The Tirade Thread 3

AUB takes on Soil One last time.

Hi again Mr. Bhor,

Sorry for the long elapsed time before a response. My wife has been out of town since Saturday and I have been doing some of the things which she normally does - so the time that I usually spend here has been radically curtailed. (It can really help us husbands to appreciate our wife when we have to do some of the things that she usually does!).

OK, so you say you want to hear "other people's opinions on Job"? I have posted this link somewhere else on this site - but here it is again - interestingly GK discusses some of the same points which you made in your post - though he is using them in a positive way as regards to Christianity:
Introduction to THE BOOK OF JOB

As always, when I post a link to something I am not saying (simply by that action) that I am personally in complete agreement with everything that is said at that source. I think you will probably not like the style of the author (G.K. Chesterton), but I do think you will find some of the substance he conveys fascinating (I believe it is radically opposed to your personal view).

One of the points which I noticed (in relation to your strongly held view) is concerning the relative value of God (as scripture portrays) verses humanity. You have mentioned that you don't like any religion because it causes men and women to value something else greater than human life (correct me if I have misunderstood or not stated your position correctly). However, in this small writeup, GK is saying that the Old Testament is primarily about the personality of GOD - (NOT humans). I must say that this point is something which is similar to something I noticed when reading the book of Ecclesiastes -- if I read it hoping to see some great value in humanity then I am saddened by reading it - conversely, when I read it looking to see a glory in God - then I am happy to find the object of my search.

I think the fact of the many atrocities which humanity has enacted against fellow humans (see earlier in even this thread) is something which causes me to look elsewhere for something which is honorable enough to command my respect, awe, and yes, even worship. The fact that humanity appears to be the crowning glory of the evolutionary process - is just simply not good enough for me to value high enough so as to inspire the type of self-sacrificial Love which I aspire to. Somewhere within me I know that humans should be treated with a special Love - but I find the reason only in the person of Jesus - not in learning of how random chance and energy and matter have accidentally produced my current brain and body (see memes).

As always I am running out of available time - and I may return next week when my schedule may be a little back to normal - however I will be also be going to another city on business here pretty soon (not certain of the date yet).

Here is some more that may help you to understand that some Christians are definitely more concerned about the Glory of God - rather than the Glory of Humanity:

Predestined for Adoption to the Praise of His Glory

In the above, John Piper speaks some about this subject - here are a couple of sentences which are along the lines which I have been thinking about (I have copied the below from the above link):

(Bold emphasis mine)

-Dennis

Yep Skankboy,

I would agree, IF the creator were You - or Myself - either of us would be "selfish" - however we are not God (e.g., neither your, nor my personality is the only one who does not have to be accountable to any other - God's existence is not dependent on any others).

I think AUB was thinking God should be "accountable":
(AUB said:)

I don't think Mr. Bohr understands one of the base definitions of the concept of "GOD" - in my mind anyway, God is the only one who does not have to be accountable. The character traits possessed by God give Him alone that position - actually all that He has created is accountable to Him.

Back to your thought experiment - neither You nor I are capable of actually Creating anything (other than ideas) - if we want to make something new - we must use some of the matter or energy that has already been created by God (I am not - for the sake of what I am saying here - insisting that this creator God must of necessity be the Christian God as I am incapable of describing Him - I am just saying that we don't speak things into existence: as far as 'create' goes, only God does that). I think when it comes to the word 'selfishness' God is sort of in a different category than we are - because He is the only one whose self is not dependent on some other.

-Dennis

SOIL, this just covers your first response, it is more thorough than usual, as I wish to drive home the point as hard as possible.
Also, some points address theists in general, not particularly you. Those will be the really blunt ones.

Actually I was hoping for a more rational dissection of the book, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

Yes, actually I have already read GK's stuff, and as you can probably guess I could not disagree more, he is merely ranting on about his mindless platitudes to God, and the virtue of the biblical message, he represents what is so nauseatingly clear about Christianity, that you are completely incapable of reading your bible without being overwhelmed by its capacity to make you talk complete shit.

I have always failed to understand how anybody could see anything positive in Christianity, let alone the bible, whose verses and books have led to so many terrible atrocities, so many doomsday cults, so many suicide brigades, so many genocides and the mass murders, and lynchings and burnings. All precipitated by radical or not so radical interpretations of scripture, specific chapters, specific verses, even specific words leading to specific crimes against humanity, but then as you said this book is not about humanity it is about a non-existent God, for whom the very existent humanity must suffer.

This is what you failed to grasp, if God is non-existent then the book is worthless, and all the things done in the name of God or for him, and all the times mankind has suffered for God was a total complete waste of time. Once you realise this, your view of Christianity radically changes, and you realise the book of Job as well as the rest of the bible is nothing more than a meaningless attempts to focus mankind on a nothing, which commonly results in some very unpleasant things happening to mankind, something I regard as far more than nothing.

The logic of this appears to escape you, this fixation on God, regardless of whether or not he exists, does not do mankind any favours, Surely any study of history will uncover the many times when the love of God or Jesus has rendered life on earth, either for others or for the believers utterly meaningless, a mere glitch, a transitory stage leading to far greater and more important things. And this fixation with the other world, and with higher beings has caused so many lives to be lost, or wasted. To me this life is all we have, it is finite and infinitely precious, even if you do not agree with me on this one, even if you do not understand the principles of humanism, you must recognise that life is still important, and should not be wasted for anything, you may place your God or your Jesus ahead of human life, but I regard this as simply immoral, and it must be fought against.

Your love of God to you, may well be a life affirming thing, and may cause you to value the life of others, but it is merely reflecting the light of your deity, and although it may be a positive thing to you, there are many for whom god is simply an excuse to die or kill. You only care about what it means to you, not what it means to many others, and what it causes them to do. You do not speak for every other believer, and my judgement on your faith is not defined by your definitions of it, but by the terrible corruption it spreads, and the many millions of other people affected by your cult, most I feel, for the worse.
For the sake of humanity religion must be stopped. The old Testament is a collection of writings designed to galvanise and unifying a nation in the name of fanatical nationalistic and religious fervour, the new Testament consists of the gospel stories which like the old Testament ones are designed to keep the laity occupied, whereas the Pauline scriptures and other N.T material are the veiled instructions from one cult leader to another, in how to keep the pews full, and the minds of the parishioners empty. I continue to demonstrate the ominous mind control methods, and emphasis on unworldliness, at the all to obvious cost on reality, in many of your biblical quotes. These lines were not meant to confort you, they were meant to instruct those in charge, on how to keep those who were not, pliable and susceptible to the cult theology, even when it clearly contrasted with reality.
You place maybe's, could be's, and probably not's, ahead of definites, absolutely's, and plain as day's. Life is a certainty, humanity is a certainty, the world's a reality, nobody should argue about whether these things are real, or important. But by making something more important, than life, than the world, or interpreting reality like some gnostic hell to be avoided, or some tainted, corrupted domain of Satan, you will only provide an excuse to demean and destroy that which is real. This argument holds whether God is real or not, but is especially important as he isn't. You cannot prove that he exists, nor can you explain in any rational way why you believe he does, this is merely psychological manipulation and emotional commitment, there is nothing real behind it at all.

