God is perfect

[Egor]

I think this is a part of why debates with christians can be so frustrating, because christianity is a moving target.

That's a good point.

Far better, perhaps, to admit that all of us are walking our own paths. Some paths are closer to others, but a church that claims all its people are on the same exact path is probably deceiving themselves.

Yes. Or the congregation is spiritually dead. It seems to me everyone has to walk their own path.

It's like accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, what does that mean? Does that mean to accept the historical figure, or the idea of Christ. For instance, let's say I'm a theist and deny the real existence of Jesus Christ, but I believe in the symbol of Jesus Christ and follow the teachings laid out in the Gospels, have I accepted Jesus Christ or not?

Oh BS, it's all you ever talk about. This whole forum is dedicated to it. If you didn't care, if you were a true atheist, you'd just walk away and go live out your life.

You're not an atheist. You're just looking for someone to prove God to you.

I don't understand why, Egor, you seem to think anyone who discusses religion can't be an atheist. I discuss skydiving and I have no wish to throw myself out of a perfectly good airplane. I discuss a variety of political systems, but find most of them completely ass-backwards. I live in a country that's being taken over by fundamentalist bible-literalists. It's truly frightening. I want to understand what I'm up against. Not to mention there are lots of wonderful people here and a good philosophical discussion gets the blood flowing pumping.  

Fair enough.

[Egor]

I see your point. But it's wrong.

I care about the effects mythical superstitious fantasies have on people and how they influence their behavior. Because their behaviour impacts on my life, e.g. Islamist terrorists activity has curtailed my freedom to wander around and take photos in towns without being stopped and being accused of being a terrorist spy (I kid you not). If theists didn't try to get their own way all the time I wouldn't give a shit what they believed. But they don't do they? Your behaviour is the quintessential example of theistic intolerance and bad manners. Some of the comments on your blog are nothing short of hate speech. You came here to preach, nobody invited you. You spew your hatred all over the internet. You are the sort of person that causes atheists to become active in their criticism of theism. You're not the solution, you're the problem.

Do you see people criticising Buddhism here? No. Mainly because Buddhists keep themselves to themselves and their teachings are mostly harmless. Evangelical Christians and Muslims are really just a complete fucking pain in the arse, for everybody!

I am an atheist, whether you like it or not. But I'm a 6 on the Dawkins scale and I would love somebody to show definitive evidence of the supernatural. It would be the ultimate Nobel prize. So lay out your God hypothesis and then do the research, publish the papers, then get them peer-reviewed and then convince all the other theists (Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists etc) you are right and then, and only then, I'll start paying attention to what you have to say. Until then all I see is personal egotism driving wishful thinking. Sorry.

For decades I didn't involve myself with religion or a-religion. Then I read The God Delusion and joined RDF simply to meet theists and discuss their beliefs. What I found utterly disgusted me. In particular that people who hold world views like you and behave like you actually existed! I could not believe how bad mannered, rude, disingenuous, nasty, mean-spirited and down right bad SOME theists are. It was a revelation to me. In my naivety I though all Christians were basically good people with an odd view of reality. Boy was I wrong!

So now I stand up to people like you who are full of hate and would supress free speach and freedom of expression.

There's no hate speech on my blog. You seem to think any dissenting view directed at atheism is an insult and hate speech, but you're the only one using foul language and hurling personal insults. I don't do that.

[Egor]

This is so true.  I have found this time and again when I am trying to debate AnimatedDirt about Christianity (sorry AD, not to call you out or anything.  Smooches)  I'll say something along the lines of "Well, if Christians believe X then how can they believe Y?" And he'll say "Christians don't all believe that.  I don't."  I'm trying to debate from the version of Christianity that I was brought up in, but unless he is extremely specific about what he believes on any given subject, I'm always getting a swing and a miss because apparently we come from very different traditions of Christianity.  We seem to not have a common reference point to debate from.

