Lanky_Pomegranate530And they never will
Jo MiranObviously. I am an atheist today because I went to Catholic school where I had to read the bible. Nothing makes better atheists than those who actually read the bible.
Isaac Asimov famously said “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
Mark Twain:
It ain’t the parts of the bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts I can understand.
I mean duh, they’re descended from the intellectual reflex that believed translating the book and receiving mass in your own language were sins.
Of course they don’t read the book, they believe only their priest can read it “right”, and they probably look at accusations they don’t read the book with confusion over “Well of course not! Don’t tell me you anarchist lunatics are reading it yourselves!”
The Jesus of the New Testament was a dark skinned communist who whipped the greedy and informed them they would go to hell if they didn’t stop being selfish fucks.
If the Jesus of the new Testament both existed and returned, the “Christian” right would be first in line to kill him again.
cm0002I think it would be hilarious if Christianity turned out to be true and the rapture really happens, but they’re the ones all left behind and even atheists get to go up. They’re minds would explode LMFAO
The Jesus of the Bible also believed the Kingdom of God would be a literal Kingdom that would arise within the lifetimes of his followers.
That is what happens when you actually read the Bible literally, instead of metaphorically.
Also, I forget which Gospel it is, but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Cracks_InTheWallsI’m more than a little convinced that if Jesus walks the earth today, he is really into EDM and you’re only really coming across him on the festival circuit.
but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Matthew. I am not sure exactly what the author was thinking at the time. It does align with what a minority of Jews believed would happen (Ezekiel hints at it) as well as Paul’s letters so I want to say he invented it to align but it almost feels like he got it from the oral tradition.
He did not have a steady job, he was not a productive member of society and he certainly did not have a nuclear family.
I almost feel bad for mentioning this because it is minority view but I think Paul had a conception of him as a Nazar from birth, like Samson. As you said he is living this sexless, unproductive life, wandering around, barefoot, telling people that the Lord will provide. It could also explain the incident at the temple. From what we can tell Paul knew something hostile happened there but not what exactly. Nazarsbl were required to give an offering to end their lifestyle and at the same time the Temple almost always turned them away as insincere.
So Paul thinks the orders of events are something like this:
Jesus is a born Nazar He goes around until he feels his tasks are completed. Shows up to the temple with his followers. Temple says no way, get out. His followers convince the Temple. They let him into the first gate. Satan sees defeat so gets involved and starts a brawl. Infests Pilot and Pharisees. He gets crucified. Satan thinks he has won. Turns out God disagrees and accepts the perfect sacrifice. And since the ending the Nazar oath was a forgiveness offering it all works out nicely, Jesus gets everyone forgiven.
MacN'CheezusIf the real Jesus stood for all the same values that you do, why are you an Atheist?
If I stand for all the same values that Jesus did, does that by default make me the son of God?
That depends on what you mean by “stand for”. Do you only preach those values on the Internet, where no one can ultimately hold you accountable? Or do you live them in real life, where standing up for them might entail taking risks to defend them?
“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” — Matthew 7:21
And what if they actually do practice them in real life?
Are they then the son of god?
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32-33
Does that clear it up?
Proselytizing clears up nothing except your agenda.
And what’s that?
I think we are all the sons and daughters of dog on this blessed day, just like you are the famous skateboarder who is constantly unrecognized in public
For me, I don’t need jesus to give me morals, I have them on own. I don’t believe in a angry guy in the clouds creating this. It’s mind blowing to me, that people believe in it, it’s clearly a form of control. There are many religions, what makes one right over another? Feelings? I like to think more scientifically and logically.
That’s easy to say on the Internet, where nobody knows if you’re a dog.
Colonel PanicRight?
I have decided I want to be a good person. I don’t need a sky daddy looming over me threatening torture if I do something wrong.
