I should've said, "ought not treat the Bible dismissively." I mean, if you're convinced by the arguments for pantheism generally and therefore believe that no monotheism can be true, it's fine to say, "I don't need to hear what the Bible says about God" unless or until someone undermines your faith in pantheism. But that doesn't mean you should say, "Oh, the Bible, what a stupid book written by ignorant people, total waste of time." I think it's right to treat holy scriptures with a modicum of respect -- or at least to refrain from open disdain -- simply out of consideration for the millions of people who do believe; and in the acknowledgment that no such scripture could've attained its stature by being stupid and antisocial and evil on the face of it.
As a matter of rhetoric, yes, it's not productive to take a derisive tone. But as a matter of fact, no, it is absolutely possible for a scripture to be stupid and antisocial and evil on the face of it, and large portions of the Bible qualify. It was written by barbarians in a barbaric time. It endorses absolute monarchy, slavery, rape, genocide, and infanticide. Even the New Testament, the "good" testament, has a theological thesis that revolves around the concepts of blood debt and human sacrifice. These themes may have had appeal to the sort of society that enjoyed watching condemned men kill each other on the sands of the arena. But we do know better now. And modern Christians have to engage in some serious cognitive dissonance to reconcile their 21st-Century sensibilities with the Bronze Age mores they claim to be guided by.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Even the New Testament, the "good" testament, has a theological thesis that revolves around the concepts of blood debt and human sacrifice. These themes may have had appeal to the sort of society that enjoyed watching condemned men kill each other on the sands of the arena. But we do know better now. And modern Christians have to engage in some serious cognitive dissonance to reconcile their 21st-Century sensibilities with the Bronze Age mores they claim to be guided by.
Setting aside the theological underpinnings for the moment, would you agree that most people think that Jesus's moral teachings are still exemplary by modern standards? You know, the Golden Rule, love your enemies, do not repay evil for evil but overcome evil with good, do not be proud but associate with the lowly, etc.?
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Setting aside the theological underpinnings for the moment, would you agree that most people think that Jesus's moral teachings are still exemplary by modern standards? You know, the Golden Rule, love your enemies, do not repay evil for evil but overcome evil with good, do not be proud but associate with the lowly, etc.?
Does "etc." include "be pretty okay with slavery"?
Setting aside the theological underpinnings for the moment, would you agree that most people think that Jesus's moral teachings are still exemplary by modern standards? You know, the Golden Rule, love your enemies, do not repay evil for evil but overcome evil with good, do not be proud but associate with the lowly, etc.?
Sure, those are all admirable qualities. As is self-sacrifice itself. But when you get to the apocalypticism and monarchism, you start to run into problems. "Abandon all worldly concerns, for the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh!" The rhetoric and teachings of Christianity are so clichéd in American culture that we don't even think about how utterly bizarre it is for the heirs to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to say stuff like this. Have you ever asked yourself whether it's really right to address God as "Lord"?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Does "etc." include "be pretty okay with slavery"?
If the only alternative is to resist it with violence, yes; but that's a false dichotomy. Early Christians affirmed the worth of every person in God's eyes while accepting that slavery was an entrenched part of the society in which they lived, a society that (according to their eschatological expectations) would soon be swept away. They were more concerned with spiritual than political abolitionism. But they made it clear that slavery was incompatible with the God's vision for a beatified humanity. The brief letter to Philemon is a good example of this.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Does "etc." include "be pretty okay with slavery"?
If the only alternative is to resist it with violence, yes; but that's a false dichotomy.
The alternative of course is for the people who own slaves to free them. Jesus could've said that. He apparently felt it wasn't worth a mention, whereas a huge laundry list of other minor sins were. Combine that with a few nuggets like the Golden Rule that predate Jesus by millennia, and you've got quite a paragon of morality.
Early Christians affirmed the worth of every person in God's eyes while accepting that slavery was an entrenched part of the society in which they lived, a society that (according to their eschatological expectations) would soon be swept away. They were more concerned with spiritual than political abolitionism. But they made it clear that slavery was incompatible with the God's vision for a beatified humanity. The brief letter to Philemon is a good example of this.
