/atheism/ - Atheism

>>9476

Every time a christian comes over here it's a low tier troll like statuefag.

I think it's more likely that god exists than an honest /christian./

>>9476

Welcome! I've enjoyed the quality of our discussions on /christ/. On this board there has also been no moderation here except for blatant spam. Do not worry about offending anyone; offense is taken, not given, and we are used to it. Anything you say will probably pale in comparison to the weekly inflamatory threads from Statuefag, our resident troll that we've grown accustomed to. It would be nice to have a decent Christian debater on this board for a change.

>>9478

Pretty much. Unfortunately most of the Christian replies here are by Statuefag, (a.k.a Alex's kid.) His typical troll thread looks like >>3837 or >>1508 and the quality of his posts greatly worsened over time. I tend to assume any new troll thread is by the same person.

>>9478

/christian/ maybe, but I'm from /christ/. I'm honest, feel free to test me.

I have to go right now but be sure I'll be around later!

>>9480

Nice to see you here!

As to offenses, I don't intend to attack anyone here, I was more thinking of receiving some.

I'll do my best to make it worthwhile to everyone.

Later!

Well that will be a refreshing change of scenery. And actual debate and not "da bait" threads. Though I can't imagine we'd come to a mutual conclusion on much, but I might be surprised.

>>9482

There's nothing to debate about, it's been done over and over and unless religious people bring new things to the table it's useless.

After dealing with statuefag's faggotry it'd be a nice change of pace to have some religious folk here who aren't assholes.

I've mostly come out the winner in most talks with Christians, but there have been instances where Christians have proved me wrong (usually in regards to some obscure scripture and Christian history), so I look forward to discussing things with you guys.

And though religious debates can be rather personal, Just keep the debates cordial (other than lighthearted banter) and we'll be fine. I would ask the same from /atheism/ as well.

Discuss religion, philosophy, morals, post dank memes, and don't forget to tip on your way in.

>>9482

>we'd come to a mutual conclusion on much, but I might be surprised.

You might, yes. I was once an atheist so I'm familiar with atheist questions and objections, some of much I have maintained as a Christian. I'm the sort who hasn't reached conclusions for everything yet. It was my quest for truth which led me to Christ, and that quest hasn't stopped.

We shall see.

>>9484

>There's nothing to debate about, it's been done over and over and unless religious people bring new things to the table it's useless.

You sound like you haven't had a taste of all the myriad details one can debate about, even amongst Christians.

With matters of faith, though, it's less about debate than explanation and learning. If faith was a matter of science and objectivity, most of us would agree on what is what, but as it's personal and spiritual, there's no way to have that.

>>9489

>After dealing with statuefag's faggotry it'd be a nice change of pace to have some religious folk here who aren't assholes.

I wonder who that statuefag person is and what they did, but yeah, I'm no bunghole.

>I've mostly come out the winner in most talks with Christians

Did they think so as well? In my opinion, you come winner out of a talk when you've learned something new. Short of that, most people assume they win no matter what, but even so, stumping a Christian doesn't mean much, just like stumping a scientist about a theory he's not familiar with doesn't mean much either.

My general postion here won't be about winning or losing debates, but more like thinking together and explaining things to each other.

>And though religious debates can be rather personal, Just keep the debates cordial (other than lighthearted banter) and we'll be fine. I would ask the same from /atheism/ as well.

Works for me. Even on /christ/ it's often difficult to keep cool. I have to make efforts with people who act 100% certain about their beliefs and think you see things the way they do.

In that sense, my own doubts are an asset when I speak with atheists, because I can relate.

Feel free to ask anything, or comment on anything, if you want to have me respond or comment back. It can be about any issue or it can be more personal.

I personally don't care about "winning" or "losing" a debate; my main aim is to learn and teach. I don't assume I have nothing to learn from atheists, and I am pretty sure I can enlighten some about specifics of my religion, simply because I assume I have read more about it than the general atheist would want to.

Because I am unafraid, I won't be aggressive. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I'm going to bed very soon, so I'll talk to you people tomorrow.

Its a good idea to try and bring communication between "opposites."

>>9492

>With matters of faith, though, it's less about debate than explanation and learning. If faith was a matter of science and objectivity, most of us would agree on what is what, but as it's personal and spiritual, there's no way to have that.

See, that's the problem. It means nothing specific. How can you debate something that means all and nothing. It's "moving goal posts" by definition. Your spiritual feelings mean nothing to others and can't be distinguished confirmation biased delusions.

Something like: I feel the presence of God because I feel sometimes happy without any obvious reason.

I can't argue with that because there is nothing to talk about.

>as long as you're not trying to offend anyone

Enjoy your circlejerk safespace hugbox and entertaining feels instead of truths.

>>9510

>hugbox

People who use that word usually just want a different hugbox where their ideas are confirmed.

>>9522

No, I mean it in contrast to /atheism/. Here mod doesn't give a fuck if someone says something to hurt your feelings and offend you. Here you can "come as you are", not how mods want you to be.

>>9496

>How can you debate something that means all and nothing.

Debating feelings is mostly pointless in the context of a debate, I agree with you and William James on this, as I think there is no difference between joy and religious joy, or fear and religious fear, if you hammered my toe, I would feel the same pain as if Jesus did, so even with a clearly supernatural source, feelings don't change. Because of this, I don't resort to feelings as an argument for anything beyond the existence of such feelings.

They're still interesting in and of themselves, but you won't see me claim that the way I feel looking at the night sky is evidence of God; I naturally love to think it is, but I cannot prove this to myself, let alone others.

> It's "moving goal posts" by definition.

It's not even that. You can't place goal posts on feelings, there's nothing to move.

>Your spiritual feelings mean nothing to others and can't be distinguished confirmation biased delusions.

Agreed.

>Something like: I feel the presence of God because I feel sometimes happy without any obvious reason.

Same.

>I can't argue with that because there is nothing to talk about.

There is a lot to talk about but not in the way of argument. That said, once we got that over with, there is a lot left to argue and discuss.

>>9510

>Enjoy your circlejerk safespace hugbox and entertaining feels instead of truths.

If you ever visit /christ/, you will see for yourself that there is no circlejerk going on there, and that it's definitely no hugbox.

/atheism/ is safer to me, by far, because having atheists consider me a Christian and insult me for it is far more validating than other Christians insisting on how they are real Christians and I am not. Atheists are supposed to disagree with me, and they generally don't challenge my Christianity, they readily accept that I am, even if it means, to them, that I am intellectually impaired. It isn't difficult to surpass the very low standards that many atheists have for me, so that doesn't bother me much at all, whereas discussing with an educated Catholic, or even Mormon, and being told I might just burn in hell forever or that God only loves His chosen people, or etc, that is much more difficult to take in than being called an idiot.

We don't discuss feelings either; so far as I can remember, it was never even the subject of a thread, on either /christian/ or /christ/, precisely because you can't make much of them, see my previous post about feelings and William James.

Truth is all I am interested in. If faith must fear truth, then it isn't the sort of faith I want. Truth isn't scared of truth.

>>9524

>but you won't see me claim that the way I feel looking at the night sky is evidence of God; I naturally love to think it is, but I cannot prove this to myself, let alone others.

>love to

I don't see how it distinguishes you from the other christians. I naturally wanted to believe in christianity, at least the parts I picked that spoke to me, but after years of debating atheists online, I began to realize just how unrealistic it is.

Of course there is no evidence of gods since if we can't experience them some will claim we can't because they won't make themselves known but you can just as well say the same for the universe, which we spawned from. Not everything about it may practically be known so you can pick any fantasy you want. The brain being complex and intelligent yet made of less complex, less intelligent neural nets, bacteria, etc is evidence enough that that which spawned us need not necessarily be intelligent or complex. I was once like you and in my transition to a realistic view, that's when I adopted classically defined atheism, meaning literally without belief in gods.

>>9524

Ok, let's have a discussion.

If you find a (hypothetical) unambiguous proof that God(s) doesn't exists. Would your life change in any way?

Would you change and how would you change?

>>9523

>No, I mean it in contrast to /atheism/. Here mod doesn't give a fuck if someone says something to hurt your feelings and offend you. Here you can "come as you are", not how mods want you to be.

Same on /christ/; what I meant, more specifically, is that you won't be banned for offending people if your intent was discussing. You might if you are only trying to offend, i.e. if you post pictures of Christ having sex with a donkey, and even then, I am not sure. I've never seen anyone get banned from /christ/. Short of that, merely offending others as a secondary effect is no reason to get banned: that's the very reason why /christ/ even exists! We created this board because all of us were tired of getting banned and seeing others banned for having different opinions and criticising various Churches. That is the very essence of our board: allowing dissent amongst Christians, and others.

We all wanted to be able to discuss with all sorts of Christians and non-Christians, we all wanted to be able to argue over any religious idea rather than simply ban the person and have no conversation. We didn't want a hugbox, precisely, we wanted conversations. Now we have that. Mormons discuss with Catholics and Protestants. We're still very few, and we don't have one of every faction of Christians (no Orthodox, no Sedes, and few active Protestants so far), but we're big on freedom of speech, of all of us. We're not /christian/. We also have a few atheists (one from here) and that is no problem either. I, for one, welcome them because their intentions are good and trying to discover the truth by discussing together is always a noble thing to do, regardless of your current personal conclusion, because if you discuss and assume there are things you can still learn, you also assume that your conclusion may change. That's how I see my own position: always likely to learn.

I win a debate when I come away from it with new information and ideas and if the person I was talking with has gained the same.

But yeah, my comment on banning the obviously offensive meant trolls. If you open a post about how you think the Catholic Church is evil, you won't be banned; instead, you'll have Catholics responding to your claims, which is what we always wanted, the ability to respond to attacks and criticism rather than just suppressing people.

Our mod cares very much but has a rather ninja style. I think he posts as an anon but never makes his presence felt unless directly summoned.

Feel free to give /christ/ a shot if you want to see for yourself. Just don't assume every Christian there is representative of the others. We have wildly different opinions.

>>9527

>I don't see how it distinguishes you from the other christians.

I'm not sure I claimed to be different in this specific regard, but my point was this sort of feeling is not, to me, valid as evidence (to myself a fortiori to others).

>at least the parts I picked that spoke to me

This is always said in criticism, by everyone, especially Christians to other Christians, but honestly, that's what everybody does too, with potentially varying reasons, but nobody picks something they don't like, because if they don't like it, they have a reason for not liking it, and that reason will generally make the difference between you picking up that faith and you not picking up.

I make a huge difference between God and gods, though. These are not the same to me, by definition. Perhaps the subject of another thread.

>evidence enough that that which spawned us need not necessarily be intelligent or complex. I

There are plenty of complex things that emerged from simpler things which were designed by complex things: think of any procedural software like the Game of Life. It has simple rules and if left alone, can "evolve" some pretty amazing stuff. It's all simple pixels combining in potentially infinite complexities, but if you go beyond the pixel world, and look at its origins, you find a human being and computers, and a will. The same could exist for this universe, and who knows if it would be possible for us to break through the "matrix" to see our origins.

>>9528

>If you find a (hypothetical) unambiguous proof that God(s) doesn't exists.

This is like imaginary numbers to me, but I'll try to go along with the idea, even though I don't think such a proof can exist, ultimately. (I believe the same in the other way, even in Heaven, I suppose, it remains possible to have the irreducible doubt that everything might still be an illusion; I hope not, but I don't know.)

>Would your life change in any way?

It's hard to imagine the impossible. Many years ago, I came upon the Horus theory, and for a day or so, I naively believed it. At that point, I didn't consider myself Christian but I had already started reading a lot about it and was considering it might be true. With the Horus stuff, I realised that I cared very much whether Christ existed or not. It made me feel quite depressed, which was a surprise. It made me feel more Christian than I ever had until that point.

So, utter depression might be how things would change to me. I'm a "big picture" kind of person, I need to know the end goal of everything I do, and that is partly why religion matters to me, because I could not live for no reason and no goal, or at least not live well (not that my little faith is enough to make me feel much better in that department; even the reality of God would not necessarily be enough to calm me in this, because it remains to be discovered what God's purpose actually is, and if it is nothing more than "just so you can be happy", then it is the same as when people tell me that happiness is the meaning of life, it's not quite satisfying, but whether from God or not, chances are that is the purpose, if there is a purpose, and maybe that's enough, or should be).

I can't really give you an honest response though because it's akin to imagining a square circle and describe it. I can't really. Logically, if given (hypothetical) proof that there is no God, I ought to kill myself as a shortcut to my inevitable end, but I can't see this happening, because of the irreducible doubt, which fortunately works both ways, I can't be sure God exists, but I can't be sure He doesn't either. That's my only salvation for now.

Perhaps I am wrong but I think you might be asking, also, about how I would change, or not, in my daily life. I'll answer that too, just in case that was closer to your interest.

My belief is that God calls to us and that we have in us a kind of moral compass which we can choose to follow or not and which doesn't need to be thought of in terms of God. I'm aware of naturalistic ways of explaining this, but even if 100% correct, those don't eliminate God from the equation (which isn't something I use as an argument, it's just a premise to be taken on faith which, by its nature, can't really be proven either way, at least not by me). I believe God is love and anyone who does anything good partakes of God's goodness.

I make a big distinction between what people call themselves and what they do, and I believe God cares more about what we do than what we call ourselves.

If I suddenly became an atheist, which I am not very far from being, I would still act the same, because I feel compelled to help others whenever I can. Those things go together, for me. God's existence and the desire to help. This happens often when I discuss with atheists: the separation of two things which to me are two sides of the same coin. Hitchens does this a lot, it's basically asking a question that most Christians don't ask because, from their point of view, those things go together and are seen together: one doesn't go without the other. Like asking a horse-rider if he likes horse legs or the mane better, or even which meat segment are his favourite; since he doesn't like horses for that particular reason, it's a new question to him, and he won't be able to respond unless he actually eats horse meat, which most riders don't (in fact, most people don't but in my culture, you can buy horse meat at any super market, I forgot about you non-horse-meat eaters out there).

>>9530

>you find a human being and computers, and a will

All of which are composed of elementary particles. Gods need not be invoked. A few, as I mentioned in another thread, just as I did when I was a christian, may view their god as pure and simple, which is closer to perfection, not something intelligent and/or complex with many flaws. Remember, if you believe the christian bible, awareness of sin, intelligence you could say, came from dancing with the devil, so to speak. So that which is pure and holy could just as well be seen as simple, unintelligent, unguarded and unassuming. A creator could just as well be argued to not be intelligent.

Also I prefer to say gods so I don't leave out other beliefs such as polytheists. It makes just as much sense to assume dual male/female entities in creating something if its creation is modeled after gods. Also it's a slight underhand to help them realize the insanity of religion.

Thanks but no thanks. I went to /christian/ occasionally and they seem to hate dissenting opinion so my opinion of christboards here is very low. You may be different but with christians, they seem to always be looking to save your soul. It's just awkward being around them like being around a gay person, you know what they may have on their mind and you know you could not be more disinterested. Not that I have anything against it.

>>9532

btw, obviously I seem to love commas. Pardon my usage.

>>9532

>All of which are composed of elementary particles.

