@OP-
Origins, explanations, magic, atonement, revenge, parity, equality, control, vicarious redemption, salvation, eternal reward, emotional solace, comfort and familiarity of tradition, honor or glory and righteous indignation. Off the top of my head.

(February 24, 2012 at 3:36 pm)Undeceived Wrote:

(February 24, 2012 at 2:09 pm)Xavier Wrote: Going to church always bored me to death as a child.
The sermons are normally boring and hymns suck. Couldn't they play some more exciting music?

Also the image of the God that the Bible portrays is that of a bloodthirsty and vain maniac not a loving god.
I can't imagine why you's really want that God to be true.

I can understand why someone would want to believe in a religion like Norse Paganism where the gods are kind of cool characters and Valhalla is a cool place where you just drink and party with hot chicks all the time.

The Christian heaven would suck anyway though as the religion is completely ascetic in things pleasurable.
I just don't see what anyone finds appealing about Christianity.

God is perfectly loving but also perfectly just. If he wasn't just, we'd all turn out brats and run around causing whatever chaos we please. The old testament judgments are just that--judgments. We break the law we are all aware of and we face the punishment. A judge doesn't hate the criminal he sentences, he's just doing what he's obligated to do. "But God shows his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Christians are Christians because they see their sin and recognize their need for a savior. Jesus is that savior. "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:8) "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). God had mercy on us. He knew the debt needed to be paid and he did it for us. All we have to do is say we're sorry for the wrongs we've committed and accept his gift. The pleasures of this world (like sex and alcohol) are empty and temporary. When we believe in Jesus we are given a full, lasting peace.

Sermons and music are always more interesting when they mean something to us personally. Have you tried another church? I know three just in my area that play rock music. Many churches have multiple services to cater to different age groups. When it comes down to it, worship is in the mind and spirit, not in entertainment.

Genocides and torture conducted and ordered by God
Eternity in burning oil,torture and suffering just for not believing in a book filled with illogical false claims.
I am sorry but if you think that those things are in any way ''just'',you're a sickening example of a human being.

(February 24, 2012 at 2:09 pm)Xavier Wrote: God is perfectly loving but also perfectly just. If he wasn't just, we'd all turn out brats and run around causing whatever chaos we please. The old testament judgments are just that--judgments. We break the law we are all aware of and we face the punishment. A judge doesn't hate the criminal he sentences, he's just doing what he's obligated to do. "But God shows his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Christians are Christians because they see their sin and recognize their need for a savior. Jesus is that savior. "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:8) "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). God had mercy on us. He knew the debt needed to be paid and he did it for us. All we have to do is say we're sorry for the wrongs we've committed and accept his gift. The pleasures of this world (like sex and alcohol) are empty and temporary. When we believe in Jesus we are given a full, lasting peace.

Sermons and music are always more interesting when they mean something to us personally. Have you tried another church? I know three just in my area that play rock music. Many churches have multiple services to cater to different age groups. When it comes down to it, worship is in the mind and spirit, not in entertainment.

The appeal of Christianity, like most other religions, is that it satisfies the two most basic human emotions: fear and greed. Observe the terminology that Undeceived uses: "just", "chaos", "judgment", "punishment", "sin", "need for a savior"; these are all related to fear. Terms such as "gift", "pleasures", and "lasting peace" all are related to greed.

Christians have an extreme fear of death, which in their minds, is appeased by their "faith". They also have a covetous greed for life - one life is not enough for them, they want two, and they want their second life to last forever. This is the allure of Christianity, and the feeble and naive are snared by its siren song.

I'd like a second, eternal life as well. Wish in one hand, shit in the other. The terms that christianity offers aren't exactly satisfactory either. I want an eternal life; not an eternity in thrall to the douchebag written about in scriptures.

Quote:God is perfectly loving but also perfectly just.

Oh horseshit. Before you start with that crap provide some evidence that your 'god' is something more than a figment of your fucking imagination.

I get so sick of you clowns acting as if all this nonsense is real because you say so.

