I found a video today that nicely illustrates and elaborates on the question I asked in my post on forgiveness:
What will you say to the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik when you meeting him in heaven? What conversation are you going to make with the millions of other murderers, thieves, rapists and child molesters who are going to be spending eternity with you?
I hate to start this dead-end discussion again but this time, courtesy of V00D00SIXXX, I have some video that illustrates my point about mass murdering Christians and going to heaven. Now, I know that ‘purist’ Christians might want to try to convince themselves mass murdering mad men don’t go to heaven but like I said before, the rules for going to heaven in the Christian tradition are pretty straight forward and simple and are evangelised by Christian clergy to criminals all the time (so you have to wonder who’s confused here). These easy rules is why I think Christianity such a hit with America in particular, it’s the McDonalds of religions: easy to get into the religion, easy to get into heaven, you just gotta believe!
I agree completely with what V00D00SIXXX says in his video below: lots of good people are going to hell and lots of bad people are going to heaven. I remember the pastor at the church Sunday school I went to say it exactly like that: a lot of good people are going to hell and a lot of bad people are going to heaven. As you can imagine, this did nothing for Christianity’s credibility in my eyes…
The idea that good people are going to get tortured as a result of the decree of a ‘loving’ God while mass murderers and child rapists are going to spend eternity in ‘bliss’ is repugnant. It’s disgusting and is an ideology I refuse to accept. One I cannot accept.
Unexpectedly, I also found the one and only way Christians can rationalise the horrors that befall good people, Christians included, in the world. Other than copping out and saying they don’t know anyway. At the very least William Lane Craig (a man who defends the genocide in the Bible) believes that: (his) God has a wider view on reality than humans do, He can see everything where us humans can only see a small slice. This wider view means God knows the greater good and therefore He can allow tragedies like the shootings in Norway to happen because it’s for the greater good that we cannot see. So God can have morally sufficient reason to let babies starve, children get shot and old grannies get raped. Us pathetic little humans just can’t see the greater good.
The problem with this seriously screwed up rationalisation is, as V00D00SIXXX points out, is that literally everything is good then. It doesn’t matter what it is, that it happened means God let it happen and it’s good, we just don’t ‘understand’ it. The problem is then that you then have no basis for your morality because everything is good. If it happens, God let it happen, ergo it is good and pure, we just don’t know why. Everything is good. Including the rape of grannies and babies.
Have I mentioned I find this repugnant? And the Christians who also find this idea repugnant? How do they explain the Jesus’s lack of interest in the murder of the 80+ children in Norway by one of His followers? They have not, as far as I am aware.
So what conversation will Christians make with these terrible people with whom they are to share eternity with? It’s a big thing. I mean, how do you broach the subject of the torture, rape and murder your atheist daughter, who at that point is being tortured for eternity, with the guy that’s with you there in heaven?
I bet the conversations in heaven are going to be just, freaking, awesome.
I have an answer for you about when people get to heaven, and have to share their time in ‘paradise’ with these repentant rapists, murderers and criminals. I rang a friend of mine, he’s a deacon in a church. Here goes…. laugh
“In heaven, you will all be in glory together, earthly and sinful ways will be put aside, thinking will be pure. Pure happiness, pure love etc. The reason there will be so much happiness is because you will be worshipping the Lord. There will be no sadness, no tragedy, no hardship. ‘Sin’ is a human condition. Paradise (heaven) is a new creation and all who enter there will be oblivious to the past. However, you will recognize loved ones and people that you knew on earth.
Apparently the catholics go to purgatory first, before heaven. To assess you level of sin, and for cleansing. There’s a heirachy in Purgatory. Apparently it’s very dependent on those on earth praying for you…. the more prayers, the better your chances….”
(perhaps it’s more about how generously you donated to the church before your death, as to the level of prayer you get while in purgatory??)…….. but that’s my sinful thoughts thinking that….. I’m sure the catholic church is only about kindness, love and giving…. laugh (yeah right!)
I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, then I can pass them on to him. He knows my thoughts…… sinful as they are!
Nichola Romney (blasphemer)
My thoughts start with: the deacon’s response is laughable; he’s pulling that out of his arse since nowhere in the Bible does it say that. However, assuming what he said IS true:
So… it’s not really YOU then that goes to heaven but a sanitised, edited, lesser version of yourself? If that is the case, then death really is death, Christians included, since what remains is a pale shade of your former self at best?
Hardship and suffering are part of who we are. Overcoming hardship, dealing with pain, fighting injustice, these are the things that make us who we are.
Would the deacon or anybody else give up all their memories right now? Who would you be without your history? Nobody. We are the sum of our experiences.
How? They don’t even know who they are. You won’t know who you are and yet everybody is going to recognise each other, sit in circles and sing kumbaja, completely oblivious to to the trillions of people being tortured; siblings, friends, cousins, mothers, fathers tortured 24/7 for ever while God wipes your memories so you don’t know you’re sitting with the man that raped your child and that the child who was raped is being tortured forever?
To be brutally honest, you’ve got to be a pretty twisted individual to look forward to that.
And then there’s the Catholics. You can buy prayers. Divine justice indeed.
Christopher Hitchens, without a doubt, sums up the prospect of heaven perfectly in this video:
The basic gist of the video is that he (and I) do not wish to live under an unalterable dictatorship, that he had no part in choosing, for all eternity, being able to be convicted of thought crimes.
An existence consisting of everlasting praise? It sounds more like hell than heaven.
The closest approximation on earth that Mr. Hitchens has experienced (and he’s been around) happens to be North Korea where it is literally the only job and right of citizens to praise the divine leader and his divine father.
Sound familiar?
“A life of constant groveling misery and fear… and praise and thanks for the tiny hand outs that you get.”
North Korea has one advantage over the Christian heaven: “At least you can fucking DIE in North Korea”.
“With religious totalitarianism, there is no escapce, it is absolute, it is complete, it’s utter, it’s horrifying.”
To put it simply: “I don’t want that and I don’t respect anyone who does.”
That people look forward to having an important part of what makes them THEM removed, have their free will removed and be made to want to spend eternity worshipping a dictator without the possibility of ever changing that is repugnant, to put it mildly.
The deacon implicitly agree’s: does he vote in democratic elections or does he work to restore dictatorships and monarchy?
As a high standing missionary in your religion of Atheism you seem to have an un-natural fascination with God and His followers Christians. By definition you should not ever mention God, however typical of most atheists you base your religion on two doctrines A) God doesn’t exist, B)if he does exist then I hate him. How do you reconcile this contradiction?
