Cannameds

Dozer:

"agnostics were tortured and killed in front of Roman crowds"

At the risk of being off topic, I will touch lightly on your claim that the Roman Empire massacred "agnostics", but first we must differentiate between the present meaning of the word and the meaning given to the word (if any) by the roman authorities. In Merriam Webster agnostic means: 1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god.

I assume that when you use the word, as many of us do, it is the "broad" definition that you mean. Notice that the definition itself comes from the monotheistic camp, otherwise, instead of the phrase "God or god" (capitalized) ,it would simply say "god or gods". Of course since the word agnostic is an 1869 construct, I seriously doubt the Romans meant that when they use the latin equivalent, again, if any.

It is NOT TRUE that the Roman Empire massacred "agnostics" per say within the modern interpretation of the word. Within the Roman Empire, there were long periods of religious freedom and tolerance. As long as a person fulfilled their NORMAL CIVIC DUTIES, they were free to worship or not worship as they wished. Within the empire, many religions flourished: the greek and roman pagan religions, mystery religions, christianity, judaism, mithraism, etc. Unfortunately, "civic duties" included periodically making a nominal sacrifice to the Pagan Gods at the Roman temple. In a state where the emperor was deified, as in Rome, refusal to offer a token sacrifice was similar to refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Emperor and this was punishable by death. One of the reasons for the periodic persecution of the Christians was that many refused to perform this duty. After the establishment of christianity as the main religious force in Europe, this period of RELATIVE TOLERANCE ended.

"the dark ages if i recall correctly, did not happen as you say"

I did not say anything to recall, however, I did write " When people of their ilk (judeo-christian mythologists) were in charge, humans were drawn and quartered or burned at the stake in the name of their god. As you well know, that historical period is still called "The Dark Ages"."
When you write (that) "did not happen that way". Are you stating that during the Middle Ages people were not drawn and quarted or burned at the stake for their beliefs? :0 Really?

Regarding the rest yes SOME people joined monasteries and abbots, my base knowledge of that subject is rather limited so I don't have an opinion on that subject and yes the Vikings killed lots of people on their raids and I suppose that included priests as well. Take it easy


Being:

Although I don't usually address anyone whose responses are so rich in such elementary logical fallacies, I must make an an exception in this case as I feel that my lack of enthusiasm at not addressing the post of such an august personage as yourself; importance plainly revealed by the sheer number of posts (almost 2000), led to such wonderful virtuosity of logical fallacies on your part.

I did not address your post, since whatever an adult does with his spare time, whether writing his thesis on The Destructive Influence of Christianity on the Development of Civilization or "'studying' with a 'brother' to learn about it to know what she thinks about," is no concern of mine.

Such clever reparte on your part,however, needs to be addressed:

1. lol @ cannameds being crazy = Personal Attack
2. ...though quite wrong and insane = Personal Attack
3. you should do some research before you start spouting about things you only have a small insight on.= Ad Hominem, Appeal to Authority (this one is specially amusing).
4. but then again you must be one of those people...= Appeal to Ridicule
and my favourite:
5. but its ok. at six posts, i don't expect much. (They don't teach logic in Jehova Witness School, huh?)

This last one reminded me of the time when 100 scientists signed a letter denouncing Einstein for his views on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and after a reporter asked him about it he said, "If they were right, only a signature would have sufficed"


Have a nice weekend everyone!


Cannameds