Honestly, you make a good point. I don't think Christians as a group even agree on a definition of what God is. Some really do think He is like a very large man on a throne in a distant place called heaven. But I don't think that. I think God is a spirit and the only body he has is the entirety of the physical universe. Which means, quite literally, I have a different God than some other Christians do, and I firmly believe their God does not exist, and I am certain mine does.

Some people believe Jesus will return in the clouds and recapture Christians in a rapture. I don't. I think the "second coming" of Christ occurs when a human being is transformed into the person of Christ. Most Christians believe Matthew 24 is talking about Christ's second coming, but I think it's talking about the literal end of the universe, and that could be a long way off.

If you were to compare my definition of God to, say, Fred Phelps's definition of God—we wouldn't be the same religion, and yet we both call ourselves Christians. In fact, my definition of God (The monistic entity of fundamental consciousness) leads one far away from traditional evangelical Christianity.

But I am a Christian. I am because I do my best to understand and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ as outlined in the four Gospels of the New Testament, but those are about the only books of the Bible I read, and yet I know them almost by heart. So, what else am I going to call myself? I am a follower of Christ and hope one day to be transformed into the person of Christ.

I apologize for writing so much on this, but this is kind of a new revelation for me.  Perhaps there never was supposed to be a Christian religion. Perhaps we were all supposed to look at the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and make up our own religion.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Interesting take on it.  On one occasion in the NT, Jesus even referred to Peter, his main disciple, as "satan."  Peter was his adversary on that occasion.  So rather than Satan being a demon with a pitchfork, he can be seen as whatever adversarial forces oppose the will of God.  However, since all such forces ultimately owe their existence to God, they were part of his "good" universe, and are intended to work in such a way so that the end-result desired by God will be accomplished.  "Satan" is part of that ultimate plan. 

Does Satan have to mean adversary of god or could it simply mean adversary (of anyone)?

I think the word applies to any adversary.  It developed into a formal noun or name later, but the word itself still can be used to denote a general adversary.  We all have our "satans" in one form or another.

[superfes]

I think this is a part of why debates with christians can be so frustrating, because christianity is a moving target.

That's a good point.

Far better, perhaps, to admit that all of us are walking our own paths. Some paths are closer to others, but a church that claims all its people are on the same exact path is probably deceiving themselves.

Yes. Or the congregation is spiritually dead. It seems to me everyone has to walk their own path.

It's like accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, what does that mean? Does that mean to accept the historical figure, or the idea of Christ. For instance, let's say I'm a theist and deny the real existence of Jesus Christ, but I believe in the symbol of Jesus Christ and follow the teachings laid out in the Gospels, have I accepted Jesus Christ or not?

Proving even further the perfection of your God and her plan?

I find it difficult to believe that Christians that haven't even read their own holy book profess undying belief in something so obviously flawed.

I am completely aware of people ignoring the things they don't like in lieu of the things they do... but doesn't that count as part of the whole point?

I.E. Perfection o_O

[Ali]

It's like accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, what does that mean? Does that mean to accept the historical figure, or the idea of Christ. For instance, let's say I'm a theist and deny the real existence of Jesus Christ, but I believe in the symbol of Jesus Christ and follow the teachings laid out in the Gospels, have I accepted Jesus Christ or not?

I'll do you one better, I don't even know what it means to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" in any meaningful practical way.  Part of it is because I don't understand the logic behind it.  Here's my problem:

Assuming the religion I was brought up in (Christianity) is true, then the following statements are presumably true, but make zero sense to me.

God created the Universe, and he is all knowing, and all powerful.  Presumably, he also created the Rules, or at least knew about the Rules before he created the universe.  The Rule we're interested in here is "No sinners can go to heaven."  Most likely, this is god's rule since he makes the Rules.

