“Save sex for marriage.”
Translation: “If I can’t have consequence-free sex, neither can you.”
Acceptable Response: “I pledge myself! Give me a promise ring!”
Unacceptable Response: “So how did that work out for you?” Or, “Where exactly does the Bible say that?”
“All you need to do to go to heaven is ask Jesus into your heart.”
Translation: “You’re going to burn in hell if you don’t say this prayer, little boy.”
Acceptable Response: “Dear Jesus, thank you for coming into my heart and saving me…”
Unacceptable Response: “Dear Jesus, where in the Bible do you tell us to ask you into our hearts? That seems kind weird. And why did the ancient world think the heart was the kidney? Hello? Can you hear me? I guess this is just a one-way intercom. How can I know if you’re still around if you don’t say anything back? Okay, if you’re really there, appear to me right now in person like you did to Paul.” Or, “What exactly does Jesus do in my blood-pumping organ?”
“Amen”
Translation: “Say ‘amen’ back to me!”
Acceptable Response: “Amen” or “Preach it!” combined with vigorous head nodding.
Unacceptable Response: “No!” Or, “Hmm…. That doesn’t sound right.”
“What can I pray for you about?”
Translation: “Any juicy tidbits about your life I can spread through the prayer gossip grapevine?”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks for asking. You’re so kind. My wife is having an affair, my brother is a drunk, and my dog can’t control his sexual desires.”
Unacceptable Response: “Have you ever kept a prayer journal to see if you get more unanswered prayers than answered ones, or if your unasked prayers get answered just as much?”
“I’m not a racist, but…”
Translation: “I’m a racist asshole who attends an all-white church and is uncomfortable around most black people. I love racist jokes and am about to tell you a good one.”
Acceptable Response: Laugher followed by telling a slightly more racist joke.
Unacceptable Response: “You’re a hypocritical racist asshole.”
“God is in control.”
Translation: “I only believe this about overwhelming situations. The rest of the time, I believe things are up to us and I act that way.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.” Sometimes followed by an anecdote about some unexplained or coincidental experience that you attribute to God.
Unacceptable Response: “If God’s in control, then relax and don’t do anything about it! In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all ever, right? But that’s not right, and people still have to do everything, so what does it mean for God to be in control and why does it matter?”
“I believe this because the Bible says so.”
Translation: “I have no clue about the history of that big book I’m in love with, and I don’t care either, because it’s God’s Word, and if God said it, it must be true.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “It also says to kill homosexuals.” They might heartily agree to that one, which in case the unacceptable response becomes, “It also says to kill your children when they talk back. Have your children ever talked back?” Or, “Explain to me the authorship and transmission of the Bible, and why you think it’s God’s Word.” Or especially, “Jesus said to give anything to those who ask of you – and not only to give what they ask, but more. So please give me your wallet and your car.”
“What’s God doing in your life?”
Translation: “I’m getting ready to judge you.”
Acceptable Response: “I’m conquering pride and lust!” Or, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, I love Jesus my beautiful King and Savior!”
Unacceptable Response: “God’s been teaching me about how much evidence there is for evolution.”
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Translation: “I’m a flaming fundamentalist.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “That’s a relief, because I’m a homosexual transvestite in an interracial relationship.”
“We’re in the end times.”
Translation: “My pastor said we’re living in the end times.”
Acceptable Response: “God will punish America for our sins!” Or, “America isn’t mentioned in the Bible because we’re going to crumble soon!”
Unacceptable Response: “Did you know that out of the millions of times Christians have claimed this throughout history, they’ve always been wrong?” Or, “If you’re so confident, I’m sure you’ll be confident in putting some significant money towards a bet on that.”
“He is risen!”
Translation: “It’s Easter! Let’s eat!”
Acceptable Response: “He is risen indeed!”
Unacceptable Response: “Where? I don’t see him.” Or, “Do you have any evidence for that statement?” Or especially, “Like yeast?”
“Jesus loves you.”
Translation: “Jesus does, but I don’t.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “If that were true, why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
“Do you know where you’re going to go after you die?”
Translation: “This is the question they told me to ask in my evangelism class.”
Acceptable Response: “To heaven to see my sweet, precious Savior!”
Unacceptable Response: “How can you know that before you’re actually dead?”
“What would you say if you stood before God after you die?”
Translation: “I’ve got you now, sinner!”
Acceptable Response: “Please forgive me! I was so fracking stupid! How blind of me not to see you in everything you created!”
Possibly Acceptable Response: “Oops.”
Unacceptable Response: “If you wanted me to believe in you, why didn’t you show some kind of evidence? Why create everything through the painful process of evolution? Why did you let your creation suffer through hunger, neglect, disease, and war? Why incarnate yourself and then commit deicide/suicide? Why were you so bloodthirsty in the early years? If you’re God, you’re not a very good one.” Or, “Which one?”
[Thanks, Steve, for the last response.]
“Thank you Jesus!”
Translation: “It’s easier to thank Jesus than the people who deserve it.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen!”
Unacceptable Response: “I’m not Jesus.” Or, “You’re welcome.”
“Have you found Jesus?”
Translation: “Are you also a Jesus-lover, or must I convert you?”
Acceptable Response: “I’ve been walking with the Lord since I was two years old, Praise Gawd!”
Unacceptable Response: “I didn’t know he was missing.” (source)
“I’ll pray for you”
Translation: “This conversation is over. My mind exploded.” Or, “I refuse to believe you won this argument.”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks, you’re so kind.”
Unacceptable Response: ”Instead of praying, why don’t you read a non-Christian book?” Or, “I’ll think for you.” Or especially, “Liar.”
[Inspired by Richard, Gdad, and Wazza.]
“Lord willing…”
Translation: “The Bible says somewhere to say this, and I feel uber-spiritual whenever I do.”
Acceptable Response: “…”
Unacceptable Response: “How would you know if it’s the Lord stopping you, or just your laziness?”
[Inspired by Polly.]
“Here’s my testimony…”
Translation: “I was a guilt-ridden sinner until I hit rock-bottom and then believed in Jesus and my sins were forgiven!”
Acceptable Response: “That’s a great story, how can I have my sins forgiven and go to heaven?”
Unacceptable Response: “The reason you’re telling your story is because it’s impossible for me to say you didn’t have that experience. Unfortunately, people have religious experiences all the time, and many of them have nothing to do with Jesus. Your story is nice, but it’s easier to fool yourself than you might think. You don’t know the truth about God and Jesus and the Bible through an emotional experience, but through evidence, and you’ll find that lacking.”
“It’s a miracle!”
Translation: “My brain can’t comprehend how this could happen without the God of the Universe getting involved, so it must be true.”
Acceptable Response: “Exactly! How else could they have called when you were thinking of them, except for God to control them like a puppet to impress you?”
Unacceptable Response: “Maybe, but could you prove it?” Or, “Would this really be impossible without God?” Or especially, “It seems you don’t understand probability theory. Let me explain.”
[Inspired by Brian.]
“It takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian.”
Translation: “I don’t really understand atheism or how it’s possible not to believe in a god.”
Acceptable Response: “That’s right, brother. Denying God is like denying gravity.”
Unacceptable Response: “Believing in something without evidence takes faith. Not believing in something without evidence takes intelligence.”
“Atheism is a religion.”
Translation: “Atheism is a religion because everyone believes there is a god, right?”
Acceptable Response: “They know there is a God and they reject him and hate him! They will burn in hell forever!”
Unacceptable Response: ”Calling ‘atheism’ a religion is like calling ‘bald’ a hair color.” (Don Hirschberg) Or, “If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.” (Mystyk)
“It’s a mystery.”
Translation: “It doesn’t make any sense to me either, but that’s what the Bible says.”
Acceptable Response: “And when has the Bible ever steered us wrong?”
Unacceptable Response: ”If every hard question ends with mystery, how can you be so confident you are right?”
“It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Translation: “I hope he doesn’t ask if I attend church every week.”
Acceptable Response: ”Yep, it’s all about the big J.”
Unacceptable Response: ”Can’t every religion claim they are about a relationship with God?” Or, “If you’re not a religion, why do you attend church, read the Bible, believe in orthodoxy, and are trying to convert me?”
“God always answers prayer.”
Translation: “He just usually answers no…”
Acceptable Response: ”God knows best.”
Unacceptable Response: ”Jesus said if you ask anything in his name you’ll receive it. He also said if you have even the smallest amount of faith, like a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Does that fit with your experience?” (Inspired by Jack D)
“Have you made your peace with God?”
Translation: “Are you a Jesus-lover like me?”
Acceptable Response: ”Of course, Jesus is my best friend! He’s filled my soul with gladness and joy, brother.”
Unacceptable Response: ”I wasn’t aware we were quarreling.” (Paul Bogan) Or, “It’s hard to make peace with someone who never calls you back.”
700 Comments
These are so true.
yup. not a one of these is a misrepresentation of the millions of non-atheists around today.
Here’s another one:
“May the Lord be with you”
Translation: “I’m testing to see if you’re a True Christian”
Acceptable reply: “And also with you”
Unacceptable reply: “And may Stalin be with you”, continue with “Well, they were both mass-murderers, right?”
Another unnaceptable reply: “Is that like the Force?”
“What would it take for you to believe in God?”
Translation: “Give me a scenario and I’ll explain why it’s either unfair, or that it has already happened as stated from my own interpretation of the Bible.”
Acceptable Responses: “Evidence of God in my life.” (any incident in your immediate future is then interpreted to be “God’s work”.) “I’d need to feel God.” (ordinary loneliness is translated as a “God-shaped hole”.)
Unacceptable Response: “I don’t have to figure out what it would take for me to believe in God. If an all knowing and all powerful God exists then he ALREADY knows what it would take for me to believe in him. Since I don’t believe, I have to assume that God either wants me to be an Atheist, or that he isn’t all powerful, or that he doesn’t exist.”
Ouch.
I used probably every one of those phrases in my former life as Christian and all the translations are true!!
My favorite: “What’s God doing in your life?”
Translation: I am getting ready to judge you.
That is bulls-eye accurate!
or…. “How’s your ‘walk’?”
Translation: It’s obvious that you’re “back-sliding” and heading towards an eternity in hell if you keep this up. Please provide me with juicy gossip about your evil, but exciting, lifestyle so I can judge you with all of my friends, but secretly live vicariously through your rebellious ways.
Acceptable Response: “One day at a time, sweet Jesus.”
Unacceptable Response: “My walk? The hell are you talking about? Why are you asking me about how I walk?”
Haha wonderful collection
I just stumbled upon your blog. I laughed at this, but unfortunately it was mostly funny because it seems to be so true. I never used to think that people were like that; I live in Sweden, which is a country with around 80% non-believers, and I never had to experience things like this.
But then I started discussing the theory of evolution on the Internet. I never did this specifically with creationists, mind you; I just talked about it with scientifically minded people because I think the theory is beautiful and interesting, and I’m a science nerd who enjoys such conversations. But for some reason the creationism preaching bunch always find the forums, blogs and stuff where we discuss such things. And they decide to take offence.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a civilized discussion about something like genetic drift or punctuated equilibrium, and some creationist comes in to shout at us that we are going to hell for “believing” in evolution instead of God. Never mind that a lot of the evolutionary biologists of the world are Christians; the kind of creationists who spout such nonsense always think that people who “believe” in evolution are always atheists (and hence evil, of course).
They often use a lot of the rhetoric from this list when they come in to disprove evolution. They especially say “I’ll pray for you” whenever their “evidence” against evolution has been refuted. There’s something so condescending about using that expression as a way to end a discussion when things aren’t going your way…
Anyway, thanks for the list, it gave me a chuckle, even though it’s all slightly depressing as well :)
You are so right. It always felt like such a slap in the face to me when a religious person told me they’d pray for me as they were fleeing a genuine discussion. It’s pretentious and cowardly.
It is possible to be a Christian AND believe in evolution…I am one and I do believe in evolution.
These are so very true. ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ – I don’t need to justify my faith! Why should I question a belief system? I’m blind to reason!
I enjoyed reading this article. It’s nice to know that there are other people like me who no longer hold on to a “god”.
In our country, Philippines, I could barely find anyone who share my atheism.
How does it take faith to not believe in god? I am not closed to the idea, it’s just that the harder I look, the less evidence there is for god. Much less the christian god. Although I call myself an atheist, because my position, based on what we know today, is that the likelihood of god existing decreases all the time, as we learn more about how the universe works. It takes faith to believe in Santa Claus, because we’ve never actually seen him. Mall santas don’t count. It takes faith to believe in the tooth fairy – we know there’s money there in the morning, and the tooth is gone – does that mean she exists? No, nobody has ever seen, heard, or felt her. It’s your mom, silly! And this is why I don’t believe in god either. I believe in things that make sense, that are rational, and that can be tested. That doesn’t take faith.
I’m sorry your very religious experience was so horrible. Although not unique, it’s not the universal experience either. Perhaps you should have pursued the relationship more than the religion.
BTW, it’s not that you don’t have faith. Actually, the extreme opposite is true. It takes much more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. To hold true to your perspective while the truth of rational reason surrounds you is admirable… sort of.
Enjoy your personal relativism and your acolytes.
Be blessed… in Jesus’ name.
you’re a sublime idiot mate
Translation: I’m not really that sorry that you had a bad experience. You were obviously not a Real True Christian ™.
If I use words like rational and reason people might actually believe I have evidence beyond Jesus showing up on a grilled cheese sandwich every once and a while, praise the Lord. Besides, it’s got to be really hard not believing as 95% of the population believes, and holding out for evidence. That’s got to be a lot of peer pressure … and thinking.
*pout* I wish I had a popular blog. hmmfff.
Burn in hell, Athiest.
end translation
I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. There were at least 3-4 of the cliches just mentioned in Brad’s comment. You really are just proving Daniel’s point.
@Brad – this is an old comment, but I just noticed it. I now reserve my energy for relationships with real people, who actually exist.
“To hold true to your perspective while the truth of rational reason surrounds you is admirable”
You must really admire Schizophrenics.
Yeah, whatever. If it didn’t include the usual “Christians-Are-All-Imbeciles” attitude, it might have made for some good discussion. I wouldn’t know where to start anyway. So much out of context/exaggerated/stereotyping fun… Enjoy.
i’m not going to hold you responsible for the actions of others, but this list was not really an exaggeration. There are plenty of your Christian brethren who are at least a teensie bit disingenuous about their concern for your soul. Perhaps if you didn’t have these folks as the most vocal of your flock, then your image wouldn’t be so tarnished. You’re like a detached from reality Exxon Executive who didn’t understand why all those people hated you so much after the oil spill. I mean, accidents happen, right?
This list isn’t really an exaggeration because, religion teaches people to care more about dogma than other people. They’re so busy pushing their religious agenda that being genuinely concerned about other human beings takes a back seat. Religion is about perpetuating itself. Caring about other human beings is secondary, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the dogma, then it doesn’t matter at all.
I think that is the beauty of the message – God loves people more (and better) than we can love others – and even ourselves. There isn’t a standard for being a Christian, just truths that God Himself gave us about himself to help us to understand that we are not Him. We cannot be good enough, we cannot be nice enough, we cannot earn His love – He provided it in the death of His only Son.
I am truly sorry that you have not experienced Jesus, and as a result of His “followers” have rejected Him. Previously being one of the arrogant, self righteous Christians, and having received the truly freeing love of God as He forgave my willing sinfulness against Him, I understand completely the disdain you have for that type of person. However, that isn’t Christ. If you do read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) you will find Jesus response to the “Religious” people very similar to your own – He called them “empty tombs” without life, “Serpents”, “whitewashed” people – looking good on the outside – empty/dead inside.
Your views mirror that of my savior as you look at the religious people of today – please don’t judge the message by these people… there is more to this story…
Thanks for your response. I wish more Christians (or at least the most vocal ones) acted like you. Still, I have felt the “love of Jesus” and used to have tears pour down my face during worship service. Nonetheless, I still have reasons for my agnosticism on many issues that go beyond the hypocrites and zealots that like to “witness” for Christ.
Ken, the problem with the “message” is not that some parts of it are not nice. Atheism, with regard to Christianity, is a response to the claim that it is TRUE, not that it talks about love and comfort. Your comment, though sweetly phrased, is still resting on the assumption that Jesus a) existed, b) is the son of God, and c) had to die for the atonement of our original sin. I don’t speak for everyone, but many Atheists that I’ve spoken to fundamentally reject b and c, no matter how nice they sound(if they sound nice at all).
You seem to think that we reject the idea of God because we disapprove of the words and actions of believers, but the exact opposite is true. We disapprove of what many Christians do BECAUSE their words and actions are informed by beliefs that are based on NO EVIDENCE. And thus, your comment becomes a little condescending(accidentally, I’m sure). Imagine a Muslim telling you he was so sorry that you’ve had bad experiences with the followers of Allah, but that you should just read the words of Mohammed to find the Truth. He could say this in the nicest possible way, but you would still disagree with the very basic assumption upon which his words rest.
Furthermore, the idea of our ancestors’ sins being heaped upon the human manifestation of the God who created in them the capacity for sin in the first place is a bit of a logical conundrum, and is the exact OPPOSITE of moral responsibility. I don’t think earning the love of a being that would create such a ridiculous system of justice should be very high on your list.
“We cannot be good enough, we cannot be nice enough, we cannot earn His love ”
Dear Jesus,
Thanks for creating me to be such a worthless piece of crap.
Love,
Michael
WoW! how about this one that you said
“He is risen!”
Translation: “It’s Easter! Let’s eat!”
Acceptable Response: “He is risen indeed!”
Unacceptable Response: “Where? I don’t see him.” Or, “Do you have any evidence for that statement?” Or especially, “Like yeast?”
MY Answer: Well, can you see the wind?? God HAS risen!!
And THIS one that u said:
“Jesus loves you.”
Translation: “Jesus does, but I don’t.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “If that were true, why are you telling me and not him?”
MY Answer: If you actually read the Bible, you’ll see his love for you through his words!! He DIED for you, not just a quick easy death, but a slow and painful one, so that YOU and I and EVERYONE could live with him in Heaven, if we choose to accept him!
And this one you said
“Do you know where you’re going to go after you die?”
Translation: “This is the question they told me to ask in my evangelism class.”
Acceptable Response: “To heaven to see my sweet, precious Savior!”
Unacceptable Response: “How can you know that before you’re actually dead?”
MY Answer: If you believe in God, and have asked him into your heart, you will be saved.
Translation: If you truely believe in God, you will have iternal life with HIM in Heaven!
Maybe you should read through the Bible, so you don’t get corrected like this from now on! I am a Christian, and I think you should b too! And having questions aren’t bad at all. I know you must have a lot. And maybe by reading the Bible, you’ll come to learn the answer!
I also think that YOU are the one judging Christians, not Calladus, the other one who commented!!
‘He’ (or rather Elohim, which is actually a plural word in original Hebrew) created mankind with a propensity to disobey him in a world that would tempt with the punishment for mistakes being eternal, inescapable, unimaginable suffering. Oh and did I mention that the criteria to escape this eternal damnation is to accept the claims of a 2000 year old myth out of many others (Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Jainism, etc) making equally authoritative claims about non-testable subjects to compete with. And did I mention that there is incredibly little extra-biblical (not in the bible) verification of your version of events?
So you tell me? Why exactly should I choose Christianity over Kashmir Shaivism? The latter’s claims are actually more verifiable through experientially based practices than the former’s anyway. And Buddhism may have a few strange metaphysical claims as well, but it is much, much more philosophically and logically rigorous. Tell me? By what standard could a person in the dark of spiritual ignorance, such as myself (according to you), evaluate the truthfulness and objectivity of your claims and arrive at that the conclusion that, after all alternatives are weighed, your Belief System is the best one.
Sorry, but I think I’ll take your opinion as just that, your opinion.
The reason God died horribly on the cross “for our sins”, according to the NT, is really because christianity borrows heavily from paganism. Because people were ignorant of disease, germs, weather patterns, mental and physical illness, etc., these things were attributed to god. To appease god, there would be a bloody sacrifice. This is the barbaric tradition of an ignorant people. Now, people actually still believe that jesus had to die horribly as a sacrifice for “our sins”. If god really was god, he could have made up his own rules (ie – forgive us without the torture and bloodshed maybe??) and not just copied a man-made tradition.
Not to mention the fact that killing one person to atone for the crimes of others is immoral. Ask a christian if it would have been okay to allow someone else to serve Jeffrey Dahmer’s prison sentence if that other person was doing it out of love for Jeffrey. I bet you’d have a hard time finding someone to say “yes”. That’s because we all know it’s immoral. Now add to that the idea that we have to spend our entire lives degrading ourselves and being servile (which makes no sense if our “sins” were already wiped clean by Jesus’ immoral suicide), and it gets really bewildering.
I find it almost funny that “moviesmusic” actually think’s he’s “correcting” anyone about what the bible says. There are countless sects of christianity, his included, that can’t even manage to agree with EACH OTHER about what the bible says, much less any of the billions of people who don’t share their views. His interpretation is just one of millions, or billions; equal to every other interpretation only in its gross implausibility.
Sorry but the Bible is rubbish and so is your religion. The human race has wasted it’s time on a load of twaddle. How many people were murdered by ‘Christians’ and their loving God when they rightly refused to convert to a pagan religion.
I have read the Bible and often wonder why Christians worship a Jew. Mary was Jewish and therefore her son grew up as a Jew (the Bible actually uses the word Temple for his fathers house, not church or chapel). The plaque on the cross also read ‘Behold, the King of the Jews’. If you are so fervent in your following of Christ, you should immeadiately convert to Judaism…….
