A song for today, March 20

[guillaumeb]

Francis of Assisi is credited with this prayer, which reads, in part:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Read more: http://www.lords-prayer-words.com/famous_prayers/make_me_a_channel_of_your_peace_lyrics.html#ixzz4bu0k8o6W

[guillaumeb]

1. In the time of Trump, so to speak,

it can be difficult to realize that we must answer hatred with love.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. What happens if god responds and says to kill someone? What will you do then?

1 Samuel 15:3, kill everyone in Amalek.
Numbers 21:3 Kill the Canaanites.
Numbers 31:17-18 Kill the Midianites.

Let's be clear, according to that book, god ordered those people to slaughter even children.

What happens when you pray and you hear back and it's in the form of an order to kill? Will you tie your child to a stone and pick up the knife, if your creator tells you to? Will you even hope that the creator will relent at the last second and yell JUST KIDDING? Or will you just obey? What happens when your creator tells you to do something that YOU know is immoral? Will you do it? Have you the courage to say 'no' to a god? Abraham didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac

Since when is the abrahamic god a god of peace, love, pardon, or joy? Even the new testament has shades of megalomania.

Matthew 10:34

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' "Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Do you have the moral conviction to reject that?

Is your creator the source of your morality, or are you? Do you differentiate?

[guillaumeb]

3. Embrace the song of peace.

Focus on the essential message.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. So, cherry pick then based on YOUR current personal morals?

Why pretend to have a god at all?

[guillaumeb]

5. Embrace the essential message.

And in the embracing, do to others as you would have them......etc.

[trotsky]

6. Who decides what the "essential message" is?

Isn't that kind of the problem with your religion and its umpteen hundred sects?

[guillaumeb]

7. It might be a problem for some.

Do you believe in diversity of belief?

Do you believe in tolerance for that diversity of belief?

[trotsky]

8. I don't need to "believe" in diversity of belief.

It simply exists. Hundreds of religions, thousands of sects and cults. I'll criticize any of them when they intrude on human rights - including yours.

[guillaumeb]

9. Diversity only exists when it is allowed.

Exists in the sense of being allowed to exist openly. People must be convinced of the need to believe in, and tolerate, diversity.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. How gracious of you.

[guillaumeb]

14. Simply realistic.

Intolerance is widespread among humans. Believers, non-believers, all exhibit intolerance.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. Some more than others.

[trotsky]

20. I'm not going to tolerate bigotry.

When I encounter it (as I did with your daily devotional posts from the bigoted hate site), I'm going to fight it - not tolerate it.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Does that belief require you to shit on others for who they love, what they do

with their bodies, etc?

Are we talking about that strange situation where I'm supposed to be tolerant of religious beliefs, yet vast swaths of religious people in this country aren't tolerant of me? Don't tolerate people of non-binary supposed biblical gender or sexuality? Don't tolerate women to manage their own bodies and reproductive functions? Tolerance like that?

Because if that's the case, you're going to find me pretty intolerant.

Do what thou wilt, so long as you harm none. If religious rules are opt-in and people choose it, fine. But the second religious people head to the ballot box to impose their moral rules on others... we have a problem.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. A philosophical concept older than christianity and in no way dependent upon any of the baggage that

comes with 'god'.

I don't need a 'message' to know that.

[guillaumeb]

11. Religion seems to be a part of humanity, and seems to have existed very early.

Evidence of religion is seen in very early human societies.

Perhaps religious belief is the default condition associated with human sentience. A need.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Humans seem predisposed to it.

A majority, are anyway. There may be an evolutionary mechanism by which such social rules and order may have formed. It may have helped us survive even if it was manufactured out of whole cloth, and god was made by man in his image.

I certainly don't need it anymore.

[guillaumeb]

17. I agree that it might be one survival mechanism.

As to where it came from, I feel it was inspiration.

Whatever works.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. Problem is, it doesn't.

How many thousands of years has christianity had to alleviate poverty? Predominantly Christian Europeans that settled America have, ever since murdering the indigenous peoples, and enslaving more from Africa, done nothing to address income inequality.

In fact inequality is currently on the rise, still. Apparently a lot of rich people that think they can fit through the eye of a needle better than a camel.

I only know one way to fit a camel through the eye of a needle. It involves a juicer, and it's not much good as a camel afterward.

[trotsky]

16. Scholars Are Reassessing Saint Francis of Assisi

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/22/local/me-religfrancis22

Kenneth Baxter Wolf, a history professor at Pomona College, is less of an admirer. "There was something about Francis that bugged me for a long time," said Wolf, author of a new book, "The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered," which is being released this month.

In his book, Wolf criticizes St. Francis for imitating the poor, an act that brought him adulation, rather than using his resources to alleviate poverty.

For instance, Francis "hung out with lepers to make a statement to his former social class," said Wolf. "This did nothing for the lepers, but everything for Francis."

...

"The book is not simply an iconoclastic poke in the eye," Wolf said. "The kind of spirituality that Francis represents may be doing more harm than good, and it's time Christians and other admirers of Francis ruminated about that for awhile."

[Heddi]

19. Kind of like Mother Teresa

required that patients suffer without pain medications, and that they live in squalor because suffering brought one closer to Christ, but when it came to her own medical care, only the best for her.

[trotsky]

21. Right.

A lot more to the story - but it's stuff that makes the "saint" look bad, so those who are interested in saints as vehicles to promote their religion don't like to talk about it.

[Heddi]

22. Remember, only positive stories of Religion are apparently allowed

Anything that paints the Church, or Saints in a realistic or, God forbid (heh) negative way must not be allowed!

[AtheistCrusader]

25. But but but.... she glowed in a photograph!

[guillaumeb]

24. I believe Wolf is being short-sighted.

By publicizing a problem, Francis was arguing for a solution and acceptance of the condition. Wolf seems to be assuming that Francis did it for himself.

This tactic obviously worked for Wolf in that he received some media attention, which allows HIM to promote his own book.

Motivated by the money, Professor Wolf?

The type of attention that Wolf apparently craves might be doing more harm than good for the reputation of academia, and it is time that admirers of scholarship should consider this.

[trotsky]

26. So ad hominem, eh?

http://pages.pomona.edu/~kbw14747/wolf1.htm

Kenneth Baxter Wolf
The John Sutton Miner Professor of History and Professor of Classics

Chair of Classics and Coordinator of LAMS (Late Antique-Medieval Studies)

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1985, History: Medieval Europe. Dissertation: "Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain: Eulogius of Cordoba and the Making of a Martyrs' Movement." Gavin I. Langmuir, Director.
Master of Arts, Stanford University, 1981, History: Medieval Europe.
Bachelor of Arts, Stanford University, 1979, Religious Studies with Distinction and Departmental Honors.

Your comment about him being simply motivated by money is disrespectful and insulting, and an ad hom.

[guillaumeb]

27. You do realize that it was a question, and not a statement?

Good. Then your accusation is unfounded. As is the Professor's premise, given that it his personal view of another's motivation. So is Wolf guilty of an ad hominem argument?

[trotsky]

28. No, and I'm sorry that you don't understand what ad hominem means.

Fortunately most readers of this thread probably do.

[guillaumeb]

29. Well, one of us does not.

But your seeming defense of Wolf's contorted attempt at analysis does serve your position.

Is Wolf also a psychologist with special expertise in analyzing or attributing the possible motivation of deceased people?

[trotsky]

30. It's an opinion piece.

And presented as such. Your opinion may differ of course.

[guillaumeb]

31. I am flattered again.

Thank you.

[trotsky]

32. OK

I guess you have your own personal definition of "flattered" as well.