Theism and Moral Realism are separate concepts

[Harbal]

Moreover, a man is not a Christian just because he says he is,

Neither is a Scotsman, apparently.

[Immanuel Can]

Moreover, a man is not a Christian just because he says he is,

Neither is a Scotsman, apparently.

Quite true. A Lithuanian who says he's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. A Scotswoman who says she's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. So what's your point, really?

[Alexiev]

Your critique of Marx condemns Jesus.

I don't believe you even think that's true. It's too obviously absurd. Such an argument strains the bounds of common sense past the breaking point. You're not a fool; and I'm certain you can see how absurd such a suggestion is. All it takes is basic common sense.

If Marx is guilty of the sins committed in his name, so is Jesus.

As you surely know, a person is condemnable for what he said, not what he spoke against. He's responsible for those who followed him obediently, never for those who grossly disobeyed him and refused to do what he taught them. Common sense again. Moreover, a man is not a Christian just because he says he is, if indeed Torquemada ever claimed he was anything but a Catholic. He's a Christian only if he follows Christ; and that's definitional.

Torquemada, a Catholic (See https://www.gotquestions.org/Catholic-Christian.html) is said by encyclopedia.com to have responsibility for the deaths of 2,000 people, allegedly. Let's say that's true, and we can put every one of those on him. That's one-seventy-thousanth of the people known to be killed as a result of Marx. Meanwhile, Marx taught evil and caused evil; his followers, the Marxists, do exactly what he taught them to do, which is to create perpetual, violent revolution.

And the number killed by those obeying Jesus? 0. Not a one. And countless millions saved from misery and death by the ethics and practices of Jesus, and by His followers, who have established charities, hospitals, addiction-relief programs, schools, personal freedoms, international aid programs, universities, poverty-relief organizations, prison reforms...and so on, as a result of His teachings. Not so by Marx: dialectical materialists are myopically devoted to creating their "utopia" at any cost, not on relieving suffering.

And you think you can draw a parallel? You haven't 'got a prayer' of making that case.

Your...repetition of the numbers of dead is irrelevant.

140 million dead are "irrelevant" to you? I doubt it. If it were true, you'd be somebody who would excuse anything...for there's nothing worse ever done that you could possibly have left to excuse. Nobody's killed so many people. The blood is all on Marx's hands, by the same logic by which you condemn the Catholic inquisitor, Torquemada.

You're swimming upstream against all logic, all history, all that Marx himself said, and all the facts. Not buying it.

Once again, you are talking nonsense. Do you believe in freedom of speech? Do you believe brilliant academics (like Marx) should be allowed to write predictions without bring condemned for it?

In addition, 100 million vs. 2000 is utterly irrelevant, as you would know if you understood Christianity. Your "no true Christian" blather is nonsense.

Marx was long dead by the time of the Russian revolution. Jesus was long dead by the time of Torquemada. Neither is guilty, as has been my point all along. "I do nor come to bring peace, but a sword..." Uh oh! Quote mining works with ways.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you believe in freedom of speech?

Of course.

Do you believe brilliant academics (like Marx)...

No, I don't believe that Marx was "brilliant." I believe he was a grifter, a plagiarist from Hegel, essentially, and a fomenter of deceptions. And history bears that impression out.

In addition, 100 million vs. 2000 is utterly irrelevant,

Not if you can count. And it's at least 140 million, and how many more...we really can't say. Despots don't like to keep statistics beyond what we can already count by our own means, and beyond they are actually forced to admit. We can be quite sure there were considerably more.

Marx was long dead by the time of the Russian revolution.

But his poisonous ideas were not. They have outlived that spotty, squalid, narcisisistic little man, and caused more misery than anything else in history. So he's a great cautionary tale, an example of the words Shakespeare wrote for Mark Anthony: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” What evil he has done is immeasurable. If he did any good, apparently nobody knows about it.

[Alexiev]

What evil he has done is immeasurable. If he did any good, apparently nobody knows about it.

Except, as you seem incapable of understanding, he didn't perform the evil deeds. Others did. As far as I know, Marx never even whipped any money lenders.

[Immanuel Can]

What evil he has done is immeasurable. If he did any good, apparently nobody knows about it.

Except, as you seem incapable of understanding, he didn't perform the evil deeds. Others did. As far as I know, Marx never even whipped any money lenders.