I could quite easily do an extensive dissection of everything GK says, showing the flaws in his thinking, and the reality behind the idealism. But I think I have already demonstrated the kind of things I could show in my earlier posts. GK sees the spiritual and theological beauty behind scripture, I see what it actually leads to, this is simply idealism verses reality, a common problem between rationalists and the religious. You read what you wish to, I read its ramifications, its historical context, and I trace its effects on the lives of believers and their opponents. If you could objectively study biblical passages and then the history of Christian "civilisation" you'd realise that virtually every passege leads to a bloody deed, and you would not accept that the emotional uplift you get from all this Jesus stuff, is worth all the millions of death's that result from the bible. To me the costs far outweigh the benefits, it is as simple as that.
You can keep all your poetry, or your visions of Utopia, like the promised paradise of Nazism or communism, the Christian paradise has so transfixed and obsessed so many ignorant gullible masses, that it made them willing to do anything for such comforting illusions, and reality has suffered for the sake of it. If we worked hard to acknowledge the flaws in reality, and within ourselves, and worked to make this world a better place, instead of obsessing over promised heavens, then we would have less reason to wish to be in a better place. It was understandable that such visions appealed to the primitive parishioners in the dark ages, or even in desperate times of war and famine, but for a civilised and educated adults to lust after such fables, and foresake all that is real and thusly important, is a very sad thing to behold.

Now you may not be the type to ignore your friends or relatives, to ignore worldly things, and just fixate on a book or the lies of your local theistic overlord all day, but there are many who are like that, many who curse the world, because they are made to dislike money, or sex, or people of different races or sexualities, and regard this world as deserving destruction. But in this they miss what is important, they are the ones throwing the baby out with the bath water, not the atheists. No theist has demonstrated that the concept of God is worth anything, whereas we can clearly demonstrate that life is worth something, and should not be passed over because of unworldly obsessions.

This kind of thing is not fascinating by a long shot. He has merely fallen for the same trick as all other theists who read Job, the question asked, concerning whether God has a right to rule us, and do what he likes, is answered with a resounding "Yes!" by GK, as he excepts not only God's existence, but also the books rather transparent attempts to silence the critics with a rather dated attempts to elevate God's status above all judgment. However I see this book for what it is, and am not daunted by the prospect of judging God. Just because they say he is beyond judgment, does not mean I should believe it, as I simply do not buy the claim. You and GK probably do, but I need more than apologetic ramblings and attempts to intimidate and awe, as it is simply words to beguile the ignorant, or at the very least the theist. The paradoxes that GK mentions at the end, I previously brought up in a long forgotten article, (religous claims) where I pointed out that his assumption that we like paradoxes was incorrect among those who like to think rationaly, and regard such things as a copout, and meaningless nonsense.
GK likes to sound profound, but I have long since learned that such people are in fact shallow and full of it, in their attempts to, like the writers of Job, say something about nothing, and only end up saying even less.

We want concrete reasoning, we want logic and evidence, we want things that makes sense, not just things that sound pretty. We do not want examples of God's power, his "amazing" abilities, his achievements, or his ability to browbeat a character in a book. We want good reasons why he should be allowed to do what he wants, why he should not be accountable, why he should not be judged as immoral when he does immoral things. These issues I adressed in my earlier posts, but neither GK or you have sought to respond with anything other than merely asserting the same platitudes and subjective "reasoning" that all those who have already bought into the line, attempt to propagate. I want good answers to good questions, I would think I was entitled, and I would think these points were worth responding to. Clearly theists do not see it that way, they see the questions as already answered, and the trick is to convince doubters that the answers are good enough, neither you nor GK could ever hope to achieve this with me, as no theist has ever given a straight answer to a straight question. All you do is dodge and ramble on about how great God is, how wonderful his creation is, only because he is, and how we are nothing but meaningless bits of crockery, well this does not impress me one iota, and I will continue to point out what a crock the bible is, no matter how many apologist tracts, Christianity's bullshit factories manage to churn out.

God demands we obay his commandments, usually under pain of death, God then breaks said commandments, and makes others do so, usually as part of some rather crude plan to take over someone's land, then says we are not to judge him by said commandments, even though they are his, and that we should worship him because he is mighty, not because he is moral. Strength is only a virtue if it is used for good, as most of his strength is used for mass murder, an evil you do not recognise, then there is no reason to worship him, other than purely because he is stronger than us, which is pretty stupid. Your theism blinds you to the deaths of millions, both those fictional deaths in your "good" book, and those in reality as a result of that "good" book, this appears to be a common symptom among the sufferers from Christianity.

You'd have to be blind as a Bat to miss that point, I make it with practically every article I write. It is the fundamental principle of humanism, and the reason why all religion has been judged immoral, and against mankind's best interests, by everybody with more sense than belief, not to mention an ounce of compassion.

And in that lies the problem. The bible's obsession with God causes other people to obsess about God, to the exclusion of all other things. I can give you many tens of thousands of historical examples where this biblicaly induced tendency has not lead to good things, so far as human life is concerned, and when reading the bible I am constantly reminded of what this unhealthy obsession always seems to lead to. I did not develop a bigoted opinion against religion, and then set about searching for evidence to back up my position, I was a fan of history since my earliest schooldays, but discovered so many appalling atrocities committed by religion, that it forced me to acknowledge that religion was inherently a bad influence, and when reading the bible I began to realise why, as so many of the historical "incidents" that I had already become very familiar with were clearly grown from the seeds of Scripture.
I could trace many specific examples of biblical quotes that lead to specific atrocities, I cannot emphasise this point enough, obsession with God, regardless of his reality, has led to terrible things, this is a fact, and arguing about the bible's position is pointless, as I will simply let reality do the talking. I don't care about the theology, the philosophy, or the ideals, the reality has to come first, and you cannot defend the bible's ramifications because of its emphasis, I am talking about what that emphasis leads to, not its deeper spiritual significance, which to someone who does not believe in any such significance, is a rather lame point to make.

Well yes, the people that wrote the later elements of the new Testament only cared about God, they could not care a less about humanity, and saw us only as instruments of glorification for the sky-daddy. Yes there are humane elements that teach charity and compassion, but these elements of decency have had the least effect on humanity, and only teach a selfish form of ultruism, when they actually are acknowledged, and they cannot possibly hope to outweigh the atrocities committed in the name of God himself, or because of the degenerate and immoral passages that you choose to ignore.

