The Bible

agree, that is not a belief, child rape is a crime against a child, everyone should be against child rape - trying to use child rape to justify the government forcing religion on a people is wrong.... be as bad as saying we should outlaw the Christian religion cause preachers are molesting and raping children.... the government should arrest the criminals, not be in the business of pushing religion on the people

 

No. But some of them being Lutherans with limited knowledge of the Bible could be vulnerable to recruitment or at least destructive ideas from other religious folk.

They already believe if I continue on my destructive path of atheism that I'm going to hell. Though they would never openly say it to my face, I know that belief is there. Recruitment to a more hard line sect could make them become more preachy to me or even begin to shun me.

That's my biggest problem in summary with not necessarily Christians, but evangelical Christians.

 

So your biggest problem with Christianity is that it disagrees with your atheism and that you're horrified that a Christian may call you out on it?

 

No. My problem is it is one thing for a random evangelical to say "You must accept Jesus as your savior or you are going to hell". It's quite another if your own mother says it and is egged on by others.

Make your (the Christian) case for your beliefs and heck, even mock atheism. Just one very very specific demand I make: Don't tell somebody in my family to regurgitate your hellfire belief to me.

 

Since you're not a master of puppets, you have neither the ability nor right to control what your family believes or says, nor do you control what others discuss with them.

If you don't think God or hell exists, why so touchy? Are you thinking somewhere in the back of your mind that atheism makes no logical sense and that people and things can't appear out of nothing?

 

I'm very secure in my belief that if there is a god, it's not the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures nor the Allah of the Qur'an.

I wouldn't like my mother (my father is an atheist) entertaining the idea of disowning me and disinheriting me or my ex wife telling my daughter to pretend I don't exist. Those ideas could enter their heads if they think I'm going to hell.

 

Wow, you can read minds. Or at least you think you can.

You change your argument constantly to avoid a conversation, and to maintain your bias. Clearly you are here to whine and complain.

 

On Adam & Eve - they were created with free will, they could make their own decisions, which means they can choose to disobey God. Once they disobeyed God, God could have destroyed them and started over and he almost did a few generations later with the Flood.

You could say that God should have just "healed" Adam and Eve, but its not that easy because "sin" affects everything.

Sin is not just an act a person commits. Sin is a corrupting process that acts on everything - people, animals, plants, the earth, the universe. When Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of good and evil, they seem to have changed physically as well as mentally, they noticed they were different and naked and were ashamed. Animals also changed, originally there was no predation, so obviously something drastic changed in the animal world (and humans were vegetarians until after the Flood). The land itself changed, Adam and Eve could no longer simply live off of nature, they had to actually grow food and farming was difficult.

At the individual level, Adam and Eve were made in the "image" of God which implies more than just physical appearance but also attitude and ability. To "heal" them would fundamentally change them and the intent of creating them would be lost. Instead, God set in motion this current path. Why we are on this particular path as opposed to some other I cannot answer.

Adams Sin affected everything. God could not simply "heal" Adam and Eve.

And you could claim that God is omnipotent so he should be able to resolve the problem perfectly. God clearly is constrained, God cannot be lawful and righteous unless he follows the law. Whether that is a self-imposed constraint required to allow humanity to develop in a particular manner or its a firm involuntary constraint is unknown.

It seems the choice was either destroy everything and start over, or let the system go down a different course to its final outcome.

 

Adam & Eve ran around naked and God liked to watch them, once they learned the truth about why the old man was watching them, they covered themselves up, then he got upset and punished them.. or so the story goes

 

Actually, that is a belief. And it is one arrived at by reasoning. We didn't need some bronze age moral code to arrive at this belief.

You are lying, I changed nothing. You attempted to change my argument to give yourself low hanging fruit to grab. And you lied in the process.

 

You just said you were an atheist so I guess you aren't secure in that belief.

Oh you're afraid you won't get money if your mother becomes a Christian... Well that's an interesting thing to say for a leftist. Your argument went from "Don't tell my I'm going to hell" to "don't disinherit me."

Sorry, but you don't control whether or not your mother embraces faith because you're afraid you won't get a payout when she dies. Good grief.

 

Leftists hold an us v them worldview. What are you talking about? Leftists claim to have THE way for humanity in their hands, and they've murdered tens of millions to pursue that end. Yet you call yourself a lefty, so...

The view of the Bible is not based on "eltist" views, but rather a basis of punishment for sins and that if one does not embrace Christ, then they won't be in heaven. Are you suggesting God kidnap people who aren't followers of Jesus and force them into heaven against their will?

 

Do you often Cherry Pick to avoid discussion on things you do not like and remove context from commentary?

 

You just quoted verses that prove the opposite of what you're claiming. Where are you getting this from? All of those verses are making Ex 20:5 as the basis for the teaching as that is the Ten Commandments, note it says "them that hate me," in other words, multiple successive generations of people actively in hateful sinful rebellion, not multiple generations of lovely, morally upright people who are thrashed about by an angry God ticked off at great-great grandfather.

If you ever read the Bible, it was never reading for comprehension.

If you're going to Bible-bash, at least do it accurately.

 

Show me where I did that. Since I wasn't speaking to you, I can bet you aren't familiar with all of the posts between myself and that person.

