Is there a God?

[Neeeek]

There's not a linguistic middle ground. There's no word for perspicuity and knowledge beyond the capability of human-kind but still limited in some way that isn't a deific attribute of perfection.

Sure there is. That's literally what "super-human" means.

[shadzar]

Christians need to finally accept that the bible does condone or even order (mass)murders and other atrocities and postulates inhuman laws and general stupidity. If christians do not condone that they are editing the bible, and therefore do not accept it as the holy word of god anymore.

Once you start editing (even if concealed as "not taking it literally") the bible, when do you stop being a christian? And when should you stop proclaiming the bible as holy?

Thou shalt not kill.

[RobbyPants]

Why does God have to be omnibenevolent or even good at all? Why can't God just be a massive dick?

DSM pretty much covered it, but from my experience, if I'm talking to someone who believes in God, they want him to be omnibenevolent. If you get into the problem of evil, they're willing to make concessions (sometimes very large ones) in the omnipotence and omnipotence departments to keep it. I've yet to talk to anyone who believes in the Christian god who is fine with him being a dick. The closest I've seen is hand-waving apparent dickish behavior away with claims of "mysterious ways" or "things we just can't understand".

In the broader sense of "why can't he just be a massive dick?", well, he could. It's just most people don't like worshiping Cthulhu with a beard.

Christians need to finally accept that the bible does condone or even order (mass)murders and other atrocities and postulates inhuman laws and general stupidity. If christians do not condone that they are editing the bible, and therefore do not accept it as the holy word of god anymore.

Once you start editing (even if concealed as "not taking it literally") the bible, when do you stop being a christian? And when should you stop proclaiming the bible as holy?

Thou shalt not kill.

Except for when God explicitly commands it.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Thou shalt not kill.

Except for when God explicitly commands it.

Yeah, the commandment doesn't say that. The actual thing you're forbidden to do is רצח or retzach if those letters didn't render for you. It's a word with several meanings, and is both broader and narrower than 'kill.' It is not, for instance, used in conjunction with war.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, the commandment doesn't say that. The actual thing you're forbidden to do is רצח or retzach if those letters didn't render for you. It's a word with several meanings, and is both broader and narrower than 'kill.' It is not, for instance, used in conjunction with war.

Or murdering gay people or adulterers?

[Whatever]

Gay men, specifically. Lesbians are only condemned in the commentaries.

[RobbyPants]

Gay men, specifically. Lesbians are only condemned in the commentaries.

Good point. In the Old Testament, lesbians are apparently teh hawt. Although, in the New Testament, Paul does speak out against homosexuals specifically (well, he lumps them in with a rather large group of people who won't inherent the kingdom of God).

[DSMatticus]

Lesbianism is condemned in Romans 1:26-27, right before homosexual men, in the middle of a rant about how fun things are terrible unnatural lusts. (Yes, that's new testament. Just giving something more explicit about lesbianism.)

[Username17]

It's a tenet of Christianity that got truly popular probably in the past century or two, so... no.

Then why is the Problem of Evil a problem?

The Problem of Evil predates Christianity, and is a general condemnation of gods in general:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

The basic idea is that if children still die of whooping cough, then any and all gods that exist are either weak or vile. And in neither case should you worship them.

Which basically means that we would do better to worship Joseph Salk than Jehova. Joseph Salk performed miracles and now you don't know anyone whose limbs have been turned to a hideously floppy non-functional appendage by polio. That is better by itself than anything attributed to any god of any religion.

-Username17

[budalas]

Fundamentally, he's claiming that he has a holistic understanding of the entire bible such that he can cherry pick the quotes he likes, but everyone else over the last two thousand years who cherry picked the quotes they liked weren't "real" Christians. Because obviously if they were reading the book "right" they would have come to the same conclusions as he did about which passages were literal, which passages were metaphor, which passages were divine, and which passages were in error. And the simple fact that there have been literally thousands of differing opinions on what the book "really means" and who you're supposed to stab right in the fucking face over it does not cause him to question his position at all.

