So God is HATE?

[dalovindj]

I’d be tempted to tell you that that sort of stereotyping is redolent of an eighth grader – except that there are some smart eighth graders on this board that I’d be insulting.

Missed this part. Nice for a Christian. Wanna trade insults? I don’t. I just don’t want to die in a biological attack cause a couple thousand years of brainwashing convinced someone that what god really wants is for you to take out the main competing religion (and whoever happens to be standing next to them).

It aint so far away. It aint so impossible. It’s a very adult issue. I am not immature for being angered and worried by the situation. Shame on you for stooping to insults about my intelligence. I though you were above that sort of thing.

Try reading Howard Bloome’s book “The Lucifer Principal”. Eye opening book about the dangers of meme’s and superorganism mentalitys. Mind blowing book, really. Just because you may be a harmless religious person does not make religions harmless. They are very close to ripping our world apart.

DaLovin’ Dj

[gobear]

Freyr, your posts make no sense.

The majority of Christians and Jews do accept that the stories there are mythological. The whole point of the post was to show that MGibson’s evidence that (the J/C/I) God is evil or has evil tendencies is purely mythological.

If, as you, the majority of Christians and Jews believe the stories in the Bible are mythological, then on what are they basing their faith? You can’t say the Bible is just a bunch of stories not meant to be taken literally, but at the same time they are evidence of God at work in our world.

The God of the Old Testament behaves badly. Either the stories and His existence are myth OR they are true. You can’t have it both ways.

[quote]

Great! Now you’re the self-appointed arbiter of What is Right and Good for the Human Race! What a crock! Atheists are just as human and full of arrogance and Theists. Their (the Atheists) bigotry is the same as many Fundamentalist Christians; they’ve seen the Light (supposedly rational thought) and now have the right to look down their noses at all of us poor, lost Theists who are still stuck in the Dark Ages, believing in fairy tales and other impossible things.
[q/uote]
Pish and tosh! Let’s examine whta I wrote, shall we?

By Gobear

Most of the events of the OT, such as the Exodus, have yet to be borne out by external evidence. That’s not to say that one is prohibited from believing in Moses and the miracles of the OT.
<snip>
There may be such an entity–after all, I can’t conclusively demonstrate that he doesn’t exist. But I can examine the claims made for such a being’s existence and then see if they warrant credit.

I made no dogmatic claims. I said simply to test the evidence and see it if it stands up under examination. If you wish to believe in Scandinavian gods, I can’t tell you not to, but you can’t expect me to swallow your contention without proof, can you?

If you really disdain evidence and logic as you seem to , why are you here? This isn’t the I’ll Believe Anything Somebody Tells Me If They Shout Loudly Enough Board (That would be the Ms. Forum).

[Polycarp]

DJ: I see. And apologize. I’m as aware that there are idiots out there justifying their idiocy by “what God said to them” as you are. And I misinterpreted your comments as an attack on all religious belief (and based on how they were expressed, it was not too difficult to read it that way). But you are 100% right that the possible (and probable) activities of such idiots constitute a serious problem, and I effectively hijacked your point.

Us rational religionists tend to get bent out of shape when we get lumped in with the idiots, OK?

Now go call the idiots by the names they deserve – with my blessing, and I’m confident the others’ as well.

[dalovindj]

Thank you, Polycarp. I’m glad we could clear that up.

DaLovin’ Dj

[pldennison]

I was referring entirely to the books of Genesis and Exodus The majority of Christians and Jews do accept that the stories there are mythological.

I would find it staggering, to be polite, if the majority of Jews believed that the events depicted in Genesis and Exodus were mythological. Those events are the basis of their entire religion. If they believed that they did not actually happen, there wouldn’t be any Judaism. Passover would not be celebrated anymore.

This statement is akin to saying that the majority of Christians accept the feeding of the five thousand, the virgin birth and the resurrection and ascension as mythological. Can you provide any support for your statement whatsoever?

There’s no evidence of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,

Er . . . you may want to check on that.

[Freyr]

**dalovindj wrote:

There is not enough evidence to conclude either way whether there is a god, and since there is so much money tied to religion there is certainly a motive for people to lie. When money is involved, some people will lie. **

If you’re talking about the world religions like Christianity, Islam, Judeism, Buddhism or such, I’d agree. But would you mind explaining how the traditional practices of people like the Yanamamo of the Azmazon basin or Yorba of sub-sahara Africa or the spiritual practices of the Plains Indians of North America are tied in with money and how (as you said) driven by greed and ignorance?

Now, if you had said Fundamentalist Christianity instead of religion, I wouldn’t be objecting. But you didn’t say that. You specifically said religion without any modifiers. So which is it? Do you really hate all religion or do you really hate fundamentalism and specificially the type espoused by the link in the OP?

