So, essentially... you're a better person than people who are religious... because you don't need religion?
Arrogant attitude.
And I will repeat it as that's what you've described. People who cannot handle reality, especially when they have to invent make-believe nonsense or buy into someone else's make-believe nonsense, are pathetic, stupid losers. If one cannot come up with a rational, intellectual purpose for their lives that doesn't involve bowing down to imaginary friends in the sky, or cannot be a decent human being without such beliefs, why shouldn't we see them that way?
No, they just chose to believe that nonsense. I happen to hold people rationally accountable for their decisions. It doesn't matter what meaning they find, it matter what mind-poison they accept into their heads. Someone might find meaning in the writing of J.K. Rowling, that doesn't mean they are justified in believing in magic and Hogwarts.
I'll agree that religion is a control mechanism, I just question whether it's a positive one. It's the ultimate bait and switch, demanding that you act a certain way for a reward that you only supposedly get after you're dead and can't come back and tell anyone if you were scammed. However, the same people who believe in the "good" that supposedly comes from religion also tend to follow the bad. Homophobia, racism, hatred, violence, etc. are all end-results that can come from religion. When you open your mind to things that you have no good, rational reason to believe, you also open your mind to all sorts of mind-poisons and other irrational things to come flooding in. The same people who embrace gods embrace superstitions at a much higher level. Rejecting critical thinking in one area of your life lessens the chance that you will use it overall. When emotional comfort becomes the standard for belief, then anything that brings emotional comfort, no matter how absurd it may be, becomes acceptable.
That's what I object to.
If you believe in a supreme being who made the whole world and universe, wouldn't Noah living 900 years and the whole ark thing not seem that far fetched?
1) There is no "atheist point of view". Atheism is a single position on a single question: do you believe god(s) exist. You can't get from "I don't believe god exists" to "therefore a man could not live 900 years or ..."
2) I do NOT claim that it is impossible for:
A) a man to live 900 years
B) a man to build a boat big enough to house practically every land dwelling animal on the planet
C) a man to gather every land dwelling animal on the planet
D) a man to feed, house, and keep these animals from eating each other
E) a man to redistribute all those animals
What I DO claim is that there is ZERO reason to believe these things did occur. That there is ZERO reason to accept these tales as factual history. Do you understand the difference?
Because even if you believe in a god who is capable of making all those things happen, you still have no reason to believe they actually did except for hear-say, opinion, and holy-book tales.
Even IF a god exists, it doesn't mean he actually did any of those things. Even IF a god exists, it doesn't mean that the tale of Noah is anything more than a myth or legend.
No. If you are gullible and credulous then you will accept those things without analyzing them critically.
Being a Christian doesn't mean you have to turn your brain off. It doesn't mean you have to believe everything written in a 2000+ year old book is literal and factual history. God gave you a brain. USE IT!
People who cannot handle reality, especially when they have to invent make-believe nonsense or buy into someone else's make-believe nonsense, are pathetic, stupid losers.
I agree, but there hundreds of millions out there who have made religion the most important part of their lives, and their belief is as real to them as their arms and legs. Of course you and I and millions of others don't believe in it, but that doesn't mean belief has no positive values.
AA needs to evoke God to kick the habit, same with drug addicts, including my two daughters, countless others get peace of mind, and still others are mysteriously healed through prayer...
Hatuey said:Are you saying that without religion mankind would not be able to be racist, sexist, homophobic etc? I find that hard to believe. As hollow as religious belief may be, it has both harmed very many people but helped just as many. The greatest minds of our time were religious. Newton, Einstein, Caesar, King, etc. These people not only rejected the negative trappings of religion and piety, they also made great contributions. If anything religion is preservation of culture. What I find negative about it is the hollowness of religious actions. I don't mind if somebody does a good act in order to go to heaven, what I do mind is that they somehow consider themselves better than those who do good for its own sake.
Not quite. For some that may be true.Yes I understand your post. Basically it is I am a atheist and religious people are stupid for believing their little Harry Potter book.
absolutely false. This is a prime indication of how skin-deep your knowledge on religion and belief is.If you are really a Christian or a Jew(not a Jew in name only) then you believe those Holy book tales as facts.
almost.So your saying that even if you believe in a supreme being who created everything that somehow a man who built a boat big enough for a whole **** load of animals and live 900 hundred years is somehow far fetched?
Atheism has nothing to do with it. atheists can have extremely silly belief. E.G., scientologists, raelienists, etc.I do not think you are analyzing things critically. You are looking at this only from a perspective of a atheist and nothing more.
Because I know and understand many different religious perspectives despite being a non-believer. Some of these perspectives are far more reasonable than the dogmatic/literalist/fundamentalist/inerrantist perspective you espouse.You do not believe in God so why bring him up?
The arrogance of nonreligious people about religion never stops amazing me.
Most are not religious so they can feel more "pious" than anyone else.
Most people are not religious because they can't face reality or need a wheelchair to get through life.
Christianity is not a control mechanism. It can be used as such by evil people, but the teachings of Christ and the Bible are not a governmental system, they are for spiritual guidance.
I cannot speak for all Christians or religions, I can however speak for myself. If somehow it was proved tomorrow that God did not exist, my life would not change one bit. To assume otherwise just makes people who believe such nonsense about religious people amazingly judgmental and uninformed.
The only difference between my reality and a non religious persons reality is mine has God in it. So what???
I have no objection to people who believe the Bible is metaphorical or mythology. There is plenty of evidence that shows such a thing occurred in many different cultures. Its the literalists and the picking-and-choosing types that I find fault with.
