hey ATHIESTS, was Hitler right?

[justinthemartyr]

very well stated. I find it interesting that although they claim athiesm, they adhere to the fact that Christ split time in two at his birth, and therefore we have A.D. anno domini.

you cannot escape that.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

If human life is special to Christians, then why do so many Christians support Capital Punishment and Preemtive War? I have always been confused by this.

Innocent human life is sacred.

Capital Punishment can be acceptable if the guilty IS guilty and killing them is THE ONLY way to remove them from society to isolate their “spreading evil”.

Pre-emptive War is only acceptable if to avoid it would allow an aggressor to do more damage than he would otherwise. It’s basically the same principle as “self defense”.

Passivism per se en masse is anti-Christian, in my opinion.

 

[AgnosTheist]

We have value, because God loves us.

buddhists dont believe in god, but they believe in the value of the human being.

 

[justinthemartyr]

many buddhists believe in God actually, I know quite a few.

 

[estesbob]

If human life is special to Christians, then why do so many Christians support Capital Punishment and Preemtive War? I have always been confused by this.

Ia am a Catholic who opposes the death penatly but sincethere not been a pre-emptive war in my lifeitme i hardly think that is an issue

 

[notself]

very well stated. I find it interesting that although they claim athiesm, they adhere to the fact that Christ split time in two at his birth, and therefore we have A.D. anno domini.

you cannot escape that.

Jews would not agree with you. Shintu and Hindus and Chinese would not agree with you. All three maintain different calculations of time. It was Science and historians that agreed to use the two phrases Before the Commnon Era, BCE and After the Common Era, ACE in talking about history of the West.

Egyptian history, Chinese history and Hindu history are still spoken of in terms or rulers or dynasties with an additional reference to BCE or ACE.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

buddhists dont believe in god, but they believe in the value of the human being.

Buddhists are not “atheists”. They believe in an ordering principle, essentially mechanical, which is “supernatural”.

“Atheists” (so-called) don’t believe in ANYTHING supernatural.

The reason that buddhists have a human-valuation ethic is because there is SOMETHING which will stomp on you if you do “acts bad for your karma”. It’s a rather “mercantile” operation really: “Pay this, get that, do that, get fined this.”

That “something” is a partial recognition of God, badly misinterpreted.

 

[notself]

many buddhists believe in God actually, I know quite a few.

If the Buddhists you know are native Asians, they are translating into English, the nearest equivalent to reverence to the Buddha. This quote is from a Buddhist Forum where someone asked the question about Buddhists and God. I think it explains the situation better than I can.

Most of you have probably figure this out already, but for those who haven’t, and are wondering about this question, I will explain what I have figured out.

When I began studying Buddhism, this confused me a lot. My girlfriend’s mom, who is from Cambodia (a Theravada Buddhist country), when speaking English, would refer to Buddha as “God”. She would say “just how in America, the people who go to church have Jesus as God, and in our temples, he is our God.” But when she would speak Khmer, she would call him the Khmer word for Buddha which is “Preah”. I was confused when doing further research on Buddhism and reading that Buddhists don’t believe in God, or that Buddha is a God. She would describe “when he turned into God”, which confused me even more. This was not just her, but many of my friends parents as well. After doing my own studies on Buddhism, I finally understood what it was, and even though I had been calling myself Buddhist for a while, it was not until I understood Buddhism that I really considered myself Buddhist.

Once I went to a Cambodian temple, and being the only Caucasian always seems to draw attention, so one of the monks who spoke little English asked me “do you believe in Buddha?” I said yes, but I didn’t quite understand what he meant by “believing in Buddha”.

I think I finally realized the problem when looking up enlightenment in a English-Khmer dictionary. I showed my girlfriend’s mom the word and asked her what it meant, and she said “when Preah turns into God”.

It was then I realized that this was not a lack of understanding or knowledge, but a mistranslation of words. Cambodia is a Buddhist country, where Buddha, or “Preah” is seen as the highest figure. America is a Christian society where “God” is usually seen as the highest figure. When people from Buddhists countries come to America, that’s how they base their translations. They translate “Preah” to God because it is the word for the highest figure. Buddha became a Buddha through his enlightenment. So turning into Buddha, the highest figure would in America commonly be translated to “turning into God”. “Believing in God” is the most important thing in being a Christian, so “believing in Buddha” is a mistranslation of "following the Dhamma, or being a Buddhist. I think my girlfriend’s mom also believes that Jesus was another enlightened Buddha. This comes from Cambodia’s highest figure to being an enlightened Buddha, leading to the assumption that other country’s highest figures are the same. Just as many Americans see Asians bowing to a Buddha statue at temples and assume they are “worshipping him as a God”, because America’s highest figure is God.