Once again you prove my point, if all the bible is good for his rambling on about God, then why is it such a seminal book, so far as human affairs is concerned? Why is it used as the textbook for how we should live our lives, why is it constantly offered up every time some sanctimonious and presumptuous believer wishes to muck around with other people's lives? If it says nothing about humanity, if it does not in any way elevate the value of human life above that of crockery, then why is it not simply kept in the hands of theologians, people who like to think about God all the time? Why is it given to the masses, why is it shoved down the necks of the masses, why is is it seen as the basis of Western civilisation, the law, or decent government, when all it is good for his talking about someone who may or may not exist. If God exists then this is a book about someone who is beyond and separate from humanity, and thusly humanity has to be kept separate from this book. If God does not exist, then it is a waste of paper. Obviously as both an ultra hard atheist and an ecologist, I go for the waste of paper stance.

By its inherent lack of humanism, and emphasis on God, it inevitably results in the reduction of human worth. This is as plain as day, you pretty much said it yourself, so why do you not accept that this book is dangerous, and demeaning to all mankind? I will tell you why, it is because, despite its inhuman emphasis, you share its obsession with God, you want to hear about God all day, you wants to think about him constantly, you want to worship him, glorify him, and so this book is very much for you. Now I find this attitude quite disgusting, but if it was purely a matter of personal lifestyle, I would happily leave you to your obsession. However this bible is not just for those who wish to fixate on a work of fiction. It passes itself off as a tome of ethical values, and distracts us from better works of a more humane nature.

I would wish to see a humanist bible, one that places mankind at the centre, one with totally humane values, free of theological distractions, one that emphasises our importants and places life above all things. As only such a focus renders ethical values in any way meaningful. But the stories of the bible, where millions are killed in God's wrath, God's commands, where most of the bible is dedicated to praising him, this does not suit that purpose, and should not be used as a focus for human civilisation, as a focus for communities of humans. Communities of theologians maybe, but most of us are not like that, most of us should focus on each other, and ourselves, but this book is not so focused, as a result it negates its right to be used in such a manner.
To speak plainly, an inhuman book, with an inhuman emphasis, should not be used by humans as the basis of all things that concern humanity.

I would think that this was obvious, but you seem to miss the inevitable ramifications of your book, because humanity is not your primary concern, as a theist you do not care about human life, but God, this is your obsession, and this renders you unfit for human interaction, as you cannot be guaranteed to value human life, except in relation to what your God's value is, or what he says it is worth. In other words, if God told you to kill people you would do it, if Jesus said that human life was worth nothing, which he practically did, then you would feel the same way as he did. This is the problem, if the only basis for your regard for humanity, is because the bible says so, then you have no other moral reference, no conscience, no natural empathy, as these things have been snuffed out by theological brainwashing. Humanism emphasises these innate humane tendencies, and allows them to flourish, it does not replace them with worth only relative to a God's, or his Commandments. It is a better basis than a fragile faith in a hypothetical father figure. Surely you can see the logic of judging the worth of something objective, by something objective, as opposed to a relative theological concept, only shared by a limited percentage of the human race, within a religious framework that may or may not last much longer.

If your obsession with God wanes, so does your regard for humanity, as it has been inextricably linked with God. So it could be said to be a wise idea to increase your obsession with God, therefore indirectly increasing your value of humanity, however this bizzare and roundabout way of valuing humanity has far too many drawbacks, besides which it is just plain weird. It would be much simpler to have a book that praises the virtue of human life, rather than a God which you'd then have to make yourself believe in. As humanity's existence is self evident, it requires significantly less gullibility, not to mention mental gymnastics, to rationalise your regard for all humanity. I am just cutting out an unnecessary middleman, and I wonder why you cannot see it would be much easier to simply regard humanity as sacred, rather than these books and fairytale characters, as this would do far more good in the world, both as a direct assistance to humanity, and as a philosophy with far less drawbacks, such as the ones that I keep mentioning, and that the theists keep ignoring.

Not only would history, or our future not be filled with crusades and heresy trials, but far less suffering of any kind, as this philosophy would stand, not only against religious tyranny, but any kind, as well as wars, diseases, famine, and other sources of human suffering, and will encourage scientific improvement, rather than ignorance and anti-intellectual theology, as no theology ever helped mankind, but the benefits of science are there for all the world to see. You'd rather have stories of your Jesus healing people, than actual vaccinations, and reductions in hunger by increased crop yields, but for the rest of us, concrete benefits are more important than non concrete ones, especially as they tend to benefits people living here and now, not fictional characters in a book.

You would worship someone who allegedly healed people thousands of years ago, than dedicating your life to finding a cure for any disease. A person who healed people thousands of years ago would not be worth worshipping today even if he was a God, as he has not committed any such acts of compassion since then, if he did any at all. Worshipping a person for doing good once, and ignoring those who do even greater good now, is rather unhealthy, as fixating on events long ago, and ignoring the present, is as bad as beleiving in fantasy and ignoring reality. Even if Jesus had healed one million people, they would all be dead now anyway, if he had stayed around for hundreds of years instead of having himself killed off so young, then he could be regarded as a more moral person, but getting himself killed, and ending such humane work, was rather inconsiderate. All the good that has been done since then, by so many different kinds of people, with so many different beliefs, and all the good that is done nowadays, especially by those without beliefs, should not all be brushed aside, in a single minded obsession with one brief period, and one brief person, regardless of whether you think this person is floating around today.
And that's another thing, this lack of incredulity regarding invisible beings. Now I have nothing against the idea of something being invisible. Providing the person declaring such a thing has good reason for doing so. I acknowledge the existence of a gravity well, principally because it has been defined mathematically, and its effects have been observed, particularly on light and matter, however the reasons for a shamen claiming to contact invisible spirits, or theologians claiming the existence of invisible gods, is not quite good enough for me to believe in such things. Every time someone who famously talked to invisible people, was shown to be cookoo, and of course all theological inventions, by necessity chose to exist in any invisible state, and I'm not obligated to take those things seriously. Ask yourself, are the reasons for believing in all these invisible things, really rational? Are they ever good enough for me to spend hours of my time talking to these invisible persons? If I compare the solid and consistent reasons for believing in invisible things like quarks, when confronted by a quantum mechanic, I find them far more reliable, not to mention rational, (or if you like believable), than the rather pathetic theological ramblings used to explain why God is always invisible, and never appears. But that is just me. You're obviously very easily convinced of these kinds of things. I mean, I personally require an awful amount of evidence to be made to believe in anything invisible. When scientists say that something exists but you cannot see it, then give me a bucketload of calculations, and indirectly observations, then I'm willing to go along, particularly if said invisible things fit into the larger picture as presented by science. It is always tentative, but I have no reason to distrust them, as they know far more concerning this subject than me. I trust them because they know what they are doing, as they have vast knowledge, experience, and qualifications. Not to mention really cool equipment.

Doom and Gloom.

