Arguing about what a god would or would not do seems pretty ridiculous with no evidence of a god existing in the first place. By making arguments about the nature of the imagined god, you're simply just indulging in someone else's fantasy.

Not swearing is simple, but it doesn't change my stance and point.

I am not saying ALL believers are brain damaged, but honestly the more deeply you believe in these fairy tales the less rational you are and chances are the less intelligent you are.

I've known friends that are in med school too and they are deeply devoted. But a lot of them ended up being believers due to lost of love ones when they are young and the church slipped in for comfort. It's conditioned into their head and as irrational and crazy as the whole religion sounds, they would like to believe there is a heaven and one day they could see their dead parents EVEN THOUGH they know they have no proofs and even their own professional fields point to the contrary.

It's hard to show respect for religion as a whole when it's so full of crap and their believers are spewing unreasonable shits and forcing the rest of the world to play along.

A fantasy, a good lie, a drug, or a nightmare? I reject them not because of the lack of proof but get turned off by their own inconsistencies. Not just Christianity but all religions I come across.

It's good to understand religion a little in my opinion, as they are disgustingly powerful.

However, that doesn't make them right, nor should we give them the unconditional respect. Yes, we give the people the regard and care, but not the painfully obvious lies.

When I see pastors and monks, I don't not see evil beings, I see lost and confused victims who lost their ability to think rationally. I see naive people used.

A very good movie called Marjoe made in 1972, an academy award winner, uncovering how nasty this religion business is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/monkeymi.../0/g-O9aNl2Xrk

Pale Blue Dot
 

If you love God you will give him your foreskin.

See, this is why I can not look at religion as nothing more than a sales pitch.

Look at how long all that song and dance before the punch line. But like observer said, a gift is a gift is a gift, which unfortunately, in a Christian's case is an absolute lie. It's not a gift if their are draconian terms and conditions tied to it.

Why do you think people tune out religious people almost immediately when they're out sharing? Is it because they sound ridiculously parrallel to this:

"Congratulations, you have won $1 Million Dollars. Now all you have to do, is solve this complex mathematical question, send us a downpayment of $20,000 to release your funds, and lastly provide us your personal info and account information, for Direct Deposit not personal reason :rolleyes:."

But wait, that's just technique #1. There's also technique #2: Guilt trip mofos to compliance, which works well for teens to young adults; "God loves us but we hurt him everyday with our sins :rolleyes:" "We are sinners by nature, we are not worthy of his gift unless we do X variable"

Or best one yet, technique #3 which best works for kids: "outright fear / bribery"

"If you do not do X, you will forever burn and tormented by millions of demons in a lake of fire where your worst nightmares are a daily reality"

"whereas if you DO "X", you will be given mansions of gold, sunshine and lollipop happiness for the rest of your life"




So you see, Christians can talk about calculators, parental analogies, foxholes, life or death experiences to try and coax, justify and euphemize what their intentions are but in reality, the real reality, is that everyone else see's through all that fancy talk and see's either of the above 3 scams.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that non-believers can easily reach out and learn that we are not the only ones who seriously question religious beliefs.

There are so many brilliant scientists and thinkers who share our secular, naturalistic worldviews.

Faith healing anyone?

I don't know why a lot of you seem to have negativity towards Christianity. Maybe it was because of the mistakes that were made in the name of the religion historically. Maybe it is something that had happened to you guys personally.

I can see if someone disagrees with Christianity, but I don't see just disagreement from some of you. I see hatred. When it gets that that point, there is certainly something going on personally. You don't get to hatred unless it affects you personally.

Regardless, all it comes down to is trust, wouldn't you agree? Where do you place your trust? I choose to place it in a God to fix this screwed up world. You choose to place it in other human beings (e.g. scientists) to fix this screwed up world. Am I understanding this correctly?

What draconian terms and conditions from the Bible are you referring to? I only see one criteria and that's believe. As I've already quoted from the Bible, it doesn't require any works.

If someone gives you a gift by placing it on the table in front of you, you have to believe that it is free and then take it from the table before you actually receive it, right? Or do you mean that the person should just shove it into your hands? I see the act of taking the gift the same as believing. Maybe that's where we don't agree?

I'm seriously confused, but what intentions are you referring to? What exactly does a Christian get from trying to share their believe with someone else? If there is some reward I get for sharing Christianity, I have certainly been in the dark about it!

Wow, don't even know your own religion so well! Stop going on revscene and listen to God's word.

Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.





You should be baptizing and converting everyone you know. If you TRULY believed that doing this would save people from a horrible existence in the afterlife, you would devote your life doing so. But you're not.

Anyway, you're perceiving questioning of Christianity as 'hatred'. It's time to wake up. We live in the 21st century where people don't get killed in the name of 'heresy' for speaking up against their ill-logic and sheer nonsense of Christianity (and other religion).

Religion has been given a free pass from scrutiny for FAR too long. People are starting to apply critical thinking to religion, and I think most people agree that this is a good thing.

If you knew more about your own religion and how it is organized, you'd know why a lot of people hate it.

