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Quite so, but there has to be some argument as to why a supposedly saved Christian (and remember, Rachel was in it up to her neck from the start) could ever deconvert. What else can they say but she was never Really a Christian all that time?
The argument is pretty obvious to me with this comment:
Quote:
If it’s not infallible, you’ve been basing your life’s beliefs on the oral traditions of a Middle Eastern tribe. The Bible lied to you.
Notice how this thought of hers comes across as if someone is talking to her. It sounds exactly like the voice of Satan exploiting her doubts and steering her into a confused state of desperation by implanting this exact thought telling her that she had been duped into believing words from a long dead tribe.
Earlier in the article, she admitted that belief in no God also created lots of questions and problems, but then says everything came completely unraveled simply because she didn't understand the purpose of the Old Covenant? I don't think we are getting the full story here.
Whoa!, nice, and subtle observation there Jeff. Well done. Reminds me of a preacher I have a minidisc of - the particular phrase he uses is "Satan comes to you in the voice of your own mind" (...to sow doubt, accusation, fear, etc.)
The argument is pretty obvious to me with this comment:
Notice how this thought of hers comes across as if someone is talking to her. It sounds exactly like the voice of Satan exploiting her doubts and steering her into a confused state of desperation by implanting this exact thought telling her that she had been duped into believing words from a long dead tribe.
Earlier in the article, she admitted that belief in no God also created lots of questions and problems, but then says everything came completely unraveled simply because she didn't understand the purpose of the Old Covenant? I don't think we are getting the full story here.
Yes, legitimate doubts are easy to dismiss as Satan misleading.
The argument is pretty obvious to me with this comment:
Notice how this thought of hers comes across as if someone is talking to her. It sounds exactly like the voice of Satan exploiting her doubts and steering her into a confused state of desperation by implanting this exact thought telling her that she had been duped into believing words from a long dead tribe.
Earlier in the article, she admitted that belief in no God also created lots of questions and problems, but then says everything came completely unraveled simply because she didn't understand the purpose of the Old Covenant? I don't think we are getting the full story here.
Oh give me a friggin' BREAK with this primitive nonsense.
You just cannot accept the reality that a former Christian woke up from her blissful, mindless slumber and began applying real logic and rationality to a book of fiction designed for a very specific tribe in a very specific place. YHWH was NEVER anything more than a tribal god - which is why this all-powerful, omnipotent god who so desperately wants everyone to be with him - went NOWHERE ELSE on the planet to tell humanity about his own existence. China? No. India? No. Central America? Absolutely not. Australia? Uh uh.
No, this little tribal god stayed put and did nothing whatsoever for anyone else save the Hebrews - who stole legends and stories from a panoply of different places - and used them to bring cultural cohesion to the tribe. There was never an Exodus, there was never a parted sea, there was never a Promised Land, there was never manna from heaven.
The ONLY reason why the tribal religion of the Hebrews managed to hang on for so long is because of Constantine - and the various tribal rulers that came after, from Alaric to Charlamagne, all of whom getting a big kick out of spreading the Word of the Good Book with the points of their swords. It STILL would have died a slow death if not for the invention of the printing press and the Gutenberg bibles printed thereafter. (Yet still God's word could only be spread at the speed of the fastest camel because, apparently, God flunked geography at God School and thought the Sinai and the east coast of the Mediterranean were the only places he could go.)
It has NOTHING to do with "Satan" and these ridiculous claims of nefarious spiritual warfare going on, these silly battles for our souls. I had a hard time believing in that balogna (baloney) when I was a child - and this was when I thought there were monsters in the cubby hole beneath the stairs.
If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?
Her reason for defecting from Christianity. It's based on a faulty assumption.
Who says God is absolutely moral? And who says morality is an absolute?
Also, the laws of religion, as Jesus said were because of people's "hardness of heart" and thus Christ changed the laws through his life and death. These laws can be still followed, btw. You could still follow a kosher diet. The answer is that Christianity was a reform to Jewish law.
Actually, the girl was just looking for a reason to rebel against her parents. I don't blame her.
I'm not exclusively a Christian, but this seems like a flimsy disproof.
The problem of evil? Moral relativism. God doesn't in fact judge humanity, so people do what makes them happy, regardless of others.
Quote:
If God was all-powerful and all-knowing, why did He create a race He knew was destined for Hell? How did evil exist if all of Creation was sustained by the mind of God? Why didn’t I feel His presence when I prayed?
Also a faulty assumption. Do we know in fact who is saved and who is not? Not, there are numerous denominations and their concept of salvation. They can't agree on how to be saved.
Because of free will. God lets us do good works, but also allows us to do evil.
