So freely excercise your mind! What is this illusion that Christianity isn’t Intelligent?
From what basis do you call God wrong? Evil? From what basis?
You see the problem is, the world gives a form to God, puts him in this form, and then you knock that incorrect form in which you have no idea about.
I laughed because your statements were ridiculous, firstly you assume that people want to be athiests and imply that they should be ashamed of that, and you assume that athiesm is a way of life that is fixed by certain codes that don’t add up, when in fact different athiests live in different ways and through different philosophies in life just as theism is split into ample sects. The latter sentence I laughed at because science and logic have proved that there are numerous inconsistencies, contradictions, absurdities and impossibilities contained in the Bible.
All you can do is try and threaten me that my eternity could be at stake, that has no effect on me whatsoever to say the least, and surely that is not a spiteful or vindictive thing to tell me is it, that goes against your teachings of love and forgiveness. You state that my eternity could be at stake, are you a Christian for the right reasons or are you pretending to believe it just in case it does turn out to be true? A true Christian would say my eternity is at stake since after all Christians claim to know better than other human beings that are their equals.
You’re missin’ the point here, bub. It’s not that Christianity isn’t “intelligent,” it’s that it abhors freedom of thought.
The common decency that we all possess, that says anyone who condemns anyone else, not merely to die, but to suffer endlessly, forever, is evil, evil, evil! Evil beyond measure.
Anyone who would condemn anyone to such a fate for ANY reason is evil, but to condemn someone to ANY punishment whatever merely for questioning a creed is evil compounded.
God as envisioned by Christianity is an evil, wicked, monstrous being, unworthy of worship. I do not, I cannot, believe that such a horror governs the universe. Luckily, there is no evidence that would compel me to believe it.
It is Christian doctrine that gives God that form, not “the world” – or anyway, not the rest of the world.
Explain your first statement, tell me how.
You miss the point, We are all condemned already, that’s how it is. Furthermore as an atheist, you have no ground on which to say God was wrong for whatever call he made, because if you imply God exist, you must imply he created a moral law, you see?
It is the Christian Doctrine in which you haven’t read, or misinterpret. The world makes God out to not make sense, read the bible and you’ll see he does. Remember to read in context.
Christianity threatens people with eternal torture if they come to the “wrong” conclusions, if they believe something other than Christian doctrine. That means Christianity abhors freedom of thought.
And since Christian doctrine claims that God did the condemning, and since that condemnation was a heniously evil, wicked, cruel, monstrous act, the God of Christian doctrine is evil.
I am NOT an atheist. I’ve been trying to hammer home to you that the possible positions on this subject are not restricted to Christianity and atheism. Get a clue, please.
I am a human being. I make moral judgments; that’s part of what it means to be a human being. I do NOT need any “ground” outside myself for doing so. My will is sufficient.
Besides, I’m not implying that God DOES exist. I’m using a conditional: IF He exists (as described), THEN he would be an evil being, but by definition He cannot be an evil being, THEREFORE He does NOT exist (as described).
Stop calling people who disagree with you ignorant. It’s rude, and it’s stupid, and in this case you could not be more wrong.
The choice is yours. You know good and well Christianity is reasonable, even though you deny it. This is your ‘choice’, if you go to hell, that was your ‘choice’. You see, hell is not so much of a pain as the pain of eternal loniness, seperation from God.
Furthermore as an atheist. That statement was meant to say as if you are an atheist, or to be an atheist, so on.
Yes you do need ground outside yourself, otherwise there is no law, only moral opinions, it’s only relative.
Lol, if God exist you must read him in context, if God exist you must trust that his will is good. That he is just, for what reason to you is God evil? He gives you a choice, it’s called free will. Free will. Free willx infinity, can’t stress how important that is.
You can’t call that which makes the moral law, a breaker of his own moral law, thus he can change it whenever. I’m not saying he has, but something that can see further, has more knowledge, would know what he does is evil or not. Here again you have no ground.
I’m not calling you ignorant, only stressing the importance of reading the Scripture and understanding it.
If God is the creative force or energy, then he is in fact the universe as he is all the things he creates like Love and Truth. The difference with humans is the choice mechanism, nothing else has the choice to forsake him and for good reason as he is looking for worthy companionship.
Now, how cold it be better designed?
No it does not, it warns you about not submitting to the Truth and explains the consequences and God gave you every tool and filled you with the ability to see this Truth and choose wisely. To refuse this Truth is to say that you choose to make your own and be God, so good luck with that when you get separated from he who gave you all the good gifts this life has to offer.
If I told a child that it was dangerous to play in the street and the consequences could kill him would that be a threat?
Do you have kids?
If you do and one of them spat in your face and told you to F-off and he didn’t want anything to do with you and all that you did for his was crap and worthless and ran away to live on his own to a place where you couldn’t find him, could you still help him or get him out of trouble? Could you save him from dieing an unnatural death from his foolishness? Could you make him do what’s best for him? Could you make him Love you the way you Love him?
Oh how you misunderstand God, and for no good reason but what others say and do. Do you always believe what someone says about someone you’ve never met? Do you judge a stranger for what others represent him as?
That’s simply different language saying the same thing. Christian doctrine threatens non-Christians with eternal torture. That belief is incompatible with freedom of thought.
So, that’s what you think a Muslim does? Or a Buddhist? Or a Neopagan? Or a believer of any other non-Christian religion? I don’t think those people would agree with you.
