If you remove monuments of slave owners, then also don't endorse the books they wrote (Bible).

Give us the RIGHT interpretation, then.

 

The Confederacy did not assassinate Lincoln.

Clearly, the US government is your God. In the most clear terms, the Northern States warred against the Southern States in direct contradiction to the concept of democracy (though in my opinion the Confederacy needed to be crushed to end the slave culture).

Modern secularism has no problem with mass murder and total genocide. That is one of the biases that confirms it is bs.

 

All that means is that you declare you are god and morality is whatever you say it is. From this, you claim there can be no God because God doesn't do what you would do as God.

How simplistic can you get? What you wrote does not disprove God at all even in theory. Rather, it questions the benevolence of a God that would allow death. Yet in any debate in which I have raised the issue of why is their pain, suffering and death, every secularist claims this is a necessity. Without adversity, would humans ever get off their ass? Without death could there be evolution? Would any person really want to live forever, billions of years?

Secularism has murdered more people than any other ideology in known world history. Total genocide - literally 100% - of the Caribbean islands. Rounding up and mass murdering every indigenous American beyond those used as animals worked to death as ideology that those people were not human but only animals.

Later, Stalin and Mao mass murdered tens of millions in the name of secular humanism. Historically, secular humanism has been the most murderous and oppressive of all ideologies.

This is likely what human secularism on a grand social level is historically so rare as it is the most murderous and horrific of all. When humans declare they are god they can literally torture, enslave and outright murder everyone without any concept of accountability.

Secular humanism is the ideal ideology of the sadistic sociopath mass murderer.

 

You confuse God with Santa Clause. Why doesn't God give you a Rolls Royce and a billion dollars?

 

In para 1 - Wasn't that Spain & UK in N. America? Mostly Spain in the Caribbean - both of which were firmly Christian countries, as I recall.

Yah, Stalin & Mao murdered - but not in the name of secular humanism. They murdered in the name of the state, & more in the name of power - getting it, keeping it.

Para 3 - secular means exactly that. The established religions may refer to secular humanism as elevating humanity to godhood, but that's not it. It's more of a call to establish society here in the World that is just, rather than deferring justice to the world to come.

 

If you had god's super-powers, would YOU have taken a mere 15 seconds to simply say "write this down - end slavery w/in the next 25 years". I would have if I was all-powerful like god....would YOU have, Jake? This is about YOU, and not about the invisible man in the sky. Would YOU have done that, Jake? I would have, because I care about humanity. You?

 

You don't even understand the difference between the OT and NT.

 

So true. Their "god" is the state. Modern Secular Humanists don't "worship" the state, and we don't teach totalitarianism. Unlike god/Jesus/Allah, we understand that democracy (representative republics) are the best way to go - the former were too stupid to understand this.

 

I fully CONDEMN mass-murderers Stalin and Mao (they are not Modern Secular Humanists anyway), do you fully condemn god of the bible for killing innocent children (including certain first-born sons of Egypt in Exodus)? Surely we can both condemn mass-murderers, no?
If you can't, then the good news is that by becoming a Modern Secular Humanist you'd rise to a higher moral level than you'd be if you can't condemn mass-murderers like Stalin/Mao and god of the Bible.

 

I'm not God and not so outrageously arrogant to pretend that I am to then declare what I would do. Probably I would let creatures of all kinds do whatever they do rather than your notion of being the total control freak controlling everyone and everything. I might involve with some now and then for entertainment or reasons of interest.

Again, that is why pro-active human secularism is so dangerous. Secularists tend to be total control freaks. In your own words you would be busily controlling everyone and everything for which everyone and everything is a slave to YOU as God.

 

Of course I can, a quite loathesome institution and a relic of the preindustrial age.

 

The NT is more barbaric than the OT at least by that fact that "hell" for innocent non-believers is taught in the NT, and only "sheol" (not as evil as "hell") is taught in the OT. Jesus created a more barbaric religion by that metric, of course.
90% of the entire Bible's "hell" references appear in Matthew – which is in the NEW Testament. So get this: Jesus created a MORE BARBARIC belief system than even the Old Testament! I feel so much better having left him many years ago.

 

I personally believe in religious freedom, and so do people like Sam Harris. Yes, condemn Jesus/Mohammad for their savagery, but allow people religious freedom.

 

You do realize that first born does not necessarily mean child write. I am for instance the first born son of my mother and father. And I am pushing 70.

 

So you condemn "god" for not knowing right from wrong when it comes to slavery, correct? I certainly condemn the Abrahamic "god" for not knowing right from wrong.

 

Yes, that's specifically why I wrote "certain".

 

And since the command was to go ye therefore and baptize, unbelievers can always repent if they do not that refusal is on them.

 

Religion itself is a a relic of the pre-industrial age.

 

It's like shopkeepers can always repent and decide to go ahead and pay the extortion of the mafia (pay the "protection money" that the mafia demands.) God threatens us with bad things (just like the mafia), but if we give in to his threats, then every thing is ok....I applaud those that resist the threats of the mafia for protection money, just like I applaud those that resist the threats from "god". I can't give in to barbaric mafia members, and I also can't give into a barbaric "god", either. My ethics guide me, not my fear.

