an atheist on christmas day

it's xmas morning and i felt like starting up a new thread about christianity. yes, i'm an atheist. no, i'm not here to bash religion. i've studied most religions at length and, though i'm incapable of placing my faith in any of them, i've developed a certain respect for many of them. christianity in particular has done more to further western civilization than any political, technological or social movement. i say this because the underpinnings of christianity are all about choice and sacrifice.

choice, first and foremost, is what christianity is all about, choice and surrendering ourselves to the repercussions of our choices. yes it contains a god that will punish you for making the wrong choices, but this is not a god that wants to force you to do anything. the followers of christ were never told to punish the non-believers (that came much later, with the politicization of the religion), but to embrace every man as a brother and allow them to make their own choices in life. right or wrong, those choices were their own and the responsibility for those choices were their own as well. proselytize? yes, attempt to spread a message of brotherhood and honesty. force? no.

sacrifice is the other key element. even the most recognized symbol of the religion, the cross, is a symbol of the sacrifice supposedly made for the good of all mankind. there is nothing particularly holy about a man being hung up on two sticks of wood to die a slow and painful death, but the willingness of that ultimate sacrifice is the allegorical representation of all the small sacrifices we should be choosing to make for the betterment of our fellow men.

i'm sure that there are literalists out there, on both sides of the argument, who will condemn me for this intentionally optimistic view of christianity. there are those who will want to point out the atrocities, the ritualistic insanities, the polarizations and the outright stupidities committed in the name of this most historically invasive of belief systems, but please give it a rest for just one day. after all, it's christmas fer cryin' out loud.

 

May all have a wonderful Saturnia/Solstice/Christmas/Yule.....whatever.

 

Merry Christmas, Under.

You too, Tecoyah.

And everyone else here.

I hope 2017 is a super year for all of youse. (I'm from New Jersey, remember.)

f.

 

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
Roman's 13:1-14

 

If you care to wait for a couple of days til the season of goodwill has blown over, I'll be happy to discuss with you why all religions except Christianity are very bad bets..
Right Kid?

"Right"

 

Just go worship a "Christmas tree" it's actually a pagan symbol anyway so you shall feel right at home.

 

all i asked for was one day. was it too much to ask? of course it was - the literalist speaks.

 

there is a great deal to recommend many religions and spiritual philosophies. there is also a great deal of useless blither in them that is meant to appeal to our lesser instincts. we should never expect any one to get it right.

 

Holidays represent some bad MOJO to some.

 

That's what Jehovah's Witnesses say, are you one of them?..

- - - Updated - - -

Surely the one with the son of God himself in it kinda gives it an edge?..

 

i've found that, as with most things, the bad "mojo" is usually brought upon one's self.

which god? is it actually the son of that god or a representation of the god itself? for those of us with no link to the god others may claim as their own, the allegories are enough to guide the moral man. that's really the best we can hope for... for now.

 

Awful presumptuous.

 

Q:
How many children did Zeus have?
A:
QUICK ANSWER
Zeus had a total of 92 children by some counts, though not all counts agree. Of these 92, 41 were divine and 51 were mortal. However, since Zeus was a mythical god, there were conflicting accounts about whether certain beings were his offspring.


Zeus seemed to have quite a few. Maybe he should be the winner.

 

i realize that, compared to zeus, odin was a slouch in the offspring department, but i always preferred those norse deities to their more southerly cousins. there's just something about ice giants and rainbow bridges that seemed appealing to me, not to mention that final battle to start it all over again. it's primal and cyclic and far easier to emulate than most other pantheons. maybe i'm just a viking at heart, ready to pillage and burn once the veneer of civility is rubbed away.

 

just about the only thing i've ever been able to agree with scientology on is that everything that happens to you rests firmly on your own shoulders. even those things that may seem out of your control may be mitigated to varying degrees simply by an act of will.

 

What? Jesus's 37 miracles proved he had the power of God working through him, that's what blew peoples socks off and made Christianity the biggest game on the park..

 

Really doesn't matter what you think.

 

Two quick comments.

the followers of christ were never told to punish the non-believers (that came much later, with the politicization of the religion), but to embrace every man as a brother and allow them to make their own choices in life.

The central calling of Christianity, as set forth in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Leave the judgement to God. (That said, truth is not relative and should not be treated as though it is...).

there is nothing particularly holy about a man being hung up on two sticks of wood to die a slow and painful death, but the willingness of that ultimate sacrifice is the allegorical representation of all the small sacrifices we should be choosing to make for the betterment of our fellow men.

