Zone1 Why is it so tough to believe in God?

[toobfreak]

They have become the party of Godless Marxism/Communism led by leftist radicals. There is no room for objective morals in the Democrat party anymore.

If democrats had any kind of ethics or morality at all, much less religion, they simply couldn't say, support, much less do the things they do.

Democrats have far more in common with Islamists, muslims, and godless communists than they do the average American.

 

[MarathonMike]

Because you deem it to be so.

So it's just a personal choice, in the end. Not ripping on it.

I'm not deeming anything. The second word in my statement is "personally", is it not?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I'm not deeming anything. The second word in my statement is "personally", is it not?

Meaning, you deem the evidence to be evidence. Yes, I think we agree.

 

[BreezeWood]

Religion/faith is not what we do to earn a heavenly afterlife. Religion/faith is more about how to live this life, and how the love and goodness extends past this life.

sure it does ...

just not christianity or the other two desert religions, there is a special place just for them.

 

[BreezeWood]

They have become the party of Godless Marxism/Communism led by leftist radicals. There is no room for objective morals in the Democrat party anymore.

- the desert dwellers whipping boy the religion of communism the bible that makes them cringe in despair.

 

[Leo123]

If democrats had any kind of ethics or morality at all, much less religion, they simply couldn't say, support, much less do the things they do.

Democrats have far more in common with Islamists, muslims, and godless communists than they do the average American.

Oh, they have what they call morality all right, which is subject to whatever it takes for them to have a brainwashed cult......See Wokness and their incessant TDS. Not to mention all their illegal alien "migrant" lies. They lied about Rebublicans being the reason for the shutdown. They even lied about Trump's East Wing project as they denigrated him. Now they're lead by a dumb woke-feminist-Marxist and a straight up Communist.

 

[toobfreak]

Oh, they have what they call morality all right, which is subject to whatever it takes for them to have a brainwashed cult......They lied about Rebublicans being the reason for the shutdown. They even lied about Trump's East Wing project

Bottom line is that the Left's only "morality" is to lie--- they lie first to themselves, then they hold a gun to your head (often literally) and try to force you to believe it as well.

 

[Leo123]

Bottom line is that the Left's only "morality" is to lie--- they lie first to themselves, then they hold a gun to your head (often literally) and try to force you to believe it as well.

I came back and added more to post #326. The Democrats have done so much undermining of American values it's hard to think of all of them. It really is outrageous.

 

[alang1216]

Religion/faith is not what we do to earn a heavenly afterlife. Religion/faith is more about how to live this life, and how the love and goodness extends past this life.

Fine words but I look at what believers of all faiths have actually done throughout history and I see base human nature at work. Hate, revenge, and anger, the quest for power and wealth, lust, pride, arrogance, etc.

 

[Meriweather]

Fine words but I look at what believers of all faiths have actually done throughout history and I see base human nature at work. Hate, revenge, and anger, the quest for power and wealth, lust, pride, arrogance, etc.

The same can be said about motherhood, fathers, marriage--and elements of one's own life. And some elect not to marry or become parents for those same reasons. All of those--including religion, perhaps especially religion--also have the goodness of human nature at work: Love, kindness, sharing, perfection through tough times. Some elect not have a spouse, a best friend, or a deep relationship with anyone, not to mention a relationship with God. Usually that reason is the conviction that person--even a supreme being--will fail them.

God and the human race are failures...it seems that sums up your belief quite well. I see the opposite.

 

[alang1216]

The same can be said about motherhood, fathers, marriage--and elements of one's own life. And some elect not to marry or become parents for those same reasons. All of those--including religion, perhaps especially religion--also have the goodness of human nature at work: Love, kindness, sharing, perfection through tough times. Some elect not have a spouse, a best friend, or a deep relationship with anyone, not to mention a relationship with God. Usually that reason is the conviction that person--even a supreme being--will fail them.

God and the human race are failures...it seems that sums up your belief quite well. I see the opposite.

Nope. Human nature is what it is and nothing changes that. Religion is just a reflection of the people that make it up. There are good and bad, greedy and altruistic, leaders and followers, etc.

 

[hobelim]

Yep. Karma. irrational religious flotsam, defile and contaminate their mind, go insane, lose their soul, devolve into an unclean creature, foul and loathsome beast and bird, the deeper implications of the exact same law, name of my God, a vastly superior intelligence, death is a consequence of their own choice. These all seem mystical to me but what do I know?

Karma amounts to cause and effect which isn't mystical. Am I telling you something you didn't already know?

As for the rest, I was using figurative language, the language of the prophets. I can't understand why you don't realize that these expressions aren't any more mystical than the metaphors used in the story of the three pigs.

Anyone who claims mystical knowledge and tells you something irrational like how one God is three persons, derp, or that God became a perfect human sacrifice to pay the penalty for all the sins of believers is a mystery too deep for the human mind to comprehend and must be blindly taken by faith is just peddling pure bullshit.

Nothing mystical about that.

The stories were written to educate Hebrew children thousands of years ago just like Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, the boy who cried wolf, or the three pigs. Don' look for mystical explanations. Look for simple ones, easy enough for a child to understand just like I understood at 4. It wasn't hard. It was easy. By grade school children running around the school yard were calling each other pigs, snakes, dogs, bottom feeders, maggots, parasites, creeps, sheeple, etc., like people have done in every language ever since people could talk.

What's the mystery or difficulty applying that fact to kosher law where the animals represent human archetypes?

And are you really having a hard time understanding the vivid metaphor, "irrational religious flotsam"? Seriously?

I don't believe that for a second.

 

[toobfreak]

Fine words but I look at what believers of all faiths have actually done throughout history and I see base human nature at work. Hate, revenge, and anger, the quest for power and wealth, lust, pride, arrogance, etc.

Then maybe you should also consider what people of no faith have done throughout history as well and realize that base human nature is always at work, and that just because someone says that they are acting poorly in defense of this or that religion is not necessarily a poor reflection on the religion itself, but on the people claiming to act badly in its defense.

 

[hadit]

Let's review:

You ACTUALLY BELIEVE that, if people don't disprove every magical and completely madeup idea that falls out of your face, then they are operating on faith.

Absolutely false. I categorically stated that we all live on faith and gave multiple reasons why we do (none of which you addressed, let alone refuted). I can't help it if you make up from nothing such erroneous conclusions.

You're embarrassing yourself.

Hardly. I WOULD be embarrassed if I drew the conclusion you did from what I posted. THAT would be embarrassing.

We know there was no Earth, 4.54 billion years ago. We know when Earth cooled enough for life to form. We know when the oldest life we know of existed.

So we know life formed in that window.

We also know that evolution requires a stable environment of totally ideal conditions in order for the vanishingly tiny possibility that life will spring from the random assembly of living cells, etc.

No, nobody has to dismiss the bullshit you are pulling right out of your ass about how long it should have taken.

And yet you can't show how it could have happened any faster. Here's the truth, you ACCEPT by FAITH what you were taught and what others told you happened.

And yes, it is utter, ad hoc bullshit. No, nobody has to prove that it wasn't magic, either.

I know, I know, anything any being does that you don't understand is magic and therefore impossible.

And the only reason you are embarrassing yourself is because of your childish belief in a bronze age mythology.

And the impossibility of all this happening randomly. There's that too.

We know stars form by the same type of reasoning as we.know life formed.

Stars are not life. There's a big difference.

Yet not one godbothering troll is making any arguments against the theory of star formation or making up embarrassingly dumb shit about it, as you are about abiogenesis. And we both know why.

Very weak equivalence there.

Your faith has become a mental handicap.

The sooner you learn this principle (that nobody has to disprove the bullshit you pull out of your ass, a principle that most people learn when they are about 9 years old), the sooner you will be on your way to not embarrassing yourself.

Good luck.

And there it is, the last refuge of the weak, attempting to turn the argument into a referendum on the opponent. That stopped working about the time we turned 12.

 

[alang1216]

Yep. Karma. irrational religious flotsam, defile and contaminate their mind, go insane, lose their soul, devolve into an unclean creature, foul and loathsome beast and bird, the deeper implications of the exact same law, name of my God, a vastly superior intelligence, death is a consequence of their own choice. These all seem mystical to me but what do I know?

Karma amounts to cause and effect which isn't mystical. Am I telling you something you didn't already know?

There is good and bad Karma and the judging of good vs bad seems mystical to me.

As for the rest, I was using figurative language, the language of the prophets. I can't understand why you don't realize that these expressions aren't any more mystical than the metaphors used in the story of the three pigs.

I don't recall the 'soul' being mentioned in the three little pigs.

Anyone who claims mystical knowledge and tells you something irrational like how one God is three persons, derp, or that God became a perfect human sacrifice to pay the penalty for all the sins of believers is a mystery too deep for the human mind to comprehend and must be blindly taken by faith is just peddling pure bullshit.

Nothing mystical about that.

How do you know that?

The stories were written to educate Hebrew children thousands of years ago just like Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, the boy who cried wolf, or the three pigs. Don' look for mystical explanations. Look for simple ones, easy enough for a child to understand just like I understood at 4. It wasn't hard. It was easy. By grade school children running around the school yard were calling each other pigs, snakes, dogs, bottom feeders, maggots, parasites, creeps, sheeple, etc., like people have done in every language ever since people could talk.

What's the mystery or difficulty applying that fact to kosher law where the animals represent human archetypes?

And are you really having a hard time understanding the vivid metaphor, "irrational religious flotsam"? Seriously?

I don't believe that for a second.

I think the difference between us is that I read what is in the Bible, while you read what is not in the Bible. What you're doing is writing your own Gospel. That is your right of course but don't number me among your followers.

 

[Meriweather]

Nope. Human nature is what it is and nothing changes that. Religion is just a reflection of the people that make it up. There are good and bad, greedy and altruistic, leaders and followers, etc.

I am trying to help you understand it is not religion, government, business, parenthood, etc. that is the problem or the source. It is the world that is fallen and fleeting. Catholic teaching, and perhaps the basis of all religion/denominations, is to love the world, not for the sake of the world or even the people in in it, but for for the sake of God and His work of achieving the Kingdom of heaven here in this world.

It seems to me you go through your day(s) totally ignoring the bits, pieces, places, actions of the God's Kingdom that are present/being built here in this world so that you may concentrate on everything that is wrong and throwing stones at the people and groups (of this world) who try (despite their own weaknesses and failings) want to be a part of raising/reconstructing all that is fallen from the Kingdom back into the Kingdom of God.

 

[forkup]

There is evidence. Why choose not to believe it, have faith in it?

Faith is not evidence, by definition, it begins where evidence ends. Confidence in an idea doesn’t make it true. Believing something doesn’t elevate it to fact. I don’t rely on fallacious reasoning to determine truth, which is why belief in a god, any god, is difficult to justify. As Stephen F. Roberts put it: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” That quote captures the asymmetry perfectly. The burden of proof doesn’t shift just because belief is popular.

This of course assumes you are Christian. I suppose you can go another route I've seen by defining what's meant by god so loosely as to lose any meaning.

 

[Meriweather]

Faith is not evidence, by definition, it begins where evidence ends. Confidence in an idea doesn’t make it true. Believing something doesn’t elevate it to fact. I don’t rely on fallacious reasoning to determine truth, which is why belief in a god, any god, is difficult to justify. As Stephen F. Roberts put it: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” That quote captures the asymmetry perfectly. The burden of proof doesn’t shift just because belief is popular.

This of course assumes you are Christian. I suppose you can go another route I've seen by defining what's meant by god so loosely as to lose any meaning.

The weak point of Robert's contention is he overlooked that the God of Abraham is different from "all other possible gods". Dismissing the one God would be like dismissing all nuts as poisonous because one nut (the cashew when not undergoing heat before or after removing the shells) is poisonous. Roberts needed to delve more deeply into the dissimilarity that makes the God of Abraham differ from all others.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

What's so hard to comprehend about the deeper meaning of kosher law

read a fairy tale.



Now I'm wondering the exact same thing about you.

Taking in a Stray Dog and Thinking It Was Always Looking Only for You

The deeper meaning of your imaginary conclusions is that they all say something about you yourself, like interpreting a speech in the way you would say it. Try figuring out what drives you to come up with these narratives.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

You were already headed to eternal punishment because you reject G-d's free gift of salvation through Christ, because of your sin of unbelief and pride.

Domination Through Damnation