Topic: Does Anyone Else Believe In Jesus Christ ? - page 9. (Read 18105 times)

There would be infinitely many gods, which one to pray to?

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You would also need more than an infinite universe to allow for infinite possibility.
The total sum of infinitely many gods is zero.

Look, I know why you and many others are unbelievers.  It's all because the GoodBook talks about wine.

But not about beer.

Clearly there something very wrong with that book.  Can it be trusted?

Universe means one.  You are admitting god existing in the universe but not your reality.

Were you forced to go to church as a child?  If so, your struggle is probably your intelligence fighting against your brainwashing.  Good luck in your struggle!

Yes. In that universe. Not in ours.

Awesome.  So you understand how a universal consciousness exists somewhere too, right?

Can't argue that. In infinite universes full of infinite possibilities, everything exists somewhere. It just has zero relevance on our universe here. So, until Baba Yaga manages to open a portal into our universe, I won't worry about her.

But Baba Yaga does exist.  Maybe not on earth, but somewhere in the infinite universe, on some dimension, she exists.  In fact she exists infinitely.  How do I know she exists?  Because I have channeled spongebob and if he exists, any other fictional character surely does.

Why so?

The "switch" which gets from from being a theist to being an atheist is at the point where you go from
"I can never be good enough, and need Jesus to get me to heaven"
to
"I am good enough, and if god doesn't recognize that, then he is an unjust god, and I don't want his heaven, anyway."

Basically, you take the external morality/ethics you were raised with, and internalize it to build your own sens of what is right and just. Often, the internal one is much more just than what you have been taught (it was the internal morality that defied religious teachings to fight for things like women's rights, freeing slaves, letting people ask taboo questions, etc.)


This here is the big, monstrous lie that churches have been coonvinciing people with for centuries, for the sole purpose of controling them. "You *think* you are a good person, but trust us, you are not. You are a wretched, evil human being, and the only salvation is through us. You must listen to us, do what we tell you, and give us your money, since that is the only way you will not e an evil person." It's the ultimage brainwashing power-grab, and it took a lot for people to overcome it, accept that they are not evil, and start the renaissance that brought us out of the dark ages. I am sorry to hear that you are still a victim of this lie, and don't even realize it for what is, which is some PEOPLE'S way of forcing their control over you.


If you are at heart an evil person, and are dependent on god to keep you in line, then why would you deserve heaven? If a child is really boysterous, loud, disruptive, destructive, and is downright evil, and the only reason the child behaves is because her parents are forcing her to behave, is she really a good child? I don't think so. I would not reward that child for being forced to follow orders, since I know that she is, in reality, a bad person, and that the good face the child puts on is just a forced lie.

Yes, I do. My faith is something I struggle with daily, however.

Yes, of course. And I speak from experience.



But you are simply using Jesus as a crutch. You yourself are not a better person, you are a better person only because of your reliance on your belief on Jesus. If for whatever reason you started to doubt Jesus's existence, would you revert to being a hateful, angry, and fearful person who has no self-control? I can control my hate, anger, fear, and desires through my own will power alone, and don't need to deend on anyone else for that, so I feel like a more complete and better person because of it.

I look at you as like a slightly overweight person riding around in a scooter all over the place. You are completely dependent on that scooter, and believe it gives you great mobility and convenience, but I am proposing that you get off the scooter, stop depending on it, and start walking around on your own. Not only will you lose weight and gain access to many more areas that the scooter couldn't go to, but you will also stop hating yourself for being fat and so dependent on your scooter (as you apparently hate yourself for being a bad person inside, and now feel dependent on Jesus to keep you good), and gain the confidence knowing that you yourself overcame your limitations, without depending on anything or anyone else.

There is also the very apparent issue of your Jesus crutch severely limiting what kind of knowledge you are even willing to coonsider, let alone explore. The universe has an enormous amount of wonderful things and fascinating posibilities, but you refuse to acknowledge them because you are limited by where your "Jesus scooter" will allow you to go. This may not hurt you in the long run, since you'll be able to continue to survive in your happy bliss, but I'm afraid it will make your life very limited, and not as fulfilling as it could be. It's analogous to how my in-laws all live in a tiny town in Western Maryland, 2 hours from the nearest hub of "civilization." and they are totally content living there. When asked why they don't travel or explore the world, they just reply with, "I'm not really interested in that" or "I'm comfortable where I am," or "I can just see it on TV, so why bother." Yet they are missing out on so many wonderful experiences and cultures, and they don't even know about it (lucky for me, my spouse went to the Navy, which forced him to experience those things, and opened his eyes to what's outside their little cloistered lives).

But let me note the difference between your response and mine.

I just came up with the idea, and you read it in a book.

OF THESE TWO OPTIONS (and leaving aside my or your religious inclinations) I greatly prefer my approach.

