Can you name a book more evil than the Bible ?
- Franc28
- bossel
- Franc28
- bossel
- Franc28
- Frank_Mullen
- bossel
- _Boanerges_
- nogod4me
- dancooper
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» Franc28 - Re: Re: Re: Re: Drop the offended attitude
In response to Re: Re: Re: Drop the offended attitude posted by Craig93:"This topic is all about Athiesm - you say Atheists do not believe in God - why then is it placed on the "Religion and Spirituality" forum -which is all to do with a God of some discription?"
1. I don't make that decision.
2. There is also a Tao topic.
"It seems to me that a lot of your articles are not so much aimed at proving Atheism right, as in trying to prove Christianity wrong - why don't you rail against all the other forms of Spirituality mentioned here on this forum?"
Because they are not widespread in the country of most of my readers. And I did publish many articles against Islam, which got me more hate mail than all the ones against Christianity together.
"By trying to disprove the bible wrong, that christianity is wrong - does not actually prove Athiesm right."
Of course not. But I also have articles about atheism.
"Did you have a bad experience with Christianity, or a Christian? I am wondering why you are so dead set against it."
Nope. Was raised freethinker. I am "dead set" against all religions, not just Christianity. If you have an article against Shinto, I'll be glad to put it on deck.
"BTW I may be wrong and I am open to being corrected here, the countries with the most freedom are the ones that were based on Christian principles"
For one thing, the US is not based on Christian principles. Can you find any of the ten commandments in American law ? I don't think so.
Anyway, let's look at the top 10 of economic freedom :
1. Hong Kong
2. New Zealand
3. Singapore
4. United States
5. Switzerland
6. United Kingdom
7. Canada
8. Ireland
9. Australia
10. Japan
Only the US and Ireland strike me as a Christian country in this list. One of the most atheistic countries in the world - the UK - is sixth. Japan is not even Christian-like.
Hah ! Christians are such idiots.
-- posted by Franc28
» bossel - "top 10 of economic freedom"
In response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Drop the offended attitude posted by Franc28:Wrong focus, IMO. Personal freedom is what counts more, not economic freedom. Whether a society is free could be better measured by press freedom. The Top 10 are:
1 Finland 0,50
- Iceland 0,50
- Norway 0,50
- Netherlands 0,50
5 Canada 0,75
6 Ireland 1,00
7 Germany 1,50
- Portugal 1,50
- Sweden 1,50
10 Denmark 3,00
General freedom has been measured by Freedom House, no Top 10 here, but a list of countries with the best mark (1.0) for freedom:
Andorra
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belgium
Canada
Cape Verde
Chile
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominica
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Kiribati
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritius
Micronesia
Nauru
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Palau
Poland
Portugal
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tuvalu
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
That doesn't prove much, anyway. A better argument would be that these "Christian" countries owe their freedom not to Christianity but to secular humanism.
-- posted by bossel
» Franc28 - Re: "top 10 of economic freedom"
In response to "top 10 of economic freedom" posted by bossel:I don't trust the data from Freedom House. They include democracy, union membership, welfare, and feminism (all of this just in their report about Canada) in their measure of civil liberties. Civil liberties means freedom of action, and none of these things have anything to do with freedom of action.
I would say Freedom House is inhabited by liberals and therefore its statistics are liberal propaganda. So the fact they chose Finland, Norway and Canada is not surprising at all. For a real measure of civil liberties, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Freedom of press is a good indication of civil lliberties, but wholly incomplete. I used economic freedom, as it is the widest in scope that we have available. Its results pretty strongly indicate that Christianity is not compatible with economic freedom, with the United States being the perennial exception.
-- posted by Franc28
» bossel - Liberal?
In response to Re: "top 10 of economic freedom" posted by Franc28:"Freedom House is inhabited by liberals"
I suppose, you use "liberals" in the strange US interpretation of meaning something like "leftist"?
Funny, then, that in a review I read before I posted, they were called neo-conservative. Just to be sure, today I looked at Wikipedia & found a pretty similar note:
"Left-wing critics of Freedom House tend to accuse it of conservative bias."
Could you back up your feminism accusation with a link? I looked at the Canada report & didn't find anything.
