Letter to a Christian Nation.
Offline Letter to a Christian Nation.
I was born and raised in a devout Christian family. My father was a Nazarene Evangelist and my mother taught Sunday school and led the choir. I was taught all of the fundamental Christian values.
This is where my trouble began.
1. Thou shall not kill. (Why are we killing people in wars and prison?)
2. Thou shall not bear false witness. (Why did you lie to me about Santa Clause, Tooth fairy, where my dog went and all the other things that I now know are false?)
3. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (Why does Grandpa milk the cows? When we travel on Sunday and buy gas is that a sin? We make somebody work.)
4. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (It seems like everyone is trying to have what everyone else has.)
I never received any good answers for these questions. I was told to pray for understanding. If I had faith in God and lived by his rules I would be OK.
This did not work. I felt like I was a sinner. I would never go to Heaven. When I became attracted to girls all hell descended upon me. My thoughts were that I was possessed by the Devil.
No more church and no more praying. I was a lost cause. I was going to hell. I stopped thinking about all of it as much as I could. Mostly I just felt guilty all the time. Alcohol and girls made me feel better. Work raised my opinion of myself. These things became my direction in life. Working hard and being successful made me feel that I was doing something right even if I was a sinner.
After failed marriages and a lot of work I found myself with a son, enough money to be comfortable and a beautiful wife. Now I had a new problem. How should I raise my son? Maybe I should get him to church so he does not go to hell like me.
I joined church and took him to Sunday school. I knew from my own experience I needed answers when he asked questions. I began to study. I read the Bible diligently. I went after all the other books that the Church suggested.
I still had to many questions. I studied harder. Took the Bible with me everywhere. If I had a free moment I read. Then the question hit me. What if this is the wrong religion? I am sending my son to hell.
I started studying Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, and New Age. They were all different but very similar. I decided to study History to see if I could determine which one was indeed correct.
After many years the studies kept coming to the same conclusion with each religion. They were all man made by men to answer what were then unanswerable questions. They had been modified many times to suit other men’s agendas. Absolutely none of them were based on any sound logical information. They were a hodgepodge of myths that had been assembled and recorded by men to further themselves in the societies they were in.
Now what do I pass on to my son?
Where here is where I started.
1. Killing is wrong. Sometimes you will participate in killing to protect and feed your family. That can be OK but never taken lightly and without remorse. Never for sport or thrill. We are supposed to be a higher being.
We are supposed to be a higher life form. Survival is natural and required to continue the species.
2. Sex is a beautiful and natural thing. It should be experienced without guilt between to loving individuals. Follow your instincts and your heart. We would not be here without the love and mating of our species.
3. Try not to judge others. Live and let be. Ask questions from those you disagree with. We all have plenty to learn.
4. Search for happiness within. You will not find it in material things. That happiness is fleeting. You also will not find it at the expense of others.
5. We are here for a very short time. Try always to make it as wonderful as possible for You, Your family and mankind in general.
6. Education is the single greatest tool you will ever have. Always strive to learn all the factual information you can. Never accept anything as fact if it requires you to abandon reason.
The list is constantly evolving. I hope it will serve him well. Best of all I don’t need to tell him he is going to hell. He is eighteen now in the top of his class and bound for college.
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Welcome.....to Rational Responders.
Congratulations, your list of moral guidelines is much better than the 10 commandments. Although, I wouldn't say we're "supposed" to be a higher being.
Congrats for your son as well.
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
Nice. Having raised three boys, it isn't easy being a parent. I like your list. Fits pretty well with mine.
Welcome.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Judging from the title of this thread, I am assuming you have read Sam Harris's book "Letter to a Christian Nation".
Other book's I'd recommend.
God Is Not Great, by the late Christopher Hitchens
The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
The New Atheism, Victor Stinger
Infidel, Ayan Hersi Ali
2000 Years of Disbelief, James Haught
Jefferson "Author of America", Christopher Hitchens
Animal Farm, George Orwell
1984, George Orwell.
