• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Secular Morality

eddieJ

Active Member
Jan 16, 2007
56
3
✟30,195.00
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Single
For some, science has replaced God and politics is a religion. Democrats and Republicans are talked about as if they were religious denominations.

Christians are exposed to plenty of non-Christian ideas but need discernment to determine which are sound and which are not. Science and reason need to be balanced against the revealed truths of the Bible.



God bless,
Eddie
 
Upvote 0

Wiccan_Child

Contributor
Mar 21, 2005
19,419
673
Bristol, UK
✟46,731.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
For some, science has replaced God and politics is a religion. Democrats and Republicans are talked about as if they were religious denominations.

Christians are exposed to plenty of non-Christian ideas but need discernment to determine which are sound and which are not. Science and reason need to be balanced against the revealed truths of the Bible.



God bless,
Eddie
The problem quite evidently arises when you encounter those who to not accept these so-called 'revealed truths of the Bible'. Subjective revelation is unacceptable evidence to science by its very subjectivity.

I also like how you automatically assume that the Christian faith is correct, and that science is a religion! Way to use discernment :thumbsup:

[/sarcasm]
 
Upvote 0

Voegelin

Reactionary
Aug 18, 2003
20,145
1,430
Connecticut
✟26,726.00
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Republican
What is it with American Christians and trying to link all evil to communism? . . .how about last year the Catholic church saying, "Yeah, our leaders did sexually abuse tens of thousands of people." Is molesting children bad?

Is it Christian dogma to sexually abuse children? No.

Have Catholics attempted to compensate victims for the abuse and to stop further abuse? Yes.

Has it been the official policy of the atheist government of China to elimate Tibetans as a culture? Yes.

Has that government self-corrected, apologized for mudering over 1 million Tibetans since 1959 and/or paid compensation? No.


Is building concentration camps bad? Is sterilizing people against thier will bad? Because all these have ALSO happened with the best of intentions by good Christians leading the charge against the sins of (insert the blank) - you want to know the great worry of 1912 Christians: black men dating white women - that's why in just over the last hundred years over 2,000 lynchings of black men have occured...by good Christian folk . . .

Once again, did Christians correct their errors and atone for their sins? Yes. Christians ended slavery. Christians ended Jim Crow. Hundreds of thousands paid with their lives.

Far as sterlization is concerned, you will find that was done in the 1930s not just by in Germany but by "progressives" in many countries including Denmark and Sweden. The eugenics movement had great support among late 19th century Harvard elites. The American Eugenics Society headquarters was two blocks from Yale's old campus. Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton started movement. Ernest Haeckel, Darwin's most vocal supporter on the continent, Galton and others were the intellectual grandfather of Margaret Sanger's "Negro Project" and the later programs in 1930s Germany.

It was hardly a "Christian" movement althought many Christians did subscribe to the need to cull certain people from the gene pool. Most opposition to it came from orthodox Christians however--G.K. Chesterton being one of the more prominent.

Aside from all that, there is no moral equilvalency between the lynchings of several thousand blacks by Christians in the Klan (lynchings which were sucessfully stopped by other Christians) and the systematic, as a matter of state policy, murder of over 30 million people by an atheistic regime in the USSR (over 100 million if you include atheist regimes in Asia). That regime never corrected itself. That ideology exists today in China's relationship with the people of Tibet, with the repression of Catholics, with the repression of the Falun gong and with the PRC's "One Child" Policy ("Better ten graves than one live birth" is one of the slogans of the atheist cadres in Bejiing.)

Btw...if you wish to find the remanents of the American eugenics movement of the 20th century in America today, you will not find it being propagated by Baptists or Catholics.

You will find it at Princeton University in courses taught by Peter Singer. You will find it in various progressive nonprofits which endorse euthanasia and abortion.
 
Upvote 0

Wiccan_Child

Contributor
Mar 21, 2005
19,419
673
Bristol, UK
✟46,731.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
Has it been the official policy of the atheist government of China to elimate Tibetans as a culture? Yes.

Has that government self-corrected, apologized for mudering over 1 million Tibetans since 1959 and/or paid compensation? No
Are the latter related to Communism apart from the attempt to make a Communist society? No.

Is a true Communist society the closest thing to a social utopia we have? Yes.

Is Barney the Dinosaur purple? Yes.

Is this relevant? No.

I could go on.

Once again, did Christians correct their errors and atone for their sins? Yes. Christians ended slavery. Christians ended Jim Crow. Hundreds of thousands paid with their lives.
You are deliberately confusing the issue (not to mention the fact that slavery has not ended!)
The majority of those who ended western slavery were indeed Christian, but Christianity has always endorsed slavery.

The point: the actions of followers of a religion, ideology, social theory, etc, should not influence how people see that religion, ideology, social theory , etc.
 
