God is just an invention of tyranny simply put in general terms. In the ancient beginning in order to gather random masses across the planet living off the natural land to do the bidding of a tiny minority of conspiring individuals who’s aim was acquiring power for themselves they needed a way of convincing or coercing the majority of the planet to comply within their constructed forms of organization.
Since the majority of the world’s population was and in many cases still is ignorant these conspiring individuals invented the concept of god and in order to give themselves power they devised the convenient notion of divine revelation in which this imaginary being they fashioned called god spoke only through them.
Eventually overtime the city or urban center was created where these god wielding individuals would forage constantly new victims across the wilderness countryside to enslave into utter servitude and bondage with the agricultural revolution. The first articles about the state and government all across the globe were theocratic in that all kingdoms were in concert with the wishes or approved mission of god(s). Kings were said to be either descendants or servants of god(s).
Of course everybody at the top of this pyramid of the emergence of historical tyranny knew that god(s) was an elaborate imaginary or fictional abstraction created to control and enslave the masses. Only the stupid peons, useful idiots, and sheeple came to believe that such an imaginary abstraction was real.
Why are you angry with God? You owe your life to God, if there was no God you wouldn’t exist. Who are you to judge Him? God loves you. Pope Francis is His humble servant and is always bringing happiness unto people and spreads words of love and peace. Priests and other religious authorities guide us, for they know better than us. Accept Jesus into your heart and stop with the blasphemy while you still can. Open your mind and heart to God and He will come to you.
No, I wouldn’t say that you were full of shit. And i have a sneaky suspicion that you knew what I was referring to - expecially when I asked if Socrates was your favorite philosopher.
I didn’t mean it as either a compliment or an insult but I think that “gadflies” are important, especially in a philosophy forum. But, intent IS important - not simply for the sake of being one but for fulfilling an important purpose as Socrates must have felt he was doing, contrary to the belief of others.
In the religion forum though, I think there must be a more “refined” way in which to be the gadfly. I myself sometimes struggle with knowing or seeing where the boundary has been crossed between seeking and exploring the truth through argument/debate and infringing on the religious beliefs of others. There have been times when simply making a suggestion or questioning something in a civil way in order to shed more light would almost appear to have become tantamount to an insult or offense. And I am no gadfly - more like a 40 or 60 watt lightbulb. lol
I sure as hell know you didn’t MEAN it as a compliment, being called a fat repulsive bug surely isn’t a compliment, but it’s better than being full of shit
And that’s what I have a problem with. You can make jokes about anything and anybody… except religion, when you make fun of religion suddenly everybody gets extremely offended and defensive. Well, I’ll just ask you one question. Who is going to be more afraid of having their beliefs questioned? A person who can justify their beliefs or a person who can’t? I’m fine with having my atheism questioned and mocked, as I can defend myself properly. Only somebody with a fragile, irrational belief system that can’t be rationally defended is going to be upset when their beliefs are challenged.
Well, this one doesn’t really look fat or repulsive to me. What do you think of spiders? But I did mean it as a positive when I called you one, comparing you to Socrates… in a sense.
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Well, I suppose there are no easy answers here. Perhaps it’s because our religious beliefs, if we have any, affect us at our core - they are a part of what makes us who we are. They are also part of the structure albeit perhaps a weak one which hold us together.
Well, I do agree with you on one thing. Some of those who cannot justify their religious beliefs will be in fear of losing them. For others who cannot, they will still stubbornly cling to them.
Of course, you would be fine with having your atheism questioned. Your belief is that there is no god…it doesn’t really carry the same import as one who believes in a god. But let me ask you a question. If your atheism is as a result of emotional pain and loss, a refusal to believe in someone or something who you feel has let you down, who ought to always have been there for you, after all, this is a loving and present god, as many believers feel or felt, you might just feel threatened by someone questioning you, no? As I said, if the above scenario was the case.
I think that the real question to ask is if we actually have the right, in a deeper sense, to make fun of someone else’s religious beliefs - I mean barring someone thinking that Jesus was an alien or something that holds so little validity or water that allowing their illusions might harm them.
If someone does not care if we argue/debate trying to prove them wrong, then that’s not unethical a long as we’re respectful about it.
It is a question of respect and more than that, it’s a question of seeing and understanding what people hold as sacred and reverent in their life.
When I was a catholic and a really practicing one to boot, it really wouldn’t have been so much a question of someone disproving my beliefs albeit I did have a questioning doubtful mind back then too, but emotionally speaking, my faith, my spirituality was so strong and so much a part of me and what I held dear, that to disrespect or to make “fun of” it would have been hurtful to me. If you love your mother or father, isn’t it kind of disrespectful and hurtful if someone makes fun of them. Ultimately when it comes to god, for most people, god is a parental figure and even if that is not the case, god still represents the greatest part of their existence - to them.
