tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post4861349639160687195..comments2023-11-22T09:00:59.909-08:00Comments on Atheistwatch: Who Represents Christianity? Antoher Dialgue with LorenJoseph Hinman (Metacrock)http://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-8780829983034980372010-05-29T06:24:35.386-07:002010-05-29T06:24:35.386-07:00Metacrock, why do you think that Trinity rejection...Metacrock, why do you think that Trinity rejection is due to inadequate textual criticism?<br /><br /><b>All of those movements that became Unitarianism of which Newton was a part began in response to Erasmus textual criticism when he realized that the oldest copies of the NT text did not have the Trinitairan formulation passages.<br /><br />The mistake was in thinking that the oldest copy is proof of the original words. That's not always the case, the "oldest" just means "the oldest we have" not the "oldest written."</b><br /><br /><br />As to the Latitudinarians, they got their name because some contemporaries thought them deplorably lax about religion while liking the social forms of religion -- they didn't have a reputation for being hard-assed about orthodoxy.<br /><br /><br /><b>so? First not true, it was becuase they were moderates on certain questions pertaining to the English Civil war. They wanted "latitude" they evolved out the Cambridge Platonists.<br /><br />Loren you are really into straw men.<br /><br />you are supposed to be arguing with the Christianity of whomever you argue with not your own idea of "true" Christianity is (your idea of "true" Christianity is slanted to the most absurd side. you automatically set up your straw man to be the easiest version to attack.</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-49181264658096920102010-05-28T16:16:10.128-07:002010-05-28T16:16:10.128-07:00Metacrock, why do you think that Trinity rejection...Metacrock, why do you think that Trinity rejection is due to inadequate textual criticism?<br /><br /><br />As to the Latitudinarians, they got their name because some contemporaries thought them deplorably lax about religion while liking the social forms of religion -- they didn't have a reputation for being hard-assed about orthodoxy.Lorenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13984896453534621864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-55380683783313691662010-05-28T07:38:14.685-07:002010-05-28T07:38:14.685-07:00Metacrock, that's shoddy history. Just about e...Metacrock, that's shoddy history. Just about everybody was at least nominally some sect of Christian some centuries back -- whatever sect the local authorities supported.<br /><br /><b>that's a cop out. The people I've documented were willing to suffer and die for their beliefs. devout nature of one's faith can be demonstrated through writing's, diaries or actions. the cop out that all were Chrsitians is not true anyway.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Sir Isaac Newton was a Trinity denier who was obsessed with interpreting Biblical prophecies.<br /><br /><b>I acknowledged his Arianism, and I said it was due to poor information about the early scinece of textual criticism. So that' snot really important is it? that doesn't' remove the fact that he believed the bible and believed in Jesus.<br /><br />so you impune his scientific credentials? are you even aware of all that he did? He basically invented scientific reductionism. that's even more important than his laws of physics.</b><br /><br /><br /> He considered it idolatrous that Jesus Christ had been God. He also was not a very nice person - he was crabby and quarrelsome and paranoid and reclusive.<br /><br /><br /><b>arguement ad hom. so he had to be wrong about God existing because he was crabby? that's silly.<br /><br />I'm crabby, what do I care?</b><br /><br />Metacrock, if you didn't think that Sir Isaac Newton made good propaganda, you'd be saying that a fake Christian he is. Just as you say about defenders of slavery, sexism, the Divine Right of Kings, anything-goes capitalism, etc.<br /><br /><b>what do you think you are saying? The argument was that Christianity owes a large part of its origins to Christianity. you ar not doing anything to refute that.<br /><br />Newton's take on Trinity is totally beside the point. The fact is the Latitudinarians supported his views and saw them (his science) as an opportunity to gain the supper hand in society through scientific apologetically. That may not be scientific but it created the situation where modern science had a chance to overshadow Plenism and alchemy and establish itself.<br /><br />without their support, the churchmen knows as "lats" Newton might have been undiscovered and his works overlooked and science set back a hundred years.</b><br /><br />see Margarete Jacob <a rel="nofollow"><b>The Newtonians</b></a><br /><br /><a rel="nofollow"><b>Jacob homepage</b></a><br /><br />He also kept his Trinity denial a secret because he didn't want to hurt his career. It would have been hard to get anywhere as a believer in some other religion, let alone a believer in no religion.