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TheDude42
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TheDude42
1,026 posts
Nomad

Before you comment on this, keep in mind that:
1. Prepare to read a loooong wall of text. No summaries are availible, and I would consider this post worth reading.
2. Please put some thought into your posts. No one-line responses.
3. In this topic I will not be using facts, but instead philosophy. I'm giving science and statistics a break, for now.

Lately, Ive been seeing a lot of arguments that go like this:
Christian: God exists
Atheist: Oh yeah? Creationism is the stupidist idea I've heard of.
Christian: I believe god made the Big Bang.
Atheist: The Big Bang had no cause. YouTube says so.
Christian: But I know a story where someone was protected by God! Search it on google!
*cue flamewar*

Those kinds of topics usually go on and on, but to no avail. Both sides never give up, and keep arguing. Has anyone actually switched religions after reading those topics? Since I've decided it's useless debating over Gods existence, in this topic I will try to shed light on Christianity from an atheists point of view.

First off, I would like to point out some misconceptions about Christians. We do not all believe in creationism. I agree that creationism is flawed. But you athists take the Bible too literally. The first part of Genesis is basically trying to say that God created everything. Also, not all Christians believe you have to be Christian to go to heaven. I do not, I believe it all depends on having good morals. However, it is harder for atheists to go to heaven because they have no one to ask for forgiveness. Along with that, keep in mind that not every Christian is like GodsHolyKnight. He was more like your typical 15th century Christian, taking every passage in the bible literally.

But is Christianity really that bad? Yes, it has started many a war, but every religion occaisionally goes awry. And while it is easy to find the death toll of a war, it is hard to find how many lives something has saved. Religions have spurred the inspiration behind civilizations, which not only kept people together, but lead to progress and inventions. After all, the Rennesaince (sorry for the bad spelling) was caused in part by a boost in Christian faith. In comparison, wars have only been a small setback. And even if Christianity has had a rough history, keep in mind that 99% of Christians did not support Adolf Hitler or control troops in the Crusades or chop the heads of non-believers, keep in mind that some of the least talked about Christians had the best morals and had a good heart. And those who tried to convert may have killed, but they converted people from more barbaric and less moral-based beliefs. The philosophy and lessons of Jesus are good, and that's what really matters. Admit it, some of your morals are derived from the Bible.

And why do I believe in God, with science stacked up against me? Truth be told, I admit science is on your side. And the universe is made up of science, so in theory God doesn't exist, right? Wrong. God created the universe, thus He is outside of it. So, universal laws do not apply to Him (He is, after all, GOD). And while there is no proof of God, I am somehow still sure He exists. I respect the fact that you are atheist (if you are), but I think you focus too much on science.

Finally, I have seen that most atheists think religious people are gullible. While most people do not think their religion over enough, I have of late. After reading all of the arguments in this forum, I have dug deeper for reasons to believe, and come out an even stronger Catholic. Ironically, some of my worst enimies on this site have helped me the most. However, I have gotten more tense in my arguments, which is why I will be taking a break from this forum.

In conclusion, most of you are too focused on science, and need to learn how Christianity is good, whether you are Christian or not.

Discuss your opinon on my post and Christianity in general. 

  • 122 Replies
Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

TheDude42:

In the OP you mentioned that you're Catholic, and yet you don't believe that you have to be Christian to go to heaven. Yet Catholics believe that without baptism and holy communion, no one can get into heaven. This is a major doctrine of Catholicism that you're just outright rejecting.
This seems to me to be quite an inconsistency of belief, and yet it's something that's quite common among Christians of all types. But isn't what defines someone who follows a religion their acceptance of that religion's basic doctrines? I would argue that you can't be a Catholic and reject the importance of the holy sacraments for salvation.
And this is why I have a problem with Christianity. It has evolved over time to look less ridiculous in the face of contrary scientific evidence. The Bible itself has been interpreted and reinterpreted in order to be more "relevant" to contemporary knowledge, experience and needs. It just all seems ad hoc.
I don't think there can be such a thing as overreliance on science. I mean, what are the actual effects of relying too heavily on scientific theory?
As far as taking the bible "too literally," why would God inspire people to write things that He didn't mean? And if it's that open to interpretation, how on earth can we know what's right?
The simple fact is that when science and religion butt heads, it is science that generally wins. That's why we have crazy theories like Creationary Evolution - to try to make the theist's position more tenable.
If the word of God can be revised to mesh with the word of scientists, it would seem like the role that God plays in our lives is constantly being diminished.

xyishere
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xyishere
32 posts
Nomad

I feel that the bible is having i smaller role in the lives of common people because they are becoming smarter.

parrot657
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parrot657
896 posts
Nomad

I am atheist, and I'm completely all right with religious people (unless the ones like godshollyknight).
Actually, I'd love to have a religion, someone to rely on, a comforting explanation of what happens after death, and all that kind of stuff, but my mind keeps bumping and telling me that it is not real, and I have to believe my mind because.....it's me :P.
So, yeh, religion is allright, unless it causes stuff like the crusades and world war II stuff, in which christians were not involved (or not in general).
In other words, if you are christian it's allright, if you are muslim it's allright to me and like that to every religion, but I don't like to be told that I will burn in hell if I don't believe in god, and that kind of stuff.

