Yes, indeed. Even now, White Christians are no longer the majority in the USA. Shocking, isn't it?

thanks for the laugh, "but you're not "all that".

That was the conclusion I came to in 1965. Religion is interesting, but I could no longer believe in any of it. Too far-fetched, really.

That is a Judeo-Christian-Islamic meme. I have not gotten that message from what I've learned about Buddhism, Taoism (some may not consider that a religion), Hinduism, or various practices of Paganism. I'm sure you can find followers that think one of these is the one and only but I didn't pick up that message in my studies.

My claim was somewhat hyperbolic, but not by much.

An counter-example to the generally non-evangelism of buddhism is Nichiren Buddhism.

Another is the militant buddhism engaged in ethnic cleansing of Rohingya muslims in Burma (called Myanmar by the military rulers).

Yet another is the attacks the Hindus make on the Sikhs.

believe all religions are different paths to God...that God knew that men wouldn't agree and so provided different ways to God.

Were I to be religious, that would at least have some appeal to me.

Islam to a certain extent does believe that Christianity and Judaism are "People of the Book" and somewhat at least on the right path.
Granted, that's the liberal version of the religion.

I think anytime you get 2+ billion humans to agree on anything it's not something to minimize.

I'm not sure I know of too many religions that don't think theirs is the correct (and by definition most important) one.
I'm not sure why Christianity would be singled out for this belief vice Islam, or any of the other religions.

where we live. I'm writing for an audience that is almost exclusively American. So...

across multiple continents... N. America, even moreso S. America (where none of us live) and to a lesser extent Europe.

That includes all branches and brands, and you'll find that they don't agree from street corner to street corner, let alone Catholic to Orthodox.

there's at least some commonality there.

Point being, it's an impressive situation given how it started...doesn't make it any more real than any other religion of course, but it's not exactly mockable either.

The core myths of Christianity are ludicrous. Not the lofty blather: the story. It’s nonsense.

I think those who use it to harm others are mockable. Probably those who believe it the inerrant word of God are mockable.
Those who use it as a guide for positive morals and don't harm others, like many of the folks on here? Not so much.

I'd say the folks who are good Christians care more about the core values than the core myths.
The folks who are the bad ones care more about feeling superior and being part of a special club and getting to exclude others based on those myths.

about a man-god, the details of that story are ludicrous from start to finish.

If the morals are good, who cares?

as practiced by some, yes.

As someone else said, there are a ton of different versions of Christianity ranging from very good to very bad and everything in between.

Very curious to know. As are the billion Christians who disagree with you on which is which.

just like every other human ever.

People behaving badly don't generally think their actions are bad, you know.

actually people behaving badly often understand their actions are bad, they just either excuse it, ignore it, or aren't thinking when they do it.

So in your mind, you can't judge actions, but you should judge beliefs? Got it.

Can you read minds?

You are unable to answer the central question here - so you're simply dodging. Even you recognize the weakness of your position when you use weasel words like "often." You know there are people who sincerely think they are doing a good thing, yet are harming people. You can't fit them into your tidy little worldview where you have all the answers, and I think deep down that bothers you, but rather than deal with that, you lash out at those making you uncomfortable by asking these questions.

I implore you to really think about your position. Really, truly think. Understand that people can be quite convinced they are doing the right thing, even if it looks wrong to you. That you don't have the sole authority to determine what "good" and "bad" are.

Or you can just toss more snark at me. Your call.

Because I work with people who've committed crimes as a living. Most of them show remorse, most of them plead guilty. Almost all of them at least recognize they've done wrong, even if they don't really have remorse. Your proposal is that people don't even have the logical, rational capacity to recognize when they've done something wrong. That's amazingly silly.

And yes, sometimes folks harm others without intending to. And then when they find out they've done it, what usually happens? They feel bad for it.

Interesting though, I can't read minds, but apparently you can with that fervent psychoanalysis of what I feel "deep down."

I mean be consistent at least.

I said nothing about being "the sole authority of what is good and bad." I have no idea how that thought entered your brain.

There ARE people who do things that you and I consider bad, but they consider to be good.

They exist.

That you cannot acknowledge this exposes one of the biggest problems about religion.

So when I say the words "most" "almost" that means a couple of things:

1. That there are SOME, a tiny MINORITY who are amoral. We have names for them "psychopath" "sociopath"
2. Everyone recognizes this, you haven't stumbled onto some hidden truth.