<br /><br /><b>so what? The use made of his work by the Latitudinarians is what created modern scinece, not his views on the Trinity</b><br /><br />As to Martin Luther King, Jr., he either doubted or denied the Virgin Birth, and he wrote some papers in his seminary years asking what experiences made the early Christians come to believe that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. <br /><br /><b>bullshit. Besides any theologians differences are extraneous to the issues. That's all "in house" you don't have a right to comment. The point is not your take what you a Christian is, the point is the reality of what the tradition has done for the world.</b><br /><br /><br />He considered becoming a Unitarian minister before becoming a Baptist one. He also was inspired by the example of a non-Christian, Mohandas Gandhi.<br /><br /><br /><b>are you really an adult? that's so fucking stupid!<br /><br />you have no concept of liberal theology do you? you just really have no more idea what Christianity is or is about than the the Jack in the box guy understands real food.</b><br /><br />Here also, if you didn't think that he'd make good propaganda, you'd claim that he's a fake Christian.<br /><br /><b>now explain what that has to do with anything?</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-56079123651944510982010-05-27T13:40:11.036-07:002010-05-27T13:40:11.036-07:00Metacrock, that's shoddy history. Just about e...Metacrock, that's shoddy history. Just about everybody was at least nominally some sect of Christian some centuries back -- whatever sect the local authorities supported.<br /><br />Sir Isaac Newton was a Trinity denier who was obsessed with interpreting Biblical prophecies. He considered it idolatrous that Jesus Christ had been God. He also was not a very nice person - he was crabby and quarrelsome and paranoid and reclusive.<br /><br />Metacrock, if you didn't think that Sir Isaac Newton made good propaganda, you'd be saying that a fake Christian he is. Just as you say about defenders of slavery, sexism, the Divine Right of Kings, anything-goes capitalism, etc.<br /><br />He also kept his Trinity denial a secret because he didn't want to hurt his career. It would have been hard to get anywhere as a believer in some other religion, let alone a believer in no religion.<br /><br />As to Martin Luther King, Jr., he either doubted or denied the Virgin Birth, and he wrote some papers in his seminary years asking what experiences made the early Christians come to believe that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. He considered becoming a Unitarian minister before becoming a Baptist one. He also was inspired by the example of a non-Christian, Mohandas Gandhi.<br /><br />Here also, if you didn't think that he'd make good propaganda, you'd claim that he's a fake Christian.Lorenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13984896453534621864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-79301018371653906152010-05-27T03:49:31.875-07:002010-05-27T03:49:31.875-07:00Metacrock, you seem just like the "hate-group...Metacrock, you seem just like the "hate-group atheists" that you complain about, with your ill-tempered dismissals of these people.<br /><br /><b>come on! First of all what's the point of your list? The point of my list is to show that there's a whole other set of Christians in every situation who fought oppression and they deserve to represent the tradition because of their nobility for humanity, not the oppressive one's who are just conventional idiots; it takes no greatness to be an oppressor. It takes greatness to die for the cause, a noble cause such as humanity.<br /><br />But then to just show a bunch of atheists who did things, so what? I never argued that atheism was social oppressive except for communism that was just to make the point that the original logic of the attack is just guilt by association and a selective list mining the data for bad Christian actions.<br /><br />Then, secondly, the best you could do is Bertrand Russell. So you are comparing people most of whom no one has heard of and some of whom were not really atheists, to the greats of Christiantiy it's going to look like this:<br /><br />No body, vs Descartres<br />No body, vs. John Locke<br />minor person, vs. Issac Newton</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-51318612717030528662010-05-26T21:02:31.248-07:002010-05-26T21:02:31.248-07:00Metacrock, you seem just like the "hate-group...Metacrock, you seem just like the "hate-group atheists" that you complain about, with your ill-tempered dismissals of these people.Lorenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13984896453534621864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-67569168185453065762010-05-26T13:20:16.957-07:002010-05-26T13:20:16.957-07:00Metacrock, you claim that "Christianity is a ...Metacrock, you claim that "Christianity is a major part of the human experience. It is responsible for most of the good in the world." Except that Christianity is only 2000 years old, younger than written history (5000 years old), and our species (100,000 - 200,000 years old; Behavioral modernity, Anatomically modern humans).<br /><br /><b>obviously I meant since its been around. Essentially I was speaking of early modern and modern times.</b><br /><br />Furthermore, most of historical Christianity has involved beliefs like eternal damnation and that women ought to have inferior social status. <br /><br /><b>that has nothing to do with actions in the world; you miss the point of cousre as usually: the point being why doe the oppressors get to represent the tradition and to the liberators? I spoke to the woman's thing in my post, you are not refuting it.