Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In the eyes of god, a Christian is always better.
Your proof? How about a bad Christian vs a good Jew? Does your god still pick the bad Christian?
Yes Christians are all saved. We are all imperfect. We have all sinned (yes even the good ones).
Christianity has rules, tenets, traditions, beliefs, etc. Christians don’t chose those, God does. Christians choose to believe in them. The Christian God knows there are no “good” Christians.
Romans 3:10-12 English Standard Version (ESV)
10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Christians are imperfect and sinful and the only difference is we know that and seek God. We rely on Him and not ourselves, and also know God hates sin.
If we love God, we will try hard- and fail, unfortunately, to not sin.
There are a lot of Christians who are false and bad. That sucks and also God knows they are false. He isn’t fooled.
And if at the end of their lives they repent, then they go to heaven just as if they'd been good all their lives.
But any atheists, who have not done any of those false and bad things, will go to hell, because they didn't believe in God. It will be a surprise to them, because they thought they'd just die and their lives would be over like all other animals. But no, they will wake up in Christian hell, for an eternity of suffering, all because they failed to believe in the Christian god.
Some people say, why take the chance? Even if you find it hard to believe, you might as well act as if you believe, just in case, to avoid such a horrible fate. But some people figure that if god is all-knowing, certainly he will know that they are faking belief and send them to hell anyway. God doesn't want phonies in Heaven.
I think claiming all atheists don’t do false and bad things is where you show your naivety. Nobody can claim all people of any religion are good or bad, not all people of any country or race or whatever are good or bad.
There are bad and evil atheists, just as there and bad and evil Christians.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, Santa Fe, Texas shooter who killed at least 10 people at a public school, described himself as an atheist on his Facebook page (May 2018)[5]
Gabriel Ross Parker, shooter at Marshall County High School in Kentucky who murdered two people (January 2018)[6][7][8]
Devin Patrick Kelley, perpetrator of the Sutherland Springs, Texas shooting at First Baptist Church, murdered 26 people (November 2017)[9][10][11][12][13][14]
Chris Harper Mercer, Umpqua Community College gunman (October 2015)[15][16]
Craig Stephen Hicks, perpetator of the Chapel Hill Shootings (February 2015)[17]
Jared Lee Loughner, perpetrator of the Tucson Shootings (January 2011)[18]
Seung-Hui Cho, perpetrator of the Virginia Tech shootings (April 2007)[19]
Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer and sex offender responsible for the rape, murder, and dismemberment of seventeen men and boys (1978 - 1991)[1]
James Oliver Huberty, perpetrator of the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre (July 1984)[20]
Carl Panzram (1891-1930) was an American serial killer, rapist, arsonist, robber and burglar. In his autobiography and prison confessions Panzram claimed he committed 21 murders (a majority of which were not corroborated) and over 1,000 sodomies of boys and men. He was executed for murdering a prison employee at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Panzram declared "“I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: might makes right.”[2
List of atheist shooters and serial killers
https://www.conservapedia.com/List_of_atheist_shooters_and_serial_killers
There are bad people everywhere. A label doesn’t make anyone anything.
I'm guessing pp was looking for an opening to post this list. Too bad pp didn't read what previous pp said, not "ALL atheists" but "ANY atheists."
I've never seen a list of Christians who committed terrible crimes, but I bet it's a lot longer.
I am sure it is. There are more Christians in the US than atheists. However, on this forum, many atheists portray atheists as laid back, kind, caring, and peaceful people. I am sure there are lots of atheists who are exactly like that. But not all are.
No one ever said they were. and many atheists are laid back, kind, caring, and peaceful. Just like many Christians and people of other religions.
Being religious (or not) is no guarantee of personality.
Agree. There’s good and bad of all kinds. Christianity does have a defined moral code though. There’s no guarantee a Christian will walk and talk it, but it’s there.
The seven Christian virtues are from two sets of virtues. The four cardinal virtues are Prudence, Justice, Restraint (or Temperance), and Courage (or Fortitude). The cardinal virtues are so called because they are regarded as the basic virtues required for a virtuous life. The three theological virtues, are Faith, Hope, and Love (or Charity).
Prudence: also described as wisdom, the ability to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time
Justice: also considered as fairness, the most extensive and most important virtue
Temperance: also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, and moderation tempering the appetition
Courage: also termed fortitude, forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation
Faith: belief in God, and in the truth of His revelation as well as obedience to Him (cf. Rom 1:5:16:26)[21][22]
Hope: expectation of and desire of receiving; refraining from despair and capability of not giving up. The belief that God will be eternally present in every human's life and never giving up on His love.
Charity: a supernatural virtue that helps us love God and our neighbors, the same way as we love ourselves.