If God doesn’t exist then carry on your futile life of anarchy and chaos because thats what it is without God. You note that there is chaos and anarchy, grannys and babies raped, children starved, wars etc etc. Has it occured to you that your follow atheist humananity may have something to do with that? Or is it the 5% Christian population that is responsible for all the ills of society?
And if God exists? You know from your Bible knowledge, (there again true Atheist’s don’t mention the Bible because it is inspired by God and he doesn’t exist remember) and thus you know that from Genesis to Revelation the whole message of the Bible is one of redemption. God reaching out to His creation to save them from their rebellion (sin) against Him. Jesus died to save us, the ultimate sacrifice. But I guess you having been bought up in the church would have heard this simple message many times before.
And as for heaven- have you been there? I haven’t but I look forward to it. You might see this life as the pinnacle of your sad existance, and what are memories? Just vapours of our imagination. I don’t see this sad life of struggle to be my pinnacle, not when my Saviour Jesus Christ awaits me in Heaven.
Because you don’t believe in heaven then whats it to you that I do? Why does it upset you so? Guilt? Confusion? a feeling of being missed out?
Turn to God confess your need of Him, repent from your rebellion (sin) and then join me in heaven as part of God’s saved kingdom free from condemnation and guilt.
Deacon Jake
ps when my wife makes me pie with steak etc I thank God for the food we have
By the end of this you are going to be angry. You are going to be angry because you have and are going to have to lie, to yourself and to me. You’re going to be angry because you will know that I know you’re lying.
I am neither high standing nor is atheism a religion. But you knew that and you’re just playing stupid to accommodate your empty argument and baseless idea. It’s this about Christians (and other religionuts) that I find most deplorable. Your insistence on imposing idiocy upon yourselves.
Atheism is no more a religion than bald is a hair colour and not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Atheism IS a celebration of reason and reality.
It’s not unnatural at all. I live in a world where people who believe in talking snakes and donkeys feel they are entitled to enforce their ignorant opinion on children and on me. If I don’t call you out for the ridiculous nonsense you believe, who will?
If all religion had to withdraw from all public forums you would probably never hear from me again.
Which God, exactly, shouldn’t I mention? And why not? I am forced to pretend a deity exists to show what a load of rubbish you believe, how little you’ve considered the implications and consequences of what you believe. By definition I pretend you have a deity because you are unable to accept that you don’t have one.
Atheism is not a religion.
A) Your god and the 3000 other odd gods that humanity have invented over time don’t exist, thankfully. And you happen to be an atheist with respect to 2999 of them…
B) How could you not dislike a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal psychopath?
You’ve read the Bible, surely?
There is no contradiction: there is no god but the one you allege to believe in is a disgusting effigy of everything that is deplorable in human nature. Funny don’t you think, how your God tends to fit your own prejudices?
Anarchy and chaos? Which part of the secular laws that we have come from your God Manual? The laws about child protection? The bits where god says it’s wrong to rape children? Where your God says it’s wrong to keep slaves?
Seems to me you are either lying for Jesus or just plain ignorant.
And my life is far from futile. I love living and I make as much as I can from every day and I don’t spend any of it on my knees grovelling to a non existent psychotic.
Humanity has everything to do with it, since there is no deity. My point is, as you well know, that if your God existed, he does nothing to prevent bad things from happening, even to children while he has the power to. We call this criminal negligence.
Compare Christian America with secular Scandinavia. Will you lie and tell me America has a lower crime rate and higher standard of living?
Playing the victim is disingenuous. You know very well I don’t blame the ’5%’ of Christians in society for every ill. I’m willing to bet that if you go to the nearest prison, you’ll find vastly more religionuts than atheists (if any). Lying for Jesus is also disingenuous, do you feel guilty for breaking a commandment? There are around 2 billion Christians in the world and about 7 billion people, surely you can see that the percentage is far from 5%? Perhaps your math is bad. No, wait, I know, they’re not True Christians, right? Right.
Seems you don’t know many atheists and there is such no thing as a ‘true Atheist’ in the sense that you use it. If you don’t believe in the existence of a god, you are an atheist. Most atheists, however, do know more about the Bible than most Christians. How do you think we became atheists? We read the Bible and are able to tell that the stories are the attempts of bronze age sheep herders to make sense of the world. Why can’t you?
What I know is that the Bible is full of contradictions, hundreds of them. The Bible is full of impossibilities, a great many of them and the BIble is packed with flat out ridiculousness. I also know that this ‘redemption’ you speak of is pretty sparse.
And anyway, redemption from what? Original sin? There was no Adam and Even, science has proven that repeatedly in several disciplines.
No original sin, nothing to redeem. But tell me exactly why the almighty creator of the universe, inventor of all the rules in the universe, creator of human kind, that knows everything past and future needs to have a bit of himself temporarily killed by the people he created so that he can be convinced to forgive them? What kind of ‘sacrifice’ was it anyway? He’s a god that knew the future.
Your’re projecting. My existence is far from sad. Like I said before, I am happy and fulfilled and live my life knowing this precious little is all I will ever have and I make the most of it. I learn as much as I can about it. Why don’t you?
For somebody who espouses a religion with at least one direct rule against lying you do it rather often. Alzheimer’s syndrome is what life looks like without memories. What are memories? They are what makes you YOU. Why do you wan’t Alzheimer’s?
Again, you’re projecting. Yours might be but my life most definitely isn’t sad.
Why, thanks for asking. It upsets me because you lie to children and tell them people will be tortured for eternity. You teach lies to people, that critical thinking is something to be avoided. You celebrate ignorance. Your religion has celebrated bigotry and condoned slavery. Your religion has fought scientific advance for two thousand years. Your religion, right at this very moment, is fighting stem cell research that could end up curing cancer, it is fighting the use of condoms in Africa (or wait, are those not True Christians again?). The only thing that upsets me is your celebration of ignorance.
Missing out? Hardly.
When my wife makes me pie with steak in it, I thank my wife for making it. I thank myself for working for it. I thank the farmer for raising the cows. I thank the vet for keeping the cows healthy. I thank science for giving me a life long enough to enjoy a steak pie. I thank science for giving me electricity to make the pie.
I don’t waste my thanks on non-existent things that had nothing to do with what I have reason to be thankful for.
Since you have a relationship with the almighty creator of the universe, hows about you get some actual, useful information from him. For once, be honest, pray, ask a question you cannot answer yourself or cannot get the answer to anywhere else.