In my example, humans are the composition that pixels make. Elementary particles being pixels.

Of course, in my example, it's a parallel thing, with only two levels, for the sake of the argument. I'm sorry if I haven't been clear enough.

>intelligence you could say, came from dancing with the devil, so to speak.

If you mean the forbidden fruit, I'd have another approach to it entirely. My faith doesn't condemn intelligence, far from that. Paul explicitly says that one should believe with both heart and brain. I believe only using one's heart can lead to serious problems and inconsistencies, as well as to the general discredit of any given faith (any Christian faith that condones YEC or OEC is discredited in my eyes and a threat to Christianity in general, as well as to people directly).

>A creator could just as well be argued to not be intelligent.

In that sense, I'd agree, but I wouldn't even say that God is unintelligent more than I'd say He stands on a level where "intelligence" means nothing. But that's just me.

The Second Person has become fully human, which is very important in Christianity because it is how we are offered salvation: the connection between God and human. In this sense, you can say very human things about God because He has become one of us (so we could become more like Him).

>Thanks but no thanks. I went to /christian/ occasionally and they seem to hate dissenting opinion so my opinion of christboards here is very low.

I went to /christian/ too and that's why I now go to /christ/. We aren't the same at all and we already have dissenting opinions from one other: our Mormons are radically opposed to our Catholics on many vital points, but we're still together on the same board. Dissent is part of life, we believe, and we accept it. It'd not be interesting to have everyone think exactly the same on everything.

>You may be different but with christians, they seem to always be looking to save your soul.

Of course, if they're good Christians and good people. I never have any objection to this, because I keep in mind that while they might be wrong, if that is what they believe, they're doing what they think is good: trying to save your ass from eternal fire or worse. Feel flattered! It may be annoying, depending on how it's done, but try not to think they're doing anything other than what they believe is good, just like you trying to save someone from drowning.

That said, I believe a lot of Christians preach in ways that have negative effects. Preaching by acts is far more efficient, and any preacher should keep in mind that you don't drag anybody to Christ, you can show them the way, but everyone has to walk for themselves or they won't move.

Most preaching I hear is done on a such a level that even myself, as a Christian, get upset.

>It's just awkward being around them like being around a gay person, you know what they may have on their mind and you know you could not be more disinterested

I understand. Most on /christ/ focus on arguing the issues of every given post rather than tell each other what the right way is.

Most understand that just telling people to convert isn't going to do anything for their conversion and can only antagonise people more.

>>9533

Commas are only a representation of a syntactical cut which preexists the existence of commas themselves. Punctuation is here to help the reader get a clearer understanding of what you meant and how you meant it, so I appreciate and didn't actually notice a special use of commas in your post. It's normal English to me.

You can even use semi-colons and I'll come in my pants a little.

One reason why I'm active on chans and not on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter is because I give a fuck about language.

>>9531

>my culture, you can buy horse meat at any super market

Where is this magic place?

>>9536

Switzerland. France also consumes meat. I'm not sure who else eats horsie.

>>9531

If you like helping then why do you need God for this? You can make you own plans. A good deed isn't worthless when no god is watching. You can have "goodness" as a principle without attaching it to a specific deity. Because "God" has alot of unwanted baggage. People suppress other people with their dogma.

Even insert their own ideas and claim that is god's plan. (Not that the bible has no bad part itself).

They guilt trip,

they punish, they exclude.

You may say that these people are doing it wrong.

But it works. It always works that way.

Religion is the most powerful tool of oppressors.

Why do you just can't cut the middle man? Do good and maybe it will spread.

>>9539

>If you like helping then why do you need God for this?

It's not that you need God, not that way, it's that, in my belief, no good can exist without God by definition, just like you can't have a swimming pool without water. You can't be a swimmer without water. We both believe in love, charity, etc, but as per my faith, I believe this comes from God, so there can't be any of it without God. It's just a premise I take on faith.

In Christianity, God is both immanent and transcendent to this world, which means that He partakes in His creation, which means one shouldn't see God as so separate from us.

I don't believe that goodness can exist without God, but it's a question of definition to me.

>You may say that these people are doing it wrong.

We all do, it depends on whose point of view we use. I've had more Christians tell me I was no Christian than I've had atheists tell me the same.

>Religion is the most powerful tool of oppressors.

I'm more oppressed by taxes and political decisions than I am by religion. Religion doesn't take 10% of the money I make. Whenever religion is used as an oppressive tool, it needs either the army or the state, or some sort of organised strength that goes well beyond religion.

>Why do you just can't cut the middle man? Do good and maybe it will spread.

There is nothing to cut in my case. I'm not part of any organised Church. Few people know I'm Christian. My own family doesn't know, though some may suspect it due to my ability to explain it in some depth.

I focus mostly on doing good on a daily basis, for the little things, and donating when I can. And spending time discussing these things online, which I see as the better option to "spread the word" than door-to-door will ever be in this day and age.

>>9539

>A good deed isn't worthless when no god is watching.

>Religion is the most powerful tool of oppressors.

ebin

>>9540

Was my post >>>/christ/4034 too close to b8?

>>9541

>too close to b8?

No, but only one of these quotes was mine, so I let others respond. I'll take another look and respond ASAP.

>>9542

You had the sensible ones; there's not much to them.

>>9540

>There is nothing to cut in my case. I'm not part of any organised Church. Few people know I'm Christian. My own family doesn't know, though some may suspect it due to my ability to explain it in some depth.

>I focus mostly on doing good on a daily basis, for the little things, and donating when I can. And spending time discussing these things online, which I see as the better option to "spread the word" than door-to-door will ever be in this day and age.

So where does jesus come into play? Why do you need mythology for this?

>>9545

Again, it's not a question of need A to do B, as I tried to explain. In my belief, good comes from God, like swimming pools need water to be swimming pools that you can swim in. For this reason, it's not a question of needing A to do B, since you can't do B without A by definition, in my belief.

Jesus comes into play for salvation, which is a different topic altogether. Jesus isn't mythology, so to speak, because it isn't a myth, in the strictest sense of the term. A "myth" is a story that explains the state of the world, or something, or even someone. Genesis is a myth, because it "explains" why we live in a fallen world, though that explanation is to be taken as a myth, comparable to Greek myths. The Catholic Church, for instance, does not believe in a literal Adam and Eve and they are right to do so beause the Hebrews did not either, for all I know. It's easier not to read Genesis literally when the proper nouns are common nouns in your own language, like Adam and Eve aren't proper nouns originally, more like Dirt and Life, and all their direct descendents have comparably loaded names.

In that sense, everything that took place during Christ's life and immediately afterwards is on a completely different level, no longer at the mythical level, for technical reasons (it's not millennia old, it has identifiable authors, it doesn't seek to be a myth, the author names himself, it's historically much more verifiable, etc).

The Incarnation of God has to do with salvation, our salvation. I don't quite see how it is related to our daily deeds, though I can imagine many ways to do that, I don't want to assume too much about your own thoughts.

It is possible that our salvation is much more technical than we realise. I call it metaphysical mechanics for lack of a better term, but essentially, it means that there may be very pragmatical reasons why certain things need to happen, reasons that have to do with nuts and bolts rather than morals.

I sometimes think that God needed to be one of us simply to enable Himself to save us, the same way, sort of, that it helps to have empathy to understand someone else, in order to advise them better. God, being so infinitely different from us, might have needed some "empathy" towards our lowly kind to know what to do to save us.

At heart, the question of omniscience remains: can an all-knowing entity know what it's like not to know? That apparent paradox is easily solved with the Trinity: God could know and not know at once, by being three in nature. God, the Son, could experience a fully human life and know of it, through its limitation, while at the same time not know it as God the Father, so on and so forth. The Trinitarian nature of God, His hyperdimensionality, allows for such apparently impossible things to become possible. It sounds crazy but I expect nothing less when it comes to God.

>you can't do B without A by definition, in my belief.

Well that is the belief i'm questioning. I think good can be thought of without god and I was wondering why do you think otherwise.

>>9549

You can question it, I don't use that as an argument. It's more of an article of faith to me.

I believe that the very notion of good isn't something that would come to one's mind unless there was a God as the origin of goodness. In that way, goodness isn't "natural". That's about it for the origin of my belief.

The point is that most people are driven to do good no matter what they think about the God question, which makes me think most people feel the call to goodness.

But yeah, it's a matter of faith here, it's not an argument. From my point of view, it would make no sense to imagine good that isn't related to God.

Imagine someone who believes in atoms (rightly so), they wouldn't assume that atoms relate to some objects but not others. If the atomic theory is correct (it is), then it concerns everything. Same with God and goodness, if this is correct, then all goodness is concerned by it and all goodness is of God.

>>9550

The first problem is defining God as the source of all goodness limits one's thoughts. There are a lot of passages in the bible where God violently performs heinous acts, but Christians still say these acts must be good, because their God is defined as good. The existence of evil makes more sense when God isn't defined as a perfectly benevolent being.

We can argue that altruism is a biological adaptation. (See >>8970 ) Or, that non-Christians possess it, and apart from a system of morality, it is nearly universal among living things. Even wild animals are sometimes protective of lost human babies.

>>9537

Add Japan to the list. I have some stories from when I happened to meet a Swiss traveler in Shinonoseki who made a day out of riding a train all the way to Kunamoto just to sample horse meat, except he didn't find it especially appetizing since he had it at home.

(He didn't share my reverance for Japan either, and thought China had much grander monuments that weren't made of wood. He couldn't understand why I had stayed there so long when the world was so big.) He ended up spending only a week in Japan, and I walked him to a ferry to Busan, and he intended to commute to Seoul and live a week with some guys he'd met at a bar, then go to China because from there he had signed up for a week of holiday and feasting in North Korea for several thousand quid. Then he was going to take a plane to Taiwan, and then South Africa, and then he was going to go on an African Safari in Zimbabwe and finally come back to Switzerland in about 4 months.

He was memorable, and I'm guessing his accomplishments would be rare even among Swiss. He said his father was a politician, and he worked part-time with stocks. Consequently he had spent about 5 (non-consecutive) years of his life traveling, which was his passion.

He also told me about how he had asked a caravan of Chinese truck drivers one night to give him a ride to Tibet and they were scared and had refused. So the next day he waited at the part of a river where the trucks have to slow down when they cross, and then hopped onto the back of a truck to steal a ride into Tibet. The truck driver saw this and stopped on the other side to get him to leave but he just held onto the truck and refused so he gave in and continued. When he saw a bunch of yaks and thought this looks interesting, he rapped his fist on the door and the truck driver stopped so he could get out in the middle of nowhere. This all happened many years ago, and he said he still wanted to explore the remaining Communist countries before globalization and highways standardized everything, and destroyed their local traditions.

>>9551

Also your god created evil. But evil is good. Evil needs to be so the good can go to your heaven to test the good. If evil didn't need to be or can't be, your god isn't omnipotent. Evil is good. Good can be evil also.

But it doesn't fit your black and white narrative so you likely won't see this nor most christians since they don't question it or it's seen as sin or a bother to question noting a lack of trust or faith.

>>9551

>The first problem is defining God as the source of all goodness limits one's thoughts.

I don't see why. Saying water is H2O everywhere where there is water doesn't limit anybody's thoughts.

>There are a lot of passages in the bible where God violently performs heinous acts,

Yes, but that's God as a character (in the case of the Book of Job, and others), or God as described by Hebrews, who aren't the most accurate of reporters (ref. the two parallel stories telling the same events, but one has God killing people while the other has Satan killing those very same people; not a small discrepancy to be sure).

>but Christians still say these acts must be good, because their God is defined as good.

I differ in this. It is far more likely that this heinous stuff simply never happened (as with many other things in the OT) than that God thought it was good.

>The existence of evil makes more sense when God isn't defined as a perfectly benevolent being.

I disagree. God doesn't need to be evil for it to exist and make sense.

You have nerve ending which let you know when your body is in danger: it hurts. What we see as evil may be the same to our soul. If God isn't benevolent, He isn't God. Demiurge or whatever you want to call Him, but it becomes something else entirely.

>We can argue that altruism is a biological adaptation.

We can, but even that doesn't remove God from the equation. Just like evolution doesn't remove God from anything, this process, being part of it, doesn't either.

>>9551

>He was memorable, and I'm guessing his accomplishments would be rare even among Swiss. He said his father was a politician, and he worked part-time with stocks. Consequently he had spent about 5 (non-consecutive) years of his life traveling, which was his passion.

Was he Nicolas Bouvier? He's our most famous writer, died in 1998, but he was a traveller to be sure, and did go to Japan.

>>9554

Funny thing is through all of that hanging out we didn't even bother to ask each others' names, since it didn't matter. But no, this was after that so it couldn't be him.

>>9555

I know. It's like asking an American if their interesting stranger might not have been Herman Melville, heh.

Swiss people are used to a certain level of comfort, which they find in few places outside Switzerland. Even going to France feels like it's a third world country in terms of comfort and quality of life.

>>9476

why do you suppose we wouldn't enjoy exercise?

the problem is, most theists who come here are either trolls or are unable to listen to logic

>>9537

>Ein geschwätziger Schweizer.

Jetzt hab ich alles gesehen.

>>9557

>the problem is, most theists who come here are either trolls or are unable to listen to logic

I certainly hope to be different. As to the exercise, I believe I meant my own people, namely Christians. I don't think most would really appreciate arguing with atheists about their faith. I could be wrong but most prefer not to.

>>9559

I understand 90% of this. Just not "geschwatziger". I don't speak German, normally.

>>9553

Assuming God is benevolent takes a lot of reasonable possibilities off the table. if God created everything then he also created evil, which raises the question of whether he was partly evil, and this is apart from the bible stories. If it were proven that there is a God, it would probably leave open the possibility that there there could be other Gods who were partly responsible for the evil we see today.

The line of thought I am espousing makes more sense for people who have tried their hand at writing fantasy. Basically, if you imagine yourself possessing the powers of a powerful entity that could change the world, your actions will surely differ from those of God, for better or worse. Your morality is unlikely to be the same, especially if your knowledge is different.

It is very easy to imagine becoming bored and meddling with your subjects, which is what the Gods of many religions do. If I were to become a anthromorphic God, I probably would occasionally become a prankster, or show off my powers.

I would argue, the most humane God is one who hardly interacts with his subjects, (because they would be unworthy of his time, and he would follow a sort of prime directive.)

If this God were to be fair, it would have tightly controlled emotions, and be a very passive onlooker. Yet, that is the most boring kind, and not good for story-writing. Writers tend not to write about such impersonal Gods, to which we cannot relate. Hence, we have OP Gods that intervene in the lives of the less powerful, like kings and patriarchs.

Upon composing a story about aquiring divine powers and becoming corrupted and rather megalomaniacal, someone might easily step back and think, "this could be a method by which the divine myths were written."

>>9559

>Ein geschwätziger Schweizer.

Jetzt hab ich alles gesehen.

The Swiss guy I mentioned was also talkative and shared strong political views (he was against more immigrants and more mosques, and American involvement in the Middle-East.) I assumed he was outspoken because of his background in finance, or the general confidence and exhuberance that comes from time abroad.

