The atheists best argument?

[Tomdstone]

Wrong.


Be careful not mix up the behavior and practices of individuals, peoples, countries, with the moral teaching they are subject to, or with the label they subscribe to.
We could call that “the Stalin factor”.

We are asking (still) what are the normative moral precepts you are espousing.

Have you heard of St. Thomas Aquinas or have you heard about the Catholic Inquisition? If you read the books on the Inquisition by Charles Lea, you would read that people were excommunicated from the Catholic Church if they disagreed with the policy of burning heretics at the stake.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Suppose someone disagrees with an aspect of your religion. Is burning him alive at the stake right or wrong from a Christian POV?

Nowhere does Christ recommend this.

 

[Tomdstone]

Nowhere does Christ recommend this.

Did Christ recommend the Catholic Inquisition or the First Crusade and the massacre of the Jews? No. but it was something that happened. the First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban. The Dominican clergyman Tomas de Toquemada was one of the fist grand inquisitors whose name was associated with brutality. There were about 2000 or so people burned at the stake as a result of being tried by the inquisition.

 

[goout]

Have you heard of St. Thomas Aquinas or have you heard about the Catholic Inquisition? If you read the books on the Inquisition by Charles Lea, you would read that people were excommunicated from the Catholic Church if they disagreed with the policy of burning heretics at the stake.

So then secular humanism condones mass murder for the good of the state because Stalin did it. Can you see the problem?

Once again, in regards to secular humanism, what are the “normative ethical precepts” you referred to earlier?

 

[Tomdstone]

So then secular humanism condones mass murder for the good of the state because Stalin did it. Can you see the problem?

I see a problem with your statement:

For instance, the Catholic Church observes that it is always and everywhere immoral to take innocent human life.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Have you heard of St. Thomas Aquinas or have you heard about the Catholic Inquisition? If you read the books on the Inquisition by Charles Lea, you would read that people were excommunicated from the Catholic Church if they disagreed with the policy of burning heretics at the stake.

Charles Lea was roundly criticized for his anti-Catholic bigotry, so you ought to be careful with whom you ally yourself, no?

Would you mind quoting from Charles Lea so that we can see his and your anti-Catholic bigotry on full display?

 

[goout]

I see a problem with your statement:

Ok great. We are repeatedly asking for some specific discussion points…

So to get back on topic.
What are the normative ethical precepts espoused by secular humanism?

And then what is your issue with the Catholic Church’s teaching about the sanctity of human life? Specifically.

One thing is convenient for sure, by not claiming any objective moral principles, your secular humanism cannot be easily criticized.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Did Christ recommend the Catholic Inquisition or the First Crusade and the massacre of the Jews? No. but it was something that happened. the First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban. The Dominican clergyman Tomas de Toquemada was one of the fist grand inquisitors whose name was associated with brutality. There were about 2000 or so people burned at the stake as a result of being tried by the inquisition.

What individuals did in the name of Christ is not to be imputed to Christ.

However, what Stalin Mao and Hitler did can be imputed to their secularist antichristian bigotry.

Hitler

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future – certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it in Germany.”

Stalin

“We guarantee the right of every citizen to combat by argument, propaganda, and agitation all religion. The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science.”

Mao
“Religion is poison.”

Would you like me to tabulate the number of murders attributed to these “humanists”?

Dwarfs the cruelty of Tomas de Toquemada! :bigyikes:

 

[goout]

they say that they “believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.” and that they “are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.”

Let’s go back.
Who is the “we” that discovers the normative standards? Stalin? If so, is he still the norm, or was that only the norm decades ago, and now there is a new norm?

Moral principles are tested by consequences?
So then gaining prosperity for one ethnic group is good and desirable consequence even if it requires the elimination of others?
Yes?
No?
Shouldn’t a moral system have something objective about it?
Do you know what we mean by objective?

 

[Peter_Plato]

AFAIK, the Catholic Church teaches the theory of the just war. In any war, just or not, innocent life is taken as collateral damage. It is taught that a just war is not immoral. In fact, the Roman Catholic Pope, Urban II, in a speech delivered at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, launched the First Crusade. As a result of this speech, many innocent Jews were murdered even in France and Germany. An army led by a Roman Catholic priest, Father Folkmar attacked Jewish civilians in Bohemia. As the Crusaders attacked Jerusalem, they massacred Jews and Muslims. According to the Muslim chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, Jews hid in their synagogues and the Crusaders burned them all down while these innocent people were inside. Estimates vary but many, perhaps 100,000, innocent people died as a result of the First Crusade.
Jehovah’s Witnesses will refuse to take active part in any war since they realize that innocent life will be taken. Perhaps it will be an unintended consequence in many cases, but still, the end result will be that innocent human life will be taken.

Sure, and the end result of not engaging ruthless and evil aggression is that even more innocent lives will be taken. Omission and negligence can be as evil as commission and aggression. There is always a question of what is right in any instance. An in-principle refraining from defending those in danger (pacifism) is not necessarily always the correct thing to do.

With regard to the Crusades (and the Inquisition,) your sources are skewed.

You may want to brush up on more recent historical research on what triggered the “People’s Crusade” and whether it was sanctioned by the Church. Hint: It wasn’t.

When Count Emicho of Leinengen (NOT to be confused with Bishop Emicho of Leiningen) led the mob in the Rhineland to attack Jewish communities there, he was condemned by priests and bishops, many of whom gave sanctuary to Jewish people in their churches and residences.

youtu.be/219zAnN75lA

And when Peter the Hermit’s mob pillaged across Europe into Constantinople he was condemned by chroniclers for not abiding by the orders of Pope Urban, who insisted that all crusaders be led by the competent military leaders who had “taken the cross.”

youtu.be/VfEzcDwywv0

Would you mind providing some credible sources for this Father Folkmar you have named? I am having trouble finding anything about him or his deeds.

 

[tonyrey]

Secular humanists appeal to science, reason, and experience to justify their ethical principles by evaluating the real-world consequences of moral decisions.

What are their ethical principles and what is their rational basis?

 

[Peter_Plato]

More on Emicho…

Emicho and the Massacre of Jews
Both Christian and Jewish sources for the assaults on Rhineland Jewry by German crusading bands during the spring months of 1096 single out Count Emicho of Leiningen as the prime culprit in these massacres. The more extensive Jewish sources describe Count Emicho in the following terms: “He was our chief persecutor. He had no mercy on the elderly, on young men and young women, on infants and sucklings, on the ill. He made the people of the Lord like dust to be trampled under foot.”
The eyewitness Christian chroniclers of the First Crusade (see CRUSADES), who were attached to one or another of the crusading armies, tell us nothing of the German crusaders like Count Emicho. The only major Christian chroniclers who devotes serious attention to Count Emicho was Albert of Aix. Albert dismisses Count Emicho and his followers, who after all contributed nothing to the success of the First Crusade, having met their destruction at the hands of the Christian militia of Hungary. According to Albert, the failures of Count Emicho and his band could be traced to three critical sins: excessive fornication, outrageous credulity (Albert suggests that this band claimed divine inspiration for a goose and a goat and made these animals their guides for the crusading journey), and the unwarranted slaughter of Jews.
The Hebrew First Crusade narratives highlight Count Emicho more fully. They make clear that the initial assaults on Rhineland Jewry, in Speyer and WORMS, were undertaken by a loose confederation of crusaders and burghers; the Speyer attack resulted in only eleven casualties, but the attack on Worms cost some eight hundred Jewish lives. Count Emicho enters the picture with the organized military assault on the Jewish community of Mainz. The Jews sought safety through the assistance of the local archbishop, who closed the gates to the city in the face of Emicho and his followers and sequestered the Jews in his for- tified palace. When the army of Count Emicho encamped outside the walled city, the Jews attempted the kind of negotiation that had worked with other crusading forces; with Count Emicho, however, these negotiating efforts failed. Subsequently, the town gates were opened by sympathetic burghers. The troops of Emicho besieged the Jews gathered in the archbishop’s palace, broke into it, and slaughtered all those Jews whom they found there. They eventually rooted out all Jewish refuges in the town and wiped out Mainz Jewry in its entirety.
It seems likely that the troops of Count Emicho were similarly responsible for the destruction of Cologne Jewry. There the Jews were sequestered by the archbishop of Cologne in a set of rural redoubts. Once again, however, the followers of Count Emicho were determined to destroy totally Cologne Jewry and in fact more or less did so.
Both Christian and Jewish chroniclers were fully aware of the ignominious end of the German crusading band organized around Count Emicho. For the Christian writers, this constituted a problem, and the shortcomings that led to this defeat had to be identified. For the Jewish chroniclers, the destruction of Emicho’s army was more readily understandable: it represented obvious divine intervention in retaliation for the army’s massacre of the Jews.
ROBERT CHAZAN

cw.routledge.com/ref/middleages/Jewish/England.pdf

 

[PumpkinCookie]

What individuals did in the name of Christ is not to be imputed to Christ.

However, what Stalin Mao and Hitler did can be imputed to their secularist antichristian bigotry.

Hitler

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future – certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it in Germany.”

Stalin

“We guarantee the right of every citizen to combat by argument, propaganda, and agitation all religion. The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science.”

Mao
“Religion is poison.”

Would you like me to tabulate the number of murders attributed to these “humanists”?

Dwarfs the cruelty of Tomas de Toquemada! :bigyikes:

Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s Work.

-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.

-Adolf Hitler, correspondence with Gerhard Engel, 1941

Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews . . . The work that Christ started but could not finish, I–Adolf Hitler–will conclude.

-Adolf Hitler, Nazi Christmas Celebration, 1926

Charlemagne, by the way, was a vicious war criminal who was so ignorant he couldn’t even write his own name! He was almost universally recognized as an unsavory character since the enlightenment until Hitler and Goebbels rehabilitated his image in their attempt to position the Third Reich as a successor to the Holy Roman Empire.

Don’t get me started with the quotes, I’ve got a library of doozies.

 

[Peter_Plato]

According to the Muslim chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, Jews hid in their synagogues and the Crusaders burned them all down while these innocent people were inside. Estimates vary but many, perhaps 100,000, innocent people died as a result of the First Crusade.

Estimates “vary” and your number is very likely way off.

After the siege of Jerusalem, at a time when armies commonly killed everyone in captured cities if those cities hadn’t surrendered under the terms dictated by the victors, the remaining Fatamid warriors in the captured garrison were actually freed to return to Egypt despite the fact that they had not surrendered.

Simply giving numbers of innocent casualties does not provide any valuable information about whether a war or battles were warranted. It doesn’t mention, for example, how many of those casualties were at the hands of the Muslim armies.

This would be like claiming WWII was unwarranted merely because there were millions of innocent lives lost. What is completely left unanswered is what the situation would have been like had no war been fought and how many, for example, innocent lives would have perished at the hands of the Nazis and Axis powers had they been permitted to simply vanquish all the lands unhindered.

Would pacifism, of the kind you seem to endorse, resulted in a better outcome than standing up to and defeating evil empires and evil tyrants?

You are not providing the whole picture, just the negative aspects of a one sided view. Where are the comparables? You don’t provide any.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Charlemagne, by the way, was a vicious war criminal who was so ignorant he couldn’t even write his own name! He was almost universally recognized as an unsavory character since the enlightenment until Hitler and Goebbels rehabilitated his image in their attempt to position the Third Reich as a successor to the Holy Roman Empire.

Don’t get me started with the quotes, I’ve got a library of doozies.

No reputable scholar will defend Hitler’s “Catholicism,” least of all by quote mining where his political intent was questionable.

Regarding Charlemagne, I suppose your “library of doozies” has nothing to say about the Carolingian Renaissance or the Admonitio Generalis?

Charlemagne’s most significant contribution to the Carolingian Renaissance was the revival of learning, especially among the clergy, most of whom were barely literate. Before the surge of education following the Admonitio Generalis and subsequent Carolingian Renaissance, it was difficult for the Frankish people to connect with Christianity and the church. Peasant life was very hard; the people were illiterate and Latin, the language of the church, was not their native language, making Christianity and the Bible difficult to access. Nobles also were largely uneducated and uncultured, with few devoted Christians among them. Only the clergy were consistent in having some level of education, and thus they had the best understanding and exposure to the Bible and the full extent of Christianity. The schools, which the Admonitio ordered established by the monasteries and cathedrals, began a tradition of higher learning in Carolingian Europe, leading the revival known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The fulfillment of Admonitio Generalis meant that the study of language, rhetoric and grammar in these institutions, as well as the standardizing of writing scripture and Latin, was undertaken in order to make religious texts and books accessible to the clergy, as well as their correction and standardization. However this strengthened all forms of Carolingian literature, and book production, as well as developments in law, historical writing, and uses of poetry all flourished in these schools. In fact, the capitularies themselves, and the level of language they use, are examples of the increasing importance of writing within the Frankish kingdom. As well as language, the Admonitio Generalis ordered other arts such as numbers and arithmetic, ratios, taxes, measure, architecture, geometry, and astrology to be taught, leading to developments in each field and their application within society. Charlemagne pushed for an educated clergy who could help lead reform, because it was his belief that the study of arts would aid them in understanding sacred texts, which they could then pass on to their followers. During the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne unified religious practices and culture within his realm, creating a Christian kingdom, and ultimately unifying his empire.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admonitio_generalis

 

[PRmerger]

No reputable scholar will defend Hitler’s “Catholicism,” least of all by quote mining where his political intent was questionable.

Indeed.

That’s really grasping at a reason to not be Catholic. “Why, because Hitler was, of course!”

 

[Peter_Plato]

He was almost universally recognized as an unsavory character since the enlightenment …

So your “standards” for historical accuracy and judgement of character are determined solely by what enlightenment writers had to say?

I see.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Did Christ recommend the Catholic Inquisition or the First Crusade and the massacre of the Jews?

Christ prophesied the complete destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. He knew it would happen in advance and knew that a “massacre” of a million or so Jewish people would be carried out by the Romans.

Would that count as “recommending?”

In the OT, God positively commanded Israelite armies to attack their enemies. Jesus claimed to be the God of the Jews, so apparently he did “recommend” some bloodshed.

Now the key question is when and where it is right and proper to do so. Thus just war theory. A very sticky issue. One that ought not be dismissed as blithely as you seem to be willing to do.

 

[Tomdstone]

For instance, the Catholic Church observes that it is always and everywhere immoral to take innocent human life.

Then how do you explain the following?

Christ prophesied the complete destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. He knew it would happen in advance and knew that a “massacre” of a million or so Jewish people would be carried out by the Romans.

Would that count as “recommending?”

In the OT, God positively commanded Israelite armies to attack their enemies. Jesus claimed to be the God of the Jews, so apparently he did “recommend” some bloodshed.
.

 

[Tomdstone]

. Thus just war theory. A very sticky issue. One that ought not be dismissed as blithely as you seem to be willing to do.

I did not blithely dismiss the just war theory. I said that in view of the fact that innocent people will be killed in any war, including a just war, the following statement was dubious

For instance, the Catholic Church observes that it is always and everywhere immoral to take innocent human life.