The slow and painful death is meaningless without what occurred three days later. And the slow and painful death was foretold hundreds of years earlier by folks like the prophet Isaiah. The central message of Christianity is that we cannot earn salvation for ourselves, that we need Christ Jesus to act on our behalf. If you think that Christianity is all about asking one to make sacrifices for the betterment of mankind, you're missing the point.

And yes, Merry Christmas!

 

If there's more than one, there are none. So it makes about as much sense to ask someone who is explaining the effects of gravity on celestial bodies, "Which gravity?"

 

I'm agnostic but I suppose I would consider myself culturally Christian. I recognize that Christianity is part of what made Western Culture...Western Culture (of which I'm a big fan). I also recognize that the human mind abhors a vacuum when it comes to spirituality, so if Christianity isn't there, something else will be, and usually it's something pretty stupid.

 

OK. So now it's the day after Christmas. It's actually several days after the Winter Solstice which the Christians co-opted.

You seem to be under the impression that before Christianity mankind did not know about choice and sacrifice.

 

no, i think you're missing the point. read the title of this thread. the god myth, salvation, eternal life or damnation... they're all inconsequential concepts to the non-believer. in fact, to the non-believer it is these concepts that are often the most threatening. they speak to an exclusivity that demands a certain group-think in order to attain acceptance. once those concepts are stripped away there still remains a core philosophy that has much to commend itself.

so are you honestly going to try to compare philosophy to physics, blind belief to cold, hard fact? as an atheist the answer is, of course, none. as a caring human being i'm perfectly willing to allow others their mythologies, but unwilling to let the hubris of "the one true god" trash-talk simply slide by completely unchallenged.

humanity has burned through a million gods and nearly as many ways of revering, placating and entreating them. from worshiping trees and rocks to invisible leviathans, mankind has been most inventive in discovering different ways to explain away the unexplainable. just as a man's lies may tell more about him than the dreary truth of his life, our mythologies can show us more about humanity than do the cold, hard facts and those who choose to ignore them as silly, superstitious twaddle are doomed to miss our on some important clues about the human condition.

 

not at all. such concepts are as ancient as humanity itself, though many religions considered choice to be more of a negative in their relationship with the divine and sacrifice as more of a way to gain the attentions of their deities. i was merely pointing out that these are core tenets and their more egalitarian nature, though certainly not unique, are actually quite rare among religious belief systems and that those tenets were more deeply ingrained in western culture by the simple fact that christianity was the dominant creed. without the predominance of these concepts we are less human and less humane. though these tenets have often been abused by power to distinctly evil ends, their underlying presence in a truer form has allowed for freer and more honest societies to emerge.


by the way, thanks for the day of peace

 

The entire of this sentence is muddled. You seem to be saying that to (atheists)..."god myths, salvation, eternal life and damnation" are "inconsequential." But you follow that up with, "in fact, to (atheists) it is these concepts that are often the most threatening."

But...without regard to that...I have a couple of questions, if I may, about the two highlighted items, UTI.

When you say "god myth"...are you speaking specifically of the god described in the Bible...or of gods in general?

The related question, of course, is: Are you saying no gods exist?

Secondly, when you use the term "non-believers"...are you actually meaning non-theists?

There are MANY atheistic believers...people who "believe" there are no gods.

 

to begin with, we are often threatened by the inconsequential. it makes no sense, but human nature is often nonsensical. i've found so many of my fellow atheists feel threatened by their exclusion from something they don't even believe in and lash out at the institution which foster these beliefs and their members. does this make sense to you? from out here under the ice it makes no sense, but that's just the way some people are.

as for the terms "god myth" and "non-believer", one is general and the other specific. the god myth - the notion of some sentient active force involved in creation and the operation of men's lives that may or may not have some intent in this creation. how's that for a definition of the term? to a certain extent, all religions, past and present, have included such a force or pantheon of forces. yes, i am saying no gods exist within these parameters, as these are the parameters within which man has created his gods. this is a choice. it's even a belief, if you wish to judge it as such. "non-believers", on the other hand, is a term much more specific to the question asked. in this case it would be those who do not subscribe to the aforementioned "god myth" or, even more specifically, the mythos surrounding abrahamic creeds.

it is often difficult to rationally discuss matters of religion, because the terminology we use contains so much baggage. i've had folks vehemently object to my use of terms like "myth" or "philosophy" when referring to their chosen religions, though such words contain no slur or negative intent. they simply see their beliefs as beyond mere mythology or philosophy. they are incapable or unwilling to examine the subject from any other point of view. i can't say i blame them too much. religion is such an all-encompassing aspect of so many people's lives, that the dogma and correct phraseology are as important as the message.