SongBookz wrote:
On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 23:46:25 +0000, Martin Willett
<mwillett.org@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Dr. R. Knapp wrote:
Martin Willett wrote:
There's really no point in trying to turn Christmas into something pagan
in the name of atheism. Atheists are not pagans. Pagans are
superstitious fruitcakes who have more invisible friends than Christians.
For one thing pagan or atheist are the same, as they both do not accept
Jesus Christ as Lord and do not believe in the Christian faith.
Everyone that is not a believer is a fruitcake if we are to call them
anything but unbelievers.
Somebody needs to tell you that you don't have the right to define other
Certianly he does, people have done it for ages, atheists like to try
to tell Christians what they believe too (although it's rare to find
two Christians who believe exactly the same things).
people's views for them. Pagans are not atheists, they believe in other
gods, at least many do. Some try to ride two horses and basically
The shoes on the other foot, pagans used to call Christian "atheists"
because we believe in only one Diety...which is not true either, we
believe all the gods exist, Paul told us they do, but we worship only
One.
What makes Paul an authority, his own claim to have seen an image of
Jesus? Why does that differ from the claims of Joseph Smith, Mohamed,
David Koresh, Sun Myung Moon or Adolf Hitler?
worship spirits they don't believe exist: pity them, they're mixed up
worse than Episcopalians.
Anybody who thinks an atheist is somebody who doesn't believe in your
god, called rather unimaginatively "God", is mistaken. Atheists don't
believe in any gods. OK, there may be some lame ones that claim the
label but don't understand the concept, most of them grow out of it.
They may not understand "your" definition, but your definition is
historically new, as an analogy, you might call the other atheists
"Traditional atheists" and the definition atheists put forth in these
groups, you could call "Fundamentalist atheism."
The word and the concept of atheism predates the melding of Hebrew
tribal culture with European civilization. Atheism has always implied
the denial of all and any gods. The word for somebody who doesn't
believe in your specific religion is infidel. I am not an infidel, I do
not doubt your god in particular. I don't discriminate, I treat all gods
as the same thing: inventions of the human imagination.
There are thousands of non-existent gods, your god is not an exception.
There you go making unfounded assertions.
The word "god," and the words it is used to translate, include not
only dieties, angels (a word meaning "messenger"), and idols, but also
is applied to kings and warriors - therefore:
number 1: you have no proof there are no dieties (remember, you made
the assertion) and
number 2: there certainly is proof that there are messengers,
statues, kings and warriors in the world, thus there is proof that
thousands of gods do exist.
Terrell
What are dieties? They sound like an inferior low calorie equivalent of
Pringles.
Deity: a postulated preternatural being.
Have I ever claimed I can prove there are no gods? Of course not. I
stated my beliefs. If you want to prove me wrong you demonstrate that
some gods exist. Gods have been defined in such a way that they will not
be able to be disproved. When gods are challenged they seem to hide.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
.
