D’Souza: Atheism is the Opiate of the Morally Corrupt

[Rachel_Malloy]

The posts in this thread will remain free of personal attacks.

The posts in this thread will stay on topic, or this thread will be closed.

Thanks for your cooperation.

God bless-

Rachel

 

[a_priori]

Now that I’ve thought about it some more I don’t think you’re doing anything other than making a fool of yourself by making broad generalizations and stereotypes without putting forth one bit of anything other than speculation.

As for bashing religion…I don’t bother with it because it only insults people and this forum isn’t the place for me to bash religion…that would be rude. I’ve got better things to do.

If you don’t play you simply don’t play. Its impossible to lose a game that you don’t play.

Oh, and note on my personal stubborness (which I’m sure you’ll blame on my atheism because thats all you seem to be doing)…I wouldn’t run home to mamma even if I was faced with mortal peril, my mamma is the last person I’d consider turning to.

Why is it that you seem so hell bent on condemning atheism? I get the drift that you think its a horrible horrible thing…but other than that why? Haven’t you ever heard that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? I think the only thing you’re capable of doing with your present tactics is push people away from religion…which isn’t your goal is it? Take the time to point out the errors in atheism in a calm collected manor instead of spouting off incorrect stereotypes and maybe I’ll consider listening If you don’t I’m going to quit this silly little game, its pointless and only fools continue on with things that just go round and round without getting anywhere.

I have some friends and colleagues that are atheists and we always seem to manage a civil discussion on the subject. Of course, one cannot resist a little gentle ribbing from time to time.

If the discussion doesn’t stick to the point it just degrades into meaninglessness. Unfortunately this seems to be the norm. With online discussions it seems to me that believers and atheists are fairly evenly culpable when it comes to rancor.

It’s too bad because the discussion could be fun.

 

[strngrnrth]

That sounds interesting…do you know of any good sources on the subject where I could do some reading?

I’ll try to pull some of my online sources together for you on a thread about the histroy of the witch trials when i’m able to focus on that.

 

[tomarin]

The Church didn’t start the witch trials. Laywomen
did, when strange new crop, animal and human diseases combined with a suddenly older populace (including the new phenomenon of senile dementia) panicked them …

i’m glad you took the time and effort to address these accusations by agnos theos, which i considered trumped-up and taken out of historical context. even though i felt each charge deserved a response, any one of them would have been a topic large enough for its own thread (or multiple threads).

i think that to get amunition for his anti-christianity arguments, he essentially picks a time period in which injustices were committed often in the name of christ or the catholic church and then blames the church leadership for it, despite the fact that there were often multiple agents and historical contingencies involved in bringing the injustice about.

this kind of argument basically draws on and is no different from anti-catholic propaganda spread by protestants in ages past. but he’s doing us a favor by making such arguments because it gives us a chance to practice refuting them with sound historical analysis.

 

[WanderAimlessly]

Dinesh D’Souza has really been making the rounds. He is even on World Over tonight.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Kinda turns the Marxism saying back on them: From further down in the interview (and the reason for the title):
I heard D’Souza on Al Kresta yesterday, very interesting.

I will probably put his book on my list.

IMO, “Atheism is the Opiate of the Morally Corrupt” is bad history, untrue, unkind, & overlooks the less beautiful activities of theists, past & present. As for “moral corruption”, Christians should of all people be slow to point the finger at atheists. Or don’t Christians believe in their own sinfulness ? If we did, & if we really believed that man is a fallen creature, we would be far less ready to accuse atheists & others.​

IOW, it’s a self-serving half-truth.

It is bad reasoning to reason that because atheistic systems of recent times have been very bloody, this is caused by their atheism. That is an assumption - & nothing more. How do Christians know that their sins are not far more horrible in the eyes of God, or far less excusable, than the sins of non-Christians or of atheists ? We don’t - so we have no right to accuse others. Sins are sins, & act as such, even if no one is killed. So the mere number & kind of public sins is also irrelevant.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

you’re conflating acts committed by unscrupulous christians (whether king or mob) during the middle ages with christianity as a creed.

it’s not a modern idea that human life is precious and sacred. (by taking sacred out of the equation, they’ve made saying such a thing impossible.)

modernism, which i understand to be comprised of all the -isms of the late 19th and early 20th century such as communism, capitalism, fascism, vegetarianism, pacifism, freudianism, feminism, existentialism, etc., reduces human life to something less than what it actually is: so humans are just labor statistics, consumers, comrades, test subjects, and so forth.

