Question(s) for the atheists...
Offline I'd figure this is the right forum for it, and I couldn't think of a good way to search for this question, so...
What I'm wondering about is why, exactly, you feel the need to "fix" those of us who believe in God (or insert deity of your choosing). What is it about believers that bothers you? Bear with me for a moment while I lay this out. I consider myself Christian. My belief system encourages things like humane treatment of your fellow man, honesty, loyalty, marital fidelity, and leaving anger out of decision-making. (Yes, yes, I know about the "angry God" stuff from the Bible; I'm talking about the followers, here.) It discourages things like theft, lying, adultery, violence, hatred, and cruelty. Those who practice any of these behaviors (mostly violence) and claim it's in the name of God--or other deity--apparently didn't do the research. But what do you have against someone like me, that you think I'm broken and need to be fixed? What about Theism is so terrible that it needs to be wiped from the face of the earth?
My other question is less serious, but it's bugging me: Why do the people who run this site allow banner ads for OurPrayer.org and other God-believing agencies? Is it just a monetary thing?
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Theism doesn't bother me.
Fundamentalism, ignorance, and faith bothers me.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
The directive of the church maybe, not of the bible itself, the bible is quite clear about what to do to those that do not believe in your god, if they don't convert, kill them.
Yeah, in the Old Testament, it sure does. It also tells me not to eat pork or shellfish and not to wear garments made of two different types of fabric, as well as outlining animal sacrifices to atone for my sins and rituals I'm supposed to go through at a temple. I guess I'm doing a lot of things wrong, according to the OT. *shrug* Ah well. Can't really say that bothers me. What *I* am going by when I say that is Jesus' directive to "go into the world and preach the good news to all creation." Phrasing such as "Thou shalt kill all who believest thou not" is conspicuously absent.
Regarding "Christ came to fulfill the law, not abolish it," I direct you to http://www.gotquestions.org/abolish-fulfill-law.html and similarly http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-law.html .
@ atheistextremist: My apologies if I even suggested that others who do not share my beliefs are incapable of kindness or generosity; it's not what I was trying to imply. Certainly an atheist is capable of just as much human decency as anyone else. I was really just trying to say, "What's so bad about my faith if these are the things it tells me to do?" I really didn't mean for it to be taken in such a fashion--I'm not here to denigrate anyone.
I see that you ignored my previous post which shows that you basically ignored most of the bible and statements to follow the commandments as they are to stand forever, and the parts that jesus states to follow the commandments as well. Of course as of lately this has been very common of christians that I have had to discuss this topic with. you pick and choose what you want to follow and ignore the rest you don't want to deal with. The punishment for having other gods is death. Look over what I posted previously and tell me that the commandments are not A) To stand forever, B) Jesus tells you not to ignore the commandments.
Look over what I *JUST* posted; two links elaborating on why modern-day Christians don't follow all laws of the Old Testament.
I have and you still haven't addressed the fact that the commandments are stated to stand forever, and that jesus states to follow him as well as the commandments of his father, which are all part of the my first post regarding the laws/commandments.
Even jesus stated that he was not there abolish the law, matthew 5:17, but to fulfill it, whatever that means since the commandments are set to stand forever and ever, as well as one of the many reasons why jews reject jesus as the messiah, have the time the NT contradicts everything that the OT stated. With that said, If you going to pick and choose the bible, that's fine. However there are many parts you are going to be ignoring, and I have already pointed out the contradiction in your statement, and of course the problem with the NT really. That in the end, you can do whatever you like, it's up to what part of the NT you wish to follow, just ignore the WHOLE OT part and your will be just fine.
For the sake of brevity, I'd like to ask just one question ghostrider9876:
Does religion do more harm than good ?
If nothing else, it's a provocative question and it was posed a few years ago in the form of a well publicized poll in Britain. It's interesting to note that 82% responded that faith was a cause of division and tension in a country where 2/3rd's are NOT religious, implying that most did hold the opinion that religion indeed caused more harm than good.
