927 thoughts on “What Makes Something Right or Wrong?”
For the South, this “chosen” status not only presumed ultimate victory in what would turn out to be a long and bloody conflict, but also put God’s imprimatur on the Confederate national identity. In fact, the South claimed to be a uniquely Christian nation. The new Confederate Constitution, adopted on February 8, 1861, and ratified on March 11, 1861, officially declared its Christian identity, “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God.” Southern leaders chose as their national motto Deo Vindice (“God will avenge”). Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that the time had come “to recognize our dependence upon God … [and] supplicate his merciful protection.” This national acknowledgment of religious dependence, as the South frequently pointed out during the war in both the religious and the secular press, stood in stark contrast to the “godless” government of the North that ignored God in its constitution and put secular concerns above the sacred duties of Christian service and the divine commission.
“What you think you ‘totally dismantled’ was not the content of my comment.”
Your proof was quoted, dismantled and sent packing so much so that afterwards you went packing as well grumbling and muttering to yourself because you had no logical reply
” So let me ask you”
You are either in or you are out. If you are in then have the courage and intellectual honesty to stand and answer counter points to your arguments. IF you are out then you can slink away permanently like you did last time. I won’t abide or take seriously any game of peek a boo where you demand answers and run away when you can’t take them being answered.
” – the greatest self-professed expert in biology I have ever encountered,”
Might as well buy a horse. After you are done with your strawmen you can feed it for half a year. A strong fit one will make your next flight more swift.
“why do we have mirror neurons and what is their function?””
A nonsense question since it is still heavily under research. IF you are hanging your hat on that then its already fallen. There are few kooks that have overstated their theories (kind of like Neuronotes loves to do and you TRIED to do earlier ) so much so a book was published recently on the controversy
Let me guess . you were about to play a game of hoodwink alleging whats already been scientifically concluded when no such has been.
Personally I think it will probably be shown to have to do with environment awareness and learning with a relationship to motor movement but unlike you I am not hanging my hat on any theory that is as yet unproven.
Civil war was in the 1860s. A movement to end slavery had already made great strides across the world just like I tried to tell you and you were entirely too dense to even google up.
Here you can read and weep below that one of the chief leaders was a Christian and was inspired after accepting Christ to end slavery
Thats the good news. The bad news is that there are still people who don’t believe in miracles because once again you have failed to make a good point.
you made the claim that Christians SMASHED slavery with Christian teachings, NOT TRUE.
slavery was SMASHED with a bloody civil war where the “Christian” south was defeated.
that is the true history. you know it, I know it and everyone knows it.
you wouldn’t know the truth if it sat on your face and farted.
there are so many types and brands and flavors of Christianity that anyone can claim anything about Christianity have have at least some nugget of truth. so i prefer to stick with book chapter and verse.
in this discussion it doesnt really matter if some christians didnt like slavery and that some christains tried to preserve it. The bible does not condemn slavery. not in the NT or the OT. You can point verses about not being like the oppressor, but then you can also point to verses about slavery being a-okay.
I guess mike doesnt like slavery? If that’s the case, then that’s good – it’s deplorable. it is contrary to what we know of good and decent.
But i guess god views people as shirts, or at least that’s how mike sees it – he can wear them, wash them and fold them, or her can tear them shreds, banish them to hell, order others to rip them apart, or enslave them. It’s god’s property after all.
I just see that representation in conflict with decency and in conflict with how a loving father treats his children, and it also happens to be in conflict with mercy.
it’s a book… of claims… that people wrote, basically saying, “hey, god told me to tell you this and that you should believe me because he did a miracle for me… dont believe me, well he did a miracle for 500 other guys too, so you should believe me now… oh, and virgin had a baby, who was god and his own son, who died, the came back to life and flew into the sky, because that’s where heaven is… only a fool wouldnt believe me, but all the good, righteous people will.”
Will you condemn your god’s wicked, immoral sins? Prove to us that you really do believe in unchanging, objective moral standards by condemning the sins of your god who’s behavior violates the moral standards of every major religion on the planet.
“slavery was SMASHED with a bloody civil war where the “Christian” south was defeated.”
Well I am not surprised but you have proven yet again
your idiocy knows no end.
Slavery was abolished in Britain and in many of their world wide territories before any US Civil war and it was the likes of Wilberforce that inspired Lincoln so yes the tireless efforts of Christians inspired by the Bible eventually ended and smashed slavery.
Your foaming at the mouth and begging desperately that it not be so does not in the least change the historical facts. Sorry
Furthermore your embarrassing claims are even more hilarious since Abraham Lincoln himself professed belief in God and the Bible and EXPRESSED those beliefs in his own actions against slavery
You probably will need to Google up Abraham Lincoln to inform yourself of who he was too.
HInt he was not a car manufacturer…..lol
There s one overriding message you can take from this for yourself –
and the civil war wasn’t fought to end slavery, it was just a result of the war. the civil war was fought over secession. The south wanting to leave the union, not because the union said slaves had to be freed.
but none of this has anything to do with the bible and the fact that the bible does not condemn slavery. Slavery was allowed in the OT and the NT tells slaves to be obedient to just and unjust masters and tells the master to be good to their slaves – it dont say jack about freeing them…
reading up on Abraham lincoln, he evidently did seem to believe the bible at some point. It’s interesting because you can also find quotes where he is critical of the bible and Christianity…
I apologize getting in the way of you asserting what I’m going to say. I have the unpleasant habit of actually saying what I want to say.
