, the millions of doctors who cite their belief as being the primary motivator for their research and healing, the creation of empires, the cultural morality of the West, and all those other examples of Christianity as an institution being a force of progress. You can have problems with the way certain Christians have acted, and have problems with the way the institutions of Christianity have acted without resorting to such completely ridiculous hyperbole. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any institution that had as positive effect on progress as the Christian institutions. Killing and persecuting people for not being Christian does not make up for the minimal charity Christians do.In fact, most of the "charity" that Christians do in third world countries nowadays is nothing more than "join us, or starve." And thus, you betray your ignorance. I don't think a person who gives $100 a year and donates blood twice is in a very good position to cast negative judgement upon people who have given up their entire lives to go live with fucking lepers. And if you an find a single instance of a Christian missionary saying anything even closely resembling "join us or starve" than I will show you ten thousand instances of the exact opposite occurring.
So because I have no income I'm not in any position to say that religion on the whole is vile? I've donated blood twice because that's the most I can donate in a year. LOL.
There are plenty of people who devote their time without the ulterior motive of converting people. Try the Peace Corps. (in fact, I have several nonreligious friends who have joined the Peace Corps-being charitable is not exclusive to the religious).
Obviously Christian missionaries don't say that, in a lot of places they will offer converts food on the pretext that they devote themselves to Christ. "Repent and join us, and we will take care of you." It's not all that uncommon, really.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:They give more to charity than: and only ask to be allowed to preach a little while they are doing it. Oh no! Boo hoo! The guy handing you food wants you to listen to him for a while. Name one instance of Catholic missionaries withholding food and aid unless the people converted and you MIGHT have a point. Go ahead. One instance. Shouldn't be too hard for you.
I'm not saying that they will withhold food aid (though certainly it may have happened at one point, it's not all that far fetched) but rather that the whole point of missionary work is not charity. It's conversion.
Plenty of Christian sects preach on the idea of repentance. The default "status" is having sinned, and their whole job is to "save" people by converting them to Christianity. It's stupid, really. They're not doing charity. You can tell a starving person literally anything and they'll probably accept it if you give them food. It's just a dumb ploy to get more converts. After they've been converted it's not like they're particularly better off.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
As for the asinine justification that all the bad things done in the past outweigh the good... I say two things:
1. You cannot individualize the good and collectivize the bad. You're basically saying: all the bad they do is general and belongs to Christianity as a whole, while the good they do is local and belongs only to the person doing the good.
But the institutions themselves don't generally do good things. It IS the individuals who are the exceptions.
The institution itself is not interested in charity, it's interested in getting more converts. The "charity" they do is simply a means to this end. Christianity as an institution, like Islam, uses charity as a recruiting tool. The individuals may themselves be interested in charity, but that has almost nothing to do with the institution itself. This is easily seen-just look at the vast disparity between even Christians themselves.
What's actually admirable is the type of charity that secular organizations do, because there is no ulterior motive. These organizations give because they want to help people, not because they want them to join their ranks. The Red Cross, Oxfam, Amnesty International, whatever other secular organizations you may be able to name-they interested in their causes because they want to promote human prosperity. Religious institutions do these things because they want more sheep. It's fundamentally different on an ideological level.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
2. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Find me a single organization that existed in the 1200s that did even 1/100th of what the Catholic Church did for the poor. Secular charity is a modern invention buddy, shit only gets better for Christians the further you go back.
Of course secular charity is a modern invention, secularism itself is a modern invention! It helps when you don't get executed for blasphemy.
I bet the Catholic church, adorned in its gold, stained glass, marble floors, and massive cathedrals did quite a lot for the poor when it systematically persecuted hundreds of thousands of people who decided to reject its authority.
Assuming you are not completely ignorant, you know why this question itself is disingenuous and it's intellectually dishonest on your part to be posing it.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
Furthermore, you neglected to explain the countless examples of progress, even excluding charity, that Christianity as an institution is responsible for.
Progress? Like what?
The idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun? Oh wait, Christian leadership imprisoned Galileo, who supported the idea.
The idea that the people should govern themselves in a society built by the people? Oh wait, Christian leadership opposed this for centuries because of the power they could wield through the divine right to rule.
I could go on naming examples like this for hours, and that's ONLY considering Christianity.
At least in the fields of human knowledge and self sovereignty religion is one of the worst models of "progress", given that religious organizations have historically opposed scientific and political progress for the entirety of their existence. Plenty still do: just look at the theocracies in the Middle East. If Christianity still had that power over the west, you'd see them here too. In fact, there are plenty of people here who want to put God back in the U.S. government! They succeed a little bit every year-look at any coin and you'll see "In God We Trust", go to an elementary school and listen to their PA announcements in the morning, and the Pledge of Allegiance will contain "God" in it - every December there is some sort of stupid political debate over the role of religion in government and the legality of nativity scenes sponsored by public tax money.
So what charity do religious organizations actually do? They feed the poor? Sure, some of them do. Plenty of the money that individual givers send to religious organizations also goes toward the leadership who perpetuate corruption and vice in those organizations. This is common across most religious organizations inherently due to their structure and their goals-problems that most secular charitable organizations do not usually have.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130392&page=1#.UX9Z9KBjG7g
I'd be pretty pissed if I gave money to the Catholic church, only to see its leaders involved in a multimillion dollar lawsuit over the molestation of altar boys.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
Your only answer was to radically shift the goalposts by saying "Okay, they've done all that, but that doesn't make up for..." Your original statement was that there was not even one instance of Christianity as an institution doing anything but stifle progress.
So because Christianity on occasion participates in charitable giving it is suddenly a beacon of progress?
No, my statement still stands. If you want to argue semantics, we'll argue semantics. My statement had nothing to do with individual actions but rather with the impact of Christianity as a whole. As a whole, Christianity, like Islam, like Judaism, like the majority of religions across the world, has done little more than stifle the progression of technology, human and civil rights, and peace. Christianity as a whole is one of the most violent and disgusting products of humanity in our history. There is nothing you can say or do to change the facts, to change the history.
You cannot say the same for a lack of belief, because by definition there is nothing that motivates atheists to kill other people, or convert other people, or do anything of the sort, other than the motivations of the individual him or herself. We don't believe that we're going to a place of eternal agony if we don't believe in an invisible sky-fairy, and we certainly don't wish to kill others because they "trespassed" on our "holy land." If an atheist does something bad or evil, it is not because of atheism, simply by definition, because we are not motivated in the same way that a religious person is motivated. You can't say the same for religion-as a group, if you adhere to a religion, you should be at the very least aware of the actions carried out in its name.
On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +I can make the same arguments for Muslim giving that you have for the Christian side. If you are Christian, I would bet a lot of money you don't actually think of Islam the same way you think of Christianity, despite the fact that their charitable contributions are almost wholly the same. ...BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHA! Really? Show me some evidence.
You're right, I should rephrase this, because it was a generalization I was making and I can't find any stats that really say anything at all about charitable giving on the basis of religion. If you can find some, great-you should post them here. Anyway, what I will say is this:
Zakat is one of the five major pillars of Islam. Charity is literally a core pillar of the religion. It's not even an option, it's an obligation in Islam. Most of the Muslims I have personally met are just as, if not more, charitable than the Christians I know. Generally though I dislike both types of giving for similar reasons-the bulk of the money they donate goes to church/mosque organization and not actual charity work.
From my interpretation of this data, though, charitable giving from country to country seems to be primarily based on affluence, not religious affiliation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/08/charitable-giving-country
Look at the prevailing pattern in the most giving countries vs the least giving-it's about affluence, not religion. There are highly Christian, Muslim, and even irreligious countries at the top (and bottom) of that list.
