Knee Cha was wrong... The idea of God is alive and well.

Death of God Theology Also known as radical theology, this movement flourished in the mid 1960s. As a theological movement it never attracted a large following, did not find a unified expression, and passed off the scene as quickly and dramatically as it had arisen http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/deathgod.htm

passed quickly from the scene. Funny for all the 'god is dead people' life has no meaning, no purpose all is about freedom and lack of a control over their lives. I suppose DNA is abhorrent too as it has control over the formation of the cell.

@orathaic, Nietzsche was the last ring in a long chain of God-destroyers. The deed is done.

No intellectual today can take organized religion seriously from a philosophical point of view. (Politics is another matter altogether.)

Attacking the proponents of God today is like attacking Moon landing conspiracy theorists: a complete waste of time.

mankind has been trying to kill off God for eons. the best opportunity came about 26 to 33CE (AD). they killed him, but he didn't stay in the tomb

That was just some rebel rouser who later got deified by his followers, like the Roman God-Emperors...

But in his name the church lied, withheld knowledge, oppressed women, the poor, squabbled over the holy land (which ended up with the sackig of constantinople during the fourth crusade... A Christian city sacked by a crusade sent to relieve muslims of the holy land... Which helped end the Byzantium Empire - as the city never recovered - and establish the Ottoman). Never mind the justification for slavery and genocide.

If your god is unchanging then why was genocide ok in ancient time, and in the new world when the church supported the Spainish's right to exterminate any South Americans who refused to convert?

Either slavery and genocide is ok now, or it never was, or your morals have changed despite the claim that your god is your moral guide. Pick one, and read the bible before spouting more bullshit. (Maybe crack a history book or two aswell).

@Zmaj, and yet they still seem to have the idea in their head... The memes are strong, the replicate well, they must have something which helps them find a place in the host's brain and to spread (reproduce) effectively to new brains.

And i mean all kinds of god-memes, ideas of different christian faiths are mutations, perhaps Islam is a new species - because the ideas don't cross breed as easily - and Judaism an older species... But something has kept them alive and kicking.

Despite your claims, the God-meme exists, and is influential as ever.

orathaic I don't know what happened to you to make you so bitter. It is the same 'church' that had a nobody woman from a nowhere place to help people who were not her people, religion or culture. She toiled in a hell hole in India for years despite being beaten for her trouble and abused for her concern. Or another woman who after rejecting communism turned to the streets of new york, started a newspaper and fostered a movement to care for the poorest in her city. Or a man so moved with the helplessness of leprosy moved halfway around the world to the middle of the ocean to live amongst them, care for their temporal and spiritual needs and eventually die of the disease himself. Theresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Fr. Damien of Molokai. These are the people who represent the church, not some person who dispite being baptised ignores the faith or lives in ignorance of it. The very thins you mentioned have been symptoms of the corruption of people running the institution. Still despite their damage it reforms itself with spiritual guidance from persons like Francis of Assis or Catherine of Sienna and others.

I don't know why you think i'm bitter, i don't hate god, (hating something which doesn't exist would be a waste of energy). You just can't fathom how much god doesn't mean to atheists.

And if you actually read what i said, you'll see me mention 'social cohesion' - and the implicit good inherent in religion. It must be doing something to be so successful...

But as you bring up mother Theresa, i have to point out how evil she was, bringing in the poor to help them die, praying for them instead of offering treatment. And taking money to make herself more comfortable.

Definitely one of the examples of a belief in God being a negative, when you tend to someone's soul instead of the body. Leaving people in poverty instead of actually doing something about it.

In fact, if you bothered to read Nietzsche you'd see his criticism of the 'slave faith'; a meme which lets those without (wealth, health, political influence) to accept that, to be happy that being pious will reward them in heaven; even if they die young, poor and in slavery (which the bible explicitly approves of).

It could be argued that your religion held back human development for nearly two thousand years. Until money and capitalistic materialism became new god of the people, in reality if not in philosophy. Why Christmas (once the Pagan festival of Saturnalia) became a holiday of buying things, and you constantly hear people worrying that we are 'forgetting the meaning of Christmas'.

Actually i was at mass on Friday, for St. Patrick's day, where the priest went in at lenght about how terrible it was the people call it Paddy's day, because in our national holiday we're forgetting the religious importance of it all... Frakkin' loon. (Also i'm pretty sure the gospel was about burning people...)