Next, knowing that "No sinners can go to Heaven", god creates humans, and he creates them to not only be capable of sin, but he determines what is a sin, and he makes some of them (like drinking and having premarital sex) lots of fun.  At this point, as I see it, the all knowing all powerful god has a couple of options.  
1)  He can allow sinners to go to heaven.
2)  He can make people incapable of sin.
3)  At the very least, he can make all sins unpleasant.  Now, to me, most of the things I would call a sin like lying, stealing, et cetera) actually ARE unpleasant, but there are still all the ones about sex and keeping your body a temple and all of that.
He doesn't do any of that.  He knows that all humans will be sinners, and he knows that no sinners go to heaven, so he has to allow some sort of a loophole.  He decideds that people can sacrifice goats and lambs and stuff to pay for their sins.  This is where the logic starts to get really shaky for me.  How does killing a goat "pay for" your sins.  Why would anything other than me have to (or be able to) pay for my sins?  And what use does God have of dead goats?  He's an incorporeal being - what is the body of a goat going to do for him?

Next, he decides that he's done with all of the dead goats, and the solution he comes up with is that he is going to send himself to earth to be sacrifiecd as the ultimate lamb to appease himself.  What?  Why did he create this ridiculous scenario in which he has to die to appease himself for our sins?  Couldn't he just call himself appeased and call it a day?

And in the final twist in these prolonged and bizarre machinations, he decrees that you have to "accept Jesus as your Savior" in order for the whole twisted scenario to come full fruition, even knowing that vast numbers of people will never do so, and what does that even mean anyway?  You just have to say "I accept Jesus as my Savior?'  That's like saying there is a kind of "secret password" to get into Heaven.

I'm just saying, I'm neither all-powerful or all-knowing, (I would rank myself somewhere around middling-to-bright), but if you gave me a bottle of wine and a couple of hours to think about it, I could some up with a cleaner plan than that for just about any scenario.

[AnimatedDirt]

I'll do you one better, I don't even know what it means to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" in any meaningful practical way.  Part of it is because I don't understand the logic behind it.  Here's my problem:

Assuming the religion I was brought up in (Christianity) is true, then the following statements are presumably true, but make zero sense to me.

God created the Universe, and he is all knowing, and all powerful.  Presumably, he also created the Rules, or at least knew about the Rules before he created the universe.  The Rule we're interested in here is "No sinners can go to heaven."  Most likely, this is god's rule since he makes the Rules.

Just in this alone there is so much theology.  To even think you were taught this is so sad.  I would venture to say the people/person that taught you "God made the rule that no sinners can go to heaven" is so twisted and lacking in any shape or form of Christianity...to say that, is an understatment.

The best and easiest way to say this is with the Light example someone (I can't remember who) posted.

I form the light and create darkness,
    I bring prosperity and create disaster;
    I, the LORD, do all these things.

`Isaiah 45:7

If we equate God to light (which the bible does do), to understand light, one must also, then, understand darkness for without either the other does not exist or is not understood.  In God's presense, there is only light and darkness cannot exist in his presence.  God is Holy and unholiness cannot exist, God is Justice and injustice cannot exist, God is Righteous and unrighteousness cannot exist, God is therefore sinless and sin cannot exist...all these things, by God's nature and not of some random rule, can exist in his presence.

So God didn't arbitrarily say, "Sinners cannot be in heaven." because to be in heaven is to be in God's presence...its rather that it is impossible to posess these attributes in God's presence.

I hope this helps.

[Ali]

I'll do you one better, I don't even know what it means to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" in any meaningful practical way.  Part of it is because I don't understand the logic behind it.  Here's my problem:

Assuming the religion I was brought up in (Christianity) is true, then the following statements are presumably true, but make zero sense to me.

God created the Universe, and he is all knowing, and all powerful.  Presumably, he also created the Rules, or at least knew about the Rules before he created the universe.  The Rule we're interested in here is "No sinners can go to heaven."  Most likely, this is god's rule since he makes the Rules.

