Why do you hate God?

[arewethereyet]

@johndoe122931 Please don't think that Bel speaks for Bel and not the rest of us...though he would argue that, surely.

[johndoe122931]

If you have not read, you should, "God Is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens.

No, I have not. I am adding it to my cart now. Thank you!

---

@johndoe122931 Please don't that Bel speaks for Bel and not the rest of us...though he would argue that, surely.

I am taking everything everybody says as their individual comments, thoughts, and ideas. This is why I want everybody to speak for themselves because everybody is different and has different outlooks on everything. I respect each person's comments as their own. I respect what Bel says just as much as I respect what you say. I will try my best to not assume or have any biased towards anybody here, well as best as I can. Please feel free to correct me if I do. Thank you!

[Neo-Scholastic]

Yeah my apologies for that "word wall", I kinda got off on the wrong foot. 
So, you say you were born again in the 1990s. Are you a Christian or does that have some other type of atheistic meaning that I missed?

Yes, I am one of the few Christian contributers. Occationally there are philosophical discussions that I find interesting.

[johndoe122931]

Yeah my apologies for that "word wall", I kinda got off on the wrong foot. 
So, you say you were born again in the 1990s. Are you a Christian or does that have some other type of atheistic meaning that I missed?

Yes, I am one of the few Christian contributers. Occationally there are philosophical discussions that I find interesting.

Cool, well I am happy to see a fellow Christian on here.

[Brian37]

If you have not read, you should, "God Is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens.

No, I have not. I am adding it to my cart now. Thank you!

---

@johndoe122931 Please don't that Bel speaks for Bel and not the rest of us...though he would argue that, surely.

I am taking everything everybody says as their individual comments, thoughts, and ideas. This is why I want everybody to speak for themselves because everybody is different and has different outlooks on everything. I respect each person's comments as their own. I respect what Bel says just as much as I respect what you say. I will try my best to not assume or have any biased towards anybody here, well as best as I can. Please feel free to correct me if I do. Thank you!

Other books, 

Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion."

But two of my personal favorites that greatly influenced me are by the same Author, especially the second one.

1. "God The Failed Hypothesis" Victor Stenger (More of an analytical refutation).

2. My favorite "The New Atheism" Victor Stenger (A mix of science and comparison of word religions.)

In one of his later chapters of "The New Atheism", he compares the world's religions and shows that while one can find motifs of empathy and kindness in all of them, they also can be used to justify harm and tribalism, and basically shows that morality isn't divinely handed down to humans but our behaviors are in us, good or bad.  

^^^^^ It is because of reading that, I have basically came up with my own quote basically arguing the same thing. " There is not one nation on the face of the planet that does not have hospitals or prisons."

And Jefferson, while he believed in Jesus, just not a magic man, and was a deist more than anything, said this about atheists.

https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/50...ut-atheist



"

[Astreja]

Why have so much resentment towards something that you do not even believe exists?

I don't resent your god.  To me it's a fictional character, albeit a badly-written one that doesn't command my attention when I've attempted to read scriptures.

I do detest organized religion with a passion, because it refuses to stay in its lane and constantly makes demands on the behaviours of non-believers and different-believers.  I strongly feel that religious organizations should have no tax breaks and no political power whatsoever, and that no one under the age of majority should be permitted to attend church services.  (In particular, I feel that frightening a child or a vulnerable adult with tales of hell should be considered an assault, and punished with jail time.)

You mentioned in your introduction, by the way, "choosing" to disbelieve.  It's not a choice; it's an observation of something that our unconscious minds decide for us after assessing the situation.

[johndoe122931]

No, I have not. I am adding it to my cart now. Thank you!

---

I am taking everything everybody says as their individual comments, thoughts, and ideas. This is why I want everybody to speak for themselves because everybody is different and has different outlooks on everything. I respect each person's comments as their own. I respect what Bel says just as much as I respect what you say. I will try my best to not assume or have any biased towards anybody here, well as best as I can. Please feel free to correct me if I do. Thank you!

Other books, 

Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion."

But two of my personal favorites that greatly influenced me are by the same Author, especially the second one.

1. "God The Failed Hypothesis" Victor Stenger (More of an analytical refutation).