Abortion, alcohol, divorce, sexual morality and celibacy, slavery, violence, wealth, and poverty, are all areas Christianity speaks of and applies Christian ethics to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_ethics
ANd all these "Christian" ethics can apply to any ethical person, with or without religion. Even "Faith" assuming it is not limited to faith in the existence of the Christian God, his son, who died so humans who believed in him could live eternally, and the holy spirit
Now those ethics can apply to anyone, but when Christ walked the earth they were radical and new ideas he preached and that’s why he was hated by some and loved by his followers. People enslaved one another, had multiple wives, sacrificed children and adults, etc.
Yale historian Jeroslav Pelikan wrote, "Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western Culture for almost 20 centuries. Here are some shards of his impact that most often surprise people:
Children
In the ancient world children were routinely left to die of exposure -- particularly if they were the wrong gender (you can guess which was the wrong one); they were often sold into slavery. Jesus' treatment of and teachings about children led to the forbidding of such practices, as well as orphanages and godparents. A Norwegian scholar named Bakke wrote a study of this impact, simply titled: When Children Became People: the Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.
Education
Love of learning led to monasteries, which became the cradle of academic guilds. Universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard all began as Jesus-inspired efforts to love God with all ones' mind. The first legislation to publicly fund education in the colonies was called The Old Deluder Satan Act, under the notion that God does not want any child ignorant. The ancient world loved education but tended to reserve it for the elite; the notion that every child bore God's image helped fuel the move for universal literacy.
Compassion
Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world. His compassion for the poor and the sick led to institutions for lepers, the beginning of modern-day hospitals. The Council of Nyssa decreed that wherever a cathedral existed, there must be a hospice, a place of caring for the sick and poor. That's why even today, hospitals have names like "Good Samaritan," "Good Shepherd," or "Saint Anthony." They were the world's first voluntary, charitable institutions.
Humility
The ancient world honored many virtues like courage and wisdom, but not humility. People were generally divided into first class and coach. Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue. Historian John Dickson writes, "it is unlikely that any of us would aspire to this virtue were it not for the historical impact of his crucifixion...Our culture remains cruciform long after it stopped being Christian."
Forgiveness
In the ancient world, virtue meant rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. Conan the Barbarian was actually paraphrasing Ghengis Khan in his famous answer to the question "what is best in life?" -- To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
An alternative idea came from Galilee: what is best in life is to love your enemies, and see them reconciled to you. Hannah Arendt, the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton, claimed, "the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth." This may be debatable, but he certainly gave the idea unique publicity.
Humanitarian Reform:
Jesus had a way of championing the excluded that was often downright irritating to those in power. His inclusion of women led to a community to which women flocked in disproportionate numbers. Slaves--up to a third of ancient populations--might wander into a church fellowship and have a slave-owner wash their feet rather than beat them. One ancient text instructed bishops to not interrupt worship to greet a wealthy attender, but to sit on the floor to welcome the poor. The apostle Paul said: "Now there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male and female, but all are one in Christ Jesus." Thomas Cahill wrote that this was the first statement of egalitarianism in human literature.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1773225/amp
The Pagan World
Before Our Lord Jesus Christ preached the Good News of the Gospel among men, the world was submerged in a prolonged and terrible night, in which moral licentiousness, egoism, cruelty, inhumanity and oppression reigned, as history illustrates.
From this picture, it cannot be surmised that all Romans, Greeks, and "barbarians" were profligates. There were minorities at variance with that situation, and they were prepared to receive the evangelical preaching with the eagerness of a castaway who finds a lifeline. Hence the rapid expansion of the Catholic Church through the Roman world, and, finally, the conversion of the Empire in the year 313 of the Christian era.
[... The Pagan] gods formed a fearful and violent band of miscreants. They were adulterers, liars, thieves, oppressors and murderers guilty of patricide, matricide and fratricide. They were cruel, selfish, treacherous, slothful, false, shameless and incestuous, and included fornicators, degenerates, and paedophiles. Zeus (the Jupiter of the Romans), the chief deity of this crew, was not only a brute who practised cannibalism, devouring one of his daughters and murdering other close relatives, but he was also an uncontrollable adulterer who victimised many single and married "gods", violated his sisters and daughters-in-law, ravished his own daughter and even his mother, and who, moreover, kept a young boy whom he had abducted as a lover.
Cruelty, Immorality, Oppression
Slavery was such an accepted institution in the ancient world that slaves commonly made up the majority of the population. ...
In Roman law there were clauses concerning slaves that sparked great cruelties. ...
In Antiquity, killing was viewed with indifference, as being a natural happening in the life of peoples. The massacre of a population of a city caused neither surprise nor indignation....