I am sorry if I come across like that. I find it hard to express myself in english, given it's not my native language.

I don't think I have any special insight into Bible. However, you are claiming that few open to interpretation passages take precedence over passages that are clear-cut, spoken as imperatives.

I can also wager that most of christians feel same way, at least, I'm pretty sure that most of those I know feel the same. Also, majority of (modern) theologists that study Bible als agree - at least most of ones I've read.

My argument is, in essence: I disbelieve that somebody reasonable, having read New Testament, can interpret it as: "Go, kill stuff!"

I am also not saying that people that did killing in name of christianity weren't christian - currently, only requirement is being baptised - what I'm saying is that they acted contrary to New Testament, as interpreted by most christians I know of.

In other words, I think there were times when christians were total douchebags. But I don't believe New Testament, and especially gospels, are "Totally evil" as you claim.

If you think otherwise, well... feel free to do so, I guess.

EDIT: Edited some stuff I've gotten feedback on:
Changed 'Bible' to 'New testament' (sorry again) and added reasonable in one of sentences.

[Taishan]

My argument is, in essence: I disbelieve that somebody, having read Bible, can interpret it as: "Go, kill stuff!"

The truth is that it says 'go, kill stuff!' and 'turn the other cheek' and 'don't wear garments made of wool and linen' and 'don't eat cheeseburgers' (though I ask you, how can you believe in the benevolence of a diety that forbids cheeseburgers?). It says everything and therefore says nothing. Taken literally, its also just wrong.

[Fuchs]

I don't think I have any special insight into Bible. However, you are claiming that few open to interpretation passages take precedence over passages that are clear-cut, spoken as imperatives.

"Open to interpretation" such as Lev.24?
1.[14] Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
2.[16] And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.
3.[23] And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.

I can also wager that most of christians feel same way, at least, I'm pretty sure that most of those I know feel the same. Also, majority of (modern) theologists that study Bible als agree - at least most of ones I've read.

My argument is, in essence: I disbelieve that somebody, having read Bible, can interpret it as: "Go, kill stuff!"

I am also not saying that people that did killing in name of christianity weren't christian - currently, only requirement is being baptised - what I'm saying is that they acted contrary to New Testament, as interpreted by most christians I know of.

I think you'd be more honest and correct if you'd admit that the bible and all is just some "inspiration" you mine for your beliefs.

[Starmaker]

DSM pretty much covered it, but from my experience, if I'm talking to someone who believes in God, they want him to be omnibenevolent.

Do you mean rationalist omnibenevolence or Christian omnibenevolence? Because the former falls apart as soon as anyone mentions homosexuality. The replacement is either
- gays are morally sick and should be cured (but god doesn't cure them because it's a moral sickness and people have free will), or
- gays are of the devil, gas them and burn the bodies so the infection doesn't spread.

Is god omnibenevolent?
Yes, he is.

Then why bad shit happens?
What bad shit? Victims go to heaven. Murderers go to hell. While we're at that, god is omnipotent and could blast a potential murderer on the spot, but that would deny the murderer a chance to repent, and the victim gets a free ride to heaven, so everyone wins.

Why have murderers at all?
Because free will. Do you hate free will? Would you rather be a slave? Do you support slavery?

But surely the omnieverything god could have designed a better, more efficient world?
<And that's where I tend to get a very peculiar response - namely, people start bringing up middle school physics thought experiments: how shitty the world would be with no gravity / no friction / no electrical resistance / etc.>

We're doing fine without polio, though?
But there are also good bacteria and microflora and antioxidants and shit! Maybe polio played a positive role in human evolution, how do you know?

...wut?
<Essentially, god's creation is perfect, and if you see room for improvement, then god did not implement it because he's omniscient and knows it actually has some sort of horrific downside in the long run.>

Which reminds me:

Can you imagine? Today in Pop Phys we studied antimatter and the professor said antimatter works just like in the Dan Brown novel which I already read! They blow up the Pope! I'm so clever!
Uhm, you know, antimatter doesn't work like that. Look at how much energy it requires to get good containment for plasma. Do you realize that anyone who has access to the technology and resources to make enough antimatter to blow up anything is already ruling the universe?
But maybe they'll invent something more efficient? Why are you so negative? You're no better than religious cooks. Fuck you.

