Do themes such as Satanism or Anti-Christianity Affect Your Metal Preferences?

[Carcassian]

I give up.

 

[Demilich]

The people who piss me off the most are the AIDS carriers who knowingly infect others just because they're pissed off that they're going to die or they don't care or whatever. Fuck them.

 

[Hatebreeder]

If God is all powerful and all benevolent, why does he make life a bitch? Why doesn't he make it perfect?

HUMANS make life a bitch. Through their selfish ways, man has crafted a world society that has pitfalls, especially the imbalance of wealth. There's enough money in the world to go around, but the rich have squandered that wealth on unnecessary earthly pleasures and ignored the poverty in the world.

GOD is not responsible for any of the bad things that happen. MAN is. God allows them to happen because WE are irreponsible with the things he gives us.

 

[The Heartbreak Kid]

Hey, wanna stop sounding like a commie, and about sharing the wealth.

 

[Hatebreeder]

Hey, wanna stop sounding like a commie, and about sharing the wealth.

Hell, I think the capitalism regime is great, but I'm trying to show people that every great thing has its downfalls.

 

[Under The Oak]

What evidence do you have for God? And by evidence I don't mean "I look around me and I see such articulate and complex intricacy and the only solution I can possibly conjure is that of an intelligent designer."

Because abiogenesis has never been observed or validated and is more like religion than it is science. The Second Law of Thermodynamics also doesn't help the Big Bang theory, though I wouldn't say it contradicts it. So yes, I do look at the world around me, the way it works, and I think it's unlikely that it would've come from anything but a Creator. Whether you accept it as evidence or not doesn't matter, and I won't go into great detail because your responses don't seem that worthy of my time.

And as for the whole "why do bad things happen to good people" - that's what makes me a bit of a skeptic of Christianity. You have to live with the cards you're dealt though, as cold as that may sound, but I don't think it's right to so quickly assume that people who are born handicapped or striken with AIDS are evidence against a benevolent God. The fact is that none of us have all the answers, and telling someone that it was random chance that nature selected them to be sick or crippled is no better than telling them God made them that way.

 

[Demilich]

So yes, I do look at the world around me, the way it works, and I think it's unlikely that it would've come from anything but a Creator.

1) Did the world around you pass down to you all the dogma, guilt, hypocrisy and blood in which the history of your faith is steeped? I ask because it seems more likely that this was all the product of people using their influence to brainwash the masses into extending their faith from belief in a Creator to belief in a specific deity and all the trappings that come with Him.

2) How is it unlikely that "anything but a Creator" is responsible for our existence when you can't possibly be aware of all the possibilities any more than anyone with such limited frame of reference as a few decades of existence on this earth?

 

[Hatebreeder]

What evidence do you have for God? And by evidence I don't mean "I look around me and I see such articulate and complex intricacy and the only solution I can possibly conjure is that of an intelligent designer."

That's like me saying "alright, explain to me how the world came to be without using evolution/the Big Bang and all that shit". Hell, evolution isn't even a law, and Darwin himself wasn't entirely sure of his own conclusions, yet we teach it as gospel across the world. A lot of shit in evolutionism simply DOES NOT MAKE SENSE, scientifically OR religiously.

 

[Ender Rises]

1) Did the world around you pass down to you all the dogma, guilt, hypocrisy and blood in which the history of your faith is steeped?

Just putting this out there, most of the Crusades were land grabs in God's name. They were motivated by secular motives and excused through faith.

 

[Under The Oak]

1) Did the world around you pass down to you all the dogma, guilt, hypocrisy and blood in which the history of your faith is steeped? I ask because it seems more likely that this was all the product of people using their influence to brainwash the masses into extending their faith from belief in a Creator to belief in a specific deity and all the trappings that come with Him.

2) How is it unlikely that "anything but a Creator" is responsible for our existence when you can't possibly be aware of all the possibilities any more than anyone with such limited frame of reference as a few decades of existence on this earth?