We're not talking about 'early Christians'. We're talking about Jesus. Paul is not Jesus. If Jesus were a moral exemplar, he would've said that people should free their slaves.
What part about "let's take a step back from the whole dysfunctional family paradigm" did you not understand and/or deliberately ignore?
You posted this:
It seems to me that you are saying a person cannot be acting morally in doing [X], no matter how ostensibly good [X] appears to be, if he is lying about his motives. Would you agree with that?
And I responded by saying I disagreed with that while explaining what you got wrong.
Your armchair psychoanalysis is out of line. I'm willing to have this conversation be impersonal, as it ought to be in a debate forum -- not about me and not about you. Please try to honor that. If you think my reasoning is confused, you can call it confused without needing to insinuate that I feel threatened by the truth.
You are the one who insisted on bringing your personal life into this discussion,
who continues to frame this discussion around his own marital situation,
and who deliberately ignored everything in my post that didn't have to do with the discussion of his marital situation.
And now you are complaining about making this conversation personal?
Love does mean sometimes doing things you don't want to do, or even really fear or detest doing, for the sake of another.
If the thing that person feels detest for is the other person, then he clearly does not love the other person.
The person in this hypothetical is not acting out of love. He's behaving out of selfishness.
If a man wanted to honor his commitment to his family, and didn't want to hurt their feelings by expressing his dissatisfaction with things, and was afraid of divine censure if he failed but respected God enough to believe that such censure would be justified -- how could you say that man had not love?
That isn't love, that's a person trying to cover his own ass.
Now this is the last I will participate in this line of discussion. This "hypothetical" situation that just so happens to mirror your own life story has put me in the exceedingly uncomfortable position of having to give you marital advice, which is not my job, not appropriate to the thread, not something I'm professionally qualified to do, and not something I at all appreciate being asked to do. Seek a therapist if you want to explore this further.
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As to the question of hell, which was what this discussion was about, explain this to me:
You advocate the existence of hell.
Your basis for this, at least as you claim, seems to be the Bible. You seem to be very much the proponent of Biblical authority.
Except, what you are describing isn't hell. As I stated in an earlier post:
Quote from Highroller »
That's not the hell that's being described in the Bible. You keep talking about Biblical justification, and quoting Bible passages, but hell as described in the Bible goes completely against that. The Hell as depicted in the Bible is recognized as a pit of horrible agony, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that God will send sinners to out of his wrath. God, out of wrath, casts the sinners into horrible fire and suffering because he wishes for them to suffer an eternity of his anger. It is a terrible place God sends the wicked. Moreover, the Bible depicts a final judgment, in which God separates those to be sent to heaven from those sent to hell, so it is God's choice as to whom to send to hell. Nor do these people choose to go there, as the Gospels depict people as pleading for God's mercy and to enter the Kingdom of God, only to face God's rejection. God's rejection is a defining point of hell, perhaps the defining point of hell.
So what you're describing, especially your claim that God doesn't reject anyone, is not only not recognizable as Biblical hell, but is also in multiple ways the opposite of Biblical hell. Every depiction of hell in Scripture contradicts your characterization of hell.
Which prompts the question as to why you are arguing for your idea of hell over the Biblical idea of hell. And I think it's pretty clear why. As you stated earlier, many Christians have looked at hell and found it morally disturbing, and in turn have attempted to reconcile it with an infinitely loving, infinitely moral God,
But what you're describing is an attempt to say that hell's existence is reconcilable with an infinitely loving, infinitely forgiving God by claiming that hell is an entirely different thing from what the Bible describes hell as. That's not a valid answer. That's avoiding the question. You can't say that you've demonstrated how hell's existence is logically consistent with the idea of a loving God by arguing that a totally different place is reconcilable with God, because you're addressing a totally different place and not hell!
So, with all of that in mind, what possible basis does the existence of your hell — which is not the hell that is described in the Bible — have?
The Bible is fiction. It can have real events and people, but so long as there are things that didn't happen that are mentioned in the Bible, it's still fiction. Let me put it this way: in the movie Independence Day, the white house gets destroyed by aliens. We know the white house exists in real life, but does that mean it was destroyed by aliens? No, it does not.
