All the problems with Christianity

[Zazzy]

I've been loving talking with you guys about this stuff, but it seems to me at the end of the day, while we still believe the Bible comes from God, you look at it and see an ancient fairy tale. We can never seem to understand why you don't take the Bible for anything other that what it so blatantly looks like, so you have tho get into the details of it, pointing out problems and contradictions and just hoping we'll come to think of what you've been thinking all along: The Bible is fantasy, about on a level with the Quran and the Gilgamesh Epic. I mean, we might as well translate the Grimm brothers into the world's languages and say it was inspired by Rumpelstiltskin or something!
Is this kind of what you guys are thinking a lot of times? Or am I way off?
P.S. I'm not trying to mock what you guys are thinking, I just want to understand why you think that way.

I'd say this sums it up. I just can't see any reason to even care what it says other than on a literary level (obviously reading it is important to be well-educated in Western literature). The stories in it are so absurd that I have never even seen why so many people find them so important and ennobling. And it's one of so MANY fairy tales on offer. And none of you Christians can even agree on what it says or means anyway. To me, it's all just bewildering.

[Chas]

Understood. Like I said, you seem more honest than some theists here, but that's not gonna save unjustified beliefs from the axe.

Not just any axe, but the Esquilaxe! (sorry, couldn't resist)
Anyway...
There's still something I think you might be missing from the idea of slavery, but I'll save that for another time. It seems like a lot of this discussion on slavery is basically an assertion that the Bible must be wrong because it doesn't agree with all of our moral standards. (Not just yours, to be honest some of these laws don't make sense to me either.)
But that's the thing - if the Bible was in complete agreement with what most people already believe, what a problem that would be! It would be evidence that the Bible was written later, as an elaborate hoax or something. But we can't possibly expect to understand why God says and does everything; otherwise we would almost be gods too.
Which brings me to something else.
I've been loving talking with you guys about this stuff, but it seems to me at the end of the day, while we still believe the Bible comes from God, you look at it and see an ancient fairy tale. We can never seem to understand why you don't take the Bible for anything other that what it so blatantly looks like, so you have tho get into the details of it, pointing out problems and contradictions and just hoping we'll come to think of what you've been thinking all along: The Bible is fantasy, about on a level with the Quran and the Gilgamesh Epic. I mean, we might as well translate the Grimm brothers into the world's languages and say it was inspired by Rumpelstiltskin or something!
Is this kind of what you guys are thinking a lot of times? Or am I way off?
P.S. I'm not trying to mock what you guys are thinking, I just want to understand why you think that way.

Yes, it is myth. It is historically inaccurate, it contains absurd tales, it depicts a truly gruesome god, it spells out silly rules, it contradicts itself, ...

All in all, it has every appearance of a collection of stories made up by people.

[Mister Agenda]

Anyway...
There's still something I think you might be missing from the idea of slavery, but I'll save that for another time. It seems like a lot of this discussion on slavery is basically an assertion that the Bible must be wrong because it doesn't agree with all of our moral standards. (Not just yours, to be honest some of these laws don't make sense to me either.)
But that's the thing - if the Bible was in complete agreement with what most people already believe, what a problem that would be! It would be evidence that the Bible was written later, as an elaborate hoax or something. But we can't possibly expect to understand why God says and does everything; otherwise we would almost be gods too.
Which brings me to something else.
I've been loving talking with you guys about this stuff, but it seems to me at the end of the day, while we still believe the Bible comes from God, you look at it and see an ancient fairy tale. We can never seem to understand why you don't take the Bible for anything other that what it so blatantly looks like, so you have tho get into the details of it, pointing out problems and contradictions and just hoping we'll come to think of what you've been thinking all along: The Bible is fantasy, about on a level with the Quran and the Gilgamesh Epic. I mean, we might as well translate the Grimm brothers into the world's languages and say it was inspired by Rumpelstiltskin or something!

Is this kind of what you guys are thinking a lot of times? Or am I way off?

That describes the view of a lot of atheists pretty well. To get us to believe the Bible, step one is to show it's believable.

P.S. I'm not trying to mock what you guys are thinking, I just want to understand why you think that way.

You come across as sincerely wanting to understand us, which is quite refreshing. Just remember that we are very diverse (just like theists) and the only thing we all have in common is not believing in any God or gods. The atheists on this site tend to be freethinkers/rational skeptics, but there are probably every kind of atheist you can think of.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Not just any axe, but the Esquilaxe! (sorry, couldn't resist)
Anyway...
There's still something I think you might be missing from the idea of slavery, but I'll save that for another time. It seems like a lot of this discussion on slavery is basically an assertion that the Bible must be wrong because it doesn't agree with all of our moral standards. (Not just yours, to be honest some of these laws don't make sense to me either.)
But that's the thing - if the Bible was in complete agreement with what most people already believe, what a problem that would be!

...
We can never seem to understand why you don't take the Bible for anything other that what it so blatantly looks like, so you have tho get into the details of it, pointing out problems and contradictions and just hoping we'll come to think of what you've been thinking all along:
...

