Hey, wanna see something really scary? Then go read Fundies Say the Darndest Things! But be warned that exposure to large amounts of Fundamentalist bullshit in a short period of time can cause your brain to seize up from repeatedly saying “what the hell?!?” Here’s a few samples of the drool inducing idiocy you’ll find there:
- ”[How to know God is real]
First leave the skepticism at the door because it is just going to get in the way. ”
Guerrillasaint, Atheists Anonymous
“But all the knowledge we attain on earth is meaningless unless there is a use for it in heaven.
God does not care how much we know unless it is used to advance the kingdom of God.
The bible says that he will meet all our needs.
All the “knowledge” we attain will be done away with in heaven, so we only need to find out what heaven is all about and teach that.”
Soulja †, Myspace
“[If everything needs a cause, why not turn that logic around and ask what caused God?]
This logic would only aplly to the ones that need such logic, since we do not need such logic to understand god, we don’t need to worry about that, but since you need that kinda logic to not believe in god, you are the target audience for such a debate, not us.”
BigChrisFilm, Christian Forums
“Science is a weak little kid on the block, that is hearing impaired, and 94% blind. The bible is like the hubble telescope, and a master computer, and a time machine rolled into one. It goes to the past, and the distant future in a cosmic rolls royce. But those who are not concerned with the bible, and just science must accept their huge limitations.”
dad, 123 Christian Forums
“In reality, God used slavery to deliver Africans from ignorance of the One True God. Again, suffering is used to bring people to God. It is a common theme.”
Lisa0315, Christian Forums
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
elwed:
Maybe Les will put one in. I respect your right to ignore whoever you choose. This is not meant to sound cocky, but I always post as “Looking4Truth,” so when you see that name, you want want to skip over.
Respect
pmachine.com willing.
Bullshit. The format of this site being what it is, the only way to skip over your posts would be to stop tracking the threads you post in.
By the way, did the recent crop of True Believers follow you here from RaptureReady? If so, thanks for the priceless entertainment.
In case anybody wonders why I’m not appreciative of L4T, it’s a case of a poisoned well. On all the religious forums I’ve sampled, it’s a common theme that atheists visit them for three reasons only: To poke fun at the religious, to challenge their faith (their words, not mine), or to deconvert the faithful. Actually, there’s a fourth, but it would make me laugh too hard to type it. It simply annoys me to have a believer return the imagined favor…
To all the Christian apologists out there:
You’re so fervent about defending your “faith” because deep, deep down, you know you’re just PRETENDING God. You don’t really believe in him either. You panic if you haven’t thought about him for a day or more, as if you’ll lose him if you don’t pay constant attention to him: praying to him, praising him, looking at everything on this planet through his eyes, inspecting your behavior and that of everyone else for flaws. It’s downright obsessive. And you’re right: just like with anything else you pretend with your friends, the more you talk about it, the more you reinforce each other and the more you believe in it. Contrariwise, if you stop talking about God, he ceases to exist.
Here’s the proof: if God were to speak to you RIGHT NOW, in a completely unambiguous way, what would you think? If a burning bush suddenly appeared in your living room and started talking to you, what would you do?
You’d decide you were mentally ill, that’s what.
If a stranger sitting next to you on a bus turned to you and said, “I’m God,” what would you think? You’d think he or she was mentally ill.
You KNOW you’re not supposed to take this God thing literally. Anyone who does is presumed to be crazy. Nobody ever considers that the women who kill their kids because God told them to might have been sane, and been the real recipient of instructions from God. And why not? There’s plenty of precedent in the Bible, remember? God likes to tell parents to kill their kids. You’ve got it in black and white in your book there. If you really believed it, why shouldn’t you expect it to happen to you, too, just like in the book?
You KNOW it’s not true. You’re desperately clinging to a pretense that falls apart at every other moment in the light of reality. So you go back to your book, you go back to your friends who like to pretend with you, and you whip each other up into a frenzy until you believe again. But you have to KEEP doing it over and over again, because the magic wears off, doesn’t it?
Just let it go. You’re spending your life in an obsessive set of meaningless rituals. You don’t NEED a mythical being to tell you what’s right and wrong. You already know it, and in fact, if somebody claiming to be God tried to tell you otherwise, you wouldn’t believe it. You KNOW better.
How do you know whats right and whats wrong? Where do you get your beliefs? Thats not an actual picture of you is it?
Megiddo, if you’re not already banned, you’re not saying anything we haven’t heard here. Do yourself, and us, a favor, and check the archives here with the “search” feature. Try “evolution”, or “hovind” for starters. Thank you and have a good day.
