CommentsDisplaying ChrisDiamond's 10 most recent comments.

• Buddhist Monks Land Themselves in Hot Water Over ‘Inappropriate’ Behavior

  June 18, 2013 at 3:39pm

  In reply to ChrisDiamond.

  @LOCKED

  I realize this is subjective, but I lived in Italy for about 4 and a half years, and I spent about 80% of my free time with Italians. I was appalled by the number of people who told me they were either molested or had friends who were molested in the cathechism. No, this doesn’t mean that every Catholic priest is a molester, but it seems that the unreported instances of this abuse are much higher than even the reported instances. Further, the RCC makes efforts to protect these offenders from prosecution for their crimes. You’re right about the few bad apples adage, but when the few bad apples are protected from on high, does that not represent a tolerance for this criminality all the way up the food chain? And still… no mass exodus from the RCC on moral grounds. When I read the accusatory comments here from Christians about how the behavior of the monks was wrong or whatever, I couldn’t even stifle the laugh.

• Beware: Scammers Are Now Using Joel Osteen, Popular Religious Leaders to Steal Your Money

  June 18, 2013 at 3:28pm

  The audacity of a scammer using the effigy of another scammer to steal people’s money… tsk tsk tsk…

• Buddhist Monks Land Themselves in Hot Water Over ‘Inappropriate’ Behavior

  June 18, 2013 at 2:51pm

  In reply to ChrisDiamond.

  @Locked

  First, hello my friend. I’ve been away a while, but have always appreciated your posts.

  “I bet if you asked most Catholics if they approve of priests sexually assaulting children they’d probably condemn those priests. Doesn’t seem like there’s much hypocrisy there among the adherents – religious leaders who say one thing and do the other are shunned in most religions around the world, Christian or not.”

  I would hope so. Still, there’s no mass exodus from the Catholic church that I’m aware of, despite the many known cases of sexual abuse against children, and the opulence I mentioned before in the face of so many people starving. I disagree with you about religious leaders being shunned for hypocrisy. They get the same teflon treatment as politicians, it seems.

  @SQUIDVET

  “Good thing atheists have never molested anyone eh?

  Oh, that’s right. It’s ok for them because they claim no moral absolutes…

  “At least we’re not hypocrites!”
  - An atheist’s sole virtue”

  No, it’s not ok for ANYONE to molest children. Not in this atheist’s eyes anyway. I don’t know of any atheist who condones child molestation in any way. As Hitchens so eloquently put it, if he were guilty of having done that, he would kill himself. Is it moral to use an unprovable fable to threaten and horrify your children to make them obedient? Is it moral to lie to them? To mutiliate their genitalia? As a garden variety Christian, your answer must be yes.

• Godless ‘Church’ Is Coming to America This Month as Atheists Seek Non-Theistic Community — But Why?

  June 18, 2013 at 12:19pm

  In reply to imfrzn.

  “Where there is no God there is no law and no purpose for existing. Love, honor, morality…. all just rules made up to control you. Murder, rape, theft are your guiding principles.” – Your God, or at least his Daddy LOVES murder, condoned rape and slavery, committed infanticide and genocide, acted with aggression… Maybe read the Old Testament, mmmkay?

  “You may as well take everything you want and smash anyone who gets in your way and even if you destroy the world in your quest, big deal, we are just freaks of random chance with no purpose.” – Nope. Again, that’s how your Sky God operated. Don’t push the immoral basis of your religion onto atheists.

  “Atheists, this is a glimpse of the doctrine of your religion. Your “beliefs” go way darker than this but the simplicity is that with all the worlds problems the world, including yourselves as part of the world, does not practice this philosophy. There are no doubt people who have given themselves to downright evil but even so the world practices law, order and love because it is God ordained. Open your eyes or die in your own hatred. It is just that simple.” – No, it isn’t that simple. You’re just that willfully ignorant. Religion (including belif in and worship of the state) has been one of, if not THE greatest force in convincing people to murder, kidnap, cage, steal from, and otherwise violate their fellow human being. After actually reading the OT, try some history to wash it down.

• Godless ‘Church’ Is Coming to America This Month as Atheists Seek Non-Theistic Community — But Why?

  June 18, 2013 at 12:09pm

  In reply to Moozmom.

  Again, The Apocalypse (or Revelation) was written around 90 AD by John and is quite widely believed to be a message for people living in THAT time about what was happening, or sure to happen to people in that area under Roman rule. The book was not intended to be an oft-cited book to ‘prove’ how Obama (or any other figure) changing his underwear was a sign that he was the ant-christ and the end of the world was coming. So much for biblical scholarship by so-called Christians.

