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This thread is pretty sad honestly It's sad that you've been so thoroughly brainwashed by religion that you genuinely can not percieve value in life outside of the belief in an eternal "paradise" which you don't even have the slightest evidence for. It's sad that you can so easily devalue the only life you are guaranteed to have, for the false promise of another "better one" that supposedly lasts forever (which in itself devalues life - if it lasts forever it really isn't precious). The epitome of greed & taking life for granted. It's also possible that you're being intentionally obtuse, pretending that you don't know that people other than Christians can be happy and live meaningful lives, despite evidence all around the world that that is the case. All I will say is that meaning and fulfillment are accessible to humans regardless of religious belief, and far before Christianity came along your ancestors had it too. We're biologically predisposed to derive satisfaction from forming social links, expanding our knowledge and taking actions that lead to the betterment of those around us. Empathy, that's the key. If you lack that then you're going to have a hard time in life, Christian or not. And that you're trying to paint this picture that Christians are all happy and satisfied because of promise of heaven is a joke. Christians can be incredibly greedy, spiteful, and self-centered, showing clear dissatisfaction with their lives and lack of purpose. And praying to a God for stuff rather than working hard for it yourself seems like the opposite of purposeful (not saying all Christians do that, but many do). |
Interesting... thought OP was Christian. Good points regardless. |
This thread is very entertaining ![]() |
kolaish:This post is brimming with assumptions. You're completely ruling out the possibility that this god you're speaking of is a complete fabrication. That it was imagined by normal, human men in a century when humanity created gods to explain the world around them, then spread throughout nations for generations through conquest (slavery in Nigeria's case), cultural assimilation and childhood indoctrination. Consider that possibly first before making such posts. |
EMIOMOADEOYE:I don't mean to be rude but this doesn't make an iota of sense. Rational inquiry and reason are literally the antithesis of dogma. Precisely what makes dogma bad is its resistance to change and its insistence on being correct regardless of new competing information. Dogma can not exist in the presence of evidence-based reasoning and relentless inquiry that respects no authority or single source as infallible. |
Seun:Lmao cloud 9. Have you watched Cosmos? |
Akdegreat: Lennycool:I know this feeling and it's beautiful. A sense of humbleness and connectedness, combined with wonder, curiosity, and a deep appreciation for life, earth, and this universe. From this standpoint the Abrahamic worldview just looks far too human-centric, egotistical, and greedy. Not to mention boring. |
naijaFrank:I LOVE this. You covered so many insightful & important points. |
Sigh ![]() The complexity of the human body and such has been thoroughly explained by evolution by natural selection. No atheist is saying humans magically appeared on earth. It was an extremely gradual, natural process. Please try to learn more about it sincerely from valid sources. You do not have to have a religion to have hope or purpose in life. Both of those things existed for human beings long before religion (an organized set of beliefs about the world from the perspective of a particular culture) was invented. Living life to the fullest can mean different things for different people, but for the most part we humans all crave healthy, satisfying relationships with people who understand and support us, a reliable source of nourishment & health, meaningful work that makes us feel connected to others and useful to our communities, and expressing our creativity and intellect. All of those things and more can be had without religion. The only reason you believe religion is necessary for a good life is because you have been brainwashed to think so since birth. You've been psychologically manipulated in a way that causes you to tie everything in life into your belief system, which makes it difficult for you to imagine living without it in any meaningful way. But just because your perspective has been narrowed (again, since birth, so it's very strong conditioning) does not mean that other ways of viewing reality are inferior. You're simply biased in favor of a religious worldview because that's what you've been taught through repitition, social control, & fear. The last part about a Christian being better off than an atheist if God is real, is a fallacy called Pascal's Wager. Where that argument goes wrong is assuming that there is only one god in question. There are thousands of "possible" gods if we look at all the ones worshipped in human history, and a Christian worshipping the "wrong one" is pretty much just as likely to go to hell as the atheist if he's