Proselytization

[flitzerbiest]

Topic for debate: proselytization

Opening statement: I believe that proselytization amounts to cultural genocide, and is inherently immoral.

[Wootah]

Topic for debate: proselytization

Opening statement: I believe that proselytization amounts to cultural genocide, and is inherently immoral.

Does the OP realise they are proselytizing? Sigh. There should be a sin bin when people use logic like this.

[East of Eden]

I dont think that converts to a new religion have to give up any of their old cultural rituals at all.

Not even this?

"For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. According to Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[40] The higher estimate would average 14 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. (As a comparison, the Auschwitz concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern technology, approached but did not equal this pace: it executed about 19,200 a day at its peak. The limiting factor for the Nazis was not killing people, but efficient disposal, via cremation of the bodies.)[41] Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple."

Wikipedia

[East of Eden]

Pretty much anywhere you go in the country, the majority of teachers and administrators in public schools are going to be Christian. I fail to see any validity in the contention that public schools are run by atheists using tax dollars to promote atheism.

I'm talking about the teaching of Darwinism to the exclusion of Intelligent Design.

[East of Eden]

If I, as a Poodlist, go to the Pastafarians and Ponyists, attempting to persuade them to abandon their beliefs in favor of mine, and by extension, convince them to abandon their native rituals, mores and folkways (for such is the way of missionaries, right down to the missionary position), I will end up ruining their culture.

That makes no sense. At one time missionaries for Pastafarians introduced that new idea to them. Why is that new idea OK but other new ideas are not OK? If the locals want to ditch Pastafaria for a new idea, that's their business.

[Wyvern]

I dont think that converts to a new religion have to give up any of their old cultural rituals at all.

Not even this?

"For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. According to Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[40] The higher estimate would average 14 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. (As a comparison, the Auschwitz concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern technology, approached but did not equal this pace: it executed about 19,200 a day at its peak. The limiting factor for the Nazis was not killing people, but efficient disposal, via cremation of the bodies.)[41] Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple."

Wikipedia

Where does it say these sacrifices are converts or even members of the same religion for that matter.

[micatala]

Pretty much anywhere you go in the country, the majority of teachers and administrators in public schools are going to be Christian. I fail to see any validity in the contention that public schools are run by atheists using tax dollars to promote atheism.

I'm talking about the teaching of Darwinism to the exclusion of Intelligent Design.

Then you are still completely off base because "Darwinism", if by that you mean teaching the scientific theory of evolution, is not atheism. There are millions of Christians, including very prestigious biologists, who accept that the evidence clearly shows evolution has occurred and that evolutionary theory explains how and why, and are professed, even vociferous Christians. Ken Miller and Francis Collins are two.

Intelligent Design is simply not science, and that has been determined not only through scientific debate, but in a court of law. Thus, it does not belong in a science classroom anymore than astrology does.

So, you are completely and utterly wrong. Tax dollars going to support science education is not tax dollars being used by atheists to support atheism.


In addition, your suggestion is insulting to those of us who are Christians and accept the mainstream view that evolution is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence. To suggest implicitly that we are atheists is not only factually incorrect, but slanderous.

[Wyvern]

Pretty much anywhere you go in the country, the majority of teachers and administrators in public schools are going to be Christian. I fail to see any validity in the contention that public schools are run by atheists using tax dollars to promote atheism.

I'm talking about the teaching of Darwinism to the exclusion of Intelligent Design.

You will be happy to know that schools don't teach Darwinism but a theory called evolution. ID is excluded from the science classroom because it was shown to be nothing but creationism relabeled. If you creationists/IDists could demonstrate that ID was science instead of expending all of your energy trying to disprove evolution you might be able to get somewhere. But since your side is apparently of the mind that if you disprove evolution then your idea is true by default it's not going to happen. Science takes work, that work is called research and it is blindingly obvious that the proponents of ID are not willing to do the work of proving their hypothesis, they would rather disprove the ToE thinking its the same thing.

[flitzerbiest]

Topic for debate: proselytization

Opening statement: I believe that proselytization amounts to cultural genocide, and is inherently immoral.

Does the OP realise they are proselytizing? Sigh. There should be a sin bin when people use logic like this.

To what system of belief I am attempting to convert you? I am advocating specifically that people be left to believe whatever they already do. If this is proselytization, then I will need a new definition.

Perhaps adding a specific example will help:

The aggressive targeting of Jews in Russia by the pseudo-Jewish (predominantly Baptists who "discover" a connection to Judaism) messianic organization "Jews for Jesus" (J4J) immediately following the end of the cold war, both inside Russia itself, and among the new surge of Russian immigrants in the New York area.

[East of Eden]

I dont think that converts to a new religion have to give up any of their old cultural rituals at all.

Not even this?

"For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. According to Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[40] The higher estimate would average 14 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. (As a comparison, the Auschwitz concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern technology, approached but did not equal this pace: it executed about 19,200 a day at its peak. The limiting factor for the Nazis was not killing people, but efficient disposal, via cremation of the bodies.)[41] Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple."

Wikipedia

Where does it say these sacrifices are converts or even members of the same religion for that matter.

Generally the victims were captured members of surrounding tribes. Children were especially valued. That's one reason the Spanish were victorious, they area tribes desperately wanted to defeat the Aztecs for this reason. According to some here, these Aztec religious practices shouldn't have been disturbed.

[East of Eden]

You will be happy to know that schools don't teach Darwinism but a theory called evolution. ID is excluded from the science classroom because it was shown to be nothing but creationism relabeled.

Not according to the British former atheist Antony Flew. Mainly due to the evidence for design, he became a theist, although one of his proposals was that life got here from outer space. I give him points for honesty. Real science is open to all possibilities.

A simple cell has enough information programmed in it to fill an encyclopedia. Do you know of other examples of information not created by intelligence, or a designer?