I agree that neither one is necessarily right. The Bible says, "Do not be over-righteous, nor be over-wise.  A wise man avoids all extremes." 

Why do you wish that for me?  Do you really think it will somehow "enlighten" me and make my life better somehow? 

I am a million times better person because of my faith in Jesus.  Before letting Jesus into my life I had hate, anger, fear and was controlled by my own desires.  With His help I am able to see the world through His eyes and have love, compassion, hope and joy regardless of the circumstances around me and regardless of what people do to me and I am never alone.

Sure, people that are not Christians are doing "good deeds" every day and are reaping some of the rewards that comes with doing good things. Some atheists are kind and giving individuals for sure (I think you are one of them BTW) The verses, "It is more blessed to give then receive" stand true for everyone.  I just find that my hands are less tightfisted thanks to what Jesus has done for me and I have more compassion for those around me.

The Bible says that the prayers of the righteous are effective.  Of course I am not "righteous" on my own but Jesus has made me more so!  So it is in faith that I pray that God can do great things.  Granted, everyone has a choice regardless of how much anyone prays (the whole free-will issue applies here).  But I think that praying for God to show you (and others) how much He loves them is a prayer that He will and does answer.

No arguments with that.  But note I haven't in the analogy mentioned 'excessive drinking'.  Here's another example.  Some time ago a vegetarian girl worked for me.  One day she came in sort of a dazed, dreamy look, slight smile on her face.  First thing I thought was that she'd fallen head over heels in love with some guy.  

I asked "You look happy, what happened?"

The reply...

"I just ate a hamburger..."

Solution for Person A at moment A1:  Don't eat meat
Solution for Person A at moment A2:  Eat meat

Why should just one of these be 'right'?

Why I not only don't believe in God, but I also think it's highly unlikely that any God exists.  I'll just throw this out and people can comment on it or not.  Hopefully, I can articulate my position.

Let's say God did exist for a moment.   OK, so where did God come from?  The answer to this is usually that he just is, or something like that (Christians feel free to correct me on that).  My next question at that point is why is he just is?  What physical laws make that possible or what physical laws are in his dimension that make that possible?  To me, that would be a fascinating question, and considering all the people who claim to be in touch with him I can't believe no-one's asked it.

God is a very human concept.  It's something that, as far as I know, has manifested itself in every culture.  It's to do with our not knowing and superstition for the world and desire for answers and also a control mechanism used to extract resources in a time of poverty, which until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's pretty much the entire world was in poverty by our standards.  So, there are rational explanations for why people would come up with these stories.  And no evidence anywhere.  Which is also why the stories are always different from place to place.  You never get the same God appearing in two different places independently.   This is a concept perfectly consistent with the idea that all Gods were invented by man.

Why don't I think there is any God?  I think it's become obvious now, with the dawn of Quantum mechanics that humans can't intuitively grasp how the building blocks of our universe work.  We can develop equations that produce the results we expect but intuitively much of it doesn't make sense.   So our intuition in life that things must be "created", maybe that isn't true either.   We now have explanations for how stars form, how planets form, etc and it's clear these are all natural processes.  It seems perfectly likely that the universe is also such a process.  It may be one we'll never figure out, the information just may not be available to us, but it just really makes so much more sense given what we know about the world.  It will be probably be totally bizarre to us in the same way quantum mechanics is, but still a valid process.

The people thousands of years ago, in comparison, didn't know much, but they figured out a good method of manipulation pretty early on.

bitchick: why do you believe in some things that have no evidence to support them but not other things that have no evidence to support them? why do you believe god exists but not care bears?

I remember baba yaga.   Didn't she live in a house supported by three chicken legs that constantly rotated?

I guess you didn't quite understand what I was trying to say when I asked you whether you are convinced that (insert random thing you've never heard of before) doesn't exist, after all  


That's nice... Baba Yaga thinks about ways to catch and eat you. How do you feel about that?


OK... But there is absolutely no evidence for that claim as far as I'm concerned, meaning I would have to entirely take your word for it, and I'm entirely unconvinced that you are an authority on how the world works.


Of course. You don't change your mind about anything without first questioning it and then exploring it in detail.


I hope so (though I'm not convinced you do). Something as incredibly brainwashing as belief in how the entire world functions often needs something core-shaking to make you even begin to question it.



For me, god's existence is not about me being upset with how he does or doesn't do things. It's simply something that has no evidence for it's existence, and thus has absolutely no relevance to my life. God's existence to me is like Baba Yaga's existence is to you. Just a zero, in a life full of numbers.

I will wish very hard that you can some day overcome your religious delusion, stop wasting so much time and energy on this ultimately pointless belief, apply all that time and energy to something much more productive and beneficial, and become a better, happier, more independent and complete person as a result.
Though I suspect my wish will be exactly as productive as your prayers for me.