Religion, what's the point?
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There's also the story in 2 Kings of Elisha calling down a curse on some kids for calling him bald. God sends a couple of bears in and gives the kids (40 odd of them) a good mauling.
It's the book of Job that lost me as a kid.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my parents who tried to convince me it wasn't fecked up that God was torturing some guy because he had a bet with the devil.
Like, what?
Yes! That one got me too... right after I realized there was no damn way Noah's Ark happened as described
how do Christians justify believing in this?
- Either they pick and choose which points of the bible they want believe in which case their beliefs become meaningless becuase they are basically admitting the book their religion is based on is full of nonsense.
- Or they believe in everything in which case their god is obviously not perfect and and so completely contradicts the idea of God anyway disproving their whole faith.
The standard answer is that they must study the teachings more in order to understand them. And of course you yourself must study them more to learn how to ask the right questions. Not just Christians of course, all 'faiths' rely on that one.
True. Back in 2012 I was on a six-month project at a major command and I was co-located near some military retirees turned civil service employees. I would engage in political & religious debates periodically with a retired E-9 (who was working on his theology masters through Liberty U of course).
One day I asked him why the christian god didn't condone slavery, and why wasn't slavery listed on the ten commandments. He said slavery was accepted in those times and that god had to slowly eliminate the concept. To which I mentioned that 1) slavery still exists today, and 2) that he didn't waste time eradicating sin from the world with a great flood, if you believe the bible is wholly accurate.
He came up with some religious excuse and mentioned he'd find information later that would explain better. I don't recall him bringing anything that answered slavery but he would bring printouts occasionally to "educate me", usually apologetic nonsense from Liberty or other sources. He would often claim that I needed to read all the various biblical translations and study the original Hebrew versions to fully understand the word of god, and that I would then believe it's truly from god. I mentioned I'd prefer receiving my education at a proper university.
One day I asked him why the christian god didn't condone slavery, and why wasn't slavery listed on the ten commandments. He said slavery was accepted in those times and that god had to slowly eliminate the concept. To which I mentioned that 1) slavery still exists today, and 2) that he didn't waste time eradicating sin from the world with a great flood, if you believe the bible is wholly accurate.
He came up with some religious excuse and mentioned he'd find information later that would explain better. I don't recall him bringing anything that answered slavery but he would bring printouts occasionally to "educate me", usually apologetic nonsense from Liberty or other sources. He would often claim that I needed to read all the various biblical translations and study the original Hebrew versions to fully understand the word of god, and that I would then believe it's truly from god. I mentioned I'd prefer receiving my education at a proper university.
Indeed.
it is probably the easiest thing to dissect with uncountable numbers of reasons - I tried writing a few for this post, but gave up as 1 reason, led to another 10, which themselves led to another 10 each, etc etc.
The ones I've spoke to just justify God sending the bears by saying that God is God and we can't question him.
I always like asking them how the kangaroos got on the Ark from Australia... with a quick follow up of how did they get back.
But that's a ridiculous question. If you're taking it all at face value in the question and accepting the existence of a magic man in the sky who invented life and put fully-formed creatures on the planet like a kid adding a new piece of toy furniture to her Sylvanian Families house, then the answer to your question is self-evident.
An entity that can create life is entirely capable of giving a hand with transportation logistics. Or even plonking the Roos down in Australia after the flood. Maybe he hadn't invented Australia yet?
My roommate is ex-military and is now studying theology. Fortunately for me, she is very open about the faults of the bible and is very anti-Trump/GOP in general. She's quite shy but I do want to ask her more about what happened in Iraq, especially since she claims to be a pacifist now.
Yeah that was exactly the thing I was going to say!
Which led onto:
How did Noah's few followers manage to have the time, ability and management to build and operate a load of mini arks to navigate to the unknown Aus,Oceania,SA,NA, spend the time collecting, storing, then transport back.... and then do the reverse after the flood.
If we're accepting that, then any questions asked to them are "rediculous questions", aren't they?
sounds like something said in Nazi Germany.
That was exactly how I repliedonly rational response
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/i...up_asks_leeds_high.html#incart_river_home_pop
National group asks Leeds City Schools to stop Christian-themed halftime show
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is asking Leeds City Schools to stop a Christian-themed football halftime show put on by the high school band.
