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Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@Homer
Why did your deity make chocolate poisonous for dogs?
That seems unnecessarily cruel....
Though given the behaviour assigned it in the bible perhaps it's to be expected...
@Sheldon
"That seems unnecessarily cruel...."
Or as Stephen Fry said to a churchman "Bone cancer in children. What's that about?"
So far neither Christians nor any other believers have been able to provide a rational explanation for the problem of evil.
--and for the intelligent designers. Seems there is an insect which defecates through its mouth,-----
Below a 2 minute clip of Stephen fry on God. Note the answer by the religionist .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo
This entire thread reminds me of John Oliver's Church!
God gives me his fruits. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ......
@Homer
1. Do you care if what you believe is actually true or does it not matter to you as long as those beliefs make you feel good?
If no, there is no point in continuing this "debate".
If Yes -
2. Do you think that faith is a pathway to the truth?
If no, then no use continuing.
If yes -
3. Do you understand that you can take anything on faith and different people take opposite views of the same thing on faith, in other words, sincere people take things on faith and it is impossible that all those things taken on faith are true?
If no, no use in continuing.
If Yes -
4. What makes your faith based beliefs true and the faith based beliefs of others false?
@Homer
Do you think it can ever be moral to torture a newborn baby to death?
I sure the heck hope you aren't looking for some sort of approval here.
@Homer: Careful Homer! Sheldon asked you a TRICK question. If you say "No" you are a filthy sinner who has denied your own god. If you say "Yes" you are an immoral bastard worthy of death yourself. You should avoid answering at all costs. Try something like..... um........ "Absolutely not, but God has perfect foreknowledge and if he killed anyone he did it out of love and for reasons you or I could not understand," Then finish it up with a question of your own. "Do you think you know the mind of god? He brought you into the world and he can take you out of the world. He has his own reasons that are beyond you and I. He works in mysterious ways."
I would make a much better Christian than you. Don't let Sheldon push you around. Stand up for your idiotic beliefs!
You don't think Sheldon would actually do what he's asking about, do you?
@Homer: We're Atheists, worthy of the pits of hell. We were made in the image of YOUR GOD. Anything he would do, we can do as well. (Nice sidestep: Instead of addressing the question directly, pretend that you did not even hear it and try to form an alliance with me.) Asshole move on your part! But then....... asshole moves is all you seem to know.
I'm pretty much an asshole for not playing into the trick question that your were an asshole enough to point out?
Where's my assholeometer?
@Homer: You don't have one. If you did you would not be trolling atheist sites.
@Hummer Re: "You don't think Sheldon would actually do what he's asking about, do you?"
We're not concerned about Sheldon's heathen beliefs and practices. According to your god he and the rest of us godless savages are already destined for the pits of hell. So what have we got to lose by doing whatever the fuck we want? We are concerned about how YOU (as a good godly Christian full of fruit) feel about such an act being committed against an innocent child. Such a simple damn question, but one you keep slipping and sliding around answering. How so very Christian of you.
Lol, ok, No I don't support the killing of newborn babies. Now please go ahead with whatever hypocrisy I have because somewhere a book that I don't completely agree with documents somebody doing it. I have faith in God, and I don't believe that God is what man has made God out to be. I think I've explained that. But go ahead and heap all the angst you all have against a religion and some of the people who practice it if it floats your boat.
@Homer
....*face palm*.... *groan*.... Wiggle-wiggle-wiggle... I expect nothing less.
@ Homer
So, let me get this right: You have a let a "man" into your head that you call god.
A man that only appears in a book you like and say is true in some parts but other bits you do not like and ignore.
This same book mentions other men with exactly the same amount of evidence for their existence (or more) that your "god" person has, who claimed to have the same god person guiding them...but...but you don't believe them either.
You think they are wrong. Even though they claim to be inspired by the same god thing in your head.
Hmm.... yet you behave "better" by your standards when you are conversing with this god thing in your head...the one you don't always agree with right? What happens when this god thing instructs you to do something you think is immoral?
I think I just went through the looking glass....curiouser and curiouser...
@Old Man Re: To Homer - "....yet you behave "better" by your standards when you are conversing with this god thing in your head...the one you don't always agree with right? What happens when this god thing instructs you to do something you think is immoral?"
Aw, c'mon, Old Man! That is just WAY too easy. Surely you can do better than THAT... *shaking head in disappointment*... It should be painfully obvious that our dear, kind, sweet, adorable Homer knows FAR better than his God what is right and wrong. Therefore, if his god instructs him to do something mean and nasty, Homer will simply ignore his god just like he does all the other inconvenient parts of the bible. Homer is focused only on those sweet and delicious fruits, man. He ain't got no time for reality. Leave him be and let him savor the fruity goodness of his god's blessings without having to bother with all that other god stuff that makes him uncomfortable.
(On a side note: It is difficult, though, to understand how he is able to eat anything with his head buried so far under the sand.)
@ TM
I am just waiting for that fucking rabbit with the pocket watch to come past then I can take my medec......COG! HAVE YOU BEEN SCREWING WITH MY MEDS AGAIN?
Re: Homer - "No I don't support the killing of newborn babies..... I have faith in God, and I don't believe that God is what man has made God out to be."
Oh, Shellllllllll-donnnnnn!... Hey! Sheldon!.... Looks like our dear Homer needs some edge-u-macation. Since god's torturing of an infant is one of your bailiwic, it is only fair that you do the honors.... *respectfully bowing away*...
