"Edwards said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."
Okay, um didn't the Germans Higher Critical (1920's) thinking allow for what happened in WW2 and also the rise of humanism in our own country? It was what crept into seminaries across the country stating that anything that couldn't be explained rationally didn't happen; ie. the virgin birth, resurrection, literal 7 day creation, Noah's flood, etc. It is why so many of American Churches are liberal today.
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Humanism isn't a bad thing, and I doubt "critical thinking" had more to do with WWII than German nationalism. Also, if American churches weren't liberal today, you fundies would have nowhere to run for protection when someone points out how irrational your beliefs truly are. Those liberal believers are your meat shields; serving as concealment and argumentation resources for when you are beseiged by rationality. If it weren't for them, in a transitory state between fundamentalism and non-belief that still favors belief, there would just be fundies and atheists, and I'm pretty sure we would get the bigger population. Count your blessings, J.
Moron. History doesn't work that way. Liberalism in the churches goes all the way back to the Enlightenment, when people realized they didn't have to bow down to church dogma, and could both accept science and reason, and still be dedicated christians. It has nothing to do with Hitler or the Germans or WWII. Breaking Godwin's law is bad, m'kay?
He has a point. Critical, rational thought has no place in religion.
And vice versa, I might add.
I thought about racism critically and it turns out killing all the Jews was still a bad idea.
So, maybe the Germans were doing it wrong?
Fail. Its called the school of "higher criticism" dumbass and it goes back to people like Hume (at least in antecedents, if not formalism). The (German) Tubingen School was initially led by Schleiermacher (around 1800 NOT 1920 Weimar). And it did not lead to WWII; the Tubingen School was rationalist not nationalist as other posters at FSTDT rightly noted (if anything, they were anti-nationalist refuting that whole "Gott mit uns" idea popular later).
Where's that clue stick...
Yes, critical thinking is evil and makes you want to kill people. Find some book that is laying around the house, read it cover to cover (or just say you have), come up with a system of naming every sentence (ie John 3:16), quote it at random people, and believe every word of it no matter what happens.
Actually, Hitler closed the German Freethinker's league and had most of it's members executed by beheading. Why? Because the group was atheistic in nature.
Promoted rational thought? I can smell your bullshit from here.
Virgin birth - didn't happen. This stemmed from pre-christian legends, and was useful ruse used by young girls to explain unplanned preganancies to thier shocked parents.
Resurrection - didn't happen. On that basis I've been ressurected TWICE in my 74-year lifetime, and am still an atheist who isn't afraid of the inevitable.
7 day creation - A Babylonian fairy story (one of 14 in fact) as they measured time in MOONS, not years. Also explains the inordinately long life-spans recorded where the life expectancy was 28 years (340 moons)
Noah's flood - a documentary/novella written by Gilgamesh about the formation of the Black Sea some 7900 years ago.
ALL butchered out of proportion by the bible.
Having lived under the Nazis, they were in no way humanistic but basically domineering christians.
I lived under Hitler - you didn't.
Come the Rapture, people who use their brains in this way ("think" isn't the word I mean here) will all be taken up into heaven. Leaving behind those who try discover the truth by way of critical thinking and rational analysis.
How long, O Lord? Who wants to go to heaven if it's populated by people like this?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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