Atheists who attack Christianity

Am I one of the bad guys in your opinion?

Why would you care? God loves you, is that not enough?

Frankly, Elinea, you were better off not to have started at all.


Why? If you add up all the Christians that ever lived, they still wouldn't outnumber the Mithrans, pagans, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Zarathustrans and Muslims who ever lived. Being a Christian doesn't make you special. You're just another human in a long history of humans with beliefs. In 10,000 years of recorded history, most of those belief systems have claimed the same things (priveleged knowledge, dead gods who resurrect, paradise after death, yadda yadda) but none of those belief systems has yet to be shown correct. Nor will they, most likely, since faith is such an intensely personal and subjective thing.


I'm sorry you weren't aware that Pascal's Wager has been soundly ripped open and deflowered years ago. If you're into making wagers, why did you skip the part where you're also gambling that being a Christian is the right bet in the first place? What if Islam or Buddhism is the right bet and you're going to go home broke? What if atheists turn out to be right, but since when you're dead you're DEAD you won't know different anyway? Anyway, why would I ever want to worship a god who throws billions of souls into everlasting torment simply because they didn't go to the "correct" church on Sunday morning? Such a god is not worth worshiping.


You need to read up on Cosmology, hon. That's not what current scientific theory says, exactly. I realize it's easier to understand "In the Beginning, God..." but that just leaves some of us with this feeling of an unfinished tale. We want to know how and why, and don't tell us they're unknowable. You'd be like those who told us not to sail west back in the middle ages because we'd fall off the end of the earth.


I'll have you know that I was raised in a staunch Protestant home. I understand Christianity better than many of my Christian friends do because I've read scholarly works on its origins and philosophies. Put down that broad brush, you're splattering yourself. I highly respect the basics of Christian thought. I do NOT respect the viral meme that modern Christianity has become with its absolute certitude and endless proselytizing.

I would also inform you here that I have nothing against the celebration of Christmas. My family celebrates it every year - my husband and I are the only atheists in my family but it doesn't stop us from buying gifts, wishing people Happy Holidays and enjoying the season. We celebrate it in much the same way the Mithraists did before Christianity stole the holiday and co-opted it into the birth of their savior. If you want to hang holly wreaths and sing caroles, more power to you, this is a free country. Just don't force my kids to praise your baby Jesus in a school where I'm paying tax money because that is illegal.


Michael is one of the more intelligent posters on this board. If you don't understand the words he's using, just ask for a definition or go to www.dictionary.com. K?

To be perfectly fair, SOME of that is still convered in Pascal's wager.... Budhism? Meh, you come back as a butterfly until you get it right. No biggy. Athiests are right? Pascal's wager actually covers that, that's still a "win" solution. Jews are right? I believe Christians are still "ok", but I could be wrong there. It only really breaks down when you compare it to other religions (Buddhism, while recognised as a religion by many, is sort of a grey area)... and even then there are a couple that you aren't too badly off with (Shintoism, for example, or Wicca)... It mostly really gets nasty when you compare it to the other monothiestic religions, like radical Islam...

I really dont know much about the hindu religion, so I'm not commenting on that one way or another. I'm unclear what their afterlife situation is.

Pascal's Wager is a logical fallacy. It presents religious choice as a binary option when it's not. It's not "either/or" when there are literally hundreds of other belief options available. Not even atheism is monolithic in that regard. Further, the notion that God automatically punishes anyone who is not a Christian isn't even an idea many Christians will accept - like I said, eternal torment is a stiff price for not driving to the right building and singing the right hymns on Sunday morning. What if you're a tribesman in New Guinea, is God going to toss you into the fire because you grew up in the jungle?


Hinduism isn't as cut-and-dried as the monotheistic religions. They have a single deity, Brahma, which is really more of a pantheistic principle than a god. The universe is Brahman and everything in it belongs to one divine entity. Brahma the Creator is also Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. He has 3 aspects (personalities if you wish). Hindus believe in "Transmigration of the Soul" as a continuous cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth.

It's a fascinating religion, really, and also one of the most tolerant on earth.

It's a fair comparison. Both involve worshipping a god of dubious moral character for the sake of gaining personal reward in the form of an afterlife. That Christianity is about blind obedience and not deeds is deeply disturbing to me. It kinda invalidates everything Jesus had to say because none of it ultimately matters. Swear allegience to the right team and you're in, no matter how evil or murderous you've been in life. Be the kindest, most humble, most altruistic person who ever lived but join the wrong team and you fry. I will never understand how anyone can accept such a system in good conscience. Doesn't it bother you?

Whoah there. Getting a little off the topic of Pascal's Wager, aren't we? The comparison I was making was specificly as to how Pascal's Wager works.

