The concept that we are all born as unforgiven sinful creatures doomed to a lake of fire in the "afterlife" if we do not accept the christian belief of a 3 piece god makes me shake my head.
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Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus (Video)
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Mortrialus
Banned
Neurology says you're most likely wrong here.
BruiserBear
Banned
Has it ever struck you as interesting that there is so much debate about religion?
Not only do we have dozens, if not hundreds of active religions around the world, but even among believers in a particular faith there is much disagreement over the "facts" of that religion.
God sure does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? Leaving all those people to wade through the mess and come to the right conclusions. Why would he want to leave so much open to interpretation, and disagreement? Why would he leave so many contractions in the bible? Why couldn't he just throw us all a bone and show up and clear this all up for us? Why would he need others to help him write a book? Surely the most powerful being ever could do something a little more grand than that. Well, just be glad you weren't born in Iran or Saudi Arabia, because then you'd be following the wrong religion, right?
OttomanScribe
Member
I'm yet to come across a religion that believes that it is God's will that every single person believes. Any religion that said this would be inherently contradictory.
This is therefore a bit of a straw man.
What? Most monotheistic religions believe that.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
It is the will of an omnibenevolent creator that even one of its creations suffer the penalties of non-belief?
I suspect your position might be based on a specific, narrow definition of "God's will"... would you be willing to define terms? (Otherwise what you've said is demonstrably -- easily -- false)
BruiserBear
Banned
Everywhere you go people will tell you god wants you to get to know him, and spend eternity in heaven with him? No?
Because if that's the case he sure did leave A LOT of confusion out there regarding which is the correct path to heaven. His methods are quite frankly fucking ridiculous, and anyone who used the same methods in real life to accomplish something would be laughed at.
Can you imagine your boss saying "this is the most important message I will ever give you regarding your job and every employee should get this message", so you chose to print up a small leaflet and hand it out to half the employees of the company.
People would think you were an idiot, and that is exactly what I think of God if I'm supposed to believe the story of the bible. It's ridiculous and I've decide I'm no longer going to pretend it's anything but that. People being polite and not speaking the truth about this stuff is exactly why these superstitious stories have been passed along for so long.
Could you not attribute the confusion and strife to the Devil?
It is much easier to tear things apart from the inside. By creating so many followings that seem very similar you can easily mask the truth from being seen or heard. By having so many different denominations and churches it is easy for the Devil to create ones that mimic the truth on the surface, but do not actually preach it.
Just because there are a lot of different beliefs does not mean the correct one is non-existent. We will all find out what was correct in the end one way or another. Until then we should all make sure we have chosen correctly because I would not want to be wrong. We should all take a step back and evaluate what we really believe and make sure we would bet our life on it. **I am including myself in this as well**
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
But you've already admitted true understanding is beyond your own human capacity. Some understanding is just beyond us. You've stated this. For true belief, it cannot be a matter of just critical thinking...
What then is your metric for truth? How do you evaluate your beliefs? Because the tools skeptics use, you willingly disregard (or compartmentalize) when things get troublesome.
This is really the crux of it. And further down this path of inquiry is where skeptics begin most of their arguments.
BruiserBear
Banned
Sure, we could attribute such strife to the Devil, but then we'd have to take our logical thinking down another road.
The most powerful being ever (God), had an angel who rebelled, and he became the devil. The most powerful being ever has "problems"? Really? Think about that.
How could the most powerful being to ever exist have "problems"? That alone is a ridiculous assertion if you really think about it. A god who created all that is known would have created the very concept of a "problem", wouldn't he? He did create EVERYTHING after all.
It would seem quite simple that the most powerful being ever would never have a "problem", and certainly not something as trivial as a angel he created, screwing up EVERYTHING for him. Oh wait, screwing up EVERYTHING for an unspecified amount of time, until God decides he's good and ready to get around to fixing everything again. *rolleyes*
Think about it. Just stop and think about the whole story. There are so many holes in it you can see right through it when you apply logical thinking to the facts as they are given to us in the bible.
Just 5 years ago I was a believer, but that was really only because I had a veil of fear that prevented me from admitting to myself that it all sounded ridiculous. Yes, this massive universe we live in is mysterious, and intimidating, but that doesn't mean it makes sense for me to believe in a story about this magic man that I can never see or hear from, but I'm just supposed to believe this book some guys wrote 2,000 years ago.
Science has the ability to make sense of it all though, and the more you learn about science the more you begin to see things for what they are. It's complicated, and it takes time to learn how these things work, but there are explanations for how we got here, and they're proven by actual research and data, and it can be understood if you educated yourself on it. It's honestly quite amazing when you do, because all the pieces fall into place. The more you understand things the way they really are, the more absurd the religious stories will sound.
God is responsible for all things, having created them in his infinite wisdom and power, Satan included. So I'd still attribute it to God, if he exists, like every other good and bad thing in the universe. He can't just get credit for all the good stuff that happens and none of the bad.
