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thepyro222
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thepyro222
2,150 posts
Peasant

I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done.
I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please

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Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

What if both parties are willing?


Then I'd find it strange that the man would be required to pay if they each wanted to be together, but that's beside the point.

The law doesn't make a distinction between consensual sex and rape. It just says that if a man sleeps with a woman they must wed. Well, that applies to rape too. The problem is this oversight, which rewards the rapist and further victimizes the woman.

You'd think God would have made better laws, being omnipotent and all.
Fiends
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Fiends
114 posts
Peasant

Seems legit.

EmperorPalpatine
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EmperorPalpatine
9,439 posts
Jester

[I'm bringing over a relevant discussion topic from the Evaluate The Supernatural thread. The following quote is from MattEmAngel]

It only takes one ignorant person to start a fire war, regardless of whose side they are on. I'm a Christian (aka, a deist, which means I believe in the supernatural), and deists often end up with a bad rap as being illogical and arrogant thanks to a few people that do a terrible job of representing us. I once saw a very interesting article called "Seven things Christians and Atheists have to agree on." To my surprise, it was correct.
It's on Cracked and, although the text is way too small, it's worth a read. I suggest reading through this before debating too heavily. It'll keep everyone a lot more mature.


My main point of disagreement is that the author thinks that atheism is a belief system. ("1. You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One&quot There is no "In the name of atheism" in the same way that there is no "In the name of aleprechaunism/afairyism/aSteveism". There could be an antireligious policy under a secular government, but that has nothing to do with one's acceptance of a god claim, considering that some religions contain no god and would strongly disagree with such a policy.
Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

There is no "In the name of atheism"


There is and isn't. Someone can do something and say they did it in the name of atheism, but it wasn't atheism that they it for. They did it for the values they associate with atheism. Atheism itself is just the "no" answer to the question, "Do you have a belief in a supernatural entity?" Anyone who tries to attribute anything more to it than that doesn't understand what they're talking about.

I pretty much agree with EmperorPalpatine here though. The guy's bolded points were true, but his descriptions and examples of them were poor. His bit about morality for example, where he just assumes there's a universal morality and that atheists believe in this because they don't like getting scammed $80, thus they somehow are being hypocritical because there's no "morality particle" when all that shows is he doesn't have a good grasp of what morality actually is.
pangtongshu
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pangtongshu
9,808 posts
Jester

aSteveism


*a-Steve-ism
FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

The guy's bolded points were true, but his descriptions and examples of them were poor.


I would argue that even the bolded statements are, in many cases, incorrect. Sure "Both Sides Really Do Believe What They're Saying" and yes, by the conventional definition of the word good, "There Are Good People on Both Sides". The rest is vague and overly generalized, however.
Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

I would argue that even the bolded statements are, in many cases, incorrect.


Not really. They just have so little importance that they can be applied to any two diverging viewpoints.

Going over them individually.

1. You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One.


Mostly true. Anyone can do anything "in the name of something." It's entirely possible for a person to go out and kill a theist "in the name of atheism" because they want only atheists to exist. Likewise, I don't have to explain what's done in the name of religion by radicals.

2. Both Sides Really Do Believe What They're Saying


True, unarguably and axiomatically. People believe what they believe and what they believe puts them under that label.

3. In Everyday Life, You're Not That Different


Pretty much true, though the more religious one gets the more this differs. In your job, at the supermarket, driving to work, taking a vacation, talking with friends...well, there's going to be far more variation between individuals than an aggregate group of atheists vs theists.

4. There Are Good People on Both Sides


True. There are plenty of religious people (the majority) who do not use it to harm other people and do good things. There are plenty of atheists (the majority) who do not rage about religion all day long and do good things.

Though this one seems more for the theists, who commonly argue that atheists have no morals.

5. Your Point of View is Legitimately Offensive to Them


Okay, this one might be untrue. I don't find the idea of theism offensive. I don't know how many atheists do. I do know that a lot of religious people find it offensive to have it said that what they believe is not true, so I lean more towards this being true, because I know many atheists find religion offensive and I do as well.

6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy


Change exaggerate to generalize off extremists and this is 100% true. The idea itself is true.

7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too


Do I need to talk about how unrealistically people can view themselves and those in their group?

8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid


While I would argue that it makes you stupid, it certainly is intellectually dishonest to not look at the whole picture. Only talking about the good or bad of anything presents an unrealistic view.

9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table


Again, true. Atheists and theists are perfectly capable of doing good and contributing to knowledge and peace.

10. You'll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence


This is an observation of human nature. The more you try to repress something, the harder it holds on. "Harass" I take to mean not commit genocide but bother incessantly, so true.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

Been trying to get a straight answer on this one for a while.
If a religion is true, why do we not see people independently coming to the conclusions the religion espouses without first being exposed to that religion?

