A Way to Think About Free Will and God: Open Theism

There is no difference. All religious fundamentalists cry herecy and try to remove those that have different ideas one way or another.The rest is just special pleading.

So now I'm confused.I gave you several instances of religions murdering heretics, you gave me some more. What is your complaint?

What you missed was my entire point.Just to recap, I said that as soon as religious people start crying herecy, bad thing happen and I gave you a few examples. You gave a few more.I consider that case proven.

So I've given you examples of Catholic, Protestand and Islamic examples of states murdering people for having a different religion to themselves. How many more do you need? This is a lovely one:

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Although Zoroastrianism has had an historical tolerance for other religions, it also held sects like Zurvanism and Mazdakism heretical to its main dogma and has violently persecuted them, such as burying Mazdakians with their feet upright as "human gardens". In later periods Zoroastrians cooperated with Muslims to kill other Zoroastrians deemed as heretical.[55]

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I had no idea firstly that people were still being murdered for heresy by the Spanish Inqisition in the 19th century, nor that the Catholic church still had those powers. The perfect example of why religions need to be removed entirely from secular roles in societies.

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The last case of an execution by the inquisition was that of the schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, accused of deism by the waning Spanish Inquisition and hanged on 26 July 1826 in Valencia after a two-year trial.[19] Eight years later in 1834, Spain, the last remaining government to still be providing the Catholic Church with the right to pronounce and effect capital punishment, formally withdrew that right from the Church. The era of such absolute Church authority had lasted some 1,449 years, from AD 385 through to 1834. The number of people executed as heretics as sentenced by various church authorities is not known; however it most certainly numbers into the several thousands. Coincidentally, the first heretic executed had been a Spaniard, Priscillian; the most notorious organization known for the persecution of heretics had been based in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition, and the last heretic executed had been a Spaniard, Cayetano Ripoll. Thus, the era of the execution of heretics by the Catholic Church had come to an end.

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Biblical Christianity teaches its followers that there is only one god and that God is a jealous god and that God commands its followers to kill anyone of speaking of different Gods.The only thing preventing religions enforcing their fundamentalist beliefs on others and dealing with heretics the way they are commanded is lack of access to physical worldly power. When zealots like yourself get their hands on that we see the results.

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Deuteronomy 13
Do Not Worship Other Gods
13 Suppose a prophet appears among you. Or someone comes who uses dreams to tell what’s going to happen. He tells you that a sign or something amazing is going to take place. 2 The sign or amazing thing he has spoken about might really take place. And then the prophet might say, Let’s serve other gods. Let’s worship them. But you haven’t known anything about those gods before. 3 So you must not listen to what that prophet or dreamer has said. The Lord your God is testing you. He wants to know whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You must worship him. You must honor him. Keep his commands. Obey him. Serve him. Remain true to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death. He told you not to obey the Lord your God. The Lord brought you out of Egypt. He set you free from the land where you were slaves. He commanded you to live the way he wants you to. But that prophet or dreamer has tried to get you to be unfaithful to the Lord. Get rid of that evil person.

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6 Suppose your very own brother or sister secretly tempts you to do something wrong. Or your child or the wife you love tempts you. Or your closest friend does it. Suppose one of them says, Let’s go and worship other gods. But you and your people of long ago hadn’t known anything about those gods before. 7 They are the gods of the nations around you. Those nations might be near or far away. In fact, they might reach from one end of the land to the other. 8 Don’t give in to those who are tempting you. Don’t listen to them. Don’t feel sorry for them. Don’t spare them or save them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. You must be the first to throw stones at them. Then all the people must do the same thing. 10 Put them to death by throwing stones at them. They tried to turn you away from the Lord your God. He brought you out of Egypt. That’s the land where you were slaves. 11 After you kill those who tempted you, all the Israelites will hear about it. And they will be too scared to do an evil thing like that again.

