The Bible's archaic, arbitrary code of ethics is ineffective in the real world.

[Czernobog]

Dude. YOU follow a religion. Allow me to demonstrate. Do you:

1. worship a god that cannot be detected by scientific methods?
2. have a holy book in which your god tells you how to live?
3. have an after-life where you will be judged according to your beliefs, actions and life choices?
4. Believe that by being born into this world you were somehow infected with a disease called "sin", and that only your particular god is able to rescue you from this mortal condition?
5. reject all other gods as being false, with only your god being worthy of worship and adoration?
6. pray to your god?
   
7. believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was your god who created the entire universe?
8. have faith that your particular holy book is the only one in which the written accounts can be trusted completely, and contains the will of your god?
9. attend regular gatherings arranged and led by experts of your particular belief system?
10. think it's possible to know exactly what your god's purpose is for your life, even though you cannot prove he exists?
11. value having a "strong faith" above what can be learned from science and empirical observation and utilising logic and reason? (Before you insist "no" to this one, I will direct your attention back to "Jesus LITERALLY rose from the dead", then apply that to what science, empirical observation, logic, and reason have to say about the probability of that being possible, and then answer this question.)

If you answered yes to the majority of these questions, I hate to break it to you, Sparky, but you follow a religion.

I never claimed that Christianity is not a religion. You really do have a pattern of putting words in people's mouth's or misunderstanding what people are saying. It makes it difficult to have a discussion with you.

He's already arguing original sin, etc ...
like talking down a cutter.

Ya know...you shoulda just stuck with the you were done, part. You would have done a much better job of not making yourself look stupid.

 

[sealybobo]

We are all atheists. You just believe in one more god than I do. You understand all the other religions aren't real except yours. How lucky you were born on this side of the world

I didn't grow up in a Christian home. In fact, I was a nonbeliever for most of my life, so you are making a lot of assumptions. Christianity started in the Middle East, and there are Christians all over the world, so it's always strange to me when people label it a Western religion. Also, something that a lot of people aren't aware of is that there are millions of Christians (and growing fast) in the underground church in China, as well as very passionate Christians in other Asian countries, such as Korea, etc. In fact, at the rate the revival is going in Asian countries, they will surpass the number of Christians on the other side the world in a matter of time.

Yes intellectually they are behind us

 

[sealybobo]

We are all atheists. You just believe in one more god than I do. You understand all the other religions aren't real except yours. How lucky you were born on this side of the world

I didn't grow up in a Christian home. In fact, I was a nonbeliever for most of my life, so you are making a lot of assumptions. Christianity started in the Middle East, and there are Christians all over the world, so it's always strange to me when people label it a Western religion. Also, something that a lot of people aren't aware of is that there are millions of Christians (and growing fast) in the underground church in China, as well as very passionate Christians in other Asian countries, such as Korea, etc. In fact, at the rate the revival is going in Asian countries, they will surpass the number of Christians on the other side the world in a matter of time.

Even worse! You werent brainwashed as a child and you bought it as an adult! Chalk that up to wishful thinking or fear

 

[Disir]

The Bible's archaic, arbitrary code of ethics is ineffective in the real world. Now, this is not to say that the bible does not have any good ideas - Do not murder, Do not steal, for example.

:


Those good ideas predate the bible and simply because they maintains order in any society.

Children raised their entire lives on vague, arbitrary rules reinforced by fantasy stories of magic, and mythology grow up into adults with a warped sense of reality. They often feel guilty for doing innocent, natural things, believe they deserve to go to Hell, believe in magical spirits and powers, distrust science, fear pleasure and celebrate subjugation of self. These are not the habits of an enlightened society. They're irrational, and they contradict reality. If you live your life according to beliefs that contradict reality you're going to have a bad time.

I agree with that. Words like good or bad are so vague they are often difficult to grasp and arbitrary.


One of the greatest things about living in the US is that there are a variety of religions and kids begin questioning as they get older. Does Christianity have the capacity to create distorted sense of reality? Sure. Could that encourage politicians to attempt to create laws that violate the establishment clause? Sure. Good thing we have that, eh?

Without that clause you might have a pretty good argument. You wouldn't be allowed to argue it, but you would have that. That is the line.

I see many of your arguments are made in the abstract as if these are the Christians way over there. The concept of Christianity way over there. I don't necessarily find these things to be true in daily interaction.

And I am an atheist.

Individually Christianity may be a good thing for some people. Many christians admit they'd do bad things if they didn't believe a god was watching so glad they believe

The guy took abstract ideas and then told individuals to account for them.
It's real easy to go back through history and pinpoint parts of the bible that were used as a political tool. For example, justifying slavery. Hell, parts of the bible were eliminated for the Gauls.

There are some groups of Christians that "are going to have a bad time". Literalist interpretations that justify spousal abuse, refusing to give seek medical treatment for children, mentally ill that hide in churches, sexual offenders and cults that marry off their children. Most people are not going to interact with these groups unless you have to.

Thousands of people are going to wake up and make decisions based on their ethics. Technically it doesn't matter why as long as the right decisions are made.

 

[alang1216]

The Bible does not dictate ethics or morality, it reflects the values of the society in which it exists. The OT & NT have existed through many millennium and reflect the changing mores of the cultures that created its various books. The Bible is not dangerous but can be weaponized by anyone. There is so much there you can cherry-pick a passage to support any position. For example, there is plenty in Leviticus but the only thing we hear is a prohibition about homosexuality.

Ha! The Bible is not dangerous but can be weaponized by anyone? Sounds dangerous to me

Many things can be weaponized, baseball bats, rope, etc.

Random thought: I'm a believer in evolution so why does religion maintain such a universal part of human society? Every religion must provide a positive or it would have long ago ceased to exist. The actual religion details don't seem to matter very much.

 

[anotherlife]

I am a Christian. But I do realize that the do not murder supports absolute centralized government power. The Kalvinists worked around this problem by pointing out, that a centralized absolute power aims at displacing God, hence sinful by nature.

See, that's just rationalising one's way around the clear inconsistencies in the Bible.

The Bible is inconsistent, luckily, because it does not pretend to make human knowledge perfect. As long as it is human knowledge, it must be inconsistent. By the way, it must be inconsistent even if it is machine knowledge, because everything derives its energy to exist from its variance, as a mathematical necessity.

 

[buttercup]

Yes intellectually they are behind us

Wow. Listen to yourself. You managed to sound racist, elitist, and unenlightened, all at the same time.

And like other atheists, you simply do not understand that intellect is irrelevant when it comes to matters of faith. God opens our eyes on an individual basis, it is a spiritual thing, it completely bypasses the mind. In fact, people who think they are too smart to believe are unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot, because pride is one of the most, if not the most, blinding things of all. Atheists will remain in the dark as long as they are prideful, because it takes humility and sincerity to even begin to be in the right position for God to open your eyes.

In fact, according to the Bible God purposely set things up that way, as you can see in this scripture:

1 Corinthians 1:27
But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the 'wise', and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the 'strong.'

 

[buttercup]

Even worse! You werent brainwashed as a child and you bought it as an adult! Chalk that up to wishful thinking or fear

You simply do not understand. And I don't expect you to understand.

 

[godsandmen]

Yes intellectually they are behind us

Wow. Listen to yourself. You managed to sound racist, elitist, and unenlightened, all at the same time.

And like other atheists, you simply do not understand that intellect is irrelevant when it comes to matters of faith. God opens our eyes on an individual basis, it is a spiritual thing, it completely bypasses the mind. In fact, people who think they are too smart to believe are unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot, because pride is one of the most, if not the most, blinding things of all. Atheists will remain in the dark as long as they are prideful, because it takes humility and sincerity to even begin to be in the right position for God to open your eyes.

In fact, according to the Bible God purposely set things up that way, as you can see in this scripture:

1 Corinthians 1:27
But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the 'wise', and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the 'strong.'

All religions have passages like that. They deliberately include such passages knowing that their religion will come under attack from outsiders. They are designed to make believing insiders feel right to be on the inside, while attackers are dismissed as fools. It is designed to keep the insiders in, lest they dare listen to the outsiders. That doesn't make it true that the outsiders are the true fools. It only means that's what the writers want the insiders to think. It a control tactic, and sheep always fall for it.

 

[buttercup]

All religions have passages like that. They deliberately include such passages knowing that their religion will come under attack from outsiders. They are designed to make believing insiders feel right to be on the inside, while attackers are dismissed as fools. It is designed to keep the insiders in, lest they dare listen to the outsiders. That doesn't make it true that the outsiders are the true fools. It only means that's what the writers want the insiders to think. It a control tactic, and sheep always fall for it.

Even if that passage wasn't there, it would still be true that pride is blinding and it takes humility, an open mind and a teachable heart to learn new things. So even if you don't believe in God, you must concede that assuming God exists, it makes sense that things would be set up in that way – so that prideful, hard hearted know-it-alls are in less of a position to gain true wisdom and understanding, than those who have a teachable heart and a genuine sincere desire for truth.

So nice try, but you are flat out wrong.

 

[godsandmen]

All religions have passages like that. They deliberately include such passages knowing that their religion will come under attack from outsiders. They are designed to make believing insiders feel right to be on the inside, while attackers are dismissed as fools. It is designed to keep the insiders in, lest they dare listen to the outsiders. That doesn't make it true that the outsiders are the true fools. It only means that's what the writers want the insiders to think. It a control tactic, and sheep always fall for it.

Even if that passage wasn't there, it would still be true that pride is blinding and it takes humility, an open mind and a teachable heart to learn new things. So even if you don't believe in God, you must concede that assuming God exists, it makes sense that things would be set up in that way – so that prideful, hard hearted know-it-alls are in less of a position to gain true wisdom and understanding, than those who have a teachable heart and a genuine sincere desire for truth.

So nice try, but you are flat out wrong.

On the contrary, I agree that learning new things requires humility, an open mind and a teachable heart. That's exactly why atheists are willing to open their minds to truth, whereas believers are not.

 

[BETH-MIDAN]

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