@Moviesmusic:
I understand your feelings. I used to talk very similar to you. But don’t think I haven’t read the Bible — I’ve read it at least 5 times all the way through, have attended bible college for 4 years, and have been attending church at least once a week for over a decade. I’ve read hundreds of books from evangelical Christian authors and apologists.
So, for your plea for me to “actually read the Bible,” I can quite honestly say I’ve read it more times than most Christians I know. I have also studied the authorship and transmission of the Bible from both Christian and non-Christian scholars. Have you?
@Brian:
Most of this is meant to be humorous. And yes, a little at Christians expense. Sorry if I offended you.
@Brad:
My religious experience wasn’t all that horrible. It was pretty usual. And it was better than many — I mean I was never molested or anything. I actually did pursue “the relationship” over the religion, though some atheists might not understand the cliches you are using. I loved Jesus and believed he died for me. I sang love songs to him. I prayed to him every night and morning. I read “his word” over and over again. I felt called to the ministry and trained for it.
And I disagree it takes faith to be an atheist. Faith is believing something in spite of evidence to the contrary or without any evidence. I’m not aware of any evidence for God or for Jesus’s resurrection, though I know all the conservative arguments. I find them all lacking.
If you really think it takes more faith to believe that Jesus rose people from the dead and was resurrected instead of to not believe, you have been quite brainwashed. Most intelligent Christians I know would not say that.
I mean do you really think it takes more faith to believe Muhammad was resurrected into heaven, or for him not to be? Christians are pretty intelligent when it comes to analyzing other religions. I just wish they would apply the same standards to their own.
I get your ire, re: Fundamentalist Christians. The Religious Right is Wrong and all that. You sound both really pissed-off and obsessed. You are wasting your energy – you could blow off steam by practicing YOUR philosophy or belief system, instead of borrowing one you HATE and reacting against it.
All religions, once they are established, serve primarily as a societal tool, rather than an expression of devotion to anything or anyone in particular. As long as there are Humans, there will be Religion, which both brings people together and pits them against eachother.
We humans are totally ridiculous. Really. Really.
So, your reaction to the “Religious Right” masks what you actually DO believe. Discover it, then get out there and practice! Unless you really believe in your disgust, and being better than others, which I really doubt. You sound like a disenfranchised Idealist – I encourage you to put your powers into that ideal. Don’t let the Christians run your life to the extent that yer blogging on them. There’s more to life, and you are it!
Amen!! (lol) As an atheist I’m amazed at the self-deception fellow unbelievers take in order to mask political ideology. Let’s face it, a huge part of our gripe is political – not religious. We don’t get upset when Obama or Clinton quotes Scripture or talks approvingly of religion or going to church.
I read repeatedly that opponents are evil rather than wrong. (Once again, a political idea.) Evencharitable acts are denounced. The vitriol makes sympathy difficutl. I’ve heard of “Bible studies” where they “study” Scripture in order to knock it. How nutty is that?
” As long as there are Humans, there will be Religion..”
Can you tell me what the PowerBall numbers are going to be next week? Thanks!
One more thing – the blog is funny and I enjoyed reading it, as well as some of the responses. And it sounds like you had fun making it, so yay!
I get pretty caught up in reactions sometimes, myself…’take things too seriously. I don’t know you, so maybe I was writing to remind myself.
I think I’ll go out for a walk now. It’s great outside.’Bye!
ROFL
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Translation: “I’m a flaming fundamentalist.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “That’s a relief, because I’m a homosexual transvestite in an interracial relationship.”
===========
A++ man. I think I just pissed myself laughing.
Brad: reason makes the acceptance of god claims irrational, no faith required in coming to that conclusion. If you can perhaps pry yourself out of your bible for a few moments, you might benefit greatly from studying what things like reason and rationality actually mean. No doubt there are great resources at your local library (don’t be afraid to ask your librarian for help, that’s what they’re there for) but you can try searching the internet or if you feel really ambitious, try a lecture from The Teaching Company.
moviesmusic: Here’s your wind argument explained.
The death of Jesus was not a sacrifice. At best, it was a minor inconvenience. What’s 3 days to something eternal? The REAL sacrifice would have been if he stayed dead.
As for the after-life thing? Good luck with that, sugar.
Mia: That’s sweet, but religious belief is a detriment to society. Now, like drugs, I don’t care what you do with it to yourself as long as you don’t hurt others with it. Unfortunately, that rarely happens, so I think it’s important for people to talk openly about what’s wrong with it, and yes, even make jokes at it’s expense. Laughter is the best medicine they say, and it’s a great way to cope with the problem.
Great list here.
All these can also be summed up as the following unacceptable response: “Sure, the Bible is God’s word, but why God is using imperfect humans to spread the word? How can you have an imperfect proxy for a perfect being? It’s like signaling a clean microphone signal through a broken amp.”
I loved these, I also loved the typical Christians who stumbled on this and gave you more Christian cliches that they think make their beliefs more than the typical “religious” Christian. I’ve seen the Christian side of the fence, and these are all true, it’s sad to see the idiotic attitude I once had thrown back at me, I wish now I could go back and apologize for being such a douche to many nonbelievers.
Moviesmusic: Do you believe in the talking snake and zombie jesus?
Do you have ANY empirical evidence for those ridiculous beliefs?
[Last sentence edited by admin. There is no reason to be mean.]
Excellent!!! Those of us that are Pastafarians say, “Ramen!”
As in Ramen noodles??? Those are awesome, but I never considered them in religious terms :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Beliefs
After being brought up in Christianity and living in a bible belt, i finally found my true atheist calling.
I found all to be extremely funny, and have used and plan on using them in the inevitable interventions that i have in store for me.
Christians bring teh funnay. I’m just glad I got over that phase several years ago.
“Exactly! How else could they of called when you were thinking of them, except for God to control them like a puppet to impress you?”
I believe you meant “could they have called”.
@NaN: I would say “of” if I was talking, but you’re probably right that “have” is better grammar. I’ve changed it. Thanks!
It’s actually “ve”, not “of”. You know, short for “have”, as in “would’ve”. Incidentally, I have (not “of”) been called a “grammar nazi”.
“Let’s keep them in our prayers.”
Translation: “We don’t care enough about them to help those in question out, but we’d like to get rid of that nagging sense of guilt.”
Acceptable answer: “Amen” or “They’ll be in our prayers.”
Unacceptable answer: “If God is an omnicient, omnipotent being and wanted to help them, couldn’t he have figured out how to do so himself without us asking him to do so? Plus, if he did change his actions based on our input, is it because we know what’s best better than he does, or because he can be influenced by flawed and imperfect beings, and if so, how can he be perfect?”
Cynamum – actually, it was a funeral that was one things that finally convinced me that christianity was harmful. I had a close friend who died. His mother was a (mentally ill) christian, but very, very abusive (ie to teach him not to touch a hot stove, she put his hand on it). As an adult, he struggled with a lot of issues including alcoholism. He committed suicide. At the funeral, his mother had the NERVE to go to the front and sob that her son was in hell right now. This was a young man who was loved by many – the funeral was standing room only. He was a lovely man who had been destroyed by his religious mother, and now she was saying that he was paying the price for eternity. It was disgusting. I wish I would have had the nerve to walk out. I would today.
>You sound both really pissed-off and obsessed.
I don’t know — the guy is doing little more than highlighting hypocrisy. I mean, are you saying that he’s less obsessed than someone who believes that the invisible creator of the universe is constantly watching them, is very concerned about what they think, say, and do, and constantly live under the threat of eternal torment? I’m going to guess that the author’s particular ideas have a lot less impact on his life than folks who subscribe to the latter.
Great list, so true. Wish we here in America didn’t have to deal with so much of this delusional nonsense in our daily lives and especially in our government. I could fantasize about living in Sweden if it’s 80% non-believer, but I think the U.S. needs every rational thinking citizen it can get. I just hate that all our leaders from right or left always have to accommodate the bible-wackos. It’s embarrassing, really.
@ Unreasonable Faith, To answer your question, No, I have never studied the Bible from a non-christian point of view. I’m sorry if I offended you, I did not know that you were once a Christian and that you have read the Bible so many times. That’s something that I have never even done. If I may ask, why aren’t you a Christian now? What changed it for you? You seem like a very smart person, and I was just wondering what lead you to not be a Christian anymore. And it sounded like you really did love the Lord with all your heart at one time.
@ Dire, NO, I do NOT beleive in ghosts, talking snakes or any of the junk. I do understand how it’s hard for people to understand why they should believe in God though they can’t see him. But if we didn’t have faith, what’s left? I mean, you know that their is wind don’t you, and you know that their are atoms and electrons even though you can’t see them! You believe that the sun shines in China, even though you have never been there! (Thank you ‘unreasonable faith’ for editing that comment he made, it must have been pretty mean)
@ Willy, Being a Christian is not a ‘phase’ as you said. It’s a way of life. I will say that I definatley am not perfect. I’m not the best Christian. But I beleive in God, and I’ve asked him into my heart.
@ PhillyChief, what do you mean by his dying on the cross being a “minor inconvenience”? And when you said ”
The REAL sacrifice would have been if he stayed dead.”
But just think, if he would have stayed dead, you’d be probably be saying, ’so like why didn’t he rise up from the dead, since he can do anything?’!!
I hope you don’t mind me making these comments here. I guess I’m just easily offended, and I like to try to stick up for myself if I can! I hope you all can answer these questions for me!
“You seem like a very smart person, and I was just wondering what lead you to not be a Christian anymore.”
—-Your answer is in the question. The author was smart enough to realize that blindly following something that offers no empirical evidence or logical arguments is a waste of his time. Some people need to have their chosen religion to hang on to in tough times or to explain away their failures (i.e. it’s just not God’s plan for me)… but others don’t. Many people are just fine looking within themselves and to their loved ones to find that kind of strength.
” I did not know that you were once a Christian and that you have read the Bible so many times. That’s something that I have never even done”
Umm…then why in a previous post in this thread did you proceed to tell us what the bible says, then say “Maybe you should read through the Bible, so you don’t get corrected like this from now on!”, as though you were some kind of authority on scripture? If you haven’t even bothered to make yourself knowledgeable about your own religion, then how can you propose to tell us anything meaningful about it? It’s like discussing a hysterectomy with a plumber.
Yeah, that is kind of annoying.
Some of us here trained as ministers, you know. We’d probably mop the floor with you in any sort of bible debate. The fact that we are no longer Christians after this in depth study of the bible and Christian beliefs is in fact the smartest question you’ve asked.
Makes you wonder, huh?
Christians are always good for some serious brain-benders.
How is it that I have more faith than someone who believes in an invisible sky daddy? Do they think that atheists secretly believe that the big beard in the sky is real? Do they not understand that it’s possible to base your opinions on something other than ancient myths and wishful thinking?
I really think it’s the latter. For example, how many times have you heard the phrase, “X is just another religion”? When someone says that, it means that they are unable to understand that not everyone gets their opinions from a priest/rabbi/mullah/pastor/ancient book of myths.
Grimalkin – great posts. Totally reflects my experience also.
Oh and @ mia, u said “You are wasting your energy – you could blow off steam by practicing YOUR philosophy or belief system, instead of borrowing one you HATE and reacting against it.”
NO way am I wasting my energy. I’m NOT blowing off steam. Yes, I am a little upset, but it’s because I don’t care for people being mean to me as several peope who are making these comments are! I AM taking something i “HATE”! The thing i “hate” is when people put me and other Christians down. And when people say such mean things to me on these comments, that the one who does this blog has to edit them! I’m not writting all of this to start a big argument, or to get anyone upset, I just think that if someone is going to write something like this, it’s clear that there will be people with different opions!
moviemusic,
People are not being mean to you. They are making points with which you disagree.
I am also one who grew up in the church. 5 of my cousins are currently ministers and one of those heads the largest christian organisation in my country. I was born into it and there are 8 generations of ministers before mine. by the time I was thirteen – and on the day I was baptised, – the lights went on. It’s all such a load of controlling, judgemental BS.
If you stop just accepting everything you hear and start asking the occasional question, I guarantee you the answers will not lead you back to where you started. Guaranteed.
If YOU will open YOUR mind and stop using the rhetoric of the church (love with all my heart; gave my life to god, etc,etc) you will also come to the conclusion that you, as a human are valuable and wonderful and creative and that NONE of that depends on there being any angry, temperamental, judging floaty guy watching every move you make.
As for this christ person, it never existed. Secondly, if it did, it could not have been a deity because those don’t exist and dieties are not descendants of the line of David, as your christ person is described in your bible. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the guy born of a human woman and having a lineage that is 1000 years old at a time when lineages came through the male parent and still call him a god…. That story is either false or the dude was just a dude.
Also, as all the gospels were written at least 60 years after this christ person was supposed to have died, there cannot be any quotes because quotes have to go from mouth the the speaker to ear of the recorder…
Anyway, all I can say to you is don’t be scared. It’s pretty bright on the other side.
I haven’t seen anyone being mean, I see atheists speaking the TRUTH about a self-destructive belief system that is nothing more than a cult. Get over it, already.
I don’t hate being criticized, nor do I hate people who share my views being criticized. Criticism is important and freedom of speech means nothing if group pressure commands conformity. The real victims of a society or group that insulates itself from criticism is themselves. They are robbed of the information and views they need to make informed decisions. It is a form of dishonesty to discourage criticism. I welcome criticism. It has taught me a lot about myself, other people, and the universe I live in.
Oh and @ Unreasonable Faith, when u said
“Unacceptable Response: “Have you ever kept a prayer journal to see if you get more unanswered prayers than answered ones, or if your unasked prayers get answered just as much?”
I’ve actually never kept a prayer journal, but I do ask God for many things. AND he has answered my prayers in my ‘favor’ many times! Even just with small things, or with big things. If a child keeps asking his mom for candy every five minutes, she will probably say No. No is a answer too. Believe it or not, God ALWAYS answers, but sometimes the answer is NO! I mean if we asked God for stuff, and he gave us everything, wouldn’t that be kinda weird? It would be like a mom giving everything to her kid that the kid wanted!
Wait… so let me get this straight. There are only two possible answers, “Yes” and “No.”
God always answers as you say, so if you pray for something to happen the way you want it to and it does, the answer is yes. If it doesn’t happen the way you want it to then he answered no. This is what you believe right?
Is it not possible that he simple didn’t answer? That what happened, just happened? One way or the other, and there was no answer? Why is this not a possibility?
Furthermore, why is it not a possibility that he was never there to answer in the first place? That life just happens?
Confirmation bias.
I used to believe the way you do – for years. But the truth really is – brace yourself – that when you think God says “no”, it was just the luck of the draw. Do you really believe that god answered your prayers, as you said, “favorably”, but has consistently said “no” to the millions of starving children in Somalia who asked God for a meal? This is ridiculous, and if you think about it, you will see it too.
It seems to me that only people who can afford “miracles” get them.
Brad, Bryan, and Moviemusic. Obviously whoever made this site is not going to change their minds. And the people who love it aren’t either, so maybe if you don’t like the site you should just leave the site and not comment. Why would you even read the whole thing, and comment if your so anti-athiest?
Anyways, LOVED this. It was hilarious. Great job.
PhillyChief: The whole look how Jesus suffered for you has always been a bit of a mystery to me also. Not saying crucifixion is a nice to way go but lots of other people where also crucified and in the history of humanity a bucket load of people have gone through far worse experiences than begin nailed to a cross – as a great man once said at least it gets you out in the open.
The whole idea of Jesus dying for us seems to just be some way of making people feel guilty as far as I can see.
As an atheist, I find it ridiculous how religious people try to say “we all have faith”. I completely 100% disagree. Intelligent people have reasonable expectations. Through deductive reasoning and 4 million years of history I have a reasonable expectation that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Faith is about ignorance. Faith is about accepting ideas without thought. Faith is about putting the blinders on and coasting.
enjoyed your article. I grew up christian, grandfather was an assembly of god preacher, dad was a gospel singer, my sister and I sang with him at one time. At this point in my life I have decided that I do not believe as I once did. But try telling a christian that! they get really offended, and they feel obligated to convert you back, or guilt you into “coming back to the lord”. My own mother said to me recently that she felt I was having a difficult life situation because I had left “god out of my life”. As if I went to church and did everything like a good christian should nothing bad would ever happen. What a twisted piece of logic! I wish people would let one another peacefully believe what they want to believe, but it doesn’t seem to look like that’s going to happen.
My family is Southern Baptist and of course their friends are too. I love my family but my tolerance for their religion is limited. I recently spent nearly a month at home while my grandmother was in hospice and then for the funeral. I nearly lost my mind.
I try to keep my thoughts to myself. I hold hands with them while they say the blessing in restaurants. I’m embarrassed but I’m sure I embarrass them too. I try to play along with their friends who don’t know I’m an atheist.
At the funeral home, I was in the receiving line between my parents. Someone in their Sunday school class said, “The hand of God is on this man,” referring to my father. There was no one else in the conversation to step in. I couldn’t (and still can’t) think of a response that was truthful and respectful (not contradicting him). I just looked at him. (Think deer in headlights.) He repeated himself. I continued to look at him. He moved on to talk to my dad.
I applied for a job while I was there. One of my mom’s friends asked me if she could pray for me to get the job. I said sure. (Some truthful/respectful answers are easy.) Well, I never got a call back from that job. I fight the temptation to tell my mom that her friend doesn’t pray very well. Of course, she’ll say that it was God’s will that I not get the job. Then I will ask why bother praying at all if God has his mind made up.
A friend told me once that someone invited him to church. He agreed on the condition that he could spend an equal amount of time debunking. I think the invite was withdrawn.
My favorite comeback is:
Tell me why you don’t believe in Zeus, Thor or even the Spaghedeity, then you’ll know why I don’t believe in your god.
They come up with the disparaging comments about the other gods and you don’t have to say anything. Truthful AND polite.
Daniel, great post and I know you meant it to be more humorous then disrespectful towards Christians. The sad truth is the responses are more true then not.
I, myself tend to be very politically incorrect in regards to religious beliefs…
http://ideasandrevolution.net/2008/05/23/rant-christian-consertives-make-jesus-into-a-nazi/
Excellent stuff: the more we can laugh at religion, messiahs, gods & priests etc, the more we can free ourselves from the fear they use to control us. These superstitious fears are enforced by these errors of thinking you are highlighting. It is great to have these comebacks.
You correctly diagnose the hidden arrogance of the religious. “While I am a humble sinner, I have all the answers – and you, who are going to hell. It warms me to think about your eternal torment”.
I’m an atheist – when we are arrogant/ angry it is often less complicated.
Blasphemy, heresy, and sacrilege = the chance for human progress.
Wazza – I agree. I find that atheists (such as myself) have studied the bible far more obsessively than most christians. We were desperately looking for answers we couldn’t find in the bible, and it led us out of christianity.
moviesmusic #28
Unreasonable faith studied the bible from a non-christian point of view. He is no longer christian. I don’t know this person, but I would have to say those two statements are connected. Christianity doesn’t satisfy many people on a moral, intellectual, or spiritual basis.
Have you read about other, pre-christian, religions? Have you ever noticed how the stories of Heracules, Inverness, Gilgamesh, and others are virtually repeated in the bible? Christianity doesn’t have much originality, it’s about half plagiarized half marketing.
@moviesmusic
So your god is either a sadomasochist who is into snuff films or “he” made a slippery fist of the whole creation thing and somebody had to be made an example of so it wouldn’t happen again?
“Focus on the relationship, not the religion”
Translation: “You’ve got it all wrong! Jesus isn’t about the Bible! He’s about the way you feel! Ignore all the stuff about religion and focus on your feelings!”
Acceptable Response: “What a stupid atheist I’ve been! I’m so sorry Jesus! Please take me back!”
Unacceptable Response: “Jesus has never spoken to me. How am I supposed to have a relationship with someone I’ve never heard from? If I’m supposed to focus on the relationship, can I throw out my Bible? And do I still have to go to church?”
Yes, most people still believe in religion. And most people in the middle east believe in islam (billions of people, I believe). And millions of others believe in Hinduism. I guess those must be true also because non-believers in those regions are also a minority.
i’m a former christian. this was hilarious and disturbing true. my favorite was “like yeast?” and “my mind exploded”. one of my christian acquaintances is coming back from a mission trip in italy, and i know she’s going to use “What’s God doing in your life?” (or at least “How are you and Jesus?”) (she doesn’t know i’m an atheist yet.) another guy i know always repeats “God is good. God is good.” into every conversation. it’s so annoying.
“God is good. God is good.”
Translation: “I have no idea what’s going on in my life. But I hope everything turns out okay!”
Acceptable Response: “That he is. That he is!”
Unacceptable Response: “Step up and take responsibility for your life instead of expecting everything to fall into your lap!”
i’m subscribing to your rss feed.
“It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Translation: It’s a religion, but I wanna give it special pleading.
Acceptable Response: That’s so true or I wish more people knew that.
Unacceptable Response: Isn’t it an abusive relationship where you’re God’s b***h and have no input? He’s constantly telling you you’re unworthy and a dirty sinner, shouldn’t you get out of that relationship?
@ Dennis N: Wow…that’s not true..when a parent cares about a child he shows that child areas he should avoid because most time the parent can see ahead the danger that awaits… Not at ALL abusive…GOD is trying to save you from ETERNAL ABUSE…
Yeah, NO.
God is just a cosmic abusive spouse. Read this. I mean, really take the time to READ and comprehend this article.
http://atheism.about.com/od/whatisgod/p/AbuserAbusive.htm
“COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER” Isaiah 1:18
I want to know which abuser would say come a reason with me…..