I am an atheist to Christianity because the bible is a book that does not hold up to my moral standards as a reasonable person and that it doesn't conform to the evidence of reality that science has revealed. I also don't find putting faith to which there is no evidence for (god, the bible's truth etc) is a logical thing to do. Overall Chrisianity from my point of view a contradictory, ilogical, unreasonable, fictional, ridiculous, and fundamentaly wrong worldview.
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Here are my reason that I dislike Christianity and religion in general.
1. Its illogical and there is no evidence to support the Bile's claims.
2. Vicarious Redemption through human sacrifice is immoral.
3. The prisons in America are full of Christians and have almost no atheists.
4. Religion is almost always anti-science.
5. Catholic Priests will rape disabled kids and then get buried with full honors.
6. Christianity is anti-women. The Christian religion finds the female form and female sexuality to be dirty and immoral.
To cover some things that others have. I find it morally repugnant. Vicarious redemption, the whole concept of a jealous, painted as psychotic Creator that is just fine with slavery, ancient desert dweller misogyny, the concept of sin, holy war, eternal punishment. There are socio-historical reason as well, but based on the theology alone I find Christianity a disgustingly immoral thing.
Hell isn't exactly what people think it is. It's not eternal torture or suffering in the way that we could understand it. Hell is to be utterly and completely without the presence of God. In Revelations it's said that when you're judged if you go to Hell that your name is stricken from the book of life and God will not know you anymore. The whole "lake of fire" thing is how it's supposed to feel when you're without God in your life or in this case afterlife.
Oooooooh isn't that scary? Not.
The world has a LARGE abscence of God anyways, so if that logic is real then we're living in Hell already.
What caused me to go away from christianity (but not stopping me from beliving God is real, and is a moron) is exactly that they teach us that Suffering in Life = Rewards on the Afterlife; the rewards being the most monotonous, uninteresting for of eternity possible, being a soul as part of a colective Hive-Mind that is God and being happy forever, stripping uf from the material. So yeah, no more kissing your wife, eating your favorite meal with friends, we are all a same mind, which is creepy if you ask me.
What I've learnt from life is that God isn't your father, that's an instutionalized lie to make you the cheerleader of a being that abandons you and forgets you. He doesn't loves you, you're not his Son, and he doesn't cares about what YOu want as a human being, nor the furute you might have. Also, we're all just tools for Him after all, since you're allowed to die a hoirrible death just to let others live their crappy lives anywys.
I can't believe I didn't see this earlier. There are a whole lot of reasons why I don't believe in Christianity (although I like the false dichotomy of Christian/Not Christian set up in the opening statement).
1. Santa Claus is a great microcosm for the shared belief systems that are so easily imprinted in people especially when they're young. Here is a supernatural being who judges your virture and rewards or punishes you according to his own moral code. We all know that Santa is not real is a physical sense (sorry kiddos) and yet, with some basic, easily seen through trickery most of us here believed for years that Santa was real and was the arbiter of our Christmas fortune. Why? Because we wanted to believe, and because we had social reinforcement (other kids who were taught to belief) and regular rituals (leaving out cookies and milk, hanging stockings by the chimney with care, visiting one of his 'helpers' at the mall) that allowed us to cling to those beliefs even when we should have known better. But who doesn't trust your parents, right? If they told us it was true, we had to believe it.
2. As an adult, you're supposed to be more credulous about things. Let's go with my family heirloom example. So, you're family believes that generations ago they lost a very important heirloom. This heirloom has great meaning to your family, but no one knows what it looks like or could even describe it to you. Would you believe the first person who comes to you claiming to have your lost family heirloom? Probably not. Then why would you think the first religion you encounter is real?
3. Even supposing Christianity is real, God is a dick. Who would want to worship the Christian God, when he's such an unbelievable ass? I don't even need to talk about the old testament, but how about letting us know about germ theory and that diseases aren't his divine displeasure? There is so much in this world we have to suffer that have zero to do with morality, and everything to do with a divine asshat who decided to build an uncaring, dog-eat-dog world, then thrust us into it and tell us as long as we follow these narrow guidelines that often run counter to the instincts he programmed into us we'll get a divine reward after we're dead? Yeah, no thanks Mr. Divine Sadist, at least Satan is honest about his intentions.