You’re so busy trying to ‘knock down’ anything anyone presents that reveals your lack of understanding that you’re not thinking, not considering, not evaluating. You’re trying to defend your beliefs by attacking anything anyone says. That’s a tactic unconcerned with what’s true and knowable but used to deflect and that’s why you use the internet to cherry pick whatever appears to support your attack. Your agenda has nothing to do with learning.
Why did I raise mirror neurons? You don’t even ask because you don’t care. You simply do a quick search to find something that appears to ‘refute’ mirror neurons (the book title you quote doesn’t do this, by the way… which surprises me not at all that you fall for appearances)… assuming that by doing so you can ‘defend’ your denialism by pretending you have some hypothetical ‘expertise’ in neuroscience that supports your hypothetical ‘expertise’ in evolutionary biology. Of course, you have neither. But you think you know enough to ‘refute’ them. That’s why I point out the amount of arrogance and hubris you must maintain to continue to do this. That’s not smart; in fact, it’s a guaranteed method to remain credulous and gullible because you continue to presume that you know stuff you do not know and certainly don’t understand enough to think yourself positioned to ‘refute’ people who do.
You demonstrate again and again a closed mind that presumes to know stuff you do not know and then accuse others who see what you’re doing and don’t want to waste their time and effort being attacked and maligned by you – not for what they think or say or write but because they are targets of convenience for you to misrepresent. You then use your misrepresentation and attack it in order to claim a bizarre kind of victory… by keeping your flawed understanding unchanged to maintain your beliefs immune from reality’s arbitration of them.
Well, good for you. You have successfully not learned anything again. But if that’s what it takes to keep your beliefs strong, then I think you are only cheating yourself. And I think that’s quite idiotic.
Let me bottom line this to save myself the time going round with a number of you
It really doesn’t matter how much any of you beg and moan, the facts are the Bible is very clear and unambiguous -when it comes to the equality of all men Christ died for all and all are one in him.
This affirmation was and is more powerful than addressing any single social flaw and reaches to the heart of all human rights issues. That clear message is what inspired Wilberforce, Lincoln and others that called for the end of slavery. Thats not a guess. Sorry boys and girls we have many of them on record as to what led them to their conclusions.
Its a historical fact none of you can change and especially not by posting comments on Nate’s blog…..LOL
This was Jesus M.O. There are countless issues he never addressed or rebutted either in first century Israel or First century Rome. Instead he focused on the underlying issues. Too bad for you all that the history of civil rights world wide came through Religion. It can’t be logically denied (but of course I know having no logic has never stopped any of you). Even today nut jobs every now and again use Darwinism to justify theories of inequality and thats because logically darwinism adheres to the idea of inequality as the human species “evolves”. Playing semantics games is all the Darwinist has to deny that.
Meanwhile we still await any great civil right social change atheism has wrought. Its achieved nothing of equal status rather it has been the underlying rational for many of the worlds most human rights unfriendy nations. China being but ONE such example.
Enjoy the rest of the week tripping over yourselves to beg that atheism has added anything the likes of what Wilberforce and company achieved because of their Christian faith.
It won’t stand on any logical grounds but boy will you beg and whine otherwise to no avail.
Don’t hurt your brain by twisting it like a pretzel. As Arnold would say “I’ll be back” 😉
all the passages on slavery that gary copied and pasted are indeed very clear and speak well enough for themselves.
The bible is clear on the equality of people in Christ? only in that it says their equal in christ, and then clearly states that women are not equal to me (in every way other than in christ) and the slavery is okay.
it is interesting we started off talking about slavery, and then when it was shown that the bible does condone the act, we now start talking about the civil war and how christians led the way to end slavery, as if that rewrites the bible. it doesnt.
and I am certain there were christians who could not reconcile slavery with parts of the bible, their faith and a loving god… but there were also christians who felt otherwise – that’s history too… so we’re back to the bible, and guess what, it just doesnt look too good.
Will you condemn your god’s wicked, immoral sins? Prove to us that you really do believe in unchanging, objective moral standards by condemning the sins of your god who’s behavior violates the moral standards of every major religion on the planet.
“pretending you have some hypothetical ‘expertise’ in neuroscience that supports your hypothetical ‘expertise’ in evolutionary biology. Of course, you have neither. But you think you know enough to ‘refute’ them”
Tildeb theres just no other way to say it.
You are a straight up bare faced liar. This is the second time you have claimed I presented myself as an expert on neuroscience. the first time even lying that I self professed it. Put up the quotes where I “self professed ” or are you just so utterly clueless you do not know what “self professed” means.
You should take a bow though. yet another atheist that betrays he has no morality without God. Lie on a dime when you can’t defend your dismantled points. News flash – You don’t need to be an expert to refute the claims of a non expert such as yourself. Your arguments were weak and your logic ill conceived and in need of its own education.
OF course the book does not refute Mirrored Neurons. Your nitwitedness knows no end. What it does do and it was referred to you before on the very basis is present evidence that people have overstated the veracity of their conclusions, that research continues and there is much we do not yet know.
You are a hack much like neuronotes. You dig up some research and then state some conclusion you would like the data to be interpreted as and then run with it like your conclusions are scientifically proven. You can lie through your teeth all you want. You brought up mirrored neurons in the context of a discussion about morality because you thought it would help to back up your dismantled argument.
Unfortunately for you I cut your off at the pass by making you fully aware that I know that we have yet to figure out what exactly mirrored neurons do and don’t do. Having been cut off at the pass for the second time you revert to your same old claim of my denying education because egad! I decline to be spoon fed unproven nonsense by a hack posting on wordpress comments…….LOL
Now was there anything at all in your last post answering my counterpoints? nope nada.