I find it hilarious that you simultaneously call my recognition of this "weasel words" then turn around and say "I refuse to acknowledge it."

If I "refused to acknowledge it" I would have said "All" "everyone"

But if your grand point is that there are a tiny minority of people who are amoral, ummmm yeah...sure...and?

You are agreeing that some people are doing "bad" things while sincerely believing they are "good."

Thank you for conceding the point. At last.

But what remains for you to prove is:

1) Those people are a "tiny minority"

2) They are "amoral" as opposed to truly convinced that they are moral, and other people are not. Those people exist, even if you don't want to acknowledge them.

You said:

"People behaving badly don't generally think their actions are bad, you know."

I said, no, not true most people behaving badly know that their actions are bad.

I didn't say "all people think their actions are bad." I refuted your apparent belief that "generally" (which usually means "most" "a majority&quot don't think their actions are bad.

There is nothing "right" about that, and I didn't "admit" that some people do bad things believing they are good, by using the word most from the very beginning, I recognized that "some minority" (ya know, the part that's not included in "most&quot might not recognize right from wrong, aka be amoral.

It's the reason why we have the word Amoral vice the word Immoral. The latter group have morals, understand them, they just choose not to follow them...people who are amoral do not have morals at all. That group is very tiny.

You seem to think "person who disagrees with me" equates to "immoral" in and of itself...which is not surprising for someone who cannot separate individuals from groups and lumps folks together as if they are all the same.

But watching your contortions and wriggling is also fun.

we haven't had a myriad number of folks look at this from psychologists and ethicists, over literally centuries.

So basically this is one of those silly no one can know what moral is because it's all subjective trains you are traveling on.

There are all sorts of moralities that humans have pretty broad agreement on. Don't steal except in narrow, life-threatening circumstances, don't commit murder with a few exceptions like self-defense, defense of others. We have centuries and centuries of experience coming up with detailed and complex laws (aka moral rules) that look pretty similar whether in the US or Russia or Zimbabwe for the most part.

You seem to have hooked onto the few thorny areas where humans disagree as somehow evidence that one said is "behaving badly."

I don't think someone who is anti-abortion is "behaving badly." I think they are wrong, I disagree with them. That doesn't make their actions immoral, it doesn't make them "doing wrong."

There's a reason why gay marriage so quickly became "no big deal." Because people who had no experience with gay people started to be confronted with the harm homophobia and unequal treatment was doing and on at least some level, said, I don't want to be a part of that. And thus in a very, very short period of time gay marriage became the norm, in fact, the law.

That doesn't happen without recognition that prior positions were wrong, poorly thought out, or the ramifications not understood.

the giant blinding point you miss is that EVERYONE disagrees to some extent about what "good" and "bad" is. You have atheists who are libertarians and advocate for a world that I don't agree with and you have other atheists who are socialists who advocate for a world I agree with more or communists who advocate for a world I don't agree with.

That doesn't mean that any of them are "behaving badly" solely because they have beliefs different from me.

But apparently, for you, that's what "behaving badly" means which suggests you think the vast majority of humans behave badly.

They don't come to the same conclusions that you do.

morals are morals, in that the overarching concept of a moral system...there isn't some divider between them.

The systems one gets to reach those morals, the morals that one prioritizes over other morals are certainly very different, but the idea that "religious" morals are different qualitatively from "other" morals is downright silly.

You're creating arbitrary distinctions to set up the idea that religious morals are inherently different so that you can attack it.

If a religious person says...stealing is wrong, and a nonreligious person says, stealing is wrong...those are the exact same morals.

I said you determine good and bad from actions...I didn't limit it to "Christians" that's you. That's the whole problem with your viewpoint. I can "know" just as much about Christians being good or bad as I can about nonChristians. Everything I think I know about reality could be completely wrong. I could be the only person that exists and the rest of you figments of my imagination.

And yes people do know when they are committing a bad act most of the time. That's why we have guilt. The fact that folks disagree about what bad acts are is a SEPARATE thing. I said nothing about everyone agreeing on what bad acts are...but within each person's own moral system, they in fact do know when they have done something wrong.

You seem to be invested either in the idea that there is a single objective moral system, or that since there is disagreement on moral systems, there are no universal morals. You also greatly expand what a bad act is vice simply holding different opinions. Or more simply, you are so invested in "religion is a threat" that it blinds you to anything else.