There have been plenty of doomsayers, usually offshoots of Christianity, which was of course originally nothing but a doomsday cult itself anyway, and these loonies have repeatedly made what they called "accurate calculations" based on things like adding up the days of the week in the Bible, or measuring the sides of the pyramids, and have managed to convince a large number of extremely stupid people that their data for Armageddon is correct. This has happened so many times over so many centuries, and so many people have suffered because of it, that I wonder why these people are so convinced, is it merely the presentation? Or maybe it is the arithmetic, as in bygone years mathematics was still seen as something of a magic in itself, like in the days when Pythagoras was turned into some sort of deity or sorcerer. Even today people fixate over numbers, as if they have some sort of mystical or cosmic significance, but just because someone does a load of calculations, based on bible quotes and old ruins, does not mean they are not completely batty. As anyone can write a load of numbers down, although this was admittedly rather impressive in days when very few people could.

This site gives you some idea of the sheer numbers of gullible people there have been, not to mention the nutters who use the Bible and mysticism to cause so much suffering.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9941/index.html

Another problem is that if the numbers were based on the Bible, then people's blind trust in it meant they blindly trusted the doomsayers, and were always let down. As some lunatic screeching on about the end of the world, is no more reliable than the Bible itself. If people have bothered to verify the validity of the Bible, they could then reasonably trust the doomsayers, or at least once the calculations have been verified, but nobody ever did this. Even today people trust the Bible even though that it has been successfully debunked many times over, from many different angles, simply because they either believed in it before such information was brought to their attention, or their desperation to believe it is so great that they will ignore all reason and evidence. This permanent source of absolute faith, is a serious weakness for all believing human beings, as it is a shortcut to their minds, bypassing all doubt, rational thought, and critical thinking. The most educated and reasonable person, if they believe in the Bible, can still be exploited, and this happens so many times all over the world. It is virtually the only reason people buy creationism, as it is being sold by believers whose status guarantees the trust of other believers, as well as of course the fact that they are confirming the believer's suppositions.
The Bible has been a constant curse and pain on humanity simply because people have not checked it out and this enslavement to it will continue to cause great suffering, and be the source of many doomsday prophecies, rules and regulations against people, and appalling "moral" agendas. To quotes the aforementioned web site, they are long on faith, short on attention span, and no matter how many times people are fooled, manipulated, used, brainwashed, by all these charlatans, cult's and bogus religions, no one will figure out that the longer lasting and more established religions are just as bogus as the short lived and more fanatical ones. Those outside these little cult's can clearly see they are fraudulent, can see the leaders and their prophecies are false, and can clearly see their extremism and immorality, even those within larger and more established cult's like Christianity. However those within the same larger cults never see beyond the lies surrounding them, only those outside such organised religions can see what is really going on, and these people are despised, persecuted, all these atheists or agnostics, or rationalists, who dared to question the existence of the Almighty, that dared to point out the Bible is complete horse shit. They are the true martyrs, not those stupid enough to get thrown to the Lions. Not to mention the non-existent martyrdoms of the nonexistent apostles.
And so we are forced to watch as people after people, country after country, lives after lives are wasted in a fruitless crusade, or a foolish philosophy, or brutal regime. All the while being called Nazis, communists, godless heathens, and having to put up with proselytising idiots, who clearly think they are doing us a favour by shoving their falsehoods in our faces, not realising that we are far more aware of the reality of their religions than they could possibly understand.
You think today they would not fall these holy scams so easily, but nonetheless there are an enormous amount of gullible people around, you after all are one of them. Now if an astronomer rather than an astrologer says that by the means of his telescope and advanced computerised calculations, he has figured out that a meteor will hit the earth in five weeks, then I would, again acknowledge the probability that he was telling the truth. But that is because he had good reason, and reliable data, to think so, it is the reason, and the evidence that convinces me, not the nature of the claim. Many people were convinced by doomsayers, because they were simply frightened, or because they were so used to the apocalyptic elements of their religion. This kind of end of the world tactic was of course used by many different Christian denominations to get some quick converts, and was the principal recruiting drive behind the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as early Christians.
When all these apocalyptic promises were left unfulfilled, they of course eventually packed them in, and switched to other tactics, but nonetheless the inherent apocalyptic elements of religions like xtianity keep creating offshoots, and more suffering is the result. It is easy to convince gullible people who are illiterate or inumerate that your calculations are genuine, as it was easy to impress people with supposing superior knowledge, this is why mass education is so important, people need to learn at least enough to know when someone is genuinely using legitimate means to foretell or demonstrate something, and when someone is just using bullshit pseudoscience, theology, or metaphysics. But they also need basic education in critical thinking, and a healthy culture of scepticism is essential, as reason must still be used. Without such things we would all still be as vulnerable to con artists, quacks, and confidence tricksters as people were in the dark ages, and of course many still are, because many are either dreadfully ill educated, or religious, often the latter means you are also the former. We have heard many testimonies here of when someone fell for fundamentalism, or some extreme religion or cult, because they already have some prior theistic or supernatural leanings, which made them susceptible to far harsher and more dangerous groups. There is still much debate over whether softer drugs make you go on the harder drugs, there can be no longer any doubt that softer theology leads to far worse theology, so even if moderate religions do not do much harm on their own, while they exist the possibility of extremism still exists.
This is why I am against all religion, I want to see people protected from exploitation, not just from religions but from other lie peddlers after their money, or much more. A culture of gullibility particularly in countries like America exists and so many make so much money, and so many people lose it, due to the inability of so many to think straight.

Anyway back to those invisible beings that you take for granted.

I would take the scientist's word over a theologian, for the simple reason that scientists know what they're doing, and theologians have never proven themselves to be remotely reliable in anything concrete. So I would take the scientists word when they say that something is invisible but still there, and not a book that has never proven to me, to be reliable about anything, I need not mention the contradictions or failed prophecies, you of course are incapable of noticing these things, as your mind screens them out, but I can assure you, as person has not been brainwashed that they are very obvious signs that the Bible cannot be trusted in anything, and so if a person claims to have calculated from Bible passages that the world will end in three weeks, I will ignore him, simply because he has no reasonable basis for his supposition.
I take the origins of a claim very seriously, if the origins lie in laboratory tests, observations, or reason, I am more likely to take them seriously, than if they came out of a lunatics mind, theologians handbook, or of course the Bible itself. You may think it is merely my lack of faith that allows me to see the flaws in the Bible, however if something is proven to be unreliable, I would be a complete idiot to take any of its claims seriously, even God can understand the reasoning behind that, surely. They say I need faith in order to see the Bible as it really is, that requires that I beleive, and for that I need trust, but how can I trust a book that's inherently untrustworthy? I would have to trust it despite the fact that it all the evidence says I cannot, this is why it is so much harder for the educated to become believers, it is simply asking too much, does god want me to be so gullible, so blind, so irrational, as to trust what has been clearly demonstrated can only be trusted by those who are unaware of its untrustworthiness? I suspect he does, judging by his attitude in the book of Job.

