Freedom: secularism's gift to the world

Due to a Technical Glitch Excuse US.

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CREDIT "JJ", http://onwapo.wordpress.com

"Religion was the race’s first (and worst) attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. We did not know that we lived on a round planet, let alone that the said planet was in orbit in a minor and obscure solar system, which was also on the edge of an unimaginably vast cosmos that was exploding away from its original source of energy . We did not know that micro-organisms were so powerful and lived in our digestive systems in order to enable us to live, as well as mounting lethal attacks on us as parasites. We did not know of our close kinship with other animals. We believed that sprites , imps, demons, and djinns were hovering in the air about us. We imagined that thunder and lightening were portentous. It has taken us a long time to shrug off this heavy coat of ignorance and fear, and every time we do there are self-interested forces who want to compel us to put it back again".

Christopher Hitchens. from The Portable Atheist.

Kobr1en, I don't believe you.

If you read anything about the Holocaust then you will see that the killing of Jews began only after the extermination of the handicapped was implemented. Hitler ordered handicapped Germans killed because they were a drain on the government's resources. Anything you read on WW2 and Hitler's Germany will clearly show it was an atheistic, amoral creed that permitted an entire nation to reject one of the most basic laws of all major religions: thou shalt not kill.

BLASMAIC states, "The secularist camp? That's easy. It's the one with "Arbeit macht frei" over the entryway."
Thanks to unceasing and fervent Catholic spin-doctoring over a period of half a century or so secularism is frequently and mistakenly associated with Fascism. By way of correcting that misconception here are a few of the historical facts the Vatican would like buried.
1) As a result of the Concordat between Hitler and the Pope, German Catholics were urged by Priests to vote for the National Socialist party in the election that swept the Nazis to power. The Concordat also allowed for the Nazi Government to pay a percentage of taxation revenue to the Catholic Church. Oddly, this has never been repealed, so the German people still pay that tithe.
2) Hitler, like many of his colleagues in the Nazi hierarchy, was a Catholic and was only too happy to comply with the Pope's desire to increase Catholic influence in a country where Protestants were in the majority.
3) Despite the inhuman atrocities the Nazis were perpetrating, only one top Catholic Nazi was excommunicated by the Pope, Joseph Goebbels whose 'crime' was that he married a Protestant.

Secularism is also not to be confused with atheism. Secularists promote the principle of democratic government without religious influence simply because religions by their very nature are not democratic, they are theocratic.

Bravo!

"The cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." "Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand."

Before its too late, Please!

It's always a lesson in the mindless confusion of the religious to see them complain that the Stalins and other such monsters did what they did because they were atheists.

Did they do what they did in the name of "atheism" ? A stupid question, no, the people who actually believed in communism and naziism and whatever such political evils that weren't 'religious' did it in the name of that ideology.

These people saw religion as their competition, and they were right. Dogma, doctrine, absolute faith in the state, the leader, the ideology - exactly the same thing that religion demands of its victims.

Communism and religion are basically the same thing, one has a god and one claims the state, the leader as a god. Worship and blind faith in the Revealed Truths, exactly the same thing. Both are equally resistant to human freedom , both require complete domination of the human mind.

Only a religious moron can't see this.

"Secularism has its roots at least in part in the Western Enlightenment, which is where most of our concepts about freedom got their start."

Historically the Western Enlightment took two separate courses. Beginning in the Reformation, the wing that continued in its original religious vein led to the Great Awakening and its subsequent Revivals, where social amelioration and expanded political freedoms were championed. Abolition, women's rights, etc all were brewed in this yeasty froth.

The secular wing of the Enlightenment had its full flowering in the French Revolution, where a courtesan was named Reason and celebrated before the Senate, the guillotine blades dropped with numbing regularity and where the reign of terror drove its survivors into the despotic embrace of Napolean.

The French Revolution served as the template for subsequent secularist revolutionaries, avowed atheists who decried religion as the opiate of the masses and then built gulags and dropped an iron curtain over Eastern Europe.

Secularism that opposes Christianity has historically and inevitably led to tyranny. Secularism that is derived from the Christian concept of the dignity of every human being, and a clear concept of the sinfulness of man that requires constraints placed on the exercise of power, has driven the advance of Western Civilization and its attendant human flourishing, on whose spent fumes Secular Humanists are motoring.