Get the proof to Goldbach’s conjecture and paste it here. Or simply explain how to fit gravity into the standard model. It should be trivial.
Why are you OK to say you have a ‘personal relationship’ with something you cannot get any useful information from?
won’t reply because I am going skydiving tomorrow, so early night for me
Deacon Jake
By the end of this you are going to be angry. You are going to be angry because you have and are going to have to lie, to yourself and to me. You’re going to be angry because you will know that I know you’re lying.
Whoa whoa what’s this lying bit? Just because you can’t understand or believe what I believe, how does that make me a liar? Using that logic means you call everyone a liar when they don’t agree with you. So you call someone a liar if they don’t agree with you about a brand of toothpaste, petrol, computers etc. How does that work? How do you get thru life with that sort of attitude?
I am neither high standing not is atheism a religion. It’s this about Christians (and other religionuts) that I find most deplorable. Your insistence on imposing idiocy upon yourselves.
Atheism IS a celebration of reason and reality.
Sure in the truest definition religion is about understanding our relationship with a divine or transcendent entity, but plenty of definitions simply imply religion to be a following of a belief. True atheism denies God or the divine, simply believing in self; humanism. That’s why I point out that you are “unnatural” in your fascination about God. Firstly true atheists won’t and don’t mention God because he doesn’t exist. Secondly its actually not natural for humanity to want anything to do with God anyway because since the “fall” humanity has been in rebellion against God.
So you don’t believe or understand what I believe, I find that fascinating, but I find it strange why you think I should get angry. Why should I get angry because you are grappling with your beliefs? I ask again what’s it to you what I believe? You choose to believe what you want, how can you possibly be afraid that I am “enforcing” my opinion on you? You already believe something, you are actually immune to my ideas or beliefs. Nothing that I can say to you should or could change your mind.
However I believe in a living God and thru the work of the Holy Spirit -which you know about- your heart and mind could be changed. It is very possible that in time you will see your need for redemption from your rebellion against God (Rom. 3:23, Jn.3:3)and allow Jesus to be your Saviour (Rom. 10:9-10, 1 Jn.1:9). Just like I also needed to do. There was a time I didn’t trust or follow God, but God had mercy and Jesus death saved me.
You see your problem isn’t against Christians, it is against God, but His love is for you too.
Can you fight God and win? You know enough about God and what is written in the Bible to know the answer. You challenge me to considered the implications and consequences of what I believe. What about the implications and consequences to you if you don’t believe. Jesus will return and then you can explain yourself to Him. He may want to know why you being in such a privileged position of having heard the Gospel (good news) didn’t act on it.
Your god and the 3000 other odd gods that humanity have invented over time don’t exist, thankfully. And you happen to be an atheist with respect to 2999 of them…
Actually Hindu’s alone have over 3000 gods, then there’s all the other primal/ tribal gods. I don‘t deny their existence. I believe in the one true Holy living God.
How could you not dislike a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal psychopath?…Funny don’t you think, how your God tends to fit your own prejudices?
Question or statement? That what you see. I see a Transcendent Sovereign God who is Omnipresent, who has Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immanence and Immutability, descriptions of God we can hardly comprehend in our minds. But God is revealed in the Bible. Read it again and have a closer look.
I’m willing to bet that if you go to the nearest prison, you’ll find vastly more religionuts than atheists (if any).
According to Cross Roads Bible Institute there are Christians in prison. Many have become Christians because of the care and consideration shown them by visiting Christians. Other then that the number of Christians in prison reflects the average NZ precent which is about 5% according to church membership stats. Christian per head of population in China is about 10%. Currently claimed Christianity is about 32% world wide. (Islam is about 22%)
Lying for Jesus is also disingenuous, do you feel guilty for breaking a commandment? There are around 2 billion Christians in the world and about 7 billion people, surely you can see that the percentage is far from 5%? Perhaps your math is bad. No, wait, I know, they’re not True Christians, right? Right.
Explained above, not to sure where the lie is, unless you don’t agree, maybe there are more Christians, yes I can see your angst.
We read the Bible and are able to tell that the stories are the attempts of bronze age sheep herders to make sense of the world. Why can’t you?
I have been privileged to be able to study the Bible and remain convinced that it is God’s inspired word. The bronze age sheep herders have now became modern learned theologians with PhDs carrying ipads and laptops and thousands of years accumulated research and knowledge. It may sound odd to you but I don’t have any problem with what the Bible teaches and I find out more every time I study it. My belief isn’t original, I follow the norms of Christian teaching and theology. So your thoughts and opinions would follow the other almost 70%of those that don’t believe in Jesus Christ.
In 1 Cor 1 Paul tells us that the Greeks (who believed they had the best wisdom, where is that today?) found the message of salvation to be a stumbling block. They refused to believe but yet in time God did an incredible work in Greece as you can read in Acts (written by Luke who was a doctor) and Paul’s (who was a lawyer) accounts.
No original sin, nothing to redeem. But tell me exactly why the almighty creator of the universe, inventor of all the rules in the universe, creator of human kind, that knows everything past and future needs to have a bit of himself temporarily killed by the people he created so that he can be convinced to forgive them? What kind of ‘sacrifice’ was it anyway? He’s a god that knew the future.
You are right God knew the future and also that we would have no hope without His redeeming work. It is hard to explain why God would sacrifice His son, our minds just don’t comprehend these things. But just because we can’t understand this, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Examples, most people have computers but how many actually understand how they work. Many people drive cars with no clue as to what goes on under the bonnet. How many people fly clueless about lift and angle of attack and aerodynamics. People believe these things and occasionally when they go wrong they believe in the people that fix the problem. You most likely have this happen in your work.
God had the solution to the sin problem. What’s hard about that? Well our sinful rebelling minds need renewing too and when God does that thru the Holy Spirit we simply believe in faith.
Get the proof to Goldbach’s conjecture and paste it here. Or simply explain how to fit gravity into the standard model. It should be trivial.
Why does gravity have to explained as a standard model, its there and it works, what’s the issue? Goldbach’s conjecture? Funny. And you would believe? Remember the Greeks.
What I would be interested in is an objective explanation as to how you became an atheist. I am very aware that many are brought up in the church and many also leave, so I would be interested in your story.
I was also bought up in the church and by faithful parents, but I also had to make my “calling and election sure” (became a Christian) I own my own faith.
If you want to tell your story you could e-mail Nichola Romney a friend of mine and get my e-mail address from her.
