The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[Rekeisha]

Ok, this part of the story is where it really starts getting messy, but I'll try to cover everything I see wrong here.


First off, in Matthew Jesus appears to all the women at the same time (inlcuding Mary M), so there's no real support for separate encounters or for splitting the women up. The only account that makes it sound like Mary was by herself at any point is John, and that one doesn't really mention the other women at all. Splitting the women into two groups is mostly just scholars trying to force-fit the varying accounts into a single narrative that vaguely makes sense; it's not in the text, though.


Also, there's a discrepancy about who says what, and to whom (and in my opinion, it's actually kind of an important one). In Mark, the women do not encounter Jesus. The angel they encounter tells them to deliver a message to his disciples telling them to go to Galilee so Jesus could meet them there. In Matthew, they get the same message, but from Jesus himself. If you're the all-powerful, all-knowing, and infallible creator of the Universe and you're trying to deliver a message to your people, how are you going to mix up whether something was said by your son or one of your angels (or let the human writers mix it up)?

I want to give you some history about the writing of the gospels that I learned when I looked into your objections with the resurrection accounts. My post is long so I am going to post it in sections. Also If you don't want to read what I wrote in here you can watch this video by Michael Licona. He isn't a bad lecturer and I got a lot for my response from this. https://youtu.be/ns35f93WTuw

So the gospels are written in the genre of Greco roman autobiography that were written in that time. These were not concerned with the chronological order of events but in a narrative that flowed easily for the reader (or listener/s). So they may move certain accounts in the persons' life to other places, allowing the narrative to make sense of the dislocation, in order to give the events more impact. In college we were tasked to a paint "still life paintings" and I would omit or crop out things I didn't want to paint. In the room everyone saw the same objects but they would paint it from a different angle and choose to paint the objects based on their own abilities, talents and artistic discretions. If you put all of our pictures together they would not look the same but they would all be our take on the objects we saw and that would not disqualify the images representing what was actually there or not.
 
Another thing to consider is that the gospels had some constraints on how long it could be because it was to be read in front of a group of people. They likely used a set size of scroll to write on, the telling should take about an hour, and certain literary devices, like time compression, were used to shorten their story (as well as the very "flow" being passed to bring the attention of the listeners back to the story).  
 
The fact that the stories aren't all the same lends credibility to the gospel accounts because eye witness accounts of the same event always have some variation and each person focuses on different elements of an event. What all of the accounts agree upon is the fact that women were the first to find the tomb, angel(s) were present, disciples were informed, and someone (the women) saw Jesus. If this account was a fabrication why wouldn't the authors get their story straight? They had time before they wrote the gospels. Why wouldn't they say a man was the first to see Jesus.
During the time a of Jesus' death a woman's testimony was not accepted in court. The earliest account was Mark and they have found it in 2012 on a papyrus that dates to the AD 80s, and this is a copy, so there had to be accounts told before that. If these accounts were incorrect the people whose names were written in it, had plenty of time to reject or correct the story.  Yet there is as of yet any evidence this has happened.
 
So on to the objection of these differences. Were there two angels?  Well one is talked about in one account and two are talked about in another account; this doesn't' make it a contradiction just a difference in the accounts.  It is the same way with the women; it shows that there was a group of women there at the tomb that day, no matter if only one person was mentioned or more than that.  Your main concern with the account of John, and Mary's account in it,  should be relieved by looking further down in the scriptures, when she meets up with John and Peter what she says infers that she was not alone.
 
Also, Very early in the morning, at dawn and while it was still dark could all be around the same time or they could be compressions time. They are not trying to give you an exact play by play they want you to know it was in the morning. When Mary left in John's account the sky could be mostly dark and then have gotten brighter as she walked. She may not have set out with all of the women. Again the authors could be compressing time and just be saying in the morning as a general time period. 

Matt 28 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

Like I spoke about before they were not concerned in the 1st century biographies with chorological order as we are, so I see verse 2-4 as an aside or flashback. If you notice in the account the women don't react to the earthquake or the fainted guards. When the angel says "don't be afraid" he is talking about himself. Another thing to consider is that the guards fainted because of the angels but these women didn't? I believe it works better if they come up to the tomb with the guards gone and then poke their heads in to see the angels in there. Then the angel/s tell them to not be afraid.  Or you could be right and they came up to the tomb with the guards fainted and that is why Mary assumed that Jesus' body was stolen.
 
