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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 4:36 am
(November 15, 2013 at 7:14 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: There's no evidence to support relativity? Einstein practiced string theory? 3 dimensions? Would I call Einstein's tested theory of relativity wrong since it's not a definitive fact? I just don't know how to answer you. There are so many inaccuracies in your post that it's impossible to address them all. There is no scientific theory that is not revised in the light of new evidence. Your hypothesis on God has no supporting evidence, it's not even a theory. I am dumbfounded that you just attempted to compare relativity to God as competing hypotheses. You use words you clearly don't understand like "epistemology", and "evidence". You question relativity while using the internet that is supporting evidence of it's truth. Do you understand how satellites work? Do you understand what the letters in E=mc2 equate to? You don't seem to have a single clue what you're talking about, but that doesn't stop you from pretending to. Nothing I say to you could possibly be more constructive than the information you could gain by occasionally watching The Science Channel. But, I don't think you care to learn anything new. You think you have truth, and so you stop looking. You throw out words that you think make sense, and you speak of correlation as though it ceases to have meaning even when you think you know exactly what causes that which it correlates with. You were born into Christianity? That's predictably inane. The way you avoided answering the question about whether it was more valuable to be Good or believe was nothing short of expected. You literally ignored the question, and provided an answer that was nothing more than a superficial equivocation that was artificially profound. You conduct yourself with a standard of intellectual dishonesty that plagues every facet of society, and you seem to be content in passing it on to your kids and others. This is exactly the type of behavior that makes "faith" synonymous with a virus. Since you ignore my questions, and honestly, you don't seem to even understand them. I must bow out. There is no reasoning with insanity, and while you may not be insane, you certainly appear to be practicing for the role... And you have turned out as many of the others. But, its your logical nature! Could you have insulted me with some less expensive vocab, my dumbfounded friend? Or, do you feel the need to "look" disinterested and ...uh... less friendly to an xtian perhaps? The Great Dane was certainly draped over your shoulders in that brilliantly, pretentious display of intellect!
I may not be a physicist, or even good at science but I do know the difference between theories based on either hypothesis, or empirical discovery.
However, Einstein isn't the real issue here. What is at issue is your passiveness to my experiences with God. And why?
You have nothing to compare them to, so you avoid them. And focus on your claims about "faith" as "insanity", and "delusion". And of course, my not answering your coercive, and leading questions to your exact specifications.
And you "bow out" rather than challenge yourself, or try to understand. Because I don't have your superior intelligence? No, I think I was making too much sense to you, in those simple terms that God hides Himself in very well. We were getting to close to home. I see it time and time again with atheists. Remember, I have several around me including my own father.
But, "self" preservation takes over once again, and logic wins the minds of men. Daz's sure plunty of [evidence] fur dat here professor!
Quis ut Deus?
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 4:55 am
(November 16, 2013 at 4:36 am)ronedee Wrote: I may not be a physicist, or even good at science but I do know the difference between theories based on either hypothesis, or empirical discovery.
Uh, Ronny? Quick correction: all theories are based on both hypotheses and empirical evidence. They start out as the former, and become theories after being confirmed by the latter.
Quote:However, Einstein isn't the real issue here. What is at issue is your passiveness to my experiences with God. And why?
Because personal experiences can only ever be convincing or confirmable to the person having them? And without being able to justify them externally, they can't be used to create a rational, objective justification for your belief in that god?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 6:32 am
One of the main problems with christianity it is obviously not true and I have a thing about facts.
I would suggest that christians have never stood back and taken a good hard objective look at what they believe because what I see as a outsider is a load of silly, ambiguous and often contradictory ideas put together in a rather badly written book that is then presented as ultimate truth.
I get just as annoyed when people break a mirror and suggest it means seven years bad luck.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 7:02 am
(November 16, 2013 at 4:36 am)ronedee Wrote: I may not be a physicist, or even good at science but I do know the difference between theories based on either hypothesis, or empirical discovery.
However, Einstein isn't the real issue here. What is at issue is your passiveness to my experiences with God. And why?
You have nothing to compare them to, so you avoid them. And focus on your claims about "faith" as "insanity", and "delusion". And of course, my not answering your coercive, and leading questions to your exact specifications.
I'd like to address that but I'll leave aside physics and anything else with academic cache and just tell you what I think is going on with your experiences with God. Understand that having left behind all the conventions of academic discourse, what comes out of my mouth next may seem to you to be "insane", "delusional" or even a load of crap. But that is the risk we take when a couple of guys like us shoot from the hip.
Your awesome brain is bloody miraculous. It keeps afloat your sense of self and agency atop a deep bed of consciousness of which you are unaware, at least not directly. It retrieves appropriate memories and all manner of little background tasks which make our conscious minds feel so competent - even though we don't know how we do those things. In your case -and that of many others- that deep bed of consciousness also produces the autonomous presence of God. Well, autonomous so far as it may seem to you at least.
The God which you interact with is basically 'in your head', just not the part you think of as 'you'. It is as real as 'you' are and as real as any of 'us' for that matter. If you like it this way, and I think you do, don't change a thing.
When you come on an atheist site you have to expect people to try and 'help you' with what seems to them to be a malfunction in your relationship to reality. It is just like the way you try so hard to help us with our relationship with God. But of course we didn't sign on to get the kind of help you offer. And you of course didn't really sign on to get our help. (My theory is you want to help us get in touch with our inner God sub-routine.)
Oh well. To each his own. I hope this mind fuck has been good for you. Got a cigarette?