4. Christianity is way too young to be real. Hinduism has, what, 2,000 years on the Jews? Who in turn have 3,000ish on the Christians. I'm supposed to believe that your cult offshoot of a cult offshoot of the worshipers of the Semetic Sky God is the real deal? Do you believe every crackpot claiming to be the messiah these days is real? Because other people do, and they do it for the same reasons people believed in the historical Jesus. That doesn't make it real, though.
5. Last, and most importantly the Bible is only 'true' if you believe the Bible. There is fundamental problem with a lack of any other evidence to support your point of view. That the Bible includes figures and events that may have existed in the past is irrelevant, plenty of other books are filled with fiction about real people and events, too. Any other evidence is generally a misinterpretation of brain chemistry, just like when you do Tai Chi you're not actually manipulating mythical 'Chi'.
Apologies if I've missed any key-points already discussed in this thread, but this is just my answer to the very first post; the "why" that got the ball rolling.
It's quite simple, for me: because I don't think it's true.
The other reasons all seem so emotionally biased, and honestly, if I thought something was true, it wouldn't matter if I found it unacceptable or unappealing. I find ebola unacceptable and unappealing, but, I'm not going to go around not believing in it for that reason. Me feelings hold no sway over reality.
It does seem odd that god would wait so long before revealing himself to humanity.
First of all, "Odd" relative to what? "Long" relative to what?
Second, you're not addressing the issue. Jay13x said "Christianity is way too young to be real." How long people have been making a claim has no bearing on the veracity of that claim.
In fact, he defeats himself by that logic. If how old a claim is determines how true a claim is, then crazy modern notions like chemistry and atheism have absolutely no credibility when up against magic and sky gods.
First of all, "Odd" relative to what? "Long" relative to what?
Long relative to the amount of time humanity has been around. Odd relative to the behavior ascribed to god in the Bible. In the Bible, god is talking to people from day one (or rather day six). Instead, history suggests god lets humans putz around for millenia before he gets around to announcing his presence and getting Abraham and friends up and running.
Second, you're not addressing the issue. Jay13x said "Christianity is way too young to be real." How long people have been making a claim has no bearing on the veracity of that claim.
In fact, he defeats himself by that logic. If how old a claim is determines how true a claim is, then crazy modern notions like chemistry and atheism have absolutely no credibility when up against magic and sky gods.
I think there are instances in which the age of a claim has some bearing. Don't you think the fact that the gospels were written somewhat close to Jesus' lifetime makes them more likely to be accurate than if they had been written in 1975?
Wait, what? How does the age of a claim have any bearing on its veracity?
That's a fair question. If, as is supposed by many people, Abrahamic religions are real... why haven't they always existed?
Granted, you could argue they only came into being with covenant with Abraham, but that seems pretty flimsly. Old Testament God was a jealous and angry God, so why would he have tolerated this for so long?
[quote from="Highroller »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/debate/religion/559442-to-atheists-and-agnostics-what-makes-christianity?comment=222"]Granted, you could argue they only came into being with covenant with Abraham, but that seems pretty flimsly. Old Testament God was a jealous and angry God, so why would he have tolerated this for so long?
The OT makes clear that there were non-Abrahamic God fearing groups of people, and that God recognized them as such (See: Methuselah [edit: well thats embarrassing... I meant Melchizedek. No idea why I said Methuselah]). It is entirely consistent with the OT that Abraham was not the start of people following or believing in the Abrahamic God. Abraham would represent the first codification, and (presumably) the founding of the Abrahamic religion as an organized entity.
But, if you believe the OT [even as a metaphorical and not literal history], the OT establishes that non-Abrahamic God fearing individuals existed/could have existed prior to Abraham.
[quote from="Highroller »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/debate/religion/559442-to-atheists-and-agnostics-what-makes-christianity?comment=222"]Granted, you could argue they only came into being with covenant with Abraham, but that seems pretty flimsly. Old Testament God was a jealous and angry God, so why would he have tolerated this for so long?