We may not know when the guards left the tomb still that doesn't mean that all of the accounts should be thrown out because we cannot discern when the events took place. There is more evidence backing up the account than going against it. When they spoke to the people who witnessed the Titanic going down, they found a contradiction in their accounts (did it break in half then sink or sink in one piece). This didn't call into question the fact that the Titanic sank. Unlike the titanic account, when it comes to the bible there are differences but not contradictions. What I am learning is the more we understand the styles of the bible, and the culture from which it was written in/for, the more these accounts make sense.  

[Rekeisha]

Those passages are talking about free men. Foreign residents and foreign slaves were not the same thing, nor did they hold the same place in society. Again, you've picked a passage that does not talk about slavery to try to refute my interpretation of a passage that definitely does talk about slavery. You're basically out of context on this entire argument. None of the passages you've pulled are actually talking about slavery specifically; they've mentioned kidnapping, oppression, hospitality, etc. but not slavery. The passages I'm quoting say in plain language what your god thinks of slavery and how he commands Jews to conduct their ownership of slaves.

As I looked further into the text there is a difference between the Jewish slave and the Foreign slave and that is that the Jew must be released at Jubilee. The Foreign slave could serve for their life if his master choose. Still the laws of a slave still applied to all slaves like, if he was grievously injured, or ran away he would be free from his servitude.
 
1 Tim 1:9-10 [url=http://biblehub.com/greek/1492.htm][/url]9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,
 
We see here that the law about slavery was given to the Israelites because they needed to be restrained and have a consequence for behaving in a manner that was evil. Otherwise if God were so evil he would not have given a law at all and would have explicitly stated that you can oppress anyone anyway you choose. Instead what we see is Him always giving boundaries and stipulations. Also God giving a law doesn't mean that He condones the act. In Matthew Jesus is approached by the religious rulers and asked whether divorce is lawful for any cause. He quotes from genesis saying that marriage was designed for life. They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (Matt 19 ESV). So this law is similar to the laws about slavery. Just like the law for divorce was for the benefit of the woman (so that she could remarry without being seen as an adulterer) the slave would not be oppressed or treated harshly. They would be treated as a person and have the possibility of gaining land and having a wife and family. 

Sooo...I'm noticing a pattern here...when I say that I'm gonna quote a passage that glorifies slavery, the passage I select tends to contain words like "slave," "enslave," and "slavery," whereas yours do not. You seem to be taking passages that you think refer to various aspects of slavery (kidnapping, bondage, selling people, etc.) but that in context do not actually pertain to slavery at all.

You are correct not all of my replies to you are about slaves but the law does not see slaves as less than human. so when I quoted from other passages I was working under this assumption. I have also quoted from Isaiah 58:67 were it spoke of breaking the bonds of oppression. Oppression is in a similar contest as what we saw slavery to be in the American south. This being a part of the Jewish scripture and God calling for the end of oppression shows that God is not in favor of harsh treatment of anyone.

 
Psalm 9:9 (ESV)
9 The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
 
Psalm 147 5:Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,  whose hope is in the Lord his God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; 7  who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
 
Unlike the picture you hold of God, He is a God that fights against oppression and calls His people to do the same. God is for the weak and the down trodden and oppressed. This is not just for the type of  slavery we witness now and in the American south it is for all forms of oppression. He seeks to free the person from any physical and spiritual or mental oppression. If anyone puts their full trust in Him they will receive full restoration. So just because it doesn't explicitly say slavery doesn't mean this does not give you a good view of what God is getting at. As a Christian there is no person that is allowed to be oppressed. In many of the social issues you see Christians fighting for someone's rights, like in abortion, human trafficking, adoption. People like Amy Carmichael in India risking her life to free the children from shrine prostitution. George Muller who by faith and prayer started an orphanage for the poor English children. That is only two examples. There are Christians willing to stand in front of abortion clinics and offer to adopt babies.
 
Gal 3:28-29 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Not the kind of slavery we're talking about, and also...that never happened, either.

