Hi everyone

If you all havnt relized already, im an athiest. And i dont come by it lighty. I think about it pretty much everyday, its hard not too, if God exists and I choose to be an atheist, then that means when i die I am deliberately choosing torture for eternety, when the other option is to live forever in paradise, hevean.

Ofcourse i wish there was an all-knowing powerfull caring and loving creator that loves me, knows my path in life ( and every other 6 billion of us). But you have to know when to tell fact from fiction and this myth clearly. I know alot of people believe in god because they are affraid of death(like most of us are)

I dont know how people can believe all of these lies. I mean, if all the evidence you has is a man-written bible, i dont understand why im destined for hell just for not having faith and turning my life over to be a follower of god. I mean, its just common knowledge not to believe, i think. But clearly many think other wise.

(Jeremiah 32:17) Ah Lord GOD! You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm, nothing is too hard for you.

If god really has power on the world, why do we face poverty, murder, war, flesh eating diseases, cancer, global warming, child abuse, dictatorship, racism and sexism, slavery.. the list goes on and on.
Why havnt any of these critical issues changed? Why hasnt god saved any of them?
You say you can talk to the guy, so i'd be interested to hear you think.

I could be wrong, but its my take on it all.

I always love a good debate, dont worry i dont bite

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1st grow -The Pure Skunk-

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Yes, religion IS a poison. One that can only spread through sharing, rather than that could we say it's a transmitted disease of sorts?
I don't mind the sharing point as giving somebody enlightenment towards a particular way of thought, but this isn't typically so.
Keep it off of me and we have no qualms. Now, bring it to me as a philosophy, and we my friend, can talk for hours. Happily so.

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You see things; and you say 'why?' - I dream things that never were: and I say 'Why not?'

Reincarnation - A bunch of amnesic parasitic ghosts trying to reach enlightenment.

I wouldnt call religion "poison" I would just call it bullshit

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e-ligion? thats a new one!

So I know this guy who has two kids. A boy and a girl. He didn't want two at first, but then he realized he didn't want his son to grow up alone so he gave him a sister.
He really loved the kids, so he built them an awesome treehouse in the backyard. It had running water, windows, flower boxes with big lush plants, a small LCD TV, and there was even a dumbwaiter so the kids could bring the pets up into the treehouse with them.
The kids absolutely loved it.
He was pretty proud of the whole setup, and told them that as long as they stayed away from his prized fig tree they could spend as much time in the treehouse as they wanted.
But the sister snagged a fig one day, and you know how kids are. When dad saw that one of the figs had been yanked off his prize winning tree, she made up some story about how something else came along and snacked on the fig.

Dude was PISSED. He dragged both kids out in the yard. Screamed at them. Beat the shit out of them. And told them to get out of his house and never come back.

They were both crying and really upset. They didn't really get what was going on. They asked "But Daddy, what are we going to do?"

In anger he shouted, "I don't care. Go fuck yourselves. Just get out of my sight."

And then he gave her cancer, and him syphilis.

But it's okay, because he loved them.

Right?

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.

obviously i meant religion, i dont know how to edit titles!

__________________
1st grow -The Pure Skunk-

Check it out leave a comment

http://www.rollitup.org/newbie-centr...k-seeking.html

No no ThaDutchie, you have to be real upset about making that small typo, it's reeaal important. Why else would Buddreams have specifically referenced the typo?

Seriously though, future reference, it's nice if you can watch out for those things but it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, the point you were making was horribly obvious, so the meaning got across - what other use is there for language but to convey meaning?

__________________
You see things; and you say 'why?' - I dream things that never were: and I say 'Why not?'

Reincarnation - A bunch of amnesic parasitic ghosts trying to reach enlightenment.

my two oldest and dearest friends in this world are very christian. they grew up, as did i, surrounded by the happenings of the sixties and seventies. free-wheeling sex and drugs and rock and roll, nothing too far over the line to give at least a couple of tries, twenty-four hour a day, party til the cows come home and then some sort of folks, as were we all back then or so it now seems. they returned to their childhood faith after those years of excess. after watching friends and loved ones come to untimely ends, visiting too many graves, and, finding no solace in the secular, they returned to familiar traditions. they bowed before a master greater than any earthbound patriarch, placed themselves at the mercy of a judgment greater than that of any mortal arbiter, and they were happy to do so.

these two dear friends pray for me each and every day. even though they know my atheism is born of a disgust for the concept of a god that would condone suffering and that i would despise their god if he truly existed, they pray for me. each time i see them and the conversation rolls around to the topic of religion, they assure me that i am not damned. even though i would accept damnation with a smile, they declare with unfeigned certainty that there is a place for me among the saved. they firmly believe that my good works and the charity in my heart are enough to grant me that passage and to save me from an eternal doom. this is the nature of their faith. this is what religion has done.

my paternal grandfather was a baptist minister, a missionary that traveled the world is service to his god. he devoted his life to that service, even at the expense of family and friends. he traveled the globe, meeting with other movers and shakers of various religions, and sought to ease suffering wherever he found it. he helped to feed the hungry, to give warmth and shelter to the needy and never asked for a thing in return. he helped to develop organizations which still exist today, devoted to aiding those who cannot help themselves. he met with men like mohandas gandhi and albert schweitzer, searching for the means to heal the sick and injured and feed the starving at home and in places you and i have hardly even heard of. he did all this because it was right, because it was the christian thing to do.