End of Faith, Sam Harris
And if you are not familiar with the following terms. These can help you in debate.
Fallacy of Pascal's wager, "why hedging bets is bad use of logic"
Bentrand Russel's teapot, "explains why "prove it isnt true" is bad logic.
Ocham's Razor, "The most likely answer is the one with the least baggage"(simplest)
Naked assertion "A claim that starts with no universal data. Basically why presuming is bad logic.
Anthropomorphism , "Assigning human qualities to non human objects or concepts"
Fallacy of starting with complexity as a needed starting point which causes "infinite regress"
Epicurus "Problem with evil"
(end list)
Hope this stuff helps.
But even with all this, logical inconsistencies, although good reasons to reject a claim, are not the core reason to reject a claim. The core reason to reject any claim is lack of evidence. If a claim cannot be tested or falsified and kicked around by independent peer review, then it needs to remain with the status of a mere claim.
Welcome.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Thanks Brian37. I have read 90% of them but I will look into the rest. The final turning point for me was rereading the religious books themselves. The contradictions and outrageousness of the stories will not play on a logical open mind.
How anyone today who uses their computers or goes to a doctor or uses a cell phone, and still clings to the comic book claims of the past, miffs me. But evolution has never been about seeking the right answers, evolution is merely about getting to the point of reproduction. If a sugar pill works, it works.
Even outside the issue of religion, I need the placebo drug of being a Redskns fan. It wont get me a kid or make me rich, but it is fun to bitch about how bad they suck.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Welcome, I think you will like this forum. I like your introductory post.
Welcome.
Your story has parallels to mine. I tried very hard to force myself to believe that BS as well. I too was taught the problem was not them or God, it was me. I was evil. I was in hell burdened by shame and guilt. It was as you say ruining the one life I was given. As CJ signatures says I felt better when I stopped trying to believe. One of my great fears from what I was taught was that I would have some severe moral shift to the worse. Satan would come in and set up home in my soul. I see now after I truly gave up all that, my baseline morality stayed the same and in many ways I now more moral. I gave up being dishonest. No more facade or pretense. I expect you understand that.
If there is a god he will honor honesty over pretense. Who like an ass kisser anyway?
Look forward to hearing more from you.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
You had great questions when you were younger and I am sorry no one answered them for you
The commandment is not to murder and that is different from killing. Murder would be making plans out of hate to end someone's life. I am not say killing is ok I saying murder is with malicious intent and God is saying that is wrong. Think of Cain and Abel, Cain went out and maliciously killed His brother. Now if someone comes into your house and tries harm your family and you end his life in the process and your true feeling where to protect your family that in not murder. Now are some people involved in the planning of wars and the implementation of wars murdering? I wouldn't doubt it just like I wouldn't doubt that other are just fulfilling a duty. I would be best if no one killed but that is not the nature of this world we live in.
I don't know why your parents told about Santa or the tooth fairly mine never led me to believe in any of those characters. My childhood was just fine even though I didn't believe in those. The truth is we all sin. We have all broken every commandment and need a savior. I have done some serious wrong to myself and to God while I still believed and had a relationship with God. Was my with God a good one...No because I wants even listening to Him. Did I feel guilty yes but then I read Rom 8 when it said there is no condemnation for those who love God. It took me a while but I also stopped participating in that sin and then said sorry to God for not listening to Him all that time. He forgave me and we just move on in life and I can say that my relationship with Him has grown and become that much better.
So being a Christian isn't about doing stuff and getting it right all of the time it is about a relationship with God. Jesus didn't come to give us more rules and make it harder He came so that we may have a new life. It isn't always pretty and all of us Christ followers don't do it right. Still the truth must be spoken in love. I hope you can forgive your parents for not living what they preached and I hope you come to an understanding of what God has for all everyone.
I have a son also and I plan on telling him the truth about myself all the good and the bad so he understand what Christ has done for me and why I need forgiveness and why he needs it too.
Mod edit: Html.
sorry about all that stuff at the top
That was a great intro, welcome!
