[3deroticer]

The paradoxes and flat out lunacy in the bible strains credulity. If someone was selling you a car you'd demand more proof and accept less bullshit.

Even if you were to accept it all as truth, the picture of god would appear alternately as a petulant selfcenrtered brat who only does things to convince lower beings of his glory. He is alternately selfish, spiteful, mass murderous and apathetic, meanwhile he maintains a shaky truce with mankind brokered by his son which still maintains that any transgression can land you in burning hell unless you drop to your knees and beg forgiveness, not to mention that even the good people on earth will one day, at his whim, suffer a violent apocalypse.

If you changed the names in the bible to Zeus and Perseus, etc, you'd call it a myth and wouldn't take such nonsense too seriously.

I love the story of the fallen angels and that we are here to show the angels the wisdom of God decision of being in control. The concept of the devil in the movie makes me laugh! I find myself rooting for the underdog!

[RandomX]

The paradoxes and flat out lunacy in the bible strains credulity. If someone was selling you a car you'd demand more proof and accept less bullshit.

That's why I have such a problem with faith and religion. People who know about their religion and ask questions tend to lose their faith because they see all of the flaws. But ...let's take my mother for an example. She is a brilliant woman who you could talk to for hours about anything from feelings to physics. But the second you talk about creation or Moses, her eyes gloss over and she stops questioning and just cites what the bible says. Believes don't question, they take things at face value and call it faith. It might not make sense, it might be obsolete, but you just need to have faith in it all, god is testing you.

Let's not even get into a debate about how religion pushes society forward but its inability to adapt is causing us to be stagnant right now. Religion in its current form is obsolete. Rules about selling daughters, years before freeing your slaves and what is and isn't acceptable on the holy day are outdated. If religion could keep up with the times and shift into this century, perhaps I would change that opinion.*

*Growing up in an EXTREMELY religious Jewish household, I was not allowed to use the computer on the Sabbath. I was not allowed to tie knots (making bracelets for fun). It was a day of rest, so we had to eat cold food and sit in the dark until 3 stars were visible in the sky. If that isn't outdated, I don't know what is!

If you changed the names in the bible to Zeus and Perseus, etc, you'd call it a myth and wouldn't take such nonsense too seriously.

[/quote]
One of my favorite atheist quotes:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."-Steven Roberts

[Klcarsite]

This is a poem called "Ode to Yaweh".  Irreverent and foul mouthed, but essentially spot on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6S8l4CJnsk

[Cutter]

...Cutter? How long has your spinning diamond had a boob backdrop? Am I REALLY that unobservant? Because I just noticed it right now.

It's been up there for I think a year.

[pedonbio]

 

[Feral]

I guess if you guys were actually curious and legitimately wanted answers or even just a friendly discussion, you could speak to a theologian or well educated pastor. But like every thread I see on the intenet these days started by an agnostic or atheist this is just another flame bait thread in the hopes to lure a Christian into a hopeless debate filled with fallacies and strawmen and general ignorance all with the goals of ridiculing him or her for their faith.

Amirite?

[DruulEmpire]

Feral, you're right -- though I'm not sure how many pastors or theologians are members here.

I'm about as non-evangelical a Christian as you may ever find, so years could go by without saying a peep about my faith, or even letting on that my life is in any way overtly and visibly affected by it, and yet I do occasionally note the antitheist -- not even atheist, but antitheist -- slant around here, which sadly is made only worse by only the most arch-conservative members offering a Christian bromide or two when their chips are down, before then barreling ahead with their own supremely non-spiritual agendas.

About all I can say -- to you or to anyone, really -- is that this exists in the realm of subjective experience, and that therefore an antitheist makes the all too obviously ironic mistake of trying "evangelize" us into presumably enlightened atheism at their peril.  If one wishes to trot out endless history of abuses in the name of religion, I can't deny much of that.  The only problem being, there have been abuses in the name of pretty much everything.  There have been abuses in the name of nation-states.  Should we then abolish nations?  There have been abuses in the name of wealth.  Should we then abolish money?  There have been abuses in the name of technical progress.  Should we then abolish technology?  There have been abuses, everywhere, by men.  Should we abolish masculinity?  Unless someone is a thorough and honest anarchist, pretty much any call to make an institution vanish simply because you don't feel personally vested in it is not particularly persuasive to me.

I can't, and am not even inclined to, convert anyone here.  About all I can hope to do, however, is to prove that, as "irrelevant" and even "inconvenient" as my faith may be deemed to be, it does not in any way impair a general openness of mind and inquiry, an embrace of a scientifically revealed universe, and not just tolerance of but an abiding curiosity in the many different beliefs, spiritual or otherwise, of the entire human race.  I can strive to be one less counterexample.  I supsect there are others.

[pedonbio]

I guess if you guys were actually curious and legitimately wanted answers or even just a friendly discussion, you could speak to a theologian or well educated pastor. But like every thread I see on the intenet these days started by an agnostic or atheist this is just another flame bait thread in the hopes to lure a Christian into a hopeless debate filled with fallacies and strawmen and general ignorance all with the goals of ridiculing him or her for their faith.

Amirite?

Nope, you're dead wrong.

It's really simple. Joshua ben Joseph--Let's call him by his real name, not the label that Greek pimp Luke slapped on him--was first and foremost a religious pacifist. Every teaching central to His faith was and remains pacifist. I don't claim much virtue for pacifism, but when my nation came to me in its hour of need, and told me it was my duty as an American to defend it, I most respectfully told my nation to go fuck itself. For a while my nation contemplated whether to send me to prison or involuntary servitude, and chose the latter, so I did some work about as useful as pounding sand 'cuz my nation told me to.