CAPT_Brad, you really have no business trying to tell people about God until you can demonstrate some basic capacity to act like a Christian.

I admit I am a sinner in need of a savior. But pastor who made you,a judge over me?

Ortho, for someone who doesn't believe in something you go to extreme lengths to defend that 'faith'. Funny how you would attack Theresa of Calcutta as if all she did was drag in people to just die. You need to do some more investigation into the whole story. But alas yours is a mind closed shut.

And ortho, what ever in your left over mind, caused you to go to mass in the first place? It would seem that would be the last place you would be.

@orathaic: There's not a neat line between tending to people's souls and their bodies. Tending to people's souls actually does help them in ways that improve their lives in ways that liberal atheists can appreciate. And when all is said and done, we all have to face issues that transcend physical well-being. We all die, we are all hurt by people we love, we all have to forgive (or not). And spiritual wholeness does give people the ability to stand up to oppression.

Furthermore, history shows that atheist governments and individuals haven't exactly demonstrated greater care for their poor than people of any particular religion, or even that atheists are more likely to treat others well. The evidence is that religious belief doesn't correlate positively or negatively with concern for other people's physical well-being.

Finally, you made an interesting claim that the Bible explicitly approves of looking for a reward in heaven in exchange for dying young, poor, and in slavery. I would like to see you back that up.

It is easier for a camel to fit through the head of a pin than for a rich man to go to heaven. Translation: the poor go to heaven.

* it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. -Jesus

@Capt Brad, who told you i didn't believe in anything? I have very clear beliefs, and i even outlined some of them.

Not my fault if god has not revealed itself to you in the same way (as you would put it).

@Pastoralan, i agree, in fact i did mention several of the positive influences of religion above, Brad just ignored them.

'Helping people pass', may infact be a valid career choice, but you can see why atheists would berate a woman who told them that suffering is good because it cleanses the soul for the next life, rather than helping reduce that suffering.

Now maybe it is helpful to accept your fate, but next time you find a friend diagnoised with cancer, and who is inevitably going to die anyway, try telling them they shouldn't use medicine and we'll see where on that fine line you come down.

Of course you can do both, tend to the needs of the soul and the body. But i don't believe that is what Mother Theresa is known for.

@"Furthermore, history shows that atheist governments and individuals haven't exactly demonstrated greater care for their poor than people"

What are these atheistic governments you speak of?

I know only ones which acted like personality cults (worshiping a leader like Kim Il-Sung) or that worship the almighty Dollar, like the USA (other ideologies might alos count).

But i explicitly mentioned the benefits of religion for social cohesion above (along with the downsides of planes crashing into buildings...).

And finally, i believe i was describing what the good Mr. Nietzsche has to say about Christianity, and how it is used, not about the bible itself. So if i spoke otherwise, please accept my apologises. I don't necessarily agree with Nietzsche on this, but it is a point worth discussing.

And thank you for actually making this a discussion. I appreciate talking to someone as opposed to Brad's talking at me...

Also Hauta, thank you for that :)

Well ortho, if I have mistakenly described your beliefs I apologize.

The first atheist government was the First French Republic. After that, I don't think there were any officially atheist governments until communism, which enforced atheism as an official position of the state. As much as we would all prefer explain that the evil people who share our philosophical opinions aren't reallly one of us, you're stuck with the Communists and I'm stuck with the Fascists.

@orathaic, Mother Teresa was known precisely for serving the physical needs of the poor. There's considerable controversy around whether she was doing it, with a lot of sensationalism and mythologizing on both sides. But consider this: Hitchens' attack on Mother Teresa was based on the claim that she didn't actually help the poor. Her defenders worked to show that she did help the poor. Even if Mother Teresa herself held the beliefs you describe (which is questionable), that's not a position that is accepted by most of her Christian supporters.

well we certainly aren't "atheist" we've had 'in god we trust' since the civil war and the 1950s on coins and bills (respectively... i think) because of religious platforms, but isn't our constitution secularized?

@JamesYanik: the US is secular but not atheist. I'm talking about governments that explicitly promote atheism the way some governments promote a particular religion. And yes, the US Constitution is secular. Fun fact: one of the few changes the Confederacy made to the Constitution was to introduce an explicit reference to God.

@Hauta: at no point in the Bible does it say that the Kingdom of God is a place you go to when you die. Quite the contrary: the Kingdom of God is something that's going to happen on earth. When Jesus promises a thief that he will go to a good place when he dies, he says, "you will be with me in paradise," not "you will be with me in the kingdom of God."

