I don’t think there was a real Jesus but I concede you do have a point. Everyone builds Jesus in their own image, even atheists. It takes effort not to. The natural tendency of anyone who was ever infected with this meme or has Christian friends is to try to find something redeeming about him.
Have heard male homosexuals tell me he was gay, heard black power types tell me he was black, heard a scholar in Greek literature tell me he was a secret Hellenistic Jew, heard him described by hippies as a hippy, by fire and brimstone types that he laid down the law, by SJW that he was a social activists, by communists that he was a communist, by a pacifist that he was a pacifist, by rabbis that he was a rabbi…
He can’t be all of those things, he can however be none of those things. He is the blank slate that people scribble on what they want, and what they want is a version of themselves with super powers.
That’s a very good point, and it’s interesting that you rarely (if ever) hear atheists claim that he was an atheist because he made himself equal to God and abolished the church of his ancestors in order to replace it with his own. It’s almost as if they either didn’t understand the Gospel, or they simply do not want that kind of responsibility, and prefer to endlessly complain about organized religion instead.
Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there’s that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It’s like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn’t a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
The sheer number of contradictions.
The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There’s a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn’t that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it’s a crazy test because it’s impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn’t the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It’s unfathomable.
If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That’s “good”? That’s worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god’s solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You’d think a good god would come down and be like “Hey guys, let’s talk”.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. My dad was a real asshole as well. He’d literally rather leave me dying in a ditch than suffer a single word of criticism from me. Weird how that works, huh? Almost like there is some truth to the Bible after all…
Unfortunately, I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I don’t see any proof that there is a god or gods out there. Nor that there is any sort of objective morality. Nor a single shred of evidence for any of it. All the evidence is circular and answers one question while adding another. You may say the Bible says so, but how do we know the Bible is true? And you may say because God said so. So how do we know that is true? You have to assume that either a god or the Bible is true, but you can’t prove it. How do we know your God is the real one and not The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster ™️ ? You can’t prove your god any more than I could prove that. And that’s the issue.
If you can’t even prove there is a god or morality or anything then why should I assume there is anything to be saved from?
I don’t believe in gods or religions or the concept of “sin” and “salvation” at all anymore. I just can’t without some form of proof. I can’t accept the “because it is” or “because God said so” or “because Bible said so” anymore. All of those things require you to believe in them first and then add on “proofs”. But for every proof you can add there is also a proof to the contrary.
And on top of that, I am so much happier and less anxious and less worried and stressed now after getting out of all that. The constant fear and worry about my soul and eternity and salvation and converting others and all that was so much. It was painful to live like that. After letting it all go I am so much happier and at peace with myself and the universe than before. I don’t ever want to go back into a system where hellfire and brimstone is yelled at me. Or even worse a system where a god demands that I worship and love him OR ELSE SUFFER FOREVER! Because that isn’t love, it’s manipulation and control and threats and fear.
I simply can’t anymore. I burned out all my ability to ignore reality and believe elaborate stories. And I honestly don’t think I can ever go back to blindly believing it all. It feels like waking up from a fever dream.
The problem with free will is that everyone is entitled to use theirs as they see fit, even if you vehemently disagree with their choices.
Sometimes, the best you can do is tell someone that they’re headed for the abyss, but if they’ve already spent countless hours convincing themselves that the abyss is a lie and they intend to prove it by throwing themselves in it, there may not be much you can do to change their mind.
So no, I’m not proud of having said this, but occasionally you have to cut your losses before you get dragged down along with the other person.
For instance, I see you claimed here that Julian Assange was a Russian asset, and despite people calling you out on it being nothing but speculation, you never provided any evidence for that claim.
So how about you dial it back a notch and talk about things you can actually prove.
That sorta proves my point. That’s a thinly veiled threat. “Believe like I do or you’ll be sorry”
And to be honest with you. If a god created the universe and this system, filled it with misinformation, fake religions, lies and deceptions galore all hoping that I would somehow still bullseye a 1 in a million chance to believe exactly the right things and say the right things and do the right things out of the infinite choices available and if I don’t I get tortured for eternity… Then I don’t want any part of that god or religion. That’s evil and awful and does not deserve worship from anyone.
Why would you set up a system designed to trick and fail everyone, but have 1 correct answer hidden. One option that is the correct choice, but NO way to ever know for sure or prove it? You just have to pick one and hope you are correct. That is insane and heartless.