Nada being the sum total of most of our arguments anyway. See if by the weekend you can come up with at least one coherent backed by some evidence argument
Just to clear things up a bit. We moral humans, seeking a better good for everyone, exercise “moral judgment”. We weigh the benefits and harms of a bad rule (slavery) and compare it to the results of using a new rule (no slavery). Once we realized the rather significant harm being inflicted upon the slave, we chose to make slavery illegal.
Lacking a “God’s eye view” of ultimate outcomes, two good and honest persons may disagree about the benefits and harms of one rule over another. And racial slavery was rationalized for a couple hundred years before the politics caught up with our moral evolution.
Religions, being an integral part of many people’s lives, may play two different roles in this process. The first, and most positive role, is to provide moral support to people seeking to do good and be good. In this sense, the church is like other support groups. The second role is more of a mixed blessing. The churches typically spread the current ethical norms, through sermons, Sunday schools, et cetera.
But all changes to ethics (rules, laws) begin with a new moral evaluation, and it doesn’t matter much whether the person making that realization is sitting in a pew or at home. It is a human process.
The souls of women are so small,
That some believe they’ve none at all.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680), Miscellaneous Thoughts
Historically the church’s position on this matter followed the Biblical texts such as Genesis 3:16 where God tells Eve that her husband will rule over her, and passages where wives are listed along with a man’s other goods and chattels. This view is comprehensively confirmed in the New Testament:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
(Colossians 3:18; cf. 1 Peter 3:1 and Ephesians 5:22)
… I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man…For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
(1 Corinthians 11:3 & 7-9)
Let your women keep silence in churches: for it is not permitted unto them; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also sayeth the law.
(1 Corinthians 14:34, c/f 1 Corinthians 11:3-9 & Timothy 2:11-12)
In line with these statements women were until recent times not permitted to speak in church, and they are still expected to cover their heads in church. Under Christian Emperors and bishops the rights that women had enjoyed under the Roman Empire were gradually pared away. As early as the fourth century it was decreed by a synod that women should neither send nor receive letters in their own name (Synod of Elvira, Canon 81). They were also confined to minor Orders and forbidden to sing in church. Later they would be deprived of Holy Orders altogether. In some Christian meetings they were obliged to sit apart at the back of the congregation. By AD 581 a church council at Mâcon was debating whether or not women had souls .
The great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas taught that women were defective men, imperfect in both body and soul. They were conceived either because of defective sperm or because a damp wind was blowing at the time of conception . Leading scholars accepted Aquinas’s teaching that women had a higher water content than men and that this made them sexually incontinent . Since they were so watery, weak and unreliable it became a fundamental premiss of Canon Law that they were inferior beings. Following Aquinas , Canon law decreed that women could not witness a will. Neither could they testify in disputes over wills, nor in criminal proceedings. Generally they suffered the same sort of legal disabilities as children and imbeciles. They could not practice medicine, law or any other profession, nor could they hold any public office. Here is a piece of reasoning from two famous Catholic scholars: After saying that women are intellectually like children they explain why women are given to the practice of witchcraft:
But the natural reason is that she is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations. And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives.
Protestant Churches were no better than the Catholic Church. It was Martin Luther himself who coined the phrase “A woman’s place is in the home” and in strongly protestant areas of Germany it is still commonplace to hear that women should concern themselves only with Kinder, Kirche, Küche (Children, the Church and Cooking). Luther also insisted on a man’s traditional Christian right to beat his wife. He also held firmly to the traditional line on a woman’s duty to bear children, even if killed her “If they become tired or even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth – that is why they are there” .
Under canon law a woman’s husband was both her sovereign and her guardian. In practical terms this meant that she could not legally own property or make contracts. Her property came under her husband’s control upon marriage. She could not sue at common law without his consent, which meant that in particular she could not sue him for any wrong done to her. If she deliberately killed him she was guilty not merely of murder but, because of the feudal relationship, treason .
At the time of writing it is still common in Christian countries for a married woman to be denied credit, and to require her husband’s consent for surgical operations. After all 1 Corinthians 7:4 states that “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband…”. (The bible goes on to state the converse – that a wife has power over her husband’s body – but cannon lawyers either missed this part or else deduced that it bore a completely different interpretation. As Gratian put it “The woman has no power, but in everything is subject to the control of her husband”.) In the words of the marriage service a married couple were one flesh and the canon lawyers held them to be a single person: erunt animae duae in carne una.
The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband.
It was this legal doctrine that gave rise to Dickens’ observation, put into the mouth of one of his characters, that the law is an ass . The doctrine enabled an Englishman to lock up his wife and not be liable for the tort of false imprisonment. He could beat her and not be guilty of assault. The same principle permitted him to rape her without the law recognising it as rape. A wife could not proceed against her husband, nor be called to give evidence in court against him. Most such constraints were done away with in Britain by Acts of Parliament in 1935 and 1945 in the teeth of fierce opposition from the organised Churches. In England it remained impossible for a man to be charged with the rape of his wife until the 1990’s. Civil remedies are still in general unavailable to wives against their husbands. Thus for example, a wife who is locked up by her husband would have to rely on a writ of habeas corpus, like a medieval vassal .
Unmarried women were also inferior beings, or as the Bible puts it weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7). Fathers were free to treat them as their personal property and swap them for other goods or for political advantage, which is what arranged child marriages often amounted to. Unmarried adult women were not permitted many of the privileges allowed by law to men, nor thought capable of fulfilling the duties expected of men. Like married women, they were prohibited from practising all professions and all but a few trades. In 1588 Pope Sixtus V even forbade them to appear on the public stage within his dominions. Soon the whole of western Christendom had banned actresses and female singers.
