DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Atheism and Nonexistence

j/c

I'm somewhat surprised by the disdain of Christianity, specifically, and religion, in general on this board. And, probably, in this country as a whole.

Saddened by it. But not shaken.

But, I am surprised at the negative comments posted about Christianity.

I'm not trying to convert anyone. I don't have that skill.

I'm not preaching, I don't have that ability.

You all carry on. I wish you the best. Here, and there.

Bleak?

IMHO bleak is pretending that all your rewards come in a mystical afterlife... while you fail to live your real life.

Bleak is asking the 18 year old soldier to lay his life down for another man's financial interest.

Bleak is allowing the 10 year old to run into the street and be killed because you were too busy trying to make money instead of being with your kids. (I know this is a poor example, but life isn't about chasing the dollar it is about being the best humans we can be...) So, if that child dies because accidents can happen, at least they should die having been loved and cared for, not exposed to evils and allowed to have a childhood.

The molested 6 year old, should never be molested... but again there is evil in the world. Our job is to make the world better one human at a time, maybe this would/could prevent the molester from ever becoming a molester...??? The child dies he is gone, his pain (from the evil) has ended, he ceases to be... Is that really so bad? Does he live on in our hearts... sure he does. But BLEAK would be asking him to play the role of the molested child who was killed at 6 years of age for eternity... That's BLEAK.

200 years from now will any of this be remembered? Not if you are not famous or part of a historical level event. Sure you might be a footnote in a family tree or exist in some obscure record... but even your descendants will not really know the person that you were. You are gone.

2000 years from now nothing will matter except the things we do to improve the human condition. So yes, I am bleak... But your outlook seems much more bleak to me.

Scientology?

You and me both, lol.

How about these lyrics?

Linear time is not man made. A system of measurement for linear time is man made.

Got me before my edit. Quick. Good job

But do we? It makes sense that, if we all came from one place, that we'd finish in one place... But is life subjective or objective? If it's subjective, then is death subjective? Yaknow?

Well, then you cannot believe in Jesus, at least not the Biblical Jesus, because Jesus said that He is the only way.

You cannot believe what Jesus said, and also believe the opposite of what Jesus said. It just doesn't work. Jesus cannot be the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way someone can come to the Father, and not the truth, the way, and the life, and the only way some can come to the father.

It simply does not work. Either Jesus is telling the truth, and is the only way, or He is a liar, and thus He was never what He claimed to be, and the entire New Testament is false.

As for me, I believe that He is what He said He is, the way, the truth, and the life.

Quite the contrary. I've found that free of my bonds of religion that the future is not bleak, but bright. We can choose to put our head in the sand when it comes to the cruelty of the world or we can accept life and its hardships for what it is. I want to live my life to the fullest and leave a great legacy for my children, and not worry about how my life works according to "faith."

I'm not sure what is more bleak: the prospect of our spirits flat out ending at death, or knowing that many people we know will spend an eternity in hell at the behest of a god who couldn't be bothered to keep their holy texts in good shape. I mean what if Islam is the "right" religion? You and I are going to hell then as infidels. Even if the Abrahamic God is right, you'd be going to heaven but over 5 BILLION people alive today will be going to hell because they aren't Christian. The rest will be "fortunate" enough to spend an eternity worshipping and bootlicking a god who wants the vast majority of people who have ever lived to spend an eternity burning in the lake of fire.

I suppose by that measure, the vast majority burning in fire is a bright outlook

The choices we make will determine our eternal destiny.

I suppose that I can see your point ..... if you know that you are on a path to hell, why not live for today and today only?

However, for those of us with faith in Jesus Christ ..... your path is still a sad one. It is one we hope no one would ever choose. It also verifies what CS Lewis said, when he said that the door to hell is locked from the inside. The unrepentant sinner would not leave hell even if they could, because it would mean serving God. Yeah, I consider that to be very sad.

You know they reject this theory, correct? Why are people who are atheists only living for the day to day? Bill and Melinda Gates are agnostic atheists who are trying to live for centuries. Your view may be a tad narrowminded. I hope you realize that being free to plan your life for yourself, is not necessarily living day to day.

If you are trying to live for centuries, then you are doing for yourself.

Now I get that Gates gives tons and tons of money to charity, and that is very commendable.

