What has Atheism given us?

[CAA Flagship]

In defense of Hithcens, and really all atheists, he didn't have to defend fairy tales.

Wouldn't that make it easier for people to think he is right?
Nobody can prove that he is right, or wrong for that matter.
Faith is a lot harder to defend than the opposite.

Hell, I could go out on the street and proclaim that the Arctic does not exist because it is likely that everyone that I come in contact with has never been there to see it. If the naysayers balk, I will ask them to prove it. They will show me pictures. I will say that is fake and argue to the point where some morons will actually believe me because of the lack of any other true evidence that will personally satisfy them.

[D1B]

In defense of Hithcens, and really all atheists, he didn't have to defend fairy tales.

Wouldn't that make it easier for people to think he is right?

Yes, it does.

[JoltinJoe]

At this point, the only knowledge Hitchens might have on this issue is that he was wrong.

If he was right, his is surely a pyrrhic victory. So that's what atheism gives you, in the end.

[Ibanez]

Wouldn't that make it easier for people to think he is right?

Yes, it does.

But that doesn't mean he was.

[D1B]

You know, D, no truly rational or reasonable person can look themselves in the mirror and think we have information at our disposal, and all means available to us, to form such firm opinions about the nature of reality or the lack of existence of God. We know and understand but a fraction of what is objectively true (and I'm talking about science here), and we have but five imperfect means of perception. We know, for example, that there are sound waves which exist which are not capable of perceiving, and quantum physics tells us there are dimensions which are imperceptible to man's sensory perception.

So Hitchens was neither reasonable nor rational.

I believe that there is a repository of all objective scientific truth somewhere, and I also believe that there is a repository of all objective moral truth, and I believe that these repositories are what we call God. I believe that this God is a personal God, not an impersonal God. I believe this because I feel it, and I know that it would be unreasonable to think I can discount this belief based on my knowledge, experience, and perception (because they are so noticeably incomplete).

Hitchens's trick when he debated is that he would attack someone for their religion, rather than their faith. So he would stand up there and make snarky comments about a crucified savior and eating his flesh as cannibalism, while avoiding any philosophical discussion about the existence of God.

The fact is that the existence of God and the nature of God (and how he manifests himself) are two different debates. Having a debate about the nature of God only makes sense if both parties agree on the existence of God. Hitchens realized this, and his tactic was to attack his opponent's religion, ridicule it, and then say this proves there is no God.

The fact is Jesus, as the most perfect manifestation of a personal God who so much desires a relationship with us that he becomes one of is, is perfectly defensible once there is an agreement of the existence of a personal God. Jesus, however, makes no sense if you do not accept the existence of a personal God.

And there is the hole in Hitchens's theory. He rejects out of hand (irrationally and without any serious, honest discussion of metaphysics and epistemology) the existence of God. Having so emphatically rejected the existence of God, he ridicules the concept of a personal God incarnate. And then, having ridiculed the concept of a personal God incarnate, he reasons back that this proves he is right about the existence of God.

Ridicule is a great rhetorical tool before the semi-learned. But it doesn't carry the day in legitimate academic debates -- which is why Hitchens will never make an inroads as a "philosopher" who must be read and remembered, and who will never be read in college level philosophy or theology courses.

But he's on Satellite Radio -- which actually proves my point.

Do you ever watch his debates? He doesn't ridicule. He's very polite and his adversaries typically like him.

He, like most atheists, doesn't give a shit about god. The target of his wit is catholics raping children, jews mutilating the genitals of children, muslims mistreating women, the ridiculousness of original sin, the hilarious mormons and so on and on and on and on and on.

Your personal god is a reflection of you. Own it.

[D1B]

At this point, the only knowledge Hitchens might have on this issue is that he was wrong.

If he was right, his is surely a pyrrhic victory. So that's what atheism gives you, in the end.

Joe, if there is a just god. Hitchens is in heaven.

Jesus would hate what the church has become and the way you've handled yourselves since his death.

[D1B]

Yes, it does.

But that doesn't mean he was.

He's right about religion.

[grizzaholic]

What has Atheism given us?

No holy wars that killed millions.

[D1B]

Catholics no longer bludgeon people to death for reading the bible in English.

[JoltinJoe]

Like many of the charges against Catholicism, what you just said is not true.

One of the reasons I feel comfortable in the Catholic Church is that there are so many lies told about it -- and even those things which are based in truth are distorted beyond reason and fairness in malicious ways.

There is nothing in the world which is lied about more often than the Catholic Church.

And thus, if you believe in a powerful force for evil which seeks to corrupt humankind, you would realize that this force would seek to create the most lies about that which is the most holy.