Mine did.
“Come on, let’s reason together,” *taps leather strap against knee* “come on son, come here, let daddy show you how very upset he is.”
My favorite all purpose reply: “*Polite* psychotics keep their delusions to themselves.”
Great list.
I have to comment on the how does an atheist know the sun rises in another part of the world bit. It’s not based on faith but rather sound deductive reasoning.
First, I live in the land of the rising sun, so that’s proof enough. If it rises here it rises everywhere :)
Oh, wait, something real. OK.
First, I’d have to prove China exists without going there. Well, it’s on maps, people have written about it, I’ve met people who’ve been there, I’ve met people who were born there, etc. (google earth proves it exists rather nicely, but I’ll leave technology out of the equation). Of course, that alone doesn’t prove it, but it makes the alternative far less likely. For China NOT to exist, that means all those non-related people would have had to lie. Every artifact out of China would be a hoax. Every news story, a hoax. That is far more unlikely than that China exists, so the evidence I’ve seen/met is true and proves its existence.
OK, so China exists. The next step is the sun portion. Well, I’ve seen the sun, so I know it exists. I’ve also see it disappear from the horizon. The logical explanation for that makes a whole lot of sense and has worked every single day of my life. I’ve been in other parts of the world, and still, the sun follows that pattern. So, for it to skip China would take a greater leap of faith for me to believe than to think it follows the pattern in China the same way it does everywhere else. So, rather than take on faith alone, I examine the evidence for and against and fall into the “for” camp.
I can apply that type of logic to anything else, whether it’s zombie jesus, evolution, whatever you want. And when I do, I find I’m not convinced of the bible’s truth, but evolution is pretty damn sound. None of that is based on faith but rather logical deductive reasoning. Could I be wrong? Sure, but a whole lot of hoaxes would have had to occur for me to be wrong, and I just think that’s most likely a statistical impossibility.
If someone could write this in a clearer way, I’d appreciate it. I’m not the best writer. I’ve heard this exact argument before, and the rebuttal was beautiful. I don’t feel I do it justice, but that’s my paraphrasing of it.
“The whole idea of Jesus dying for us seems to just be some way of making people feel guilty as far as I can see.”
Yeah, Jesus had a crappy 3-day weekend, so now everybody ever since owes him for it. That was the whole plan all along. You’d think an omnipotent, omniscient god would be a little less manipulative. It’s like a 10 year old boy aiming a magnifying glass at ants.
I suggest this “unacceptable” response to “I’ll pray for you”:
“I recommend that you use a bullhorn.”
And if they question, that, then respond “So God can hear you” or “What can you lose? If it works, then God will hear your prayers, and if it doesn’t work, then you’re no worse off than if you hadin’t tried it.”
@Cynamum – I can relate to your funeral experience. My younger sister died a few years ago leaving behind a 6 year old son. When the priest came by the house to pray with us, he actually said – in front of her son and nieces and nephews – “it pleased god to take her back to himself.” If I had already not been an atheist, that one sentence would have made me one.
To actually believe that a god would choose to take a 33 year old woman away from her 6 year old son because it pleased him. What a sadistic crap god some of these people believe in.
I wanted to slap that priest.
I think I would have. What an arrogant a-hole, that priest!
Amen
Great list!. I’ve heard several of these uttered by brethren of my fundy cousin, all on her wedding day. Painfullest day ever (deserves its own post actually) :S
Written in her wedding guestbook:
“I can’t wait to see what God’s got in store for you!”
Translation: “I don’t know what the heck else to say, so I’ll pick something generically positive that our pastor would approve of!”
Acceptable response: “Bless you.”
Unacceptable response: “What about what I’ve got in store for me? Don’t I freaking well get a say in this? What about my free will?”
@moviesmusic
You asked how we can know that the wind is there even though we can’t see it. Well, we do have quite a few other senses. For example, I can feel the wind. In fact, it can knock me over if it’s strong enough. My aunt, who lives in Kansas, had a deck chair implanted into the side of her house because of the wind. Even light breezes, we can see the movements they cause in leaves. We can also measure the wind. With the right instruments, I could tell you its temperature, speed, pressure, and moisture content.
The same is true for atoms and electrons. We can measure them, count them, calculate their polarity. We know that the sun shines in China because we can go there (as I have) and see it. We can even phone someone up over there and ask. Even if we couldn’t do either of these, we would still know because that’s how spheres interact with light sources. Just by making a few measurements in London, we can know exactly what time light will hit Beijing.
That’s how things work in the real and observable world.
God can’t be measured or perceived with any senses. There is no evidence whatsoever for a god of any sort, be it the Christian god, or Zeus, or Vishnu, or any other.
And finally, you asked what would be left if we didn’t have faith. I can tell you what’s left – everything. If you stop focusing yourself on the imaginary, you will discover the amazing universe filled with wonderful real things. God is limited by your imagination, but the universe isn’t. There are limitless possibilities and beauty in every corner – you just have to open your eyes and see it.
@moviesmusic
Oh, one last thing – I don’t know why the author of this blog abandoned Christianity, but I can tell you why I did. I followed your advice and I read the bible for myself. I saw the violence, the cruelty of god, the hatred for women, and so forth. I saw a god who did not live up to my standards for morality, a god who commanded parents to murder their children and to stone to death anyone who wears cloth made of two different kinds of thread. I saw a hateful god, a vengeful god, a god who would be willing to damn me to eternal torment because of petty earthly/transient flaws.
Then I read the new testament. I saw the errors of translation the writers made when quoting the old testament. I saw the irreconcilable inconsistencies between four texts that are supposedly divinely inspired and infallible. I saw a story (and not a particularly good one) written semi-independently by four humans – humans who were products of their times and locations.
So just a little advice – you might not want to advise atheists to just read the bible. In fact, you might not want to advise anyone to read the bible if you are hoping the convert or keep them. Reading the bible with a critical eye is what made most atheists I know abandon Christianity.
Beautifully spoken, man.
Interesting, when asked for evidence for god or jesus, one often gets the “read the bible” response. A thorough study produces no evidence that would stand up in a court of law, let alone in a peer reviewed science journal. This is the Courtier’s Reply. See The Courtier’s Reply by Richard Dawkins in the God Delusion and blogged by PZ Myers: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php
Excellent viewpoint!
moviesmusic@28
Your thoughtful questions deserve a kind response. I can’t speak for anyone on this blog, but you might want to look at this:
/
Hector Avolos was a full-on pentecostal Christian whose belief crumbled as he did biblical studies and learned more about the basis and evidence for his faith
Good luck.
Sorry, the link did not come through.
I’ll try again. The video is entitled: “How Archaeology Killed Biblical History”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2569440864215926514
I do respect your point of views and there are lack of dialogue between the religious and the non-religious. I do not think that religion should be in our governments and laws. In terms of the specifics, I have some healthy skepticism.
Re: 28 moviesmusic
Are you really serious when you think that you need faith to believe in wind or sunshine? Go outside feel the the wind! Look at a flag! Go sailing! Sunshine in China? – Ask people who have been there, look at pictures from there, read a book – if you seriously have doubts, go there yourself. Atoms and electrons are not directly experienced and do require some faith if you are a non-expert – but if you have doubts about them, there is a couple of centuries of science available that you can investigate, that lend evidence to the nature of atoms and electrons.
The point is that there is lots of objective evidence for these examples you gave. There is no objective evidence for gods – that is why belief in them requires faith – rather than evidence.
Also, your response to PhillyChief about the lack of sacrifice for Jesus to die for a few days is weak. He raises a central point to the Christian mythology – that Jesus suffered and died for us – but what kind of sacrifice would it be for an immortal god to die? The ’sacrifice’ is trivial if you are a god – heck, every Easter in the Philipines some Christians volunteer for ritual crucifiction just to show how much faith they have. Kind of makes Jesus’ ’sacrifice’ rather trivial.
“It’s a miracle!”
Another “Unacceptable Response” I like to this one is: “Your ignorance is not evidence.” (h/t PZ Myers)
Good job!
mgroves – unfortunately, christians are pretty much ingrained in the “i refuse to listen to reason” mode.
I love it when hypocrisy is exposed.
You forgot the rationalist response to “I’ll pray for you!”:
“And I’ll think for you.”
The christians coming here and telling you you don’t really know the bible highlight for me one of the big problems with religion; the assumption that there is only one TRUTH and once it’s revealed to you you can’t think any other way.
Science, on the other hand, is checking that the sun has come up every morning. No faith at all, and consequently the only way to really be sure in a way that you can match with the world without philosophical gymnastics.
Alverant:
I have always noticed the similarities to Heracles, Mithra, Gilgamesh, Odin, Thor, the Assyrian and Babylonian deities in the Bible.
Xtians have no originality! They’ve copied everyone else! The flood story is from Gilgamesh! Jevus coming back from the dead, being born of a virgin etc comes from the Mitrhan stories. Hell… you can read Conan the Barbarian and get a more realistic view of a fantasy story than you ever could with the bible.
This was an excellent list… one of the funniest things I have ever read… in fact… I’ve been so tempted to use some of these on some of my extremely religious comrades just to fire up a conversation.
Keep it up!
You forgot one (from your About page):
“It’s a mystery.”
Translation: It doesn’t make any sense to me either, but that’s what the bible says.
Acceptable response: ???
Unacceptable response: Do you suppose that’s a typo?
Good fun. Your response to
was good, but I’d add something like this:
Unacceptable Response: “Which one? Vishnu, Odin, Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and your God would get very different responses. Come to think of it, the Catholic, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, and Mennonite versions of God are pretty different, too.”
I would say the same thing as actress Julianne Moore. “Holy cr*p, you DO exist!”
“I’m an atheist – when we are arrogant/ angry it is often less complicated.”
lol, arrogant yes, but many pagans are arrogant too. Knowledge of the Bible, not really that proficient nor your assessment.
“Christianity doesn’t satisfy many people on a moral, intellectual, or spiritual basis.”
Only singing to the choir would overlook that statement, about 87 percent believe in the existence of God. After 150 years of evolution and even with dominating government school’s money and education, atheists remain a pretty small group.
These were really funny.
“I’m not a racist, but…”
White Christians are by no means the only people to say that. It’s pretty common among people of all metaphysical worldviews.
Brilliant! Beautiful! I’m howling! Thankee kindly for this wonderful guide!
Moviemusic, here’s a question or two for you:
How often has your pastor included the Iraqi people in the prayers after the sermon?
How do you personally reconcile “Thou shall not murder” with supporting the Iraq ‘war?
Calling Atheism a ‘religion’ is like calling ‘bald’ a hair color
Funny and (sadly) too often true.
@40 Don’t Pray for Me…
“Blasphemy, heresy, and sacrilege = the chance for human progress.” Why waste time and emotion on religion when we could be doing other, more worthwhile things? In this respect, I agree with Mia (15-16).
@15 Mia
Though religion may be simply a societal tool to some, a few adherents actually do change as their God prescribes – often for the better. To say that religion is a societal tool is an oversimplification, though I admit it may be true as a general rule. Best wishes for an honest, meaningful life, Mia!
God is sure to be disappointed when he learns how poorly his Christians have been representing him.
Brad,
You know when I became an Atheist. I was 12 years old and I went to church every Sunday. Really believed in God and Jesus. One day my father raped me. I pleaded with God to intervene. His abuse of me had started when I was 5 but that was the first time he raped me. Did God intervene? No! Guess He didn’t deem it necessary. There must have been a reason that I was to be raped. You know when the abuse stopped. At the age of 16, when my father was trying to rape me, I took action. I no longer believed in a God that would allow a child to be abused like that (even though He allows and actually condons it in the Bible). I grabbed a loaded shotgun, pointed it at my father, and threatened to shoot him if he ever touched me again. Needless to say, he never did touch me.
You want to sit around and asked God to help you out in your life. Fine. Go ahead. I won’t stop you. But in return, don’t preach to me that I should believe in a worthless God who allows child to be molested and raped. And don’t give me that crap that it is because Satan is in control of the Earth. If God is as powerful as they say He is, Satan should be like a bug to Him, easy to squash.
Whoa. Strong stuff.. Hard to argue with that.
If there is a god, he is a cruel son of a bitch
“I’ll pray for you”
Translates: “I disapprove of you and will urge the master of the universe to magically mess with your life. Oh, and those curtains have GOT to go. I will sneak in while you are on vacation and redecorate your house. Have a Nice Day.”
I have known for decades that with very few exceptions, “I’ll pray for you” is always intended as a threat.
And I’m a deist!
Noni
found you on Pharyngula
+1
Deism ftw!
Brian brought up one of my favorites.
“It requires more faith to be an atheist than a Christian”
Translation: “I don’t understand what atheism is, so i’ll use this old canard to put you on the defensive”
Acceptable Response: “Amen!”
Unacceptable Response: “It takes no faith to lack belief” or “Does it take just as much faith to not believe in Cthulhu, Allah, underwear gnomes, Apollo, the FSM, or IPU? If so, do you believe in all of them? If not, why not?”
This guide is sure to make Christians stop believing and embrace atheism. What a wonderful, civil step in the right direction.
“I mean, you know that their is wind don’t you, and you know that their are atoms and electrons even though you can’t see them! You believe that the sun shines in China, even though you have never been there!”
I can feel the wind, plus, I did see it the other day. I could see it because it was picking up dust from a field.
Read this:
(http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-granular-superconductor.html)
And if you can’t see atoms, what do you think you’re looking at when you see a wall? Or a grain of sand, or another human being?
I have seen pictures of China with the sun out.
And, by the way, I have never encountered any evidence for any god. Just baseless assertions that stuff is accepted without evidence, even though it isn’t. If you have some actual evidence, please, present it.
Brad @ 11,
That statement’s assumption is that (presumably) Daniel’s terrible experience with religion is what led him to atheism. If I may, I’d like to respond from my own perspective to explain why atheists are not “angry at God” any more than you bear a seething hatred toward Stephen Trager. I hope I’m not misrepresenting your position. If I am, please help me understand.
My own religious upbringing was pretty WASPy standard. We went to church on Sunday, said grace before meals, and said our prayers before bed. We celebrated religious holidays and talked about the big themes in the Bible on those days. The kids and adults at church were all friendly and kind, and the rituals and services seemed to be a Big Deal. The youth group meetings were a great deal of fun, and the experience was just fine.
However, none of that made up for not believing. It’s my experience (and, yes, I know personal testimony doesn’t carry much weight in logical arguments) that it’s very difficult to impossible for someone to logically talk themselves into believing something for which there is no reliable evidence. In other words, faking faith doesn’t lead to having faith. This is one of the underlying arguments against Pascal’s Wager.
I can’t pretend to speak for any atheist’s journey to atheism. Some people started there and stayed. Some travelled through strong beliefs that wore away in the face of evidence to the contrary. Some people may have nurtured a hatred of their concept of God for some perceived slight, then realized that they were hating a fiction. Even though I can’t speak to their journeys, I think I can speak to the destination.
Atheism is not the state of being angry at God. Atheism is understanding that there is no God at which to be angry. Similarly, you don’t hold a deep hatred of the Trix Rabbit, because there is no Trix Rabbit; it’s a make-believe character on television advertisements.
You will never be able to hold an intelligent conversation with an atheist about his or her atheism until you understand that concept. If you continue to hold to the idea that atheists either haven’t heard the good news, or that they are just denying God to irritate Him, then your frame of reference just won’t be sufficient for these conversations.
Respectfully,
GDad
An additional point from my own experience. I grew up without religion, so for me atheism was never an issue of turning away from god, or doubting my faith, or being angry, or any other melodramatic, angst-ridden occurrence in my life — never any kind of gut-wrenching struggle.
When I was a kid, I never had religion. As i grew up, I investigated, and found it wanting.
Gdad – great post. This is the point that christians usually miss. I just saw Kirk Cameron on youtube, talking about how he “used to be an atheist”, but then decided to stop “running from god”. It was obvious that he was never an atheist! (For one thing, it is unlikely that an atheist would ever become christian). I get annoyed at the constant condescension from christians, assuming that I am angry at god, or I have hardened my heart or something. I am angry at religion, because of the damage it causes. But I am not angry at god, zeus, buddha, santa, or allah. (Although santa really screwed up one christmas, when I had been good all year…but I’m over that…really…)
““I’ll pray for you”
Translation: “This conversation is over. My mind exploded.” Or, “I refuse to believe you won this argument.”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks, you’re so kind.”
Unacceptable Response: “If you’re going to waste your time, why not do something fun?” Or, “Instead of praying, why don’t you read a non-Christian book?” Or especially, “Liar.””
My favorite Unacceptable Response: “I’ll think for you.”
@mgroves: This was meant as humor, not a “wonderful, civil step.” While serious dialogue is needed, mostly I meant this as a humorous piece based on phrases and thoughts I used to have. Sorry if I offended you in any way.
Unfortunately, it takes more than a little thing called “facts” to deprogram christians from their beliefs.
Hoo boy, “read the bible,” sez the fundie who thinks that atheists have never read the bible.
Newsflash: Most atheists probably know your Hebrew fairy tale better than you or most of your comrades at the steepled asylums. If they haven’t actually read the darn thing a few times (as I have) either as a former Christian or just because they like to, you know, read, or if they haven’t heard you babbling scripture at us (often inappropriately or incorrectly), then we’ve seen the references to it in Western literature, art, movies, history–the whole range of our culture, at least here in America.
So it’s ridiculous to think that most people in this country don’t have a passing acquaintance with the HFT. It’s impossible to avoid it. One of the things that utterly astounds me, time after time, is how little of the HFT most Christians have actually read, never mind analyzed in any kind of depth. It’s like they read only select portions of it and ignore the rest. So many times, I’ve mentioned things the HFT says, they’re skeptical, they might even argue with me that the HFT doesn’t say that, then I’ll tell them to look it up. When those who bothered to look come back to admit they checked me out, they ask how an atheist like me knew that. And I ask them why, as a Christian, they do not. Why do I know their holy book better than they do?
But never mind that. I’d call it arrogance on the part of Christians to think that atheists, in particular, haven’t “really read the bible,” but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that the real problem is that they just can’t grasp the concept that many, many people have read the HFT, understood it, and still found it lacking, hence subsequently rejected it. Wrap your minds around that–please–rather than jumping to an offensive conclusion that we haven’t read your imaginary sky buddy saga. In almost all cases, we have.
My dad is elderly, but was an evangelical pastor all his adult life. When I bring up research I’ve done on the bible, like the history of translations, or Martin Luther, or scientific truth contradicting much of the bible, or other issues that came up in my study of the subject, it’s like they are completely unfamiliar with all of it. I’m not sure what happens at “bible study”. Nobody ever seems to question anything – it’s all taken as “gospel” (pun intended). Personally, I find it hard to understand why people will believe something without researching and investigating it. Are christians afraid of what they will find? This is a legitimate fear. But if it held up to scrutiny, so many people would not find themselves losing their faith when they dig further into the subject.
My dad is the same. People are not religious because they research & choose a sect or because it makes sense. I finally realized that reciting facts, proving the Bible wrong, the illogic of invisible beings, etc had the opposite effect – it strengthened faith. Questioning requires intellectual curiosity, a rare commodity. Our inability to grow in numbers may be due to human indifference.
I asked an atheist friend who’s gone slightly nutty over Obama if he’d every turn against him. No way – he was our only hope, etc. I said, “Now you know how Christians feel. Asking them to reject Jesus is like asking you to reject Obama – only worse.” He “got” it only after I put it in a context he could understand and sadly that was politicals. You learn not to be surprised after a while.
aaah, brad. The good old “faith” of atheism line.
Face it, faith is just the word you pull when you believe in fairy tales. You know… I prefer being grounded to the physical world. There’s no honor in blindly believing in unproven beings.
“Are you washed in the blood?”
Translation: Do we speak the same coded religious language? Should I try to convert you, or are you one of us?
Acceptable Response: “Amen”, “I gave my heart to Christ at 5 years old”
Unnacceptable Response: “Washed in what? The blood of a lamb? You sick F**k! What kind of a death cult do you belong to? What do you mean it turns your robes white as snow? Are you completely delusional?”
BTW: This is the Christian that always gets me:
“Jesus loves you.” Sometimes, it’s God, too. Don’t forget that.
Translation: “Jesus does, but I don’t.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “If that were true, why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
Hmph. I have my own unacceptable response: “What is this, sixth grade, and your all-powerful sky buddy asked you to say that for him because he’s too wimpy to talk to me himself?”
@Daniel Florien
I absolutely understand the purpose of your post, and I did think it was very funny. I wasn’t offended. I think I was mostly just responding to other commenters, and being a bit snarky myself.
I LOVE the humanity on display here. We Christians fit nicely into your stereotype (as you see it), and you secular humanists fit perfectly into my stereotype of the Godless, blind atheist. Of course, since you bow at the altar of secular humanism, you have your idols. They’re just harder to mock because you find your cliques. Good job.
It’s not my place to convert you. The Bible tells us that He showed you, and you would not see; He told you, and you would not hear. Nothing I am going to say or write is going to sway you. My sole purpose is to clue you into the fact that you are the minority, and not every Christian is a clueless, inbred redneck.
For the atheist demanding proof, I encourage you to look at the world and really question the theory of evolution or chaos. How in the world can you possibly believe that multi-celled life evolved from single cells? How can you possibly conceive that individual cells by chance over the course of millions of years just decided to come together and form an eyeball… or a heart… or a lung… or a blood cell? Why can you not see the uniqueness and specificity of each creature and plant on this planet? If evolution is the answer, why do we continue to have a finite number of proteins known to us? The number should be infinite and continually growing. It just evolved that way. I get it.