I don't think there's anything subjective about whether or not it's wrong to treat people like objects and hold them as slaves, nor do I think that's what you believe either.

But ask yourself why God doesn't make this implicitly clear when He gives Moses The Ten Commandments?

Not only that, but consider that The 10 commandments are written in Exodus 20:1-17.

4 of the 10 commandments (not worshipping other Gods, not making idols, not saying God dammit, not working on the sabbath) are completely useless when trying to create a loving peaceful society, and in fact (without evidence of authority) CREATE hostility among disbelievers or believers of other Gods.

Why would an all knowing God omit valuable laws such as: Don't rape, or Don't have slaves in favor of the seemingly insiginificant and petty laws listed above? This can't make sense to you.

Keeping this in mind, let me add in another thing that should definitely raise doubt about the kind of God that is depicted in The Bible Vs the way he is described by Christians that don't read it.

From Exodus 20 containing The Ten Commandments, turn the next page to Exodus 21:20, one of the instructions is given from Moses to deliver from God, and it reads:

"If a man beats his male of female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."

It says he's to be punished, but not killed. Beating a slave to death is not worthy of a death sentence, however, direct your attention to this verse in Leviticus where Moses continues to spread the laws given to him by God:

Leviticus 20:9
"If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother and his blood will be on his own head."

What in the world is open to interpretation about this? What does anybody disagreeing have to do with recognizing that these things are inherently wrong?

The Bible is fantasy, about on a level with the Quran and the Gilgamesh Epic. I mean, we might as well translate the Grimm brothers into the world's languages and say it was inspired by Rumpelstiltskin or something!

Is this kind of what you guys are thinking a lot of times? Or am I way off?
P.S. I'm not trying to mock what you guys are thinking, I just want to understand why you think that way.

My friend, you do understand why we think that way. When you read the about the things that the ancient Greeks attributed to Zeus, you are unconvinced.

I want you to be honest when you examine the real reason why those tales are not convincing to you. I'm willing to bet that they sound absurd to you, but not only because you believe in a different God, but you also know a bit about lightning, you don't think Neptune sounds ridiculous because you believe in a different God, but you think it's crazy that people think an entity is living in the water and creating the tides and guiding the animals to carry out his bidding. I'd also be willing to bet there's nothing anyone could say to convince you about you needing to really read the text that teach about Neptune in order to see the subtle nuances that ring of truth.

There's nothing that proves that Neptune doesn't exist, but that doesn't stop you from recognizing the blatant absurities one would have to ignore in order to support claims of him.

We agree with eachother on nearly all other Gods that man has created over time, but for some reason, you are still clinging to one that makes you feel good.

I was brought up Christan in a small town in Texas, and at 18 years old I started noticing signs that there was something more to my experience than the trees around me had been leading me to believe. Leaving the trees, I was able to see the entire forest, in all of it's magnificent complexity. But seeing the big picture of where I once was-was not the end, but the beginning of a process that opened my eyes to so many things in the world that my religion kept me from noticing. I can't explain to you how liberating it is to embrace ignorance and accept it as an inherent part of being a human, and enjoy the process of seeking knowledge through an examined life.

I would reccomend reading The Allegory of The Cave by Plato while imagining the cave as religion, and the people chained within it are Christians that think they have knowledge.

Read what Socrates says on his trial in The Apology about what is important in life, and try to disagree with him (it's no easy task).

It's okay not to know. When you think you have the answers, you stop looking. But, nobody has all the answers. If you think you have truth, you stop looking for it. But whether or not you think you have truth, how can you KNOW that you actually do without examining it?


Socrates said:

"Man does not seek that which he thinks he does not need"

Realizing your ignorance and accepting that it's okay not to know some things, opens the doors to all possibilities of truth. If you think you already have it, you can't go on that journey.

[ronedee]

'Texas Sailor'

No, God hasn't ’t revealed anything to me, there is no God that I know anything about. I know nothing of God and very little of you, so I would not pretend to be able to speak for either. There is no single version of man’s God, but every version I’ve heard comes from a man. If your God does not have a hell, or in some way is incompatible to the way I’ve depicted it, then by all means, offer clarification of your position if you think it may reconcile the things I find incompatible with an allegedly loving God. Your God does not have a hell, or a devil involved in his doctrine I take it?

My God is of Love, and Mercy. I don't know any other.

I have hope. Faith is pretending to know when I obviously cannot. I can’t know something by hoping it is true. That’s quite absurd. If you are claiming to know God exists through Faith, then it appears you are being intentionally misunderstood when you use the word “faith” to describe your anticipations toward your children’s future. In one instance you use faith to depict how you know something. In the very next you are using it as something you hope for. The reason these threads get confusing is exactly because of this. You think “Faith” is a virtue, something to be admired and valued. When you look at these two instances, it is clear that “faith” is an incoherent word used to describe one’s position when they are at a loss for reasons to support a claim. It’s a failed epistemology. Sure, it’s used interchangeably with hope and belief within the context of important issues such as love, an ideal society, and our children, but let’s be honest here…
You can’t KNOW anything through faith. Your persistence to substitute the word “hope” in the place of it to describe an unknowable future should make this apparent to you. I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t find a babysitter on the internet based on Faith, right? Would you like to revise the definition again?