Leeds High School marching band regularly performs a halftime show designed to resemble a Christian church service, according to the national organization. The performance features Christian-themed music and involves church pews set up on the football field.
Christian hymns including "Will the Circle be Unbroken," "I Saw the Light," "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," "Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee" and "Amazing Grace" are played during the show, the organization said.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation says the halftime show violates the constitutional idea of keeping church and state apart. The group says public schools can't "advance or promote religion."
"In Lee (1982), the Supreme Court extended the prohibition of school-sponsored religious activities beyond the classroom to all school functions, holding prayers at public high school graduations an impermissible establishment of religion," FFRF Legal Fellow Chris Line wrote in a letter to Leeds City Schools Superintendent John J. Moore. "Similarly, turning a school-sponsored marching band performance into a religious event violates the constitutional separation of religion and government. Leeds City Schools has a responsibility to ensure that performances by school-sponsored groups do not impermissibly promote religion over nonreligion or Judeo-Christianity over all minority faiths."
Leeds City Schools Superintendent John J. Moore issued this statement to AL.com: "We have submitted the FFRF's complaint to the (school) Board's attorney for review. We do not have plans to stop the show."
The Freedom from Religion Foundation said it is a "statistical certainty" that nonreligious students are in the Leeds High School marching band.
The organization said a "concerned local parent" informed them about the halftime show. The parent claimed that the band director has told band members who do not support this religious show can "drop out of band."
FFRF is asking Leeds City Schools officials to ensure that the district doesn't promote religion in school-sponsored performances, even those that take place outside of regular instructional time. The group also asks the band director to be neutral toward religion while acting in his capacity as a district employee.
"The band director's actions are way over the line," says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "In a secular setup, he cannot be permitted to foist his religion on others."
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that works to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.
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The comments are gold!
--I think these "concerned parents" should be unmasked so the community can address the grievances and how the wishes of one shouldn't outweigh the wishes of the many. I mean, don't want to hear pseudo-religious music in a public setting, don't go to games.--
Sickening stuff and how Christian of some.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylig...cks-on-supporters-of-church-state-separation/
--Wynne filed a lawsuit, Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, which she easily won based on existing precedent. In response, as reported by a South Carolina newspaper, The State, someone broke into her home and decapitated her pet parrot, leaving a note next to the body that read, “You’re next!” Several of her cats were also killed, and her pet Yorkshire terrier was beaten.--
--Joann Bell was assaulted by a school employee who smashed her head repeatedly against a car door; he was only fined, and the community rallied around him and raised money to pay the fine. The Bells’ home was burned to the ground; fire marshals ruled it to be arson, but no arrest was ever made. McCord’s son raised goats, which an unknown person slashed and mutilated with a knife. Both of them received threatening letters, including copies of their own obituaries. The Bells got a phone call from someone who said he would break into Joann Bell’s house, tie up her children, rape her in front of them, and then “bring her to Jesus”. The local superintendent, Paul Pettigrew, said, “The only people who have been hurt by this thing are the Bells and McCords… They chose to create their own hell on earth.”--
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylig...cks-on-supporters-of-church-state-separation/
--Wynne filed a lawsuit, Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, which she easily won based on existing precedent. In response, as reported by a South Carolina newspaper, The State, someone broke into her home and decapitated her pet parrot, leaving a note next to the body that read, “You’re next!” Several of her cats were also killed, and her pet Yorkshire terrier was beaten.--
--Joann Bell was assaulted by a school employee who smashed her head repeatedly against a car door; he was only fined, and the community rallied around him and raised money to pay the fine. The Bells’ home was burned to the ground; fire marshals ruled it to be arson, but no arrest was ever made. McCord’s son raised goats, which an unknown person slashed and mutilated with a knife. Both of them received threatening letters, including copies of their own obituaries. The Bells got a phone call from someone who said he would break into Joann Bell’s house, tie up her children, rape her in front of them, and then “bring her to Jesus”. The local superintendent, Paul Pettigrew, said, “The only people who have been hurt by this thing are the Bells and McCords… They chose to create their own hell on earth.”--
Dude, Great Falls, SC is about as "middle of BFE" as you can get.
