Fresno police say Anthony Ireland was repeatedly targeting random women along Highway 99 near Olive Avenue, a well known place to pick up prostitutes.It's a good thing us Atheists have christian morality. This piece of filth is another name we can add to the list of fake christians who say one thing and do another.
Lt. Don Gross, Fresno Police Department, says "He identified women who were walking along the sidewalk, picked them up, and took them to a secluded location where he sexually assaulted them."
Monday Ireland was charged with 4 felony counts of forcible rape with special circumstances. He could face additional punishment since there are multiple victims and he used a dangerous weapon.
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So as this guy was a christian reverend and a sex offender does this make christianity amoral. Lets face it a large number of sex offenders are atheist but I wouldn't dream of using that as an argument against atheism. many non-believers hold positions of trust and abuse their position it makes people bad not the ideas they subscribe to. The fact that this guy said he was a christian makes his actions all the more vile true, but a sex offender in whatever variety is vile. I don't see what this has to do with atheism. If you wanted to use the huge amounts of sexual abuse that has occured and covered up by the church to challenge the church as a moral authority then yes I would go along with that. but individual cases do nothing for your cause in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteLook, I will explain this to you one last time, try very hard to grasp this simple concept.
ReplyDeleteno, it doesn't make Christianity immoral, Just like it didn't make christianity immoral in this post. What it does mean though is that the people telling small children that they are going to be lucky if they manage to stay out of hell every Sunday in church are hypocrites who don't believe it themselves.
You have this terrible habit of constantly, And probably intentionally, failing to understand the points people are making.
One pastor fathers his brothers child. Another one is a serial rapist. Catholic priests are well-known for their lechery with alter boys. Ted Haggard is completely heterosexual, but likes a back seat driver when he's on meth. Jim Bakker got caught lookin' for some other than Tammy Faye.
ReplyDeleteAnd these folks want to preach abstinence? I think Adultery and Sex Offender 101 must be courses offered at Seminary.
What most people don't know is that under Talmudic laws, children could be used for sex. Laws varied for boys and girls by age, but as usual, girls were pretty much fair game and money didn't even have to exchange hands if they were under 3. Boys just had to be under 9. Even when Christianity took over, with New Testament times, these practices continued. Christian law raised the age for legal sex from 3 to 7. If you had sex with a girl over age 7 you were legally betrothed to her.
Statutory rape was introduced in the 13th century.
So, how moral is the Bible after all when it allows for such things?
How come that omniscient guy didn't think to include a commandment that protected children?
ok Matt don't get shirty, we seem to have crossed wires. I agree with you about Christians don't practice what they preach. Karen I agree with you too sexual abuse in all its horror should be taught to everyone in positions of trust not just to priests. We should also have bigger penalties for people such as priests who commit these crimes and those within the religious heirachy who cover them up. However, What I was trying to say matt, and as you always seem to take me as a defender of the faith rather than a questioner of science based atheism, so I will try to make this clear. I was not commenting on what you had written per se I was stating that what good does it to list all of this abuse on an atheist blog.
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to say you don't abuse people and you are an atheist whereas christians do abuse people so this makes atheism better than religion? Or are you trying to say Christianity is corrupt (which I am sorry - it is what you are implying) therefore christianity is rubbish. All of the sexual abuse in the world does not take away from the fact there are many christians muslims jews etc who do not abuse children and do practice what they preach and really believe in their beliefs. Endless posts about the bad ones does not make religion any less true or hypocritical than atheism. It shows to me the atheist movement is no different from anyother religion. I am sorry you keep saying I shouldn't believe atheism is a belief but you have not convinced me otherwise if anything you have reaffirmed it. I believe there was an argument about atheism being the default state in nature on this blog. So by your reasoning everyone who isn't religious that commits a heinous crime is an atheist and that makes atheists as big perpetrators of these crimes as religious people. well run for the hills ma parker the atheists are destroying our world with their insane rationalism (being sarcatic).
Also Karen I think the talmud does not say it is ok to abuse children it is again an interpretation of it. The talmud was written several thousand years ago and judaism has evolved since then. 2 thousand years ago we were still rape. pillaging and plundering or having that done to us and like judaism we have moved on. Also, not to be a defender of christianity, but Jesus says many times that the greatest of people are children and in order to get into heaven you need to become like them. He also goes on to say whoever harms a little one should have a stone tied around their necks and thrown in the sea. Not real quotes am a little rusty on the bible. you have to take these things in context.