My "faith" is knowing. My "hope" is you knowing.

I think you, as well as a few others need to look at the first line in the definition. Where is religion in that sentence?

faith
fāTH
noun
noun: faith1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

My mother is still a devout Christian, and I know she still loves me too. At times, the things you say remind me all too well of the things I’ve heard her say on the subject.
My son believing in God will not affect my love for him. If he was struck with a mental disorder, I wouldn’t love him any less, and faith is like a mental disorder.
I’m going to make sure that my son knows about ALL religions, not just Christianity, (just the facts, no values) and without my personal views being solicited to him. Every child in the world deserves to make an informed decision. A successful democratic system depends on an informed society. If people are not informed, there’s no freedom in that. Parents that impose their personal religious constraints on their young are doing their child a disservice by depriving them of truth. If their faith is the right one, and they believe their God will protect their child, they should have no problem exposing their child to all the other religions that think the same thing, and allow the child to decide for themselves whether one is right, or they’re all delusional. I expect the latter to be concluded, but any conclusion he makes won’t affect my love, but it also won’t prevent me from challenging his views and making him defend them critically. It’s my duty to my son to make sure that he learns to be as critical on himself as he is on anyone else, and to use his mind to guide him to truth.

Well, I respect your love towards your child. But, faith [again] can mean things other than religion. I didn't see "delusion" in the definition of faith. Also, tainting your childs descision making with your views is not condusive to open-mindedness. Even if you add a disclaimer. I've never once tried to say atheists are bad people to my children. Also I have been a role model of my faith in God. We don't force our kids to believe, go to church, or fill them with anything but positive values.

2 of my older children have come back to the Lord, w/o our prodding, or meddeling. And 2 of my teens call themselves atheists. So, you can't tell me anything about raising children to be themselves. Our Love is unconditional.

Why are you saddened? Are your kids not good people?

Because I see them struggle w/o God. No Peace.

And most of us are "good people". Or, not bad people. It has little to do with God. That is a choice we make.

It would be trivially easy for God to reveal himself to me if he existed.
Could a God positively impact my life if It existed? Of course. But what I won’t do is arbitrarily attribute good things that happen in my life as being from God, and pretend to know that its true. Such a thing discredits the personal effort put in to accomplish them. I take responsibility for my failures as much as my successes. People that chalk things up to God or plea to the sky for help are avoiding their responsibility in some degree.

The difference between you and I is that I’m not pretending that things are God when there’s no evidence to posit that they’re not Zeus. You are pretending to have knowledge and justifying this knowledge by a failed epistemology.

That’s a deepity and indistinguishable from a description of a delusion. The evidence is “within”? That’s something crazy people say…I’m not calling you crazy, but surely you can recognize that such a justification for how one knows what they believe is true is synonymous with delusion or psychopathy.

Again, you’ve strayed away from your original position on faith. Are you now saying that you hope God is real?

Are you "hoping" I'm saying that "I hope God is real"? I'll repeat my earlier quote so as you don't mis-quote me again: My "hope" is you knowing.

"Trivially easy" for God to reveal Himself to you? How can you even know that? That is if you don't have any concept of what the "true" God is? You know not where He comes, goes, or what He does... so why would you know "how" He would reveal Himself?

You are the one pretending. Pretending you know or have absloute Faith there is no God.

God isn't an arbitrating entity in my life. There are no minute by minute decisions to be made. He has total control, and it works for me.

Who are you to call me delusional? You don't know a thing about me. You have no clue in anything about my life. Or how God has blessed me. Rather, you degrade me and my experiences with no explainations other than YOUR non-belief as proof of my delusion.

How about me calling you delusional in your ignorance of God?

When a quasi atheist Einstein says we "know one millionth of 1% of what there is to know about the universe"..... "You say there is no God!"

Well... I say, I have FAITH that Einstein is right.

[Esquilax]

Not just any axe, but the Esquilaxe! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Still better than the Ex-lax puns some other theists have used.

Anyway...
There's still something I think you might be missing from the idea of slavery, but I'll save that for another time. It seems like a lot of this discussion on slavery is basically an assertion that the Bible must be wrong because it doesn't agree with all of our moral standards. (Not just yours, to be honest some of these laws don't make sense to me either.)

Not necessarily: tracing back, we can see that I was responding initially to your claim that you hadn't found anything immoral in the bible yet. What I've said so far doesn't speak to whether or not the bible is true, just why I wouldn't find it to be a comprehensive moral guide even if it was one hundred percent accurate.

But that's the thing - if the Bible was in complete agreement with what most people already believe, what a problem that would be! It would be evidence that the Bible was written later, as an elaborate hoax or something.

