Time to Talk about Religion

[MrWonka]

using your logic we cannot trust anything that anyone says. A judge says the matter R Vs. W was been decided, but you don't believe him

Donald Trump has told more blatant lies in the last year and a half than every single solitary president in U.S. History combined. If Trump was the boy who cried wolf, the townsfolk would have let him get eaten a good two years ago.

If you think that a judge nominated for the Supreme court is going to honestly tell us what long-standing precedents he plans to overturn you're even less intelligent than I thought.

Evangelicals voted for this piece of **** for one reason and one reason only, and if you think for one second he would nominate a judge that won't do exactly what his base wants you're smoking some funky ass ****.

Hillary said she didn't know having a server in her basement wasn't against protocol, I don't believe her

Yes, we know that. That's one of the excuses you came with for not voting for her, but you see saying you didn't know something wasn't a crime isn't a defense. Prosecutors don't care. They look at what the evidence suggests. In the case of Hillary, the evidence suggests she really didn't think it was a problem, and there really wasn't anything on there that mattered. That's why she wasn't charged.

Now, with the supreme court pick we have to look at his past rulings and who picked him. Given that all these past rules show him to be a right-wing nut, and given that he was chosen by a president who was only elected by Evangelicals for the purposes of putting anti-abortion judges on the court it's not hard to see what he truly believes.

Obama said, the affordable care act was affordable, so he was lying too

Nope. We don't have to take Obama's word for it we can look at the facts. The facts show that the ACA did, in fact, expand affordable coverage to millions while reducing the overall costs of healthcare to the country. A few people saw their rates go up a bit, but only because their coverage before was horse****.

 

[MrWonka]

Don't drop the ball now --- this is too important!

Based on what I can tell you're a woman. The repercussions of RvW being overturned will be felt by you not me. Given how dire the consequences are for you, maybe you should try being a little more open-minded. If there weren't legitimate reasons to be concerned about this then there's no reason for a man trying to help you understand them.

 

[Josie]

Based on what I can tell you're a woman. The repercussions of RvW being overturned will be felt by you not me. Given how dire the consequences are for you, maybe you should try being a little more open-minded. If there weren't legitimate reasons to be concerned about this then there's no reason for a man trying to help you understand them.

When are you going to present the facts so you can rally people to your side? This is incredibly important, isn't it? Dire consequences, you said.

Why are you waiting? Say it!

Save us! Save Fantasia!

 

[MrWonka]

When are you going to present the facts]

When you demonstrate a willingness to listen to them.

 

[Dragonfly]

A thread titled “Time to talk about religion”, started by an atheist? Now that’s funny.

So your assumption is that atheists don't, or can't know anything about religion?

Quite the "head buried in the sand" generalization.

 

[BuzzwordBingo]

So your assumption is that atheists don't, or can't know anything about religion?

Quite the "head buried in the sand" generalization.

Not my assumption at all. I just think it’s funny.

 

[zyzygy]

Not my assumption at all. I just think it’s funny.

Believers here start threads about atheism. Do you find that funny too?

 

[Dragonfly]

Believers here start threads about atheism. Do you find that funny too?

How many threads about Islam have Christians started? I wonder if that's funny as well?

 

[Daisy]

Not my assumption at all. I just think it’s funny.

Yeah, who wastes their time and energy talking about a subject that holds no interest for them?

 

[X Factor]

You sure did when Obama was President.

I did? I don’t even remember you posting during the last administration.

 

[lefty louie]

Donald Trump has told more blatant lies in the last year and a half than every single solitary president in U.S. History combined. If Trump was the boy who cried wolf, the townsfolk would have let him get eaten a good two years ago.

If you think that a judge nominated for the Supreme court is going to honestly tell us what long-standing precedents he plans to overturn you're even less intelligent than I thought.

Evangelicals voted for this piece of **** for one reason and one reason only, and if you think for one second he would nominate a judge that won't do exactly what his base wants you're smoking some funky ass ****.


Yes, we know that. That's one of the excuses you came with for not voting for her, but you see saying you didn't know something wasn't a crime isn't a defense. Prosecutors don't care. They look at what the evidence suggests. In the case of Hillary, the evidence suggests she really didn't think it was a problem, and there really wasn't anything on there that mattered. That's why she wasn't charged.