Deacon Jake
I understand perfectly well what you believe and it’s not what you believe that makes you a liar. Don’t let your persecution complex run away with you.
Again, you’re not a liar because you disagree with me. You’re a liar because you use lies to prop up a belief for which there is no evidence. Half truths, untruths, contradictions.
For example: when you quote stats and present them as facts and they are wrong, that is a lie.
Like I said before, if there were no religious nonsense around me, no god or religion would feature in my life. But you chose to ignore that. Twice. That too, is a form of lying.
Again you ignore what I said. Why wouldn’t an atheist mention the ridiculous things you believe in? You talk about it don’t you? Then clearly I should talk about it. I talk about it because you and seven billion other people talk about it and those seven billion people make choices that directly affect my life. How could I NOT talk about it?
YOU believe a god exists and that belief affects the choices you make and that forces me to talk about it.
Oh and, I am a ‘True Atheist’, an anti-theist even, and I talk about it. PZ Myers talks about it. Richard Dawkins talks about it. Christopher Hitchens talks about it. Hemant Mehta talks about it. Sam Harris talks about it. Tens of thousands of atheist bloggers talk about god. Seems a lot of ‘True Atheists’ are talking about god.
Pity the hard, empirical evidence goes contrary to your statement. Wake up man, just because you want to believe something doesn’t make it true. Get some evidence.
Got evidence? Since there was no fall, is no god and never was a rebellion, you don’t actually have a point. Or evidence. Get some.
I understand very well what you believe, I just don’t respect it. Just like I don’t respect adults who believe in Santa Clause, fairies, leprechauns, astrology and magic.
I apologise for assuming you’d at least have the good graces to feel a bit embarrassed about your lack of evidence for what you claim. But then, being afraid of hypocrisy has never been a strong Christian trait.
I’m not ‘grappling’. I have not ‘grappled’ with what I believe since I was a child. Right before I gave up childish beliefs.
You believe in 900 year old men, talking snakes and donkeys, a man surviving in a whale, unicorns, angels, demons, a world wide flood, child murdering bears, the slaughter of innocent Egyptian children, the genocide of several middle eastern city states without a shred of evidence.
How can I not have an issue with people who hold such ridiculous beliefs and yet have the ability to make decisions that affect my life and the lives of children?
If you had to, oh, I don’t know, oppose homosexual marriage based purely your dearly held delusions, why should I accept that? I shouldn’t and won’t.
Have no fear, nothing you say can or will change my mind. But you get to vote in elections, sit on school PTA’s, get tax breaks for your organisation. Members of your organisation run this country. That materially affects me.
No, it’s not possible. There is no god. No amount of wishful thinking will change that. And like I said before, wishing that your particular version of a deity exists is counter productive: he’s a psychotic and him actually existing is the worst possible thing I can imagine.
And saved you from what, exactly?
Actually, it’s neither, as I’ve said before which you have chosen to ignore, again. My problem is with the absolute garbage that you believe without evidence. It’s with the contradictory things, in your head that you manage to rationalise, that I have an issue with.
It’s that you can state all of these things without being able to back any of it up with credible evidence. It is that you teach these things to children that I have an issue with.
THAT is my problem.
And the ‘love’ of this omnipotent God you worship? Do you even comprehend what you are saying? Do you know what his ‘love’ looks like? Have you had a good, long, hard look at what his ‘love’ looks like, up close?
There is no god to fight, ergo, I have already won. How is it possible to lose a fight against an imaginary creature? Ever lose a fight to a leprechaun?
Jesus will return from where? Your imagination? No he won’t. And the gospel? Read it? What were Jesus’s alleged last words?
Your god should be embarrassed that humans manage to put together decent science textbooks together every single day and the best he could manage was the contradictory nonsense that’s the Bible.
Your god should be embarrassed that he let humanity suffer for thousands of years before the discovery of the germ theory of disease. He could have put one useful line of text in the Bible that would have made all the difference: always wash your hands with soap, before you relieve yourself, after you relieve yourself and before you treat any sick or injured person.
So simple. Nowhere to be found. Why? Because it wasn’t a god who knew everything who wrote or inspired the bible.
And, seriously, if you’re dumb enough to bring up Pascal’s Wager we actually have nothing to talk about.
And there it is, another lie. You don’t deny their existence? So they exist then?
Clearly it’s both. Also two questions. Care to answer them?
You cannot comprehend it because it is a ridiculous fantasy. There is nothing to comprehend.
“Omnipresent, who has Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immanence and Immutability” that needs you to cut a bit off a child’s penis, needs to drown the entire planet because he screwed up and couldn’t come up with a better solution?
Evidence. Get some.
My apologies, you weren’t lying, you are just ignorant. The 2006 census shows that 56% of New Zealand are Christian. You say 5%. Are 51% of New Zealand liars? Or is there some other kind of classification of Christianity that I am not aware of?
So now we’re calling my insistence for telling the truth angst? That too is disingenuous.
How do you rationalise Numbers 31:17-18? I have a huge personal problem with, and there exists not a single situation where I will accept, genocide, slavery, rape and the subjugation of women. I guess you must feel differently.
And I take it you’ve studied the Quran, Torah and the Bhagavad Gita to make this informed decision, that the Bible is the inspired word of God?
Two minor issues: there is no god and the Bible isn’t true.
No, it didn’t happen because there is no evidence for it happening.
They have evidence that computers work, cars work, airplanes work. Hard, empirical evidence. And this is the problem with what you believe. You try to equate things for which there is an abundance of evidence to things for which there is none.
Believing in a god-man being murdered so that same god can forgive something he invented, without any evidence is not the same as believing in an computer for which there is an enormous amount of empirical evidence.
Pretending there is a god: He invented the ‘sin problem’. He knew about this ‘sin problem’ before he created the universe and sin. He then went and created the universe and sin. Having a bit of himself temporarily killed by the things he invented so he could be convinced to forgive his inventions for breaking some arbitrary rule he knew they would break is ridiculous and stupid.
I have a solution to the ‘sin problem’: there was no Adam and Eve, no ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’, no original sin and no need need for a solution to the ‘sin problem’.
There is no ‘sin problem’. There never has been a ‘sin problem’. Presumably, you have some, you know, evidence of it’s existence?
Why did you choose to avoid getting the information? Why question the need for the experiment? Because you know full well that you cannot get any useful information that you or somebody you know doesn’t already have from this god with whom you allege to have a personal relationship. Why do you not find it strange?
