If this is a response to my “revolutionary wars” comment–please note that the fascist regime necessary to eliminate all religions except the one “acceptable” as a world religion would inspire revoultions everywhere.
And then. So, the good believer go to heaven and the good non-believer don’t go to hell.That situation will be eternal
Either there is no difference between the heaven and the non-hell, and believing is pointless.
Either the heaven is better than the non hell and the non-believer will be deprived from something forever and hence punished forever. Except that you’re not roasting, the concept is still the same : eternal punition.
So, we’re still left with an all-loving god punishing his creatures forever. And with all the usual issues : infinite punition for a finite fault, material impossibility for some to avoid this eternal punition (never heard of God, feeble-minded, etc…), omniscient god creating being he knows from the start will be punished forever and nevertheless choosing to create them, etc…
And once they get there, they can’t (or is it “won’t”?) change their minds? (I know I said I was leaving this thread, but I felt I ought to respond to a comment on something I said.)
Me too. I was raised by chirstians. I did not agree with almost any of that lifestyle myself. Until I learned it for myself. Being “raised” a christian does not give you any more legitmacy than others when it comes to knowledg. I am glad you made an informed decission, what I would like to know is where you get your other information about most athiests and few christains. Like you said in another post. That is arguable. Do you have numbers? I tend to dissagree with you on christians not being taught athiesm. Now more so than ever there are less Christain percentage. Do you think everyone just wised up? No because now it is the pC thing to do to teach athiesm.
And I say to you that because there is a single cell there is a God. That is my proof. So I challenge you. If you tell me there is not a God where is your proof? I already stated about faith so I will comment no further on your bait about me worshiping unicorns and such.
Assume what you wish. There is a scientific theory that life was created from a lighting bolt. And so you are saying that if I play the lottery enough I can create life?
You missed my point entirely about the emotions issue. Just because you have life does not mean you have feelings. Sure my brain tells me when to be scared or cry. You could even reasonably say that evelution made my brain issues that scared part. Survival of the fittest right? Why didnt the scintists…err evolution give trees a brain to be scared of the fires?
How can you say I do not know what it is like to not believe? Wouldnt I have to know what it is like to truely believe? YOu see even being raised by christians did not make me born with faith. I had to develope it. I hope you do not assume that I beleived it just bacuase everyone else around me did. That wouldnt be true faith would it? And there was a time I was an athiest.
I am sorry, I do not see what you state you understand? I understand there is a God, based upon my faith. YOu understand that it is absurd based on what? You do not have proof so it must be your faith?
And how do you understand it is a german shepherd? WHat if it was a poodle? Or even yet it could be a very large, deformed rat that barked.
Actually I could argue with you that in fct the sky is NOT blue. It is always black as night. But that is another theoretical debate. So what you are saying is you can know you are right without proof? like your german shepherd analogy? That is kind of like the nonsense you accuse thiests of isn’t it?
If you told me there were intelligent speaking cabbages in my garden I would ask why you would say such a thing. YOu give me your reason, or proof and then I decide. To not do so would make me as closed minded as religious fundamentalists are accused of being.
I understand then. If you do not understand what He is doing or why then it is nonsense… To me that is nonsense. DOes that make us even?
…]
Back to my original question, what does the tree do?
…]
Who said I deny it? Again it would be close minded of me just to deny your claim without hearing your argument. That would be nonsese.
Well, except for my friend’s husband. And his buddy. So it’s definitely a non-zero number.
Has anyone read C S Lewis like I told them to? …I thought not. Oh well. Carry on arguing about Christianity without knowledge of Christian thought, then.
quote:
Originally posted by jefnixon
Better a war over something that is real?? just a thought. Or do we all stick religion tabs on this too. i.e Northern Ireland.
If this is a response to my “revolutionary wars” comment–please note that the fascist regime necessary to eliminate all religions except the one “acceptable” as a world religion would inspire revoultions everywhere.
It was a response to the Independence comment. I never said there should be on ereligion, just that if there is it should be the same? to me no religion would be best, yes???
ooops, I ballsed that up, my response was to emarkp.
Spite, lay off the crack, dude.
OK. So, why do you believe in the god you’re believing in and not in another one about whom there is no evidence, either, which is a proof that She exists. Say, Ameratsu?
-The belief in god gives you a purpose.
