08-11-2021, 05:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2021, 05:12 AM by AspieMillennial.)
(08-11-2021, 04:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(08-10-2021, 06:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:(07-11-2021, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:(07-10-2021, 05:19 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:(07-10-2021, 07:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: That model has been tried and typically works poorly over the long haul. Yes, the Amish are able to function outside modernity, and the so did the Shakers -- for a while, at least. Communitees like Amana didn't so much disappear as they slowly rejoined the majoority. So that idea can work -- has worked -- but it's rare.
I mean more not befriending them as much or marrying them. Also separate places to socialize and separate clubs. There won't be any more Christians in my generation if we don't do this.
You already have the perfect gathering place: church. Any place in the public sphere is open to all, and private member-only-"clubs" are more elitist than what you have in mind.
I think if atheists are allowed to be intolerant to religious people and state their non belief in God as a fact, I shouldn't have to be tolerant of the atheists. Also if they are to become the majority of my generation, technically I am a minority and they are the ones oppressing me.
The only atheists who were really-bad people were the Marxist-Leninists who were awful for reasons other than rejection of religious faith.
I suggest that you take a look at the writings of Bertrand Russell, who rejected religion for very different reasons than any political fanaticism. There's much to find fault with with Christianity, such as that almost all of the Nazi war criminals were of Christian origin. Add to this some horrible deeds done in devotion, most infamously the Inquisition. To be sure, the Roman Catholic Church fully repudiates the Inquisition today, bit it cannot undo the damage. In case you think that the Anglican communion is innocent, then consider how well it served the despot Henry VIII who adopted the same savagery against Catholics as the Inquisition did to non-Catholics. The Crusades are nothing suited to Christian pride.
I saw some Jewish literature refuting Jesus as the Messiah on multiple grounds, and the harshest is that Christians have done horrible things. A religion that could truly improve people would not churn out so many bad people. Oh, yes, there are good ones, but their goodness is following Jewish moral laws in ways that, should such behavior be the norm, will get them to Heaven -- the Jewish Heaven, the only one that exists. They will convert at the gate. (I certainly don't want to go where the Nazis are!)
Christians in Europe and the Americas were involved in one of the greatest crimes ever against Humanity in the Atlantic slave trade. Add to this the mistreatment of Native populations of the New World... Never show pride in any connection to the Crusaders (Kill them all -- and God will sort it out!). Oddly, the Catholic Church (which now repudiates this) encouraged the Inquisition for devout reasons. Need I remind you of all the people of Christian origin who did the absolute worst on behalf of Nazism?
To be sure, I have much good to say of Quakers, who proscribed slavery quickly as an abomination and rejected militarism as a horror. I did one of those tests at BeliefNet that tests what one's beliefs are and matches them to the closest religious tradition. The three best matches for me were
1. liberal Quakerism
2. Unitarian-Universalism
3. Reform Judaism
I was not brought up in any one of those traditions. Oddly my parents were antisemitic.. well, if one is to rebel against one thing, that is one of the best things to rebel against.
There is no objective morality under atheism. If you take atheism to its conclusions, you are just a bunch of random cells created randomly and there is no objective value for anyone's life. The Nazis views were very social Darwinist. It was based on what they thought was survival of the fittest and they culled the fittest through murder and thought it was evolution. The goal was ultimately to create a master race through forced evolution. They said they were Christian but their actions reflected more of a secular view. Society based morality is also secular. Christianity also inspired the abolitionists but somehow only bad things get attributed to Christians and all the good things to atheists.