I really suspect it’s the latter. If that’s the case, would you please, **please, PLEASE ** label it as such instead of painting all religions as being born of ignorance and greed?

**Gobear wrote:

If, as you, the majority of Christians and Jews believe the stories in the Bible are mythological, then on what are they basing their faith? You can’t say the Bible is just a bunch of stories not meant to be taken literally, but at the same time they are evidence of God at work in our world.**

I can’t answer for Christians, but my own faith is based upon my two experiences with deities, my own philosphical readings and long discussions with fellow Wiccans.

I wasn’t referring to the whole Bible (as a bunch of stories not meant to be taken literally), just the stories within Genesis and Exodus and specifically the ones that MGibson referred to. It’s my understanding that most modern (J/CI) theologians accept that up to the point of Abraham, Genesis is mythology. After that, there’s no hard evidence for the existence of Abraham and his offspring and much of the story of Exodus, but there’s no evidence that directly contradicts it, either.

The God of the Old Testament behaves badly. Either the stories and His existence are myth OR they are true. You can’t have it both ways.

And now, you’re sounding like a Christian Fundamentalist. It’s either one way or the other, black or white with no shades of grey inbetween.

How about this: the Bible is a collection of mythology, peotry and song, history (albeit rather one-sided), philosophy, morality and ethics explained thru parables and accounts of direct encounters with Deity. I don’t insist the Bible is all true or all false. The only ones who do that are the Fundamentalists.

If you really disdain evidence and logic as you seem to , why are you here?

I don’t hold evidence and logic in disdain. I’m trying to get MGibson to show some factual evidence of the “evilness” of the God of the Old Testament (or Torah). All he’s shown as evidence are a bunch of old myths.

**pldennison wrote:

This statement is akin to saying that the majority of Christians accept the feeding of the five thousand, the virgin birth and the resurrection and ascension as mythological. Can you provide any support for your statement whatsoever?**

I explained this to Gobear above. There were a few news stories out a while back about how the whole story of the Exodus may be mythological. I’m looking for the link.

[dalovindj]

Freyr, read my fucking posts. I use the words "A few exceptions ". Not fucking hard to see. Right there in my own words. Read my posts before you attack me for them, bub.

Still, I’m convinced that all religions so far are born of ignorance. Humans are born with a natural ignorance which we fill in as we grow and learn. Ignorance of where we come from, ignorance of cosmology, geology and such. There is so much data in the universe that can be collected, to declare definitively the nature of it all without collecting the rest of the available data (with our newer and better tools), is to fill in this ignorance with fables, superstitions, and made up stories. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that I am.

Granted, some religions are more tied into money than others. Money is a form of power, and that is why people make up religions. To gain power. If I can convince everybody that I am close to the creator(s) and have special knowledge then I can control them to some extent. These are the sentiments that have inspired religion IMO. The result is misguided people believing in things without evidence, locking into a meme super-organism, and then having violent conflicts with other super-organisms which are guided by competeing memes.
The religious super-organism must behave in an especially brutal manner to defend itself, since close scrutiny will reveal it’s tenants to be unprovable and ultimately based on false statements. To defend against these weaknesses, the meme’s require a blind conceit on the part of those who propagate them - i.e. “I must be right.” type of sentiments when there is quite obviously a very good chance that the statements these meme’s are based on are quite false. Even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, these memes are so firmly entrenched, this conceit so successfully ingrained, that reasonable discourse becomes meaningless and the world becomes a worse place.

It has proven to be one of the most dangerous phenomenon in the history of man. It’s poised to take us out if we’re not careful. Some religious memes are doing better than others, and some are less awful then others, but the overall system of knowledge (accepting statements as fact without reasonable evidence) is foolish and dangerous. Just read the news if you don’t believe me.

DaLovin’ Dj

[gobear]

Freyr, again, you’re making no sense.

I don’t hold evidence and logic in disdain. I’m trying to get MGibson to show some factual evidence of the “evilness” of the God of the Old Testament (or Torah). All he’s shown as evidence are a bunch of old myths.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a myth or not–he;s commenting on the behavior of the character in the stories. Saying that they’re “myths” doesn’t make God’s actions any less vile. Sauron in The Lord of the Rings behaves atrociously. His behavior is no less loathsome because he’s fictional.

People, not just the dreaded Fundamentalists, believe that the events of the OT are true and attempt to justify God’s conduct in some ill-considered theodicy. You can’t just wave your hands and say they don’t exist.

[Polycarp]

DJ, a very incisive post. But let me suggest that the question of whether a deity of some sort exists and if so what characteristics it may have is not refuted by the allegations you have made about superstitious explanations of natural events or by human greed and lust for power. To be sure these have shaped virtually every faith tradition I’m at all familiar with, in and out of Christianity. But they do not eliminate the possibility that there may be a pony in there under all the road apples.