If you had bothered to ask God about my question, I’m sure He would have clarified it by telling you my question was to explain how to fit gravity in the The Standard Model of Particle Physics.
The short version? I read the Bible. The long version? Read my ‘why I am an atheist’ post.
What I am interested in is the empirical evidence that convinced you to choose to become a Christian instead of a Hindu or a Muslim or a Jew.
I am also very interested to know what Christians get from their personal relationship with the creator of the universe that nobody else can have until they have that personal relationship.
wow! you guys…… a lot of reading for a follower.
Neither of you are going to bend, but good that you enjoy wasting your time on one another…..grin. Makes for an interesting read.
Sorry Jake, I side with furious llama. You’ve been indoctrinated/brainwashed from childhood, so have lost the ability ‘at present’ to see truth and consider logic, so your debate often goes off into silly nonsense dogma from the bible, that has no basis of truth. ‘Faith’ is not truth. Faith – strong belief in something without proof. Anyway, you have your right to believe and we have our right not to believe, so at least we can agree on that.
However, do away with religion and the world would not descend into chaos, in my opinion it would be a far better place, that’s based on the unpleasant evidence of religious influence throughout history and today.
For me, I just have to look at the church you belong to, the people that follow it’s dogma, and I do not find many of them to be open, friendly and accepting of others. They are closed, keep to themselves and do little to show ‘religion’ in a good light. I am glad to be free of it’s oppression. Free to be me. There are a number that go there that are the exception, but a ‘very small’ number Jake, with you guys being amongst those. I’m glad to know you and be your friend, but I hope one day that you become ‘free’, to seek knowledge that has no ‘limitations’.
Just be you, with your own brain, learning what you want to learn.
I think it’s good that atheists and non-religigious people speak against religion. How would the world be if no one did? There’s a place for everyone. It brings balance.
But we have to watch those followers of Islam!
I read your why I am an atheist explanation, thanks for that will comment on that later sometime. Meanwhile matters at hand…
“Pity the hard, empirical evidence goes contrary to your statement. Wake up man, just because you want to believe something doesn’t make it true. Get some evidence.”
Nice one this is my question to you, what evident do you provide to support your belief, isn’t also faith on your behalf?
“ But you get to vote in elections, sit on school PTA’s, get tax breaks for your organisation. Members of your organisation run this country. That materially affects me.”
Its odd you should be concerned by this, Christians will always be out numbered, simple demographics ensure that your dearly held dogma’s will always hold sway. But then the fact that even with the diversity that is within Christianity, Christians are still united because they uphold a higher ideal and power and they are committed to that. Atheist can only wish for that because you know that there is no uniting for the common good with-in atheism because your higher ideal is always yourself.
It is very possible that in time you will see your need for redemption from your rebellion against God (Rom. 3:23, Jn.3:3)and allow Jesus to be your Saviour (Rom. 10:9-10, 1 Jn.1:9). Just like I also needed to do. There was a time I didn’t trust or follow God, but God had mercy and Jesus death saved me.
“And saved you from what, exactly?”
Thanks for asking. In a word sin, rebellion against God. When humanity didn’t trust God and His goodness to them they fell into sin as you read in Genesis and well explained in the books of Romans, Hebrews etc. Jesus was the solution given for sin. Believe in Jesus and be saved. Joined back with God. Simple and easy. With that sorted we can continue to live our life for God instead of for ourselves. God changes peoples lives in ways that science can never explain. We all have to accept that there are mysteries that will or can never be explained. Accept that for some people they attribute that to God. Let them be. That’s called faith and even atheists have faith to believe in what they do with out a bit of evidence.
As Christians we accept one foundational truth – God – and everything else makes sense. An atheist denies God and has to accept incredible explanations for everything else. It takes more faith to deny God than to believe in Him. John MacArthur
(The Bible) presents a most plausible understanding of the universe and the existence of life. It presents a God who creates. That makes more sense than believing that everything came out of nothing – that nobody times nothing equals all things – which is essentially what the theory of evolution says. I have an easier time assuming that everything was produced by someone. And the Bible tells me who that someone is: God.
John MacArthur
“Your god should be embarrassed that he let humanity suffer for thousands of years before the discovery of the germ theory of disease. He could have put one useful line of text in the Bible that would have made all the difference: always wash your hands with soap, before you relieve yourself, after you relieve yourself and before you treat any sick or injured person.
So simple. Nowhere to be found. Why? Because it wasn’t a god who knew everything who wrote or inspired the bible.”
Actually if you closely read the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers you will see laws and commands about cleaning and hygiene that go into minute detail. The people of Israel subsequently became the healthiest and longer living people of the East because God had set out these requirements. Even circumcision ensured that the Israelites enjoyed better sexual health then their neighbours. Their woman were able to produce more children who were healthier and lived longer, thus Israel became a strong nation. Gods laws and commands meant that they had better cohesion in society, were able to grow and harvest better and larger quantities of food. And don’t say they just coped their neighbours, they were much better at everything then their neighbours especially when they obeyed Gods most important command to serve Him only. Yes in-fact he actually said He was a jealous God who wouldn’t tolerate any idol or false god worship. God blessed Israel when they obeyed and when they didn’t obey then the blessings became curses. Incidentally if the Bible was made up then would it actually have all the stories of Israel being almost destroyed by stronger neighbours in times when they choose to go their own way? History tells us that 10 tribes of Israel disappeared through wars with Babylonians, Persians and Medes. These nations slaughtered man woman and child alike as was the way of warfare in that time.
“How do you rationalise Numbers 31:17-18? I have a huge personal problem with, and there exists not a single situation where I will accept, genocide, slavery, rape and the subjugation of women.”
Numbers 31 is a historical account of a terrible battle against the Midianites who cheated Israel. The Bible records many historical events that are also recorded in other nations histories. Many of the histories are about battles where Israel was badly beaten in battle with huge loose of life and survivors marched away into slavery. As warfare was at that time. God put these histories in the Bible as a warning of what sin results in. There is no doubt that war in those days was awful. But is it any more enlightened in this day and age. Have we evolved away from death and killing in war? Has science given us the answer to everlasting world peace? Don’t even be so foolish to suggest that war is a result of religion. Look around you- it is godless atheists like you who are busy killing each other.
“And I take it you’ve studied the Quran, Torah and the Bhagavad Gita to make this informed decision, that the Bible is the inspired word of God?”