L4t: Not that I’m badmouthing God or anything- it is His party and He can fry who He wants to- but this does seem a bit unfair, to my non-Biblically-informed sense of right and wrong. So what your saying is that a serial murderer who also raped little kids, who repents on the last day of his life, goes to Heaven. And a atheist who spends his entire life helping the poor and downtrodden goes to Hell. If that’s so, it’s twisted.
Mind you, if God exists, then He can call the shots: there’s no point defining good and bad any differently than “what God likes or doesn’t like”. But because there does seem to be some pretty common ideas about fair play, among religious folk as well as atheists, one wonders where these ideas come from, since they’re obviously not from a God that would send kind and charitable people to Hell. Maybe Satan tells us to be kind.
You know what Satan’s greatest sin was? Thinking for himself. God created all these angels because he needed outside validation of how great he is and Satan didn’t think sitting around ego stroking was that wonderful a thing to spend eternity doing.
The Biblical God is a tyrant—my way or the highway (to Hell)—don’t matter how evil you are in life so long as you recognize me for the superamazinglywonderful being that I am, but fail to acknolwedge me and there’s nothing that’ll save your soul from endless torement forever and ever. No sin is as bad as not believing in God. It’s the one thing he can’t forgive. What an asshole.
I suppose this is the biblical argument in support of the neo-cons’ position that only people who have something to hide oppose the spying upon its own people by the American government.
As Church Lady might say, “How conveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenient!”
It boggles the mind how few people recognize the Bible for the political propaganda it is. It’s as plain as day to anyone with an ounce of intelligence.
I’m with Elwed and GM here. By default anyone who expends so much energy on contemplating G(g)od(s) must believe in the concept in the first place. The struggle for me is in understanding how otherwise rational people can suspend their faculties of reason in favor of one set of myths over all others. And as an American, I’m more concerned with the takeover of my government by people who not only live by one set of myths alone, but are increasingly codifying their religious opinions into laws that impose their worldview upon their fellow citizens whose own religious opinions differ from that of Christians, thereby violating their civil rights.
In reality, I couldn’t care less whether gods exist or not. It’s irrelevant, and I wouldn’t give it a thought if I weren’t being bombarded with religious imagery, speech and attempts to legislate morality every fucking day of my life. Christians are the only ones in this country making their own struggle with their faith everyone else’s problem by insisting that their worldview be favored over others by the laws that govern us all.
Live by “God’s Law” all you like, but those of us who cherish our liberty as guaranteed in the Constitution of our SECULAR republic demand our right to redress our grievances with the government for violating our right to equality under the law. I am neither “under God” nor “In God” do I “Trust.” Your Bible means as much to me as the Lord of the Rings does, and should hold exactly as much sway in matters of law. I insist that my government cease violating my First Amendment rights by supporting theism in general, and Christianity in particular by endorsing their religious beliefs through force of law.
Invisible friends are for children and the mentally deranged.
Les:
Is that biblical? Nothing in the Bible says God’s creations can’t think for themselves. Satan’s sin was declaring himself to be greater than the one who created him, and then attempting to usurp God’s throne. Satan would not have sinned had he merely said: “Wow, I have some amazing beauty, intelligence, power and might. Thanks be to the one who created me!”
Instead, he went beyond that in to his lie – “I am not a created being, I am just as good if not better than God.”
If one does not believe that the God of the Bible is the creator of all, then obviously Satan did not sin by saying this. However, if the God of the Bible is true, then you can’t logically frame Satan’s statements as truthful.
That may be your thinking Les, but it’s not biblical. I wouldn’t follow a god who needed such external validation either.
Actually, one can believe in God and still remain unforgiven. The fallen angels themselves believe in God, and “tremble”. However, despite belief in God, if one does not accept His son’s sacrifice for their own sin, a perfectly just God is left with no recourse but to punish that sin.
To me, it seems that your’s and Zilch’s concepts of God are insufficiently “just.” The God of the Bible demands absolute perfection, since the smallest of sins requires a penalty. Otherwise, God would be redefining some sin as “O.K.”
Granted, there are many atheists who do much good – perhaps in many cases – more than they’ve done bad. That still leaves the sin problem. By definition, a 100% perfectly holy God cannot let even the smallest of sins slide.
God, knowing none of His creations can live up to that standard, provides the perfect atonement for every such sin. In the case of the serial killer, God’s plan doesn’t negate the evil of those acts. In fact, such horrendous crimes could not be punished adequately through any means other than the sacrifice of the most perfect, sinless one of all – Jesus. So, the forgiveness of the serial killer jives with your portrayal of how bad those acts were. The forgiveness then affirms that God’s amazing grace is even more powerful than the sinner’s crime.