My argument is, in essence: I disbelieve that somebody, having read Bible, can interpret it as: "Go, kill stuff!"

That is observably wrong.
There are people in this thread who interpret it as "Go, kill stuff".
There are people elsewhere who interpret it as "Go, kill stuff" and do so.

You might rework it as "reasonable people wouldn't interpret..." - which means people in this thread are unreasonable. That is a position you can try to defend.

You might also rework it as "reasonable Christians wouldn't go kill stuff over the bible" - which is redundant, because reasonable people in general wouldn't go kill stuff over a book anyway.

[budalas]

"Open to interpretation" such as Lev.24?
1.[14] Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
2.[16] And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.
3.[23] And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.

(snipped)

I think you'd be more honest and correct if you'd admit that the bible and all is just some "inspiration" you mine for your beliefs.

Well, the second statement is true - that's how most people I know view it.

Also, I meant to say New Testament, not Bible. Sorry.

Leviticus is Old Testament. There is story about Elijah killing 400 of Bhaal's priests in Old Testament and later thinking like: "What have I done wrong?" when people got angry.

[budalas]

You might rework it as "reasonable people wouldn't interpret..." - which means people in this thread are unreasonable. That is a position you can try to defend.

You might also rework it as "reasonable Christians wouldn't go kill stuff over the bible" - which is redundant, because reasonable people in general wouldn't go kill stuff over a book anyway.

Yes, I meant that, more or less. In my language/culture, 'reasonable' would be superfluous. Thanks for correction.

I kinda get the wibe that most people here who dislike christianity actually dislike religious zealots and literally interpreted religious texts.

Literal interpretation of anything that was written so long ago is silly, especially if you're looking for guidelines for acting in current time.

[Fuchs]

I still say you're fooling yourself by calling yourself a christian. If you're basically following "don't do evil" and call it christian, where is the difference to google apart from the name?

[Username17]

I kinda get the wibe that most people here who dislike christianity actually dislike religious zealots and literally interpreted religious texts.

I certainly dislike religious zealotry more than I dislike liberal Christian-in-name-only accommodationists who approach the bible like a salad bar and take only the bits and pieces that can be tortuously reconciled with modern understandings of morality and science. But that doesn't mean that being a fluffy headed Christian-moderate gives you a free pass. I value truth, and if you believe stuff out of the bible, really any stuff out of the bible, you believe stuff that is not true. And I do not respect that choice. It's a stupid thing to do with your life, and it makes you a dangerous person. A person who deliberately chooses to believe in crap that obviously isn't true could just as easily believe any other thing that obviously isn't true, and a lot of those things are incredibly dangerous.

It's like Orwell said: once you can get people to believe that two plus two equals five, you can get them to believe anything. That slippery slope is simply a cliff. If someone truly believes that Harod had all the boy babies in Jerusalem killed despite the fact that this obviously did not happen, then what's next? Why wouldn't that person choose to cut their balls off to prepare for the spaceship on Haley's Comet or drink cyanide-laced Flavor Aid? Why wouldn't that person shoot a bunch of children at a summer camp or put a bomb in a medical clinic? They believe things that are not true, and which are obviously, provably not true. It's like if someone told you their D&D character was a real person and the adventures really happened - while their delusions are not necessarily making them a danger to themselves and the people around them right now, the fact is that they could get new delusions that do at any moment.

And then there's the very simple truth that belief in Salvation Through Jesus Christ is by itself a belief that is deeply offensive to absolutely everyone. Think about that doctrine for thirty seconds, why don't you? By believing that Jesus Christ is going to "save" you, you are implicitly believing that Jesus Christ is not going to "save" me. And what am I not going to be saved from? Getting raised from the dead and tortured forever by worms in a lake of fire! Seriously man, what the fuck? Every single person who believes in Salvation Through Jesus Christ implicitly believes that their god is going to come along after I'm dead and bring me back to life so that he can torture me with gnawing beasts and stinging fire for longer than the stars themselves will burn. That is the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. And even the supposedly friendly and liberal Christian types believe that shit.