The start of Faith.

Before becoming religious myself, I would have investigated the reliability of the theologians, the priests, or the Bible, before I committed my life to it, yet you do not appear to have done this, nor do any theists, as you base your lives on unreliable things, and wonder why we regard you as such idiots. No preacher has ever shown himself to be anything other than a corrupt hypocrite, or at best simply a lier, by virtue of his job, no doomssayer has ever been shown to be anything other than a lunatic, and no holy book has shown itself to be anything other than contradictory, and unreliable. Such sources are not the best basis for a lifestyle, or a worldview. At least science has proven itself to be consistently reliable, and so I trust that, simply because it is trustworthy, even if you believe the Bible prophecies came true, none have been fulfilled for thousands of years, and cannot be regarded as strictly relevant. But this is not so, as none of the essential details of the Bible have ever been verified, and if we cannot even trust it to be historically accurate, how can be trust its claims regarding the fate of mankind and the creator of the universe?
The problem is, that theists don't think about the importance of sources, they just claim to be able to trust God, or the Bible, without actually bothering to find out whether the people that offer these things, such as preachers and church leaders, have any alterior motives, or are in anyway trustworthy, nor do you investigate from any impartial or objective sources whether the Bible is reliable, and thus trustworthy concerning the existence, let alone the goodness or trustworthiness of any God? How many bothered to do a background check on the proselytising representatives of your denomination, or the priests, before deciding to believe them? How many have done detailed analysis of the Bible before deciding to trust their entire lives to its promises? None, they just do it on faith, they just trusted blindly, which is a rather stupid thing to do as we see history littered with the remains of all those gullible enough to believe in false promises, all those poor simpletons who followed after false prophets, lunatic doomsayers, and crusading hermits. No theist is exempt from this fate, as you trusted those who gave you the book, then you trusted the book, then the god in it, not one phase of trust was based on anything real..
Surely any degree of thought can reveal that there are many stupid people in this world, and many con artists, no one would deny this, and yet they always think that they are exempt from this, and that they can safely trust the people or books they follow, even though they have not done any work whatsoever in attempting to verify whether this is indeed the case. I have done the necessary checking, and I have found your Bible wanting, and your priests untrustworthy, they are either con artists themselves, or have fallen for the cons of others. I have been accused of circular reasoning, but that is all that theisim is.

You believe in God because the Bible says so, you trust the Bible because it is written by God.

Whereas without the Bible you have no reason to believe in God, and without God you have no reason to trust the Bible.

Any other reasons you state for trusting in God, can easily be put down to emotional bias and psychology, and any reason for trusting the Bible can easily shown to be severely misplaced, by objective analysis of said book. Not that you ever listen to any advice on your mental health, or on the validity of the Bible, as the mental health "issue" that prevented you from analysing the Bible objectivly, also prevented you from acknowledging the comments on your mental health.

The mad don't tend to admit to being mad, and the brainwashed don't admit to being brainwashed.

Let me axe you somethin', do you trust the priests or converter that "theisted" you or continually reaffirms your faith? Did you feel they were trustworthy, and therefore feel you can take their word concerning the Bible, even though their understanding of it is probably no more developed than yours? Before you became a theist and therefore incapable of judging the Bible's validity, you presumably trusted the priests when they said it was the word of God, in which case why trust them? As they only trusted because someone else told them that they could, in which case, if you keep going back further enough you end up with a few mad idiots in a desert writing this stupid thing and conning people into believing it, in a period where people believed absolutely anything.

This is the problem, the pedigree of trustworthiness is a tad weak when it comes to religion, as it is just one con man, conning another, who cons another etc untill they come upon you, and the further back you go, or the more you ask around, the less answers you get. The only people who had all the answers were those who supposedly had the "experiences" with God/schizophrenia. But has everything since then is just hearsay, then you have to trust all the dead people who may not have even existed in the first place, and all the people that have as little reason to really believe as you do, as well as the book that tells you about the dead people. I dunno, trusting people who cannot really be trusted, and a book whose origins also cannot be verified, let alone the contents, I'd have thought was asking too much of anyone in this day and age. what happened to the world weariness, the modern street savy, or cynicism? Not to mention common sense. I'd hate to build my life on such an unreasonable degree of trust.

The Holy Ghost, who yer gonna call?

Yes I know I have left out personal experiences that seemed to verify your beliefs, but I bet you never had any these "experiences" until you were brainwashed into becoming susceptible to them, or until you were made to interpret any psychological imbalances as such theological phenomena. But the main reason I dismiss such "cognitive evidence" is simply because they all rely on the persons previous religious affiliations. There has never been any such Paul style conversion, no one suddenly changed denomination or religion after a call from a personal deity who says you should join this religion or that, at least no such cases that are contemporary or reliable. No people make claims that the holy spirit told them to switch from Methodists to evangelical, even if you did, I'd bet you this was just spiritual rationalisation after the fact, and that there were other elements involved, a personal fallout with the pastor, a hushed up scandal, moving house, changing political views, stuff like that.

And then of course that brings me to the whole "holy spirit infusion" concept, an idea which is completely absurd for the simple reason that if all these people have been infused with the same spirit, how come they all end up believing or saying differant things? How come each denomination has its own spiritual infusion, and all such members of such denominations continue to disagree with all the other denominations? Surely if this holy spirit thing was real you'd get people from different denominations leaving all these different theological and doctrinal viewpoints and coming together once they have infused, (they can't all be right) and all precisely agree on things such as biblical interpretation, and the ways to deal with such so-called contradictions, as they all are listening to the same mind? Yet this never happens, get one person who was "infused", and another also who claims to have the spirit working through them, and they will disagree on just about everything, unless they have been brought up or brainwashed in precisely the same denomination, in which case it is a sociological and psychological phenomena and not in anyway a spiritual one.
Think about it, you have one denomination that has its members speaking in tongues when the spirit enters them, you have other people in another church just kind of pass out, and other people going into raving hysterics, and yet more people go into a stoic state of determined proselytisation. If there is only one God, and one holy spirit, then there shouldn't be different denominations, as surely God knows the correct interpretation of the Bible, and the correct lifestyle that should be lived, and yet all these denominations claim to have the holy spirit in their followers, and all these people claim to have "the one and only" holy spirit helping them see the Bible as a truly is, with no contradictions, ha ha.

I always simply accepted that each church brainwashed its victims in a different way, as each nation teaches its subjects different languages, and each religion teaches its members different gods, different modes of worship, different prayers, different ceremonies, due to geographical isolation, sociological development, due to cultural heritage. As an atheist it all made sense, gods did not exist, in which case all religions can be explained through cognitive science and sociology, even IF he did exist (man that's a big if) he'd simply been completely silent for the last 2000 years, which is why there was so much confusion and so many different denominations. You create a religion and see how quickly different doctrines and traditions develop within a generation let alone 70 odd. Anyway this is how I understood it for a long time, you simply went to church and believed in God, sung a few praises and that was it, perhaps the really devoted ones occasionally prayed a bit, and sometimes even dared to imagine he was talking back, but I didn't seriously think that too many people actually really believed this. All you needed to do was show their beliefs were unfounded and they'd re-join civilisation.

