|  LuridHope | Apr 30, 5:17am | My favorite is this.
At the foot of the cross the centurion says, "Truly this man was the son of God". Mk.15:39.
The centurion says, "Certainly, this was a righteous man". Lk.23:47. |
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|  foreignergrl | Apr 30, 4:21pm | Facts are very important for us, the nonbelievers, but bear no real significance to the believers, since the lack of concrete facts is the very essence of faith. I have found something, however, that at least make believers think.
Focus on "God's" morality (or lack of thereof). How many people did "God" kill in the first five books? How many did the "Devil" kill? What about all the wars, slavery, rape and pillage encouraged by "God" and found throughout the New Testament? The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is a great place to find those.
Assuming for a minute that they're right and that there is a "God": do they really want to spend eternity worshiping a cold blooded killer, who condones rape and slavery on top of that? And here's one inconsistency that I think it really works: The bible says "God" is the same yesterday, today and forever. So how do Christians reconcile "being good" while worshipping a killer "God"? How do they reconcile a civilized, law abiding society with that? Christians, or at least those who bothered reading the bible, know all these passages, all the atrocities. Dont you all wonder how they reconcile all that, and how can they be ok with that? Isnt that kind of scary? |
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Sponsor |  rivalarrival | Apr 30, 5:15pm | 12: It's very scary. But they brush it aside because most of the atrocities were in the old testament, and Jeebus "fulfilled" the old testament so God wouldn't have to arbitrarily smite anymore.
I enjoy the "God of the Gaps" arguments: "You don't KNOW that this is how this particular phenomenon happens, so you have to allow the possibility that GodDunIt(TM)"
When all is said and done, the reality is that the vast majority of people are "functional Atheists" - while they may call themselves believers, most simply don't live their lives as if they actually believe any of the garbage they spew out of their mouths. The problem with these functional atheists (aka "religious moderates") is that they tolerate more radical fundamentalists, and these nutjobs are the ones who shoot up abortion clinics, blow up train stations, fly planes into buildings, murder 11-year-old girls and >a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/jehovahs.witness.ap/index.html">14-year-old boys, whose only crimes were developing illnesses that couldn't be cured with wishful thinking.
When these functional atheists admit to themselves "The emperor has no clothes", the nutjobs will be recognized as nutjobs, and not martyrs. |
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Sponsor | | Vortexfugue | Apr 30, 5:50pm | | 12. Last I counted, God murdered about 33 million people in cold blood to Satan's 10 (see Job), but I don't count Satan's 10 since he acted under the auspices of God (there was that little bet they placed at the beginning of Job). |
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|  InadvertentlyMe | Apr 30, 6:02pm | Ya know... what's a few orders of magnitude between friends...
;-) |
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| | G-MO | May 1, 5:50pm | #12 I think i may take that line of reasoning, not so much in the death count, since those who died "brought it upon themselves" but more in the law issues. Rape, slavery, etc.
#13 one thing i have to give my parents, is they AREN'T hypocrites. So thats good, in a way. Although it does make this... harder :) |
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| | LuridHope | May 1, 5:57pm | From my own research I found it very interesting that giants supposedly roamed the land as the result of interbreeding between angels and humans before the flood...
Then after the flood supposed there were still giants such as Goliath and OG.
Even more surprising are the claims of "Doctor" Kent Hovind, who claims that giants existed long after OG, who, according to the Bible was "The last of the Giants" |
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Sponsor | | rivalarrival | May 2, 5:43pm | 16: I'm sure I could find a few biblical quotes to demonstrate that any religious person was a hypocrite. The fun part of the bible is using it to present any arbitrary viewpoint. But I think I understand what you mean. :)
You mentioned you considered yourself agnostic - what, exactly, does that mean to you? (I have a feeling that you means something along the lines of "Skeptic")
An Agnostic, in my mind, would ask "Can you show how your particular brand of religious belief is more valid than any other brand, or no belief at all?"
Agnosticism does not refer to a person's beliefs, but to the knowledge a person claims regarding the existence of "God". Agnostics claim no knowledge of "God's" existence.
Arguing that god did bad things forces you to accept (if only for the sake of argument) that god existed. Once you make that first concession, you've lost the real argument, which is whether or not to even believe in God in the first place. Religious people rarely argue this issue, they prefer to argue the hypotheses that follow the assumption, rather than the assumption itself. |
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| | G-MO | May 3, 3:07pm | for myself, agnosticism would mean more of a "is your god the real god, or is there any god at all?" i haven't made up my mind on either subject yet ;)
and my current goal is not to try to disprove god exists, as that is obviously impossible, but just to show that even if a god does exist, it is just as likely to be another religion.
FYI, the reason i did say i'm agnostic is because i have no knowledge of God, i know there are many things that i can't explain (miracles) but whether that is result of a god (let alone the god i worshiped) is beyond me knowledge. |
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Sponsor | | rivalarrival | May 4, 7:30pm | 19: Ok, I'm tracking. I would consider that position a "Skeptic", which is certainly compatible with Agnosticism. I would also consider your position to be atheistic because you do not specifically claim belief in god, which is a requirement of theism. Atheism literally means "Without theism"
It sounds like you're talking about the expansion of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's wager suggests that we should believe in god because:
1. If you believe and you are correct, = Salvation
2. If you believe and you are incorrent = Nothing
3. If you don't believe and are correct = Nothing
4. If you don't believe and are incorrect = Damnation
Expanding Pascal's wager to include multiple possible gods, we discover the chances of salvation plummet, the chances of damnation skyrocket, and the chance of "nothing" remains at 50%. Pascal's wager becomes a sucker's bet. :-)
There is nothing wrong with being unable to explain certain phenomenon. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer to a question, and permits one to discover a logical answer. "God did it", on the other hand, requires one to bend their observations to fit an inflexible position, rather than admit that the position was wrong to begin with. |
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Atheist/Agnostic → Discussion