If God Exists...

If the Abrahamic God exists, then He needs to be told a few things. The things He needs to be told, in turn tells us volumes about His true nature: that God’s specific type of localized old world ignorance curiously coincides with the localized old world ignorance of those who told us of Him.

-DarkMatter2525

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZifSXlzlI&feature=youtu.be

 

what ever happened to the "beating a dead horse" emoticon?

could really use it about now.

 

Lol, some people.... And then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKNX6dieVcc

 

You mean the dead Horse that most people still fantasize is alive and well and working His magic?

That dead Horse?

 

I think the dead horse that portrays God simply as an angry human in the sky that needs to be set straight by people like you

Why not bump an old thread of yours? There were several with the exact same theme.

If you want to argue with or about people who literally believe every line in the bible is the word of God and not some collection of mythology, jewish history, parables, interpretations of what God could be and think like, symbolic stories etc. etc. by people in ancient times then go look them up. It appears that most abrahamic theists on here do not suit your narrowminded focus on christianity.

So what if people have faith in something you regard as a fantasy? Do you think everybody in the world will some day agree with you on this? (is it a problem that they don't? Or is the problem in reality that people like you and people like them can't tolerate eachother?)
Or is this just another venting of frustration (maybe because it's around christmas time?)
What do you expect with this thread that didn't happen in your other ones? This is the dead horse Nox is talking about methinks :-D

 

So hilariously true. It is also funny that people who have a more sophisticated type of religious belief tend to think that all religious people are like them. They seem to be woefully unaware that there are millions of people who believe in that ignorant old desert god, and who take every line of his pathetic scripture seriously. I have no problem with people who are compelled to believe in a creator due to the Kalam Cosmological argument or something similar, but if you believe in a god that has a chosen people, or who punishes unto the fourth generation for the sins of the ancestors, then you are an idiot or at the very least infected by nasty and idiotic thoughts.

Another related thought: Doesn't it ever bother members of a major religion that you can essentially color code a map of the world based on religious belief? All you need to do is swap religion for a specific scientific claim to see how absurd it is. People in the blue areas believe a meteor killed the dinosaurs. People in the red areas believe it was a virus.

Then there are the people who think you will burn for eternity in a lake of fire if you don't believe in their particular god. They are the biggest jerks of them all. Also, if the being you worship throws people into a lake of fire for non-belief, regardless of how you live your life, then I hate to break it to you but you are probably actually worshiping Satan.

 

that would be the dead horse I was talking about......

 

And many will come, beating many different horses.

The message within the video remains true. If there was ever any real proof of God, we'd all be beating the same horse and not each other.

 

I think Progressive Christians like me are painfully aware that an alarming percentage of believers believe the unbelievable. Yet these literalists are a fact of life like the weather or Trump supporters. We can curse them, complain about them or ridicule them, but it's unlikely to have much effect, and there comes a point where we may make ourselves ridiculous by becoming obsessed with the issue. [SIZE=12pt]The pervasiveness and intensity of religious sentiment suggest to me that it's deeply rooted in the human psyche--if not "hardwired" by evolution, at least the product of factors that are. Experts in political opinion have coined the phrase “rational ignorance” to explain the appalling lack of basic political knowledge among the voting public. [/SIZE]"Rational ignorance is refraining from acquiring knowledge when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide." (wiki). I think the term is applicable to religion as well. Most guys are content to accept the package of beliefs their parents or Pastor Bob hands them and get on with their lives with confidence--chasing dollars and skirts, and offering prayers to get themselves through life's crises and to bring victory in athletic contests. I, on the other hand, spend a large part of my life pouring over abstruse writings about religion, history, science and metaphysics, and remaining dazed and confused as ever. I see a counterpart in some of the folks who argue with me on Hip Forums, beating the poor dead horse of fundamentalism to a bloody pulp. We can console ourselves with Mill's assurance that it's "better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied"--but sometimes I wonder.

 

If you try to put words on this matter, you will only fall short. Don't try to wrap your monkey brain around all the ins and outs of the universe, just try to make it a better universe. Love for all things and respect of their reflections of the highest consciousness, that we are all connected to. The person you identify yourself as is here to experience anywhere between 2015 to 2100 and maybe more if you're lucky. Just enjoy it, make the most of it, and spread some love

 

This still leaves millions who are not aware.

Well one thing you could do as a Christian is support a project to re-write your admittedly outdated scriptures. Remove all of the murderous nonsense, and pledge never to preach those horrible parts of scripture in Church. You cannot in one breath claim that scripture is in any way divinely inspired and then condemn someone who takes a nasty part of it seriously.

Then what of those like me who have no such sentiment?

A hilarious thought when applied to a god. "I believe in this creator being who is the most powerful thing in the world. But this creator isn't important enough for me to devote any study to it, and besides there's a football game on."

This is the crux of the matter. Religious and spiritual thought have continued and evolved for thousands of years, attaining lofty heights that far surpass the brutishness and simpleness of large portions of the most popular scriptures, and yet Jews, Muslims, and Christians still refuse to write a new holy book.