Well into the twentieth century women were debarred from sitting on juries, and were permitted only a few selected jobs such as school teaching and nursing, and even these they were generally obliged to give up when they got married. Women were so little regarded that until this century they were often excluded from Church membership rolls. No one knows with certainty how large some denominations were until recently because they did not count women in their membership statistics.
Throughout their histories, the Churches have consistently opposed women’s right to the franchise. Only after the Church’s influence had seriously weakened did women obtain the vote. In England this happened in 1918, when the franchise was extended to women over the age of thirty. Even now women do not enjoy equality in all spheres of life. In England, for example, the taxation laws and laws of inheritance still discriminate against them. At the time of writing there are areas of Europe where traditional Christian values prevail and women still do not have full voting rights . There is one area in the European Community, Mount Athos, where for religious reasons women are not even permitted to set foot.
The traditional position of the Church, that women were mere chattels of their husbands was challenged by the usual selection of freethinkers such as Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The atheist Mary Wollstonecraft published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. Her husband the philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836) was a campaigner for women’s rights, and so was their atheist son-in-law, the poet Shelley. Other prominent proponents included the unbelieving Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot, 1819-80), and Harriet Law (1832-97). The Utilitarian J S Mill launched the women’s suffrage movement in England with a petition to the House of Commons on 7 June 1866. He attempted to amend the 1867 Reform Bill to extend the franchise to women, and to stop discrimination under the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts. He published the Subjugation of Women in 1869. Other active campaigners included the atheists Holyoake (1817-1906), Bradlaugh (1833-91) and Besant (1847-1933). In France the argument for women’s rights was led by enemies of the Church like Denis Diderot and Condorcet, and much later in the USA by atheists like Ernestine Rose, Matilda Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony.
It seems that a disturbing number of men, bolstered by Christian attitudes, still assume that they have the right to subjugate, abuse and beat their wives . A sociological study in 1962 revealed that religious orthodoxy was positively correlated with social conservatism on issues such as women’s rights . It is notable that the Church continued to discriminate against women for years after such discrimination was abandoned outside the Church. It was not until 1970 that a woman was authorised to teach Catholic theology , and throughout the world Churches are still given exemption from sex discrimination legislation. Senior Anglican clergymen could still be outraged in 1996 at the idea of a woman playing the part of God in the York Mystery plays – denouncing it as paganism . Christian mainstream thought is now in the process of change. The more liberal sects have started ordaining women again, while the more traditional ones still hold out against it.
“all the passages on slavery that gary copied and pasted are indeed very clear and speak well enough for themselves.”
Your selective reading of the Bible is no surprise William. its what you always do when presented with passages that counter what you say. There is not a single passage of scripture that says “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will” as Grrl claimed. Nada
What you do have in the OT are some rules regarding the keeping of slaves in a culture that already had them. You will find rules in the OT about divorce as well but equally God did not approve. Rules regarding kings but having a king not something God signed off on wanting. Even though genesis two makes it clear there was to be one man for one woman polygamy became the practice
As the passages I quoted before states- God let many things go he did not approve in a world full of sin but in the NT he calls all men to repent. Slaves in the NT must not be treated as slaves but as brothers and as such part of the family. This was critical to the practical considerations any slave disconnected from the household would face. they could not just go and get jobs anywhere they wished as they would today. Even in the US when slavery was abolished it meant little to many African Americans because they were still bound by economics having nowhere to go and live and no means to eat. Abolishing slavery didn’t instantly fix the concept of inequality which was the greater issue.
The Bible spoke to that more central issue and because of it men inspired by the Bible brought us the human rights today that allow for true and complete freedom from ALL KINDS slavery in most the world.
Just the facts. Your failure to see them not withstanding.
P.S. you can lie on the biblical text all you want . The Bible never teaches men are superior to women. It does teach that roles are different for men and women but that does not mean inequal though I am sure you will beg it does. in fact in Pauline doctrine its the job of a man is to love and honor his wife. She is to be the center of attention.
“Your selective reading of the Bible is no surprise William. its what you always do when presented with passages that counter what you say. There is not a single passage of scripture that says “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will” as Grrl claimed. Nada” – ABlacksmanagain
I think you misread, as i didnt selectively read or cite anything.
and I certainly never said or agreed that the bible says, “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will.”
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding you have on that point.
What you do have in the OT are some rules regarding the keeping of slaves in a culture that already had them. You will find rules in the OT about divorce as well but equally God did not approve.
You already had people murdering people, too, but allegedly Yahweh had no trouble issuing a decree NOT to murder. People committed adultery. Yahweh allegedly said, “thou shalt not.” So couldn’t he just as easily have issued decrees barring slave ownership and divorce? Issuing legislation over slavery and divorce may not signify approval, but it certainly doesn’t give the impression of disapproval either.
wrong again
Leviticus chapter 25 begins with “The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai,”:
then it list a whole bunch of stupid shit down to verse 44-46 where the lord tells moses :
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.
so yes indeed the lord said keep slaves as my will.
so sad you have to lie to make your bible and your Christian beliefs make sense.
Finding Truth 
For the South, this “chosen” status not only presumed ultimate victory in what would turn out to be a long and bloody conflict, but also put God’s imprimatur on the Confederate national identity. In fact, the South claimed to be a uniquely Christian nation. The new Confederate Constitution, adopted on February 8, 1861, and ratified on March 11, 1861, officially declared its Christian identity, “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God.” Southern leaders chose as their national motto Deo Vindice (“God will avenge”). Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that the time had come “to recognize our dependence upon God … [and] supplicate his merciful protection.” This national acknowledgment of religious dependence, as the South frequently pointed out during the war in both the religious and the secular press, stood in stark contrast to the “godless” government of the North that ignored God in its constitution and put secular concerns above the sacred duties of Christian service and the divine commission.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/cwsouth.htm
SO MUCH FOR MIKEY’S CLAIM THAT “CHRISTIAN’S SMASHED SLAVERY WITH CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS!!!!”
once again I’ve proven you to be a liar Mikey.
liars don’t go to heaven, Mikey
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“What you think you ‘totally dismantled’ was not the content of my comment.”
