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Discussion for "practice religion comments others menu owen"

Comment by Jim on 2006-08-17 at 14:47:05:

The fact is that many so-called Christians have done bad things but they weren't following Jesus' teaching so they weren't real Christians. Also, non-Christains have been responsible for far more atrocities so if everyone was a Christian we would be a lot better off. Do some research and you will see this is true.

Comment by OJB on 2006-08-17 at 19:27:58:

OK, you are creating a bit of a circular argument here. Christians are always good because if they are not then they aren't really Christian. I wonder if anybody is really a Christian then. The fact is that these people specifically did these terrible things because of their beliefs, and they specifically classified these beliefs as Christian.

I agree that some atheists have also done "evil" things, but not because they were atheists. For example, the atrocities of communist Russia were political in origin, not religious. It wouldn't matter what religion (or lack of religion) they were, the outcome would be the same (or similar).

So religion is a common source of violence, but lack of religion isn't. Therefore I would contend that you are totally wrong: we would be better off in no one was a Christian (or any other religion).

Comment by Anonymous on 2007-04-01 at 21:58:44:

Strictly speaking no-one is truly Christian. Most people can only approach the Christian ideal - that is adherence to Christ teachings which as we well know are, simply put, love. No one can fault that and therefore if everyone was Christian, we wouldn't have a problem in the world. But of course Christians are people, and so are flawed.

Some 'Christians' of the past did some decidedly bad things. To put it in context but not excuse the behavior, the crusades were a punctuation mark in the history books compared to the Islamic conversion of India and Asia. And today we find Christians are by and large, quite a peaceful lot compared to various other systems. If you really want to pick issue with a religion which still elevates and practices dark age dogma, make Islam you first port of call. Everything from slavery to beating your wife is still endorsed by many and supporting passages can be found in the Koran.

Nothing resembling this can be found in the New Testament. As for Russia, the millions that died were a direct result of the political system and disrespect for life that atheism can breed in (some not all) individuals.

Comment by OJB on 2007-04-02 at 10:26:59:

Strictly speaking no one is truly anything. For example, I doubt whether any scientist has ever fully lived up to the ideal standards of objectivity we want from science. What we have to do is base our assessments on what people actually are, not what they could be.

As far as the relative number of atrocities perpetrated by different groups are concerned. The evil behaviour of atheist regimes isn't because they are atheist. Most of the problems in Russia were politically motivated, and nothing to do with atheism.

I agree that other belief systems, eg Islam, also regularly exhibit very evil (I use that word in a non-religious way) behaviour, and that currently Christianity is relatively well behaved, but when it comes down to one just being a little bit better than the other, that doesn't really speak very highly of any of them.

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