The Religious Wars of StumbleUpon
July 2, 2007 by Darque
Every so often, an atheist like myself, who enjoys matching wits with creationists and Christians and religious men and women of all types and stripes, gets the chance to meet a truly unique individual. As some of the people here do, I maintain a blog on StumbleUpon (http://darque.stumbleupon.com) and I have ample opportunity to meet folks with many different religious tendencies. Some time ago, I received a challenge from a fellow Stumbler called Farlowd, who took my profile statement (”I am a devout atheist and an opponent to anyone who places faith over reason.”) as an invitation. He asked me to read his blog and tell him whether he should place reason over his own experience. Someone who thought their personal story transcends any possible logic, I thought, deserves a look.
It’s worth starting by reading that blog, in order to understand why I felt perfectly justified in immediately going for the throat. There would be no common ground with this person, no meeting of the minds, as is clear from his website. It is a testament to the power of humans to ignore common sense. Once you’re done reading his “testimonial,” I invite you to read the exchange we’ve had. I share this partly because I believe atheists everywhere have found themselves in similar situations, and might enjoy our running dialog - and partly because I have truly enjoyed the chance to argue with someone who not only claims to have witnessed miracles, but to have actually performed them. (For those of you with shorter attention spans, I warn you - this is not a brief conversation. Better get some popcorn. Also, this was cut-and-pasted, so I assure you that all his typos and grammatical errors should have a [sic] suffix.)
DARQUE:
Hm, okay. So let me get this straight - you got rejected by a girl, decided to commit suicide by swallowing pills, but didn’t know that the body rejects most such attempts. So you crawled outside in the depths of drug-induced hysteria, hallucinated about god, and puked your guts out.
Dude, seriously, that describes most of my college years. That is not the voice of god. Trust me, I’ve hallucinated before, I know what it feels like, and I would’ve sworn on my own mother’s grave that a giant, golden glowing bear jumped out in front of my car one night in 1992. But it was a hallucination, just like the voice you think you heard. Do you really think that you can trust what your brain registers after suffering from suicidal depression and whatever drugs were in your system?
Now, you’re probably lucky to be alive. I’ve also ended up in bushes puking my guts out, too, so I also know first-hand what that feels like. And I know that your “near-death experience” may have turned out to be a lot more “death” than “near-death” if you hadn’t regained a little consciousness. Good on you.
However, you go on to say that you studied and liked biology and science - and yet dismiss evolution because you don’t quite understand the random mutation sequence? I just want to make sure you understand what it is you’ve said: you think that random mutation is silly, and you have so little understanding of evolution that you actually link it to a completely separate field of human study, astrophysics (the Big Bang), that you feel perfectly justified in dismissing the biggest cornerstone in all of the biology that you claim to have studied and liked, all because you think it’s silly? I have accused people of this combination of arrogance and ignorance before, but I’ve never actually seen someone admit it, up front, without any questioning at all. That incredibly uninformed and apocalyptically incoherent statement says one very clear thing about you: you have forsaken all knowledge, all science, all understanding of the natural world, in favor of a hallucination. Congratulations - you are the crazy guy at the airport wearing the “THE END IS NIGH” sign.
No, really. Read on. I actually kept reading your “testimony” long after I had rightly concluded that it was the inane babbling of a man with clear psychological and physiological problems. You owe it to yourself to do the same for what will, with any luck at all, come to you as a shock of cold water poured over a sleepwalker: reason.
Reason: it’s the one true bane of people who believe in some imaginary zombie god who created the entire universe just to house these stupid little monkeys he was planning on raising as pets.
So along those lines, the next time you’re having a conversation with this loud, booming voice coming from within your own skull, why not ask it, “You wanted me to read Job. Why? Was it to find out just how cruel and barbaric you were? To learn how unbearably mean you could be to the people who actually believed in you?” Tell me what he says. Because Job is the perfect example of why - even if your fictional make-believe god exists - I will never kneel before his cruel, evil visage. He is an abuser, a manipulator, the most despotic kind of creator.
Or, alternately, he never existed, and Job was just a parable. Seems to make more sense, and doesn’t require magic of any kind.
Oh, and the fact that your god will not “reveal himself” to anyone who doesn’t already believe? Won’t show himself to anyone who isn’t sincere in their faith? Come on. If your god even bothered to care about his monstrous little creations, those are the last people he’d worry about - they’d already be set for life. If your god had even an ounce of integrity or charity, he’d be proving his existence to the most skeptical, the most callous disbelievers. Showing himself to only people who already believe so fervently, so zealously - well, so much that they’re willing to hallucinate him - is just too easy for a god that claims to be omnipotent.
Oh, and to your griping about people who are “not sincere?” First off, it’s “insincere.” Second, this is exactly the kind of holier-than-thou BS that believers like you have been pulling for centuries, and it’s a perfect example of why we remain skeptical. I don’t “know all about all aspects of life and how the world is here,” and I don’t pretend to. However, I will take explanations one bit at a time, and I will examine evidence one piece at a time, in order to understand - I will not, under any circumstances, take as sacrosanct the words of some crazy drug-addled desert nomad, filtered through at least four languages and twenty centuries, without one giant heaping helping of proof. It’s those kind of ridiculous claims that require proof. I could say that Chuck Norris created the world in a fiery ball of intestinal gas, and it has exactly the same amount of weight as your creation story and your god. (Oh, and by the way, it sounds just as insipid as saying that someone created woman from the rib of a guy - you still want to say that evolution sounds silly?)
And cut it out with the “just as the Bible said.” If I designed my cult, I would sure as hell remind people that anyone who isn’t worthy will harass and intimidate them for believing that I am the creator of all life on earth. I will remind them, through my sacred text, that anyone who doesn’t believe that a guy born in 1976 could have created all life on earth millions of years ago doesn’t deserve to have me appear before them, and therefore will never believe, because they are not “sincere.” I will tell them, via my holy indoctrination pamphlet, that the unworthy masses will not understand, but they are special, so they will understand and be saved. Oh, yeah, and there will be fiery death for anyone who doesn’t believe as revenge, but they’re saved from this incredibly unlikely fate because they believe.
Does it make sense if I say it? No, of course not. Then why the hell would it make sense if you read it, horribly mistranslated, thousands of years after some manipulative cult leader said it?
Look, if you want to have faith in the utterly ridiculous claims of Christianity, go for it. I wouldn’t stop you even if I could. But at least do yourself a favor and realize that you’ve been listening to voices in your head, and you’ve been worshiping the Israeli warrior-god Yahweh, who is the only one remembered from the tribes of Israel because he had his followers kill all the rest, thanks to a holy book that told them to kill everyone who didn’t believe the same way they did, act the same way they did, and talk the same way they did. They were barbarians. And you’ve been worshiping the make-believe deity that they created to scare the bejeezus out of the other tribes of Israel, not because they actually believed in this tripe. And for you to talk down to the “weak false version of Christianity that abounds in our day” is absolutely hilarious, for your complete ignorance of the irony of the statement. You look down on Christians today because they have a “weak false version,” when in fact you have what? The real, strong version, because you hear voices, too?