-Also, why do you believe a purpose is necessary? I don’t believe there’s a purpose to my life, and nevertheless I live, I’ve hopes, dissapointments, pleasures, griefs, etc…
-The fact that you feel more confortable with a purpose doesn’t mean there’s one. Why do you think it helps proving there’s a god?
-All the religions gives a purpose. Same with the guidelines.Why do you choose this one?
-I can give you a series of guidelines to live by. Will you accept me as a savior? The law gives you a series of guidelines to live by. Do you worship the congress? Your parents gave you a series of guidelines to live by. How many times a day do you pray them?
-That’s true for most religions, in some way or another. Why did you choose this one?
-What if I don’t agree with your “ideal world”? What if I don’t agree with your opinion about adultery, for instance?
-Some people have or had a different interpretation of the scripture. If everybody had lived by them, there would be no AIDS, black men would be slaves, there would be no lying, heretics would be burned, there would be abundance of giving, protestantism would never have appeared, there would never be any taking, the earth would still be flat…
As I said a lot of times, more christians are utterly ignorant about atheism than atheists are ignorants about christianism. I’ve been christian. Have you been atheist?
Who used this argument in this thread, exactly? Why are you answering to an argument nobody made instead of adressing the points actually made?
.
How many times must it be said? It’s the one who makes the claim who must proves it. I’ve nothing to prove. You are claiming there’s a God. Proves it. “I don’t believe in X” and “I believe in X” aren’t similar statements. Not believing is the basis. If you believe, it’s a choice. You must have a reason to make this choice. And you must have a reason to convince me to believe. If it wasn’t the case, you would believe in everything someone tells you, whatever it could be. Do you believe in fairies? Probably not. Why? Because you have no proof they exist. Same with god.
And I don’t think believers lacks intelligence, I think they lack a critical mind. There’s no way they would believe in something else than god if the evidence for it were so unexistent and the evidences against it (like the huge holes in the christian belief) were so overwhelming. If believers believed because they had thought a lot about it, either they would all have the same religion, either they wouldn’t pick so massively the religion of their parents, neighbors, etc…If you actually think you have thought a lot about your religion and came to the conclusion that what your religion says is true, you’re stating that all the other people who have other beliefs lack intelligence. The other option being, of course that you’re wrong.
In other words you have no clue, no explanations about this kind of contradictions, but nevertheless you believe. Have you seriously considered that if there’s no explanations, it’s perhaps not because you can’t understand god’s will, but plainly because there is no god, and hence no explanation is needed? You should. But I meant seriously
You’ll see…everything becomes immediatly much simpler and clear.
He’s using the scripture out of context? How can you know that for sure? I bet he would say the same thing about you.
How can you know that not only there is a god, not only that it’s the christian god, but that you know how to interpret the scripture, and this preacher don’t? Because you have thought a lot about it? Didn’t he do the same? Didn’t billions of people do the same in the past and even now? How can you know the wide majority were wrong, are still wrong, and you’re right.
Of course, the fact that the scriptures aren’t clear and often contradictory doesn’t help. Why did god choose such an imperfect book, that so much people misunderstand, to carry his message? Why not a clear book in which his will would be obvious for everybody?
Of course, if you consider that actually this book has been written by a bunch of mere humans, without contact with any higher power some thousands of years ago, there isn’t any problem anymore, once again…But the answer “God has inspired a book that nobody can understand properly” apparently seems more logical to you.
I agree with you about everything : corruption cause corruption, we all share the blame for that, etc…Except that there is no god in the picture. We are responsible because of our actions (or lack thereof) and the real consequences of them in the real world. Not because there is an original sin and we angered some supernatural being.
(In the good old days, we would have sacrified an ox or something to appease him).
(Side note: you may want to investigate the “quote” link under each post. It makes quoting much easier.)
The only way to “unify” all religions into one would be to enforce uniformity of believe. The only way to do that is with a powerful central authority which snuffs out any appearance of variance from the central dogma. That would require a regime more oppresive than the world has ever seen. Rebellions and wars would undoubtedly ensue. It merely exposes ignorance about religion and human nature to suggest that this is possible.
Or, to put it bluntly, it sounds doubleplus ungood.
You have made a very convenient “sniping”, don’t you?
I wrote :
1)A lot of atheists were christians before
2)Very few christians were atheists before
3)I’ve been brought up as a christian, went to church classes, attended to church, was surrounded by christians
4)How many christian have been a similar situation?