So the more lies, the more I believe.

[Gil Dobie]

**** laughable.

Lets hear it bitches. This should be pure gold.

D1B, Cap'n Cat................nuff said

[D1B]

Like many of the charges against Catholicism, what you just said is not true.

One of the reasons I feel comfortable in the Catholic Church is that there are so many lies told about it -- and even those things which are based in truth are distorted beyond reason and fairness in malicious ways.

There is nothing in the world which is lied about more often than the Catholic Church.

And thus, if you believe in a powerful force for evil which seeks to corrupt humankind, you would realize that this force would seek to create the most lies about that which is the most holy.

So the more lies, the more I believe.

Classic catholic response. Just call it a lie and hope people believe you.

[D1B]

Like many of the charges against Catholicism, what you just said is not true.

One of the reasons I feel comfortable in the Catholic Church is that there are so many lies told about it -- and even those things which are based in truth are distorted beyond reason and fairness in malicious ways.

There is nothing in the world which is lied about more often than the Catholic Church.

And thus, if you believe in a powerful force for evil which seeks to corrupt humankind, you would realize that this force would seek to create the most lies about that which is the most holy.

So the more lies, the more I believe.

Catholic Torture Techniques (more lies )

1. The Strappado

Strappado is a form of torture in which a victim is suspended in the air by a rope attached to his hands which have been tied behind his back.

There are at least three variants of this torture. In the first, the victim has his arms tied behind his back; a large rope is then tied to his wrists and passed over a beam or a hook on the roof. The torturer pulls on this rope until the victim is hanging from his arms. Since the hands are tied behind the back, this action causes extreme pain and possible dislocation of the arms. The full weight of the subject's body is then supported by the extended and internally-rotated shoulder sockets. While the technique shows no external injuries, it caused long-term nerve, ligament, or tendon damage.

The second variation is similar to the first, but with a series of drops from a suspended height. In addition to the damage caused by the suspension, the repeated drops caused major stress to the extended arms, leading to broken shoulders.

In the third variant, the victim's hands are tied to the front. The victim is also hung from the hands, but his ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This will cause pain and possible damage not only to the arms, but also to the legs and hips. This variant was known as squassation.

2. The Rack

The rack consists of an oblong rectangular, wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. The victim's feet are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other.

As the interrogation progresses, a handle and ratchet attached to the top roller are used to increase tension on the chains, which induces excruciating pain as the victim's joints slowly dislocate. Once muscle fibers had been stretched past a certain point they lose their ability to contract, the victims who were released had ineffective muscles as well as problems arising from dislocation.

Because of its mechanically precise, graded operation, the rack was well-suited for hard interrogation, and led to many "confessions."

One gruesome aspect of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. Eventually, if the application of the rack is continued, the victim's limbs were ripped right off.

3. The Judas Chair

This method is particularly brutal. Just reading about the Judas Chair is enought to make one clench. So if you have a weak tummy (or other soft, vulnerable body parts), I suggest that you skip past it.

The Judas Chair was a pyramid-shaped seat (see right). The person being asked to confess his sins against Christ was placed on top of it, with the point inserted into the anus or vagina. Then, as the questioning advanced, the Inquisitor very slowly lowered the defendant further and further onto the point by overhead ropes.

Some theories suggest that the intended effect was to stretch the orifice over a long period of time, or to slowly impale. The victim was usually naked, adding to the humiliation already endured.

Joe, this is how your church honored your god, back in the day.

[D1B]

**** laughable.

Lets hear it bitches. This should be pure gold.

D1B, Cap'n Cat................nuff said

STFU you fat little troll.

[Seahawks08]

[JoltinJoe]

We already covered this. Torture devices were used by civil authorities enforcing heresy laws, which is why the church started its own inquisition in the first place, in an effort to curtail abuses by civil authorities.

And the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish crown, in opposition to the church's condemnation and its demand that the Spanish Inquisition be stopped.

Thank you for proving my point.

[Gil Dobie]

D1B, Cap'n Cat................nuff said

STFU you fat little troll.

[D1B]

We already covered this. Torture devices were used by civil authorities enforcing heresy laws, which is why the church started its own inquisition in the first place, in an effort to curtail abuses by civil authorities.

And the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish crown, in opposition to the church's condemnation and its demand that the Spanish Inquisition be stopped.

Thank you for proving my point.

Bullshit.

[D1B]

STFU you fat little troll.

[ASUMountaineer]

STFU you fat little troll.

Oxymoron?

[D1B]

We already covered this. Torture devices were used by civil authorities enforcing heresy laws, which is why the church started its own inquisition in the first place, in an effort to curtail abuses by civil authorities.