Back to your final point, they are living day to day, because they have to. If you believe that when this life ends, then you are nothing but dust, then doing anything but is sheer foolishness. I am not saying that they cannot also plan for the long term, but if their main idea is "here today, gone tomorrow", then not seizing every day contradicts their beliefs, and is self-destructive. They could suffer any kind of accident, or suffer any number of medical emergencies, and be gone 20 seconds from now. They can plan for a long life, but if this life is it, then not taking advantage of every second is foolishness.

Why be overly concerned about a tomorrow that may never come?

Your first mistake is that you believe death to be the absolute end of life. Has Plato died? Has Caesar died? Physically, yes. But they are still studied, still read, still living. Some have even outlived a few Abrahamic religions. Your second mistake is believing that their is still only one way to live. When you live for yourself, you live for yourself. You may choose to live for the day to day, or try to span your life over millenniums, that's the point. You live it for yourself. No one, besides yourself, truly knows if you're living foolishly or not.

Again, you're looking at it too hard. You're looking at it with hate in your eyes. It'd be like me assessing that someone living for someone, who isn't even 2100 years old yet and somehow has magical powers, is living a foolish life. Again, these are narrow minded views. It's best to get rid of the hate that breed them. Not everything can be condensed into boiler plate material.

A lot of this depends on "perspective" Many tenets of God being "divine" are of human making.

God does exist, just not in the way folks think.

There really are only two possible scenarios:

1. God and beings known as God were in pointed fact extraterrestrials that came here in the past and shaped things and we mistook them for Gods. Face it, if we met an intelligent species that had 400,000 thousand year head start on humanity they would be so far technologically advanced we would think they are Gods.

2. God is man made and created by man with one VERY important caveat.

We were visited by time travellers, ourselves from the future actually came back to the past and tried to alter human history. This is where religion were created.

I personally think #2 is the most plausible, i think we really mess things up big time in the future, we alter our own DNA somehow and mess up our ability to reproduce at the genetic level, and face with extinction. Or we create some sort of plague there is no cure for, regardless, our only choice is to go back into the past and try to change the timeline. Our ancestors from the past mistook us for God's, or this was done intentionally to set back our advances intentionally.

However, in doing so(changing the timeline) we have created what science calls a Paradox, a break in the time line that veers off from the normal timeline(it ending bad for us) and breaks off into an alternate timeline that goes on for awhile and then ends, when it ends, it starts again at the point of the break.

In otherwords, what the Bible calls the time of creation(Genesis) could very well be where the break occurs(where they came back in time and altered events) and it ends with Armageddon.

the Bible says after everything is over he will create a new heaven and a new earth...this just reeks of a Paradox.

Who knows, we have probably had this conversation thousands of times. Perhaps those feelings are Deja Vu are not what science says, but are in fact leaks in memory from the previous cycle.:)

I am far from living for today and today only. I have my son to worry about, I put plenty of money away for the future, and want to enjoy a long and carefree life. To claim I'm living for today only is to assume I'm of poor character, which as you know is a broad generalization. I know it's hard to talk about these things sometimes without making assumptions, but grouping all atheists are hedonists and nihilists is demonstrative of poor knowledge on the subject. My life has purpose and the future is bright



And that's understandable because of your faith. I grew up Baptist and was very familiar with our need to proselytize. In many ways I find it harder to respect those who are religious and *DON'T* proselytize. If a person feels someone is going to hell, but does not reach out to them, what does it say about their character?

You are absolutely right I don't want to serve the god of abraham or any other god. I served him for many many years, and over the years as more and more fallacies reared their head it became too much to bear. I lost my faith for several reasons, but one that I believe applies to many is that I don't agree with how salvation works in the Bible. The Bible teaches that everyone knows of God, so anyone who dies without belief in Jesus as savior is doomed to hell (Romans 1:20). But the Quran has almost the exact same verse, just with Allah instead of God. So I asked the deacons if a child or young adult believed in Allah if he'd go to hell, not knowing that it was God, not Allah, who was right. I was told that yes he would go to hell because the Bible denies that there are persons who have never heard of the one true God (Matthew 24:14 and Eccelesiastes 3:11). This also applies to tribes in South America who have only been discovered in the last century and would have had no cultural learnings of Christ.

