@Everyone
Sorry about the length!
@SupremeFaith
"Okay I'm not afraid to take the challenge but I'm not going to read every history book out there so whats a good one that you recommend that makes the best argument for your case?"
No, I don't expect you to read every book out there. I am rather impressed that you're willing to read at least one though. Most people we get through here have no interest in doing any such thing. Kudos to you.
As for a recommendation you might try When Religion Becomes Evil by Charles Kimball, who is a professor of comparative religion at the Divinity School of Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
While it doesn't specifically cover Christianity, rather religion in general--though Christianity and Islam are used as examples--it does try to show the warning signs of how religions slide into perpetuating, condoning or instigating "evil" in the world. Many of these signs fit Christianity quite well and show where it appears to be headed, and that it's not a recent development with the religion but that it has had these qualities for quite some time.
If you're interested in specific examples of Christianity allowing for, calling for or condoning violence and brutality you have to look no further than a history book on the Crusades, the Inquisition (specifically the infamous Spanish Inquisition), the Witch Trials (Salem is the most famous, though they were rampant throughout Europe, particularly in Germany I believe), the burning of books and "heretics" such as Giordano Bruno and others who did nothing but ask the wrong questions and follow them to their reasonable conclusions.
More modern examples are the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda and the Lambs of Christ group.
"There are bad religious people true but there are corrupt police officers too."
Agreed.
"If you follow the rules Jesus gave man you can't really do any evil."
Possibly. The problem is that nobody actually follows what Jesus taught. I've yet to see anyone sell all of their possessions and rely on faith alone that they'll be fed and clothed during their task of spreading the Word of God. Such people may, in fact, exist but I haven't met any.
"The problem isn't religion its with humans inability to follow Christ's teachings and that includes Christians too."
I'll agree to this. It's not the concept of religion that I'm necessarily against, though I do think it's rather pointless. Instead it's that people use religion to justify all manner of idiocy, brutality and bigotry.
"i mean what kind of evil can come from love your neighbor and love your god?"
Depends on what your concept of god is. Christians can't even agree on what the main tenets of their faith is (or else you wouldn't have all of the denominations you've got), let alone the nature of god. The Bible doesn't even seem to know for sure. In the OT it's pretty clear he's not much more than a tribal war god and by the NT he's full of love and peace.
"these are the two most important commandments that override everything else."
I'm aware of this. Sadly, most Christians do not seem to be. Again, kudos to you for actually being aware of this.
"I already talked about the problem with following the law of the land but to say it again the Nazis were also following the law of the land. That's not a good source of morality."
And I would agree for the most part. Unjust laws should not be followed, no matter who instituted them be it a god or a politician.
I don't believe we derive our personal morality from legal systems but rather a cultural morality of sorts. It's certainly not perfect and can be corrupted, as shown by your example. However, the legal system that humans have created for themselves is quite a bit better than anything you're likely to find in the Bible.
"Well Jesus was a different story. He died so that he can show the sacrifice he is willing to make for humanity and the people that killed him aren't guilty of murder because Jesus caused his own death to happen."
This is special pleading. Was Jesus innocent or not? If he was innocent then it was murder on their part and a "sacrifice" on his; if he was guilty then it was justified punishment and not a sacrifice.
Aside from that, the whole "sacrifice" issue comes up. Being "dead" for a weekend is not a sacrifice when you're an omnipotent, eternal entity. There was no sacrifice as nothing was lost. Nothing was given up. Jesus was no worse for wear. He, according to Christianity, is still alive and well. How is this a sacrifice in any sense of the word?
"You have to be sincerely sorry for the sin and try your best to not do that sin any more otherwise it doesn't count. let me use an example to show what I mean. Imagine you chopped down your neighbor's tree and you apologize for it. If the neighbor is a forgiving person he'll forgive you like Jesus would do. But if the neighbor sees you on his yard the next day doing the exact same thing with no effort to change he won't be so forgiving. You can only apologize so much until it becomes obvious that your not willing to change."
No such rules or limits exist in Christian theology, so far as I'm aware. You can be the sorriest S.O.B. to ever walk the planet and still get into heaven as long as you repent before dying. As I said, it doesn't seem to make any difference if you're commanded not to do something if you can "undo" it simply by asking to be forgiven.
"What exactly do you need for a person to be considered a human being?"
Independent viability of life for one. Consciousness would be another. A fully formed and functioning, obviously "human" body. Those would be my personal minimal requirements. I have no idea what the medical ethics boards consider to be "human" nor do I have the faintest idea what the legal definition is.
"Does the baby have to jump out of the womb and tell the doctor "don't kill me!!!"."
You realize that better than 80% of abortions are performed prior to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, right? At 12 weeks a fetus is not a "baby." And something like 40% to 60% of all pregnancies result in spontaneous abortion without any outside medical interference--often before the woman even knows she's pregnant.
"At what exact point does a baby qualify as human?"
I would call it "human" when it's fully formed and functional. I would not call it a "person" until it was actually born and could survive on its own. At the point that it is fully formed, I personally would not consider abortion a viable option without some pressing and dire need to do so, such as to save the mother's life.
"i already covered the problem with legalism in my reply so i won't go over it again but I will say that something being legal doesn't mean it's moral."
No, but it's certainly permissible. Our legal system should not be used to dictate morality but rather to ensure the safety and well being of its citizens, hence the reason abortion should remain legal: without it being legal you open up the opportunity for black market procedures which are entirely unregulated and a danger to the health and safety of the women who will be forced to use them as their only option for abortion.
"i'm not trying to use an emotional appeal I know that most of you probably don't care at all about abortion it was just the first example I could think of to show how relative atheism's morality is."
No problem.
I think you'll also find that most people around here are already aware of how relative atheistic morality--if you want to call it that--really is. We're also aware that all morality is relative and no such animal as absolute morality exists.
"One more thing how do you make bold words? I can't find the button that does that."
Words can be made bold by using the [ b ] and [ /b ] tags. Just remove the spaces inside the brackets. Similarly, [ i ] [ /i ] will make whatever is between them italic. Links can be posted using [ url ] [ /url ] or, to make a word/phrase into a link, [ url=http://www.yoururlhere.com ]Text You Want As A Link Here[ /url ].
Hope that helps.
Oh, and one more thing. Don't take anything I say too personally or too harshly. I'm sure I can come across as a bit of an ass at times but I don't mean anything by it. You seem to be quite a reasonable person. I hope you'll stick around.