Again, for the atheist demanding proof of the invisible God, I encourage you to get to know people whose lives were radically changed by the Lord above. Look at circumstances where men, women, and children either did miraculous things or thrived in impossible situations. Look at the martyrs who so bravely allowed themselves to be killed for the God you deny… when you probably wouldn’t cop to a speeding ticket when pulled over.
Again for the atheist demanding proof of the Jesus as Lord, I point to human nature. If it was such a bogus, empty scam, why did 12 of 13 apostles… and later Paul… willingly put themselves in daily jeopardy and proceed to martyrdom to further the Kingdom of Christ? Human nature dictates that they would have given up the charade at the time of Jesus’ death or that they would have been getting rewarded handsomely with wealth and celebrity. No one would have watched Him die or heard of the beatings He took and said, “Yep, that’s what I want for me…”
AGAIN for the atheist demanding proof, I don’t need to prove the One I have encountered. It’s like me asking you to prove that my biological father exists without providing you with his name or social security number. You wouldn’t find the pictures or legal documents proving his existence, so only I would stand as his proof to you… because I had to have a father (good deduction from the laws of nature). Well, I attest to the reality of God and the change he made in me as a 20-year-old agnostic who fervently denied Christ and chafed at any evidence of religion being imposed on me for 10 years. (That was over 14 years ago.) You have no better chance of convincing that God does not exist than you do convincing me that my dad was just my imagination.
To the atheist refuting Christ on the basis of evil in this world and the harshness of the Old Testament, I will only take but a moment to explain to you that evil exists for one foundational reason… besides the sinfulness of man, of course. As we only exist for the glorification of Him who created us, we must have choice. There is no glory to Him if there is no choice. He is glorified when we choose Him over the alternatives of this world and despite the atrocities of this world. Evil exists because so many people choose poorly.
Consequently, this is also the reason why we Christians can’t point you to a modern-day God in the flesh. In that context, you would have no choice but to receive Him as God. That brings no glory to Him.
To the atheist spouting the evils done in the name of God and Christ, I challenge you to find where Jesus commanded or instructed us in the ways of violence. In the best case, it’s a purposeful, dutiful Christian fighting in the protection of others. In the worst case, it’s the flawed Christian doing an un-Christian thing. Anyone can say, “I’m doing such-and-such in the name of Jesus…” What does the Bible say about it, though?
Along those same lines, I would point you in the direction of some of the world’s most notable Godless. For the evil you attribute to us, I wonder how you deny the acts and brutality of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin… all Godless people seeking secular societies.
For all of your self-righteous, moralistic blathering, I challenge you to find the evil in the New Testament and Jesus’ teachings. Oh, but it’s against homosexuality. What else do you have?
Perhaps my blind idiocy is repugnant to you. Your condescension, narcissism, and rampant relativism are repugnant to me. I guess that makes us even… but at least I see the brighter side of life.
You keep enjoying your chase for whatever it is you find yourself fixated on at the moment.
And peace to you… in Jesus’ holy name.
There’s a lot to reply to here, and others are probably more qualified than I to do that. But I do have a few comments.
1. Re evolution and the origin of the species – as an atheist, I am amazed and impressed with the complexity of the human body, and the entire universe. But if you study the issue from a scientific perspective, you will find a lot of the answers. Science does not have all the answers yet, and it seems as though wherever there is a gap in science, that is where superstition creeps in. Humanity does not seem content with realizing that there are things we just do not know. But the more science progresses, the more people realize how superstitious books like the bible are.
2. As far as amazing changes and conversions, a true miracle would be something that could not happen naturally. People can change. People can transform. For myself, I was a cocaine addict, clinically depressed, and was in a very bad place. The more I got to know who I was, freed myself from the bondage of fear and guilt (placed there by well-meaning but deluded christian parents), and opened myself to joy, the better my life got. I am now doing very well. My life is transformed. As a christian, I had prayed and prayed, but nothing happened. I had to do it myself. People are capable of great change if they are properly motivated. And the power of suggestion can make people do amazing things. And how do you know it wasn’t buddha or allah that fixed these people whose lives were changed? What evidence to you have for the christian god, specifically?
3. Martyrdom in no way is suggestive of truth. It is only suggestive of how strongly people believe something. This is why there are so many muslim young people willing to die for allah, because they will have many virgins if they die while killing (christian) heretics. By your argument, that would mean that the muslim faith is true!
As far as violence promoted by Jesus, there’s plenty. Far too much to list here. Check out this site, and scroll down to the NT part:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html
@Brad
Greetings.
‘The Bible tells us that He showed you, and you would not see; He told you, and you would not hear. Nothing I am going to say or write is going to sway you.’
The book you refer to, says that your god makes people believe something that is false in order to condemn them (”2 Thessalonians 2:11-12″). That doesn’t make logical sense to trick someone one into believing something that is false, just to be able to condemn them. If you are some hotshot attorney trying to get your client off the hook of some violent crime when there is damning evidence, then I can understand the delusion.
‘Why can you not see the uniqueness and specificity of each creature and plant on this planet?’
I do see the uniqueness and specificity of each and every creature and plant. It’s obvious, just look around you. If you need “god glasses” to see it, then I would recommend talking with your physician. The fact that no two creatures or plants are identical is not proof that there is a god up above (or in another realm for that matter). It is proof that life does exist, and nothing more.
‘Again, for the atheist demanding proof of the invisible God, I encourage you to get to know people whose lives were radically changed by the Lord above.’
I don’t have to go far to find people who have had their “lives radically changed by the Lord.” I have quite a few friends who are Christians. In fact, I used to believe my life was radically changed by this invisible god. I sat in the Total Perspective Vortex and I saw with complete clarity my position in the universe. I’m nothing more than a human being (”being” is the key word there) on a planet in an unimaginably large universe. Where is your proof for your god?
‘Look at the martyrs who so bravely allowed themselves to be killed for the God you deny… when you probably wouldn’t cop to a speeding ticket when pulled over.’
How does being a martyr and being killed for their belief signify that what they believed is true? Would that include those who flew jets into buildings, or how about that guy in Waco, TX for that matter? Also, for the record, the last time I was pulled over by a cop for speeding, I looked right at him and said “yep I was speeding.”
‘AGAIN for the atheist demanding proof, I don’t need to prove the One I have encountered. It’s like me asking you to prove that my biological father exists without providing you with his name or social security number.’
Did your father make a bunch of claims to the world, and only revealed himself through a book that, quite honestly, doesn’t hold any water?
‘You have no better chance of convincing that God does not exist than you do convincing me that my dad was just my imagination.’
Actually, with the advances in medial technology, we can actually prove your dad wasn’t a figment of your imagination by DNA testing. They do it all the time on Maury Povich (did I spell that right?) So where is the proof of your god?
‘There is no glory to Him if there is no choice. He is glorified when we choose Him over the alternatives of this world and despite the atrocities of this world. Evil exists because so many people choose poorly.’
Are you talking about free will? The act of a perfect and omnipotent god giving us free will is contradictory to a perfect and omnipotent god. Evil exists because we are human and we often make poor choices, even down right evil ones. If that is hard to understand, then I’m going out on a limb to say that you’ve never had an ex who really pissed you off.
‘Perhaps my blind idiocy is repugnant to you.’
I have never met you, let alone called you a blind idiot. I would never do such a thing, I would have come up with something far more insulting, but for now, I’ll respect the difference of opinion between us without calling you names or suggesting that you don’t shower
‘… but at least I see the brighter side of life.’
How can you say that I do not see the brighter side of life? I happen to look on the brighter side of life and everything, just ask my wife. She is constantly amazed at my positive outlook on life in the face of all the adversity in our lives.
Sorry if I didn’t get the HTML tags right, I’m not used to adding them in for quotes.
BTW Danial, great site, I love it!
snekr
@ akshelby 51:
One of the few times when I have seriously wanted to cause intense pain to another human being was my grandfather’s funeral. An oleaginous protestant vicar was talking about eternal life and so forth. All I wanted to do was kick his smarmy face in.
I vowed then and there that I would never again place any part of my body inside a church; and when the next member of my family dies, if a minister of religion is going to be involved in the funeral, I won’t.
Civil weddings are more common than religious weddings, so why aren’t civil funerals more common?
@ Everyone who has asked me questions:
Ok, Yeah, I thought u all would say stuff like that about the wind and atoms, ect. But one of you said “I can FEEL the wind”, you can also FEEL God, if you beleive in Him! I”m really getting tired of people being so rude to me on this blog! I mean, I know everyone has a different opinon on everything, but that DOES NOT entitle everyone to be so rude!!
“I’ll pray for you”
Translation: “This conversation is over. My mind exploded.” Or, “I refuse to believe you won this argument.”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks, you’re so kind.”
Unacceptable Response: “If you’re going to waste your time, why not do something fun?” Or, “Instead of praying, why don’t you read a non-Christian book?” Or especially, “Liar.”
MY Reply: You know what? I AM going to pray for all of you who are reading and replying to this blog! I have read some non-Christian books like Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, ect that are totally decent!! I’m not going to go read a bad book, why would I want to!? This consversation is NOT over, and my mind has NOT exploded! Thank you!
You don’t have to believe in the wind to feel it. I feel like that makes the wind a little more powerful than your god.
If everyone is being so mean to you on this blog then please stop reading/commenting and giving others the ammo to keep firing at you. You have really just dug a hole for yourself and you continue to do so with every comment.
Do yourself a favor and go read some more Nancy Drew
“I’ll pray for you”
unaceptable response: “Good luck with that.”
“I believe it because the bible says so.”
unaceptable response: “God seems to be saying different things with his creation. Which are we to believe, books that were transcribed by people milenia ago, or His creation which surrounds us and which He writes anew every day?”
Gotta add another one:
Cliche: “Christians are persecuted!”
Translation: “They won’t let me shove my beliefs down everyone’s throats!”
Acceptable response: “Amen!” or “It’s a shame when people don’t respect others.”
Unacceptable response: “If I wanted God in my life, I’d go to church, or pray on my own time, alone. I wouldn’t look for him on money, or listen for him in a pledge to a flag or at a prayer at a public school. You’re looking a little flustered there. Here, have a mint.”
@moviesmusic: FYI, I updated my about page with a little more about my journey since you asked.
Also I should say that this is meant as primarily humorous. It’s not meant to be a serious refutation of Christianity. It’s preaching to the atheist choir, just like many Christian blogs do when they talk about atheism.
However, I do plan on getting my serious objections together soon, and I hope you’ll find them a bit more fair and weighty.
I agree people should not be rude. I apologize for the comments that you have been offended by. I have deleted a number because I thought them too offensive and/or rude, but I also don’t want to be a comment tyrant.
Thanks for reading and sticking around! I know how you feel and don’t expect you to change your mind because of this silly article.
Brad @ 86,
Well, there you go, then.
The “unacceptable response” I see (on the Web, anyway) to “I’ll pray for you,” most frequently is, “I’ll masturbate for you!”
So if I really really really believed that I could feel a pink unicorn, I could tell you all about its fur? Or how about this? If I really really really believed that Matsumoto Jun loved me, then he would?
This is known as D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N.
As for the purported rudeness, you’re on an atheist site. Sorry, but disagreeing with you isn’t rudeness. Even if people are on the feisty side, you’ll just have to take the lumps (didn’t the carpenter deity tell you to turn the other cheek?), or you can leave. Nothing compels you to be here, but you.
It’s ironic that you whine about rudeness, too. I don’t think christians like you realize how rude and disrespectful you are when you come onto atheist sites and proselytize us, tell us all about your relationship with your sky buddy even without asking if you can share it, condemn us, accuse us of things for which you have no proof of our having done, put us down for “wasting our time” arguing against the dominant religious faith for most people at a site like this, or try the same old lame arguments for your sky buddy that we’ve heard a billion times already. You are guilty of more than one of these, but not all, which actually makes you one of the less annoying Christian apologists I’ve seen on the Internet. But, trust me, you have some fellow Christians who are guilty of all.
Whether guilty of one or all, displaying any of those behaviors indicates, at least to me, that Christians are either utterly narcissistic, intolerant, obtuse, control freaks, or don’t want to learn anything about us (or, worse, both). I rarely get the impression that any of you even see us as people. More often than not, most Christians at sites like these seem interested only in coercion (believe as I do or else!) in some kind of warped ego gratification ploy, or in accumulating atheists as converts to score some brownie points with their sky buddy, as if we’re part of a frequent prayer rewards program. All are equally reprehensible and insulting.
Huh. My blockquote didn’t show up…
I can FEEL the wind”, you can also FEEL God, if you beleive in Him!
Then the rest…
You know what? I AM going to pray for all of you who are reading and replying to this blog! I have read some non-Christian books like Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, ect that are totally decent!! I’m not going to go read a bad book, why would I want to!? This consversation is NOT over, and my mind has NOT exploded! Thank you!
Nancy Drew? How old are you? 10? And you know what? I don’t read bad books, either. Of course, my idea of bad is poorly written, poorly plotted, trite characterizations, riddled with cliches, and things like that. I have the feeling all that makes a book bad to you is if it has sex or violence in it. And if that’s your criteria for what makes a bad book, you’d better not read all of the bible. It’s got a ton of both in it. Then again, a bad book to a Christian of your caliber is probably one that doesn’t drool over the 3-in-1 deity every other sentence.
Pray for me all you like, but this atheist thinks of prayer as pretending to do something while doing absolutely nothing. But your ego apparently needs the stroke of thinking you’re doing something worthwhile, and you probably think you’ll get some brownie points with your sky buddy in the process, so bonus, right?
As for the 3 day question, it was mentioned upthread “What is 3 days to someone immortal?”
I would also add: those three days to an immortal would be like smashing your toe to someone mortal like us.
If I said that I smashed my fingers to show you how much I love you, that wouldn’t really mean much, would it?
“We’re in the end times.”
Another Unacceptable Response: “Well, I suppose it’s possible. The Cubs [i]do[/i] have the best record in the major leagues this year.
“Jesus Loves you”
Then how come he never remembers my birthday? and whens the last time he bought me flowers?
@Brad:
[quote]I LOVE the humanity on display here. We Christians fit nicely into your stereotype (as you see it), and you secular humanists fit perfectly into my stereotype of the Godless, blind atheist. Of course, since you bow at the altar of secular humanism, you have your idols. They’re just harder to mock because you find your cliques. Good job.[/quote]
Where does it say the website owner is a “secular humanist”? Maybe you should read the “About” page. And please explain the penultimate sentence in this paragraph.
[quote]It’s not my place to convert you.[/quote]
Millions of Evangelicals would disagree with you.
[quote]For the atheist demanding proof, I encourage you to look at the world and really question the theory of evolution or chaos… It just evolved that way. I get it.[/quote]
You obviously *don’t* get it, or maybe you haven’t even studied it yourself.
[quote]Again, for the atheist demanding proof of the invisible God, I encourage you to get to know people whose lives were radically changed by the Lord above.[/quote]
Ah yes. Personal experience trumps scientific evidence, does it? I once saw a monster at the bottom of my garden…
[quote]Again for the atheist demanding proof of the Jesus as Lord, I point to human nature. If it was such a bogus, empty scam, why did 12 of 13 apostles… and later Paul… willingly put themselves in daily jeopardy …[/quote]
Taking the Bible as historical fact is *really* not going to make people take your arguments seriously, dude.
[quote]AGAIN for the atheist demanding proof, I don’t need to prove the One I have encountered. It’s like me asking you to prove that my biological father exists without providing you with his name or social security number.[/quote]
You exist, therefore your father must exist. Unless of course, you are Jesus himself! Again, your personal experience doesn’t prove anything, and constructing tortuous but ultimately illogical arguments does nothing to further your cause.
[quote]To the atheist refuting Christ on the basis of evil in this world and the harshness of the Old Testament…Evil exists because so many people choose poorly.[/quote]
Evil exists because we have a choice, sure. We have a choice whether to do good or do evil. Much more evil has been done by people who didn’t choose at all, but blindly followed their religious leaders.
[quote]Consequently, this is also the reason why we Christians can’t point you to a modern-day God in the flesh. In that context, you would have no choice but to receive Him as God. That brings no glory to Him.[/quote]
No, the reason you can’t point to a modern-day god in the flesh is that he doesn’t exist. Basing arguments on a fantasy is your style, I get it. But don’t expect the rest of us to play along.
[quote]To the atheist spouting the evils done in the name of God and Christ, I challenge you to find where Jesus commanded or instructed us in the ways of violence. In the best case, it’s a purposeful, dutiful Christian fighting in the protection of others. In the worst case, it’s the flawed Christian doing an un-Christian thing. Anyone can say, “I’m doing such-and-such in the name of Jesus…” What does the Bible say about it, though?[/quote]
“Hmm, which bit of the Bible do you want me to selectively pull out to prove my point?”
[quote]Along those same lines, I would point you in the direction of some of the world’s most notable Godless. For the evil you attribute to us, I wonder how you deny the acts and brutality of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin… all Godless people seeking secular societies.[/quote]
Please read Dawkins. No, seriously, please. I’d be much more inclined to take you seriously if you had done *any* reading outside Xtian literature. But judging by your arguments, you haven’t bothered to explore the possibility you might be wrong.
[quote]For all of your self-righteous, moralistic blathering, I challenge you to find the evil in the New Testament and Jesus’ teachings. Oh, but it’s against homosexuality. What else do you have?[/quote]
Sorry mate, the burden of proof is on you this time. For all of your self-righteous, moralistic blathering, I challenge you to find the evil in the “My Little Pony Storybook Collection”. Can’t find any? Oh, does that mean I have to worship a children’s toy?
[quote]Perhaps my blind idiocy is repugnant to you. Your condescension, narcissism, and rampant relativism are repugnant to me. I guess that makes us even… but at least I see the brighter side of life.[/quote]
No it doesn’t make you even. This is a straw man, in any case: no-one is accusing you of being an idiot but instead you imply that the only arguments against you are [i]ad hominem[/i]. What people are accusing you of is ignorance, and wilful ignorance at that.
@moviesmusic:
As soon as Xtians start complaining that people are being “rude” by questioning their faith, I start to feel the urge to *really* be rude. If you don’t like the heat, go back to your ignorance and stop wasting our time by pretending you are open minded; otherwise, come up with some counter-arguments.
You left out:
“homosexuality is a sin”
Translation: “I’m having trouble with my own urges, and you represent them to me”
Acceptable Response: “marriage will cure you of your sins”
Unacceptable Response: “Jesus is love”
Now I finally understand my family’s obsession with Easter Bread.
It’s a miracle! I was given a link to this site not long after answering the complaint “This section written on intelligent design is obviously done from an atheistic viewpoint…..” with the obvious “We’ll pray for you”. Thanks for the amusement :)
Hi Brad,
Sounds like somebody rattled your comfy little christian cage!
There is so much non segue, paradox and hypocrisy in the bible that it is nothing more than a book for the intellectually bankrupt.
The nice thing about being an Atheist is that when I’m told by christian’s (who “love me anyway) that I’m going to hell, I take so much enjoyment in telling them that if I don’t believe in god, I can’t believe in hell. No guilt, no fear, no worry here!
uh…we have evidence for the wind, movies. We don’t have a
risen from the dead barometer.
…one of you said “I can FEEL the wind”, you can also FEEL God, if you beleive in Him!
Ah, yes, the power of false analogy. Even disregarding the suspicious deliberate omission of our other senses, there is one extremely significant difference between the wind and God. We might not be able to see the wind with the naked eye, but if we use the proper technology, like microscopy, guess what? We can indeed see the molecules of air which create the wind due to differences in pressure.
In fact, we can prove consistently and OBJECTIVELY that the wind exists as a physical phenomenon – EVEN to people who for some reason may refuse to believe in the wind. This is in stark contrast to God, who can only be “proven” to exist to people already believing in his existence.
In other words, when you subjectively “feel” God it bears no comparison to feeling a real-life, provable phenomenon, so please abstain in the future from such trite and false analogies, moviesmusic.
@Aquaria
No, I’m not 10, I’m 17. But I still read Nancy Drew. Is that ok? I was trying to make a point when I said that!
@Barry de la Rosa who said
“If you don’t like the heat, go back to your ignorance and stop wasting our time by pretending you are open minded; otherwise, come up with some counter-arguments.”
Please don’t say that I am stupid, when you don’t even know me! You are totally right, I am not open minded to becoming a non-believer. I will always believe in him. I did not come to this blog to become a non-believer, I came here to stick up for Christians. It seems like ALL of you have a real hate for Christians. And I think it’s pretty sad.
I”m really getting sick of everyone being against me here! You don’t see me saying mean things or using bad language! I think it’s pretty sad that non of you are acting like mature people. You are resorting to swear words, and harsh, cruel wording! I don’t think I’m gonna comment anymore! It’s not worth my time if no one is even going to TRY to listin, and if I”m just going to be put down all the time!
@moviesmusic
I never said you were stupid. I said you were ignorant, i.e. without knowledge of the facts. But you don’t want facts, or truth. As you admit, you aren’t even searching for truth.
Why do you think you need to stand up for Christians? As other Christians love to point out, especially in the US, atheists seem to be in the minority.
And where do you see hate? Please provide a quote in the above comments where individuals are attacked. We aren’t attacking you personally, we are attacking your religion and its hypocrisies. If you take that personally that can only mean you aren’t very strong in your own convictions.
And really, your last paragraph is just a whine from someone who can’t take the intellectual pressure of defending an argument. Throw your toys out of the pram if you like, but don’t then accuse others of being immature.
Have you considered that everyone’s against you because, hmm, maybe you’re wrong?