By snipping 3) you conveniently changed the meaning of my post.
So again : how many christians do you know who have been brought up as atheists, have attended to atheist classes, went to atheist weekly reunions, were surrounded by atheists in a country majoritary atheist do you know?
And my answer is still : none.
And concerning my ignorance about christianism you pointed (I snipped it too quickly)…Can you tell me what i said exactly which proves I’m ignorant of the christian faith? The “feeling that you’re wrong” doesn’t count…
It wasn’t a real point.
Like I said “no religion would be best”. My original quote was an ideological perfection.
PS, thanks for the quote advice.
And as I’ve said a lot of times, we don’t take too kindly to baseless assertions and sweeping generalizations around here.
As genie has pointed out, it appears that most of the atheists in this thread (and just about every other on this board when discussion religion) have no intention of understanding Christianity (or other beliefs), and most Christians (or other theists) don’t make much effort to understand the atheists. However, my anecdotal experience is that there seem to be more assaults on religion than on atheism here.
A few things that people have gotten wrong about Christians lately are:
Prayer is only a petition, and answers to prayers are the granting of said petitions–if you don’t get what you want, then your prayer wasn’t answered.
Prayer is much more than that. It is communion with God. It is more than simply asking for things. It is the process by which we as mortals change our will to be that of God’s. (More on why that is good and not scary in a moment.)
Faith and blind faith are equivalent–that is, if someone believes in God, Christ, etc. it is only because they decided to believe something they read or heard.
In reality, those of us who seek God in prayer receive confirmation of His reality. That communion provides that confirmation. Preaching the Gospel to someone involves giving someone the information, and then explaining that they must seek that personal confirmation. Someone who accepts what is heard or read without receiving confirmation by the Holy Spirit has blind faith, or is relying on someone else instead of finding out for himself.
The point of pursuing God’s will is not that it’s a crutch, and not that it’s convenient (often it’s very inconvenient!), nor is it an attempt to suvert our own personalities into One Greater[sup]tm[/sup]. We (that is, we Christians) do it voluntarily, because there is more joy and happiness when we do then when we don’t. Jesus Himself explained that, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17)
Note that Christianity is not claiming to be a scientific thesis (those who have attempted to make it such are mistaken, IMHO), and cannot be tested by objective experiment, because that communion with God can only be confirmed individually–we know of no way to “measure” the Holy Spirit objectively. This doesn’t make it any less real, just not conforming to a reductionist philosphy. An objective experiment can’t test it, but an individual can verify it.
Of course, various Christian denominations will quibble with the details of what I’ve written, but I think most would agree on the bulk of it.
And the basis for this assertion is?
I sure have met a lot of people who were atheists before they converted to Christianity.
And Josh McDowell. And C.S. Lewis. And Peter Stoner. And Simon Greenleaf, to name a few.
The story of Simon Greenleaf is particularly interesting, as described at:
http://www.foolishfaith.com/book_chap7.asp
http://www.markers.com/ink/sgtestimony.htm
Speaking as a Christian turned atheist…
I’m not certain what is supposed to be so interesting about Mr. Greenleaf. His summation seems to be “Jesus really rose from the dead because people died for that belief. Oh, yes, I realize other people have died for their beliefs, but this one is different because it started out with people dying for it and why would they do a crazy thing like that and therefore this one is ever so much better.”
I’m afraid I find that entirely unconvincing and that his conclusion simply doesn’t follow.
Then the site says that it is commonly accepted that the Gospels were written in Jesus’ generation, even though the Catholic Encyclopedia says it is generally held that they do not go back to the first century of Christian era. Who shall we believe?
And from there on out it seems to be saying the Bible is true because of what the Bible says… and that incidents in the Bible are historical because they are in the Bible… color me unimpressed. :rolleyes:
Spite:
I’m not a scientist, but I understand that emotions are biological phenonomena and they give humans (and many other animals) a survival advantage.
Your opinion is wrong. As has been pointed out before, atheists (generally- there’s no Atheist Creed) perceive people as just another part of the world, no better nor worse. We do believe that if good is to come about, we have to do it ourselves; we can’t pray and hope god will make it better. Also, when we wish to understand a thing, we either find a way to gain that understanding or we eventually conclude that we cannot due to our limitations, but perhaps people in the future will have the ability to figure it out. We don’t say, “I’ll understand everything someday,” or “maybe no people can understand this, but god does”.