1) Despite all the dogma and scandals associated with the church as a whole, that shouldn't and doesn't make the core teachings of Christianity corrupt. I'm surprised how many times people bring the alleged "ugly" history of Christianity up. For one, most atrocities committed in the name of God were done by the Catholic church, which is one institution out of hundreds of Christian denominations. Secondly, your generalization would be the same as if I said, several scientists have faked fossil records and manipulated studies for their own benefit, therefore all scientists are liars and frauds.

2) I know there are probably countless other theories out there besides creation and evolution, but all the others I've seen are just not plausible to me. Some would say the universe has always been around and never had a beginning and will never have an end. That doesn't seem likely because everything we encounter in this universe - except for matter - is destroyed, and has a beginning and an end. I get what you're saying, though, and it's something I often think about, but in all honesty, Christianity is not something I take so seriously as to proclaim it's the one and only way above all others.

Just putting this out there, most of the Crusades were land grabs in God's name. They were motivated by secular motives and excused through faith.

Um, no they weren't. The crusades are greatly misunderstood. The land they did go after was land that was taken from them by the Muslims centuries before. Check this out: The Real History of the Crusades

 

[Hatebreeder]

1) Despite all the dogma and scandals associated with the church as a whole, that shouldn't and doesn't make the core teachings of Christianity corrupt. I'm surprised how many times people bring the alleged "ugly" history of Christianity up. For one, most atrocities committed in the name of God were done by the Catholic church, which is one institution out of hundreds of Christian denominations. Secondly, your generalization would be the same as if I said, several scientists have faked fossil records and manipulated studies for their own benefit, therefore all scientists are liars and frauds.

I was trying to articulate something to this effect, thank you.

 

[Demilich]

1) Despite all the dogma and scandals associated with the church as a whole, that shouldn't and doesn't make the core teachings of Christianity corrupt. I'm surprised how many times people bring the alleged "ugly" history of Christianity up. For one, most atrocities committed in the name of God were done by the Catholic church, which is one institution out of hundreds of Christian denominations. Secondly, your generalization would be the same as if I said, several scientists have faked fossil records and manipulated studies for their own benefit, therefore all scientists are liars and frauds.

I understand where you are coming from with this, but trying to make it look like I'm saying something I'm not isn't going to win you any points. Maybe I should have spoken only on the history of the Catholic church, but to be honest, the Vatican is the foremost Christian institution in the world, and I don't need to look at history to see the injustices put forth by that body under the name of God. Can you honestly tell me that your denomination completely avoids telling people how to live their lives? If that is the case, I concede that Christianity isn't the problem, only MOST people who are involved in its institutions. Just like you brush aside what you consider to be minor or inconsequential theories of creation, I don't feel it necessary to scrutinize every Christian denomination to find fault in the tenets underlying the faith, and faith itself. This isn't to say that I don't think a lot of Christians are genuinely excellent people who are out there to help others, it is the institutions and the way they use God to their own ends that bother me.

 

[Hatebreeder]

I understand where you are coming from with this, but trying to make it look like I'm saying something I'm not isn't going to win you any points. Maybe I should have spoken only on the history of the Catholic church, but to be honest, the Vatican is the foremost Christian institution in the world, and I don't need to look at history to see the injustices put forth by that body under the name of God. Can you honestly tell me that your denomination completely avoids telling people how to live their lives? If that is the case, I concede that Christianity isn't the problem, only MOST people who are involved in its institutions. Just like you brush aside what you consider to be minor or inconsequential theories of creation, I don't feel it necessary to scrutinize every Christian denomination to find fault in the tenets underlying the faith, and faith itself. This isn't to say that I don't think a lot of Christians are genuinely excellent people who are out there to help others, it is the institutions and the way they use God to their own ends that bother me.

Understandable. But what are your views on non-denominational Christians, Christians that follow the teachings of Christ and not a church?

