Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Negative and ridiculing views about God and faith say more about the skeptic than anything else. They are like a spotlight on what is inside the mind of the skeptic.
Now here we go ...
More armchair psychology.
And you got your degree in analytical psychology from ... which school, again? Can I read your dissertation?
Otherwise, no, Ozzy, you don't have the slightest idea what is going on inside my mind unless I *let* you know.
What you're saying is that if anyone ridicules God and faith, then there is something wrong with them. Which, in turn, is a throwback to the "good ol' days" of religion when it had a privileged place in our society. No one but no one was allowed to express so much as a mild criticism of these harmful and poisonous beliefs and instead we had to at least *act* as if religion was sacred, holy, untouchable, and beyond reproach. Religion was supposed to be above criticism, analysis, mockery, and ridicule because - how DARE you mock, ridicule, or even criticize religion. The TRUTH!
Well, Ozzy, my buddy old pal. Those days are over. No longer does religion get to sit on its high pedastal, completely out of reach of we filthy, heathenistic, baby-eating atheists. Now we get to say just how we really feel about these crazy beliefs - and yet, even still, we can only say them safely on the internet where anonymity protects us from the backlash of zealots and fanatics who would do their best to wreck our lives for daring to speak our minds and exercise our rights.
Fact is, Ozzy - we're not going to treat religion, *any* religion - as if it has the truth and thus is utterly unassailable. For, by placing religion off-limits to skepticism and criticism, what that says is that religion really IS the truth and therefore one cannot argue with it. Religion attempts to win the argument simply by shaming those who dare to argue. What a cheap and cheesy way to claim victory, no?
But now that larger and larger numbers of people are dropping religion - especially the 3 Abrahamic religions - it's getting harder and harder to defend your position, isn't it.
This has nothing to do with what's inside my head. It has everything to do with the same old "shut up and sit down" mentality that atheists are supposed to adopt. "Just sit over there in the corner, be quiet, and don't touch anything. Let us believers wreck the country without your inferference."
Why do atheists spend their time daily arguing about the characteristics of something they claim doesn't exist?
Why do believers waste their time daily praying to, worshiping, genuflecting to, and adoring something that doesn't exist?
By the way - even if God doesn't himself exist, people still believe he does. And then they make decisions based on that belief. They vote for assinine pollitical candidates because of that belief.
"Why yes, I'm going to vote for the most stupid, least qualified, less educated, candidate with a school yard bully narcissistic personality - all because he might criminalize abortion!! Doesn't matter if the rest of the country goes down in flames or even if Los Angeles is nuked thanks to Kim Jung-un ... what are 10 million lives compared to no more abortion!!"
Yeah, that's the kind of nonsense we have to put up with thanks to people believing in a non-existant god-being that grants morality as an authoritative dictate - while believers simultaneously think have a monopoly on objective morality. LOL!
My point, as I've said a thousand times, is that it doesn't matter if God is real. What matters is that too many people *think* he's real. The concept of Yahweh is just as dangerous, if not more so, than the actual god himself. Therefore, we argue vehemently against the *concept* of God even though God himself doesn't exist.
Life is a gift. The creator has every right to take back that life at any moment especially if we are doing harm to others. If someone created a robot that went off on a mass murdering spree, you wouldn't claim the inventor is immorable for destroying his creation and stopping the killing.
Except we're not robots. We're thinking, feeling, sentient creatures. As such, only a creature of pure evil would think he has a right to simply murder anyone for any reason whatsoever.
And then believers wonder why we're atheists. Why would we want to worship a thug like that even if he *did* exist? Who wants to live under the dictatorial control of a genocidal murderer who could thumb you out of existence entirely simply because he woke up on the wrong side of bed? Do you know who else had to live that way? Anyone locked inside of a Nazi concentration camp, never knowing if you're going to be shot by the commandant simply because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Not only that, but how can you possibly rectify the contradiction of having a good, loving, forgiving, compassionate god as opposed to a god that beliefs it has the RIGHT to wantonly murder? What's worse is that this is not some kind of "what if" proposition - because God was the most murderous being in all of human history all throughout the Old Testament.