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 8:47 am
(November 16, 2013 at 4:36 am)ronedee Wrote: I think I was making too much sense to you, in those simple terms that God hides Himself in very well.
You're probably right.
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Quote:What is at issue is your passiveness to my experiences with God. And why?
Because until you can demonstrate actual evidence for any god...not just your silly version.... we regard such claims as mere delusion. For all we know you are a patient in a mental hospital....which is as good a definition of a catholic as any I can think of.
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 16, 2013 at 6:58 pm
(This post was last modified: November 16, 2013 at 7:12 pm by mattpaul42.)
(November 16, 2013 at 6:32 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: One of the main problems with christianity it is obviously not true and I have a thing about facts.
I would suggest that christians have never stood back and taken a good hard objective look at what they believe because what I see as a outsider is a load of silly, ambiguous and often contradictory ideas put together in a rather badly written book that is then presented as ultimate truth.
I get just as annoyed when people break a mirror and suggest it means seven years bad luck.
Just curious about your views, how is Christianity obviously false?
Thanks!
mattpaul42
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.
[/quote]
I must say that it is refreshing to me to hear you. I look at many of the posts here and a good deal of them contain logical fallacies or just consist of people who come on here to make fun of Christians.
Thanks for understanding that not all people under the label of a certain belief hold the same views. Some are nicer than others, some are better at reason or any other skill you can think of. Too many people make a blanket statement about a religion.
Thanks!
mattpaul42
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 17, 2013 at 5:05 am
This is good, I think we're getting to the heart of the issue. (I mean us, I haven't been following Ron, Tex, and RM much)
7) Christianity speaks of an absurd, impossible history.
Zazzy Wrote:The stories in it are so absurd that I have never even seen why so many people find them so important and ennobling. This seems to be begging the question a little once we take a look at what exactly is so absurd. I assume you're mainly referring to the miracles that God/Jesus did in the Bible.
But the fact that they can't happen in the world, at least without God, is exactly the point: They imply that God must have had a hand in them. To say that their absurdness proves that the Bible is unreliable implies that the God of the Bible is not real, which is what you're trying to prove.
8) Christianity is based on feeling.
The Reality Salesman Wrote: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? OK, I know this was for Ron, and I can't speak for him, but let me answer this one for myself:
Christianity does not always make me feel good. In fact, there have been times when I was younger that my (limited) understanding of my faith drove me to feel quite hopeless. While I stand by Christianity's understanding of the human condition, there are parts of it that I could not accept for a long time without anger, shame, and resentment.If my faith was only based on feeling, I would have denied it many times over by now.
But this really says nothing about how true, or even how likely, Christianity is. Saying Christianity is false because it makes us feel free and hopeful is like saying atheism must be false because it makes us feel worthless and hopeless, or that you should be a Christian so you don't have to be afraid of Hell (again, Ray Comfort, I'm looking at you.)
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 17, 2013 at 5:15 am
(November 17, 2013 at 5:05 am)Avodaiah Wrote: This is good, I think we're getting to the heart of the issue. (I mean us, I haven't been following Ron, Tex, and RM much)
7) Christianity speaks of an absurd, impossible history.
Zazzy Wrote:The stories in it are so absurd that I have never even seen why so many people find them so important and ennobling. This seems to be begging the question a little once we take a look at what exactly is so absurd. I assume you're mainly referring to the miracles that God/Jesus did in the Bible.
But the fact that they can't happen in the world, at least without God, is exactly the point: They imply that God must have had a hand in them. To say that their absurdness proves that the Bible is unreliable implies that the God of the Bible is not real, which is what you're trying to prove.
You're saying because something is absurd, it must prove god. But let us assume that these things actually happened, for a while. Absurd doesn't prove god if your understanding of reality isn't complete. Just because you do not understand how something could've happened doesn't necessitate the existence of an all powerful being who cares about you and talk to you. It necessitates an unknown force perhaps, and through experimentation you could probably figure out what this force is. This is how lightning, thunder, fire, rain, flood has stopped being manifestations of god's will and simply became part of life, because we now understand how it works.
But I was being generous there. You don't know that any of these things even happened. So you're basically positing an all powerful being to explain things that did not even happen. The bible's record of history and creation is not in line with what we now know actually happened. The bible furthermore, makes truth claims about nature and reality that we now know to be false (flat earth, anyone?). To say that it is a book written by god is absurd.
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RE: All the problems with Christianity
November 17, 2013 at 5:26 am
(November 16, 2013 at 6:58 pm)mattpaul42 Wrote: Just curious about your views, how is Christianity obviously false?
Thanks!
This is the attitude I was talking about.
You need to go back to the bible and read it with an open mind not one already clouded with the belief because if you do you will find it rather silly.
You see it would be quicker to tell you which bits I think were true than to explain what I think is wrong with it.
So what is true some of the cast, characters existed but most of the events were either invented, propaganda or distortions of what actually happened.
I mean what survey ever insisted you go back to your place of origin rather than have the phrase "place of birth" in the questions? it makes no sense.
The main problems I have with christianlty.
It is all about a supernatural character. Nothing supernatural has ever been proven to exist.
The history is shaky with evidence at all for the exodus and many of its other main events including the life of jesus missing in the real world.
The old testament is strange stories filled with woo from start to finish. Genesis is a failed explanation of creation, looking for all the world like it was written by ignorant bronze age goat herders. Noahs ark. Hair as the source of strength. Stupid laws in leviticus etc etc
And the new testament: lots of impossible magic tricks vague parables that can be read several ways and the madness that is revelations.
So why I see christianity as false is all of it.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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