Sadly there are not many stats on the overall impact of both institutions, but maybe I should correct my statement to: based on your perspective, I do not think you would think of Islam the same way as Christianity, despite the fact that from my experience their impact is almost wholly the same. Almsgiving is a really common practice in Islam. Most of my family does it. The primary difference that I have seen between Christian charitable giving and Muslim charitable giving is that Muslims tend to do it more privately.
What's funny though is that many Muslim charitable organizations have been getting shut down in the United States over fears of terrorism.
http://islam.about.com/od/activism/tp/charities.htm
On April 30 2013 14:05 koreasilver wrote:
It's great when someone doesn't actually read. Not that I'm surprised or anything - we are on tl.net anyhow. As long as the general public in the West don't understand that secularism and humanism as a whole is still fundamentally a Protestant product, we'll all continue to Christians.
Keep up the pseudointellectual generalizations bro, it makes you look real smart!
Again, bullshit. You presuppose that secularism and humanism are based on Christianity, but this in itself ignores more than 2/3 of the world. 2 billion people are Christians in this world. 5 billion are not. Saying that secularism and humanism are fundamentally Protestant is your ignorance speaking. You are simply blind to the millions, nay, billions of people who were not born in Christian households, who were not brought up in a Western setting, who are not surrounded by Christians, and who honestly couldn't care less about Christian ideals and Christian history.
For proof of these statements, simply look at the countries of India, China, and Japan. Three huge players in Asia-none of them have any significant proportion of Christians, yet they all have secular governments. They all have secularists and humanists. There are plenty of atheists who live in all three countries, yet none of these atheists are "fundamentally" Christian. These countries together comprise roughly 40% of the world's population, and yet you think that modern atheism came about only because of Christianity. How naive.
On April 30 2013 14:05 koreasilver wrote:
The new atheists of our generation comically tout the pretense that they don't believe without evidence, but they're just repeating the exact same mistake that the logical positivists made in the 20th century. If we don't learn our history this is the shit that happens. We get half-baked figures putting out half-baked ideas to mislead an entire generation of half-baked youth and it works pretty much purely because it quenches their thirst to oppose their boogeyman. It's a showcase of failure of a culture.
LOL what?
Do you even know what you yourself are saying? What the fuck does any of this mean?
Atheism has nothing to do with politics, or even culture. You don't even seem to understand the very terms you're trying to complicate.
On April 30 2013 14:05 koreasilver wrote:
It's not about religion vs atheism (which is a false dichotomy to begin with), but the inability or refusal to examine the structures and grounds of thought that's the main issue with our Anglo nations.
wut?
How exactly do atheists refuse to examine "the structures and grounds of thought" Also, the structures and grounds of thought of WHAT? Religion? Sure, atheists do exactly that! If they didn't, they wouldn't fucking be atheists!
Your whole argument is absurd because you claim that "modern atheists" are "fundamentally Christian" when by definition they CAN'T be. You have to reject faith to be atheist, and you can't be "fundamentally Christian" unless you believe. Maybe you mean there are atheists who are "culturally" Christian, like there are "cultural" Jews, but even that doesn't make sense given what you are trying to argue (nor does it imply that there is anything wrong with that)
On April 30 2013 14:05 koreasilver wrote:
The Christianity of America and the nations to which their fundamentalists exported to (various African nations and South Korea) is rotten to the core and deserves all the disdain and scorn that they receive from anyone. The counterproduct that came out against it, our beautifully juvenile new atheism, is similarly full of hot air and intellectually empty.
Nah man, I think the only thing full of hot air and intellectually empty here is you.
The concept of atheism is fucking simple. A lack of belief in deities. Nothing more, nothing less. Literally everything else outside that realm is up to the individual. Whatever generalization of this "problem" that you see "our Anglo nations" having is simply some sort of problem you yourself haven't defined, which makes reading your posts extraordinarily difficult, given that you don't seem to actually understand what you yourself are saying.
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On April 30 2013 14:14 LuckyFool wrote:
don't evacuate koreasilver, you're the most interesting regular in this thread.
past couple days I've been watching and listening to shittons of amazing theological and philosophical debates and stuff thanks to this thread lol.