If your god is real and all the stories are true then either A. He is an evil god and I don’t want to worship that. Or B. He is a good god and created me to think like I do and he knew I’d have doubts and will still accept me for doing my best in an impossible scenario.
But I’m gonna go with C. gods don’t exist or don’t interact with us.
Until proven otherwise I don’t know what else to do, but I will not go back into an abusive and evil religious system that causes so much harm.
It’s not a threat, it’s a warning. Like saying “be careful about swimming in that lake, there’s alligators in there”. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and they’ve already eaten for the day, but simply not believing in them will not make them go away.
And no, that’s not to say there aren’t any alligators in church, because that would be a lie. What I’m trying to tell you is that they’re everywhere, not just in church, and it’s a mistake to believe you are safe because you got out of there.
Using that analogy it would be like putting someone on an island, filling the water with alligators and demanding that if they serve you and love you forever you’ll ferry them back across to the mainland in your boat. But that isn’t a threat, that’s just warning them of the dangerous alligators, right?
I would call that kidnapping and domestic abuse personally. Realizing those behaviors are classic manipulation and abuse tactics helped in getting out of that insanity. I hope you can see that too.
Are you accusing me of putting you on that island? Because a minute ago you told me that pointing out the alligators was a thinly veiled threat, as if it was me who put them there.
I’m only telling you how it is. I’m not asking you to worship me.
Do you have a moment to talk about my lord and savior Big Tony? He wants to love you. Follow his every word and obey and believe and worship him or he’ll break ya legs and send yas ta swim with da fishes. Yeah, see. But he loves you.
It would be a shame if something bad was to happen to ya. Join Big Tony’s today. Tony is watching. Tony wants to protect you, but you have to accept him first. And you should want to offer him money because how great he is. Also if ya don’t Guido ova there’ll break ya legs, see?
Now let us all turn to page 274 and sing a praise for Tony.
I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I deconverted two decades ago and nothing wrong came out of it. If anything, the immoral hypocrites who provoked problems from within the faith kept creating those problems and covering for each other, so things would have gone better if more people deconverted.
I’m sorry you weren’t in a good mental place to healthily finish the process though.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I hope you do understand that this is not the average experience for the vast majority of people who become atheist, right?
Would you care to share what you may have done differently?
Just to be clear, I am by no means advocating for anyone to return to their parents’ church if they found it to be full of assholes and hypocrites. Rather, what I am saying is that unless you manage to live a more moral life than those you left behind, you aren’t likely to end up anywhere good in life, and to the extent you use atheism as an excuse for being a shitty person, you’ll be just as much of a hypocrite as those you condemn.
If you won’t find ethics in religion, you’ll find some by exploring philosophy. If you won’t find truth in religion, you’ll find some by learning science. If you won’t find a purpose without religion, reach out to people who are worthy of sharing a life with, enjoy art, try to make the world a better place. You will find a purpose far truer to you than any preacher could offer.
Not a good idea if your own values suck – and a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values because there is no God who will judge them for it.
The values Jesus espouses are fundamentally solid and worth imitating. The fact that many of his fan clubs do a terrible job at living them is not a testament to their futility, but rather, to the sheer difficulty of actually practicing them.
My point is basically that if you throw out your morals along with God, there is no hope for ever making it anywhere good in life. It’s true that you don’t HAVE to go to church to have morals, but unless you find them somewhere else, you’ll be no better than those fake Christians.
a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values
Citation needed. This is a total straw man argument.
“Morals” are a completely man made concept. With or without religion, it is immaterial. They did not and do not have to come from somewhere else. They come from us.
And what is and isn’t “moral” changes over time as society evolves. As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous. Have you ever stopped to think why that is?
Two U.S. M-Turk studies (Studies 1A and 1B, N = 429) and two large cross-national studies (Studies 2–3, N = 4,193), consistently show that disbelievers (vs. believers) are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion (the binding moral foundations).
Specifically, disbelievers are less inclined than believers to endorse the binding moral foundations, and more inclined to engage in consequentialist moral reasoning. […] It seems plausible that the more constrained and consequentialist view of morality that is associated with disbelief may have contributed to the widespread reputation of atheists as immoral in nature.
Very interesting also that you’re showing the exact same behavior (i.e. consequentialist moral reasoning) in the remainder of your comment. This poses the question, if society were to evolve to consider rape, murder, and theft as excusable or even desirable behavior, would you go along with it?