Ok, maybe that's where we can agree to disagree. I think it's fair to punish the people who choose to do wrong even though God created them and knows they would do wrong. The point of my analogy was to show that the "created" is responsible for their own choices and not the "creator".

Would it be the same as saying it isn't anything for a rich man to give to the poor man? Or a dying man giving his life for someone else since he's dying anyways? I find what you mentioned the same as these cases. Maybe that's were we disagree also, because I don't see the scarcity or immortality being significant. I care only about the intention.

Whereas you see believe as a condition for the gift, I see it as a logical step to the acceptance of the gift. For me, it's logical that I need to believe that the gift exists, before I can receive it. The other things you mentioned about coercion and rules do not exist in the Bible. It might exist when people twist Christianity into a tool for their own use.

It's so saddening for me to see that so many people are turned away from Christianity, because of mistakes and misuse by religion.

Its pretty difficult to avoid religion, God is even mentioned in our national anthem.

Not to go off on a tangent but did anyone else have to recite the Lord's Prayer in public school at the start of each day?

I had to do this in my grade 1 class in 1987-88 even though I was raised an atheist (well more so provided with various viewpoints from books and such and left to figure it out on my own and David Suzuki was my favourite). The words of the prayer had no meaning to me and I recall a sikh girl and myself making faces at each other or drawing stuff like boobs on our chalkboards, trying not to get caught by our teacher. I never had to recite it in kindergarten or in the grades following.

I do know somewhat about the history. I took a full-day course in it. Although, I have to admit, I sort of fell asleep at the end of the course haha... I was mostly interested in how it all began, because that was the exciting part.

I know what you're saying though... there was a lot of misuse of the believe by people to gain power. They really screwed up Christianity. I hope there is some way that all those wrongs can be made right, because Christianity in itself is not like how those people portray it to be.

Pally777, we non-believers are really not that different from you, we just happen to distrust one more religion than yourself.

If you picture how you view Buddhism and Muslim or Taoism, you'll begin to understand our distrust.

I think I can safely speak for others here, we just find Christianity a little unrealistic, maybe there is no easy way to fix this world, but the solution certainly doesn't seem to lie with this God we wish for.

Nice try on making it personal. I didn't know I was being scrutinized here, because I thought we were talking about Christianity not me being a Christian personally.

I'm certainly doing those things with people who want to learn about Christianity. I do not, however, force it upon anyone. You are free to believe in whatever you'd like.

You really need to stop personalizing this debate even though you are very good at trying to do that.

To follow your real world analogy, if I want my child to do well, I will try my best to give my child everything, it doesn't whether he or she accepts me.

Would I want him/her to thank me 24/7? I think not. If I had the almighty power, I'll make everyone go straight to heaven.

As a Christian, of course you find it sad that people turn away from Christianity, just like Buddhists and Muslims find it sad that people don't accept their faith.

Don't be sad. With different cultures in the world, it is impossible for all to have the same faith, perhaps science and rationalism is the solution, critical thinking unites human beings and elevates them from petty superstition.

Let's be honest, all religion is about is alien sightings and regular people trying to make sense of it!!!!

I'm merely pointing out your own hypocrisy. And way to address nothing I said.

It's always the fuckin' non-believers, such as yourself, that think they know what we (Christians) should be, or should not be doing. Up yours, buddy. Although, spreading the Gospel is important, Jesus himself emphasizes the most important commandment is to love God with everything in your being, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If we fail sometimes, it's no big deal, we've still got that salvation.

What you're saying is that I'm a bad Christian, so Christianity is bad?
That's like saying if I'm a bad hockey player, then hockey is bad in general. Does that even make sense?

The practitioner does not represent how good/bad the practice is. You should be scrutinizing the practice independent of its practitioner if you're trying to be objective, logical or scientific.

I was referring to this quote in context:


But no matter.

Anyway, this IRONY of your statement is really hilarious. I wanted to fail you, but you are a mod :D.


Here's a list of things that Christians/Catholic REGULARLY tell the WORLD what they should or should not be doing.

-You should be against abortion, pro-life. (The fuck? A woman has the right to her own BODY, thank you.)
-Marriage should only be between one man and one woman. Gay marriage is wrong. (Often, these preachers don't realize that gay marriage has ZERO consequences in their life.)
-You should NOT TEACH evolution in schools and teach creationism
-You should go to Church
-You're going to hell
-Masturbating is a sin.
-Using a condom is a sin (if you're catholic) this one particularly enrages me.


etc.

So no, its up YOURS. (well, your religion, particularly).

Ok, let's look at your recent comments..





How many times did you say "I", "I", "I". The post was all about yourself and what YOU understand, so of course it was going to be personal!

Anyway, I'm done replying. It's no fun to talk about advance hockey strategies with someone who doesn't know the game very well, unless they want to find out more about their own game.

So when you tell them more about their own game, they suddenly get offended that they don't know much. Your analogy between religion and hockey is sorta ridiculous too.

lol, this is what happens when you read a couple of passages out of Bible and nothing else.