>>9562

>if God created everything then he also created evil,

Making room for is not equal to creating something. If you allow your child to behave as he chooses, you are not responsible for what he chooses. You are responsible to your own behaviour after your child's choice, though, but God takes His responsibility in that.

Making us free is a gift, evil being done by us comes second and is not directly a creation of God. The notion that evil isn't something but the absence of good follows and etc.

>other Gods

Major problem here. The God we believe in is by definition a single God. As the creator of everything, you can't have two of these, just like you can't be physically born of two mothers and mothers can't share you in their womb. It's one universe for one God, because of theological arguments and other reasons.

God and gods are very different. I don't believe in gods, but they are not the same category at all.

Christianity believes in the devil and demons though, and those fit what you call "gods".

> It is very easy to imagine becoming bored and meddling with your subjects

I doubt you'll fuck around with your children out of boredom.

>or show off my powers.

Just assume God is wiser than you.

>I would argue, the most humane God is one who hardly interacts with his subjects, (because they would be unworthy of his time, and he would follow a sort of prime directive.)

We don't share the same meaning of "humane".

>>9563

I'll reply more later when I'm not on on a phone. For now, I posit that God is capable of being bored which is why he had to create the world. He did not feel complete. He wanted restrictions, events and adventures because he was so desperately lonely in that empty void at the beginning. In other words he was flawed with certain human emotions from the beginning and he needed to create something to make his existence less miserable.

This would be be a good point to talk about Haruhi. In that anime a goddess creates the universe to be a fun place to amuse her, since she is at the center. Except if everything went according to her plans and she knew everything and had infinite power the universe would would be would be a boring place. So she dumbed herself down according to one interpretation. She became a nearly ordinary school girl with somewhat human friends.

Likewise a hypothetical god wouldn't be able to have a meaningful non-slave relationship with us unless unless he were brought to our level. Such a human God would not feel satisfied being like a human to an ant. He has two options - elevate his creation or lower himself. The first is very Mormon thinking and seems unsatisfactory, like creating creating a game for all players with all the cheat codes on.

He must dumb down his powers powers or he will never find the happiness and freedom from infinite crushing loneliness that comes from being among peers.

Not being among peers*

I can go line by line later.

>>9564

> For now, I posit that God is capable of being bored which is why he had to create the world

That's some serious positing you're doing, sir!

>In other words he was flawed with certain human emotions from the beginning and he needed to create something to make his existence less miserable.

Some theologies have a God that is sort of human like that, and it credits us with God's own salvation, as a return for ours or something. It's very interesting, though I'm not even sure if I ever heard of this anywhere and aren't just imagining it. If anyone knows, references would be neat.

>She became a nearly ordinary school girl with somewhat human friends.

Luciferian project? I forget the actual name of that theory, but it's very close to what you're describing: the idea that we are God and we voluntarily made ourselves forget it so we could live an existence full of doubt and questions and experience ourselves as humans. Or something.

>>9563

>The first problem is defining God as the source of all goodness limits one's thoughts.

>I don't see why.

1) It rests on a shaky premise, 2) it leads to circular reasoning.

Why is X good? Because God made it.

Why is X moral? Because God has said it.

Why is God good? Because he is good.

Why is virtue good? Because God is virtue.

>Making room for is not equal to creating something.

Couldn't a vicious killer use the Nuremburg Defense at Final Judgement though? "When I killed those people I was just following God's orders - because he programmed uncontrollable rage into my DNA. And then he organized all of the chance events in my life while aware of how they would shape my personality… ultimately, my fate was always predisposed. I maintain my innocence."

>You are responsible to your own behaviour after your child's choice, though, but God takes His responsibility in that.

I think the biblical God is more likely to blame his creation for their sins (and his own mistakes). Sometimes when he forgives them, he's forgiving them after blaming them for debacles he caused.

For example, he blames us for eating from the tree of knowledge, even though he engineered the garden and did practically everything possible to encourage us to eat from it. (He puts the tree prominently in the center of the garden, uses reverse psychology "Don't eat from it," drops a sweet-talking snake next to it, doesn't guard the tree.) If we hadn't eaten from the tree there would be no story in the bible. Original sin is necessary.

Later he sends Jesus to suffer, and die, to forgive us because two of our ancestors ate the fruit to acquire more knowledge (which is a great sin, so don't go reading anything subversive.) It's an unnecessary sacrifice, and it would have been easier for him to have just forgiven us. Except God couldn't forgive without the sacrificial blood of Jesus, or the blood of some other animal.

>I doubt you'll fuck around with your children out of boredom.

I actually might do very reprehensible acts if my unlimited and unmatched power went to my head. Many gods did in fact impregnate their siblings or lust for their daughters. Likewise, my values could erode if I had no one to forcibly tell me, "No! You mustn't do that!" Even a noble soul might lose their way after being given free rein for 6 thousand to 14 billion years.

>If God isn't benevolent, He isn't God.

What if creation was an act of evil though? There is so much dukkha/suffering, and countless humans and animal species live pointless lives. Perhaps he enjoys watching suffering as much as he enjoys spoiling a few of his chosen few.

Is it so hard to define virtue without saying "X is the definition of virtue?" We are ready to attribute all of the good in the world to God, but none of the bad. It's double-think.

>>9575

You honestly make too much sense, so for your sanity I advise you to not waste time arguing with someone with a mentality of a sect. They won't agree with you even if that's what they believed all their life.

>>9576

Probably. But I do it because I wish someone had been there to argue with me with my ideas when I was younger, (and that I would have listened), because my life might have turned out better. My second purpose is deconstruction, because it's always surprising when you try taking theology seriously, or the bible literally, and see what conclusions results.

>>9563

>Making room for is not equal to creating something.

Yes, it is if you're an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient god.

>Making us free is a gift

I see things deterministically. Besides, if your child is playing in the road and you're omniscient, you know your child will be born and get ran over that day unless you change it, you'll take away their freedom, perhaps send them to their room if only for a short time so they don't spend eternity in punishment or away from you. Giving free will to fuck up knowing good and well when and how they will fuck up is not the sign of an ever-loving and ever-knowing parent. I'd never do this to a child if I ever had any in my limited love.

>As the creator of everything, you can't have two of these, just like you can't be physically born of two mothers and mothers can't share you in their womb.

That doesn't make any sense. You're not from one mother, you're from a father also. Just like the taoist Yen/Yang, it takes two differentiating powers to create one power with the qualities of both. Everywhere we look, there's dualities that are responsible for what we see. There's something/nothing, both are *something* of contrast because of each other. To say only one and one always, it's just as much lunatical as any other religious buffoonery. Also, who made god or the gods? Whatever answer that is you could just as well say the same for the universe.

>>9553

You seem the definitive "pick and choose" christian.

>>9576

>Arguing with someone who will eventualy agree with you

Where's the fun in that?

>>9575

>1) It rests on a shaky premise, 2) it leads to circular reasoning.

I explained to you that I never used this as an argument precisely because of these. It isn't an argument, it's an article of faith. It makes sense with the rest of my belief system, but it's not something I can prove to myself, let alone anyone else. So don't give it the argument treatment, I've already agreed and stated that it was not. But if you ask me what I believe, that's what I'll say, even if I can't prove it. I don't use the scientific method for matters of faith, simply because you can't. It's not empirical. It may be true, it may not. It's the best I can know about it.

>Couldn't a vicious killer use the Nuremburg Defense at Final Judgement though?

God knows all the parameters, so even when your physical condition gives you some mitigating circumstances, God knows exactly how far your personal responsibility extends. The same applies for your theoretical killer. Most of us have free will and circumstances don't reduce it to zero in most cases. I don't believe in predestination, though, but Christians who believe in that might have a more difficult time with your killer and God. Predestination doesn't leave God unscathed in my opinion.

>>9575

>I think the biblical God is more likely to blame his creation for their sins (and his own mistakes). Sometimes when he forgives them, he's forgiving them after blaming them for debacles he caused.

By "Biblical", I'll assume you mean Old Testament. A lot of people don't even know that "God" in the Book of Job is actually a character and that Job is a poem, like Paradise Lost or Dante's Inferno. So you have to be careful which book you mean: some are presented as fiction (Job), some are presented as chronicles, history pieces, etc. But even with the historical texts, you have to be careful. I don't personally believe these stories for the most part. The way I see it: Israelites lose a battle = God punishes us for this or that; Israelites win a battle = God is with us. Both are better than supposing that God isn't intervening, doesn't care, or doesn't exist. That's perhaps why God gets such a bad reputation back then. I definitely don't put as much stock in OT stories than I do NT letters and accounts; anyone who knows the differences understands why I would.

>>9575

>For example, he blames us for eating from the tree of knowledge,

Please, reading Genesis literally is just… No. It cannot be done unless you accept that "God" is ignorant of His own universe (Genesis' cosmology is pretty weak, and it's at the beginning, half bubble in an infinite ocean), or lies. Either that or Genesis really is a myth written by humans, which is how I take it.

There's plenty of interesting things about Genesis, but to take it as a factual account of our origins is not possible. The only ones who do it are American Protestants who prefer to ignore the knowledge we have about these texts. You can argue "God" is a badly written character in Genesis, but you won't convince me that it's a literal account of God.

> If we hadn't eaten from the tree there would be no story in the bible.

So you don't think eating from the tree may mean less literal things, such as growing up? I always find that a bit insulting to the people who wrote these things, as if they weren't capable of any poetry and art.

> Many gods did in fact impregnate their siblings or lust for their daughters.

Characters do the crazy things we want them to do.

>Likewise, my values could erode if I had no one to forcibly tell me, "No! You mustn't do that!"

I never felt this way.

>What if creation was an act of evil though?

Generally excluded by the idea that God is good and all that, but in case of an evil God, or Demiurge, or whatever, who knows. Loosh and Archons and all that sweet shit.

>There is so much dukkha/suffering

There could be infinitely more, yet isn't.

>Perhaps he enjoys watching suffering as much as he enjoys spoiling a few of his chosen few.

And perhaps He doesn't. If we are to go by His deeds, we are to assume the latter.

>Is it so hard to define virtue without saying "X is the definition of virtue?"

No, it's not, but you didn't ask me that. I'm telling you what I believe it's from, and I made it clear that it was just a belief, that I didn't use it as an argument because I readily saw how it wouldn't convince anyone, self-included.

Loving yourself and treating others as if they were yourself, the Golden Rule, is a simple way of defining virtue. You don't need to consider whether it comes from God or not. I never disagreed with that, I only explained to you where I thought this goodness came from.

>double-think

Isn't that when you think two contrary things at the same time? If God is 100% good and we're sinners, we're not thinking of a contradiction here. It makes sense.

I'm not entirely sure why you are so focused on the idea that God isn't good. Reading Genesis or Job literally will certainly not help, if that's most of the reason why you think God is a dickbag.

>>9575

>Later he sends Jesus to suffer, and die

Yes, but you do realise that Jesus is God Himself, right? This is important. It's like not He sends someone else.

>because two of our ancestors ate the fruit to acquire more knowledge

Our sins have nothing to do with Adam's sin. Our sins are the evil we do in our lives and the good we don't. Our sin is also our nature: mortal. Jesus came to vanquish death, so that we may live on.

>(which is a great sin, so don't go reading anything subversive.

Knowledge forces you out of your bubble of comfort. You see the Forbidden Fruit, the laws of the OT, and NT sins as exactly the same, when they're not. Knowledge makes it so that you discover that you are mortal (in the garden of Eden), you will no longer live like an innocent child, because you know better now, but it comes at a price. In the OT, sins are mere acts, do's and don't's, while in the NT, they become much more spiritual, not just acts, but also your intentions. It's not all the same. In the Garden, eating of the forbidden fruit isn't even called a sin so to speak.

Knowledge is encouraged by Paul in the NT.

>It's an unnecessary sacrifice, and it would have been easier for him to have just forgiven us.

You assume to know how salvation works, and that it's all very simple. Few theologians do. It's very likely that God required incarnation to even be able to "save" us at all. It's not just a matter of demanding sacrifice to appease one's huge ego, which wouldn't make sense anyway since God comes Himself to us, becomes one of us, lives and dies for us. This enables Him to save us. The metaphysical mechanics of this remain unknown to us for the most part.

>>9576

>someone with a mentality of a sect.

We must have a different definition of what a sect is. Here's mine:

>small cult, not millions of people

>living together as much as possible

>prefer to sever ties with family and friends who aren't part of the group

>prefer to limit knowledge and arguments with others

>generally led by a guru or some charismatic boss

>generally ends badly

I condone none of these. I don't have a mentality sect. What's going on here is that you just assume I correspond to what you think is a Christian. I can't force you to see what there is to see if you really want to see something else.

>I advise you to not waste time arguing

Nobody's wasting their time. As to arguing, we haven't reached that level yet.

>They won't agree with you

You can't predict the future, nor do you know anything about my personal beliefs; you may think all Christians believe the same (a ludicrous idea considering how many subgroups there are, each with a different set of beliefs) but you don't know. There's a lot I agree with a lot of different people. You can't know that before I say so. Stop trying to reify me into this monolithic idiot who believes everything you think a Christian believes.

> even if that's what they believed all their life.

Once again, I'm me, I'm not "them". There is no "them". Everyone's different. I haven't been a Christian all my life, far from that. And I'm still learning things all the time.

>>9578

It's never too late.

>try taking theology seriously,

Why wouldn't you? Theology doesn't require faith: it's the combination of God and philosophy. It's philosophy about God. You can be an atheist and appreciate theology as a system of thought.

>or the bible literally

I've already mentioned what the problem was with this, text and context. Reading the Bible as if it was intended for children is not going to deliver impressive results.

My only hope is that you will be ready to accept that perhaps these texts aren't as retarded as you think and that your chosen way to read them may not be the only way (because it's not). That's all I can hope.

>>9579

>Yes, it is if you're an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient god.

I don't even see how that connects to what I said. I said "making room" isn't the same as creating. Allowing isn't the same as doing. God isn't the only entity with freewill.

>I see things deterministically.

Then you do so against the better minds of science. Quantum theory virtually destroyed determinism decades ago. The universe is not deterministic, according to our best physicists. You're free to have your opinion, but I'm surprised you wouldn't consider science for such a scientific point.

As to the parent example, it's more about how, as a parent, you can't force your child to love you. You do your best, but if you want to be loved in return, you won't get that by forcing them to spend time with you against their will.

As to predestination, I don't believe in it, precisely for the reason you mentioned. It's more of a Protestant thing and I always found it disgusting in the highest. For a variety of reasons, I believe God doesn't foreknow everything, mainly because God can't know about things that don't exist, such as the future. I know this tends to anger a lot of Christians and atheists alike, but that's how it is for me. It's about making room.

>>9579

>That doesn't make any sense. You're not from one mother, you're from a father also.

That's precisely why I used the example of a mother, because that is an example of how you can only have one carrying you in her womb. God's relation to the universe is comparable in that there can only be one.

Using your logic, one also needs grandparents just to have parents, and great-grandparents, and so on and so forth until the Big Bang. I'm sure you understand what I meant and didn't take things so literally beyond the purpose of my example.

>Everywhere we look, there's dualities that are responsible for what we see.

I don't typically look at the world to see the fingerprints of God. We can see everything we want to see. Dualities, trinities, monalities, squares, triangles, etc.

> To say only one and one always, it's just as much lunatical as any other religious buffoonery.

To say one instead of two is lunacy? Or Buffoonery? I don't see why one is crazier than the other. There is one universe, by definition. That's one, it's not crazy to imagine so.

> Also, who made god or the gods?

Nothing, that's why it's God, and that's actually also why it's one, because its nature can only be unique. All other entities in the universe needed a start, but in order for anything to exist at all, it is mandatory to have at least one entity that always existed, or existed out of time, so that this entity could start the others. The rest is cause and effect, but nothing in this universe created itself out of nothing. And there had to be a start, because, obviously, we're here.

>Whatever answer that is you could just as well say the same for the universe.

I don't think my answer fits this, because I mentioned the universe and I can't say the same of the universe. The universe didn't exist outside of time and space, which are both relative to itself.

>You seem the definitive "pick and choose" christian.

There isn't a single person who can't be accused of that. Everyone chooses. You chose your beliefs as well. What matters isn't whether you chose something (since everybody does) but why you chose what you chose. That's what matters.

You're not interested in why I chose what I chose, you just want to point out that I chose certain things and rejected others. That in itself proves nothing beyond the fact that I'm critical. For everyone of my choices, I have excellent reasons.

If you mean the Bible, though, I don't pick and choose, I just take both text and context, and in that I am less pick'n'choosy as those who only take the text and choose the same way to read every single text of the Bible, ignoring every specificity they might have, which amounts to reading a grocery list the same way you'd read an article of law, a political speech, a chronicle, a poem, a song, and a letter.

There is no reason for me to read a creation myth like Genesis the same way I'd read a letter by Paul. It's very logical to me, and very obvious as soon as you know about these texts. I stand by my choices.

>>9594

Why couldn't you? It's philosophy applied to the concept of God.

I have no problems analysing the logic behind other systems, even if I don't have faith in them.

You may not be interested in theology without an interest in God, understandably, but I can imagine how someone could be interested in that without necessarily being a theist.

You just have to like systems.

>>9595

It's like the philosophy on fanfiction made by fanboys.

>There are no logic holes in the bible only things we can't understand.

>circular reasoning

>post-hoc reasoning

>ignoring parts they don't like

>taking quotes out of context

>blaming others to take quotes out of context

>>9596

>>There are no logic holes in the bible only things we can't understand.

Look, let's have a deal: you make statements about things I've actually said, that way I can respond to that, instead of stating things others say, in memes or in reality, and have me spend most of my time responding to that stuff.

There are discrepancies in the Bible, I'm all about them. This is an interesting topic.

>circular reasoning

Of no value to anyone. Christians I know don't actually use that.

If you have specific points to mention, I'll do my best to clarify. Let's not remain abstract just so we don't have to get to the details.

>>9583

>I'm not entirely sure why you are so focused on the idea that God isn't good. Reading Genesis or Job literally will certainly not help, if that's most of the reason why you think God is a dickbag.

It comes from trying to keep all possibilities on the table. Also, because I've discovered God behaves questionably according to 21st century morality in most books of the OT (and therefore most of the bible) and I know websites that can back it up with citations. (See >>1632 for examples shared by this forum.)

The God of the New Testament also often has similar problems, and the core theology introduced in the New Testament is frightening. Hell for the "innocent" is a terrible concept that I now consider indefensible. All attempts to coral it into modern sensibilities diminish its terror, omitting biblical verse, or refusing to take straight-forward explanatory verses of hell on face value.

I can define scenarios where innocent people would be sent to hell if you want, (but I don't think it'll be necessary.) I think one of the reasons Mormonism was successful is that it updated theology to more sensible thinking of the 1800's. Their ministry made it possible for most non-Mormon neighbors to repent at Final Judgement upon seeing the truth of the Lord and enter heaven. (I've read Atheists might still be excluded and sent to the Outer Darkness.)

Of course one could try to argue that Christian hell is a corrupted idea, or was influenced by Syncretism. That line of thinking forces someone to question the accuracy of every verse in the bible, leading into the faith-rattling question of why God didn't take measures to always protect the accuracy and interpretation of his word in the first place. (Of course, the bible doesn't ever say its the word, but its as a whole nonetheless interpretted as such even by those who say otherwise. Double-think is everywhere.)

>double think?

(Double-think is holding two contradictory ideas at the same time. But it can have a deeper nuance, because its "1984" roots says crafty language (artificially created words) can discourage people from critically analyzing their ideas. It allows people to behave in contradictory ways in different situations.)

>>9598

>God behaves questionably

Again, without precise references, I can only respond in very general ways.

>>9598

>Hell for the "innocent" is a terrible concept that I now consider indefensible.

Hell is never for the innocent, though. As to 21st morality, we too often forget that it comes straight from Christianity. It's amusing sometimes: secular societies which have retained most of their Christian values but forgot the Christianity of these values, like monogamous marriage and such.

We can address precise points if you want.

>I can define scenarios where innocent people would be sent to hell if you want,

Yes.

> more sensible thinking of the 1800's

Depends on which part. It's more detailed, for sure, but who knows if it's more sensible.

>Their ministry made it possible for most non-Mormon neighbors to repent at Final Judgement upon seeing the truth of the Lord and enter heaven. (I've read Atheists might still be excluded and sent to the Outer Darkness.)

You don't sound very familiar with Universalism and the first five centuries of the Christian faith, where most basically believed that Christ was going to save everyone, no exception.

>>9599

>Hell is never for the innocent, though.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/18yz6z/sam_harris_makes_a_brilliant_observation_about

Tldr version of links: what about those indians in Asia or the Americas who are going to hell? The confused man who was confronted by a Christian pamphlet or missionary for fifteen seconds once in his life, but choose to convert to Islam instead without knowing any better. The Atheist who saw no reasonable reason to believe and rejected Christ vocally. The schitzophrenic woman who killed herself, the woman addicted to painkillers who requested euthanization from Doctor Death, the doctor who mercy killed her. Etc, etc.

Why does God make the universe appear so Godless? We can argue till we are blue in the face about philosophy but at the end of the day there is simply no evidence for God in the real physical, world.

Another way of thinking about this is how would the universe look without God as opposed to with him? I think our universe perfectly fits the bill for a universe without God. How would you think a universe would look like if there there was no God as apposed to his supposed existence in this one? If you can't think of any tangible, physical differences than God is pretty inconsequential.

>>9598

>Of course one could try to argue that Christian hell is a corrupted idea, or was influenced by Syncretism.

Many think, with solid arguments, that the Hell we are familiar with is the result of a contamination by Roman and Greek beliefs, Hades and all.

The early Christians didn't have quite that version. It's a big topic though.

>God didn't take measures to always protect the accuracy and interpretation of his word in the first place.

That measure was about never writing anything Himself, so nobody would be allowed to assume anything was directly from Him, which would have been abused. The irony is that even though God didn't write anything directly, many assume He did and act accordingly.

Just my opinion.

>Double-think is everywhere.)

I don't see how. Not everything is a conspiracy. Just call it cognitive dissonance. But be ready to face the possibility that sometimes what seems contradictory to you isn't actually a contradiction.

>>9599

>secular societies which have retained most of their Christian values but forgot the Christianity of these values, like monogamous marriage and such.

The Romans cemented traditional marriage, not Christianity.

>You don't sound very familiar with Universalism and the first five centuries of the Christian faith, where most basically believed that Christ was going to save everyone, no exception.

And their philosophy was buried for over a thousand years and only fairly recently reborn. Thr church found it easier to compel people to their bidding with threats of hell. Also, I see bringing up that group (which most Christians consider heretical) as white-washing history. We can point at all sorts of sects from earlier-Christianity and say "see, they believed in X so there is precedent for us to change our teachings today." This call to antiquity is like China pointing at ancient maps where their territory expanded into North Korea, or Tibet, (or Taiwan) and saying, "We owned it a hundreds/thousands of years ago, therefore we always have a claim to the land and a good reason for sending our tanks and occupying them today."

Fact remains that no matter how many complicated apologetics you read, the majority opinion/traditional Christianity is what your mother or your best friend, or the bus driver believe. The real Christianity of the masses will never will be what some Theologicians trained at a bible education on the history of bible is. Those people are often forced to all but renounce the traditional anthromorphic God believe in. Even so, they don't tell people because the don't consider it good to hurt the faith of followers, or to be forced to further question their own. (They instead seem to find it psychologically easier/safer to focus their energy on attacking external groups like Atheists.)

A purely philosophical god doesn't have the same appeal, and is usually held onto by someone who doesn't want to let go. It's not a compelling God for a new convert, compared to the God who promises miracles to solve your problems, and who offers life in an eternal paradise.)

>>9605

>The Romans cemented traditional marriage, not Christianity.

Arguable. That said, it was Christianity which spread all over Europe after the Fall of Rome, it wasn't the Romans.

>>9598

>(I've read Atheists might still be excluded and sent to the Outer Darkness.)

Outer Darkness is reserved for Mormons, actually. Those who have seen God's glory through the LDS religion and still rejected it. I doubt anyone else can go there.

You can ask our Mormons for more details but I think that's it.

>>9602

>Tldr version of links: what about those indians in Asia or the Americas who are going to hell?

Let's assume I'm a run of the mill Catholic for simplicity's sake. My Church believes that those have a chance to go to Heaven too. You want the very words from the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

Here it is:

"5. The non-Christian may not be blamed for his ignorance of Christ and his Church; salvation is open to him also, if he seeks God sincerely and if he follows the commands of his conscience, for through this means the Holy Ghost acts upon all men; this divine action is not confined within the limited boundaries of the visible Church."

Straight from the horse's mouth. And don't assume that seeing a flyer for Christ is enough to move from "ignorance of Christ" to knowledge of Him, it's not. Schizophrenics have different cards and are judged accordingly, obviously.

Same applies to every other case you mentioned.

>>9608

Sounds like a recent feel-good change to dogma. Also does nothing to save Atheists who were raised Christian and educated in it, and have by definition rejected God. Particularly those who no longer care to read about theology or have the sort of discussion I am having.

Remember the two unforgivable sins are suicide, and blaspheming/rejecting God.

>>9606

Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire. Western Rome didn't just disappear either. They simply lost most of their power. Rome and Byzantium were still quite influential as that's where all the missionaries to northern Europe came from.

Unless you're of the opinion that christianity entirely replaced the Roman culture it would be foolish to think it was solely christianity that was responsible for monogamy.

By all accounts early christians and jews had no problems with polygamy and I can't recall anything in the new testament that actually forbids it.

>>9610

>Sounds like a recent feel-good change to dogma.

And it's not. As far ago as the very beginning of Christianity, many believers were even more radical in their faith and believed that everyone was saved. All humans. It goes back to the roots of Christianity.

>Also does nothing to save Atheists who were raised Christian and educated in it, and have by definition rejected God

It's a matter of circumstances. Obviously, if a man was raised by a pedophile priest, and rejected Christ because of this, that man won't be judged the same as another who had a great priest for a teacher of the faith.

Just think of some examples from the Bible: Peter denied Christ 3 times, became first Pope, Thomas doubted Christ despite having been with Him, saint, Paul started by murdering Christians, one of the most important apostles, also saint.

There are worse things you can do than not be sure about God.

>>9613

You seem to be telling people how your god judges them and if they can go to your hell or not. I used to be a christian an nowhere have I heard or read about that says some people won't be judged. You're either lying or ignorant just so you can come here and try to score soul-saving brownie points with your god.

Source words from your god, not from people. Then you'll tell us only certain people have the word of your god and others are full of shit if they say what you don't want to hear.

Are you sure you're not statuefag? He was catholic too.

>>9599

Modern western ethics do not come from christianity. In fact it comes from a gradual rejection of it. The times in our history that were the most barbarous and violent were under christian rule. Only during the enlightenment period did there start to arise ideas such as rights to life and liberty. Which certainly were not guaranteed by christians.

Western moral philosophy has had no need for christianity since it began in the academy of Athens and it certainly doesn't need it now. Too often christians think that the 10 commandments was the first document to espouse ideas like forbidding murder and theft. Complete nonsense, and an embarrassing display of historical ignorance on the part of the person making it.

Some cultural artifacts like monogamy do come from a christian tradition (although like I explained in my last post, do not originate from it) but accepting something as a good idea need not mean you accept all the supernatural baggage that come with it. In the case of monogamy I'm not actually seeing the big deal. I don't plan to do it, but I don't care if others do.

>>9613

Paul didnt reject God after he converted. Peter rejected God out of fear, not disbelief. Also, i hope you aren't taking the examples you mentioned literally. The idea Peter was the first pope, is probably a myth created by the church to link their lineage to Christ in an unbroken way, to enhance their legitamcy. Similar phenomenon to the fictional lineages of ancient cultures, or in Japan where they link their first (probably mythical) emperor to the descendants of God.

Peter rejecting Christ three times probably didn't happen, and was a literary device to show the disciples were fallible, bumbling idiots. It is also gnosticism, and the idea that you the reader of the scriptures and with the benefit of hindsight now have a knowledge that the apostles couldn't even grasp themselves when they first encountered Christ.

I think Thomas was also a literary devce to speak to skeptics.

>There are worse things you can do than not be sure about God.

But it leads directly to hell, as with suicide. Hard to see what is worse. And if there are multiple levels of punishment and reward, opposing God leads to one of the lower levels of hell.

>>9614

>You seem to be telling people how your god judges them and if they can go to your hell or not.

That's what I was asked. I answer as much as I can.

>I used to be a christian an nowhere have I heard or read about that says some people won't be judged.

I never said anything about not being judged.

>You're either lying or ignorant just so you can come here and try to score soul-saving brownie points with your god.

Neither, I'm actually just educated on the early faith and the early faith did believe in what we call Universalism now, it doesn't mean that not everyone gets judged, but it differs in the kind of "punishment" you get.

You're hostile so I'm not sure you actually care for an answer. Let me know if you do and I'll come back to develop that point.

>>9617

Your god wants people to apologize, basically, just for being the people your god made. That sounds like some feminist bullshit like apologizing for staring at tits. I won't bow down to a fucking god that makes me how I am and expects me to serve him like some cuck in a marriage. Besides that, at least gods like Thor sound badass. Yours sounds like a jealous, insecure manlet and your religion full of hippie Jew worshippers.

>>9619

>Your god wants people to apologize

Repenting isn't exactly the same. You don't repent for God to feel righted, you repent for yourself.

Being made by God doesn't mean He is responsible for your actions, especially since He gave you freewill.

>That sounds like some feminist bullshit like apologizing for staring at tits.

Presented the way you did, sure, but that's not what it is pun.

> I won't bow down to a fucking god that makes me how I am and expects me to serve him like some cuck in a marriage.

That's not what He expects either.

>Besides that, at least gods like Thor sound badass.

Does he? I mean, beyond memes, does he?

>Yours sounds like a jealous, insecure manlet and your religion full of hippie Jew worshippers.

He is characterised that way often in the OT. Do you really think most Christians are comparable to hippies? Because I don't hear that one often. Where do you live?

>>9597

I'm talking about theology. And you said we could appreciate it.

I say it's the the most sophisticated , elaborated thoughtful way to chase your own tail.

>circular reasoning

By that I mean things like: The bible is true because it's God inspired. God exists because the bible tells me so.

This is very common.

Some claim the bible is true because other souces support it. But I think the theologists grasping at straws and only count the evidence that points in their direction.

>>9623

>I say it's the the most sophisticated , elaborated thoughtful way to chase your own tail.

You have an example of that?

>>9623

>By that I mean things like: The bible is true because it's God inspired.

That's not theology. That's not even what most Christians believe, that's mostly memes on the Internet. I've never come a cross a single Christian who ever said any of these. Maybe you have.

But none of that is theology. Theology is philosophy about God, it's not random tidbits that some Fundamentalists like to say.

We can discuss these points if you want, rather than theology.

>>9622

Judge not. Thou shalt not kill. Love thy neighbor. Their doctrine is the hippiest, gayest shit written by a 10 year old that doesn't know what the real world is like yet luckily they don't follow it. Sometimes it's right to judge, sometimes it's right to kill, sometimes your neighbors an asshole and doesn't speak the language of love so you wind up having to be an ass.

It's not the right way to live. You can bullshit all you want but at least with atheists, or me, I'm direct. I'm not going to pussyfoot around it. Sometimes what the bible says works or is true, sometimes not, just like any doctrine.

Also see >>9579

People have used free will on children also only to have them die. It's called neglect. If you know of danger and do nothing, you're the one responsible when dealing with those of limited maturity.

>>9627

>The cosmological argument comes to mind.

When non-theologians who have zero background in philosophy try to tackle concepts like these, they generally don't understand and come out with extremely simplified reflections, which actually don't work, but leave the person sure that centuries of intellectual debate is nothing they can't beat in 4 minutes after watching a YouTube video.

These arguments aren't so easy to understand. That said, Christopher Hitchens has no problem with the CA and said so publicly. It is hardly what I could consider circular reasoning, though, and theology isn't the art of repeating the same shit without questioning, it's like any other field, clash of ideas, disagreements, theory against theory, etc.

>Incidentally, if you did not have faith in a Christian afterlife would you be willing to accept the idea that upon death the soul dies forever?

Are you kidding? I don't even assume souls exist to begin with; a hope isn't a fact. I'm not willing to accept the idea, but it doesn't matter what I want or don't want. It's certainly possible, and I don't think there are many Christians who have zero doubts about that. Go to Christian funerals, see people cry. Nobody knows for sure, that's why we call it faith and that's why we Catholics consider it a virtue, because it doesn't just happen, you have to work on it.

(cont)

>>9624

They don't really question their own believes.

>Did Jesus really exist?

>Was he a myth or several people fused into one character?

>Or was he a tall tale?

(There is very little facts about him.)

They start from the conclusion: Yes, he was like described in the bible. Now, let's find evidence for it.

It's so tiring to read to read a wall of text versions of : Because pigs can fly we should do this.

>>9627

>Meaning, could you completely ccept death, and that you would never again meet those who have died?

Until further notice, that's what I expect. I wasn't raised in the faith so my worldview remains largely atheistic in the feels. I'm like an ex-fatso who lost weight: I still feel like a fatass despite the workout.

>I think reluctance to accept mortality is a major reason people resist non-theism.

Were you assuming that you knew what I was going to say? You got your ideas mixed up: it is because people want a hope for life after death that they're interested in Christianity. That's how it started: Christ vanquished death, and He did so for us all. That was the good news back then: death is dead.

>We are hard-wired to avoid the loving final embrace of death.

Avoiding doesn't mean not believing in. And I doubt that's true either. Plenty of societies where death is just normal and nobody cares much.

It's much more likely than all the people who saw ghosts, who had "dreams" where their ancestors spoke to them, and all the rest of these phenomena, made people seriously consider that the afterlife was no joke.

I personally know people who have experienced this; it's one thing to read about it, but when you know these people first hand, it's a different story. I heard the same story a dozen times, from people who didn't know each other, and it's not stuff people share lightly.

That, rather than some exagerated fear of death, probably started our beliefs in afterlives. Communist weren't scared of nothingness afer death, plenty of people were fine with it.

>>9628

>Judge not. Thou shalt not kill. Love thy neighbor. Their doctrine is the hippiest, gayest shit

Those laws were already accompanied by stoning people who picked up wood on Sabbath day. I doubt you'd call that the gayest shit or hippie anything.

> sometimes it's right to kill,

This is where you confess your ignorance. The exact term in the Bible is "murder", which is different from simply "killing". Murder is the unlawful act of killing. It doesn't mean you can never kill, it only means you're not allowed to when it's against the law. Same in our laws: self-defence will sometimes allow you to kill a man. It was the same back then.

>doesn't speak the language of love so you wind up having to be an ass.

That's exactly why those laws exist, precisely because God knows who we live with, He knows we have to struggle. He knows because He's experienced it Himself. Don't forget even Christ got upset and broke shit out of anger.

>You can bullshit all you want but at least with atheists, or me, I'm direct

That's good, but I'm not bullshitting anyone.

>Sometimes what the bible says works or is true, sometimes not, just like any doctrine.

And sometimes people don't know nearly as much about it as they thought.

>People have used free will on children also only to have them die.

Children aren't adults, their free will shouldn't be in charge of themselves.

> If you know of danger and do nothing, you're the one responsible when dealing with those of limited maturity.

No disagreement here, not sure why I should.

>>9630

>They don't really question their own believes.

I'm asking you about theology being about chasing one's own tail. Theologians question everything, that's how they learn. Some even lose their faith.

It seems you are now talking about the general Christian. That wasn't my question.

The part about Jesus is not theology but history, a different field of expertise. Are you dodging the question or did you not understand what I was asking you and what you were yourself saying in your own post?

>They start from the conclusion: Yes, he was like described in the bible.

Theology doesn't work that way, and theology isn't restricted to Christianity or the Bible.

> Now, let's find evidence for it.

Theologians aren't in the business of finding evidence for this, they're not historians or archeologists.

>It's so tiring to read to read a wall of text versions of : Because pigs can fly we should do this.

You have never read a book of theology. That much is obvious by your answer to my simple question. You mistake history for theology.

Also, as to whether Christ existed or not, there is a lot of evidence for it and not "very little facts", by which you mean "very few facts", it's not uncountable, a fact. There is ton, and ton from sources hostile to Christianity. A quick Google search will show you more than you'd have time to read in an hour.

>>9632

Ah, so the ones say their christian god is peaceful are liars? I call them hippies because it almost always manages to get a christfag to name violent shit their god or god-followers did.

>killing

That's where your ignorance lies and your bible is bullshit. Sometimes it's also not good to kill when it's for the law, sometimes not. It's just as fallible as any religious text or moral texts as anyone else follows.

>children aren't adults

And some adults are like children. Not everyone can be convinced of bullshit in the bible. I will never hold myself accountable for eternity nor would I expect anyone I love to not believe or have faith in telling them of myself in a book and not believing it. It's the stupidest fucking shit I've ever read and found out people believed. Well, besides scientology.

But you seem like a reasonable, well-mannered person so I apologize for my salty words, I just don't have much time right now and honestly, taking the bible too literally in the past has caused me fucked decisions, so there's a bit of antipathy there. I don't want other people to make the same mistake.

>>9634

The theologians I hear from do exactly this. I dunno if that's a catholic or protestant thing but that's what they tell people on public radio.

The bible has to be (the claimed) source or it's just speculation.

You claim that theologians are philosophers who discuss faith independent from any church or confession.

But from my point of view that's not how it's work. If they are too far of the general guideline they won't get any money from anyone.

>>9631

>I wasn't raised in the faith so my worldview remains largely atheistic in the feel

I hate contradicting people on personal details they didn't introduce in a thread, but I have to make a lengthy correction for clarity (you can revise it.) I thought you said on /christ/ that you were raised Catholic, "turned Atheist" as an adolescent, and then converted back to Christianity around the age of 18 or so? Alex himself claims to have been Atheist. So does TOM and most of /christian/. They also claim to having formerly led degenerate ruinous lives until they found Christ. I'm not buying it when they talk like my eternally fundamentalist relatives.

It's impossible to take seriously, when you find out they were raised in a Christian household, or a Christian environment. Sure you can have some doubts as a teenager, but that doesn't make someone an Atheist or apostate. Neither does deciding at 14 you would rather sleep in than go to church and sing Christian worship for an hour.

Teenagers aren't well read like adults and tend to devour anything you put in front of them before they've developed critical thinking. Any source will suffice for them, because they haven't developed bullshit detectors. Most of the top results on the internet are by Christians, and strongly present the Christian one while distorting the other position. It's easy to fall back into old habits and go with the flow unless you have a clean and extended break from religion, and then take the time to read rational arguments to protect yourself from nonsense.

If you bounce back to one of the denominations of a familiar faith it's unlikely to be for rational reasons. Some form of latent indoctrination must have been triggered. At least, I consider this much more probable than a person has fully studied all of the surviving religions with equal ferocity and decided theirs was the best.

It's usually obvious when they are bluffing about the severity of their Atheistic phase too, because they have about the same level of passing familiarity with secular sources and arguments as any other (educated) Christian.

A few months ago I had a typical discussion with a Catholic who claimed to be Atheist, and he kept throwing me links to Christian websites and books. What he was saying is you can't possibly understand my faith without reading this mountain of theological interpretations. Catholics tend to fall hard for the appeals to authority, (in the form of exper opinions), more than Protestants, which is all the urging to read theology and Christian literature really is.

Usually in those discussions they randomly attack a few Atheist authors like Dawkins, name-dropping and hope to convince you they're familiar with the opposition, and you should not fall for some other authority. They then attack scientists, and/or question how much they can really know. This fails because one doesn't need the words of a trusted authority to leave a religion. Many of those authors just clearly articulate arguments Ex-Christians have already thought of while deconverting. The ad-hominem arguments fundamentally misunderstand that the person you are talking to is less moved by appeals to authority.

The false narrative people make to rewrite their lives, (I have to resist the urge to do so kyself after deconverting.) I'd like to meet all these Atheists, because I'm just not meeting them, and apparently most of the churches are is filled with them and their Atheist children.

By the way this phenomenon is not limited to Christians. A certain Muslim I met told me he converted from shamanism. Those enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous Claim their lives were much worse before, even though studies show the organization has questionable results.

>>9635

>Ah, so the ones say their christian god is peaceful are liars?

It would help if you quoted. I'm on various threads at once, responding to everyone's comments and questions, and I'm not always sure what you're talking about.

Being peaceful doesn't mean you can't kill. Peaceful societies have had the death penalty too. I don't think it's pertinent to oppose peaceful to that.

>I call them hippies because it almost always manages to get a christfag to name violent shit their god or god-followers did.

What's your first language?

>That's where your ignorance lies and your bible is bullshit

That's a legal term. I defined "murder" for you, and in any law, that's what it is: unlawful killing. Lawful killings exist: war, self-defence, etc. If you'd rather ignore this fact of life because it actually counters your former argument, feel free to cop out this way, but don't pretend you haven't heard it.

>Sometimes it's also not good to kill when it's for the law,

And?

>It's just as fallible as any religious text or moral texts as anyone else follows.

That's a completely different subject. I wasn't arguing for its infallibility, which I don't believe in anyway. Stop assuming.

Why are you guys so damn angry all the time? You don't even care what I'm actually saying, if I offer explanations, you get mad, start getting emotional, and quickly move on to another thing, generally assuming something about me.

Keep cool. No reason to get your jimmies this rustled.

>And some adults are like children.

Yes. And?

>Not everyone can be convinced of bullshit in the bible.

If it's bullshit, why be convinced by it?

>I will never hold myself accountable for eternity

Too bad you're not in charge of judging then, eh?

>nor would I expect anyone I love to not believe or have faith in telling them of myself in a book and not believing it.

Wut… Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

>It's the stupidest fucking shit I've ever read and found out people believed.

You're goddam angry my friend! Relax the fuck down I'm gonna start swearing with bad grammar too! Fuck's sake biatch!

Here's what we should do: come to /christ/, open a thread, and I'll talk with you there more privately. You can get as mad as you want and call me all the names in the world, and I'll try to explain as best as I can.

>But you seem like a reasonable, well-mannered person so I apologize for my salty words,

It's all right. I appreciate your honesty, I'm just not sure I handle it as well as I wish. I've been doing this for hours now and I'm getting spent. I'm sorry if I sounded like a dick in this here post.

>taking the bible too literally in the past has caused me fucked decisions,

You and many others.

(cont)

>>9637

>The theologians I hear from do exactly this.

You should read them. Theologians write books. Be sure to have some notions of philosophy before you tackle on theology, though, unless you read CS Lewis. Actually, do that. Read CS Lewis, Mere Christianity. That should help and at least be interesting, if not convincing.

>The bible has to be (the claimed) source or it's just speculation.

It's still speculation even if the Bible is the source. I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

>You claim that theologians are philosophers who discuss faith independent from any church or confession.

Did I? I said even an atheist can be a theologian. You can study theology from various religions, together. Catholic theologians can study Protestant theology, and generally have to, just to understand their differences.

You seem to assume that theologians are just trying to "win" by convincing everyone of their religion over others. That's not how it works.

> If they are too far of the general guideline they won't get any money from anyone.

Most of the theologians I'm thinking of are dead, like Aquinas, but for the others, they generally teach theology at university level and you never hear about them. Others become priests and you never hear about them either. Most theologians don't make money off of theology. I read theology, I never made a dime out of it.

>>9638

>I thought you said on /christ/ that you were raised Catholic,

I was baptised Catholic as a baby. I was not raised as one.

I went to Protestant catechism, then became an atheist, then agnostic, then gradually Christian.

>It's impossible to take seriously, when you find out they were raised in a Christian household, or a Christian environment.

It is possible, being raised in such a household doesn't necessarily mean much. Parents can be very, very different, even if they are of the same faith.

>Sure you can have some doubts as a teenager, but that doesn't make someone an Atheist or apostate.

Nobody talked of God or religion in my family. I had zero exposure to it until I was 11 or so, and even then, the exposure was weak and ridiculous and only made me drop the whole thing right away.

>Teenagers aren't well read like adults and tend to devour anything you put in front of them before they've developed critical thinking.

I work with teenagers and can confirm you're wrong.

>If you bounce back to one of the denominations of a familiar faith it's unlikely to be for rational reasons. Some form of latent indoctrination must have been triggered.

You risk psychologising people far too much. You don't need to know a person's life story to evaluate their arguments.

I had never met the idea that Christians pretend to having been atheists to get some street cred with atheists. I've been godless as a child and atheist as a teenager, that is, I consciously decided to be against "God". Then I gradually converted. I will probably never have the level of faith that some on /christ/ have.

>What he was saying is you can't possibly understand my faith without reading this mountain of theological interpretations

By "my faith", you mean the Catholic faith, right? Since he was an atheist. He'd be correct. The Catholic faith is a very intellectually strict faith. It's more than interpretation, it's centuries of working it out so it makes sense.

> Catholics tend to fall hard for the appeals to authority

Yes, but of all Christians, they probably have the most reliable authority there is. It doesn't make it an argument, but it's good authority regardless.

>more than Protestants,

Yes, but that's not necessarily a good thing.

Interesting post in many regards. But yeah, I'm not a fake former atheist. I've never known what it was like to believe in God 100% and have no doubt.

>>9639

No, I'm not going to /christ/ and not chatting privately. I'm atheist. That means I have no belief in gods nor do I wish to entertain such notions. I've did it many years and debated atheists online for many years. I've heard all the arguments and nothing's convinced me and I don't think I was ever convinced to believe it. I had "faith" or hope that it might be true and that one day I could truly believe yet it didn't work out. My atheistic views seem more true to me than any other religious or philosophical views I've encountered or thought.

I'm tired of it by now. I've given christianity so much of my time, most of it I'd say were wasted. I could've done so many things, looked into so many other religions and gods just as deserving and I fucking hate that I wasted my time with it. I think it may serve some bit of purpose to comfort people just as believing in Santa for children does but it doesn't make it true. And to go from a true atheist to a christian, I don't see how that's possible. That seems like going from not believing in santa to believing, which I'd assume would require some sort of brain damage. You were probably agnostic, at best or '12 year old edgy atheist' type of atheist, meaning you haven't tested your views enough to firmly posit them with philosophical credentials.

You see you're wasting your time with us and our time is being wasted. I see you've come here to save souls, as I figured and since it's not working you're getting uncomfortable. Do yourself a favor and don't waste anymore time over this. Gods are like a mindgame. I've wasted so much time wondering about and seeking gods, who they might be, how I'm supposed to live, what they'd want me to do, and so on only to realize I'm a fool wasting my life away when there's people outside to care for, things to do, etc. Before I did it because I felt I should as a christian, now I do it because I feel it's a good thing to do. I was so mission oriented then but if you ask me now, if we have a mission in life it's not to worry so much about what made us and what we're to do here. It's hard to have fun when you're people like us that worry so much about these things. But I woke up way too early today, a bit grumpy, and need some sleep so will be check this thread tomorrow.

>>9649

>Didn't Tolkein and Dante say that Christianity had weaker folklore and epics than Greek Mythology?

Don't know but I find them better authors than the biblical ones.

>We need non-politicized words to describe those that have reached either of these positions upon introspection.

I could entertain the idea of having ranks of atheists like Catholic priests, ministers, etc. as an amusement but atheism really doesn't need differentiation. Though it's too bad some who haven't treaded the theological and philosophical waters at all would claim to be an atheist without testing their knowledge and wit. At least in formal beliefs you generally have titles to prove your levels of knowledge. That's an unfortunate side-effect of free belief.

>>9647

>No, I'm not going to /christ/ and not chatting privately. I'm atheist. That means I have no belief in gods nor do I wish to entertain such notions.

And? We have a few atheists and a few agnostics over there. We discuss much the same as we do here on /atheism/. Think about it the day you want a conversation that's not just theism VS atheism, but atheism VS a precise faith.

>I've did it many years and debated atheists online for many years. I've heard all the arguments and nothing's convinced me and I don't think I was ever convinced to believe it

That's why, at some point, you might be more interested in having conversations with people of an actual faith than just debating whether God exists or not. Currently on /christ/, a radical Catholic is asking a radical Mormon if you can have sex with several of your wives at once or if you have to take them one by one. Just saying.

>I had "faith" or hope that it might be true and that one day I could truly believe yet it didn't work out.

I'm always scared that will happen to me too.

> I fucking hate that I wasted my time with it.

You should have done things that wouldn't have been wasted even if Christianity wasn't true. I donate money, I help people. I have no regrets, and all this is done as part of my Christian faith. It's the sort of things I did before I converted, but they are why I came to the faith eventually, because I believed in doing this stuff.

>And to go from a true atheist to a christian, I don't see how that's possible

Plenty of famous people have done it. CS Lewis did it. People who had experiences did it, mystical experiences.

>You were probably agnostic, at best or '12 year old edgy atheist'

I've been an atheist before I was an agnostic.

>meaning you haven't tested your views enough to firmly posit them with philosophical credentials.

I'm still testing every day. Remember, faith isn't a scientific theory. You're never sure with faith, that's why it's faith. It's more of a choice to trust Christ.

>You see you're wasting your time with us and our time is being wasted.

I think none of it is wasted. The main reason why I'm on chans is to have some social interaction with strangers who might just be awesome, or not. In that, no waste anywhere.

>I see you've come here to save souls,

I wouldn't talk to you any differently if I were not. I don't believe in preaching by word. I haven't preached to anyone here. I haven't told anybody they should immediately share my faith. I don't think of my presence here as "let's save some souls!" though. If I have been able to show that Christianity isn't the monopoly of a few Christians, then that's good.

>since it's not working you're getting uncomfortable.

That's not the reason. I didn't come here expecting to convert anyone, it doesn't work that way. I got uncomfortable because, yesterday, I spent over 10 hours responding to threads like this one. One here, one on /b/, one on 4chan, and all the other threads on /christ/. I might have lost patience after the 8th hour. I didn't even take a break to eat. Don't think it's because I'm frustrated that I didn't convert anyone. I'm fine.

>wasting my life away when there's people outside to care for, things to do, etc

I chose to work for the Catholic Church, so, essentially, I spend my life working for people out there; whether there's a God or not, I believe in what I do, at least that.

>now I do it because I feel it's a good thing to do.

That's better. That's actually more Christian. Remember, what matters is what you do and your intentions, not what you label yourself.

>>9647

> if we have a mission in life it's not to worry so much about what made us and what we're to do here

That reminds me of a Pope who was extremely stressed out about having become the Pope. He had a "dream" in which God gave him a message: "Don't worry so much."

> It's hard to have fun when you're people like us that worry so much about these things.

It's extremely exhausting, I confirm. "Opium of the people," I wish.

————————-

I appreciate your posts, and this one in particular. You haven't wasted your time, or mine, because I truly enjoy this conversation. It makes me happy that we can talk. ☺

>>9664

Sorry for the gay ass emote, I thought it'd come out as the alt-code thing I had intended.

>>9675

Nice summation. Though I'd argue OP's christianity is so diluted that he's not far from atheism just as I was before I declared myself atheist. I realized what I believe was so close to what a few atheists believed that I debated, that I finally let it go.

>>9675

>Here are the types of Christians that inhabit this board.

That was interesting. I wonder if these Christians mostly come from /christian/ or if they come here only. I assume the former.

I recognise these types.

>Oh, and I'm perfectly okay with a pact between our boards, question and discussion is always welcome between us, remember that.

Sounds like a deal, although I haven't mentioned the idea to /christ/ yet. I will do so just now, but I don't know how that will fare. Maybe we'll make an "official /christ/ thread" on your board and focus our efforts there. I'm not too crazy on the idea though because most of us don't agree on everything and I'm not sure that would necessarily interest atheists, but who knows, maybe it will. At least it'll be somewhat original, perhaps. I'll talk about it with my people.

But yeah, more generally, I like this board. I've added it to my favs and I'll visit regularly.

>>9677

>diluted

>not far from atheism

Possibly, but that only makes me an even more approachable Christian to atheists. I'm a true skeptic by nature, I take nothing for granted, so rather than "diluted", my faith is "questioning", which makes me not as certain as some about many issues. I can't just believe in A and B because I'm told to; that's not how I came to the faith and that's not how I make progress. I can easily find you more "concentrated" Christians who won't mind giving you solid opinions and beliefs, but I don't know which you'll appreciate most.

OK, atheists, I've informed my people through a thread. They might come here, they might not. They might open an official thread, they might not. They might use the nametag, they might not.

I'm going to use the nametag here from now on, if that's all right with the authorities here.

>>9687

There goes the neighborhood.

>>9698

Nobody's come yet. Don't worry.

>>9684

I will be damned if this board turns into a hugbox. Please, tell your friends.

Fuck I think people on here used to like >>>/islam/ until they went radical.

>>9701

>I apologize if Atheists on here commonly give you a hard time,

Honestly, they're much better than what you'd get from a similar thread on /b/. I can't complain.

Don't worry. People here are at the very least interested in the subject, which goes a long way in terms of mood.

>We're normal people, just like you.

Don't worry. Most of us live in areas that aren't very Christian; we're usually the exception rather than the norm (talking about /christ/ people here, not Christians in general).

Thanks for the welcome!

>>9702

We have no intention of turning your board into anything, let alone a hugbox. Worry not. Keep in mind we made our own board precisely to avoid the repression of dissent.

>>9704

No I'm not talking about Christians turning this board into a hugbox, I'm talking about Atheists turning the board into a hugbox. You're still welcome.

>>9705

Oh OK. From what I gather, it sounds like you get plenty of theists around here?

>>9705

Ironically, you sound like you are, faggot. Why don't you two get a room?

>>9707

Triple bedroom? You coming?

>>9706

Yeah plenty of Theist threads around here

>>9707

>Being friendly to others on the internet that oppose you views instead of being mindless pieces of shit that censor the oppositions points

>faggot

Fuck off

>>9709

*Your

>>9720

> my alternative definition of gods.

What is it?

>>9721

The part where rocks are more godly than God was meant to show a separation of between god as wielder of power and god as a source of morality.

>>9722

Interesting.

On this board, you refer to gods and God very loosely, but these things are not comparable to me. A god, minor g, is not on par with a God, capital g.

I know this is generally used to degrade God to just a god, but in terms of definitions, there are huge differences.

Link to your rock argument? I'm curious.

>>9723

in >>9722 I meant necessarily mean god as Christian God

>>>/christ/4186

>>9724

I responded, but honestly much of the time I have no idea what you understand from what I say given your responses.

>>9723

Why do you think your god isn't "just a god"? Who's to say others don't view their god as the one and only, the one that is above or created your god? Statuefag believed that others who were worshipping other gods were actually worshipping his god because his god encompassed everything including their gods. That's pretty *god damn* euphoric.

I'm almost tempted to say I believe in a god and say it created your god. You'd then use your bible as ammunition which would be senseless because it's more meta, this god created your god and doesn't know about it and that it's my job to let you know about it so when you go to "meta-heaven" you can let your god know this god exists, therefore I save your "soul" and your god's "soul". The only thing I like about religion is that it can be used for mental masturbation.

>>9723

>A god, minor g, is not on par with a God, capital g.

Oh please, God is not a name, it's a definition, a deity/a god. If you were to call your god by the name with a lower case letter, only then it would be to "degrade" it.

>>9729

What if I am actually the real God that created the world this morning for giggles, and will end this universe before lunch? I gave you fake memories, surrounded you with robots that act like humans, put the idea in your head for your new God, just so I could out meta a lower life form. This thread will be your only explanation from the real God about what is really going on. You will cease to exist when I finish sipping this tea.

>>9729

>Why do you think your god isn't "just a god"?

A matter of definition. It's not even about existing or not existing, it's merely a matter of definition.

>Who's to say others don't view their god as the one and only,

Themselves. When Buddhists and Hindus have many gods and don't consider them the creators of the universe they live in, I take it wholesale, since it's not my place to tell them what their religion is.

>Statuefag believed that others who were worshipping other gods were actually worshipping his god because his god encompassed everything including their gods.

If you study the case, you'll find that plenty of isolated human societies believe the same themselves: that their many gods were all the expression of one God. If you look at what goes on even in monotheistic religions, you will see that tendency for yourself: Santa Muerte for Catholics in South America, but even Mary could be said to be the beginning of a new "god". Without the written word and some kind of authority, like a Church, you'd easily move from monotheism to polytheism, from God to gods, and there'd be no trace to go back to what a religion originally was.

>I'm almost tempted to say I believe in a god and say it created your god.

What would tempt you, though? Apart from the argument's sake.

> You'd then use your bible as ammunition

You shouldn't try to guess my future moves because, in this case, you're actually wrong. Everything you say is possible to say, but that's all.

A lot of people who are monotheist believe that whatever call religious people hear comes from the same entity, and they express that with whatever religion is closer to them or draws them in the most. It's not anything special, weird, or even arrogant. It makes perfect sense, but one just has to remember that any religion can have this view (that's how this isn't arrogant to me; I understood full well that a Muslim assumes that whatever God I feel is Allah and that I am in error to assume it's Christ; I understand that and it makes sense to me).

>The only thing I like about religion is that it can be used for mental masturbation.

If by that you mean that thinking feels good, sure. But don't imagine that everything you think up corresponds fully to what you think you're making a parallel of. Things aren't that simple much of the time.

>>9731

I'm explaining that it's not the same definition. Some religions have both a God and gods, and they're not on the same level. It's closer to something like God and His angels. The gods can't do what God can do, etc.

There are other reasons to capitalise nouns than just being a name. It's important to keep definitions strict, especially with metaphysics, or we'll always be able to switch from God to god and act like it's the same.

It's not about degrading God; I have Bibles which don't capitalise "he" when mentioning Christ, and I doubt they intended that to be degrading. Respect, here, was not my concern; definition was.

>>9733

I'm still here, so I guess it didn't work out. But more generally, yes, such ideas are valid to me; I call them the irreducible doubt, and I can only hope that, in the other world, there's a way around it.

>>9749

I can't see what you refer to, sadly. You're entitled to your opinion (but it's not that hard to find someone smug, angry, and pretentious, if it makes you look like you win a point; I can do it to your single post here).

>>9758

>Without the written word and some kind of authority, like a Church, you'd easily move from monotheism to polytheism, from God to gods, and there'd be no trace to go back to what a religion originally was.

Religion has tended to evolve from simplicity towards complexity. From shamanism (token worship), to a pantheon of state approved Gods (polytheism), and then to monotheism. More religions were polytheistic from the beginning. Buddhism diminished its Gods over time, especially in the newer sexts. Protestants removed the worship of Catholic saints. Egyptians almost became monotheistic at one point in their history. zoroastrians predated Christianity and are probably a source, id not the source of monotheism, Armgeddon, Satan, and the whole good vs evil duality.

The idea that all religions started as monotheistic and became corrupted into polytheism in ancient times is not supported. But the reverse is the common consensus.

>>9762

>Religion has tended to evolve from simplicity towards complexity.

Yes. Monotheism to polytheism fits this.

> More religions were polytheistic from the beginning.

Evidence suggests the opposite. I've shown that evidence of this exists even within Catholicism.

>Buddhism diminished its Gods over time, especially in the newer sexts.

>Gods

>gods*

Buddhism shows every hint that it didn't start as a religion at all but was divinised later on.

>Protestants removed the worship of Catholic saints

They didn't, because Catholics never worshipped saints. Worship is for God alone. You can venerate the saints, pray to them just like you can pray to your dead grandfather, but you can only worship God. First Commandment. You can remove the concept of saints, sure.

>zoroastrians predated Christianity

Plenty of religions predated Christianity, most notably Judaism. What matters isn't how old a religion is, but how true.

>The idea that all religions started as monotheistic and became corrupted into polytheism in ancient times is not supported.

It is supported by cultural anthropology. Countless polytheistic tribes, after careful investigation, turn out to have had a monotheistic idea of God at first, which then developed into polytheism. It is also supported by my example of entities like Santa Muerte: if we didn't have a written medium and an authority, Santa Muerte would be considered a goddess in her own right.

What you're doing is you accept at face value what everyone suggests without knowing.

The examples you have used aren't conclusive (Buddhism, notably) and you haven't shown that my examples didn't make sense. So no, I wouldn't say that this theory is not supported, it clearly is. Chesterton figured just as much, and I think he was correct.

All the people who don't believe in organised religions but still consider themselves spiritual and believe there's a God experience the same natural inclination towards monotheism, or simply theism.

Some, mostly atheists, like to think of Allah as just another minor deity, a "god" and don't see the problem. To you atheists, it's all "gods", not realising that "Gods" is an oxymoron, like a square circle.

>>9763

>Buddhism shows every hint that it didn't start as a religion at all but was divinised later on.

Yes, but it started ina. Polytheistic culture. Buddha refused to answer questions about the Gods, saying that it was irrelevant to breaking free of the cycle of rebirth. My point is later Buddha was deified, say in Mayahana Buddhism and the escoteric sects. You could call upon Buddha's special power like he was a God, and people started asking Buddha for favors more than the other Gods they used to worship.

>zoroastrians

Zoroastrianism is as likely as Christianity to be true. It matters because it has a duality between good an evil. There is a God and a Satan, (and a final renewel.) Babylon conquered Israel hundreds of years before Christianity, probably spreading their ideas throughout the Middle-East. Then Islam conquered them, with its belief in one God (and lesser entities like the evil spirits in the desert.) In effect, monotheism mostly usurped dualism, which can be thought of as a transition between monotheism and polytheism.

>all (spiritual) people feel the same impulse towards belief in a God.

That's a big assumption, that wouldn't explain the strength and survival of polytheism in Japan or India. But if we grant the assumption, it means a polytheistic culture tends to move towards monotheism, which is exactly what the mainstream consensus is.

I think monotheism is attractive to people because its easier to pray to a single God, and in time (with folklore, competition between religions, and evolution) one God tends to become OP enough to make praying to the other Gods less useful. Especially so, if a nation enforces worship of a single deity, which happens when there is an interplay of shared power between priests and rulers.

We can also flip your statement and say all spiritual people feel an attraction towards polytheism, and it would have about the same truth value. That would explain the saints in Catholicism, or my attraction to Shintoism, and other religions. It would explain our attraction to complex comic book universes which are full of heros that are essentially mini-Gods. Or the attraction of Middle-Age scholars towards writing about various demons and angels.

>>9764

>Yes, but it started ina. Polytheistic culture.

Sure. My point was that even this polytheistic culture most likely started monotheistic. If you don't believe me, how about Brahman in Hinduism?

"Brahman (/ˈbrɑːmən/; Sanskrit: ब्रह्मन्) is a spiritual concept in Hinduism, and it connotes the highest Universal, the Ultimate Reality in the universe. It is, in major schools of Hindu philosophy, the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists."

Doesn't that sound like monotheism to you? Because it sure does to me.

>>9764

>Zoroastrianism is as likely as Christianity to be true.

Please make the case.

>It matters because it has a duality between good an evil.

I don't think that's very rare or special, though. Any society with night/day cycles can have just as much. Any language with yes/no too. I don't think it means as much as you want it to mean.

>In effect, monotheism mostly usurped dualism, which can be thought of as a transition between monotheism and polytheism.

I'm not even sure dualism is to be categorised with these two. You're thinking of monism, rather than monotheism. It's not the same.

>That's a big assumption, that wouldn't explain the strength and survival of polytheism in Japan or India.

It would, actually. If one God is calling to you and makes you feel like there's more to this world than what you see, it would definitely help polytheism too.

> it means a polytheistic culture tends to move towards monotheism, which is exactly what the mainstream consensus is.

It's not the consensus actually. And it doesn't fit the facts. Again, Santa Muerte, saints, etc. Without writings and authority, these would have become gods and goddesses within a generation or two.

>I think

That's the issue here, you're opposing this based on your opinion. You have coherent logic in what you express but it just doesn't fit the facts of what happens with humans.

>We can also flip your statement and say all spiritual people feel an attraction towards polytheism, and it would have about the same truth value.

That's because I wasn't using this as an argument for monotheism VS polytheism, but for the idea that things start monotheistically and continue towards polytheism, unless restricted by authority and tradition.

> It would explain our attraction to complex comic book universes which are full of heros that are essentially mini-Gods.

That's an interesting point of view. I see that more as a desire for a modern mythology that fits our human experience. None of my students who read comics pine for a deity. They don't mind Batman being a puny mortal, for instance.

>Or the attraction of Middle-Age scholars towards writing about various demons and angels.

I'm very interested in both, but I don't see that as some inner polytheism.

My view of God and gods is very different from most of you here, and I dare say my view is generally shared by other Christians, i.e. we don't think of Athena as being comparable to "God", and I don't mean just the Christian version, but any version of an entity which corresponds to the monotheistic God (creator, source of morality, timeless, immanent and/or transcendent, etc).

The monotheistic God tends to be invisible and stands for the unknown, while the "god" of mythologies represents the visible and stands for it: water, air, lightning, etc. That's a huge difference to me.

Also how ancient Greek didn't even believe in their gods and goddesses much, see Plato's Republic.

>>9765

Hinduism is really hard to peg down. You can believe that God is one god and the other gods are just forms he assumes, you can be a polytheist, or you can even be an atheist and believe that what we call god is in fact all of existence. None of these interpretations are incorrect which is weird from a western perspective.

>>9767

>None of these interpretations are incorrect which is weird from a western perspective.

It makes perfect sense to me. I tend to think that's how most religions are born. Things don't get strict until we write it down and try to be authoritative.

>>9765

Well of course the elite priest class would claim to know the ultimate reality of the universe to enhance their power. At the dame time, they believed in the Gods that Hinduism has inhereted, and which Buddhism largely discarded.

>>9766

>Please make the case.

I might attempt that when I've read more about it. In the meantime, I've already laid out many similarities between the two religions, and if this religion predates Christianity by several hundred years and its country subjugated Israel (The Babylonian Exile), its more likely to be the uncorrupted original belief.

There are also still practicioners of it today. It has also been a relatively more peaceful religion, having not grown as large as the Abrahamic religions. If I recall, they have interesting temples where they venerate an eternal fire (probably ias an icon.) I don't remember if they are the ones who lay out the corpses of the dead for sky burial (vultures come to eat the bodies), but it is an interesting belief system with enthralling temples.

Their veneration of fire also reminds me of a certain Buddhist sect With fire rituals, and there are similiar cultures worship fire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_worship

You could make the case that their religion and God or two Gods, are calling out to all of the other religions. Your attraction to Christianity is just a manifestation of their God that represented all that is good.

I'm inclined to think Christianity absorbed a lot from Babylon, in addition to absorbing ideas from Egypt and Rome when it was occupied by those powers.

>>9769

>You could make the case that their religion and God or two Gods, are calling out to all of the other religions. Your attraction to Christianity is just a manifestation of their God that represented all that is good.

You could, and I have said, though perhaps not in this thread, that I understood this about other faiths and it didn't shock me or bothered me one bit.

>I'm inclined to think Christianity absorbed a lot from Babylon

You mean Judaism? I personally see a massive break between OT and NT, though most of my /christ/ people disagree, but that's generally because they hate homos and want them stoned to death or burnt alive I know, I know, don't get mad if you're my Christbro and your ass is hurtin'.

From what I can tell, you have a very conspiratorial idea about how Christianity came about. I don't disagree with the idea of influences, but I don't believe it removes the substance of Christianity at all.

If you could pinpoint the things that were passed on from Babylon, I'd love that. I can only think of the six-winged angels for now.

>>9766

>That's because I wasn't using this as an argument for monotheism VS polytheism, but for the idea that things start monotheistically and continue towards polytheism, unless restricted by authority and tradition.

Perhaps monotheism is more atractive as the power becomes more centralized in countries, which could explain how it became so common in the modern world. Or it could just be a lucky fluke like evolution, and Rome/the Middle Easy might have converted to another polytheistic belief system under different circumstances. Perhaps something similiar did happen in another universe.

>>9493

I also see a pretty clean break between the OT and NT. (Many claim it even has a new God.) In many ways the NT was a new religion that needed to draw on the scriptures of the OT for authority, in the way that the Mormons of Islam relied on existing scriptures to prove to skeptics that they weren't making up some divine nonsense out of nothing (or private hallucinations.)

If its ever proven than Judaism was not the first monotheistic religion, it will call into question why we are not following some older religion. (Maybe it has been proven. But the Jews can claim an oral history before the scriptures, and I know of no method to compare two oral histories from very early antiquity and say which God came first in time.)

It would be powerful to prove that an older religion influenced Judaism and evolved into the Abrahamic religions, but with very different doctrines. My understanding is that Christianity rachetted up the good vs evil theme, (God vs Satan), which was not as strong at the begining of the OT. This happened centuries after a nearby country had embraced zoroastrianism.

>>9771

> the Mormons of Islam

Blew my mind, what the heaven is this?

>If its ever proven than Judaism was not the first monotheistic religion, it will call into question why we are not following some older religion.

I don't think it would. Not to me anyway, since I already call into question most of the OT as a sound basis for Christianity. If some older religion had been the inspiration, it wouldn't mean much to me. It'd only confirm what I already suspect about the OT's ways.

>My understanding is that Christianity rachetted up the good vs evil theme, (God vs Satan),

Not so much. It's more about a personal battle against sin, than just God VS Satan. But again, you speak as if the authors of the NT had some sort of plan and consciously stole elements from other religions and beliefs.

>which was not as strong at the begining of the OT.

Indeed, which is very interesting.

I hope you're still active on /christ/, because while I don't agree with much, I always enjoy your posts.

>>9772

>mormons of islam.

Mormons or islam. It is very difficult to scroll in the tiny box on this device to review long posts and correct typos, and difficult to type without making them. The r key is close to the f.

>It's more about a personal battle against sin, than just God VS Satan.

Armageddon though.

>had a plan…

They could have borrowed from those religions. Countries trade even when they aren't going to war, and there are conversations, and a new preacher could easily decide an idea he heard in a pub fit within his worldview or a view he wanted to espouse, (for noble reasons, or for personal gain.) I heard the idea for scientology started in a bar.

>>9774

Hmm, so you're saying religions borrowed ideas from other religions? But muh speshul snowflake religun.

>>9774

Ah OK, I thought Mormons of Islam was a real thing.

>Armageddon though.

What about it? If I recall, Armageddon is just a place in the NT.

>They could have borrowed from those religions.

How do fishermen in Palestine borrow from other cultures like Egyptian mythology and the likes? These people didn't have access to much, and the culture they were most exposed to was Roman culture, which would eventually contaminate Christianity with its ideas (mostly about hell).

>I heard the idea for scientology started in a bar.

You heard wrong. I spent quite a bit of time studying Scientology and it didn't start in a bar. It started after Dianetics, which is basically just speech therapy (like any psychologist would do with you) plus some lie detector (which actually works, it shows when you're tense) and some technique about it. Hubbard took it to the next level and made it a religion to be free of taxes and become a guru. Scientology is dead already. I give it 15 years before it's completely out. Only 15'000 members left anyway. The Internet killed it.

>>9777

I haven't researched whether the scientology bar bet is true. But one of the quotes is….

'…..New Jersey in 1947: `Hubbard spoke … I don't recall his exact words; but in effect, he told us that writing science fiction for about a penny a word was no way to make a living. If you really want to make a million, he said, the quickest way is to start your own religion.'"'

>How do fishermen in Palestine borrow from other cultures like Egyptian mythology and the likes?

I was talking about Judaism. Freud actually had a theory that Moses was one of the prophets of Akehenaten who fled to Israel with his belief when the succesors of that pharoh persecuted his new cult and erradicated it from Egypt. That pharoh also built a new capital in the desert, and Exodus could be a reference to that journey.

Some people like to compare Horus and the resurrection to the Jewish religion, namely how the Egyptians loved the number 12 and often depicted 12 followers.

>armageddon

Armageddon/the end of the world/Judgment Day = the Zoroastrianism "reckoning of spirits" (they have judgement day)

Here's a link I found three minutes ago.

http://www.avesta.org/zfaq.html

Look, they even have a hell.

>>9780

>Rome gave us hell

Or Zoroastrianism? My understanding is that the Greek hell is very different from the Jewish one. The Greek/Roman hell is not fiery brimstone, and is closer to an underground tomb, just like the one from the Shinto myth about the creation of humanity. The Greek hell has the river Styx running through it, you must pay a few coins to cross it, and there is a 3 headed dog that guards the entrance.

Or do you mean that Hades = Satan?

>>9781

Main difference being that the Roman hell is forever and the Christian one wasn't originally. Most Bibles use one term for 6 different terms originally, all of which mean somewhat different things.

>>9781

I can't speak for the Roman depiction of hell but the Greek one is indeed very different. It's a very gloomy place where the dead long to be alive again but they aren't necessarily being tortured.

For the righteous and glorious there are even the peaceful fields of Elysium which is vaguely described as a land of beautiful flowers. The good dead get to rest here for all eternity.

The Underworld wasn't really a punishment either it was just where the souls of dead humans went. Hades himself also wasn't really a bad guy it was just his job to maintain the underworld. In fact he's often depicted as being cheated by Zeus and rightfully upset about it. I imagine he was eventually changed into a Satan like figure due to Christian influence.

Anyway the history of the afterlife is very interesting. Our modern conception of fire and brimstone vs. heavenly paradise is theorized to indeed come from Zoroastrianism. Afterlifes in this region of the world before then are often desolate places that all human souls go, regardless of actions. The punishments and rewards of the gods are all earthly. This included Judaism until the Persian occupation of Judea. Even in Modern Judaism while there is some idea of paradise and punishment it is only very vaguely described. It's completely within your right, even as an orthodox jew, to believe in reincarnation for example.

Christians are divided on what to make of this scholarship but the most frequent reaction I've seen is accusations of heresy. Since this implies that the word of god had more to do with history and culture rather than divine revelation.

>>9785

> Since this implies that the word of god had more to do with history and culture rather than divine revelation.

There's no question about it as far as I'm concerned. Especially with the OT. I have no problem with any of this.

>>9786

Well no offense but as a christian I think you should find it a little problematic. The doctrine of heaven and hell are central to christianity which of course has its roots in judaism. If the Hebrew scripture could have been affected to such a degree by a pagan religion then that brings up some troubling possibilities such as:

1. Zarathustra being a minor prophet of God himself

2. The doctrine of heaven and hell being false

3. The most ancient scripture wasn't divinely revealed and was instead created by humans like any other mythology

And you could probably go on from here. The implications could be pretty far reaching.

>>9787

>Well no offense but as a christian I think you should find it a little problematic.

None taken.

>The doctrine of heaven and hell are central to christianity which of course has its roots in judaism

Actually no. There's no mention of either in the Old Testament. Are you sure you're familiar with it?

>>9788

Well they are mentioned, just vaguely. Despite not mentioning it a whole lot in the Torah oral jewish belief at the time did start to adopt it and these concepts were eventually fleshed out in christianity.