 

I don't think the 'murderous nonsense' sentences and passages are the issue. It's how they are regarded and acted upon by individuals. How many preachers use those parts to intice violence and discrimination onto nonbelievers? Seems a minority, certainly in my neck of the woods (netherlands). People that place these dubious passages at the centre of ther religion/spiritual life and act upon it are of course the ones who are causing problems (wether it be hatepreaching, gaybashing, discrimination or projecting things on eachother because of such passages).
Ideally (from our POV at least ) we would all accept the bilble is not literally the word of God but since a lot of people who do believe it aren't causing any problem for others I'm not sure how much it matters to you and me that they see it as such. t's not about condemning a person as a whole because of this literally belief either (at least it shouldn't be). Condemn the dubious action/thought and adress it if needed, but not the whole human being (like he's believing this or that so he is void of all reason and logic or if not at least a latent threat to our society).

Re-editing the bible because nonchristians have a problem with certain passages is like re-editing Tom Sawyer because people have problems with the N word. Look man, the book is just like that. The religious lifes of a lot of christians are not focussed on such passages. The problem with these particular passages is not that they are there. It is how a minority of christians see them and act upon them and how a majority of nonbelievers see them and agitate against them. Same with organized religion as a whole. The problem is not that they are part of our human world but how people act upon it and deal with it.

 

if god or gods exist, why would it or they, have anything to do with anything any of us think we know about it?
there's a whole heck of a lot bigger universe out their then even all of our egos combined.
and that's just what's physical, and there could be just as much that isn't.

there is simply no logical reason to expect a god or gods, to have a damd thing to do with christianity, islam, or any of the rest of them.

humans invented bullshit, long before they invented writing.

so even if god or a god, picks some poor bastard every thousand years, give or take a few hundred, to be channeled by, how does that make either of them infallible?

and how can anything that would wish to be feared be called good?

no. i have no problem with that the idea of there being something big and powerful and nonphysical and good, but such a being, simply could not and would not be anything very much like the god discribed in the christian bible. it certainly wouldn't have created an anti-god for it to be at war with.

but there COULD be a god, without all those inhierent self contradictions. no reason at all why there couldn't.

 

Really? You don't find any issue with holy books containing passages that clearly invoke people to violence and praise and glorify horrendously immoral acts? It does not matter if preachers are or are not using those passages, what matters is that they are preaching from a book which contains such nonsense. As long as they do that they cannot condemn those who take the nonsense parts literally. And if most Christians know it is nonsense like you say then why is it in the book? This would be exactly like saying it is ok to use a Chemistry text book from 1940 because some of it is still good and Progressive Chemists know to ignore the incorrect parts. That is silly, just write a new edition.

These are not analogous at all, not even remotely. Firstly one book is supposed to be the word of god, even if not meant literally it is supposed to be divinely inspired and taken seriously. The other is clearly not a religious text and is not claimed to be divinely inspired. Secondly there is a huge difference between being uncomfortable with certain words, and being uncomfortable with passages that glorify the murder of innocent people. This is especially true because Tom Sawyer isn't arguing that people should use offense language, but there are portions of the Bible that heap praise on horrible acts, clearly implying that people should behave that way.

Also the idea that it is non-Christians only who have a problem with this is absurd. Certainly Progressive Christians have a problem with those passages too. I just can't understand why they don't get rid of them.

Yes it absolutely is. Especially because we live in a world with millions of people who are not sophisticated enough to be progressive.

Agreed. I arrived at this conclusion shortly after my 12th birthday. And I cannot understand how adult Christians, Muslims, and Jews don't see this obvious truth (sticking with religions related to Abraham as that is what the OP was about).

 

^ Aside from pointing out the absurdity of Abrahamic religions, there is a very rational contradiction against the existence of any God. That there is absolutely no good reason, that any being worthy of the name God, would choose to create lesser forms of life. This is the ultimate self evident contradiction against God, the world we live in. The proof is in the pudding.

 

The re-write you ask for has already been done, but it's not exactly new: the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson, in the best spirit of Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, did a cut and paste job on the Bible, and left a large part of it on the cutting room floor--including the atrocities, the miracles, and the Resurrection. Some churches use it. And there are scads of books out there analyzing away all of those awful passages in both testaments --try Borg, Crossan, or Spong. Crossan's How to Read the Bible and Still Be A Christian: Struggling WIth Divine Violence From Genesis Through Revelation would be a good start. I value the Bible as the historical-metaphorical context for Jesus and what He was about. Jefferson's version is good enough for me, For a majority of believers though, an overt human revision would probably not go over, because it would lack divine authority. The Bible serves important psychological needs for fundamentalist believers: the security of certainty in uncertain times. I find that even atheists have problems with Christians like me who decide what parts of the Bible to believe. I think most folks have a low tolerance for cognitive dissonance. The Bible provides black and white answers in an ambiguous world.

 

did your mom exist?

you answered your own question op in your phrasing

if god exists

if
if
if
equals
does not

 

You are still a relatively small minority in the world, and one which has become possible largely because of conditions which are relatively new to the world. In Why Would Anyone Believe In God, cognitive psychologist Justin Barrett argues that humans are cognitively disposed to make it easy to believe in God, but he includes a chapter on Why Would Anyone Not Believe in God, and outlines strategies for "fighting back theism". If he's right, atheists probably face an uphill battle.

 

It's been beaten down to just a mushy red patch on the ground. Nothing left of a horse that's recognizable.

 

Some might find it hilarious, others disturbing. I find it all too human.