And the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish crown, in opposition to the church's condemnation and its demand that the Spanish Inquisition be stopped.

Thank you for proving my point.

We sure did. Posted this last year.

Torturer’s Apprentice
The new science of interrogation is not, in fact, so new at all: “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” and “waterboarding” all spring directly from the practices of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The distance, in both technique and ideology, between the Inquisition’s interrogation regime and 21st-century America’s is uncomfortably short—and provides a chilling harbinger of what can happen when moral certainty gets yoked to the machinery of torture...

Bernard Gui is a historical figure. He was a Dominican priest, and in 1307 he was indeed made an inquisitor by Pope Clement V, with responsibility for a broad swath of southern France. Over a period of 15 years, Gui pronounced some 633 men and women guilty of heresy. We know the disposition of these cases because Gui wrote everything down—the record survives in his Liber sententiarum, his “Book of Sentences.” It is a folio-size volume, bound in red leather. File a request at the British Library, in London, and before long the document will be delivered to the Manuscripts Reading Room, where you can prop it up on a wedge of black velvet. The writing, in Latin, is tiny and heavily abbreviated. Joe, try to lie your way out of this one!

Inquisition records can be highly detailed and shockingly mundane. An itemized accounting of expenses for the burning of four heretics in 1323 survives from Carcassonne:

For large wood 55 sols, 6 deniers.
For vine-branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 sols, 3 deniers.
For straw 2 sols, 6 deniers.
For four stakes 10 sols, 9 deniers.
For ropes to tie the convicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 sols, 7 deniers.
For the executioner, each 20 sols . . . . . . . . 80 sols.
In all 8 livres, 14 sols, 7 deniers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ce/308838/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ibanez]

We already covered this. Torture devices were used by civil authorities enforcing heresy laws, which is why the church started its own inquisition in the first place, in an effort to curtail abuses by civil authorities.

And the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish crown, in opposition to the church's condemnation and its demand that the Spanish Inquisition be stopped.

Thank you for proving my point.

We sure did. Posted this last year.

Torturer’s Apprentice
The new science of interrogation is not, in fact, so new at all: “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” and “waterboarding” all spring directly from the practices of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The distance, in both technique and ideology, between the Inquisition’s interrogation regime and 21st-century America’s is uncomfortably short—and provides a chilling harbinger of what can happen when moral certainty gets yoked to the machinery of torture...

Bernard Gui is a historical figure. He was a Dominican priest, and in 1307 he was indeed made an inquisitor by Pope Clement V, with responsibility for a broad swath of southern France. Over a period of 15 years, Gui pronounced some 633 men and women guilty of heresy. We know the disposition of these cases because Gui wrote everything down—the record survives in his Liber sententiarum, his “Book of Sentences.” It is a folio-size volume, bound in red leather. File a request at the British Library, in London, and before long the document will be delivered to the Manuscripts Reading Room, where you can prop it up on a wedge of black velvet. The writing, in Latin, is tiny and heavily abbreviated. Joe, try to lie your way out of this one!

Inquisition records can be highly detailed and shockingly mundane. An itemized accounting of expenses for the burning of four heretics in 1323 survives from Carcassonne:

For large wood 55 sols, 6 deniers.
For vine-branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 sols, 3 deniers.
For straw 2 sols, 6 deniers.
For four stakes 10 sols, 9 deniers.
For ropes to tie the convicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 sols, 7 deniers.
For the executioner, each 20 sols . . . . . . . . 80 sols.
In all 8 livres, 14 sols, 7 deniers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ce/308838/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All you have to say is that the various inquistions were sanctioned by the RCC. Ad extirpanda, a papal bull is the 1200s, authorized torture and oultined the circumstances in which it can be conducted.

[D1B]

We sure did. Posted this last year.

All you have to say is that the various inquistions were sanctioned by the RCC. Ad extirpanda, a papal bull is the 1200s, authorized torture and oultined the circumstances in which it can be conducted.

The crown and the church were one in the same and Joe knows this.

[Ibanez]

All you have to say is that the various inquistions were sanctioned by the RCC. Ad extirpanda, a papal bull is the 1200s, authorized torture and oultined the circumstances in which it can be conducted.

The crown and the church were one in the same and Joe knows this.

Yes he does know. However, the argument is that many of these inquistors went beyond what was intended. We can say that for sure. THe historical record tells us that the church began and sacntioned the inquistions and the torture methods used.

[Gil Dobie]

STFU you fat little troll.

Like they say, it takes a troll to know a troll, some are bigger and fatter than others.