Considering how much our morality has improved in the last couple hundred years, I would say this line of thinking isn't entirely accurate. If it agreed with everything we believe now, then yes, it would be evidence that it was written later, or possibly it would be a show of prescience by god as to what our morals would be in the future.

However, the fact that every moral edict in that book conveniently agrees with the bronze age tribes that would have written it, to me, is evidence that it was written by men and not god. I mean, seriously: why does his morality so completely match up with that of a bunch of pre-scientific nomads? Surely an all knowing god would understand that, say, forcing a raped woman to marry her rapist is wrong?

But we can't possibly expect to understand why God says and does everything; otherwise we would almost be gods too.

Sorry, copout: first of all, why not? This moral stuff is supposed to be god detailing how we ought to live, and I would have thought a big part of that would be the reasoning behind it all, which an all knowing god would be able to tell us in a way we could understand.

Second of all, this line of thinking doesn't match up with your actions, either: if you run across a biblical edict that is immoral today, chances are you just ignore it, right? I'm willing to bet you've never killed a gay man or a witch, or owned slaves, because you seem like a nice enough person. If you really did subscribe to this mysterious ways stuff, then it wouldn't matter whether this stuff seems immoral now: god said it, he has his reasons, do it, right?

Which brings me to a wider point: is slavery moral or immoral? God still approves of it, you've said he must have his reasons for it, so what say you? Is morality determined by what god says, or is there something more to it.

I've been loving talking with you guys about this stuff, but it seems to me at the end of the day, while we still believe the Bible comes from God, you look at it and see an ancient fairy tale. We can never seem to understand why you don't take the Bible for anything other that what it so blatantly looks like, so you have tho get into the details of it, pointing out problems and contradictions and just hoping we'll come to think of what you've been thinking all along: The Bible is fantasy, about on a level with the Quran and the Gilgamesh Epic. I mean, we might as well translate the Grimm brothers into the world's languages and say it was inspired by Rumpelstiltskin or something!

Kind of. It'd be nice if we could convince some people, but mostly this is literary criticism. I mean, a ton of people use the bible as the basis for their life, or so they claim; it's probably really important to examine such a book with an unbiased view toward what it says, and whether the moral content in it is really worth following or not.

Some people aren't going to be convinced. Others might, and that's cool, but even if the bible were completely reliable, that wouldn't say anything about a god. Evidence would, and that's what's lacking; that's really the reason not to take it seriously.

[The Reality Salesman01]

My "faith" is knowing. My "hope" is you knowing.

I think you, as well as a few others need to look at the first line in the definition. Where is religion in that sentence?
noun: faith1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Translation: “You completely trust your confidence in knowing God exists”
My question to the provided definition: While you may trust it, how do you know it’s true?
Religion is the only place that people use the word faith to describe how they know something exists. And, it just so happens the thing they claim exists, cannot be verified by any measurable or observable means whatsoever.
I will acknowledge that you have faith in God in the sense that I have faith in my fiancée. Let’s put that use of the word faith to rest right now.
What I’m trying to get you to justify is what you mean when you use “faith” as an epistemology or (how you come to know something).
You have faith that God exists, or (You completely trust your confidence that makes you believe God exists) How do you know that it’s true?
Would you say you have faith that the sun exists?
Do you answer no, only because the sun can be verified by others that have not yet seen it, and so faith shouldn’t be used to describe the epistemological process that leads one to believe that the sun exists?

I didn't see "delusion" in the definition of faith.

No. But if I had faith that I could fly before I leapt of a building, I would have been operating under a delusion as I hit the ground. Whatever the epistemological process was that gave me confidence to believe I could fly, it was not reliable.

Had you asked me how I knew that I could fly, there’s no logical reason I could offer, but to me, faith would have been perfectly reasonable. As you said, I completely trusted and had confidence that I could fly. That doesn’t make it true. That’s what a delusion is. Believing something is true, with such confidence and sureness, as described by your use of the word faith, without a shred of logical justification, and being completely unaware of it being false. In this context, “Faith” is pretending to know something that you simply do not.

Also, tainting your childs descision making with your views is not condusive to open-mindedness. Even if you add a disclaimer. I've never once tried to say atheists are bad people to my children. Also I have been a role model of my faith in God. We don't force our kids to believe, go to church, or fill them with anything but positive values.

When did I say I would do that? I just said I’d teach him about ALL the religions. I would try to hide them from him, and I certainly will not lead him to conclusions. I will ask him questions, I will ask him what he thinks, and I will foster his ability to critically analyze propositions as they are presented to him.

Did you teach your kids about other religions? Did you teach them about what Muhammad says in the Quran about Jesus? Did you tell your kids that Muhammad says if you follow Jesus you will be damned as Muhammad claims he was the one true prophet, not Jesus?

I will teach my son the facts. That’s what it says in the Quran, and I will tell him what Jesus of The Bible says about his claim to being the exclusive path to salvation.

