[Nuke]

i like to view hey-sus and his disciples in the same light as the manson family. both were groups of hippies, both were opposed to the establishment, both groups used psychoactive substances, both thought they were or were following a prophet and were stupid enough to buy it. needless to say no good can come out of drug addicted hippies. also thank you for destroying the culture of my pagan ancestors, now i dont know how many goats im supposed to sacrifice in order to get the gods to fertilize my garden.

[Mikes]

How about applying some wish genie logic to all these promises of heaven? Family Guy did it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S7ddl1tGg4

[Mongoose]

I'm referring to the number who get into heaven. Ever. Including those already dead. Not the number raptured in.

Revelations 7:4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Of course other people have different interpretations of what that number means, but that's the subject of the other thread.

Even if you were to take Revelation completely literally, the very next passage talks of "a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation" standing before the throne of God.  That would seem to suggest that the 144,000 refers to a specifically chosen group from the Israelites, not the limit of everyone who will get into heaven.

(Oh, and Scotty, Revelation is generally attributed to John, not Paul. )

[Scotty]

(Oh, and Scotty, Revelation is generally attributed to John, not Paul. )

Whoops.  fix0red.  >_>

Point still stands though, I think.

[NGTM-1R]

Read up on Able Archer 83. Reagan, almost completely by accident, managed to bring the world to the brink of a nuclear war.

I have. It's very much overblown by people who again have no concept of the safeguards in place. We've come much closer to nuclear war by accident than Able Archer ever brought us.

Bush managed to lead his county into 2 different wars and might have managed a third if he hadn't ****ed up Iraq preventing him going into Iran.

It's selling it a little high to say Bush lead the US into Afghanistan. He may have been at the head of the country at the time, but it's doubtful he had a choice and you know that.

If you're going to say you aren't resourceful enough to combine the two and deliberately start off a large war then I'd have to say that simply means you're admitting that you're not very good at the Xanatos Gambit.

And again, this is saying that you can trigger a nuclear war...how? The failsafes in place mean nobody can simply give an order. The means to push somebody into a conventional war exist, maybe, if you squint really hard. It's not like Bush lead us into a war with China and it's doubtful he or anyone else could have.

But opening the nuclear doorway isn't as simple as you want to believe. Even getting close to isn't as simple as you want to be. Even if they were, we're all operating on faith that it would actually be an exchange rather than an attack of sanity breaking out and someone refuses to retaliate.

And you know David Xanatos was a fictional character and reality doesn't conform to one's needs well enough for that sort of thing to actually work most of the time even on the scale he practiced, much less with nation-states. You propose undertakings of incredible scale and length, whose vulnerability to pure random chance is impossibly high, never mind the systems and measures in place to actually prevent them.

[jr2]

Actually the bible expressly states that only around 100,000 people are getting in.

ever? I thought that was 100000 getting raptured?

...Wow.  OK, during the Tribulation (when God is judging the Earth and trying to get their attention), there will be 100,000 witnesses... {EDIT: 144,000, darn you, kara} what you are saying, kara, is what the cult called the Jehovah's Witnesses aka The Watchtower Society believe.

And, while it's true that you will always get some wacko who will use religion as an excuse to vent their personal hate, it's also true that there are cases of atheists doing the same thing.  (Columbine High)

I just don't like it when someone comes along and basically states that if you really believe what the Bible says, you are (implied to be) an indecent human being who is a threat to all that is good, peaceful, and orderly.  I wince every time I hear of things like Westboro Baptist.

Here, have a (not so) random verse: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." ~Romans 12:18, NIV

EDIT: And, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture#Etymology  ~the word isn't used, it's a reference to:

Greek
The Koine Greek text[which?] of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 uses the verb form ἁρπαγησόμεθα (harpagēsometha), which means "we shall be caught up" or "taken away", with the connotation that this is a sudden event. The dictionary form of this Greek verb is harpazō (ἁρπάζω).[8] This use is also seen in such texts as Acts 8:39; 2 Corinthian; Revelation 12:5.
[edit]Latin
The Latin Vulgate translates the Greek ἁρπαγησόμεθα as rapiemur,[9] meaning "to catch up" or "take away".[10]

[Mikes]

And, while it's true that you will always get some wacko who will use religion as an excuse to vent their personal hate, it's also true that there are cases of atheists doing the same thing.  (Columbine High)

You will find people who kill for *religion*. You will also find people who kill for all kinds of secular *reasons*. But proposing that atheists would kill for *no other reason* than atheism? Really? How? LOL.
Your argument is lacking the cause for your observed effect... and you will find Columbine had several *causes*.