Now, with the supreme court pick we have to look at his past rulings and who picked him. Given that all these past rules show him to be a right-wing nut, and given that he was chosen by a president who was only elected by Evangelicals for the purposes of putting anti-abortion judges on the court it's not hard to see what he truly believes.



Nope. We don't have to take Obama's word for it we can look at the facts. The facts show that the ACA did, in fact, expand affordable coverage to millions while reducing the overall costs of healthcare to the country. A few people saw their rates go up a bit, but only because their coverage before was horse****.

Me thinks there is something wrong with you, in that sense and fact escape you. I think we are about done here.

 

[Hawkins]

Wake yourself up before you try to wake others up.

Religion is about an advocate of a future. Humans don't have the capability to confirm its true or false. So it's pointless to ask people stop speculating what could possibly lying ahead affecting their own lives while you don't have the ability to confirm a future.

The fundamental difference between Santa Claus/Zeus and Christianity is that Santa Claus and Zeus are in lack of valid accounts of human testimonies. While serious accounts of human testimonies (instead of evidence) are the way how humans approach a truth of any kind. History is history simply because we have faith that they are serious accounts of testimonies. History is easier to accept simply because by nature it is the recording of human activities thus comprehendable to humans.

 

[MrWonka]

Humans don't have the capability to confirm its true or false.

Yeah, actually we do. It's called the law of non-contradiction. Religions are full of them. Once you realize that the big ones are bull****, it becomes painfully obvious that the rest of them are too.

So it's pointless to ask people stop speculating

Yeah, see the fact that you're forced to speculate at all is in and of itself one of the single most obvious reasons you know it's bull****.

The fundamental difference between Santa Claus/Zeus and Christianity is that Santa Claus and Zeus are in lack of valid accounts of human testimonies.

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!

Are you serious? You do realize that every year Norad tracks Santas sleigh right? Have you ever read "Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus?" My mom used to tell me all the time that she thought she saw Santa peeking through the window.

There is absolutely no reason for you to take the word of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John over the word of your parents. In the days of Zeus you know damn well there were people who claimed to have seen him. If you would have asked all of David Koresh's followers about him they would have told you unequivocally that he was the son of god. In fact, there is probably more historical evidence to confirm the existence of the profit Muhammad than there actually is of Jesus.

History is history simply because we have faith that they are serious accounts of testimonies.

Yes, but to determine which accounts to trust and which ones not to we also have to look into the context and biases of the people telling these stories. If Jesus existed at all he was almost certainly a cult leader. His followers would undoubtedly tell you just about anything to make him seem like a real god. There are absolutely no independently verifiable historical records to prove that Jesus was even a person. In fact, the stories attributed to him are remarkably similar to the stories told about the God Horus in Egyptian culture.

It is a well-known fact that early Christians adopted many aspects of paganism in order to try and lure Roman Soldiers to their religion. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest Jesus was born on Dec 25th. The date was only chosen to coincide with the winter solstice.

History is easier to accept simply because by nature it is the recording of human activities thus comprehensible to humans.

Yeah, where we get a little hazy though is when you start telling stories about magical beings that sound early similar to other known mythology and legend and then use your supposed specialized knowledge of them to obtain power over the people.

Have you ever played the game Telephone? It's where you sit in a circle and pass a secret message around by whispering it in the next person's ear. By the time it gets around the circle it's almost always radically different than the one that was originally told.

Why would a God with the power to appear directly in front of everyone choose to only give this message to a tiny handful of people, and then rely on them to go around telling everyone without altering it in any way? Why does the Christian God allow there to be so many different versions of Christianity? If he truly is omnipotent then he has to know that huge swaths of the population aren't going to receive the correct version of his word, and be manipulated into following horrible versions of it doesn't he? How can he then justify punishing them for failure to comply with instructions that he made so ridiculously difficult to follow?

 

[truthatallcost]

Lovely, but we wouldn't need charity in the first place if Christians weren't blocking our attempts to reform our social safety net. The reason? Because Christians love to use their religion as an excuse to convert people. Lure them in with bread and water and then once they are there you can proselytize. Truly good people are willing to help without the brainwashing.