I’m not going to point out that they are incompatible. I’m not going to point out that one of them is seriously mistaken since they both can’t be right. I’m not going to point out that it’s more likely that when you look at all the religions man has conjured over the span of history that it’s incredibly likely that they are both false.

I’m just going to expose him to truths, and let him draw his own conclusions. I’ll let him see the parts of The Bible that were kept from me. Parts that endorse killing your kids if they talk back, and stoning your wife. I’ll let him examine those texts in open contrast with the parts that talk about how pure God is. I will let him work it out on his own. I would be quite surprised if anybody would pick a specific one if they actually had an informed decision. Indoctrinating childre is not letting them choose. It's keeping them ignorant for selfish reasons.

So, you can't tell me anything about raising children to be themselves. Our Love is unconditional

Did you do that for your kids? When they came to you with questions, or did you give them answers that you thought were true because you read them in a really old book? Conversely, did you urge them to read about all the religions of the world and see which one sounded right to them?
Did you invite them to challenge the claims of Christianity and see if it stood up under scrutiny? Did you foster in them the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one? Something likely Vs. Highly unlikely?
Were your children informed about the world, or did you confine them to the doctrine of your choosing?

I will accept any answer you give me as true. I will not pretend to know what you did with your children. That's for you to know, and none of my business.

Why are you saddened? Are your kids not good people?

Because I see them struggle w/o God. No Peace.
And most of us are "good people". Or, not bad people. It has little to do with God. That is a choice we make.

If your kids never found God, they could never have peace?

Would you rather your kids be good, or would you rather they believe in God? Which is more valuable to you? (Answer honestly without any deepities please, if this is a hard question to answer, ask yourself why.)

Are you "hoping" I'm saying that "I hope God is real"?

Nope, I don't care what you say. It's not about me, it's about you and what you think. I do find it odd why you aren't more honest. Why don't you just say, “I don’t know if God exists, but I believe in Him because it makes me feel good.” Wouldn’t that me a more honest approach? Look at the verbal acrobatics you've had to perform to articulate your thoughts.

"Trivially easy" for God to reveal Himself to you? How can you even know that? That is if you don't have any concept of what the "true" God is? You know not where He comes, goes, or what He does... so why would you know "how" He would reveal Himself?

You’re right! I don’t know anything about Gods. I’m going off of the one you describe to me.

It would be trivially easy for the all-powerful God of The Bible that created the universe to convince me that He exists.

He could arrange the stars in the night sky to say, “I am God”, and see to it that everyone in the world could read it simulatneously in their own native language. He could regenerate the limb of an amputee patient at a national science conference! If you believe in a God that created the universe, things like this would be trivially easy for him!

The God of the sort that Christians proclaim could do any countless number of things to prove his existence, are you saying God could not do those things? Is God not the perfect powerful creator of the cosmos?

You are the one pretending. Pretending you know or have absloute Faith there is no God.

Wrong again. This whole time I have not said that you are wrong as to whether or not A God exists. Saying that A God cannot exist would be an example of me pretending to know things, I cannot, and do not know. (are you noticing the difference yet?)

I don’t pretend to know that I know that God does not exists. That’s absurd. A God may very well exist, but you haven’t given any reason to think that you have any information that makes it plausible.

God isn't an arbitrating entity in my life. There are no minute by minute decisions to be made. He has total control, and it works for me.

You don’t think about God, you don’t know whether or not He actually exists, nor can you be sure, it gives you comfort, so you continue it because it hasn’t caused any problems for you personally.

Why not say this? This is a way more honest depiction of your “faith”. The only liberty I took was the part where I translated your inability to justify your belief and incorporated it into this sentence in the form of intellectual honesty by saying “You don’t know…” The rest is spot on.

Who are you to call me delusional? You don't know a thing about me. You have no clue in anything about my life.

I like your fire, but don’t misrepresent my words. I’ve said that your description of faith was indistinguishable from a delusion. I’ve asked you to tell me how you know you are not delusional. You did not answer. I never once called you delusional.

How about me calling you delusional in your ignorance of God?

Given that I’ve never called you delusional, I will pretend you are asking me how I can know that I’m not delusional. I was wondering how long it would take you to ask this question. In our other thread, I invited you to ask it at the beginning of our questions.

There is a difference between being delusional, and recognizing that one has misconstrued reality.

The difference comes in the ability to revise one’s beliefs in the face of new information. I am not married to any of my beliefs. I examine them, and challenge them, and discard the ones that are supported by faulty reasoning. I have not said that I would never believe in God, in fact, I even gave some examples of things that would make me change my mind.

The difference between being delusional and misconstruing reality is being willing to revise one’s beliefs. You aren’t willing to do that, are ya? You don’t have anything to support your belief other than the fact that positive events have correlated with your faith, and it makes you feel good to attribute them to a God you think takes a personal interest in your affairs. You believe this can be true for me too, but when pressed to provide good reason for how you know your belief is true, you offer, “faith”. Now, you’ve said that you “hope” that I know, but “faith” is how you know. Do you see how dicey this is getting? Should anything that is unequivocally true be this difficult to convey? It doesn’t strike you as a possibility that what you have been pretending to know things you do not know?