People do good deeds and bad deeds...  no matter what their belief or lack there of. The difference is that a lack of faith will hardly make a good person do horrible deeds, while some sort of religion/dogmatic belief happens to manage that feat pretty much every day.

Aside from that one could argue that we are all atheists anyways... some of us just go one religion further than the rest.

[karajorma]

I have. It's very much overblown by people who again have no concept of the safeguards in place. We've come much closer to nuclear war by accident than Able Archer ever brought us.

When?

I won't comment on the rest since I'm now waiting for you to back up that statement.

...Wow.  OK, during the Tribulation (when God is judging the Earth and trying to get their attention), there will be 100,000 witnesses... {EDIT: 144,000, darn you, kara} what you are saying, kara, is what the cult called the Jehovah's Witnesses aka The Watchtower Society believe.

And again, when they don't believe what you believe you pull out the No true Scotsman again and relegate the Jehovah's Witnesses to a cult. Doesn't matter that there are millions of them.

[Grizzly]

People do good deeds and bad deeds...  no matter what their belief or lack there of. The difference is that a lack of faith will hardly make a good person do horrible deeds, while some sort of religion/dogmatic belief happens to manage that feat pretty much every day.

Yeah right. I keep telling you, there were several god-less ideologies where millions of people were killed for.

[Bobboau]

no one, as far as I know, has used atheism as a cause that led to a genocide, this is a thing that religion cannot claim. now just because atheism is a subset of an ideology does not mean it was the driving force, just like religion being a subset of a belief system does not mean it is a the driving force. for instance the Nazi's all had the phrase "God is with us" on their belt buckles, Hitler was Catholic and talked about god all the time, and argument could be made that religious hatred for Jews helped the Holocaust, but it was not what really pushed it. now likewise just because the USSR, or the Khmer Rouge was atheist, does not mean that that had any motivating factor on any action they took. It is very hard for a lack of belief in something to motivate you to do anything, for instance has your atheism in regards to Vishnu or Isis led you to do anything? however when you believe you are favored by the ruler of the world who will smite all who oppose him, it is very easy to think you should follow his example. As far as I am aware there has never been the atheist equivalent of a crusade, their might be examples of people who had a hatred for religion strong enough to make them go on a rampage, but there has never been an organized group that went on a war because of their lack of belief.

[karajorma]

WWI was fought between countries that were mostly Christian. But no one really claims that it was a religious war.

The Crusades on the other hand are a different matter. As is the current war on terror.

[Polpolion]

As is the current war on terror.

wut

[karajorma]

The roots of the current war on terror lies in the desire of certain terrorists to end Western interference in the Middle East so that they can establish theocratic governments in their own countries.

Now while that might not be the goal of the current crop it is the reason why they took up arms against the West originally.

[Polpolion]

And our response (which is what makes it a "war on terror") certainly isn't religiously motivated. also I  will add more to this post when I get the time, but nothing to do with the war on terror.

[Mikes]

People do good deeds and bad deeds...  no matter what their belief or lack there of. The difference is that a lack of faith will hardly make a good person do horrible deeds, while some sort of religion/dogmatic belief happens to manage that feat pretty much every day.

Yeah right. I keep telling you, there were several god-less ideologies where millions of people were killed for.

Exactly... you go die and kill for an ideology or a religion... but atheism, by its definition merely the absence of supernatural belief, is neither. QED.

You pretend that any evil that was not caused by religion was therefore caused by the absence of it, which is of course a false dichotomy.

In the simplest terms: You put religion like a feather on a hat and then, as soon as someone without a feather commits an evil act, claim that the reason for their evil must clearly be the lack of a feather. Bravo.

