Extreme Evangelical Atheism vs. Moderate Atheism and Traditional Christianity

When I say you don't impress me, RevAnarchist, I'm of course not referring to your eagerness to judge others by the tenets of your religious faith. I am as impressed by this as much as you seem to impress yourself by it. Ok, maybe a little less, but still, it moves me to see such an ardent and persistent desire to negotiate the wickedness of the fact that your own faith can be absent.

It's only your skills to negotiate this that don't leave much of an intellectual imprint with me.

 

FreeWare it's a thin line you walk , here in your post to RevA. . .

I've never known RevA to judge anyone ... He does , however , have the same rights as you do to voice his opinion & to join any discussion .

You seem to be laboring under the false delusion that salvation is something that has to be negotiated by some intellectual process ,,, if I've misunderstood your post , then please clarify yourself.

I've seen a lot of insults in my time , on BuzzDash & other sites , and here on PF ... but you are carefully crafting your slander & innuendo to purposely malign RevA ...

I just don't think that's right for you to do that ...

 

Can you provide some examples where I judge anyone by the my religious canon? If not, I suggest you retract your claim. I do not judge anyone, that is Gods job.

Rev A

 

Your wish is my command. Just from your post above:

"I have to say that most people with your world view (that employs MA* and misdirected human secularism as the ultimate personal authority) have average ethics, along with average intellect. As a Christian I even accept the commonly below average morals displayed."

 

You are in error. The comment he made which you quoted, is merely a judgment on the behavior of people... not a judgment of the people.
""I have to say that most people with your world view (that employs MA* and misdirected human secularism as the ultimate personal authority) have average ethics, along with average intellect. As a Christian I even accept the commonly below average morals displayed.""

Actions; denoted by verbs.

 

So saying that people with my world view have average ethics, average intellect and below average morals is not a judgment of people?

 

"By their fruits you shall know them". If we are speaking about you, then your fruits (actions/behavior) will identify you and label you according to your fruits.

 

Thanks Incorporeal! I was trying to think of a way to word my rebuttal to Freeware without making it a long drawn out reply, you nailed it. Man I sure miss having the funds, and a reason to pay a proof reader. My last profitable small business vs. my non profitable non-profit, (yes that was a joke) was a testing facility (a lab) called ‘Carbon Carbon Labs‘. My receptionist would often rewrite my outgoing correspondence for brevity etc. I would take her out to dinner or lunch for going above and beyond her job duties. So maybe I could send you a Big Mac or something?

Rev A

 

Admittedly, I haven't read all of Harris's material, but when did he discuss the merits of torture?

 

Here's the thing, though, Rev.
By judging the actions or morals or ethics or intellect of secular atheists as sub par, as you do, in comparison to Christians, you are applying a judgment of those based on an unidentified standard that you refer to as "average". There is no quantitative way, or at least none that you have suggested, to determine that baseline average and actually support your statement.
In other words, it is merely rhetoric.
It is also the Christian motif to list a lengthy number of characteristics of people that you admittedly do stand in judgment of, and then claim not to be in judgment of the person. Once you judge enough of the actions of a person as inferior, as you admittedly do, what is left to characterize a person? Where is the line where a person simply becomes what they do?
If you mean you don't judge people on an eternal scale, so what? Neither does anyone else, save for the murderer who puts their judgment into action.
Beyond that, you make your heirarchical scale of men clear, and judge some the superior.
The "actions not the man" argument always sounds good to those who need it to justify their own attitudes toward those they would classify as "other".

 

From a secular point of view, that is correct. Just like the non-theists do when they commit the same acts against Theists. Tit for tat. One no worse than the other.

His or Her soul and what entity is influencing his or her soul. That is the judgment that is left up to God. The scripture gives us authority to recognize and therefore label that/those influences and subsequent behaviors; but the judgment of the soul itself is left up to God.

There is no line, as the person (body) is what they do. However when you learn that the 'person' is just a vehicle/vessel carrying a cargo, then the whole subject takes on a different perspective.

Or the non-theist who puts their thoughts into action in the publication of words. Once again, read my signature line.

Tell that to those supreme court justice who made the decision in the case of my signature line.

 

It's interesting that the whole idea of mitigating circumstances can have everything to do with the thoughts of the perpetrator and the influences that created them. Thus actions are judged not in a vacuum, but as the result of a thought process. Your idea is that the action itself is the crime, or "sin" in your parlance, and yet you admit that God may see it a different way. So what is the use of your judgment? Who does it serve? Only yourself, and your belief in your superiority of judgment and action. As you state, eternally it could be meaningless. You have no way of knowing.

