Dwalin2010

I agree with Chiki completely. While I am never good at providing "proof" by pure logic and incontrovertible facts, I don't understand why defending the rights of innocent people to live and condemning the ones who deprived them of life should even need that. Whatever "logical" explanation for the soldiers' actions there may be, scattered pieces of a child's body torn apart by a bomb imo are the best argument agaist any justification of violence, whether this violence is due to soldiers being "stressed by circumstances" or not. Why? A dead body (especially that of an innocent) is always a dead body.

I personally find it strange. But if hatred won't bring back the dead, then what's the purpose of any kind of law enforcement and legal punishment existing on Earth then? Because a conviction of a felon never brings back the victim, in plenty of cases it can't be even explained with the reason of "him not harming other innocents in the future", because for example if it happened decades ago like with the nazi criminals, they aren't dangerous anymore, yet the law still is after criminals even in cold cases.

But this is only if we consider war a normal and natural thing by default. Real life war is always horrible, it's not like a computer game. By the way, I often ask people who justify war a question, that never receives a direct and explicit answer: What would you say if you some close relatives of yours were killed in a war?

But it's not a computer game. Soldier or not, patriot or not, when you do your first killing, isn't this always a big stress for a normal person, when they see all these blood splashed, smashed skulls, human intestines outside in pieces etc? It's not like a person can simply say "this is my country, I will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to enforce its position".

I understand, but then it's unlikely I would be ever be in that situation anyway (at least I would have done everything I can to prevent it). Could become a conscientious objector, desert from the army etc. And besides, I don't think they would have accepted me anyway even if I wanted to, because I have a very weak sight (-9 on every eye) and suffer from asthma since birth. It's way better not to be in that situation anyway, rather then becoming psychologically twisted after all the battleground experiences and having a weight from war crimes on my conscience.

I am sure I wouldn't resist torture (I admit that I am weak and not tough, and I don't blame McCain for cracking under torture), but to pull a trigger on an innocent, this should require a big psychological effort. I am not saying I would pretend to be a hero and making speeches against the commander, I would probably simply freeze when ordered to pull the trigger and be unable to move (even if it's sign of psychological weakness, don't you think it this case it's better being "weak" than being "strong" enough to force yourself to pull the trigger?).

I agree with every single word. Killing innocents can be never justified in my opinion, no matter if you are the commander who gives the order or the shooter who executes it. If the situation is so extreme, the most honorable thing would be simply to refuse obeying such an order and even face the military court. I can't say about every other person, but for me personally it would be easier to go to jail for a long time than pulling the trigger on somebody NOT in self-defense and living with it through the whole life. I mean, after a military court conviction you will serve your time, get out and continue to live with a clear conscience, while if you kill somebody innocent, it will be like serving a life sentence till you die from a psychological point of view.

Sorry, but this statement seems shocking to me. If we distance ourselves completely from reality and reason on a purely abstract/philosophical point of view, then ANY action might theoretically be defined like that, but in real life, imagine how you would deal with somebody who tries to eat a child alive. I understand it might be interesting to somebody to reflect in abstract ways, but "eating children" is just too much....

"Doesn't mean it's the case"? By itself the sentence (considering how it's worded) sounds like "it's not true that eating children alive isn't ok". I hope you didn't mean that eating them alive IS ok or that you would be willing to have anything to do with somebody who eats them alive?

Well, to everybody: the points you make are good, I don't really have much to say anymore, except that faith vs logic is indeed a tricky thing to make a choice in terms of "which one is better" or "trying to make them compatible". Therefore I think it's better if I just agree to disagree and respect your point of view, even still maintaining my personal beliefs.

I don't know for sure, nobody can KNOW 100%. But the religious people I personally know give a good example in my opinion. If they interpret religion in a certain way and that makes them better, who we are to say religion is bad by default? If a person doesn't harm anybody and does quite the opposite and religion plays a role in it, I see no point in renouncing religion for that person. Everybody has their own way to become a moral person.

Those are good questions. However, maybe be Old Testament was initially meant for one culture only (the Jews), the improved codes of law that already existed before that were in other cultures (Egyptians, Hittites etc). Why suit the Stone Age? Maybe because he wanted to keep his intervention to the minimum, didn't want to "magically" radically change everything. I don't know. However, I would like to hear the answers to these questions myself, you make interesting points. And that's sad. Such people ruin religion when it could be an instrument of morality and hope. To be honest, I maintain my religious beliefs partially because I try to take example from the Christians I personally know, who are almost all honest, welcoming, friendly and helpful people. Maybe it's because of the "so that" phrase? In the Russian translation I read it's not "so that" they won't be forgiven or that "this is the objective". It's worded differently, but in no way it means that he wants to cheat the people in going to hell. Wait a minute, I will try to translate.

It sounds cynical on my part, but maybe people back then just understood it better this way? Those were cruel pre-medieval times, people were less merciful, even the Old Testament with all its ferocity theoretically seems an improvement compared to the Stone Age for example (at least it brought SOME rules).