Do I think you should place reason over experience? No. I think you should seek the reason for your experience. I think you should do a lot less drugs. I think you should seek psychiatric help. I think you need a whole lot less mystical, magical mumbo-jumbo in your life and a whole lot more provable, reliable, verifiable science. This magic screen we’re talking on? It doesn’t work because someone waggled their fingers and uttered a prayer. It works because of a theory - actually, a lot of theories, from electromagnetic theory to theories about light waves to theories about electricity - that actually have less proof than the theory of evolution - which is a very different thing from the Big Bang. I really want you to know this, because if you actually want to put a website out there like this, full of this kind of stuff, you may want to first have at least a beginning, elementary understanding of the scientific principles defined by far greater minds than ours that you’re dismissing because they sound silly…. as opposed, I guess, to basing your life off the voices in your head.
FARLOWD:
Thanks for taking time to write, however your statements about me are filled with judgements and presumptions that are false especially regarding the voice of God which has been abundantly proven to be accurate by real evidence, such as accurately telling future events to two unbeleivers, medically verified healing etc etc.
You have prematurely decided that “I had rightly concluded that it was the inane babbling of a man with clear psychological and physiological problems”, now are you too proud to consider that this could be a wrong conclusion… indeed you have not got a shred of scientific proof other than an incorrect interpretation of my words.
Please consider carefully the following scriptures and seek to fear God for that is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, otherwise I fear for you that you will continue to think that proud men who claim knowledge of evolution etc. are right, but consider that none of them knows what to do or say on their deathbed and they go into eternity unprepared. What will you do in the end. Being confident that God dosen’t exist will not change a thing. “Though the wicked join hand in hand, they will not be unpunished”
There is no greater judgement than to be given over to unbelief, cry out for mercy before you die in your sins and all the internet jokes will look so pathetic as you stand amazed and terrified before the Almighty God.
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Psalm 18:25 With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap
Jude 1:14-16
Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints,
To execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
These are murmurers, complainer, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, holding men in admiration for the sake of advantage.
Deut 7:9-10 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
I used to be a blasphemer and a God mocker that believed Christians were fools, but I found mercy before it was too late.
When you rage or laugh at these truths you are just fulfilling God’s own promise…
Prov 29:9 If a wise man contends with a foolish man, Whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace.
By the way the wisdom spoken of here is not intelligence rather see Matthew 7 24-29 to understand the difference between wisdom and foolishness.
DARQUE:
You’re right, I haven’t a shred of evidence. What you fail to see is that you’re the one that requires evidence, and the anonymous words of some guy on the internet that claims to hear the voice of god and - this is precious, it really is - to be able to perform medical miracles is hardly proof. There is no judgment about your hearing voices, though - you publicly claim, on this very site, to hear disembodied voices. So either you’re hearing voices or you’re lying. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you weren’t lying.
This has nothing at all to do with my pride, but rather to do with the fact that I’m not some superstitious, uneducated hick that will believe any story of the supernatural laid out before me. If you want to convince people like me, you will need extraordinary proof - not words. You would need the same kind of proof as those who claim that they can split the atom: demonstration. Not just once, either, but demonstration that can be reproduced at will, that can be shown not to be experimental error, that can be shown not to have possibly occurred due to any other cause than your claimed supernatural powers. Well, they demonstrated splitting the atom, on a scale that nobody on earth could deny. That was the power of mankind - now what’s the power of your god? That he can only appear to those who already believe?
Speaking of claiming supernatural powers, your alleged miracles have been, conveniently, foretold. Matthew 24:24: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Mark 13:22 agrees: “For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.” But, you know, I love the Old Testament stuff, brutish and primitive as it is, like Deuteronomy 13:5: “And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.”
You might want to be careful to whom you profess to be a miracle worker and a prophet. To me, you’re just some nutter, harmless and quaint. To those sincere believers out there, however, you’re a false prophet. And if any of them are into that old-fashioned godstuff, unlike those false, weak Christians of today, they already know exactly what they’d do with you. So, just for your own safety, I say be careful who you say that to. (Hey, I’ve pretty much already written you off as insane, but that doesn’t mean I wish harm on you.)
Speaking of prophets, they say that we’ll know prophets when their prophecies come true. So let’s take a good look at some of the prophecies of this “Christ” himself. He told his disciples that he would return before they could “go over the cities of Israel.” (Matthew 10:23) In 16:28, he even says that he will return during their lifetimes, that “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” Then he changes his mind (24:12) and says that he’d be back when the gospel is preached throughout the world. Well, his disciples went all over the cities of Israel. The “gospel” has been preached throughout the world for centuries. 2000 years later, still no Jesus, no return, no rapture, no nothing. All just false prophecy - from a false prophet named Jesus. Hey, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the book of Matthew. Don’t even get me started on Mark.
Want a real mindblower? Even your god is a false prophet. In Genesis 2:17, god warns Adam not to eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - yes, wouldn’t want knowledge creeping in anywhere, would we? - by saying, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Well, check that out, Adam didn’t die. Not immediately, not within hours, not that day - but, supposedly, a full 930 years later. Unless you want to try the 2 Peter 3:4 routine and say that “one day with the Lord is as a thousand years,” and just chalk it up to the fact that your god can create the universe but can’t read a bloody clock, then both god and his alleged son Jesus are false prophets of the highest order.
Dude, I know these “scriptures” as well as you do, probably better - because I didn’t just study what some priest handed me, I read it all cover to cover, several times. I didn’t impose my beliefs on it - I refused to bring my own beliefs into it. I can judge the bible based only on its own words - and that’s more than enough to damn it as self-conflicting, self-contradicting, and utterly self-defeating. It is the work of men, not gods - and men that didn’t even get their lies straight. There’s more coherent storylines from John Grisham, for cryin’ out loud.
In fact, just about the only prophecy that has come true from the bible is in Matthew 10:21, “Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.” That’s easy enough to prove: the 2000 years since these words were allegedly spoken have been virtually overflowing with violence, death, and murder based on the wicked lies found within that unholy book. That is the legacy of your god: billions of people dead, while waiting for the triumphant return of a false prophet.
FARLOWD:
Darque, thanks for replying I don’t ususally get a coherent response from those who I rebuke.
It’s interesting to me that you have read the most holy Word of God…
Matt 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Matt 6:23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
I never said I was a miracle worker or a prophet, just an ordinary Christian. Its normal to heal the sick if you walk close to God, and to know certain things that are to come.
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.
Concerning your prophecy analysis, I see you are not terribly scientific about that, but nor should you be, would you dare to try and bring down the reality of the Almighty Posessor of Heaven and earth, your very breath in his omnipotent hand, able to blot you out in an instant yet because of mercy refrains… to mere scientific theory; you exalt science, and the power of men, yet science can only work with that which God has made and the power released in the splitting of atoms God has placed in billions of atoms. Even men of the greatest intellect received that from God. Surely as it is written:
Psalm 62:9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
Unfortunately your attempt to read prophecy is badly flawed but then a blaspheming heart would certainly cause this.
Let me explain simply a major shift that is required in your perception in order to begin to grasp the truth
1 God is All Good and All Powerful
2 All Men other than Christ Jesus are desperately wicked and deceitful and deserve to be destroyed this minute as they have been given the greatest gift (to be created in the image of God, and have defiled and polluted this blessing above measure), so if God was to destroy every soul right now he could easiy do so and yet not be an unrighteous judge.