It'd be like if I created a robot and programmed it to be jealous and to have a murderous and mischievous streak, and then when it starts killing people and stealing stuff and causing mischief I can't just go, "Hey, it's the robot's fault, not mine."
BruiserBear
Banned
Sure.
But if you think about the Devil, he basically pissed in God's cereal and screwed up everything. How could an all powerful god let that happen? It's a ridiculous concept, taken at face value.
But even still, let's just say the Devil got one over good on good old God. Why the hell would God wait forever and ever to solve the problem? He says in the bible that when he's good and ready he'll come back and fix all this shit. But when? Why on earth would you wait? Why is all of our free will going to one day end? The story makes no sense.
If any human being with a rational brain had a HUGE problem in front of him, would he put it off til next year, or fix it right now? He's fix it right now. But the smartest most powerful being EVER, will just wait, and let that ol Devil have his way for a while, and then he'll get him good.
I amuse myself just talking about these silly stories. lol
God is not responsible for the bad things that occur because he simply gave his creations free will and the bad events are directly attributable to their choices.
If you want God to stop evil you have to be consistent. How much evil does he stop? Does he stop it all? Or does he stop at some level? Murder level? Lying level?
He would have to get rid of us because we are evil.
He didn't create a vast amount of robots that have no choice but to worship Him because that would make the worship meaningless. He wants people to choose Him and praise Him voluntarily.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
I will grossly oversimplify this, because it's been so long since leaving the fold, but basically: God's plan dude. Satan didn't trick god. God knew and allowed it to happen. Because Satan was a necessary evil for the introduction of wrong action (sin) and free will. Humans needed knowledge of wrong action, before they could be held accountable for it. And there needed to be accountability and consequence before free will would have any meaning. Satan was the catalyst. God allowed it. (I'm not unaware that saying god "needed" anything has its own set of problems, but I didn't write this stuff.) So that humans could choose god of their free will, in doing so be washed of the consequence of their original sin, and in the end everyone could live happily ever after.
Except of course for the majority of humanity, who would live their lives on Earth and die never once hearing of the Christian god. Sucks for them I guess.
But as they say... path is narrow.
But then omnipotence is a ridiculous concept, taken at face value.
It's also not a biblical concept, which is the real answer to this seeming conundrum. Nor is omniscience and omnipresence. In the garden of Eden God definitely wasn't omniscient and omnipresent, because he couldn't locate Adam and Eve and didn't know at first that the serpent had seduced them. When the New Testament was written, they also didn't think god had any of these properties.
They are in fact Hellenistic (Neoplatonic) concepts, which were introduced into Christianity by the most important of church fathers, Augustine of Hippo, ca. 400 AD. Long past Jesus naturally.
edit: should probably clarify that the concepts were much older, but the marriage with Christianity happened later and was due to the integration with monism
Then never bring up God or the Devil when talking about events, for the good or bad. Not when someone is confused or does "evil", nor when someone is cured of cancer or does good. You can't have it both ways.
How does God know the events of the future in Revelation if he's not all knowing/omniscient? Or is he just selectively clairvoyant? As for omnipresence:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens,
you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths,
you are there.
From Psalms.
Can anyone hide in secret places
so that I cannot see him?" declares the Lord.
"Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the Lord.
Jeremiah.
Both pre-Jesus. I'm guessing those aren't the only examples in either book.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Fair waring: spekkeh is approaching from an entirely different angle. Be prepared for massive goal post warping all around the field. Not intentionally, but just because you'd both be on way different pages.
You don't have to be literally all-knowing to know the future of course, which was the point I was trying to make. It could be that they always conceived him as being infinitely knowing, but they were always slightly loosely defined concepts, and if anything your average arameic peasant didn't know what the hell infinity meant really. Allknowing simply meant knowing more than anyone else out there. Creating an actual philosophical construct where it was tied to infinity happened much later, when the Abrahamitic religions arrived in a world that was well versed in Greek antiquity (i.e. when it was being adopted in the Roman empire).
Lionheart1337
Member
First reply got it.
Fair enough.
Same here.
There are thousands of variants of Christianity alone.
Atramental
Banned
Sweet.
This is the first time I've ever received the honor of being the "first reply that got it."
astroturfing
Member
more like millions. so many people interpret the Bible as they please, and add their own stuff into the mix too.
astroturfing
Member
Sweet.
This is the first time I've ever received the honor of being the "first reply that got it."
you deserved it, because i too wanted to say that line
and i was like 80% sure it was the TAA video, hah.edit: eww, double post. oops and sorry.
why do you assume God works on our understanding of time?
What if time is only a construct of our physical universe, of which God is outside of? Think about the concept of knowing the future because you are only where it is now and the past and the future all the time. CS Lewis wrote about this subject.
despite him being a sexual predator
Atramental
Banned
Of what?
Twinkies?
Also I in my drunkenesh I think this is relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgNvzc-ZdME
Sweet.
This is the first time I've ever received the honor of being the "first reply that got it."
