Thinking Christians?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
You say that like it's a bad thing. Hal, how could you possibly hold these poor confused folks to any standard remotely resembling veracity?
Surely you realize their quest here is limited to calling evil 'good' and good 'evil.' They engage in constant battles of one-upmanship, duly rec-ing one another--- even for posts which disagree with their position ...[text shortened]... solated low-hanging produce of intellectual-wannabes.
Historians? More like histronics.

Do you teach your kids from Bob Jones or ABeka? Or maybe you feed them straight from the unblemished mouth of David Barton?

All the good which resulted from the spread of xianity? Like what?
So far all I've gotten is a lot of horn tooting and insinuations.
Please share 10 or 12 from this inexhaustible list.

Don't worry. My expectations aren't too high. Probably a few spurious relations a best.

Originally posted by telerion
It's true that I wasn't homeschooled if that's what you are insinuating.

I thought you was some, or am I thinking of somone else?

Not to mention that I think Homeschooling is better, then todays public schools

Originally posted by flyUnity
I thought you was some, or am I thinking of somone else?

Not to mention that I think Homeschooling is better, then todays public schools

Surely that depends on the parents. Of course, I would prefer all Evangelicals to homeschool their kids.

Originally posted by telerion
Of course. It was sarcasm, Hal. 😛

Edit: Despite its errant trajectory, your grand admonishment leaves me duly humbled. Still I wonder, why did you associate my post with leftist politics? It's true that I wasn't homeschooled if that's what you are insinuating.

Eventually spying an opening, I had to make it count. I never know with you when I'll get such an opportunity again. I hope the glass jaw got a dent. 😀😉

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Historians? More like histronics.

Histrionics? Are you referring to Tel's or Hal's post? I think you might want to read 'em again.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
You say that like it's a bad thing. Hal, how could you possibly hold these poor confused folks to any standard remotely resembling veracity?
Surely you realize their quest here is limited to calling evil 'good' and good 'evil.' They engage in constant battles of one-upmanship, duly rec-ing one another--- even for posts which disagree with their position ...[text shortened]... solated low-hanging produce of intellectual-wannabes.
Historians? More like histronics.

I agree with ya. Not that this forum should become a formal, sanctimonious soap box, but at the moment, a little more veracity couldn't hurt.

Originally posted by bbarr
Surely that depends on the parents. Of course, I would prefer all Evangelicals to homeschool their kids.

Why the evangelicals in particular?

Originally posted by flyUnity
I thought you was some, or am I thinking of somone else?

Not to mention that I think Homeschooling is better, then todays public schools

Yes, that didn't come out right. I was homeschooled for a bit (2 years around 5th and 6th grades). My intention with that comment was to suggest that since I didn't complete my primary education in a fundie home, that I was not brainwashed into a particular political view. It was meant to be contrasted to what many evangelicals do to their children. I found it ironic that Hal would suggest that I was the brainwashed one. No matter how errant my thinking, my philosophy is one that I've peiced together myself from my encounters with many different views.

You're right though. The way I put it in that post just didn't work.

Originally posted by Halitose
Why the evangelicals in particular?

Because they are particularly evangelistic?

Originally posted by telerion
Because they are particularly evangelistic?

And this is somehow more wrong than the liberal evangelism gushing from the media and many of the educational institutions?

There is something, to me, very sinister about this emergence of a weird kind of conformity, or orthodoxy, particularly among the people who operate the media, so that you can tell in advance exactly what they will say and think about anything. It is true that so far they have not got an Inquisition to enforce their orthodoxy, but they do have ways of enforcing it which make the old thumbscrews and racks seem quite paltry.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Originally posted by telerion
Because they are particularly evangelistic?

In varying degrees, every group of thought is made of evangelists. Every group consists of 'fundies,' 'liberals,' and 'conservatives.'

Even within such an arcane group as is found here, chess players, one would imagine to find more consensus. After all, how hard can it be? Sixty-four squares, 36 pieces, set rules of movement and play. Yet after any one of the twenty possibilities of the first move is made, the game becomes a variable universe... and no agreement on how to progress from there.