And for no other reasons than to a) get his way, b) help the Hebrews, and c) facilitate a massive landgrab that resulted in the deaths - no, the genocide - of millions, most of whom were innocent women and children who did nothing wrong.
This is the problem when you believe in such a god.
If you believe that your god has the right to kill you whenever he wants - and for any reason, couldn't it safely be said that your god has a right to lie to you as well? A right to deceive you?
Which means you really have NO idea if anything you believe is true. How do you know there's even an afterlife? How do you know you'll go to Heaven? How do you know that Heaven is a paradise? For all you know, god is lying - using the carrot to keep humanity in line while they live yet has NO intention of giving his creation (which he obviously hates down to his core) an eternal reward?
Bottom line is that you simply cannot believe that a god can commit any crimes and atrocities he wishes to while remaining a good, loving, forgiving, omnibenevolent god. This is why you people get accused of cognitive dissonance all the time. You're literally holding two contradicting premises at the same time. It's like saying water is both wet and dry at the same time. Or someone is both tall and short simultaneously.
It has to be ONE of those things - just like God either has to be a genocidal mass murderer who hates humanity. OR. God is a loving, tender, kind, compassionate ruler who cares deeply for humanity.
But he can't be BOTH. No matter how much you want him to be.
And what makes your robot analogy even more nonsensical is that I'm not infallible and perfect. But if I were, I would make a robot that was incapable of going on a mass-murdering spree. If I didn't want my robot to kill a lot of people, why would I create a robot who even *could* do that?
Yet here we have a robot created by an infallible, perfect being who cannot be wrong - and this robot is going on a mass-murdering spree. So. Why did the robot malfunction? DID it malfunction at all? Because IF god is truly infallible and perfect, then the robot should not have gone off the rails and started killing. Unless god *wanted* it to. Thus, however humans may act, it was what god wanted all along yet Christians act as though we're in some stupid state of rebellion against god. Uh, no. If we, the so-called robots, go on a killing spree, then there are only two choices:
a) God created us to go on a killing spree - which means our actions are not really our own fault no matter how much we're told they are.
b) God is an incompetent, pathetic creator who managed to make an entire species of killer robots - by accident. And despite being omnipotent and able to solve any problem in any way he wishes, the only solution this bumbling fool could think of was blood, death, and genocide.
"There's only one thing worse than a despot, and that is a blundering despot." - Simon Schama
Oh, I know, I've heard the argument: "But god doesn't want a bunch of robots, he gave us free will to choose him voluntarily." So what. If I were an infallible, perfect being that cannot make mistakes, I would have created humanity with enough free will to make their own decisions - but only up to a point. I would NEVER give humanity unlimited free will, and I certainly would not give them so much rope that they end up hanging themselves.
In other words, I would give them enough free will to make their own choice to come to me willingly - but I would never give them the free will to tick me off enough that I brought death and sin into the world, then get ticked off that humans sin and then wipe them out in a global genocide.
That is INCOMPETENCE! It's as if god thought it would be a super keen idea to punish humanity for one bite of the apple with sin, disease, death, and being expelled from Eden. Only to find out later that his own punishment has run amok within humanity, gaining far more influence over Man than even god had predicted, leaving god no choice than to wipe out everyone but 8 people.
Apparently you have no conception of how incredibly careless and stupid such an action was - and for an omniscient, all-powerful, and perfect being - well - there is absolutely no excuse. At all. None.
Which is why the last thing I want to do with my gift - my very temporary gift - is to waste it by worshiping make-believe gods.
We get to define our own purpose in this life. If people have chosen to define their purpose by worshiping (in whatever way) a god that they believe exists, wouldn't you agree that it is not a waste for them?
We get to define our own purpose in this life. If people have chosen to define their purpose by worshiping (in whatever way) a god that they believe exists, wouldn't you agree that it is not a waste for them?
Hmm - I'm not entirely sure about that.
It would really depend on how voluntary the choice is.
It would really depend on how voluntary the choice is.
That's a good distinction. But even that is something the person themselves would have to determine.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