Human history is fraught with violence, deceit and greed caused by religious belief. Our own forefathers (referring to the U.S.) have been quoted numerous times regarding religious belief.
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
Thomas Jefferson
As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?
John Adams
While I had no part in the bold and provocative header....."Believe in God? We can fix that".... I think it hardly arrogant to ask or pose such a thing when one has asked my original question:
Does religion do more harm than good ?
If your answer is yes....as it appears a considerable portion of our founding fathers might have responded or current day Britain might respond, the header might be seen as a very courageous thing to say. You see something that is so clearly harmful to society and is part of what is certainly the most aggressive marketing campaign in human history and you wish to counter it in some way, even if you're hated and discriminated against for it.
So let me pose the question to you one more time:
Does religion do more harm than good ?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
@ latincanuck: The "not abolish but fulfill" was explained in those links. Christ fulfilled the prophecies made about Him and was the ultimate fulfillment of the OT laws as written (especially those regarding animal sacrifice as He was the perfect sacrifice). I might also add that the laws of the OT were given to the nation of Israel, not necessarily to all followers of Christianity, and that the actual scripture laying out the Ten Commandments does not list the punishments for breaking any individual one.
I wasn't going to start tossing scripture into here, but: Romans 10:4 "Christ is the end of the law so there may be righteousness for all who believe," and Galatians 3:23-25 "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." And furthermore (not scriptural but): "Jesus either fulfilled all of the law, or none of it. What Jesus' death means for the sacrificial system, it also means for the other aspects of the law."
@ AmericanIdle: Hmm. You actually raise a very interesting question. My answer is both a yes and a no:
As I and others have said, it's the atrocities that people have committed in the name of their gods; the greed and self-interest they've served by preying on the easily led; the ideas they've tried to force on other people because they truly believe they are right, no one else is, and it's their sworn duty to forcibly convert everyone else--these things are the problems that spring forth out of religion. So the answer to your question is that, sadly, religious people as a whole often do more harm than good. In other words, it's not the religion itself, but instead human nature that causes the problems. Like Douglas Adams said: "..two thousand years [ago] one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change..."
I guess another way to look at it would be, for example, if 25% of all people who've served in the military commit violent crimes during or after their service, do you blame the military or the individual? If half of the people who belong to some private club are racist, sexist, elitist jerks, do you blame the club or the individuals? I am of course making the assumption here that the rules of the organization do not promote these kinds of behavior.
what do you mean? Deuteronomy has the punishments for following other gods or having other people tell you to worship other gods as death, for graven images it's being cursed, blasphemy/taking the lords name in vain in leviticus is death, the sabbath is death as well, in exodus 20:7 is the commandments in Exodus 31:15 is the penalty for working on the sabbath...death. For adultery leviticus states the penalty is death, I mean am i missing something here? but the bible does actually state what the punishments are for breaking the commandments.
I have also read and studied the bible, the best part that you forget about god fulling the law is that it doesn't change (again there is nothing that ends the law and the actual fulfill statement, well doesn't mean much as jesus doesn't fulfill all the prophecies, no third temple, never lead the jews to israel, etc, etc, etc. With this said, he also stated that the law will stand until he comes back and all the prophies are fulfilled, and they haven't been therefore you are still under law if you wish to follow god, now if you wish to follow jesus and ignore the father sure go ahead in the end you ignore one of jesus's teachings which is to follow the laws of the father.
My problem with religion, and well many theists, is that in the end they don't require any evidence for their beliefs, none what so ever, even more so, the lack of evidence should be, to any rational being, a reason not to believe. I don't just have an issue with christians, but with all believers in supernatural things that have no evidence to back up their statements. Be it wiccan, hindu, buddhists (although I have had far far better discussions with buddhists than with any other religious followers), muslims, jews, new age spiritualists, etc, etc, etc.
The moment you need to suspend logic and twist any rational explantion, to make god, religion or any theological explanation true, then I have a problem. Based on most theological arguments for god, I can make the following assertment, and it will be just as true as those for god.
