You guys went and made a religion just so I could blog about it?

That's sweet. 

Christianity isn't for anything. It has been used for many things, controlling the minds of the masses, justifying wars as well as some positive things, comforting people, building communities (even a staunch anti-religious person like me can't deny those things). But as for an actual reason for it existing I see none, there are reasons why it exists which are basically because people are stupid.

John's Gospel presents a rational response to what Christianity is for. I have read the new testament several times, and the Christians writing it should get credit for actually explaning what it was they represented and were trying to accomplish.

Logos (The Word that became flesh) is where we get logic from. John was a great thinker. And in his day, he would have been considered a free thinker. Interesting huh?

I genuinely think as a way of explaining the universe Christianity is pretty redundant, especially with the progress of modern science. We are knowing more and more through rational, empiricism and it constantly contradicts the word of the buybull. It doesn't necessarily contradict God, but the scientific method gives us no reason to believe in God.

Hmmm… What are these positive prescriptions? I thought I discussed most of the big ones. Where is your response to my refutation of those prescriptions?

Not to my knowledge on Christian thought. Most Christians I talk to say that one can only be moral if he or she is Christian.

They will say that the INTENT of any action must be “based on serving God,” or with “Jesus on your heart,” or any one of a myriad of reasons. I still hold firm to the fact that the only GOOD basis for morality has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with treating each person as the final ends and purpose of the intent for good acts. By that, I mean the reason you do good things for people is specifically to help a person out as the one and only ends for do-gooding. Adding God into the mix as a justification for doing good is both unnecessary and immoral.

I would find it astonishing if I were unable to find pre-Christian traditions based on the concept of salvation. Do you really need me to go researching to find them? I feel a bit lazy… But will pull them up if you so desire.

I don’t think this was my point. My point was not that we should nitpick what decisions are rationally ethical in a myriad of specific cases. I’m saying that the GENERAL basis for ALL Christian morality is extremely irrational, because it sees the purpose for doing good things as something you’re doing for GOD, not the person you’re helping. Cut out the middle man and do good for the sake of doing good. I don’t need someone to beat me with a stick if I don’t do good or give me cookies if I DO good.

Ditto. I hope you find what you’re searching for here.

Exactly. Write me up a list. Does mine not suffice?

What, praytell, are they?

If worship of God is not FOR God, and only for the worshipper, why would God banish me to eternal suffering for NOT worshipping him? Sounds a lot to ME like the worship is for HIM, not ME! Besides that, need you read the OT to remind yourself of God’s jealousy and ego? What’s the first commandment? Don’t worship any God’s but me. If Yahweh was a righteous God, he would care a lot less about his own glorification… oh yeah, to benefit the ones worshipping him. The subject of worship is not gaining something from its worship? That sounds logically false.

If all the worship is for the benefit of the worshipper, you would need to prove that the benefits attained by the worshipper were not attainable through other means.

Furthermore, the “benefits” of worship are quite vague to me… Can you enlighten me as to what these benefits are?

Why doesn’t God just grant non-worshippers the benefits through some other means?

LOL! I thought I was the one with presuppositions and assumptions!

Examine the assumptions you made with your statement.

1. You assume that absolute charity and total servitude is good.

2. You assume that Christianity actually preaches total servitude and absolute charity.

3. You assume that one must have RELIGION to have absolute charity or “total servitude”.

Let me respond. Firstly, I would argue that ABSOLUTE charity and TOTAL servitude is NOT GOOD. In fact, I would argue that it is harmful and undermines the purpose of charity and servitude in the first place.

In response to assumptions #1 and #2 I offer the following from Harry G. Frankfurt’s “The Reasons of Love.”

Now that I have undermined the idea that ABSOLUTE or TOTAL charity/servitude are GOOD things, let’s again ask if a “healthy” amount of charity or servitude is impossible for a non-Christian… Still think so? If you are indeed correct that Christianity is about absolute and total servitude, then I cannot support the morality or positive prescriptions of Christianity. But if Christianity makes prescriptions for self-love as well, in balance and harmony with “agape”, that is, the greek term for love of others, then I see no reason why such harmony is exclusive to Christianity.

If you respond to nothing else, I would like to hear your response to what I might call “The Problem of Selflessness.” Denying the self denies the intrinsic worth of the very people you would endeavor to serve.

I am truly puzzled. You now agree that this type of “treating people as ends” ethics is good? The proper term is “Kantian” ethics, since Immanuel Kant came up with it. It would appear to me that Kantian ethics and Christian ethics are diametrically opposed. So why do good things in Christianity? Because good things are good to do for themselves? Because you want to please God? Because you want to go to heaven? What is it?

Hmmm… Jesus was human. He must have sinned. Who is Jesus’ savior? Himself?

But, alas, I think you misunderstood me. What I was saying is that the whole purpose of Jesus is to fix the results of something you were NOT supposed to do. In drama, there is a term called “deus ex machina.” It means “Machine of the Gods”. In many strange movies, you will see a character in a terrible circumstance, and he or she wakes up from a dream to learn that nothing bad has happened. Shakespeare did this in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Jesus is like a Deus Ex Machina for your sins. He swoops in to save the day, just when you thought you were screwed beyond all hope. The problem with the Deus Ex Machina in drama is that it solves nothing, and you often feel cheated. I will say to myself in such cases, “Now what was the point of that.” In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a character states

Jesus is a Deus Ex Machina in REAL LIFE! And it’s silly imaginary fairy tale logic!