If you really think that Hong Kong & Singapore are freer than Finland or Norway, you're waaaay off. These 2 have severe limitations to personal freedom. Which leaves only Japan as a country with non-Christian majority.
Anyway, as I said, these rankings don't say much, for they only show the present situation & ignore historical development. If you want to disprove that the freest countries are based on Christian principles the better way to go is history. This would show that freedom in Europe grew with the reduction of religious influence.
-- posted by bossel
» Franc28 - Re: Liberal?
In response to Liberal? posted by bossel:"I suppose, you use "liberals" in the strange US interpretation of meaning something like "leftist"?"
Right.
"Funny, then, that in a review I read before I posted, they were called neo-conservative."
They're biased. As a libertarian, I hate leftists and conservatives with an equal passion. I would say that if I was absolutely forced to choose, I would choose to be a leftist.
"Could you back up your feminism accusation with a link? I looked at the Canada report & didn't find anything."
Sorry, my mistake. On that one, I was thinking about another report I read on their site. I think it was a scandinavian country.
"If you really think that Hong Kong & Singapore are freer than Finland or Norway, you're waaaay off."
I didn't say economic freedom was completely correlated with personal freedom. I said it was the best measure we had right now.
-- posted by Franc28
» Frank_Mullen - Can I name a book more evil than the Bible?
Physical objects are neither good nor evil. A bullet, a picture frame, a book--none can be evil, but humans can use them for evil purposes.Certainly people have been spurred to commit evil acts by their interpretations of the Bible, no doubt about that.
-- posted by Frank_Mullen
» bossel - Re: Re: Liberal?
In response to Re: Liberal? posted by Franc28:"I didn't say economic freedom was completely correlated with personal freedom. I said it was the best measure we had right now."
The fact that Hong Kong & Singapore rank so high indicates that it is not a good measure. Then I would rather go for Freedom House's methodology as they describe it on their website.
BTW, hatred is usually not a good guide to follow.
-- posted by bossel
» _Boanerges_ - Re: Re: Re: Liberal?
In response to Re: Re: Liberal? posted by bossel:BTW, hatred is usually not a good guide to follow.
-- posted by _Boanerges_
» nogod4me - Re: Re: Re: Re: Liberal?
In response to Re: Re: Re: Liberal? posted by _Boanerges_:Hi, I'm new to Suite101, but I thought I would throw my two cents in...
It doesn't matter where you live, you are free. You may not be able to express your freedom in some places, but you always have the choice to disobey the law. And you can think what ever you want. So far no one has been able to keep us from thinking what we want.
-- posted by nogod4me
» dancooper - Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Liberal?
In response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Liberal? posted by nogod4me:“It doesn't matter where you live, you are free. You may not be able to express your freedom in some places, but you always have the choice to disobey the law.”
I would disagree with you, at least in part. I believe people start out with the kind of freedom you speak of, but soon begin to entrap that personal freedom with the assumption of newly accepted criteria for their lives. We “learn” to be less free by adopting the structures of our world, our society and our family. I think this kind of freedom suffocates in the institutions of our culture, and eventually it dies. But I don’t think that is the kind of freedom others in this thread are talking about. To me, this type you seem to be talking about is about personal awareness of individuality in a world increasingly characterized by forms of symbiosis and community awareness, at the expense of personal awareness. Hence, perhaps, the growing need for religion and religious experience in our lives.
Others here seem to be talking of more specific freedoms, such as political freedom, and freedom of the press. But back to your point: Even speaking of your personal freedom, I doubt all would agree that they are similarly “free.” I doubt the person dying of AIDS feels too free to make life decisions. I doubt the lifer in prison feels very free. Although in both of these cases you are right in stating that a frame of mind can change a physical situation into a less restricted one, the physical facts remain in place. And the one in prison has very few choices about which laws he can break, even if he wants to.
But I would like to make one point here that seems to fit nicely into the thread. You are to some extent right about our freedom to make choices regardless of physical conditions. Which is one reason why some people do evil things in the name of books or religions or other conceptual frameworks. While it doesn’t make the book or other icon an “evil” in and of itself, the act certainly points to an evil that exists, and one that may or may not relate in some ways to any particular artifact, such as a book.
Dan Cooper
-- posted by dancooper
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