We can't just dismiss these numbers as low either. Almost 3 billion people today live in populations that are less than 2% evangelical christian, so that means large numbers of these 2 billion have never heard the word of god. Almost 2 Billion people live in places where evangelical churches haven't been planted in 2 or more years. According to the Bible, these folks are going to hell even though it is highly likely they don't even know what the Bible is.

I consider it impossible that a God could be both just, and willing to send people to hell who have never heard the gospel. You can't reconcile this against a literal interpretation of the Bible. You just can't. Sure I could say things like "well my God would never do that" or "I don't agree with the preacher" but it's right there, printed on the page. So I realized that the problem isn't the Bible, it was that I was determined to prove the Bible as infallible. Once I realized the Bible is man made and prone to error, it revealed to me the absurdity of sending everyone to hell. But it also revealed to me the absurdity of how many years I wasted in the service of a god who couldn't be bothered to keep their book error free.

I know you will disagree with this, and that is fine. I just wanted to illustrate that people who don't share in the faith rarely are doing it just so they can party and sleep around and do drugs. My life's purpose is to provide for my family, and that is made easier knowing I'm not sending 10% of my gross earnings to a church with a broken book. I'll let that 10% earn compound interest for me instead

Maybe I did use too broad a generalization. However, the point is still valid to an extent. If a person believes that this is it, and there is nothing beyond death, then why worry about anything but today. You mentioned kids, and that is valid for some. Some may be concerned about a legacy. These may have some validity for some people.



The history of the Koran is an interesting one. Mohammed never wrote down his version of the book. He had clerics memorize his teachings. As Mohammed neared the end of his life, a growing civil war also grew within the religion. It erupted when Mohammed died, and the side that won wiped out the clerics who had memorized the side they did not like, and all evidence of the part of the Koran they did not like.

There is really no "true" Koran, because half of the book was essentially murdered by followers of the other half.

The Koran does follow the Bible at parts. This is not surprising given that Mohammed listened at the edges of Christian and Jewish teachings as a child. He used a lot of those theologies when creating the Koran, but he did not understand it all. (true, especially, considering the nature of the Trinity, which he ... err .."Allah" .... though was a family of God, Mary, and Jesus as a family of Gods) This is, of course, not the Trinity. The Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 3 aspects of 1 God, each with unique aspects, but all still parts of the same whole.

There are similarities between the Bible and the Koran in some areas, because Mohammed copied the Jewish and Christian teachings when developing his new religion.



I admit that there is a part within me that sometimes thinks this, but the Bible tells me that we each have our own gifts from God, and they are not the same from one person to another. Some preach the Word, and others pray for them, or support the church financially, or offer other forms of support. Not everyone has the gift of prophesy. (which many think is telling the future, but it is not, rather it is proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ)



Jesus said that God has put His Law on the hearts of man. All mankind. We all know, instinctively, what is right, and what is wrong. Do I know how God judges people who have never heard the Gospel? I do not. However, since Jesus told us to go and spread the Gospel to all people, I must assume that there will be many, maybe who worship idols, or other so called gods, who will be lost. There has to be a reason for us to spread the Word of God, otherwise the call of the Great Commission would be useless. It is also quite possible, and believable IMHO, that God knows who would have accepted Christ, had they heard the Gospel, and thus He is able to judge even those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the best answer I can give, because I truly do not know how God will handle that type of situation. I can only go by the evidence the rest of the Bible provides, and make an educated guess.



I just gave one possible explanation that is, to me, both plausible and possible. I do not pretend to know for sure how God will judge certain cases. I do believe that there are varying levels of both reward and punishment following this life. Those who are saved go to heaven, but there are rewards that are available to those who have gone "above and beyond". What rewards could possibly exceed the rewards of heaven I cannot say. I have trouble imagining exactly what living in eternal peace, love, and joy will be like. I can say that it will be amazing, and wonderful, but I don't think that words exist to appropriately describe what it will be like. So, what would be better than heaven itself? I can't say, but I trust that the rewards will exist. As far as hell, I also believe that there will be varying degrees of punishment. I think that a man like Adolph Hitler is likely to receive a much greater punishment than the man who cheated on his taxes. However, God never gave us a brochure telling us what the different degrees of punishment will be.