As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous.
What exactly are you referring to here? Slavery? Persecution of homosexuality and witchcraft? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the abolitionist movement was largely driven by Christians, while the other two causes were championed by atheists or non-Christians. I’ll leave my moral judgment of the latter aside so as not to unnecessarily inflame the discussion with reactionary rhetoric, but I will pose the question of whether in light of the rapidly declining birth rates in the west, homosexuality is a net good for society as a whole.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
― Stephen Roberts
This is the sort of intellectual conmanship that I’m sure is very impressive to a 15 year old, but people who talk like that do not have your best interests at heart.
I don’t need to, because Christ has delivered us from the need of worshiping Yahweh, in much the same way that Prometheus delivered mankind from worshiping Zeus.
Don’t you understand? The point of Christianity isn’t to worship, it’s to become a moral person. Whatever amount of horror or exploitation you may have seen going on around you in the church you grew up in wasn’t a sign that it had failed, but rather, that it worked on YOU in a way that it didn’t on everyone else, because it gave you eyes to see what others were missing – that is, all the evils and crimes they had committed and were still praying to be delivered of.
I understand that this is somewhat of a horrifying gift to receive, but you should treasure it anyways because it will keep you from running straight into the welcoming arms of another abuser – which WILL happen if you deny it.
Everything you do and say in this life will leave a mark on you, one way or another. Look up epigenetics if you need a scientific explanation for this. There is no such thing as a free lunch – getting rid of God does not get rid of the consequences of doing evil.
For me, I don’t need jesus to give me morals, I have them on own. I don’t believe in a angry guy in the clouds creating this. It’s mind blowing to me, that people believe in it, it’s clearly a form of control. There are many religions, what makes one right over another? Feelings? I like to think more scientifically and logically.
I have decided I want to be a good person. I don’t need a sky daddy looming over me threatening torture if I do something wrong.
In fact, I would argue I’ve become a better and nicer and more accepting person after leaving religion. I was taught to basically hate LGBTQ, all the other religions, and a list of other “sins” and “wrong beliefs”…
It’s just another form of tribalism and control. I’m out. I’m gonna be over here being as kind and compassionate to my fellow humans as I can.
If anything I think religion can often enable people to become awful humans.
Maybe they think they are doing “wrong things for the right reasons” (E.G. a parent beating their child and screaming “I’m doing this because I love you!”, which, surprise, is more common in religious households)
OR
Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that what they are doing isn’t wrong at all. The Bible commands you to stone women to death if they have sex outside marriage. So, one could convince themselves that murder isn’t murder, but justice and obeying their gods commands.
I don’t really know, because I was never a bad person in religion, so I don’t really know what goes on in people’s heads like that, but it scares me.
True, that’s a bit of a lucky guess based on the observation that the vast majority of atheists never grow past the stage of resenting the church, and it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to do a better job if you’re full of hatred.
It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.
I, personally, went through a period during which I had already embraced the “Whatever, they’re stupid, but as long as they’re not evil I can respect their general existence”, then the church I did live next to forced me to move away, and when I protested, they tarnished my name and tacitly threatened several members of my family to receive the same treatment if they raised their voice.
So, honestly? I wish more atheists were angry and combative. Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy. Brainwash kids into being unable to live without faith, so that if they ever try to leave, they’ll se their life get torn apart, both mentally and socially. You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.
Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.
It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.
It’s possible that my view is somewhat skewed by mainly observing atheism through online discourse, but the “hot issue” with religion seems to be a perennial one. After all, most atheists seem to come from religious households, and a lot of it appears to be a form of rebellion against parental tyranny. Meanwhile, people who were raised in atheist households often seem to seek out religion instead.
Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long is it is not oppressive. Having an orderly and well-behaved society benefits everyone after all. I don’t think you’d enjoy living in a society without rules or norms for all that long, because it makes for a short and brutal life for most people.
You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.
That’s an interesting accusation coming hot on the heels of telling me that social control and conformity are bad things. Why would you possibly care? And aren’t you making yourself guilty of the same crime by assuming the reason for my acting this way? What if it was merely a reasonably educated guess based on the observation that the vast majority of people who complain about Christians not living up their own stated values never even attempt to live those values themselves?
Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.