The OT makes clear that there were non-Abrahamic God fearing groups of people, and that God recognized them as such (See: Methuselah [edit: well thats embarrassing... I meant Melchizedek. No idea why I said Methuselah]). It is entirely consistent with the OT that Abraham was not the start of people following or believing in the Abrahamic God. Abraham would represent the first codification, and (presumably) the founding of the Abrahamic religion as an organized entity.
But, if you believe the OT [even as a metaphorical and not literal history], the OT establishes that non-Abrahamic God fearing individuals existed/could have existed prior to Abraham.
Sure, I've got no problem with that. It just seems very out of character for OT God. This wouldn't be my only issue, as I mentioned it's one of many that, when taken together, point away from plausibility.
If you want to argue that certain brands of Hinduism are 'truth', that is a little more believable when taken in the context of other religions, because some brands of Hinduism believe that other faiths are just people worshiping other aspects of Brahma. That system incorporates outliers, while Christianity specifically excludes non-Abrahamic faiths, making it much more narrow.
Long relative to the amount of time humanity has been around.
Setting aside the question of whether or not the concept of "long time" even applies to an ageless being that created time...
Odd relative to the behavior ascribed to god in the Bible. In the Bible, god is talking to people from day one (or rather day six). Instead, history suggests god lets humans putz around for millenia before he gets around to announcing his presence and getting Abraham and friends up and running.
Not that I believe in the historicity of Genesis or anything, but you might want to reread books 1-11.
I think there are instances in which the age of a claim has some bearing. Don't you think the fact that the gospels were written somewhat close to Jesus' lifetime makes them more likely to be accurate than if they had been written in 1975?
Depends on what you mean by "more accurate."
If you mean "more authentic to the early Jesus movement," sure.
But if you're talking about whether or not the events described actually happened as they were described? That depends. The Gospels weren't written in Jesus' lifetime and only one (later known as The Gospel According to Mark) was actually within the same century. So yes, I actually would trust a book written in 1975 over a book written in 100-or-so AD to give me a more historically factual account of Jesus' life. A major part of that being, of course, the 1975 would have been written in a time where they would have the notion of "historically factual accounts"
That's a fair question. If, as is supposed by many people, Abrahamic religions are real... why haven't they always existed?
To which I respond, again, why hasn't chemistry always existed? Why was it an infant science in the year 1800? There was nature, and there were philosophers, so what took so long for this "natural philosophy" thing to get going, huh?
And why should we believe any of that garbage anyway? Thales claimed that everything was water long before that.
Or do you see how age of a claim is not a valid criteria for evaluating the truth value of it?
Granted, you could argue they only came into being with covenant with Abraham, but that seems pretty flimsly.
It seems flimsy that Abrahamic religions did not predate Abraham? Really?
I think you're confusing "Abrahamic religions" with "worship of God" as being the same thing. They're not.
Old Testament God was a jealous and angry God, so why would he have tolerated this for so long?
I mean, Old Testament God has been described as being in both communication and active relationship with humanity since its dawning.
Sure, I've got no problem with that. It just seems very out of character for OT God.
That Abrahamic religions didn't precede Abraham? That's basic causality, dude.
If you mean cults to God didn't appear before Abraham, that's not what it says in the Bible at all.
If you want to argue that certain brands of Hinduism are 'truth', that is a little more believable when taken in the context of other religions, because some brands of Hinduism believe that other faiths are just people worshiping other aspects of Brahma.
First of all, that's another way of saying the other religions are not true.
Second, how does Hindu saying other religions are really secretly Hindu without knowing it make it more likely to be true? You seem to be arguing that religious pluralism makes something inherently more believable. Can you justify this?
Third, you're not addressing the point. You were arguing that Christianity is not believable on the grounds that Hindu predates it. So how, exactly, does that make sense? Do you take Anaxiamander over quantum physics? No? Then how can you claim it makes no sense to claim Christianity to be true on the grounds that Hindu made a contrary claim thousands of years ago?
Especially when you just said that Hindu — or at least certain schools of it — claims Christianity to be true!
I would say you're being illogical, but then Aristotlean logic wouldn't exist until the 300s BCE, so maybe, in keeping with your stance, you've chosen a system of thought that predates that?