Nurvana
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Nurvana
2,520 posts
Farmer

[/quote]as far as taking the bible "too literally," why would God inspire people to write things that He didn't mean? And if it's that open to interpretation, how on earth can we know what's right?
The simple fact is that when science and religion butt heads, it is science that generally wins. That's why we have crazy theories like Creationary Evolution - to try to make the theist's position more tenable.
If the word of God can be revised to mesh with the word of scientists, it would seem like the role that God plays in our lives is constantly being diminished.[quote]

Many books of the Bible are figurative, to represent something greater. And just because we have atheists saying "fail" on a website forum means that science is winning. Which brings up another "disturbing" thought, that atheists represent themselves as science, when there is no giant contrast between evidence for either on science's part. When you go outside into the real world, Theism and atheism isn't really a huge debate issue. If you think science wins it all, check out Ben Stein vs. that Dawkins guy.

cowmaster1
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cowmaster1
676 posts
Shepherd

Yet Catholics believe that without baptism and holy communion, no one can get into heaven.


if you have to chance to be baptized and have holy communion, maybe. there is no thing saying that you can go to heaven if and only if you are baptized and have recieved holy communion.

This seems to me to be quite an inconsistency of belief


where as you have no belief?

As far as taking the bible "too literally," why would God inspire people to write things that He didn't mean


Because humans wrote, there are going to be mistakes in it

The simple fact is that when science and religion butt heads, it is science that generally wins.


in what, chemistry?
thisisnotanalt
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thisisnotanalt
9,821 posts
Farmer

1. Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.
2. The Universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.
\\

Kirby, I will now proceed to give you a fact-check.

The Universe began when time began - there was no time before the Big Bang. We cannot apply our current knowledge of causation and time, sequence of events, etc. to the beginning of the Universe, because there is now time and there was no time then. The Big Bang did not have to have a beginning because then there was no beginning, or end. It was just . . . there. It couldn't have had a cause, because cause did not exist back then.

So, the origin of the Universe is still unexplained, but in a different way. There is no definite need for there to be a god in the equation. Or for there to be any equation.

Something OUTSIDE and INFINETE outside of the universe had to cause the Big Bang. Something can't just cause itself.


Read above.


Dude42, that was the shortest wall of text EVUR EVAR EVIR.


Anyway, I follow a good deal of the morals in the Bible - care for the poor, be kind to all, eat all parts of the sacrificial animal excluding the testicles and blo- whoops, got too far on my list there. >_>



I am honestly still deciding what I believe in on the terms of theism. So I'm pretty much in the middle of agnosticism, atheism and religiousness because I'm still unsure of what to believe in. So I'm liek, ttly unbiased and stuff. I can argue either side. if I want to.
Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

The Universe began when time began


Time began when we say it did, because time is a concept. Time is relevant.

This is what I have come to. People from thousands of years ago were frightend by many things they did not understand, so they developed a system to control their fear. That system is religion, it gives a purpose, no need for real answers, and you can turn to it whenever because who's to say it doesnt exist? Now, sceince has explained the majority of things that people in the past could not have. Religion is out of date, as using sticks is now out of date to automatic guns.
thisisnotanalt
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thisisnotanalt
9,821 posts
Farmer

Time began when we say it did, because time is a concept. Time is relevant.


Time is relative to space. When space was decompressed into our Universe, time went with it. Before the Big Bang, there was no time because time was all contained in the singularity. Afterwards, there was. Time is more than just a concept, it's a phenomenon. Postmodernism is a concept. Time is not a concept.

I do think it would've been more accurate to say that 'time began when the Universe began' instead of what I said though.
thisisnotanalt
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thisisnotanalt
9,821 posts
Farmer

*Time is not JUST a concept

AS in, it is both a concept and a phenomenon.