By definition, murder is the action of a human killing a human. Any other details are irrelevant to the definition. Including self defence.
That is not the truth. There are a number of commandments I've never broken. And most of those which I have are literally impossible NOT to break. Which suggests god isn't very ethical.
And the idea that someone's torture and execution thousands of years before I was born would have any impact at all on anything I do is patently ridiculous.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
No, you no more have a relationship with the Christian God than a Jew does with the Hebrew God, than a Muslim has with Allah.
The ancient Egyptians thought the sun was a thinking being and they had more to point at than you do. The sun is not invisible like your fictional god.
God/s/god/super natural/entity are all mere human inventions and gap filling. They are all sugar pills humans invent as wishful thinking to replace their parents and ignore their finite existence.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
No you are not planning on telling him the truth. You are planning on saying "I did stupid crap and this crutch called Jesus is going to act as a distraction"
While are "telling him the truth", are you simply going to sugar coat the bible and lie about the scientific absurdities?
Are you going to tell him about the FACT it takes TWO sets of DNA to make a baby which puts a damper on the virgin birth story? Are you going to tell him what rigor mortis is which puts a damper on the magic zombie god death story? Are you going to tell him that the bible treats the sun and moon FALSELY as separate sources of light?
Are you going to simply sell him cute farm animals in the flood story? Or are you going to tell him that your super hero "allowed" the flood which was an act of mass genocide even though he was "all powerful".
Are you going to tell him that the universe is 13 billion years old? Or are you going to explain everything with the same "poof" logic that you swallowed?
Are you going to tell him about Lot fucking his daughters? Are you going to teach him the story about the bald man magically getting bears to murder children for merely being called "baldy"?
No, you are going to sell him what you swallowed, via cherry picking. You will sell him the morals in the bible that avoid all the nasty crap the OT god inflicts on "outsiders". You are going to avoid the fact that motifs like kindness and charity exist outside Christianity, and existed before and that Jesus was never needed to be invented to do good or be good.
Please, we cant stop you legally from selling your child your myth. But if you do anything, don't shelter him and let him experience everything even if it eventually leads him to a different religion or no religion. Don't set him up to be a sheep so that when he grows up, he cant deal with the fact someone else doesn't buy his deity.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Rekeisha
I should have said in my post that I never received and answer that made sense. I have studied religion for years. I know all the crazy answers that people dream up to defend their beliefs.
Most religious people say the Bible is the word of God. Then they start picking which versus they want to use. Either it is the word of God or it is not. If it is then all of it is. If you can pick and choose or bend the meaning then it is not. If it is the word of God then it is a God I want no part of. If only some of it is then who picks the parts. Excuse me but that does not seem like the work of and intelligent God.
I do not like conflict. I believe everyone has a right to their opinions and beliefs. But I just could not let this one slide. You must not have understood the amount of time and energy that I have put into my studies. Unless you can produce new logical evidence that is solid believe me I have heard and read it all before.
A lot of Christians don't know how many major contradictions there are in The Bible, and when they do they don't care. They'll say the Holy Spirit guides them to the proper interpretation, and when you point out that using the Holy Spirit is a subjective basis for interpretation, they'll run back to the contradictory scriptures.
When they realize that certain moralities in the Old Testament and the New Testament are evil, their practices change but the scripture remains. If they don't believe in and practice certain moralities in The Bible, they should update it and eliminate the falsehoods.
@Vastet if murder and killing meant the same thing then there wouldn't be a need for two different words.
Murder: Law . the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).so what sin have you not committed? I will agree with you humans do no have the ability to not sin with out the help of God.
@Brian37 That is an interesting statement to say that i don't have a relationship with God. I would care to hear how you came to be so well informed about the relationship I do and don't posses? Might I ask why are you so angry? You seem to have made up your mind about who I am and what I will do without knowing anything about me, why is that? Who hurt you?
@tlctim I don't pick and choose part of the Bible I believe it all to be true. I don't claim that everything that is written in the Bible is pretty to read. My I ask what part of God do you not want any part of. Also many people trip up on religion but God doesn't want religion he wants a relationship.