Recognise this to be true and life will make a lot more sense.
Concerning the prophecies I can easily explain the truth on these, so let me know if you want me to do them all, but I ill open your eyes to one of them because until the Blessed Holy Ghost told me differently, I was confused about the Matthew 24 one.
Matt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
As I was reading this a good while ago I considered whether this could have been fulfilled yet.
But the Lord said to me “this gospel of the kingdom” and He showed me that this has not even been slightly fulfilled yet, because the gospel that some missionaries preach is not “This Gospel of the Kingdom” that Jesus Christ preached. This Gospel of the Kingdom is preached with tremendous authority and power from the Holy Spirit and is accompanied with Signs and Wonders on a biblical scale. This is the time that will be soon seen in the world so that no nation is left with the Excuse that Christ is not mighty to save and strong to deliver. The current season of prophecy that we are in is Matthew 23.
When Christ called me he said to me about Mat 23 that “This is the Church today”.
Interestingly I’m sure you are aware that you are fulfilling prophecy by your attitude as written in.
2Pet 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 2Pet 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they] [were] from the beginning of the creation. 2Pet 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 2Pet 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. 2Pet 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 2Pet 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2Pet 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2Pet 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 2Pet 3:11 [Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved, what manner [of] [persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness, 2Pet 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 2Pet 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 2Pet 3:14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. 2Pet 3:15 And account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 2Pet 3:16 As also in all [his] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they] [do] also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. 2Pet 3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. 2Pet 3:18 But grow in grace, and [in] the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him [be] glory both now and forever. Amen.
Notice it is the error of the wicked not the error of the uneducated or the error of the stupid.
1Tim 4:10 For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.
I will ask you and answer me… Is he not just the Savior of those that beleive?
How can this verse be true?
DARQUE:
Sure, I’ve read the bible nearly as much as anyone, and it’s taught me something: to know my enemy. Now, if you think you’re rebuking me by regurgitating prose that has little or nothing to do with me, I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken.
Now, it falls upon the skeptic to point out how very convenient it is, once again, that your god is too weak to speak to anyone who doesn’t already believe. This is an appeal to the power of belief: if I believe, with all my heart, that blueberries can speak to me, sooner or later I will hear their beckon call. That is why science removes the personal belief of the tester from the experiment: because it is a known fact that it produces bias, and therefore robs the results of any validity. Double-blind studies are crucial because they are the best way of eliminating the possibility that belief will taint the results.
So, in order to convince me, in order to spread your false god, you say that I require a “shift” in my “perception,” and this is where you commit many classic logical blunders: “1 God is All Good and All Powerful/2 All Men other than Christ Jesus are desperately wicked and deceitful and deserve to be destroyed this minute as they have been given the greatest gift (to be created in the image of God, and have defiled and polluted this blessing above measure), so if God was to destroy every soul right now he could easiy do so and yet not be an unrighteous judge.” See, I don’t believe either of those are true. In fact, if anything in your bible is true at all, then god is not good; he is a cruel, manipulative, churlish, whiny, spoiled brat who destroys his toys if he doesn’t get his way. But that’s just if there is such a thing as the Judeo-Christian god Yahweh, a claim for which I have yet to see even a single iota of evidence, in all my years of confronting believers like you. If the first part of the proof of your faith is that I must believe, then your proof fails, because that only happens as a result of a successful proof, not as the very first condition.
Let me give you an example. I am god. I created the world. I created mankind from the leftover pizza I had in my fridge, or whatever other ludicrously unscientific claim you would like to insert here. Now, in order for you to gain the benefits of my wisdom, you have to believe first. You will have to abandon all of the false prophecies, all of the heresy, all of the hype, and all of the blasphemy contained in your old holy book, in order to gain true life everlasting, which only I can provide, by the way. I’m afraid I can’t actually prove that I can give life everlasting - but you’ll know it after you’re dead. As long as you believe. In fact, I can perform miracles. You know, if you believe.
Now, are you really willing to accept that? Are you willing to abandon your false god to worship me, an actual person with an actual voice, with whom you can actually communicate? (But I’m still a god. 100% god, despite being 100% man. You know what, just don’t try to use math around me, because I’m god.) Because that’s exactly what your religion is saying. The first requirement is a lack of scrutiny - because, after all, what is the ultimate bane of ridiculous superstitious mumbo-jumbo but the light of day? And your religion fails that test miserably. Your holy book says that the world was created five to six thousand years ago, and that nothing existed before that one special week during which god got bored and decided to create a universe. Geology, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, chemistry - any one of these can be used to prove your claim false. No suspension of disbelief required - just facts, evidence, proof. Your holy book says that man was created by a god, when biologists know for a fact that we descended from other hominids. Your book says that the entire world was destroyed in a flood approximately 4000-4500 years ago, which we know is patently false. Once again, no belief is required to understand these facts, because they are proven to be true. Science does not want your belief - it wants nothing from you. (Unlike your god, which, for some reason, requires constant donations. Some almighty.)
No, no, no, don’t back off from your claims of prophecy and miracle healing - such blasphemy is too rare, too precious these days to be merely disowned after you’ve said them! You are no ordinary Christian, after all, ordinary Christians are weak and false, remember? You have made prophecies to unbelievers, and you have healed the sick, and “etc etc.” I wonder what other powers of god are hidden under that “etc etc?” No, don’t forsake those claims now, and pretend you didn’t just tell me that you have the messianic powers. For you to backpedal away from those statements now would be too clear a sign of grasping reality. Maintain your prophetic status - it makes my task of debunking your faith so much more fun!
How can 1 Timothy 4:10 be true? Well, here’s an answer: it isn’t. It’s as much of a falsehood as anything else in that unholy book of lies and manipulations. For example, that part about your god being able to snuff out my breath, but he won’t because he’s so merciful? Bull. I’ve done things in my life that would make the most depraved citizens of Sodom blush. And I’ve purposely added sacrilege on top of sin, just to prove the point: I will never be struck down by a nonexistent god. He said he’d be back within the lifetimes of his disciples, and 2000 years later, nothing. If your deity ever manages to try to strike me down, I’ll be thousands of years dead of old age by the time he gets around to smiting me. Some all-powerful god.
Five billion people have lived and died while you Christians await the return of your false idol, and you still don’t get the point: he’s not coming back. He wasn’t a god. He wasn’t even the son of a god. And the god he claimed was his father? Also not a god. If you want to talk about serious shifts in perception, there’s a radical one for you: welcome to reality, where laws of physics rule, and the thousands of years that people just like you have been babbling on and on about how powerful your god is has not produced even a single example of your god doing anything outside the rules of physics.
But I don’t honestly expect you to suddenly realize the irrationality of your beliefs. I wouldn’t even dream of having you suddenly wake up and have the epiphany that you’ve devoted your life to a lie. You’re far too good an example of the dangers of religion as you are: hopelessly devoted to a falsehood, denying the basic facts before you, unable to see reality for what it is, and perfectly willing to lie, lie, and lie again in order to support your ridiculous claims. Now, I know that may seem like a mean, venomous, wicked thing to say, but honestly, I’m laughing right now. Because without people like you, atheists like me wouldn’t have such perfect examples of religious zealotry gone awry, of the arrogance and ignorance required by and bred by those who sustain these ancient myths.