 

Again, You modify what would be a quote by adding your little comments to that quote. Therefore I will ignore the BS that you inserted into what would have been a quote and does not appear in this, my quote of your closing remarks.

And in your parlance, you would disregard scripture or show your true knowledge of scripture which would seemingly be at a minimum. The Bible tells us how to perform such judgments and provides the tools to use in making that/those judgments. 1 John 4: 1 - 3 and 1 Corinthians 12:3 and other scripture. But it is OK that you ignore scripture when you attempt to ridicule one that does not ignore scripture, when that one that you are attempting to ridicule has already gotten an admission from you of how and why you abandoned your post as a Pastor; one who admits that he no longer believes what he used to preach.

 

Why the anger? And where did I ridicule you?
You're right. I no longer consider the Bible inerrant in its teaching or its reportage.
Now would you like to actually respond to the post I made, or just continue to rant against me irrationally?
No one is ridiculing you. I am disagreeing with you. Do you see them as equivalent?

 

Hey, don't even try to imply that I do not judge others. I do it all the time. As does any sufficiently sane human. It's quite natural. The only difference is that some have been inculcated with ideas that when they first become aware that they judge then they must pretend that they don't.

 

You mean like when some with a history make ridiculing remarks against Theists and then deny that they did such a thing? Oh believe me, I would never suggest that you don't judge others.... that is one of your most tendered pieces of input into this forum.

But now that you have cleared the air, and have so blatantly announced that judging others is such a natural thing, then why is everyone making such a big deal out of the act?

 

The problem is not judging. As said, we all make constant assessments of each other. There's nothing peculiar about that.

The problem is the concept of prejudging. The more stringent and dogmatic the prescriptions you live by, the more tainted by those prescriptions your judgment will become. So to avoid charges of prejudice*), you must push judgment way from yourself and unto the prescriptions themselves; preferrably unto an external entity that can act as a container of the prescriptions. The basic idea is to have an entity of blame that cannot be blamed, thus allowing you to judge without the judged judging you.


*) While prejudice works well when keeping off adversaries, it is bad within the same social arrangement. It's a social behavior thing.

 

See that word emphasized in red above? Well, that is your error in perception. Christians do not make judgments on actions or behaviors prior to the enactment of those behaviors and/or actions. Once again you are in error.

 

I'm glad to see that you judge an entire group on the basis of religious adherence and then try to tell me that you dont. That is exactly what I am talking about.

 

You need to learn to tell the difference between judging the behavior of people (whether it be individual or group) and that of judging the soul of the person. Of course you cannot tell the difference, because you don't acknowledge the existence of a soul much less place a belief in the existence of a soul; else you will simply offer a rationalization of the soul by placing some temporal definition that meets with the requirements of your agenda. So, in effect, your assertion that I judge people is in gross error.

 

IC mirrors my thoughts in most of his replies, of course everyone has minor differences no matter how similar their worldview may be. I am happy that Incorporeal has taken up this discussion for several reasons, mostly because I am in a time-consuming debate in another thread.

Nevertheless, I would like to clear something up. You originally claimed that I judged others using my personal religious tenets or words to that effect. The word ‘Judge’ can have different definitions. Much like legalese where a word may have the same spelling and similar but different meanings, or even completely different meanings, ‘to judge’ has a different meaning when used in a theological context. By claiming that I judged according to my personal religious tenants shifted the normal usage of Judge to the theological context.

When I said I do not Judge I primarily meant in a religious sense. Your example (my quote you pasted) where you attempted to validate your accusations of my malicious judgmental nature did not help your case. Everyone must make assessments of their surroundings. It’s the way we determine environmental threats etc. So in the same vein, it’s not judging when I differentiate between a malicious atheist and a moderate atheist, at least not in the derogatory sense you intended to show. Really this series of replies were all born from your nitpicking malicious comments that had virtually nothing to do with the topic but seemed to have a lot to do with trolling. Oops... was that judgmental? At least it was void of religious tenets.

Rev A

 

Whatever you, or apparently, you guys, need to convince yourself is fine with me, RevAnarchist. It doesn't make it less obvious to others.

 

Well, we certainly don't need to fabricate rationalizations (excuses) to cause us to be convinced... all it takes is just a faith the size of a grain of mustard seed or even smaller, and the willingness to exercise that faith. You are right about one thing. When we exercise our faith in God and place our trust in the Word of God, that exercise in faith and trust is not diminished in the eyes of others, but quite the opposite... So we stand steadfast in that faith, knowing that you cannot do or say anything that is going to subvert that faith.... and others observe the obvious.

 

Ahhhh! Then you are admitting that Atheism is 'nothing'.... a blank screen... an empty space,,, a void... How unique an expression of your view of Atheism.