 

[Demilich]

My views would be something like this:

The teachings of Christ, as you refer to them, are known to us only through a 2000 year old book. And this is only the beginning of the issue. This book was assembled partially from recordings of stories carried on through oral tradition for quite some time before they were recorded. This impacts the reliability of the recorded material... scribes make errors, misinterpret symbols, construct meaning with their own words, etc. This is only compounded when you get to the problem of language. Do you speak Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever language the Bible was originally written in? Meanings are lost and added in translation as I just mentioned. Looking at different editions of the Bible, one will find vastly different interpretations of scripture. How does one choose? According to denomination? What if you're non-denominational? Which text truly represents the words and teachings of Christ? The complications are endless. This is why I don't think its feasible to live by the guidelines of somebody whose words I can't really be sure of anyhow. Look at all the apocryphal texts containing very very different stories about the life of Jesus. These are in no way less valid than Bible texts, being taken from the same types of sources who had firsthand experience, they were simply singled out and excluded at some point from the canon due to the very conflicting nature of their accounts of the divine. Furthermore, I don't need to follow the teachings of any particular person, because I will end up scrutinizing each teaching individually and following what part of it I choose, on its own merits, not those of the one teaching it. I will consider anything, from any source I choose, and synthesize my beliefs from these and my experience.

 

[Under The Oak]

My views would be something like this:

The teachings of Christ, as you refer to them, are known to us only through a 2000 year old book. And this is only the beginning of the issue. This book was assembled partially from recordings of stories carried on through oral tradition for quite some time before they were recorded. This impacts the reliability of the recorded material... scribes make errors, misinterpret symbols, construct meaning with their own words, etc. This is only compounded when you get to the problem of language. Do you speak Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever language the Bible was originally written in? Meanings are lost and added in translation as I just mentioned. Looking at different editions of the Bible, one will find vastly different interpretations of scripture. How does one choose? According to denomination? What if you're non-denominational? Which text truly represents the words and teachings of Christ? The complications are endless. This is why I don't think its feasible to live by the guidelines of somebody whose words I can't really be sure of anyhow. Look at all the apocryphal texts containing very very different stories about the life of Jesus. These are in no way less valid than Bible texts, being taken from the same types of sources who had firsthand experience, they were simply singled out and excluded at some point from the canon due to the very conflicting nature of their accounts of the divine. Furthermore, I don't need to follow the teachings of any particular person, because I will end up scrutinizing each teaching individually and following what part of it I choose, on its own merits, not those of the one teaching it. I will consider anything, from any source I choose, and synthesize my beliefs from these and my experience.

Those are all great points, but I think it's safe to say we do have a pretty good idea of what Christ taught about, from the tens of thousands of different manuscripts we have in different languages that we can compare and contrast for errors. The Bible has the most amount of manuscripts for any literary work, beating out The Iliad by several hundred thousand. The multiple versions do have different translations, but they are mainly for ease of reading. The main message is still there and is indisputable, since there are many historians and works of antiquity that indicate the existence of Christ and His crucifixion. They never mention His deity, because they are non-Christian sources even. As for the apocryphal writings, it's fairly easy to tell what is incorrect in those by comparing them to the other books of the Bible and even other apocryphal books. There are blatant contradictions in several of them and the earliest ones they excluded from the canon are manuscripts that are at least a century older than the ones that made it into the Bible.

I wouldn't say we Christians only follow the teachings of one person either. We just believe that only one person is essential for our salvation. I personally love philosophy and admire a lot of scientists and other people who sometimes very much oppose Christianity, but I follow their teachings if they seem moral or truthful to me. When it comes down to it, we all follow someone else's ideas of how to live, whether we know it or not. It shouldn't be something we are embarassed by or in denial of.

 

[Demilich]

There are blatant contradictions in several of them and the earliest ones they excluded from the canon are manuscripts that are at least a century older than the ones that made it into the Bible.

Now, you and I both know that there are dozens of contradictions within the Bible itself which are just as blatant as those noted in contrast between apocrypha and canon. It simply seems to me, and I have sources to go back to for specifics on this, that the selection of the canon and the Bible has something more to do with sectarian and personal motivations than simply trying to simplify things for people. Are you proposing that any institution, let alone one so far in the past, is made up of a group with entirely homogenous intents, even at that early stage in its development? Over the ages, works have been excluded for a plethora of reasons, and these reasons changed with the times and with those in power just as anything else. It is not as simple as saying "oh you can tell what is wrong in the apocrypha by comparing it to the bible" because the very issue I'm raising is that the Bible is not the supremely valid source that it is made out to be.