Isis alone sustained you.
This I have seen.
eye-of-horus
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LMAO
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http://www.stumbleupon.com/rules.html
5. No forwarding private messages to 3rd parties without permission
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You’re both wrong.
I’ll see you Thursday.
Love,
God :-)#
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SAVED BY GRACE
About 3 years ago I dropped into a black hole – four months of absolute terror. I wanted to end my life, but somehow [Holy Spirit], I reached out to a friend who took me to hospital. I had three visits [hospital] in four months – I actually thought I was in hell. I imagine I was going through some sort of metamorphosis [mental, physical & spiritual]. I had been seeing a therapist [1994] on a regular basis, up until this point in time. I actually thought I would be locked away – but the hospital staff was very supportive [I had no control over my process]. I was released from hospital 16th September 1994, but my fear, pain & shame had only subsided a little. I remember this particular morning waking up [home] & my process would start up again [fear, pain, & shame]. No one could help me, not even my therapist [I was terrified]. I asked Jesus Christ to have mercy on me & forgive me my sins. Slowly, all my fear has dissipated & I believe Jesus delivered me from my “psychological prison.” I am a practicing Catholic & the Holy Spirit is my friend & strength; every day since then has been a joy & blessing. I deserve to go to hell for the life I have led, but Jesus through His sacrifice on the cross, delivered me from my inequities. John 3: 8, John 15: 26, are verses I can relate to, organically. He’s a real person who is with me all the time. I have so much joy & peace in my life, today, after a childhood spent in orphanages . God LOVES me so much. Fear, pain, & shame, are no longer my constant companions. I just wanted to share my experience with you [Luke 8: 16 – 17].
PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY
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Micky - I’m glad to hear that you pulled through. Really - I’m never delighted by the misery of others. But that’s just because I’m not god. See, that god that you say helped you through the “[f]ear, pain, & shame” is the same god that ruined Job’s life on a whim. It’s the same god who gets a kick out of watching people suffering. Remember Proverbs 20:30? “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” And this sure isn’t a god that likes seeing people healed - he doesn’t want to see sick people at all, ever: Leviticus 21:18: “For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he that hath a flat nose, of anything superfluous.” God doesn’t love you and want to take away your fear - he wants you to be fearful above all else!
If you really must believe that you were saved from your “black hole,” or whatever this medical condition you had, maybe you should take the time to thank the people that actually put you back together, the people who spent four months feeding you and taking care of you. These are real people, who had to make real sacrifices for you - they had to clean up your filth, and you want to go thank some imaginary god for your miraculous recovery? Here’s a tip: your god wouldn’t save anyone from being covered in their own filth. He kinda digs it: Malachi 2:3: “Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces,” and Ezekiel 4:12: ” And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. (13) And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread…”
And finally, you do know that you probably would have been “delivered” from your “psychological prison” no matter who - or what - you prayed to? That’s the power of belief and faith. It has nothing to do with the deity involved, but has everything to do with something you had inside all along, and now you’re willing to give the credit for that to a nonexistent god. Why do you think you never hear atheists complain about “psychological prisons?” Because we carry the keys around with us, and we never have to talk to invisible gods to try to help us out. We are our own spiritual healing.
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Darque, I f*****g love you.
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I think we atheists need a shorter way to debunk this god belief scourge. I grew up christian and I can tell you from personal experience that as entertaining as the dialog above is, it doesn’t move the world forward to the rational, peaceful place our self belief can take us.
My proposal is simply that every atheist gets one question that no theist can rationally claim isn’t true and never get into a long winded argument over it. My chosen one is (and thanks to Richard Dawkins):
If you were born in (insert a country with a strong tradition opposed to the one of the theist in front of you), what religion would you be?
Hard to doubt that if they were born in a different place/time their view of what is ultimately true would be different, therefore truth is not externally derived notion.
Pick your own question, use it often, and spend the extra time it gives you with your kids, recycling your garbage, helping your neighbor with his problems etc. Any of the humanist activities which will bring good to the world.
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I’m not sure, Anthony. My silver-bullet question for Christians is this: “So just what did Lucifer do, step by step, to piss off god so much?” I mean, everything else has a literal version in the bible, you’d think this seminal event in the history of evil would be included, no? Truth is, the only answer I’ve ever gotten to this that I liked was from Satanists, believe it or not. (Long story for another time.)
Anyway, yes, this was a particularly verbose exchange - but that’s just sort of the way I am. I type fast, and I get a lot of practice with putting things like this together on a first-draft basis without much revision, so replies like the ones above were about a half an hour. I won’t go into too many gory details, but let’s just say that my lifestyle permits half-hour chunks of time to devote to this sort of thing. But you’re right, this isn’t for everyone, and even I can’t do it all the time. I’d go nuts.
So what to do?
Well, I’m not sure we have to start off with the idea that we must debunk all faith at once, right off the bat. There’s really nothing wrong with that goal, and I like it, but let’s think baby-steps. Catholicism didn’t take over the world all at once - it took centuries to get to the point that it could be adopted by Constantine as the official religion of the Roman Empire. So it’s going to take a while to dismantle it.
You know, I was going to go into a whole other tangent on what I really think atheists ought to be doing as a whole these days… but that just might be another post. Keep your eyes peeled.
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And thanks, Dave.
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Darque, Old Bean,
I love your reason and logic. Flawless, reasoned and humane. But really, you just cant reason with someone who is so willfully and purposefully stupid, retarded and who has so obviously decided to climb back down the evolutionary ladder. My only hope is that the drugs he ingested have rendered him impotent so that he cannot breed more of the same.
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S-w-eeeeeeee-t.
Gotta love the testimony by Mickey. I f***ing love the bubble people. Catholics, too - idolaters of the first degree - are some of the best. No, wait, Baptists are… ugh, I can’t decide!!
Having been raised in a Baptist household, married in an Episcopal church, did… I mean spent… time in the Lutheran church, and finally ended my penance in a Messianic congregation (Jewish believers, and not Jews-for-Jesus, either), I *really* appreciate the clarity and sanity your blog provides.
I have a hard sciences background. I’m not dumb. But man, is it difficult to get outside the box when you’re born into it, subjected to it your whole life.
I’ve read scripture. All of it. In Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. I’ve even chanted Torah. And I finally got to a level of personal growth and maturity that allowed me to accept and own what I’ve always really had floating in the back of my head - it’s bulls**t, all of it. Man-written, man-inspired, man-contrived.
But the really funny thing is how little the Xtians really know about the religion they purport to be practicing. If only exploration, questioning, *THINKING* was encouraged in congregations. But it’s not - and there’s a reason for that.
Go, Darque, you f**kin’ rock.
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As Kibiyama points out, I am not supposed to be posting these. However, Farlowd has been kind enough to allow me to keep his posts on here, and has even offered to continue this discussion here at TheJesusMyth. This should prove entertaining.
However, he has a request of me and I have a request of you folks, too. He wants the name of the post changed to something a little less heretical and sensational, and out of respect, I have agreed. (Besides, I really wanted to keep this whole thread intact, and it was a stipulation.) Easy enough.
