The great and all powerful religion thread!

[AchrisK]

Some people just can't stand the idea of God. They dislike it in a defined form, they dislike it in a non-defined form, they dislike it if you follow a "holy book" literally, they dislike it if you pick and choose from said book.

To me the irrational hatred toward God tends to increase my confidence in a higher being/creator, and in the existence of the whole spiritual realm.

 

[Hatebreeder]

Have you even read the Bible?

http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Rev/Rev020.html - see Revelations 20:10

How about you find me a verse where Hell is defined as simply "separation from God"? 'Cause, quite honestly, that sounds like far more a bullshit interpretation of Christian Hell than the "fire and brimstone" interpretation.

Sure, let's not take into account that the entire book was written based on a vision and that the descriptions themselves are heavily symbolic.

I really do enjoy that book, though. It makes for some good inspiration for lyrics.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Some people just can't stand the idea of God. They dislike it in a defined form, they dislike it in a non-defined form, they dislike it if you follow a "holy book" literally, they dislike it if you pick and choose from said book.

To me the irrational hatred toward God tends to increase my confidence in a higher being/creator, and in the existence of the whole spiritual realm.

You're neglecting to note the reasons why people hate the idea of God -- because the idea has proven itself to be irrational, schizophrenic, ignorance-promoting, and extremely dangerous. The anti-religious didn't just pull this mistrust of religion out of their asses, you know.

On the other hand, religious people hate the idea of there being no God because they're brainwashed from birth, and scared shitless of going to Hell. See the difference?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Sure, let's not take into account that the entire book was written based on a vision and that the descriptions themselves are heavily symbolic.

So... you're just going to cop-out like that? It's all symbolic, so being thrown into a lake of fire and brimstone really just means that God tells you to go sit in the corner and that you don't get any supper... Right.

Since the whole book was basically written through "divine revelation", why don't we just interpret the concept of God to be that of Science, and claim that those unfaithful to Science will be thrown into the "lake of fire and brimstone" that represents all the holy wars, inquisitions, and various other bloodshed which has resulted from religious dogmatism?

What's the point of even referring to the Bible at all if you're just going to explain away every inconvenient argument against it by saying, "Oh, that's not what the Bible really meant"? The fact is that you have no idea whether the Bible was meant to be symbolic or not, and you're just buying into the popular liberal-Christian "separation from God" concept out of convenience, and not because you actually know what the author of the Bible meant.

 

[CAIRATH]

Some people just can't stand the idea of God. They dislike it in a defined form, they dislike it in a non-defined form, they dislike it if you follow a "holy book" literally, they dislike it if you pick and choose from said book.

I would turn that argument right around and argue that some people just feel the need to slap the word god onto something, anything. If not a divine being then "nature" or "the universe" must be god. Why exactly is there a need for it at all? All it does like I illustrated in my previous post is cause confusion over what god really means. As soon as you take any kind of divinity or super natural aspect out of the equation and just say god is nature/universe/reality then you have resigned the word god to be nothing more than an empty and meaningless synonym that serves no other purpose than to confuse people (see the Einstein god references) and obscure people's true intentions (the Christian apologists using said references to try to somehow find a kinship between science and religion which obviously never has and never will exist).

I'm not even going into the rest of what you said there because it's been discussed by many people in this thread already, including myself. You perceive any criticism on religion as inherently spiteful and irrational when most people who have criticised it in this thread have been anything but.

To me the irrational hatred toward God tends to increase my confidence in a higher being/creator, and in the existence of the whole spiritual realm.

Good for you. Like I said above, what you perceive as "irrational hatred" is actually very rational and valid criticism which you continue to pretty much ignore outright. You are the one who has given no rational explanation of any kind for actually believing in a creator and continue to do so with the above quote. Since when is believing in something just because other people supposedly "irrationally" disagree with you a good reason and how does that make that belief in any way more valid?

Puzzling.

 

[cookiecutter]

The way I interpreted it was that he meant he believes in god in the sense that Einstein and Spinoza believed in god. Though maybe I'm wrong on that.

My main problem with that line of reasoning is, why even bother calling it god anymore? If you argue that god and nature or god and the universe are one and the same then what purpose does referring to it as god even have. It's a matter of taste obviously, but it's something that always bugged me. Not to mention that it causes confusion. Like when religious apologists bring Einstein's references to god up as a defense, either completely misunderstanding him or deliberately quoting him out of context to make it seem as he if he is backing their cause when that couldn't be further from the truth.

If you consider god to be equal in every possible meaning to the universe itself then the word "god" becomes meaningless if you ask me.

I took it as him meaning a powerful being, but not quite as anthropomorphized as modern Christianity. I agree with your post 100% though. Spinozism etc. seem nice, but it reduces God to something confusing and meaningless. God to most people is not nature or love or science or whatever, it is the magic man in the sky.

What do you mean by "irrational"?

From dictionary.com:

3. Not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical


It is not logical, rational or reasonable to believe something without evidence. Since there is no evidence to suggest the existence of God, it is irrational to believe in Him. If I told you I was abducted by aliens, you would want me to show you evidence before you believed me. However, you happily believe in God when there is no evidence of his existence.

 

[Evil?]

Back to the Hell argument...

from what i inderstand form my mother being heavily into the faith, Hell is simply death.

You go to Heaven, you are with god in paradise for eternity.

You "got to hell"= you die. forever. done. finished.

The entire promise of Christianity is based on eternal life. It does not make sense that those sentenced to "Hell" would be tortured for eternity or what not, because the would mean they to were granted eternal life.

I have seen many religious authorities in person and in video's backing the claim that Hell is separation from god, and thus eternal life. there are verses to back this up but I do not know myself where they are. You cannot simply take a small portion of Revelations away from the rest of the book and use that.

 

[cookiecutter]

There are verses in the Bible to back up any claim.

 

[Evil?]

Agreed.

Just about any part of the bible can be taken out of context to prove almost anyones point. I stopped reading this thread for a while because it got old. same old arguments all the time.

people need to start making religion a personal thing again. If us "non-believers" didn't have to see God everywhere we fucking look, and people stopped sing religion as a means to keep people down, then non of these arguments would take place. But of course, that has been said before as well.

 

[unknown]

Book of revelations is a bunch of nonsense. There was a show on History Channel that debunked the whole thing. Town on the seven hills was Rome. Armageddon is actually a place in Jerusalem (Har Megiddo) where shitloads of battles were fought. Nero was 666 (or is it 616?)

 

[cookiecutter]

The Bible as a whole is a bunch of nonsense.

 

[unknown]

yeah I was going to make a side comment of "keeping in theme with the rest of the bible."

 

[cookiecutter]

Yeah, but we are just hating it irrationally. We have no valid points to back up our claims or anything like that

 

[Evil?]

I was on a school camping trip once and made the joke

Why do all the ladies love jesus?

Because he's hung like this! *hold arms out wide*

then i made some other religious joke and this group of assholes gets really made and starts yelling at me. I tell them that I am sorry that I am out of religious jokes, but I am sure that they can find some more if they read the bible. They did not much like that either.

 

[cookiecutter]

God bless you!

 

[Evil?]

It is a good thing they had their Breastplates of Righteousness to defend themselves against my Heresy!

edit: How embarrassing! fixed!

 

[cookiecutter]

God hath smote thine grammar

 

[~Derek~]

% He smotes mine everytime I tyupe on messengers. It's payback I guess.

 

[Evil?]

He's gonna have a hell of a time with that post!

 

[~Derek~]

^What a fucking ironic post, I accidentally typed the % sign instead of the ^ sign, and type is tyupe.