So God’s plan shows that He:
1) Demands absolute justice
2) Offers a way do let that justice be done, without his creations having to suffer
How can such a plan be considered unfair? If someone chooses to refuse the atonement plan, they can’t blame God. He offered them heaven, but they refuse.
It’s hard to miss the implications of Eve and Adam being banished from Eden upon partaking of fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Stupid thing to expect from imperfect humans created by him.
Surrendering your brain and reasoning facilties may be considered suffering by some.
Because
1> If he wants me to accept his offer he should appear to me and say “Hi I’m God and here’s some proof. Accept my plan or else”. If that happens I might consider it.
2> He sets up the rules and forces us to play. We dont have any say in it apparently. Its unfair to force us to play a game we did not volunteer for.
And what king of superpotent god comes up with a plan that ends with more than 90% of his creations suffering eternal torment? Thats sick. Couldn’t he come up with something better?
Hey Sadie, howzit?
You pointed out:
But let’s finish the definition of the tree:
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
So, had they not partaken of this knowledge of the difference between right and wrong, God could not fairly demand punishment for transgressions. Once they knew what actions were right vs. wrong, they sinned by committing the wrong ones.
JP wrote:
But did He force the sin? He could not have created creatures with free will without allowing the possibility of sin. Even though He knew every creature would choose to sin, He still offered free will to all, and the opportunity to be perfected to all.
How does accepting Jesus’ sacrifice make you surrender those things? Christians are still allowed to think and reason.
L4T writes…
I visit religious forums once in a while to see if an answer is forthcoming. Far from it, the chasm deepens with each visit.
Some just believe, period. Uh, okay. Others went down a slippery slope due to a personal experience or other. I can vaguely see that, but not quite. In either case, personal experience and anecdotal “evidence” isn’t what I call a compelling reason to give their claim a second thought. Then there are my pet peeves – apologists and their cheerleaders. The harder they try rationalize their “faith”, the more obvious it is that theirs is a house of cards.
OB:
So they only knew they sinned after the fact? Now it all makes sense to me.
That’s just like working really hard to improve the mental state of insane killers so that they’re well enough to understand what they couldn’t in the first place and to know why they’ve got to be executed now, isn’t it?
Double dipping because I can…
If they didn’t know right from wrong to begin with then how could they have known it was a sin to eat the apple in the first fucking place? This is such an obvious flaw in that whole stupid myth that it’s stunning to me that anyone even attempts to use it as a justification for man’s fall from grace.
Snake: Here, eat this apple.
Eve: But God said not to!
Snake: He made this garden just for the two of you. Why would he put something here you’re not allowed to eat?
Eve: I don’t know, but I shouldn’t disobey God!
Snake: Why not?
Eve: I don’t know.
Snake: Would it be wrong to disobey God?
Eve: What does that word, “wrong,” mean?
Snake: It means you should eat this apple.
Eve: OK.
God, supposedly all-knowing, puts a fruit in a garden with TWO FUCKING MORONS who don’t know right from wrong and then allows Satan, who’s already tried to overthrow God in the past, to run around loose amongst the TWO FUCKING MORONS and he then has the audacity to be pissed off when the TWO FUCKING MORONS allow themselves to be talked into eating the fruit!
God either intended all of this shit to happen in the first place, in which case he’s directly responsible for it, or he’s as much of a fucking moron as his creations were. Neither possibility is all that comforting to consider.
Um, he could’ve kept the stupid fruit out of reach. Or, for that matter, he could’ve not bothered to make the stupid fruit in the first fucking place. He could’ve gotten rid of Satan instead of letting him run around causing trouble. There’s any number of things God, as an all-knowing and all-powerful being, could have done that would’ve allowed free will and not imperiled his “children.” Adam and Eve still have their free will and there status as MORONS WHO DON’T KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG would in no way imperil them.
Fucking hell, we as imperfect beings, don’t blame our own children who aren’t old enough to know right from wrong when they do something they shouldn’t. How is it at all just to condemn people who don’t know right from wrong for doing the wrong thing? That’s not justice, that’s idiocy.
Perhaps, but it’s clear that many choose not to bother. Just look at the silliness you’re putting forth as justification for man’s fall from grace as an example!
Double-dipping…
If I get it right, L4T seems to ask for literal quotes from scripture where our interpretation doesn’t work for him, while being content with his interpretation where the literal scripture is not to his liking.
Beat you to the punch.
That’s a debatable claim. What if all that thinking and reasoning makes you reject dogma and doctrine? Is it okay for Christians to call it quits or are they obliged to think and reason harder until they can convince themselves again that it all makes sense?
