It's funny how your almost never born atheist, you become atheist. I personally think the whole religion thing is far fetched. Why cant we just be dead after we die? Why does there HAVE to be an afterlife? Dont get me wrong i respect others decisions, I just don't believe in it, who's with me? I'm going to be some grass fertilizer one day And home to some maggots + worms.
I know people who read it all the time. I was in one's room when he was reading Timothy and he read through a part where it basically read "women need to stfu and just make babies" and he was like "I don't think I agree w/ that....." and kept reading... still reads it... and is oddly enough what you guys would call more "holier than thou" after the fact... he's not the only one I know that way either.
Then he's not following what the Bible says then is he?
nope... but then again his interpretation of things has never been direct. I think its more along the lines of thinking some parts no longer apply... or are outdated... or were just put there b/c of who it was that wrote it
since some texts have been left out and the canon we have now is incomplete w/ that regard there's no way of knowing the full story of what has been written and said. ...or what has been put there for promoting some unseen agenda (like male dominance) by people who may or may not have been legitimately writing the word of God. I think that even you have talked about the bible changing from dead sea scrolls to now before... some people accept the fact that some people could've altered things from the original to promote their own agendas
I can see how you would say its either a 100% direct interpretation or you're not Christian... but for some of us, we just view the overall message as "be a benevolent force in the world, and abstain from being a negative one." Anyone smart enough can justify anything in anyway they want to and it have a plausible chance of being a valid viewpoint. ...ie how can you really know if someone is moral until they disagree w/ what the popular opinion says is an all powerful entity and acts against what it says? moral of the story is... for those of us who hold to the belief of a deity and acknowledge the possibility of corruption of the documents by people over the years we have to take everything w/ a grain of salt and find our own way with what we think is the best path
if that means that we must project our own morality onto the bible (ie your convo w/ samy a while back) then that's what we're left with ...as strictly following something that has been shown to have changed over time is the more flawed of the two mindsets.
then your counter is... "well an all powerful deity wouldn't allow its stuff to change then would it???"
I think we've addressed that before... there's no way of knowing what a being of those parameters would do. and there's also the argument of free will... freedom to choose and do as we may... neither of which are perfect arguments.
I think that since Christianity is based around the idea of the bible being holy a true christian should be a fundamentalist and any others are trying and failing to cling to their faith
I disagree qwerty. It seems to me like sonatavaris is right about this. Jesus wanted christians to lve and care for people. And being a fundamentalist won't really allow that to happen. Besides I'm pretty sure the world prefers the regular over the fundalmentalist. We shouldn't take everything in the bible as ultimate law because it was written by humans. And, humans do make mistakes. So it wouldn't be wise to compleatly follow something if it has mistakes to it.
I can see how you would say its either a 100% direct interpretation or you're not Christian... but for some of us, we just view the overall message as "be a benevolent force in the world, and abstain from being a negative one." Anyone smart enough can justify anything in anyway they want to and it have a plausible chance of being a valid viewpoint.
That's just it though. You've simply interpreted it to mean that we are to be a benevolent force and have ignored all the parts where it would have us be a malevolent one.
if that means that we must project our own morality onto the bible (ie your convo w/ samy a while back) then that's what we're left with ...as strictly following something that has been shown to have changed over time is the more flawed of the two mindsets.
Actually I was going to say that if such a being exists and that beings words have been altered by us, then we no longer have that beings words.
I think we've addressed that before... there's no way of knowing what a being of those parameters would do. and there's also the argument of free will... freedom to choose and do as we may... neither of which are perfect arguments.
If these texts are the only source telling us this being exists and it's flawed to the point we can't even tell what this being actually wants how can we use it to determine such a being exists?
I think that since Christianity is based around the idea of the bible being holy a true christian should be a fundamentalist and any others are trying and failing to cling to their faith
From wiki
"A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament."
Based on the above definition being fundamentalist is not required.
That's just it though. You've simply interpreted it to mean that we are to be a benevolent force and have ignored all the parts where it would have us be a malevolent one.
I disagree qwerty. It seems to me like sonatavaris is right about this. Jesus wanted christians to lve and care for people. And being a fundamentalist won't really allow that to happen. Besides I'm pretty sure the world prefers the regular over the fundalmentalist. We shouldn't take everything in the bible as ultimate law because it was written by humans. And, humans do make mistakes. So it wouldn't be wise to compleatly follow something if it has mistakes to it.
But how do you know what jesus wanted since all you know is in a book which you agree was full of human mistakes so you don't know whether what you know is right or not. And if it was all inspired by god it should be right anyway.
"A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament."
Based on the above definition being fundamentalist is not required.
OK but then what IS the point of the bible then. If it is holy it should be true and since it's not true why should it be holy. And if it is not holy what is christianity based on.
What about religions that people don't believe anymore? People did have religions in the past which are outcasted today, because, what, they seemed crazy? Unlike they're own? Religion is a false sense of hope, that all is well, nothing bad will happen to you or something in that sense.
Well each culture had its own religion thousands of years ago since no one knew how the world was made so gods sounded best and some clever guy invented religion and added stuff like tithing to give him power. Then nations like the Romans conquered countries and converted them to the roman religion which changed to christianity which many people turned to as it din't need sacrifices and atheism wasn't seen as a viable option. And Islam spread too and Hinduism etc until all the pagan religion were either eradicated or very few people believed in them any more.
Yeah i agree with people saying that you arent born atheist, you become one.
How are you not born Atheist? This implies that you are born of a specific faith. One has to become introduced to a faith and converted for he/she to be of said faith. You cannot be born into a faith because one cannot understand the principles of the faith when they are born. They can be born into a faithful family, but you cannot be born faithful. With this, a baby cannot be born believing X or Y. Philosophically, a baby is born believing nothing. Why should one who is born be focused on believing a principle when its main objective is to ensure its survival?
Yeah i agree with people saying that you arent born atheist, you become one.
No people are born agnostic and labeled with their parents religion and parents tell their child that their religion is the right one which results in childhood indoctrination. This makes it hard to break away from your religion. Until I was about 9 I always thought I was a Hindu because most of my family is Hindu even though I didn't even really know much about Hinduism apart from knowing a bit about a few gods. You can't truly decide on a religion until you can think properly about it. This is heavily influenced by childhood indoctrination.
No people are born agnostic and labeled with their parents religion and parents tell their child that their religion is the right one which results in childhood indoctrination.
They are agnostic atheists. They possess no knowledge of any god thus hold no belief in any god.
They are agnostic atheists. They possess no knowledge of any god thus hold no belief in any god.
But what atheism, or at least what I consider atheism, is is having decided that God does not exist. A baby doesn't know anything about God and so doesn't know if it exists or not which makes it an agnostic.