Come on now, that’s textbook gaslighting and psychopath behavior. “I never did the thing I’m currently doing” said the abuser, “and if I did, it’s for your own good.”
That depends on what you mean by “stand for”. Do you only preach those values on the Internet, where no one can ultimately hold you accountable? Or do you live them in real life, where standing up for them might entail taking risks to defend them?
“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
— Matthew 7:21
I think we are all the sons and daughters of dog on this blessed day, just like you are the famous skateboarder who is constantly unrecognized in public
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32-33
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
Your logic doesn’t follow. Evidence for the existence of Jesus and god – either the Yahweh or any of the other ones – is scant (in the case of Jesus) or nonexistent (in the case of his dad). Sharing similar values to what Jesus allegedly had is not evidence for his existence, nor that of any gods. In this context, the “real” Jesus is as he is depicted in scripture. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was a real person in reality, so don’t get that part twisted. What the poster you’re replying to is interpreting a character as he was written.
It’s exactly the same thing as claiming, “Captain Picard would not do XYZ, because it is inconsistent with how he was written in every single episode.” That may be so, and maybe we all know who Captain Picard is and what he does, but that still doesn’t make Picard a real person. Having a taste for tea, Earl Grey, hot does not require that any person actually believe that Picard physically existed, nor that his published actions were anything more than the fancy of some scriptwriters.
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
That’s true, but it helps having an example as a role model to look up to, because you’re not going to go far without one.
Honestly, I could care less if it’s Jesus, Luke Skywalker, or Jean-Luc Picard, as long as your atheism isn’t an excuse for smoking weed and watching porn all day. All I’m saying is to be careful about throwing out the baby with the bathwater when you leave organized religion behind, because while the church you grew up in may very well have been a den of thieves and fully deserve your condemnation, not all of them are, and there’s thieves outside of the church, too.
If the real Jesus stood for all the same values that you do, why are you an Atheist?
I don’t think there was a real Jesus but I concede you do have a point. Everyone builds Jesus in their own image, even atheists. It takes effort not to. The natural tendency of anyone who was ever infected with this meme or has Christian friends is to try to find something redeeming about him.
Have heard male homosexuals tell me he was gay, heard black power types tell me he was black, heard a scholar in Greek literature tell me he was a secret Hellenistic Jew, heard him described by hippies as a hippy, by fire and brimstone types that he laid down the law, by SJW that he was a social activists, by communists that he was a communist, by a pacifist that he was a pacifist, by rabbis that he was a rabbi…
He can’t be all of those things, he can however be none of those things. He is the blank slate that people scribble on what they want, and what they want is a version of themselves with super powers.
That’s a very good point, and it’s interesting that you rarely (if ever) hear atheists claim that he was an atheist because he made himself equal to God and abolished the church of his ancestors in order to replace it with his own. It’s almost as if they either didn’t understand the Gospel, or they simply do not want that kind of responsibility, and prefer to endlessly complain about organized religion instead.
Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there’s that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It’s like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn’t a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
The sheer number of contradictions.
The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There’s a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn’t that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it’s a crazy test because it’s impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn’t the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It’s unfathomable.
If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That’s “good”? That’s worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god’s solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You’d think a good god would come down and be like “Hey guys, let’s talk”.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. My dad was a real asshole as well. He’d literally rather leave me dying in a ditch than suffer a single word of criticism from me. Weird how that works, huh? Almost like there is some truth to the Bible after all…
Unfortunately, I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
Salvation from what?
I don’t see any proof that there is a god or gods out there. Nor that there is any sort of objective morality. Nor a single shred of evidence for any of it. All the evidence is circular and answers one question while adding another. You may say the Bible says so, but how do we know the Bible is true? And you may say because God said so. So how do we know that is true? You have to assume that either a god or the Bible is true, but you can’t prove it. How do we know your God is the real one and not The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster ™️ ? You can’t prove your god any more than I could prove that. And that’s the issue.
If you can’t even prove there is a god or morality or anything then why should I assume there is anything to be saved from?
I don’t believe in gods or religions or the concept of “sin” and “salvation” at all anymore. I just can’t without some form of proof. I can’t accept the “because it is” or “because God said so” or “because Bible said so” anymore. All of those things require you to believe in them first and then add on “proofs”. But for every proof you can add there is also a proof to the contrary.