There are plenty of homeless people who receive social benefits. Addiction, mental illness, and in some cases increasing rents are the reason for homelessness, not Christianity. You're really reaching to the moon to blame Christians for homelessness.

Christians are like nice guys who are only nice to a girl in order to get her to sleep with them. If they can't get laid they any longer want to help. I've often said that one of the most altruistic things you can do in life is shut up and pay your taxes. All too often charity is used as a PR tool. Make yourself seem generous by giving away small amounts of money that you don't really need. But taxes? You don't get to chose whether you pay them or not so you can't brag about the fact that you did it.

You're conflating your narrow view of Christians with the 200 million or so people who identify as Christians. If the Mike Pence type of Christians are your ideal of what a Christian is, maybe you need to research the subject more, get out and actually meet the Christians serving the homeless.

But they're also the ones preventing the government from just building a homeless shelter where those homeless people could get the same benefits without being proselytized.

So Christians are the only people who oppose building homeless shelters?

But I digress. The goal of this thread isn't to discuss the positives and negatives of religion. It's to discuss the accuracy of it. With hundreds of religions throughout history, it is pure arrogance to assume that any of them are actually accurate at all. Why would a god who could snap his fingers and speak directly to his people waste his time spreading his message via the worlds longest game of telephone?

That is the quandary people have struggled with for hundreds of years; if God exists, then why do problems exist. You're focusing on what you dislike about religion, and not considering whether the world benefits by it, which it definitely does.

 

[MrWonka]

There are plenty of homeless people who receive social benefits. Addiction, mental illness, and in some cases increasing rents are the reason for homelessness, not Christianity. You're really reaching to the moon to blame Christians for homelessness.

I'm not blaming Christians for homelessness, I'm saying they use homelessness as an excuse to proselytize and make themselves look good.

You're conflating your narrow view of Christians with the 200 million or so people who identify as Christians. If the Mike Pence type of Christians are your ideal of what a Christian is

No, I'm not. Unlike Conservative Christians, I'm more than aware that it's a broad group. In this case, I'm specifically referring to conservative Christians. The Evangelicals who got Trump elected.

So Christians are the only people who oppose building homeless shelters?

In America.... pretty much yeah.

That is the quandary people have struggled with for hundreds of years; if God exists, then why do problems exist.

It's not a struggle. The answer is obvious. God doesn't exist.

You're focusing on what you dislike about religion, and not considering whether the world benefits from it

This discussion isn't about whether the world benefits from religion, it's about whether or not any religions are actually true. They are not.

which it definitely does.

But if you want to talk about that fine. No, the world most definitely does not benefit from religions. Not Christianity, certainly not Islam. Religion is yet another excuse to divide ourselves and hate each other. Muslims, Christians, Jews... you're all murdering each other over which version of the magical sky being is the right one when in reality there is not sky monster at all.

Religions allow evil people to manipulate and control millions with no rational basis for it. You're just supposed to take it on faith that we need to kill these people, and that God will reward you for it in the afterlife. "The meek shall inherit the earth." "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven." Bull****. If I was a rich asshole that's exactly what I would want the masses of poor people to believe. They'll tell you anything to try and keep the masses from rising up and taking all their property.

Rich asshole Republicans want a strong military and police to protect their insane wealth. But they don't want to actually pay for it so they convince you to give them tax cuts under the guise of job creation.

Religions are the single greatest scam in the history of the world.

 

[truthatallcost]

I'm not blaming Christians for homelessness, I'm saying they use homelessness as an excuse to proselytize and make themselves look good.

They've also gotten homeless people off the streets by helping them turn their lives around. You can't accurately say that the only reason Christians help the homeless is for self serving reasons because it simply isn't true.

No, I'm not. Unlike Conservative Christians, I'm more than aware that it's a broad group. In this case, I'm specifically referring to conservative Christians. The Evangelicals who got Trump elected.

OK, but are they really the biggest threat to the United States? Has your rights been infringed upon since Trump was elected?

In America.... pretty much yeah.

