"That's me in the corner!"
sent in by Randy
First off, I am here because ChristianAnswers.net could not even provide a simple way for me to ask a question providing nothing but a bunch of hoops to jump through, again!
As a second-grade kid I would lay awake and worry that I had not accepted Christ correctly and was thus going to fry in hell forever (infinite punishment for finite offenses, god is love). Every year after that, and before, that I can recall, they told my I was a bad person, no matter what I did: read the Bible, pray, fellowship, memorize the Bible (87 bleeping verses, won a goddamned Scofield Bible for that one).
Bottom line, none of their stuff ever made any sense. Of course, god does not have to make sense, HE is way up there were we can't understand. No, asshole, I can understand malevolent behavior. I can understand when I am required to "keep an open mind" while those I am questioning don't have to — 'cause they supposedly know the final truth.
Evil is Evil. Lies are Lies. And a Sac of Shit is a Sac of Shit is a Sac of Shit.
Step Up!
mpls
MN
Joined: 6
Left: ? 8 maybe but 21 for sure
Was: Baptist, Grace & Missionary Alliance
Now: Behaviorist
Converted because: Barneys Barrel
De-converted because: malevolent god
email: rr64459 at aol dot com
First off, I am here because ChristianAnswers.net could not even provide a simple way for me to ask a question providing nothing but a bunch of hoops to jump through, again!
As a second-grade kid I would lay awake and worry that I had not accepted Christ correctly and was thus going to fry in hell forever (infinite punishment for finite offenses, god is love). Every year after that, and before, that I can recall, they told my I was a bad person, no matter what I did: read the Bible, pray, fellowship, memorize the Bible (87 bleeping verses, won a goddamned Scofield Bible for that one).
Bottom line, none of their stuff ever made any sense. Of course, god does not have to make sense, HE is way up there were we can't understand. No, asshole, I can understand malevolent behavior. I can understand when I am required to "keep an open mind" while those I am questioning don't have to — 'cause they supposedly know the final truth.
Evil is Evil. Lies are Lies. And a Sac of Shit is a Sac of Shit is a Sac of Shit.
Step Up!
mpls
MN
Joined: 6
Left: ? 8 maybe but 21 for sure
Was: Baptist, Grace & Missionary Alliance
Now: Behaviorist
Converted because: Barneys Barrel
De-converted because: malevolent god
email: rr64459 at aol dot com
Comments
DG
i mean if its that people told you are a bad person. well frankly people are wrong if they tell you that God thinks your a bad person.
Just trying to understand
Michael
Endtimebeliever@gmail.com
Evil is Evil. Lies are Lies. And a Sac of Shit is a Sac of Shit.
You cannot make a lie or myth the truth, no matter how you might try to dress it up, it will always remain a lie!!!!!
Frankly, people are wrong if they tell that God thinks.
The truth will set you free, ...
... But first, it will piss you off.
it is completely disconnected from human experience, which is why it is so hard to argue with them the standard model for behaviour is simply a manifestation of "The desire to be great". To soothe are ego's.
Correction.
God DOES indeed think you are a bad person...according to the bible, koran, bagavad gita, etc. Despicable, sinful, evil, vile, corrupt, a putrid stench, abhorrence to divine law, an abomination.
Make no mistake. The God of the bible HATES you!
happy atheist
I weary of you now.
Consider your welcome worn out.
Peace.
Tell you what, since I still don't believe in God, I'll think for you, and since you do still believe, I'll go ahead and assume you won't mind because you will not be capable of knowing/understanding any different. Either way, consider that even those who seek realism, have had to push humanity to seek a more accomodating reality for people of all beliefs, no matter how biggoted those of religion wander and deliberately attempt to derail them from that goal."
Please read some of the many testimonies and articles on this site before posting questions. Especially read the disclaimer at in the upper right-hand corner of this page.
Thank you.
Nehemiah: "What's funny is the same things I use to believe are repeated over and over again here. What's really funny is I thought I was the first and only one to come up with these ideas..."
Yes, that is very funny indeed. It must make you chuckle when you look back and see how naive you were. You probably had no idea that there were a great many rational thinkers throughout history who could see through the chicanery of religion, and millions of people the world over who do so today.
Nehemiah: "It was a great way to keep my mind busy and my life justified while the universe seemed too scary to explore or explain."
Wow, what a strange state you must have been in. Most people (myself included) have come to reject religion BECAUSE they explore and ask unrelenting questions, not because they are afraid to do so. I can't even begin to grasp what your mindset must have been. In other words, you were a very peculiar brand of "atheist"; an example of which I have never met.
Nehemiah: "If that may be your reason, open your eyes again, you may see something worth looking at..."
I hope you've been disabused of that idea by now. One of the beautiful things about atheism is that you are free to seriously contemplate any alternative without fear of reprisal. I can sit here and examine what the believers say in detail, check the facts for myself, weigh alternatives, and come to an informed and rational decision based on my current understanding of the evidence. And that's just what I've done for most of my life. That's why I can confidently dismiss Christianity as an elaborate myth--it doesn't stand up to honest scrutiny. I think most here will agree with that sentiment.