Back to those who truly have never heard the Gospel, well, I assume that God has a plan that deals with them, and since God is perfect, His plan will also be perfect.

I appreciate the discussion. These online discussions/debates help me when I speak to people in person on matters of faith.

Man, I figured that I could answer this post more quickly than I could Clem's, as I have to get moving soon ..... and this still turned out being a short novel.

A pastor transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service. Only 3 people said hello to him, most looked the other way. He asked people for change to buy food because he was hungry. Not one gave him anything.

He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was told by the ushers that he would need to get up and go sit n the back of the church. He said hello to people as they walked in but was greeted with cold stares and dirty looks from people looking down on him and judging him.

He sat in the back of the church and listened to the church announcements for the week. He listened as new visitors were welcomed into the church that morning but no one acknowledged that he was new. He watched people around him continue to look his way with stares that said you are not welcome here.

Then the elders of the church went to the podium to make the announcement. They said they were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation. "We would like to introduce you to our new Pastor." The congregation stood up and looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle.

That's when all the clapping stopped and the church was silent. With all eyes on him....he walked up the altar and reached for the microphone. He stood there for a moment and then recited so elegantly, a verse from the bible.....

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me.’

After he recited this, he introduced himself as their new pastor and told the congregation what he had experienced that morning. Many began to cry and bow their heads in shame. "Today I see a gathering of people here but I do not see a church of Jesus. The world has enough people that look the other way. What the world needs is disciples of Jesus that can follow this teachings and live as he did. When will YOU decide to become disciples?

He then dismissed service until the following Sunday as his sermon had been given.

Homeless Pastor Story at SNOPES

I thought I had seen a video of this, but snopes says it's not true. Although Rev. Willie Lyle did live as homeless for 4 days before taking over a new chruch and this story has inspired others to do this to their congregations

Good story.

IDK Ytown I just can not believe that an all encompassing GOD would exclude

Devout Jews, Muslims, Hindus, what of all the generations that predated Christ, or never had opportunity to learn about him or where taught improperly about what Jesus really was / is.

I'd like to think that if I follow Jesus' teachings of love honor, works etc then a little place of Heaven will be found for me.

after all what would heaven be like if there wasn't al least one room with a boney Hindu plying a cintar

Yup. Good story. Good STORY.

The fact that it's false, however, doesn't take away its meaning.

sure it does, since it never actually happened.

like a virgin getting knocked up by god.

We had a homeless guy come to our church almost every Sunday, especially when it was cold or raining. He lived in the woods along the railroad tracks not far from the church along with about half a dozen other homeless people.

He wasn't very old, probably 40ish. He was usually half drunk when he came to church and he stood in the back quietly leaning up against the wall.

His name was Arlen, we feed him and whoever else wants to show up every Sunday after church. We have those who volunteer to cook and to serve and we have those who show up to eat and to actually sit and talk with the homeless.. it's not preaching, it's not about telling them what's wrong with them or how to fix it, it's just about being there.... we take food and other supplies to him and his friends in the woods, sleeping bags, small tents, canteens, bottled water, cooking supplies, etc

He died about a year ago, our church found out he died and within about 20 minutes had raised almost $10,000 to give him a proper burial, we shuttled his homeless friends so they could attend, we had about 170 people show up for his memorial service... To bury a homeless man that seemingly nobody cared about...

And we continue to reach out to those in the woods to offer what we can, what's ironic is that most don't want much more than a chance...

This video was taken in 2011 when a lot of people couldn't find a job, it's about 5 minutes long... Arlen is the guy in the backwards hat with New York on it.... the building where the folks are eating is my church, the lovely brunette walking around is our former associate pastor who has since moved on to run her own church..

Video

This is the Christianity that I know, this is why I defend it when others seek to remind me that some pastors make millions, that some church people seem fake, that some church people fight among themselves over power within the church... do those things happen? Yes they do and they make good headlines and good fodder for those who haven't experienced it the way that I have... but next Sunday at about 2:00 I'll be with 20 other people at my church, I'll be cooking, my 12 year old daughter will be serving food and talking with homeless people, and we will be doing the work of Jesus in our little north Raleigh church... those who want to think badly of the church are free to think what they want.