No, but that’s not a good comparison. A better comparison is telling a child not to play with Daddy’s shoes, or you’ll kill them.
You completely missed the point. I DON’T believe God is what Christians say He is. I DON’T believe God is evil. Therefore I DON’T believe in the Christian God.
I do NOT “know” (or even believe) that Christianity is remotely reasonable, and if I had any doubt on that score, your posts would cure me of it.
Slightly better. However, we’re not talking about a wilful separation from God here, only a wilful separation from Christianity. If that results in a separation from God, then that is God’s choice, not mine. And it makes Him just as evil, which I don’t believe.
I guess my self-respect is a little higher than yours, then. I can accept that my moral judgments are not statements of fact, and therefore cannot be true or false; that they are assertions of my will. I don’t believe that removes my right to make them. I’m not a little boy who has to go by what Daddy says. I’m an adult, and make my own judgments.
More to the point, what I’m really doing here is comparing my own moral judgment to that expressed, not by God, but by Christians. What Christians say about God is what they believe to be good. But it is quite clear to me, and frankly to anyone else with unblinded moral judgment, willing to address the issue honestly, that what Christians say about God is monstrously evil.
The question is not whether God’s will is good, but whether Christianity, in describing that will, has a clue. And it is perfectly valid to look at the God described by Christianity, realize that if God really is like that then He is monstrously evil, and conclude that no, Christianity doesn’t have a clue.
Oh, sure, there’s a “choice.” “Obey these utterly unfair, idiotic, and barbarous restrictions. Hamstring your mind and believe what is patent nonsense, or at least pretend to. Do this, or I’ll torture you for all eternity.”
Please. Anyone giving these commands is an evil, monstrous tyrant; that the person given them has the “free will” to disobey is completely irrelevant.
You are calling me ignorant by implying that I haven’t read Scripture. And I am quite certain, after reading your posts, that I do understand it, far better than you do. Mainly because, if you begin with the idea that everything in it is true, and refuse ever to question that idea, then you cripple your ability ever to understand it. Understanding, after all, requires critical thinking, and that is something no Biblical inerrantist can ever do towards the Bible.
The God-that-is-tied-to-the-system that you mention here seems to resemble the immanent God that Navigator mentioned. While I am not opposed to the idea of such an immanent being existing I do consider such a being highly unparsimonious. If God is so intimately integrated into the system that God vs. Non-God becomes indistinguishable, then why add God into the equation at all?
As for what you describe in the second portion, yes, I can see where that could be possible, but it doesn’t really make sense to me. While I can certainly distinguish between self and non-self, I don’t see how anything can be apart from the Universe. Once again, to me that destroys the holism that seems so very apparent to me. That is, of course, a faith-based statement, so I could be mistaken on that.
Xunzian
Well, I think that's the difficulty of defining the Universe as a system, and then seeing what lays outside of it. It's all in how we set it up to begin with. For me, the Universe consists of my thoughts, feelings, memories, and so on, which I know very well, and that weird 'stuff' that I stub my toe on, about which I know very little. I'm exaggerating, and being symbolic here, but the point is, if you see the mental as key, or central, then a Mind at the top of the food chain seems parsimonious indeed. If on the other hand, you consider consciousness to be primarily a sort of irrelevant residue the brain gives off as is does its work, then God is definitely a fifth wheel.
So, one person says that God doesn’t fit with a Universe like this. The other person says the universe isn’t like that.
I think it's more of a perspective thing, than a faith thing. Where do you see consciousness as fitting in, with the Universe? Is it a little thing, Everything, something in between? To my mind, the bigger of a deal you make of consciousness, the more things like free-will, morality, humor and the like point to the notion that consciousness is at the top. But yes, I think a big part of it comes down to that where you see holism, I see duality.
So you might as well be a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim or a Jew.
And double them? Nah…
Haha.
New question instead of Why atheism, how about Where atheism??? Where does Atheism lead. Lets see if it’s not right down the crapper.
It is an end, not a means. A better question might be “where antitheism” which at least has some sort of ideology/goal.
How nihilistic that must be… sad to me. Yes, where anti-theism, has a goal but what then? and then?
antitheism is the opposite side of the same coin. A better rephrasing of the original question would be “where no-religion?”; as in where would humanity head towards with no religion? The things which theism offers would have to be considered, then what the world would be without them. Personally, I don’t see one thing that theism offers that the world cannot do without; except for a projection of what we think perfection is.
Why is there such a need to declare God -not God? God as an explanation of the universe seems just as reasonable as the universe explained as itself. Either way. it is an explanation that remains a construct of mind. It seems to me that the grind is in how the constructs play out in daily living. If there is a God, then how we act out should be the criteria of “right” living and understanding. If there isn’t a God, the criteria remains the same.
I guess I could be wrong. Probably am. Excuse me. I’ll leave.
Next to last sentence agreed. Last sentence, well, you can’t know the criteria can you?
Nope. we create and construct our own criteria - and in both cases. Assigning attributes to God(s) isn’t any different than our explanations of black holes where the"known laws of physics may not apply". All our our theist, non-theist explanations may be useful explanations, but they may not be connected to the reality of what is. Language works within a narrow set of rules of grammar and context. This alone creates the first dilemma. The aprehension of reality is but through the tiniest perspective using tools inadequate to the job. Trying to stuff the universe in the language box is an onerous, perhaps impossible chore.
But hey, it’s fun trying.