Witch Burnings in Africa

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Matthew 10:34 - "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"

Metaphor and in reference to God's eventual judgment, not a command to Christians to burn people.

Sorry - I must have missed the part in the babble where that is made clear. Kindly direct me to the appropriate footnote.

[Seth]

They're not Christians, they are savages.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Actually, they are. You cannot advocate burning children to death and be a Christian. You may misuse the label "Christian" as an excuse to perpetrate evil, but that doesn't make you a Christian, any more than being an atheist means that you are a savage barbarian with no morals.

How many barbarians have been atheists I wonder...

I can think of three right off the top of my head: Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. I'm sure there are many millions more.

[Seth]

Matthew 10:34 - "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"

Metaphor and in reference to God's eventual judgment, not a command to Christians to burn people.

Sorry - I must have missed the part in the babble where that is made clear. Kindly direct me to the appropriate footnote.

Not my job. Go ask a priest.

[Atheist-Lite]

Didn't that christ cretin say something about not one bit of the law being done away with Seth the appoligist?

I believe Jesus was pretty explicit about leaving judgment and punishment for sin to God, and he was referring to (in the passage I suspect you are alluding to) ROMAN law, as I recall. If I'm remembering correctly, he was telling his followers not to break the civil laws using his teachings as an excuse.

Context is important, and your caffeine-induced cherry-picking misapprehensions don't reflect well on you.

You must be surrounded by 'em if you are that much hook line and sinkered. You are far too astute not to be following this line except for the sake of personal survival.

[Seth]

They are just following their preferred holy book - in particular the bit about 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' (Exodus 22:18).

They aren't Christians. Christians are followers of Christ, who never suggested that anyone burn anyone else. In fact, he said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Among other statements, none of which suggest killing other people.

These are just ignorant savages who are misusing Christianity to achieve their own objectives.

For you to lump all Christians in with such barbarity is bigoted, prejudiced and unreasoned hatred.

He didn't say a damn thing about who should light the first bit of kindling.

Also, who are we to say who can or cannot call themselves a Christian? Wouldn't that be rather arrogant of us?

As if that's ever stopped you from engaging in blind bigotry, hatred and guilt-by-association fallacies before.

[Ayaan]

If that verse about burning witches was supposed to be ignored, then the missionaries should have explained that to the inhabitants of Africa all those decades ago when they decided to take the gospel to them.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Matthew 10:34 - "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"

Metaphor and in reference to God's eventual judgment, not a command to Christians to burn people.

Sorry - I must have missed the part in the babble where that is made clear. Kindly direct me to the appropriate footnote.

Not my job. Go ask a priest.

If you make an assertion that is disputed but do not consider it your job to defend it, do not be offended when it is duly dismissed as bullshit. End of conversation.

[Robert_S]

They are just following their preferred holy book - in particular the bit about 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' (Exodus 22:18).

They aren't Christians. Christians are followers of Christ, who never suggested that anyone burn anyone else. In fact, he said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Among other statements, none of which suggest killing other people.

These are just ignorant savages who are misusing Christianity to achieve their own objectives.

For you to lump all Christians in with such barbarity is bigoted, prejudiced and unreasoned hatred.

He didn't say a damn thing about who should light the first bit of kindling.

Also, who are we to say who can or cannot call themselves a Christian? Wouldn't that be rather arrogant of us?

As if that's ever stopped you from engaging in blind bigotry, hatred and guilt-by-association fallacies before.

Actually, I lump all people who believe in supernatural bullshit together as being responsible for supporting supernatural bullshit. So I'm including the fluff-bunny pagans in this too.

[Seth]

Didn't that christ cretin say something about not one bit of the law being done away with Seth the appoligist?

I believe Jesus was pretty explicit about leaving judgment and punishment for sin to God, and he was referring to (in the passage I suspect you are alluding to) ROMAN law, as I recall. If I'm remembering correctly, he was telling his followers not to break the civil laws using his teachings as an excuse.

Context is important, and your caffeine-induced cherry-picking misapprehensions don't reflect well on you.

You must be surrounded by 'em if you are that much hook line and sinkered.

Why yes, I have a lot of "them" as friends, and I find them as a rule to be far more intelligent, civilized, loving, compassionate, caring, supportive, humble and generally nicer than you and almost everyone in this forum. I far prefer their company to yours because the amount of bigotry and mindless hatred that exudes like a corrosive from your vicious posts makes me want to take a bath every time I read one, just to get the stink of arrogant bigotry off of me.

You are far too astute not to be following this line except for the sake of personal survival.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

The fact that I have some education in the Bible and I'm willing to take on the rank and disgusting bigotry and mindless hatred of prejudiced and ignorant Atheist religious zealots doesn't mean I believe the claims of the Bible, or that God exists.

It merely means that I have compassion, understanding, knowledge, reasoning powers and logic far superior to yours and that I'm able to easily and rationally distinguish between ignorant savages killing people for their own selfish reasons having to do with power and control over other ignorant savages, and the billions of perfectly nice, perfectly harmless Christians who are as horrified as any right-thinking sane person is at the prospect of branding infants or burning people in the name of suppressing "witchcraft."

I defend people of faith because there's no one else here who has the courage to challenge the ignorant assholes that infest this and every other Atheist congregation when they maliciously malign people who are by and large better people by far than the Atheists are, by several orders of magnitude as compared to a few select members here.

That anyone here would even think to compare the horrific actions of ignorant savages in Africa to everyday mainstream Christianity and the billions of people who live good, peaceful constructive lives as Christians is nauseatingly disgusting and demonstrates perfectly the perfidious and evil nature of some Atheists and their mindless, bigoted agenda of demeaning and disparaging Christians by engaging in guilt-by-association fallacies and open insult.

