There is no point in debating people who believe in fairy tales. It's better to just point and laugh.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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There is no point in debating people who believe in fairy tales. It's better to just point and laugh.
Cool but don't cry when they point and laugh at you too.
Except religious people dont point and laugh, they enact laws restricting others rights.
Who on earth has done that to you?
I do hope you're not actually this ill informed.
I'd love someone to point and laugh at me for not believing in the archaic shite religions do.
It'd make my day, that's for sure!
It'd make my day, that's for sure!
Who on earth has done that to you?
Convince me you're not trolling. If you're going to participate in CE threads then you need to be honest and prepared to debate in good faith.
Not for masochists.
Can I cry if they repress my freedoms, police my thinking, politics and sexuality and cause me to be an outcast in society?
Why could you not complain? People should free to believe what they want and non violently protest as they wish. Why can you not complain about either?
I don´t know what other religions say ,but a Christian has to avoid the conflict.
Jesus told us that we can not judge, and not seek words that can hurt our brothers. He also told us that we are all sinners and imperfect. Therefore a hostile response to the doubts and insults of the atheists should be completely rejected.
It is a matter of faith, and not everyone finds God in the same way.
Jesus told us that we can not judge, and not seek words that can hurt our brothers. He also told us that we are all sinners and imperfect. Therefore a hostile response to the doubts and insults of the atheists should be completely rejected.
It is a matter of faith, and not everyone finds God in the same way.
And subsequently used by exploitative sociopaths to exert power, control and influence over their fellow man for the purpose of their own enrichment.
No it's not! Now bow my lord to Megatron and he will save you!
Should you not do this he will turn you into ash with his fire fists
That couldn't be further from the truth when it comes to religion. Most religeous people are indoctrinated from a very early age and then go through life believing what they've been taught to believe. Also, what kind of research can you do when the conclusion is that something that's never been proven to exist is actually real?
Faith is the absolute worst reason for why you should believe in something if you care about the truth, because is there anything you can't believe in based on faith? I don't remember who said it and I'm also paraphrasing a bit but a wise person once said: "faith is what we use when we don't have a good reason to believe". Faith to me is that you believe because you want to believe, which is a pretty poor way to get to the truth.
As for rejecting athiests, according to the bible it's your duty as a Christian to spread the word of Christ to the unbelievers. Although in your defence it's hardly the only thing the bible contradicts itself about.
The very definition of faith warns us of the lack of material evidence, if not it would be a simple belief.
The Bible as well warns that to have faith you need to want to find God and value the peace and happiness that provokes in you.
I barely read the bible. I like lighter readings, of saints, or of nuns that relate the life of Jesus and are based on his message.
We must spread the message of God, his mission, but a Christian mission is not to reach an island where they do not want you and start talking about the Bible (at least in this century).
A Catholic mission is well organized and responds to a need. A community that needs a priest, or a school that needs help or even one that is based on offering comfort in the sadness and trying to raise some money.
His/her/its message extends reflected in love , in austerity, and in kindness to the neighbor, not trying to convince atheists with mere words
Before you lot think about spreading the message to unbelievers, perhaps you can spread it to those in your gang who don't fully understand it. I think there are many of these people.
A noble cause.
@carvajal , not to pick on you but, if I was going to invent something I wanted others to follow, and I could make them think that faith without any proof was necessary, and tell them to guard against doubt in that faith without any proof ... Well, I'd be laughing all the way to the bank I reckon.
As the Catholic Church with their vaults of gold and priceless art are, right now.
It's not a matter of wanting to find god, or wanting to believe. If there is a god and he gave us proof of his existance then everyone would believe, period. Instead we have 3000 different gods and the best reason people have to believe in any of them is that they've convinced themselves that they should, i.e they have faith, but if you care about what's true then you simply cannot rely on faith. If you don't care about the truth and you believe just because it makes you feel good then that's fine, I don't have a problem with that, but if you want to spread the word of Christ and convince other people to believe the same things you do, or perhaps construct laws which prohibits millions of people from marrying the person they love or even forcing them to bring another person into this world, then the truth does matter. A lot.
As for your examples of how the church helps people, that's not religion and it's not god, that's people doing great things. But they don't need religion for that, they don't need to spread the word of god to be kind or to help those in need. In fact, a terrifying number of people have been killed because some wanted to convince others that their god is the true god. The guy who went to that island last week is just the latest one.
I knew a girl a long time ago, came from a small village and was quite religious. I'm not in any way shape or form. So I asked her about it and why she bothered and her answer was a very honest one. It was just something that brought the community together. They didn't care about converting others. They just didn't care if other people believed or not. They didn't care about gay people or any of that other stuff that gets so many religious peoples knickers in a twist. It was about them and their faith bringing them together. That aspect of religion I can understand. Like you, I think these things can be done without religion, but feck it, they're not harming anyone so if it works from them then, cool.
