No Jesus Christ, Judgement Day, Heaven or Hell

[ChristMyLife]

Any predilection modern atheists have towards charity or altruism are the result of the influence of Christian ideals on their worldview, whether they chose to admit that fact or not.

I would partially agree. I’ll reword that in a way I’d fully agree with:

“Any predilection modern atheists have towards charity or altruism are the result of the influence of religious and spiritual/philosophical ideals (e.g. Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, etc.) on their worldview, whether they chose to admit that fact or not.”

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Like I said, I didn’t expect you to accept it, and I expected a reaction like this.

70 of the world’s poorest are women. Incidentally, most of those women live in China, India, and the Middle East. All of which are areas under the predominate influence of non-Christian ideals. (This is just a matter of numbers, as those are the most populated areas of the world, well, two of them are.)

Birth control doesn’t empower women, it turns them into objects to be used and discarded. It’s no coincidence that rates of abandonment, unwanted pregnancy, and single motherhood have risen in proportion to the use of birth control. Now, men enter into sexual relationships with women, use them for their pleasure, and then when the natural outcome of sexual intercourse makes itself known (children), the men leave. They weren’t in it for the long haul, as is demanded by Catholicism, they were in it for the immediate pleasure. Birth control allows this mindset to thrive. When Christianity first entered into the picture, the women flocked to it because it demanded fidelity and support from their spouses.

The notion of “subservience” has been greatly abused by “Christian” men in the past, I won’t even try to deny that. However, that is done in contradiction to what is actually demanded of Christian men.

The passage most often cited is Ephesians 5:22

Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.

However, the full text of that chapter of the Bible is this:

21
Be subordinate to one anotherq out of reverence for Christ.*
22
Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.r
23
For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body.s
24
As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
25
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for hert
26
to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word,u
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that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.v
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So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29
For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church,
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because we are members of his body.w

31
“For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother

and be joined to his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh.”x

32
This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.y
33
In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.

(Sorry for the annotations, this is straight from the USCCB website)

Far from being merely “women should be subservient”, this passage paints a clear picture that both are subservient to each other, that husbands and wives must love and serve each other.

You are buying into a false notion of what Christianity calls people to, and it is discolouring your entire understanding of the relationship between Christianity and women.

 

[Nelka]

I hate that song, it is so depressing.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Unsurprising left out Africa, where most of the biggest issues are.

Still a significantly non-Christian Area, but there are far more issues plaguing Africa than just religion. Poverty in those regions has far more to do with government than anything else.

The more the faith community continues to stand by the absurd notion that condoms wouldn’t help the AIDS epidemic, or stifle the over-population leading to more hunger, the less the secular community is going to take them seriously.

The Christian African men do treat the women as objects, but because of the cultural norms being imposed upon them, rampant STDs and kids are the result, instead of just the “pleasure” they had bargained for.

I have read many stories from the front lines of health care workers begging for condom use to become normalized in Africa.

Condoms won’t help the aids epidemic. Access to condoms increases rates of sexual activity, thereby increasing the number of opportunities for the disease to spread. The only thing that will actually help the AIDS epidemic is abstinence, as it prevents the disease from spreading except through extremely rare circumstances such as botched blood transfusion.

The only way to fight AIDS is to stop the behaviors which allow it to spread. It’s people like you, who place such a premium on sexual activity, that have allow the AIDS epidemic to become what it has by encouraging “safe sex,” which is anything but.

The Christian men in Africa who objectify women are just as condemned as the non-Christian men who do the same. The fact that men do not live up to a standard does not change what the standard is. I am speaking primarily from a western perspective, where the behavioral relationships I discusses are more than well documented. Contraceptives result in increased sexual behavior and decreased reliability in male partners.

I don’t really care what those health care workers are begging for. All that giving out condoms will do will make people think they’re safe from STDs, and thereby increase their sexual behavior. It is creating a false sense of security that will only bring about more harm.

If Christianity works so well, why all of the issues? I’m interested in results.

Why so many problems? Because so many people refuse to live according to Christian standards. What you’re doing is like blaming the doctor for a man dying after he refused to take his prescribed medicine.

Results are not the only measure by which something is weighed. That’s a utilitarian worldview, and it is rejected by the Church.

Per utilitarian standards, any person who is sick with an incurable disease like AIDS should be killed, because that is the only way to absolutely prevent the bad ends of spreading disease, that will also help solve the (non-existent) over-population problem.

The means by which an end is achieved is just as, if not more, important than the end being sought.

 

[FiveLinden]

As a non-believer I can tell the OP that my life is absolutely nothing like he imagines it.

 

[Elf01]

The Christian African men do treat the women as objects, but because of the cultural norms being imposed upon them, rampant STDs and kids are the result, instead of just the “pleasure” they had bargained for.

I find it strange that someone willing to practice Catholic teaching on contraception is not willing to practice her other sexual teachings.

 

[Start]

Unsurprising left out Africa, where most of the biggest issues are.

Africa is just a poor country in general and blaming Christianity for their problems sounds naive.

 

[Gabika50]

It really is nihilistic…descent into nothingness. Yet, for some reason it became a hit.

 

[Nelka]

Also, even if there were different words, it is such a dreary tune.

 

[Sedona]

I would offer this to consider. If we are incapable of loving others without the promise of a reward in an afterlife or the threat of punishment in an afterlife, then we are not truly capable of love in any real sense. If the beauty of each day has no meaning without assurances about the next day, then we miss the one we’re in. Insofar as social order is concerned, order is found in every stripe of society, including those that worship tree spirits. Societies led by believers in the God of Abraham have shown no greater proclivity for maintaining a structure than those that believe in other gods or believe in none at all. Abrahamic societies are not unique in their compassion and have had no lack of the atrocities found in every form of belief system or systems without belief. Because people make do as needed and this is because it makes sense to do so. But regardless, we all seem to hold such things as love and beauty and compassion in roughly the same regard.

All the best!

 

[PetraG]

…I can pursue pleasure full time. Golf, music, gym, pool, meet friends at the pub, some decadence as long as I stay healthy, because who cares, right? there is no final judgement. Life is meaningless, may as well enjoy it…

The problem is that people who go this route generally find it empty. Whether you believe in God or not, there is empirical evidence that a normal person’s happiness depends on positive connections with other people, and that obsession with self-indulgence and personal possessions really gets in the way of habits that actually lead people to feel fulfilled. (Sociopaths, psychopaths and others with impaired emotional function may have a different experience. I know they lack some of the ability to connect socially that humans typically have, but I don’t know there is any evidence that giving in to self-obsession ever makes them feel contented, either. That’s beyond what I know.)

If you are hearing that you’d be better off just concerning yourself with yourself and helping your heirs to be concerned with no one but themselves, you are being lied to. Even a total materialist could see that.

 

[Start]

If we are incapable of loving others without the promise of a reward in an afterlife or the threat of punishment in an afterlife

It’s a good motivator for beginners.

 

[Sedona]

Great point!