Your proof was quoted, dismantled and sent packing so much so that afterwards you went packing as well grumbling and muttering to yourself because you had no logical reply
” So let me ask you”
You are either in or you are out. If you are in then have the courage and intellectual honesty to stand and answer counter points to your arguments. IF you are out then you can slink away permanently like you did last time. I won’t abide or take seriously any game of peek a boo where you demand answers and run away when you can’t take them being answered.
” – the greatest self-professed expert in biology I have ever encountered,”
Might as well buy a horse. After you are done with your strawmen you can feed it for half a year. A strong fit one will make your next flight more swift.
“why do we have mirror neurons and what is their function?””
A nonsense question since it is still heavily under research. IF you are hanging your hat on that then its already fallen. There are few kooks that have overstated their theories (kind of like Neuronotes loves to do and you TRIED to do earlier ) so much so a book was published recently on the controversy
Let me guess . you were about to play a game of hoodwink alleging whats already been scientifically concluded when no such has been.
Personally I think it will probably be shown to have to do with environment awareness and learning with a relationship to motor movement but unlike you I am not hanging my hat on any theory that is as yet unproven.
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LOL, MIKEY, I’ve proven you wrong and typical Christian you are you result to insults.
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“once again I’ve proven you to be a liar Mikey.”
LOL….Your delusions are entertaining. You should come back during the weekend and entertain me if there are no good movies I have not seen. 🙂
Here perhaps you can do a little math (I know..asking too much of you..but setting high goals will make you maybe just a little better)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
Civil war was in the 1860s. A movement to end slavery had already made great strides across the world just like I tried to tell you and you were entirely too dense to even google up.
Here you can read and weep below that one of the chief leaders was a Christian and was inspired after accepting Christ to end slavery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml
Thats the good news. The bad news is that there are still people who don’t believe in miracles because once again you have failed to make a good point.
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you made the claim that Christians SMASHED slavery with Christian teachings, NOT TRUE.
slavery was SMASHED with a bloody civil war where the “Christian” south was defeated.
that is the true history. you know it, I know it and everyone knows it.
you wouldn’t know the truth if it sat on your face and farted.
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there are so many types and brands and flavors of Christianity that anyone can claim anything about Christianity have have at least some nugget of truth. so i prefer to stick with book chapter and verse.
in this discussion it doesnt really matter if some christians didnt like slavery and that some christains tried to preserve it. The bible does not condemn slavery. not in the NT or the OT. You can point verses about not being like the oppressor, but then you can also point to verses about slavery being a-okay.
I guess mike doesnt like slavery? If that’s the case, then that’s good – it’s deplorable. it is contrary to what we know of good and decent.
But i guess god views people as shirts, or at least that’s how mike sees it – he can wear them, wash them and fold them, or her can tear them shreds, banish them to hell, order others to rip them apart, or enslave them. It’s god’s property after all.
I just see that representation in conflict with decency and in conflict with how a loving father treats his children, and it also happens to be in conflict with mercy.
it’s a book… of claims… that people wrote, basically saying, “hey, god told me to tell you this and that you should believe me because he did a miracle for me… dont believe me, well he did a miracle for 500 other guys too, so you should believe me now… oh, and virgin had a baby, who was god and his own son, who died, the came back to life and flew into the sky, because that’s where heaven is… only a fool wouldnt believe me, but all the good, righteous people will.”
I mean, who wouldnt believe them?
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Mike:
Will you condemn your god’s wicked, immoral sins? Prove to us that you really do believe in unchanging, objective moral standards by condemning the sins of your god who’s behavior violates the moral standards of every major religion on the planet.
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“slavery was SMASHED with a bloody civil war where the “Christian” south was defeated.”
Well I am not surprised but you have proven yet again
your idiocy knows no end.
Slavery was abolished in Britain and in many of their world wide territories before any US Civil war and it was the likes of Wilberforce that inspired Lincoln so yes the tireless efforts of Christians inspired by the Bible eventually ended and smashed slavery.
Your foaming at the mouth and begging desperately that it not be so does not in the least change the historical facts. Sorry
Furthermore your embarrassing claims are even more hilarious since Abraham Lincoln himself professed belief in God and the Bible and EXPRESSED those beliefs in his own actions against slavery
You probably will need to Google up Abraham Lincoln to inform yourself of who he was too.
HInt he was not a car manufacturer…..lol
There s one overriding message you can take from this for yourself –
Stay in school
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did Abraham Lincoln express belief in the bible?
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and the civil war wasn’t fought to end slavery, it was just a result of the war. the civil war was fought over secession. The south wanting to leave the union, not because the union said slaves had to be freed.
but none of this has anything to do with the bible and the fact that the bible does not condemn slavery. Slavery was allowed in the OT and the NT tells slaves to be obedient to just and unjust masters and tells the master to be good to their slaves – it dont say jack about freeing them…
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ablackmansagain, slavery did not end until after 620,000 American “Christians” killed each other. FACT!
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reading up on Abraham lincoln, he evidently did seem to believe the bible at some point. It’s interesting because you can also find quotes where he is critical of the bible and Christianity…
maybe he would be at home here.
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I apologize getting in the way of you asserting what I’m going to say. I have the unpleasant habit of actually saying what I want to say.