And our response (which is what makes it a "war on terror") certainly isn't religiously motivated. also I  will add more to this post when I get the time, but nothing to do with the war on terror.

Considering the president you had during that time communed with god in a literal sense I would say that point is highly debatable.
How can we claim that the actions of someone who literally states to do the will of god... are NOT be religiously motivated....  at least to..... uh... *some* extent?
I mean just look at those speeches again... even if he had no choice in doing what he did I would say it becomes pretty clear that his motivation was to no small extent to do nothing less than the will of god.
You can even argue that an atheist in the same position may have had no choice and would have HAD to do the same.... however, since this question is not about rationalizing a choice but about questioning motivation I really  find it hard  to argue that George W. Bush was not religiously motivated in uh... well most things he did.

i.e. Just because in your opinion secular motivation is more than adequate to explain a course of action doesn't really rule out the possibility that the people who actually made the decision were raving zealots - at all

You can of course ask now if the distinction matters and who knows. But still... if you explore the motivation of George W. Bush,... I see how you can argue whether or not his religious motivation had a significiant influence on the war on terror,... but I really can't see how his religious motivation, in everything he did, can be denied. As such, the response of your head of state certainly was religiously motivated, as all of his responses were. His display of religion on TV certainly gave his decisions a religiously motivated appearance, which just strikes me as somewhat unwise, if the goal is to quench religiously motivated terror... and not to incite it further.

[Grizzly]

but atheism, by its definition merely the absence of supernatural belief, is neither. QED.

Why? Atheïsm simply means that one does not believe in gods or a god. One can still follow an ideology without believing in a god. Therefore, believing in a god is not a neccesary pre-requisite to go out and kill people out of blind ignorance. Your posts seem to indicate that you believe that religion is the sole or major cause of evil acts, whilst I try to explain that religion is certainly not always the case. I never stated that the lack of religion would be a case, I try to state that any ideology, whether or not it is based on supernatural belief, can cause evil acts.

[Bobboau]

ok, so then we are all in agreement, religion can be a motivating factor for atrocities, but is not required.

[MP-Ryan]

The roots of the current war on terror lies in the desire of certain terrorists to end Western interference in the Middle East

Correct...

so that they can establish theocratic governments in their own countries.

...but needs more nuance.

Theocratic government was never so much the goal as a inevitable step along the way.  If we look at Iran's sordid history, the current crop of loons ended up in power after they ousted the corrupt Western-backed dictator, and then reneged on their promises to establish a democracy (admittedly with Islamic ties) for the sake of maintaining power.  It was the promise of a Republic that led to significant support for the revolutionaries, not the promise of a theocratic state.

Even the terrorism following the collapse of the USSR which has prevailed until today is rooted more in desire for self-directed power than in a fundamentally religious goal; religion just tends to be the way the leadership brings the peons on board.  Theocratic aspiration isn't the endgame, but it's a useful propaganda tool to recruit assistance, and religion tends to be a [somewhat, considering the different branches of Islam] uniting force in the region against a predominantly Christian-rooted outside force.

The Saudis are another good example.  Al Saud isn't all that fanatically religious as power factions go, but pandering to fundamentalist religion has become necessary for them to retain the support of the Wahabbi clerics and maintain a grip on the country.  I don't think the ruling family in Saudi Arabia ever really intended to establish a theocratic monarchy, but it's what they got stuck with.

[karajorma]

Actually no. I'm going back further than you are, that's all.

And our response (which is what makes it a "war on terror") certainly isn't religiously motivated.

So?

If I say that an investigation into Jack the Ripper has something to do with psychopathy are you going to say that the police investigating him weren't psychopaths?

The terrorists have religious reasons for starting the war. Whatever the motivation of the other side is, it really doesn't matter. Given that one of the sides clearly does have religious motives, it would be pretty stupid to claim that there are no religious motives involved in the war.

WWI on the other hand didn't have the same kind of religious causes.

[StarSlayer]

WWI on the other hand didn't have the same kind of religious causes.

So the poor ole' ostrich died for nothing.