In fact, I would argue I’ve become a better and nicer and more accepting person after leaving religion. I was taught to basically hate LGBTQ, all the other religions, and a list of other “sins” and “wrong beliefs”…
It’s just another form of tribalism and control. I’m out. I’m gonna be over here being as kind and compassionate to my fellow humans as I can.
I like to go with, be a good a human. It’s really not hard, but there is a lot of people that choose not to be.
100%
If anything I think religion can often enable people to become awful humans.
Maybe they think they are doing “wrong things for the right reasons” (E.G. a parent beating their child and screaming “I’m doing this because I love you!”, which, surprise, is more common in religious households) OR Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that what they are doing isn’t wrong at all. The Bible commands you to stone women to death if they have sex outside marriage. So, one could convince themselves that murder isn’t murder, but justice and obeying their gods commands.
I don’t really know, because I was never a bad person in religion, so I don’t really know what goes on in people’s heads like that, but it scares me.
Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there’s that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
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The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It’s like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn’t a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
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The sheer number of contradictions.
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The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There’s a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn’t that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it’s a crazy test because it’s impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
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If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn’t the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It’s unfathomable.
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If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
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Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That’s “good”? That’s worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god’s solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You’d think a good god would come down and be like “Hey guys, let’s talk”.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. My dad was a real asshole as well. He’d literally rather leave me dying in a ditch than suffer a single word of criticism from me. Weird how that works, huh? Almost like there is some truth to the Bible after all…
Unfortunately, I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
Salvation from what?
I don’t see any proof that there is a god or gods out there. Nor that there is any sort of objective morality. Nor a single shred of evidence for any of it. All the evidence is circular and answers one question while adding another. You may say the Bible says so, but how do we know the Bible is true? And you may say because God said so. So how do we know that is true? You have to assume that either a god or the Bible is true, but you can’t prove it. How do we know your God is the real one and not The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster ™️ ? You can’t prove your god any more than I could prove that. And that’s the issue.
If you can’t even prove there is a god or morality or anything then why should I assume there is anything to be saved from?
I don’t believe in gods or religions or the concept of “sin” and “salvation” at all anymore. I just can’t without some form of proof. I can’t accept the “because it is” or “because God said so” or “because Bible said so” anymore. All of those things require you to believe in them first and then add on “proofs”. But for every proof you can add there is also a proof to the contrary.
And on top of that, I am so much happier and less anxious and less worried and stressed now after getting out of all that. The constant fear and worry about my soul and eternity and salvation and converting others and all that was so much. It was painful to live like that. After letting it all go I am so much happier and at peace with myself and the universe than before. I don’t ever want to go back into a system where hellfire and brimstone is yelled at me. Or even worse a system where a god demands that I worship and love him OR ELSE SUFFER FOREVER! Because that isn’t love, it’s manipulation and control and threats and fear.
I simply can’t anymore. I burned out all my ability to ignore reality and believe elaborate stories. And I honestly don’t think I can ever go back to blindly believing it all. It feels like waking up from a fever dream.
Alright then, I guess you will just have to find out for yourself, won’t you.
You’ll definitely be converting the masses with that sanctimonious attitude.
Guess that makes two of us
Do you have a moment to talk about my lord and savior Big Tony? He wants to love you. Follow his every word and obey and believe and worship him or he’ll break ya legs and send yas ta swim with da fishes. Yeah, see. But he loves you.
It’s not a protection bribe, it’s tithing.
It would be a shame if something bad was to happen to ya. Join Big Tony’s today. Tony is watching. Tony wants to protect you, but you have to accept him first. And you should want to offer him money because how great he is. Also if ya don’t Guido ova there’ll break ya legs, see?
Now let us all turn to page 274 and sing a praise for Tony.
That sorta proves my point. That’s a thinly veiled threat. “Believe like I do or you’ll be sorry”
And to be honest with you. If a god created the universe and this system, filled it with misinformation, fake religions, lies and deceptions galore all hoping that I would somehow still bullseye a 1 in a million chance to believe exactly the right things and say the right things and do the right things out of the infinite choices available and if I don’t I get tortured for eternity… Then I don’t want any part of that god or religion. That’s evil and awful and does not deserve worship from anyone.
