The superstition of Religion

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My conscience is the Holy Spirit. ...

The Holy Spirit certainly lets me know when I do something wrong and I suffer spiritually when I do.


Interesting. So you beileve that God talks to you. Tell me -- has this god of yours ever told you something that you didn't already know? Seems to me that this would be the ONLY way you could be sure you weren't just talking to yourself.

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Altruism comes from intimately knowing Christ Jesus.


This is, of course, nonsense. If this were the case, only Christians would be altruistic, and the Bible proves that is not so. If it were, the writer of Hebrews would never have even dreamed it would be necessary to exhort believers to be kind to strangers, or to give them the pathetic mind twist of telling them that angels may be checking on them in disguise.

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Nobody makes anyone do anything. Everyone is responsible for their own personal choices of freewill.


This implies that you don't believe your god is omnipotent. Which is fine... I don't believe it either.

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If I'm wrong about the afterlife then I have lost nothing. If you are wrong about the afterlife then you have lost EVERYTHING.


Ah yes... Pascal's Wager. This is also a nonsensical idea that holds no water in a debate.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/pascal.html

This is my essay on why that is the case.

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Yup. . I am a follower of Christ. Do I fail? Sure do. Am I better than anyone else? Certainly not. But I try to walk as close to Christ as I can. The bible says there is none perfect.


I suggest you read 1 John. There you will see that the Bible says that True Christians never sin. I'd be looking into that.

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Thankfully I'm not ignoring the bible and picking and choosing.



I expect you'll find that you also are picking out of the Bible what you want to believe and ignoring the inconvenient, ridiculous and downright insane, ugly stuff that surrounds it. Having read the entire Bible, I can assure you that there is no way to follow it completely.

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You can not find fault with Christ Jesus and he is who you should be looking at.


Jesus, if he existed at all, was not a paragon of humanity. Much of what his is reported to have said led to the Dark Ages and the Divine Rights of Kings. More blood was spilled because of his words than just about any other person's in history. If he was "perfect" I would have expected a better influence on history. You have yet to see a single person killed because of anything Gandhi ever said. Comparing the two, I see a distinct advantage to the guy in the loincloth.

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Christians have been the most tortued and killed people in the history of the world.
ROTFLMAO! Here's a perfect example of the mindjob that is Christianity! Christians controlled huge sectors of the world for thousands of years. They burned, flayed, mutilated and terrorized millions of people, did everything imaginable to destroy "heathen" cultures, and are currently trying their best to subvert the American system to follow THEIR extremist philosophy -- yet THEY are still poor, downtrodden victims!

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Sin is doing something against God's will.



Do me a favor. Read 2 Samuel 24 and answer these questions: 1) What sin was committed that required the deaths of so many Israelis? 2) What path could David have taken that was NOT a sin?

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However it must be really tuff thinking that when you die then that’s it.

Why would you think that? I mean, I think it would be frightening to consider an infinite amount of time, regardless of the place it is spent in. I'm perfectly OK with the idea that my existence is not permanent. I really can't see why that concept would bother anyone who took a couple of minutes to think it through.

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Many atrocities have been committed by those who say they do it in the name of religeon or Christianity.


Would you not believe them? Why? Haven't you read the Bible? Do you not realize that it says that if God tells you to kill someone, you are required to do just that? You said earlier that God is your conscience. Would you follow the dictates of this conscience to the letter? Would you follow God's order to kill a little girl down your street? If not, why? If God told you that said little girl would grow up to give birth to a worse murderer than Saddam, would you?

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Thats a lie and I'm calling you on it. That verse is taken from a well-known parable. Quite a good parable I must say and I recommend you read the entire chapter for the meaning..


He might have erred on one Bible quote regarding slavery, but there are many others. Read Philemon -- where Paul orders an escaped slave to return to his master. In fact read the whole Bible, and while you do so, ask yourself if there is anywhere a single word in ANY of the books that says or implies that slavery is wrong. Such a passage doesn't exist -- unless you take something out of context.
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He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes.
- Robert G. Ingersoll

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Would most agnostic define this the same way? I'll bet if you asked 100 agnostics that half just might disagree with some of your message. Its much easier to define the black and white issues but when you get to the gray areas is where it tends to get difficult. If I steal food from your refrigerator to feed my hungry kids am I immoral? If you are hungry and I have no food does that make me immoral. If I kill somebody in self-defense am I immoral?


I don't know if they would or not, and my beliefs, if you'd like to call it that, does not require the acceptance or obedience of others for me to live my own moral life.

But to be honest I think you've struck a good point. Agnosticism, and Atheism requires some level of intelligence, that most religions don't. In fact, without trying to offend anyone, if we assume religion has a purpose other then actually worshiping a deity, its to suppress those without the capability of full understanding their world, and to keep those ignorant people living moral lives, in order to keep society functioning.

In other-words atheism and agnosticism would not benefit our society because there are too many people unable to make the distinction between what's right and wrong in those gray areas. For those reasons religion is both a benefit and a curse to our world. It keeps millions of people brainwashed, and zombified, preventing them from creating anarchy, but in the same breath it prevents our society from fully becoming a intelligent group of individuals, because we deny ourselves the simplest ability to question. Reasoning and deduction have been replaced with faith, and fiction.

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The Holy Spirit has revealed many things to me. Mostly what is right and what is wrong. The Holy Spirit convicts me and encourages me to give praise to Christ Jesus. Think of it as being an enahnced state of conscience. Kinda hard to explain it to a proud athiest though.

So this thing you believe talks to you doesn't tell you any facts. That's all I was asking.

(snip)

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Are you not aware that Jesus existed before Abraham? I fail to see your logic here. You also assume that the Christian religeon has had no influence on persons other than Christians.