I'm too lazy to reply to the whole post, but I still think you're using works of writing as a crutch to support belief in something that is far beyond the scope of those who wrote and made that writing available to you. I mean, I might as well take any ancient story and start parading around declaring it to be true just because a) other people think so and b) some dudes a long time ago wrote it and we know those dudes were real because other dudes wrote THAT down too!

 

[skeptik]

[huge edit]To know there is no god is as much of a leap of faith as to know there is a god. If atheism to you means that you're PRETTY SURE there's no god, then fine, you're not the people I have a problem with and this doesn't concern you. But there are people out there who yell at anyone who even suggests the possibility of a god, and its with those people that I take issue.

I'm pretty sure that I went out of my way a number of times to specifically avoid saying that I know there is no God. Of course nobody can know that there is no God even if the basis of all belief has been proven false. That STILL is not indisputable evidence for the nonexistence of God. I've already explained this using Hume.

Now, to claim to know so many specifics about him such as what he allows, what behaviour he punishes, what happens after we die, that is just fucked up. When you get into talk of direct communication with the divine and revelations and the like you just open up room for total manipulation and legislation of morality. That is the problem with organized religion as I see it.

Agreed.

For TaylorC and Necuratul specifically: Do you really believe that when you write something like "Atheists don't think this, they think this" or "Christians say that..." that there is actually anything close to a consensus, especially considering the polarizing nature of the issues you're talking about?

Of course not, you know I'm not stupid.

Fair enough. Still, there are things being done to aid these situations. What humans have done to fuck with the direction of the world isn't God's problem. Do you believe in free will?

Free will is a direct contradiction to the traditional Christian interpretation of God btw.

Because abiogenesis has never been observed or validated and is more like religion than it is science. The Second Law of Thermodynamics also doesn't help the Big Bang theory, though I wouldn't say it contradicts it. So yes, I do look at the world around me, the way it works, and I think it's unlikely that it would've come from anything but a Creator. Whether you accept it as evidence or not doesn't matter, and I won't go into great detail because your responses don't seem that worthy of my time.

I'm pretty sure nobody mentioned the Big Bang Theory at all in this thread, so why you brought it up is beyond me. And like I said earlier, looking around and saying that you can't think of what could have caused the intricacies of the world besides an intelligent designer is not evidence whatsoever in any legitimate or valid grounds. Oh, and nice bit of condescension at the end there. I'm clearly not worthy of your time.

And as for the whole "why do bad things happen to good people" - that's what makes me a bit of a skeptic of Christianity. You have to live with the cards you're dealt though, as cold as that may sound, but I don't think it's right to so quickly assume that people who are born handicapped or striken with AIDS are evidence against a benevolent God. The fact is that none of us have all the answers, and telling someone that it was random chance that nature selected them to be sick or crippled is no better than telling them God made them that way.

Nobody says that it is merely "random chance," there are biological and environmental factors involved in things such as you mention.

 

[Nico]

I don't understand why the "all loving" God is automatically made to be the "all caring" God. The fact that there's suffering in the world... it must be that God hates us? Or there is no God? That doesn't work for me. Just take a microcosmic example: a child brought up with no hardship, no suffering, a spoiled brat with no understanding of reality, is not an achieved human form. Take this to the scale of collective consciousness, and imagine a world without suffering, hate, war, all the shit that people hold against God or claim as proof towards a lack thereof.

What kind of God would allow us to live in a world without suffering?

 

[Hatebreeder]

What kind of God would allow us to live in a world without suffering?

Exactly.

Also, sleep on this:

Without suffering, there would be no music.

Without suffering, we could not fully appreciate the good things in life.

Without suffering, we would all be spoiled pricks with no appreciation for ANYTHING, and the world would probably end up being worse than it is now. (this explains America and its wasteful habits)

I think this debate needs to end.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

there would be no music??? thats pretty fucking stupid