Well, you should read a biography of Marx. You'll find he was no saint. Even favourable biographers admit that he economically ruined his own family, and spent the rest of his time sponging off Engels. He raped his handicapped housekeeper, then abandoned the illegitimate child he created. He was known for explosive fits of temper and resentment, and for vinctive attitudes to anyone who failed to pay his bills for him. He was, by all accounts, a thoroughly difficult and unpleasant individual. But all this was small-scale.

The greatest wickedness he did was to create an ideology that gave those "others" of whom you spoke the means and motive for the killing of 140,000,000 people, at the very minimum, and the ruination of every economy in which his ideology was implimented, resulting in the immiseration, starvation and social destruction of innumerable other ones. They may have been his "arms," but he was their "brain" and "mouth." That's evil. That's all on Marx.

Don't you already know any of this?

[promethean75]

^^^ And those are the best things about that godless heathen. U don't even wanna know the bad stuff.

[Alexiev]

The greatest wickedness he did was to create an ideology that gave those "others" of whom you spoke the means and motive for the killing of 140,000,000 people, at the very minimum, and the ruination of every economy in which his ideology was implimented, resulting in the immiseration, starvation and social destruction of innumerable other ones. They may have been his "arms," but he was their "brain" and "mouth." That's evil. That's all on Marx.

Don't you already know any of this?

You seem incapable of understanding your own religion or a simple analogy. If a prophet must bear the guilt if his acolytes, Marx and Jesus are both guilty.

Robert Conquest and the Black Book of Communism put the death toll at 100 million, as I remember it. But what's 40 million more or less?

The numbers are not relevant to the sin, according to the Chtistian ethic. Torquemada probably thought he was saving souls and working for the greater good. Stalin probably did not. The airmen on the Enola Gay incinerated 80,000 Japanese. John Wayne Gacy murdered only 23. Who was the greater sinner?

It is thinking that you objectively know what the greater good comprises that leads to such horrors. God thought the greater good involved flooding the world, slaughtering all the first born Egyptians, and massacring the Assyrians at Senacherib. Maybe he got it right. Maybe Lenin and Torquemada did, too. But most of us humans (present company excepted, of course) think morality is not objective, or if it is we are not privy to it. Perhaps Torquemada was right: torturing and burning thousands saved one soul, so the greater good was reached. But given human fallibility, most of us would not be so sure of ourselves. Unlike you and Torquemada.

[Immanuel Can]

The greatest wickedness he did was to create an ideology that gave those "others" of whom you spoke the means and motive for the killing of 140,000,000 people, at the very minimum, and the ruination of every economy in which his ideology was implimented, resulting in the immiseration, starvation and social destruction of innumerable other ones. They may have been his "arms," but he was their "brain" and "mouth." That's evil. That's all on Marx.

Don't you already know any of this?

You seem incapable of understanding your own religion...

Oh, you're soooo funny! Do tell me all about "my own religion." I can't wait.

The numbers are not relevant to the sin, according to the Chtistian ethic.

Who told you that? It's far from true. But then, maybe you'll have to tell me more about my own religion, before I'll know that.

[Alexiev]

Who told you that? It's far from true. But then, maybe you'll have to tell me more about my own religion, before I'll know that.

Since you ask, I'll comply, although I doubt it will do you any good. Acc. To Augustine and Acquinas, sin is "a thought, word or deed against the eternal law." The sinner need not murder one person (let alone 100 million). His desire to do so is enough to separate him from God.

The body count is irrelevant.

[Immanuel Can]

Who told you that? It's far from true. But then, maybe you'll have to tell me more about my own religion, before I'll know that.

Since you ask, I'll comply, although I doubt it will do you any good. Acc. To Augustine and Acquinas, sin is "a thought, word or deed against the eternal law." The sinner need not murder one person (let alone 100 million). His desire to do do is enough to separate him from God.

The body count is irrelevant.

Well, no. It depends on what he does with that. Has he realized his sin? Has he confessed it? Has he repented and begged forgiveness? Is he forgiven? The sin of murder can be forgiven, you know. In that case, the very fact of murder is erased from his account. And he is not separated from God, consequently. He has no "body count" at all.