Why would you set up a system designed to trick and fail everyone, but have 1 correct answer hidden. One option that is the correct choice, but NO way to ever know for sure or prove it? You just have to pick one and hope you are correct. That is insane and heartless.
If your god is real and all the stories are true then either A. He is an evil god and I don’t want to worship that. Or B. He is a good god and created me to think like I do and he knew I’d have doubts and will still accept me for doing my best in an impossible scenario.
But I’m gonna go with C. gods don’t exist or don’t interact with us.
Until proven otherwise I don’t know what else to do, but I will not go back into an abusive and evil religious system that causes so much harm.
It’s not a threat, it’s a warning. Like saying “be careful about swimming in that lake, there’s alligators in there”. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and they’ve already eaten for the day, but simply not believing in them will not make them go away.
And no, that’s not to say there aren’t any alligators in church, because that would be a lie. What I’m trying to tell you is that they’re everywhere, not just in church, and it’s a mistake to believe you are safe because you got out of there.
Using that analogy it would be like putting someone on an island, filling the water with alligators and demanding that if they serve you and love you forever you’ll ferry them back across to the mainland in your boat. But that isn’t a threat, that’s just warning them of the dangerous alligators, right?
I would call that kidnapping and domestic abuse personally. Realizing those behaviors are classic manipulation and abuse tactics helped in getting out of that insanity. I hope you can see that too.
Are you accusing me of putting you on that island? Because a minute ago you told me that pointing out the alligators was a thinly veiled threat, as if it was me who put them there.
I’m only telling you how it is. I’m not asking you to worship me.
Sigh… No.
I’m saying that IF it is that way it is because the god MADE IT that way as an elaborate trap to coerce worship.
I used to believe it too, not super strongly, but I just sorta accepted it since everyone around me believed it.
The thing is. Setting up a trap and then putting someone inside it and then telling them to be careful of the trap, but if they want out of the trap all they have to do is worship you is just manipulation and abuse. That isn’t actual love. “Love me or burn in the fires I created to punish you if you don’t.” isn’t love… And isn’t worthy of praise or worship. If a person did that to someone else you would call them a monster.
Okay, but IF it is the way that it is because God made it that way, what is the use of getting angry about it? Is that not just going to make it worse? Also, wouldn’t you at least rather be informed about it in advance instead of having to puzzle it out yourself over many, many years? That would only make it more agonizing, wouldn’t it.
And have you considered that perhaps the entire story is merely an allegory that describes the internal experience of growing into a fully formed human being, with all the troubles, pitfalls, and vicissitudes that might befall one on the way? And that perhaps the worship of God is ultimately just about learning how to love and respect yourself with all of the flaws and problems you inevitably have?
What if the only lie they told you in church was that God was to be found somewhere out there in the world, and that someone other than you was more capable of communicating with him when He is actually inside of your own head, about two inches from the top, right between your eyes? Would that change your opinion on any of these things or would you continue to be angry about all of it?
I think that it is quite disingenuous to imply that religion doesn’t claim it is a literal god. They do. At least the big 3 do. And all the evangelical ones do. Literal god. Literal scenarios. Not a psychological technique to find some inner peace, but a literal good vs evil reality is what they all claim.
And no that wouldn’t change my opinion on it because all of that can just as easily be achieved without religion. In fact it is far easier and better without religion skewing it all. I spent years as a kid being terrified I was broken and evil and wrong because religion told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was. And despite my best attempts I couldn’t ever get close to being the perfect little follower when it seemed like everyone else was. Spoiler, they were all faking it just like I was, because they were all afraid they weren’t good enough. It’s all performative. All of it.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the problem wasn’t much religion telling you these things as the fact that your parents were also clearly broken and/or incompetent, yet continued to persist in pretending that they could somehow fix you.