Yes. Floods happen. No one denies that.
What is denied is that
1) a man built a wooden boat bigger than is possible by engineers today.
2) all the animals of the world lived on it
3) the entire world was flooded to the tops of mountains
4) the world and its animals was repopulated by the survivors
5) Noah lived to be 900
At that point, why not accept that "God" is symbolic for natural forces that acted over billions of years?
Just pretending that there's this father figure in the sky that's inordinately interested in your sex life is absurd.
Simply because all mythologies have a flood myth does not mean there was a flood. We need to consider that the ancient view of things was extremely narrow; they had no way of knowing what was really going on around them and a massive local flood could have seemed like the entire world had flooded.
That said, I do agree that the 'everyone' would just as well to be said 'virtually everyone'
I mean take a look at any flood in the US. Even with modern understanding, if I was there and seeing the main street through town under 20-30 feet of water I'd probably feel like the entire world had flooded.
The problem with a GLOBAL flood is there is simply no evidence to show that it happened and there is PHYSICALLY not enough water on Earth to achieve one.
The laws of physics state otherwise, a global flood would not result from any amount of water in space striking the Earth. Such an event would wipe out ALL life on Earth, Noah and the ark included. Additionally, if this did indeed happen, you would disrupt something called the triple point of water on Earth which, again, would wipe out ALL life on Earth.
Furthermore, if we suspended enough laws of physics for this to be possible, the land would still all be flooded. The water wouldn't go anywhere and would still be here.
To be religious is to be pious. And nobody can has claimed otherwise. Nor as anyone claimed what you're stating above.
Of course they do. That's the entire point of religion. To make you believe there is some ultimate goal to your actions.
10 commandments say differently.
I doubt this is true. Mostly because you are asking for negative proof.
God does not exist anymore than my daughter's imaginary friend does. When she grows up, that imaginary friend will disappear.
You are fully grown up and still need that friend. The difference is not between you and the non-religious. The difference is between you and adults.
Would Jesus give a tax gift to the ultra wealthy? Or would he spare the unemployed and help THEM?:fueltofir
I did not say being pius was not. I said to be more pius than someone else. And someone did say just that in this thread.
Religion at it's base is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe.
Has nothing to do with needing a crutch. My statement also had nothing to do with any ultimate goal.
That is the Old Testament law for God's chosen people. For them it was a governmental system.
Now please point out where we as Christians are called by the New Testament to set up a theocracy?
Until you can show this, my statement stands as true.
Christianity is not a control mechanism.
Please point out what in my life would need to change??? It's not like you know, but I can tell you I do.
Now negative proof or not does not change the fact of my statement.
You are welcome to your opinion. It does not make it right, but you are welcome to it. :mrgreen:
Again, it is your opinion and little more.
The difference between you and I is I don't have to insult your intelligence to state my case.
They speak of THE flood or of a flood or multiple floods?Hope you don't mind, but I have a question. The Epic of Gilgamesh from Syria, the indigenousness peoples of the Southwestern plains, the indigenous peoples of Mexico and South America, and many others, all speak of the flood.
Absolutely nothing.The question is, what makes the Hebrew version more credible than the others?
Tends to happen with floods.Ok, but these floods have a few things that are eerily similar :
- Massive casualties of most everyone
Again, tends to happen with floods.- The sudden onset
Not really unusual for a rainy season.- Weeks of rain (occasionally mixed with fire) coming down
And what about the warnings to people that DONT come true, those tend to be quite a bit more numerous.- THE WARNINGS FROM GOD TO SELECTED FEW
Again, not unusual for a flood.- Only the high lands survived (the bible is closer to exception for this one)
What you describe happens regardless of where a flood happens so I'd say the bolded is much more likely.So, the fact is that with this level of similarities in virtually ALL civilizations WORLD WIDE suggests that EITHER 'Noah' reflected multitudes of people and was the source for the renewal of humanity, this was when humans were much more localized and DID literally mean 'the whole world flooded' as you suggest, OR by chance there are so many stories with the same characteristics.
Ok, but where did the water GO after the flood? Did it magically disappear?To say that the oceans were at the same level today as there were at the time of the flood... the waters DID recede to allow land to return... so, IF God of the bible is a carnal being, then we would be stuck on the 'technological capacity' of god... if God is a 'force of nature that is essentially sentient' then we have to wonder if perhaps the water came from a natural force, like say a singular event that DID impact the world in a way that wasn't necessarily apparent the world over that CAUSED there to be a HUGE decrease in oceans that lead to a flood...
We know where the oceans sat and we know the technology level of when the flood is reputed to have happened.That depends on where the oceans sat at the time of the flood, the nature and powers of 'god', the 'pre-flood' technology of man, etc, etc.
If that's true, I'm going to want to see some evidence of it.Or, there's always the outside chance that 'god' was only able to drown out sections of the world at a time and so the different stories are ALL actually independent and potentially true as well...
That's comforting? What makes you think your energy will remain intact when you die and wont dissipate to thousands of other things?I'm comforted by the fact that consciousness is effectively energy resulting from neuro-chemical reactions in the brain... and that energy can never be lost or created, only transformed, therefore consciousness is infinite as the energy that creates it... so whatever the after-life is, it must exist in some sense.
I just find it fascinating. And yes, I am aware that floods happen all over the world. This particular flood, however, seems to have burned itself in to our DNA for some reason. I like to know what others think, that's all.
Yes, people treat the Bible like a science book, but it's a work of literature. Expect literary devices to be present throughout. Just because something scientifically doesn't make sense does not mean that the book is wrong.
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