Just in this alone there is so much theology.  To even think you were taught this is so sad.  I would venture to say the people/person that taught you "God made the rule that no sinners can go to heaven" is so twisted and lacking in any shape or form of Christianity...to say that, is an understatment.

The best and easiest way to say this is with the Light example someone (I can't remember who) posted.

I form the light and create darkness,
    I bring prosperity and create disaster;
    I, the LORD, do all these things.

`Isaiah 45:7

If we equate God to light (which the bible does do), to understand light, one must also, then, understand darkness for without either the other does not exist or is not understood.  In God's presense, there is only light and darkness cannot exist in his presence.  God is Holy and unholiness cannot exist, God is Justice and injustice cannot exist, God is Righteous and unrighteousness cannot exist, God is therefore sinless and sin cannot exist...all these things, by God's nature and not of some random rule, can exist in his presence.

So God didn't arbitrarily say, "Sinners cannot be in heaven." because to be in heaven is to be in God's presence...its rather that it is impossible to posess these attributes in God's presence.

I hope this helps.

Well, in fairness, I did say that either he made the rule or atleast he knew of the rule.  I actually don't remember whether I was taught that he made the rule specifically, but being all powerful, I wouldn't know who else would be making the rules if not for god.

In other words, to your light example - I don't buy it.  An all powerful god could say "I will allow sin in my presence.  I will accept people as they are."  Or he could say "As people pass into my presence, I will automatically strip them of their sin." (just as Jesus is supposed to do, except without all of the machinations.  See how efficient I am?  I 'm not even drinking wine or really mulling this over.  I'm shooting from the hip here.)

Also, do you see why it's nearly impossible to debate Christianity with you, given the fact that you apparently think that any interpretation of the bible or the nature of god other than yours is incorrect?  You would have to lay out, in specific detail, every single thing that you believe in regards to religion, in order for me to be able to debate it from your specific point of view. 

[AnimatedDirt]

Well, in fairness, I did say that either he made the rule or atleast he knew of the rule.  I actually don't remember whether I was taught that he made the rule specifically, but being all powerful, I wouldn't know who else would be making the rules if not for god.

Precisely my point.  Assuming, with bias from *your (not simply disbelief) abhorrence to the misconception(s).

In other words, to your light example - I don't buy it.  An all powerful god could say "I will allow sin in my presence.  I will accept people as they are."  Or he could say "As people pass into my presence, I will automatically strip them of their sin." (just as Jesus is supposed to do, except without all of the machinations.  See how efficient I am?  I 'm not even drinking wine or really mulling this over.  I'm shooting from the hip here.)

Again a misunderstanding.  I tried with the above "Light" example, but you seem to insist that "all powerful" means an ability to do that which is illogical.  I suppose you may not understand the notion of God's nature.  It's much like it is our nature to take in sustenence for life.  To go against this, humanly, is to die.  Logically one cannot go against this...unless you think anorexia is normal behavior and therefore healthy.  Likewise, God simply IS light.  Put anything next to a lit light bulb and it is lit up/ seen.  God himself cannot escape what he is anymore than you or I can escape our need of sustenence for life.

Also, do you see why it's nearly impossible to debate Christianity with you, given the fact that you apparently think that any interpretation of the bible or the nature of god other than yours is incorrect?  You would have to lay out, in specific detail, every single thing that you believe in regards to religion, in order for me to be able to debate it from your specific point of view.

Nearly impossible?  Would you say it is more...or less...the same impossibility that all this (life, nature, the cosmos) came to be?

Ask and I'll relay my belief to you as best I can.  You've not expressed the desire to discuss EVERYTHING I believe, but we do have specific instances here on this forum that you are able to see my stance.

[Guardian85]

There's no hate speech on my blog. You seem to think any dissenting view directed at atheism is an insult and hate speech, but you're the only one using foul language and hurling personal insults. I don't do that.

I hate atheism. I hate what it has done to our society, and I hate the ignorance it breeds. I want to do whatever I can to help the unfortunate victims of it. I believe the best way to do that is to spread the true Gospel Message of Jesus Christ.