You definitely go through some stages of brokenness as a child growing up because everything doesn’t necessarily grow at the same rate or the same time, so I don’t think it’s necessarily abusive to be upfront about that. What IS abusive is letting you continue to labor in that state without providing any sort of hope for relief — which the Bible clearly does, but your parents and priests may not have.
I can’t believe that you think this is an argument you are proud of making.
Who says I’m proud of it?
The problem with free will is that everyone is entitled to use theirs as they see fit, even if you vehemently disagree with their choices.
Sometimes, the best you can do is tell someone that they’re headed for the abyss, but if they’ve already spent countless hours convincing themselves that the abyss is a lie and they intend to prove it by throwing themselves in it, there may not be much you can do to change their mind.
So no, I’m not proud of having said this, but occasionally you have to cut your losses before you get dragged down along with the other person.
When I make an argument I have a certain level of intellectual pride. I know it’s the best I can do. However, I always have evidence to back me up.
Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on that.
For instance, I see you claimed here that Julian Assange was a Russian asset, and despite people calling you out on it being nothing but speculation, you never provided any evidence for that claim.
So how about you dial it back a notch and talk about things you can actually prove.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returns to Australia a free man after US legal battle ends - Lemmy.World
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet on Wednesday, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga. The criminal case of international intrigue, which had played out for years, came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with Assange, 52, entering his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. The American commonwealth in the Pacific is relatively close to Assange’s native Australia and accommodated his desire to avoid entering the continental United States. Assange was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view and warned of a chilling effect on journalists. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists. Assange raised his right fist as he emerged for the plane and his supporters at the Canberra airport cheered from a distance. Dressed in the same suit and tie he wore during his earlier court appearance, he embraced his wife Stella Assange and father John Shipton who were waiting on the tarmac.
Call whatever you want. He was/is a Russian asset.
Now did he or did he not tease a data release about Clinton during election yes or no?
Where is the evidence for that?
I thought you had standards.
Making friends all over. Blocked by the way
I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I deconverted two decades ago and nothing wrong came out of it. If anything, the immoral hypocrites who provoked problems from within the faith kept creating those problems and covering for each other, so things would have gone better if more people deconverted.
I’m sorry you weren’t in a good mental place to healthily finish the process though.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I hope you do understand that this is not the average experience for the vast majority of people who become atheist, right?
Would you care to share what you may have done differently?
Just to be clear, I am by no means advocating for anyone to return to their parents’ church if they found it to be full of assholes and hypocrites. Rather, what I am saying is that unless you manage to live a more moral life than those you left behind, you aren’t likely to end up anywhere good in life, and to the extent you use atheism as an excuse for being a shitty person, you’ll be just as much of a hypocrite as those you condemn.
So just stick to your own values?
If you won’t find ethics in religion, you’ll find some by exploring philosophy. If you won’t find truth in religion, you’ll find some by learning science. If you won’t find a purpose without religion, reach out to people who are worthy of sharing a life with, enjoy art, try to make the world a better place. You will find a purpose far truer to you than any preacher could offer.
So just stick to your own values?
Not a good idea if your own values suck – and a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values because there is no God who will judge them for it.
The values Jesus espouses are fundamentally solid and worth imitating. The fact that many of his fan clubs do a terrible job at living them is not a testament to their futility, but rather, to the sheer difficulty of actually practicing them.
My point is basically that if you throw out your morals along with God, there is no hope for ever making it anywhere good in life. It’s true that you don’t HAVE to go to church to have morals, but unless you find them somewhere else, you’ll be no better than those fake Christians.
dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values
Citation needed. This is a total straw man argument.
“Morals” are a completely man made concept. With or without religion, it is immaterial. They did not and do not have to come from somewhere else. They come from us.
And what is and isn’t “moral” changes over time as society evolves. As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous. Have you ever stopped to think why that is?
