alt.education

"Joe Irvin" wrote:
>
>> BTW, I forgot to mention that slavery existed in Christian lands for
>> around 1700 years before any of those people lived. You claim a
>> principle of universal morality, and you claim that ALL people know
>> what is moral because of God-given conscience. So not only to you
>> have the majority of Southerners to explain away, you have the vast
>> majority of the history of Christendom.
>
>You leave out the fact that I said man was both moral and immoral. That is
>one theme of the Bible that man has fallen. That takes care of that.

It also takes care of using the Bible as a moral standard then. It
was written by fallen human beings, and it reports the morality of
fallen human beings. Paul and Peter and Timothy were fallen human
beings. They are no more to be believed than any other sinner.

>As an aside: "But classical civilization was itself infused with barbarous
>practices like pederasty and slavery. Moreover, the Christians didn't
>destroy Roman civiliztion.

Actually, they probably did, by weakening it so that it couldn't stand
up to outside forces. But Roman civilization was doomed anyway, and
they just sped up the process.

The Huns, Goth, Vandals, and Visigoth did.
>Forturately, they eventually converted to Christianity.

Not really.

Their descendants perhaps did. But they were like the Moslems in
Europe that you are so afraid of.

If you really believed the Christian message, then you would believe
that the Moslems who come to Europe will either die out or leave, or
they and their descendants would convert to Christianity.

But you don't REALLY believe in the power of God, so you are afraid.

>Over time it was
>Chritiianity that civilized these rude people. Christianity didn't overrun
>and lay waste to a learned civilization.

Actually it did.

>Christianity found a continent
>that had already been laid waste. The 'Dark Ages' were the consequence of
>Roman decadence and barbarian pillage.

Nope. The pillage was a factor. The decadence rather less so. But
Christian eschatology played a factor as well. And Christianity
fought against the idea of progress and against most forms of
intellectualism for a thousand years, with altogether too much
success.

>Slowly and surely, Christianity took this backward continent and gave it learning and order, stability and
>dignity.

Not hardly. Christianity had NOTHING to do with it.

>The monks copied and studied the manuscripts that preserved the learning of late antiquity.

Actually, the Arabs did a better job of preserving them.

>... the monasteris became the locus of productivity and learning throughout Europe.

Gawd, another person who has been taught the myth of the monasteries.

ONE monastery, off the Irish coast, which had non-standard theology,
preserved certain *religious* knowledge that would otherwise have been
lost, as well as the knowledge of somewhat less bastardized Latin than
was spoken in the Romance lands by then.

The *knowledge*, on the other hand, was preserved by the Moslem
countries.

>Slavery the foundation of Greek and Roman civilization,

and all the others, including the Jewish one, as evidenced in the
Bible.

>withered throughout medieval Christendom and was replaced by serfdom, which was not the same thing.

Actually it was. But in fact they also had slaves, and feudalism did
not exist throughout Christendom.

>While slaves were 'human tools'

That might have been the thought of the American South, but it was not
in fact the general concept of "slaves" for most of history.

>serfs were human beings who had rights of maarriage, contract,
>and property ownership that were legally enforceable.

In fact those were true of slaves in the Roman empire as well.

>Moreover, Christian were the first group in history to start an anti-slavery movement.

Nope.

>Slavery was evil then as it is now.

The Bible didn't say so. Indeed in all those abominations there is
nothing abominable about owning another person. Indeed God seemed to
feel it appropriate to give rules about slaves, when, if it had truly
been against his will to own slaves, He might have explicitly said so
in all those commandments.

>> You can give them all the responsibility you want, but parents CAN'T
>> "make them obey". In most cases there is no legal way that they can
>> even eliminate the possibility of disobedience; chaining your kids up
>> in their rooms will get you a jail term.
>
>Why do you think some kids are good kids then ... you don't attribute it to
>the parents, but the kids wanting to obey?

I attribute it to a lot of things, of which parents are important.
But they are not solely responsible, and they can't do it themselves.
Hillary is right - it takes a village.

>>>How can you know that?
>>
>> You would have had 50 different decisions, and people would simply go
>> across state lines to find the decision that they wanted. Just like
>> homosexuals not from Massachusetts have gone there to get married.
>
>Homosexuality is a different subject. A person who lived in a state that
>didn't have abortion would at least have the peace of mind that it wasn't
>allowed in his state.

