Jesus suffering as a substitute for us has always confused me, even when I fully believed in Christianity. One man suffering on a cross for a few hours or days is a suitable substitute for eternal suffering in Hell for each and every human being? And anyway, why couldn't God take the easy way out and just snap his fingers and free us from our sins? It's nonsense like this that made me stop believing.
... why couldn't God take the easy way out and just snap his fingers and free us from our sins?
Because salvation has to be profitable Even the message "Jesus died for your sins" is nothing but bait. Once you believe that, you're told that your sins aren't really forgiven and you can still end up in hell if you don't convert to Christianity, do whatever the clergy says, and give your hard-earned money to Jesus' little helpers.
Joined: Jul 27, 2008 Age: 48 Posts: 2612 Location: Australia
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:15 am Post subject:
Delphiki wrote:
@DentArthurDent
I just want to say, your profile pic just seems really funny for this thread (jesus fish)
Ah look a little closer and you will see the fish has legs, in other words it is symbolic of evolution. Linux in the middle is a reference to a far better operating system than windows and represents my desire for an "evolution" in computing.
BTW the concept and artwork is someone else's, all I did was add the legs. _________________ "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance anyday"
Douglas Adams
"Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand" Karl Marx
Joined: May 02, 2008 Posts: 2096 Location: Uhhh...Not Remulak
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:29 am Post subject:
Whoever wrote the Bible seem to think that the god of this Bible values blood sacrifice. I personally don't see the attraction, since I am not bloodthirsty.
Joined: Sep 22, 2008 Age: 76 Posts: 29309 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:29 am Post subject:
Rocky wrote:
Whoever wrote the Bible seem to think that the god of this Bible values blood sacrifice. I personally don't see the attraction, since I am not bloodthirsty.
Biblically, blood is the surrogate for life itself.
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: God sacrificed his only son to absolve our sins???
DentArthurDent wrote:
Amongst the many beliefs christians adhere to this one really confounds me. Firstly, god did not sacrifice his only son, according to christian belief Jesus gets taken off the cross and then a day or so later gets up,heads out of the cave, says G'day to all his mates, then heads on home.
Secondly an all powerful god can think of no better way to forgive our transgressions than to brutally torture his son??? The same son who some believe (just to really compound the inconsistencies of the story) is god himself.
Can someone please try to explain where my thought processes have gone awry, because surely billions of christians cant be hoodwinked by the story as I perceive it.
Joined: Jul 27, 2008 Age: 48 Posts: 2612 Location: Australia
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:55 pm Post subject:
webcam wrote:
You have to assume that the believers don't actually believe. You can't accept that they put any kind of faith in an afterlife that occurs after you are dead an buried.
Then you would be incorrect. Yes for sure, it would seem logical to see religious belief in the way you do, and undoubtedly some people slot neatly into your understanding. However there are a great many believers who do actually believe what they are told, how many of those fall into the "cognitive Dissonance" slot is anyone's guess, but even those still believe the nonsense. _________________ "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance anyday"
Douglas Adams
"Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand" Karl Marx
Joined: Aug 27, 2010 Posts: 4605 Location: mid atlantic coast usa
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:19 pm Post subject:
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (in I forget which novel) suggested that they botched the Gospels.
Well he has a character read this in a novel within the novel- I guess Vonnegut didnt want to be accused of blasphemy.
The mob grabs this carpenter guy who seems to be a just a lowerclass bloke and lynches him on the cross.
Then God announces that "that was my son you just lynched" in order to teach people to stop mistreating each other.
But Vonnegut said that "By allowing his son to be martyred God sent the wrong message. Instead of getting the message that you shouldnt mistreat people the human race got the message that 'you shouldnt mess with people who are well connected'."
So the next time around God is going to find a guy on death row who really is just riff raff and as this guy is being martyred publicly ADOPT him as his son!