I applaud your search for more and more complete knowledge. I simply suggest that rejection of a metaphysics that accepts a deity on the basis of how such doctrines have been misused, and how people have cornered small pieces of putative wisdom and claimed to be in possession of The Ultimate Truth, is falling short of the full without-presuppositions openmindedness of the man who is ready to follow the truth wherever it leads.

Gobear, you too have a highly valid point. What I feel we’re saying on the other side is that there is a God who is good by His own standards, to which we’re more and more approximating, and who was blamed for a lot of stuff because it was convenient for guy X to project his xenophobia or lust for power or desire to make everybody else behave the way he thought to be right onto the deity whom he, as DJ has suggested, claimed a special knowledge of.

Put another way, I’m sure you’ve known people who are firmly convinced that FDR was the Devil Incarnate. The stories they may tell about his having provoked Pearl Harbor or intentionally destroying the old capitalist economy in order to institute his statist views, which are mythical, do not serve to refute his historicity or the ideas he did have, be they good or bad in your estimation. Only if God did in fact exist and command the bears to eat the 42 kids who sassed Elisha, or the repeated genocide of the Amelekites, would He be vile. And these things sound to me like (1) a cautionary tale and (2) a convenient way to transfer blame for a genocide onto Somebody who was by definition doing right.

[dalovindj]

To be sure these have shaped virtually every faith tradition I’m at all familiar with, in and out of Christianity. But they do not eliminate the possibility that there may be a pony in there under all the road apples.

True. I cannot prove conclusively that a creator does not exist. I also am unable to prove that a creator has never communicated with humanity. I may be wrong. Maybe someone somewhere has really communicated with an otherwise elusive god, but barring proof (other than sentiments like “I just talked to a god on the mountain! You just missed it! Quick write this down!”), it seems far more likely that such has never occured. Combined with a knowledge of human nature, all signs point to the religions of the world being the finest hoaxes humans have ever pulled off.

I simply suggest that rejection of a metaphysics that accepts a deity on the basis of how such doctrines have been misused, and how people have cornered small pieces of putative wisdom and claimed to be in possession of The Ultimate Truth, is falling short of the full without-presuppositions openmindedness of the man who is ready to follow the truth wherever it leads.

I’m willing to follow, I just need a reason. Like evidence. Circumstantial evidence like thousands of year old scriptures make poor evidence of anything except the motivations of the people who wrote them. To give them any more credit than that is to engage in a terrible folly.

If we find some real conclusive proof of a creator, I’m willing to accept it as truth. My next step would be to evaluate the apparent actions of this entity and decide whether I like it or not. At best though, all you’re going to get out of me is grattitude and if you are a nice god, love. Worship is something that no one is getting out of me - except Natalie Portman.
Ever since the movie “Beautiful Girls” she has been the physical embodiement of all that is good for me. Yummy. Ehhh . . . Where was I?

I’m all for finding the truth: whatever it may be. All of the religions I have seen appear to replace truth with superstitious theories that have their basis in metaphor and imagination rather than observations and analysis. A basis which leads to the creation of dangerous super-organisms. I am fairly convinced this is an approach which clouds the truth rather than brings it to light. These memes must promote ignorance to protect against their own demise. Tricky little buggers, thoughts are.

As always, I may be wrong.

DaLovin’ Dj

[Polycarp]

Fair enough, DJ.

According to the God I believe in, one is (tacitly) not to try to “prove Him” by logic or evidence – to the believer, the world speaks of God’s goodness and the Scriptures demonstrate it by His acts, while to the non-believer, the world has no evidence and the Scriptures show a large mass of evil acts supposedly committed in His name – but rather show Him to the world by the life one lives.

I’ve been trying to do just that. I’d welcome your eventually finding that my example “proves” something to you, and will keep on doing it, not “to prove anything,” but because I’ve been told to do so, and because it’s right and it’s the way I feel good about living.

If you’re hoping for a document dateable to AD 30 and written by a historically verifiable figure (Pliny the Elder? Cicero?) that sets forth the historical facts around Jesus’s life, well, so am I – but that doesn’t stop me from accepting what I have – because I know Him; He’s a real presence in my life, occasionally through a bit of mysticism and often through the acts of those with whom I come in contact.

Best evidence I can give at the moment. I suspect it won’t satisfy you – yet, at least.

But keep on lookin’ and you’ll find the truth, in ways you feel comfortable accepting. And it may not be my truth. And keep on fighting evil as you’ve been doing while you look. Because you are my brother in spirit, though we happen to disagree on this point.