+1 to this. I've been following this thread very closely and learned a lot from koreasilver and wherebugsgo. I would love for the discussion to keep going despite the massive downturn in the last page.
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I'm an agnostic, and my god is the origin of the set of nature's rules we live by today.
It's actually a god that has influence on your life, born from a big bang, that sounds almost like sex.
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Since I was younger I've always been pretty skeptical of my Catholic upbringing, and to my parents credit, they didn't really force it down my throat as much as they just sent me to a Catholic school because they thought it would teach me good values. As I grew older I completely lost interest in anything to do with religion (about 8th grade) but still considered myself a Catholic. While I was in the Marines I learned what the term "agnostic" and felt it was a description that best fit my faith. As more time went on I began to question and doubt the church more and more and really begin to feel some resentment towards it. I felt as if all religion is a complete waste of anybody's time and doesn't benefit anybody in any way other than superficial feelings of tranquility. About a year or so ago I just decided to drop the "agnostic" title I gave myself and admitted that it's pretty much the same damn thing as being an atheist. The most liberating feeling ever was the realization that I am an atheist, not an agnostic. I can't say there was really one specific thing that changed my faith, it was more a collection of ideas that I have come across growing up.
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Somehow, every single post sc2superfan makes in any thread makes me want to facepalm.
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On May 02 2013 13:10 Feartheguru wrote:
Somehow, every single post sc2superfan makes in any thread makes me want to facepalm.
Somehow, I can't seem to remember any post you've ever made.
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On May 02 2013 13:10 Feartheguru wrote:
Somehow, every single post sc2superfan makes in any thread makes me want to facepalm.
Lol, I am waiting for his response..I wanted to know how he could justify such claims.. I guess he is done?
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Never went to church or anything as a child. Read about religion in school and had some theme days where we watched movies about christianity and shit. Being religious to me is like being a gay toaster, just doesn't make ant sence at all.
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When i was a child I remember allways thinking "religion is for old people because they are afraid of dieing."...
Well, I can't say my view on this has changed much since then ^^. I don't see a reason to believe in a God, so i don't?
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On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
2. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Find me a single organization that existed in the 1200s that did even 1/100th of what the Catholic Church did for the poor. Secular charity is a modern invention buddy, shit only gets better for Christians the further you go back.
People like you are the reason I no longer post on TeamLiquid. Arrogance, ignorance, contempt for others, and aggressive speech of this level is obscene, to say nothing of the fact that the argument itself is not only nonsensical, but also insulting. It actually hurts me to know that you are making this argument so abrasively and with complete sincerity, and without any repercussions from the moderators. You are antithetical to a good conversation.
To quickly refute the argument: Of course secular charity is a modern invention -- secularism itself is, because if it was tried earlier you would have imprisoned and killed us in the name of God.
Screw it. Can't be arsed -- I'm bailing, too.
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On May 02 2013 19:10 Aylear wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2013 14:05 sc2superfan101 wrote:
2. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Find me a single organization that existed in the 1200s that did even 1/100th of what the Catholic Church did for the poor. Secular charity is a modern invention buddy, shit only gets better for Christians the further you go back. People like you are the reason I no longer post on TeamLiquid. Arrogance, ignorance, contempt for others, and aggressive speech of this level is obscene, to say nothing of the fact that the argument itself is not only nonsensical, but also insulting. It actually hurts me to know that you are making this argument so abrasively and with complete sincerity, and without any repercussions from the moderators. You are antithetical to a good conversation. To quickly refute the argument: Of course secular charity is a modern invention -- secularism itself is, because if it was tried earlier you would have imprisoned and killed us in the name of God. Screw it. Can't be arsed -- I'm bailing, too.
I also found this part ironic:
shit only gets better for Christians the further you go back.
The charity humble brag with a hint of sounds like Christians had it better than everyone else.
How far back should we go? Let's check out 1994..how much were Christians donating while this was going on?
Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small African country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
For quite some time I heard only rumors about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:
"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.
