crank wrote:

CookieJon wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote: I can respect Christian concern with Harry Potter

You respect grown adults who can't recognise the difference between real life and a fairy tale?

Why?

Are we talking Harry Potter, or religion?

What's the difference?

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:
.............................

In 1612 a member of my family testified against her neighbor in the famous Pendle trials, and I regret that she was likely literally breaking the Ninth Commandment.

You hear that the receptiveness of the mind to infection by religious belief is probably hereditary, but damn, there's a lot of begatting twixt 1612 and HvT.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

crank wrote:

CookieJon wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote: I can respect Christian concern with Harry Potter

You respect grown adults who can't recognise the difference between real life and a fairy tale?

Why?

Are we talking Harry Potter, or religion?

What's the difference?

Harry Potter gives plausible reasons for why we have no evidence of magic.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

Weaver wrote:
Do you support the wholesale murder of accused "witches" currently taking place in many areas of Africa? Or do you just support the idiotic rantings of people who think fiction is somehow damaging to an imaginary "soul", and that ignorance is better than education through reading?

If they really are causing demonic harm with their incantations, sure. But I kinda doubt they are.

Spoken like a child of the godfather for whom you are named: CS Lewis, who invented the Old Solar words hnau (creature with a mind) and Thulcandra (Earth) He once wrote (in Mere Christianity) that we no longer burn witches because we no longer believe they exist, not because we have become more humane. He thought that anyone who really believed in witches would certainly have to agree that capital punishment is the way to deal with them. But, "You would not call a man humane for not setting out mousetraps if he believed there were no mice about."

To that, one should reply, "Yes, but Christianity didn't have anything to do with our discovery that there are no such things as witches, since it proclaimed the opposite as the truth and resisted the advances of modern scientific knowledge. Moreover, a person who takes the Christian scriptures literally should believe there are witches about. Which pretty much leaves the argument at the point where Lewis began it.

Starting about 4 minutes into that first video, the mom is praying that she wants god to "break (her children's) hearts the way his heart breaks" regarding abortion. I just can't imagine a parent actually wanting her child's heart to be broken over anything. How is this not emotional abuse? It's disgusting!

Roger Cooke wrote:
Spoken like a child of the godfather for whom you are named: CS Lewis, who invented the Old Solar words hnau (creature with a mind) and Thulcandra (Earth) He once wrote (in Mere Christianity) that we no longer burn witches because we no longer believe they exist, not because we have become more humane. He thought that anyone who really believed in witches would certainly have to agree that capital punishment is the way to deal with them. But, "You would not call a man humane for not setting out mousetraps if he believed there were no mice about."

To that, one should reply, "Yes, but Christianity didn't have anything to do with our discovery that there are no such things as witches, since it proclaimed the opposite as the truth and resisted the advances of modern scientific knowledge. Moreover, a person who takes the Christian scriptures literally should believe there are witches about. Which pretty much leaves the argument at the point where Lewis began it.

Well, nice to know I'm a true follower of the greatest man of the 20th Century.

But now you could believe in witchcraft and yet suppose most (or all) reported cases of it are false, just like you could believe in extraterrestrial life and yet suppose most (or all) the tales of "UFOs" and abductions and government conspiracies are false.

And as far as I can tell the early Church actually taught strenuously against the notion of the reality of witches (for such was said to deny the sole power of the One True God), a view which somehow reversed greatly in the late Middle Ages.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:But now you could believe in witchcraft and yet suppose most (or all) reported cases of it are false, just like you could believe in extraterrestrial life and yet suppose most (or all) the tales of "UFOs" and abductions and government conspiracies are false.

Or you could give up the notion of establishing the truth or falsehood of conditions of the world, and reports thereof, and go with evaluating reports as "accurate" (or "inaccurate", especially if several reports of the same events differ substantially in their details.) Repeatable events even get a measure of something called "reliability".

Reports completely lacking in (corroborating) detail are dismissed, because their accuracy or inaccuracy cannot be evaluated, and I must suppose that they are false, so as not to waste the few precious years I have chasing rainbows.