Citation needed. This is a total straw man argument.
Believe it or not, but it turns out studies on this actually exist.
Two U.S. M-Turk studies (Studies 1A and 1B, N = 429) and two large cross-national studies (Studies 2–3, N = 4,193), consistently show that disbelievers (vs. believers) are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion (the binding moral foundations).
Specifically, disbelievers are less inclined than believers to endorse the binding moral foundations, and more inclined to engage in consequentialist moral reasoning. […] It seems plausible that the more constrained and consequentialist view of morality that is associated with disbelief may have contributed to the widespread reputation of atheists as immoral in nature.
Very interesting also that you’re showing the exact same behavior (i.e. consequentialist moral reasoning) in the remainder of your comment. This poses the question, if society were to evolve to consider rape, murder, and theft as excusable or even desirable behavior, would you go along with it?
As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous.
What exactly are you referring to here? Slavery? Persecution of homosexuality and witchcraft? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the abolitionist movement was largely driven by Christians, while the other two causes were championed by atheists or non-Christians. I’ll leave my moral judgment of the latter aside so as not to unnecessarily inflame the discussion with reactionary rhetoric, but I will pose the question of whether in light of the rapidly declining birth rates in the west, homosexuality is a net good for society as a whole.
The amoral atheist? A cross-national examination of cultural, motivational, and cognitive antecedents of disbelief, and their implications for morality
There is a widespread cross-cultural stereotype suggesting that atheists are untrustworthy and lack a moral compass. Is there any truth to this notion? Building on theory about the cultural, (de)motivational, and cognitive antecedents of disbelief, the present research investigated whether there are reliable similarities as well as differences between believers and disbelievers in the moral values and principles they endorse. Four studies examined how religious disbelief (vs. belief) relates to endorsement of various moral values and principles in a predominately religious (vs. irreligious) country (the U.S. vs. Sweden). Two U.S. M-Turk studies (Studies 1A and 1B, N = 429) and two large cross-national studies (Studies 2–3, N = 4,193), consistently show that disbelievers (vs. believers) are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion (the binding moral foundations). By contrast, only minor differences between believers and disbelievers were found in endorsement of other moral values (individualizing moral foundations, epistemic rationality). It is also demonstrated that presumed cultural and demotivational antecedents of disbelief (limited exposure to credibility-enhancing displays, low existential threat) are associated with disbelief. Furthermore, these factors are associated with weaker endorsement of the binding moral foundations in both countries (Study 2). Most of these findings were replicated in Study 3, and results also show that disbelievers (vs. believers) have a more consequentialist view of morality in both countries. A consequentialist view of morality was also associated with another presumed antecedent of disbelief—analytic cognitive style.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ― Stephen Roberts
This is the sort of intellectual conmanship that I’m sure is very impressive to a 15 year old, but people who talk like that do not have your best interests at heart.
You’ve said absolutely nothing of substance, here. Just platitudes. You haven’t explained why Yahweh is legit but, say, Zeus isn’t.
I don’t need to, because Christ has delivered us from the need of worshiping Yahweh, in much the same way that Prometheus delivered mankind from worshiping Zeus.
Don’t you understand? The point of Christianity isn’t to worship, it’s to become a moral person. Whatever amount of horror or exploitation you may have seen going on around you in the church you grew up in wasn’t a sign that it had failed, but rather, that it worked on YOU in a way that it didn’t on everyone else, because it gave you eyes to see what others were missing – that is, all the evils and crimes they had committed and were still praying to be delivered of.
I understand that this is somewhat of a horrifying gift to receive, but you should treasure it anyways because it will keep you from running straight into the welcoming arms of another abuser – which WILL happen if you deny it.
Everything you do and say in this life will leave a mark on you, one way or another. Look up epigenetics if you need a scientific explanation for this. There is no such thing as a free lunch – getting rid of God does not get rid of the consequences of doing evil.