When a quasi atheist Einstein says we "know one millionth of 1% of what there is to know about the universe"..... "You say there is no God!"

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is true at all. I won’t even begin to address the “quasi” part, or your blatant misunderstanding of what it means to be an Atheist. Remember, the God you believe in isn’t the only one on the market. There may very well be a God, I don’t claim to know there isn’t, and neither would Einstein.
Einstein was intellectually honest . He acknowledged the limitations of his capacity to know, and recognized his ignorance with regards to the vastness of the seemingly infinite universe. It would have been wildly arrogant and beyond his faculties of knowledge to profess to know, for certain, that a God definitely doesn’t exist. You’ll be hard up to find an Atheist on this site that would say anything different.
The arrogant one is you:
You claim to there IS a God with 100% certainty. Not only that, you claim to have a personal relationship with this God, but you can’t justify it. You think this God loves you, and you pity your own children should they not eventually be convinced of the same. It gives you comfort to perpetuate an idea of spending an eternity of servitude with this personal creator of the cosmos. You do this without a shred of consideration as to whether or not it’s actually true, and then out of the other side of your mouth, you say something intended to imply arrogance for those that say they don’t know.
That shoe jumped on the other foot pretty fast.

Well... I say, I have FAITH that Einstein is right.

The funny part is, if you understood Einstein’s position, you’d realize this is a concession.
(There may be a God, but there’s certainly no reason to think it’s the Christian one presented in The Bible)

[The Reality Salesman01]

*I wouldN'T hide them from my son. (Just noticed I left out the N'T up there...)

[MindForgedManacle]

There are so many problems with Christianity, I hardly know where to start. If I had to do a quick summary of just a couple of the larger problems, it'd be the following:

Frankenstein Theologies: One thing that has been growing in annoyance for me is the rather haphazard nature with which Christian theologies are constructed. For Christian apologists, it seems that, for them, any stick to beat back atheism and skepticism are good enough. And this causes them to take on all sorts of philosophical positions with little thought as to how they fit together, if at all. An example of this is in my thread in the philosophy section titled "Potential Christian-Platonist Contradiction". Until Genkaus pointed this out, I didn't realize how prevalent it was. But as I look more, it's everywhere.



Evidential Problem of Evil: I'm not sure whether there's exactly a logical contradiction between "God exists and is all-good" and "evil exists". But regardless, it would seem to be the case that the greater amount of suffering that exists makes the existence of a God using that suffering for a higher purpose more and more unlikely.


There are a lot more, but I figure those are big enough problems in themselves.

[ronedee]

Translation: “You completely trust your confidence in knowing God exists”
My question to the provided definition: While you may trust it, how do you know it’s true?
Religion is the only place that people use the word faith to describe how they know something exists. And, it just so happens the thing they claim exists, cannot be verified by any measurable or observable means whatsoever.
I will acknowledge that you have faith in God in the sense that I have faith in my fiancée. Let’s put that use of the word faith to rest right now.
What I’m trying to get you to justify is what you mean when you use “faith” as an epistemology or (how you come to know something).
You have faith that God exists, or (You completely trust your confidence that makes you believe God exists) How do you know that it’s true?
Would you say you have faith that the sun exists?
Do you answer no, only because the sun can be verified by others that have not yet seen it, and so faith shouldn’t be used to describe the epistemological process that leads one to believe that the sun exists?

I don't like that word "epistemological". Because even in the light of so much we know, anyone could make an argument to the contrary, for anything! Its just a fancy word for where's your verifiable evidence.

Actually, I could use it for you! How do you know your own limits of knowledge? (more on that later!)

But, I do have experiences in my life that [I know] can only be attributed to God. So much so, that non-religious friends have asked for prayers. And some have converted to God because of these events.

No. But if I had faith that I could fly before I leapt of a building, I would have been operating under a delusion as I hit the ground. Whatever the epistemological process was that gave me confidence to believe I could fly, it was not reliable.

Had you asked me how I knew that I could fly, there’s no logical reason I could offer, but to me, faith would have been perfectly reasonable. As you said, I completely trusted and had confidence that I could fly. That doesn’t make it true. That’s what a delusion is. Believing something is true, with such confidence and sureness, as described by your use of the word faith, without a shred of logical justification, and being completely unaware of it being false. In this context, “Faith” is pretending to know something that you simply do not.

"Pretending" is [not] to have Faith! I can't pretend, because there is nothing to pretend about!

In your mind, I may be pretending....But I have my own experiences that you say I correlate with my faith. That is emphatically not true!

I will share some of my revelations with you, because you have been openminded with me, and civil. I don't expect sarcasm, or belittling from you.

First of all, I was born believing in God. I've had an experience very early (about 4-5 y/o) that is unexplained. I only recently understood the meaning. So, that is something that has always kept me in dialog with God. And it's probably another reason I have so much faith.