my grandfather's greatest sin was that he was a dyed in the wool homophobe. brought up in a time when such things were simply not talked about, he saw homosexuality as among the greatest of sins and, believing in the indoctrination of the times, he considered homosexuals to be dangerous to the fabric of society. he despised the practice and the very concept of what he saw as a crime against nature and god, but when a homosexual walked up to him and asked for his help, he did not falter. in the face of what he knew as great evil, he gave what was needed and offered a prayer as well because it was right. he put aside his fear and his loathing because it was the christian thing to do.

as i have previously stated, i am an atheist. i have never had real faith and don't even know what that's like, so you know i don't bring up these people in an attempt at conversion. i despise the hypocrite that uses the trappings of religion to gain power and prestige and would spit in the face of this god that demands obedience but offers so much suffering and despair, without so much as a word to assure the faithful of his interest in our affairs. i bring up these people to remind us that religion is not only about power and domination. it is also about charity and taking care of the world around you. religion is not made up just of popes and televangelist and blind buffoons, meekly following the words of an ancient and jealous god. it is also made up of people who honestly care and who are devoted to man's higher instincts. we atheists tend to paint the religious with a broad brush, labeling them all as deluded crusaders and unthinking zealots or hypocritical oafs and lying scoundrels. the claim that religion poisons everything is as hypocritical as a pedophilic priest. it is man's baser instincts that are the poison, defiling even our highest ambitions and most generous endeavors.

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When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

I agree with most of you that organized religion is a poison. It seems to deter and hurt more people than it brings and helps. However, atheists always confuse me when they ask "If God exists, and is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, then why is there pain and suffering in the world?" As thedutchiecouple said it,

If god really has power on the world, why do we face poverty, murder, war, flesh eating diseases, cancer, global warming, child abuse, dictatorship, racism and sexism, slavery.. the list goes on and on.
Why havnt any of these critical issues changed? Why hasnt god saved any of them?


I don't agree with the logistical implications of this type of question. It assumes that God views love in the same context as the person, most of the time an atheist, asking the question. How can one judge an omniscience God with any other set of knowledge besides an omniscient one unless God reveals himself unto that person? Furthermore, if we cannot do this, because we definately cannot, then how can we justify assigning expectations to God about how he should run the world if we are not omniscient ourselves?

Simply put, if love was a box of crayons, then what makes your box of crayons better than God's? They're not, he has a superior brand name and more colors. Whatever shades and colors he uses in the coloring book, this big place we call the world, are the best. That's not to say he drew murderers and and deadly diseases with his crayons. He used his crayons to allow his characters in his coloring book to make their own choices. He gave them choice, or free will. Whatever people do with that free will is up to them. How can one have love without choice anyways? God allows us to chose to follow him or not. If we want to be bad we can. If we want to use or crayons instead of his, we can, but the picture won't be as pretty as it would if we allowed him to color it.


Don't most responsible people, even if reluctantly, allow their kids to drive a car once they reach an appropriate age? Don't those people also realize that their kids could be killed in an instant in an accident? Don't they love their kids? Using the logic of the original question I responded to, no, they don't. That's obviously not true though, they do love their kids. They are allowing them to take the risk of being in an accident to go hang out with friends or to get places faster in a car. They are giving them a choice, or allowing them to use their will freely, hence the term "free will".

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A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
-Albert Einstein

It's a bucket full of insight but it still has a hole in it.

Assuming you mean the Christian "God", as they have co-opted the term and capitalized it to make it their own and none others, your interpretation of his love leaves out one critical point.

God directly kills millions in the bible. This is not human free will in action. This is petty, vengeful, murder by a creature worshipped by the fearful.

Whatever the motivation, should a creature like that exist it does not deserve worship. It should be reviled, hunted, and killed as a threat.

But fortunately it's no more than a fairy tale used to control people and money.


If you're referring to a non-theistic deity, there is no doctrine to base it on and people can just make it up as they go along. But then you may be worshiping the equivalent of a procedural algorithm that generates universes from pure math. That would actually be kind of cool, but an algorithm doesn't care if you love it or not, and we are just a tiny speck in a very large universe.


With no evidence to support them, man creates gods whose concerns are banal and reek of the taint of small minded, racist, and misogynistic desert tribes of millennia ago.

If Darwin wasn't enough to cast off the charade of literal biblical creationism, the discovery of bacteria and viruses should have laid waste to religion all over the world. Sickness and death are no longer the realm of demons and sin, but infection and amplification.

Strip away the taint of religions that deny scientific advancement, and you find that there really is no controversy over evolution, plate geology, or the laws of thermodynamics.

There is the simple fact that man is not the dominant life form on this planet. Bacteria are.

If there are gods watching this world, and they have chosen a race that can adapt, survive, and prosper longer than any other, it is not us.
We're just along for the ride.

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.