Ted Cruz direct quote
- Thread starter qazplm
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1. I didn't say that, you did. As to your claim that more people have been harmed in the name of religion, I guess that depends on what you attribute to religion. Were Stalin's purges related to religion? Only to those religious people he persecuted. He killed 25M people. Stalin wanted nothing more than to eliminate religions completely. In North Korea, the only religious figures come from the Kim family. How many people have the Kim's killed? Was Pol Pot motivated by religious means when he slaughtered people?
2. This is false. The system of laws in the Western world is based largely on Judeo-Christian principles, namely the 10 Commandments.
3. To say the Nazis were nominally Christian is laughable. During Hitler's dictatorship, thousands of Christian clergymen were imprisoned or executed. The Nazis forbade religious youth movements, parish meetings, and scout meetings. Church assets were seized, Church schools were closed, and teachers in religious schools were dismissed. Seminaries was closed, and the SA and SS desecrated churches, religious statutes and pictures. Monks and nuns were deported or forced to renounce their vows altogether.
The Nazi Reichsminister of Church Affairs described Hitler as the "herald of a new revelation". The Nazi leadership made use of indigenous Germanic pagan imagery and ancient Roman symbolism. Many Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, subscribed either to a mixture of pseudoscientific theories, particularly Social Darwinism, or to mysticism and occultism, which was especially strong in the SS. Heinrich Himmler especially espoused paganism and the occult as well as other important Nazi leaders.
Lots of hand waving away the majority of an argument. I thought you might take exception to the last paragraph on morality coming from the divine. If you believe the Bible, the 10 Commandments were given to Moses by God directly. Our system of laws in the West is based largely on the 10 commandments.
The Bible does not condone or endorse slavery, yet for thousands of years slavery has existed due to the sinfulness of man. In the UK and the US, man finally woke up and made a change to the way God always intended. Jesus is very clear about this. He says "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". He does not say "Enslave others because that's what I condone."
Your first question ignores context (again).
The answer to your second question is that he was speaking to his inner circle at that point, not the great crowds.
Otherwise, I'll see myself back out of this conversation. I see little evidence whatsoever that you're actually interested in changing your own mind on these topics. Your motive in these discussions seems only to be ridiculing anyone stupid enough to have any faith. So, you can continue on with someone else.
1. First of all, you clearly are saying that. You keep saying it. It's the logical end point of what you appear to be arguing. You realize that a lot of people have been killed by wars, by dictators for religious reasons or by religious leaders over the course of 3-4 thousand years right? Certainly over the 1500 or so years Christianity has been a dominant religion. So you cite Stalin, so now we are just going with whether a leader is religious or not religious right? Not even if they are killing for religious reasons. Stalin hated everyone. He killed you if you were religious, he killed you if you weren't, he killed you if you were disloyal, he killed you if you were supremely loyal. So he didn't kill 25M people because of religion or lack of religion. He killed because he was a sick, sociopath. You clearly suffer from a deficit of history if you think that there aren't a ton of Christian dictators who killed members of other religions or even their own throughout history. During the Crusades, one group of Crusading Christians came across 12000 Jews...they burned them alive. There's certainly plenty of Muslim killing, there's Hindu killing, there's plenty of religious killing in Africa historically. The treatment of the Jews in Europe goes well back before Hitler. The treatment of Native Americans by the Spanish in the name of Christianity. Religions have a long, long and very bloody history of death, rape, assault, and subjugation.
2. lol I don't even know how to respond to the notion that you think all of our laws are based on the 10 Commandments. The First Amendment is more or less in direct conflict with 1-4, we have almost no laws against adultery anymore and you can legally covet to your hearts desire which kicks out 7, 9 and 10. Honoring your mother and father is at best limited and completely ceases at adulthood so there goes 5. The only ones left are stealing, murder, and lying. Interestingly, rape is nowhere to be found in the 10Cs. Neither is slavery. Nothing on freedom of speech or assembly, or the right to counsel, or the proper roles for corporation, or systems of government, or easements and right of ways, or how to deal with sentencing laws, or whether we have unanimous verdicts or how to set up our appellate system or how we should do patents, or copyright laws, fair use....
So no, there's a whole lot more to our laws than "the Ten Commandments," 2/3ds of which we don't have laws on, and several we have laws that actively oppose one of them.
3. Yes, the NAZIs were nominally Christian. Most Germans were Christians. In fact, 99 percent of the population in the 1930s was Christian, 2/3ds Protestant, 1/3d Catholic. Christianity was not outlawed. Hitler tried to create a unified Protestant Church and persecuted Catholics. He certainly wanted to use religion to subjugate the people just like he used everything else, but that doesn't mean the majority of NAZIs weren't Christians. Himmler didn't allow atheists into the SS. So even if some of them weren't Christian, they were still religious, which is the whole point. Subordinating the church to the state doesn't make you not religious. It just makes you a dictator. So bottom line the VAST majority of NAZIs were religious, stayed members of their churches and paid their religious taxes.
The idea that you think the bible doesn't condone slavery is mind-boggling. It's just mind-boggling. And no, our systems of laws are not "Based largely on the ten commandments" for reasons I've already stated.