Possibly because your faith is not your own, it's your father's. Therein lies the fatal flaw of indoctrinated religion. To connect with God, your heart must be in it.
Also, she's an idiot. There are other religions out there. To go fully into secularism because you can't rationalize your own religion is stupid. College is a time when you can learn about other viewpoints.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Search @ OtherReligionsBesidesChristianity
Clockwise from the North Pole, they are: Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Wicca and some other Neopagan religions, Zoroastrianism, and Druidism.
But yea, you know, my daddy was wrong so all religion must be wrong.
Last edited by bulmabriefs144; 12-23-2014 at 11:42 PM..
Also, she's an idiot. There are other religions out there. To go fully into secularism because you can't rationalize your own religion is stupid. College is a time when you can learn about other viewpoints.
So ... she's an idiot for choosing secularism and atheism instead of embracing a different religion?
Fortunately for you, I'll let that insult slide. Because you've effectively called every atheist on the planet an "idiot" - because we didn't choose another god to worship.
Why is she an idiot for not subscribing to a different faith? Do you REALLY think that she wouldn't find the same empty rhetoric and worthless promises that she saw within Christianity? Because all religions are essentially the same at their cores. Sure, the far eastern religions don't believe in deities - which is a plus - but it's still a religion.
By the way, all of those questions you asked about god being moral and whether we know who is really saved - what you're doing is inventing numerous verbal escape hatches - or "get out of jail free" cards - by obfuscating what religion actually teaches.
Yes, religions teach that God is perfect and ... he's not just moral. No, he is the actual SOURCE of morality. Yes, religious laws are absolute. The only other alternative is to disagree with your god - who happens to be all-knowing and all-powerful and cannot be wrong.
I think, according to mainstream Christian doctrine, it's not that hard to know if you're saved. Do you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior - and grovel for forgiveness every day? Yes? Then you're saved. It's not rocket science. In fact, religion was designed to be simple - so simple people could understand it.
I'm not a big fan of verbal escape hatches like "You can't possibly understand the mind of God" or "God works in mysterious ways" or "It was magic that dunnit." Adding more, like "how do we know if God is moral?" or "How do we know who is saved?" is a bit like cheating. Christianity is rather implicit in its teaching that yes, God is perfectly moral and the method to find salvation, etc. and so forth.
That's how we know the "answers" to your questions.
She's an idiot for thinking, "the Bible is wrong, rather than investigating whether other religions might then be right, I'll treat it still as the only right religion, so if it's wrong there must be no right answers besides complete unbelief."
I'm only calling her an idiot. Because her thinking is painfully limited.
Atheists usually have a somewhat well founded reason not to believe, I would assume. But this girl casually dismisses everything because daddy's faith didn't work out.
Quote:
By the way, all of those questions you asked about god being moral and whether we know who is really saved - what you're doing is inventing numerous verbal escape hatches - or "get out of jail free" cards - by obfuscating what religion actually teaches.
No, it doesn't. Because religion isn't absolute morality. Do you think it was an accident that so many religions developed? They're not all the same. So why did they develop? Because God allows people to make choices.
Quote:
Yes, religions teach that God is perfect and ... he's not just moral. No, he is the actual SOURCE of morality. Yes, religious laws are absolute. The only other alternative is to disagree with your god - who happens to be all-knowing and all-powerful and cannot be wrong.
Is God perfect? They can't even find that notion in the Bible. This was a later idea of God, and it's a flaw. As is the idea that God is absolute good (God may allow evil to happen to test us).
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I think, according to mainstream Christian doctrine, it's not that hard to know if you're saved. Do you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior - and grovel for forgiveness every day? Yes? Then you're saved. It's not rocket science. In fact, religion was designed to be simple - so simple people could understand it.
No. Catholics believe you are saved by works. Protestants believe you are saved by faith/grace. Calvinists believe you are fated to be saved. Jews believe you are saved by the law. Taoists believe you are saved by bringing yourself into balance with nature. But sure, go ahead, all religion is the same. Absolute morality. Or maybe morality is relative, aside from some cultural universals (no stealing, killing, etc)
It's not a verbal escape hatch. It's called withholding stupid assumptions about God that can't be proven true or false. Why should I assume God is moral?
God is a transcendent being. There is no reason at all to believe that God could not be amoral or have some alien notion of right and wrong. There's also the fact that Nature is amoral, despite being created by God. If anything, it seems as though morality is a human creation to punish others for moral failure. We can prove that we were created (we're here), but we can't prove anything about the nature of God. Have you spoken to God?
Last edited by bulmabriefs144; 12-24-2014 at 01:06 AM..
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I guess atheists are idiots ...
