on the problem of sanctimonious attitudes expressed by...

Post Reply New Topic

So the OP's question is (I think): "Why do some religious folks feel that the laws of their country should be based on their own particular religious views?"

Probably because all laws have some moral or ethical basis, and most people look to their religion to tell them what is moral. Thus, religion and law become entangled.

Im talking about the thread started by shrox complaining about the fact that some people intrude on discussions of theology among the religious by dissing all the participants in the discussions.
Im not an apologist for religion but I agree that that is kinda annoying, and a fair complaint (though its an open forum and there aint much one can do about it)

I dont know about this other thread you're talking about.


BTW if you saw the recent PBS series on Prohibition they talked about how there was an exception allowed for religous use of wine.

This resulted in a population explosion in the number of "rabbis" trafficing in wine- guys named O'Seanacy claiming to be "a rabbi" and Black guys claiming to be " a rabbi".

^^ Ha! I remember that exact part of that documentary.

i agree with this. but my point was largely fuelled by the number of posts on the forum that take this extreme to the absurd stance. religion seems to be the factor that drives these posts. i'd take the same point of view if we had anti-smoking extremists here as well.

and while i was not in any way attempting to particularly goad the offending individuals, i don't see why i should make an effort to be overly sensitive when people are making such shock posts as, for example, the recent ones about cremation and birth control.

but point well taken.

Sanctimony is not a universally religious issue. Atheists and secularists are guilty of the same but they use different language. Instead of saying 'God is with us' or 'the Bible insists' they claim that 'history is with them' or their opponents are 'backwards'. I have given up counting how many times atheists have attempted to crush a thought out argument with the gavil of 'progress'. I wish everyone who made a statement like that had to watch Khrushchev's 'we will bury you' speech. History was not with him and he is the deposed king of a dead empire, the same was true of Napoleon and countless others.

History has been invoked for just about every secular cause, from communism to facism and everything in between. One cannot sanctify a cause through reference to history. Caligula probably thought that history was with him when he fed us Christians to the lions. It is a non-sequitur, used most often, in lieu of a proper argument. History has forgotten better causes than most secularists will ever stand for. It has forgotten better people than most of them will ever be.

see reply below. i completely misinterpreted your response in the first instance.

Last edited by peebo on 09 Dec 2011, 2:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

only because the religious try to enforce their will upon us so we try to tell them we dont believe in what they believbe in and that they are welcome to their opinion but to leave us out of it than they get mad and say we slandering their religion personally i believe religion is between Man and his God and no one else, the bible confirms that i posted this many times so im not gonna post whole thing but it says basically that you are supposed to worship in the privacy of your home and that the people who go sanctimoniously spouting their religion are hypocrites and the bible also disapproves of hypocrites

we usually dont just attack religion we are usually provoked into it by the religious

Last edited by TheKing on 08 Dec 2011, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

atheism isnt a belief its a lack of belief, so you cant do anything wrong in the NAME of atheism just because Stalin was atheist doesnt mean he killed in the NAME of atheism but in religion more often than not they kill in the NAME of their God hell MOST wars in human history have a religious basis in the NAME of their religion and because atheism is LACk of belief in a God you cant massacre 47 people and say you did it in the name of atheism because their is no deity to do it in the name of

and unfortunately History is as it says His Story its the truth as written from the Point of View by the victor which doesnt necessarily mean its the truth

I think that you are being disingenuous here.

It is most certainly possible for an atheist to visit violence upon people of faith for no other reason than the fact of their faith. While you might semantically argue that there is no, "name" in which to perpetrate such violence, that does not demonstrate that violence was not motivated by atheism and the intention to do violence to people on the basis of the fact (rather than the content) of their belief.

Because these "Fundies" think that a super-powerful sky-daddy has their back, and that anything said or done in his name must be both right and proper.


None whatsoever.


Because they can't stand the idea that somewhere, somehow, someone might be having fun without praising their god.


Not at all.


Yes. They also think that their god will reward them with eternal life in paradise for causing pain and suffering among those who don't believe as they do.


Jesus taught a gospel of love for each other and for the Creator. He also taught against the very hypocrisy that these Fundies express on every website that has the sad luck of their membership.

Here is a link to my list of "120 Things that Every Christian Must Believe (... or they are not real Christians...)". Enjoy!

finally someone understands.

I took it as you were talking about "The Trouble with Militant Atheists" by Artrat, at (page 10):
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf181629-0-135.html

Did you mean "This PPR forum could be enjoyable, but it's often not" by shrox?
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt180469.html

The "discussions of theology" hardly ever do any justice to theology, as the discussions are mostly very narrow, with inherently dominating "blinkers" from fundamental, but unstated (and often denied), assumptions, and then with any divergence harshly criticized, though theology is very wide. In fact, on many "threads", any religion different from the unstated "very narrow", is quickly assumed by the narrows to be evidence of hostile, and strict, "atheism".