I'd better stop taking the piss out of Pep.Carolina Red said:
You're fecked, mate
The earth was covered with water. Granted the people then hadn't gone to another continent. But somehow someone knew the earth was covered in water. Now I'm not sure about your eyesight but mine can't see into the next town and wild animals don't listen to me.
Thus sayeth the Blaggs. (Blaggstianity 1:1)
Amazing how that works innit?
My religion is one for all men. Women too.
We should all follow this. I'm a benevolent leader. Have at it but don't get on it.
I'd have at least had the leadership to say hey. You'll have an iPhone.
I've played that card. They don't care. By they I mean my parents.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20993777/adrian-peterson-trade-arizona-cardinals-answer-prayers
"It was like, 'Thank you, Jesus,'" Peterson said. "He answers prayers."
"I'll be lying to you to say that I didn't want a change of scenery after four weeks of seeing how things played out," Peterson said. "So, yeah, it was something that I was praying about -- 'Hey, God, I need you to answer this prayer for me. Are you listening to me?' But in the midst of that, I was still tuned in and locked in.
----
Meanwhile, god ignores the prayers coming from Puerto Rico, African countries, etc.
"It was like, 'Thank you, Jesus,'" Peterson said. "He answers prayers."
"I'll be lying to you to say that I didn't want a change of scenery after four weeks of seeing how things played out," Peterson said. "So, yeah, it was something that I was praying about -- 'Hey, God, I need you to answer this prayer for me. Are you listening to me?' But in the midst of that, I was still tuned in and locked in.
----
Meanwhile, god ignores the prayers coming from Puerto Rico, African countries, etc.
New Atheism’s Idiot Heirs
https://thebaffler.com/latest/new-a...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
https://thebaffler.com/latest/new-a...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
What the living feck?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...eation-museums-new-commercial-must-be-a-joke/ (The comments are fantastic)
Those are excellent questions from curious children. But if those kids want answers, they should go to a real museum, not a building where “God did it” is the answer to everything.
The commercial is an attempt to show how the Creation Museum provides answers to kids’ questions. But if there’s one thing the museum does well, it’s destroying curiosity by providing (false) answers to everything. The company running it — Answers in Genesis — makes that clear right in its name! They believe the Bible has all the answers even when those answers are routinely contradicted by the mountains of evidence available to us.
These girls need a good science book. (Multiple good science books, since one book never has all the answers.)
The Creation Museum is the last place I’d want to take them if they had genuine questions about how nature worked.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...eation-museums-new-commercial-must-be-a-joke/ (The comments are fantastic)
Those are excellent questions from curious children. But if those kids want answers, they should go to a real museum, not a building where “God did it” is the answer to everything.
The commercial is an attempt to show how the Creation Museum provides answers to kids’ questions. But if there’s one thing the museum does well, it’s destroying curiosity by providing (false) answers to everything. The company running it — Answers in Genesis — makes that clear right in its name! They believe the Bible has all the answers even when those answers are routinely contradicted by the mountains of evidence available to us.
These girls need a good science book. (Multiple good science books, since one book never has all the answers.)
The Creation Museum is the last place I’d want to take them if they had genuine questions about how nature worked.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
This is how I end up having to explain that Darwin never claimed we came from monkeys...
And how I end up asking kids, "how did kangaroos get to Iraq from Australia, then get back to Australia from Turkey?"
And how I end up asking kids, "how did kangaroos get to Iraq from Australia, then get back to Australia from Turkey?"
Always thought this too, not even just drug trips. Like the weather we had in London the other day with Red Sky looking like doomsday, no farmer thousands of years ago would have though "That's the Saharan dust being blown over here because of a hurricane in Ireland"...probably would have thought it was some high power shit. There are a load of natural phenomena 's that are in the Bible that can be explained with modern science now.
I 100% agree with this. For me religion is the biggest killer on the planet.
People killing in the name of religion, the countless wars and everything else that has followed.
It is all ancient, back when people had nothing to hold on to and needed a direction, something to make them believe there was a better way. It was also a way for those in power to keep "peasants" in check.
