(December 24, 2017 at 7:08 am)notimportant1234 Wrote: I'm not a Christian but I like a challenge( basicaly that is why I cam here and to know atheists).
Firstly lets go with the story. It is clear that the story is speaking about heaven( the penny) . Now the point is , why should you be bothered if someone who came to religion lately than you did if the reward is heaven? I mean , there is no reward bigger than heaven. The Bible is saying also that every sin is equal in the eyes of God , so basically from that view point you are as much as a sinner that the lately arrived.
The benefits of Christianity depend from person to person, it can help you have a better life quality. But I think the whole atheist/theist things is based on a missunderstanding. I think it gets cleare by the next thing:
All sins are equal in the eyes of God. Althoug somewhere in the bible says that you need to believe in order to be saved , I think the poin of the story it was not that only those who believe are saved but to make it clear that not-believing in the Son of God is a sin. And you can solve this with one statement " Forgive them because they don't know what they are doing", now in that situation, Jesus asks for forgivens for all people including the Romans that didn't believed in him nor God. So it doesn't matter if you are an atheist or theist.
While the idea of generic deism that skips a specific God and religion, I don't see even that as credible.
Why wait most of the 13.8 billion years to only make us on 1 rock isolated and full of danger and potential death. Seems like a lot of waste to me.
It makes much more sense to me that the desire to want even a generic god is really nothing more than a projection of our own qualities.
I forgot which ancient Greek said it, but something like, "If horses had gods their gods would look like horses."
Three books, if you have not read.
1. The New Atheism, Victor Stenger, says that science DOES have something to say about God/god claims. Also points out that our species morality is not coming from old mythology but is actually in us.
2. God The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger, more picking apart the bad logic of why the gap answer fails.
3. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, explains how evolution from a neurological aspect caused us as a species to come up with bad answers. His best description makes God belief as the same type of misfire that a moth would have, "the moth mistaking the light bulb for the natural moonlight".
I see all God/god/deity/super natural claims as nothing more than our species gullibility and wishful thinking in a strive for survival. It may create groups, which do increase the odds of survival, but that group can base their beliefs on very false ideas.
I do not see our species important to the planet knowing in its 4 billion year history, it has had 5 mass extinctions as to which what we see now is only a mere 1% of life that managed to survive. I also find it absurd to think an estimated 2 trillion galaxies were made just so we could stare at them but for most of our 200k history as a species, lived in ignorance and still cant get a human out of our solar system.
Again, human narcissism, and fear of being finite, as a projection of our own qualities, that is what I see. Gap answers. Most humans get sold the religion of their parents long before they can formulate adult critical thinking skills.