wrong. The reason I put "possible" in quotes is because with just a little bit of critical consideration & some facts, it's quite easy to see how gods were invented by human imaginations. They have emotions like anger and wrath, they discriminate, they command war. They supposedly created trillions of planets and stars but are unreasonably invested in one tiny planet inhabited by tiny apes. Their descriptions of nature are completely off scientifically (how peculiar, that a God who supposedly created nature wouldn't be able to accurately describe how nature works). And most of all, have a ton of rules about how these apes should & shouldn't live their lives, most which are clearly barbaric, sexist, & written by ancient men. Also, the idea that atheism is just for white people is ridiculous, and a clear sign of mental slavery. Especially given the fact that whites were historically the ones who forced Christianity onto Africans in the first place (via slave trade & the stripping of our traditional religions). And now because of their increased knowledge & development they're leaving it behind, while Africans foolishly cling to the religion of their slave traders, thinking they're being smart. |
jiggaz:Yikes, you just committed the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy: No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman |
Round of applause for this post OP. From birth we are taught to suppress our critical thinking skills, privilege faith over reason and accept whatever our cultures have imposed on us.And this is only a recipe for brainwashing - regardless of what the content of the brainwashing is. A mind that's been discouraged from critical thinking, makes fertile ground for mindless and dogmatic obedience - usually based on fear & emotions. When you break it down, "faith" in itself, is never, ever a good thing. There is just way too much we humans don't know (especially in uneducated areas of the world) for us to simply trust what an authority says simply because they said it's true, and they said it with a lot of confidence and fanfare (ie the church setting). No one raised as Christian, Muslim, or any other religion, can ever claim that they objectively analyzed & evaluated the legitimacy of their religion before joining it. They never even got the chance. They had the ideas planted into their fertile childhood brains by the people they trusted, accepted the ideas solely for that reason (like all young humans are wired to do), and then had the ideas continuously "watered & fed" as they grew up in that same environment full of people preaching, declaring, singing, and insisting on those ideas. Continous reinforcement. |
xtivin:How is "changing one's mind on issues" not a type of "changing"? |
RabbaRabbi:What's with the obsession with eternal life? Why can't we just take what we're given and make the most of it? It seems like the apex of human selfishness and self-centeredness to want to live forever. And of course human peace is temporary, because we have ever-changing needs to meet (physical & emotional). It wasnt conducive for the first 200,000 or so years of our existence to be satisfied for too long. It's ingrained in our genes to seek out possible threats so we can resolve or avoid them - if we didn't have this mechanism our species would've quickly gone extinct. Besides, moments of unhappiness make the joyful moments more sweet. Essentially becoming a zombie only capable of worshiping and smiling for the rest of eternity sounds like something out of a creepy movie. |
I don't doubt that many Christians probably do "sin" more than they would if they didn't have the security blanket of Jesus to forgive anything they do. A non-religiously thinking person might be more likely to second-guess potentially bad behaviors for their consequences alone (I might hurt someone, I might hurt myself, I might regret this later), rather than their default response being to "wipe away their misdeed" with prayer. And may even be more likely to take responsibility for their own choices rather than blaming it on the devil tempting them & other nonsense Christians say to avoid accountability. The imposed repression Christians face (sexual and otherwise) might also inspire more "sin", since obsessively focusing on *not* doing certain things (especially if those things are an innate part of our biology), often causes us to crave them more. That combined with the fear of shame from fellow Christians that causes them to hide their misdeeds yet pretend to still be "holy". Yeah, it's a recipe for constant internal conflict and hypocrisy for sure. |
hopefulLandlord:Not to mention what religious indoctrination does over generations. A seemingly endless cycle of indoctrinated parents indoctrinating their children & having them grow up in communities that would ostracize them for ever questioning the belief. So much social & psychological control is responsible for keeping religion alive. Increased valuation of independent thought, combined with the highest amount of readily-available knowledge that humanity has ever had access to (mostly via Internet), have understandably been the most common contributing factors to the cycle being broken all over the world (and proportionally moreso in countries with more/longer access to information & valuation of free thought). |
