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12/18/2007 03:24:26 PM · #676 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Flash:
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Lets do the math. 800,000 yearly at 80% = 640,000 forced into prostitution. 640,000 x 5-10 johns/day = 3.2-6.4 million johns/day. 3.2-6.4 million johns/day x 365 days/year = a whole lot of people endorsing the behavior. That is a whole lot more endorsing than was ever practiced in the 18th century Southern US.
Not per capita, as a proportion of the population. Remember that slavery was the law of the land until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation -- what more evidence of "widespread approval" would you need than legislation?. Oh, and people going to war to defend it?
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The original reference belonged to scalvert below;
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Flash:
why does every major religion, see some actions in the same light. A) could be because that are all wrong. B) could be that they are right. Hmmm, if I look at the world around me and see what "normal" is... |
Like slavery, and if you looked at the world around you in the 18th century to see what was normal, you would see a lot of slaves. Could be C) that their source material all derived from the same stories several thousand years ago and have been continually reinterpreted to fit new human-defined social norms ever since. |
scalvert was using the example of 18th century slaves to support his C). Which ended with "continually re-interpreted to fit new human-defined social norms ever since." to which I replied that "new social" norms are open to review and that review says that there were 12 million slaves in the 18th century and at least that many in the last 15 years today. Thus, the "new human-defined" social norms don't appear to be very effective. Thus his example and C) conclusion need to be assessed against the fact of todays slavery. Which doesn't support a new social norm - certainly not in those locations referenced in the links.
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12/18/2007 03:28:31 PM · #677 |
Originally posted by Flash:
scalvert was using the example of 18th century slaves to support his C). Which ended with "continually re-interpreted to fit new human-defined social norms ever since." to which I replied that "new social" norms are open to review and that review says that there were 12 million slaves in the 18th century and at least that many in the last 15 years today. Thus, the "new human-defined" social norms don't appear to be very effective. Thus his example and C) conclusion need to be assessed against the fact of todays slavery. Which doesn't support a new social norm - certainly not in those locations referenced in the links. |
So from your figures, there has been a 10x reduction in the number of people in the world in slavery over the period you are considering. That's quite a shift isn't it ?
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12/18/2007 03:34:14 PM · #678 |
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12/18/2007 03:39:15 PM · #679 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by Flash:
scalvert was using the example of 18th century slaves to support his C). Which ended with "continually re-interpreted to fit new human-defined social norms ever since." to which I replied that "new social" norms are open to review and that review says that there were 12 million slaves in the 18th century and at least that many in the last 15 years today. Thus, the "new human-defined" social norms don't appear to be very effective. Thus his example and C) conclusion need to be assessed against the fact of todays slavery. Which doesn't support a new social norm - certainly not in those locations referenced in the links. |
So from your figures, there has been a 10x reduction in the number of people in the world in slavery over the period you are considering. That's quite a shift isn't it ? |
That is just stupid. You might re-read the numbers. How does 12 million in the 18th century equate to 800,000 per year in the 21st. 800,000 times 100 years is how much? 10x less you say? And Louis thinks thats funny?
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12/18/2007 03:40:55 PM · #680 |
Originally posted by Flash:
And Louis thinks thats funny? |
Actually Gordon posted as I was posting. My guffaw was to immediately follow your post. |
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12/18/2007 03:41:38 PM · #681 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by Flash:
scalvert was using the example of 18th century slaves to support his C). Which ended with "continually re-interpreted to fit new human-defined social norms ever since." to which I replied that "new social" norms are open to review and that review says that there were 12 million slaves in the 18th century and at least that many in the last 15 years today. Thus, the "new human-defined" social norms don't appear to be very effective. Thus his example and C) conclusion need to be assessed against the fact of todays slavery. Which doesn't support a new social norm - certainly not in those locations referenced in the links. |
So from your figures, there has been a 10x reduction in the number of people in the world in slavery over the period you are considering. That's quite a shift isn't it ? |
That is just stupid. You might re-read the numbers. How does 12 million in the 18th century equate to 800,000 per year in the 21st. 800,000 times 100 years is how much? 10x less you say? And Louis thinks thats funny? |
I read the numbers.
1.5% in slavery in the 18th century
0.13% in slavery just now
Round about 10x difference. That seems to me to be quite a shift, but you don't appear to agree. |
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12/18/2007 04:27:41 PM · #682 |
Well the way this thread has gone I suppose 2+2=4 might also be open for debate. Wow, just wow.
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12/18/2007 04:38:22 PM · #683 |
Originally posted by yanko:
Well the way this thread has gone I suppose 2+2=4 might also be open for debate. Wow, just wow. |
Well, it depends. Do the 2s WANT to equal 4? and what authority do they have to claim that they, in fact, do? ;)
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12/19/2007 12:17:35 AM · #684 |
| I think this soap opera has jumped the shark. |
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12/20/2007 07:13:13 AM · #685 |
The dead horse has risen!!