So Christians both operate a large number of the homeless shelters in the USA, while also opposing homeless shelters. :doh

California is currently the state with the biggest homeless problem, and our state government doesn't include many evangelical Christians. Why aren't there enough homeless shelters in California?

It's not a struggle. The answer is obvious. God doesn't exist.

That's your opinion. I can't prove God exists, can you prove he doesn't?

But if you want to talk about that fine. No, the world most definitely does not benefit from religions. Not Christianity, certainly not Islam. Religion is yet another excuse to divide ourselves and hate each other. Muslims, Christians, Jews... you're all murdering each other over which version of the magical sky being is the right one when in reality there is not sky monster at all.

Religions allow evil people to manipulate and control millions with no rational basis for it. You're just supposed to take it on faith that we need to kill these people, and that God will reward you for it in the afterlife. "The meek shall inherit the earth." "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven." Bull****. If I was a rich asshole that's exactly what I would want the masses of poor people to believe. They'll tell you anything to try and keep the masses from rising up and taking all their property.

Rich asshole Republicans want a strong military and police to protect their insane wealth. But they don't want to actually pay for it so they convince you to give them tax cuts under the guise of job creation.

Religions are the single greatest scam in the history of the world.

Religion has historically been used for both good and evil. There's definitely been plenty of evil done in the name of Christianity, but is that still the case in 2018? The Westboro Baptist Church consists of 70 people, yet they've been used to sell advertising on cable news shows for at least a decade. Who benefits from them? Certainly not the WBC, which only pushes people away from Christianity with their message.

 

[MrWonka]

They've also gotten homeless people off the streets by helping them turn their lives around.

We don't need Christianity for that. Regular old government programs can do the same thing without the proselytizing.

OK, but are they really the biggest threat to the United States? Have your rights been infringed upon since Trump was elected?

Yes, actually. Muslim Terrorists may want to destroy America, but realistically they can't do it from the outside. They don't have the power. It is Evangelicals who put a fascist in the White House. They can tear us apart from the inside. That makes them the greater threat.

So Christians both operate a large number of the homeless shelters in the USA, while also opposing homeless shelters.

Correct. They oppose homeless shelters unless they are allowed full control over them so they can use them for the purposes of proselytization. They don't do it for the good of the homeless they do it for their own good.

California is currently the state with the biggest homeless problem, and our state government doesn't include many evangelical Christians. Why aren't there enough homeless shelters in California?

There are, the weather is just nice enough there that many don't need them. Why do you think so many Homeless people choose to go to California and Seattle instead of a state with all these Christian homeless shelters you speak of?

That's your opinion. I can't prove God exists, can you prove he doesn't?

Yes, I can. You won't accept it, but I can. In fact, whether you realize it or not your inability to prove he exists is in and of itself a massive part of that proof that he doesn't.

Religion has historically been used for both good and evil. There's definitely been plenty of evil done in the name of Christianity, but is that still the case in 2018?

There are currently 3000 children who were stolen from their mothers, locked in cages and given drugs to keep them from crying because Evangelical Christians hate Mexicans.

There are currently thousands of refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern countries desperately trying to escape who can't because Evangelical Christians banned them.

If you're gay or trans your basic human right to choose who you spend the rest of your life with and which bathroom you choose is in jeopardy.

If you're a woman your basic human right to control your own reproductive organs is in serious Jeopardy.

Evangelical Christians want all-out war with the Muslim world. If Trump randomly decided to nuke Tehran today Evangelical Christians would cheer with joy. If you don't believe that you're delusional.

 

[MrWonka]

Religion has historically been used for both good and evil.

Why doesn't your god stop that? If he loves you, why would he let evil men use him to manipulate good people into doing terrible things? Does he not have the power to stop it?

If God really wants you to follow his commandments why doesn't he do a better job of making sure everyone knows he exists? Why is he hiding? If I had a rule I wanted my child to follow, and I saw them breaking it, I would step in immediately and correct them wouldn't you? Why would a God trust his word to be put through the planets longest game of Telephone in order to get to our ears when he himself has the power to appear before us and tell it to us first hand?

Over the centuries people have worshiped thousands of other gods that you know full well didn't exist. Why is it so hard to accept the possibility that yours doesn't either?