Now, for what I want - if and when he comes by, let’s not just throw names. I know, it’s easy. I know, it feels good. But thanks to folks like Richard Dawkins, atheists are gaining a reputation as intelligent people, debaters of the highest caliber, and not nearly as mean and heartless as we’ve been cast for so long. So let’s live up to the reputation, shall we? What you see in the discussion in the article above is the result of years of my own efforts to elevate my discussions, rather than ruin them. I’m no arbiter, I’m no authoritarian, and I have no punishment to mete out to anyone who chooses to start of every sentence with “ur a idiot.” I just want something more than a flamewar - I want a stoked furnace. It’s just a request, take it or leave it.
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Maybe atheist Eve has the answer for what to do about arguing with the fundies:
http://www.atheist-community.org/atheisteve/index.php?id=32
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Reason, it is the value that I live my life by. It seems so easy, but for some reason it is extremely hard to understand.
Darque, I must say I loved your dialog, it was very entertaining and enlightening.
I liked the part about the psychological prisons and how atheists carry the keys around in their heads, it is an extremely interesting comment.
I was curious if you knew what your blood type was?
I am currently studying microbiology at the Bowling Green State University over in Ohio and am considering doing a research project that tries to link IQ, RH blood factors, and the belief of religion into a semi-correlation.
Anyways, I plan on coming back to read more, you are a breath of fresh air.
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I have no problem at all with religious debate. I think debate is a healthy thing for both sides of an argument; whether to strengthen one’s own views or to recognize the weak points of them.
With that said, I humbly request that you get over yourself. I’m an atheist myself, but I’m not a jerk about it.
Being an atheist is not about claiming all believers (whatever religion they may keep) as “uneducated hicks” and trying to force them over to your way of thinking. You, or me, or anyone else has no right to (attempt to) steal faith from someone who has it.
Religion has never been about who’s right and who’s wrong. The bare, stripped down fact of the matter is that neither side, believer or unbeliever, has any fucking clue. So I would suggest you give it a rest.
I don’t believe in God, but I believe in the fundamental necessity of being good to one another. If we did come upon this Earth by pure cosmic biological chance, then that makes us special. Not special in the eyes of a deity, but special in the eyes of each other.
Religious debate and religious bickering are not one and the same, and I feel this discussion is comprised primarily of the latter.
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Darque. you are a god. Or at least god-like in your reasoning skills. Thanks for sharing this exchange with us, it a great example of how to civilly debate with these types of people.
As for those of us that may prefer to keep these types of debates from taking too much of our time (as Anthony, above, mentioned and I usually agree) I have a quote that very nicely sums up how preposterous the opposing side of this argument is. I should give credit to the quote’s author but I honestly don’t remember where I picked this up, but I know I simply love it. . .
“…the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree…”
How in the wide-world-of-sports can anyone believe in crap that is SO freakin’ ridiculous then turn around and call something like evolution silly? Seriously, that must be the definition of an insane mind.
Anyway, thanks for the entertaining read Darque. You rock.
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Joshua: Thanks. I’m a B-. And yes, that means I’ll pretty much always be negative. (Go ahead, groan. Like a guy can’t make a pun every now and again!)
Outpatient: Thanks. Although I would argue that I’m not the most civil in a debate, depending on how you define civil. I mean, outside of a debate, I’m a pretty laid back kind of guy, and even within a debate, I’m more likely to spend the afternoon sipping lemonade on the porch throughout the debate, rather than spittle flying and fingers pointing in the face. But I can be caustic, sarcastic, and needling when I want to be, which is usually often. Maybe I shouldn’t enjoy this stuff so much… but I do. This means that I smile during my debates, because I’m genuinely having fun, but it also means that I don’t just highlight weaknesses, I underline them, draw red circles with little smiley faces around them, and then put spotlights up so that they can be seen from the next state. To some folks, not exactly civil, I suppose… but then again, I’ve never thrown a punch in a debate, either, and considering that I debate against people who represent a religion that has a long history of torturing people to death for sinning, that’s got to count for something. So I’ll settle for “humane” rather than “civil.”
Benjamin - You “humbly request that [I] get over [myself]. I’m an atheist myself, but I’m not a jerk about it.” Usually I have to go and search out contradictions, but that was easy to do with just one cut & paste. Never mind the fact that I never did, in intent or in fact, call all believers “uneducated hicks.” Never mind the fact that I never stooped to profanity - although you do get extra points for going straight for the F-bomb, so good on you there. No, instead, I want to ask you - if debating with others isn’t meant to convince people, to win people over to my “way of thinking,” then what is the point of it? Just to pass the time, have fun? Because I happen to do those, too. Is simply honing your arguing skills really the point? While practicing may be entertaining, just what do you plan to do with skills once they are honed? A dull blade is to be sharpened, but a sharpened blade is to be wielded. I posit that debate is exactly what you make of it, no more, no less. If that doesn’t convince you, great. If the way I debate simply grates on your nerves, well, that’s great, too. But me, I debate for three reasons: for fun, for practice, and to convert - in that order.
And yes, I do actively seek to convert people to my way of thinking - call me an “anti-vangelist.” Not only do I consider it my right to “steal faith from someone who has it,” I consider it my calling, and my duty. I seek to end the wicked grip of religion on the minds of my fellow humans and the stains of faith on the nations of the world, and no less. (Yes, I think big.) But since I also happen to be into rights and liberties, I can’t just outlaw opposing viewpoints - as religions have done. And I’m humane, which means I can’t just torture people to force them to my side - as religions have done. And I’m ultimately a pacifist, which means I won’t kill people who cannot be converted - as religions have done. No, the only tool I have at my disposal is to convince people, which is no small task.
I think that the only way to combat the foul stench of religious indoctrination and brainwashing, in a one-to-one setting, is to first point out the silly flaws, the insipid reasoning, and the self-righteous hypocrisy that permanently accompany faith in the supernatural and the organization of said faith into religions; and then to highlight and build up the strength of the self; and then to welcome a new freethinker into the world, and ask - not demand - that they join me. I don’t want to put any thoughts in someone’s head; quite the opposite, I want them to stop seeking answers from ancient books, from priests, from make-believe external forces, and even from me. I want them to stop seeking without and start seeking within. And I believe that when one finds that strength of self, which might be hinted at through belief in an external deity but can only truly come from within, then the only real answer will be clear: that we are our own gods, and that we should never kneel before any other idol. It is self-empowerment, it is soul-searching, and it ultimately brings more confidence and willpower than beseeching any god. Only a world free of the crutches and blinders and guilt bred by religion can ever hope to do any more than repeat the foolish mistakes of the Crusades and the Inquisition over and over again. They weren’t the first, and they weren’t the last, but if I get my way, there will never be any more holy wars.
That’s why I say that there is a very crucial difference between you and me as atheists, Benjamin: you say you don’t believe in god. I believe there is no god; at least not any outside our own minds, and more importantly, I see that belief in god is, both personally and institutionally, toxic to the well-being of all mankind. You can say you don’t know. Me, I know that if there ever was a god, it has either left this earth or has never actually been here in the first place, but more importantly, I believe that there is no god, and there never was one. I know that a power so great as to be called godlike could not remain hidden for all of human history - and if it has, then that god is either a coward or a sadist, and not worth worshiping. I believe in the mundane answers, in straightforward proofs, in explanations that don’t rely on magic and pixie dust and wishes.