See, you seem to exemplify what Christianity means to me.

What I find unfortunate is that from reading this board, many who claim to be Christian do not espouse the same. I see Christianity just like anything else. There's good and bad within in it.

We all have to come to terms and cope with our mortality, especially as we get older. It is called Terror Management Theory or TMT. Unlike animals, we are aware of our own mortality, and couple that with our desire to live. Coming to terms with the reality that we will all die and wither away is not uplifting. So we deny our own mortality. Whether it be through belief in the afterlife, or trying to be successful in life through fame or fortune, etc. We all struggle with ways to define our own immortality.



It absolutely is, and really the history of religion in general is fascinating especially as we progressed from polytheism to monotheism.



Of course, and I don't expect you to do so. It is surprising how often the answer comes about differently within even other Evangelical communities. For example some Christians believe that if a person never heard the word of god or knew who Jesus was, but lived a moral life in the way *they* knew, they would go to heaven. There are even Bible verses used to support this such as Romans 10:14. Yet Romans 1:20 is used to support the idea that well, everyone knows Jesus based on living in the world, so there is no excuse.

Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong when it comes to interpreting the Bible? It is unfortunate that it is so open to interpretation when it is claimed to be God breathed into the writers of the Bible. This is another one of those "why I stopped believing" reasons but I don't see a big deal in writing a book on it.



Same, although I try not to be as active as I have been in the past. It's a hard discussion to keep from getting heated, but I like it so far

I don't know about that.. I just try to do what I can. Heck I feel guilty when I see some folks in our church who seem to do 10x more than me...

I will concur with him. Those are the types of things Christians should be doing, and do way more for recruitment, than the antics of someone like 40. The problem is, the 40's of the world are way more vocal and obnoxious about it and drive most away.

OUTSTANDING!

DC don't ever take me wrong when it comes to religion, I know there are good people doing good things in the name of every religion. It's all the other stuff that bothers me. My brother who is religious tells me that I'm a better Christian than most of the Christians he knows, I just don't know it. lol I'm a hard man, set in my ways, always ready for a fight; but have a giving heart and a weakness for the weaker and/or less fortunate among us. So when I see something good like this I will be the first to let you know how I feel about it.

We usually volunteer for feeding the homeless every Christmas, or around Christmas. We last volunteered at a synagog, who were housing the homeless and feeding them during a really cold period in the weather. It was kinda fun. I took extra cigarettes and just let them be passed around after dinner. I guess half of these guys would find somewhere to watch their team every week, as they were up on their football.

We did three nights in a row. The rabbi would say a prayer he Hebrew before they started serving, and people would come through the line. I cut meat one night and served other foods the other nights. I tried to help with clean up, but a gang of little Jewish women kept shooing me out. My kids even enjoyed helping out.

When you show kindness to others in Christ's Name, loving them, you are loving Jesus.

Mary was not knocked up by God. The LOGOS (pre-existent Jesus) assumed a full human nature through supernatural conception and birth without sexual intercourse.

God is a Spirit, and does not have sexual organs. He merely speaks, and it is done.

The Virgin conception was accomplished by an "overshadowing" by the Holy Spirit. Please don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit. In this case, you probably did it unintentionally, at least I hope you did.

that makes even less sense than getting knocked up by God.

Swish it's kind of like the GOP. If the facts don't fit, make up some sh... stuff.

ONLY if you're an Ontological Naturalist. Are you arguing that Ontological Naturalism is more logical than supernaturalism? Because self creating universes and unguided abiogenesis don't make a lick of sense to me.

pretty much. here's another one. if adam and eve were the first two humans, doesn't that means that everybody was participating in incest?

you don't have to be lonely, at cousins only.com.

none of it makes sense. the big bang doesn't make sense. but just in MY opinion, a virgin getting knocked up by somebody who doesn't even have a physical form is like a straight to DVD movie.

Sharknado is more believable than the stories in the bible.

No, that's what naturalists do...(abiogenesis, self creating universes, multiverses, etc)

You here mention of their sons but never any daughters either, unless I missed it. Figure that one out.

This wasn't in response to you. Your post came after mine.

both sons smashed Eve!! man that snake in the tree screwed that whole family up.

Pretty sure Abel died a virgin, but I think Enoch was their son too.