Buuuuuuut, anyways...



Yes, actually. It bothers me deeply. It's something I've had a lot of discussions about with people more knowledgeable about the subject than you or I, of a multitue of faiths. I don't have all the answers on the subject. I have my own beliefs on the subject, but it continues to be something I discuss and debate constantly. However, that doesn't effect my *belief*... belief is not something wholey under our control. I can't help what I believe, no matter how rational I am.

Could you please try to be a bit MORE condescending, if it's at all possible? Please!

I find it is those who think they are intelligent who turn out to be the least wise.

I understand that, I'm just saying that while Pascal's Wager is bogus, it's not QUITE as badly broken as you seemed to suggest.



The religious debate on some of this could fill a skyscraper. Full of microfilm. It's a fair point for discussion, but I'm hesitant to break off another sub-topic in this thread at this point.



So, it's kinda a funky blend of christianity and buddhism (Conceptually, that is, not literally)? Interesting. I have a lot of respect for Buddhism, I believe most of the lessons it teaches are quite applicable to anyone of any faith.

Just returning Elinea's condescension in kind, Kevn. But if you insist, I can pencil in a couple hours later today to condescend to you if you're feeling left out.


And you would have a single clue about this... how, exactly?

Knowledge is wonderful, books are full of it. One can learn about nearly any topic with a quick google search. Anyone can stuff their head full of it. But wisdom is the ability to know how and when to use that knowledge. Wisdom comes from experience. Young people with little real experience and a lot of book knowledge would fall into the category of people who think they are intelligent yet lack wisdom.

Part of me envies that, and the rest finds it disturbing because it can be used as a justification for just about anything. The only area of my life where I could say the same is in deeply emotional interpersonal relationships where I've been known to cling to what I wanted to believe despite mountainous evidence to the contrary. No good has ever come of it, though, and as I've gotten older I've put a lot of effort into not doing that anymore. I have no ability to form an emotional relationship with an intangible so there's nothing to supercede a rational assessment of things. Not that it means my assessment is necessarily correct but I can't seem to look at things any other way.

You're assuming again that people with whom you do not agree are younger and/or less wise than you. How is that not condescending?

But you don't need belief to be capable of just about anything... it just makes a very convienient scapegoat after the fact.

This is something that seems to crop up in every organized religion I've looked at, regardless of what other message it has. For that matter, it shows up as a group dynamic in any organization after a while, whether religious or secular.

Why does faith in [God or religious principle] inevitably seem to decay into faith in [group]? A group seeks to survive, and if it collects people whose idea of survival is to make less of others, the group dynamic gets twisted from its original purpose.

I think this is a condition of human groups in general, not just religions.

So you're against the spread of knowledge, then, unless the person is x years old?

Kevn, I've come to the conclusion that my 17 year old daughter is wiser than you are, simply because she tries to enlighten herself before she forms an opinion. You, on the other hand, are very adept at spouting stuff that makes you feel good and then retreating when you are exposed as a fake. (See also: your fluff about a "global flood" as well as your complete bollux over macroevolution.) I have yet to see you defend either of those gigantic leaps, which just means you're ill-informed. The "wise" part would come into play if you knew when to keep your mouth shut.

[qote]Wisdom comes from experience. Young people with little real experience and a lot of book knowledge would fall into the category of people who think they are intelligent yet lack wisdom.[/QUOTE]
Whew, for a minute I thought you were referring to me. Since I'm old, I'm wise huh?

True, but belief makes it much easier to justify things that can't be supported rationally. The benefits of that are hard to find in tangible form while the negative consequences are very easy to find throughout human history.

Excellent point, though I personally don't believe it represents decay from the original purpose. I think religion has always been a tool of tribalism by design.

I assume no such thing. I also have not digressed to assume I am factually correct in the grand theme of things.

The part of her post I quoted had nothing at all to do with agreeing or disagreeing with my point.

Anecdotal poppycock!

~Ulrika~

You young whippersnappers and your books! Why when I was a kid they told us how things were, and by gum, we didn't question them! Who do you think you are?

I like the way that phrase rolls of the tongue. I'm going to tuck it away next to "pernicious nonesense" for those special occasions.

I think you're over-generalizing. The Old Testament is certainly laden with a lot of tribalism, but if you look at most other prominent religious thinkers around the world, the focus is usually on personal salvation or enlightenment. Look at Buddha, Lao-Tzu, the Sufis, the Gnostics. For that matter, look at much of what Jesus said, or at the Protestants. These people are talking about a personal experience with the divine.

Group dynamics enter in not as the original message but in the effort to transmit the message to others.

By "special occasions" do you mean replies to Kevn?

~Ulrika~

Are we all still pretending that Jesus actually existed?

~Ulrika~