I am studying other religions at the moment. As Karl Barth says what sets the Christian religion from others is that the Bible is revelation whilst other religions are about humanities reaching out to God. The Bible reveals that God reaches out to humanity.
“What I am interested in is the empirical evidence that convinced you to choose to become a Christian instead of a Hindu or a Muslim or a Jew.”
Good question. I believe what the Bible says in Ephesians 1 where it explains how God predestined those who would believe and set things in order that they would have salvation, 1 Cor 15: 51-58 where it explains I have a future, that physical death doesn’t I am forever cut off from God, Romans 5:6-11 where Jesus paid the penalty for sin and I am redeemed. The Bible is always my first point of reference as evidence. Then I look at my own life and the lives of many other Christians that come from all sorts of walks of life and see what God has done. Remarkable transformations and powerful encounters with the living God. This is evidence to me. Do I have questions? Of-course I do. I read my Bible, I study it as well as other religions. I pray to God and I worship Him. I have seen Him at work in my life as I have dealt with hard issues and events. And every year I learn more about God and every year I become more content to leave some things as mysteries, to allow good science to explain things and to allow my God given faith to accept that there will be things we will never know or comprehend in this world but will be revealed in Glory.
I won’t be able to commit any more time to assisting you in your blog, I have presented the gospel and given my witness. Thanks for the opportunity.
Your ‘assistance’ was neither requested nor received. Failure to answer an argument does not assistance make.
Evidence? The irony is thick. But yes, I have mountains of peer-reviewed evidence for the big bang and evolution while you have the self contradictory, reality contradictory book called the Bible. Are you unable to read?
If you’re talking about evidence for non existence of god: I don’t need any just like I don’t need evidence for the non-existence of Santa Clause. If you claim something exists you must provide evidence.
You persecution complex is pathetic. Christians outnumber everybody in New Zealand. Fact. Census. Quoted. Where is your evidence to back up your outright lie?
You’re projecting and it’s pathetic. I have proof. Where is yours?
And while we’re at it, these “dearly held dogma’s” of mine, what are they?
United? Higher ideal? Childish fantasy. Nazi’s were united, did they have a higher ideal? Muslims are united; what’s their higher ideal other than they want to convert you and me to Islam?
Tell me how Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Catholics and the Westboro Baptist Church are ‘united’.
Atheism is not a religion, it is a lack of belief in any deity. Lack of belief in leprechauns is not a ‘uniting’ thing. Your statement again shows your disturbing lack of understanding.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
I think you just don’t want to understand.
There is no god. Provide evidence.
There is no god. There probably was no Jesus. Provide evidence.
No it doesn’t. Science can explain those perceived changes easily. And anyway, every religion ‘changes’ a person or do you think Christians are special? Every religion has ‘religious’ experiences exactly like Christianity. The mechanics of how that works has been thoroughly explained by science.
The Christian experience is the same as the Hindu experience… care to explain that?
No we don’t have to accept that. We can use science and try to find the answers. Some of us are, some of us, clearly aren’t.
I’d love to hear what it is that I allegedly believe without evidence. What do I need to have ‘faith’ for?
No, you believe one fantasy and then rationalise flat out lies and ignore a load of hideous things to fit that fantasy. It’s childish and stupid.
An atheist knows there is not god and accepts incredible explanations that happen to have evidence. Lots and lots of evidence. Watch the video I posted about the big bang. You might actually learn something for a change.
John MacArthur is delusional. And it takes no faith at all to deny any non existent god. There is no god. No proof. No need for ‘belief without evidence’ to know there is no god.
And this is how I know you’re delusional. The Bible is flat out, provably wrong in every single way when it describes where we came from. Provably, wrong. And you’re an adult who believes it. It’s pathetic.
It’s good you’re done with this conversation because that statement is evidence that you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.
What made god? Oh, right, we don’t apply rules universally.
Evolution says nothing about the origin of the universe or abiogenesis. What you should do is open a science text book and read it yourself instead of parroting other delusionals.
Just because YOU don’t understand something doesn’t make it untrue and just because YOU want to believe something doesn’t make it true.
Evidence. Get some.
Easier doesn’t make it true. Assumptions don’t prove anything. The Bible ISN’T true, provably. There is no god or any evidence for him.
Where does that leave you? Wishfully thinking a ‘religion’ of your own making. If you want to see Christians who take the Bible at face value, look no further than Westboro Baptist Church.
The problem with ‘closely read’ is that you have to take what the Bible says and retro-fit intelligence.
Here’s a nice one:
Lev. 13:40 And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
Lev. 13:41 And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean
Are you kidding? Inspired indeed. Baldness along with leprosy. Makes perfect sense.
And if you think you can use the ‘but god said to shit outside the camp’ in Deuteronomy you really are a moron. Shit stinks. Which is why we do it away from where we sleep. You might need the creator of you universe to tell you things like that. I don’t.
You also have this minor difficulty of why no Christian applied any of these revolutionary, deity inspired laws for nigh on two thousand years after Jesus?
You’re so happy to point out that possibly the bible has some common sense in it but you happily ignore the fact that no Christian applied this common sense for millennia?
What is wrong with you?
One, you provide no evidence. Two, your god is such a shitty designer you have to cut pieces of babies genitals to improve the design? And three, science has proved the contrary.
Evidence? None, as usual.
Actually, he also said to worship no other gods before him. Do other gods exist?
Er, yes. Obviously. It’s a great way to scare the ignorant into obedience. That is, after all, the point of religion. Control.
God mandated infanticide, genocide, rape and slavery. Why does the omnipotent almighty creator of the universe need to resort to baby murder and rape? Why?
Why are you unable to see the problem with that?
How many slaves did the Americans take back from Iraq? How many baby heads were bashed open because god commanded it? How many virgins did they keep for themselves?
Even heard of the universal declaration of human rights? The Geneva convention? 6,000 years after your god allegedly invented the world humans come up with a way to deal with each even while they are killing each other, something your god couldn’t pull off.
It’s disgusting and deplorable that you have to try to sidestep the horror of god mandated genocide (‘war was like that then’).
Is it? Evidence? Oh, no evidence, again. Point out the godless atheists killing each other please.
Hows about I point out some American Christians busy shooting at some Muslims in Afghanistan? How about I point out some Muslims bombing some Christian Americans in Afghanistan and Africa. How about I point out some Jews and Muslims shooting at each other in the middle east.
Are you ignorant because you want to be ignorant?
LMAO! Oh Jesus that’s funny. And you can’t even see the irony in that, which makes it even funnier.