Can you explain the difference between follow and disciple?
I know you tapped out, but I thought I would try another route.
Followers follow. Disciples proselytize and speak on behalf of someone.
For the record, I've been to church twice in the last year - once for my dad's funeral, once on Christmas. I would not describe myself as religious. I've spent a lot of time questioning my faith in the last 12 years. That said, I question my own faith while allowing others theirs and doing so in a respectful manner. I often ask people questions about their faith, with those I trust I may even challenge their faith in order to understand their thought process, but I always do so delicately.
If I had any inkling that you were interested in being respectful while trying to understand something, I wouldn't have "tapped out." It's been pretty clear what your motive is in these discussions over the years. Perfect example is the post immediately above this one.
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Think of it like this. A black belt master may have a few very advanced students. Eventually, those students may also teach what the master taught. They are disciples. The fans of the black belt master who go to his tournaments or watch him on tv are the followers. They appreciate him and listen to what he says, but they won't go out and teach on his behalf. A disciple of christ would be asked to give up all their worldly possessions and standing in order to go and spread the gospel. There were only a few of them, thus the "last supper" painting.
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That's not a good analogy at all.
A much better analogy would be hardcore Bernie Sanders people who head state and national positions on his campaign. They would be like the disciples. They might be asked to speak on his behalf at times and "help get the message out".
The followers are people who show up to his rallies and lend support there, but then go home and don't help his campaign "get the message out". They agree with his message and will vote for him but don't work on his campaign.
Nah .... l think he means, let them throw gays from the rooftops.
Or .... let them throw acid in the faces of women.
Or .... let them stone to death victims of rape.
right we should keep strong to our values, unless a small group of terrorists halfway round the world do bad things, then we should abandon them because some of our citizens here are Muslim.
Brilliant logic.
No, it's not political, but your analogy was so far offbase, I tried to come up with one that I thought would make sense to you. (You earlier readily admitted you didn't know much about religions.)
No they are not. Please show me New Testament scripture where anything like that is stated. (HINT: You won't, because it doesn't.)
You failed. I'm sorry, but you failed..
Oh, one thing, I grew up on the campus of Indiana's most prominent Protestant, sorry ND, University. I know a thing or two. Both parents were employed there. You truly haven't lived until you can tithe via credit card.
Ugghhhh. More OT dismissal.
Why did your god make so many mistakes?
Why did your all powerful, all knowing, god rely upon genocide and incest not once, but twice?
Followers follow. Disciples proselytize and speak on behalf of someone.
I can't respond to this. I don't understand this passage.
Sorry ND.. Why? Do think any Catholic gives a shit about any self proclaimed "most prominate Protestant" anything? Hell most of us Catholics don't give a shit about ND, come on... more power to whatever campus it is, you obviously know your shit, I mean not being able to name this Protestant campus that eclipses ND, takes nothing from you alluding to... whatever your point is.
But more importantly, you want to lecture about religion but aparently don't understand the differance between Protestant and Catholic? If you don't get that one, stay clear of lecturing on Islam.
I am a "follower of Christ" (for as much as I am). I am not a disciple of Christ. In Catholicism, the closest thing to disciples we have these days are priests (and thus bishops, the Pope, etc.). Do you not see a difference between me and a priest? Because that's the difference between followers and disciples.
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I don't see a difference between you and a priest.
Other than how you spend your day and how you make your money, what is the difference?
Of course you aren't, which is why your credibility is low. You don't have to BELIEVE to understand. I'm agnostic, but I came to that by studying other religions, and understanding them at least a little bit, and I don't come to it thinking my agnosticism is the right answer for anyone but me. The only truly, logical answer to the question is, it's unknowable if there is a God or not, or what that God would want if a God did exist. But just like with any other unknowable thing, humans will try to figure it out anyways. That's a good thing actually. Where religion leads to positive things, it's a good thing...where it leads to negative things, it's a bad thing...ya know, just like everything else.
But having said all of that, if you don't even know the difference between THE two major sects of the largest religion on the planet then your level of knowledge of religion is pretty suspect and thus it's hard to take what you say seriously, and it's certainly hard to take the vitriol seriously.
Hats. What about the funny hats? That is a difference, right?
One particular area of interest to me is anti-catholicism and the formation of Midwest culture between 1850-1950. A century that included the Know Nothing right up to two black men hanging from trees a couple blocks from IWU. This ties in with the thread on KNC about Indiana being settled from the south to north. The Klan ruled much of the roost until 1920 onward. And we all know who the Klan hates more than you. Throw in the APA. claiming a large chunk of Indiana...and, well, there you go.
We could have looked back on a recent thread about Sleepy Ben and his grain silos. I participated in the Whore of Babylon and anti-Catholic discussion. I participated in the Romney discussion when he had to issue a Kennedy statement.
Where would you like to take the discussion? I am not a scholar of Holy Mother Church, I understand why she can be a thorn. I understand the difference. It was funny seeing so many get so worked up.
I am reminded of a joke.....
A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked.
"Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."
The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"
A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked.
"Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."
The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"