Nehemiah: "Tell you what, since I still believe in God, I'll pray for you [presumably the webmaster] and since you don't, I'll go ahead and assume you won't mind because no one will be there to hear it."
And yet we all had the privilege of being informed of your *intention* to pray. Interesting, no? I'm wondering why you needed to announce it. Nobody is preventing you from talking to any deity you can dream up; it's your brain; it's your time and effort. Just for the sake of analogy, suppose I offered to smear baboon blood on my behind for you, to appease the great god of the jungle on your behalf, even though probably don't believe in such a being or appreciate the significance of the rite. Would you feel gratitude toward me? Would you see it as a thoughtful gesture, or a grotesque and primitive behavior?
Nehemiah: "Either way, consider that even Solomon had his Ecclesiates and the Father always loves his son, no matter where he or his belief wanders."
I can make no sense of the "love" you attribute to your supposed deity. I would never wish harm to anybody I loved, nor fail to defend them from the brutality of others if it were within my power to do so. Your god obviously operates differently (to say the least), so I quite literally have no way to make sense of the word "love" in its context.
I first want to qualify and say that all of these questions are asked with honesty and in no way are meant to patronize you. You seem like an intelligent guy and I am interested in what you have seen over the time you have pondered alternatives to the Christian viewpoint.
When you say that "Christianity won't stand up to honest scrutiny", what honest scrutiny are you talking about? If the Christian concept of heaven is not valid according to your belief, what is the purpose of your life here on the planet? What incentive do you have to live a moral life and how do you define what moral is?
I am excited about talking to you about this. I believe that personal bias destroys true objectivity and I hope that we can have a mature conversation about this topic.
I promise that I won't allow myself to spiral down and call you a "dipmunch" or any other creative name I have seen in use in this blog.
Thanks for your post.
I mean examining the fundamental claims upon which Christianity rests, such as the divine origin of the Bible, the historicity of Jesus, the legitimacy of so-called prophecies, the efficacy of prayer, and so on. In each and every case that I have studied, I have found that the claims are so poorly supported that I see no reason to suppose there is anything to them. Let's take the divine origin of the Bible--i.e. the claim that the Bible is in some sense "god's word". Upon what does that claim rest? For many believers, it is an unquestioned presupposition, so it rests upon nothing, for there are many books that one could simply choose to believe divine. For others it's a matter of "faith", which again amounts to nothing, in my opinion, for one could choose to have "faith" in any number of religions. For still others, it is proven by "prophecies", which on further inspection are largely not prophecies at all, and the remainder are easily explained as midrashic inventions, mainly due to Paul and the author of Mark. I have read the Bible and countless arguments put forth by believers from Augustine to Van Till; in my opinion, the arguments are uniformly poor, often degenerating into question begging, equivocation, and wishful thinking. In fact, I see most apologetics as a catalog of fallacies. In contrast, I find the arguments put forth by skeptics to be on much more solid ground. That's a nutshell answer to your question.
Anonymous: "If the Christian concept of heaven is not valid according to your belief,..."
Let me respond to that phrasing before I address your actual question. The Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell are neither "valid" nor "invalid"; the only pronouncement that I can make regards the evidence for their existence. As I have not seen a single particle of credible evidence in support of either, I harbor no belief in them. Does that mean they do not exist? No, of course not. I cannot prove that Heaven and Hell are fictitious any more than I can prove that Zeus is fictitious. However, I have no more reason to believe that they are real than I do Zeus.
Anonymous: "...what is the purpose of your life here on the planet?"
That's known as a "complex question"; i.e. a question that covertly asks (or assumes) much more than it appears to on the surface. Your very question assumes that there *is* some "purpose", presumably residing outside of ourselves. So let me ask you a more basic question first: what evidence do you have that our lives serve a "purpose" that exists outside of ourselves? (A word of caution: Believers often answer such a question by stating how awful or depressing it would be if there were no such purpose, which I call "proof by incredulity"--needless to say, it's a fallacy.)
Anonymous: "What incentive do you have to live a moral life..."
I posit that my incentive is essentially the same as yours: it's a combination of the "social wiring" in our brains and our upbringing. In short, we have innate social behaviors that cause most of us to abhor various forms of treatment, and these tendencies are codified and enforced by social norms. I believe you falsely attribute such behavior to an invisible conscious entity who acts as a "law giver". Nothing so exotic is needed to explain what we think of as "moral" behavior. Moreover, the "god as law giver" idea assumes infinitely more than it explains, so it carries no weight at all unless the existence of such a being is established first.
Anonymous: "...and how do you define what moral is?"
Morality is a very complex locus of behaviors, so it cannot be defined concisely. However, there is one fundamental rule that serves as a reasonable foundation: "Do no unnecessary harm to others". Of course, the maxim becomes very unclear when several factors clash, such as when propagating false information (i.e. lying) is used to prevent some greater harm, or when the degree of harm must be balanced against the number of people or animals harmed, etc. Of course, any such moral calculus must be performed using imperfect information, which makes it all the harder. If you claim that such questions are answered by the Bible (e.g. the Decalogue), then I will ask you to demonstrate how those simplistic rules can address cases where tradeoffs must be made, which is where the really difficult "moral" decisions are, and what courts around the world struggle with daily.