That’s only because you’re not as eloquent (read: long-winded) as I am.
Yeah, but then again it’s a truism that insane people never question their own sanity.
We seem to be talking past one another again, L4t. In this case, we have rather different ideas of “justice”. For you, “justice” means born-again serial murderers in Heaven, and saintly atheists in Hell. I can understand, from the standpoint of a jealous God, rewarding your obsequious friends and frying your upstart enemies. It’s also obvious, as OB mentioned, what the political utility of this belief is- those carrots and sticks to win friends and confound enemies. But it’s not “justice” in the normal sense of the word.
I’m not sure I want to get into the free-will argument with you, L4t, but I’ll toss it into the ring: if God is omnipotent and omniscient, and created us, there can be no free will. God made us knowing we would do as we do, so He is responsible for all decisions, all good and evil. Either He wanted us to sin, or He’s not omniscient and omnipotent.
Les:
I understand your point. If so, then God can’t logically puinish that act alone (eating from the tree). Unless I’m missing something about accountability prior to knowledge of right/wrong.
Even if so, God would still have the right to punish once the “learned ones” transgress. Who can say they haven’t?
You may be right. That is, He may have allowed His creations choice, knowing all would fall short of the mark. Now we have to bring in the concept of voluntary love. Could anyone choose to love God without the choice not to? Could God demonstrate the abundance of His grace without something to apply that grace to?
I realize this pre-supposes an acceptance of God’s ultimate mission to demonstrate and share His glory. Also, the plan does involve pain and suffering for His creatures while on Earth. I would imagine that, after a couple billion years in eternal bliss, I’ll come to see the logic of His ways. Just like the serial-killer’s victim’s family members will ultimately look at God’s grace rather than harbor a grudge for long-ago earthly matters. Besides that, the serial-killer will be perfected in heaven, so the said family members are not sharing eternity with the likes of his character on Earth.
Elwed:
I’m not gonna argue and say the entire Bible is easily understood, even if the essential plan of salvation is. Allow me to share Proverbs 25:2
I’ll argue that the Bible is very easy to understand. It’s a work of fiction at best, claptrap at worst. Dealing with whatever inconsistencies there are and reconciling it with your personal beliefs (and I mean this in the broadest sense) is another matter.
No, it isn’t. Once I question religious dogma and decide to abandon it, OSAS/OSNAS becomes meaningless, too.
It is the very nature of dogmatically held belief, including religious dogma, that such a belief cannot be questioned. From your point of view, either there are places where you cannot allow reason to take you or you have invent a new kind of math if 2 and 2 don’t add up to 4.
L4T writes..
What Les said.
Why the hell not? Are you saying there are things God cannot do now?
If, by “sane”, you mean that you’ve cobbled together a worldview, and rationalizations to fit this worldview to the real world, at least well enough to get on day to day, I’ll agree. That’s what we all do, one way or another. But to fit the Bible to the real world nowadays requires rationalizations so illogical and twisted, and so much wishful thinking, that it can only attract those willing to suspend reason, or those who haven’t taken a close look at the world outside their Book.
Of course, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, there’s no risk at all, any more than there’s a risk that Neo will chicken out and not go through the door of light, after the Matrix trilogy is finished and in the can: God knows who will be in Heaven, and who in Hell, and He planned for them to make the “choices” they did, just as filmakers write the dialogues for their actors, but with even more control. By the way, it seems that Adam is in Hell, and Eve in Heaven. Which one do you want to spend eternity with? “Choose” carefully…
Or stick with those indoctrinated from early childhood.
More particularly, I’m expressing RAGE that “those in authority” are using their positions to “glorify God and bring souls to Jesus” by crafting legislation based on biblical text; and that millions of Christian sheeple will support them based solely on the fact that said authority figures are members of the Jesus Fan Club. To Hell (literally and figuratively) with everyone who ISN’T a member… it’s just our tough luck to be in the minority, and according to Christians, we should suck it up and live by laws based upon the oral traditions of ancient nomadic goatherders.
The same could be said of NAMBLA, Al-Q’aeda, or Westboro Baptist Church. Should we give them a pass too, because their beliefs are sincere? Just as mainstream or “moderate” Christians are likely to hold that the ideas/beliefs of those groups are “extreme” or “batshit insane,” non-Christians see your beliefs as just as nuts, regardless of their not being quite so extreme.
What then, exactly, would you call the addition (by force of LAW) of “under God” to the Pledge in 1954, or the changing (by LAW) of the Motto to “In God We Trust” in 1956? In doing so, my government is telling me that due to my disbelief in this God character, I cannot truly be a citizen of America: the “one nation” to whom I would swear a patriotic oath; the “we” in the national Motto.