@moviesmusic: Ignore mean people. If you want people to be open to believing, though, I think you have to also be open to not believing. It doesn’t work just one way. I’m open to believing again if someone could show me convincing evidence. You should be open to unbelieving if the evidence you believe is not correct.
I don’t think most people here hate Christians, much less all. A few might, but they are probably hit-and-run commenters. They’ve had bad experiences and are venting. I don’t hate Christians — most of my friends are Christians, in fact. I know many intelligent Christians. But I don’t agree with them and we have good debates.
God ALWAYS answers, but sometimes the answer is NO!
Translation: I have noticed the lack of any consistent association between the things I pray for and what actually happens.
Acceptable response: Amen.
Unacceptable response: So the stuff about faith as small as a mustard seed and moving mountains and whatever we ask for in Jesus’ name – all that just means God’s going to do whatever he wants anyway?
OK, the difference between ignorance and idiocy:
Ignorance is the state of not having the data. Idiocy is the state of having the data, but not being able to process it.
Willful ignorance is the state of censoring out all data you don’t want to hear.
And now, moviesmusic: I am an atheist. I’ve been one since before I knew the word. But I had religious instruction in school, and spent all my high school years at a religious school. When I was thirteen, I opened my heart to god, during a silent minute of prayer in chapel. I told him in my heart “God, if you exist and you want me, speak now. You’re omnipotent and omniscient, and you must know me better than I know myself, know that I’ll need some evidence to believe. So speak now, god, and I’m yours.”
I didn’t get a reply, though it was a very tense half-minute. God deigned not to speak, if he truly exists. So I’ve tried to feel god the way I can feel the wind, and nothing happened.
Christians hate and kill and burn and destroy and call it morality. We raise logical objections to their faith and they call it hatred. We point out the evil in the world and they say that an all-powerful, omnipotent being needs the validation through choice of such frail vessels as we.
Can you not see how much faith it must take, to ignore all the objections to that? I, on the other hand, have no faith at all. As I mentioned earlier, I check to be sure the sun has come up in the morning. And I glory in every sunrise.
How can you be an atheist and not be a secular humanist. You’re either placing the supernatural being(s) on the pedestal or man. There is no other category regardless of what you think. If you rely on the governmental law (or your sense of what you can get away with), you are a humanist.
As a sidenote to all of the atheistic commentary, unbridled tolerance for everything but murder as you define it (at the exclusion of the unborn babies being killed every 22 seconds on average) is not love, and it is not enlightened.
Please show me the benefits and perks of your ways, atheists. You get to do what you want without guilt? (That would have to be disingenuous for most people. Guilt is not an exclusive byproduct of religion.) You get what? You have what? You know what? Please tell me.
Please PLEASE tell me more about the hypocrisy and paradoxes of the Bible. Please do. Pretty please.
I tried to read Dawkins and Hitchens, but I got sick of the whining…
And I’ve already covered this before. I’m not trying to sway anyone. I didn’t come here to convert anyone. I didn’t come here to sing “kumbaya” for you. I didn’t hope to win an argument by bringing up personal experiences. With that, I really hoped to help you understand that my real encounter… and my real experiences… are my personal proofs, and they cannot be unseated by intellectualism or adherence to scientific protocol… AND they fairly represent the evangelical Christian. You cannot understand us and debate away the issue because you do not understand that it is personal.
I think the atheists’ biggest stumbling blocks with Christianity are the inherent absolutism that comes with it and that they can’t get beyond their own warped sense of “fairness.” Accountability and discipline are cruelties, no doubt.
And I just have to say to Daniel that I appreciate your “about” section. While I appreciate it, I confess that it makes no sense to me. As I read it, I find myself fixated on the underlying theme of chasing after something… as if the relationship with Christ had not been there… as if you never had the encounter with Him to start off with. With my next statement, I’m admittedly assuming some (from such a short bio), but your time as a Christian seems to smack of legalism and faith by works. If you’d had the encounter, how could you possibly deny Him after reading a collection of books? It’d be like someone trying to convince you that you had never had a relationship with or known your parents or your closest friend. It doesn’t make sense.
I respect you, though. You are at least being more true to yourself than the thousands of “Christians” out there who give themselves the label exclusively because they attend a church service once a week (or year) but otherwise are indistinguishable from the most unsaved people among us.
Excuse me, though. I have to go hate, kill, and burn something now…
@Brad: The goal is truth. I don’t want to believe in superstition or something without proper evidence. I see no reason to believe in Jesus or God. I don’t know why I would want or need to, or what the benefit would be.
I appreciate your analysis of my motives, but I think you missed me a bit. Sure, like all Christians, I have been through my legalistic phases. But trust me, the relationship was there. I really did love Jesus and read his word and tell lots of people about him and went on mission trips. And I worked at a church to serve his kingdom. I did all I could to serve my Lord.
But now I believe Jesus is dead. And that he’s not coming back. I had so many experiences that I thought could not be explained, but the more I’ve learned about psychology my experience makes sense. Many others here can attest that as well.
You begged to see some contradictions in the Bible. There are hundreds of them. I know, you can’t imagine it. And you won’t see them even when they’re pointed out to you. You believe the Bible is infallible, and so you can’t see it in any other way. You can justify every single contradiction, even if you have to say something about it not being in the original manuscripts, which of course we don’t have access to.
But, I happen to have a list handy that I’ve been working on, so here are a few (there are hundreds more), just because you asked. But I know they won’t sway you. They never swayed me when I worshiped the text and didn’t know it’s history.
But unlike if you asked God to give you a list of anything, ask me and ye shall receive:
* Mark 2:26: Jesus says that King David took bread from the temple “when Abiathar was the high priest” but Abiathar’s father Ahimelech was (1 Sam. 21:1-6).
* Mark says Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal was eaten (Mark 14:12; 15:25), but John says he died the day before it was eaten (John 19:14).
* Luke indicates Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth just over a month after they had come to Bethlehem (and performed the rites of purification; Luke 2:39), whereas Matthew indicates they instead fled to Egypt (Matt. 2:19-22)
* Paul says that after he converted on the way to Damascus he did not go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before him (Gal. 1:16-17), whereas the book of Acts says that was the first thing he did after leaving Damascus (Acts 9:26).
* Did Solomon have 40,000 horse stalls or 4,000? (1 Kings 4:26; 2 Chr 9:25).
* According to 2 Kings 24:8, Jehoiachin was eighteen when he began to reign. In 2 Chr 36:9, he is eight.
* God offers seven years of famine to David or defeat in 2 Sam 24:13, but according to 1 Chr 21:11, God offers three years of famine or defeat.
* In II Sam 6:23 Michal the daughter of Saul is said to of had “no child to the day of her death,” but in 22:9 it says Michal had five sons.
* Insects do not have four feet. (Lev 11:21)
* Snails do not melt. (Ps 58:8)
* “Matthew 27:9-10 … claims to fulfill a saying that it attributes to Jeremiah. The saying actually appears in Zechariah 11:12-13.” (Harris, 58) Harris actually is generous there. Ferrel Till says, “If Matthew was indeed referring to Zechariah 11:12-13, then he certainly was “quoting loosely,” so loosely, in fact, that any semblance of a connection between the two passages is barely recognizable.”
* Was Jesus first sermon on a mountain or in a plain? (See Matt 5:1, 2; Luke 6: 17, 20)
* The cock crows twice in Mark (14:72), twice in Matthew (26:74-75), once in Luke (22:61), once in John (13:38; 18:27).
* The NT says the resurrection was prophesied in the scriptures (Luke 24:46; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4). However, nothing even remotely close has ever been found in the OT.
* Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38). However, no such verse can be found.
* Who was at the empty tomb? In Matthew 28:1, there are the two Mary’s with one angel during an earthquake. In Mark 16:1, it is the two Mary’s, Salome, and a “young man” inside the tomb. In Luke 24:4, it is the two Mary’s, Joanna, “the other women,” and “two men.” In John 20:1, it is only Mary Magdalene.
* Matthew says Jesus and his family went to Nazareth “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene” (2:23). As Ferrel Till says, “Bible scholars, however, have been unable to find any statement that any prophet ever made that this could be a reference to. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament prophets never referred to Nazareth, period. The word Nazareth, as well as Nazarene, was never even mentioned in the Old Testament. If this is so, how then could the period of Jesus’s residency in Nazareth have been prophesied by the prophets?”
* Matthew indicated that the centurion went in person to ask Jesus to heal his servant who was near death (8:5-13). Luke said that the centurion stayed at home and sent elders of the Jews to ask Jesus to heal the servant (7:2-10).
* Matthew said that Jairus reported his daughter dead when asking Jesus to go heal her (9:18-25). Both Mark (5:23) and Luke (8:42) said that she was still alive but dying.
* In Acts 9:7, the men with Paul hear the voice, but in 22:9 it says they did not.
I will take a look at the examples you cite, but before I do that, I will highlight the fact that all that you did in your time as a Christian did not speak to “relationship.” “Relationship” involves reciprocation. You were a wonderful, works-based servant. Serving and pursuing something is not the same as “relationship”- great but not the same. It is evident to me that you never had the encounters because encounters aren’t figments of your imagination…
It sounds more to me like you’re just distancing yourself from your angry, fundamentalist daddy. Either that, or you flunked out of Bible college… or maybe you were denied a position that you thought you deserved… or maybe you just got some liberal twang…
Either way, I respect the fact that you are being true to who you are right now… however that came to be.
I’ll be back around.
Being an atheist means you don’t believe in god. That’s it. What you do believe in is up to you. As it happens, I am a secular humanist, because the people I see around me are a thousand times more moral than your “just and merciful” god. I would rather trust a child with Down’s syndrome – a hundredfold rather – than the omniscient creator of the universe.
Secular humanism does not entail unbridled tolerance for everything but murder. Broadly, there are two ways of looking at immorality. One is that theft is immoral, whether the theft is of property, innocence or life. Anything which does not involve taking without giving, anything which is supported by the consent of both parties, is allowed, but that bars murder, rape, theft, lying, hurtful adultery (personally, I favour open relationships, but some secular humanists would say all adultery is hurtful and therefore wrong)… you get the picture. It’s basically the ten commandments without the “For I the lord am a jealous god” stuff. You know, pared down to the important stuff that actually involves real people, and worked out on grounds of actually caring about people, rather than simply because god said so.
And as for what atheism entails, what the benefits are, why I chose this life over slavery to an imaginary master… Carl Sagan said it best; “In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”"
I get to marvel at the world as it really is. I get to see an infinite universe… 100000000000 galaxies of 100000000000 stars, each new, each different… I get to see life as a journey of a billion years, leading to me and flowing from me in a trillion interweaving threads. Of course, Christians can see this too, but they tend to blather on about 6000 years and how they can’t imagine how evolution can work and therefore it must be wrong. Being an atheist means never worrying if god will find disfavour with you this day, for one. But it also means having to be moral now, to do right now. There is no eternal salvation; there is only the salvation of the now. There is no kingdom of heaven after we die, with blessings flowing from the creator; there is only the republic of heaven, with blessings flowing from all, from greatest and least in equal measure.
How could a delusion caused by societal influences possibly compare to that?
@Brad:
Damn Brad, you got mean. It’s funny how you make assumptions about me so they fit with who you think I should be.
Seriously, how dare you say that you know “all that [I] did in [my] time as a Christian” didn’t have to do with a “relationship.” That’s very arrogant for someone who doesn’t even know who I am.
And how dare you accuse that all I’m doing is trying to distance myself from my “daddy” (who is only a Christian because of my influence), or that I flunked bible college, or didn’t get a position I thought I deserved? That’s a hell of a lot of speculation.
How utterly insulting. Way to be like Jesus. Makes me want to run back to the faith!
Unacceptable response to “Amen:”
“Aaaahhhh, women!”
Re: “Thank You, Jesus!”
I can’t believe you missed the obvious response: “You’re welcome!”
akshelby
I was the kid in your scenario. My mom died when I was 6, sister was 5. Many people told us that it was god’s will, that my mom was so great that he wanted her with him. I pin that as the beginning of my questioning everything people said about religion. I was always active in my (fairly liberal) church growing up, but I really never believed any of it. I wanted to b/c I wanted that comfort of seeing my mom again, but I was never able to suspend my disbelief despite such a strong desire to do so.
@moviesmusic: You don’t feel god. You feel the numinous – something that Christians interpret as god, Muslims interpret as Allah, Hindus interpret as Vishnu (or whichever other god(dess) they happen to prefer), and atheists interpret as wonderment at how awesome the universe can be. Your brain is receiving a signal and it’s interpreting it based on its understanding of the universe and its expectations, that’s all. It certainly isn’t proof of a divine being and it certainly isn’t proof of your divine being.
@Brad – you’ve been posting quite a bit so I only want to respond to a few bits in comment 86 at the moment. I hope that’s alright.
“Of course, since you bow at the altar of secular humanism, you have your idols. They’re just harder to mock because you find your cliques. Good job.”
What do you mean by “idols”? I don’t worship anything, I don’t pray to anything, so I would like to know how you are defining “altar” and “idol.” It seems that you are using the definition of “religion” as “whatever is most important in someone’s life.” If that’s the case, you would be using the term so loosely that you would be rendering it effectively meaningless.
“The Bible tells us that He showed you, and you would not see; He told you, and you would not hear.”
I have neither seen nor heard anything. God has maintained perfect radio silence with me. I have seen no evidence whatsoever and have, in fact, seen quite a bit that shows me that god doesn’t exist at all.
“My sole purpose is to clue you into the fact that you are the minority, and not every Christian is a clueless, inbred redneck.”
I do believe that we are all well aware of both of those facts. I don’t know where you got the impression that anyone here thought differently… You have passed judgement on everyone here and decided what we believed, thought, and what our life stories were long before you ever knew this site existed. This is a perfect example of closed-minded thinking.
By the way, I’m not a “secular humanist.” I’m a “secular naturalist.” This really illustrates my point. You’ve decided that we are all secular humanists for some reason (to the point of arguing with someone else about his own self-identity – which, by the way, is just ridiculous).
“For the atheist demanding proof, I encourage you to look at the world and really question the theory of evolution or chaos.”
I won’t bother to quote this whole block, I am sure you understand. Anyone who wants the context of the quote can just go to the original post.
Anyway, I have looked at the theory of evolution, and of various tidbits of physics, chemistry, and so forth. It all makes sense to me. The bits that have confused me or that initially seemed contradictory have been explained to me, without hesitation, by a series of amazing teachers, professors, and friends and most of my questions have been resolved. The few that haven’t been, I have instead been assured that we are looking for answers and I have seen the tests and theories and all seem sound.
Let’s compare that to religion – I did the Sunday school thing, I did the bible reading thing, I did the church thing. I saw contradictions, I saw flaws, I saw “facts” that I couldn’t reconcile with what I could go outside and see with my own eyes. It felt like I was being told the sky was green and when I would ask why it looks blue, being told to just shut up and stop questioning because that’s the way it is. None of my questions were every answered to my satisfaction. Issues of theology and just plugged up with theological spackle – the holes are still there, just covered up.
I have seen no proof. I have studied the new testament and it is not proof. It is proof only that four men believed (four different) things. That’s all. I have looked into the sky and I have not seen god there. I have seen countless miracles explained.
Why do you ask us to “really question” things like the theory of evolution when your own beliefs cannot stand up to even the laziest scrutiny?
As for “chaos,” I don’t know what you mean by that. Like “idols,” I think it’s a term that is just getting tossed around too much to really know what someone means when they use it.
“How can you possibly conceive that individual cells by chance over the course of millions of years just decided to come together and form an eyeball…”
Because we’ve seen it happen:
http://terrariummorbidum.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/still-just-a-lizard/
“Why can you not see the uniqueness and specificity of each creature and plant on this planet?”
I can. I can see how it all makes sense in an evolutionary sense. Niches work well because it reduces competition. If two species are trying to fill the same niche, there is too much competition for food and it is likely that one or the other will die out. Uniqueness and specificity is important and can be perfectly explained through rational means.
“If evolution is the answer, why do we continue to have a finite number of proteins known to us?”
If god is the answer, why are bacteria changing constantly and becoming resistant to the antibiotics that we are using? If that’s not evolution, is god doing it? If so, what motives could he possibly have?
In answer to your question, I have no idea. I don’t even know if your question is true or not. What I do know is that it’s a tiny detail in a larger system that makes perfect sense. The answer that “god did it,” however, doesn’t even make sense as a big picture. Why are there so many diseases? Why are our diseases becoming resistant to our cures? This is a major issue (the old “why do bad things happen to good people” thing”) and not easily explained away. I’ve heard a lot of excuses – that they were really bad people who just hid their flaws well, that they weren’t christian enough, that god is testing us, and so forth. But that just makes things even more problematic. Even if god were real, the very fact that he would murderer babies simply to test of their parents really love him or not is MONSTROUS. I would rather burn in hell forever than worship such evil pettiness.
“Again, for the atheist demanding proof of the invisible God, I encourage you to get to know people whose lives were radically changed by the Lord above. Look at circumstances where men, women, and children either did miraculous things or thrived in impossible situations.”
I have seen people do miraculous things without the use of god many times. I happen to very much enjoy magic shows.
As for thriving in impossible situations, I would like to see you give me an example. By definition, the situations can’t have been impossible if they ended up thriving. I have no trouble believing that humans can do well for themselves in very difficult situations. I also don’t doubt that some people find it easier when they have an imaginary friend to confide in or feel that they are receiving strength from.
“Look at the martyrs who so bravely allowed themselves to be killed for the God you deny…”
Yes, look at all those Jews who preferred to burn at the stake at the hands of the inquisition than to give up their beliefs. Look at all the pagans who were killed and enslaved by Christians because they wouldn’t convert. This doesn’t prove the existence of YOUR god because people have suffered and died for plenty of different gods and ideologies. How many Communists died during the Bolshevik revolution, trying to bring godlessness to Russia? What do you make of ATHEISTS dying for their beliefs?
Pointing out that people have been dying for their ideologies doesn’t mean that those ideologies are true.
“when you probably wouldn’t cop to a speeding ticket when pulled over.”
Why wouldn’t I? What right have you to make a statement like that about people you have never met? Not only that, but what right have you to do so in the very same post where you complained that we were assuming that all Christians were inbred rednecks or some such. This is called hypocrisy.
“Again for the atheist demanding proof of the Jesus as Lord, I point to human nature. If it was such a bogus, empty scam, why did 12 of 13 apostles… and later Paul… willingly put themselves in daily jeopardy and proceed to martyrdom to further the Kingdom of Christ? Human nature dictates that they would have given up the charade at the time of Jesus’ death or that they would have been getting rewarded handsomely with wealth and celebrity.”
Why do you say that human nature would be to do that? See above where I talked about the Red Russians who fought and died to bring their beliefs to Russia. Most of them are nameless. They weren’t conscripted, they did it willingly because they believed in an idea.
Not only is this behaviour perfectly in line with human nature, it also has nothing to do with Christianity. Do you honestly believe that NO ONE has ever suffered or died for a cause that wasn’t related to your particular god?
“It’s like me asking you to prove that my biological father exists without providing you with his name or social security number. ”
Because we know that, according to the laws of biology (and, assuming that you are a human), you must have had a biological father. We’ve seen that billions upon billions of humans have had fathers and we have never seen one who hasn’t. It is therefore acceptable to assume that any new person we meet has also had a father. We do not need to test every new person.
Obviously…
“Well, I attest to the reality of God and the change he made in me as a 20-year-old agnostic who fervently denied Christ and chafed at any evidence of religion being imposed on me for 10 years.”
You changed your opinion – how does that prove anything at all? I hated broccoli my entire life. I screamed and kicked and pleaded for over 20 years at the very mention that broccoli might be on the menu. I hated the taste of it, I hated the texture, I hated everything about it. Then, suddenly, one day I ate it and I liked it. Now I love broccoli.
Is that proof of a Great Broccoli God? Are we to deify everything anyone has ever changed their mind about?
“As we only exist for the glorification of Him who created us, we must have choice. There is no glory to Him if there is no choice. He is glorified when we choose Him over the alternatives of this world and despite the atrocities of this world. Evil exists because so many people choose poorly.”
No choice of mine ever ended up in a hurricane or an earthquake. If you choose to personify nature, you must admit that nature can be very evil. If you admit that, you must therefore admit that your god is (at least partially) evil.
But this still doesn’t explain the evil of the old testament. Why would a good god command me to murder my own child just because she/he has talked back to me? Why would a good god tell me to murder my neighbour just because he wears a polyester/cotton blend shirt? This has nothing to do with humans choosing to be mean to each other – this is god COMMANDING us to do horrible things, things that no sane person would ever think anything short of monstrous.
You addressed my point of the “harshess of the old testament” directly but you haven’t explained it at all. Yet again, I have seen a terribly flaw in the religious explanation for things and had my answer answered in a way that does not satisfy me (or, in this case as in many others, had my question skipped over completely).
“That brings no glory to Him.”
Here’s another thing that bugs me about Christianity. Your god is a petty god – a needy god who hurts us, often violently, just to make us prove that we love him. If your god were a human, your god would be called a psychopath and locked away for the rest of his life. Why should I worship (or “bring glory to”) a being such as this?
“To the atheist spouting the evils done in the name of God and Christ, I challenge you to find where Jesus commanded or instructed us in the ways of violence.”
Does the old testament not count? God commanded his followers to slaughter innocent people, to murder children, to stone to death helpless women who aren’t capable of defending themselves. Most people who commit evils in the name of the Christian god do so in a way that obeys the old testament perfectly. You cannot say the old testament is real and then backtrack and say “no no, we can only listen to what Jesus says” when the old testament contradicts you.