Religion isn't a threat. PEOPLE are a threat. If religion didn't exist, the same people would present the same threats just from some other perspective.

That results in you are creating a simplistic strawman of what I'm saying so you can knock it down. You are then attempting to take the nuance and complexity I'm stating as "painting yourself into a corner."

The reality is you don't want a discussion, and you don't want to try and understand my perspective, so I'm done wasting electrons on you. Feel free to post some version of "

What is your basis? How do you do this?

You have yet to explain. I will not continue until you do. I am done with your distractions.

Most of them plead guilty because we have a criminal justice system that coerces people into plea bargained guilty pleas. You have to express remorse to get the fuck out of jail.

I have, both in defense and prosecution, trial and appeal, as well as training defense counsel. I've seen plenty of uncoerced confessions. Does that mean that there are not coerced ones? Of course not, those exist as well. The fact that our criminal justice system has serious flaws does not mean that everyone who pleads guilty or shows remorse is doing just to get out of jail or because they were coerced.

Most people who confess do so rather quickly without much in the way of discussion in my experience. I've watched the videos, heard the recordings. I've talked to my clients as a defense counsel who expressed remorse to me directly. Remorse to their victims, remorse to their families, and remorse to themselves.

Now my clients have been military, so maybe it's different in the civilian justice system, but I suspect not. People often make decisions without thinking, in the moment, without information, with pressure, or immaturely. They don't think through the ramifications until after. Doesn't excuse their conduct, but it informs it.

or have they just realized that the consequences of getting caught are not worth the risk? What do you think your remorseful criminals would do if they could commit a crime with 100% certainty they would not be punished? We don't have to ask, we already know the answer from history. Armies consisting of individuals who would never murder on their own have burnt cities to the ground and slaughtered the entire population, mobs have brutally lynched people, or, as we have seen recently, priests have raped children with impunity while their colleagues and superiors protected them.

years to figure out it is not ok to own people. Almost as long to figure out you don't burn people who disagree with you on doctrine.

if they could.

pretty sure non-Christians were owning folks right up until the end too.

Slavery isn't a religious problem, it's a human problem. There are some things you can lay directly at the feet of some religions...in the case of Christianity for example forced conversions, the destruction of indigenous people in the Americas, inhibition of science during long periods of time due to orthodoxy in Europe.

There are other things that were going on all over the world regardless of the religion involved. Slavery being one of them. Humans took a long, long time to figure out any morality besides might makes right, regardless of religion...and we actually haven't quite gotten past that yet.

Atheists have morality, agnostics of which I am have morality, and religious people have morality.

Often those moralities overlap in significant ways, sometimes they do not, again in significant ways.

You don't need religion to have morality, but that also means you can have morality WITHIN religion.

If someone gets to the right point because they've logically sussed out the correct ethical path using ethical precepts, and someone gets to the right point because of their religious beliefs...then why in the hell do I care which path they took so long as they arrive at the right point?

I focus on actions, results, not on dogma and doctrine (or the lack thereof).

Of course it is.

It’s morals, a different topic, are all over the place, are apparently whatever you want them to be, and in practice for the last 1800 years or so pretty hideous.

the accomplishment of gaining the support of a third of humanity while starting as a fringe group in a backwater part of the Roman Empire wasn't mockable. My claim was there's no point in mocking those who are good people, with good morals who are also Christians.

Do you mock Obama? Is he mockable? He's a Christian after all.

I thought you were claiming that the religion, it’s foundational myths, it’s holy texts, it’s theology etc weren’t mockable. They certainly are. Instead I think you are actually claiming that the religion’s spectacular rise is “unmockable”. Is that correct?

"I think those who use it to harm others are mockable. Probably those who believe it the inerrant word of God are mockable.
Those who use it as a guide for positive morals and don't harm others, like many of the folks on here? Not so much.

I'd say the folks who are good Christians care more about the core values than the core myths.
The folks who are the bad ones care more about feeling superior and being part of a special club and getting to exclude others based on those myths."

and this

"Point being, it's an impressive situation given how it started...doesn't make it any more real than any other religion of course, but it's not exactly mockable either."

are unclear. Honestly I don't understand.

