Why I'm Still a Christian

[robvalue]

@Lek: Thank you That means a lot to me. I am sure that is your intention as well.

[Simon Moon]

And the idea that this life is actually negligible in the grand scheme of things is fucking dangerous. Every time someone makes a decision involving someone dying, because it's OK that they are going on to the "rest of their life", they've just cost someone the only life we have any reason to believe they actually have.

Exactly.

The idea that this life is just the place where theists wipe their feet for 7 or 8 decades, then off to the real life, is weird and dangerous.

Take notice how so many theists view global climate change.

Weird though it is, atheists can easily value life a fuck load more, because we are all in on this life. We don't bank on there being anything else. So that means not just us, but everyone around us, is important. Their feelings and their life is important. If I thought this was all just a little game and it's just a matter of getting to the next level, I dread to think what I would be like. [Obviously not every atheist will be this way! But I know a whole lot are.]

Don't you know...

This universe, with 200 billion galaxies, each with at least 100 billion stars, and an unimaginable number of planets, was created by a god as giant 'soul filtering machine'.

Yep. Just so a few billion hairless apes can be judged so some deity can figure out which ones go to which next life, the real one.

And what is that most important judging criteria? You have to believe he sacrificed himself, to himself as a loophole to the rules he created.

[abaris]

Here you go again telling me what an omniscient being should and shouldn't do.

Well, it's kind of in the job description: Omniscent means all knowing, so that being should by definition know it all.

And you're right, menkind has influenced the world more than any other being. Mother Earth will shrug us off one day for what we have done. And we're just as important as the universe allows us to be. The next Dynosaur killer might just show us our real importance.

[Lek]

And you never answered my request to justify Auschwitz, Cambodia, et al.

Those situations are unjustifiable. Those situations came about because people lived for their own selfishness, rather than by the the principles that Jesus gave us to live by. If everyone would have followed Christ's teachings for us, these things would never have occurred. You don't like the way he set it up, but he can't give us the right to make our own choices without allowing us not to do so also. Is it not the fault of human beings, who have the power to alleviate this, that children are starving or innocent people are being tortured and executed? Do we have no guilt in the matter?

[dyresand]

And you never answered my request to justify Auschwitz, Cambodia, et al.

Those situations are unjustifiable. Those situations came about because people lived for their own selfishness, rather than by the the principles that Jesus gave us to live by. If everyone would have followed Christ's teachings for us, these things would never have occurred. You don't like the way he set it up, but he can't give us the right to make our own choices without allowing us not to do so also. Is it not the fault of human beings, who have the power to alleviate this, that children are starving or innocent people are being tortured and executed? Do we have no guilt in the matter?

Auschwitz - Hitler had justifications pretty fucked up justifications it wasn't because of selfishness either.

[Lek]

Well, it's kind of in the job description: Omniscent means all knowing, so that being should by definition know it all.

Your exactly right. So since we're not omniscient, we should not try to tell him what to do.

And you're right, menkind has influenced the world more than any other being. Mother Earth will shrug us off one day for what we have done. And we're just as important as the universe allows us to be. The next Dynosaur killer might just show us our real importance.

So you're contention is that we are no more important than a meteor. And I know where you're coming from. If we are purely natural beings, then you're right.

---

and if he made everything for us, what's with the 4.5 billion year hiatus between making everything and then coming back to demand that he receives the credit for it? Was he just mad after he watched us evolve into early societies of people who didn't recognize his signature on all of his work? It seems like he waited a really long time to see how us human-things turned out only to see that we would ultimately start making up our own explanations for the things that he thought would be self-evident! Son of a Mary! These things don't work right! I waited 4.5 billion years for this?! Now I gotta send myself down so that they can kill me in order to forgive them for my fuck up...yeah, that'll do it!

(Enter GC with an attempt to rationalize all of that)

Why do you think he made the whole universe only for us? Who knows what exists throughout the universe? We have no idea of what has been going on out there for those billions of years.

[Simon Moon]

So you're contention is that we are no more important than a meteor. And I know where you're coming from. If we are purely natural beings, then you're right.

Of course we are more important than a meteor, to us.

---

Why do you think he made the whole universe only for us? Who knows what exists throughout the universe? We have no idea of what has been going on out there for those billions of years.

So, you are saying that there is a good possibility that there is intelligent life on other planets in our universe?

If so, did Jesus die for their sins also?

Did the entire 'Jesus sacrifice' drama play out repeatedly all over the universe?

[Neo-Scholastic]

You never answered my question as to whether or not suffering can be good.

And you never answered my request to justify Auschwitz, Cambodia, et al.

There is no justification for human depravity.

[Thumpalumpacus]

And you never answered my request to justify Auschwitz, Cambodia, et al.

Those situations are unjustifiable. Those situations came about because people lived for their own selfishness, rather than by the the principles that Jesus gave us to live by. If everyone would have followed Christ's teachings for us, these things would never have occurred. You don't like the way he set it up, but he can't give us the right to make our own choices without allowing us not to do so also. Is it not the fault of human beings, who have the power to alleviate this, that children are starving or innocent people are being tortured and executed? Do we have no guilt in the matter?

You're deflecting. You claimed that suffering is justifiable, now you're claiming the contrary, and asking me an irrelevant question.

And you know, you didn't answer the other examples I asked after, such as leukemia. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you cannot blame men in those cases.

Power brings with it responsibility, in direct proportion to the power wielded.

And in arguing free will, you're ignoring the theological existence of Hell. A choice made under duress is no more a free choice than you giving your money to an armed robber is a donation.

[dyresand]

And you never answered my request to justify Auschwitz, Cambodia, et al.

There is no justification for human depravity.

Again Hitler had a justification all of those had justifications not good ones.