The fundamental problem with “salvation” is that it TRANSFERS the sin of one person to another, and this is not logical in any other circumstance but Adam & Eve, and Jesus. Look at how silly the logic of the Bible works:

Adam and Eve sin, so EVERY single human after them pays for the sin. The sin is transferred to all humans. Then Jesus pops on the scene to swoop in and save the day by taking all the sin away -- thereby transferring all sins onto him. But Jesus is God, so God created a situation in which he KNEW Adam and Eve would sin, created a system in which sin was transferable, and then transferred the sin from humans to Jesus/God; thereby sacrificing himself TO himself in order to fix the problem that he created himself. I got a new idea: make sins NON-transferable!

If sins are transferable, why are they only transferable in special circumstances? If my father kills someone, why shouldn’t I pay for his crime? Should the police come and arrest me and let my father go free because my father decides to transfer the sin to me? If my father dies, do I pay for my father’s sin in jail because he was unable to serve all of the time that he was alotted in prison? Would such a justice system make ANY sense at all?!?!? NO! Then why does God employ the SAME ridiculous logic to his OWN justice system? YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU DO THE TIME. Whether its 20 years on earth or 20 million in heaven, you should pay your OWN debt. Assigning eternal punishments and transfering punishments is ridiculous.

1. Before you misrepresent what I said, let me explain it again. Look at all of the points that I claimed to be irrational. You can’t simply dodge those points by saying “everything would be irrational without God.” You have to address each point specifically.

2. “If there is no God, all propositions are absurd because life itself is absurd without God.” What is your support for that statement? I claim that life is absurd without Natalie Portman and Jessica Biel. Touche.

3. Without Natalie Portman, my life has no meaning.

4. Seriously, though, this is an incredibly fallacious way of reasoning. You claim that without God, other things in your life won’t make sense like they did before. This is the fallacy of dire consequences. The primary proposition, which is the existence of God itself, should not be affected by any HUMAN-CONSTRUCTED consequences of God’s non-existence. “Life would have no meaning.” “Life would be absurd.” “Why obey any drives or choices?” All of those statements or questions are logical consequences of God’s nonexistence, but they surely can have no bearing on whether or not God exists. Sam Harris uses a great analogy. It would make me sad if there was not a diamond in my backyard the size of a truck. My life would be absurd without it. My life would have no meaning without that diamond. My life would have no direction without the diamond. All of these logical consequences have no bearing on whether or not there is a diamond the size of a truck in my backyard.

5. I agree that life has no instilled meaning by a deity. I agree that we are forced to make choices by our circumstance without exceptionally good reasons for doing so. I find that an incredibly liberating idea, not one that would sink me into the depths of despair. It tells me that I have control over my own life, not an imaginary friend. RANDOM CHANCE, though? I think not. For instance, evolution is not random. Mutant individuals in a species have mutations that are random, but the process by which those mutations suceed or fail is not random at all and completely dependent on outside forces. In the same way, we humans are profoundly influenced by our environments, BUT, we have the power to profoundly influence our environments. Real life is more like a harmonious balance between determined action and free will.

6. Why obey any forces or desires? Frankfurt really does a good job of addressing this in his book. But I won’t share that. Go buy the book. Forces and desires are complex, and a great deal of internal struggle for humans comes from conflicts between our desires for different things. To pretend that religion has some good answer to this problem is to have faith in an imaginary security blanket. The real basis for our decisions lack absolute basis. So what? There is no logical necessity for an absolute basis, just a desire to have an easy out.

Hmm… Not because God said so? Not because it confers a benefit to the worshipper? Still, I ask, WHAT are the benefits to the worshipper?

Or perhaps the non-Christian is incapable of worshipping an imaginary God that he DOESN’T believe in and can’t FORCIBLY “choose” to believe in. Beliefs are NOT choices. No one can CHOOSE to believe anything. If I told you to worship an invisible unicorn named Mr. Bojangles that made the universe, why wouldn’t you? Because it’s imaginary? Because your mind will not allow you to simply shift your belief from one imaginary deity to another? Well… such is the plight of the atheist. Believing in your God or choosing to believe in your God is as difficult for me, that is as impossible for me as it is for you to believe an invisible unicorn named Mr. Bojangles made the universe.

Big deal. Accept Jesus why? To be released from your sins. Answered earlier.

The point of my post was to show the following logic:

When boiled down to its elements, Christianity contains the following:

1. Thousands upon thousands of things that we should NOT do. The 613 Mitzvoh are only a few.

2. The remaining “positive prescriptions” or things that we SHOULD do in christianity are either IRRATIONAL or they can be achieved by non-Christians just as or more effectively than Christians.

--Hence, accepting Jesus is irrational for all the reasons stated previously.

Some of the only things left are helping people and doing nice things. I have shown why a non-Christian can do this just as effectively, if not more effectively than a Christian.