Trees and grass don’t have emotions because they are plants. They do not have central nervous systems.
Trees have never evolved to have brains, so they don’t have them. Why didn’t god create humans with titanium vertebrae and more durable intervertebral discs so we’d be less vulnerable to back injuries?
Do you have a cite? The statistics I’ve read have pointed to the opposite conclusion. Who is teaching atheism? Or do you mean that education that doesn’t focus on reinforcing Christian beliefs is “atheistic”?
And I say to you that because my local grocery store sells a generic version of Doritos that is really very tasty, my dog speaks to me in fluent Spanish. That is my proof. 
Some thoughts on the reason a god would allow suffering and evil in this world.
So far, we’ve explored these explanations:
- Suffering is a necessary test.
- Suffering is necessary to develop maturity, character.
- It’s a mystery; we can’t understand it now.
- Suffering is necessary to ensure free will.
- Suffering is the result of free will.
- God uses suffering to create a greater good, eventually.
I think there’s an interesting little paradox between 4 and 5. In 4, suffering results in free will. In 5, free will results in suffering. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
If Genesis is taken literally, Satan was the author or evil, the first one to sin by disobeying God and tempting Eve. How did Satan have a choice to sin if no evil or suffering had existed up to that point? In his case at least, the existence of suffering/evil wasn’t necessary to ensure his free will, since he chose to disobey anyway.
Would Adam and Eve have been tempted to sin if they hadn’t been approached by the serpent? God chose not to warn them about deceit (though he did warn them not to eat the fruit), so they were pretty gulliable. What would have been the result of the test if the serpent had not been allowed to lie to them? Would they have sinned anyway? Could they have? I’d think they could have: Satan had already rebelled so I presume they could have, too.
We haven’t really talked about him much in this thread, but according to many Christian sects, Satan is a very real and present danger. He continues to tempt and deceive. Since suffering and evil already exist, isn’t it a bit unfair to let Satan stack the odds against us even more?
Ok, so :
1)I admit that I’ve no statistics about christians become atheists and atheists becoming christians. It’s only my personnal experience. Christians who became atheists : the wide majority of atheists I know . Atheists who became christian : 0
2)It still doesn’t change the fact that genie changed the meaning of my post. So, I reiterate : how many christians do you know who have been subjected all their life to an atheist propaganda?
3)Since you quoted that part, and you also point out athiests ignorance : have you any insight about atheism?
4)Now the interesting part. You don’t take too kindly baseless assertions. What are exactly the evidences you and other posters for the existence of the being you’re talking about and who’s called god?
5)For what reason exactly everybody is supposed to back their assertion except those who assert there is a god? What is the “special” ability the “god” belief has which prevent it from being subjected to the same requirment of evidence than other assertions
6)Will you agree to never again refer to your “god” hypothesis, since you have no evidence to support your “baseless assertion”?
**
- I remind you that genie spoke about ignorance about chrisitannity in a response to my post. So, what proves my ignorance?
2)I already know christianity, and indeed I’ve absolutely no intention to revert back to it. I became an atheist because I had good reasons to do so, so why are you expecting that I will defend it in any way?
3)True. It’s an assault against christiannity. It’s a fight against ignorance, in the same way attacking astrology is a fight against ignorance. No other belief than god would still be seriously defended here with such holes and lack of evidences. Why does this belief deserves some sort of special treatment?
**
1)Granted. It’s more than that. But personnaly I said nothing about prayer
2)It happens that for some reason a lot of christians pray with the expectation that their hopes will be fulfilled. A lot of christians advise other people to pray god for a healing, for instance. So, it’s perfectly admissible to question christians about this very widespread belief.
- Do you agree to admit that prayers have no consequences altogether in the material world? Do you agree to tell all other christians that no request made to god in a prayer will be fulfilled? If you don’t agree, all the questions asked about petitions are still valid, and you should defend your position.
**
Such feeling of communion exists in more or less any religious belief. Take the shamans for instance. Why do you think that your feeling of communion is more valid that other’s people feeling of communion? Why did you choose this religion? Actually, similar feeling exists also outside religion. For instance the feeling of communion with a crowd during a music concert.