TheMostManlyMan
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TheMostManlyMan
5,835 posts
Chamberlain

Been trying to get a straight answer on this one for a while.
If a religion is true, why do we not see people independently coming to the conclusions the religion espouses without first being exposed to that religion?

I actually know someone who studied their way out of a denominational church and into the one that I attend.

[/rare appearance here]
TheMostManlyMan
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TheMostManlyMan
5,835 posts
Chamberlain

Please ignore that last post. I'm not sure how I managed to completely misunderstand that question.

MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

Please ignore that last post. I'm not sure how I managed to completely misunderstand that question.


No problem, least you caught it. Elsewhere where I've asked this pretty much exact same question I was accuse of engaging in an argument from ignorance. But yes someone researching the religion before joining it would be discounted.

I will share with you the most reasonable answer I've gotten so far. basically it was stated that God (from a Christian perspective) only revealed himself to a select few. A reasonable answer, though would one would wonder why it would be just people in around the same area who could hear the stories of this particular God.

Also if we are to take the Bible as 100% true and literal we run into a huge problem once we reach the tower of Babel story. This point in the Bible would have the worlds population having direct exposure to God within living memory and yet once God himself scatters all the people all over the world, they just seem to forget and come up with their own religions.

Of course not taking the story literally we can bypass that issue altogether. Also the question is open ended for any religion, not just Christianity and other Abrahamic beliefs.
nichodemus
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nichodemus
14,991 posts
Grand Duke

A reasonable answer, though would one would wonder why it would be just people in around the same area who could hear the stories of this particular God.


Spot on. Would be hard to come up with a reasonable answer as to why the Almighty only revealed Himself to some rather rustic folk in the Levant, but not to the more sophisticated societies at the time. The Chinese? No. The more advanced parts of the Roman Empire? No. Greece? No. Strange for me.
Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

If a religion is true, why do we not see people independently coming to the conclusions the religion espouses without first being exposed to that religion?


I'd like to take a shot at what (hopefully!) is a plausible answer. If we consider a particular faith to be an objective truth, then it should come as no surprise that a particular agent hadn't considered this point of view. It's (1) not immediately accessible like perceptual knowledge and (2) it's not something that's known a priori - that is, just by reflection alone.

Some might want to challenge (1), arguing that we see God's presence all around us - or something like that. But that's clearly not the sort of knowledge that (1) suggests. There is evidence all around us about many objective truths, but we only see it as evidence once we come to know that such-and-such is the case.

As for (2), despite many attempts of providing a purely reflective proof of God's existence, none of these arguments work. The best arguments, in fact, are ones that rely on how the world (and the universe) actually is. But more to the point, God did (according to the theist) reveal Himself. If His existence could be gleaned in a reflective manner, this gesture would then be unmotivated.

We can strengthen this point by considering our objective understanding of the universe from a purely physical point of view. We may have just a handful of people who possess the insight to understand the complex nature of reality. Others simply read their work and have that 'Aha!' moment when they come upon (what they take to be) the truth. So the fact that people don't independently reach conclusions about God doesn't take away from it being an objective matter of fact. If this were all it took, then we could reasonably question facts about biology, physics, astronomy, etc.

And this answer might also suffice for the follow-up question:

Would be hard to come up with a reasonable answer as to why the Almighty only revealed Himself to some rather rustic folk in the Levant, but not to the more sophisticated societies at the time.


This could be explained by referring again to those with particular insight about certain objective truths. Some people have it, and some don't. Perhaps God didn't want to attempt to inculcate His word in peoples who already had heavily indoctrinated beliefs. Or perhaps a select few had what John Calvin called a "sensus divinitatis" (awareness of divine presence) that others - whether through indoctrination or willful ignorance - lacked. Either way, the revelation of the Word might fit the model of how other objective and comparably complex truths are disseminated amongst a given population and the world.
HahiHa
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HahiHa
8,255 posts
Regent

Continuing along Moegreche's line of thought, why would the church feel the need to go and bother remote native populations with missionaries in order to "bring to them the Holy Word"? That means the pope doesn't assume that we all know about god.

However this nullifies a frequently used argument coming from many christians, that we are supposed to feel His presence, since they say he's omnipresent.
Or is that argument still partly valid for people who were told about the christian faith?

FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

Perhaps God didn't want to attempt to inculcate His word in peoples who already had heavily indoctrinated beliefs.


It seems to me like a very poor choice. Observations made by uneducated rustic folk would be the primary source of superstitious nonsense such as luck, clairvoyance, and various legends which are easily discredited. Sophistication does not necessarily preclude faith, so what merit could there be for a factual deity to exclude these people?

Continuing along Moegreche's line of thought, why would the church feel the need to go and bother remote native populations with missionaries in order to "bring to them the Holy Word"? That means the pope doesn't assume that we all know about god.


Most of these populations would have some form of religious belief. It just wouldn't be the correct "fresh from God's brain to your mouth" belief in the eye of the papacy.
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