You claimed that deity, Jesus, set a good moral example, yet disagree with that deity's laws, and actions?
In the bible (Exodus 21), the deity you asserted to be moral specifically and emphatically endorses slavery, something you think is unjustifiable.
In the bible that deity also tortured a newborn baby boy to death, causing it to suffer for 7 days before finally dying, and just because it was angered that the parents had conceived it in an adulterous affair. An odd set of priorities by any objective standard, and hardly a good moral example I'd have thought, to mention nothing of it committing and encouraging murder, ethnic cleansing, global genocide, and of course the sex trafficking of women and girl prisoners if they were virgins.
To name but a few...
So this deity you worship without a shred of objective evidence, is according to your own bible barbarically sadistic and cruel, an amoral megalomaniac on a power trip.
Yet you claim, without any evidence, that believing it is real increases your joy and happiness and makes you a better person?
I think you must be able to see why as an atheist, I'd find that a bizarre claim. Even if we allow the asinine idea that a perfectly moral deity "changed" from the cruel sadistic baby torturing mass murderer in the OT to gentle Jesus meek and mild, it was that Jesus, according to the bible, that introduced the notion of Hell, and torturing us after we die...forever, and of course that is the only consistent trait this trinity switch from deity to living son of deity, who is also that deity, shows us. A deity, that when angered that its pet humans ate some fruit it had placed in their way, but expressly forbade them to eat, was so angered it cursed every single human forever. Only offering a loophole when its son (also itself confusingly) was tortured to death in a blood sacrifice to vicariously atone for the consumed fruit.
None of that would add any joy or happiness to my life, were it true I'd be appalled.
Perhaps you can explain why the existence of this sadistic cruel and morally capricious deity makes you happy and adds joy to your life, because I'm not seeing it myself.
How many times have I replied to you now that I don't believe that a collection of ancient books of the plight of a people, documenting thousands of years of their legends, actions, and laws, many bad, all tied up together into a package is some sort of "Infallible Word of God"?
Yet you continue to try to tie that because I believe that Jesus was a good teacher that tried to show these people a better way, who I would like to believe was sent by God to do so, that somehow all the ills those people did and documented over those thousands of years were ordained and mandated by God in the first place!
I tend to believe those people made some grievous errors! You do a great job of outlining them!
@ Homer
so, your position (if it can even be called that) is exactly as I listed in my previous post right?
Hardly convincing.
Just saw your previous post, I apologize for not replying.
What I get when I pray in faith, the Joy, Patience, Self Control, etc is all good. It isn't contradictory like the Bible. I agree the Old Testament contains many actions made by people "In the name of God", that are absolutely wrong.
I never said I'm trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm trying to convey that not all people who believe in God believe that the Bible is some perfect tome.
@ Homer
Avoidance is quite an issue for you is it not?
Yes we know that the bible is not a perfect tome...or anthology... or even a vague history.
The main characters in its pages...even in the New Testament cannot be proven to have existed.
Yet you persist in a "faith" without a shred of evidence except your own musings....so why do you pretend that your delusions will work for others?
Someone else has offered better evidence?
@ Homer
Someone else has offered better evidence?
ermmm ... see our discussion, you have not offered any. You admit you have none.
You persist in unevidenced assertions.
Have you anything that could be described as anything but opinion?
No? then you are dismissed.
@ Homer
"Someone else has offered better evidence?"
There is no evidence.
He endorsed old testament laws that include endorsements of slavery, stoning children and demonising people who happened to be gay as abominations.
That might be your idea of a good teacher, it's not mine.
You claim to be a Christian so you can't simply wave the bible away without explanation, and as always this has to be water boarded out of you.
Do you believe the bible is simply errant nonsense? If you don't think its divinely inspired then why put any store it its claims about Jesus?
As Nyarl said, you seem to want to both have your cake, and eat it.
Are you saying your deity didn't encourage the Hebrews to commit a war of ethnic cleansing, even slaughtering babies, children, even pregnant women, sparing no one, not even their animals, all except virginal female prisoners who were kept as spoils to be trafficked as sex slaves?
Sid your deity not commit an act of global genocide by flooding the earth?
What do you make of the biblical claim your deity tortured a newborn baby to death over 7 days? The bible doesn't involve anyone else in the barbaric act?
Its be helpful if you explained what method you're using to determine biblical fact from biblical fiction?
Lol, so if I believe in a creator, and I believe that Jesus was a good teacher, I lose the ability to read a group of 66 books and discern what I believe to be BS, and what is not...
I guess the many Atheists who have read the Bible and claimed to have gotten some value out of it have some higher ability bestowed by disbelief.
I can still be skeptical of the Bible and believe in God no matter what you believe. I can look at every evil act and be skeptical that it actually came from God, just like you can look at it and doubt God's existence.
@Homer
Not sure what that has to do with my post tbh, and I can ONLY look at the bible and disbelieve in the deity it portrays. Though as a Christian I'm not sure subjectively jettisoning swathes of the bible is conducive to belief either, but if it floats your boat.
Now did you have any responses to my questions?
I'm saying I don't believe God presented though the Old Testament was not going around ordering any of those things, war, genocide, murder, etc. That much like people of today, some of those people seeked God while others used the name of God for their own purposes. I also happen to believe that Jesus taught a path to break that way and introduce a new one. He fulfilled their Old Testament "law" and presented something "New" in its place.
Sadly some people have taken Jesus' name and used it to do much the same since.
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