Why are you not a Christian

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
Then Buddha was a wise man. Did it ever occur to you to have original thought, or do you just idol-worship someone else?

Perhaps I should start a religion so I could get people like you to hang on my every word. We're off to a good start here, with you comparing me to Buddha.

Hey, it worked for Jobs...

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
Thoroughout recorded history, organized religion (Christianity historically being the dominant religion in the West) has created a great amount of beauty, but even more pain.

Not being religious myself, but I think that's debatable.

Yes, you can point to certain things (wars, violence etc.), but the prob is that people in hindsight tend to think them as permanently present threats which often they weren't. But because they stand out in history they are given more importance than more stable, calm times. Take for example the last century: full of wars, and of the most horrible violence against people we ever seen on Earth, but also with long periods of peace (even when limited to certain parts of the world).

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm not escaping the point, you are. The Bible is filled with all kinds of **** that simply doesn't make any sense. You're arguing that this is a "tool" to understanding, and that's fine, but that's not how I view it. I can't believe this is up for discussion by a supposedly reasonable person -- there's lots of stuff in the Bible that is very far-fetched or non-sensical to a reasonable mind. This should not even be up for debate.

I've asked you what you mean by nonsensical, and you haven't answered. Miracles do sometimes happen and some of those depicted in the Bible may have happened. As for those events that might be fictional, I fail to see how they are nonsensical, as you claim.

What's BS? Are you saying there's no differences between New and Old Testament? Remember the whole claim you're contesting is "beliefs change over time". You can't be serious.

I'm contesting your claim that "beliefs change over time" makes such beliefs false or dumbfounded. You haven't told me why, and I'm not suprised. I've also asked you why something has to be eternal to be "true", and you haven't answered.

Ideas evolve, so does religion.

I would expect nothing less. But you're avoiding the point again, the point is it is there -- in writing -- in the text that is central to the faith. It's there, it's mean, and it's unabashedly so. Don't bother trying to deny the obvious.

There is no such thing as a centralized faith. Interpretations evolve along with the Bible. You're the one being dense...

In fact, it's still mean spirited. Again, most Christian churches reject the idea of equal rights for homosexuals. If that's not mean-spirited and exclusionary, I don't know what is. Regardless of your lame justifications on the age of the book that guides the faith, this is happening today and it is real.

80% of Canadians believe in God. More than 50% agree with homosexual rights. You do the math.

I never said it was driven by fear alone. It's one of the many tools that makes it an effective faith for people to maintain.

You called it a "classis case". Don't deny what you said. As far as I know, both atheists and believers look both ways when they cross a street. The difference is that atheists like to think they're somewhat "fearless" while believers aren't.

And I think you'd have to be quite the astounding ****** to make a case that "fear" is a main reason people accept science. Whatever your disturbed beliefs are on the matter, it's still avoiding the issue. Fear is one of the main motivations behind keeping faith in a religion. This is a point that is true for Christianity, that you have said is "wrong". To contest this, you compared it to science.

Why don't you bother with facts ? For centuries Christians were persecuted and willing to give up their life for their beliefs. I see more courage than fear in their attitude. But feel free to ramble on about religion being based on "fear".

And I'm not avoiding the issue concerning science. I said that fear is immanent to all human practices, including science and political legislation. Then the question I asked, does that discredit them ?

!!
WTF?
I didn't "BS". The thread asked for an opinion, I gave it. That's not BS, it's a ****ing opinion.

Your opinion is BS, as has been shown.

This is precisely why philosophy courses are useless. You're so completely hapless in debates, it's unreal!

You're the one to pity. You valued yourself as a "free thinker", then you admitted that your opinion wasn't rigorous. And in an incredible turn of event, you blamed me for not "understanding" that. That's priceless.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Way, way out there.

If you don't think religions lend themselves well to groupthink, you don't know what groupthink is. You can't even argue the point, you didn't even try -- you just spouted this nonsense which is way outside of the realm of sanity.

So does any belief, it's the ****ing cement of human life functioning as a society. Religion is in no way pecularly associated to group think. Open any history book and you'll see that religion has produced great individuals - political leaders, artists, saints, philosophers, who were no sheep.

Again, you're defining religion by excluding from it anything good it has produced. Is it any wonder then that you've shown yourself to be an idiot ?

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by BeBro


Not being religious myself, but I think that's debatable.

Yes, you can point to certain things (wars, violence etc.), but the prob is that people in hindsight tend to think them as permanently present threats which often they weren't. But because they stand out in history they are given more importance than more stable, calm times. Take for example the last century: full of wars, and of the most horrible violence against people we ever seen on Earth, but also with long periods of peace (even when limited to certain parts of the world).