 

Try reading it all of the way through. It is talking about punishing future generations for this crime of their ancestor. Other examples were provided as well. If you are going to "defend" the Bible, at least read it. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children." Did you simply not see that part or are you deliberately ignoring it?

 

Okay.
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Empress said: ↑
You just said you were an atheist so I guess you aren't secure in that belief.

Oh you're afraid you won't get money if your mother becomes a Christian... Well that's an interesting thing to say for a leftist. Your argument went from "Don't tell my I'm going to hell" to "don't disinherit me."

Sorry, but you don't control whether or not your mother embraces faith because you're afraid you won't get a payout when she dies. Good grief."

And as a general rule, when a post is quoted and placed in the reply it indicates an isolated context which does not require in depth study of a thread.

 

Prove I lied. Show your comment from your post and then show my comment responding to your post. Put up or apologize.

 

I don't have to be 100% secure in my atheism. Atheists don't have to prove a negative. The burden of proof is on the theist to prove a positive. I don't know if God exists and that makes me humble that I don't know everything. But I can be 100% secure that God is not the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures. Also, it's quite a gigantic leap to say "God exists" to "God is the deity described in this book"

I can feel secure that I will not suffer eternal torture simply for living my life assuming there is no god.

I'm suggesting you don't know the nature of God or its personality if there is one.

 

The Bible: 1) has some great fairy tales; 2. makes claims without proof; 3. conflicts with science; and 4. is based on circular logic.

 

I did, that's the Ten Commandments. All verses you've quoted are based on it. You're quoting one part of the verse and ignoring the rest of it. The entire verse makes it clear that successive generations were not sinless but continued in the behavior of their ancestor: Exodus 20:5 "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."

They're engaging in the iniquity of the fathers thus the punishment for that iniquity is being visited upon them.

The Bible makes it clear that such things aren't undertaken until the sins of the civilization are severe and prolonged enough to warrant such punishment:

"In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not reached its full measure." -- Genesis 15:16

It's clear that multiple groups are given a number of centuries to amend themselves, and if they are intrinsically corrupt down to a man, punished as such - including Israelites themselves.

Keep in mind, God also made it clear in Genesis that if there was even a small minority of people in a population that were righteous, such punishment would be stayed:

"And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes." -- Genesis 18:26.

The depravity for such punishment must be longterm, total, multigenerational, and complete.

Looking at a few verses without context and freaking out is a very poor but common way of secular people to gripe about the Bible.

 

Then why does this confusion follow?

If you've read the Bible many, many times why did you not look at 1 Samuel 14?

"After Saul had assumed rule over Israel, he fought against their enemies on every side: Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment on them. He fought valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, delivering Israel from the hands of those who had plundered them." - 1 Samuel 14:47-48

So the Amalekites had been plundering Israel? Just how bad was it? Well, if you actually look for context and research the entire history of the interactions of the Amalekites with Israel, you see that the Amalekites were brutal invaders engaging in scorched-earth warfare meant to starve the people of Israel and repeatedly allied with enemies of Israel to that end.

"For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them. So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to devastate it. So Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried to the Lord." -- Judges 6:3-6

If you would actually look at the entirety of the Biblical texts regarding the Amalekites, you'd see numerous of these attacks and that Saul did not do as he was told with them and consequently these attacks repeatedly continued.

 

Romans 13:
1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Did you get the Bill of Rights mixed up with the Bible?

 

Then you're not an atheist, but an agnostic.

Yeah so how can you be sure the God of the Bible isn't God?

The "eternal torture" thing is a theological issue which not all Christians subscribe to which is just another pervasive myth floating around in secular circles due to their seeming intent on casting Christianity in the most hostile terms possible. But the idea that if there is a God and you're purposely behaving like there isn't one certainly wouldn't get you an invite to His presence, would it? After all, your behavior indicates you don't believe and aren't seeking to be in His presence, so you could get what you ask for.

So you call yourself an atheist but aren't one but you insist you know God's personality if there was a God? You speak with assurance that if there was a God, he wouldn't be X or Y.

 

There is a wide spectrum in terms of belief.

Shall I list them all?

1. If the Bible were Yahweh's words, they would be of much better literary quality. So much so that it would compel 100% of readers to fall to their knees and worship.

2. The Bible contradicts science.

3. While it says all scripture is inspired of Yahweh, it is tainted with the ignorance of desert dwellers of thousands of years ago not only with contradicting science, but with dated societal rules that we have moved on from. If this really were Yahweh speaking to us, he would not give dated wisdom.

4. Christians are in disagreement over what should and should not be added into the Bible. How do you know when Yahweh was speaking and when he was not?

5. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of Christian denominations. And it's obvious why with incredibly cryptic texts like Revelation (insert drug trip joke here). If Yahweh demands to be worshiped, why does he throw his worshipers into confusion?

6. Even if Yahweh were real, he is not worthy of worship. I'm not going to be threatened into sitting in a church pew by fear from what a book says. I would assume if there was a Yahweh, he'd make himself more worthy of worship since he is supposed to be all powerful.

That's the list from me. If you want more reasons, I'd invite you to watch Youtube videos from atheists more knowledgeable and articulate than myself. Just say so and I'll give you some names.