Then I find all these people who claim God is some sort of contemporary deity, a current phenomena, and that he is continually speaking through or to them. Now we have mentally ill people like this in England, but it was quite a shock to realise how many actually feel this, and how it is an accepted concept in churches in America, where they don't just believe, they seemed to think that they actually have some sort of higher spiritual awareness or understanding, that allows them to perceive the universe differently. Not to mention their little holy book, and this counter argument to biblical contradictions took me something by surprise. The shear gall, and stupidity of the idea that this spirit, somehow makes sense of such a mess, and that the scholer was being deliberatly deceived, this was quite a defence, pretty fucked up but still. Until I started to think about it, I realised it may their case for god even weaker.

Now the idea that an adult, in this day and age, who isn't in an asylum, could walk around and talk about his relationship with God, as if it was perfectly normal, it just shows how backward America really is, and it's still only slowly sinking in. I'd thought only the prophets of old dared to speak like that, but to find someone like SOIL, an otherwise reasonable mature person, talk about his relationship with God as if it was real, kinda freaked me out. And it makes me very glad I live in this country are not his. If it is very worrying when people who simply believe, start to think that it is actually more than belief, and become so certain that they take it more seriously than reality, that's when people's beliefs really become a very big problem, and this holy spirit thing appears to be at the heart of it. In England people's beliefs are somewhat of an embarrassment to them, they are personal, they keep them to themselves, we do not proclaim them, or use them to justify our actions and effect on reality. I find this attitude very presumptuous, and arrogant, don't they ever stop the think why it is that it is only in their heads? Are they not aware that this phenomenon is purely subjective, maybe they share it with other parishioners, but is only subjective to them as well, a shared internal mental experience, but still no reality outside their heads.
Surely people's knowledge of cognitive functions by now means people are aware of the things that can go on a inside persons mind, and the complex illusions and feelings that can result from entirely internal functions, not in anyway caused by anything external to the mind? If they think these things are real, then there should be some consistent attributes to this phenomenon, that can be verified using reason and observation. They can't keep saying its all about faith, when they think it is more than that, and they can't keep trying to dodge reason and reliable methods of observation, in the name of religion, or the so called intractable mystery of God. And then turn around and say these unverifiable an unproven things give them the right to tell people what to do, how to live or what to believe.

If this holy spirit thing is true, then that raises some serious questions about the validity of the whole God and church thing. In my country there is no holy spirit concept, you just believe in it, or as mostly happens, decide it is simply nonsense, and as an Englishman you are far too sensible to believe such things after the age of ten anyway. You talk to God, god doesn't talk to you, you have faith that he is listening, you don't get confirmation, you simply trust the Bible in its promises concerning God's existence, and proceed from that assumption, never receiving confirmation until you die. But if people like SOIL are claiming that God talks to them back, and they have some sort of understanding with God, or as Christians, the holy spirit is in them, (which is why they don't have the same doubts and rational dilemmas that unbelievers do), then why isn't this not in anyway reflected in reality? Why do the denominations, churches, and all religions as a whole, seem to resemble something that is man-made, man sustained, and consisting entirely of human components? If there was no God, would religion look the same as it does? I think the answer to that question is yes, and no theist has ever been able to prove that it would look otherwise.

This is similar to the question about why the universe resembles a Godless one, why did god create the universe to look like he didn't? Creationists of course claim that the universe does resemble something made by a God/Designer, but they have been foiled at every turn, at least in academic circles, which is why they keep trying to con the leity, people with any legitimate claims in this respect would not bother to do this, they would simply filter there "discoverys" down to the public through legitimate academic and scientific sources. Besides this contradicts a rather neat free-will, through no proof of the deity arguament, that I quite like.
If religion was man-made, each individual religion would have been started by an individual person, or a group, and only in one place, it would have then spread to various other parts of the world through proselytiser's, trade, war, and migrations. The rate of conversion would have depended on the concentration or sincerity of the converters, and various other social factors, and the rate of expansion would have changed depending on the level of technology in either communication or travel.

If you look at the history of say Christianity, it started in one place, nor more, spread to different areas by specific proselytisers, picks up in certain areas better than others, depending on previous spiritual leanings, and political or economic climate, gains strength due to political machinations, and spreads faster when less developed areas are discovered, and when printing, steam, and various communication technology are developed. The way its denominations are developed, the way they fight each other, the way some fracture and dissipate, and others evolve, and the way rival sects or religions are exterminated, and the way science and culture affect it, all resemble a theological phenomenon that is dependent on other human qualities, and other elements that shape it throughout history. I see no divine guidance at hand in any of this, all factors affecting Christianity can be easily traced to very down-to-earth things.

Some Christians like the claim that the fervour and determination of the early Christians can only be explained by personal visitations from Christ, but as this argument can be quite easily used to validate every other religion on the planets, it hardly holds any water. Without using circular reasoning or special pleading, there is no way you can claim that Christianity has any divine influences, and even its inception looks purely human in origin. Even if this were not so, the state of the faith today does not resemble something whose members are all affected by a single entity. Are you telling me that the holy spirit infused the Protestants, and the Catholics, and then made them fight each other, as they all were told different things by the same being? This would represent a degree of perversity that even the God of the old Testament would consider a tad sick.

Maybe only one denomination was infused with the holy spirit, in which case, which one? As they both committed atrocities, both behaved like complete idiots, and that neither really changed any society that was in anyway progressive, without the help of freethinkers, reformers, and other factors. And neither really sent any spiralling backwards either. Surely if one of the denominations had the holy spirit in its followers, that denomination would be better, wiser, nobler, and better able to answer questions asked by people like me. Is my mind really greater than God or the holy spirit? If not, why is it that no person from any denomination, no matter how infused they claim to be, can handle me in a debate, or explain any of the contradictions, without creating further contradictions with other passages? No, the holy spirit argument is completely unsustainable, either God has not said a word to anyone for 2000 years, or he never existed in the first place, any suggestion that he is actually doing anything these days is so easily shown to be false, but I wouldn't bother making it.

Many from certain denominations would of course claim that they and they alone receive the holy spirit, but if all the other claimants to this "infusion" are false, them this shows that a lot of people can have "infusions" and still not actually have "infusions", which kind of casts the whole thing in rather serious doubt. No denomination is gaining ascendancy over any other, in anyway other than in a manner which can be clearly demonstrated to be down to human or other factors. There are no miraculous denominational victories, they may be claims to miracles among certain individuals, but nothing on any scale large enough to show that a God is working for any actual faith or denomination. Again some will maintain he his, but I could quite easily shown what factors are actually at work, people just like to credit things to their deity, for religious propaganda purposes, or in order to convince themselves. If every factor of every religion was under rational scrutiny, it would all boil down to nothing.