Is one an idiot for moving his king pawn as opposed to his queen pawn? Is a move wasted if it sets up a fork to establish a winning position? Everyone wishes to put themselves in positions to win, of this, there can be no debate. But if there is no consensus about how best to do that on 64 squares, how in the name of all that is right does anyone expect to establish a winning strategy outside of those squares, which even this small group would agree upon?

I would submit, therefore, that what occurs here more often than not, is a narrow focus of player attack, disguised as critique of movements. For if movement were being objectively considered, there would exist, at minimum, an agreement for the positions of the pieces.

When the debate becomes so absurd as the demand to know the good that has come about from the spread of Christianity, the board is no longer in view, the pieces devalued, and the game has become meaningless.

Originally posted by telerion
1) Go Crusaders! If not for you, I'd be a Muslim fool instead of a Xian fool. Wait . . . I'm neither, so WTF cares?

2) No, I don't believe so.

3) Here's a nice long summary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enlightenment

1. Even you have better sense than to be an atheist taking pot shots at Islam in an Islamic country. Trust me - you don't even want to go there.

You may not like the Crusades, but they were a critical link in the chain of events that give you your freedoms today.

3. Thanks for the link. All of the philosophers listed in the article owe a huge debt of gratitude to the mediaeval philosophers. The Rationalist movement would never have taken off were it not for the defence of reason by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure in the 13th century. Indeed, the philosophers who gave us the "inalienable rights" depended on the creation of man by God, to justify whose existence they had to rely on Aquinas' Five Proofs. You can see this for yourself in the Declaration of Independence.

Like it or not, the Enlightenment "Fathers" (quite amazing how rationalists end up using religious terminology) did not arrive into a world of darkness - they just changed the lightbulb.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
In varying degrees, every group of thought is made of evangelists. Every group consists of 'fundies,' 'liberals,' and 'conservatives.'

Even within such an arcane group as is found here, chess players, one would imagine to find more consensus. After all, how hard can it be? Sixty-four squares, 36 pieces, set rules of movement and play. Yet after an ...[text shortened]... the board is no longer in view, the pieces devalued, and the game has become meaningless.

Nothing wrong with opening P-K4 rather than P-Q4. To be consistent with your analogy though, the fundie xians here open P-KB3 . . . P-KN4 everytime and then fatuously declare themselves the champion by redefining checkmate.

Originally posted by telerion
Nothing wrong with opening P-K4 rather than P-Q4. To be consistent with your analogy though, the fundie xians here open P-KB3 . . . P-KN4 everytime and then fatuously declare themselves the champion by redefining checkmate.

There is no denying that most Christians are pathetically ignorant of orthodox theology and, more specifically, about the integrity of God. However, that does not exclude the fact that those opposed to Christianity are not absolved themselves from sticking to the truth.

Most opposed are grinding their axes, without a care for the facts/history/objective truth. They figure, if they successfully attack the superficial message (and the superficial understanding of its carriers), their stance of obstinance toward God is somehow more justified.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
1. Even you have better sense than to be an atheist taking pot shots at Islam in an Islamic country .

You may not like the Crusades, but they were a critical link in the chain of events that give you your freedoms today.

3. Thanks for the link. All of the philosophers listed in the article owe a huge debt of gratitude to the mediaeval philosophe ...[text shortened]... creation of man by God, to justify whose existence they had to rely on Aquinas' Five Proofs.

1) You speak as if you do like the Crusades. But please, explain your point more fullly. As yet it seems spurious to me, but I acknowledge that I am not a historian and that in my ignorance I may not appreciate the fundamental role that the Crusades played in the creation of the US's Bill of Rights.

I'll also acknowledge that today some hardline Islamic governments persecute non-believers, though this is not the case in every Islamic country. Of course, the same could be said of European Xian countries for much of the last millennium as well. The fact that it is not so there today has less to do with xianity as a doctrine (and certainly not the Catholic Church!) and more to do with the questioning of that doctrine (by xians and skeptics alike). To presume that the development of tolerant pluralistic societies could not be achieved except through xianity is absurd!

3) By this reasoning the Israelis should all appreciate Hitler, for his sadistic extermination program played an integral role in the creation of the Israeli state.