OK, really I just have a question. Was just having a discussion with an office mate (it's a slow day at the war here) and he said Catholics don't go to heaven. Huh? I thought Catholicism was a Christ-based religion and bascially had all the same Christian beliefs, etc, as any other Christ-based religion. Did I miss a memo?? |
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12/20/2007 07:42:45 AM · #686 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
Did I miss a memo?? |
I think you missed earlier in this thread, too. Plenty of Christians appear to believe that Catholics aren't Christians so don't get to go to heaven with them. There's a discussion earlier in this thread about those schisms. |
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12/20/2007 08:11:25 AM · #687 |
| Well, I'll be... I've always thought Catholics were Christians. Just goes to show what I know, huh? All way too complicated. I'll still be hanging with the Buddhists, Hindus, and apparently now the Catholics in wherever we must go if we can't go to heaven. :-) |
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12/20/2007 09:07:02 AM · #688 |
Some Catholics (including the Pope) don't regard Protestants as true Christians either, and members of any church tend to immediately disavow fellow members as true Christians if they do something seriously unfavorable. Rumor has it everyone else spends eternity milling around a convenience store in Idaho. See ya there!
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12/20/2007 09:13:44 AM · #689 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
OK, really I just have a question. Was just having a discussion with an office mate (it's a slow day at the war here) and he said Catholics don't go to heaven. |
That's right - some of them don't go straight to Heaven, but stop off in Purgatory on the way. |
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12/20/2007 09:19:46 AM · #690 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Some Catholics (including the Pope) don't regard Protestants as true Christians either, and members of any church tend to immediately disavow fellow members as true Christians if they do something seriously unfavorable. Rumor has it everyone else spends eternity milling around a convenience store in Idaho. See ya there! |
Is that where they shot the movie "Clerks"? I'll have to ask my dad's wife, who is Catholic, if she's Christian or not. That could be an interesting conversation.... (I have been reading through the beginning of the thread... very interesting. OK, mostly just amusing, but still, interesting in parts.) |
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12/20/2007 09:56:21 AM · #691 |
Having been Catholic and educated in Catholic institutions through the end of high school, I can tell you that Catholics consider themselves to be the first Christians, and therefore the only true Christians. Exactly what all the other denominations think. The whole state of affairs is so fantastically fractured that it's amazing they even bother.
Edit: the major difference is that Catholics never say that anyone or any group is automatically hell-bound. One religion teacher told us that it is possible in their view for atheists to get to heaven, so long as they are good people living by the golden rule. (Maybe that's why the other groups find it necessary to banish the Catholics to hell.)
Message edited by author 2007-12-20 09:59:49. |
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12/20/2007 11:38:02 AM · #692 |
| Hence Purgatory - the convenience store in Idaho. |
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12/20/2007 12:02:54 PM · #693 |
Nothing bothers me more than the infighting that exists between different sects of Christians. I personally have no doubt Catholics are Christian when you look at the core beliefs I mentioned way, way above. Certainly Catholics have gained a rich blanket of tradition and ritual, but that, IMO, is not going to keep you out of heaven. It may make your life more difficult down here (although for some it may make it better), but it's not a deal breaker. On the other hand, I believe Catholics do some things a lot better than your average Protestant. Keeping a respect and awe for God is one. God is not my "buddy" or "co-pilot". He is the everlasting God. Holy of Holy. Creator, master, judge.
There's not a lot of use talking about it in a thread with "atheist" in the title, but I think the absolute worst thing a Christian can do when talking to people about their faith is to start sniping at other denominations.
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12/20/2007 12:34:36 PM · #694 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
There's not a lot of use talking about it in a thread with "atheist" in the title, but I think the absolute worst thing a Christian can do when talking to people about their faith is to start sniping at other denominations. |
It IS actually the worst thing a Christian can do in a thread with "atheist" in the title. Makes the whole argument for/against theism (or however that should be worded properly) seem very petty and, well, un-Christian. |
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12/20/2007 01:23:58 PM · #695 |
CS Lewis, whom I think is one of the most eloquent and educated modern writers of our faith has this to say in "Mere Christianity". It may take 2-3 minutes to read, but I think it best sums up my position on this matter:
The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian "denominations." You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic.
This omission is intentional (even in the list I have just given the order is alphabetical). There is no mystery about my own position. I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially "high," nor especially "low," nor especially anything else. But in this book I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. I had more than one reason for thinking this. In the first place, the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high Theology or even of ecclesiastical history which ought never to be treated except by real experts.
I should have been out of my depth in such waters: more in need of help myself than able to help others. And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son. Finally, I got the impression that far more, and more talented, authors were already engaged in such controversial matters than in the defence of what Baxter calls "mere" Christianity. That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went.
(snip for brevity)
So far as I can judge from reviews and from the numerous letters written to me, the book, however faulty in other respects, did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or "mere" Christianity. In that way it may possibly be of some help in silencing the view that, if we omit the disputed points, we shall have left only a vague and bloodless H.C.F. The H.C.F. turns out to be something not only positive but pungent; divided from all non-Christian beliefs by a chasm to which the worst divisions inside Christendom are not really comparable at all.
(snip again)
Far deeper objections may be felt-and have been expressed- against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity. People ask: "Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?" or "May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?" Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every amiable quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word.