Perhaps you’ll understand my position more clearly in words written by someone like yourself. I blogged about a Letter of the Week at WND that I found while discussing the Pledge issue on another forum. I wish every Christian would have an experience like that of the letter’s author, just so they would get a tiny glimpse of what it’s like to be in the shoes of non-believers in a culture where believers are unfairly favored and are given official endorsement, in violation of the equal rights of non-believers, by the powers that be.
There can be no mistake that the principles upon which this country was founded were based entirely in SECULARISM and on REASON; reading the documents written by the founders during that time makes it perfectly clear to anyone who studies them without the bias of revisionism/reconstructionism peddled by Christians desperate to “prove” that the founders were on their team.
The Pledge and Motto issues are the most high-profile illustrations of codifying Christian principles into the laws of the land. I can think of numerous others right off the top of my head that show how Christians seek to align public policy according to their own religious opinion. Abortion and gay marriage are two other biggies.
Then there are the thousands of lesser known policies, either currently on the books or proposed by legislators, based in “Traditional (read: Christian) values”… Alabama’s ban on dildos and vibrators; the Children’s Safety Act of 2005; taxing internet porn; or public health issues such as making Plan B available over the counter, or a program to distribute an HPV vaccine to preteen girls in order to protect them from cancer later in life; or the failure to provide public school children with comprehensive sex education so as not to offend people who believe the fear of God for violating His law should be enough to keep kids from fucking and sucking their way into unwanted pregnancies, STDs and all sorts of other troubles born of their state-sanctioned ignorance.
Sorry, but I prefer the laws under which I must live to be based in 21st century REALITIES, not ancient myths. And that YOUR myth is swallowed whole by a vocal minority of people who consider themselves to be morally superior simply by virtue of their chosen worldview, and elect similarly delusional government officials is in no way justification for the restriction of MY liberties and my right to equal protection under the law.
And then she left … without even saying ‘goodbye’.
Nah, just lurking every once in awhile. I’m not a she btw.
Hope you’re all doing well. I thought I’d take a break from SEB and do some reading, as inspired by some of your challenging questions. Here’s the latest on my bookshelf, for what it’s worth:
1) The Fingerprint of God – by Hugh Ross (on Cosmology). Which reminds me, is Cosmeticology the study of where mascara came from?
2) Biology Through the Eyes of Faith – Richard T. Wright
3) Can Man Live Without God – Ravi Zacharias
#3 might be worth your time if you’re given to reading the occasional apologetic book. I wouldn’t even bother mentioning it, but read here that Les has read some of the more popular apologetic works.
Then again, a quote from the Zacharias book was largely responsible for my absence here:
Pg. 183 (hardback): “George Mcdonald rightly argued that ‘to explain truth to him who loves it not is to give more plentiful material for misinterpretation.’”
Y’all got my email should you want to discuss the One True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Back to praying that God spares “boatloads” in this current Middle East situation, amongst my other prayers.
Truth Be Known,
Tom
Oops, went and posted my name instead of Looking4Truth (or my original moniker – Praying4U). Oh well, I’ll just have to believe that atheists are no more prone to use info for immoral purposes as anyone.
For what little it’s worth, I fixed that for you.
Thanks elwedriddsche.
I knew that – it’s a thing some of us Ozzies do when we’re talking about someone … we usually don’t hate (I just processed it thru what’s left of my brain – … I coulda said NEVER, but I don’t like absolutes)
I’ve often refer to my mate Jim as a her to a 3rd party – I know – it makes no sense. I probably slot her into the ‘she’s just a woman’ category. It’s totally illogical when attempting to explain, coz on the one hand I know women are smarter than we mere males but … on the other hand it can refer to a dickhead.
Glad you came back. I just baited a line and …
Not often we interact with a xian with a slightly open mind.
Tom or L4T or whatever you want to call yourself, I wouldn’t worry too much about using your real name here. Most of us already know it from visiting your website and SEB doesn’t seem to attract the sort of crowd that feels it necessary to call people up in the middle of the night to harass them for having a different point of view.
I’ll see if the local library has a copy of Can Man Live Without God if only to see what sort of argument the author’s putting forth. The other two books don’t sound too interesting.
As long as we’re suggesting books I’d like to suggest you pick up a copy of Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and give it a read if you really want to challenge yourself. I’m working through it right now and it’s been a pretty good read, though I understand it gets into a bit of woo-woo territory near the end. If nothing else it’ll help you understand a bit more on how many atheists view the claims made by all believers, Christian or otherwise.