Are you speaking about the spiritual implication of the crucifixion or the Historicity of it?

 
Both apply. Jesus was betrayed or sold at the price of a slave. He did the work of a slave by washing the feet of his disciples. Isaiah 53:7 (ESV) 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Not only is God for the oppressed but He also suffered under man's oppression. He became oppressed and was sold for the price of a slave in order to set other free from their captivity. He isn't just a silent on looker but he came down and became afflicted for our sake. As for the case of the slaves in America now and then He was abused and mistreated. He knows what it is like to be sold. As God, Jesus didn't stand far off but became a man and suffered with us in order that we may receive true freedom

Evidence?

As for the evidence of man's rejection of God making us blind to your evil ti states that Jesus said in the book of John if you love me you will obey my commands (john 14:15)
Well you don't think that porn is wrong but I will talk more about that later in another post. (Don't look at a woman in lust)
Killing babies in the womb is fine because they aren't humans but they have the DNA of humans and are alive. The DNA of a baby isn't the exact same DNA as the mother. (Do not murder ex 20:13)
A woman (who was not pregnant, but at an abortion rights rally) said that "being forced to have a baby is equal to being enslaved". (women should love their husband and children Titus 2:4)
When Darwin's theory of evolution was gaining some fan fair people, including him, said that women were inferior to men and that the "negro" was also an inferior race. (God made man and woman in his image Gen 1:27)
Open the bathrooms to anyone who identifies as that sex, which has opened the door to people being victimized. Some girls were already victimized in Washington State when a man walked into their locker room and just stood there. He told them they could not make his leave. (don't lie, don't lust after women, defend the defenseless Ps 82:83)
 The applauding of the transgender movement is no a helping people dealing with body dysmorphic disorder. (don't lie Lev 19:11) Dr. Paul Mchugh former John Hopkins psychiatrist in chief , the hospital that started the transgender surgeries, discontinued it because they found that this was not the solution.
 
Bruce Jenner being named woman of the year. Excuse Me! I have been a woman all of my life bore three children. Take care of them run my own business and this man changes his sex and gets to trump my natural womanhood to become woman of the year?
What about all those natural born women who are making great sacrifices and doing amazing things in the world (that far outstrip my accomplishments)? 
So what then, men can continue to dominate our society and now change their sex to dominate womanhood as well? (lies)
 

Your god doesn't see anything wrong with mass genocide and forced marriages, so you really don't have the moral high ground here, even if abortion were evil (which it isn't).

From your standpoint point either the Bible is a fabrication therefore God is not genocidal. Or He is genocidal, therefore He must exist. 

Then if he does exist, He owns every human being because He made them and determines their life span. He controls History. He is the one that gives purpose and meaning and if He chooses to remove them by war or sickness it is for His purposes, whether He makes us privy to them or not. When He wipes out people it is never without warning or a grace period.
 
Also a regulation on an act is not the same as an endorsement of the act. As I spoke about above God regulates certain behavior for the person who is in the weaker position. 

[Rekeisha]

Ok, well, "spiritual slavery" is not what we're talking about (and it's not a real thing), so I'm going to ignore those. Let's see what you've got.

 Just because you can't detect it with physical means does not mean that it doesn't exist. I was watching a vlog on Youtube and this man was speaking about an event that happened to him. He was in a marathon and saw one man his age stumble off the road. He went to see if he needed help and in the end the guy ended up dying. This truly affected him and even though he tried to do some more of his run he was struck with great grief. Now I have looked into what evolution has said about grief and I must say it is a cold and shallow explanation of what happens when someone loses something very important to them. This trauma does not benefit us if we are talking about surviving to pass on our genes. I would say that it speaks more to the fact that we have a greater dimension to being human than mere chemistry. Also the need to be something or someone, the need to be seen, and accepted, to be loved, to be valued also adds to that dimension. Why do so many people feel empty? Why do people find themselves stuck in harmful habits, and it doesn't depend on the person's education. We yearn for more. The fact all humans think there is a right way to live and a wrong way to live speaks to something deeper in all of us.

I do not have an objection to consensual porn made by adults. If people who are of legal age and sound mind decide that they wish to subject themselves to being filmed during sex (for money or otherwise), then that is none of my business unless I am one of those people.