2. My favorite "The New Atheism" Victor Stenger (A mix of science and comparison of word religions.)

In one of his later chapters of "The New Atheism", he compares the world's religions and shows that while one can find motifs of empathy and kindness in all of them, they also can be used to justify harm and tribalism, and basically shows that morality isn't divinely handed down to humans but our behaviors are in us, good or bad.  

^^^^^ It is because of reading that, I have basically came up with my own quote basically arguing the same thing. " There is not one nation on the face of the planet that does not have hospitals or prisons."

And Jefferson, while he believed in Jesus, just not a magic man, and was a deist more than anything, said this about atheists.

https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/50...ut-atheist



"

Thank you for the recommendations. I have already read The God Delusion, but have not heard of the other ones. I will definitely check them out. Thanks!

[Mister Agenda]

The denomination was Evangelical Lutheran.

Illogical claims: The silly ones were mostly the magical ones, creating everything in 7 days, talking snakes, killing bears, possessed pigs,  living hundreds of years, feeding thousands, flooding worlds, parting seas, food falling out of the sky, ....... the list is long. The disturbing ones were eternal punishment, the god wars, exclusion, entitled judgement.

The straw was when I asked the pastor for concrete evidence to justify the belief and his response was 'just believe because I/we/the bible tells you to', with the added implication of 'no heaven for you'. In other words no evidence. You don't happen to have any concrete evidence do you?

My family fought it for a while but we eventually reached an agreement.

Thank you for giving us your story I greatly appreciate it. 

I am curious as to what you mean by the god wars and exclusion?

LOL, I like the question you pose to me for evidence, but my reason here is not to debate nor evangelize. I am sure you have heard it all so no point really for me to put in my own 2 cents on this subject. 

I am happy to hear you have made amends with your family. I hate to hear families broken apart based on whether or not you believe in God.
Thank you again so much for sharing with us your story!

---

One cannot hate what doesn't exist.

Yeah, that's my bad. I should not have posed the question in such a way, my apologies.

Welcome, John. After your initial post in this thread, you come off as very polite. I appreciate that.

[Brian37]

Thank you for giving us your story I greatly appreciate it. 

I am curious as to what you mean by the god wars and exclusion?

LOL, I like the question you pose to me for evidence, but my reason here is not to debate nor evangelize. I am sure you have heard it all so no point really for me to put in my own 2 cents on this subject. 

I am happy to hear you have made amends with your family. I hate to hear families broken apart based on whether or not you believe in God.
Thank you again so much for sharing with us your story!

---

Yeah, that's my bad. I should not have posed the question in such a way, my apologies.

Welcome, John. After your initial post in this thread, you come off as very polite. I appreciate that.

STOP THAT! We can't destroy our reputation of being kitten BBQers  or baby eaters. I like pineapple on my BBQ kitten. 


We must let every theist believe that we drink goat's blood, and record professional sports without the league's express written permission. How can we continue to rip the tags off of our mattresses illegally, if theists don't see us as monsters?

Don't make me bring out my big guns, don't make me talk about the fab 4, don't make me talk about the double "A" with the double "B" in the middle. "I will not be ignored DAN"..

^^^^^^^ Nothing to see here, just another lesson as why eating lead paint is not a good idea. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread already in progress.

[Mister Agenda]

Since we're disclosing, I was raised in a literalist Christian sect and decided I ought to actually read the Bible. Then I decided to read it again in a modern version to be sure the King's English wasn't confusing me. That experience did not make me an atheist, but it did make me an agnostic theist. I could not believe that the authors were actually in touch with and accurately reporting the messages of a morally perfect being. Perhaps ironically I think rather better of the ancient Hebrews today now that my opinion is that most of their claimed pillaging and genocide were foundational myths rather than actual events. There were some contradictions I noticed, but it was mainly the barbarity and injustice that God seemed to be a part of that repelled me from Christianity.

I had minimal critical thinking skills at this point, and believed lots of stuff without much evidence to support it. Over the next 20 years I gradually developed the insight to reject most of it, at least to the point of having the opinion that a reasonable person should not hold those things to be true if they thought about it as I had. This had nothing to do with religion directly, just realizing that the evidence to support Bigfoot, ESP, and Nessie wasn't sufficient to warrant justified belief. Around the end of that, iI realized that at some point I had stopped believing in any kind of God or god, and supernatural beings in general.