You’re so busy trying to ‘knock down’ anything anyone presents that reveals your lack of understanding that you’re not thinking, not considering, not evaluating. You’re trying to defend your beliefs by attacking anything anyone says. That’s a tactic unconcerned with what’s true and knowable but used to deflect and that’s why you use the internet to cherry pick whatever appears to support your attack. Your agenda has nothing to do with learning.
Why did I raise mirror neurons? You don’t even ask because you don’t care. You simply do a quick search to find something that appears to ‘refute’ mirror neurons (the book title you quote doesn’t do this, by the way… which surprises me not at all that you fall for appearances)… assuming that by doing so you can ‘defend’ your denialism by pretending you have some hypothetical ‘expertise’ in neuroscience that supports your hypothetical ‘expertise’ in evolutionary biology. Of course, you have neither. But you think you know enough to ‘refute’ them. That’s why I point out the amount of arrogance and hubris you must maintain to continue to do this. That’s not smart; in fact, it’s a guaranteed method to remain credulous and gullible because you continue to presume that you know stuff you do not know and certainly don’t understand enough to think yourself positioned to ‘refute’ people who do.
You demonstrate again and again a closed mind that presumes to know stuff you do not know and then accuse others who see what you’re doing and don’t want to waste their time and effort being attacked and maligned by you – not for what they think or say or write but because they are targets of convenience for you to misrepresent. You then use your misrepresentation and attack it in order to claim a bizarre kind of victory… by keeping your flawed understanding unchanged to maintain your beliefs immune from reality’s arbitration of them.
Well, good for you. You have successfully not learned anything again. But if that’s what it takes to keep your beliefs strong, then I think you are only cheating yourself. And I think that’s quite idiotic.
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Let me bottom line this to save myself the time going round with a number of you
It really doesn’t matter how much any of you beg and moan, the facts are the Bible is very clear and unambiguous -when it comes to the equality of all men Christ died for all and all are one in him.
This affirmation was and is more powerful than addressing any single social flaw and reaches to the heart of all human rights issues. That clear message is what inspired Wilberforce, Lincoln and others that called for the end of slavery. Thats not a guess. Sorry boys and girls we have many of them on record as to what led them to their conclusions.
Its a historical fact none of you can change and especially not by posting comments on Nate’s blog…..LOL
This was Jesus M.O. There are countless issues he never addressed or rebutted either in first century Israel or First century Rome. Instead he focused on the underlying issues. Too bad for you all that the history of civil rights world wide came through Religion. It can’t be logically denied (but of course I know having no logic has never stopped any of you). Even today nut jobs every now and again use Darwinism to justify theories of inequality and thats because logically darwinism adheres to the idea of inequality as the human species “evolves”. Playing semantics games is all the Darwinist has to deny that.
Meanwhile we still await any great civil right social change atheism has wrought. Its achieved nothing of equal status rather it has been the underlying rational for many of the worlds most human rights unfriendy nations. China being but ONE such example.
Enjoy the rest of the week tripping over yourselves to beg that atheism has added anything the likes of what Wilberforce and company achieved because of their Christian faith.
It won’t stand on any logical grounds but boy will you beg and whine otherwise to no avail.
Don’t hurt your brain by twisting it like a pretzel. As Arnold would say “I’ll be back” 😉
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all the passages on slavery that gary copied and pasted are indeed very clear and speak well enough for themselves.
The bible is clear on the equality of people in Christ? only in that it says their equal in christ, and then clearly states that women are not equal to me (in every way other than in christ) and the slavery is okay.
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it is interesting we started off talking about slavery, and then when it was shown that the bible does condone the act, we now start talking about the civil war and how christians led the way to end slavery, as if that rewrites the bible. it doesnt.
and I am certain there were christians who could not reconcile slavery with parts of the bible, their faith and a loving god… but there were also christians who felt otherwise – that’s history too… so we’re back to the bible, and guess what, it just doesnt look too good.
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Mike:
Will you condemn your god’s wicked, immoral sins? Prove to us that you really do believe in unchanging, objective moral standards by condemning the sins of your god who’s behavior violates the moral standards of every major religion on the planet.
We are waiting for an answer.
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“pretending you have some hypothetical ‘expertise’ in neuroscience that supports your hypothetical ‘expertise’ in evolutionary biology. Of course, you have neither. But you think you know enough to ‘refute’ them”
Tildeb theres just no other way to say it.
You are a straight up bare faced liar. This is the second time you have claimed I presented myself as an expert on neuroscience. the first time even lying that I self professed it. Put up the quotes where I “self professed ” or are you just so utterly clueless you do not know what “self professed” means.
You should take a bow though. yet another atheist that betrays he has no morality without God. Lie on a dime when you can’t defend your dismantled points. News flash – You don’t need to be an expert to refute the claims of a non expert such as yourself. Your arguments were weak and your logic ill conceived and in need of its own education.
OF course the book does not refute Mirrored Neurons. Your nitwitedness knows no end. What it does do and it was referred to you before on the very basis is present evidence that people have overstated the veracity of their conclusions, that research continues and there is much we do not yet know.
You are a hack much like neuronotes. You dig up some research and then state some conclusion you would like the data to be interpreted as and then run with it like your conclusions are scientifically proven. You can lie through your teeth all you want. You brought up mirrored neurons in the context of a discussion about morality because you thought it would help to back up your dismantled argument.
Unfortunately for you I cut your off at the pass by making you fully aware that I know that we have yet to figure out what exactly mirrored neurons do and don’t do. Having been cut off at the pass for the second time you revert to your same old claim of my denying education because egad! I decline to be spoon fed unproven nonsense by a hack posting on wordpress comments…….LOL
Now was there anything at all in your last post answering my counterpoints? nope nada.