Why would that matter? Is it somehow less bad because it happens on
the other side of a line that someone drew on a map?

I have no more peace of mind from an injustice being on the other side
of the world, then I do from one occurring next door but outside of my
immediate personal control.

>>>>>Murder is murder is murder.
>>>>
>>>> Did the US murder thousands of Iraqis?
>>>
>>>No.
>>
>> So murder isn't always murder.
>
>Look up the definition of murder

Which one? The one that isn't in the Bible?

>> Hitler probably believed something akin to you about the people he
>> went to war with.
>
>I don't know what Hitler was thinking.

But you'll judge him anyway.

>>>No, its in the Bible.
>>
>> It is your personal belief that this "lets you bail". I believe "not
>> one jot or tiddle" overrides what someone else said.
>
>Read Acts 10:10-15.

"Luke" isn't Jesus Christ. Nor Peter having a dream.

>>>That still takes nothing away from what I said, just because atheists
>>>happen
>>>to believe it also.
>>
>> If atheists agree (belief is the wrong word), then it has nothing to
>> do with *religion*.
>
>So you are saying if the Bible says something and an atheists 'agrees' its
>has nothing to do with religion ...

Correct.

>that is faulty thinking bro. Atheists and Christians agree on lots of things.

Then those things aren't about religion.


>> We knew our actions would kill innocents, and we did it anyway.
>>
>>>> Of course, by what right did we kill a single Iraqi?
>>>
>>>They failed to live up to the cease fire agreement so hostilities were
>>>resumed.
>>
>> Did those infants that we killed fail to live up to the cease fire
>> agreement?
>
>Nope. We didn't act against infants, but in hostilities innocent people get
>killed.

Proverbs 6 again
<[16] These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
<[17] A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

Nothing in there about it being any less an abomination because
someone declared there to be "hostilities".

Murder is murder. Even in war.

>> Hitler apparently felt that since some Jews broke his laws, that it
>> was moral for him to kill them all. You apparently agree, so long as
>> "hostilities are resumed".
>
>No, I don't agree. Being a Jew was enough to get you a ticket to a death
>camp.

Being an Iraqi seems good enough for you do excuse what we did to
them.

>>>Murder happens in war ... some wars are just wars and killing is accepted.
>>
>> I thought you were opposed to humans deciding what is moral.
>
>No, I said man was both moral and immoral, that denotes man being able to
>decide. Morality means nothing if there is no transcendent standard to
>decide ... one mans morality is as good as another mans. You seem
>confused.

Correct. Because I don't believe that there is any such thing as a
"just war".

> Just
>> because it is "accepted" doesn't make it "right" - at least by your
>> prior statements.
>
>Reality has to be accepted, there is no option.

You don't seem to accept it.

>> And I don't think that most of the Iraqs "accepted" it. So now you
>> are forced to invoke "might make right"
>
>It was reality, reality has to be accepted by everyone even the Iraqis.

That we committed murder of innocents also has to be accepted by
everyone, including you.

>>>Murder isn't the aim of the US armed forces, but killing the enemy is.
>>
>> Declaring someone the "enemy" then is legitimizing murder.
>
>No, it isn't, its a recognition of reality.

It is still legitimizing murder. I agree that murder is a reality.

>>>> God said "thou shalt not kill", but he commanded Israelites to kill.
>>>
>>>Murder, I think it was ... God is transcendent who are we to question God.
>>
>> Human.
>
>Humans are out ranked. Read Job, God pulled rank on him.

He hasn't pulled rank on George Bush.

>>>God doesn't have to answer to humans
>>
>> Of course He does.
>
>Let me know when he answers any of the questions you have asked me ...

The fact that He hasn't answered is why so many in Europe no longer
practice the Christianity that they still wear as a label.


>> He got lucky with Job. Most people would have abandoned faith in God
>> long before.
>
>That's what Satan thought. Roman empire was full of Christians that died
>rather than giving up their Christian belief ...

Myth. The number of martyrs was actually relatively small, and the
Christians killed far more for "heresy" within 50 years after they
gained power than the Romans killed in 300.

>To kill Job wasn't even an option.

Who are YOU to limit what God can do?

lojbab