Are you sure this isn't your personal interpretation? Of course, I don't have the WHOLE Bible memorized, but Jesus blatantly admitting he WANTS people to go to hell and doing so ON PURPOSE, this simply isn't the case even though I too would have preferred him to speak more often directly and less in parables. To be honest, this one has bothered me forever either. However, the priest in the church I am going to says that in a certain sense "animals are more sacred/innocent than ourselves" (at least how I manage to translate it from Italian). Many Christians I know hope our beloved pets will be with us in the after-life. For the rest of the quotes, if they are to be interpreted literally, this does indeed create unpleasant reflections for religious people. However, I think that the "cutting the feet off", "burning" forever in hell etc are still allegorical things, it would be too primitive for a supreme being like God to use real-life fire and literally "fry" the sinners. I don't believe Jesus really meant an eye or an arm could literally tempt a person to commit a sin, they are just part of bodies. One person can tempt another, but an arm or an eye? I know it's too convenient to say everytime "it's an allegory", but in this case I am pretty sure, since it would be too primitive for a supreme being like God to literally do such things. By the way, even though it's kind of off-topic, anybody here has read the short story "The Great Divorce" by Clive Staples Lewis about his imaginary representation of hell and paradise? I know it's not from the Bible, but if hopefully the "fire and tortures" in hell for the sinners are an allegory, then I prefer very much this kind of vision of the Christian after-life. I mean, people in hell suffering morally only because of their own unwillingness to become good-hearted and less cynical and ready to blame others for everything, and perceiving the Paradise as something useless and boring, therefore simply not understanding it, not wanting to be there, being out of place in a place of supreme good. P.S. The last paragraph of my post isn't really meant as an argument to prove a point, just a mere curiosity.

While I agree with your previous posts, I don't undestand whether you say that the abortion situation is obvious meaning that it "should" or "shouldn't" be legalized (I personally consider it murder since not even the most convinced abortion supporters would want to be in the aborted baby's place)? And, how does saving a president make the massacre of children more morally acceptable or less black-and-white?

That's new to me, so thanks for the information. However, I definitely disagree with this quote, hopefully it's just Timothy's personal opinion, not God's. But I must agree that this quote certainly doesn't contribute to religion from a moral point of view.

The Old Testament is full of cruelty and injustices; theoretically the New Testament was needed just for that, to set things right; if science and religion contradict each other, then there is also no less contradiction between the 2 Testaments. Another example: they talk about animal sacrifices, burning their flesh, and this allegedly is "a smell that Our Lord likes" or something like that. Surely not something compatible with the concept of a merciful incarnation of Supreme Good that God incarnates. I think no moral religious person would consider the Old Testament as even a part of their moral guidelines in life.

Do you mean this? But what's wrong with stating it's not scientifically possible to disprove the existence of God? Posters above said it's simply "not needed", so why should people worry at all whether it's possible to prove or not? Well, it depends on how Heaven is actually presented. I don't think it's that simple as the medieval Christian hell where people are fried by devils or the Muslim Paradise where people are womanizing with multiple virgins. Those are primitive views, in this I agree with the atheists.

It's a matter of faith of course, and because people want to hope for the better. Pure emotionless rationality would make the world too dry in my opinion, and basing life on the belief there is no after-life, no immortal soul, no "supreme good", and that there is only "emptiness and void" after death would make my personal perception of life "boring" (in the better of cases) or "hopelessly desperate" (in the worst of cases). I wasn't even religious until my teens. Don't know about other religious people, and call me "weak" or "delusional" if you want, but you said you wanted to know the religious people's position, and I give you mine. I think it's better if I am finished with the discussion, the only thing I would ask beforehand to everybody who want to reply to this post is please not to be condescending or rude, after all I have been respectful towards your beliefs.

I don't think anyone had said anything "outrageous" in this topic except for a few cases when it came to personal attacks (not on your part). As for "disproving", with this word I mean "presenting counter-arguments". If a thing n.1 is proven and its existence excludes the possibility of the existence of thing n.2, you can say that "thing n.2" is "disproven". At least that's what I meant, sorry if that's not correct from a linguistical point of view. And just to be clear: I don't absolutely mind people having points of view completely opposite to mine, I respect the point of view of any atheist who calmly present their arguments.

Forgot about one quote in the previous post: I don't believe in the existence of pink unicorns, but isn't the formulation "it doesn't exist because it doesn't exist" by itself a bit lacking of logic? If I said "God exists because he DOES exist and that's all", would you have taken me seriously? Curiosity: are you a scientist yourself? How close you are to the science research? That's not to mock you or be ironical, I am genuinely curious.

Yes, but do you agree at least that there may be some discoveries that maybe wouldn't seem "fit" or "logical" to you at all if announced "today"? I mean, if we talked about television and bombs in the middle ages, wouldn't we be considered nuts and "illogical" even by people who didn't blindly follow religion?

That's a weird position. On one hand, you admit you can't disprove the existence of something, on the other you say we should reject its existence. What if science in the future will be able to prove the existence of such things? Won't your today's argument seem outdated then? If something can't be proven or disproven, ignore it as irrelevant to the CURRENT state of science, but acting like you "know" it doesn't exist is a strange approach unless you 100% REALLY KNOW it doesn't. Tell me anyway please, do you believe science does evolve and there possibly will be more discoveries in the future than we can't think of today? Just to understand you position better.

One last thing: I don't really match that statement; I wouldn't be offended by this at all and freely admit that unfortunately I don't know about it as much yet to be qualified an "expert"; I am not a priest or a historian.

I guess you could put me into the bolded part category if we take everything the Bible says "literally". But who says it's the right approach? I don't know which part should be taken as an allegory and which shouldn't, but can you prove that my rather too free-thinking taking on Christianity is the wrong one? We are not in the middle ages when the inquisition could fry a person for having a "weird" personal belief or interpretation about religion.