That's true, I should probably not have said "even more pain". Saying "a lot of pain as well" would have been less inflammatory, but still gets the point across. IMO, the good done by organized religion does not excuse the bad, regardless of whether quantitiy of good > quantitiy of bad or bad > good; bad is still >>>>>>0.

Personally, I have no problem with people defining themselves as Christian, Muslim, religious, mystic, spiritual, or whatever. Worship NubNub the Wonder Squirrel for that matter. While religion is not for me, whatever belief system helps you make sense of the world and live a happy life is fine. What I dislike are the huge institutions with huge agendas that define organized religion. Among other things, they create the lines of "us and them" that are worse than just silly and arbitrary -- they're dangerous.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I've asked you what you mean by nonsensical, and you haven't answered.

I don't know why you need things like walking on water defined. I won't play this stupid game with you, either.

I'm contesting your claim that "beliefs change over time" makes such beliefs false or dumbfounded.

That claim was never made. Please don't pretend that it was. One of the reasons I'm not a Christian is the beliefs change over time. That was my claim. Focus on that.

There is no such thing as a centralized faith. Interpretations evolve along with the Bible. You're the one being dense...

I am? You're the one explaining this to me completely missing the point completely. I don't care that interpretations evolve -- the fact that the beliefs can change is a major strike against something as important as religion to me. That's the point -- period. It's completely asinine to argue that it changes over time when my point is I don't like that it changes over time.

80% of Canadians believe in God. More than 50% agree with homosexual rights. You do the math.

Absurd argument. The relevant stat is, of the people opposing homosexual rights, how many are religious? There is an undeniable correlation with Christianity and opposition to homosexual rights, even if some Christians support homosexual rights.

You called it a "classis case". Don't deny what you said.

I said it was a "classic case" as in, a textbook example. That does NOT mean that it's the only method. This is kind of basic logic isn't it?

Why don't you bother with facts ? For centuries Christians were persecuted and willing to give up their life for their beliefs. I see more courage than fear in their attitude. But feel free to ramble on about religion being based on "fear".

And I'm not avoiding the issue concerning science. I said that fear is immanent to all human practices, including science and political legislation. Then the question I asked, does that discredit them ?

I think you do not comprehend the psychology behind rule by fear of the unknown. I'd urge you to either use your head, or do some research. I'm not wasting my time to explain what comes naturally to most people because you have difficulty with it.

As for "facts", are you familiar with witchburning?

Your opinion is BS, as has been shown.

Actually, the only thing that's been shown is the complete ineptitude of philosophy students in debate.

You're the one to pity. You valued yourself as a "free thinker", then you admitted that your opinion wasn't rigorous. And in an incredible turn of event, you blamed me for not "understanding" that. That's priceless.

I never said my opinion wasn't rigorous. This is another example of countless strawmen from you in this thread that I'm not going to waste any time with.

Religion is in no way pecularly associated to group think. Open any history book and you'll see that religion has produced great individuals - political leaders, artists, saints, philosophers, who were no sheep.

I just opened my textbook to Copernicus.

Allow me to teach you a basic concept of argument that should've been taught to you in philosophy, even if it is common sense to most: The fact that you can find, in history, some people who are "free thinkers" despite being religious does not have any bearing on the statement that it "lends itself well to groupthink". And if you knew what Groupthink is -- and I'm convinced that you do not -- you'd see how Christianity does do that. Think about the concept of a congregation as a fundamental entity...

I mean, for the first thousand years or so, they discouraged literacy in the masses so they could more easily control them.

They encouraged the crusades as a way to eliminate higher-class idle noblemen through fighting...

[Meticulous Man]

Re: Why are you not a Christian

For the usual reasons... Because I find the tenets of Christianity not to be true: we know there's no factual basis for believing in deities, and in case Jesus existed, there's no way of knowing what kind of a guy he really was... Despite his unquestionably great cultural impact, I don't see why I should accept him or anyone else from the array of persons with grandiose ideation from 2000 years ago as my "savior"...

[Blake]

I can give some reasons for never becoming a Christian.

God is clearly made in the image of Man, not vice-verca.

Take a Man, and make him more powerful, and a little bit nicer, and you get God as described by the Bible. A thoroughly imperfect and fettered being who is certainly less compassionate than many men (whom would find it unthinkable to judge another deserving of eternity in hell).
It's difficult to reconcile that with the other things God are meant to be, you know, omnipotent and all-caring and whatever.

In short, you don't need to be a genius to see that God was made by Man in the image of Man, rather than Man being made by God in the image of God.