So in conclusion, Theravadans in America who refer to Buddha as “God” when speaking English don’t necessarily believe that Buddha is a God. It’s simply a mistranslation based on similarities from their home society and America’s society.

There is no Creation story in any tradition of Buddhism. There is no Creator God in any tradition of Buddhism. There are spiritual beings called devas and Bodhisattvas but these spiritual beings are mortal and are not worshipped as Christians worship their Gods. They are revered in a manner similar to the reverence of Christians for Saints.

I hope this clears things up.

 

[justinthemartyr]

Jews would not agree with you. Shintu and Hindus and Chinese would not agree with you. All three maintain different calculations of time. It was Science and historians that agreed to use the two phrases Before the Commnon Era, BCE and After the Common Era, ACE in talking about history of the West.

Egyptian history, Chinese history and Hindu history are still spoken of in terms or rulers or dynasties with an additional reference to BCE or ACE.

false, these were titles given long after the titles “before Christ”
and “anno domini” were instituted.

nice try

 

[notself]

Ia am a Catholic who opposes the death penatly but sincethere not been a pre-emptive war in my lifeitme i hardly think that is an issue

Iraq was a preemptive war. They had not attacked the US. It was the Saudis who are Al Qaida and they were operating out of Afghanistan at the time of 9/11 and it was they who took credit for it.

Our attack on Iraq was completely pre emptive based on phoney intellegence regarding fictional weapons of mass distruction.

 

[notself]

false, these were titles given long after the titles “before Christ”
and “anno domini” were instituted.

nice try

AD and BC were only used in the Eurpoe and European colonies such as America. They were never used in China, India (before British domination) or the Middle East, before European domination.

 

[estesbob]

Iraq was a preemptive war. They had not attacked the US. It was the Saudis who are Al Qaida and they were operating out of Afghanistan at the time of 9/11 and it was they who took credit for it.

Our attack on Iraq was completely pre emptive based on phoney intellegence regarding fictional weapons of mass distruction.

Simply not true. its off topic here but Isuggest you go read the congressional reolution authorizing the war. WMDs was just one of the many, many reasons given.

 

[justinthemartyr]

yes the so called “fictional information” that was fully researched and upheld by democrats in congress and then voted to go to war by pretty much every one of them.
please. the entire world believed that they had them.

 

[notself]

Buddhists are not “atheists”. They believe in an ordering principle, essentially mechanical, which is “supernatural”.

“Atheists” (so-called) don’t believe in ANYTHING supernatural.

The reason that buddhists have a human-valuation ethic is because there is SOMETHING which will stomp on you if you do “acts bad for your karma”. It’s a rather “mercantile” operation really: “Pay this, get that, do that, get fined this.”

That “something” is a partial recognition of God, badly misinterpreted.

Karma/kamma is not considered supernatural by Buddhists. It is considered prefectly natural cause and effect. The complete term is kamma which means action and vipaka which means result. Action and the results from action is not super-natural.

Karma does not exist separate from action. It is not worshipped or revered.

 

[notself]

yes the so called “fictional information” that was fully researched and upheld by democrats in congress and then voted to go to war by pretty much every one of them.
please. the entire world believed that they had them.

The French didn’t beleive so; not all in Congress believed so. There were some who voted against the war. I am not trying to start a politicla discussion here.

Iraq was a preemptive war. It was announced as such by the President at the time. We went to war not because the Iraqis attacked us, but because we were told they*** might*** attack us.

 

[justinthemartyr]

fantastic. the less extremists to attack us the better, take the war to them instead of waiting for it here.

now, back to the topic, athiests,. is the murder of millions of people bad?

 

[notself]

fantastic. the less extremists to attack us the better, take the war to them instead of waiting for it here.

now, back to the topic, athiests,. is the murder of millions of people bad?

You must think it is good because you support preemptive war.

 

[justinthemartyr]

yes, I support whatever is for the greater good of the people involved, including those being persecuted and murdered by their own leader.

You don’t? You think that leaders of countries should murder their own people in the hundreds of thousands?

I see what you are made of now.

 

[Kaninchen]

The sole difference between so-called atheists and non-so-called atheists is that the atheist MUST state that anything goes in the way of morals and ethics because there is no basis for establishing what “good” means, while the other fellow states that if you disobey THIS PARTICULAR set of morals and ethics you will be punished eventually for it. etc . . . . etc . . . etc

Was there an argument there, anywhere?

 

[Kaninchen]

very well stated. I find it interesting that although they claim athiesm, they adhere to the fact that Christ split time in two at his birth, and therefore we have A.D. anno domini.

you cannot escape that.

“Jesus is God because we use AD and BC”

Wow! That’s put an end to all argument.