Nada being the sum total of most of our arguments anyway. See if by the weekend you can come up with at least one coherent backed by some evidence argument
until then the most I can give you is a d-minus.
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Just to clear things up a bit. We moral humans, seeking a better good for everyone, exercise “moral judgment”. We weigh the benefits and harms of a bad rule (slavery) and compare it to the results of using a new rule (no slavery). Once we realized the rather significant harm being inflicted upon the slave, we chose to make slavery illegal.
Lacking a “God’s eye view” of ultimate outcomes, two good and honest persons may disagree about the benefits and harms of one rule over another. And racial slavery was rationalized for a couple hundred years before the politics caught up with our moral evolution.
Religions, being an integral part of many people’s lives, may play two different roles in this process. The first, and most positive role, is to provide moral support to people seeking to do good and be good. In this sense, the church is like other support groups. The second role is more of a mixed blessing. The churches typically spread the current ethical norms, through sermons, Sunday schools, et cetera.
But all changes to ethics (rules, laws) begin with a new moral evaluation, and it doesn’t matter much whether the person making that realization is sitting in a pew or at home. It is a human process.
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@balksmanagain. “Too bad for you all that the history of civil rights world wide came through Religion.”
lol, sorry wrong again, gay civil rights did not come about world wide through religion. quite the opposite.
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the same with women’s rights.
http://www.heretication.info/_womensrights.html
Christianity and Women’s Rights
The souls of women are so small,
That some believe they’ve none at all.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680), Miscellaneous Thoughts
Historically the church’s position on this matter followed the Biblical texts such as Genesis 3:16 where God tells Eve that her husband will rule over her, and passages where wives are listed along with a man’s other goods and chattels. This view is comprehensively confirmed in the New Testament:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
(Colossians 3:18; cf. 1 Peter 3:1 and Ephesians 5:22)
… I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man…For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
(1 Corinthians 11:3 & 7-9)
Let your women keep silence in churches: for it is not permitted unto them; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also sayeth the law.
(1 Corinthians 14:34, c/f 1 Corinthians 11:3-9 & Timothy 2:11-12)
In line with these statements women were until recent times not permitted to speak in church, and they are still expected to cover their heads in church. Under Christian Emperors and bishops the rights that women had enjoyed under the Roman Empire were gradually pared away. As early as the fourth century it was decreed by a synod that women should neither send nor receive letters in their own name (Synod of Elvira, Canon 81). They were also confined to minor Orders and forbidden to sing in church. Later they would be deprived of Holy Orders altogether. In some Christian meetings they were obliged to sit apart at the back of the congregation. By AD 581 a church council at Mâcon was debating whether or not women had souls .
The great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas taught that women were defective men, imperfect in both body and soul. They were conceived either because of defective sperm or because a damp wind was blowing at the time of conception . Leading scholars accepted Aquinas’s teaching that women had a higher water content than men and that this made them sexually incontinent . Since they were so watery, weak and unreliable it became a fundamental premiss of Canon Law that they were inferior beings. Following Aquinas , Canon law decreed that women could not witness a will. Neither could they testify in disputes over wills, nor in criminal proceedings. Generally they suffered the same sort of legal disabilities as children and imbeciles. They could not practice medicine, law or any other profession, nor could they hold any public office. Here is a piece of reasoning from two famous Catholic scholars: After saying that women are intellectually like children they explain why women are given to the practice of witchcraft:
But the natural reason is that she is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations. And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives.
Protestant Churches were no better than the Catholic Church. It was Martin Luther himself who coined the phrase “A woman’s place is in the home” and in strongly protestant areas of Germany it is still commonplace to hear that women should concern themselves only with Kinder, Kirche, Küche (Children, the Church and Cooking). Luther also insisted on a man’s traditional Christian right to beat his wife. He also held firmly to the traditional line on a woman’s duty to bear children, even if killed her “If they become tired or even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth – that is why they are there” .
Under canon law a woman’s husband was both her sovereign and her guardian. In practical terms this meant that she could not legally own property or make contracts. Her property came under her husband’s control upon marriage. She could not sue at common law without his consent, which meant that in particular she could not sue him for any wrong done to her. If she deliberately killed him she was guilty not merely of murder but, because of the feudal relationship, treason .
At the time of writing it is still common in Christian countries for a married woman to be denied credit, and to require her husband’s consent for surgical operations. After all 1 Corinthians 7:4 states that “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband…”. (The bible goes on to state the converse – that a wife has power over her husband’s body – but cannon lawyers either missed this part or else deduced that it bore a completely different interpretation. As Gratian put it “The woman has no power, but in everything is subject to the control of her husband”.) In the words of the marriage service a married couple were one flesh and the canon lawyers held them to be a single person: erunt animae duae in carne una.
The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband.
It was this legal doctrine that gave rise to Dickens’ observation, put into the mouth of one of his characters, that the law is an ass . The doctrine enabled an Englishman to lock up his wife and not be liable for the tort of false imprisonment. He could beat her and not be guilty of assault. The same principle permitted him to rape her without the law recognising it as rape. A wife could not proceed against her husband, nor be called to give evidence in court against him. Most such constraints were done away with in Britain by Acts of Parliament in 1935 and 1945 in the teeth of fierce opposition from the organised Churches. In England it remained impossible for a man to be charged with the rape of his wife until the 1990’s. Civil remedies are still in general unavailable to wives against their husbands. Thus for example, a wife who is locked up by her husband would have to rely on a writ of habeas corpus, like a medieval vassal .