"Are you trying to say you don't abuse people and you are an atheist whereas christians do abuse people so this makes atheism better than religion?"
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe you are still having trouble understanding what i mean. Is it your way of constructing strawman arguments?
the point i was making is that the people who like to tell us that we should believe the same thing as them, Tell children to believe the same thing and denounce science that contradicts their faith don;t actually believe anything they are saying.
They can't possibly believe in a god that sends people to hell for eternity for sinning and at the same time commit fraud, abuse children and rape women.
No sane person would do these things if they REALLY believed the punishment was eternal hell.
Yes Matt I get it. but this post is hardly a clinching argument for atheism for me, or really a damnation for christianity which is what my initial point was. Whats with the strawman arguments thing you are always accusing me of? you do that a lot when you don't want to enter into a debate. Why is my argument a strawman argument? if anything this post is a strawman argument. So what if people tell us one thing and do another? doesn't everyone do that? I mean some police break the law but should we all stop obeying the law, as the upholders of it obviously don't believe in it. I mean some of these policemen are atheists does that make atheism bad or hypocritical - I don't think so.
ReplyDeletePointing out the hypocrisy of some christians doesn't make atheism better or even make good matter for debate which is what I was originally pointing out.
Your arguments are strawman because you rarely address the actual points people are making and instead interpret it as something that you feel equipped to oppose.
ReplyDeleteLike here for example. You say the post isn't a "clinching argument for atheism". Well of course it isn't, it wasn't supposed to be.
Like has been explained to you on numerous occasions, it's a post highlighting the hypocrisy of religious people and highlighting that they can't possibly believe what they are preaching.
Fake Christians probably bother authentic Christians more than they bother atheists.
ReplyDeleteBut you shouldn’t judge an ideology based on the actions of those who violate its tenets.
If people did the opposite of what the Bible teaches then at worst they were not Christians and at best they were, at least temporarily, bad ambassadors for Christ. Those issues are serious, of course, but they have zero impact on whether the Bible is true and whether Jesus is the the only way to forgiveness of your sins, reconciliation with God and to eternal life.
Also, if someone wants to claim that Christianity isn’t true because of bad things done in Jesus’ name, then they would need to concede that the vast number of good things done in his name would be evidence for Christianity. But the real question is whether Jesus really rose from the dead, and I've found plenty of reason and logic behind that truth.
I've scanned this blog plus the random comment the owner left at my site and I must say that it is straw man city. I can't tell if you are distorting the Bible and Christianity on purpose or if it is due to a lack of knowledge. Either way, if you want to attack Christianity more effectively it would pay to learn more about it. Otherwise you'll just be preaching to the unconverted (so to speak).
Here's a good web site if you want to get some real answers to tough questions - http://www.tektonics.org/
Peace,
Neil
I am going to say it one more time. try to grasp this simple concept.
ReplyDeleteThe crimes committed by these people are NOT being used as evidence that christianity is false or that god doesn't exist. They are used as an example of people not believing the very stuff they preach
Do you understand that now?
Also Karen I think the talmud does not say it is ok to abuse children it is again an interpretation of it.
ReplyDeleteI was getting my info from I Never Told Anyoneby Ellen Bas and Louis Thornton who cite Francis Rush's The Best Kept Secret. Rush's research sources include The Babylonian TalmudSeder Neziki, ed., The Book of WomenMoses Maimonides, The MishnaEugene J. Lipman, ed., Marital Relations, Birth Control, and Abortion in Jewish Law, David M Feldman, Sex Laws and Customs in JudaismLouis M Epstein, and the Old Testament itself.
There are 6 more references for the Christian part of the research.
It was documented how you could use children for sex, under what circumstances, and how much money, if any was to change hands.
As you probably know women were considered chattel in those times. And while I would not accuse Christians of stooping that low these days, they do still keep their women subservient and submissive. So while we have "moved on" there is still much room for improvement. We need to move on beyond the beliefs of those bronze age days, from the belief that women and children are disposable, and the belief that there is some being in the sky that watches over us.
That which Christ said about children doesn't jibe with what laws on the books allowed Christians to practice.
But then, he was "put" on earth a mortal man of the times. As far as we know his opinion was the same as other men of the times- that having sex with children did not harm them.