I think you mean it "objectifies" people, and personally I don't think that's even true. It is perfectly normal for human beings to want to express themselves as wanting sex and wanting to be sexually desirable, and doing so does not reduce the person to an object. That is absurd.



Furthermore, even if porn did "objectify" people, if a person volunteers to express themselves as a sex object, there is nothing wrong with that. Luckily for everyone, what you object to has no practical impact on what society actually deems acceptable.

How do you know when the porn used by people are from people who are agree with being videoed? Have you thought of the fact that when people show interest in porn no matter how it is produced that this act signals to other porn producers who use slaves that this is a desired product therefore aiding in their oppression of other people.

 

Expressing yourself sexually and selling your sexual acts are two different things. Sex is not a performance but an act of intimacy. It requires a vulnerability and is most enjoyed in safety, mutual trust and love by a man and woman who have made the choice to commit to one another for the rest of their lives. They make this commitment not just secretly but publicly. Porn is a degradation for all who are involved and is addictive. The effects on a male's (because I don't know about women) mind a body are ED, ADHD, socially awkwardness, and OCD. So when you say they are expressing themselves in reality it is the death of sex as well as a normal functioning man. Here is a Ted Talk from Philip Zimbardo https://youtu.be/FMJgZ4s2E3w  

 
This addiction isn't like normal addictions. It seeks new and different experiences. When you are addicted to something you are no longer concerned about people but your own wants and needs. This feeds and fuels the industry as well as sex slavery. There is nothing about porn that is good. 

Not exactly. Genetic coding is not "information" in the sense that you're using it.

How do you think I am using information? It is the instructions used in the growth, development, and functions of all living organisms (and many viruses).

In other words it is the instruction manual for an entire living organism, its individual parts, and even its reproductive possibilities. 

 

I just read an article that spoke about DNA showing both digital and analog characteristics which as based off of this article.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00018-013-1394-1 (because I believe you would enjoy this article more and it from the scientist who made this discover... or at least I believe so)
So not only does DNA act like Digital information but also like analog. So Humans have discovered only recently how to store energy in a similar non-organic way as has always been in the human gene. How much research went into the discovery of Digital and analog information. Yet your claim is that by chemistry and then natural selection these complex forms of information just came about. It would seem more reasonable that even though the information does not present itself as it would if we had created it that there is a mind behind it.

"I don't understand where the 'information' in DNA came from, therefore God must have done it," is an argument from ignorance. No matter how you word it, this line of reasoning is fallacious and will get you nowhere while trying to convince a rational person.

This is not my thought processes when looking at DNA. Actually it is quite amazing and I find it difficult to believe that it came together without the hand of an extremely knowledgeable and powerful designer. I also happen to know God so it is easy to attribute this to Him.  Yet you may be right I may be moving too fast and have not explained my thought process well enough the process to you. 

All you're doing here is attempting to define your god as something that should be able to ignore the Special Pleading Fallacy. If God is eternal, then other things can be or that's special pleading.

If he does not require a creator, then neither do other things or that's special pleading.

If God can exist without space or time, then so can other things or that's special pleading.

If God can exist without being created by something with a will, then so can other things or that's special pleading.
Regardless of how or why you think your god can "just is," the problem is that you are stating that nothing can "just is" except god.

What kind of thing are you talking about?  

 

Humans will last forever but not in the same way that God. Our souls have no end but God has both no beginning and no ending.

Do you believe that things were created from nothing? Then why is God not being created special pleading?

My husband has informed me that there are things that don't require space or time and have dimensions that don't work like ours.

 

There are three persons that are outside of time and space but one being. So God is in many ways different from humans or anything else that he has created. He isn't bound by space like we are. He has the knowledge, ability, power and will to create. He isn't bound by time either.  When we speak of God being Holy it isn't just His moral perfection but the fact that He is like no other being in creation. He is in a category all His own.