I mean really, when you see how imperfect man is, and how imperfect God is, which is more likely? Imperfect men made an imperfect God? Or a perfect God made imperfect men?


Christainity tells you what to do.

And no-one tells me what to do, ESPECIALLY no-one tells me what to do or else. Believe this or else you'll go to hell? Go to hell.
By all means I welcome guidance, and that is why I'm a Buddhist. Probably now I would even be smart enough to use Christainity as guidance and just ignore the garbage, but I wasn't that smart until I became a Buddhist and gained such "filtering" skills (as encouraged by the Buddha). So as a kid, the random empty threats and stuff prevented me from viewing Christainity as suitable guidance.


The bible is clearly written by men and made up by men.

Again you don't need a genius-level higher than a 5 year old, to see that it is inspired by the imagination of men. It is in a word; fanciful. Again perhaps there is some wheat amongst that chaff, but as a kid I was not wise enough to be able to do such filtering, and the Ridiculous Interruptions teachers did not offer such filtering / skills, expecting us to just believe everything "just because".


Indoctrination .

Maybe if they (the RI teachers) had said "Listen, you don't need to believe that Noah's Ark was real. The important thing is these concepts of getting along and working together blah blah blah", maybe if they'd taken that approach and encouraged doubt and critical thinking, I could have found something useful in Christainity.


Heaven would be most unsatisfactory

I have an innate disdain for an eternity ANYWHERE, doesn't matter how nice it is, it's going to get boring. Give me cessation before you give me eternity. I knew this even as a little kid and again it was obviously the imagination of men, dreaming up some kind of fantasy realm.
Of course you can easily translate God into "Cessation" (ie after living the holy life you merge with God and cease to be), but that is at odds with like... the bible.


Well that's enough reasons I think. Basically even as a little kid I could too easily see the dirty tricks being used. Obviously my parents encouraged critical thinking, maybe if I'd been indoctrinated from birth, I may have taken on board the good qualities of Christainity and rejected everything else as I smartened up. But given I was only exposed to it after learning skepticism, pretty much the whole lot got rejected.

[Meticulous Man]

BTW, anyone seen the Internet movie Zeitgeist? I found the first 1/3 (about monotheistic religion and the Jesus cult) pretty interesting - while the rest was a waste of time. Do you think there is any truth to the claims about Christianity having such strong connections with astrological thought?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331

Edit: OK, the matter has apparently already been discussed in another thread...

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Asher

Absurd argument. The relevant stat is, of the people opposing homosexual rights, how many are religious? There is an undeniable correlation with Christianity and opposition to homosexual rights, even if some Christians support homosexual rights.

Amnesty International website has some interesting information about homosexual rights in the atheist Peoples Republic of China. Though technically not illegal homosexuals are considered "undesirable" and are bared from a variety of jobs. Quite a few have sought asylum elsewhere due to de facto persecution. The practice of homosexual acts is also technically illegal in India.
Let's see, 1.3 billion atheist Chinese living in a country that persecutes gays, 1.1 billion Hindu and Muslim Indians living in a country where gay sex is illegal, but only 2 billion Christians, most of whom live in countries which tolerate homosexuality, countries where there has been no widespread opposition to those rights by Christians and yet you conclude there is an undeniable correlation between opposition to homosexual rights and Christianity.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why are you not a Christian

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Wouldn't that make him a Jeffersonian Deist or a Unitarian?

that's pretty much how i see myself, yes,

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, as soon as you´re addicted it is true, you cannot stop it out of your own free will without medical treatment (unless you want tro endanger your own life because of the severe withdrawal symptomes), meaning that your addiction imparts your free will.

I thought that wasn't true of marijuana among others.

I assume you agree that oit wasn´t tha fault of these children, that they got addicted from birth on.
Wouldn´t it be a nice thing from god to give these little children freedom from their addiction? (especially considering that Jesus AFAIK always saw babies as free from sin)

Wouldn't it be nice if God made disabled people perfect?

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, and others, I would prefer that this was not a debate or discussion thread, but rather an information thread. People who try to discuss things but who don't understand eachother aren't likely to grow at all through the discussion.

I do apologise.

I wanted to answer some questions posed by others.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Oerdin
"Why are you not a Christian?"

Because religion is nothing more then fairy tales designed to pacify the masses.

Oh great! Now our veterans are turning into Marxists! Well, there goes the Republic. I hope your happy.

[SlowwHand]

Not this Republic.

[Wernazuma III]

It took a bit longer, but here's the Confesiones of my own religious history.