One of things I've never been able to wrap my head around though is how the catholic churched survived the child abuse stuff. I mean, yes it was just a few priests, but it was covered up by the whole church as an institution. So while a catholic may still believe in catholic teachings, the church itself was either raping children, or helping to cover it up. And still the collection plates were full. That, I cant understand. How can some people care so much about a fecking cake, yet care so little about the abuse of children. I cant even watch an episode of SVU without getting angry at actors. I dont know how anyone could ever forgive the church for what they did.
Yes. Thankfully we have moved passed that now, as we are able to answer almost all of the questions.
How can you say this with such certainty in the absence of evidence of his supposed existence?
I answer to both since I deduce that the church, the organization is the one that causes you doubts. The hierarchies of Rome and following principles established by themselves and not Jesus.
In that I agree. The fact of the unnatural celibacy has caused the horror of the children. They should incorporate the figure of the woman (personally I think that the figure of Mary Magdalene has been unjustly reviled), as well as the attack on the gays, incongruous with the message of Jesus.
My uncle was a missionary and spent 50 years around the world. He earned around 800 euros.
I do not know how funds are organized in Rome but a mission costs money. Only in Spain there are 14,000 missionaries, as well as the maintenance of churches and seminaries.
You do not have to believe in Jesus as a god. If you want, think of him as a rebellious Jew who lived two thousand years ago and wrote some principles of peace and love.
If you also do not believe in the historical character, it is enough to follow its principles.
Not everyone approaches him in the same way.
because I believe in the historical character that caused the texts that explain those words. Both him and those who followed him.
Strange that there are literally no first hand eye witness accounts of Jesus, and that everything written about him was done at least 30 years after he passed. Also there appears to have been at least 3 people named Jesus who were alive around that time, confusing the matter further.
Jesus was a fraud. Anyone who claims to be god or the son of god could surely do much better than, allegedly, turn water into wine. Or how about just click his fingers and remove everyone's ailments and simultaneously voicing a message to everyone at the same time which would completely put this discussion over his divinity to bed.
How about explain to people the theory of germs, teach them about medicines - and not tell them to not wash their hands as what you put into your mouth can't make you sick, but what comes out if it.
Yes he said some nice things that are essentially common sense. I certainly never needed a 'god' to tell me to treat others nicely (whilst simultaneously telling us homosexuals are sinners, etc). Our evolutionary will to survive has given us that innate instinct; we work together or we die.
I challenge anyone who has actually read the Bible to justify the endorsement of slavery, pedophilia, genocide, kidnapping, child sacrifice, animal sacrifice, misogyny, torture and the myriad of other utterly reprehensible teachings within the book.
Apologies if this offends anyone, but this is my opinion and I believe that religion needs to be challenged until it is consigned to the scientific history books.
How about explain to people the theory of germs, teach them about medicines - and not tell them to not wash their hands as what you put into your mouth can't make you sick, but what comes out if it.
Yes he said some nice things that are essentially common sense. I certainly never needed a 'god' to tell me to treat others nicely (whilst simultaneously telling us homosexuals are sinners, etc). Our evolutionary will to survive has given us that innate instinct; we work together or we die.
I challenge anyone who has actually read the Bible to justify the endorsement of slavery, pedophilia, genocide, kidnapping, child sacrifice, animal sacrifice, misogyny, torture and the myriad of other utterly reprehensible teachings within the book.
Apologies if this offends anyone, but this is my opinion and I believe that religion needs to be challenged until it is consigned to the scientific history books.
Because God moves in mysterious ways, obviously.
Damn, I forgot about that
The evidence, both archaeological and historical, supports the existence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth. This evidence is quite compelling for me.
Eric Meyers archaeologist and emeritus professor Judaic Studies Duke University said:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/12/jesus-tomb-archaeology/
Lawrence Mykytiuk is associate professor of library science and the history librarian at Purdue University. said:
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org...bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/
The best myths are build on a kernel of truth.
The Jesus of the bibles was obviously not real but that doesn't mean that a man (or men) who did exist weren't used to base the myth on. Likewise real events that happened to him or others can be woven into the narrative and likely were. It doesn't make him supernatural in any way no matter what.
I never said it did, just that the idea that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist is flawed at best. We can't even prove the author Shakespeare was a real single individual and he lived over 1500 years later. Bodhidharma, founder of Shaolin Monastery, is in a similar situation to Jesus incidentally in that he was certainly a real historic figure but obviously myths have been exaggerated over the centuries.
Saying that Jesus existed isn't enough though. We dont have corroborating texts about his activities as described in the Bible. For all we know Jesus of Nazareth might had been a Monty Python revolutionary Jew.
The problem is that the new testament is all over the place and doesn't hold up to even the basic scrutiny. Wasn't it also St Paul that decided to go with the divinity of Jesus even though he never met the guy. Early christianity was nothing like what it became and there is scant information or even 1st hand account from the numerous men of knowledge at the time.
Did he exist? Could have. But the truth I imagine is very much benign compared to the white washed magician we know today. Thomas Paine lays out a great argument against the mess that is the new testament.
I would love to see the Vatican archives and vaults opened. They could answer the questions tomorrow if they wanted and I bet they have some amazing shit in there and a lot of history that should be brought forth. But somewhere in there is a scroll from Jesus's brother describing how he died of a toe infection and will be remembered by his wife and four children.
Voyager 1 just left the solar system. It has been travelling for 40 years, with a speed of about 40,000 mph. To arrive to the nearest star, it needs to travel for about 70,000 years. That next star is actually very close to us. There are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy. There are 2 trillion galaxies out there.
Stars in a galaxy: 200,000,000,000
Number of galaxies: 2,000,000,000,000
If you multiply these two numbers, you get:
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.
And remember, we need to travel for 70,000 years to arrive to the nearest star.
This huge universe has been around for about 13,7 billion years. Life on earth has been around for 4 billion years, but for almost all of that time it was one-cell organisms that slowly (very slowly!) evolved. Humans have any sort of civilization for only 20,000 years or so. A whiff of time, a whiff of space.
Now, religions say that there is an all powerful and all knowing God who created all these... and created humans as well, with a very special consideration for humans. And religious people believe that this god who created 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, takes very special care of each of us, but more so He takes care of "His" people.
However, we don't see or hear that god ourselves. There are "holy people" and "prophets" who "talked to god" and learned a lot of "secrets" and they founded religions and they wrote "holy" texts. Yet, not one of these "prophets" had a clue about anything that science has discovered so far.
So ... should we believe these so called "prophets"? Did they speak the truth? Or did they sell us lies?
...
"Religion, what is the point?"
Well, the point is that it's a huge scam.
Stars in a galaxy: 200,000,000,000
Number of galaxies: 2,000,000,000,000
If you multiply these two numbers, you get:
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.
And remember, we need to travel for 70,000 years to arrive to the nearest star.
This huge universe has been around for about 13,7 billion years. Life on earth has been around for 4 billion years, but for almost all of that time it was one-cell organisms that slowly (very slowly!) evolved. Humans have any sort of civilization for only 20,000 years or so. A whiff of time, a whiff of space.
Now, religions say that there is an all powerful and all knowing God who created all these... and created humans as well, with a very special consideration for humans. And religious people believe that this god who created 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, takes very special care of each of us, but more so He takes care of "His" people.
However, we don't see or hear that god ourselves. There are "holy people" and "prophets" who "talked to god" and learned a lot of "secrets" and they founded religions and they wrote "holy" texts. Yet, not one of these "prophets" had a clue about anything that science has discovered so far.
So ... should we believe these so called "prophets"? Did they speak the truth? Or did they sell us lies?
...
"Religion, what is the point?"
Well, the point is that it's a huge scam.
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And yet that is all we know yet. Blows my mind.
I can’t understand how they survived it either. I guess being one of the most powerful and richest organizations on the planet has its benefits, along with having followers who will ignore and deflect any negative and factual findings about their masters.
Have you seen Spotlight, the movie about how it was uncovered? Fantastic movie that will unfortunately make you feel physically sick.
I did, and it did. Ive seen people try to defend it. Everything from "they werent that young and they want it" to "its a conspiracy". The whole thing is sicking enough, but when you read that shit it does make me lose any kind of faith in human beings.
Salvation through the Church. That’s their rationale.
The debauchery of the Roman Catholic Church is hereditary. The office of Pontifex Maximus has been an empty vessel with money making purpose since the Middle period Roman Republic.
The debauchery of the Roman Catholic Church is hereditary. The office of Pontifex Maximus has been an empty vessel with money making purpose since the Middle period Roman Republic.
Also, all those children dumped in a septic tank in Ireland. Literally hundreds of dead children abused and thrown in the sewer for the sin of being born out of wedlock. The sight of every catholic priest or nun makes me sick to my stomach.
I've always said that people like being in groups, feeling a part of something bigger and having other people around you who think similarly, and that can manifest in many ways, good and bad (gangs, political groups, even sports teams - obviously all very different but all unite people with 'a greater cause' at the centre). I fully believe the church falls in to this.
Often hatred brings people together too, and that's when you get the fecked up religious groups, or other groups that don't base it on religion.