So if you support the military, if you believe we live in a world where force is necessary, you may be right. You may be moral, and you may be a fine person. But you are not, and cannot be a follower of Joshua.

That being said, I started this thread without much caring about theology. The date was significant both to America, and to the intellectual history of Europeans. For 200 years the churches that call themselves "Christian", mostly Protestant, have simply ignored the occasion of one of their great intellectual failings and danced down the street as if they were not lying thugs. A remarkable number of people who call themselves Christian are, like me, pacifists. I suppose you can call us "Jesusites".

So, frankly, I don't bullshit a lot about religion. If you haven't looked a bird colonel in the eye and told him to fuck off, with the understanding that whether you go to prison depends a lot on him, I'm not interested in theological points.

So there you go: Druul says yes; I say no.

   

[solvegas]

Just remember, the biggest butchers in world history were atheist. Mao, Stalin and Hitler not only killed more of their own people than the dreaded foreighners, but did it in the name of " the people ". Heck, Adolph was a non-smoking vegetarian that was very nice to dogs. Guess the folks at P3TA are awful. What many people do wrong is guilt by association. I believe in God. Haven't been to church ( with the exception of funerals or weddings ) since 1972 when I just couldn't stomach the Catholic church anymore. What I read in the new testament and what I saw made me quesy. I do find it amusing when people like Christopher Hitchens roundly critisize religion by being evangelical about atheism. Or when I'm told that global warming is fact when so many climatologists are not sure but we have to take it on faith that its happening even though I always thought in science you have to be able to reproduce your experiments but can't because you don't have all the data to do it. It isn't science, it's a religion because it's based on faith and not fact. I usually don't like to comment about this since one side or the other will get emotional and a flame war starts leaving many hurt and unsatisfied. I'm sure that I will be told by somebody to go to hell or whatever. Anyways, my small entry was only telling the atheist here that atheism does not have clean hands either.

[rtpoe]

I approve of Druul's comments.

Sure, people have been killed in the name of some religion or other. But stop and think... How many *more* people would be killed... how much more evil we would be to each other... if there weren't someone saying we should be nice to each other?

And how dull and depressing would the world be without all the divinely inspired art and music?

...it does not in any way impair a general openness of mind and inquiry, an embrace of a scientifically revealed universe...

www.vaticanobservatory.org

[pedonbio]

www.vaticanobservatory.org

Indeed. They were too rational to try to renew the conflict with science.

And, BTW, solvegas, I know I will never convince you, but each case is different. Hr. Hitler was born, baptised, and educated as a Catholic and considered himself to be that whenever he was asked, which wasn't often. That does not, IMHO, reflect poorly on the church. And for both our sakes, I want to leave Mao out of any religious discussion. His beliefs, or lack of them, were more complicated than either of us has time for.

[3deroticer]

The church was one of Hitler biggest supporter in his rise to power. In my home town we had one of Hitler's Romania orthodox Priest hiding, and deported back to Germany for trial. It was one of the biggest find because he was assisting others in hiding. Funneling money to South America, and set up a headquarter in a small town of Michigan.

My great great great grandfather Tom Dewolfe consider himself to be a Christian and also the largest slave trader in America. Made $36,000 a day in selling slaves and was consider to be the second wealthiest man at the time. He had a fort in Ghanna, Africa with a church built over the dungeon where the slave were held and perform baptism before they were pack in ships. The Church funded and sanction slavery, were one of the biggest stock holder for the DeWolfe. 11 million slave were ship and at least 1.5 millions died and mostly were ch1ldren. Most of the fancy homes in the town Bristol, Rhode Island were built with slave money, even the church, banks, and library. The North profited from slavery more than the South did, and the industry revolve around the slave. Then the abolition of slave happen and the family still sold slaves illegally moving industry offshore in Cuba and use faster runner ships. When they were about to be caught, they would toss all the slaves to the seas(mostly ch1ldren) and the number of death not recorded. America was addicted to slavery and yet all were Christian and justify it with passage of slaves in the bible. This was the holocaust for the blacks. At the time of the abolition movement, the president put a former slave trader in charge of port authority while they look the other way whenever a slave ship were arriving and deporting.

[RandomX]

I guess if you guys were actually curious and legitimately wanted answers or even just a friendly discussion, you could speak to a theologian or well educated pastor. But like every thread I see on the intenet these days started by an agnostic or atheist this is just another flame bait thread in the hopes to lure a Christian into a hopeless debate filled with fallacies and strawmen and general ignorance all with the goals of ridiculing him or her for their faith.

Amirite?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I completely disagree. I love discussing this stuff because I love a good debate. I'm still waiting for a discussion with someone religion that doesn't end in "well you need to have faith" or "because god said so." I'm looking forward to it. I love arguing and debating in general and this is one of the most fun ones that sadly, the opposition really hasn't researched. No troll bait here, just a genuine love for an open forum in hopes of someone intelligent being able to argue their side.

[DruulEmpire]

A conversation with RandomX with no hope of ever ending?  I'm game!

[3deroticer]

Jesus have never been proven to exist and more evidence of his mythology dating back 2,000 BC to the constellation of the star. The story of Jesus have been retold many times 2,000 years before the birth of Christianity. I consider the teaching of Jesus to be a eclectic form of most religion in area of the "golden rule" of humanity. I think the old testament was a tool to bring down the Roman empire from within.

The three wise man was first cited to be part of the constellation. The 3 days of rising from the dead refer to the star disappearing in the horizon and appearing again 3 day later, during the winter solstice.