"now identify as the secularist camp"

The secularist camp? That's easy. It's the one with "Arbeit macht frei" over the entryway.

Thanks for this column. Religious people twist themselves into knots trying to explain how obedience (to their notion of god) is freedom. It is not. Freedom means the individual can think for him/herself and can be trusted to help rule in a democratic fashion. Religion is NOT about freedom or democracy. Certainly you can be religious and work toward freedom but as the author says, it is your secular nature doing that.

Until mankind realizes that our time on earth is not exclusively a physical end but an eternal beginning, our world will continue to spiral out of control until Jesus Christ returns.

Islam understands the concept of eternity. However "submission" to the Allah of the Koran is another deception which end in an eternity, not of virgins and unending sexual pleasure (self worship), rather, eternal damnation in torment and suffering.

True freedom as espoused by Jesus Christ (our Creator made flesh) is freedom from the eternal damnation brought about by sin. "You shall seek the Truth and the Truth shall make you free." "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through me." (John Chapters 8 and 14. Straight forward stuff, please submit to freedom in Christ Tom, before your life is over.

Blessings

In this age of relatively easy access to encyclopediae and dictionaries, I found it hard to believe that a writer for the Washington Post could show himself so uninformed about Christianity's concept of God (not to mention grace, freedom, et alia multa!), but then he would proceed to pontificate about the so-called origins of these "ideas". Scary. Intellectual dishonesty or pure ignorance - I'm not sure which is worse in this case.

I am a student of Roman and Greek History, specializing now in Early Christian History. I hardly expect all to have the same minutia and details of these subjects at their fingertips as I am forced to do, but a little research - even into fields hitherto unexplored by the writer - would add credence to a final draft. The author of this piece makes quite a few faux-pas regarding Christianity's views of God, grace, and freedom; but, that he doesn't know about one of Christianity's greatest "exponents", and his teachings/expositions on these topics, is or should be downright embarrassing: I am referring to St. Augustine. Some will mention St. Thomas Aquinas here, and I have no objection for he has been most often referred to as the "final authority", as it were, when searching for a complete and clear explanation of Christian doctrine ... on just about any matter. However, Augustine is best known and he was first chronologically. Both of these famous writers explain how unique the Christian concept of God and grace is, and though Augustine was before the creation of Islam, Thomas and other Dominicans used his works in order to contrast "mahomedan" doctrines on freedom to those of the Church.

Perhaps someone will object that these matters are for the ecclesiastical student, or for the rare layman who chooses such a specific field of study. Have it as you wish: the FACTS remain, and they remain undiscovered by the author of this article, to his own shame. Shameful, because even a cursory reading of an introductory book or lexicon of famous Christian authors could have led the author to make statements more faithful to (actual) history.

Finally, for those interested in discovering the roots of freedom - and that much before the Enlightenment - the New Testament has much to say in this regard, with the Pauline Epistles providing the most synthesized thought. Many of the Christian writers from the 1st - 4th centuries expounded St. Paul's thought, but none (in my humble opinion!) surpasses the Augustinian exposition, either for its breadth or its depth.

if tunisia is such a great example of "the people" over throwing a dictator in quest for freedom then why are tunisians fleeing to italy in "biblical" proportions?

everyone is saying that the egyptians want democracy. according to the latest pew poll from egypt 82% are in favor of punishing adultery with stoning to death, 77% believe that thieves and robbers should be punished by flogging or the amputation of a hand and 84% believe that
one should be punished by death if he leaves islam.

a religion that murders it's followers for leaving the fold is NOT a religion, it's not even a cult. it is slavery that is ignored by the world because it is done in the name of god

Religion's anti-freedom agenda
We live in a new world now. People no longer need weapons to fight for freedom, now in the information age, twitter and facebook are the tools of liberty. Through the power of science and technology, the pen (on in this case the keystroke) has become mightier than the sword.

To start with, these countries may soon no longer be Muslim nations but rather become secular nations like America. Sure there will still be a large Muslim presence there just as there is a large Christian presence here, but hopefully the people of those nations will realize that you cannot force irrational beliefs at gun point any longer.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic:
http://exm.nr/eytiCl

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