And mocking is a pretty nasty thing to do to someone. IMO it should be saved for when it's necessary. Like I said, if someone is using religion to harm someone, mock the fuck out of them. If they use religion to replace logic and reason (young Earth creationists cuz the bible says so), mock the fuck out of them.

If they are decent folks living decent lives doing decent acts, then what is someone trying to accomplish by mocking them other than being an asshole?

You might or might not be a silly person for holding a silly belief.

particularly when it's one as centrally held as religion (or lack of religion).

I wouldn't take it any better to see a theist mock an atheist or agnostic simply for being part of that cohort.

We rightfully castigate those folks who attack all Muslims as if they are responsible for the acts of a tiny few of them.

Same principle. And as I've said before we ALL hold a set of "silly beliefs." None of us have objective reality on lock.

Go right ahead and mock atheist non-beliefs.

“We rightfully castigate those folks who attack all Muslims as if they are responsible for the acts of a tiny few of them. ”

And you have again conflated the religion with the believers of that religion.

“Muslims are misogynists ” is directed at a group of people.

“Islam is a misogynistic religion” is directed at a belief system.

feat of hair-spllitting you've accomplished.

Be sure to tell individual Muslims you meet about that difference, see what they say.

... and executing disobedient children.

If those morals are dismissed as obsolete even though they are covered in the instructions, how about some more contemporary ones?

You know like beating children, treating women as subservient 2nd class citizens, homophobia, along with a few other reprehensible “morals” all taught as part of their doctrine and dogma. So how many exactly aren’t harming people? Seems like something less than 2 billion.

I'm also sure something less than 100% of atheists and agnostics are good people.

I'm pretty sure some atheists and agnostics beat children, treat women badly, are homophobic or have other reprehensible morals they were taught...whether from "dogma and doctrine" or simply a poorly developed individual morality. The end result is the same.

So to sum up...one of us focuses on acts, and one of us focuses on "dogma and doctrine" regardless of acts.

I know which one is more rational, logical and objective.

There's no institutions of atheism that instruct people in homophobia and sexism. For prevention of lazy thinking, see...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

reading comprehension is not your strong suit is it?

I said exactly the opposite, that one of us focuses on acts, and one of us focuses on dogma and doctrine.

So one of us cares not much for "dogma and doctrine" and never said anything about atheists having either.

And one of us knows that when you focuses on acts instead, you don't have to worry about "false equivalence."

But hey, kudos for the wiki link.

As there is no doctrine and dogma that goes with atheism, a fact which provides proof of your false equivalence. Is this really so hard for you, or are you just being obtuse? Either way another example of lazy thinking.

point out where I said "atheism" has a doctrine and dogma.

I'll wait.

OK, I didn't.

Now, for the third time...and find someone to explain the big words to you if you are struggling with them...the whole point of my posts is IDGAF about doctrine and dogma. I care about actions. If someone thinks the FSM is real, and compels them to do good in the world in the name of Pasta, and then they, wait for it, go out and do good in the world, then IDGAF about their belief about the FSM, or what doctrine or dogma they use to get to the right answer.

If someone has no doctrine and dogma, and does evil in the world, then IDGAF that they don't have any doctrine or dogma.
If someone has doctrine and dogma and does evil, then I also don't care that they have a doctrine and dogma, I care about the acts that they do. There are all sorts of ways to get to the right answer, and there are all sorts of ways to get to the wrong answer. Two people can use the same doctrine and dogma, and be saints or assholes. Two people can have no doctrine or dogma and be saints or assholes.

Now do I have to explain this a fourth time to you?
Do you perhaps have an adult, or teacher, or someone for whom English is a first language that you could have explain this to you?

I’m not going to address a fallacy other than to call it out as such. Feel free to repeat it if you must.

there are no adults who can read and explain the big words to you in your proximity.

So please do keep pretending you're the only one who gets it. Kinda funny to watch at this point. I'm more than happy to...

Using it to support your morals gives it power, and others use that power to support their beliefs, like women are responsible for all our problems. The whole Christ myth is based on that, no matter how you slice it it comes back to Adam and Eve, where ever takes the blame.

We can be good without good, probably better.

which a lot of people do.

The good ones, or the bad ones?

Again, how do you tell the difference? Are you the sole authority? Is someone else? How does that work?

Really? So Obama discriminates against those groups? He's a Christian.

So all the Christians here on DU do that?

Such a lazy thought process.