And on top of that, I am so much happier and less anxious and less worried and stressed now after getting out of all that. The constant fear and worry about my soul and eternity and salvation and converting others and all that was so much. It was painful to live like that. After letting it all go I am so much happier and at peace with myself and the universe than before. I don’t ever want to go back into a system where hellfire and brimstone is yelled at me. Or even worse a system where a god demands that I worship and love him OR ELSE SUFFER FOREVER! Because that isn’t love, it’s manipulation and control and threats and fear.
I simply can’t anymore. I burned out all my ability to ignore reality and believe elaborate stories. And I honestly don’t think I can ever go back to blindly believing it all. It feels like waking up from a fever dream.
Alright then, I guess you will just have to find out for yourself, won’t you.
I can’t believe that you think this is an argument you are proud of making.
Who says I’m proud of it?
The problem with free will is that everyone is entitled to use theirs as they see fit, even if you vehemently disagree with their choices.
Sometimes, the best you can do is tell someone that they’re headed for the abyss, but if they’ve already spent countless hours convincing themselves that the abyss is a lie and they intend to prove it by throwing themselves in it, there may not be much you can do to change their mind.
So no, I’m not proud of having said this, but occasionally you have to cut your losses before you get dragged down along with the other person.
When I make an argument I have a certain level of intellectual pride. I know it’s the best I can do. However, I always have evidence to back me up.
Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on that.
For instance, I see you claimed here that Julian Assange was a Russian asset, and despite people calling you out on it being nothing but speculation, you never provided any evidence for that claim.
So how about you dial it back a notch and talk about things you can actually prove.
That sorta proves my point. That’s a thinly veiled threat. “Believe like I do or you’ll be sorry”
And to be honest with you. If a god created the universe and this system, filled it with misinformation, fake religions, lies and deceptions galore all hoping that I would somehow still bullseye a 1 in a million chance to believe exactly the right things and say the right things and do the right things out of the infinite choices available and if I don’t I get tortured for eternity… Then I don’t want any part of that god or religion. That’s evil and awful and does not deserve worship from anyone.
Why would you set up a system designed to trick and fail everyone, but have 1 correct answer hidden. One option that is the correct choice, but NO way to ever know for sure or prove it? You just have to pick one and hope you are correct. That is insane and heartless.
If your god is real and all the stories are true then either A. He is an evil god and I don’t want to worship that. Or B. He is a good god and created me to think like I do and he knew I’d have doubts and will still accept me for doing my best in an impossible scenario.
But I’m gonna go with C. gods don’t exist or don’t interact with us.
Until proven otherwise I don’t know what else to do, but I will not go back into an abusive and evil religious system that causes so much harm.
It’s not a threat, it’s a warning. Like saying “be careful about swimming in that lake, there’s alligators in there”. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and they’ve already eaten for the day, but simply not believing in them will not make them go away.
And no, that’s not to say there aren’t any alligators in church, because that would be a lie. What I’m trying to tell you is that they’re everywhere, not just in church, and it’s a mistake to believe you are safe because you got out of there.
Using that analogy it would be like putting someone on an island, filling the water with alligators and demanding that if they serve you and love you forever you’ll ferry them back across to the mainland in your boat. But that isn’t a threat, that’s just warning them of the dangerous alligators, right?
I would call that kidnapping and domestic abuse personally. Realizing those behaviors are classic manipulation and abuse tactics helped in getting out of that insanity. I hope you can see that too.
Are you accusing me of putting you on that island? Because a minute ago you told me that pointing out the alligators was a thinly veiled threat, as if it was me who put them there.
I’m only telling you how it is. I’m not asking you to worship me.
You’ll definitely be converting the masses with that sanctimonious attitude.
Do you have a moment to talk about my lord and savior Big Tony? He wants to love you. Follow his every word and obey and believe and worship him or he’ll break ya legs and send yas ta swim with da fishes. Yeah, see. But he loves you.
It’s not a protection bribe, it’s tithing.
It would be a shame if something bad was to happen to ya. Join Big Tony’s today. Tony is watching. Tony wants to protect you, but you have to accept him first. And you should want to offer him money because how great he is. Also if ya don’t Guido ova there’ll break ya legs, see?
Now let us all turn to page 274 and sing a praise for Tony.
Guess that makes two of us
I deconverted two decades ago and nothing wrong came out of it. If anything, the immoral hypocrites who provoked problems from within the faith kept creating those problems and covering for each other, so things would have gone better if more people deconverted.