That system incorporates outliers, while Christianity specifically excludes non-Abrahamic faiths, making it much more narrow.
And physics goes against both. So clearly that one's out, right?
That's not to say I believe in Hinduism, either.
If you don't believe in Hinduism, why would you argue it to be more likely to be true on the grounds that it believes that every other religion really ends up sharing the same beliefs it does?
Setting aside the question of whether or not the concept of "long time" even applies to an ageless being that created time...
There have been anatomically modern humans for hundreds of thousands of years. They seem to have had at least some ceremonial rituals. At the very least, there have been humans with concepts of deities for tens of thousands of years. Doesn't it seem odd that god would choose to reveal himself to humans a few thousand years ago, rather than tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Not that I believe in the historicity of Genesis or anything, but you might want to reread books 1-11.
I'm not sure I understand what point you're making here.
Depends on what you mean by "more accurate."
If you mean "more authentic to the early Jesus movement," sure.
But if you're talking about whether or not the events described actually happened as they were described? That depends. The Gospels weren't written in Jesus' lifetime and only one (later known as The Gospel According to Mark) was actually within the same century. I actually would trust a book written in 1975 over a book written in 100-or-so AD to give me a more historically factual account of Jesus' life.
If the 1975 book were the original source of the Jesus story, so as to be comparable with Mark, don't you think you would trust an original claim that was close to the events over a claim two thousand years later?
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Does "etc." include "be pretty okay with slavery"?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The alternative of course is for the people who own slaves to free them. Jesus could've said that. He apparently felt it wasn't worth a mention, whereas a huge laundry list of other minor sins were. Combine that with a few nuggets like the Golden Rule that predate Jesus by millennia, and you've got quite a paragon of morality.
We're not talking about 'early Christians'. We're talking about Jesus. Paul is not Jesus. If Jesus were a moral exemplar, he would've said that people should free their slaves.
And I responded by saying I disagreed with that while explaining what you got wrong.
You are the one who insisted on bringing your personal life into this discussion,
who continues to frame this discussion around his own marital situation,
and who deliberately ignored everything in my post that didn't have to do with the discussion of his marital situation.
And now you are complaining about making this conversation personal?
If the thing that person feels detest for is the other person, then he clearly does not love the other person.
The person in this hypothetical is not acting out of love. He's behaving out of selfishness.
That isn't love, that's a person trying to cover his own ass.
Now this is the last I will participate in this line of discussion. This "hypothetical" situation that just so happens to mirror your own life story has put me in the exceedingly uncomfortable position of having to give you marital advice, which is not my job, not appropriate to the thread, not something I'm professionally qualified to do, and not something I at all appreciate being asked to do. Seek a therapist if you want to explore this further.
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As to the question of hell, which was what this discussion was about, explain this to me:
You advocate the existence of hell.
Your basis for this, at least as you claim, seems to be the Bible. You seem to be very much the proponent of Biblical authority.
Except, what you are describing isn't hell. As I stated in an earlier post:
So, with all of that in mind, what possible basis does the existence of your hell — which is not the hell that is described in the Bible — have?
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1. Its illogical and there is no evidence to support the Bile's claims.
2. Vicarious Redemption through human sacrifice is immoral.
3. The prisons in America are full of Christians and have almost no atheists.
4. Religion is almost always anti-science.
5. Catholic Priests will rape disabled kids and then get buried with full honors.
6. Christianity is anti-women. The Christian religion finds the female form and female sexuality to be dirty and immoral.
Oooooooh isn't that scary? Not.
The world has a LARGE abscence of God anyways, so if that logic is real then we're living in Hell already.
What caused me to go away from christianity (but not stopping me from beliving God is real, and is a moron) is exactly that they teach us that Suffering in Life = Rewards on the Afterlife; the rewards being the most monotonous, uninteresting for of eternity possible, being a soul as part of a colective Hive-Mind that is God and being happy forever, stripping uf from the material. So yeah, no more kissing your wife, eating your favorite meal with friends, we are all a same mind, which is creepy if you ask me.