Upvote 0

Eudaimonist

I believe in life before death!
Jan 1, 2003
27,482
2,738
59
American resident of Sweden
Visit site
✟134,256.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
Politics
US-Libertarian
Has it been the official policy of the atheist[sic] government of China to elimate Tibetans as a culture? Yes.

Has that government self-corrected, apologized for mudering over 1 million Tibetans since 1959 and/or paid compensation? No.

Do all atheists approve of communism and communist atrocities, such as the murder of Tibetan Buddists? No.

Does the Chinese government have to apologize in order to show that many atheists are opposed to communism and communist atrocities? No.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
Upvote 0

KarateCowboy

Classical liberal
Site Supporter
Aug 6, 2004
13,390
2,109
✟140,932.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Private
These forums are not infiltrated, they are open to persons who are not Christians. If your faith is so weak that reading the thoughts of someone who thinks differently will be swayed than it might be best for you to avoid the areas of CF that are open for posting by people who are not Christian.

If anyone seeks to "confuse" Christians by getting them to cease from their belief it's really no different than Christians attempting to get non believers to believe. We may feel an obligation to share the good news but I imagine from the view of those who don't believe it's hard to get excited about hearing "the good news" again and again and again along with accusations of trying to convert the faithful.
Would you say this is edifying to your brother in Christ?
 
Upvote 0

KarateCowboy

Classical liberal
Site Supporter
Aug 6, 2004
13,390
2,109
✟140,932.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Private
Aye, indeed you summarize it quite well. The overall problem is that the one thing that could actually convert me to a religion is the one thing that no religion has ever been able to produce.

Testable, empirical evidence that the deity in question even exists, much less that he/she/it actually said anything that is written by humans in whatever book said religion claims as holy.


"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" as Carl Sagan was fond of saying, and the claim of a deity is the most extraordinary claim of all.

As to the titled topic of the OP, Secular morality comes form the same place as religious morality, the society we live in, the people who raised us, and the individual judgments we all make every day as to what is right or wrong. Without the evidence for the existence of your deity, you cannot demonstrate that this is a false statement.
I don't think the idea is so extraordinary. "God" and "Cause of the universe" are synonymous. The accepted theory regarding the life of this universe is heat death. If this universe has an end it must have a beginning. I think it is more extaordinary to claim the universe either A) came from nowhere, B) created itself than to claim that something caused it. Don't you agree?
 
Upvote 0

christalee4

Senior Veteran
Apr 11, 2005
3,252
323
✟5,083.00
Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Democrat
Oh really. Misinformation that bad?

I haven't seen atheists be the target of books such as the recent ones below which demonize Christians:

“American Fascists--The Christian Right and the War on America” by Chris Hedges

“Religion Gone Bad: Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right” by Mel White

“Why the Christian Right Is Wrong” by Robin Meyers

“The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right” by Michael Lerner

“Theocons: Secular America Under Siege” by Damon Linker

“American Theocracy” by Kevin Phillips

“The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plan for The Rest of Us” by James Rudin

“Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” by Michelle Goldberg.

New York Times and others in the liberal media have given all these books great PR. In fact, "American Fascists" was written by the New York Times former Bureau Chief for the Middle East.

You know, right now in China, atheists are tossing Catholic priests in prison for being Catholic. The 20th century saw the most brutal regimes in world history. And who did we see lead them? Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, Bela Kun, Pol Pot--all atheists. Over 100 million people murdered by their own governments in the 20th century--governments which were officially atheist. But where does the New York Times see fascism and oppression raising its ugly head? Not in Caracass where Chavez, finally declaring he is a communist, just got the power to rule by decree and where he is going after the churches, not in China where atheists have dynamited thousands of Buddhist churches of hillsides, imprisoned Christians and tortured and executed Falun gong members, not from Al Qaeda, not from Baathist dead enders....no...the New York Times ...the paper of record...sees the greatest threat as coming from....Christians.

Thank you for the list.

There are far more books on the dangers of fundamentalist Islam taking over some countries' governments. It's not Christianity itself that is being criticized in these books, but a wake up call to the very real attempts at making this country into a theocracy by a small, yet influential groups of fundamentalists, who include conservative religious organizations, televangelists, pastors, prominent figures in government, the Unification Church conglomerate, the Council For National Policy, and Christian Reconstructionists, whose influence has permeated both conservative Protestant and Catholic churches nationwide.

Fundamentalism, whether it takes the form of Islam, a Communist or rightwing dictatorship, and Christianity, seeks to establish absolute power and uses tyranny as a tool to do so.
 
Upvote 0

christalee4

Senior Veteran
Apr 11, 2005
3,252
323
✟5,083.00
Faith
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Democrat
For some, science has replaced God and politics is a religion. Democrats and Republicans are talked about as if they were religious denominations.

And, unfortunately, many religious denominations talk about President Bush and the Republican Party as if it was "God's Party", or "their annointed one", or "the party of family values". The Church has been tainted with the power of politics.
 
Upvote 0