 
Logically it makes more sense for some all powerful being creating the universe, than for it to have sprung out of nothing.(not to say you believe that) 

[Rekeisha]

That's pretty much it, to be honest (except for the last paragraph). Not only are anger, joy, and happiness "just" chemical reactions (which can be seen in brain scans in predictable regions of the brain in all humans), but we're learning a lot more about the way the brain works in terms of us not having the degree of autonomous control over our instinctive reactions as we like to imagine we do. There's quite a lot of debate going on about to what degree we're in control of our own brains, so I'll leave that to the experts, but there's really no question that all of the things we once ascribed to the concept of a "soul" are in fact "simply" brain chemistry.


Of course, to whatever degree we have conscious control of ourselves, we should exercise that control in being better to one another, since we evolved as a social species capable of being moral actors (we also see moral actors in other intelligent, social species, as confirmed by scientific studies on that subject). The fact that it's "just" brain chemistry doesn't diminish the beauty or importance of our self-valuation of the products of these emotions and interactions with other humans, any more than knowing that the sun is just a fusion reaction at the heart of a huge ball of hydrogen diminishes the beauty of a sunset-- especially one viewed with your mate amid some hugs and tender kisses. We humans do and must assign values to the inanimate, the meaningless, but it doesn't diminish them because they have no innate value of their own. I have never understood why people think otherwise.

So why do you think we add meaning to things and contemplate our existence? 
Why call anything beautiful? 
Why do you see the beauty?

 
You said we humans do and must assign values to the inanimate. Why do you see this as a must?

I even agree with your premise that (presuming God exists for the sake of argument) then "knowing how things function doesn't remove the fact that God is doing it", except that I don't think God has to use magic to make things happen, if the Creator set everything up (including our brain chemistry) to function naturally, from the very beginning.

May I ask do you think Christians think that God uses magic to make things happen?

The difference is that the religious are a group with a unified explanation pre-sorted and pre-ordered as they are being presented to them in the Holy Scriptures, which are unquestionable (to them), and therefore constitute a uniform filter that the whole group employs at all time. The scientists, on the other hand, only come with their basic human filters and prejudices, scattered across the entire spectrum of humanity, and they have no uniform ideological dogma to protect. A scientist from communist China is not going to agree with a scientist who is a Jesuit monk from Italy, and neither of them are going to agree with a Buddhist from the US Midwest, et cetera. They will all approach the methodology of the published paper with skepticism and will accept the conclusions of new papers only to the degree warranted-- and they will writer their own counter-papers to show the Italian monk is wrong, for instance, and why.

So I see the data collected from scientific research and the Bible as two different types of information. Data from science pertains to the physical world and data from the Bible speaks about the spiritual world.  As a Christian I believe that these two data sources do not contradict and if they do there is something wrong with someone's interpretation. One thing I like about Christianity is you are asked to ask question and to test things(James 1:5). I see people who are religious but don't understand God and are afraid of questions. I think if your beliefs are correct it can be questioned and tested.  Many believing Christians have question. I have had question and received answers. God has made us to be curious in order to learn. It says "let us reason together" (Isa 1:18). I find I enjoy when I teach the Bible and my student's ask questions that means they are thinking!

What makes me angriest, as a scientist by training, is to see groups who don't have a real explanatory model, just a story that claims to explain by magical means, taking that story and holding it up as if it is a plausible counter-explanation of equal credibility to the scientific models carefully constructed by groups of scientists who have no reason to agree with one another. They manipulate their audiences by the use of scientific-sounding authorities which are in fact misrepresentations of either what a real scientist said, or some stuffed shirt with a bad degree who tries to pretend to be an authority in order to fool most of the people (who won't pay attention to what real scientists have to say, or notice that the Authority being quoted is out of step with everyone else in the field), just so they can keep people from "falling away" into scientific thinking about the world, as if that is contrary to God.

I recently came across a man by the name of  Hugh Ross who by science came to be a believer in God. He grew up in Canada and didn't know any Christians personally. Yet after many years of looking from the age of 9 up into his teen he was testing other major religions to see if they matched up with what is found in nature. He has a view of Genesis that I believe is hardly taught but make a great deal of sense. If you care to check him out you can click this link. 
https://youtu.be/d4EaWPIlNYY

It IS contrary to God as they (and the Iron Age Israelites) imagined it to be, true... but if there is in fact a Creator, then science is the best method of finding out the actions of that Creator, not the best imaginings of Iron Age goat herder priests.