CharlieD
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CharlieD
60 posts
Nomad

A. God exists, I pray you will realize this.
B. Please ignore angry Christians, their fools.
C. I'm a Christian but I know being angry at you is one of the worst things I can do.
D. On behalf of all Christians I apologize if we have offended or hurt you.
E. Science and religion can coexist, I would love to expand on this if you would like to hear more but there's a lot to say.
F. If you ever feel inspired to talk to a Christian, I would highly recommend going to a priest because he will be the most understanding and the least "YOU NEED TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN NOW", seriously.
G. It's healthy to question religion in general.
H. It would be more logical for the universe to not exist than exist (think about it), proving the truth isn't always the most logical possibility.
I. Although it probably doesn't mean much to you, I'll be praying for you, may your day be blessed.

Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

if you have to chance to be baptized and have holy communion, maybe. there is no thing saying that you can go to heaven if and only if you are baptized and have recieved holy communion.

Catholicism is a Doctrinal Exclusivist religion. It's extremely clear that, according to Catholicism, anyone who is not baptized and receives holy communion will go to hell. Remember that whole deal a few years ago when Catholics upped the age of infants who would be sent to hell if unbaptized? They take it very seriously. So, yes there is something saying that you can go to heaven if and only if you are baptized, etc.

where as you have no belief?

That's not even an argument, so I'm not going to address it directly, but simply point out again:
If you call yourself a Catholic but don't accept the most basic doctrines of that faith, then that's pretty inconsistent.

Because humans wrote, there are going to be mistakes in it

So you're going to tell me that humans messed up the Genesis story so badly that they got confused as to how long it took God to make the earth? Creationary evolutions reject the entire creation story as simply mythological. Sure a word here and there, but an entire book? It's clearly been reinterpreted in contemporary theism.

in what, chemistry?

I don't think religion has much to say about chemistry. But before Newton came along, people thought that a ball would stop rolling if you pushed it because God actually intervened and stopped it. Newtonian physics explained the force of friction, and the theistic idea was rejected.
People thought that God could spontaneously create certain animals like mice and maggots. We now know this is false, thanks again to science.
There are so many examples in history of theistic explanations being tossed in favor of scientific ones. My point still stands: when science and religion butt heads, historically religion loses.
314d1
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314d1
3,817 posts
Nomad

Wow. You just were very hipocratical in that opining statement. You pretended to have that arguement, then used the arguement "God exist becase he does" in the part were you said science was on aithiest's side. God isn't real, your facts even stated that...

deserteagle
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deserteagle
1,633 posts
Nomad

1. Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.
2. The Universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.


why does it have to have a beginning? I personally think that the universe/mulitverse is timeless. It is a endless cycle of infinity of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

Something OUTSIDE and INFINETE outside of the universe had to cause the Big Bang. Something can't just cause itself.


Agreed. For every reaction there is an equal opposite reaction.
For every Big Bang in the multiverse, there is an equal opposite Big Crunch. The multiverse is infinite and isn't outside of our universe; but rather our universe makes up the multiverse.
HiddenDistance
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HiddenDistance
1,310 posts
Peasant

But you athists take the Bible too literally.


Well, to explain this, here's why I took the bible literally when I read it.

Christian belief (and also Jewish belief) is entirely based off of the bible; the former in the old and new testaments, the latter just in the old testament. Now, from the book we are to believe that this is the word of god. I'm familiar that not all religious people feel that way, and that they feel some passages are meant to be not interpreted literally, or that some of the passages don't apply to modern life, but what you're doing here is picking and choosing rather then taking the whole book to heart. There's also the argument that it was written by men, and men can make mistakes when writing down what god had to say. Here's the problem with all of this - if we're to pick and choose, or if we can't trust parts of the bible, how are we to know which parts are *really* accurate and what parts are not? Which rules should we follow as rules, and which are just... mild suggestions? The bible has to be either entirely the true and holy word of god, with what is entailed within as undeniably the tenets of the faith, or... it's not.

But is Christianity really that bad?


At it's core? No. The problem is with the people that practice it & try to force it onto people through lobby groups and the government; or just plain intimidation, violence, & bigotry. If people had faith in a religion privately and weren't so keen on preaching it and forcing it on other people, I doubt I would much care about it. Unfortunately, groups & government leaders try to push a religious agenda with no secular backing on the populace, and that really pisses me off. Either that, or in cases where they have referendums on issues that are basic human rights, and religious voters wind up oppressing the rights of the minority.

Admit it, some of your morals are derived from the Bible.


Morality wasn't around before the bible? Scores of civilizations with no access to the bible developed in their own way & still managed to figure out that murder, stealing, and a ton of other crimes were bad things. There's no morality I subscribe to that could not have been gained from any other facet of human development and civilization without the bible. Sorry, but this point just doesn't stack up.