• Buddhist Monks Land Themselves in Hot Water Over ‘Inappropriate’ Behavior

  June 18, 2013 at 11:36am

  So… Catholic priests all the way up to the Pope, who take a vow of celibacy and poverty are wrong as well, right? I mean, many priests aren’t celibate, as we see with all the stories of pedophilia and sexual acts with little boys, and the Pope is surrounded by golden adornments at every turn. Where’s the righteous indignation about that?

  Oh… Dammit, I forgot. They claim Christ, so their hypocrisy is Ok.

• Godless ‘Church’ Is Coming to America This Month as Atheists Seek Non-Theistic Community — But Why?

  June 18, 2013 at 11:22am

  Ultimately, this “church” or whatever they want to call it listed one of it’s goals as grouping together to help people. I’ll bet these folks won’t put their contributions toward building ever-more extravagant palaces for a Sky God, or so they can install a state of the art sound and lighting system… The money they all pitch in will likely go to *gasp* helping people. If that’s how it works out, I hope you Christians will take some pointers.

  But the non-sensical, ad hominem attacks about how they label their effort (church, and the heresy of it’s usage here) seem right in line with the vox populi of Christianity… refusing to recognize how the group could and likely will do what the Christians claim is “God’s good work,” in lieu of lambasting them for their adherence to empiricism and rationality over mysticism and religious silliness.

  So, as one would expect, any group that legitimately helps people but doesn’t promote sweet lil 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus is just a bunch of miserable, lonely, lifeless, soulless, pitiful beings who you can rejoice in the knowledge of their eternal torture in hell fire… people helped by the group be “damned.” If I were Christ, I would disown the vast majority of you, as I suspect He will do if you all are right.

• End Times ‘Left Behind’ Movie Reboot Could Reach Millions With Biblical Theology — And TheBlaze Has Exclusive Details

  June 18, 2013 at 10:59am

  You guys know that The Revelation written by John is quite widely believed to be a writing about what Israel and the Jews were experiencing at that moment, or would in the very, VERY near future, right? That the ambiguous writing is believed to be for the purposes of concealing the message from potential Roman readers, right?

• Godless ‘Church’ Is Coming to America This Month as Atheists Seek Non-Theistic Community — But Why?

  June 18, 2013 at 9:58am

  In reply to fbd_skeez.

  I have no way of knowing, but I would bet dollars to donuts these people will collect money to put toward helping people, instead of toward building new palaces for a sky God, or creating television networks, and pumping up the personal wealth of the founders of this effort. I’d bet these people will collect and distribute food, clothing and necessities to needy people, or fundraise to pay for medical interventions needed by sick children who can’t afford them. And they’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do… because they care about people… not to not be outdone by the Jones’ or anyone else in their Sunday social club, or to glorify themselves or anyone else (real or imagined). That’s what church is in the US, for the most part. And you know it. You just can’t admit it because that would mean you’d have to examine your own lack of genuine love, and your own hypocrisy.

• Godless ‘Church’ Is Coming to America This Month as Atheists Seek Non-Theistic Community — But Why?

  June 18, 2013 at 9:40am

  In reply to matt_c.

  @MATTC
  “The thing that bugs me about atheists the most is how aggressive they are. Not a religious story goes by that they don’t interject themselves into and try to shove their beliefs, or lack thereof, down peoples’ throats. They’re insulting, condescending, demeaning, and mean-spirited. It’s almost as though they’re afraid of something, but that can’t be right since that would mean they fear something that they claim does not exist.” – The thing that bugs me about theists is how aggressive they are. Not a person goes by who they don’t tell about their Sky God, shoving their beliefs down our throats. They insult our (and their own) intelligence, threaten us with eternal damnation and torture, condescend with their ‘holier than thou’ judgments against everyone, and openly hate. It’s as though they have an irrational fear of something no one can prove exists.

  “The second biggest peeve I have with atheists is how they only ever seem to take issue with Christians and Jews. I’ve never seen atheists laying into Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Scientology, Wicca, etc.” – Have you never watched Sam Harris, Dawkins or Hitchens attack these? C’Mon…

  “It’s quite strange that they don’t attack those faiths. …at least Islam would draw their ire considering all the harm done in the name of Allah. …atheist is a misnomer and anti-God would be more fitting.” – Anti-theist, actually… and yes, against all religions as a threat to humanity.