My point wasn't that heaven and hell were based in the Torah but that christianity's foundation was judaism which started to adopt ideas of heaven and hell due to persian influence. There are other concepts that were eventually put into the talmud like the resurrection of all jews into heaven.

>>9789

> Or, our human failings to Satan/the devil to escape our own responsibility.

I doubt that's the reason. Even within Christianity, the tempter doesn't take all the responsibility.

I must say that Zorostuff is picking my interest big time, not for good reasons. What do experts say about the links between the two religions?

>>9790

>Well they are mentioned, just vaguely.

Where?

>>9791

>>9791

Daniel 12:2 is a good example.

It mentions an afterlife of sorts with rewards and punishments but again the language is very vague.

>>9792

>Daniel 12:2

I stand corrected. Very interesting stuff.

>>9792

And Daniel was supposedly exiled in Babylon of all places.

>>9791

I don't yet know what the scholars say about the connections, and at first I would like to better understand the religion itself, before learning in which direction the influence flowed, or if its possible to argue they developed independently. (Which appears highly unlikely given their proximity.)

I also have no idea what Christian apologetics would say about Zoroastrianism either. My guess is most Christians and non-Christians aren't enough aware of it for it to trouble them. It would be interesting to see a Zoroastrian and a Christian debate one another over who had the true religion.

Still around, in case.

Quick question: in your experience, do any Christians consider that God's actions could be (or are) undesirable?

>>9870

>Quick question: in your experience, do any Christians consider that God's actions could be (or are) undesirable?

For most, no, but it's a question of definition. By definition God doesn't do undesirable things.

Now, for more sophisticated Christians, the things God did in the Old Testament that they may not agree with or fail to see as good, are considered to be fiction, which it sometimes is beyond the shadow of a doubt, such as in the Book of Job, which is a poem, a known piece of fiction, written as such and read as such.

That's pretty much how I read the OT anyway, but that's not most Christians' positions. Perhaps more so with Protestants, the American ones, who tend to cling onto the Bible more than any other denomination because they have little else.

>>9870

On a slightly different topic, some believe that God doesn't know what the future is made of and that He chose so with reason. You could back that up with some Scripture suggesting that God tries things and observes what happens with us, or the world. In Genesis, God makes things first and then "sees that it is good" as if He didn't foreknow. I think it's called Open Theology or something.

You could argue that He did this with the Hebrews, giving second chances and whatnot, and you could argue that if He had known it would fail, He would have used the Messiah plan immediately.

In that sense, some Christians would be fine with the idea that God tried things which failed (though mostly because of us). Garden of Eden, Hebrew tribes, etc, these are different plans devised at different times.

I hope that satisfies your question.

>>9891

I was more curious how many, rather than the specifics; but thanks.

It's an open question, if anyone wants to share.

>>9889

>(God doesn't know everything, or the future.)

In that case all of the biblical prophecies are groundless. They are no more likely than prophecies that we could create from our own nightly dreams.

>>9891

>God doesn't know what the future is

Isn't he omniscient?

>>9909

Only when he allows himself to be.

>>9901

>In that case all of the biblical prophecies are groundless. They are no more likely than prophecies that we could create from our own nightly dreams.

That's another topic. But even so, God can know what He intends to do in the future, which isn't the same as knowing the future. Big difference between the two, and nothing contradictory.

>>9909

>Isn't he omniscient?

Yes, but He's also omnipotent, so He can make Himself ignorant of the future, or, more likely, He can make things so that even He can't guess the future, as in a non-deterministic universe, which is what we have, quantum theory and all.

See it this way, I can design dice, it doesn't mean I'll know what the dice will give each time someone throws them, nor does it mean that I will know what moves they'll make with these numbers. No reason to forbid God from using this method either.

>>9923

in order to patch the problems of omniscience you had to use the contradictions of omnipotence. many theologians would have a problem with you saying that god has unrestricted omnipotence (whatever that oxymoron means), i.e., that he can do things that he can't do.

why are you willing to defend one of the many highly mutually exclusive and self-contradictory definitions of "god" when there are no valid justifications to maintain those beliefs in the first place?

>as in a non-deterministic universe, which is what we have, quantum theory and all

you are going full pseudo-scientific here. Neither classical mechanics and fully deterministic maths allow us to guess the future as deterministically as I would like to.

What does quantum mechanics even has to do with your superstitious beliefs?

>>10122

>many theologians would have a problem with you saying that god has unrestricted omnipotence

I didn't say that. It is possible, even for humans, to make yourself unaware of certain things (by simply not reading a book, for instance). What I'm saying, for God, is that the very nature of what He chose to make implies His ignorance of certain events and parameters.

This is not exactly what you understood.

If God chooses to design individuals with free will, He therefore accepts to make a being whose choices will be independent from His. That is no lack of omnipotence.

>why are you willing to defend one of the many highly mutually exclusive and self-contradictory definitions of "god" when there are no valid justifications to maintain those beliefs in the first place?

I don't see how these are mutually exclusive or self-contradictory. I just think your definitions are not exactly the same and your expectations of God are similarly different.

As to beliefs, that's another thing entirely.

>you are going full pseudo-scientific here.

Not at all. The required premise for a deterministic universe is that its processes behave in a derterministic manner, i.e., in a manner that you can predetermine. In astrophysics, for the movements of planets and such, it is very deterministic. You can foretell where a planet will be based on its parameters.

Quantum mechanics prove that the universe is not based on determinism at this level, and if this level isn't deterministic, then you can't argue the universe is, much less free will.

>What does quantum mechanics even has to do with your superstitious beliefs?

That was in response to free will. Correct me if I am wrong, but you don't need to be religious to believe in free will. As to superstitions, they're as much science as they are religion. See American circumcision if you don't think so.

>>10427

I'm aware of Lem, as my partner is Polish and I have visited Poland twice and survived a Polish wedding (no small feat for a Western European). I wasn't aware that there was a translation, though. I heard that there was one, but it was from the French translation rather than from the Polish original.

I've seen both movies and felt both missed what the book probably had. I'm afraid you've spoilt me on exactly what I was interested in. I won't read the pages you posted but I'd like to know if it's still worth reading now that I know this much.

>which is the only kind of God a modern fellow would be able to believe in.

I'm a modern fellow but that doesn't prevent belief in a "regular" God. I'm training myself in apologetics, feel free to test me. I don't guarantee success on my part, but I guarantee good faith and that I will try.

>>10430

It's an acceptable postmodern book, which makes it guarenteed to piss off readers. What I said spoils nothing, because the book is mostly speculation with few hard answers. The God hypothesis is one of at least a dozen interpretations of the unknown entity in the book, which is likened to a Roscharch ink blot - the interpretations tell you more about the state of mind of the speaker.

A few years ago it was translated directly from Polish to English for kindle. I like the idea of worshipping a pitiful God that wants to end its own life. A lonely, bored and unchallenged God that is more believable since it couldn't have possibly been created by humans. It's existence solves no problems like a savior; it ignores us, and merely exists and struggles with problems as we do. You'd immediately feel a kinship to the flawed alien thing, and a sense of awe that you could never understand it fully. Awe comes from truly knowing it's not the product of the human imagination, and its separate experiences make it alien beyond comprehension.

>>10432

Would you worship it even though it's not real, or only if it was?

>>10440

Worship is a stronger word than adoration. It's hard to imagine worshipping anything real or unreal before an altar unless I felt tremendous love toward the thing (or fear, but that's not love.) Easier to muster would be a milder sense of neighborly respect toward an incomprehensible creature, alien, pet or God. Awe can be simiple, and is probably a good thing to manufacture in our daily lives.

>>10444

Worship isn't always related to altars. It can mean posting "Good luck, Ebola-chan," not having hotdog buns, and/or sharing as many files as you can. None of these religions propose major changes in people' views; even spreading Ebola is not as big a change as claiming you can talk to something that created the world.

This is a fault in major religions: they have to many do's and don'ts; they derive too much from their core message; they're too complex.

If you would be arguing against an Ebolite, a Discordian, or a Kopimist, you wold challenge them on their their fundamental message. Why not argue against Christianity by arguing against loving other people?

>>10447

>Why not argue against Christianity by arguing against loving other people?

I do reject the idea of unconditional love because it can be very harmful. But I don't want to go further and reject encouraging love or altruism. Like Christopher Hitchens said in his criticisms of Objectivism, I see no need to tell naturally selfish people (he used the word "Americans") to be more selfish. Christianity at its best can be viewed as an attempt to reduce a lot of stress and petty conflicts.

Let's put aside whether Christ existed or taught what he did for a moment, and consider the merits if everyone acted unselfishly. Christ as a Christlike figure that encourages forgiveness and harmony, or as a martyr represents a noble goal. Obviously, emulating that degree of self-sacrifice would ruin your life, but a segment of the teachings on tolerance and non-violence are good principles for a harmonious society. The story about having mercy on the adulterer rather than telling the mobs stone her/ figuratively consume her like cannibals for example.

(Yes, I know it didn't happen, or can be interpreted as Jesus cowardly refusing to take a stand, but it's still a nice story.) It's the dogma and the totalitarianism of religion that poisons everything.

>>10451

You could also reject it because it means very different things to different people, because it's not the best way to promote altruism, because it's the best way to promote altruism and you don't want it, because you think something else is central to goodness (like harmony) or another reason.

I'm not sure why christfags feel the need to tell naturally unselfish people to be less selfish.

>>10447

The idea of loving other people is hardly exclusive to Christianity and as you've said, religions have many do's and don'ts so to say that Christianity can be broken down to JUST loving other people is a grossly misrepresentative statement. One might as well also say that Communism is merely about treating the working class well or feminism is merely about the idea that women are people. Whatever one's opinions of these things are, fact remains they're far more complicated and carry a lot more baggage than the simple simple appealing bumper sticker phrases their proponents like to put forth.

But as the other anon posted, it is still possible to argue against Christianity from that position because in addition to being complex, it's also quite black and white. There is either do's or don'ts in a lot of the rules of religions with no room for context or consideration. This does not work well in a world that's constantly updating its morality.

I do not think that people should love others unconditionally. Like just about everything else, there should be a limit and because of that, things should be judged on a case to case basis.

>>10455

>I do not think that people should love others unconditionally.

Loving others unconditionally doesn't mean you allow them to do anything they want. If you love your children, in the sense of caring for them and wanting them to evolve and progress, you will give them a frame in which to thrive, and that means giving them limits and punishing them when they trespass these limits (and I don't mean corporal punishments, giving the child the sense that they disappointed you will be enough if you are a credible parent).

>This does not work well in a world that's constantly updating its morality.

Morality seldom updates on anything. What humans do may change a lot, but on the whole, most normal humans have the same sense of morality, though partially flawed, than they have of the empirical world; some may be color-blind but it only alters things a little.

>>10457

>morality seldom updates

In the ancient world up until a few hundred years ago we lived in a world where it was alright to say might makes right. Slavery began when one tribe or nation conquered another, and everything you owned including your body instantly became their possession. We have withheld the rights of women to vote until around a hundred years ago, and most recently there has been persecution of gays and other minorities, ranging from intolerance and murder at the individual level, up to criminalization at the state level (entrapment at the stonewall riots, or castration thanks to anti-sodomy laws.)

In that light, morality updates itself with every generation, perhaps it takes 50 years to complete a change because we have to wait for the old guard to die out. The general shift towards acceptance of homosexuality within our generation is the most apparent example.

Meanwhile in Europe animal rights laws that had no equivilant in the past are increasingly treating certain animals almost like equals. The sense of condemnation for abortion has been challenged, and privacy and piracy are evolving buzzwords that are embroiled in a tug of war with the authorities on the internet. I'm sure you could think of more examples of the thinking that is about to change in our society, and naturally whenever a change is made it is usually popularly considered to be more moral than the previous manner of thought.

>>10460

>In the ancient world up until a few hundred years ago we lived in a world where it was alright to say might makes right.

It wasn't all right to say it, it was simply how the world worked. It still does today, but the ramifications of power are more varied and we don't all feel it to be that way.

That said, it doesn't make it moral, nor does that mean most people agreed to it. All your examples are the same in this regard.

Most slaves in Rome had better living conditions than most Americans working minimum wage, for instance.

In terms of morality, things haven't changed much. Acts have changed, but that's precisely because morality doesn't change much and most people aim for the same ideals because of that.

>>10461

>That said, it doesn't make it moral, nor does that mean most people agreed to it.

American Southerners popularly supported slavery, drawing passages from the bible, even if they had no slaves.

>In terms of morality, things haven't changed much. Acts have changed, but that's precisely because morality doesn't change much and most people aim for the same ideals because of that.

My gut feeling is this can't be, if for no other reason than countries are not perfect islands, and the migration of people and ideas change conceptions of morality. The replacement of Buddhism with Islam in western India changed concepts of morality. Definitions change when a new religion replaces an old one, along with the corresponding dogma. The ascendation of the teachings of Confucius overturned existing thought in Asia, and gradually relegated women to lower ranks, neutered individuality, and encouraged simple-minded obedience to superiors. The rise of Christianity in Europe made usury and charging interest immoral in the Middle Ages.

Tl;dr: there are many counter examples

>>10455

There are a few more principles to Christianity, but this is important to a majority of denominations.

I don't think that dogma is the worst part of religion, but love, omniscience, free will, vague and unspecific words. What complicated, baggage-carrying vision can arise because, and not in spite, of this?

>>10464

>American Southerners popularly supported slavery, drawing passages from the bible, even if they had no slaves.

Yes. Most of the world used slavery and it was always considered normal. Like I said, the conditions of slave was not automatically worse than that of some workers today. Replace the whip by wage and in many cases, you'd sooner be a slave than a worker. This has little to do with morality. George Washington himself had slaves and treated them well. Having slaves doesn't mean you're automatically an evil asshole as in the movies. But most importantly, slaves were a normal part of society. Concerning Black slaves, they generally worked less than the Northern Protestants did, and had far more fun since they had no sexual code to live by. They also enjoyed free music. This is actually one of the reasons why many free Americans wanted to "free" the slaves: so that they could be forced into "moral life" and not enjoy free sex and music anymore.

This is not very related to the topic at hand, though.

>>10464

>Tl;dr: there are many counter examples

By and large, there is no major civilisation in which murder, theft, and adultery were ever held as positive values.

There is no society which held these as laws, for instance. Not a single example of that.

Just like empirical reality, our imperfect senses will perceive it somewhat differently (humans who live in areas without straight lines, like the jungle, won't be subject to certain optical illusions, for instance) but that does not negate the fact that there is an empirical reality to begin with. So with morality: we don't imperfectly grope for it, which explains some differences, but by and large it is extremely similar.

>>10474

>adultery, theft, murder

Aside from "thou shall not take what does not belong to you," which we teach to 6 year olds, what other useful timeless principles can morality offer us? I see a lot of sexual taboos passed off as timeless morality, but I don't think they will stand the test of time.

>By and large, there is no major civilisation in which murder, theft, and adultery were ever held as positive values.

Foraging soliders have long delighted in all of these, and so have the white-collar criminals in finance. The old testament allowed all of these things to pass, and mandated them in fact, as long as the target was a gentile. (1 Samuel 15:3 )