That conclusion sounds more like a definition of capitalism - which has arguably been no less destructive than Marxism (of which there are quite a few kinds)​

chesterton said “christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and barely tried at all”.

I think this was one of his less intelligent remarks - the various Inquisitions were under the impression they were Christian. Unfortunately for them, the Church no longer regards torture as compatible with Christianity - which is no fault of those ecclesastical bidues that employed it; it was, after all, a Pope who accepted it as proper practice in 1252, & his successor legislated for the circumstances in which it was applied.​

The Church has done a lot of harm - has done it officially, as a Church: we’re not talking about atrocities committed by Catholics at their own discretion, but about official activities: such as the persecution of the Jews often was, or the harrassing of so-called witches, with Papal sanction.

Christianity has been tried - & although plenty of it is far more attractive than these things, a great deal is not. If the Church has as much sense of moral responsibility as the average person, it won’t duck out of admitting its responsibilty & its guilt. All men on earth sin, & all need forgiveness - why should the Church on earth be different ?

If Christianity has not been tried - where has the Church been all these years ? The suggestion works only if one relies on a non-Catholic understanding of the Church, such as that it is wholly invisible & its members known to God alone. That merely replaces a difficulty by a heresy.

 

[R2D2]

Debate: Dinesh D’Souza vs. Christopher Hitchens - “Is Christianity the Problem?" (link)

 

[tomarin]

That conclusion sounds more like a definition of capitalism - which has arguably been no less destructive than Marxism (of which there are quite a few kinds)​

i was trying to make the point that none of these modernist creeds were an adequate substitute for christianity, although modernists often treat them as such. if i came off sounding like a marxist, then i definitely did a poor job at wording my remarks.

I think this was one of his less intelligent remarks - the various Inquisitions were under the impression they were Christian. Unfortunately for them, the Church no longer regards torture as compatible with Christianity - which is no fault of those ecclesastical bidues that employed it; it was, after all, a Pope who accepted it as proper practice in 1252, & his successor legislated for the circumstances in which it was applied.​

The Church has done a lot of harm - has done it officially, as a Church: we’re not talking about atrocities committed by Catholics at their own discretion, but about official activities: such as the persecution of the Jews often was, or the harrassing of so-called witches, with Papal sanction.

i think on balance that the church has made the world a more humane place and that in those instances in which it has been complicit in activities that brought suffering to others her role has not been direct and intentionally wicked as it is often portrayed by people with an anti-catholic bias (like agnos theos, to whose thread i was responding).

take for example the crusades. its easy to say that the crusades and all the sickening bloodshed (often of jews and other christians as well as muslims, and often of civilians as well as combatants) were the church’s fault; but it’s also somewhat ahistorical and overly simplistic and implies that the pope sent the crusaders to byzantium and jerusalem with the instructions to slaughter everyone they encountered.

once the crusaders left europe with the mission of taking jerusalem they were very much acting on their own and as with any war, once unleashed it became a force very difficult to control. ultimately the bloodiness and futility of the crusades says less about the church’s alleged wickedness than about that of the ambitious noblemen who sought to carve out christian kingdoms in the east.

many of the episodes that are cited by those making an historical argument against catholicism are similar to this – to make an effect they must be taken out of historical context and distorted in such a fashion that the church appears to be the sole or the primary actor in promoting wickedness, whereas it’s rarely that simple. (actually i have yet to come across a single instance where it’s that simple, including the cases of violence against jews and witches, which you mentioned.)

Christianity has been tried - & although plenty of it is far more attractive than these things, a great deal is not.

christians have been warlike, but, being perfect, the founder of christianity wasn’t. christians have been greedy for wealth and power and cruel, but the founder of christianity wasn’t any of those things. christianity hasn’t been tried in the sense that christians are forever falling short of christ’s ideals but that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with christ. and we should continue to follow his example and emulate him.

If the Church has as much sense of moral responsibility as the average person, it won’t duck out of admitting its responsibilty & its guilt. All men on earth sin, & all need forgiveness - why should the Church on earth be different ?

you conveniently ignore the fact that the church has apologized for mistakes it has made.

If Christianity has not been tried - where has the Church been all these years ? The suggestion works only if one relies on a non-Catholic understanding of the Church, such as that it is wholly invisible & its members known to God alone. That merely replaces a difficulty by a heresy.

see my paragraph above that begins “christians have been warlike…” your assertion that the church has so much blood on its hands its goodness is hopelessly compromised, taken to its logical conclusion (therefore how could it be the church that christ founded?) strikes me as far more heretical than anything i said.