DoctorAlien:Ahh, gotcha. So the point is to run away from our responsibilities as human beings and essentially give up on improving the only lives we're actually guaranteed to have. An escapism pipe dream. |
Ahmadgani:Because that's definitely how evolution works. /sarcasm Don't flaunt your ignorance for the world to see. It's not something to be proud of. |
Muafrika2:See mental gymnastics. An aquatic dinosaur could eat fish, which would also be 'readily in water'. So that point is moot. In fact, the entire argument is moot because in the first place the Noah's ark story would have killed nearly all sea life. Why? Because there are salt-water aquatic organisms and fresh-water aquatic organisms. The bodily cells of each organism are suited only to one or the other (to the exclusion of a few rare species which can survive in either). Mixing of salt & fresh water (which would happen in a global flood) means both salt & freshwater organisms would have gone extinct. |
DoctorAlien:That didn't answer anything. I'm asking how "unconditional love" can have conditions without contradicting the very definition of the word. Also unless you have evidence for those points you've typed above (the bible doesn't count) then it literally means as much to me as a list of principles from the Norse god Odin. Or maybe even less, because at least Odin's list would be more interesting and less illogical. |
Amberon:What's unconditional about sending someone to an infinity of torture for not believing in you? There's obviously a condition there. Or do you not know what unconditional actually means and are just repeating the same things you've heard in church for years upon years... Amberon:Where'd you hear this? Sounds really made up. In fact from what I've read it actually seems as though churches are losing attendees by the day. Bring some evidence of those numbers otherwise it's just empty fabricated lies. |
Farmerforlife:All of what you've written are promises made by ancient egoistic, wishful thinking human men. It's clear. Unlimited sex and food and wine already gets tiring on earth. Humans get used to all of these things over time (constant rushes of dopamine cause desensitization, which makes you need more & more to achieve the same level of satisfaction). It's a matter of brain chemistry. I'm sure the loophole is that you get special new brains that don't operate in the same way as ours on earth. But if Allah could just swap out your brain chemistry for a new kind wired for unlimited hedonism, why doesn't he directly pump the dopamine & pleasure chemicals right into your brains? Hook you up to unlimited pleasure machines. Save you the trouble of having to work for it. I can't think of anything more disturbing than a belief system that causes you to forgo a moderate, healthy amount of pleasure on earth, in hopes of binging on ridiculous amounts in a (pretend) afterlife. It's cruel and nonsensical. Not to mention a clear reflection of the pleasure-hungry barbarian who (supposedly) wrote the Quran. |
WORLDPEACE:I personally wouldn't say "supposed to be". Certain thought processes have to happen for a person to go from religiosity to atheism, and I recognize that those can happen at different times for different people (or not happen at all) based on their experiences (like exposure to ideas that contradict those of their religion) and emotional tendencies (like whether curiosity or aversive anxiety prevails when faced with said ideas), which differ from my own. So I certainly don't expect it to be obvious for many people; especially those in societies where 1.) religion is all they hear & see, or 2.) where questioning could result in dire consequences (like social ostracization, death, or "hell" ) which discourages them from doing so. 2. The obsessive need to proselytize by some atheist can begin to look like they were given the commission to do so by a higher power. This is what the very religious do.This is based on the premise that talking about a topic frequently/with intensity is something only religiously motivated people do. Which I think is kind of nonsensical given the literal millions of topics & ideas that people discuss solely because they see value in them, and find them beneficial or necessary to share. Also, in the case that atheism were correct and religion was indeed just the result of generations upon generations of mind-control, it wouldn't make any sense for atheists to be silent on the matter. Religion has obviously had an enormous impact on humanity and our collective consciousness. If more and more people started to come to new conclusions about it (like, "maybe this isn't an accurate framework from which to view our lives & the nature of the universe" ), that would inevitably mean a huge change in the way we think and behave as human beings. It's an important conversation to have because the implications are huge. 3. The self-righteousness of some. The "we are not like them who have done this and that" expressions. It's like watching christians and Muslims go at one another.When I see an atheist that behaves in a belittling way towards theists (& I've been both the reciever, back when I was Christian, and the giver as an atheist), I don't think it's motivated by self-righteousness, but rather frustration, annoyance, or anger at repeatedly running into the same bad arguments and ignorant comments. This differs from religious people who might be more likely to belittle from a place of legitimate self-riteousness, because religious books literally tell them they are better and more valuable than people of other religions or no religion. As for the atheists who do feel they're better than other people because they're atheist, I think they're just not seeing the bigger picture. Like I said earlier, there are a lot of factors that play into maintaining or dissolving a person's religiosity. It's not a matter of someone being better than someone else, just differing thinking processes & psychological/emotional barriers. 4. The "Scientists say" prefix every time Atheists want to make an important point often reminds one of "My Pastor says" or the "Qur'an says" which basically means that that "greater mind's" views overrules yours and everybody else's. This too is the stuff religion is made of.This would be a valid equivelence if science were like religion in that way - a solid body of ideas that were decided upon in the past and claim to contain the ultimate, unchangeable truth. Religion is all about preserving a certain set of beliefs that someone 2,000 or so years ago created/wrote down/prophecied/etc. What makes religious/dogmatic thinking bad is simply that it's resistant to change in the face of new evidence, and therefore more prone to error. Science by it's very nature is the complete opposite though. Science welcomes change as long as it gets us closer to a good answer. It's a body of consistently transforming knowledge - not a rigid dogma. There is no "ultimate entity that decide's what's true and no one can question him/her/it". Scientists who hold steadfast to their theories despite evidence to the contrary quickly get left behind. Scientists who get some things right but others wrong are praised for their good ideas (those that stood the test of time with consistent supporting evidence), while their incorrect ideas are left behind. An easy illustration of the necessarily self-correcting nature of science is computers. The scientific theories that enabled the creation of the very first computer (& the successive improved variations thereafter) differed in many ways from those that were held as true, say, 500 years prior to the invention (theories of physics, chemistry, electricity, etc that were unheard of 500 years ago, or, ironically enough, attributed to supernatural forces that could never be explained by humans). If science was like religion (dogmatic, rigid, and unchanging), computers could have never have been invented, because the ideas that enabled us to create things like circuit boards & LCD monitors, would not have been discovered if scientists were committed to maintaining the old theories despite new evidence. In science, ideas must be open to change to stay relevent and useful. Religions on the other hand tend to stay more or less the same regardless of what new knowledge is obtained, because religious people are invested in keeping it so (often for emotional, psychological, societal, reasons -- which have little if anything to do with the actual validity of the ideas expressed in the religion). I acknowledge that there are some people who might rigidly & dogmatically adhere to a scientific view - no one is immune from bias. But anyone can look up research for themselves (or even do their own experiment) that validates or invalidates a certain claim. From a truly scientific perspective no one has to believe a idea just because someone else said so (or because they'll go to hell if they don't). |
ifewunmy:It always makes me cringe to see children in pictures like that. Brainwashed like no man's business, and to no fault of their own ![]() |
johntredon:"Her issue." It's always sickened me to read the bible verses about women's so-called uncleanliness, but even moreso now. And not just because of how blatantly sexist it is; Now that I understand the role menstruation plays, I can see how absolutely foolish and nonsensical it is to believe that the supposed creator of our bodies & physiology would turn around and call the process "dirty". Treating it like a sickness. The only way such ignorant and derogatory sentiments about such a natural and vital part of reproduction (not just for humans, some other mammals as well) could exist in a book authored by the creator of the universe, would be if the creator of the universe was a very sexist human being (which, surprise, almost every man was back in the year 100 or so when the bible was written). I mean really sit down and think. The book reflects the sentiments of the people of the time in which it was written -- in all of their unfathomable ignorance (relative to us, in the 21st century, with science and technology and insight into the workings of our bodies & the universe). We can acknowledge that people back then were on average far more sexist and violent than the average person is today. We can recognize that they had far less knowledge than we do. We can acknowledge that they had nothing like electricity, the internet, universities. Yet we struggle to comprehend that the BOLDEST claim they make -- that there is a human-like invisible super-being in the sky (or the universe? or another dimension? "Everywhere"? Theists can't seem to agree) -- is also likely to be another fruit of their ignorant, dated, and ego-centric human perspectives. |