Recognize this paragraph from anywhere?

[Tank]

There's no hate speech on my blog. You seem to think any dissenting view directed at atheism is an insult and hate speech, but you're the only one using foul language and hurling personal insults. I don't do that.

I hate atheism. I hate what it has done to our society, and I hate the ignorance it breeds. I want to do whatever I can to help the unfortunate victims of it. I believe the best way to do that is to spread the true Gospel Message of Jesus Christ.

Recognize this paragraph from anywhere?

Thank you G85.

[Egor]

I'll do you one better, I don't even know what it means to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" in any meaningful practical way.  Part of it is because I don't understand the logic behind it.  Here's my problem:

Assuming the religion I was brought up in (Christianity) is true, then the following statements are presumably true, but make zero sense to me.

God created the Universe, and he is all knowing, and all powerful.  Presumably, he also created the Rules, or at least knew about the Rules before he created the universe.  The Rule we're interested in here is "No sinners can go to heaven."  Most likely, this is god's rule since he makes the Rules.

Next, knowing that "No sinners can go to Heaven", god creates humans, and he creates them to not only be capable of sin, but he determines what is a sin, and he makes some of them (like drinking and having premarital sex) lots of fun.  At this point, as I see it, the all knowing all powerful god has a couple of options.  
1)  He can allow sinners to go to heaven.
2)  He can make people incapable of sin.
3)  At the very least, he can make all sins unpleasant.  Now, to me, most of the things I would call a sin like lying, stealing, et cetera) actually ARE unpleasant, but there are still all the ones about sex and keeping your body a temple and all of that.
He doesn't do any of that.  He knows that all humans will be sinners, and he knows that no sinners go to heaven, so he has to allow some sort of a loophole.  He decideds that people can sacrifice goats and lambs and stuff to pay for their sins.  This is where the logic starts to get really shaky for me.  How does killing a goat "pay for" your sins.  Why would anything other than me have to (or be able to) pay for my sins?  And what use does God have of dead goats?  He's an incorporeal being - what is the body of a goat going to do for him?

Next, he decides that he's done with all of the dead goats, and the solution he comes up with is that he is going to send himself to earth to be sacrifiecd as the ultimate lamb to appease himself.  What?  Why did he create this ridiculous scenario in which he has to die to appease himself for our sins?  Couldn't he just call himself appeased and call it a day?

And in the final twist in these prolonged and bizarre machinations, he decrees that you have to "accept Jesus as your Savior" in order for the whole twisted scenario to come full fruition, even knowing that vast numbers of people will never do so, and what does that even mean anyway?  You just have to say "I accept Jesus as my Savior?'  That's like saying there is a kind of "secret password" to get into Heaven.

I'm just saying, I'm neither all-powerful or all-knowing, (I would rank myself somewhere around middling-to-bright), but if you gave me a bottle of wine and a couple of hours to think about it, I could some up with a cleaner plan than that for just about any scenario.

What can I say? Well put. I am fast coming to the notion that everyone must make their own religion and that God would accept nothing less. My greatest teacher is and will always be Jesus Christ as I find him in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and maybe even Thomas. So, I will always be a "Christian" by definition, but I think from this point forward, most Christians won't see me that way.

But bear in mind, it's one thing to throw out the bathwater; it's another thing to throw out the baby with it. If we abandon our belief in God because institutional religion is false, we may have missed the whole point of life's lesson.

[Ali]

Well, in fairness, I did say that either he made the rule or atleast he knew of the rule.  I actually don't remember whether I was taught that he made the rule specifically, but being all powerful, I wouldn't know who else would be making the rules if not for god.

Precisely my point.  Assuming, with bias from *your (not simply disbelief) abhorrence to the misconception(s).

In other words, to your light example - I don't buy it.  An all powerful god could say "I will allow sin in my presence.  I will accept people as they are."  Or he could say "As people pass into my presence, I will automatically strip them of their sin." (just as Jesus is supposed to do, except without all of the machinations.  See how efficient I am?  I 'm not even drinking wine or really mulling this over.  I'm shooting from the hip here.)

Again a misunderstanding.  I tried with the above "Light" example, but you seem to insist that "all powerful" means an ability to do that which is illogical.  I suppose you may not understand the notion of God's nature.  It's much like it is our nature to take in sustenence for life.  To go against this, humanly, is to die.  Logically one cannot go against this...unless you think anorexia is normal behavior and therefore healthy.  Likewise, God simply IS light.  Put anything next to a lit light bulb and it is lit up/ seen.  God himself cannot escape what he is anymore than you or I can escape our need of sustenence for life.

Also, do you see why it's nearly impossible to debate Christianity with you, given the fact that you apparently think that any interpretation of the bible or the nature of god other than yours is incorrect?  You would have to lay out, in specific detail, every single thing that you believe in regards to religion, in order for me to be able to debate it from your specific point of view.

Nearly impossible?  Would you say it is more...or less...the same impossibility that all this (life, nature, the cosmos) came to be?

Ask and I'll relay my belief to you as best I can.  You've not expressed the desire to discuss EVERYTHING I believe, but we do have specific instances here on this forum that you are able to see my stance.

My problem with the bolded above is that you seem to want god to follow some sort of logical physical rules (light cannot exist with dark or must exist with dark, or whatever analogy you're using.  Unless you believe that god literally made of light waves, it's just an analogy, and I think you've said both.)  The problem with that, is that's just your interpretation of what god must be like or do, and theists are happy enough to shrug off other physical rules that would constrain god as it suit them.   I *do* think that an all-powerful being would be able to bend all sorts of physical rules.  Could god defy gravity and fly?  Sure, I like to think so.  Could he mess with the 4th dimension and turn back time?  Why not?  Superman did it!  Could god make a rock so large that even he can't pick it up?  Not sure, but it would be certainly entertaining to  watch him try.  And who set up these logical rules if not for god?  The whole light cannot exist for dark just sounds like an excuse to me.  Because surely god actually can do whatever he wants, whether it makes sense to our feeble human minds or not, and whether it follows our weak analogies or not.  And anyway, that still doesn't solve the question of "If god can choose to forgive us of our sins so that we can be in our presence, why doesn't he just go ahread and do it?"  What was the whole Jesus farce about?  People always say that Jesus had to pay the ultimate penalty for our sins, but what they seem to lose track of is that if he was god, he was paying it to himself.  And being all knowing, god must have known that was the way it was going to go down before he even created anything, but that's the best he could come up with?

[Egor]

There's no hate speech on my blog. You seem to think any dissenting view directed at atheism is an insult and hate speech, but you're the only one using foul language and hurling personal insults. I don't do that.

I hate atheism. I hate what it has done to our society, and I hate the ignorance it breeds. I want to do whatever I can to help the unfortunate victims of it. I believe the best way to do that is to spread the true Gospel Message of Jesus Christ.

Recognize this paragraph from anywhere?

Well, yes, I hate atheism, but I don't hate atheists as people. Maybe I should change that on my blog, because though I've said this about 10,000 times in the atheist forums, atheists it seems will see whatever they believe.

[Tank]

There's no hate speech on my blog. You seem to think any dissenting view directed at atheism is an insult and hate speech, but you're the only one using foul language and hurling personal insults. I don't do that.

I hate atheism. I hate what it has done to our society, and I hate the ignorance it breeds. I want to do whatever I can to help the unfortunate victims of it. I believe the best way to do that is to spread the true Gospel Message of Jesus Christ.

Recognize this paragraph from anywhere?

Well, yes, I hate atheism, but I don't hate atheists as people. Maybe I should change that on my blog, because though I've said this about 10,000 times in the atheist forums, atheists it seems will see whatever they believe.

As if you don't?