There's a reason there are thousands of denominations of Christianity, and probably millions of independent practitioners, each one of them absolutely certain that they are right and that everyone else is doing it wrong. However, there are certain things that more of them have in common than not.

So, in the US, Christians are much more likely to discriminate against women, LGBTQ people, and religious minorities than non-Christians are. Most of them who do those things consider them to be good and positive acts, in accordance with the will of their god. The majority of Christian voters in 2016 voted for Trump, and would enthusiastically do it again if given the chance. What we don't see, and have never seen, is any tendency for Christians as a group to behave any better than non-Christians do as a group.

It's really only a matter of degree which ranges from encouraging genocide to forced conversion "therapy" to discouraging sexual preference and gender identities that contradict the one which has been divinely assigned.

Almost as many discriminate against women as well, and that too is a matter of degree.

who were "absolutely certain" of very little.

They were/are muddling their way trying to figure out right from wrong just like the rest of us.

A majority of White people voted for Trump. Are you white? Should I just assume every White person voted for Trump, and are bad people because they belong to a group of which some, even a majority, voted for him?

Or should I ask...who did you vote for, what do you believe, and then act accordingly?

One's lazy, one's thoughtful. I'm used to liberals being part of the latter group, but apparently not so much in this thread.

"The majority" of a group does not mean "every" member of the group. Pretending that you don't know this is a very bad way to make whatever point you're trying to make.

"here's a reason there are thousands of denominations of Christianity, and probably millions of independent practitioners, each one of them absolutely certain that they are right and that everyone else is doing it wrong."

Explain to me which word there means "majority?"

Because I read "each of them" as "all"

So what simple English word am I missing there that makes it "majority."

Thanks.

If they don't believe Christianity is true, they aren't Christians, by definition. Similarly, members of a particular denomination believe the beliefs and practices of their denomination are correct. If they thought some other denomination was doing it right, they would switch.

This really isn't all that difficult.

if by true you mean all of it without doubt or question, or if by true you mean "everyone else has it wrong."

They certainly consider themselves "Christians" so your proclamation would be a surprise to them I think.

I know plenty of pro-choice Catholics. In my experience, most religious folks pick and choose which parts to believe or follow in, from the folks who are "strict constructionists" to the folks who really just look at Jesus as a wise teacher and focus on the Golden Rule aspect and not much else.

There's a pretty wide variety there, much wider than you are making it.

Where do I find the church of Obama?

he belongs to a Christian group that doesn't discriminate?
Or is it that he isn't really a Christian?

Now take him and multiply it by a lot of people, including the millions and millions of Democrats, liberals and progressives who fight for equal rights and fight the good fight every day and also happen to be Christians and belong to a "Christian group."

You seemed to have skipped over that a couple times now.

"the content" of what you've said. If you can't figure it out after all the posts in this thread, I don't know what to tell you.

You are claiming that because Obama is a Christian, then it's all ok, or something. I'm saying that people like Obama still holding onto the myth empowers the myth and lets the people like Pat Robertson use it for bad things.

I didn't say or even remotely imply all Christians. So was this lazy thinking or intentional strawman rhetoric?

lmao. If you didn't imply it, maybe you should have written a wee bit more than you did to clearly establish what you mean.

If I say/talk about how individual Christians do have good morals, and your response is to say simply "what about these two bad things" and then protest you didn't mean all Christians?

Give me a break.

Because continuing to include it empowers it and others use that empowerment to enforce the nasty parts.

You are stating that as if it's a truism. It isn't. Folks will take from a myth whatever they want to take from it. They will take from a moral code whatever they want to take from it. Either that's good stuff or bad stuff. And the good or bad acts that follow.

The myth has very little to do with that. How do we know this? Because of the vast gambit of actions from members of whatever religion you want to name, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, whatever...that run a wide gamut from amazingly pure and good, to obscenely evil and bad.

So you could also have included them.

Meanwhile there’s no shortage of Christians who are exclusionists who think everyone but them are going straight to hell, including other Christians.

is vastly different than the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or traditional Protestant belief (Triune God). Even the Muslims believe in Jesus as an important prophet - so are they Christians as well?



https://www.mormon.org/blog/do-mormons-believe-in-the-trinity
Mormons believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct personages. They are separate beings united in the purpose of bringing all of God’s children back to His presence, but They are not one singular being. Together They comprise the Godhead.