In Rome, the spectacle most prized by the people was that of men dying, and the gladiator fights in Rome were occasions of pitiless slaughters. "In the morning, says Seneca, men are thrown to the lions and bears; after mid-day, they are thrown [at will] to the spectators [... which] helps us "to understand the pleasure-seeking ferocity with which the Romans vented themselves in anti-Christian persecutions," observes Daniel-Rops, ... "very rare, were spectators who manifested their disapproval." ...
In that pagan environment, the situation of women was appalling. In general they had almost no rights, and were practically considered slaves of their husbands, that is, when they had the privilege of being married.
The religions themselves, even the most elevated ones, led women - and naturally men as well - into great depravity. That of the Chaldeans, for example, was sinister and corrupt, featuring lubricious practices in the temples. The Phoenician religion also incited the degradation of women.
... Once a year, Athens and other cities held an event in which an enormous phallic sculpture was borne in procession. Men and women went through the streets, singing, leaping and dancing around this idol.
Feminine honour was being damaged by the custom of polygamy which was generalised in many regions, while, in other places, polyandry was in force. Equally degrading was incest, especially common in Persia, but also in Greece.
In India, among the cruel pagan practices spanning millennia, custom demanded that the widow be burned alongside the body of her husband.
... In Athens, to prevent partiality toward daughters in questions of inheritance, the law fell into an even greater aberration in encouraging incest to resolve such problems, even demanding the destruction of two already constituted homes, if need be.
In Rome, during the era in which the Good News of Jesus Christ was being preached, the institution of the family found itself in a grave crisis. Abortion and child abandonment reached shocking proportions. The birth-rate decreased. Wealthy men preferred to remain single and surround themselves with innumerable slave women rather than subject themselves to the inconveniences of marriage.
Children Before the Ail-Powerful State
... The Greco-Roman family was also totalitarian from certain perspectives. Thus, Roman law gave a dictatorial power to the pater familias. In Greece, similar laws were in vigour. The father had the right to reject his newborn son, or to sell him as a slave. He could also condemn his wife, son, daughter, or any other dweller in his house to death - the sentence being executed without delay; the State authorities did not interfere.
In Sparta, comments Coulanges, "the State had the right not to tolerate that its citizens be deformed or ill-constituted. It therefore ordered the father to whom such a child was born, to make it die." According to the same author, this law was equally found in the ancient codes of Rome and even Aristotle and Plato included this practice in their legislative proposals.
In Carthage and Phoenicia, children were offered in sacrifice to the idols; ... "children belong less to their parents than to the city." [Plato]
What is denominated by today's press as paedophilia was largely practised in the ancient world, under the protection of law, through the influence of the pagan religions.
In Greece, the sexual corruption of boys, more precisely called pederasty, was carried out as a legalised practice. Every adult male who was not a slave, had the right to practise it. Such was the custom in Persia and in other places, where it was maintained for centuries. Rome also became contaminated by the Grecian evil, to the point that many emperors procured male adolescents as lovers.
Boys who were considered comely, if they had been made prisoners of war, or had been abducted or sold by their parents, were mutilated for the purpose of feeding the trafficking of eunuchs. Not even sons of the nobility escaped.
In Greece - especially Athens - the victims of pederasty were not only prisoners of war, the abducted, or slaves. Any boy could become the target of the infamous desires of adult men, and the custom was to yield. If a father, endowed with a remnant of moral sensibility, desired to spare his sons this tragedy, he had to act before it happened, employing slaves, who would watch over the son like hawks. ... The schools - the highly acclaimed Academies - were places where students, from the age of 12 or even younger, became the prey of the masters. The Athenian laws went so far as to protect and encourage this practice, even regulating flirtation and "love-making" between men and boys.
Greeks such as Solon, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Xenophon, Thucydides, Aeschines and Aristophanes, famous in the world of literature, the arts, philosophy and politics, practised and extolled pederasty.
Greek philosophy reached the point of debating this infamous practice, without ever completely condemning it. Even Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were not exempt from this evil.
... The Greeks stooped to consider the natural relationship between man and woman as inferior to the relationship between man and boy.
... Saint Justin, in his Apologetics, ... vituperates the custom of rejected children - boys and girls - being made slaves for prostitution.
The Arrival of Gospel Values
The message of Jesus Christ threw the worm-eaten ancient world off balance. It censured libertinism and cruelty, and upheld the freedom to practice the good, chastity, virginity, innocence, conjugal fidelity, love of enemies, charity, abnegation, goodness toward the weak, and dignity for all human beings, created in the image and likeness of God.
https://www.faith.org.uk/article/july-august-2010-the-moral-world-before-christianity
So before Christ preached the Gospel, the world was a very dark and terrible place. He gave slaves and children and women dignity and worth by preaching that they too were made in the image of God. His ideas at the time were VERY RADICAL. He indeed changed the world with his life and death.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
