Comments by "AWResistance" (@AlanWattResistance) on "Rarely seen red jellyfish spotted in deep water - BBC News" video.

As a Catholic i welcome criticism, but why is Islam protected from cirticism from the Left, but not Catholicism? hmm.
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@Vesolus, Centrists are weak. "Screw religion in general." i.e: I believe in nothing. "From a Centrist with love." i.e: I hold to no position. Welcome to modernity.
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@Spag Hetti, Yeah true, most atheists are culturally and ethically religious, very few atheists are consistent with their atheism. Only someone raised by wolves could believe in nothing, although i suppose even wolves have a system. And yes, believing in nothing would be a bad thing. Drifting on the ocean is fine for a while, but soon enough you're going to have to take some course of action or face being lost.
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@Spag Hetti, Of course 'millions of people live good respectable fulfilling lives without religion', because like i said: they're culturally and ethically Christian.
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"I believe in facts." It was once a fact that Thalidomide was safe for pregnant women, but that didn't turn out so well. "My position is against religious institutions and extremist ideologies." The world doesn't work that way kid. Either one 'religious institution' or 'extremist ideology' rules, or it's another. When Christianity was removed from the throne, you didn't remove the throne, you simply left the throne empty and ready to be exploited by a more nefarious and perfidious group. The trick is to put a benevolent ruler on the throne and make-do, otherwise you just created a void just waiting to be exploited by a malevolent tyrant. Human nature isn't inherently good, it's inherently self-serving and savage, so be careful which pillars you remove.
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@ Vesolus, I'm all for scientific empirical evidence, but the study of the natural world is only half of the answer. G. K. Chesterton once wrote: "A madman is not someone who has lost his reason, but someone who has lost everything but his reason". This quote perfectly reveals why religion and philosophy are as much a necessity as scientific enquiry. Man cannot live on facts alone, many who have done so have rationalised their way to absolute evil, which is nicely displayed in the novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. People who spread the idea that religion is now an unneccesary 'crutch' have never lived in a society free of religious belief. As i've pointed out in other comments, very few people are consistently atheistic; most atheists are ethically Christian, whether they acknowledge it or not, and if they weren't, it wouldn't be the utopia they think it would. "As societies develop religious attendance drops." But religious thinking does not. Even the least religious countries (Scandinavian) are not without their superstition and ideology. These countries have simply replaced religion with statism and a Leftist superstition, and paganism is the fastest growing religion there. Atheism in Scandinavia just opened the door to even more superstition. The evidence for God is in the human heart: "from the knowledge of myself i shall go onwards to the knowledge of God." Belief in God is mystically discovered, which is why God is described as: "Deeply hidden yet intimately present". This is something for each individual to discover, the church is simply the guide.
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@Vesolus, "You know what your saying is both disgusting and not entirely accurate" The commands to: 'love your neighbour as yourself' and 'forgive your enemies' are uniquely Christian. If you wish to see a society that did not have these obligations, just read the Greek histories (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon). "The only way religion lives on is through the indoctrination of impressionable children" I became a Christian aged 23.
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@Vesolus "You claim that empirical evidence is not enough and I say that is not good enough." And that's entirely your volition, which is why Christians don't force people to believe (Islam on the other hand...). I'm merely making the argument that less religion does not necessarily equal more reason, but even if it did, that reason alone isn't enough to create social cohesion or prevent bloodshed. You can keep our Christian ethics if you like (best of luck to you), but when a generation arises which says: "Why keep up the pretence?", then don't complain when the beast is unleashed, we're starting to see this happening already. "You make connections where there are only correlations and you misrepresent culture as religion." No, no, no. Don't get me wrong here. I fully understand the different between nature and grace, faith and reason, i never conflated the two. When i talk about culture and ethics i'm talking about natural law (which we believe was instituted by God, but exists despite God and religion). Atheists could come to the same conclusions as Christians regarding morality, but you cannot apply obligations to morality. An atheist can say: "stealing is wrong" but can still find a way to justify stealing using reason, a Christian can say: "stealing is wrong" but can never justify the act because the very act itself is wrong and actively harms the soul of the individual. This is why your plan will ultimately fail in the long run.
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"Your obsessive belief deprives you of the very humanity that would forgive a starving child for stealing bread and I do not envy your blindness." Ah yes, starvation (alongside plague and war), reveal perfectly the savage nature of mankind. For example, the plague in Athens during the Peloponnesian war, the 'Black Death' during the medieval era and the famine of Jerusalem during the Jewish war, are all a witness to mankind's inherent self-serving nature, and to what depths a man will stoop to obtain the bare essentials and prolong his life a few moments more. In times of famine people have killed and eaten their own children (see the Jewish war), such are the wonders of mankind when all pretense of honour and virtue are forcibly removed by necessity. Although having said all that, you shouldn't read too much into my example of stealing, it was only an example to prove a point. "All I'm saying is that your beliefs are stupid as they are based in traditions that no longer play a useful role in society." My faith is personal, therefore my 'stupidity' is self-contained. My ethics, on the other hand, are logically sound, and therefore stand firm in the face of opposition. However, Christian morality only makes sense and can only become obligatory when placed with the context of a higher power, without that higher power they cease to be obligations and all pretence goes out of the window. This is the state of our society today with radical leftists decontructing Christian morality while simultaneously making up their own ethical standard, one which is certainly not logically sound and which is slowly dissolving social cohesion. As for it no longer having a useful role in society, well, take note in the next couple of decades as the traditional family is obliterated and personal resposibilty is replaced with statism, it's going to get wild. "especially in the light of recent events that display institutionalised corruption in the church." I would personally hang all child molestors, but they got 'human rights' these days, and child-molestors are concidered 'victims of their upbringing and environment', therefore not capable of being held responsible for their crimes.
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@George 89, "And millions of good people lived before Jesus was born." Not a new objection, this was tackled by some of the earliest apologists, such as Justin Martyr and Saint Augustine. Plato, and many other 'virtuous pagans', were concidered by early Christians as 'Christians before Christ' due to their wisdom. Dante places the 'virtuous pagans' in Limbo and not in Hell proper, and more surprisingly, he even places two pagans in the sixth circle of paradise: Trajan and Rhipeus. The reason for this is that Christ is said to have descended into hell to release the Old Testement prophets and patriarchs who died before the crucifixion and many of the virtuous pagans deserving of eternal life, this is mentioned in the Gospel of Nicodemus.
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@George 89, Virtuous pagans had no recourse to salvation during their lifetime, but were granted it afterwards. Ignorance of Christ or failure to accept Christ as saviour does not necessarily damn someone to hell, as in the case of infants, who have not consciously believed but are otherwise saved if they happen to die in infancy.
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A plastic bag evolved.
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