What are you? Illiterate? Can you not read my questions? Judging by the number of times you’ve ignored what I’ve said, I guess that’s evidence to the positive.
Your Biblical evidence as opposed to what? Where is the evidence to the contrary that you evaluated? The only thing you’ve done is quote some nicely chosen passages that support your pre-conceived notion from your religion of choice. What in the other religions were wrong? Why were they worse? How did you come to the conclusion?
That you even tried to answer my question about empirical evidence with that load of one sided garbage is further proof that you have no, freaking, idea.
You started out as a Christian and then didn’t evaluate other religions and then ended up a Christian. OMFG what a surprise.
Seriously? What is wrong with you?
Really. You apparently don’t even understand atheism and you’re an atheist, just like me, in respect to thousands of gods. I have yet to see a single thing from you that shows you aren’t just plain ignorant and yet you claim to study other religions.
Isn’t that amusing? You’ll take science because you’d be stupid not to, it did after all give you everything you have but when that same science that you so readily accept shows there is no god you then “don’t believe the science” but you keep using the things that that science gave you? It’s laughable and I actually am laughing.
I didn’t ask for your ‘assistance’ nor did I receive your ‘assistance’. What you did was:
- make empty statements without evidence
- quoted a self contradictory, reality contradictory book as if it was evidence
- ignored my statements, answers and questions
- didn’t answer my arguments
- lied without correction
- acted stupid and ignorant to further your case
- supported genocide, rape and slavery
But really, thanks a whole bunch. And of course you’re welcome.
Yes I can see from your spittle and frothing that you have been punching air. Of-course I am going to sidestep your thrusts. You seemingly believe that your jabs and insults are hitting home, but the miss every time. However I think I got a reaction out of you every turn. you just can’t help yourself. You seem very sensitive and not at all confident. There is not an original thought in your head and you are influenced by everything you have unthinkingly read and heard. Your arguments are empty and this endless demand for evidence and appeals to science are down right sad.
Look around you Llama and look at the world created for your good and to God’s glory. Evidences of Gods work is all around you. Open your eyes and look. Whats bad and shitty out there is humanities doing isn’t it. But it is you who doesn’t understand and who chooses to ignore God at your peril. I freely admit that I follow God and believe in the Bible as Gods word. That gives me assurance and confidence. It is called faith, I have it in God, you have it in something else. You however in your uncertainty continue to plead to sciences leading and guiding you. Remember science once said smoking wouldn’t kill you and eating highly processed food was good for you.
True science is defined as the study of the behaviour of the physical/natural world through observation and experiment. Far too often science and religion are pitted against one another in an unhelpful way. Science is portrayed as the factual study of our world, while religion is based more on faith than fact. However, much of modern science is, in fact, little more than faith! Take the creation/evolution debate. Scientists admit that the scientific method is to propose theories and then confirm or deny them by observation and experimentation. However, no scientists have ever been able to observe either the original creation of all things or an experiment that demonstrates how the world was created. The fact is – evolution is more based on faith than fact. Here are some helpful facts to keep in mind when evaluating this issue.
FACT 1: No one except God observed the origin of earth/creation. The origins of earth are outside the pale of science because it was not and cannot be observed.
FACT 2: No one has ever observed or created an experiment which demonstrated that life can come from nothing. Even the experiments where they claim to create life from chemicals do you know what they did? They copied God’s existing design of some bacteria, then inserted their
meticulously constructed design into plain existing cells (which are basic building blocks of life) and when it reproduced, they rejoiced. That isn’t an example of how life came from non-life… that is a prime example of how it takes intelligent design to make life work!
FACT 3: No one has ever observed or proven a transitional animal evolving from one species to another. Do dogs “evolve” into different dogs? Sure. Do cats, horses, and practically every other animal change and adapt? Sure, but no dog ever turned into a lion, and no monkey turned into a man… the pretty pictures in the books are all just that – merely pretty pictures drawn by some artist – with NO correspondence to fact at all!
The next time someone says Christians ignore the facts of science, lovingly correct them and let them know that we don’t have any problem with the facts of science, it is simply the faith of science that bothers us! (D Wilson).
By the way I am not an atheist. I don’t deny the existences of thousands of gods, I choose not to worship them. I worship and serve the one true living Triune God. Submit to God and you too could worship Him.
Jesus, there’s a rant if ever I saw one. And you’re psychic too since there would be no other way to see me right?
Matey, I couldn’t care less if my insults ‘are hitting home’ or not. You’re in my living room shitting on my carpet. Nobody invited you in. I wouldn’t miss you if you went but you really are delusional if you think I’m going to put up with your crap while you’re here.
I am sensitive and not confident? Yes, I am sensitive to bullshit and I am not confident in your mental stability (or ability considering your arguments a bit further down).
My demands for evidence for ridiculous claims is sad? My refusal to accept conjecture as fact without evidence is sad? I guess that kind of reasoning is what one would expect from an adult who believes in Santa Clause… er… sorry, Jesus of Nazareth.
I guess you’d prefer it if you got sued you for no reason, with no evidence and lost? You’d prefer a legal system that eschews evidence? You’re lying again. Nice one Christian.
You’re mistaken if you think I won’t call you out when you’re making things up. I understand that’s how your religion works, that you have to make things up and claim it as fact without evidence but in the real world, it doesn’t work like that.
It wasn’t created. There was no god involved.
There is evidence of natural laws and evolution, I see it every day. And I love it. And I have evidence, where’s yours?
A lot of it is yes. But then, your imaginary friend doesn’t do anything to stop it, does he? And, while we’re on shitty things, why did he make HIV and flesh eating bacteria? Why did he make dysfunctional immune systems that end up in autoimmune diseases? Why did he make cancer?
He made everything right? Including childhood leukaemia? Why does he torture children to death? Seems like a pretty bastard thing to do, don’t you think?
That would be right if there was a god to ignore.
It gives you false assurance and false confidence. Which isn’t to say the confidence you have isn’t useful or effective, just that it’s baseless.
Read/watch this post: http://onefuriousllama.com/2010/08/01/sunday-video-12-kissing-hanks-ass/
And that is the difference between you and me. You think you know everything based on a book full of contradictions and myths and you’re not looking any further to confirm what it says, while I know that I know virtually nothing and I try with everything I have to know and learn as much as possible.
Science has taken us from rubbing two sticks together to smashing protons together at close to the speed of light.
Science, as it turns out, fixes its mistakes, very much unlike religion.