I got away from God for about 10 years, in my late teens to my late 20's. I, like any other young man only cared for: sports, cars, women, money etc. Something very personal and spiritual brought me back to God: It was major question being answered from Him about Jesus. Since I came back, I have slowly evolved spiritually. It's been a hard road to where I am now. There was a lot of "accumulation" blocking the path. Mostly material. I had to make some major decisions in my life. But the more I questioned God, the more answers I got. And mostly from the Holy Spirit, through trial and error in communication. Meaning several ways. The Holy Spirit has several methods that you may call "correlations". But when these "correlations" happen continually they are beyond that term!

As part of my spiritual evolution, I was fortunate to meet my wife, who is my polar opposite, and also close to God! I can't tell you how much it has helped me to see things differently. If you can live with an opposite personality... its the best thing for your humility, and seeing yourself through a critical eye! It works for some...but leave your ego in a closet.

After I made those "major decisions", things got better for 3 or 4 years. But, then I (bear w/ me now) made other decision in my life, NOT praying about it, or consulting, or listening to God. I felt, I knew what God wanted for me, even though in my heart I felt it was [me] that wanted the direction I took. Not God.

I don't expect you to understand most of the above...perhaps none of it. But, my point is that I know in my heart that I have to lead with God, and through Jesus' litmus test in life. So far, everything has worked for me in this way. And when I went against this "formula", I paid a price.

Did you teach your kids about other religions? Did you teach them about what Muhammad says in the Quran about Jesus? Did you tell your kids that Muhammad says if you follow Jesus you will be damned as Muhammad claims he was the one true prophet, not Jesus?

I will teach my son the facts. That’s what it says in the Quran, and I will tell him what Jesus of The Bible says about his claim to being the exclusive path to salvation.

I’m not going to point out that they are incompatible. I’m not going to point out that one of them is seriously mistaken since they both can’t be right. I’m not going to point out that it’s more likely that when you look at all the religions man has conjured over the span of history that it’s incredibly likely that they are both false.

I’m just going to expose him to truths, and let him draw his own conclusions. I’ll let him see the parts of The Bible that were kept from me. Parts that endorse killing your kids if they talk back, and stoning your wife. I’ll let him examine those texts in open contrast with the parts that talk about how pure God is. I will let him work it out on his own. I would be quite surprised if anybody would pick a specific one if they actually had an informed decision. Indoctrinating childre is not letting them choose. It's keeping them ignorant for selfish reasons.

Did you do that for your kids? When they came to you with questions, or did you give them answers that you thought were true because you read them in a really old book? Conversely, did you urge them to read about all the religions of the world and see which one sounded right to them?
Did you invite them to challenge the claims of Christianity and see if it stood up under scrutiny? Did you foster in them the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one? Something likely Vs. Highly unlikely?
Were your children informed about the world, or did you confine them to the doctrine of your choosing?

I will accept any answer you give me as true. I will not pretend to know what you did with your children. That's for you to know, and none of my business.

As I said, I think you love your child and will do right by him. Anything you took negatively was food for thought.

I teach my children historically about other religions. But Jesus is the standard of our religion...and He gets the majority of the time.

You failed to mention my (self-proclaimed) atheist kids. That was their decision. As well as the kids who came back to the Lord!

If your kids never found God, they could never have peace?

Would you rather your kids be good, or would you rather they believe in God? Which is more valuable to you? (Answer honestly without any deepities please, if this is a hard question to answer, ask yourself why.)

That's an interesting question. But, God is good. So, if they are "good", they are doing God's work! If they say they believe, and are not living according to God? What "good" is that! Obviously we can "say" we are anything! And plenty of Christians are not living according to Christ! What would you be doing here if they did? So, yes "good" over "saying" they believe.

Nope, I don't care what you say. It's not about me, it's about you and what you think. I do find it odd why you aren't more honest. Why don't you just say, “I don’t know if God exists, but I believe in Him because it makes me feel good.” Wouldn’t that me a more honest approach? Look at the verbal acrobatics you've had to perform to articulate your thoughts.

What am I "not honest" about? I do know that God exists. You don't know if He exists.

The verbal acrobatics have been for you! Believe me... I hate trying new ways to convince you or anyone for that matter. But, when I see an opportunity to create more doubt in your mind, I'll take it!

I'm not the type of person to run around saying something I don't have complete and utter trust in! aka Faith!

I don't need a shred of evidence He exists...but, as they say YMMV!

You’re right! I don’t know anything about Gods. I’m going off of the one you describe to me.

It would be trivially easy for the all-powerful God of The Bible that created the universe to convince me that He exists.

He could arrange the stars in the night sky to say, “I am God”, and see to it that everyone in the world could read it simulatneously in their own native language. He could regenerate the limb of an amputee patient at a national science conference! If you believe in a God that created the universe, things like this would be trivially easy for him!

The God of the sort that Christians proclaim could do any countless number of things to prove his existence, are you saying God could not do those things? Is God not the perfect powerful creator of the cosmos?