</b><br /><br /><br />Metacrock, you could have gotten burned at the stake because of your beliefs over much of your beloved religion's history.<br /><br /><b>prove it? I've studied the archieves of witch trials. they had fewer people than die on the higher in America in one year for all of Euopre over a thousand years.I also show pagans burning withces too. blame paganism!<br /><br />Moreover, I said historians prove that it was the reformation and secular courts who caused the ballooning of statistics on trials. it was Christians who stopped the trails. you really don't listen.</b><br /><br /><br />You might want to consider what religions the 19th cy. and early 20th cy. industrialists tended to believe in, and you may want to reread Romans 13 and consider how labor unionists have blatantly violated that text.<br /><br /><b>theological interpretation is not assailable; in other words you have to prove that's the only valid interpenetration of that passages. which obviously it's not.<br /><br />that wouldn't matter anyway because the empirical fact is Christians led the labor movement whether you like it or not.</b><br /><br /><br /><br />As to right-libertarian atheism, I don't know if anyone has done a history of it. I've found a lot of right-libertarian atheists online, but I can only guess at how far back it extends. Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand are obvious examples, and possibly <br /><br /><br /><b>I can show you a you tube lecture saying Ayn is responsible for the economic crisis and the moral crisis today.she was a totally evil piece of shit. she totally despised communism, liberalism, Marxism and the poor, any movement that aimed at the helping the poor she would oppose.</b><br /><br /><br />H.L. Mencken and Herbert Spencer before them. Susan Jacoby had sadly neglected them, but she did chronicle lots of notable atheists and agnostics and other freethinkers in US history.<br /><br /><b>she's not worthy to lick their boots, and Mencken was a total piece of shit but he's better than Rand.</b><br />let's go down the row:<br /><br />Like Thomas Paine,he was a shit.<br /><br /><br />Robert Dale Owen,a nobody not great<br /><br /> Frances Wright,who?<br /> Ernestine Rose,?<br /> Elizabeth Cady Stanton, not the major in her field but one of the few notables you mention.<br /><br /> Susan B. Anthony,sure she was anteist?<br /><br /> Matilda Joslyn Gage,<br />? W.E.B. DuBois, not atheist<br /><br /> Robert Ingersoll,sure?<br /><br /> Walt Whitman, <a href="http://classiclit.about.com/cs/articles/a/aa_songofmyself.htm" rel="nofollow"><b>not atheist</b></a><br /><br /> Mark Twain,one of the great true greats you mention<br /><br /> Clarence Darrow,ambulance chaser<br /><br />Emma Goldman,Marxist, Ayn Rand would hate her<br /><br /> Emanuel Haldeman-Julius,?<br />?<br /><br /> Vashti McCollum,?<br /><br /> Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Total air head. I knew some of her best friends and my brother met her and knew her in Austin total idiot. she was also a communist and her son became a Christian, so Ayn Rand would hate her.<br /><br />like most lists of "great" atheists most of them are not very great and some not even atheists.<br /><br />why did you leave out Russell? the atheist only really great thinker!Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6538255877506581515.post-17142494369154171892010-05-25T13:10:03.377-07:002010-05-25T13:10:03.377-07:00Metacrock, you claim that "Christianity is a ...Metacrock, you claim that "Christianity is a major part of the human experience. It is responsible for most of the good in the world." Except that Christianity is only 2000 years old, younger than written history (5000 years old), and our species (100,000 - 200,000 years old; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity" rel="nofollow">Behavioral modernity</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_humans" rel="nofollow">Anatomically modern humans</a>).<br /><br />Furthermore, most of historical Christianity has involved beliefs like eternal damnation and that women ought to have inferior social status. Metacrock, you could have gotten burned at the stake because of your beliefs over much of your beloved religion's history.<br /><br />You might want to consider what religions the 19th cy. and early 20th cy. industrialists tended to believe in, and you may want to reread Romans 13 and consider how labor unionists have blatantly violated that text.<br /><br />As to right-libertarian atheism, I don't know if anyone has done a history of it. I've found a lot of right-libertarian atheists online, but I can only guess at how far back it extends. Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand are obvious examples, and possibly H.L. Mencken and Herbert Spencer before them. Susan Jacoby had sadly neglected them, but she did chronicle lots of notable atheists and agnostics and other freethinkers in US history.<br /><br />Like Thomas Paine, Robert Dale Owen, Frances Wright, Ernestine Rose, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, W.E.B. DuBois, Robert Ingersoll, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Clarence Darrow, Emma Goldman, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, Vashti McCollum, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, etc.Lorenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13984896453534621864noreply@blogger.com