What I've learnt from life is that God isn't your father, that's an instutionalized lie to make you the cheerleader of a being that abandons you and forgets you. He doesn't loves you, you're not his Son, and he doesn't cares about what YOu want as a human being, nor the furute you might have. Also, we're all just tools for Him after all, since you're allowed to die a hoirrible death just to let others live their crappy lives anywys.
1. Santa Claus is a great microcosm for the shared belief systems that are so easily imprinted in people especially when they're young. Here is a supernatural being who judges your virture and rewards or punishes you according to his own moral code. We all know that Santa is not real is a physical sense (sorry kiddos) and yet, with some basic, easily seen through trickery most of us here believed for years that Santa was real and was the arbiter of our Christmas fortune. Why? Because we wanted to believe, and because we had social reinforcement (other kids who were taught to belief) and regular rituals (leaving out cookies and milk, hanging stockings by the chimney with care, visiting one of his 'helpers' at the mall) that allowed us to cling to those beliefs even when we should have known better. But who doesn't trust your parents, right? If they told us it was true, we had to believe it.
2. As an adult, you're supposed to be more credulous about things. Let's go with my family heirloom example. So, you're family believes that generations ago they lost a very important heirloom. This heirloom has great meaning to your family, but no one knows what it looks like or could even describe it to you. Would you believe the first person who comes to you claiming to have your lost family heirloom? Probably not. Then why would you think the first religion you encounter is real?
3. Even supposing Christianity is real, God is a dick. Who would want to worship the Christian God, when he's such an unbelievable ass? I don't even need to talk about the old testament, but how about letting us know about germ theory and that diseases aren't his divine displeasure? There is so much in this world we have to suffer that have zero to do with morality, and everything to do with a divine asshat who decided to build an uncaring, dog-eat-dog world, then thrust us into it and tell us as long as we follow these narrow guidelines that often run counter to the instincts he programmed into us we'll get a divine reward after we're dead? Yeah, no thanks Mr. Divine Sadist, at least Satan is honest about his intentions.
4. Christianity is way too young to be real. Hinduism has, what, 2,000 years on the Jews? Who in turn have 3,000ish on the Christians. I'm supposed to believe that your cult offshoot of a cult offshoot of the worshipers of the Semetic Sky God is the real deal? Do you believe every crackpot claiming to be the messiah these days is real? Because other people do, and they do it for the same reasons people believed in the historical Jesus. That doesn't make it real, though.
5. Last, and most importantly the Bible is only 'true' if you believe the Bible. There is fundamental problem with a lack of any other evidence to support your point of view. That the Bible includes figures and events that may have existed in the past is irrelevant, plenty of other books are filled with fiction about real people and events, too. Any other evidence is generally a misinterpretation of brain chemistry, just like when you do Tai Chi you're not actually manipulating mythical 'Chi'.
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God shouldn't have to threaten us to get our faith. That sounds like good old fashioned human pettiness to me.
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Apologies if I've missed any key-points already discussed in this thread, but this is just my answer to the very first post; the "why" that got the ball rolling.
It's quite simple, for me: because I don't think it's true.
The other reasons all seem so emotionally biased, and honestly, if I thought something was true, it wouldn't matter if I found it unacceptable or unappealing. I find ebola unacceptable and unappealing, but, I'm not going to go around not believing in it for that reason. Me feelings hold no sway over reality.
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Second, you're not addressing the issue. Jay13x said "Christianity is way too young to be real." How long people have been making a claim has no bearing on the veracity of that claim.
In fact, he defeats himself by that logic. If how old a claim is determines how true a claim is, then crazy modern notions like chemistry and atheism have absolutely no credibility when up against magic and sky gods.
Long relative to the amount of time humanity has been around. Odd relative to the behavior ascribed to god in the Bible. In the Bible, god is talking to people from day one (or rather day six). Instead, history suggests god lets humans putz around for millenia before he gets around to announcing his presence and getting Abraham and friends up and running.
I think there are instances in which the age of a claim has some bearing. Don't you think the fact that the gospels were written somewhat close to Jesus' lifetime makes them more likely to be accurate than if they had been written in 1975?