**
So,your belief in god rely on this feeling of communition, of the presence or god, and for this reason isn’t blind faith.
1)Same question as above. This feeling appears in most other religions. Why did you choose this one?
2)Since this belief doesn’t come from what you have heard, what has been told, etc…How do you explain that the wide majority of people keep the religion they have been brought up in? Surely, people with the “wrong” belief don’t feel His presence? So, they should massively convert if presented with the truth? Why don’t they?
3)Since you don’t want to rely on what you have been told, surely you have tried to be very informed about other religions? You wouldn’t take such an important dcision in your life without being sure you’re right? Did you? Surely, you have tried other religions and rites, to make sure that one don’t have the same feelings when praying some idol? Did you?
4)So, you didn’t choose this religion because you were told it was the true religion. Probably you tried to pray once and you immediatly felt His presence. How do you explain then that if I pray, or if, say a boudhist try to pray, we don’t immediatly feel His presence? Would god want to make us err in order to torture us forever? Remember : faith mustn’t be a requirement to feel His presence, according to your own argument : faith comes from the feeling of His presence, not the feeling of His presence from faith.
**
1)I suppose you know that faith is a crutch for quite a few people
2)Atheism also can be inconvenient. You have to face the reality. The reality of your ultimate death, for instance. The reality that you must rely only on your own strength and on the strength of other fellow humans, and that no supernatural invisible being cares for you. The reality that you must make your own choices. The reality that you’re ultimately the only responsible of your choices, moral or others. The reality of evil, that no invisible omnipotent being will ever correct. The reality that you only can try to fight evil. The reality that the bad guys won’t be punished nor the good guys rewarded, if you don’t do anything. And with atheism comes the real feeling of freedom and personal responsability.
3)So you say that religion makes you happy. In what way this shouldn’t be considered as a “crutch”?
**
The fact that christiannity isn’t a scientific thesis, cannot be tested in any way nor measured (in other word this means that it has no consequences in the real world), isn’t objective is exactly what makes it not real. Something real has real consequences, can be seen or can be measured and isn’t totally subjective. Something without any real consequences is either false or totally irrelevant.
As it’s always stated, Invisible Pink Unicorns aren’t a scientific thesis, can’t be tested, can’t be measured, and aren’t objective, and have no consequences in the real world. There’s no difference between an invisible pink unicorn and a god. Except that one can believe in IPUs and another in gods, and a third one in Et abductions
**
And if they use the same arguments, they’ll have to answers to the exact same questions (and i’m sure that another atheist could have noticed some other holes in your arguments).
Now, can you explain me why the only thing you manage to pick in all my posts is the fact that I assumed without proof that there are more atheists who were christians than the reverse ?
Why didn’t you answer to the questions I asked, instead of nitpicking?
What don’t you display the same intellectual integrity you’re requesting from others by giving evidences about this “god” you’re talking about. Reread your post. You’ll notice that basically you said “there’s a god because I feel there’s a god”. To use you own words : “I won’t take too kindly baseless assertions”. Thanks.
I stopped reading this site after 4 pages or so. Abscolutely not impressive and full of inconsistencies. See
superhead’s post for more. I don’t want to waste my time.
I would add two of my owns :
a)the assertion that the lack of proofs actually proves that it’s the truth. Yeah…since there is no proof about the UFOs, it proves that they exist since people wouldn’t believe something without proof if it wasn’t for real, would they?
b)The contradictors of Christianism didn’t use such or such argument proves that they couldn’t use it, that it was not arguable. One must know that there is nothing left of the arguments and books written by the early contradictors of christianism. For some unknow reason, early christians didn’t feel like keeping these books. The only elements left are those who were cited in some christian books contradicting the contradictors.
We are the same situation than someone who in the future would examinate this thread and would only have the cites appearing in some of the posts made by the christians in this thread. For instance, refering to emarkp’s post, the only element of contradiction he would found would be that I said :
“more christians are utterly ignorant about atheism than atheists are ignorants about christianism. I’ve been christian. Have you been atheist?”.
Obviously, it’s a proof that this is the only argument I used. So it proves that I couldn’t find any valid argument against christianity(If I could, I certainly would have) . So it proves that I knew for a fact that all obvious arguments against christiannity were wrong. Therefore it proves that christianity is for real.
It’s exactly the argument used in the cite about the early contradictors of christianism.