Belief Only.

So for you as with everyone else, it rests entirely on faith, and you have no solid reasons for believing any of it.
In which case you were simply tricked by someone else, their personalities or will were superimposed over yours, and even if they are proven to be trustworthy enough on other matters, they would still be incapable of actually proving the claims that you decided to believe. You put your faith in them, and they did not have to deliver a thing in return, they simply wait for you to die, and that will be that. True confirmation only comes with death, how convenient. They simply waited for your faith, and cognitive malfunctions to kick in, and then they could stop trying to convince you, and simply rely on the skeleton key Bible, your keyhole of a mind, and maybe the odd presumptuous statements of total meaningless and unproven theological bull. They may occasionally have to reassure you, by simply telling you what you subconsciously want to here, and of course help you to "correctly" interpret the Bible.

You trusted then, and you trusted the Bible, and what you got was psychological manipulation that makes you no longer wish to seek confirmation, but simply trust. I see someone was let down and betrayed, you were not provided with any further evidence after you began to trust, because you were simply regarded as a successful conquest, so no proof would be needed, not that they could have given you any even, if you asked for it. Which I bet you never have. Religion rests on convincing the masses that proof is never needed, that it is better to remain a sheep without any such "worldly" things. Only clever words designed to negate one's desire for proof, is all that a good religion requires. The amount of arguments I have heard theists use to try to get out of providing any proof, and the amount of pathetic attempts to provide proof, that when unsuccessful cause them to revert simply to the previous argument, it really is quite dizzying, not to mention nauseatingly pathetic.
The Bible and the preacher, both equally culpable in the crimes and the continued existence of mankind's greatest enemy.

You trusted them to be right, you trusted then to be true,

but neither bothered to prove it, just make a believer out of you.

Sorry, don't know what came over me, anyway, the point is, the proof you may have wished for, is only in your head, its only emotions and the delusions that you cling to. Outside of the psychological manipulations, there is no proof of their promises, and they go perpetualy undelivered, for you and for everybody else on this planet. Personally I regard them as untrustworthy, as I am outside their psychological manipulation, I can see what they are doing. Both the "good" book and the men are finite creations, whereas you have been made to believe in an infinite creator by such sources.
And so all your thoughts are turned to a God who supposedly did many "wondrous" things long ago, and a man who supposedly did good things for people, also long ago. You focus on realms that do not exist, on beings that do not hear you, and on a world that is long gone. You should not be praising jesus for healing those people invented in the Gospels, but asking him why he is not doing so today, in the flesh, so everyone can see him. Why it is the scientists finding cures, and not the priests, not the proselytisers, who spend all they days screwing people's minds, instead of making the world a better place. Why these faith healers rely purely on the placebo effect in order to press-gang more of the desperate and gullible into their armada of fools.
You should choose instead to focus on things that benefits mankind now, as human life is not worth less than it was 2000 years ago. The degree of focus on God, obsession with the bible, and the degree of seriousness with which many regard mankind's place in the theological order of things, is not really important, as any belief in such inhumane concerns is wrong. It is what a faith can lead to that I worry about, not what it is, and certainly not what a theist thinks it is. Religion has had so many drawbacks, that I cannot see one reason to allow it to continue, you may disagree but only because of your obsession and belief in God, not because of any humane values, as ultimately God is the one thing stopping you and every other theist from being a decent human being. Without such a mental impediment, you would place humanity ahead of the bible and your religion, as anything that results in a net decrease in the quality of human life, or amounts of it, would be regarded as bad, regardless of what spiritual or miniscule material benefits religion or the bible may occasionally have produced.

I regard theists as very selfish human beings, you forsake the true possibilities of a real philosophy, because you want to maintain your relationship with your God. It's your psychological high, given to you, and only to you, and you will always take this over the most blatant examples that such a mental impediment, when given to humanity as a whole, can do it over. Ultimately it is the responsibility of every human being to turn away from religion, to fixate on life, not death or non-existent beings, and not to ignore the suffering of humanity caused by such theologically corrupted moral values. My atheism is entirely due to my high regard for humanity, not to mention my knowledge of what religion means, what it truly stands for, what it has done, and what it will do. I will never become part of any faith, or believe in any religion or doctrine, that does not clearly benefit mankind. I forsake heaven, I forsake the relationship with Jesus, no matter how lonely I maybe, or desperate for an afterlife, simply because I would not be able to live with myself as a Christian, as I'd regard myself as a traitor to human life.

Religion results in human suffering. Therefore I am not religious. Anyone with ethical values would have precisely the same reasoning behind an atheistic philosophy, therefore I must conclude that all theists are unethical. As you cannot have an ethical philosophy built around religion, that depends on something that is not human, and is not morally accountable.

You cannot be ethical and fixate on something that does not exist, and even if it did it would not in any way directly require the high regard of the human being. Your attempts to convince me and others that a love for God leads to a love for humanity is a pathetic rationalisation, that shows how desperately you wish to cling to your God, no matter how many times I, or others, demonstrate the inherent immoralities of religion.

Let me get this straight, because of the terrible atrocities mankind has committed, you decide to worship a God that has committed terrible atrocities against mankind, and is the principal reason why mankind commits terrible atrocities against mankind. I do believe SOIL, that you are completely insane!

The only thing capable of being moral in anyway is mankind, and the only thing capable of being evil is mankind, as all morality was invented by mankind for mankind, even if morality derives from your God, you yourself admit that he is not accountable by those moral standards, so you cannot claim he is good or bad, but merely amoral, in which case he is hardly a worthy substitute for a species that, yes tends to be immoral, but at least have the capacity to be moral.
How can something without ethical values, who breaks promises, who accepts human sacrifice, and who behaves in a contradictory and irrational manner, be considered honourable? How can you respect such a God who in one era, kills millions for a plan that is so crude and primitive, that it is clearly the desires of a primitive nation of tribal barbarians, and in another is so completely esoteric, vague and only evident in a man to is so completely different from the previous deity, and who dies in such away, and who's death is so over rationalised, and theologically over interpreted, that no apologists can explain it? How can you worship and respect such a mess of ideas, words, and actions? How can you even make sense of them?

If your God had never been invented, then many of the atrocities that you so abhor, would not have taken place, if you claim otherwise and then you are a deluded revisionist and a holocaust denier. And don't try to blame mankind for these atrocities, as even in the bible people, supposedly directly under his command, commit atrocities just as bad as any in the legitimate history books, and of course God himself kills so many by his own hand. The atrocities of history are merely a continuation of those committed in the bible, and whether they were his will or not, they were a result of what he created, a series of religions with genocidal intent, absolute certainty and presumption, and with an inhumane doctrine.