Think of it: if evolution is correct, and we are "just" animals like every other nipple-having mammal on the planet, then mankind is the first animal to rise up enough to recognize his Creator (and in some cases to deny the same, heh) and give worship to the source of all life, of which he is an integral part. It means we are both animal and a transcendent being, which made us worthy of the Creator's notice, and love. To accept evolution as the mechanism of Creation, and our relationship with the rest of life on earth, does not diminish God or man.

Could you expound more on this paragraph because I don't know if I fully understand you?

[Edwardo Piet]

This thread needs to fucking die.

[drfuzzy]

Yes, walls and walls of idiotic apologetics.   Still no proof that any deity exists.  (yawn)

[carusmm]

I know that you have to truly believe in the Messiah, well, fuck that.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Wow...that is pretty long. Luckily, I'm pretty sure I can address it pretty tidily. Let's get started.


First off, I am familiar with the line of apologetics you're using to attempt to force-fit the differing accounts of the Resurrection. Nothing about the chronology of Jewish storytelling or any of the other stuff you mentioned would account for the kind of contradictions I described, especially not if the person in charge of the project is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the Universe. If that were the case, we should see no contradictions at all, even with humans involved. I remain unconvinced by your reasoning.


And no, the gospels are not backed by so much as a modicum of sound evidence. They are little more than folklore. They describe geography that does not align with other historical and archaeological evidence, and they assert various events and people for which there are no supporting, extra-biblical accounts. They also say that magic exists and people can do it, and we have no evidence of that whatsoever.

Just because you can't detect it with physical means does not mean that it doesn't exist. I was watching a vlog on Youtube and this man was speaking about an event that happened to him. He was in a marathon and saw one man his age stumble off the road. He went to see if he needed help and in the end the guy ended up dying. This truly affected him and even though he tried to do some more of his run he was struck with great grief. Now I have looked into what evolution has said about grief and I must say it is a cold and shallow explanation of what happens when someone loses something very important to them. This trauma does not benefit us if we are talking about surviving to pass on our genes. I would say that it speaks more to the fact that we have a greater dimension to being human than mere chemistry. Also the need to be something or someone, the need to be seen, and accepted, to be loved, to be valued also adds to that dimension. Why do so many people feel empty? Why do people find themselves stuck in harmful habits, and it doesn't depend on the person's education. We yearn for more. The fact all humans think there is a right way to live and a wrong way to live speaks to something deeper in all of us.

Pretty much everything you're describing can be explained by physical means. Whether you're willing to accept it or not, the evidence indicates that ALL emotions (yes, even grief) are neurological/biochemical processes in our brains and bodies. There is no evidence that they come from a spiritual plane of existence, and you would need to show me evidence before I could justify believing such a thing. Our need to be accepted, our belief that there are right ways and wrong ways to treat each other...all of that chalks up to being a social species because we evolved that way. Our brains do pretty much every bit of that.

How do you know when the porn used by people are from people who are agree with being videoed? Have you thought of the fact that when people show interest in porn no matter how it is produced that this act signals to other porn producers who use slaves that this is a desired product therefore aiding in their oppression of other people.



Expressing yourself sexually and selling your sexual acts are two different things. Sex is not a performance but an act of intimacy. It requires a vulnerability and is most enjoyed in safety, mutual trust and love by a man and woman who have made the choice to commit to one another for the rest of their lives. They make this commitment not just secretly but publicly. Porn is a degradation for all who are involved and is addictive. The effects on a male's (because I don't know about women) mind a body are ED, ADHD, socially awkwardness, and OCD. So when you say they are expressing themselves in reality it is the death of sex as well as a normal functioning man. Here is a Ted Talk from Philip Zimbardo EMBEDDED MEDIA  


This addiction isn't like normal addictions. It seeks new and different experiences. When you are addicted to something you are no longer concerned about people but your own wants and needs. This feeds and fuels the industry as well as sex slavery. There is nothing about porn that is good.

Well, I'll give you one thing: you do seem to be pretty good at memorizing and repeating the stuff your pastor tells you.