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Age: 24 Posts: 7593 Location: North Carolina The Tar Heel State :)
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:19 pm Post subject:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
... and to deceive impoverished, gullible people by telling them that condoms help spread AIDS instead of preventing it But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
Mother Teresa raised vast amounts of money that was supposed to help starving people in Africa, flood victims in Bangladesh, and poor children in India. Much of it was donated by deeply religious people who were rather poor themselves. So where did it end up? Most of it just sat in the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity and gained interest ($50 million in one New York bank account, according to Christopher Hitchens). A lot of the rest was used to build additional nunneries and increase the number of unpaid foot soldiers of the Catholic Church. Only a small fraction was really applied to charitable purposes.
That is what the Catholics have done not proestants.
The Protestant churches are also quite wealthy. They don't have their own bank and their own little state full of priceless art and plundered cultural treasures (such as the largest repository of original Hebrew manuscripts that were stolen from massacred or forcefully converted Jews), but they do have vast land holdings, buildings, institutions and financial assets. They are businesses, not charities.
I go to a very small methodist church we are not that wealthy we go to Costa Rica every year and do fund raisers to help out the poor in our community we even give out free food every week that we personally grow ourselfs. But it seems you will just view us all the same in the end even though we are not.
Joined: Jun 20, 2008 Age: 24 Posts: 12091 Location: La belle province
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:22 pm Post subject:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
... and to deceive impoverished, gullible people by telling them that condoms help spread AIDS instead of preventing it But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
Mother Teresa raised vast amounts of money that was supposed to help starving people in Africa, flood victims in Bangladesh, and poor children in India. Much of it was donated by deeply religious people who were rather poor themselves. So where did it end up? Most of it just sat in the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity and gained interest ($50 million in one New York bank account, according to Christopher Hitchens). A lot of the rest was used to build additional nunneries and increase the number of unpaid foot soldiers of the Catholic Church. Only a small fraction was really applied to charitable purposes.
That is what the Catholics have done not proestants.
The Protestant churches are also quite wealthy. They don't have their own bank and their own little state full of priceless art and plundered cultural treasures (such as the largest repository of original Hebrew manuscripts that were stolen from massacred or forcefully converted Jews), but they do have vast land holdings, buildings, institutions and financial assets. They are businesses, not charities.
I go to a very small methodist church we are not that wealthy we go to Costa Rica every year and do fund raisers to help out the poor in our community we even give out free food every week that we personally grow ourselfs. But it seems you will just view us all the same in the end even though we are not.
If your church is not wealthy, why do you guys go to Costa Rica every year? _________________ Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Age: 24 Posts: 7593 Location: North Carolina The Tar Heel State :)
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:23 pm Post subject:
Lord_Gareth wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
It's a scam that allows an entire clerical class of people to make a comfortable living without doing anything of value, provides them with social status, and gives them a great deal of influence. It also allows politicians to deceive and control the faithful masses by masquerading their own agenda as the will of god.
Churches do mission trips all around the world with out a religious motive like helping towns that get hit by tornados hurricanes ect.
... and to deceive impoverished, gullible people by telling them that condoms help spread AIDS instead of preventing it But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
Mother Teresa raised vast amounts of money that was supposed to help starving people in Africa, flood victims in Bangladesh, and poor children in India. Much of it was donated by deeply religious people who were rather poor themselves. So where did it end up? Most of it just sat in the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity and gained interest ($50 million in one New York bank account, according to Christopher Hitchens). A lot of the rest was used to build additional nunneries and increase the number of unpaid foot soldiers of the Catholic Church. Only a small fraction was really applied to charitable purposes.
That is what the Catholics have done not proestants.
You're perfectly correct. What the protestants do is send Bibles to Japan instead of food and blankets, attempt to cross international borders in total defiance of the authority of multiple nations (and then b***h at the USA when they get caught), and ship food and supplies to impoverished nations that they'll only hand out if their 'beneficiaries' attend Sunday school and convert to the Faith.
Soooooo much morally better.