So no: I don't like you just because you aren't currently beating women for daring to wear pants or threatening to stone gay men to death or whatever. Christians believe some of the most offensive shit that it is possible for someone to believe. And even the "nice" ones are little better than rabid dogs.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Also, I meant to say New Testament, not Bible. Sorry.

Leviticus is Old Testament. There is story about Elijah killing 400 of Bhaal's priests in Old Testament and later thinking like: "What have I done wrong?" when people got angry.

Actually, for me (when I still believed), what made it worse was when I started to look at the Bible as a whole and try to reconcile that with the observable world more than trying to retcon out the OT because it made me uncomfortable.

You see, you get stuff in the NT like people going to hell if they don't believe in God. Then you get stuff in the OT like a global flood for which there is no evidence. For anyone who takes that literally, you have to believe that God magicked away all of the evidence, thus obfuscating his very existence and raising the bar on believing in him and not going to hell. If you don't believe it was literal, why believe any of it was literal?

I kinda get the wibe that most people here who dislike christianity actually dislike religious zealots and literally interpreted religious texts.

Literal interpretation of anything that was written so long ago is silly, especially if you're looking for guidelines for acting in current time.

Yes, zealots bother me, but for me, it's more of the willful self-deception. And a lot of it is me being pissed off at myself for the amount of self-deception I put myself through for several years to try to stave off cognitive dissonance.

I can't tell you how liberating it felt to finally be able to view it all without the lens of presupposition and be able to view it as a bunch of Hebrew mythology (particularly, a combination of Israeli and Judean mythology mashed into one, frequently contradictory mythology). Once I could to that, everything fell into place so much easier, and I didn't have to engage in mental gymnastics and apologetics to try to get it all to jive.

I shed literally two years of depression pretty much over night.

And then there's the very simple truth that belief in Salvation Through Jesus Christ is by itself a belief that is deeply offensive to absolutely everyone. Think about that doctrine for thirty seconds, why don't you? By believing that Jesus Christ is going to "save" you, you are implicitly believing that Jesus Christ is not going to "save" me. And what am I not going to be saved from? Getting raised from the dead and tortured forever by worms in a lake of fire! Seriously man, what the fuck? Every single person who believes in Salvation Through Jesus Christ implicitly believes that their god is going to come along after I'm dead and bring me back to life so that he can torture me with gnawing beasts and stinging fire for longer than the stars themselves will burn. That is the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. And even the supposedly friendly and liberal Christian types believe that shit.

It's not surprising that there is an increasing amount of literature out there now that is trying to either soften or eliminate hell entirely. The existence of hell is one of the things that killed omnibenevolence for me, too.

It's also not surprising that me telling my wife I'm atheist troubled her, too. So, when she found a book with all sorts of scriptural references (quote mining!) and cultural explanations explaining that hell was a real place outside of Jerusalem where they burned their trash that Jesus used as a metaphor, and that no one actually gets tortured for infinity years, and everyone gets an unlimited number of chances to get to heaven, she jumped right on that. Of course, many Christians believe the author (Rob Bell) to be a dangerous heretic who will lead people astray, but supposedly, his following is growing. It makes sense to me, because I think the concept of infinity years of torture bothers many Christians enough that they can't hand-wave it away with "well, they deserve it for the choices they made", or whatever.

So, people are even beginning to shirk that belief. I wonder what Christianity is going to look like in a few hundred years.

[sabs]

RobbyPants. It's not clear that there is no evidence for a global flood. Though I suspect there is no goblal flood on the scale of Noah.

If you start looking at Ancient myths around the world, you start to get multiple completely unrelated cultures who talk about a Great Flood that put everything under water.
There are several different Pacific Island, Native American myths that deal with a great flood. I admit that my memory is failing me, but there's also something along those lines in Chinese Mythology.

That being said, the story of Noah isn't even original inspired by God Hebraic. It's a cover of a Babylonian Myth. So it's about as Christian as the story of Thoth.

[Fuchs]

How many christians here do believe that unless you accept Jesus as your saviour you'll end in hell? And if you don't go to hell despite not considering christ as your saviour, what exactly is left of christian beliefs in your opinion?

[RobbyPants]

RobbyPants. It's not clear that there is no evidence for a global flood. Though I suspect there is no goblal flood on the scale of Noah.

Let me put what I said in better context.

Regardless of whether or not other cultures have vaguely similar stories or not, there are still a lot of things that would have happened given what's written in Genesis:

• God would have had to magic the ark to be big enough to hold all the animals.
• God would have had to magic all the water away.
• God would have had to magic all the sediment and silt away and recreate terrestrial plants, since everything was under water for months, at least, and maybe longer.
• God would have to magically sustain the carnivores since there aren't nearly enough herbivores to keep them alive (I don't remember the numbers, but I thought you needed something like 30 units of plant per unit of herbivore and 30 units of herbivore per unit of carnivore. The point is, you need a lot of herbivores to sustain a single carnivore), since most animals were put into the ark in pairs (and a few with seven).

Now, I'm not doubting that an all-powerful being couldn't have done those things. I'm saying that without interference, there'd be some sedimentary evidence. There'd be no way fragile geological features would have survived that. The fossil record would show it.

Without that evidence, you'd have to conclude that either the event didn't happen, or Gog magicked it away. If God magicked it away, he's obfuscating his existence.

[RobbyPants]

How many christians here do believe that unless you accept Jesus as your saviour you'll end in hell? And if you don't go to hell despite not considering christ as your saviour, what exactly is left of christian beliefs in your opinion?

I used to believe that.

My wife used to, but then it began to morph. You could get into heaven if you believed in something close enough. So, Islam was okay because it was the same god. She wasn't sure about stuff like Wicca (and she was probably happier not further examining it), but heaven did seem to be a no-atheists club. Her belief further morphed into there being no actual hell, and everyone gets to heaven eventually, depending on their stubbornness.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Even though the OT God is a huge dick, he's nowhere near as cruel as the NT God. Hell is specifically a New Testament invention -- and it's not just a sick but ultimately harmless story like David delivering up 200 foreskins. It's easily the most harmful meme in the Bible. Well, it might be a close second place to the First Commandment, but together it makes something awesomely vile.

In the broader sense of "why can't he just be a massive dick?", well, he could. It's just most people don't like worshiping Cthulhu with a beard.

The average Muslim/Christian* is already worshiping someone worse than Cthulhu. I don't mean in a figurative or hyperbolic sense, either. As in, if those two deities turned out to be real and you had the choice of going to a universe where Cthulhu was the supreme being or Yahweh, the rational choice would be with Cthulhu. Seriously. We're talking about an entity beyond human understanding who had scary-ass heralds tortured people outside of their cult (including small children, mentally disabled, and people who never even interacted with them) for all eternity. Even if you're in the cult, your reward is that you get mind controlled and forced to worship the being for all eternity.

The most recent pope has flat-out said that the Doctrine of Infant Damnation is totes real and that unbaptized toddlers will be tortured for all eternity. If you said to a Cthulhu cultist that their deity is evil and offensive and that Yahweh is so much better, they would have every right to be offended and/or laugh in your face.


* I don't know if Jews believe in Hell -- as in the eternal torture furnace as opposed to a plane where you get obliterated -- or not.

[sabs]

You do realize that if you go with everyone gets eventually to heven, depending on their stubbornness then your Christianity is not significantly different from Buddhism, except that it's more confrontational and bigoted

Christians tend to be incredibly reprehensible. They on one hand, talk about how other religions are barbaric, and inherently evil, while basically looking to do the /exact/ same things with Christianity. But calling that good and moral. Also, the idea that a society without Christianity can't have morals really bugs me. I have found in my life that the people with the least morals, tend to be those who spout about how they are Good Church Going Christians.

[Doom]

What? Hypocrisy and religion co-existing? I'm shocked, shocked.