There is an invisible tea pot that is intelligent, responsible for all creation, for all purposes you cannot see the tea pot, it cannot tested by science as it is beyond human comprehension. The tea pot always always knows what you are doing, actually its floating invisibly infront of you and all humans at all times, however you cannot touch it, you cannot see it, you cannot have any human made sensors detect it. However if you open you heart to the tea pot, you will feel it's presense, and pray to the tea pot it will answer your prayers, if the prayers are done correctly and if it aligns with the plans or desires of the tea pot. This tea pot became human once as it impregnated a human female, and it became the grand tea pot maker, however the only record of it is the holy tea pot scriptures and there is no other historical document that provides any evidence about the tea pot maker or the tea pot, during it's time on earth. However after the tea pot maker was killed because it wanted to convert everyone to drinking tea, it's followers wrote about him...some 30 to 150 years after he was killed for his tea drinking beliefs. There are historical documents talking about how the tea pot maker was the founder of the tea pot religion, and the holy tea pot scriptures has evidence of the 500 people that saw him ressurect and go to the heavens to be with the tea pot god.
This is pretty much sums up most of the arguments for most arugments when it comes to providing the evidence for their deities. Cannot test it, it is in the holy books, and well that's pretty much it, everything is an excuse as to why there is no actual evidence.
My other issue is really in the end, that religion itself is a tool for control, as the bible, and well many many holy books have been written in such a way that it's all a matter of interpretation, as you and I have proven already regarding grace and law. There is no rational belief behind it really, in the end, the bible is a contradiction in itself, do not kill, just kill those that don't agree with god or that god deems unworthy, love they neighbour, unless he tries to talk to you about other gods. We can go on an on with the bible, and various other religious holy books of other religions, or beliefs of new age religions. In the end there is no logic to them or no rational explanations, just suspension of logic, reason and intelligence to make those beliefs true for the believer. (just so we are in the clear I am not saying theists are stupid, illogical and unreasonable for the most part, however many theists can and do suspend their logic, reasoning and intelligence when it comes to explaning their beliefs in their god(s))
Rather than your divine tea pot story, you could've just mentioned the Flying Spaghetti Monster; I've seen it before. Though I expect Arthur Dent would love to have a divine tea pot.
You are right, matters of faith don't require any evidence. If that's your problem with religious people in general--that they take something to be true that there's no evidence for--then, fair enough. I can see how a logical/rational person would have a problem with that. Heh. *I* have a problem with that as far as most things in everyday life; I hate it when someone just assumes I said or did something with nothing to support the assumption. (Yes, I know, this could be seen as self-contradictory. I'm referring to small-scale, especially interpersonal conflicts.) In any case, I say we just agree to disagree on the whole OT/laws thing, as our interpretations of the abolish vs. fulfill line are different. Thanks for answering my question.
Well actually I personally don't believe the law or grace part as it's a matter of interpretation in the end, and hence the reason why there are so many sects of christianity, so much disagreements, and of course so much conflict in the history of christianity, same goes for most religions, if not all religions.
Now lutherans, Reformists, Anglicans, seventh day adventists, seventh-day baptists, true church of jesus, united church of god and the living church of god would differ on you in regards to just needing grace, that the laws must be obeyed as well and followed, including the punishments for each transgressions (although which punishments from the OT or NT differ in each case and each church of course)
But in the end, they still have zero evidence for god, for the truth in the bible, and most importantly for the most part any evidence that shows that god didn't do it many (not all) theists ignore that completely or try to prove the evidence as false. As many a theists have said, if the bible ans science disagree then science is wrong. That right there is the issue really, deny reality for a fantasy.
In the end my problem isn't with you personally, or that fact that you believe this stuff, but really is how your beliefs (not specifically your personal beliefs but religious beliefs and those that follow it) attempt to control that of society and those that disagree with it, or impose their morality, laws or specific hatred/ignorance on society as a whole and how easy it is to corrupt it and give power to those that, really have no logical or reasonable bases for their power. It's pretty much a scam really imho.
ghostrider wrote:
This question is commonly posed by theists to the board: Doesn't your Atheism display the same intolerance as those who you argue against?
