[quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]To say the least cannibalism is a medical nightmare.[/quote] That's true. But in the end that's a risk up to the individual to be taking. It's not like vaccines where following an unsafe practice puts others in danger. I'd compare it more to like eating that cupcake you know will just wreck your body. Is it bad? Yes. But if you still want to then go for it. Note: This is obviously assuming this is cultural and not simply hunting and killing people. And even then the one who is deceased should of been ok with their body being eaten beforehand. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Also, any argument I've heard claiming that the Bible condones rape (Such as the Hebrews taking women from the enemy) are out of context arguments and completely missing the point of what the text is obviously saying. Even the wiping out of cities to the last infant, old man, woman, etcetera, deals with supernatural issues the Jews obviously no longer face. I don't see giants, or angels impregnating women in the news. In addition to this fact, please keep in mind that these acts of violence were done as a one time occurrence, and there is no need for believers in Christianity to ever replicate them. -_-[/quote] Not really... :/ And I'm pretty sure you were one of the people present the last time this topic came up and I went Bible quote crazy to prove it did support rape. *Quick back checking* You were, it was 2 months ago though: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/14035/posts/ooc?page=4#post-330624 Though it's a mountain of a post so if you prefer I'll just list the related quotes below. Deuteronomy 22:23-24 Zechariah 14:1-2 Deuteronomy 21:10-14 Judges 5:30 - This may not be rape, but it definitely supports kidnapping women and owning them as property. And if that property were ever to be something such as a sex slave, then it's rape. Numbers 31:7-18 Deuteronomy 20:10-14 Judges 21:10-24 Judges 19:1-30 That's basically 8 cases either outright against saying it does support rape very damn close and if not rape is suggesting something just as bad or simply some loophole. This also confirms it's not a one time occurrence if I can get this many quotes of it from Bible. And the whole "Taking it out of context" thing doesn't really work... If we were to go that I could take something like Hitler's Mein Kampf and say something along the lines of "All those things of Hitler hating Jewish people are just out of context for what's meant to be being kind to one another, and how some supernatural event killed 6 million Jewish people with gas". But we can agree on one thing here, that there's no need for Christians to ever be replicating these barbaric acts. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Also, another issue with the wiping out of civilizations by the Old Testament believers comes from the fact that there were curses carried by the neighboring civilizations[/quote] Ok stop right there... Curses? You should probably stop and try to show how curses actually exist. Cause right now this is 100% fantasy I'm reading here... Note: Curses work great on weapons when fighting ghosts :P [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Bear in mind that these people, were so evil that they would sacrifice their own children[/quote] And so did Christianity. There was the case with Abraham being tested with his son Isaac. He may of been stopped, but Christian followers were just as willing to kill their children for God as those evil people you reference. Plus there's all the passages of stuff such as stoning your child for misbehaving, which is debatibly worse than child sacrifice. At least with sacrifice it's for your god, with the stonings it's simply because you as a parent would kill your kid for saying no to something. I mean seriously, that's some worst parent's of history awards right there... How the hell did these people ever survive to pass on their genes? [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]but the fact of the matter is that the circumstances in the Bible are far different than God just being a maniacal Dictator enforcing his will on poor, innocent Humanity and delighting in the slaughter of their children, which they probably didn't care about anyway, at least for the most part. Also, like I said, the things that happened back then are un-repeated and according to the will of God, unrepeatable.[/quote] Except as the Bible clearly shows this stuff does repeat... a lot. And so far we've seen nothing but God saying it's ok for Christians to kill their children and to kidnap and rape people. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Now on to the issue of double standards held by prominent Anti-Christian thinkers.[/quote] Well this should be fun :P [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]I had always thought philosophy was the proper love and acquirement of the studious acknowledgement of not only how the mind works, if such knowledge is available for studying, but also in applying one's mental faculties towards various beneficial mindsets. Not just loving and practicing a particular school of thought, mind you, but trying apply various sensible ways of living, working, contemplating, and interacting with other people in ways that would kind of "Roll the snowball down the hill" as it were. Like, leads to like, in other words, discovering ways of learning that expand on previous knowledge. I'm not sure how to make my understanding of Philosophical study concise and to the point, but what I"m saying is, those people, while perhaps having noble intentions of teaching others what to think, or maybe how to think, they strip the conscience, and even consciousness of others away by most definitely instructing them in horrid or incompetent manners.[/quote] Well to start with they're not Philosophers, they're scientists and spokespeople. There's a difference, Philosophy openly encourage's thought in any manner. The kind where they don't really care if you're relgious, atheist, Cthulhu etc. As long as you'r constantly thinking and asking questions, and often these can be questions that are almost unprovable or insanely abstract such as "How do I know you don't see the grass as red?" or "This is all a dream/fantasy". Scientists are more specific, they focused on observable, provable facts. Like honestly, would you want people who were say... researching your vaccine, treatment, medicene etc to be a Philosopher who goes "I theorize this is all a make believe world. So if we sprinkle this dust and just think really hard, he'll get better"? You wouldn't, you want hard facts running the show and that's what the scientists are for. They still encourage asking questions, to quote Richard Dawkins "Science is very humble in that we admit we do not know everything" and it always has more to learn. But it is not going to treat your ideas with seriousness unlike Philosophy unless if you have some hard proof and evidence to back it up with. So if you go up to a scientist and say "I have a theory God/Christianity is true" and then as proof you pull up the Bible... and to prove that you quote the Bible... You're going to get laughed/ridiculed rather hard. Note when I was in High School Philosophy was my favourite class. I loved the open-ended thinking, the theories, always being to ask why and how. It is an amazing field to dive into if what you're looking for is both mental and spiritual growth and improvement. But it is definitely not what you go to when trying to prove things as fact. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Dawkins at one time suggested that religious people should be ridiculed. He did not even confine his arrogant, blithering, vocal arachnoid skittering of a voice through the minds of us mortals to the subject of Evolution, which is what he always goes on about, he was attacking religion specifically, and more importantly any individual of religious phenomenon. Particularily (spelling)? adherents of the Catholic faith, for believing in their miracle of tran-substantiation. In other words, he said, in almost these exact words, that if you hear someone say they believe that their communal wafer/wine is literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ, you should mock them, ridicule them, in public.[/quote] I've seen a good amount of his talks and lectures, I know fully well he's like this and says stuff like this on a constant basis. This was mainly answered though in the last post already. But to repeat quickly, Richard Dawkins is a scientist. He uses proof and evidence as ways to treat things as fact and educate the world. If he see's people going around pushing something that not only lacks the evidence to support it, but outright dismisses most of Science's progress as false, he's going to have issues. And note that he did use to be a Christian so he's not saying it from a foreign/un-understanding view point. He's lived it, and he get's what it's like to be a Christian. He simply doesn't give much room/patience for people trying to dismiss science and replace with something unproven. The fact he refer's to Religion as a virus is probably because of how Religion has that way of getting into peoples heads and making them drones. Quoting the book, protesting the non-believers, listening to their pastor, ignoring science, little to no exploration and thought on their own initiative. It is honestly about the same kind of loyalty/fear you see in cases like North Korea or the Nazi's. Belief that whoever/whatever is above you and better than you. You must worship him, you are nothing compared to them, they are always right etc. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Yes. But the other side of the debate has some plenty of experience which mirrors theirs, just in reverse. The only difference is that people are being taught contradictory information in schools five days a week instead of two days a week.[/quote] What in Science is it you think is contradictory? o.O Note: Contradicting with your religion doesn't count. Religion is not science and it's not a fault of science that it doesn't fit with Religion until Religion was scientifically prove itself to be correct (and note you've got compete with tens of thousands of other religions first also). [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]The only fault that seems to lie on the Christian side of the matter IMHO is that we are not teaching our children "enough", and not just in quantitative education, but quality based education of the Church would make our children smarter, more contemplative, more experienced in the important things in life, and more mature of a person, not a block head hick, red neck that people stereotype the people of the Church as.[/quote] Oh dear Fthagan please no. Religion barely teaches anything outside of "This book is true, believe this book and do not listen to anything that says otherwise". What exactly is it you see in Religion that makes you feel it can educate people just as well as science can? [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Before you say, "Well Science is being taught in logical and empirical manner in order to educate the child how to think effectively", no truer half truth was ever spoken. The truth is, that the world, and cosmological phenomenon is for people to acknowledge, to look at, study, and interact with in ways that help them learn. There's nothing wrong with that. The only problem is that there is nothing that conclusively or in my mind even reasonably disproves what a 'proper' tenant of Christianity is.[/quote] That's because Christianity has the burden of evidence here. Science has a long history of proving itself, Christianity is the one coming up and claiming they're right and bring no proof to the table. They need to prove their right before being treated as so, not being treated as right until proven false. In a sense just look at science as "False until proven otherwise". Otherwise we'd have people saying shit like "I think there's a dwarf riding a carriage around the earth with suns as wheels while shooting lightning out of his nipples" and be unable to argue it until only recently when we could look at the sun in space and confirm there's no dwarf there. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]The thing is that religion is something that is broad. It's like saying oh, I'm not sure of the right example that "Philosophy makes people dull, uninteresting and lazy" I'm sure that maybe a philosophy that does such a thing exists, there is still a philosophy out there called Hedonism that exalts pleasure as the highest good, and another philosophy that exalts duty and the shunning of emotions, kind of like Star Trek Vulcans do. :D. So me saying "Philosophy holds science, medicine, etcetera" back, is essentially the same thing as claiming religion does those things. A truer half-truth was never spoken. :| It doesn't matter if it makes sense. It matters if it is ethically and honorably sound. For someone to say that religion holds people back by doing those things would be prejudiced and unacceptable if these concepts were anthropomorphisized.(Spelling?) ;)[/quote] Except when it goes as far as to say certain things in Science are false, and actually pulls shit like [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/22/creationists-airtime-cosmos-neil-degrasse-tyson_n_5009234.html]trying to get equal time on the show cosmos[/url] it is infringing on science. Because it is outright barging in and saying "You're wrong! I'm right! Out of the way science dorks! It's time to praise JESUS!!!". [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]I can get the source(s) for this.[/quote] Can I see it then? :P [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Well for one thing Christianity's proper tenants (proper tenants is the key phrase) is only followed by acknowledging the sanctity of life. Also, lying and deceiving people is not in the proper tenants of Christianity.[/quote] And how exactly are you determining with tenits and such in the Bible are meant to be taken literally, and which are figurative in this sense? Cause all the quotes on rape, murder etc were dismissed as misinterpretations, how do I know these acts of good simply aren't those misinterpretations. [quote=ActRaiserTheReturned]Certain people among the Chinese call him Monkey Man. To my knowledge it's a cultural reference towards him sabotaging the country. I agree with them that he is doing this. However, Hoover could have been claimed to have been sabotaging the nation decades ago. It doesn't mean he was trying to bring down the Republic like Senator Palpatine. Although, I don't think Barrack Obama is as moral as Darth Sidious IMHO. (/oh snap!!!).[/quote] And what exactly is it that Obama did that makes you hate him so much?