According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the
Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on
fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]
More recently the BBC aired:
Priests get death sentence for Rwandan genocide
BBC NEWS April 19, 1998
A court in Rwanda has sentenced two Roman Catholic priests to death for their role in the genocide of 1994, in which up to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Pope John Paul said the priests must be made to account for their actions. Different sections of the Rwandan church have been widely accused of playing an active role in the genocide of 1994...
What about 1954? Were they super charitable then? Surely their contributions made up for this...right?:
Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters; the Viet Minh; - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-Buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism. The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."
Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of Buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of Buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - ; mostly in street riots ; - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].
To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life.
Or what about 1942-1943? Christians couldn't possibly treat other humans like Hitler did right? right??
Catholic extermination camps
Surprisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli�, a practicing Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children! In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian Serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis had victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdienst der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did
nothing to prevent them. [MV]
No amount of charity makes up for the atrocities committed by the church...
Source and LOTS more good deeds by the church:
http://www.captaincynic.com/thread/48859/christian-crimes-against-humanity.htm
Note: Yes, I know that not all Christians are Catholic, but that doesn't change the fact that all of these atrocities were done in the name of "God" nor does it change the fact that Catholics ARE Christians.
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There's a reason there are a lot of Protestant Christian churches and denominations who don't consider Catholics to be Christians. I think you'll find the VAST majority of atrocities committed by "Christians" are committed by Catholics/Anglicans/Orthodox churches, which are considered to be heretical by many Christians. They may have been good a LONG time ago when they started but they are far different today and have been for hundreds of years.
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On May 02 2013 21:06 Birdie wrote:
There's a reason there are a lot of Protestant Christian churches and denominations who don't consider Catholics to be Christians. I think you'll find the VAST majority of atrocities committed by "Christians" are committed by Catholics/Anglicans/Orthodox churches, which are considered to be heretical by many Christians. They may have been good a LONG time ago when they started but they are far different today and have been for hundreds of years.
Yes, I am aware. Sorry I just added a note at the bottom to clarify, I forgot to mention that when I first posted it. Even still, my point still holds. Religious groups have been slaughtering people a long time and no amount of charity can possibly make up for all of the crimes done against humanity or the stifling of human progress.
Either way, Catholics are the largest Christian denomination and their beliefs stem from the same shit that made them do that crazy shit. I'm not saying being religious makes you a bad person, just that your religion isn't the bastion of all that is good just because they "donate".
Extra note: I was responding to the allegations of charity from specifically the Catholic Church, so everything I said still holds true as my opinion on "Catholic Church donations".
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learned a lot of stuff reading these last few pages. +1 for posts by wherethebugsgo.
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So I've been following the Jodi Arias case relatively closely and just noticed this gem on the wikipedia page about the death of Travis Alexander:
ABC News conducted a jailhouse interview with Arias in which she said, "I didn’t hurt Travis. I would never hurt Travis.... I would be shaking in my boots right now if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime."
Just one more reason religion sickens me. People pulling the "God" card to try to prove their innocence in a crime. Reminds me of Ray Lewis.
Over Super Bowl weekend, CBS analyst Shannon Sharpe asked Lewis if he had a message for the families of the slain men.
“It’s simple,” Lewis said. “God has never made a mistake. That’s just who he is, you see. And if our system – it’s the sad thing about our system – if our system took the time to really investigate what happened 13 years ago, maybe they would have got to the bottom line truth. But the saddest thing ever was that a man looked me in my face and told me, ‘We know you didn’t do this, but you’re going down for it anyway.’ To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, he don’t use people who commits anything like that for his glory. No way. It’s the total opposite.”
If there is anything I can say for certainty about atheism it is that there is no "well I'm an atheist so obviously I didn't do it" card.
Jodi Arias source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Travis_Alexander#cite_note-radaronline1-49
Ray Lewis source: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/02/04/ray-lewis-to-families-of-slain-men-god-has-never-made-a-mistake/
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EPT
