Way to Prove Christianity wrong
I do not see how you can relate something as profound as religion to things like politics/philosophy/history/science.
Someones faith in religion is a whole different story all together. I can already tell you dont take anything about religion seriously so I doubt anything I can say will make much difference to you so I will make this short and sweet.....
Clearly it states to have respect in here, and I do not find that to be respectful, its plain and simple.....
You are an extremely intelligent person Oneironaut but I think you might be alittle over-critical about religion. Could you explain as to why you MUST disprove someones faith in religion?? What drives that? What is it?!?
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by WeedGremblin
You are an extremely intelligent person Oneironaut but I think you might be alittle over-critical about religion. Could you explain as to why you MUST disprove someones faith in religion?? What drives that? What is it?!?
WG, I've come across a couple of your posts so far and I've got to say, you seem like a remarkably lucid individual. Welcome and keep up the great posts.
Oneironaut is just our resident bitter skeptic who acts like he was raised catholic, became atheist, and now wants to share his pain with everyone.
We try to love him regardless...
;)
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by Polymirize
WG, I've come across a couple of your posts so far and I've got to say, you seem like a remarkably lucid individual. Welcome and keep up the great posts.
Oneironaut is just our resident bitter skeptic who acts like he was raised catholic, became atheist, and now wants to share his pain with everyone.
We try to love him regardless...
;)
Thanks Polymirize
Im not worried about Oneironaut, but I do have to say he has been typing for awhile, I think we better brace for impact.
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by WeedGremblin
Thanks Polymirize
Im not worried about Oneironaut, but I do have to say he has been typing for awhile, I think we better brace for impact.
LOL..thanks for the laugh..I am bracing..sure it will be a good one!
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by WeedGremblin
I do not see how you can relate something as profound as religion to things like politics/philosophy/history/science.
Religion, like all those other fields of thought, is an attempt to figure out the truth about how the universe works. And like any field of thought, if it wants to get anywhere it needs to have people debating each other so the correct ideas win out over the false ones. However, religious dogma doesn't work that way. For some reason that I can't figure out, people seem to think that religion is somehow special, that religious opinions should not be challenged no matter how silly they are, and that everybody should be entitled to voice their opinion about religion but never receive a critical response about what they say.
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Someones faith in religion is a whole different story all together. I can already tell you dont take anything about religion seriously so I doubt anything I can say will make much difference to you so I will make this short and sweet.....
Clearly it states to have respect in here, and I do not find that to be respectful, its plain and simple.....
I don't see the point in "respecting" faith. What's so great about faith? Faith is belief in that for which there is no evidence. It is, to me, plainly inferior to rationality and logic, and the scientific method of demanding evidence before you're convinced of something. I think it is silly how much our culture glorifies zealous fervor for ideas that haven't the slightest shred of objective evidence going for them.
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You are an extremely intelligent person Oneironaut but I think you might be alittle over-critical about religion. Could you explain as to why you MUST disprove someones faith in religion?? What drives that? What is it?!?
I believe that every person should have the ability to do as they please so long as they do not infringe upon the life or liberty of another person, and that matters concerning human affairs should be decided upon democratically by the populace. Western monotheism directly contradicts those ideas (so does Hinduism to a large extent, but I'm much more lenient on Buddhism and Taoism, which are far less authoritarian).
The Bible, as I read it, is an extremely authoritarian book. Yahweh is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst character in any book I have read. He is portrayed as a totalitarian dictator figure, who sets laws and demands that they be obeyed unquestioningly, just because he's the one who wrote the laws. His ego is so huge that he proclaims himself to be the greatest thing in the whole universe, and demands that everybody worship him as much as possible. He has a chosen race and orders them to pillage towns belonging to "inferior" peoples, then kill the men, expropriate their property, and take the virgins for themselves. Yahweh orders wives to submit unquestioningly to their husbands, and for people who work on the Sabbath to be stoned to death. He orders women who menstruate and men who ejaculate to burn animal sacrifices so that he can receive the "pleasant aroma". Yahweh condones slavery throughout the Bible, and even gives rules for how to properly sell slaves and how to mark your slaves. Even in the New Testament, slaves are told, "be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Peter 2:18). It's a good thing people don't really follow that verse anymore, or we'd still have slavery and the Jews would still be toiling away in Nazi labor camps. Christians actually continue to publish this pro-slavery, sexist, homophobic, racist, illogical crap and encourage their children to read it before they're at an age when they can critically and logically think through all the arguments for and against Biblical accuracy and the historical issues involved with its origins. It's like handing a 6 year old a copy of Quotations From Chairman Mao Zedong and pressuring him to become a faithful Maoist, then rejecting out of hand any criticism of what you're doing to the child! Children should be taught about all ideologies, religious, political and otherwise, and should be able to choose for themselves what they want to believe in. I think indoctrinating children into an ideology like that, and encouraging them to believe or be burned forever, before they have a chance to rationally examine all the evidence and arguments, is a form of child abuse.