 

Do I condemn God? You really don't understand your fundamental contradiction, do you?

Are you claiming God in fact DID kill the first born son of Egypt? OR do you claim there is no God and this was a human decision? Or do you claim it never happened at all?

You also seem to confuse a book with a god or gods. You also confuse the Old Testament with New Testament Christianity. You confuse the New Testament with the words only assigned to Jesus. You confuse the words some committee in England centuries ago selected with the words supposedly from God. You confuse human usage of the Bible with the concept of Christianity as an ideology. You confuse Christianity with the question of the existence of a god or gods. You confuse your limited intelligence, abilities and morality with the concept of unlimited power and knowledge.

You confuse atheism with humanism. Anything any human does, secular or non-secular motivated, is humanism.

Organized religion is HUMANISM - a concept you do not seem capable of grasping. Accordingly, secularism and non-secularism can be judged exactly on the same measure, can't it? Is what a secular human did or, equally, a non-secular human did ethical? There is NO difference. You really can't see that? If a person does something unethical, whether in the name of humanist ethics or in the name of some God it is exactly the same measure. The same if someone does something ethical.

What most ended slavery in the USA was a children's song:
"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are all precious in his sight..."

Prior to this, who/what declared that doctrine for the West was the Catholic Church to end the slaughtering of the indigenous peoples of the Americans, by declaring the indigenous peoples of the Americas had "souls" - and therefore were not animals. Until that Papal decree, indigenous people were literally considered to be animals to be used and killed at will as a singularly non-secular humanism matter.

The great change Christianity, ie "Jesus," brought was that human worth was not based on nationality, birth or race. This was a new concept - individuality. With this came individual rights and individual accountability - and ultimately equality.

It seems that in human nature and the dna ingraining causing humans to form huge societies that virtually everyone needs a higher authority. If not God, the government or something else. The EXTREME partisanship in which MOST partisan Democrats and Republicans 100% change their opinions as easily as changing their socks as their political leaders of their partisan affiliation change their positions. I can not recall any "secularist" who does not replace secular god with non-secular god-government - then spout out how breaking god-government laws is inherently evil (sinful) unless some other authority they accept says otherwise.

How many are posting that the unthinkable sin of the Confederacy was daring to not subject itself to the US god-government, while the traitorous American revolutionaries against Britain were heroes. But it is ABSURD to claim the evil of the Confederacy was trying to form their own nation upon the popular (democratic) views of the people with the right to vote. The evil of the Confederacy was trying to form a slave nation, not trying to leave alliance with the USA.

Try to find an original thought on this forum? You can't. Try to find any liberal ethics that does not trace back to Christian ingraining from birth? What is it? Even many intellectual American atheists admit they can not fully separate their ethics and ideology from the ingraining of Christianity. This, then, becomes a chicken-or-egg first question. Did humanism create the good ethics of Christianity? Or did Christianity create the good ethics of American atheists?

Not to be insulting, you are incredibly simplistic. Try taking a college level course in the philosophy of religion sometime. You're hung up on searching a book written by some committee centuries ago looking for flaws believing this proves or disproves anything about the existence or nature of a possible god or gods.

 

So God goes in to free te slaves and collateral damage happens almost entirely because the Egyptian Ruler refuses to free his slaves. Should not God have delivered on his promise to kill the first born sons of Egypt if the slaves were not freed and allowed Egypt to hold on to their slaves?

 

Try to find a reason why people who are not productive to society - age, disability - should not be allowed to die - other than you say so? That certainly is not natural. Ultimately, it boils down to you believe it is wrong. "Belief" based views are a non-secular ideology.

 

Not even close. Hell and Sheol were the same thing and in either case the chief punishments are largely self inflicted. The only way any human being escapes hell is if God acts on his/her behalf. No good thing you do makes you less guilty of the evils you have done. And I am guided neither by ethics nor by fear but by love.

 

Let us be straight.

These "monuments" were never ever "historical" monuments "honoring" the "righteous fallen" or war "heroes."

After all, what is "righteous" or "honorable" about the founder of the Klan.

No, these "monuments" are a denial of the facts of history and an affirmation that slavery based on race is the moral duty of all White Christians.

That absolute truth renders any comparison to Jefferson, Washington, or even Lincoln's know racist views completely invalid and moot.

Like claiming apples and oranges are the same because they both come from trees.

No further discussion is required.

 

The debate the 2 of you are having goes no where either way.

What the OPer is claiming is that God should control every thought and every action, while totally controlling what every atom in the universe does, for which humans would be no different than a mindless computer software doing no more or less than what God typed into the keyboard continuously.

The Bible is most curious in the topic of good and evil - that humans gained the knowledge of the difference between good and evil as what distinguishes humans from all other creatures. Is that accurate? Does any other species even have the concept of good and evil? Does any other species consciously make moral decisions? If not, why not? I've never heard that discussed in the topic of evolution leading to humans.

Where did "ethical thought" come into the evolutionary process?

Yet for humans to have the mental capacity to have a sense of good and evil - and if humans are to be free - then inherently the ability to be evil most be allowed, no? Such are the complex topics of religion, not the topic of a story of first born being killed.