“Along those same lines, I would point you in the direction of some of the world’s most notable Godless. For the evil you attribute to us, I wonder how you deny the acts and brutality of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin… all Godless people seeking secular societies.”
Hitler was a Roman Catholic seeking a Roman Catholic society. “Gott Mit Uns” was the motto of the Nazi party, it means “God is with us.” Hitler even had the backing of the Roman Catholic Church because a) he was a good Catholic from a Catholic country, and b) he was only doing what the Catholic Church had been doing for ages – killing non-Catholics.
Mao and Stalin, I will give you both. However, both were following their own ideologies. They weren’t just atheists, they were both Communists. That’s important. They did what they did as Communists, not as atheists. Atheism, for them, was merely an offshoot of their beliefs with regards to Communism.
Following any ideology to the point where you would divide the world into “us” and “them” and then be willing to cause harm to those in the “them” category is bad. Religion, itself, isn’t a bad thing. It’s just an idea and all ideas are completely neutral. The issue I have with Christianity is that it lends itself so easily (via the old testament, mostly) to the side of evil.
“For all of your self-righteous, moralistic blathering, I challenge you to find the evil in the New Testament and Jesus’ teachings. Oh, but it’s against homosexuality. What else do you have?”
As if the homosexuality thing weren’t enough… I’ve already listed a few choice bits in this post (if you scroll up, you will see me talking about the whole murder your children if they talk back and murder anyone wearing mixed fibres). If you would like more, a quick google search should help you out. If you are lazy, I can do it for you. Here’s the first page that came up: http://www.evilbible.com/ I’ve only skimmed the first page briefly, but it seems to be fairly comprehensive.
“Your condescension, narcissism, and rampant relativism are repugnant to me.”
Please explain where anyone in the blog post or even the comments that followed has been condescending, narcissistic, or shown rampant relativism. In fact, what do you mean by “relativism” because I am definitely not seeing anything even close to that…
“It takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian.”
Translation: “I don’t really understand atheism or how it’s possible not to believe in a god.”
Unacceptable Response: “Believing in something without evidence takes faith. Not believing in something without evidence takes intelligence.”
***********
I’d like to add:
Another Unacceptable Response: “Really? And don’t you believe that ‘faith’ is a good thing? So, if it takes more ‘faith’ to be an atheist than a Christian, it must be better to be an atheist!”
Brad, what exactly are you implying when you say atheists (or sec. humanists, which you have confused with atheists) have “unbridled tolerance for everything but murder … [and abortion]“?
That’s the biggest strawman I ever saw. Are you saying that when people are not following the Bible’s absolute morals they more or less assume anything goes? Stealing, lying, cheating, hurting, whatever, it’s all fine, because we don’t answer to God?
Try to get past your own made-up assumptions, and look at how people actually behave, rather than how you assume them to behave. Because frankly, your assumptions are far from the real world.
And to give a short answer to your question of what the benefits of atheism are: The main benefit, to me, is that I don’t have to follow religious tenets which make no sense to me or contradict the real world, and most of all, I don’t have to base my morals and behavior on a deity or religious creeds that are in large part morally reprehensible.
@trj: Well if Brad is like many Christians then yes he is saying that unless you believe in god then you have no morals. Of all the aspects of religion this is the one that I find most worrying. I can put up with the believing in something for which there is no evidence – I always like the one that because the theory of evolution isn’t perfect then any theory I put forward must be true. To me this is the equivalent of the theory of gravity isn’t perfect so I believe that gravity is caused by people wearing hats! Anyway I digress – so why is the supposed lack of morality such a problem? It’s because it can be used as a justification for almost any behaviour as they are answering to their god and no one else. You only have to look through history to see how this type of argument has been used as it’s god will. At this point the normal answer is that they strayed from the path – well I say this path seems made as a means to an end and is not fixed at all. The idea that the morality of believers is somehow fixed is just wrong, wrong, wrong …
@Jabster
Yeah, the Christian argument that there can be no moral without religion is common. I’m not 100 percent sure this is what Brad implies, but it seems likely. I hope he’ll clarify.
One only has to look at any society at any point in time, religious or not, Christian or not, to see that they all share the same core of ethics. To state that there can be no morals/ethics unless it is defined absolutely and unchangingly by a supernatural being is missing the point entirely. Moral behavior is an intrinsic human trait and ethics is a product of the society in which humans must interact. The Bible is a product of this as well.
Apart from the flawed idea of absolute morals, it appears also to be very self-validating to some religious people. By defining other people to be without morals they can bask in their own moral self-righteousness.
@Brad:
“It is evident to me that you never had the encounters because encounters aren’t figments of your imagination…”
Are you talking about real-life encounters with Jesus? Please tell us more. I and many other open-minded atheists – in fact, anyone with any honesty – would gladly convert if Jesus (or any other deity) appeared to us, or could have been *proved* to appear to others. Why doesn’t he appear on TV? Why didn’t he appear to me when I was a young lad “opening my heart” to him?
I fear however that these “encounters” you are talking about are indeed “figments of your imagination”. You simply need to watch Derren Brown to see how amazingly powerful the mind is and how it can trick us into believing things which plainly aren’t true. (Mr Brown generously ignores the fact – or isn’t aware – that most of his material is available on YouTube).
I have found that the most convincing reason people cite for converting is these personal “encounters”. Many of the most objective and open-minded Christians I have met were converted in this way. However, in retrospect I’ve learned that the reason they are so torn in their faith is more likely that they see the contradictions and the hypocrisy, but because their whole family is in the church, and their lives revolve around the church, they are desperate to find a way to justify belief in god.
I’d like to share a quote I use in my email sig. It’s a hard quote to live by, believe me:
“Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self;
for what we wish, we readily believe.”
– Demosthenes
“And I disagree it takes faith to be an atheist. Faith is believing something in spite of evidence to the contrary or without any evidence.”
This is the problem with the whole article, arguement and ultimately the blog.
Of course atheism takes faith. You have faith in the evidence. You have faith in your chair that it will hold your weight. You have faith that when you write on your laptop screen it somehow goes to a website that other people can read. Unless you’re a complete geek you may not know exactly how typing on your keyboard actually results in us being able to read it. All of these things take faith. You have faith in your bank not to steal your money. You have faith in FedEx to deliver packages. You have faith that your parents won’t spend all of your inheritance. You have faith that you are real and not an illusion in Dawkins’ mind. These are all reasonable acts of faith.
You may describe them as trust, reasonable expectation or another way but this is what faith means. Calling faith “believing something in spite of evidence” is disingenuous. If the evidence says otherwise then you can just call it “stupid” or more politely “unreasonable”. Please don’t misuse words.
The question is then: What do you have faith in? Is it reasonable?
You have correctly titled your blog “Unreasonable Faith” which is fair, since you believe that Christianity is unreasonable. Therefore I assume you would also admit that you think Atheism is a “reasonable faith”. You believe that the evidence makes it reasonable to believe there isn’t a God.
If you’re going to dabble in metaphysics, science, theology, philosophy and debate you should commit to using words accurately.
- Great post though! Very thought-provoking and funny.
One only has to look at any society at any point in time, religious or not, Christian or not, to see that they all share the same core of ethics.
Whatever your argument’s power or validity this statement is silly and facile. Some societies value cannibalism (even today), child sacrifice (ancient South America), pedophilia and infanticide (ancient Rome), slavery (much of Europe and the US), stoning women for being raped (the Middle East presently)*.
No society shares the same core of ethics. You’re deluded if you think the whole world is like the former-protestant-now-moderist West.
*Yep you read that right. In the Middle East they are quite happy to stone women for being raped since they claim that it must have been the woman’s fault for exciting the man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudood_Ordinance
That’s “modernist”, not “moderist”.
Cheers
Daniel and others,
Granted, there is some truth in what you have written. However, the basic assumption is that all Christians are ignorant and have no reasons or evidence for what they believe. Actually, the evidence for the truth of Christianity is overwhelming, even if most people (alas, even some Christians) are not aware of it.
So here is my translation of a couple of atheist clichés and phrases:
“Atheism is rational, while belief in God is based on blind faith.”
Translation: “I’ve never bothered to read any arguments defending theism, but I’m sure there aren’t any.”
Acceptable Response: “I applaud you for your commitment to reason.”
Unacceptable Response: “When you say there is no evidence for the existence of God, have you actually looked for any? And if your reasoning ability is the mere product of matter + time + chance, on what basis can you trust it?”
“I don’t believe in God for the same reason I don’t believe in Santa Claus.”
Translation: “Only children and ignorant people believe in something they can’t see.”
Acceptable Response: “Some things have to be believed to be seen.” [Thanks, Bono, for that line.]
Unacceptable Response: “What about all those scientists and philosophers who do believe in God? (Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Charles Thaxton, Stanley Jaki, John Eccles, Robert Jastrow, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Richard Swinburne, Peter Kreeft, etc., etc. Or what about Antony Flew, one of the 20th century’s most prominent atheists who came to believe in God, because of the evidence?”
You can ask an atheist all day if they’ve looked for evidence to prove the existence of god but when they say no will you be ready with that “overwhelming” evidence?
And just because a scientist believes in god doesn’t mean that he or she has proved that god exists. Some people only use logic and reason when they feel it is convenient.
Very funny indeed.
The comments by the Christians are funny in there own way because it shows their failure to reason as well as show their hypocritical self-centered presumption.
I for one find it very amusing to hear any Christian going on about how their god is the true one while ignoring the myriad of other cults/sects out there. Especially when you keep in mind that even with all the sub-sects of Christianity the majority of cults/sects are not christian at all, they are not even Abrahamic religions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions
It just goes to show that a large part of human kind has still not managed to get past the ‘let’s worship that which is takes some thinking to understand’ level.
—-
All the Christians that I have seen post here sound to me of the kind as described in the text tale :
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
Whenever I read posts like these, I always get a mental image of two men groping in a totally dark room, trying to find a way out. One persists until he finds a way into the light, but the other gives up the search, perfering to resent the one who made it outside and can finally see what’s really going on. Try these:
“What exactly does Jesus do in my blood-pumping organ?”
Translation: I’ve never heard the expression, “break my heart” or know what “allegory” means. It’s more fun to ridicule than to be intellegent.
“Like yeast?”
Translation: God, I’m ignorant enough to believe that if I mock You enough, You will reveal Yourself to me.
Fundamentalists can, at times, be infurating. No doubt about it. So can politicians, but that doesn’t cause me to abandon the Constitution or the intellegence behind it.
@ Gary,
“Or what about Antony Flew, one of the 20th century’s most prominent atheists who came to believe in God, because of the evidence?””
Anthony who ? I had to look him up because I for one have never heard of him.
Do you truly want to count him as one of your fellow believers in light of the following qoute by Anthony Flew:
“I’m quite happy to believe in an inoffensive inactive god”
Gary, you do know that Flew’s conception of God is limited to the idea of God as a first cause. He rejects the ideas of an afterlife, of God as the source of good (he explicitly states that God has created “a lot of” evil), and of the resurrection of Jesus as an historical fact.
So someone that at the end of his life starts believing in some kind of god you use to champion your Christianity?
What a joke.
And for your information; I have yet to come across an atheist that wasn’t far better informed and knowledgeable about the Bible,Koran,Tora and have some knowledge about other big religions (Hindu, Tao,etc.) then any Bible wielder. Don’t project your lack of knowledge on to atheists. It isn’t because you haven’t looked further then what you pastor/bible group has permitted you that others aren’t better educated.
Just because you’ve never heard of him doesn’t mean he is unimportant.
This is in fact the same as your argument at the end of your comment. Show a little consistency eh?
By the way Tora is more properly spelt Torah in English.
But by way of just copying out of wikipedia as you seem to have done, what about these lines:
However, in 2007, in an interview with Benjamin Wiker, Flew said again that his deism was the result of his “growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.” In addition, he rejected “Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a “lucky chance.” If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over.” He also restated that he was not a Christian theist.
Kite,
Antony Flew was a professor at Oxford and other universities. He wrote The Presumption of Atheism and other serious philosophical books. He wasn’t a popularizer like Dawkins and others who are rehashing old arguments (which were answered long ago, by the way). I acknowledge that he is not (to my knowledge) a Christian. My point was simply that he moved from atheism to theism on the basis of evidence: “I think that the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries.”
(Source: http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=33&mode=detail)
Some atheists are well informed, some are not. But when someone says there is NO evidence for God, I conclude they must be in the latter category. (And, yes, I have read a lot of atheist literature as well, so your last condescending statement is uncalled for.)
P.S. I do like the joke about the guy jumping off the bridge.
@Robin: It’s there now. Thanks!
@Lincoln:
I don’t think atheism is “reasonable faith.” I think it’s “reasonable.” I don’t have faith there is no God anymore than I have faith there isn’t a fairy godmother. But if you consider that I have faith in no fairy godmother, or Santa Claus, or anything like that, then I guess in your definition I do have faith. But that kind of open definition makes it meaningless to me, I don’t see how it could help your position.
So…let me get this right…if I’m a black Christain and I attend an all black membership church, does that make me a racist or does it only apply to white people? I’m not a church-goer nor a Bible reader but when a person of faith says they’ll pray for me I feel only gratitude and certainly not insulted. Be a non-believer if that’s what makes you happy but why must you demonize people who do? It’s discriminatory, judgmental, and insecure…all the things you say Christians are. And, by the way, why just pick on Christians when you’re really talking about ALL religions? I’m all for humor but I’ve read funnier things in National Geographic.
@Lincoln:
You’ll notice that I said societies all share a [i]core[/i] of ethics. I doubt very much you’ll find any society which accepts murders or theft, for instance (except in certain circumstances, like war – at which point societies seem to share common criteria for disregarding the rules).
Of course you can always find extreme exceptions like infanticide or cannibalism, although one may debate how integrated these behaviours really are in their societies, but let me rephrase my statement then:
The VAST MAJORITY of societies share the same common values.
I think all societies can be found to share a set of common values simply because all people have the same basic needs — both biologically and psychologically (look up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for further information).
Societies, in turn, have certain basic needs that must be met in order to function, such as rules governing their members’ behavior; hence laws and taboos serving to protect the integrity of the society. Many of the subsequent cultural layers are of course in direct response to local conditions (e.g. living in the Amazon rain forest vs. living on the Arctic tundra) and others have evolved from other factors, but when you strip away those secondary and tertiary layers, you will find your similarities.
TRJ:
Theft: In Communism/Marxism there is can be no private property. Therefore theft does not exist. If someone did steal, it wouldn’t be wrong since there is no such thing as ownership. Communism doesn’t just affect a few people on the extreme.
Infanticide: This is not some random extreme exception. This was widely practised across the Roman empire. This isn’t a few nut-cases, this was a common part of life. Some would argue our society does this though abortion, though many would disagree.
The vast majority of societies do not share the same common values. If you want to say the vast majority of formerly-Christian-now-modernist societies share some common values you may be right.
While I am a believer, I’m by no means a fundamentalist and think that anything taken to extremes (which I’ve also been guilty of on other levels and situations) can be dangerous and counterproductive.
Still, I think that while you can’t necessarily “stereotype”, you can, based on experience generalize, and to a large degree all the comments are TRUE.
Church and God people are in your heart. And, I’m sick of people who say Christ is the SAVIOUR but act
“Christian-like” only on Sunday.
Christians, Muslums, Jews, all readical fanatics are actually more alike than differant. They each believe that THEIR God (0r version of G0d) is the only right one and the only way into heaven and are so preoccupied with trying to convert and convince everyone else that they forget to carry out HIS will and what he expects. For the most part they are also no different than the mainstream either. The women like to be and look sexy and the men, belch, drink beer, watch sports with their hand down their pants and look at pretty women. And, their kids have the same issues (in many cases more) than “secular society”. And, they are the same folks with an equally jaded past (if not present) as secular society, with the same fears, cares, and concerns, and even the same ones who work two jobs, “ignoring” their kids, their husbands and wives, and who put mom or dad in a nursing home because they simply don’t have time to look after them….real Christian-like there. In fact, they call or don’t call as little or as often as non-Christians and they too “do” have a selfish streak, moreso than those who claim to have “no religion”. And, sadly enough these radical fanatics are obsessed, more than average with SEX and often the scandelous sort as well. They are constantly talking about how people HAVE TO get married to experience the pleasure of sex. They get pregnant immediately because they can’t control their urges and then they can’t control their life and family. And, they also feel the need to fill you in on how important PLEASUERE is and how often they are “getting it’ or not.
It’s also a huge shame that so-called believers HAVE to go to church to find God, realign themselves with GOD, build their relationship with GOD and hook up with others of similar interests. While I adore my family and friends I don’t have to see them daily or weekly to have a relationship with them, nor do I have to be reminded they are my friends throgh others. My dedication and love for them is intrinsic and they NEVER leave my heart or thoughts. And, as an avid reader, I don’t HAVE to join a book club or hand out in a book store to associate with other readers or encourage myself to read. In fact, people I meet either have something in common with me or not and I move on from there.
Thest extremists are also in my opinion EXTREME HYPOCRITES, saying one thing on Sunday and doing another on Monday. They break plans and hearts, just like everyone else and even get divorced like everyone else, trying to find a looppole to explain why it’s okay to go “against God’s will” and severe the ties. Call it abandonment, cheating, abuse, these people are master-debators and highly skilled at covering their behinds in their favour, yet condemning mainstream society for doing the same.
I am a believer but choose to believe in my GOD and NOT a group of social misfits who are a poor representation of almost any religion and of humanity in general.
These stereotypes are for the most part 1000% true and I hope it helps pursue faith, real faith, but abandon the church, because honestly it’s nothing but a social club, and like most sucking your money and your time for membership.
Lincoln said: “You have faith in the evidence. You have faith in your chair that it will hold your weight. You have faith that when you write on your laptop screen it somehow goes to a website that other people can read. Unless you’re a complete geek you may not know exactly how typing on your keyboard actually results in us being able to read it. All of these things take faith.”
I think that you are confusing faith with knowledge. I KNOW the chair is going to hold me when I sit down. If the chair breaks, it isn’t my lack of “faith” that made me fall to the ground– it’s the fact the chair is broken.
The information going from your laptop to the web is NOT faith– it’s a series of binary code (hence “bytes”) that travels through fiber optics to a server that then distributes the information to other computers through said fiber optics. If that info doesn’t get through, it’s not because of my lack of faith– the modem is probably broken or the server is down. (Yes, I guess I am a geek).
These arguments are just silly. It’s like the person who said, “You can’t see wind, but it’s there.” If I turn on a fan, I can see wind– in fact I just created it! Does that mean I’M God?
“Whatever your argument’s power or validity this statement is silly and facile. Some societies value cannibalism (even today), child sacrifice (ancient South America), pedophilia and infanticide (ancient Rome), slavery (much of Europe and the US), stoning women for being raped (the Middle East presently)*.
No society shares the same core of ethics. You’re deluded if you think the whole world is like the former-protestant-now-moderist West.”
You’re wrong there, Lincoln. Is it not a universal belief that stealing is wrong? That murder is wrong? Is it not a universal belief that treating people with repsect and kindness is a good thing? Again, Christianity does NOT have a foothold on these beliefs. They were there in Ancient Rome, as they, yes, are in the modern Middle East. Ancient Mayans and Aztecs were grounded firmly in their belief of human sacrifice. Unsavory and disgusting to modern humans, yes. But isn’t the whole Jesus story about sacrifice– HUMAN sacrfice, to be exact? Doesn’t the Catholic Church still practice the SYMBOLIC eating of Christ’s blood and flesh? Even though we do not sacrifice actual human beings, doesn’t this smack of cannibalism as well?
(NO offense to Catholics here– I am merely making a point based on what Lincoln said)
And don’t you think that cannibalistic societies today would look at the Chritian belief system with the same horror that they view them because Christians DON’T sacrifice to their god? It’s all a matter of opinion and point of view. And, again, opinion is NOT empirical fact.
And why is it that atheists have to “choose their words wisely” while Xtians can say whatever they want? Xtians are so eager to jump all over a word (i.e, “ignorance” which is immediately translated as “stupid”) while continuing their rant of “You’re going to hell” or “You are not a complete person” over and over. How is THAT not insulting and hurtful?
From what I’ve read here, the athesits are being FAR more civil than many of the Xtain warriors here.
Also, I’d like to comment on the post (I believe it was Brad) who said that 87% of Americans believe in God. First off, I’d like to see that information in print somewhere. Can you provide it?
Secondly, yes, a majority of Americans will say they believe in God because they were brought up to believe in God through family and community. If you have that “information” pounded into your head every single day of your life for 20 years, yeah, you’re gonna start believing it. Now some believe it for the rest of their lives. And others question it, and research it, and contemplate it, and come to their own conclusions.
Let me ask you this– if you took a survey in 1942 Germany, how many people would say they were Nazis, even if they didn’t believe in what Hitler was doing, simply because the Nazis were the majority and claiming otherwise could mean you harm? AGAIN, I AM NOT COMPARING THE BASIS OF CHRISTIANITY WITH NATIONAL SOCIALISM. I am making making a point that people will confess to a belief system simply for the reason of belonging to the “tribe”, for the fear of being shunned by the community and, in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, from being killed.
It is a common misbelief that science is out to disprove God. Let me ask you this– how is the forming of a multiple celled creature from a one celled creature any less believable than God forming a man out of dust? Huh? How is that LESS believable? Because you don’t understand it? I don’t understand it either, but it happened. How do we know? Because we have fossil evidence up the wazoo that tells us it happened. We have NO evidence that God created Adam.