That's a fair question. If, as is supposed by many people, Abrahamic religions are real... why haven't they always existed?
Granted, you could argue they only came into being with covenant with Abraham, but that seems pretty flimsly. Old Testament God was a jealous and angry God, so why would he have tolerated this for so long?
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The OT makes clear that there were non-Abrahamic God fearing groups of people, and that God recognized them as such (See: Methuselah [edit: well thats embarrassing... I meant Melchizedek. No idea why I said Methuselah]). It is entirely consistent with the OT that Abraham was not the start of people following or believing in the Abrahamic God. Abraham would represent the first codification, and (presumably) the founding of the Abrahamic religion as an organized entity.
But, if you believe the OT [even as a metaphorical and not literal history], the OT establishes that non-Abrahamic God fearing individuals existed/could have existed prior to Abraham.
Sure, I've got no problem with that. It just seems very out of character for OT God. This wouldn't be my only issue, as I mentioned it's one of many that, when taken together, point away from plausibility.
If you want to argue that certain brands of Hinduism are 'truth', that is a little more believable when taken in the context of other religions, because some brands of Hinduism believe that other faiths are just people worshiping other aspects of Brahma. That system incorporates outliers, while Christianity specifically excludes non-Abrahamic faiths, making it much more narrow.
That's not to say I believe in Hinduism, either.
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I guess I'm not seeing how its out of character... elaborate?
Not that I believe in the historicity of Genesis or anything, but you might want to reread books 1-11.
Depends on what you mean by "more accurate."
If you mean "more authentic to the early Jesus movement," sure.
But if you're talking about whether or not the events described actually happened as they were described? That depends. The Gospels weren't written in Jesus' lifetime and only one (later known as The Gospel According to Mark) was actually within the same century. So yes, I actually would trust a book written in 1975 over a book written in 100-or-so AD to give me a more historically factual account of Jesus' life. A major part of that being, of course, the 1975 would have been written in a time where they would have the notion of "historically factual accounts"
To which I respond, again, why hasn't chemistry always existed? Why was it an infant science in the year 1800? There was nature, and there were philosophers, so what took so long for this "natural philosophy" thing to get going, huh?
And why should we believe any of that garbage anyway? Thales claimed that everything was water long before that.
Or do you see how age of a claim is not a valid criteria for evaluating the truth value of it?
It seems flimsy that Abrahamic religions did not predate Abraham? Really?
I think you're confusing "Abrahamic religions" with "worship of God" as being the same thing. They're not.
I mean, Old Testament God has been described as being in both communication and active relationship with humanity since its dawning.
That Abrahamic religions didn't precede Abraham? That's basic causality, dude.
If you mean cults to God didn't appear before Abraham, that's not what it says in the Bible at all.
First of all, that's another way of saying the other religions are not true.
Second, how does Hindu saying other religions are really secretly Hindu without knowing it make it more likely to be true? You seem to be arguing that religious pluralism makes something inherently more believable. Can you justify this?
Third, you're not addressing the point. You were arguing that Christianity is not believable on the grounds that Hindu predates it. So how, exactly, does that make sense? Do you take Anaxiamander over quantum physics? No? Then how can you claim it makes no sense to claim Christianity to be true on the grounds that Hindu made a contrary claim thousands of years ago?
Especially when you just said that Hindu — or at least certain schools of it — claims Christianity to be true!
I would say you're being illogical, but then Aristotlean logic wouldn't exist until the 300s BCE, so maybe, in keeping with your stance, you've chosen a system of thought that predates that?
And physics goes against both. So clearly that one's out, right?
If you don't believe in Hinduism, why would you argue it to be more likely to be true on the grounds that it believes that every other religion really ends up sharing the same beliefs it does?
There have been anatomically modern humans for hundreds of thousands of years. They seem to have had at least some ceremonial rituals. At the very least, there have been humans with concepts of deities for tens of thousands of years. Doesn't it seem odd that god would choose to reveal himself to humans a few thousand years ago, rather than tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago?
I'm not sure I understand what point you're making here.
If the 1975 book were the original source of the Jesus story, so as to be comparable with Mark, don't you think you would trust an original claim that was close to the events over a claim two thousand years later?