First off, porn producers are generally required by law to keep extensive records about the age and contracts (read: consensual agreements) of their actors. Porn actors also have to get regularly tested for STIs by doctors, and in California I think they still have to wear condoms in every scene. While I'm sure improprieties do happen (like with any profession), the simple fact is that there are extensive legal provisions geared toward keeping porn actors as safe and unexploited as possible, and I would bet that most producers follow those regulations for fear of legal repercussions, if nothing else.


The demand for consensual porn indicates a demand for consensual porn. You have no basis for the assertion that porn signals to slavers that their actions are wanted or acceptable. A separate demand exists for child porn and rape porn, and that demand is what tells slavers that there's money in what they're doing. People who watch normal porn are generally not watching illegal porn, and people who watch illegal porn generally aren't that into regular porn.


Anything enjoyable can be addictive. That doesn't make porn a natural path to child slave pornography. That is a slippery slope fallacy, and in this case it is not borne out by the evidence. There is no real indication that watching regular porn necessarily leads to wanting to watch illegal porn. It may be the case that most people who eventually got into worse stuff started out with regular porn, but that's the "Gateway Drug" fallacy. That's like saying 90% of heroin users started with pot while ignoring that less than 1% of pot smokers actually go on to try heroin.


Did you know that 100% of child pornographers drank water first? Obviously drinking water leads to making child porn.

How do you think I am using information? It is the instructions used in the growth, development, and functions of all living organisms (and many viruses).

In other words it is the instruction manual for an entire living organism, its individual parts, and even its reproductive possibilities.

It's not, though. It's a little more accurate to describe it as a building block. It doesn't "tell" the process how to go, it is the basis for the process itself. DNA does what it does because of the way it is shaped. Literally. It is a long chain of chemicals, and depending on what order those chemicals are in, the reactions they start will work out in different ways. It's not quite like feeding a disk into a computer and getting a document back out.


Regardless of what term you want to use, though, there's nothing about DNA that indicates it had to be assembled by a designer of any kind. It consists of naturally-occurring chemicals and can form and replicate under naturally-occurring conditions, so it is perfectly reasonable to believe that its origins are probably natural and probably not supernatural.

Actually it is quite amazing and I find it difficult to believe that it came together without the hand of an extremely knowledgeable and powerful designer. I also happen to know God so it is easy to attribute this to Him.

"I do not know how this could have happened, and I find the scientifically accepted explanation difficult to believe, so it must have happened because of _____."


Insert anything you want into that blank...anything at all...and that is still an argument from ignorance. Just because you don't believe or understand how DNA could have formed under natural conditions with nobody watching, doesn't mean you get to substitute an answer for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

What kind of thing are you talking about?

Well, the Universe, for example. If God doesn't require a creator, why should the Universe? If God is eternal, why couldn't the Universe be eternal? The thing in question doesn't matter; what matters is that you're setting up a rule like "Everything requires a cause" or "Everything is finite" and then trying to say that your god is the only thing that gets to break those rules.


That...is...special...pleading!

Do you believe that things were created from nothing? Then why is God not being created special pleading?

I do not believe the Universe was created at all. God not being created is special pleading because you say everything else has to be created/caused by something. Either that includes god, or god is the only exception, which is what makes it special pleading.

My husband has informed me that there are things that don't require space or time and have dimensions that don't work like ours.

Has he now? Interesting. That settles that, I guess. I certainly wouldn't want to contradict some person's husband.


What's his field of expertise, exactly?

There are three persons that are outside of time and space but one being. So God is in many ways different from humans or anything else that he has created. He isn't bound by space like we are. He has the knowledge, ability, power and will to create. He isn't bound by time either.  When we speak of God being Holy it isn't just His moral perfection but the fact that He is like no other being in creation. He is in a category all His own.


Logically it makes more sense for some all powerful being creating the universe, than for it to have sprung out of nothing.(not to say you believe that)

First off, no, it doesn't, and second, you still have yet to demonstrate the existence of this being that you have no problem defining and making claims about. If you can't demonstrate your god, I am not interested. He's no more real than the version I used to worship.

From your standpoint point either the Bible is a fabrication therefore God is not genocidal. Or He is genocidal, therefore He must exist.