Religion, as you point out, has never been about who is right and who is wrong. But debates are. And if your faith is too weak to engage in debate, too selfish to accept the possibility of being wrong - and this goes for atheists, too - then stay out of the debate arena. When debating religion, there is an ante, just like poker - and that ante is nothing less than your faith. Me, I actively seek people who might prove me wrong. I dare people to do so, because I really want to be proven wrong - not just told I’m wrong, not just asked if I’m really right, but truly proven wrong. To do that, though, you’ll need extraordinary proof for an extraordinary claim, however, and not one person I’ve ever met, not one artifact I’ve ever seen, not one act I’ve ever witnessed could convince me.
That’s why I debate, and that’s why I debate the way I do. Sure, there are flourishes here and there, because I prefer eloquence and clever turns of phrase over the boring, staid blocks of concrete that usually make up the landscape of religious debate. And I occasionally turn to sarcasm because I’m a mischievous sort, and I don’t take anything too seriously for long. But the bulk of it is that I debate for the very belief of my opponent, nothing less. So you can go ahead and suggest that I “get over [myself]” and that I “give it a rest.” And I will reply that your suggestions are patently absurd - as absurd as saying that debate isn’t about right and wrong, and then in the next sentence, universally declaring everyone wrong.
Oh, and have a wonderful Fourth of July - mine got rained out.
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There is still time Darque. You can still be saved…
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Darque… Jesus Christ calm the hell down.
get off your high horse, you’re an idiot. listen to yourself. you’re a freak atheist fanatic. you get your kicks from bashing people because you feel you have a superior doctrine. maybe you do, im an atheist too, but that’s no reason to just go around putting people down.
someone’s traumatized, and decides leans on religion which provides a secure psychological cushion, you start bashing his religion. religion for some people serves a psychological need, that’s no reason to put them down, and so bluntly too. maybe some people don’t find the same pleasure in reasoning as you do? maybe some people prefer to let their worries be projected else where. you say you don’t find pleasure in other people’s pain, you do, you love it. re-read some of these people’s testimonies, then read your response in light of what i have just said.
you’re not superior to these people. what gives you the right to kick their crutch.
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Wow, churlish today, aren’t we? I wonder what happens when atheists are denied the vote, denied the right to participate in government, and widely considered social lepers without morals. Would you still spend your time attacking another atheist, Mak?
Well, sure you would, because all of that has happened, and here you are. And, for the record, kicking the crutch out from under someone who can walk on two legs just fine - nope, I have no problem with that. And if they need to “let their worries be projected else where,” then let him pick a church that doesn’t actively seek to rule the planet with an iron fist - if there is such a thing. I have not, I do not, and I will never sit by and say nothing as people flock to Christianity for moral support, only to turn into theocratic zombies. The only thing that religion offered Micky was someone willing to help, and they got a lifelong believer in return. Gee, I wonder why he never turned to an atheist, like yourself? Maybe because you’d sit there and deride him for needing a crutch.
As for calming down, I can debate against Christians all day long without gaining a single heartbeat a minute over baseline. It’s pure fun for me. But when atheists turn on me for it? That pisses me off, absolutely. The one point that I hate for Christians to know, the one fact that they can use against any atheist to full effect, is that we, as a community, are ultimately self-defeating. We are our own worst enemies. For every one of us who wants to help each one another, who wants to support one another, there’s five of you, Mak, waiting to knock down any other atheist for daring to speak up. And that’s the one thing that stops us, as a whole, from being able to stand up to, and defend our existence from, the theocrats that seek nothing less than our complete extinction for being morally inferior and an abomination in the sight of their god.
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Darque: I enjoyed reading this exchange. I don’t have much faith, but I do think that there is so much order in the universe that there must be something that set it all in motion. On the other other hand, religion is a man-made manipulation to keep the masses dumb, deaf and blind. Seems to have worked in the case of your counter-loquator (if you will).
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Wow. It was so nice to read that. Really. It was so… refreshing… to know there are others out there with similar frustrations who are also having similar dialogues.
What I’ve learned through all my debate, however, is that faith-based belief is a core element to the identity construction of theists. If it’s threatened (no matter how mildly delivered, it never fails that a critique of religion sounds like an attack), then it will be defended. If the inherent value someone finds in his/her life is “attacked,” there better be some alternative. The problem is, the “alternative,” to “believers,” is perceived to be saturated with existential anxiety. “We’re not important?” “We’re not children of God?” “I have to do ______ myself?!” They’d rather spend their whole lives running from fear than accepting their ignorance and moving on. The only problem is that they’re calling their ignorance “God.”
Nice blog. I stumbled here. Carry on, good sir.
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Oh… Do you think a response from this guy is forthcoming?
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I think so, Kelly. There were some unrelated real-life things we both had to take care of, and as far as I know, we’re still planning on continuing.
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Conversion
I have always thought that it would be funny to write a “conversion testimony” for becoming an Atheist. The second part of the story is about my younger brother, a devout Christian.
People like Darque and Dawkins and other outspoken Atheists are partially responsible for my conversion to Atheism. I really wish there was another word for Atheism that meant, I believe that the chances that God exists are the same as a teapot on the dark side of the moon. I am not technically an Atheist. In my life I have shifted from Theist to Deist to Pantheist to Atheist.
Before reading “The God Delusion”, I had been on a really long slide away from my fundamentalist roots. I was forced to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday until I was 18. Growing up in church, I did my best to make myself believe in Jesus but could never really swallow it. While sitting in church, I would listen to the sermons and think, “Wow that makes no sense, maybe I just don’t understand”. Years and years passed and it made less and less sense. 6 months ago I came across Richard Dawkins book, “The God Delusion”, He made all of the same arguments that I had discovered during my years of captivity but in a well spoken, concise manner. At that moment I completely converted to Atheism and will never look back.
Evangelism
Debating with true Christians is a waste of time, unless you are doing it just for fun. My brother is a Devout Christian. He is not stupid, not generally irrational, not an evil Christian and realizes the social injustices that Christianity causes. He grew up in the same insanely Christian house but decided to go to bible school instead of becoming an Atheist. He and I have debated religion and theism for years. Last week we decided that we had gotten bored with the conversation and would not debate it further.
He conceded that the only (sort of logical) reason to have faith in Jesus is personal experience and that personal experience is a terrible proof in an argument with other people.
I had concluded that although I run my life by the best rational observations I can make, I cannot disprove the irrational. Just because almost everything I have observed in my life probably has a rational explanation, doesn’t mean that some thing in the universe may have an irrational explanation. One day, we might discover all matter is created by tiny turtles.
Since faith is the opposite of logic (belief without proof), there was no reason for either of us to waste our breath with a logical arguments. He has faith in spite of evidence to the contrary and I choose to make my decisions based on the best evidence. My brother has made a conscious choice to be irrational. How can you evangelize to that. You wrote earlier about the poker ante. I as an atheist will put up the ante, but a true Christian will not.
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Darque, God loves you. He sent Jesus into the world to be a substitutionary sacrifice for your sins. Jesus took all of the your sin and suffered the wrath of God on the cross so that you would not have to suffer and go to hell. All you have to do is receive the free gift of salvation that He provided for you. The Bible says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the the truth is not in us. This is what happened to Adam in the garden. He lived to be about 930 but he died the day he sinned just like God said he would. God told him that the day he ate of the fruit of that tree he would die. What you are missing as you try to understand this with your carnal mind is that Adam died SPIRITUALLY! Jesus said that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. He is talking about a spiritual rebirth or regeneration. Since the fall of Adam , mankind is born spiritually dead. You can forget about looking for proof about God in the material realm. You are out of your realm. You’ll never find it. Jesus said God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Also, the words in the bible are spiritual and they must be spiritually discerned. Before I got saved the Bible could have been written in Chinese as far as I was concerned for all the sense it made to me. Once I received Jesus as my Lord and savior I came alive in my spirit man by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. All of a sudden I could fellowship with God on a personal level because my sin no longer separated me from him. The blood of Jesus tore the veil between us. Now he speaks to me in my heart. It doesn’t make any sense to the natural carnal mind. It’s supernatural. God says in his word that he will frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent. And that he chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He says to lean not on your own understanding, but to acknowledge Him in all of your ways and he will direct your path. Also, he says my ways are not your ways, my ways are higher than your ways. The foolishness of God is wiser than mans intelligence and the message of the cross is foolishness to those ho are perishing. The only proof you’ll get is if you seek the Lord with all your heart. Search with your heart. He loves you and he has a plan and a purpose for your life.
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Misty, I really wish there was some emoticon, some quick picture I could grab, that would give you an idea of what expression I have on my face right now. Somewhere between shock and incredulity, like I’m looking at a person with three heads.
I’ll just say this then: if your god has a purpose for me, I hope for his sake that it’s to denigrate him at every opportunity, to show how silly and childish the belief in him is, and to continue exposing the dangers of the deadly fanaticism that he inspires. Because that’s about all he’s ever going to get until he shows his cowardly face around me.
If I have to search with my heart, then it’s worth knowing that my heart has nothing but contempt for him, his egotism, his pettiness, his infanticide, his wholesale murder, his meddling, and his unending frailty. A god that must be felt and not known? That’s not a god worth worshiping, not even a god worth knowing. If he moved into the apartment next door and asked for a cup of sugar one day, I’d slam the door in his face, just as he deserves.
It’s a good thing I have a brain to go along with my heart, then, to remind me that the only plausible explanation that an all-powerful god who cares about the souls of humans - but just not enough to actually show himself - is that he doesn’t exist at all.
Look, it’s real nice of you to stop by and try. Hell, most people wouldn’t even care enough to stick their necks this far into the lion’s den for the sake of someone who so vehemently denies their god. So I applaud your conviction and your courage.
But then I start laughing again, I just can’t help it: you want me to bow to some ancient desert-cult deity who only exists to those who already believe in it? Well, I can’t bow, because if your god actually created me, the jerk went and made me with a bad back and bad knees, already arthritic by the time I was out of high school. Thanks for the life of pain, god, here’s a kick in the nuts for being an unintelligent designer. We’re even. Seriously, what are we supposed to be, the beta version? He didn’t even bother to come back and fix the bugs - shows you how much he cares. He can flood the world, he can raise the dead, he can create life from clay, but he can’t figure out how to build a spinal column that is designed for bipedalism - when, according to your little book there, the whole point of creation was just to create us. Look, if your god exists - and this is a real stretch - he might be all-powerful, but he’s a far cry from all-knowing. In fact, I think he rode the short bus to god school. You know, I bet that’s why he told Adam not to go near the Tree of Knowledge - he didn’t want Adam figuring out that his creator is a pinhead. No, thanks, I’ll wait until a god comes around that isn’t an insult to intelligence.
So if your god loves me, then it’s only in that creepy ex-girlfriend stalker kind of way. It sure as hell isn’t mutual - in fact, kind of like my creepy ex-girlfriend stalker, if he comes anywhere near my house, he’s going to find out that even though he can’t make a bipedal primate body worth a damn, we sure can make a decent gun around here. (It’s no fun living twenty minutes away from the old Colt factories unless you’ve got plenty of ammo.) How’s that for intelligent design?
No, all sarcasm and needling aside, there’s just no way that I can see a god existing in all this nonsense. If there actually was a creator, there isn’t a single reason to believe that it stuck around after it created bacteria. We’re on our own out here, and any touchy-feely godstuff about how much this nonexistent deity “loves” me is nothing but intellectual dishonesty and wish fulfillment, a misguided attempt to cling to a disproven, discredited, and dishonest desert cult that should have died off millennia ago.
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Dargue, God was able to keep Daniel from being devoured when he was put into the lion’s den and he will do the same for me because he does not show favoritism. I have a right now word for you. It is from 1 Corinthians 13: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child , I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And know these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
God bless you.
The Woman With the 3 Heads
P.S. Fear is the reciprocal of faith and perfect love casts out fear.
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As a contrast to darque’s comments:
In understanding the nature of life, it is amazing to see the accumulated best results of random chance.
To a theist, Darque’s comments might appear to be more of the “God hurt me, so this is how I get back at him”
That’s not how it looks to me, from the other side of the table. From this perspective, all the apparent faults, the “mistakes” have no designer to blame, no malevolent force to hold responsible.
They just are, and bitching about things that “Just Are” is pointless.
If there were a God, we could justify getting pissed off about it, living our lives in anger.
With no god, we can just get on with our lives, find the beauty where we can find it, and work around our inadequacies.
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Rivalarrival: True, most believers will look at me and think that I’m just blaming god for something vile that happened to me. Well, yeah, plenty of bad things happened to me, but not that much worse than to anyone else, and far less so than to some. I can’t point at any one event as my reason for my contempt of a hypothetical god: it’s the accumulation of a great many facts, very few of which personally relate to me. I didn’t lose my mother to cancer, I didn’t lose a leg in a bike accident, I didn’t watch my sister die in a horrible fire, or anything of the sort. But if - and I’m going into a hypothetical area again, I must stress - the god described in the bible is real, he has a lot of explaining to do, not just to me, but to our entire species. If at all existent, he deserves not subservience, but reckoning.
However, that’s all a what-if. I’m much more inclined to take the more obvious answers given by science and common sense: natural disasters are meteorological and seismic phenomena, not miracles; bad things happen to good people because we live in a world that statistically doesn’t favor good people over bad; people survive near-death experiences because of the effectiveness of modern medicine, not because of any god’s interference. I’m very willing to accept our world as only an atheist can: as a bundle of contradictions, joys, and pains. I’m willing to accept our species as only an atheist can: complete with every last triumph and failing.
The only reason I use the hypothetical argument is to show that a believer who wishes to convert me has not one obstacle, but two: not only must the believer prove that god exists, but he or she must also prove that god is worthy of being worshiped, and not a monster worthy of being destroyed. Also, it points out the inherent weakness of the argument that so many theists make, which is that god is so good that he is worthy of worship, when they draw on the bible as proof while ignoring the proof within the bible that god is, with little doubt, the most persistent and malevolent villain throughout the work of fiction. I’m not really railing against some god that I only halfway believe in, with which I had some petty falling-out and now resent - I’m quite certain that there’s no god to hear it.
So while I may be fervent in my rhetorical ranting against god, rest assured that it’s still just rhetoric.
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The reason why God is so good and is worthy of worship is because He loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I think that’s worthy of worship. He gave all he had so that he could reconcile the world to himself. God is holy and cannot look on sin. Sin creates a barrier between man and God. When we accept Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sins we can have access to God the Father. If God did not even spare his own son what will happen to us if we ignore so great a salvation? For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness (as your name suggests)because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world and that he has blinded the minds of the disobedient. In one of the gospels Jesus made one of the most shocking statements! He said that he had come into the world so that the blind could see and so that those who see could become blind. It says that because they choose to believe the lie God will send them strong delusion. That’s the thing about deception, you don’t know that you’re being deceived. Therefore, I choose to walk in the light. King David said that God’s word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. God has redeemed me, restored me, healed me, made me whole, restored my sanity, forgiven me, given me abundant life, gave me the ability to obtain wealth, filled me with peace that surpasses understanding, given me complete joy, empowered me to be able to forgive others, set me free from everything that held me in bondage, broke every addiction off of my life, cleansed me of all of my sin, gave me a clear conscience, created in me a clean new heart, took away my sin nature, gave me new desires, empowered me to be able to walk in unconditional love, continues to teach me how to be a woman of honesty and integrity,. has blessed in my coming in and blessed me in my going out. Whom the son sets free is free indeed and that’s why he deserves to be worshiped. It is not my responsibility to try to convert you and I don’t need to prove the existence of God to you. I am only sharing my joy with you. The joy of the Lord is my strength.
Do you know what that last chapter of Revelation says? It says: Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy. Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
I, Jesus Have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.
Step out of darkness, Darque, and step into his marvelous light! If I’m wrong, I have absolutely nothing to loose and I’ve gained all of the blessings I mentioned plus so much more that I didn’t even have time to mention, including eternal life. If you’re wrong, you loose your very soul and will receive eternal torment in hell. Not to mention living out the rest of your physical existence in hatred, bitterness, strife and powerlessness. My odds are better than yours.
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One last thing before I leave for good. I just want to tell you that many, many years ago I tried to kill myself because I believed I was unloved, among other things. It left scars on my physical body. For years I was ashamed of those scars and often felt like crying when I looked at them because it left me marked, so to speak. But when God’s divinity connected to my humanity in the spiritual realm, I was healed in my soul. Now I may have outward scars, but inwardly I am healed and made whole again. He removed the scars on the inside of me when I touched the hem of Jesus’ garment in the spirit. He may or may not heal your physical body of crippling arthritis, but he can and will heal you emotionally. He wants to set you free from a limited existence. He loves you. God is light, in him there is no darkness. I’ll pray for you.
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Misty, that’s tragic. It really is. I wish someone could have been there to tell you that everything you’ll ever really need emotionally you can find right here on earth. I wish someone had been there to say that they love you, instead of having you go off to some imaginary god so that you can convince yourself that you found what you needed. Because, for people who need to have that deep bond with another person, there’s only one solution: find the right person. And, all poetic imagery of Jesus aside, he’ll never fulfill you the way that a real person could, because he’s not a real, live person.
The part that’s most tragic is the memory dredged up by this. There was one little girl in my elementary-school classes. She was even nerdier than me - bad hair, thick glasses, zero social skills. Even though I was pretty low on the social scale of third grade, this poor creature was even lower. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t want to associate myself with her, not because I didn’t like her or anything, but because I was afraid that I would never live it down with the rest of my classmates. Well, she had a rather sad mechanism for dealing with her loneliness: she had an imaginary friend. Now, plenty of kids do, but this imaginary friend stayed with her for at least all the years that I lived in that town, and for all I know, she’s still talking to that imaginary friend all day at work twenty years later. It was a little creepy at the time, and looking back, I think it was really sad.
I think differently these days - I think that those people who are that far outside the social scale are worth meeting, worth befriending. Not only because these are the people that most need a little encouragement and camaraderie, but also because they’re usually far more interesting people. But back then, I didn’t do a damn thing for that poor girl - in fact, much to my shame, I even tried to join in the more popular kids making fun of her, in order to try to increase my own social standing. And it didn’t even work, because I only managed to make myself look like even more of a dork.
That’s kind of the same story you’re telling here, Misty, which is why I feel it’s so sad: someone should have been there to hold your hand, someone should have been there to tell you that they loved you, someone should have been there to let you know that they’ll always be there for you. And that someone should’ve been a human, a flesh-and-blood person, not some fictional dead god, not some imaginary friend, but someone who could actually return the feeling of love.
Now, me, Misty, I don’t require a whole hell of a lot of emotional healing. I’ve learned to put myself together after all the freaks-and-geeks childhood I had, and I’ve learned to deal with people, and I’ve learned how to deal with my own emotions. I get happy, angry, sad, ashamed, proud, and anxious just like anyone else, and I try to have the tools within me to deal with each of those. I have a wife and child now, who complete me and depend on me, and who give me the kind of love that only real people can give. As far as my back and my knees, I don’t really blame your god, because your god didn’t create me. I’m the product of genetic history, so I get arthritis the same way my grandmother did, and her sisters, and my uncles. There’s no blame to be had.
So if you really have to believe that your imaginary friend is all the love in the world you need, Misty, that only makes this story that much more tragic. Maybe it’ll hold you over until you find someone real, but I can’t help but feel you’re kind of like Wile E. Coyote after he runs off the cliff, but before he realizes that he’s just floating in midair. When you look down and start to fall, Misty, I hope someone’s there to catch you.
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Misty:
“Emotional” scars can be healed by any sort of hope. A new relationship. A commitment to change. Therapy.
This is basic psychology. For you, belief in god is sufficient, for me, rationality, reason, logic, knowledge, and understanding fill the same hole.
The most liberating moment in my life was in realizing that despite the possession of all knowledge available on a subject, including the logical proof that there was one and only one answer to the question, that answer could not be determined with the information available today - but who knows what breakthrough we will have tomorrow, or even tonight?
Science, logic, knowledge, and reasoning are exciting like that. Without god, we are an active part in the plan. We are the architects, the engineers, the designers. We have the power to create, to destroy, and that is both liberating and humbling.
With god, we are nothing more than tiny, individual cogs in a giant machine. Pawns on a chessboard. Our “Free Will” is limited: We can either do what we want and go to hell, or do what “god” wants, and be saved.
If there is a god, he endowed us with a sharp mind, and then chose to hide himself in the areas we understand to be fictitious and irrational. It’s not hard to draw conclusions from that.
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I’ve never been a nerd. When I was younger I was beautiful and I think I’m still attractive. I was a class president in high school and valedictorian in college. I was popular and the life of the party. I married a millionaire. I’ve had houses, jewelery, cars, money, clothes, a career in the medical profession, healthy children and traveled around the world extensively. We all have a place in our hearts that is empty and only God can fill it. The literal translation of SHALOM is “nothing missing, nothing broken.” Jesus is the Prince of Peace or Shalom in Hebrew. He gave me his shalom or wholeness. Now there is nothing missing and nothing broken in my life. My life is flowing with the abundant love that he has provided for me. No human being can love the way God loves. The things which we can see are perishable but the unseen things are eternal. Nothing in this world can ever compare to a personal relationship with the Savior who laid down hi