The word gentleman originally meant something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone "a gentleman" you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not "a gentleman" you were not insulting him, but giving information. There was no contradiction in saying that John was a liar and a gentleman; any more than there now is in saying that James is a fool and an M.A. But then there came people who said-so rightly, charitably, spiritually, sensitively, so anything but usefully-"Ah, but surely the important thing about a gentleman is not the coat of arms and the land, but the behaviour? Surely he is the true gentleman who behaves as a gentleman should? Surely in that sense Edward is far more truly a gentleman than John?"
They meant well. To be honourable and courteous and brave is of course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the same thing. Worse still, it is not a thing everyone will agree about. To call a man "a gentleman" in this new, refined sense, becomes, in fact, not a way of giving information about him, but a way of praising him: to deny that he is "a gentleman" becomes simply a way of insulting him. When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker's attitude to that object. (A "nice" meal only means a meal the speaker likes.)
A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense, he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.
Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as they might say "deepening," the sense of the word Christian, it too will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into men's hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.
It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that any man is, or is not, a Christian in this refined sense. And obviously a word which we can never apply is not going to be a very useful word. As for the unbelievers, they will no doubt cheerfully use the word in the refined sense. It will become in their mouths simply a term of praise. In calling anyone a Christian they will mean that they think him a good man. But that way of using the word will be no enrichment of the language, for we already have the word good. Meanwhile, the word Christian will have been spoiled for any really useful purpose it might have served.
We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts xi. 26) to "the disciples," to those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of its being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as they should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who in some refined, spiritual, inward fashion were "far closer to the spirit of Christ" than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The point is not a theological, or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.
I hope no reader will suppose that "mere" Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions-as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.
It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling.
In plain language, the question should never be: "Do I like that kind of service?" but "Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?"
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those Who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.
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12/20/2007 02:18:58 PM · #696 |
| To keep things balanced in this atheists' thread, I will soon offer a reading from Richard Dawkins, a man whom I admire and consider to be one of the nimblest intellectuals of our time. I hope those interested in and who have read the Lewis quote will also read my Dawkins quote. |
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12/20/2007 02:29:07 PM · #697 |
Originally posted by Louis:
To keep things balanced in this atheists' thread, I will soon offer a reading from Richard Dawkins, a man whom I admire and consider to be one of the nimblest intellectuals of our time. I hope those interested in and who have read the Lewis quote will also read my Dawkins quote. |
I'd be interested. He IS eloquent as well, although I disagree with him and do ultimately thing he provides a bit of a poison pill to the conversation (given his brusqueness).
My quote was getting away from the thread topic anyway.
back to the ranting and raving about atheists in christian societies... :)
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12/20/2007 02:49:03 PM · #698 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
Did I miss a memo?? |
I'll tell you my take, being a Christian. I don't think that just because you go to a catholic church and claim that you are catholic, that you are a christian. Same as I dont think just because you go to a protestant church and claim that you are a christian, that you are a christian. I think sometimes some of the older Catholic teachings are a little off in that they believe that you get to Heaven based on works, which is impossible, because we can never be good enough. I believe that a lot of Catholics are Christians, but not all of them, just as all "Christians" arent truly Christians. Being a Christian is having a relationship with God and accepting Him as your Savior. All you have to do to be a Christian is believe that He is the one true God and accept his forgiveness that He offers from dying on the cross. That is a Christian. Whether you claim to be catholic or protestant, or don't really know what to call yourself, if you believe in Him, and accept Him, then you can call yourself a Christian. But just calling yourself one doesn't make you a Christian.
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12/20/2007 02:58:48 PM · #699 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'd be interested. He IS eloquent as well, although I disagree with him and do ultimately thing he provides a bit of a poison pill to the conversation (given his brusqueness). |
I agree that he is brusque - but it is such a refreshing change from recent history where everyone has been terrified to criticise religious believers on the basis that it is something untouchable and immune from criticism.
It is infuriating to live in a society where reasonably intelligent people still hold on to an irrational and childish belief in one or other religion. From the outside, it is little short of madness to believe in an invisible friend who constantly watches but never intervenes, and who is so capricious as to require your absolute belief or condemn you to eternal hell. All usually because someone you trust has told you that such a god exists at a time when you were highly impressionable.
I would encourage anyone to spend some time looking at the world as if god does not exist and come out of it thinking that people who do not believe in god are "mad". It is not so scary a place. All those things that you think come from your god (security, strength, moral compass) exist in exactly the same way for people who do not believe in god - they are consequences of being human, not being a believer.
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12/20/2007 03:21:07 PM · #700 |
Originally posted by Flash:
As an Atheist in a Catholic society, I would say that you should 1st challenge your un-belief. Having done that, and still an unbeliever, then you woe it to yourself, to stand firm and acclaim your un-belief for all to hear. God after all gave you a choice. You should shout yours from the mountain tops. |
Flash, if you were a Christian living in a society that was predominately non-Christian, would you feel that you "should" (that is have some responsibility to) challenge your Christian belief? If not, why "should" an atheist in a Catholic society have any more need/responsibility/desire to challenge their non-belief, than a Christian in a Muslim/Hindu/atheist society would have a need/responsibility/desire to challenge their Christian belief? |
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