Remember how your Bible STILL condones slavery? Remember how your Bible STILL condones genocide, infanticide, regicide and rape? Remember how your Bible STILL doesn’t say anything about pedophilia?
Oh, and your Bible doesn’t say anything about not smoking or eating processed food either. Hm… what was it that the Bible said about eating… something about shellfish and pork… cooking a goat in its mother’s milk… you don’t eat any those things do you? Surely not.
Talk about a shitty example.
No it isn’t. Ever tried to get a paper published in a scientific journal based on faith? The only journals who do that are ‘intelligent design’ (read: creationist) journals.
You are under the incorrect impression that there is a ‘debate’. There is no ‘debate’. Evolution is a fact and is only disputed by creationists and as it turns out, they are in an extreme minority when it comes to being, you know, scientists who have, you know, studied the subject.
Firstly, nothing was created. Secondly the Large Hadron Collider, what do you think it’s good for, exactly? Thirdly, we have mathematical models that explain everything back until a millionth of a second after the big bang. Which is supported by astronomical observation as well as by several scientific theories (general relativity for one) which has been empirically proven many times over.
Did you not watch that big bang video?
Also, we HAVE seen the cosmic microwave background radiation. We’ve got a freaking MAP of it. A picture. If your badly designed eyes would allow it, you COULD see the universe a very short time after it came into existence.
Here, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
And, again, evolution says nothing about the origin of the universe or abiogenesis.
No it isn’t based on any faith at all. I can tell you’ve spent years researching it, clearly.
You should have called it LIE 1: because a) there is no god which makes that first bit false and b) we are, every day, observing the formation of other stars and soon, other planets. We KNOW how it works. When I say ‘we’, I use the term loosely, you’re obviously not included in that ‘we’.
Surprisingly, you are actually correct in that. Science hasn't made life from non life. I'll give you that. But qualify that with a 'yet'. You see, we're getting pretty close. I wonder what you will say when we do manage it? Where will you retreat then? There aren't that many gaps remaining for your god to hide in.
But you have no idea how happy it makes me that you hammer on abiogenesis:
I would like you to point out a god busy making a man from mud please. That is what your theory says after all? Show me a god making a man from mud. Point him out. Where are the gods making people from mud man? Clearly if you think your theory trumps mine you must have the evidence to back it up?
Oh, right, I keep forgetting, your own rules don't apply to you.
Your special pleading is childish. You're so happy to point out one small thing that science has yet to prove and yet you can't prove your own 'theory' either. It's pathetic.
Two things you might want to try any remember: the theory of Evolution says nothing about abiogenesis. The Big Bang theory says nothing about abiogenesis. Try to memorise that please, it's getting old having to repeatedly point it out to you.
Read this: http://onefuriousllama.com/2011/08/05/creationism-and-the-creation-of-its-own-issues/
Oh really? I have seen with my own eyes transitional fossils. They are to be found in virtually every natural history museum in the world. Have you been to look? I mean, surely, before you made such a claim you actually went to go look right? Surely?
You know I’m laughing at you right now.
So how many ‘transitional’ forms do you require? What would you accept as evidence? Which gaps, when plugged with fossils, will convince you of the truth of Evolution?
Even without the fossils, which we do happen to have, the theory of Evolution would be perfectly sound. You just don’t seem to understand how much evidence there is for evolution do you? Read, a, book, or, two. It’s not hard. Here, I’ll suggest you two that don’t even rip into religion and are very religionut friendly:
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Why Evolution Is True
Your examples are proof, again, that you just simply have no idea what you’re talking about. Straight off the bat, Evolution occurs in time scales of millions, even hundreds of millions of years. Have you been here that long?
You agree that micro-evolution occurs but allege that macro-evolution is impossible and yet you cannot give a reason as to why that is?
Monkeys didn’t turn into men and you’d know this if you spent just an hour actually researching the rubbish you sprout. Humans and apes share a common ancestor just like humans and every other animal on this planet share a common ancestor if you go far enough back.
Like I said, read a book for once and stop parroting other delusionals. Look up the silver foxes experiment. Read some books and learn some basic biology. Actually, start with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution
But clearly you do have a problem with the facts. The mountain of facts say you’re wrong.
Here, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
Let me quote some for you:
Let me sum it up for you: of those people who spent their entire lives studying Evolution and science, only a very, very small minority disagree with it.
And here’s the kicker: The Catholic church, amongst many other Christians accept Evolution as fact.
Oops.
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
So… Zeus, Apollo and Thor exist. Really? Methinks you should try a little harder to pull your head, out of your arse. It’s affecting your ability to think.
But I do wonder if that’s another lie…
I also would like to propose an easy, practical experiment for those who believe science is faith.
1) Turn off all your plug outlets at the wall. See if anything runs on faith.
2) Empty your petrol tank. See if your car runs on faith.
3) Refuse all medical treatment and medicine. Base all your healing on faith and biblical remedies.
Now all three of these (electricity, the internal combustion engine, medical SCIENCE) were not found on the principles of faith. Every single one has been created via the scientific empirical method of hypothesis, test, retest and eventual theory.
Did you know that the when the bible was written, there were no painkillers or anyway to ease the ‘passing’ of life into death? Theist believed that the intense pain people went through as all their internal organs shut down was caused by the wrestle of heaven and hell over a person’s immortal soul.
But when science invented painkillers and anesthetics, these theistic arguments died. Because nobody wants to die in pain, even if they believe that there is a life after it. So the idea of the pains of death being God’s last test of the faithful faded away, because science provided a way for religious people to ignore it.
So faithful on the internet who say that science is wrong or based on faith are already contradicting themselves by using a computer, invented through science, on the internet, invented by science. And if you say that god gave us the ability to do all these things to improve our lives, then you’re essentially arguing that science is a god-given ability so you are contradicting yourself further.
I think the first trick is to convince a religious person to actually do an experiment. If you look at the start of this thread I proposed a very simple experiment to get some useful information from the creator of the universe via ‘the personal relationship’ with Jesus Christ.
Not only was no information forthcoming, the experiment was not done at all. It was scoffed at, misunderstood and subsequently ignored: “let’s pretend he never said that”. It’s almost like they know what the outcome will be. I mean, I know they do but they don’t admit it, it’s always evasions and double speak. I have a hard time understanding how people can have such cognitive dissonance but there it is, over and over again.
Religion is a special kind of hypocrisy: it allows people to say one thing and do another and not question the disparity.
Awesome comment, thanks!