Put up or shut up!

(February 29, 2012 at 2:33 am)znk666 Wrote:

(February 24, 2012 at 3:36 pm)Undeceived Wrote: God is perfectly loving but also perfectly just. If he wasn't just, we'd all turn out brats and run around causing whatever chaos we please. The old testament judgments are just that--judgments. We break the law we are all aware of and we face the punishment. A judge doesn't hate the criminal he sentences, he's just doing what he's obligated to do. "But God shows his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Christians are Christians because they see their sin and recognize their need for a savior. Jesus is that savior. "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:8) "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). God had mercy on us. He knew the debt needed to be paid and he did it for us. All we have to do is say we're sorry for the wrongs we've committed and accept his gift. The pleasures of this world (like sex and alcohol) are empty and temporary. When we believe in Jesus we are given a full, lasting peace.

Genocides and torture conducted and ordered by God
Eternity in burning oil,torture and suffering just for not believing in a book filled with illogical false claims.
I am sorry but if you think that those things are in any way ''just'',you're a sickening example of a human being.

You're arguing in two spheres. The New Testament also shows God's nature and says "God is love" in 1 John 4:8. Either you take both testaments or you take neither. He is loving (as a father to a child) and just (as a father disciplines a child). Why is it that the two things we crave most are love from our friends and justice to those who are not? Unlike us, God loves everyone, but He will also judge those who choose not to be His friend. Peoples in the OT were given opportunities to accept God's love but they didn't want it. They went off and did wicked things instead. God loved them the entire time, so the OT and NT are reconciled. The whole point you bring the OT God up is that you believe they cannot be reconciled. You believe that infers they were fabricated by man. But they are reconcilable by the believers themselves-- by the church and the people in the church using the scriptures to back their claims up. The church has a perfect explanation (using the scriptures as backing) for why God seems different in the two cases. Your asserting their explanation isn't good enough suggests absolutely nothing except that you probably haven't read the Bible enough to make an educated judgment. We believe God good. We have evidence for our belief. You believe God evil. You have no evidence, and only make the claim for the ends of justifying your own disbelief in God. Christians consider that if there was a God, the Judgment-to-Gospel gradient is just how He'd reveal Himself. You consider He would not reveal Himself that way. How could you know? How can you read the mind of a God you don't think exists?

You have to understand everyone is their own zone. They emphasize on the beauty of being saved, when they deserve to go to hell, by God's grace. As for people whom don't get saved, of course, it's their fault for refusing this grace of God. This is how they see it. They see God's love and others getting punished they see it as in spite of God's love and grace.

Everyone is in their own zone.

What god, what love, what zone? Sounds to me like your referring to the borders of any given persons own inability to distinguish reality from fantasy.

(February 29, 2012 at 4:13 pm)Rhythm Wrote: What god, what love, what zone?

I use to be a Shia Muslim and now find many faults with Islam. Find the Islamic God illogical. But before that I was in a zone where I saw it as all rational. It seemed beautiful to me, seemed logical, seemed like the truth. Seemed like Quran was the word of God and beyond human. I was in my Shiite Islam zone.

I take it there is a lot of Atheists here whom were former Christians. They might remember the Zone they were in, where it seemed logical and beautiful and the truth.

Of course once you leave that Zone, you see what you couldn't see before and you realize the flaws in your thinking.

When you want to believe really badly, it's hard not to, and when you believe, what you believe seems logical, otherwise you wouldn't believe it.

Well, I think a lot of it based on fear. If you're taught from a young age that it is a fact that not being a Christian means eternal suffering in the worst place imaginable, of course you're going to choose the boring sermons and ridiculous stories simply out of fear of that place.

As well as this, I think people are scared of dying. Scared of the nothing that follows death and will choose anything that they can use to ignore that fear and replace with blissful ignorance. As an atheist I think a fear in nothing after death is absurd. We've been dead for billions of years before we were born, and there was nothing terrible about it. Was the year 1900 a terrible year for you? Nope... well the year 2100 will be no different.