[dalovindj]

According to the God I believe in, one is (tacitly) not to try to “prove Him” by logic or evidence

Herein lies my biggest problem with most of the worlds religion. I don’t accept this as a mandate from a hide-and-seek type of god, only as a defense mechanism of those ancient memes which were based in fiction and propagated (with blind conceit) as fact. I hope those type of memes become obsolete (replaced by better ones). I am not alone:

Dogmatism
Through some twist of fate, western society has come to regard dogmatic faith as a virtue. To hold an idea as true despite all evidence to the contrary is an abdication of reason. Convictions are the end of knowledge, not the beginning; they are the enemy of truth more than lies.

From The Church of the Virus website. These cats are trying to send out some productive infectious memes to replace the counter-productive old ones. I’m going to start a GD thread about that site in a moment.

DaLovin’ Dj

[runforrestrun]

Okay, anyone wanting to see some messed up shit go to www.freespeech.org/shockingtruth. Oh dear jesus, it is the most horribly conservative thing ever. Anti-masturbation devices are for sale here, though they seem like s & m playtoys to me. Plus they ban intellectuals, atheists, satanists, goths, and masturbators. Fer crying out loud these people are so obviously Satan it is scary! I feared for humanity when i saw this.

To quote Fight Club,“Self-improvement is masturbation.”

THis site promotes the Mein Kampf for children and encourages Catholic kids to bully everyone, especially Jews. Shit shit shit.

[runforrestrun]

Okay, anyone wanting to see some messed up shit go to www.freespeech.org/shockingtruth. Oh dear jesus, it is the most horribly conservative thing ever. Anti-masturbation devices are for sale here, though they seem like s & m playtoys to me. Plus they ban intellectuals, atheists, satanists, goths, and masturbators. Fer crying out loud these people are so obviously Satan it is scary! I feared for humanity when i saw this.

To quote Fight Club,“Self-improvement is masturbation.”

THis site promotes the Mein Kampf for children and encourages Catholic kids to bully everyone, especially Jews. Shit shit shit.

[happyheathen]

This site promotes the Mein Kampf for children and encourages Catholic kids to bully everyone, especially Jews. Shit shit shit.

so much for Vat II, eh?

[Guinastasia]

Um, hello, it’s a parody site?

:rolleyes:

[Triskadecamus]

DalovinDJ,

So, how about this offer, on the religion thing. Don’t believe a single word I say. Ignore my protestations that I did experience the presence of God, or the exhortations that He is a real, and present being.

Let’s just move onto the life view, and deal with that. If there is no Jesus, and no heaven, and no real reason to choose good over evil because of a religious mandate, can we examine the choice from a purely selfish and logical point of view? I think love can stand alone, without God, and still be the obvious choice.

If we choose self, at every turn, and our own interests above all others, don’t we end up at best, alone, and surrounded only by our wealth? I can’t give you a get out of heaven free card, of course, but I don’t think you are going to have salvation shoved down your throat if you happen to live by the same principles on your own. What say we just agree that trying to love each person we meet on the earth for as long as we are here would be a good idea, all by itself. We’ll let God take care of eternity, if any. And we will be satisfied to visit those who are imprisoned, and feed the hungry, and give drink to the thirsty, and always accept that we, ourselves are no better than any of our brothers, in our own eyes, if there are no eyes of God.

You and I know that claiming to stand on the side of God is nothing but vanity. Therefore shall we not simply claim that we wish to stand on the side of love itself, since we cannot prove where God is standing? I shall remain serenely sure of Salvation, and will trust that the Lord will see into your heart, when the end comes. You will know that I am deluded, but that between us, we left the world a better place than we found it, no matter that we were just two guys plugging along through life, and one of us was a fool.

Does that work for you?

Tris

[SisterCoyote]

Um, Tris?

Did you bump this on purpose?

[dalovindj]

Seven months coming up with that response? Wonder what brought this about right now. No matter. I agree very much with your sentiment. Someone pointed out to me recently that my philosophy is thousands of years old. Everything is meaningless except that we give it meaning. Nothing is quite certain and morality must be chosen ultimately by the individual. I would have to say I find your description pleasing, and whatever method that a person needs to employ to see life similarly I would hope that they find.

Still, as far as making the world a better place, kindness and goodwill are important, but science and medicine have done more than good wishes ever could in making the world better for billions of people. I can’t help but think to be sure that you (anyone) know something may keep you from asking the question that leads to the answer that makes the world a better place. How can you take the water of truth and use it when you’re filled with and focused on Pepsi?

Either way, I wish you well and am glad to see your apparent desire to help people and let kindness be your guide. I haven’t really a desire to force any view down your throat, but am glad to discuss the subject as often as you may bring it up or make yourself vocal here when others do. I hope your faith can be tainted, even ever-so-slightly, by an open mind and a watchful eye for those clues which may make your knowledge more complete and accurate. My greatest hope is that one day reality can be understood, and that our intelligence knows whether there ever was a secret purpose, or if we are charged with making our own for no reward other than a clean concious.

DaLovin’ Dj

DaLovin’ Dj