Then if he does exist, He owns every human being because He made them and determines their life span. He controls History. He is the one that gives purpose and meaning and if He chooses to remove them by war or sickness it is for His purposes, whether He makes us privy to them or not. When He wipes out people it is never without warning or a grace period.

Also a regulation on an act is not the same as an endorsement of the act. As I spoke about above God regulates certain behavior for the person who is in the weaker position.

Man, you and these straw men you build. Do you make them little clothes? Is there a pink hat on mine?


If the Bible is a myth, then the god it depicts is a mythical genocidal maniac (like Lord Sauron, only infinitely worse), and if it is true then he is an actual genocidal maniac (like Hitler, only infinitely worse). That is my position. I'm not even sure what you said there.


So he created us and is bigger than us, therefore he gets to squish us of he wants? That is not a moral god, that is "might makes right." That, my good lady, is a common thug. You worship a common thug. Congrats.


As for the slavery stuff, you're really just chasing your tail. I've already pointed out the passages in the Bible that endorse and regulate slavery. Ok, so one of the letters to Timothy says god punished some enslavers, and therefore that contradicts those other passages. What does that tell you?


That the Bible contradicts itself. You still didn't win

[dom.donald]

Well folks, I have patiently read all 134 pages of this. I am astonished, mainly because I have never in my life encountered such religious indoctrination as that shown by Rekeisha. This kind of thing is very rare in Europe! I am gobsmacked. I made some notes along the way:

1) Rekeisha stated that she met God before she knew about Him from the Bible. She claimed that God manifested himself in the form of 'thoughts, ideas and feelings'. She was challenged to demonstrate how she knew it was God and she evaded the question. She said only that she knew it was God because later she recognised him in the Bible.

2) Rekeisha has made more bold assertions than anyone I have ever encountered in my life! If she is so confident she knows everything, I am surprised she hasn't used this knowledge to more good effect. Just think, she could've changed the world!

3) The fact that Rekeisha uses vocabulary which comes from scripture demonstrates her indoctrination. She can not have an debate / discussion / argument without resorting to this ridiculous language. It should be possible to discuss the merits of a particular premise, explanation,  or suggestion without this kind of language

4) Rekeisha hasn't spent too much time considering what angels might be made of. Well fuck me! I wonder if she has come up with an answer?

5) Whenever faced with a valid, pointed question, Rekeisha evades it by responding with a question, usually one that we do not know the answer to, as if that means she is right. She fails to understand that most atheists are comfortable saying "I don't know".

6) Rekeisha has never explained why she believes the Bible to be True ™ other than by assertion

7) Rekeisha mistakenly thinks that it's a sensible approach to make up a wildly fantastic and infinitely elastic story to explain her reality. That doesn't make it grounded in reality.

8) Rekeisha seems to misunderstand the scientific method, and thinks it's based on random ideas by biased scientists, who could be wrong, thereby invalidating everything that science has achieved. Well, I would like to see Rekeisha live in the absence of scientific discovery just for a couple of days. Maybe she would prefer that.

9) Rekeisha seems to be using religion to hide from reality. She can 'submit' to something which absolves her from any responsibility for her own actions, and protects her from the consequences of bad choices. Sadly, it means she will never experience any real self worth, only the delusional sort.

10) Rekeisha thinks that because she has a made-up explanation, that is better than having no explanation. Yes, God is one possible explanation. However, it's not the most likely.

And finally, the main driver it seems behind Rekeisha's faith, is that she NEEDS it. She NEEDS to have an answer to the WHY question. She NEEDS to know why things were fucked up in her life, and NEEDS to know her purpose. Religion offers her the answer - it is to serve God and follow Jesus. Well now she has a purpose, so she feels relieved. It helps her make decisions that she wouldn't be strong enough to make otherwise. Well done you! If you need that, go for it, but don't lord it over us claiming you know things that we don't about reality.

I can not but feel sad that so many people waste the one life they have this way. The sheer amount of wasted time and effort spent on this insanity is mind boggling.


EDIT : oh.. and kudos to Red Beard!

[Redbeard The Pink]

And kudos to you for taking the time to read all of that (which I'm sure was painful at times). I'm really bad about jumping into discussions without doing that myself.