Wrong again. This whole time I have not said that you are wrong as to whether or not A God exists. Saying that A God cannot exist would be an example of me pretending to know things, I cannot, and do not know. (are you noticing the difference yet?)

I don’t pretend to know that I know that God does not exists. That’s absurd. A God may very well exist, but you haven’t given any reason to think that you have any information that makes it plausible.

You don’t think about God, you don’t know whether or not He actually exists, nor can you be sure, it gives you comfort, so you continue it because it hasn’t caused any problems for you personally.

Why not say this? This is a way more honest depiction of your “faith”. The only liberty I took was the part where I translated your inability to justify your belief and incorporated it into this sentence in the form of intellectual honesty by saying “You don’t know…” The rest is spot on.

Why must God fit man's mold of what He should be? If we are indeed "created in the image of God".... Our lives could be a microcosm of what He is...... maybe?

We have a lot of power as humans! We have the power of life and death! Recently science has "said" to have found the path to immortality! There's not much we can't...or in the future be able to do!

So, if we apply our lives to God's, how is He much different?

Case-in-point: our kids. (as God would) We get them started in life, and they run off on their own. They sometimes come back for help, or not. Some love us, some not. They sometimes tell good stories about us, sometimes bad. And, most of their lives are ruled by their own decisions, not ours! We try to instill the best in them, but that is no guarantee they will do things right!

Do you see what I'm driving at here? What is expected of us (as parents) after they have gone off on their own? We still love them. But we DON'T interfere. And if they need something? They ask.... How are we expected to know they need something...unless....they ask? Or, should we meddle in every part of their lives...until they hate us for it?

I like your fire, but don’t misrepresent my words. I’ve said that your description of faith was indistinguishable from a delusion. I’ve asked you to tell me how you know you are not delusional. You did not answer. I never once called you delusional.

Given that I’ve never called you delusional, I will pretend you are asking me how I can know that I’m not delusional. I was wondering how long it would take you to ask this question. In our other thread, I invited you to ask it at the beginning of our questions.

There is a difference between being delusional, and recognizing that one has misconstrued reality.

The difference comes in the ability to revise one’s beliefs in the face of new information. I am not married to any of my beliefs. I examine them, and challenge them, and discard the ones that are supported by faulty reasoning. I have not said that I would never believe in God, in fact, I even gave some examples of things that would make me change my mind.

The difference between being delusional and misconstruing reality is being willing to revise one’s beliefs. You aren’t willing to do that, are ya? You don’t have anything to support your belief other than the fact that positive events have correlated with your faith, and it makes you feel good to attribute them to a God you think takes a personal interest in your affairs. You believe this can be true for me too, but when pressed to provide good reason for how you know your belief is true, you offer, “faith”. Now, you’ve said that you “hope” that I know, but “faith” is how you know. Do you see how dicey this is getting? Should anything that is unequivocally true be this difficult to convey? It doesn’t strike you as a possibility that what you have been pretending to know things you do not know?

As with other words that sum things up into a tidy scrap pile, they are misleading to the whole picture.

We can leave delusion on the trash heap with epistemological if you'd like!

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is true at all. I won’t even begin to address the “quasi” part, or your blatant misunderstanding of what it means to be an Atheist. Remember, the God you believe in isn’t the only one on the market. There may very well be a God, I don’t claim to know there isn’t, and neither would Einstein.
Einstein was intellectually honest . He acknowledged the limitations of his capacity to know, and recognized his ignorance with regards to the vastness of the seemingly infinite universe. It would have been wildly arrogant and beyond his faculties of knowledge to profess to know, for certain, that a God definitely doesn’t exist. You’ll be hard up to find an Atheist on this site that would say anything different.
The arrogant one is you:
You claim to there IS a God with 100% certainty. Not only that, you claim to have a personal relationship with this God, but you can’t justify it. You think this God loves you, and you pity your own children should they not eventually be convinced of the same. It gives you comfort to perpetuate an idea of spending an eternity of servitude with this personal creator of the cosmos. You do this without a shred of consideration as to whether or not it’s actually true, and then out of the other side of your mouth, you say something intended to imply arrogance for those that say they don’t know.
That shoe jumped on the other foot pretty fast.

The funny part is, if you understood Einstein’s position, you’d realize this is a concession.

(There may be a God, but there’s certainly no reason to think it’s the Christian one presented in The Bible)

You sorta made my argument in your last sentence!

How do you know? You just discredited my whole life (again), as well as my unfortunate, pitiful children in the preceeding paragraph. And all because God hasn't revealed Himself to you!

Einstien theroized 12 dimensional planes. We are considered to be on the 3rd, I think? So lets consider his theory for a moment. What are the other 9? How does he know. Why do we even consider his pov?

Sure he may be right about E=mc2....but, wtf does he know about anything we can't see? There's NO EVIDENCE!

So, do you call him wrong? Why is his lack of evidence ok, and mine not ok? And even in the light that you don't have a clue of repeating ANY theory he's made reality!

Here's my point (again): You have not had the experiences that I have had. How can you refute them? And God?