hahn:It's extremely humiliating. I would never befriend a character like the god described in the bible or Quran, let alone WORSHIP one. Objectively Yahweh & Allah are worse than a hundred Hitlers. |
Touchnot01:You're missing the point entirely (or perhaps purposely evading it). Step back and try to be objective. Those rules, regardless of the context, are clearly the makings of human minds that wanted to create governing laws for their societies, but were extremely limited by the lack of information available in their time. NOT the makings of any supreme deity with advanced knowledge on the workings of human behavior & social science. Why is it that the rules in developed countries today are LIGHTYEARS ahead of the rules layed out in the bible? Why is it that you have to say "those were just for the Israelites because blah blah blah"? Perfect, flawless, & reasonable laws do not have to be defended by excuses. The bible was made up by 1st century humans, which is why it contains so much ridiculous 1st century barbarism. |
orisa37:Lmao. The insults Christians come up with to put down atheists are very amusing. "Satanist!" "Chronic criminal!" "Demon!" Yeah, tell that to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, 2/3 of Denmark, Sweden, China & Japan, and the millions of atheists and non religious doing just fine without your silly fear-mongering 1st century fairy tales. I guess they're all demons :/ |
waldigit: ![]() 1. No one has ever come back from the dead, as in from the actual grave, to say that they saw heaven. It's always people who are in a coma or some temporary unconscious state. And, everyone who reports an NDE does so in the context of their own beliefs. Hindus see Hindu gods and goddesses, Muslims see Mohammad, and Christians see Jesus. This is very good evidence that they're experiencing dream-like altered states and/or hallucinations (brought on by the huge amount of neurochemicals released in near death) biased by their own subconscious religious convictions. Not anything that exists in reality. 2. Your statement that no atheist has come back to say atheism is true is pretty ridiculous. Of course not, atheists recognize that after death, the organs responsible for all sensory input and perception are no longer functioning. There is no "coming back". And we observe this in every person who has ever died (completely died, not a coma or temporary heart failure but full organ death) and been buried. |
4everGod:Tell me about it! "When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand." Deuteronomy 25:11-12 "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads." Leviticus 19:27 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves." Numbers 31:17-18 "No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD." Deuteronomy 23:1 These are such accurate and important pieces of guidance. Sharper than bullets. Thank god for the bible. Lowly human minds could never come up with something like this on their own. |
Vick4rill:Who told you heaven was real, and why did you believe them? It isn't anyones job but the claimant's to prove the existence of something that is not obviously there. If I made the claim that I have a unicorn living in my backyard, it would be ludacris for me to then demand proof from you that I DON'T have one. It'd be my job to provide proof of my unicorn, otherwise you'd be totally justified in thinking I was either lying, or hallucinating. |
DoctorAlien:How annoying, geez You beg and beg for him to explain, only to respond with the same defensive trash & ignorance that he explicitly stated would make it a waste of his time. If you're not willing to learn then go sit down somewhere with your comforting creationist apologetics, & stop pretending you actually want to understand evolution when you don't. |
Seun: |
It's sad that you've been so thoroughly brainwashed by religion that you genuinely can not percieve value in life outside of the belief in an eternal "paradise" which you don't even have the slightest evidence for. It's sad that you can so easily devalue the only life you are guaranteed to have, for the false promise of another "better one" that supposedly lasts forever (which in itself devalues life - if it lasts forever it really isn't precious). The epitome of greed & taking life for granted. 
, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group).