@Philosophicus what many people think are contradictions are a misunderstanding of the scriptures.
You DONT have a relationship with ANY GOD. You THINK you have a relationship.
You don't have a relationship with Allah or Vishnu or Thor either. Wanting a super hero to exist is not the same as a super hero existing.
And if you really want me to be angry, keep making false claims about what I am "angry" about.
CONTEXT MATTERS.
Yes I am angry and no I am not.
I am angry at what people claim. Just like you would be rightfully angry OR AT LEAST, should be angry, if you had a friend who insisted the earth was flat. You might like them personally, but the claim would drive you nuts.
But no, I cannot be angry at your pet deity anymore than I can be angry at Mickey Mouse or Lex Luthor. Are you angry at Scooby Doo? Would you get angry if someone claimed that Scooby Doo were real?
If you want to deal with me, and I only speak for myself here. You need to learn to separate yourself from the claims you make. I am perfectly capable of liking you as an individual without liking everything you say.
ON THE ISSUE OF ANY god claim, not just yours, it DOES upset me that we live in an age of computers and cell phones and modern medicine and space flight, knowledge of DNA, and people OF ALL RELIGIONS, still cling to ancient myth.
So if you converse with ME, THE WORST THING, you can do WITH ME, is take my blasphemy personally. My responses to you are STRICTLY about your claims.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
But none of us are entitled to our own facts. That is why questioning claims is so important. If our species never questioned social norms, our species never would have left the caves.
Civil rights SHOULD be defended, but taboos should not be. Taboos create fascism and stifle progress.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
There are too many parts to list here. A couple of examples would be a God that slaughters children and a God who condones offering virgin daughters to mobs. If you have read the Old Testament and don't consider God a Barbarian then we are too far apart to have a meaningful dialogue.
@Philosophicus There is some ugly stuff in the Old Testament especially Judges, there is some really sick stuff in there, but that was man doing those things. What I found that summarized the book of Judges was that it kept saying men did what was right in their own eyes. When I read through the Bible I what struck me the most was mans depravity and how Just and Merciful God is. Still, I think I know what you are referring to Philosophicus but I am not certain could you be more specific with what you mean about virgin daughters to mobs and slaughtering of children.
@Brian37 I do have a relationship with God and I don't mean to upset you with that. He isn't imaginary his Holy Spirit Lives in me which is proof that I have been saved.
@vastet you know I wrote earlier asking you about which ten commandment you didn't break and I thought about that and realize that I was being judgemental. Excuse me you don't have to answer that if you don't want to.
You should google "skeptics annotated bible"; I think that site has the most comprehensive listing of peoples' issues with the Bible.
You are unusual. I haven't met many theists on this site who treat atheists as fellow humans. Thank you.
Cop out and a dodge. If you were a baby sitter watching a kid, and you had a 357 to protect the kid with, and a molester came in unarmed and said "I am going to screw that kid" what should society think of you as a baby sitter if you said "Not my fault, I didn't make him do that".
If god is all seeing then that means all that horrible stuff we do to each other, he doesn't stop even though he can. There is no god. There is simply YOU wanting a super hero to exist. We do horrible things to each other in reality, because evolution isn't magical and does not need a super hero vs super villain to explain.
But the God character as depicted in the bible doesn't just sit on his hands and watch us slaughter each other. He allows UNDER HIS WATCH, infanticide committed by the Egyptians(as the myth goes) and the Romans(as the myth goes). AND if we are to take the myth of the flood story to be real, that would mean women and children drowned under a flood that this alleged god did not have to allow.
If you are going to admit the horrible crap of the OT then why would you think that such a selective deadbeat would change his spots?
This is how your deity behaves. STRICTLY as a literary character as written.
1. Part 1, "be a good Hebrew or I will beat the shit out of you."
2. Part 2, "I promise I won't hit you any more as long as you suck up to my fake suicide"
3. Part 3, "I lied, I am going to murder everyone who didn't kiss my ass and throw them in the garbage"
NOW, before you go falsely accusing me of hate and bigotry, STOP AND READ.