And no, the Bible does NOT count as evidence, anymore than the Wizard of Oz counts as a documentary. It is a book written by men to try to explain things they didn’t understand, like ALL ancient mythology. And most of the books were written THOUSANDS of years AFTER these things presumably occurred.
Again, don’t confuse “faith” with “facts”. Or KNOWLEDGE.
Daniel:
It isn’t at all an open definition. In fact it is quite a tight definition. Faith is confidence or trust in something. What you have your faith IN can be any number of sensible, silly, reasonable, unreasonable, inane, proven, unproven things.
- You believe that there isn’t a God. You have faith in the strong evidence which (you believe) proves this. You have considered (I presume) the facts and made your mind up.
- Someone else has faith that there is a God. They may have this based on some, little, or no evidence.
- Both of you haven’t seen tomorrow’s sunrise but it’s entirely reasonable to assume it will rise. In fact both would argue that it is an incontrovertible fact that it will rise. However until it does you have faith. In faith you set your alarm for a days work tomorrow because you believe that life will continue as normal. We all have faith in many things, whether we are conscious of it or not. It just takes a small disappointment to remind us of our small steps of faith. If you slip and fall on the way to work you realise that your faith in your own steadiness or the non-slipperyness of the sidewalk needs to be re-assessed a little.
You have faith that the chair you are sitting in can hold your weight… I presume?
It seems you are just using “faith” as a proxy for religion, theology, or set of unreasonable beliefs. If you want to do this fair enough… but please realise you keep the debate at the level of straw men and semantics.
Lincoln said: “You have faith that the chair you are sitting in can hold your weight… I presume?”
- No, that is not faith, it is simple science. And it is testable in a number of ways:
A) I can simply sit on it;
B) I can inspect it for damage or wear and factor in the many times I have previously sat on it without incident;
C) I can read the label on the packaging (assuming I still have it) which should tell me the weight limitations;
D) I can study its design and construction and determine from that whether it is sound;
E) I can read up on the materials used and determine whether they are strong enough;
F) I can step on a bathroom scale to see if I exceed the recommended weight limit;
… and there might be other options I can’t think of right now. All in all: objective, measurable facts and logical reasoning. No blind faith.
I was fun reading all of the comments. I only have one thing to add to this “discussion”.
As far as Christ being sacrifced on the cross, suffering for our sins, coming back from the dead ect…ect…
you have to wonder, how many people on this earth have suffered so much more, so much longer, for so much less. For, let’s say, God , country and war….
Both before and after his crucifiction.
You’re wrong there, Lincoln. Is it not a universal belief that stealing is wrong? That murder is wrong? Is it not a universal belief that treating people with repsect and kindness is a good thing?
It isn’t universal. This is very small-minded. Heard of India? Heard of the Caste system? Heard of Dalits? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit)
See my point earlier about Theft.
Ivy I think you’ve proven my point:
I think that you are confusing faith with knowledge. I KNOW the chair is going to hold me when I sit down. If the chair breaks, it isn’t my lack of “faith” that made me fall to the ground– it’s the fact the chair is broken.
You don’t know the chair is going to hold you until you sit down. You can make a reasonable assessment by looking at it but until you “trust your weight” to it you don’t know. If the chair breaks your faith had nothing to do with it. But if the chair breaks you realise you were wrong to put your weight on it OR you were wrong to trust the chair OR your faith was misplaced.
Remember the game you played in school where you pulled the chair away just as someone sat down? They hit the floor and everyone, but the teacher, laughed. They KNEW (or had faith) the chair was behind them. So they sat down… and got a shock. Their faith/knowledge/trust was misplaced.
And why is it that atheists have to “choose their words wisely” while Xtians can say whatever they want? Xtians are so eager to jump all over a word (i.e, “ignorance” which is immediately translated as “stupid”) while continuing their rant of “You’re going to hell” or “You are not a complete person” over and over. How is THAT not insulting and hurtful?
I’m all for Xians choosing words wisely. Let’s not forget there’s total fruit-loops on both sides.
Brad – you wanted to know what parts of the bible atheists object to? Check out this site:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
This site goes through the bible, verse by verse, pointing out hypocracy, inaccuracies, absurdities, mysogeny, and atrocities of the bible.
I never said I was like Jesus. I’m just trying to get there. I have a long way to go. If you think what I wrote was mean, then you would have loved my tones, attitudes, etc. 14 years ago… Sorry if I offended you. It’s just what you sound like. I’ve seen it before, and I’ve heard it before. You know, half a story being told. I’m convinced you are leaving out critical details… or maybe just THE critical detail. You brought your understanding of psychology into the equation, so I put on my psychology hat and explored for a second. People in relationship do not just walk on the basis of external “evidence.” If I had to guess, I’d say your Christian walk went from at latest your early teens to your early 20s. The “twang” comment was a little harsh, but I’ve seen it before.
When I wrote “unbridled tolerance…” it was in the context of human nature’s tendency to justify and rationalize everything. There is a way that seems right to a man. You can be swayed by circumstances, “evidence,” and emotion. You can justify homosexuality, pornography, and addiction on the grounds of “who gets hurt?” You can justify theft or why thievery occurs because the person doing the stealing was desperate and poor. You can justify marginalizing a majority that far outnumbers you because we aren’t as flexible as you. You can say that you find such and such to be wrong, but then you can turn around and explain it away situationally. Murder is wrong unless it’s abortion. Being hostile to someone is wrong unless they’re a Christian who may be doing nothing more than wearing a Jesus T-shirt. Cheating is wrong unless everyone else is doing it.
Now going to Daniel’s list… first of all, I commend you for even having a list. I chafe when people go off about the contradictions and then having nothing specific to cite. You gave me a list of 20 items. Out of 20 points possible, I credit you with four… two full points, and four half-points. In the instances where you quote numerical differences (40 vs. 4, 7 vs. 3, etc.), you are write to say that the Hebrew contradicts. The Greek Septuagint text did away with these errors. I credit you with rightly seeing the contradiction with Abiathar vs. Ahimelech and the centurion tale. In every other instance, you are wrong. To be fair, the centurion tale differential was probably just a function of the author’s writing style as the primary context of the story did not change.
You treat omission or addition as contradiction. Contradiction is finding “black” here and “white” there. You assume “only” in everything. At the tomb, you assume those who are listed in one area to be the only ones there. Is it impossible that not everyone was listed but all were present. You see the rooster crowing versus the rooster crowing twice as a contradiction. Perhaps it’s just greater detail. In the end, does the context change?
You assume a great deal. You assume “preparation” as formal when it doesn’t have to be. You assume that Paul left immediately from Damascus, but Acts says he left after three years. You assume your understanding and comprehension to be the same as the authors, so you discount the fact that maybe the Israelites didn’t count the hopping legs as legs or that the snail comment was literary imagery speaking to snails appearing to dry up to nothing. You assume that a Jesus couldn’t have possibly given his inaugural address on a plateau… which would be both flat and on a mountain.
You also go extremely literal at times. If it isn’t word for word, you aren’t seeing it. For your Matthew 27:9-10 example, see Jeremiah 19:1-13, Jeremiah 18:2-12 or Jeremiah 32:6-9. Keep in mind that it wasn’t unusual at that time for people to attribute text to a single, better known prophet. In your John 7:38 example, see Isaiah 44:3 and 55:1, as well as Jeremiah 2:13. For your Luke 24:46 example, see Psalm 16:10, Isaiah 53:10-11, and Jonah 1:17. For your Matthew 2:23 example, understand Nazareth in the context of “despised” and then go back to the OT prophetic Scriptures.
On the last item, you’re simply wrong. Acts 22:9 does not say that they did not hear the voice. My Bible reads that they did not understand the voice.
Also in your Michal example, you cited II Samuel 22:9 when it’s actually 21:8.
Through it all, you see discrepancies and problems. I, on the other hand, am amazed at the consistency of the message given the number of different authors and the amount of time covered.
But I’m done. I’ve spent way too much time with this. I have enjoyed the discourse, though. Again, I am sorry for being so harsh with the last posting. I just tend to react strongly when I feel like I’m being lied to. I attribute assumptions to you, and I am guilty of some in this case perhaps. I don’t feel like you’re fully disclosing the impactful moments of your walk from God. It doesn’t come down to “I read this certain book or collection of books.” There is a “why” that you are not being forthright about.
And that’s fine. That’s your prerogative.
You have a take. It doesn’t suck. We just disagree.
I have nothing to lose by holding Jesus Christ as Lord of my life. I lose nothing if I find out at the end of my life that Jesus is a figment of my imagination. Damned be my ignorant, happy life…
Peace to you, Daniel and company…
I might be back around sometime. I know you can’t wait.
Brad
Sigh. Lincoln, you accuse others of being hung up on semantics. Well, I could say the same of you.
The term “universal” does NOT mean “every single thinking breathing person”. It means, more or less, a MAJORITY. And just because there are exceptions to the “rules” doesn’t mean that the point is moot. That is very simplistic black-and-white thinking.
And, again, your marxism/Socialism argument is silly, and you obviously haven’t really read Marx. Communism is not a system of no ownership– it is a system of shared social and fiscal responsibilities. If a Communist man steals another Communist man’s bread, it’s STILL STEALING. Just because the man worked for the Communist state in order to receive the bread does not mean that bread belongs to everyone. It was given to HIM, and ONLY HIM. And yes, Communist Russia and China prosecute for THEFT.
Frankly, the entire through line of your posts is, “Only Chritianity has a hold on morality.” And again, you’re wrong.
Essentially we’re discussing what is called: Epistemology.
What is knowledge?
How can you know something/anything?
It might do everyone a world of good to read this simple article on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
Yes Lincoln, I DO know the chair is going to hold me. If it doesn’t, it’s not because of my lack of faith. If I sit on a chair a million times in my life and have never fallen, then I pretty much KNOW the chair works. If the chair breaks just once and I fall, it probably means I didn’t know the chair was broken.
You confuse “faith” with “knowledge.” Or, more accurately, you are confusing faith with “assumption.” I assume the chair works. If not, then I didn’t know it was broken. Faith has nothing to do with it.
Ivy
“..then I pretty much KNOW the chair works.”
Exactly. You have faith that the chair works. You wouldn’t bet your mortgage or your child’s life on it but you “pretty much know”. You’ve sat on it a million times, it doesn’t look any different, it’s made of metal and is unlikely to have got a termite infestation in the past few seconds, no-one has tampered with it, you don’t think it’s broken…. but you wouldn’t be willing to bet your own life on it.
Faith is acting on what you call “knowledge”. Faith and assumption are very similar as you define it. It reasonable to assume the chair is safe. Based on that assumption your act of faith is to sit on the chair. Was it a reasonable assumption, was your faith reasonable? Yes (unless your chair did actually just break.. in which case you have my sympathies).
This site is hysterical… And very true unfortunately. I am a believer, whatever that means…since it’s obvious to me that I don’t fit your description of a believer. Just as a comment your description of faith is actually not correct…it’s not believing things blindly at it’s base the greek word being used actually means to be sure. However, as it is presented by at least 97% of “christianity” it is very true that it is blind belief in unknowns. You spoke of human transmission as being an issue with the authority of scripture…I agree and would challenge you to take that a step further and apply that to the entire religious tradition as is presently presented. Did you know that the Christian fixation on heaven and the end times is only a few hundred years old? The belief in the total authority of scripture is only 500-600 years old… The whole concept of the “rapture” that inspired the “Left Behind” series was originally based on the dreams of a young teenage girl. The teaching that Christians should be poor is new…the desciples were fisherman (which meant they ran one of the most central businesses of that day). Going to heaven was never taught in scripture either. The problem that I see is that the church as we know it is no longer Christian and has no friggin idea what it’s talking about. It was never supposed to be about what happens when we die, nor how Jesus died…it was supposed to be about how we live. Not blindly believing anything…but living free of our own doubt, regret, and fear that we are so prone to…so that we can truly perceive reality for what it is not for what our own issues would try to paint it to be. Unfortunately it has become the number one device for keeping people in those very issues it is supposed to demonstrate a freedom from. I really do appreciate the site by the way when I was in bible school I used to throw some of this kind of stuff in the mix to see people flip out…you really should have tried it in cemetary…er, um I mean seminary :)
Just one more comment on the chair analogy:
I see a chair. I assume it’s stable. I sit on the chair, and it breaks. My assumption that the chair was stable was wrong.
Now, if I see a broken chair and believe that if I sit on it and I will not fall, that’s FAITH.
“The plan of god is a continuing revelation.”
Translation: You got me on that last fact, but I’ll claim the big guy can change his mind at any point to account for any recent discoveries that poke holes in my theory.
Acceptable Response: Yes, it is.
Unacceptable Response: So, whatever we haven’t figured out is the providence of god? If we figure it ALL out, does god disappear and you become an atheist? (God of the margins argument)
Sorry Ivy…
Your illustration is good and I think you’ve just about got it. However you are using FAITH to only mean something wrong.
Now, if I see a broken chair and believe that if I sit on it and I will not fall, that’s FAITH.
That’s misplaced faith. You put your trust/faith in something that didn’t merit it.
Another example:
1. You have faith there is no God based on evidence (A) = well-placed faith (reasonable assumption).
You have faith there is a God despite evidence to contrary (A) = misplaced faith. (unreasonable assumption)
OR
2. You have faith there is no God despite evidence to contrary (B) = misplaced faith.
You have faith there is a God based on evidence (B) = well-placed faith.
The important issue is that faith can be bad or good, reasonable or unreasonable, sensible or stupid, right or wrong. What you have your faith IN is crucial.
Lincoln – you are using the term “faith” so loosely that it has no meaning whatsoever. Trusting that my pen will fall if I drop it based on the fact that I have seen objects falling millions of times and have NEVER seen one fail to fall is not faith. This is a conclusion drawn from evidence. Yes, there is a possibility that my conclusion will be proven wrong, but that doesn’t make my conclusion a matter of faith.
Compare that to the belief in a magical being who has created the entire universe and continues to have an active presence in it despite the fact that there is no evidence for it (lack of evidence for alternative theories is not the same as evidence supporting your theory, by the way). This is a matter of faith because you believe in god even though god has never been proven to exist.
These are two utterly different things. What you are doing is trying to justify your own position by distorting it to the point that you can include everyone. This is intellectually dishonest.
Now, it is correct that all societies have shared the same CORE codes of morality. These are codes that allow societies to function. We need to depend on each other because we lack big teeth or sharp claws. If we all just took advantage of each other a la anarchy, we wouldn’t survive. We are interdependent. Obviously, various societies make exceptions to their core codes of morality for various reasons, for example most accept that murder in the context of war is acceptable. Many also feel that killing one’s child is acceptable if that child is undesirable in some way.
Theft is pretty much always considered wrong, but again there are exceptions. For example, many societies will say that theft from an out-group is okay, that’s just spoils of war. Individuals may then apply this reasoning, declaring themselves and their families or friends the in-group and everyone else the out-group. As for your Communist example, I can’t figure out whether you are being ignorant or deliberately deceitful. Theft was very much illegal in the USSR, as it is in China.
As for atheists having no morals, again, I can’t tell if you are being ignorant or actually lying. Atheists have the same moral codes (and the same justifications for certain exceptions) as everyone else, we just don’t claim that they come from a god. Atheists are not disproportionally represented in the incarcerated population. Your assumption that atheists have no morality is a matter of faith, a belief that you hold despite a complete lack of evidence. More than that, it’s an awfully bigoted form of faith, akin to saying that “all black people are inferior because they weren’t created in god’s image like white people are.” It’s terribly ironic coming from someone who is trying to peg immorality and anti-social conduct on his out-group.
I think you’ll find my definition of faith is very narrow.
Faith is the act of putting your trust in something.
Trusting that my pen will fall if I drop it based on the fact that I have seen objects falling millions of times and have NEVER seen one fail to fall is not faith. This is a conclusion drawn from evidence. Yes, there is a possibility that my conclusion will be proven wrong, but that doesn’t make my conclusion a matter of faith.
Gravity requires little faith. It is easy to believe in. But you still believe in it. This has all been covered before in previous comments.
P.S. It wasn’t me that was arguing that atheists are immoral, amoral etc..
“If you wanted me to believe in you, why didn’t you show some kind of evidence? Why create everything through the painful process of evolution? Why did you let your creation suffer through hunger, neglect, disease, and war? Why incarnate yourself and then commit deicide/suicide? Why were you so bloodthirsty in the early years? If you’re God, you’re not a very good one.”
1. There’s some Bible verse about doubting Thomas that relates to believing despite no evidence but I don’t remember what it is.
2. Evil exists because man, not God.
3. Your third point could go into a long discussion. There are basically three reasons Jesus had to die:
1. Pay our debt back. Whatever you believe about sin, humans eventually committed it. And whatever you believe about original sin, it separated humans from God.
So how do we pay it back? How do we get back to where we were before sin? (heaven) We can’t pay it back on our own. And it must be paid back. Without debt, there’s no punishment, without punishment there’s no sin, and sin exists since we have free will.
2. A sign of his covenant:
-The Earth was a sign of Adam’s covenant with God (The Holy Couple)
-The rainbow was a sign of God’s covenant with Noah (The Holy Family)
-God gave Abraham a son as the sign of his covenant (The Holy Tribe)
-God promised David a great kingdom as a sign of his covenant.
(The Holy Kingdom)
-Jesus was the sign of God’s covenant with the entire world.
3. As an example. Every covenant brought new rules, and Jesus set the bar for the current one.
4. Once again, God has a different covenant with the people in the Old Testament, which is why I, and the entire Catholic Church, doesn’t take it very literally. (Unfortunately the Church is still politically active, eg excommunicating women priests and an archbishop refusing communion to an Obama supporter)
As a liberal devote Catholic I found this really interesting because some of my Protestant friends use these phrases a lot.
perhaps all of the dumb people will die off or mentally evolve beyond believing in imaginary things to make life more simple for their feeble minds. Or if we are lucky enough, these “people” will kill eachother off(without nuclear consequences or chemical weapons). The religious fundamentalists do love hurting others who are different. I say let them start yet another crusade and kill eachother – perhaps those who stay behind will “see the light”. We can only hope the growing problem of “evangelicals” will solve itself. If their numbers keep growing we will be in a heap of trouble.
Just to add, Lincoln, I would like to to tell us about some of your evidence for the existence of god. You’ve mentioned some guy you claim converted due to evidence, but you haven’t mentioned any of the actual evidence that converted him. That’s called an appeal to authority. Lincoln
Gary @ post 131:
You say that the evidence for the existence for god is “overwhelming” and that we atheists just aren’t listening. Well, I’m listening. I’ve been listening. Here’s what I’ve mostly been hearing:
-The theory of evolution is flawed! It doesn’t perfectly explain everything and there are still some holes in it. We don’t know how the universe began, we can’t explain it.
This is quite possibly the most common argument I hear, but it isn’t evidence. Say you come home one night and find that your couch has moved to a different part of the room. You as your roommate if he moved it and he says he didn’t. Would you consider that compelling evidence for the belief in hordes of purple gnomes who make gold by moving people’s couches around while they aren’t home? No, you probably wouldn’t. There is no evidence for that conclusion. While the lack of a better explanation means that we might CONSIDER the gnome theory, it certainly isn’t evidence to support the gnome theory.
-I’ve had a personal experience with god. I felt his presence.
This is called the “numinous.” As I’ve said in another comment, it’s something we just experience sometimes. How we interpret it depends on our own expectations. If we are told from a young age that this feeling is god, even if we didn’t believe in god before, we will interpret it as god. It will feel very real – just like it feels very real to a Hindu that he has felt Vishnu, or to a Roman that he has felt Aphrodite. We atheists interpret it as wonder at how amazing the universe is.
Because this feeling is interpreted differently by people with different backgrounds, it is not evidence for a god and it certainly is not evidence for YOUR god. That’s just your interpretation.
-The bible says so.
Possibly the worst piece of evidence I’ve ever seen. Just because you’ve read something in a book doesn’t mean that it’s true. Just because you’ve read Lord of the Rings doesn’t mean that there are really hobbits walking around. This is an example of circular reasoning: God is real because the bible says so, the bible is true because god said so. Don’t you see how silly that sounds?
-People have martyred themselves for god, therefore he must exist. Why would anyone allow themselves to be killed for something that wasn’t real?
Someone brought this up earlier. As I pointed out then, people have martyred themselves in the name of all sorts of ideologies. Unless you are willing to accept that ALL ideologies that someone has died for are true (in which case, you’ve got an awful case of contradiction), there simply isn’t a way to argue that this is evidence for the truth of your particular ideology.
-People have achieved amazing things in the name of my god, including scientific discoveries that would have been impossible without the use of modern day instruments and constructing buildings that would have been impossible without modern day tools.
If it isn’t the gods, it’s the aliens. As with the above point, these things happen in many cultures and many religions. Obviously, they can’t all be true. So unless you are willing to start worshipping Thoth because the pyramids are pretty awesome, this cannot count as evidence for your particular religion.
Also, as we understand more about archeology and what was available to the more “primitive” (and I use the term for convenience only) cultures, we realize that we have truly underestimated them. A great example is shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0 For years it has been thought that gods or aliens must have built Stonehenge because it’s impossible to move such heavy stones with the technology that was available back then. However, here’s a guy who did it all by himself!
Another explanation that crops up again and again (especially in Islam these days) is that if you have a book chock full of speculative stories regarding the functioning of the world, and many of those stories are quite vague, you are bound to find some that ring true with modern evidence. Humans being what we are, we quickly forget all the examples that aren’t even close and just stand back in amazement at the ones that are. Does anyone remember the oohing and aahing when the theory that the universe is in a cycle of creating, destroying, and creating itself again and how OMG Hinduism says that time is circular too!
