RE: The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work
August 11, 2015 at 11:42 am
(This post was last modified: August 11, 2015 at 11:46 am by Rekeisha.)
Quote:With pleasure.
1) For one thing, I fully expect such a being to create a system that doesn't break down the way free will seems to have done. For another, I fully expect a perfect being to be able to get us a message far more perfect than the construct you call the bible. For that matter, I expect an all-powerful being to be able to speak for himself at all times, not just until he stopped doing that about 2,000 years ago. I expect an all-loving, all-powerful being to be significantly more effective than any human effort at stopping all human suffering. For that matter, I expect an all-loving being to create a system that is devoid of suffering.
You might say that suffering is necessary for personal growth. If that's true, it's because god created it that way. He's the one that decided that suffering was necessary for personal growth and then created everything so that this would be true. If he's really all-powerful, he could have just as easily created a system where suffering wasn't even a thing and the only things necessary for personal growth were laying around and eating and cumming all day. Either he wants us to suffer (and therefore deliberately designed things this way) or he can't prevent our suffering (and therefore HAD to design things this way). If it's the first, he is malicious and therefore not all-loving. If it's the second, then he is not all-powerful.
Furthermore, I expect an all-perfect, all-powerful being to be able to do absolutely anything and everything I could do only better, and you know something? I'm able to forgive people without having to take revenge on them, and without having to put my rage off on something else just to be able to move on. When someone wrongs me, I don't require their blood for forgiveness, I don't require them to spill the blood of any animals for forgiveness, and I sure as FUCK don't have my own child viciously executed as an outlet for my frustration or because it's somehow necessary for my forgiveness to take place. I can just take a deep breath, get the fuck over it, and move on with my life.
Gaud, on the other hand, has to spill blood in order to be able to coexist with humans who go against his will, whether it's the blood of animals, humans, or his own damn son (and himself...or whatever). If he chooses not to forgive without murdering something, then he is not even as loving as I am. If he is not able to forgive without murdering something, then he is not even as powerful as I am. If he is neither more loving nor more powerful than I am, why should I revere or worship him? I'm a better person than he is.
He could create a system that wouldn't break down like the free will system but then you wouldn't have free will. He wanted to create beings that are made in His image. This entailed giving us the ability to love freely. Since God is love then we need to have the ability to love. If you don't have free will you don't have love. If you have to ability to choose love the you must have the ability to not choose to love.
Could you please elaborate on the construction of the bible, what troubles you about it's construction?
Also what makes you think He isn't speaking right now?
What bothers you about suffering?
As for forgiveness is there anything you couldn't forgive? If someone murders, or rapes, or defrauds someone you love without remorse would you easily forgive and not seek justice for your family? Would that be just and right? If the criminal asked you to forgive them would it be just to your family to say "I forgive you" and let that person off the hook? Should there be punishment for those who do wrong?
2) Here's a start: Bible contradictions. The internet is full of lists like that. Google magic. To list at least one myself, the bible claims Jehovah is all-loving and the absolute source of moral instruction, and yet he condones genocide, rape, and slavery in various places throughout the bible (slavery in both testaments). The idea that slavery was wrong didn't even mostly occur to people until well after the bible was done being written and arranged. If the bible is the absolute source of morality, and we now agree that slavery is absolutely morally wrong, then why isn't abolition a thing in the bible?
Your objections with rape, genocide, slavery assumes that people have intrinsic worth so where does this worth come from? If we don't have intrinsic worth then on what bases are you saying these practices are wrong? (especially if morals are subjective). Also could you please point me to the biblical accounts of God approving of these actions.
Quote:4) A bias against it? No. A good reason for believing it doesn't exist? Yes. For one thing, a position of non-belief/non-knowledge is by far the most responsible concerning anything supernatural because there is no evidence of anything supernatural. Furthermore, god by every definition I understand is an impossible object, and all available evidence points to the very concept of god being an abstract fiction created by humans for various purposes. To put it bluntly, we have every reason to believe that humans made the gods up and no reason whatsoever to believe in the existence of any of humanity's gods (excepting human rulers who were attributed deity-hood, but those are humans, not gods).
Why is God impossible?
Quote:5) My source for truth is not myself. It's the evidence of the world around me. When I was a religious person, my source for truth was ultimately myself and my interpretation (though I thought at the time this was the inspired voice of god in my head). Now I appeal to a higher authority: reality.
How do you know that your reasoning has changed? How does reality have any authority? It is not a being and only beings can have authority and give authority. So are you your ultimate authority?
Quote:6) The ancient jews qualify as a primitive society because their knowledge and tech were practically non-existent, their morals and myths are barbaric and savage, and their utter lack of human rights and equality is utterly backward by today's standard and completely typical of an uninformed, superstitious, Bronze Age society.
By what standard are you judging these people to say their knowledge was practically non-existent? Along with your study on the bible did you also study the cultures of that day? Also again if morals are subjective why are you judging the way they conducted their society?
What is savage about not lying, stealing, murdering, respecting your parents, not coveting, not committing adultery? Do these laws display a lack in human rights?
Quote:7) Yes, morality is completely subjective, though it can be informed by objective facts (i.e. humans objectively exist and are social animals, suffering objectively exists, empathy objectively exists, etc.). There is no objective source of moral truth.
how do you define what suffering is and how can you say that it is objective as well as empathy?
Quote:10) I know what's real because there's proof of what's real. It's that simple.
How do you know that that proof is right?
