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Christianity Is The Root Of All Evil... Just Kiddin'

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Posted by S.H. Le on January 10, 2000 16:32:55 UTC

"seems like you're kinda blamin the worlds problems on christianity, I don't know if you mean to to that or not, but when you say the christians that came over here from europe....they came over to escape the persecution that they were receiving there in that part of the world, and the order for us to evangelize came from Christ Jesus, it ain't sumthin we made up all our own to try and go win the world to righteous and salvation" - Earl

Christianity is not the cause of all the world's problems. It was however, the cause of (or at least justification for) european expansion. Have you heard of the notion of "the white man's burden?" It was the arrogant idea that all non whites were primitive and had to be converted to christianity, and that it was their duty to spread Christ around the world. Europeans were escaping persecution during the age of imperialism and exploration? I really doubt that. The way I recall, stumbling on north america was the direct result of a failed attempt to find a passage to India. The main goal was to seek gold and trade, but the justification was spreading Christianity. This form of evangalism was done forcefully.

"I don't think I've ever forced myself on anybody, I've had debates which I don't really like, but sometimes you have to debate to make a point." - Earl.

That's not in dispute Earl. All I'm saying is that christianity was used to justify the violent horrors instigated by european explorers. I'm asserting that they had the mindset to impose what they believed was right and wrong onto natives of north america. Native americans had their own religion before it was corrupted and completely erased by colonialists. The natives only became christain afterwards, as a result of european expansion.

"I know alittle about american indian history, and most of them that I know admit the chiefs who saw Christ after His resurrection and heard His teachings ; passing it on down to them and they believed at first then went off into paganism and were destroyed, but, I ain't read anything in the Bible that says that Christ did that, but the Cherokee sez he did. Sorry for the long sentence." - Earl.

No problem. But again, I must seriously doubt your sources of info. Christianity is spread by men, not by God, otherwise every culture would have found that christianity arose independantly of outside influences, but that's not the case.

"All our basic laws were taken from the ten commandments, God set the rules when he gave them all to Moses, then Christ fulfilled those laws, and all the things that were done in the tabernacle, the offering of animals for sin atonement, Jesus abolished when He died.....he basically took everything that was against us and nailed it to the tree.....Sin still exists as long as this old world stands, until Christ returns." - Earl.

Of course, all this must be taken on faith. Why does God need people to spread his word to other lands? Why couldn't native peoples simply discover God themselves, without outside factors (european explorers)?

"But, anything nasty and dirty is because the commandments said it so, God said it so..." - Earl.

PHILOSOPHY 101: This directly contradicts logical thinking, and is a well known fallacy in logic..

You've said that evil is considered "nasty and dirty" essentially because God says so. This means that good and evil exist because God says they exist.

Now lets suppose that there is a God and he wants us to follow the 10 commandments. You've said that the 10 commandments are made good not because the actions themselves are inherently good, but because God says so. Now hypothetically, since God has this power to cause certain acts to be right/wrong, he has the power to make any action good or evil. What you're saying here is that IF god condoned the murder of babies, that would then be considered good (good/evil is dependent only on God's say so). It's irrelavent whether or not God WOULD do such a thing, it's IF he wanted to he could because God himself defines such things (he's all powerful). What this statement is really saying is that IF good/evil are made true by God's say so, they would be true no matter what we thought of it. This means that nothing about the action itself makes it inherently good or evil. It's only God's command that makes things good or evil. Here's an example: Let's say I defined what is considered short/long hair. It's like saying Elvis has short hair no matter what length his hair is, simply because I've said so (maybe not the greatest example). His hair could be 2 inches or 2 feet, and I'd still say it's short. Here, his length of hair has no reference point. It's not the length of hair that gives its classification here. It's what I say, that makes it long or short. Make sense?

So what are the implications of your definition for good and evil?

1) God could suddenly change what he meant by the 10 commandments, and send everybody to hell and laugh as everyone writhes in agony, and by your definition it would still be considered good. Why? Because you said it your self, by definition, if God tells you an action is good, then it has to be good regardless of what results from any action. God can do no wrong. 2) Your definition of good/evil basically states: good is those things that God approves of, and bad is those things God doesn't approve of. So you couldn't say that "God is good", because all this means is that "God approves of himself" or approves of his own actions.

This definition for good and evil makes no sense. Only when you consider whether or not an action is deem good or evil on the mere basis of it's implications does it make any sense. Murder is bad because it's harmful to members of a society. So is rape, and incest, etc. etc. Actions logically can't be the result of God's say so because that's a logical fallacy.

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