You are clearly not worshipping the God of the bible, but a sentimental idea that is in vogue at the moment, that in order to be presented to the likes of you, must completely ignore all of what god did during most of the bible. You fixate on the emotionalism, and a false hope of elements of the new Testament, ignoring the immorality of the rest of it, as well as the old Testament, you ignore the entire history of your religion, and the actions of many of your faith today. You focus on a miniscule aspect of God, and your religion, ignoring the overwhelming majority that does not in anyway make the world a better place. This is selfishness pushed to an extreme, pure self-indulgence at the cost of everything else. All ethics, all reason, all reality.

This statement represents a grossly ignorant understanding of evolution, as well as mankind significance in relation to it, and the rest of the universe. Mankind's inherent worth is derived from the fact that it is sentient, it is not the crowning achievement of anything, it is the biological off-shoot of one branch of one simian species, not what nature was aiming for, nor in anyway a superior creation. It merely has something no other life form has, consciousness, which makes every individual human being a universe unto themselves, and with greater potential and uniqueness than all matter and energy and other forms of life known to exist. A value that is constantly negated and ignored by religion. It is not evolution that places mankind as the highest thing, it is the fact that we are the single only sentient thing in the universe, and clearly then the most valuable, this is common sense, this is reason, this is self evident. So don't try to make out that evolution has anything to do with it, or that evolution is some sort of philosophical or ethical alternative to religion. It is merely a scientific reality, and it is your theisticly induced ignorance that causes you to regard however subtly, evolution as some sort of rival religion, or in anyway the basis of ethical or philosophical values for non-theists.

Love is not the ideal emotion to fixate on, as it is not inherantly good, its negative potential is obvious, and self-sacrifice is a contemptable docrine, that demeans just like the rest of xtianity.

You merely choose for it to not be good enough, out of theological bias, and as you want some "higher" meaning, regardless of whether it is in anyway actually real, and whether or not mankind actually has a say in the matter, as once more you relegate mankind to second or even third best compared to your beloved deity, who treats mankind like his puppets, and who chooses to bestow meaning on us, rather than allowing us to seek it for ourselves. Any good we do is accredited to him, and we take the full rap for any bad, further demeaning humanity, whose meaning you would rather was derived from his whim, regardless of mankind's wishes, and supposed capacity for self-determination, this shows that free will is meaningless to you, and yet is essential principal in any defence of God regarding worldly evil. Can you say theological contradiction?

Once again your happy time talking to yourself takes priority over all of humanity. This value for you is derived from your all knowing father figure, this is crude anthropomorphication in action, mankind are not children that they need a parent to tell them what to do, or how much they are worth. An adult seeks it's own destiny, and values themselves, and does not allow any parent to define who they are, who they are going to be, or how much value they have, but seeks it themselves, in confidence, in independence, and in maturity. This meaning is defined from within, not from without, as no one has a right to judge you as a human being, or define your worth like a slave at the market. As the meaning in this world is derived from mankind, who, I needn't remind you, is the measure of all things, then the meaning of mankind, according to your logic, must be derived from something greater than us, a greater being, a greater consciousness, with greater knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, I fail to see in what way this resembles god, even if it was a realistic idea.
Your creator, whose purpose for us, and destiny for us, is part of some great higher plan, which regardless of how great and powerful god is, nonetheless looks like a load of stupid, primitive, human mythological narrative crap.

A beginning that resembles the mythologies of all other religions and traditions, with an apocalyptic ending that also resembles all other such end of days scenarios. That you think it is okay for mankind to have any kind of ending, let alone one as part of a rather crude and overly metaphorical story, whose significant elements involve battles between Titanic personifications, and only involve mankind in a very cursory manner, not to mention rather insulting, and I'm not even going to go into the moral implications, shows once more that your pretty fantasy, and daddy in your head, means so much to you that you are willing to reduce all mankind to mere players in a rather tawdry little drama. One that it ignores all that mankind has become today, has achieved, and could achieve in the future, and merely dismisses us, and judges us according to the standards of a bunch of zealots a few thousand years ago. It does not say what we will become, just that a bunch of virgins get to go to heaven, but no one else.

If you think that mankind with all this potential, deserves to be reduced to the rather crude meaning in the momentous melodrama that is the bible, then you have a very low opinion of mankind no matter what you say.

Once again you choose to display the most unbelievable ignorance, this is a typical theistic mantra, that has been debunked time and time again all over this site. There is adequate information on the nature of evolution, and adequate examples of many theists getting foot in the mouth disease, and ending up getting a tongue thrashing by either myself or other people here. What is it about the constant repetition of the concept of randomness and chance that theists seam to absolutely fixate about? Why do they all think it means some sort of meaninglessness, even if it did accurately apply to evolution, which of course it does not. I expected better from you SOIL I would have thought you would have learnt from the mistakes of your fellow theists, and at least done the minimum amount of necessary research. This is a kind of raving lunacy I would have expected from Occam or CIL, not you. Randomness and chance are only specific elements within natural selection, they do not define the process, so stop up using these stupid mindless reductionist definitions of a theory which you clearly no absolutely nothing about.

We should not have to give a science lesson every time we talk to theists. I know you religious types value ignorance, illiteracy, and anti-intellectual bigotry as the highest of all conceivable virtues, but I would have thought you'd have learnt your lesson by now. It does get very tedious having to point it out. Whether your parents met by some arrangement, or by chance when they conceived you, does not in anyway define your life as meaningless or meaningful, so even if your definition of evolution was in any way correct, it has nothing to say about our species, or ourselves as individuals, again you are assuming that origin implies definition, this is a very simplistic way of looking at something as complicated as human life. And what the hell do memes have to do with it? They are soft replicating and self contained ideas, like your religion, and have nothing to do with brain construction, or biological processes.
Stop demeaning scientific concepts, or our very reality, in an infantile attempt to raise your religious doctrine above something which has far greater significance and consequence, than a immoral and irrational theological amalgamation of the very worst of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cults of the first century.

In summary, I'm a humanist that regards human life as so important that it must be regarded as absolute priority, your glee that the many elements of the bible fixate on your favourite obsession, your little deity, does not in anyway defend your indefensible position, that Christianity is not immoral. I will continue to state the truth, that every religion and absolute idealogy is mankind's worst enemy, that the very theological nature of religion always places values above mankind which leads to inhumane acts and ideas. I'll demonstrate this time and time again, until every fundy theist on this site either fucks off or de-converts so we can have some nice sensible discussions for a change.

I will respond to your remaining posts shortly.



AUB - The Virgin Mary in drag.

And that is how the thread ended. I include this debate as an example of things I have yet to put into a formal essay. The amount of material means it will be awhile so until then this is should give anyone looking for counter theistic and pro-humanistic arguments some ideas.

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