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12 The Lord your God is giving you towns to live in. But suppose you hear something bad about one of those towns. 13 You hear that people who cause trouble have appeared among you. They’ve tried to get the people of their town to do something wrong. They’ve said, Let’s go and worship other gods. But you haven’t known anything about those gods before. 14 So you must ask people some questions. You must check out the matter carefully. If it’s true, an evil thing has really happened among you. It’s something the Lord hates. 15 Then you must certainly kill with your swords everyone who lives in that town. You must destroy it completely. You must wipe out its people and livestock. 16 You must gather all the goods of that town into the middle of the main street. You must burn the town completely. You must burn up everything in it. It’s a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. The town must remain a pile of stones forever. It must never be built again. 17 Don’t keep anything that should be destroyed. Then the Lord will turn away from his great anger. He will show you mercy. He’ll have deep concern for you. He’ll cause there to be many of you. That’s what he promised your people of long ago. He gave his word when he made the promise. 18 The Lord your God will do those things if you obey him. I’m giving you his commands today. And you must obey all of them. You must do what is right in his eyes.

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Technically my arse! It's there in black and white repeated over and over. Then you were taught something that is not biblical. Don't you feel embarassed writing this stuff? I mean it's just silly really isn't it? You're talking about a God, not a petulent, spoilt child in a fairy story.

But it *is* silly; to an outsider it sounds totally childish. You've been so steeped in this junk that you've normalised it. If it was taken seriously I'd be burnt alive, as per tradition. Truth is found in truth, why put your belief in fiction?

So you think it's ok to execute those with a different belief to your own? (As commanded by your God)

I understand what you must believe, that's not in doubt. The problem is that what you must believe is not what's written in plain language - not an interpretaion, in simple, understandable terms - in your book. And the book is all you've got.Your book commands you to kill heretics, why aren't you doing that?

That's odd aren't you quoting Babel as evidence of something or other in another thread?I any case, isn't the bible the word of God anymore? Maybe just written by some scribes that can be dismissed out of hand?

You almost don't need to, I know how you will rationalise the contradiction between what the bible says you must do/believe and what you actually do/believe.There are coping mechanisms1. Distance the OT from the NT. This is necessary because the OT is very obviously violent mythology and portrays a god that only a few fundamentalists want to believe in. It also contains factual problems that prove it's man-made and error prone. Creation, flood, immutibility of species etc. In short, it's an embarrassment to modern thinking.2. Latch on to the message of Jesus. Gentle Jesus meek and mild. This meshes better with modern life and unlike the OT contains viable moral values. Don't read the OT. Don't preach it in your church, just put it to one side and only refer to it where it confirms a useful NT text.3. Pick and mix. The NT links to the OT. All that stuff about one god, heaven and hell, the commandments the prophecies that make Jesus more than just another guy. You have to keep all that stuff. You can believe that stuff but not the difficult stuff like murdering heretics. That stuff can be pushed to one side and forgotten about. Legalities? It's a straightforward command to kill heretics. Ok I don't blame you for not wanting to accept it and act on it, but there are many who have and believed they were doing God's work. You've simply chosen not to believe that particular part of the book. Chosen not too. Others chose differently. Who's right?Just like you choose not to give all you have to the poor - an instruction from the NT, from the most important character in your book that you say you are following. You're pick and mixing and it feels uncomfortable when it's pointed out because you then have to rationalise.

What a nice chap he is. Right. He's ok with other gods these days is he? To save time, are there other bits of the bible that it's ok to disobey? Protestants don't murder people because it's wrong, just like everyone else. Are you sure you want to take this line? Whatever happened to reading the bible literally?

Only a religious fundamentalist can condone the mass murder of people who believe in something different to themselves. Absolutely they will, history is littered with them. Luckily not all protestants are fundamentalists. Stop right there and I'll agree with you. Sadly you don't stop right there you add context. Here you go Everything in your book is god dealing with ancient people, though it's not history.

In what way is the mass murder of people whose only 'sin' is to be born into a different religion to yourself justice?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

There several answers to that, the first being that what they did was evil and wrong.That aside, the equivalent action would have been to wipe the Iraqis off the face of the earth women and children too and only because they're not Christian. How does that feel?