Not that any Christian actually follows all the ridiculous crap in the Bible, but the heavy authoritarianism is still very much present in Christianity. When you bow down to a "higher power" and his "higher justice", proclaiming all his moral guidelines to be absolutes that cannot be questioned, you are basically giving up the idea that humans should be able to decide how they should live their lives on their own. When you say the Lord is your shepherd, you are saying that you are a sheep.
I see no reason to be respectful of child abuse, dictator worship and blatant sexism, which I find to be rampant problems among those infected with the Christianity virus.
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by braddog10
Dude your way off. There is duplication. On the most part of the book of Job, which happens to be the oldest book. and Is found in other cultures. Islam copied and twisted much of our Bible and inserted their our preferences, especially as it relates to Isaac and Ishmael, however, the prophets were recorded millenia before Islam was even around.
A myth?.....your offensive!!
Where am I off? The story of Jesus happened at least 15 times in the 2000 years preceeding the man which really proofs, at least to me, its a myth.
Early christianity is basically a set of stolen pagan principles. In many instances, the entire story was shamelessly copied with only the name of the main actor changed to Jesus. This has nothing to do with the book of job at all. You would be right if the life of Jesus as presented in the new testament, would be in the book of Job, detailed. SInce it isnt there's not way these stories could have come from the book of job.
Please enlighen me and let me know where I am off ;)
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
You are more than off..you are wrong. Do you even know the history of the Bible? What about Malachi?
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
Religion -A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
Religion is so much more personal than any of those other topics. I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about contradictions in the Bible, I never said I was grounded in any religion. What religion is to me is hope/faith whatever you want to call it, itā??s the same, that there is something infinitely good out there when we live in a world that promotes evil things. I try not to be so critical about it, I take what I can leave what I donā??t agree with; itā??s a win/win situation you know? When you boil it all down itā??s about how to be a better person to one another and God, whatā??s so wrong about that. You focus so much on what you donā??t like about the Bible that you totally toss aside the good.
To me itā??s like this, God is this almighty creator who creates beauty and life but destroys it, His son Jesus takes human form to live like a human. He seeā??s how we are and has sympathy, compassion, love and understand towards us so he gives his life so that we do not perish.
Itā??s about love, compassion, and understanding towards each other so we can better ourselves. To me that is all its about, itā??s about something good. We live in a time of evil, we see it everyday. Its hope in something better, not everyone has the ability to make an impact on the evil in the world so they have faith. Just as good if you ask me.
Excuse me while I roast a fat one in honor of Oneironaut. I really do respect you alot man, and I am glad that we have someone with such intelect in a cannabis community, it gives hope. :thumbsup:
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
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Originally Posted by WeedGremblin
Religion -A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
Religion is so much more personal than any of those other topics. I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about contradictions in the Bible, I never said I was grounded in any religion. What religion is to me is hope/faith whatever you want to call it, it’s the same, that there is something infinitely good out there when we live in a world that promotes evil things.
You don't see the contradiction there? An infinitely good being that controls a "world that promotes evil things"?
And I still maintain that faith is not a virtue. Skepticism is. Demanding evidence and not taking your beliefs on tradition, authority, wishful thinking or blind speculation is a much superior way of approaching the truth.
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I try not to be so critical about it,
Why not?
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I take what I can leave what I don’t agree with; it’s a win/win situation you know? When you boil it all down it’s about how to be a better person to one another and God, what’s so wrong about that.
Because God doesn't exist. Also, there is not one single shred of evidence that religious people act more morally than atheists. Most people who live by their own principles without religion are perfectly normal, morally upright individuals, and study after study finds they do not engage in obviously immoral behavior (murder, rape, arson, stealing, etc.) any more than religious people do.
I would say continuing to publish the Bible and the horrible abominations within, and distributing it to children, is potentially harmful to their morals, since if they do decide to take it literally and obey all of God's words to the prophets (as Jesus himself commands) they can be sucked into a very dangerous ideology.
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You focus so much on what you don’t like about the Bible that you totally toss aside the good.
You have the opposite problem: you focus entirely on the few pages of good stuff and toss aside the majority of the book!
I'm sorry, I can't just shop around and pick out which verses I agree with and which ones are crap. It's an all or nothing thing. Either the Bible is reliable, or it isn't. I mean, I can sift through Mein Kampf and probably find a few good quotes too, but that doesn't mean the book isn't an authoritarian racist piece of crap. I have found relatively few real good morals in the Bible. Even the good parts are pretty much common sense. Don't kill people cause that's bad for society, okay, duh, everybody knows that. And stealing is bad too, uh huh, what's the big deep revelation here? If I can figure out for myself what is moral and what isn't, why do I need to sift through sexism, rules for keeping slaves, detailed instructions for animal sacrifice, and boring stories about ancient Jewish lineages to find a few common sense ideas by a guy who said he was God and told people he could exorcise demons that cause disease.
If you ask me, there have been way better philosophers. Voltaire, Rousseau, Thoreau, Emerson, Ingersoll, Russell, heck even Sartre is way more profound than Jesus and his "be nice or burn forever" philosophy.
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To me it’s like this, God is this almighty creator who creates beauty and life but destroys it,
Why? That's a horrible thing to do. If God fucked up the first time, why didn't he just fix things himself instead of fuckin killing everything and hoping it works better the next time?
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His son Jesus takes human form to live like a human. He see’s how we are and has sympathy, compassion, love and understand towards us so he gives his life so that we do not perish.
But he didn't bother to say anything about all that slavery, or the sexism, or anything. Or provide sufficient evidence for his existence. Why did God need to kill his son to change the rules of the universe anyways? That doesn't make any sense.
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It’s about love, compassion, and understanding towards each other so we can better ourselves. To me that is all its about, it’s about something good. We live in a time of evil, we see it everyday. Its hope in something better, not everyone has the ability to make an impact on the evil in the world so they have faith. Just as good if you ask me.
Umm...you do know that Jesus promoted the idea of hell, don't you? The idea that, if you commit a sin and don't ask for forgiveness, you will be tortured for all eternity? That's not very forgiving.
And I have to disagree. Faith is not "just as good". If you feel powerless to make an impact on the evil in the world, then try harder! Don't cop out by adopting an escapist ideology that everything will be fine and you'll live forever, that this life is merely a place to wipe your feet on the way to the eternal afterlife (what is 7 or 8 decades compared to an eternity?). Go out and do something! Be creative. Two hands at work accomplish more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
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Excuse me while I roast a fat one in honor of Oneironaut. I really do respect you alot man, and I am glad that we have someone with such intelect in a cannabis community, it gives hope. :thumbsup:
(sparks bong)
Way to Prove Christianity wrong
What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
All christians I know take it very very personal when one tries to debate their religion. Often times the only answer I get is 'It works for me' and 'Its complex'. If christianity isn't open to debate then it is unworthy of me following in it. I don't particularly like to be dictated to. One might have a question, questions like the thread starter posed that require answers for some reason or other. Asking a question as to whether or not something the world believes is actually true should really be answered with evidence that sheds enlightenment. Shouting down a man using all kind of amunition to defend a subject when a theory is raised and not providing any real answer, doesn't propel someone to start believing. I'm more inclined to rephrase the question and when the answer is again not given I'd ask what one is hiding. No body ain't providing nothin in the way of evidence besides how they react; where their reaction can be linked to the psychology of the group (christian/muslim/hindu/etc). It is a big subject... don't shoot the messenger
