Comments for The Uncredible Hallq

Comment on Looking for examples of Jewish groups taking offense at things Christians have said about Jews. by Annatar

Annatar — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:45:14 +0000

I was raised Jewish, and when I was still practicing I had a convo with my best friend who at the time was a conservative Christian (we are both atheists now). I asked him if he thought I was going to hell. His response was “Well, we both know that the Jews are God’s chosen people, so maybe God has a special spot for you.” Obviously, I wasn’t exactly thrilled by that response.

A less personal example would be Ann Coulter (that paragon of rationality) saying that Christians don’t want to kill the Jews, but just “want them to be perfected,” or something like that. While obviously an incendiary remark, I can’t help but think that that IS what Christianity says about the Jews.

Comment on The Big Bad Dawkins Quote by kagekiri

kagekiri — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:27:55 +0000

Seriously.

Thought and speech crime being equivalent to physical actions, encouragement of self-mutilation and self-punishment, glorification of martyrdom and opening yourself up to violence, stupid parables that pretty pointedly show God is an irresponsible asshole; Jesus really doesn’t impress me with his morals now that I’m not high on self-delusional religious guilt.

Comment on Looking for examples of Jewish groups taking offense at things Christians have said about Jews. by anat

anat — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:48:51 +0000

To my understanding, Jewish objection to posthumous baptism by Mormons was intensified when it became known some of the ‘baptized’ were Holocaust victims. I think it is less about Mormons (or other Christians) revealing openly their belief that Jews are hell-bound but that the Mormons are attempting to erase an identity people died for, and paid a high price to maintain.

Comment on Looking for examples of Jewish groups taking offense at things Christians have said about Jews. by josh

josh — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:23:10 +0000

I think you’re right that there is a taboo about explicitly stating some beliefs that implicitly follow from standard Christian doctrine. Christians are pretty much by definition required to believe that Christianity is an improvement on Judaism, or that modern Judaism is essentially a wrong turn on the ‘correct’ path of religion.

Also, and this is irrelevant to your question, but it really bugs me that someone wrote ‘much as Judaism supplanted paganism’. No, absolutely wrong. Christianity in some sense supplanted paganism when it spread through the Roman Empire and then the European world by missionaries and conquest, but Judaism was and remained a minority, tribal religion at all times.

Comment on Looking for examples of Jewish groups taking offense at things Christians have said about Jews. by Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:11:02 +0000

This will require more digging than I’m prepared to do right now, but at least some historiographers assert the stories of a tolerant “Golden Age” of Muslim/Christian/Jewish harmony in medieval Cordoba were promoted and exaggerated by 19th-20th century Jewish historians as a rebuke to contemporary Christian chauvinism.

Comment on The Big Bad Dawkins Quote by hyperdeath

hyperdeath — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:46:40 +0000

The Internet is very hard on sloppy lazy dishonest journalists and pundits and…theologians.

That’s true when the objective is truth. However the sort of person who takes McGrath seriously isn’t the sort of person who would ever think of checking facts.

Comment on The Big Bad Dawkins Quote by Dan Linford

Dan Linford — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:31:57 +0000

For a better rebuttal of Dawkins, there is a quite excellent series of talks given by philosophers Marianne Talbot and Stephen Law. I especially liked Law’s contribution, and found some of Talbot’s arguments to be, well, pretty poor. At any rate, the series starts here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGrFm6q1REM

And for segments 2-4, you can access those from the sidebar.

It’s also instructive to watch Dawkins confront McGrath (which isn’t quite as hostile as one might think):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626

Comment on The Big Bad Dawkins Quote by Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:13:18 +0000

It’s harder to get away with that kind of blatant misrepresentation now, though, because of how easy it is to do what we’re all doing right here on this thread. The Internet is very hard on sloppy lazy dishonest journalists and pundits and…theologians.

Comment on The Big Bad Dawkins Quote by hyperdeath

hyperdeath — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:07:55 +0000

Alister McGrath’s book is essentially a confidence trick perpetrated against gullible Christians. It’s religious prolefeed, written with a far greater degree of contempt for its intended audience, than has ever been shown by Dawkins.

Alister McGrath relies upon his audience having not read The God Delusion, and freely lies about its content. On every page, the Dawkins puppet embarrasses himself with his ignorance and stupidity, while the nice Mr. McGrath gently puts him right. The audience come away with their faith affirmed, which is exactly what McGrath wanted.

Comment on Discussion: what philosophical arguments should everyone know about? by justsomeguy

justsomeguy — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:00:38 +0000

Not a specific philosophical argument, but I imagine all people would benefit from some instruction on logical fallacies, how to identify them and how to refute them.