Why am I not surprised that you fail to see my logic? Dude, humans were behaving in civilized manners, building working social structures in the Americas, Africa and Asia, totally isolated from all "Christian" influences for millenia before any possible influence could occur.

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Ahhh.....If you don't believe my God is omnipotent then that implies you believe in God. That's great! Let me know if you are looking for a good church.


Actually, my statement implies that I think all gods are impotent. Imaginary beings always are. But not to worry. I already have a good church I visit, where the folks don't worry about talking with an atheist.

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I read the essay and I don't agree with your premises or your conclusions. An essay by you does not make any of it more reasonable.


Please explain what you don't agree with. Also, I only provided the link to save time.

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Never says that at all. You are stretching.


Oh really? 1 Jn 3:6 - No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

Please explain how it is stretching to give the plain meaning of the quote.

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Reading and studying the bible are seperate things. The bible is a love letter to Christians. What are you doing reading somebody elses's mail?


It is also a document of eternal hatred and torment for "outsiders." What are you doing reading such terrible stuff?

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Accusations you know you can't back up.


Just try me, bucko. I make every effort to only say things I can "back up."

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You know he existed.



No, as a matter of fact, I don't know this. I do know that the New Testament story of Jesus is very similar to prior stories of other religions' messiahs, like Horus, Krishna, Dionisus, and even the god Tammuz, mentioned in Ezekiel.

I know that nothing Jesus is reported to have said -- nothing! -- was new philosophically or theologically.

I know that the history of Josephus holds no mention of any massacre of infants, and that the mntions of Jesus are insertions, pious frauds, inserted at awkward spots by Christian copyists.

So you see, there are many reasons to doubt the veracity of the New Testament on historical matters.

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That's another stretch by you assuming that the visit by Jesus caused the dark ages.


I said no such thing. Be careful what you accuse me of.

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He was perfect. We are not. You also presume to know what history would have been without Christ. Maybe your expectations of God is too high. God doesn't owe you or I anything.


I would expect a god who is all-powerful and loving to put togther a better product.

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I reject your premise. We are under the dispensation of grace


Yeah, you've said that before. Does this mean that you feel free to make up whatever you want and that your god will sign off on it? Because that's what your use of the phrase sounds like to me.

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I stand by my statement. Back yours up. Its a scary thought that you have to research something that you can't find on an atheist website.


Excuse me? Have you not read any history beyond the first century? Ever hear of the Inquisition, witch trials, the shameful actions of the "missionaries" in suppressing native languages and customs?

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Sin is going against God's will. If God tells you to do something and you don't then its a sin. What part of that don't you understand? The verse you discuss you have to understand the it like the "straw the broke the camel's back" with God. God is a patient and forgiving God but people will endure the wrath of God after he has had enough. You can sin and sin and sin and God may not do anything right You see this around the world today. People forget that God is not just love. He is also righteous.


Interesting that you answered NEITHER of my questions about that CHAPTER of the Bible. In that chapter, the story says that God ordered David to take a census of the nation. He did, and was punished. Since this contradicts your statements, I can see why you refused to actually in fact respond to my questions. But I would hope that you might take a little time to think about the matter on your own.

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You are your own judge. You may recount those very words in your eternity.


Here's another thing that I find bothersome about the Christian religion. It says that a portion of humanity will exist in Heaven for eternity, presumably happy and carefree. But the majority of humanity will be tortured for eternity in Hell -- and presumably the folks in Heaven won't find that one bit upsetting. Oh, I expect you have no qualms about me being in Hell. I';m just a stranger you've never met. But what about the people you do know? The Bible says that Jesus will be watching over the torments of the sinner for eternity. Would you like to check in on that action as well? Do you really think it'd be cool to hang with a being that likes to watch torture? Just wondering.

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If what I am being told conflicts with God's holy word then it is not of the Holy spirit. That is an advantage that Christians have.


Don't dodge the question. "God's holy word" says that god has ordered the deaths of millions -- so you could be ordered to do hte same. Would you do as you were ordered?

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The absense of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. The bible instructs you to have obedience to your authority unless it conflicts with the holy word.


Once again, that's a feeble attempt to dodge a tough question. The Bible lists an awful lot of things that God supposedly defines as evil. Christians are always as keen on identifying "sins of omission" as well as "sins of commission." The Bible was written over a period of at least 1000 years. Why might you think that this value -- one that we today hold dear and think of as one of the defining values of "civilization" -- was completely overlooked for that significant period of time?

I consider it a serious piece of evidence that the Bible is no different from any other "holy book." It was made up by humans, using the normal values of society at the time it was written. There is no great moral revelaion there, only the best that the people of Palestine could put together when they wrote that stuff down.

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If you are agnostic or atheistic then you can have no real concept of good vs evil or right vs wrong.


And how do you reach this conclusion?

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To admit that they exist heavily implies that there is a God.


Just like so many others, you erroneously assume all morality and sense of right and wrong can come only from your god. In America today, roughly ten per cent of the population identifies themselves as atheist or agnostic. Knowing this and the theist belief that morality can come only from god, why is it only one per cent of the prison population identifies themselves as atheist or agnostic? If morality were god based only, the prisons should be overflowing with atheists.

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The first sin ever committed was when satan convinced Adam & Eve they could be like God if they ate of the forbidden fruit.


Wouldn't the first sin have been Lucifer rebelling against god? Satan could not have existed had not Lucifer surrendered to his pride.

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I really want to know how an athiest or agnostic can define what is ethical or what is moral?


Do you really have to be told what is right or wrong? Aren't you smart enough to figure out for yourself that stealing is wrong, and helping those less fortunate is good?