These are just some of the major bits of “evidence” that I’ve seen for the existence of the Christian god and all of them are easily refuted with even the most casual glance. If you are hoarding some massive collection of evidence that you are refusing to let atheists see (I dunno, maybe to test our faith or something?), please share it. Because for all the times that I have heard a Christian (or a member of any religion, for that matter) tell me that there is massive amounts of evidence for their particular god, I have yet to hear them actually TELL me what any of this evidence is. Usually, they just stop posting, hang up, or otherwise try to change the subject. I am here and I am WILLING to listen, if any one of your Christians would please take the time to actually tell me about some of the massive amounts of evidence that supports your god.
I WILL convert if any of you provide evidence that can’t be easily refuted.
Lincoln – Okay, sure. Let’s use your definition of faith, then. What word do you suggest we use for faith in something that has no evidence to support it? Because it’s whatever that is that we atheists lack.
@Lincoln:
As for theft, Ivy has already pointed out that communism does not in any way nullify the crime of theft.
As for your other examples – well, you are making a big mistake in equating ethical values with actual behavior. Take the example of infanticide. If we look at contemporary China, the population consists of significantly more males than females. The reason is obvious: infanticide of female babies.
However, even though a behavior is widely practiced, this does NOT automatically mean that it is considered ethical.
If you were to travel to the rural parts of China and ask a thousand people if they ever commited infanticide, I doubt sincerely you would get a positive answer from any of them, even though statistically some of them are sure to have done it.
Similarly, even if infanticide were widely practiced in ancient societies like Rome, Greece, etc, it was not considered acceptable. Do any laws from that time mention that infanticide was legal? I doubt it.
Or take the more peaceful examples of tax evasion or trafic violations. These are widespread in probably any society you can name, but do people generally consider them ethical? No, they don’t.
My point is, as before, that (barring freak exceptions) some ethical values are given in any society. No society considers infanticide to be ethical, even though its members may be actually doing it. This is one of many shared ethical core values.
I will go even further and suggest that those societies that do have abhorrent ethics (you mention ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and cruel treatment of women), are most likely to be found in theocracies which justify their ethics on twisted religious creeds.
Similarly, even if infanticide were widely practiced in ancient societies like Rome, Greece, etc, it was not considered acceptable. Do any laws from that time mention that infanticide was legal? I doubt it.
Coming very late to the discussion, but I just have to add this. In my country, Norway, we do have laws about infanticide saying that it was legal, in fact encouraging it, in certain situations. This is the Gulating Law which we have extant from ca 1100, if I remember correctly. It says that if babies are born deformed, they should be carried out into the woods and left there. (They would then either starve to death or be killed by animals, obviously.) People would also do this if they couldn’t or didn’t want to take care of the child … ie if they couldn’t afford to feed another child in the family, or if they didn’t want that particular child (say they had five sons and wanted a daughter, but the sixth child was another boy, then they might leave him in the woods and try for a girl the next time, or vice versa) … but I don’t know that this was sanctioned in the law, I don’t think so. AFAIK the law only makes mention of deformed babies. But these could be killed with impunity; in fact it seems to have been encouraged in these situations that the parents should ‘put the child out’ as it was termed.
Of course one has to understand the society that this law was written for. It was an agrarian society in a country that is almost entirely unsuitable for agriculture. The number of ‘useless’ members that such a society could afford was extremely limited. But that’s beside the point … my point is only that in some societies infanticide has been not only permitted but also ethically acceptable. However, it was acceptable because it was for the benefit of the society as a whole. Not because the gods demanded it or whatever. That’s important to remember.
I am an atheist, btw, just in case anyone wonders. :-)
To mikeyc252 at comment 161
“1. There’s some Bible verse about doubting Thomas that relates to believing despite no evidence but I don’t remember what it is.”
But you have to believe in the bible first before that has any relevance.
“2. Evil exists because man, not God.”
Man did not cause the recent earthquakes and hurricanes.
“1. Pay our debt back. Whatever you believe about sin, humans eventually committed it. And whatever you believe about original sin, it separated humans from God.
So how do we pay it back? How do we get back to where we were before sin? (heaven) We can’t pay it back on our own. And it must be paid back. Without debt, there’s no punishment, without punishment there’s no sin, and sin exists since we have free will.”
If your god exists, then he makes the rules. Why can’t he just say “you know what, nevermind. The whole original sin thing was four thousand years ago, I forgive you guys. Let’s just start things over with a clean slate!”
That would have been a cool god (well, somewhat cool, he did still hold a grudge for four thousand years – that’s a long time to fume over something as small as eating fruit). Instead, he had to do it all dramatically with suffering and death, which is perfectly in line with the old testament god. Why just do something nice when you can do something nice AND make people suffer for it?
“-Jesus was the sign of God’s covenant with the entire world.”
Don’t you think Jesus would have preferred just having another rainbow? I mean honestly, this doesn’t prove that Jesus had to die. All it proves is that you believe he did die and that you believe that there was a (totally excessive) reason for it.
Grimalkin – this was AMAZING. I wanted to respond to him but there were so many fallacies in his long post that I was too tired to start. Thank you for doing this.
Grimalkin:
We’re getting there now…
See this example from the recent Dawkins/Lennox debate:
Dawkins: If it were evidence based, why would you need to call it faith? You would just call it evidence.
Lennox: I presume you’ve got faith in your wife is there any evidence for that?
Dawkins: Yes plenty.
Lennox: There you go.
So to answer you question:
What word do you suggest we use for faith in something that has no evidence to support it?
It’s exactly that. Faith without basis/evidence. Perhaps “blind faith” or “misplaced faith” if you keen to have a vernacular term.
As far as:
Just to add, Lincoln, I would like to to tell us about some of your evidence for the existence of god. You’ve mentioned some guy you claim converted due to evidence, but you haven’t mentioned any of the actual evidence that converted him. That’s called an appeal to authority.
Someone else brought Anthony Flew up. I’ve never argued for a position.. at least as far as I remember… If you want to know about Flew check out wikipedia or have a play around with Google. I was just disagreeing with how one poster was unfairly dismissive.
I’m just doing my bit to advance clarity and accuracy.
OK, I missed a big discussion, I see.
Lincoln, you’re using a definition of these words which is very different from what EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS BOARD IS USING
get it?
I have a reasonable, expectation, based on prior experience, that my chair will support me. It’s not a matter of faith, because I have evidence. If I was sure that a random patch of air would support me because it was an invisible chair, that would be faith.
To the several believers who came here and said “I’m different”, rationalist christians are, but anything based on faith will basically become what’s described in this. And rationalist christians have to face up, sooner or later, to the fact that there is no strong evidence for G-d. PZ commented on this recently; atheists get told “But you haven’t considered the evidence!”, but the evidence is never presented. No, Pascal’s Wager does not count. And don’t even try to bring up the Ontological argument. I do not wish to hear about the ontological argument. It’s not even good linguistics.
As for the “Atheist Cliches”… We’ve heard your arguments. We are not cowed by your arguments. Some of my atheist friends got the giggles, actually. And as for ripping apart the Santa Claus analogy? You didn’t even address it. The point is, for a kid, there is better evidence for Santa than for G-d – they actually get something from Santa. Yet they abandon belief in Santa when they realise that there are better explanations and that there’s no need for Santa to explain anything.
Also, listing believers is fallacious for several reasons: 1)Just because they believe does not mean they were truly able to reconcile the evidence with their beliefs 2)Are you sure they believed what you believed?
As for Flew, he basically adopted Einsteinian Pantheism, the “First Cause” argument, which is neatly taken care of in modern physics. We don’t even need G-d as a first cause anymore. And most atheists will gladly accept a pantheist or spinozan, more easily than a christian would. Their beliefs accord with the evidence.
Isn’t Anthony Flew the guy who is going senile and someone “co-wrote” an awful book with him that makes the same tired old arguments that Flew himself rejected when he was more mentally able? Or am I thinking of someone else?
As for just using faith, that’s not good enough because we are talking about two completely different things. On the one hand, we are having “faith” that something will happen when we do X because EVERY TIME we’ve done X, that thing has happened. It has never failed. We’ve done it hundreds of billions of times. We’ve dropped things and we’ve seen them fall. We’ve never seen any other outcome in the whole of human history.
To use the same term to describe this “faith” and the “faith” in a god – an idea that has no evidence whatsoever to support it – is misleading and confusing.
Simply sticking on the words “blind” or “misplaced” doesn’t do it either. It’s like using the world “Trafoogle” to refer to both cars and oranges and then saying that oranges are “small trafoogles.” It does not accurately represent the idea that the speaker is trying to convey and is therefore useless in a language.
So either we use faith only to refer to matters which lack evidence or we come up with an entirely new word to refer to these things.
trj:
It was considered ethical and good to commit, what we now define as, infanticide in the Roman empire in the early hundreds. It wasn’t until Constantine et all made this practice illegal due to a change in the core ethics of the society…. interestingly in this case due to direct Christian influence.
I believe, and this will be the first time I’ve made any statement of my own belief, that individuals do have a conscience and do know right and wrong in their core being. The original point however was that “the VAST MAJORITY of societies share the same common values.” This I take issue with. To make this statement grossly misrepresents the world and how people value things. It’s patronising to believe that everyone sensible must be as intelligent or as reasonable as me.
In fact it shows incredible faith to believe that all societies and belief systems are at their core similar.
Grimalkin:
Sorry for using words properly. But them I’m British.
So you want to substitute the correct meaning of the word faith for “have a reasonable, expectation, based on prior experience”.
No problem.
Could the Theists stop using the word faith now! Please substitute it for “reasonable, expectation, based on prior experience”. Yeah I know it’s bulky, messy and generally untidy but they won’t understand otherwise.
Could the Atheists now start asking people what they mean when they say faith! Do they mean “reasonable, expectation, based on prior experience” or do they mean “blind faith”?
Having clarified this I’m off to do more interesting things… like tell my kids Bible stories or read Philip Pullman books.
Enjoy the rest of the debate.
Lincoln – you are the one who brought this linguistic issue up. It was obvious from the context of the person you first quoted that he did not mean “faith” as an expectation of something. It does NOT take faith to be an atheist, using the definition of faith that nearly everyone here but you is using. What you did was intellectually dishonest, you warped his statement to mean something that it did not mean and then used that to attack him.
By the way, dictionary.com has:
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one’s promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
—Idiom
9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.
Not one of those definitions fits with the way you were using the term.
Lincoln,
I went to the wikipedia site you suggested and read the article. And it’s my humble opnion that, like Marxism, you didn’t really grasp it. Particulary the point that stated, “Belief in something without knowledge of its existence is not knowledge. It is BELIEF.”
Also, another point about semantics– you state that your definition of ‘faith’ is narrow. Yes, I must say that it is. I also think you are confusing the definition of faith with an everyday expression. “Having faith” that a chair won’t break under me is NOT the same thing as having faith in an invisible omnicient entity whom I nor anyone else has ever seen.
Your example of Dawkins is also off the mark. When asked if he had faith in his wife, Dawkins said, “yes”, on which his rival immediately jumped. Again, having faith in a flesh-and-blood person with whom you live with and you love is NOT the same thing as believing in an invisible entity. It’s NOT. It’s just NOT.
Again, you’re playing semantics and you are showing all-or-nothing black and white thinking.
Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. And soooooooo true. I ROFLdMAO. And I’m a Baptist Preacher’s Kid – but where I come from, Fundamentalism is considered a weird, twisted, perverted aberration that appeals primarily to emotion, feeds on (and promotes) fear, insists on unquestioning belief, and has nothing to do with reality.
“Say ‘amen’ back to me.”
“Amen back to me.” Good night, Dick!
“Have you found Jesus?”
“I didn’t know he was missing.”
“Jesus saves.”
“Buddha spends, Muhammad invests, Thor speculates in real-estate futures…”
“Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for your salvation.”
“That reminds me. I have to go sacrifice a virgin.”
Or as the Church Lady says: “Remember, Jesus loves you, even though he wouldn’t be seen in public with you.”
@Lincoln:
This is turning into a rather academic discussion. However, I’d like to ask you for one thing…
“It was considered ethical and good to commit, what we now define as, infanticide in the Roman empire in the early hundreds”. – Of course you have a source for this? Preferably a non-Christian source which does not aim to glorify emperor and saint Constantine.
Note also that there’s a rather large gap between “excusable” and “ethical and good”.
“Atheism is a religion.”
My response:
“If Atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.”
This one always gets to me:
“God was looking out for me and saved me from that earthquake / plane crash / etc..”
Translation: God loves me more than he loves the people who died.
Acceptable response: “God is great and wonderful is his love!”
Unacceptable response: “What makes YOU teacher’s pet? All of those other people were unworthy slobs? Way to comfort their families, dude.”
An aweful lot of time has been spent arguing about something most of you don’t believe in — seems like time could be spent on much better things — especially if there is no life after death, your time could be short on this rock twirling in the vast universe so get out and enjoy the wonderfully well grouped bit of randomness that has caused this beautiful planet.
Some of you have asked for a face to face with God so you can know for sure that He is real, have patience, you will have the opportunity. The Bible (hold on, this is just some rambling) says that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess — the Bible says you will have the chance, but be ready, it doesn’t say “may” it says “shall” so I will leave it up to you whether it will be by overwhelming evidence or OT strong arming. Now, that is only if you believe in the Bible, you don’t so you don’t have to worry about it, you have faith (that’s knowledge because of your evidence to the contrary) that the God of the Bible doesn’t exist. You are sitting pretty then, because you know that there is no God to answer to, and because you know that, it means it is true, I mean, you got a whole list of people on this blog that will be right there with you backing you up.
Someone made the remark that God should just say OK I forgive you and everyone is OK. If He could do that, He could also change his mind again when someone did something as foolish as making light of the 3 day weekend. How gracious could this God be that statements like this could be made and the world has not come to a quick end. But you see (why are you still reading this? Are you hoping I convince you?) God did make it easy and say He forgives us, only problem is we have to accept it. God doesn’t want to prove to you that He exists, if you are suppossed to know, then you will (it is a closed group, but the only one keeping you out is you). How does the blind know that there is a sunrise? The deaf know there is music? (Ah, a lot of fodder there huh people!) You choose to see the evidence where you wish to, why else do we rely on juries? People see evidence differently, some see random chaos, some see design. It is not a Christian’s job to convince you, heck, if that is what Christ was about think of the show that Pilot would have seen. Like I said earlier, if your an athiest, why are you wasting your time here, save your arguments for a closed club someplace where the Christians can’t get to you or get out an enjoy what is left of this life.
And to the writer of this blog, better to have kept your missbelief to yourself than to have created a pulpit to cause others to stumble. In a world of uncertainties, you are banking your soul on the certainty that there is no God.
Every culture in the history of the world has believed in a higher power, something made them think that. Oh, and how about exploring the galaxies, “we can’t be alone out here.” Why not? Is it maybe because it would seem pretty pointless if we were?
Another thing, why do you all feel it OK to call Christians ignorant? Is it because they believe in something different than you? If you are so secure in your beliefs, who cares what other people think right? To each there own right? Let go of the bitterness, don’t base your security on the approval of others — you are much more inteligent and superior than that.
Oh, and khudos to the Greek geeks out there who were clever enough to throw in the Greek Letter X which represents Christ rather than spell it out. Good for you!
Well, back to your making the world a better place!
Responding to Michael @66:
“How in the world can you possibly believe that multi-celled life evolved from single cells?”
By studying algal colonies (some are single cells which meet and join as a multicellular organism, then break up and operate individually, then rejoin…), sponges, and lots of other creatures you haven’t bothered to look at, lazybones.
“How can you possibly conceive that individual cells by chance over the course of millions of years just decided to come together and form an eyeball… or a heart… or a lung… or a blood cell?”
The history of the evolution of all of these things is well documented at the talk.origins archive (Google it). Short answer, they all evolved by lots of little steps; each step was slightly advantageous over the previous step, so the creatures with that advantage reproduced and spread across the earth. Most of the intermediate steps are already readily identifiable for eyeballs, hearts, lungs, and blood cells. Ever dissected a fish heart? Try it some time. Count the number of chambers. Compare to a pig heart.
“Why can you not see the uniqueness and specificity of each creature and plant on this planet?”
Indeed, every creature on this planet is truly utterly unique. Not every species (species is a flawed concept): *EVERY CREATURE*. And it seems most likely that we are literally all related to every creature on earth.
“Specificity” doesn’t mean anything in this context, it must be some creationist buzzword.
“If evolution is the answer, why do we continue to have a finite number of proteins known to us? The number should be infinite and continually growing.”
It is infinite and continually growing; what are you talking about? Perhaps you mean the number of amino acids? There are actually a whole lot of those too; “infinite and continually growing” is about right. However, there’s only a limited number coded directly by DNA. That number appears to have increased over time, but a long time ago; more evolutionarily recent changes involve post-transcription modification of the amino acids involved in chemically active sites on the proteins. Sorry, you probably haven’t taken enough biology or chemistry to understand that.
I suggest taking a few biology courses with an open mind. You might actually enjoy it. Perhaps actually bothering to study God’s Creation (as you would no doubt call it) might give you a better understanding of what it’s actually *like*.
“Another thing, why do you all feel it OK to call Christians ignorant? Is it because”
… they haven’t read their OWN BIBLE thoroughly?
That would be the reason.
Believe in a generic ‘higher power’ if you like — that may be pantheism or deism, or something similar, and we get along well with such people. Or it might even be a form of Christianity: if you believe that Jesus had a great message, you’ll be much appreciated — but Christianity mostly works totally contrary to Jesus’s message, hence Thomas Jefferson’s description of it:
“..but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, & perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in church & state: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated & sophisticated, by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth & power to themselves, that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue & cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.” – Thomas Jefferson to William Baldwin, 19 January 1810 (draft – never sent)[1]”
Notably, Thomas Jefferson’s Bible does NOT feature ANY miracles; there is NO resurrection; there is NO afterlife; Jesus does not “save” anyone.
Believing in the massive, overcomplicated Christian mythology, which features an supposedly omnipotent all-loving god who commits mass murder and torture, and in most versions (the very respectable Universalists excepted) actually condemns people to eternal torment, is simply ridiculous and self-contradictory. Even before you get into the ways it contradicts reality, the traditional Christian belief system contradicts *itself*.
It’s no surprise that, at last survey, a majority of Christian theologians in the UK didn’t believe in the traditional Christian God!
“If you are so secure in your beliefs, who cares what other people think right?”
As an altruist, I would like other people to think rationally so that they can make good choices. I have personally witnessed people using God or Jesus as a crutch to avoid making sane life choices: “Oh, I’ll pray and try to divine what Jesus wants” rather than using their brains to work out what makes sense! And it does much worse things to many people; Christianity is loaded with a tradition of brainwashing, which you have almost certainly been subject to.
Also, Christians generally proselytise, and a disturbingly large subgroup try to make their fantasies the basis of public policy. That and the brainwashing. We can’t live and let live if they don’t. Personally I think religion should be a free choice — of *adults*. Imposing it upon children who are too young to decide for themselves should be illegal child abuse.
To you Christians who haven’t even read your own Bible: better to have kept your misbelief to yourself than to have created a pulpit to cause others to stumble. Christianity has repeatedly destroyed people’s real lives, while obsessing over their supposed afterlives. Just look at the Dark Ages.
Regarding Faith,
I just flipped through Strong’s Concordance and found that there are only two instances of the word faith in the Old Testament (KJV).
The New Testament is loaded with it though. In fact, there’s even a definition in a letter to the Hebrews
The “substance of things hoped for” sounds like the fallacy of wishful thinking: “I wish that P is true, therefore P is true.”
The “evidence of things not seen” seems to imply that, in the absence of actual evidence, faith itself is all the evidence one would need to in order to believe something.
The term “blind faith” is redundant in that faith is evidence of things not seen. If you could see it, (ie. if you had empirical evidence) you wouldn’t need faith.
As a previous comment pointed out, words have many definitions. Until the debaters agree on a the definition of the words they are using, there can be no further argument on the topic.
Someone stated:
I think “I believe there isn’t a god based on strong evidence that proves there isn’t a god” is not the position of most of the commentators on this site.
It is probably more along the lines of “I do not believe there is a god based on the lack of evidence that there is a god.
I can’t see how not believing in something, based on not seeing compelling evidence, constitutes faith (or trust, or whatever definition you want to give it.) In fact, it would seem that I have no faith in the evidence that has been presented thus far.
@Lincoln
You’re British, are you, and that means your definition is more valid? Well, I’m British too, and your definition is just as screwed up to me as it is to others here.
I don’t *need* to have faith in my chair because it doesn’t illicit disbelief in me when I think of sitting in it. I might have to have faith in the carpenter who built it, but generally speaking, market economics teaches me that chairs built by dodgy carpenters don’t sell very well and therefore I can be reasonably sure this one is well-made.
However, the claims of Christianity certainly do require faith. Virgin birth? Resurrection? Ascension to ‘heaven’? Just a few claims out of many. Not only that, but these claims were written by men long after the ‘facts’ they wrote about happened, so not only can they not be tested by scientific method, the writers of the Bible couldn’t have even witnessed them.
Christianity teaches us to accept things “on faith”, i.e. without proof. Science teaches us to question everything, and only to accept things as fact once the evidence in their favour is overwhelming. Most atheists would agree that the evidence for the Christian (or any other) god is severely lacking. In the absence of evidence, you use faith to support your worldview. In the absence of evidence, atheists don’t use faith, they simply point to the lack of evidence!