@pastoraian, are we having a pissing contest about theology? The issue was whether religion wanted people to be poor. The quote supported that point.

interesting, i never knew that.

in any case, i have no problem with promotions of religion, they help with social cohesion. as long as they don't denigrate atheism.

also, they shouldn't promote specific religions over others. members of a government may support specific religions (of course) but the office must act on the account of all

"It is easier for a camel to fit through the head of a pin than for a rich man to go to heaven. Translation: the poor go to heaven."

no... it's EASIER.

the poor can still rape murder and pillage, but they also have the humble and the meek

few rich men are humble and meek

You missed the explanation given further on. It explains how God can accomplish the impossible including getting a rich person or tax collector or prostitute or even a pharisee into heaven. The poor you will have with you always. Otherwise who will you be able to share your cloak with?

"It could be argued that your religion held back human development for nearly two thousand years."

Not very well, though.

@Pastoralan, Communism in Russia was a belief system unto itself, it only promoted atheism as a means to replace it with a belief in the state (among illiterate peasants of Russia).

Yes it was anti-religious, and the state doctrine did worship Lenin (after he died and was put on display) and Stalin. But it used all the same tools as religion to control people.

Religion is not the same as faith; it has always been political (and still is in America). It is a means to tell people how to live their life. A moral policing - and if you get people to believe this is cheaper than paying for actual police. This isn't about God, this is about how people use religion to accumulate power. And Communist russia, or Maoist China used the same tools; just worshiping Lenin/Mao (and his little red book).

But i don't think you need to worry about your Fascism in Germany. There os a greater example of atrocities performed by Imperialist State Capitalism. The crimes of the British under Empire and US of A under manifest destiny. Compared to Communism, millions died of starvation and disease, in the USSR they accidentally caused a famine which killed millions in the name of their ideology (and they would have lied to cover it up, if they had felt the need, but you don't need to use propganda when violence will quell any opposition).

Under British rule they intentionally caused a famine in Ireland killing at least a million, the government exported food while the poor died, and the parliment decided that thinning the population would help the Irish escape the poverty they had perpetually suffered through (Capitalists tend to not give a shit about the poor, perhaps unlike Communists or Christians?). There was an element of rascism against the Irish going on aswell - and while the numbers may be smaller, 1 million out of a population of 8 is massive as a %, and they repeated this India on a much larger scale.

I don't know how you can breath the atrocities committed by Soviets and Nazis without remembering those committed by the British Empire, except that history is written by the winners. (It didn't end up helping the Irish escape poverty, instead it caused a downward economic spiral which saw the population drop - mostly emmigrating to the US and UK, for 120 years. Down from 8 million in 1840 to less than 3 million in 1960. People leave because there is no work, the reduction in demand means there is even less work and the spiral continues..). And this was for entirely economic reasons which their Capitalistic Empire was based on.

Look back to South Africa and you can see the British deploy concentration camps (think internment rather than death camp, there is some contention over the use of words here), the British invented the concentration camp (the Nazis merely perfected them?) in Australia the exported some aboriginals to island canps (where they were supposed to be educated into Christianity but instead died in massive numbers, often of depression and related illnesses, because that is what happens when you forcible destroy a culture and attempt to re-educate people - this is more leaning toward Imperialist attitude than economic ones, with a dash of religion thrown in for good measure).

And i will let you fill in the blanks yourself regarding the US of A, though untold deaths of slaves dumped into the sea to can be split the guilt between the British Empire ise of American colonies as cotton factories, the US's white masters exploitation of their workers pushing the demand for slaves, and the African slavers whose economy became based on warfare to capture slaves in order to sell for european weapons to wage war to capture more slaves... They all deserve a special place in Hell (if such a thing exists). Even if the British Empire eventually outlawed slavery (because free labour in the now independent US meant they couldn't compete, and because at the same time religious authorities in the UK became uncomfortable with enslaving Christian Africans, and you can really get things done when the Gods of Money and Abraham happen have aligned goals...). This lead to a destruction of the slaver states in Africa which relied on demand for slaves, it lead to slaver shops throwing their cargo into the sea rather than being captured by the British, and it had basically no effect on the US slave owners who could basically breed their own replacement slaves.

Still, it is not like the 20th Century was so much better, though many of the crimes of the British were taken over by the US after the second world war, as Pax Brittanica was replaced by Pax Americana.