I’m sorry you weren’t in a good mental place to healthily finish the process though.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I hope you do understand that this is not the average experience for the vast majority of people who become atheist, right?
Would you care to share what you may have done differently?
Just to be clear, I am by no means advocating for anyone to return to their parents’ church if they found it to be full of assholes and hypocrites. Rather, what I am saying is that unless you manage to live a more moral life than those you left behind, you aren’t likely to end up anywhere good in life, and to the extent you use atheism as an excuse for being a shitty person, you’ll be just as much of a hypocrite as those you condemn.
So just stick to your own values?
If you won’t find ethics in religion, you’ll find some by exploring philosophy. If you won’t find truth in religion, you’ll find some by learning science. If you won’t find a purpose without religion, reach out to people who are worthy of sharing a life with, enjoy art, try to make the world a better place. You will find a purpose far truer to you than any preacher could offer.
Not a good idea if your own values suck – and a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values because there is no God who will judge them for it.
The values Jesus espouses are fundamentally solid and worth imitating. The fact that many of his fan clubs do a terrible job at living them is not a testament to their futility, but rather, to the sheer difficulty of actually practicing them.
My point is basically that if you throw out your morals along with God, there is no hope for ever making it anywhere good in life. It’s true that you don’t HAVE to go to church to have morals, but unless you find them somewhere else, you’ll be no better than those fake Christians.
Citation needed. This is a total straw man argument.
“Morals” are a completely man made concept. With or without religion, it is immaterial. They did not and do not have to come from somewhere else. They come from us.
And what is and isn’t “moral” changes over time as society evolves. As I am positive you know, quite a few things in Judeo-Christian scripture were considered “moral” in their time but are now viewed as unquestionably heinous. Have you ever stopped to think why that is?
Believe it or not, but it turns out studies on this actually exist.
Very interesting also that you’re showing the exact same behavior (i.e. consequentialist moral reasoning) in the remainder of your comment. This poses the question, if society were to evolve to consider rape, murder, and theft as excusable or even desirable behavior, would you go along with it?
What exactly are you referring to here? Slavery? Persecution of homosexuality and witchcraft? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the abolitionist movement was largely driven by Christians, while the other two causes were championed by atheists or non-Christians. I’ll leave my moral judgment of the latter aside so as not to unnecessarily inflame the discussion with reactionary rhetoric, but I will pose the question of whether in light of the rapidly declining birth rates in the west, homosexuality is a net good for society as a whole.
huh?
What?
This is the sort of intellectual conmanship that I’m sure is very impressive to a 15 year old, but people who talk like that do not have your best interests at heart.
You’ve said absolutely nothing of substance, here. Just platitudes. You haven’t explained why Yahweh is legit but, say, Zeus isn’t.
I don’t need to, because Christ has delivered us from the need of worshiping Yahweh, in much the same way that Prometheus delivered mankind from worshiping Zeus.
Don’t you understand? The point of Christianity isn’t to worship, it’s to become a moral person. Whatever amount of horror or exploitation you may have seen going on around you in the church you grew up in wasn’t a sign that it had failed, but rather, that it worked on YOU in a way that it didn’t on everyone else, because it gave you eyes to see what others were missing – that is, all the evils and crimes they had committed and were still praying to be delivered of.
I understand that this is somewhat of a horrifying gift to receive, but you should treasure it anyways because it will keep you from running straight into the welcoming arms of another abuser – which WILL happen if you deny it.
Everything you do and say in this life will leave a mark on you, one way or another. Look up epigenetics if you need a scientific explanation for this. There is no such thing as a free lunch – getting rid of God does not get rid of the consequences of doing evil.
For me, I don’t need jesus to give me morals, I have them on own. I don’t believe in a angry guy in the clouds creating this. It’s mind blowing to me, that people believe in it, it’s clearly a form of control. There are many religions, what makes one right over another? Feelings? I like to think more scientifically and logically.
Right?
I have decided I want to be a good person. I don’t need a sky daddy looming over me threatening torture if I do something wrong.
In fact, I would argue I’ve become a better and nicer and more accepting person after leaving religion. I was taught to basically hate LGBTQ, all the other religions, and a list of other “sins” and “wrong beliefs”…
It’s just another form of tribalism and control. I’m out. I’m gonna be over here being as kind and compassionate to my fellow humans as I can.