They might be interesting because for a short period in my life, I really considered myself a Christian, then turned away from it.
I was not raised specially Catholic, but also not talked out of it. Religion was no big topic at home. But my brother taught me a few prayers, and I would more or less regularly pray before going to sleep, etc. I refused to be confirmed though because at that time, I was not sure at all about what to belief. I wanted to make my choice informed and not by leaving my reason in the checkroom. Not being confirmed was rather odd for my colleagues since then you wouldn't get a confirmation present - that was their great motivation for this step - yeah.
About at that time, my best friend went to a Lutheran youth group. I went there, they were nice, so I stayed. The Protestant approach to the bible, where you as a person are more free to find your own way through it, was more according to my stance. So in this group of friendly people, I tried my best to believe – but I couldn’t really. I failed to really see a reason why the scripture should be authoritative. Sure, many ethic aspects of Jesus’s teachings were in accordance with me, but there were so many points in conflict with my conscience and reason. To name a few (when I say God, I mean the Christian God, when I use the indicative, it means that I argue within the Christian system):
*Why does an omnipotent all loving God, who created everything, including the evil, make this evil altogether, while being all-loving? Makes no sense. Should I ever again believe in anything, then it’s either a dualistic belief of a same-level good and a bad force struggling; or an omnipotent God outside of our moral categories, like a sometimes cruel, sometimes nice child with the world being his toy.
**There’s actually much in the bible that makes God appear childish and cruel. Sweeping its own creation in bad temper, only saving few in order to continue to play. Why didn’t he like his own creation? He’s omnipotent, he should have foreseen!
***Free will and an omnipotent Creator are contradictions. A real freedom would lie OUTSIDE of the reach an omnipotent God, which is unacceptable. So, if I fail in the eyes of God, I failed because HE created me in this way, it’s his fault. The original sin is also unlogic. Because God must have created the temptation itself, and then takes this as an excuse to blame man... If he condemns me, it’s simply unfair, he should have made differently. This leads us to the next point:
****God doesn’t give us equal opportunities, a good God should. Some are born with mental problems and lean to violence, others experience so much violence that they become violent, etc. There’s not only people fully accountable and a few retards who are not, it’s all grey. Most believers say it’s not upon us to judge why God ordeals some much, while others little. This is BS and an apologetic argument for something there is no good answer for. We are capable to separate good from evil We have an feeling of fairness being good. Not giving equal opportunities is unfair, thus bad => God is bad. ERROR.
***** Even worse, God is a racist. Of course, there’s no Greeks and Jews, they’re all one in Christ, Jesus – very nice. But halfway through the history of salvation, God was there only for a fraction of his created manhood. And once he changed his mind, he did so only at one specific point, which meant not only leaving the New World in darkness (unless you’re Mormon), but also in the Old World many people with basically no access to the truth and salvation. Of course, that’s why there is a mission, but for the Chinese peasant individual that had no chance to hear the evangelium, that’s not much worth. Why didn’t he send out Christs to everyone? A fundamental problem in all religions of revelation.

You m,ight live with this or answer it differently, to me, these remained to be obstacles.
That’s only some fundamental things, then there are anthropological and historical aspects about religion (I’m historian)– that it serves certain functions in societies which, depending on the culture, take form in specific religions. And all absolutely convinced that they’re right. Having the overview, and a neutral position, why should I accept any of them to be more true than the others. When I have more in common with Christian ideas, it’s most probably because I live in a Christian influenced culture.

Funny enough, I was able to compensate these differences for some time – maybe a year. Deep inside, I had actually never stopped questioning the very basis of the belief, I just talked myself into it. Not having much “sure things” as an adolescent boy whose parents were separating at that time, I simply wanted to accept that outside authority, thus I did where my consciousness could – my unconsciousness never fully did. When I realized that I had forced myself into believing, and that this doing concealed reason, and its main function was to suppress own thinking and doubts, I less and less attended the meetings. The final trigger was when that best friend of mine had his coming out, and how this changed the relations with the group leaders. They were, of course, nice, after all they were “liberal”, but it was also clear that they considered this an obstacle for him to be saved. They didn’t even deny that it could for him be possible to conciliate his being gay with being Christian, but it still was kind of a cut.
With my growing doubts and no group, this episode was over. Over time I came to see how much I lied to myself during that time, that the bible didn’t give me any meaningful answers, that I had to overrule my conscience to fully accept some of Christian ethics and, most importantly that I actually lack the basic needed for a belief: faith. Believing meant to throw all questions, rationale, doubts etc. overboard, and get as an answer some incoherent or vague stories about a world of shepherds or a prehistory that is in direct conflict with science, and very rarely good answers. True, I agree with much of Jesus’s teachings, but then again, they’re not all that different to some Ancient philosophies in many respects...

I hope this makes sense.

Edit: throuw is no English word