For your entertainment -- Trash the christians!

Josh Clarke
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For your entertainment -- Trash the christians!

We pop theist like Orville Redenbacher!


A_Nony_Mouse
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Josh Clarke

We have limited time to devote to this effort. Therefore economy of effort is the order of the day. There are roughly 2.4 billion Christians and 2.2 billion Muslims for whom the Old Testament aka Judaism is critically important. Therefore the most bang for the buck comes from trashing Judaism.

It is not very difficult to shoot down a primitive, genocidal, genital mutilating religion.

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

www.ussliberty.org

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html

www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml


spin
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Go for the gonads

A_Nony_Mouse wrote:
We have limited time to devote to this effort. Therefore economy of effort is the order of the day. There are roughly 2.4 billion Christians and 2.2 billion Muslims for whom the Old Testament aka Judaism is critically important. Therefore the most bang for the buck comes from trashing Judaism.

It is not very difficult to shoot down a primitive, genocidal, genital mutilating religion.

Functionally, muslims aren't intersted in the Hebrew bible at all and to the christians it's just the "Old Testament", a big quote mine and nothing more. Fundies slave over every word, but then no amount of reasoning can sway them into using their brains so they won't be convinced by one shooting down "a primitive, genocidal, genital mutilating religion."

You deal with Jews by showing that their religion developed from polytheism, by showing that there is very little history in the Hebrew bible, eg there was no Hebrew exodus or Joshua conquest or even a united kingdom.

You deal with christians by showing that their messiah wasn't a messiah.

You deal with muslims the best you can. Having been in Syria and Egypt I'd say that the basic level of education isn't sufficient for one to use much logic, especially when you have muezzins wailing five times a day across the city.

If you want to be economical, you leave aside theological and textually based arguments and go for the inability of any of these religions to explain the world and the evidence of how it developed. You show that they have no morality, they just reflect what they consider the best of the prevailing morality under the inappropriate constraints of an ancient culture's morality. If our cultures hadn't evolved into slightly more morally conscious ones religionists, would still be stoning adulterers, refractory children, and blasphemers. They'd be ok with slavery and religious oppression of other religions.

 

spin

Trust the evidence, Luke


A_Nony_Mouse
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spin wrote:A_Nony_Mouse

spin wrote:

A_Nony_Mouse wrote:
We have limited time to devote to this effort. Therefore economy of effort is the order of the day. There are roughly 2.4 billion Christians and 2.2 billion Muslims for whom the Old Testament aka Judaism is critically important. Therefore the most bang for the buck comes from trashing Judaism.

It is not very difficult to shoot down a primitive, genocidal, genital mutilating religion.

Functionally, muslims aren't intersted in the Hebrew bible at all and to the christians it's just the "Old Testament", a big quote mine and nothing more. Fundies slave over every word, but then no amount of reasoning can sway them into using their brains so they won't be convinced by one shooting down "a primitive, genocidal, genital mutilating religion."

The Koran names several of the OT folks including Adam, Abraham and Moses as official prophets. It also name Jesus as a prophet. It does say the Jews got the OT prophets all wrong. Christians say they got it right but Jesus changed everything. Hardly a dime's worth a difference in the attitude of Christians and Muslims towards the OT folks.

Islam is less against against science than Christianity so Adam has to be considered in terms of evolution. (Only one clown in Turkey is trying to push creationism in Islam.) Mythical Adam and Abraham and Moses leaves the Koran without three key prophets. (I think Noah is on their list so no flood and there are four missing.) This undermines several of their key premises. Above all it eliminates the idea that the Jews got it wrong. They now have Mohamed with no teachings to correct.

spin wrote:
You deal with Jews by showing that their religion developed from polytheism, by showing that there is very little history in the Hebrew bible, eg there was no Hebrew exodus or Joshua conquest or even a united kingdom.

In regard to polytheism I deal with them by pointing out they were polytheists in the 2nd c. AD with the Temple of Astarte in Jerusalem in that century. No one knows when most of them became polytheists.

spin wrote:
You deal with christians by showing that their messiah wasn't a messiah.

I deal with Christians by showing Jesus is a hood ornament on the religion which has nothing in particular to do with what the gospels claim he taught.

spin wrote:
You deal with muslims the best you can. Having been in Syria and Egypt I'd say that the basic level of education isn't sufficient for one to use much logic, especially when you have muezzins wailing five times a day across the city.

One faces the same problem with Christians in the US. Even the full basic 12 years does not teach critical thought. And most college degrees teach only comparing 'experts' rather than independent critical thought.

Thus I suggest an approach which deals with a premise of Islam, that of the OT prophets. It is good on one hand that their religious education includes memorization of the Koran (but little more) so they will "teach" you all you need to know.

The most difficult part of dealing with Islam is that it admits openly that the rules from on high are arbitrary and capricious. Thus arguments to 'making sense' are cut off at the pass. Mohamed was not an idiot.

spin wrote:
If you want to be economical, you leave aside theological and textually based arguments and go for the inability of any of these religions to explain the world and the evidence of how it developed. You show that they have no morality, they just reflect what they consider the best of the prevailing morality under the inappropriate constraints of an ancient culture's morality. If our cultures hadn't evolved into slightly more morally conscious ones religionists, would still be stoning adulterers, refractory children, and blasphemers. They'd be ok with slavery and religious oppression of other religions.

spin

As fate would have it Islam outside of the middle east does have a more liberal attitude and many consider the rules to have been appropriate to the place and time. The near absolute prohibition against making images of anything is being seen as appropriate to the times of rampant idolatry but no longer necessary. When you consider the majority of Muslims are neither in the geographic Middle East nor in the political Middle East our tendency view Islam as centered in Saudi is way out of date.

Years ago I hung out after work at a bar and grill run by two brothers from Bangladesh. I asked up their drinking beer and was informed the Koran was talking about a date wine in Mohamed's time. Who am I to argue with progress? These guys weren't the brigtest bulbs but if not for the (very modest) accents and their saying so I would not have guessed their religion and had thought they were Hindu. It was a bar and no politics or religion allowed but I am certain there would have been more of a neutral attitude if we had talked about it. 

Point being all one really needs is an openness that does not come so much from education but from simply seeing the promised dire consequences of sin do not in fact occur. After seeing violating mideast customs which are separate do not have dire consequences there is room for discussion.

One needs only start the process and the idea is set loose in the community. In addition to the idea of appropriate rules for the time and place we get appropriate explanations for the time and place. It was easier to say the OT got it wrong than the OT is BS.

It is not much different in the West. Fifty years ago one did not start off saying Moses, David and Solomon were myths. And today one should not start off with saying the people of the OT were invented between the time of Alexander and Pompey. People are not ready. They have to adjust to the same idea in their own way. These things take time.

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

www.ussliberty.org

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html

www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml