Which religion do you find easiest to debunk?

[R_not]

As a percent of population, the religious wars of the Crusades and the reformation killed the same or larger percent of the European population as Stalin or Mao. Estimates of the deaths due to religious wars between Catholics and Protestants range from 30,000,000 to 50,000,000.

Populations of 10’s of millions of South American indigenous peoples were enslaved and the upper classes killed by the Conquistadors and their successors. Entire cultures were destroyed in the name of the Christian God.

To somehow justify this blood by saying “Joey did it too” or “Mao did it more than I did” is the argument of a child who refuses to accept responsibility for his actions.

You need to back your assertions up with some references.

The Crusades were called BECAUSE OF the muslim hordes killing, looting and destroying.

In their methods the Crusaders were no different from the Jihadis. But there still was one important difference.

The Jihadis had attacked Christendom in 629 at the battle of Mu’ta without provocation, and had continued attacking Christians, as they still do. The Crusade was to roll back in some measure this unprovoked Muslim attack. The Jihadis were aggressors, while the Crusaders were defenders. We Should remember this difference!

And I refuse to judge the Crusaders with our moral standards, especially the political correctness that dulls the minds to make them so ignorant of history.

If that many deaths had happened with the Reformation - there wouldn’t have been anyone left in Europe. If you are trying to bring up the Inquistion and confusing that with the Reformation, then even at that you are wrong.

As for the Conquistadors in the Americas. Once again, you inflate the death toll. But, yes the Indians were not treated that well overall. But, the death toll was due more to them not having immunity against some of the diseases that the Europeans had and so they died mostly from that.

I think it is easier to debunk the secularism that has taught history so poorly that we read this on websites more and more. The history taught like this produces self-haters more than it produces informed citizens.

The past has been apologized more than I can count. And all of the above is in the far distant past, while muslim aggression is not. The killings are still going on to this day. In the world of communism, it is still happening to a lesser degree in Russia and China, and also N. Korea - but it is still happening along with all of the above still persecuting Christians. While we do not do the same to them.

This is the biggest difference between your examples that you bring up. And there is no end in sight for the jihadists killing not only their own, but others. while people like you worry about what happened centuries ago and are not at all outraged that jihadists are declaring war against so many countries - India, the USA, Europe, etc. And not even figuring out that jihad includes a stealth and violent jihad against us.

 

[Blade_and_Blood]

I was just thinking, what do you find to be the easiest religion to debunk, and why do you find it easy to debunk?

No offence, but the LDS church. It’s origin, for the most part. Some of their beliefs are very unorthodox and have already been debunked, such as the claim that Joseph Smith “translated” ordinary funeral scrolls which he said they were scrolls written by Abraham himself.

…

Ironically Yours, Blade and Blood

 

[Blade_and_Blood]

Every pseudo-religion ever.

Why are they the easiest to debunk?

http://madeinhead.org/anism/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/flying-spaghetti-monster.jpg

Well there you have it.

I really hope you know that’s a parody religion. People *claim *to believe it, but they know it’s not true. I personally admire the “believers” of the Flying Spaghetti Monster because they bring up a very good point in their parody.

No need to be threatened by a plate of pasta.

Ironically Yours.

 

[Detales]

Pastafarian Spagnostics, Untie!!!

Actually, 1holy, there are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t. LOL!

 

[dianaiad]

Jesus established one and only one Church, the Catholic Church.

Well, He did establish the one and only true church, this is true. There is some disagreement about whether the group called “Catholics” is still it. Eastern Orthodoxy might have a problem with you on that. The Protestants certainly do, and, well…so do we.

Still you are correct, Jesus established the one and only true church.

The Catholic Church precedes the Bible.

Rebecca12345 asserts that the Bible was not written by Catholics, that is misleading. The Catholic Church established by Christ and led by St. Peter accepted the Septuagint, and Catholics like St. Peter (the first Pope) wrote the New Testament (see 2 Peter 1:1) which were canonized in the late 300’s roughly 350 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

No argument here; the Catholics compiled the bible as we know it. The question is whether the church was “Catholic” (as it is now) when those books were written.

 

[dianaiad]

As a percent of population, the religious wars of the Crusades and the reformation killed the same or larger percent of the European population as Stalin or Mao. Estimates of the deaths due to religious wars between Catholics and Protestants range from 30,000,000 to 50,000,000.

Populations of 10’s of millions of South American indigenous peoples were enslaved and the upper classes killed by the Conquistadors and their successors. Entire cultures were destroyed in the name of the Christian God.

To somehow justify this blood by saying “Joey did it too” or “Mao did it more than I did” is the argument of a child who refuses to accept responsibility for his actions.

Were there atrocities committed by religions and in the name of religion throughout history? You betcha, though you are being more than a little disengenuous about the numbers. Even if you are accurate in the numbers you post here, there is a problem: it has taken nearly two millenia to tot up that number.

Atheists managed to top those numbers in less than sixty years.

That’s rather important, y’know.

Look at it this way: atheists have been telling me for years that atheism and philosophical systems that require atheism to exist are better than religions; more ethical, more moral, producing better, more logical people.

Yet the very first time we have this experiment in government that mandates atheism, that is ‘no god and nobody better believe/behave as if a deity exists’ we have genocidal numbers that, in a little over half a century, out do the killings religion has been ‘responsible’ for throughout human history; thousands of years, quite literally.

Let us consider for a moment that most of these killings weren’t about deity; they were mostly about power, and land, controlling trade and people. In fact, almost every one of them were, both when they were committed by people using religion as an excuse, and by people who didn’t believe in a deity.

Ok, if atheism is so much more moral, logical and ethical a position, why didn’t it stop the Stalins, the Pol Pots, the Lenins, et. al?

Given the comparative timelines, it seems pretty obvious that systems whose morality is based in deity seem to be somewhat less violent than systems based in atheist-based ethical systems.

By rather a lot.

 

[1holycatholic]

Well, He did establish the one and only true church, this is true. There is some disagreement about whether the group called “Catholics” is still it. Eastern Orthodoxy might have a problem with you on that. The Protestants certainly do, and, well…so do we.

Still you are correct, Jesus established the one and only true church.

No argument here; the Catholics compiled the bible as we know it. The question is whether the church was “Catholic” (as it is now) when those books were written.

It was Catholic (as it is now) before, during and after the writing of the New Testament.

 

[Detales]

“It is great luck for leaders that men don’t think.” A. Hitler

 

[R_not]

“It is great luck for leaders that men don’t think.” A. Hitler

And in the case of mohammed - if they did think, mohammed interrupted the process by saying the deed was from god so stop it - thinking that is.

 

[Jerusha]

And in the case of mohammed - if they did think, mohammed interrupted the process by saying the deed was from god so stop it - thinking that is.

And, if necessary, ignore everything that is at odds with your belief system.

 

[dianaiad]

It was Catholic (as it is now) before, during and after the writing of the New Testament.

Since you are Catholic, I would sincerely hope that you believe this.

Since I am not, I hope that you will excuse me if I don’t…

 

[1holycatholic]

Since you are Catholic, I would sincerely hope that you believe this.

Since I am not, I hope that you will excuse me if I don’t…

It is consistent with the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

Faith of the Early Fathers: Three-Volume Set (Paperback)

 

[notself]

From the University of North Carolina.

cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html

 

[1holycatholic]

From the University of North Carolina.

cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html

Why did you omit the genocide of Hindus at the hands of Buddhists in Sri-Lanka?

bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/buddhistethics/war.shtml
Buddhism and violence
But Buddhism, like the other great faiths, has not always lived up to its principles - there are numerous examples of Buddhists engaging in violence and even war.

* in the 14th century Buddhist fighters led the uprising that evicted the Mongols from China

• in Japan, Buddhist monks trained Samurai warriors in meditation that made them better fighters

In the twentieth century Japanese Zen masters wrote in support of Japan’s wars of aggression. For example, Sawaki Kodo (1880–1965) wrote this in 1942:
It is just to punish those who disturb the public order. Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing [is preserved]. It is the precept forbidding killing that wields the sword. It is the precept that throws the bomb.
Sawaki Kodo
In Sri Lanka the 20th century civil war between the mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority has cost 50,000 lives.​

 

[R_not]

From the University of North Carolina.

cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html

Sorry, but that guy needs to be critically analyzed.

The Spanish Inquisitors kept very good records and the numbers (any number is too high - but to try to put the numbers into the millions is misleading) are so much less.

Thankfully, the Spanish Inquisition kept very good records and these are now being sifted through by historians. They paint a very different picture of sentencing patterns to traditional historians. Geoffrey Parker analyzed 49,000 trial records between 1540 and 1700, representing one third of the total, and found 776 executions took place. This suggests a total of about 2,000 in the period reviewed. Earlier records are less well preserved but do not support the picture of a bloodbath usually painted. Henry Kamen (p. 60) does not believe more than a thousand executions took place in the earlier period. However, he points out that the Inquisitors activities were heavily slanted towards Jewish and Moslem communities who would have suffered far more than most from their activities. Recent work, sponsored by the Catholic Church, also points to a significantly lower death toll. Professor Agostino Borromeo, a historian of Catholicism at the Sapienza University in Rome, writes that about 125,000 people were tried by church tribunals as suspected heretics in Spain. Of these, about 1,200 - 2,000 were actually executed, although more killings were performed by non-church tribunals.

Now this is more in line with what I read in a book I have at home that I cannot find. (I am reorganizing my books in my shelves and they are all over the place right now - I am trying to put them in order of subject instead of the way I had it - haphazard)

Spanish Inquisition

even wikipedia has a number that is closer to the truth - Spanish Inquisition

Why don’t you check more than one source and start questioning? The documentation of the Inquisitors was very good.

And that is history - to learn from. Not to ignore, or twist. And the muslims, and communists, have killed more in the 20th century and are still going strong to this day. Well, more so the muslims than the communists in this century.

 

[Contarini]

From the University of North Carolina.

cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html

Note that this website belongs to a professor of *computer science *at UNC. It is not produced by the history or religious studies departments at UNC. I was tempted for a moment to write to UNC (perhaps to Prof. Peter Kaufman, who is a church historian and with whom I took a class in grad school) and alert them that Prof. Plaisted is using the UNC website to put out misleading information. But I don’t want to do that because I believe in free speech. And it really isn’t Prof. Plaisted’s fault. It’s yours for not using basic research skills to ascertain that this information is presented by a Seventh Day Adventist computer science with no more credentials to speak on this subject than I have to speak on computer science (and believe me, that’s almost none).

Modern scholars do not accept these inflated figures.

Edwin

 

[notself]

Dear all,

This isn’t about Catholics killing or Buddhists killing or atheists killing. The point I am making is that religion or the lack of religion makes no difference if people want to kill, they kill.

The narrow view that somehow Communists are worse because they have killed more in a shorter period of time is silly. The narrow view that somehow Catholics are better because they are not actively killing now is equally silly.

May all people stop killing. Killing is stupid.

Metta,
notself

 

[jen_fla]

From the University of North Carolina.

cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html

and from there we read this nonsense:

Here are some of the places where figures about religious persecutions are given. Dowling in his History of Romanism says

“From the birth of Popery in 606 to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of popery.”

– “History of Romanism,” pp. 541, 542. New York: 1871.

what reputable secular institution believes that there were no Popes before 606? the Catholic Church already had 37 Popes before it complied the New Testament.

newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

by 606 there had already been 65 Popes.

another clue that the first source is garbage is the term, popery which is very offensive. this guy needs to stick to programming or perhaps take up fiction writing.

thefreedictionary.com/popery

in addition, as i’m sure you know there are many people that fail to follow the beliefs they profess to adhere to for one reason or another. usually it is power, with religion falsely being the selling point. that being said Catholics are not to kill and the issue of going to war is not to be taken lightly. those Catholics that killed on the offense were going against the peaceful teachings of Christ. in some cases the Church was acting defensively, and in many cases, the rulers were doing what rulers generally do… anything to stay in power. whether this king or that queen (Catholic or Protestant)… obviously they were not following their religion and were members of their religion by name only.

the Catholic Church follows the doctrine of “just war”

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

i can think of only TWO religions that actually condone violence.

anyway, i am sorry if i got a bit sidetracked. SDA nonsense really gets me going.

… and now back to the thread… :tiphat:

my response pretty much agrees with what stephenfrancis said on pg 4. and he stated it in a much nicer way than i could have.

 

[R_not]

Dear all,

This isn’t about Catholics killing or Buddhists killing or atheists killing. The point I am making is that religion or the lack of religion makes no difference if people want to kill, they kill.

The narrow view that somehow Communists are worse because they have killed more in a shorter period of time is silly. The narrow view that somehow Catholics are better because they are not actively killing now is equally silly.

May all people stop killing. Killing is stupid.

Metta,
notself

Actually, that isn’t as true anymore as it may have been in the past. The only ones on killing sprees, as a group/belief system, are the muslims. The communists not so much anymore.

And we also have men and women who kill - and we hunt them down, or they turn themselves in - we put them in jail - give them a trial - and they serve a sentence, if need be.

The only ones doing wanton killing in so many other lands over a religion are muslims. Well, the Russians did it recently last year. And the muslims even attack communists in their lands - we saw that late last year in China. It hasn’t been so recent in Russia - at least that I know of.

Sorry, but you are trying to prove something that just is not true. You want it to be true, but it isn’t.

Our militaries have followed the Geneva conventions - muslims have not. They follow their koran. And one notable thing that they do that no others do is… attack/aim for children and unarmed citizens.

You can say the Israelis have done that - you can say that of our troops - but it is not true. They are indeed collateral damage, but when these children and other unarmed citizens are killed - it takes a heavy toll on our troops. It is why Israel has gone to extreme lengths to create weaponry, or buy it, that has precise targets. As we do too.

 

[jen_fla]

Dear all,

This isn’t about Catholics killing or Buddhists killing or atheists killing. The point I am making is that religion or the lack of religion makes no difference if people want to kill, they kill.

The narrow view that somehow Communists are worse because they have killed more in a shorter period of time is silly. The narrow view that somehow Catholics are better because they are not actively killing now is equally silly.

May all people stop killing. Killing is stupid.

Metta,
notself

hi metta. i’m glad you are on this forum. i think the longer you stick around you’ll see that you probably agree with most Catholic teachings… maybe not the WAY we say something … but at least with what we are saying…

take your last statement. it’s obvious you want peace and are a nonviolent person, but it does appear that somehow what you think we believe and what we actually believe are a bit off.

Catholics do not think they are better than anybody. we are asked to be humble and to love ALL our brothers and sisters on this planet. we love Truth and if someone is promoting a false ideology (like the strongest should survive… are you familiar with eugenics?) then we do our best to attack the idea… hopefully not the person.

your belief systems DO matter. there are people in this world that think they have the right to kill, simply because their needs come first. this in NO way means that most atheists think along these lines, but you can’t deny your beliefs affect your actions and decisions.

at any rate, stick around. as humans we all fall short from time to time, but this is an awesome place to learn and watch the fireworks. :stretcher: