/atheism/ - Atheism

>>6210

If the universe was created by god, who created god? Usually their answer is god has always been. To which you response so is it really that crazy to think that the universe in one form or another has always existed? Loved pulling that one on the Jehovah witnesses.

>>6977 If you can believe that your religion is right a hundred years after they missed the prophesized Armageddon date, the JW are a top contender for the a gold metal in the sport of mental gymnastics.

>>6974

They will though, because that's how religion works. They try to hide their failures and emphasize their successes.

>>6430

I always wonder if they just try to dodge an uncomfortable question or they mean things like that. It is creepy.

>>6982

I wonder if they are more likely to say dumb things without giving serious thought if they know you are an Atheist. Since Atheists are beyond saving, and Atheists don't get religion, there's no need to take them seriously.

>>6875

>This question is actually covered in the bible in far more depth than the greeks ever cared to take it

lolno. The story of Abraham itself goes into very little detail about why Abraham did what he did or why he should. It's just a simple story invented by simple people who, if you went back in time and showed them Kierkegaard's analysis, would probably have no fucking idea what you were talking about.

>Definitely give it a read if you ever want to be more than a skinnyfat wimp who uses arguments that have been blown to shreds hundreds of years ago.

But these >>6210

>>6430

aren't arguments, they're just questions. They're questions that most religious people can't give a good answer to. If Kierkegaard could then good for him but that doesn't mean those anons' concerns are "blown to shreds".

>>6881

>then at some point the general public get duped into believing that they understand it

I'm pretty sure the general public doesn't even listen to Bach outside of what they hear in movies and tv, much less presume to "understand" him.

>But in reality, nobody understands bach, maybe some do, but you can't find them.

>His music encompasses more than he was.

>This is the secret to his music, and not even the best musical analytic can uncover this.

>Certain things express the incomprehensibility of the spiritual trial which we face, and of which bridges of reason cannot be built on top of.

Ugh, give me a break.

>>6210

>If the bible told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?

The Bible doesn't address us individually like that, but let's assume it does and it asks me to do this, I wouldn't. Being Christian doesn't force you to believe that the Bible was somehow supernaturally writte by God. All evidence doesn't confirm any supernatural anything about both its composition and compilation.

I believe in learning about the Bible, its context, its difficulties, its contradictions, apparent and real, the reason for that, etc. It prevents one from mere wishful thinking if you know what the texts mean and where they come from.

>>6219

>No, because God is good and would never tell us to do something like that.

That's true too, though.

>>6225

Many Christians put tremendous faith in the Bible, as if it came from the heavens directly. I don't do that and I don't think it's necessary. If anything, I think it's detrimental to faith to even attempt to do this.

>>6227

>How do you know your Judeo-Christian values are the best values, unless you've given other values a chance?

With values such as the Ten Commandments, you won't find anything very different from those values. If you go with Christian values more specifically, meaning Christic values, then you may find other values elsewhere, but none of the Westerners have exchanged their values for anything different from Christian values. Most Western atheists have largely maintained the same values and most don't even suggest a different set of values. If anything, most people become forgetful about the origin of their daily values; we take them for granted and then start acting like we would have reached them on our own, without society's push.

>>6247

>>Do you think you would still be [your religion] if you were born in a country where it's not common?

I can say yes to this. Christians are rare where I live and it's regarded as a major retardation, so even the Christians who are faithful won't casually mention their faith.

>>6430

> "Is something good because it is good in and of itself or is good because God says it's good?"

It is good because it is good in itself. Goodness is of God, though.

>>6431

>I guess you haven't read very much of the Bible. God commands people to do absurd stuff all through it.

The absurdity generally comes from the fact that modern readers don't know the background or context and don't get the point (typically with the Binding of Isaac) or they read fiction or poetry and assume it's a factual account of God's behaviour (as with the Book of Job).

As to "historical accounts", history and archeology don't support much of it, but if you believe giants roamed the earth and were real, then you are free to believe whatever you want without needing actual evidence (which I wouldn't advise).

>>6527

>I'd point out the example when Abraham was told to kill his son by God in the bible. Then I'd ask, "Would you kill your son if God told you to without a reason?" Christians usually freeze up when asked that question. It's like they've never thought about it before.

Context: back then, many tribes believed in many gods, and all were given human sacrifices, typically children, babies. In the Binding of Isaak, God asks for child sacrifice to see whether Abraham considers Him a worthy God or not, and once He realises that yes, He no longer wants the sacrifice. Keep in mind this is most likely a myth, a story, fiction, where the point matters more than whether it happened or not, like Job and other books of the OT. The point here is that this God, this real God, doesn't want children to be murdered for Him, unlike all the other Gods back then. That's the context in which to read this passage.

>Their belief requires absolute obedience to something you believe 1) exists 2) by definition must be good. But God is believed to be a good thing only because he said he is good in the bible. If one decided his commandment was evil, one is still obligated to follow him or burn in hell.

That's extremely simplified. I guarantee most Christians don't see things this simply.

>In the bible God asks Israelis to murder thousands of their own people, their sons, innocent women, and so forth. They all do it without questioning their orders. Like Nazis just following orders.

Again, reading the OT like a modern history book isn't going to do wonders… I guarantee.

>Usually I try to force an answer. It's not a loaded question because it's a real question the bible wants you to deal with in Issac and Abraham. It has no good answer, because it's obvious God never should have asked men to do any of these evil things in the first place.

It has a context that most ignore. The context makes it very clear why "God" asked this of Abraham. Remember who wrote the Old Testament and stop assuming it was God, since it clearly wasn't.

>>6540

>But God spoke to people in dreams in the Bible.

Sometimes, not always. You'd still have to know which book is fiction and which is not, which few atheists know.

>>6544

>You actually think most christians have read the bible?

For most Christians, that's not highly important, in fact. You seem to think every Christian can't call himself one unless he has read the Bible cover to cover. That isn't true. For centuries, Christians didn't even have a Bible. Having read the New Testament is most of the reading requirements, I'd say, because that's where Christianity finds its source, not the Old Testament, which, due to its nature, doesn't have content that a Christian can't avoid. Chronicles and such can remain unread and the Christian person won't miss anything because of that. You can survive without reading Ecclesiastes, no matter how great this book is. Not reading Psalms will be sad but it won't prevent your faith in any way. Not every Christian is an intellectual and it shouldn't matter.

But yes, most Christians have read the Bible, not everything, but there's no reason to feel forced to have read the entire Old Testament. This is yet another assumption that comes from the shared belief amongst Fundamentalists and atheists that God wrote the Bible and everything in it is true and you must do everything it says. That's not how it is and that's why most Christians haven't read the OT Testament, although most did read the NT. Christians can easily live with just the NT.

>>6769

>I still think pointing out the fact the according to most conventional interpretations of the Bible lead to the realization the 4+ billion Muslims,Hindus, Buddhist, and others will go to hell.

Not a conventional reading at all. Reading the Bible at a basic level shows the idea that you can be saved both here and in the "next world", meaning after you die. No reason to assume all these people will get their chance in the next world if they didn't get it here. Just saying.

That said, even the RCC doesn't think you go to hell for having been born in the wrong country. It states it so in the CCC, it's absolutely clear.

"How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his Body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.

Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." (CCC 846-848)

>>6877

"Reading the Bible" isn't enough to be an expert on it. You have to read shitloads more to make sense of it. Contemporary context is typically not specified because it's intended to a contemporary audience. A novel written in 2015 will not specify what a smartphone is and if some aliens from 2000 years into the future found the word, they would have a hard time with it. That is also why the Crucifixion isn't detailed in the gospels: everyone had seen a bunch already.

>>6881

>Almost nobody on /Christian/ actually understands the bible.

>They understand it more than you guys do, but they still don't understand it.

I don't like to defend that board but truth is truth: many on /christian/ are seminarians and know what they're talking about.

>This is the secret to his music, and not even the best musical analytic can uncover this.

Music is a different thing entirely. The Bible isn't music.

>>6889

I'm a lit major and teacher and I guarantee that these books are not infrequently riddled with errors. They also tend to make things look much simpler than they are.

OP's post is kind of retarded. Abrahamic gods wouldn't ask that sort of thing without reason. That said, that is somewhere along the right line of thinking, specifically in regards to the necessity of god to uphold society's moral fiber.

You can ask a religious person whether they would be a good person without religion. If they say yes, then it would question whether religion is necessary to be a moral person. If no, they would admit that the only reason they are good people is because an all-powerful being is watching and judging their every move. It's not exactly moral to do the right thing only because someone is watching you.

It's a simple thing you can ask that, while it won't make them instant-atheists, would at least incite some more thinking on the necessity of religion in their lives.

That said, a religious person could make the argument that religion can help with morally ambiguous choices, tough times, and temptation. But even then you can argue that it won't necessarily lead them down the right path.

And then there's the metaphysical argument, but it's a very difficult road to traverse for both the religious and gnostic atheists (agnostics do have an easier time relatively speaking).

>>10010

>>How do you know your Judeo-Christian values are the best values, unless you've given other values a chance?

>With values such as the Ten Commandments, you won't find anything very different from those values. If you go with Christian values more specifically, meaning Christic values, then you may find other values elsewhere, but none of the Westerners have exchanged their values for anything different from Christian values. Most Western atheists have largely maintained the same values and most don't even suggest a different set of values. If anything, most people become forgetful about the origin of their daily values; we take them for granted and then start acting like we would have reached them on our own, without society's push.

That's because the ten commandments are so universal they are useless. And the first four are mainly about praising God, so if an Atheist kept them there would only be 6 commandments that anyone would figure out anyway. See video.

From 6th century BC Greece we get the word Draconian, because the early laws Draco etched into a 3 sided pyramid that everyone could read relied on the death penalty so much (they soon became better though.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(lawgiver)

Here are the "commandments" of Prince Shotoku (604 AD)

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/japan/shotoku.pdf

Here are the 42 commandments Egypt followed. Remember Egypt occupied Israel in 1500 BC and probably impacted their religion.

http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/Maat/

Notice that both examples pay special emphasis to not polluting the Earth, which is more important now than ever, and is not addressed in Christianity.

Even earlier is the code of Hammurabi 18th century BC, and from Babylon comes the idea of "an eye for an eye" in line 196.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/ham/index.htm

>>10013

>Context: back then, many tribes believed in many gods, and all were given human sacrifices, typically children, babies

You forgot to say Semitic tribes, because other areas were more advanced. The Romans quickly outlawed sacrifice, (I presume the Greeks did also) and Zoraster preached to remove all forms of sacrifice (including of animals), possibly before human sacrifice was outlawed in Israel, and also long before Jesus/the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem got rid of animal sacrifice. Of course, Xerxes is said to have made some human sacrifices to ensure a safe crossing before his ships invaded Greece, but that was presumably an isolated case of desperation, and due to the return of old rituals; it had to be since it was against the teachings of Zoroaster. The Greeks also had nothing good to say about Xerxes, unlike his predecessor Cyrus who every nation adored (including the exiled Jews who described how he let them return to Israel and paid for the rebuilding of their temple in the bible.)

>>6210

>if the Big Guy told you you're expected in the wreckage, would you stay?

>>10017

Reading the beginning of Genesis is enough.

>>10028

>That's because the ten commandments are so universal they are useless.

Being universal, if they are, doesn't take away from them, but makes them all the more important. Obviously, millions of humans still violate many of these commandments, so focusing on them isn't useless, by far.

The first few commandments are about humans and God, the rest are about humans and humans, correct.

Your assumption that we'd just figure them out is not a bad assumption, since most religious people assume the same, but considering you assume this from the standpoint of societies who have abided by these commandments for centuries, you can't possibly be neutral on them.

Either way, it makes no difference. The Bible does state that the law is also written "in your heart". That doesn't mean everyone reads their heart very well, it can't hurt to have things established more mundanely.

>Notice that both examples pay special emphasis to not polluting the Earth, which is more important now than ever, and is not addressed in Christianity.

Anti-pollution laws in 1500BC? OK. That also explains why the topic isn't touched in the Bible: pollution wasn't a thing back then.

>Even earlier is the code of Hammurabi 18th century BC, and from Babylon comes the idea of "an eye for an eye" in line 196.

I'm not sure what point you're getting at with these sources, but that wouldn't be the only thing that influenced the Hebrews. Angels with six wings were also a thing in Babylon, if I'm not mistaken.

>>10035

>Reading the beginning of Genesis is enough.

Of course not. Especially if you read it assuming it states "facts". It doesn't. It's a creation myth, read it as such.

>>6210

If you can believe that most religion are made up by ancient people who didn't know much about nature why can't ALL religion are made up the same way?

>>10060

>If you can believe that most religion are made up by ancient people who didn't know much about nature why can't ALL religion are made up the same way?

Because none of the New Testament is about nature or anything we could make up.

>>10066

You are dodging my point. The OT is the origin of christianity.

But anyway there are very few things about the new testament that are confirmed by non-bible sources.

Even the contradictions between the gospels imply that some part are changed or made up.

>>10054

>And God saw that it was good.

>>10052

Actually many of the 6 are not worth following for Atheists. They might not even stand the test of time, since they offer no hard guidelines in difficult situations the way Kant's universal laws would. The fifth tells you to honor your mother and father. (Even if they are abusive, or terrible people, you should praise them and possibly obey them mindlessly.)

The next of them is against adultery, even if you divorce (under Christianity), or if you want to lead a swinger life, or do wife swaps, and both skdes agree to it. Or if your wife is a sexless prune, in which case a desperate man is still prohibited from wanking to porn/fantasies because of the 10th commandment.

Another prohibits lies, even white lies. Another prohibits killing, even in self defense (?) except the Jews still did it like crazy. One warns you not to steal even of you are starving.

The 10th is "Do not desire another’s wife or anything that belongs to another." Control your thoughts people, for thinking is a sin.

The 4th one is also noteworthy though because every Christian has broke the tradition ever since the church moved the day of worship to Sunday.

>>10011

>It is good because it is good in itself. Goodness is of God, though.

top lol

>it's good because it's good!

Feels good to be a simpleton right?

>>10088

I've heard that no killing law was originally don't kill against the law. That means war and death penalty is ok.

>>6904

I prefer the Abla Pokou myth. It makes more sense.

>>10135

Because calling for a great miracle ought to require an actual great sacrifice, or the story would be boring right?

>>10136

Saving the whole tribe may require the greatest individual sacrifice (killing your own child). The moral of the story is that community > individual.

>>6219

not sure if serious…

>>6597

Same here. I went for about a year in stark terror because I was afraid that I was going to hell. I think I was eleven then. I first got "saved" when I was six or so, but puberty began early for me, and by 12, my mind had begun to change and I realized that everything that the bible had promised wasn't happening and that I was still one of the "bad guys". I very distinctly remember being terrified of fires and crying myself to sleep. This evolved into an anxiety disorder that took me years to overcome. Christianity is hell for a child.

>>6905

Is that a yeerk?

>All this shit directed at Christcucks

/asatru/ here. What would you say to me?

>>10268

I think many parts of Abrahamic religion are legitimately harmful. Original sin, eternal hellfire, life-denial in general are all horrible thoughts to burden a human mind. Especially a child's.

Asatru at least has that going for it in that I can't actually think of any set in stone doctrine. Going by /asatru/ it basically looks like /pol/ but with Pagan gods. Disregarding the ideology for a second because that's a whole nother thread. Why believe in the supernatural element? If you want to care about blood and soil why does Odin need to be in the picture?

Ways of our ancestors yadda yadda I get it. But it doesn't mean they were right.

>>10268

Get a real religion.

Not the dead one that you are raping with your nazi bullshit.

Christfags are raised with their believe and can't change that easy.

You are basicly playing viking larp and your source is a christian edited fairy tale.

>>10268

Fuck you too, faggot.

>>10272

That's not true though. Not all Asatru is done for Nazism purposes, though granted, most is.

>>10274

Sounds like a good idea. I'm maybe an atheist but mythology is fun.

You should make a board about all mythologies the chances are higher that you don't get the /pol/ crowd and you get more users.

>>10275

A general mythology board would be cool. If only because it would be a suitable place to discuss Hellenism. The folks over at Asatru obviously don't have much interest in the Greek gods.

In a way I think I would have preferred that the greek/roman pantheon never lost its cultural influence on the west. If I had to choose a religion of course. They exalted art, achievement, and even openly questioned the gods. Outside of Gothic architecture and depictions of saints the Christians tend to openly spurn all of these things and the jews and muslims are even worse. What a damaging viewpoint to hold. At least Dionysus had good parties.

>>10274

That would be nice. Discussion would be stable I would think and not cancerous with the christfag invasion of /pol/. Though I do not think it would be very popular.