Unmarried women were also inferior beings, or as the Bible puts it weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7). Fathers were free to treat them as their personal property and swap them for other goods or for political advantage, which is what arranged child marriages often amounted to. Unmarried adult women were not permitted many of the privileges allowed by law to men, nor thought capable of fulfilling the duties expected of men. Like married women, they were prohibited from practising all professions and all but a few trades. In 1588 Pope Sixtus V even forbade them to appear on the public stage within his dominions. Soon the whole of western Christendom had banned actresses and female singers.
Well into the twentieth century women were debarred from sitting on juries, and were permitted only a few selected jobs such as school teaching and nursing, and even these they were generally obliged to give up when they got married. Women were so little regarded that until this century they were often excluded from Church membership rolls. No one knows with certainty how large some denominations were until recently because they did not count women in their membership statistics.
Throughout their histories, the Churches have consistently opposed women’s right to the franchise. Only after the Church’s influence had seriously weakened did women obtain the vote. In England this happened in 1918, when the franchise was extended to women over the age of thirty. Even now women do not enjoy equality in all spheres of life. In England, for example, the taxation laws and laws of inheritance still discriminate against them. At the time of writing there are areas of Europe where traditional Christian values prevail and women still do not have full voting rights . There is one area in the European Community, Mount Athos, where for religious reasons women are not even permitted to set foot.
The traditional position of the Church, that women were mere chattels of their husbands was challenged by the usual selection of freethinkers such as Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The atheist Mary Wollstonecraft published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. Her husband the philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836) was a campaigner for women’s rights, and so was their atheist son-in-law, the poet Shelley. Other prominent proponents included the unbelieving Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot, 1819-80), and Harriet Law (1832-97). The Utilitarian J S Mill launched the women’s suffrage movement in England with a petition to the House of Commons on 7 June 1866. He attempted to amend the 1867 Reform Bill to extend the franchise to women, and to stop discrimination under the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts. He published the Subjugation of Women in 1869. Other active campaigners included the atheists Holyoake (1817-1906), Bradlaugh (1833-91) and Besant (1847-1933). In France the argument for women’s rights was led by enemies of the Church like Denis Diderot and Condorcet, and much later in the USA by atheists like Ernestine Rose, Matilda Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony.
It seems that a disturbing number of men, bolstered by Christian attitudes, still assume that they have the right to subjugate, abuse and beat their wives . A sociological study in 1962 revealed that religious orthodoxy was positively correlated with social conservatism on issues such as women’s rights . It is notable that the Church continued to discriminate against women for years after such discrimination was abandoned outside the Church. It was not until 1970 that a woman was authorised to teach Catholic theology , and throughout the world Churches are still given exemption from sex discrimination legislation. Senior Anglican clergymen could still be outraged in 1996 at the idea of a woman playing the part of God in the York Mystery plays – denouncing it as paganism . Christian mainstream thought is now in the process of change. The more liberal sects have started ordaining women again, while the more traditional ones still hold out against it.
ONCE AGAIN I’VE PROVEN YOU LIAR!!!!!!
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“all the passages on slavery that gary copied and pasted are indeed very clear and speak well enough for themselves.”
Your selective reading of the Bible is no surprise William. its what you always do when presented with passages that counter what you say. There is not a single passage of scripture that says “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will” as Grrl claimed. Nada
What you do have in the OT are some rules regarding the keeping of slaves in a culture that already had them. You will find rules in the OT about divorce as well but equally God did not approve. Rules regarding kings but having a king not something God signed off on wanting. Even though genesis two makes it clear there was to be one man for one woman polygamy became the practice
As the passages I quoted before states- God let many things go he did not approve in a world full of sin but in the NT he calls all men to repent. Slaves in the NT must not be treated as slaves but as brothers and as such part of the family. This was critical to the practical considerations any slave disconnected from the household would face. they could not just go and get jobs anywhere they wished as they would today. Even in the US when slavery was abolished it meant little to many African Americans because they were still bound by economics having nowhere to go and live and no means to eat. Abolishing slavery didn’t instantly fix the concept of inequality which was the greater issue.
The Bible spoke to that more central issue and because of it men inspired by the Bible brought us the human rights today that allow for true and complete freedom from ALL KINDS slavery in most the world.
Just the facts. Your failure to see them not withstanding.
P.S. you can lie on the biblical text all you want . The Bible never teaches men are superior to women. It does teach that roles are different for men and women but that does not mean inequal though I am sure you will beg it does. in fact in Pauline doctrine its the job of a man is to love and honor his wife. She is to be the center of attention.
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“Your selective reading of the Bible is no surprise William. its what you always do when presented with passages that counter what you say. There is not a single passage of scripture that says “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will” as Grrl claimed. Nada” – ABlacksmanagain
I think you misread, as i didnt selectively read or cite anything.
and I certainly never said or agreed that the bible says, “thou shouldest keep slaves as my will.”
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding you have on that point.
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What you do have in the OT are some rules regarding the keeping of slaves in a culture that already had them. You will find rules in the OT about divorce as well but equally God did not approve.
You already had people murdering people, too, but allegedly Yahweh had no trouble issuing a decree NOT to murder. People committed adultery. Yahweh allegedly said, “thou shalt not.” So couldn’t he just as easily have issued decrees barring slave ownership and divorce? Issuing legislation over slavery and divorce may not signify approval, but it certainly doesn’t give the impression of disapproval either.
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wrong again
Leviticus chapter 25 begins with “The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai,”:
then it list a whole bunch of stupid shit down to verse 44-46 where the lord tells moses :
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.
so yes indeed the lord said keep slaves as my will.
so sad you have to lie to make your bible and your Christian beliefs make sense.
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