You did indeed get it right with your reply. I was the first to reply to this in the main versus OT and said just about the same thing. Credit to you though, good sir.
These smarmy fucks are the worst types.
They think it's some clever game where they can trick you into religion.
Yeah you dumb fucks, you tricked yourself into religion, now you gonna trick us too. Fucking idiots.
apologies for the vitriol - but the sentiment is simply; it's silly the kind of shit people allow themselves to be roped by in the belief or non-belief of an all encompassing life guiding philosophy as religions are.
Dude Abides
Banned
This is just empirically false, unless you've never come across Christianity. It is a fundamental tenet of the overwhelming majority of Christian sects that God wants all his children to be saved, which can be done only through belief in Jesus Christ.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
The question of free will is arguably the largest in the entire field of Neuroscience. It is a question that is borderline unanswerable and to imply that the current state of the field rules against free will is ill informed or disingenuous.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
perfect
Despite your strong assertions here... no, there's very little quibble in the field about the deterministic/mechanistic nature of neural and brain function.
Indeed... any validity of the question in any intellectual sense is kinda tossed off to philosophers who try to make sense of and parse an idea that is pretty much incomprehensible against the information and facts that we've discovered to date about brain function.
I mean... for starters, what exactly is it that you mean when you say 'free will'? What exactly is free?
The only thing that becomes clear upon delving deeply into the field is that, many of the words, terms and concepts that we've used with regards to the mind, self and identity... that we use in common parlance - do not map very well to the actual workings of the structures from which interactions emerge what we call the mind, or self...
Do you admit the possibility that the "truth" is the opposite of what you think?
Edit--I should take bets on whether or not this question will be answered or carefully ignored as per the usual rules of religious discussion.
perfectchaos007
Member
This vid is blowin up my facebook so I watched it. The poem's content seems rather contradictory in nature to be honest.
Mortrialus
Banned
Yeah it's been popping up all over my Facebook today. I've honestly been tempted to just post TheAmazingAtheist's video on every one of the stories. Like I said, I'm not a big fan of his, but I think his video critiquing this is pretty spot on.
Honestly the weirdest part of this video is that every time I stop at the video, there is a new Highest Rated Comment, and it is always an atheist one.
perfectchaos007
Member
Well atheists dominate the internet. Just look at the users on GAF as a measuring stick. I would say at least 50% of GAF'ers are non-religious. I'm probably off a bit, but I don't think Evilore has done a poll on this so it's just an observational guess
Mortrialus
Banned
Someone has been keeping track of GAF user religious views in the Atheism vs. Theism thread. Most are unknown but if I remember correctly, those we do know are overwhelmingly non-religious.
Why do atheists dominate the internet anyway?
I mean, you'd think religious people could afford internet as well or something.
DeathbyVolcano
Banned
People hate this video? Good lord.
"BUBUBU GOD'S NOT REAL"
Who fucking cares. This is an amazing spoken word piece, catering to liberal christians who want to fit in with the rest of the world. Praise the man's talent and faith, stop trying to debate his views. Christ, GAF has been worse than usual.
"BUBUBU GOD'S NOT REAL"
Who fucking cares. This is an amazing spoken word piece, catering to liberal christians who want to fit in with the rest of the world. Praise the man's talent and faith, stop trying to debate his views. Christ, GAF has been worse than usual.
Probably because the internet is one of the ONLY places religion can be publicly criticized and people don't receive disproportionate retribution, i.e. murder or public isolation.
You know as well as I do that there's places in the world where people are legally killed if they "disrespect" a religion.
If you don't like that example, then reduce the punishment from murder to "being shunned by family". Which several people on the internet, and GAF, have attested to. Their loving, caring families are happy to turn into spiteful, petty assholes when they find out they're sinful atheists.
If you don't like THAT example, then think about politics, when is the last time a prominent atheist politician was elected?
There's an organized stigma against atheists in the social consciousness, so they use the internet as one of the few windows. There's also no "official atheist group", nor should there be, so it makes sense there'd be no cohesiveness in real life.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
I find it sad that this "enlightens" so many people when I've known this for years.
Next step, "there is no Jesus".
Next step, "there is no Jesus".
Always-honest
Banned
Or "there was no jesus"
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
That's disputable.
The answers either "he was a crazy rabbi" (like so many others), or "is made up."
Either way the answer is the same.
ShinobiFist
Banned
I just want to build heaven on earth and go bat shit insane in Brasil. That's the only land Jesus bless. All that ass....
Freezie KO
Banned
The internet allows free marketplace of ideas. It's easy to read tons of criticism for a variety of belief structures.
The internet is a database filled with the entire history of human knowledge. The more people know, the less they feel the need to fill in the gaps with spiritual explanations, hence why the strong majority of the National Academy of Sciences are atheists.
The internet is usually used in free, affluent places that have a larger chance of being well-educated, as opposed to some tribal region in the corner of the globe.
The internet allows for some anonymity to express what may be unpopular views that might risk being ostracized from family.
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