Not true at all we give out the food and water with out asking them to attend church how ever some churches do that but how ever mine does not we do Mission trips for the people that want to know about our faiths. And we also do humanitaritan work as well way to go generatlizing us all as one big group and you are talkin to me about morals
Joined: Feb 07, 2005 Posts: 14832 Location: A beautiful vector among many
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:01 pm Post subject:
@OP
I don't know, and the whole thing's coming back since my couple years as an atheist/reductive materialist just took a fatal insult.
My best answer: it doesn't seem like we're here to really be 'judged' or figure much out, and I don't think any of us will be able to see it in the kind of profundity that it comes with until we're gone ourselves and have our full minds back.
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 Age: 24 Posts: 7593 Location: North Carolina The Tar Heel State :)
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:05 pm Post subject:
Vigilans wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
Joker wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:
... and to deceive impoverished, gullible people by telling them that condoms help spread AIDS instead of preventing it But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
Mother Teresa raised vast amounts of money that was supposed to help starving people in Africa, flood victims in Bangladesh, and poor children in India. Much of it was donated by deeply religious people who were rather poor themselves. So where did it end up? Most of it just sat in the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity and gained interest ($50 million in one New York bank account, according to Christopher Hitchens). A lot of the rest was used to build additional nunneries and increase the number of unpaid foot soldiers of the Catholic Church. Only a small fraction was really applied to charitable purposes.
That is what the Catholics have done not proestants.
The Protestant churches are also quite wealthy. They don't have their own bank and their own little state full of priceless art and plundered cultural treasures (such as the largest repository of original Hebrew manuscripts that were stolen from massacred or forcefully converted Jews), but they do have vast land holdings, buildings, institutions and financial assets. They are businesses, not charities.
I go to a very small methodist church we are not that wealthy we go to Costa Rica every year and do fund raisers to help out the poor in our community we even give out free food every week that we personally grow ourselfs. But it seems you will just view us all the same in the end even though we are not.
If your church is not wealthy, why do you guys go to Costa Rica every year?
We raise money by donig fund raisers to pay for the trip.
... and to deceive impoverished, gullible people by telling them that condoms help spread AIDS instead of preventing it But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
Mother Teresa raised vast amounts of money that was supposed to help starving people in Africa, flood victims in Bangladesh, and poor children in India. Much of it was donated by deeply religious people who were rather poor themselves. So where did it end up? Most of it just sat in the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity and gained interest ($50 million in one New York bank account, according to Christopher Hitchens). A lot of the rest was used to build additional nunneries and increase the number of unpaid foot soldiers of the Catholic Church. Only a small fraction was really applied to charitable purposes.
That is what the Catholics have done not proestants.
The Protestant churches are also quite wealthy. They don't have their own bank and their own little state full of priceless art and plundered cultural treasures (such as the largest repository of original Hebrew manuscripts that were stolen from massacred or forcefully converted Jews), but they do have vast land holdings, buildings, institutions and financial assets. They are businesses, not charities.
I go to a very small methodist church we are not that wealthy we go to Costa Rica every year and do fund raisers to help out the poor in our community we even give out free food every week that we personally grow ourselfs. But it seems you will just view us all the same in the end even though we are not.
If your church is not wealthy, why do you guys go to Costa Rica every year?
We raise money by donig fund raisers to pay for the trip.
So you siphon money from the already-destitute, removing it from the local economy, so you can go to another nation and make yourselves feel better about helping them rather than extending a hand to those in need at home.
Stiiiiiill not detecting the presence of any moral high ground. _________________ Et in Arcadia ego. - "Even in Arcadia, there am I."
Even the message "Jesus died for your sins" is nothing but bait. Once you believe that, you're told that your sins aren't really forgiven and you can still end up in hell if you don't convert to Christianity, do whatever the clergy says, and give your hard-earned money to Jesus' little helpers.
But yes, they also collect money for the poor and destitute. How much of this money arrives at those in need is anyone's bet.