God created the universe, thus He is outside of it. So, universal laws do not apply to Him (He is, after all, GOD).


1. Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.
2. The Universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.
Something OUTSIDE and INFINETE outside of the universe had to cause the Big Bang. Something can't just cause itself.


It's a cute idea, but Kalam cosmology just doesn't work, and it all fails on point number 1:

Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.

What you really should be saying here is:

The universe that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.

There are hypotheses that work on a cyclical model, or the Hartle-Hawking state model to name a couple which would argue against this. But, using that same postulate:

The universe that has a beginning has a cause.
The universe began.
The universe had a cause.

So, in your argument, either this means the universe did not begin, or did begin and has 'god' to thank for that. In the Kalam argument theists always turtle on the subject of 'god' needing to be created by having special conditions that exempt god from logic and reasoning and causality, and it makes it a very hollow argument indeed.

So, we have either:

The universe is eternal, and has always been here.
The universe was created by a god that is eternal and has always been here.

Why add the extra step with no evidence for a god? in the OP, even TheDude42 claims:

Truth be told, I admit science is on your side.


And this is where it all boils down to the crucial point:

And while there is no proof of God, I am somehow still sure He exists.


This is faith. This is the reason why people *really* believe. It's not because the evidence leads you to believe in a god; it's not because arguments or hypotheses make more sense, it's plain old faith - belief without evidence. I do have a problem when theists try to use science to justify something that has no scientific justification.

Enjoy the break; take it easy.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

Lately, Ive been seeing a lot of arguments that go like this:
Christian: God exists
Atheist: Oh yeah? Creationism is the stupidist idea I've heard of.
Christian: I believe god made the Big Bang.
Atheist: The Big Bang had no cause. YouTube says so.
Christian: But I know a story where someone was protected by God! Search it on google!
*cue flamewar*


I usually find the conversation going more like this.
Theist: God exists.
Atheist: Prove it.
Theist: Ignores statement or says prove he doesn't exist.

If ignored
Theist: Theory X doesn't make any sense be cause it says in the Bible God did this.
Atheist: shows validity of theory.
Theist: Ignore evidence
*flaming war*

If prove it reply
Atheist: Your making the claim it's up to you to provide the evidence.
Theist: God exists
*Rinse repeat first line until flame war starts*

This usually leads at some point during all this to the atheist calling something the theist believes stupid.

...Hey wait was that Youtube bit about me? :P

I agree that creationism is flawed. But you athists take the Bible too literally.


Keep in mind I don't really believe the Bible. It become very difficult and convoluted to figure out how each individual person is interpreting passage X, especially when dealing with apologists who often seem to reinterpret things on the spot (move the goal post). So when I use Bible quotes all I can do is take what is written at face value.

I have found the theist will often take a passage at face value if it has something positive to say but anything negative has to be interpreted or gets completely ignored at times.

The philosophy and lessons of Jesus are good, and that's what really matters. Admit it, some of your morals are derived from the Bible.


No I don't get my morals from the Bible. I personally think the Bible is a rather poor place to get morals. Yes it does have some good moral points Such as "Thou shall not kill" or the Golden rule " do un to others as you would have them do un to you" (I don't remember the exact passage off hand). Now using these two as an example it then repeatedly says to do the exact opposite, such as saying all those who sleep with the same sex should be put to death or how slavery. It does this to the extent that one has to cherry pick through the Bible for morals, resulting in cases like "God Hates F**s".

Finally, I have seen that most atheists think religious people are gullible. While most people do not think their religion over enough, I have of late.


I don't think gullible has come to mind, ignorant and lacking critical thinking skills has though.

I'm glad you have think over your religion. I'm not sure if this is what you mean but I think it important to question ones own beliefs.

For me it lead to becoming an atheist. When I really looked closely and compared what I thought was true to reality I found I just couldn't justify what I believed with just a feeling regardless of how much I wanted what I believed to be true.

For others apparently such as in your case it leads to a deeper belief in the theistic view.

Something OUTSIDE and INFINETE outside of the universe had to cause the Big Bang. Something can't just cause itself.


1. Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause.
2. The Universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.


why does it have to have a beginning? I personally think that the universe/mulitverse is timeless. It is a endless cycle of infinity of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.


Something from nothing may have just been the case. Apparently we are finding in quantum physics that nothing is an unstable state that can't really exist in our reality as such something has to fill it.

To save myself some typing and going back over what is already stated I will refer you to FireflyIV's post on page 1, Moegreche's post on page 2, and Alt and Moegreche's posts on page 3.
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