Historical reports, as I am sure you will come forward to say, are a different matter. But we don't care about witchcraft that ever only took place in the past. Or, that is to say, miracles. So, miracles have no measure of reliability.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

Roger Cooke wrote:
Spoken like a child of the godfather for whom you are named: CS Lewis, who invented the Old Solar words hnau (creature with a mind) and Thulcandra (Earth) He once wrote (in Mere Christianity) that we no longer burn witches because we no longer believe they exist, not because we have become more humane. He thought that anyone who really believed in witches would certainly have to agree that capital punishment is the way to deal with them. But, "You would not call a man humane for not setting out mousetraps if he believed there were no mice about."

To that, one should reply, "Yes, but Christianity didn't have anything to do with our discovery that there are no such things as witches, since it proclaimed the opposite as the truth and resisted the advances of modern scientific knowledge. Moreover, a person who takes the Christian scriptures literally should believe there are witches about. Which pretty much leaves the argument at the point where Lewis began it.

Well, nice to know I'm a true follower of the greatest man of the 20th Century.

But now you could believe in witchcraft and yet suppose most (or all) reported cases of it are false, just like you could believe in extraterrestrial life and yet suppose most (or all) the tales of "UFOs" and abductions and government conspiracies are false.

And as far as I can tell the early Church actually taught strenuously against the notion of the reality of witches (for such was said to deny the sole power of the One True God), a view which somehow reversed greatly in the late Middle Ages.

Yes, that looks like a plausible evolution of doctrine, historically. The great age of belief in magic and witches was the seventeenth century, and even some great scientists were willing to entertain the possibility of their reality. (Kepler was actually forced to defend his mother against a charge of witchcraft.) Newton spent a lot of time trying to use the Bible as an oracle to predict the future (and also a lot of time dabbling in alchemy, which was a capital offense in England at the time).

Perhaps we should start a thread on Lewis. I'm sure it would attract a lot of interest. When I was a Christian, my rock-bottom foundation was the analogies that Lewis provided to make Christian doctrines seem plausible. Maybe a book-discussion would get things going. Would you like to start the thread? Choose your favorite book. Or you could let me start it with a link to a refutation of Lewis' arguments and you could respond to that.

There's something extra tragic about Levi. He's seems like such an intelligent kid, but it's all wasted on bullshit.
Maybe he's smart enough to one day get out of it.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

Think Floyd wrote:
These clips truly disgust me. To indoctrinate innocent children into an ancient tradition of ignorance, fear, superstition and guilt is truly among the greatest crimes any person or institution can commit.

Well, millions of American youth get so indoctrinated every Sunday morning. How are these any different?

They aren't, and that is truly a tragedy.

What would be needed to end camps like this? I assume no state legislature would ever have the numbers to pass a law like that, at least not for a few more decades...so it'd have to be a court case in the near-term, probably. Not sure what kind of circumstances would be needed to create such a case, though...maybe a former camper suing over brainwashing or emotional trauma? It really burns me up that there are so many things happening in this country that are so obviously WRONG, and that we're powerless to do anything about it except watch and discuss amongst ourselves.

Even as a Christian this documentary really disturbs me on so many levels.

http://www.letmewatchthis.com/watch-916-Jesus-Camp

I have seen it. And if I ever see Becky Fischer out walking the street I'll uplift her with a wedge kick.

Yeah and there's a thread about it in Christianity. I suspect that a merge will be forthcoming.

Durro wrote:I suspect that a merge will be forthcoming.

Done.

Mormech wrote:What would be needed to end camps like this? I assume no state legislature would ever have the numbers to pass a law like that, at least not for a few more decades...so it'd have to be a court case in the near-term, probably.

The minute any politician proposed such a thing, his opponent would immediately play the "Christians are so persecuted in this secular society" victim card, and the latter would get 90% of the vote.

Not sure if this has been posted here as a video link, but it has to be the most disturbing video I've ever seen.

http://www.atheistnation.net/video/?vid ... esus-camp/

Absolutely horrifying.

It rings a bell, i think there is already a thread.

Seen it. Pretty damned disturbing. Little kids being totally brainwashed.

I've seen it, I've been a part of it on some level. I never tried to brainwash children. To my credit (thank G-, uh, thankfully), I always taught children to ask questions. This lead to issues with peer leaders who didn't like my attempts to get children to think of their faith critically and I was let go from that task. Jesus camps seem innocuous enough, but they're not. They can be psychologically harmful to children and adults alike.