They disgust me, and they're almost as evil as the barbaric savages who brand babies and burn people, differing from them only by virtue of the fact that they haven't yet decided to torture and kill Christians in their mindless hatred of them. I'm convinced that if they thought they could get away with it, they would be happy to cast literal stones, or light the first fagot against a Christian, just like the other ignorant savage barbarians they are complaining about.

I'd rather hang out with Christians any day than Atheists, which is why I'm not an Atheist even though I don't believe in God.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

which is why I'm not an Atheist even though I don't believe in God.

And for his next trick, Seth will attempt not to be male while possessing a penis!

[Seth]

Matthew 10:34 - "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword"

Metaphor and in reference to God's eventual judgment, not a command to Christians to burn people.

Sorry - I must have missed the part in the babble where that is made clear. Kindly direct me to the appropriate footnote.

Not my job. Go ask a priest.

If you make an assertion that is disputed but do not consider it your job to defend it, do not be offended when it is duly dismissed as bullshit. End of conversation.

Go fuck yourself. It's not my job to dispel your ignorance or your bigotry, it's my job to show you up for what you are, which I've done. If you "missed the part" that's merely an admission of your own willful ignorance or mental incapacity or both, and I don't give a fuck whether you ever learn the truth because I prefer to point out how ignorant you actually are, as a public service to the world.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Go fuck yourself. It's not my job to dispel your ignorance or your bigotry, it's my job to show you up for what you are, which I've done. If you "missed the part" that's merely an admission of your own willful ignorance or mental incapacity or both, and I don't give a fuck whether you ever learn the truth because I prefer to point out how ignorant you actually are, as a public service to the world.

Angry man is angry. You should have a nice cuppa, Seth. Chill a little.

By the way, I consider your reference to my "mental incapacity" to be a personal attack. I have reported this thread. I will stay out of the staff discussion on it - it wouldn't be fair to do otherwise.

[Ayaan]

They are just following their preferred holy book - in particular the bit about 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' (Exodus 22:18).

They aren't Christians. Christians are followers of Christ, who never suggested that anyone burn anyone else. In fact, he said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Among other statements, none of which suggest killing other people.

These are just ignorant savages who are misusing Christianity to achieve their own objectives.

For you to lump all Christians in with such barbarity is bigoted, prejudiced and unreasoned hatred.

He didn't say a damn thing about who should light the first bit of kindling.

Also, who are we to say who can or cannot call themselves a Christian? Wouldn't that be rather arrogant of us?

As if that's ever stopped you from engaging in blind bigotry, hatred and guilt-by-association fallacies before.

These people call themselves christians. I take them at their word - I don't know who the arbitrator of deciding who is and isn't a christian, but it is not me.

These people take the justification for their actions from the christian holy book - as do people who hate gays and people who want to end the death penalty and all sorts of other issues. It's not like the thing comes with a divinely-inspired appendix telling people which parts are to be taken literally and which parts are metaphor.

There are plenty of christians who condemn this practice. However, there are plenty who think it is a good idea. One can find bible passages to support both those points of view and all the ones in between.

As to misusing christianity for their own ends, that is hardly new. That dates back to the beginning of christianity.

[Seth]

which is why I'm not an Atheist even though I don't believe in God.

And for his next trick, Seth will attempt not to be male while possessing a penis!

You might want to make note of the capital "A" in "Atheist," which denotes ignorant religious Atheist bigots who happens to have formed a religious beliefs around the notion that anyone who believes in God must be viciously attacked for no particularly rational reason but merely because the religious Atheist zealot finds atavistic satisfaction in declaring that believing in God is heresy and that apostate theists must be maligned and attacked for having the temerity to stand in opposition to the Atheist religious dogma.

Such Atheists are every bit as bad, and in many cases worse than any other sort of deranged religious zealot who has come up with some evil to perpetrate against their enemies, including branding babies and burning people.

Atheists are disgusting sub-human cretins who couldn't reason their way out of a wet Kleenex if their lives depended on it. They are ignorant, prejudiced, bigoted, arrogant, stupid, hateful scum who are a danger to civilized society.

It's no wonder that Atheists are marginalized, maligned and dismissed by society. They are simply unworthy of respect or regard, much less being given seats of power. And they have only themselves to blame because they engage in the sort of hateful rhetoric always seen here regarding Christians.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

which is why I'm not an Atheist even though I don't believe in God.

And for his next trick, Seth will attempt not to be male while possessing a penis!

You might want to make note of the capital "A" in "Atheist," which denotes ignorant religious Atheist bigots who happens to have formed a religious beliefs around the notion that anyone who believes in God must be viciously attacked for no particularly rational reason but merely because the religious Atheist zealot finds atavistic satisfaction in declaring that believing in God is heresy and that apostate theists must be maligned and attacked for having the temerity to stand in opposition to the Atheist religious dogma.

Such Atheists are every bit as bad, and in many cases worse than any other sort of deranged religious zealot who has come up with some evil to perpetrate against their enemies, including branding babies and burning people.

Atheists are disgusting sub-human cretins who couldn't reason their way out of a wet Kleenex if their lives depended on it. They are ignorant, prejudiced, bigoted, arrogant, stupid, hateful scum who are a danger to civilized society.

It's no wonder that Atheists are marginalized, maligned and dismissed by society. They are simply unworthy of respect or regard, much less being given seats of power. And they have only themselves to blame because they engage in the sort of hateful rhetoric always seen here regarding Christians.

A false dichotomy based on your own invented definition. Unlike theists, I insist on no special privilege warranting a capitalisation of a particular adjective that describes me. I am no more Atheist than I am Male, Bearded or Seated.