On the other hand, for those who are unrepentant and have sought out no forgiveness, there are clearly degrees of punishment -- all bad, all involving separation from God, but some being termed "the greater condemnation." (John 19:11, Matt. 23:14, for examples) And a man who has done worse things gets a condemnation greater than one who has committed fewer, it would seem.

So you'll have to try a different argument. Your theology is off, there.

[Alexiev]

Who told you that? It's far from true. But then, maybe you'll have to tell me more about my own religion, before I'll know that.

Since you ask, I'll comply, although I doubt it will do you any good. Acc. To Augustine and Acquinas, sin is "a thought, word or deed against the eternal law." The sinner need not murder one person (let alone 100 million). His desire to do do is enough to separate him from God.

The body count is irrelevant.

Well, no. It depends on what he does with that. Has he realized his sin? Has he confessed it? Has he repented and begged forgiveness? Is he forgiven? The sin of murder can be forgiven, you know. In that case, the very fact of murder is erased from his account. And he is not separated from God, consequently. He has no "body count" at all.

On the other hand, for those who are unrepentant and have sought out no forgiveness, there are clearly degrees of punishment -- all bad, all involving separation from God, but some being termed "the greater condemnation." (John 19:11, Matt. 23:14, for examples) And a man who has done worse things gets a condemnation greater than one who has committed fewer, it would seem.

So you'll have to try a different argument. Your theology is off, there.

Out of respect, for the creed if not for you, I won't say "rhe devil is on the details."Nonetheless, my assessment is correct in general, as Saints. Augustine and Acquinas would attest. Perhaps you know better.

[Immanuel Can]

Since you ask, I'll comply, although I doubt it will do you any good. Acc. To Augustine and Acquinas, sin is "a thought, word or deed against the eternal law." The sinner need not murder one person (let alone 100 million). His desire to do do is enough to separate him from God.

The body count is irrelevant.

Well, no. It depends on what he does with that. Has he realized his sin? Has he confessed it? Has he repented and begged forgiveness? Is he forgiven? The sin of murder can be forgiven, you know. In that case, the very fact of murder is erased from his account. And he is not separated from God, consequently. He has no "body count" at all.

On the other hand, for those who are unrepentant and have sought out no forgiveness, there are clearly degrees of punishment -- all bad, all involving separation from God, but some being termed "the greater condemnation." (John 19:11, Matt. 23:14, for examples) And a man who has done worse things gets a condemnation greater than one who has committed fewer, it would seem.

So you'll have to try a different argument. Your theology is off, there.

Nonetheless, my assessment is correct in general, as Saints. Augustine and Acquinas would attest. Perhaps you know better.

Than your interpretation of those "church fathers'? Sure. Why not? I gave you the Scriptures that prove I'm right about that. Did you look them up?

[Harbal]

Moreover, a man is not a Christian just because he says he is,

Neither is a Scotsman, apparently.

Quite true. A Lithuanian who says he's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. A Scotswoman who says she's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. So what's your point, really?

No point, really; I was just thinking how Scotsmen tend to have their nationality stripped from them more than most others.

[Immanuel Can]

Neither is a Scotsman, apparently.

Quite true. A Lithuanian who says he's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. A Scotswoman who says she's a Scotsman isn't a Scotsman. So what's your point, really?

No point, really; I was just thinking how Scotsmen tend to have their nationality stripped from them more than most others.

Words do have ranges of meaning. Even "Scotsman" has a limited range of meaning. That which is simply outside the reasonable range of meanings of "Scotsman" is not a Scotsman.

Likewise, words like "Theist" or "Christian." A person who believes in no gods is, by definition, not a "Theist." A person who does not follow Christ is not, by definition, a "Christian." What they profess they are, what they claim they are, is really irrelevant to that definition. Men lie and are mistaken. Unless the label fits somewhere within the definitional range of the word, it's a label misapplied.

So the "No True Scotsman" fallacy also has a limited range. It can only apply where the speaker is not invoking the relevant criteria to the definition, but is rather invoking some irrelevant criterion in its place. If your allegation would be that I have invoked an improper criterion of "Christian," you'll need, in refuting that, to show what it was, and that it was indeed irrelevant. In other words, you would have to be able to say what the correct criterion would have been. I can tell you that a "Scotsman" would have to be both "Scots" and "a man."

What is the correct criterion, in your view, for the word "Christian"? You have mine; and if you say it's a "Scotsman" case, then what's yours?