I put it in those words like I had just read a really horrible book or just left a really horrible B movie. Consider the above as nothing more than a book review, a plot summery.
I see no morality in the god character. I see a selfish character who at best, treats us like lab rats for the mere purpose of sucking up to him.
Now, the other aspect of how absurd the bible is is the age of the universe and our planet and evolution.
WE KNOW the universe is 13 billion years old. We know our planet is 4 billion years old. We know that our current "homo Sapient" species has been around in current form for half a million years. To suggest that a god exists and sits on his hands all that time and only gets around to saying something a mere 5,000 years ago is ABSURD!
The Hebrew god is a blend of polytheistic myths prior, mainly influenced by the divine family of the polytheist Canaanites. The bible is a book of myth just like the OT and the Koran. It is myth just like the prior polytheistic myths of the Egyptians and Zoroaster worship, and Roman and Greek gods.
Humans invent gods, nothing more. It is our placebo gap answer we invent to attempt to replace our parents and ignore our finite existence. There is no such thing as a non material thinking entity BY ANY NAME.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
They all cry "unfair" but at the same time all seek advantage and will become unfair to achieve it. On one hand---seek the advantage, on the other cry when things aren't fair. The whole idea has never worked, and no matter how it's modifies it will eventually be run by a few who proper at the expense of the many just as it was originally designed to do. That's what it is for and that's what everyone wants it to do. It's a broken idea that can never work. An animal is just that, and an animal cannot be fixed to operate as a human. An intelligent animal will always seek to be a worse animal if it can get away with it. That's what Christianity is supposed to be for---remove the animal and replace it with what is human. Until then the deal is stuck in reverse and will always produce the same result--that being what we see now happening in the world
The only possible thing the world needs saving from are those running it.
https://sites.google.com/site/oldseers
Knowledge trumps faith and I'm not a Theist
Lies are nothing more then falsehoods searching for the truth
I'm confused by this distinction you see between "human" and "animal". At the moment, biology, psychology, and philosophy are the only fields I can think of that study both "human" and "animal". In biology, "human" and "animal" aren't opposing traits: "human" simply refers to a specific species of animal. In psychology, the difference between "human" and "animal" is one of degree. Out of all the animals, humans have by far the most complex brains, languages, and behaviors (and probably other things too). That leaves philosophy, which probably has a number of definitions for "human" and "animal". What you seem to be referring to as "human" are specific character traits generally associated with moral behavior: altruism, empathy, compassion, sympathy, self-control, and probably many others. Likewise, you seem to denote as "animal" those character traits generally associated with immoral behavior: greed, selfishness, corruption, etc. Do the previous two statements match what you mean by "human" and "animal"? Or do you mean something else?
That issue aside, I think your observations about civilization are quite astute. Especially this one: "civilization operates on the idea that all in it strive to be amount the top operators which at the sane time undermine the attempt of the masses to make it fair." Most human social structures assume that force is required for society to operate. Furthermore, there seem to be many people who assume that force is required to solve problems. The large amounts of legislation focusing on regulation and control are evidence of this (in the US at least). To make things worse, many of the people in power assume the best way to solve problems is to give them more power. All this seems to promote the idea that gaining power and control over others is actually a worthwhile goal.
I'm confused as to what you were trying to communicate when you stated that "[a]n intelligent animal will always seek to be a worse animal if it can get away with it." Could you elaborate on it?
Lastly, while I think your goals are admirable, I don't think Christianity is going to help you accomplish them. If the purpose of Christianity was to make people become better people, then it has no doubt failed. Moreover, I would say it is not worth the effort to salvage. Assuming you look to Christianity because of Jesus's teachings, there are many other, and better, examples. I don't say this to belittle your efforts, but to try to help them become more fruitful. The people who the Gospels were just that: people. They probably lived no more than 40 years, visited nowhere outside the middle east, and, like all of us, were limited to a single perspective. To limit your search to only these ideas would cut you off from the wealth of great information available.