I kind of intuit that there may be an arrogance and some hubris within doing that - even as I myself when I was flowing into agnosticism – also began doing that to some degree. At the time I was doing it, I was aware of doing it. I think that there is a kind of smugness to that - a holier than thou and a more intellectual than thou attitude involved in it.
Well, for you, as an atheist, wouldn’t you perhaps feel that that might be anyone and everyone who believes in a god? Or can you see through the universe the logic and reason behind at least intuiting that there may be Something even if it does not match your perception? But I may be wrong here. You may be able to see, if not the justification for believing, at least the justification for intuiting the possibility of Something.
And ethically speaking, wouldn’t you feel a little hardput about damaging someone’s mind/heart/spirit even though to you their belief was irrational? To me it almost seems like spiritual rape of the pscyhe or something like that. Yes, this is a philosophy forum though also a religion forum, but ultimately aren’t we human before we are philosophers?
It all comes down to reverence and/or human respect for another’s Self. Is there something which you hold as sacred and reverent which you wouldn’t want stomped on?
I might not have explained any of this too well but I did my best. We all see with different lenses and sometimes we simply do not wish to change those lenses. What are we afraid to give up when we don’t or what are we holding onto?
Maybe the real question to ask ourselves is: Who the hell do we really think we are? Maybe we can be more refined caring gadflies. I may be wrong in all of what I say here…well, maybe not wrong…just a different perspective.
The strong emotional attachment to the belief coupled with childhood indoctrination are religion’s best cards for survival, along with exploiting psychological biases of humans (the majority of people are religious, agenticity).
I’d rather ask do we have the right to have fun of someone else’s ANY beliefs. If we can laugh at some other beliefs, why not the religious ones?
Also, why is the theory that Jesus was an alien more improbable than that he was the son of god? We have as much evidence for aliens as we have for God. In fact, aliens are a more probable explanation since they’re simpler to explain than God.
The Pastafarians made this point already - anything can become a religion. The Church has made the whole population so brainwashed that it’s normal to hear that people believe in a virgin born god who walked on water and talking snakes.
I’ve never had serious issues, no more than another average person.
I personally can’t choose to believe/disbelieve. I have to be convinced by something before I start genuinely believing. F.e. I can’t choose to believe that I have a Ferrari even if I wanted a Ferrari. And I can’t choose to disbelieve in an LCD in front of my screen, even if it let me down (ok, LCD is a bad example for that, but you get my point).
I find their beliefs to be more damaging to them and others most of the time. IMO we can’t base a world on lies and expect it to be good.
I’ll use a Sam Harris analogy. If you saw your friend digging in his backyard every day for a couple of minutes and an hour at Sundays, looking for a diamond the size of a fridge, would you tell him that there’s (very probably) no such diamond? Even if it might hurt his feelings?
Not really, perhaps my moral values, but not really, nothing is immune from discussion in my belief system, at least nothing that I know of. There are things that I wouldn’t discuss purely because I find them uninteresting, but I don’t think there’s anything that I just don’t want stomped.
God is that piece of shit that when an earthquake comes into town killing thousands of people is too lazy to lift a finger and stop it.
Of course the world has no shortage of idiot followers who exist to tell us that it’s all a part of god’s divine plan.
In reality there is no god. There is either an eternal flow of the universe or the big bang where existence is just the end result of some sort of cosmic masturbation.
The first human cities or urban centers were created by religious priesthoods.
The first kingdoms and governments were dominated by religious priesthoods.
The earliest governments were entirely theocratic in their origin. Their so called morality and ethics purely religious ones in origin.
Their goal was to create stairways to the heavens to be closer to god(s). This was at least the created metanarrative of the priesthoods.
The priests themselves in charge didn’t believe in god(s) privately themselves as they knew it was all imaginary, fictional, and elaborate concocted forms of bullshit but publically in order to exploit, control, and manipulate the masses for their established social hierarchy they very much did believe because of necessity.
To have an urban center and maintain the agricultural revolution a social hierarchy unparalleled to all others had to be set up. Quite frankly people had to be enslaved in order for it to work and function under the heel of the priesthoods.
The priesthoods made their first armies whose sole mission was to travel the surrounding countrysides and round up all free independent people living off of nature in their primitive existence. These people would then be enslaved in order to maintain the concept known as civilization.
These people would never again come to live in a free and independent existence ever again. The priesthoods made sure of that by that of enforcement.
Rebellions occurred and people fought off against the priesthoods for a time but then eventually the crafty priesthoods amongst their imaginary god(s) developed religious law striking down divine retribution and eternal damnation against the very soul of wild and free primitive man chaining him with multiple invisible chains.
Religious canons and civic duty became inseparable.
Because you’re such a gadfly. 
I myself sometimes struggle with knowing or seeing where the boundary has been crossed between seeking and exploring the truth through argument/debate and infringing on the religious beliefs of others. There have been times when simply making a suggestion or questioning something in a civil way in order to shed more light would almost appear to have become tantamount to an insult or offense. And I am no gadfly - more like a 40 or 60 watt lightbulb. lol 