I like to go with, be a good a human. It’s really not hard, but there is a lot of people that choose not to be.
100%
If anything I think religion can often enable people to become awful humans.
Maybe they think they are doing “wrong things for the right reasons” (E.G. a parent beating their child and screaming “I’m doing this because I love you!”, which, surprise, is more common in religious households) OR Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that what they are doing isn’t wrong at all. The Bible commands you to stone women to death if they have sex outside marriage. So, one could convince themselves that murder isn’t murder, but justice and obeying their gods commands.
I don’t really know, because I was never a bad person in religion, so I don’t really know what goes on in people’s heads like that, but it scares me.
That’s easy to say on the Internet, where nobody knows if you’re a dog.
Because there are plenty of people who stand for the same values, and I don’t worship them either.
What’s the point of having values if you’ll do nothing to uphold them?
Nothing in the other user’s message said anything about not upholding those values.
True, that’s a bit of a lucky guess based on the observation that the vast majority of atheists never grow past the stage of resenting the church, and it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to do a better job if you’re full of hatred.
It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.
I, personally, went through a period during which I had already embraced the “Whatever, they’re stupid, but as long as they’re not evil I can respect their general existence”, then the church I did live next to forced me to move away, and when I protested, they tarnished my name and tacitly threatened several members of my family to receive the same treatment if they raised their voice.
So, honestly? I wish more atheists were angry and combative. Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy. Brainwash kids into being unable to live without faith, so that if they ever try to leave, they’ll se their life get torn apart, both mentally and socially. You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.
Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.
It’s possible that my view is somewhat skewed by mainly observing atheism through online discourse, but the “hot issue” with religion seems to be a perennial one. After all, most atheists seem to come from religious households, and a lot of it appears to be a form of rebellion against parental tyranny. Meanwhile, people who were raised in atheist households often seem to seek out religion instead.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long is it is not oppressive. Having an orderly and well-behaved society benefits everyone after all. I don’t think you’d enjoy living in a society without rules or norms for all that long, because it makes for a short and brutal life for most people.
That’s an interesting accusation coming hot on the heels of telling me that social control and conformity are bad things. Why would you possibly care? And aren’t you making yourself guilty of the same crime by assuming the reason for my acting this way? What if it was merely a reasonably educated guess based on the observation that the vast majority of people who complain about Christians not living up their own stated values never even attempt to live those values themselves?
Come on now, that’s textbook gaslighting and psychopath behavior. “I never did the thing I’m currently doing” said the abuser, “and if I did, it’s for your own good.”
If I stand for all the same values that Jesus did, does that by default make me the son of God?
That depends on what you mean by “stand for”. Do you only preach those values on the Internet, where no one can ultimately hold you accountable? Or do you live them in real life, where standing up for them might entail taking risks to defend them?
“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” — Matthew 7:21
And what if they actually do practice them in real life?
Are they then the son of god?
I think we are all the sons and daughters of dog on this blessed day, just like you are the famous skateboarder who is constantly unrecognized in public
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32-33
Does that clear it up?
Proselytizing clears up nothing except your agenda.
And what’s that?
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
Your logic doesn’t follow. Evidence for the existence of Jesus and god – either the Yahweh or any of the other ones – is scant (in the case of Jesus) or nonexistent (in the case of his dad). Sharing similar values to what Jesus allegedly had is not evidence for his existence, nor that of any gods. In this context, the “real” Jesus is as he is depicted in scripture. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was a real person in reality, so don’t get that part twisted. What the poster you’re replying to is interpreting a character as he was written.
It’s exactly the same thing as claiming, “Captain Picard would not do XYZ, because it is inconsistent with how he was written in every single episode.” That may be so, and maybe we all know who Captain Picard is and what he does, but that still doesn’t make Picard a real person. Having a taste for tea, Earl Grey, hot does not require that any person actually believe that Picard physically existed, nor that his published actions were anything more than the fancy of some scriptwriters.
That’s true, but it helps having an example as a role model to look up to, because you’re not going to go far without one.
Honestly, I could care less if it’s Jesus, Luke Skywalker, or Jean-Luc Picard, as long as your atheism isn’t an excuse for smoking weed and watching porn all day. All I’m saying is to be careful about throwing out the baby with the bathwater when you leave organized religion behind, because while the church you grew up in may very well have been a den of thieves and fully deserve your condemnation, not all of them are, and there’s thieves outside of the church, too.