It is almost like that anyone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus, is not to be trusted, and had "better watch out".

Some of the discussions of theology make challenges, and when the challenge is not "challeged", the individuals declare, and publish, that their theological position is never challenged, and then held to be taken as evidently correct because of the lack of detractors. This is like holding a discussion on the evidence of a Santa Claus, and before entry to the discussion is allowed, an oath must be taken declaring belief in Santa Claus, and the final result being being the gloating of the absence of anyone in the discussion not believing in Santa Claus.

This may sound a joke with "Santa Claus", but using many forms of "Christian Apologetics", this is a strong, and often ineffable and denied, rule. Much as noted: "Other conservative Christian scholars have engaged in more rigorous defense of the historicity of the gospels with the goal of providing apologetic material to their Christian readers (One example would be William Lane Craig). But apologetics are of little use to an open-minded reader who wants the best and most objective study of the subject possible. "
http://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2005 ... jesus.html

With two of the court cases I cited, I was wondering how a "protected action of public expression" of the constitutionally protected rights of both practices isn't both protected in "public description of such practice" based on freedom of speech and freedom of religious practice, as the court ruled against itself (i.e., junior is kicked out of legally required school for holding up a banner in public, while papa, and his entire family, has the right to do the very same, and papa can require junior to hold up the "prohibited" but "permitted" banner). The court's meager explaination is flawed.

As in Judge Roy Moore's book, these issues also apply to the popularly used legal calendars (the Gregorian Calendar), and for the "seven-day week" as a natural phenomenon justifying "Blue Laws". (Can I cash a cheque tomorrow dated 13 Kislev, 5772, or by any "other" calendar??? Or do I need the Pope's permission?).

Tadzio

Hi 91,

Sanctimony may not be universally an issue, but under other labels, it is. But, back to "Candor & Perversion", your thumping against "history" and "progress" without presuppositions of your own choice, is in error.

After the great Capitalists' "POP", Khrushchev seems more gifted by the Gods of prophecy, and that of Napoleon seems the best for measurements of the "World".

You seem to demand "History", and then when you get it, you find it most distasteful for your highly refined palette. Trying to maintain at least a vague sense of "sameness" of very short, and contested "eras", maybe the rough timeline at http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/paul/timeline.cfm might help, especially with Caligula's culinary habits for his domesticates, particularly here, involving his most famous horse, and those darn "dates".

As Caligula's reign was very short (March 37 to January 41), little time was available for atrocities to supposed "proto-Christians" ((Paul seen the epileptic "Light" in early 34), was in Tarsus during Caligula's murder and Claudius' ascendancy (Claudius for 41-54), then Nero (54-68), with Paul's martyrdom in 66).

Your school's allegations against Caligula make presuppositions that are not supported by historical evidence. The religious beliefs of your school may hold such suppositions as historical "facts", but, please don't denigrate any schools that do not share your school's rather baseless religious and "historical" presuppositions.

That Caligula was also a "horse whisperer", famous with Incitatus, and Caligula's Temporal Lobe Epilepsy of being blessed by the Gods and also on The Spectrum of Autism, your "Your God versus Secularism" abuse of distorted portraitisms of Historicism, does not offer great support for diatribes from fringe Christian Apologetics.

You seem to have forgotten the best of the betters in your judgements of every "it".

Tadzio

these are two very different things. basing an imperative on an observation and analysis of history is not the same as basing an imperative on the arbitrary proclamations of an ethereal omnipotent being whose very existence is questionable, regardless even of any perceived flaw in such analysis.

I made no statement about Caligula's supposed atrocities against Christians. I only stated that he killed them; which he did, he imposed a pretty general persecution of just about all of the Jews (Christianity was at the time seen as still being a Jewish sect). For a general persecution specifically of Christians we need to look forward, to the reign of Nero.



Special pleading. History has no arguments of its own, it has only events and trends, it bestows its blessings on no one.

"Progress, properly understood, has, indeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning. But as used in opposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous. So far from it being the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of ethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth. Nobody has any business to use the word "progress" unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible--at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress. Never perhaps since the beginning of the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word "progress" than we."

-GK Chesterton

i'm not saying that it does. i am saying that basing an imperative on a rational analysis and observance of history is in no way the same thing as basing an imperative on the arbitrary proclamations of an ethereal and omnipotent supreme being whose very existence is questionable and who has no way of communicating with us directly, regardless of how flaky or ill-conceived the former may be.