Same time, I am not against religion and have no problems what people believe as long as they are not trying to force it on me.
Good article. Sadly, there's a lot of truth in that. The only thing it doesn't mention is that many of the "liberals and leftists" who abandoned the movement, also ended up aligning themselves with identity politics that seemed against their nature. A lot of the liberal left I'd consider my peer group, took the understandable, if not entirely logical stance of opposing the rightwing hijacking of atheism by becoming oversensitive to offence, and to Islamophobia in particular. Joining forces with Muslim groups to non-platform critical ex-Muslims, for example, or arguing that cartoon blasphemy or criticism of the Hijab/Niqab probably do constitute forms of hate speech. People who would've been defending Monty Python or Stewart Lee against Conservative Christian censorship in the past, now shouting down the same kind of criticisms for fear of upsetting allies, or seeming unwoke. Affording the same protections that should be reserved for situations of birth to a belief system, for fear of seeming too like the other guys.
A situation that leaves many, myself included, a little adrift on the spectrum. Far more aligned with the latter group, of course, but still uncomfortable with the pass it's giving to barmy archaic conservative beliefs in the name of #Resistance.
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Agree but how much of this stuff exist outside of the universities and computer screens and to what measure does it have any power. It was mentioned in the political correctness thread, at what point does a group of students protesting in a exam hall start to represent ''The Left'' rather than just the views of native young individuals.
For me anyway this type of politics is a creation of the last 30 odd years of ''There is no such thing as society aka neoliberalism. The viral stuff that happens in Universities is quite a good a example of this, if you are told for decades that there really is no alternative to this economic/political system and at the same time this system is turning education into a product that you have to essentially use in the hope of upgrading your place in the system, then a liberal/left identity politics is something of bizarre form of progress. Which is why as you said we get people aligning themselves with identity politics that seemed against their nature.
But again at least to me this type politics seems to limited to mostly computer screens, Woke-ness and bro atheism can't live in the everyday political world as they have no answer other than powerless individualism and as(I hope I'm not miss quoting him) the writer R.L. Stephens said woke-ness won't protect you from your boss but forming a union will.
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Your lovely description of how you get your head round there being a supreme being falls down on the very first statement. All you would achieve here is basically removing ants from their already created colony (which they did by themselves) and re-homing them into your man made colony. How would you become their god? You wouldn't. Now, if you created ants out of nothing to exist in your colony which you too created out of nothing, you then could claim to be their god. Not because you scooped up some ants from the back yard and re-homed them.
You are basically saying every zoo keeper is an animals god.
These arguments come up so much but they are fairly lazy. Not picking on you personally but let’s break this down.
Religion is the biggest killer? Seriously? I’d say greed and money come way higher on the list of perpetrating motivations. The two biggest commandments in Christianity are love God and love your neighbour as yourself. Hardly incitements to war.
This point also totally ignores all the good done through religion (I’ll speak about specifically Christianity as that is my faith). Many hospitals were started by Christians. Who runs the majority of food banks and night shelters? Churches! Christians are statistically the biggest charity givers. We do a huge amount of good in society.
As for your point about forcing their religion onto you, I’m curious what this actually looks like in your life? Because I don’t know about you but I find many Christians these days are the most shy among my friends about communicating what they stand for. Barely any of us go up to people on the street or post about our faith on Facebook. Most Christians these days are so afraid of causing offence that we stay quiet.
I’m not sure where this ‘forcing’ is going on for you? And what power does anyone, bar the government, have to force anything onto you? You’re an adult, right?
If anyone is being forceful and arrogantly self righteous these days, it’s the atheist evangelists like many in this thread. Everyone is preaching something these days.
Except its not, unless priests are giving out cancer and heart disease at communion.
No doubt a lot of atrocities have been committed in the name of religion however, if religion never existed, we would not be living in long term peace. We would still go to war over land, possessions or our differences (Blacks weren't lynched in the US because they had a different religion for example) but in the name of something else. Religion or nation is what we unite under but the urge to dominate predates all this and our ability to unite in mass groups under a concept is what allowed us to become top of the food chain.
I think you’ll find without any question that capitalism and nuclear weapons (in that order) are the two biggest reasons for that @GBBQ