My answer is this: Sure......if you could win the argument that all beliefs are created equal, but that would be pretty much futile on your part since even a cursory examination of history can easily teach you that all belief systems are clearly NOT equal.
History provides us with a vast list of ideologies practiced by a multitude of varied cultures/governments. Some of them have improved our lives and others serve as examples of how horribly violent, corrupt and cruel humans have been to one another.
The healthiest societies appear to be those who've discarded bad ideas such as racism, say, or genocide, sexism and totalitarian type governments. Another way of putting it is to say these societies are no longer tolerant of such poor former ideologies.
Not to discount the responsibility our own human nature itself, ghostrider, but there are those ideologies that encourage or teach us to be better people and those that bring out the darker parts of our human nature.
I think you'll find that most on here are either former christians or have studied the christian ideology and come to the conclusion that for the most part it really brings out the darker side to humans rather than making them better people as is commonly marketed.
But that's another 10 pages minimum to examine the many reasons, I would hold that to be true. So let me return to your original post and disagree with you.
While human nature should hold its own share of responsibility, the christian ideology is far from blame in the violent history of human influence.
Don't you have to take a serious look at both ?
Right now, suicide in the U.S. military is at an all time high. While there are likely many causes for this I would have to say that our military has often done a poor job of protecting our soldiers from both physical and long term emotional harm (stop-loss, multiple tours, confusion as to their sense of purpose, lack of psychological counseling, etc.). I see similar criticism from advocates for the soldiers in both Britain and Canada. I've spent a bit of time on this as I have a great deal of friends returning from both Iraq and Afghanistan. Note: If there is blame to be laid on the Military, it should start at the top first w/ the Commander in Chief (former especially, and I refer to the National Guard country club rich kid and his 5 deferrments sidekick).
Is this Fox News ? Regardless..., same answer. Don't you have to lay a bit of blame on both? Wouldn't you think it very possible that the environment of this private club had some sort of hand in encouraging that behavior ?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
Yes. If most theists were 'liberal', I would not have much of an issue with anyone. I would still probably enjoy debating, but I would not necissarily feel like theism was a blight on society.
My problem is that, being an American, we have a large segment of the population that believes in things like:
1) Talking animals, miracles, resurrection
2) Divine morality given by a book that they interpret/accept/reject piecmeal based on whim
2a) This morality often clashes with what modern, civilized societies tend to believe and so retards progress
3) Believe in a deity who is, from all we know of him, not a nice being
4) When reason, science and empirical fact collide with an ancient text the text wins (Willful Ignorance)
5) Believe in prophecy
6) Believe in magic and magical thought
7) Believe that evil exists because of demons
9) Believe that if you do not follow their dogma you are not trustworthy
10) Believe totally in things that, in my experience, they do not really understand (Faith)
11) Believe that they have direct revelation and anyone who disagrees is wrong, no matter what evidence is presented (Fundamentalism)
12) etc.
You would probably be better off posting in Kill em' with Kindness. This forum has almost zero moderation outside of that area. You will be dealing with young, angry, sarcastic and irreverant human beings who have no respect for you, or your beliefs. This is a symptom of low moderation, not a symptom of atheism. This board gets lots of moon-bat theists who never get kicked off as well.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Well, the trouble is that for many theists, 'God' represents a solution for some particular problem that they want to pretend a deity solves (how the universe was created, for example). This is a lazy & inappropriate way to approach problems & the unknown.
Now, perhaps you're more of a universalist utilitarian and don't happen to believe that God is an appropriate answer for problems. Well, fine. But you don't represent a majority - thus the protesting.
Well, okay, fine - but let's be honest, then: if this is your belief system, it is in no way tied to Christianity, is it? Christian doctrine and dogma have nothing to do with any of the things you mentioned - it's simply about control (your argument would be akin to someone from Iran demanding to know why anyone would criticize Ahmedinejad; afterall, you voted for Ahmedinjead, and you're a good person. But how you might behave as an individual who loosely adheres to part of an ideology does not speak for the ideology as a whole or it's central proponents)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940