Religion Ask a Christian - Continued in Part 2

[Chief]

Continued in Part Two:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ask-a-christian-part-2.1295001/unread

 

[Evolved1]

Not upto Carlton standards.

They love hasbeen Collingwood discards.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

And you can reconcile the point in difference when it comes down to morality? Does morality then become arbitrary depending on which scale you want to use at the time?

Well I sure as schitte know that your bible isn’t going to give me much guidance on morality.

Check out my Christianity and Homosexuality thread from a couple of years ago. (Should be right up your alley.) I asked why it is that so many of the Old Testament laws are no longer observed by Christians, but the prohibition against homosexuality still is. Why is it OK to eat shellfish or snake, but not OK to have sex with the person you love?

The whole thing was respectful and calm. A number of Christians took up the challenge, and proceeded to tie themselves up in all manner of theological knots. After about 16 pages, they finally decided that there is still a prohibition against homosexuality. But the justification for it was the most arcane, angels-on-the-head of a pin stuff, that was way beyond any ordinary person.

So if it takes that sort of gymnastics for a fairly clear-cut question, why would you look upon your bible for any kind of clarity on anything?

You along with everyone else no doubt go up in arms when evil is committed on earth

Yes, of course we do, as does every other decent human being.

yet try to make everything happening on earth "insignificant" on some grand scale of the universe

We're not trying to make it insignificant. It already does that all on its own.

Just to shut down a simple message that you are in fact significant beyond the bounds of the earth.

Not trying to shut down anything, simply not accepting your unsupported suppositions here.

Some of you live miserable, hopeless lives it's not funny. Makes me think whether you were projecting when you talking about self loathing.

Leaving aside the fact that you know zero about me in real life, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm a pretty happy guy these days.

Took me about five decades to shake off the malignant presence of my fundamentalist Christian upbringing; maybe that's got something to do with it.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Noah did good by getting drunk and ******* his daughters, as any self respecting theist does.

Oh, but we mustn't judge the characters of the Old Testament by today's standards. That wouldn't be fair.

Except hating on gays of course. That still stands.

 

[Total Power]

Not trying to shut down anything, simply not accepting your unsupported suppositions here.

The point of most creation stories is that the Earth is the universe and it's created for us. We can clearly see now that we are not in any special place and the universe was not created for us. It's much more fitting for stars than for people.

People are an accidental by-product. Stars exist throughout the universe, people on one little rock. In our galaxy there are more stars than people and across the universe there are more galaxies than people too. Galaxies are continually making new stars, people not so much.

Stars were here long before people and will be here long after people are gone. Our little rock will one day be eaten by our star and it doesn't care.

Humans have a very, very limited capacity to comprehend scale. We think a million miles is a long distance and we think a million years is a long time. We simply cannot truly grok any metric that is measured in billions and billions. Yet the huge size of our incredible universe would be insignificant when compared to anything that is "infinite".

To me, this is a big reason why religions are so obviously bullshit.

 

[Evolved1]

Oh, but we mustn't judge the characters of the Old Testament by today's standards. That wouldn't be fair.

Except hating on gays of course. That still stands.

We're not righteous enough to consider incest.

 

[Total Power]

Oh, but we mustn't judge the characters of the Old Testament by today's standards. That wouldn't be fair.

Except hating on gays of course. That still stands.

To be fair to him, he did say we haven't improved morally at all. Which to me echoes Vdubs sentiment that we are fallen. I am actually amazed people see no difference in the society today than 1,000 years ago. I am actually interested to know how their brain works? are they that invested in the Bible they don't see anything, even obvious facts?

 

[Evolved1]

To be fair to him, he did say we haven't improved morally at all. Which to me echoes Vdubs sentiment that we are fallen. I am actually amazed people see no difference in the society today than 1,000 years ago. I am actually interested to know how their brain works? are they that invested in the Bible they don't see anything, even obvious facts?

I'll take a wild guess they're viewing the acceptance of homosexuality, feminism, non-Christian science (evolution), and openness towards other religions as a basis for their stance as victims.

"How could we possibly accept human wisdom when god has given us his wisdom?"

 

[Sweet Jesus]

mikey127 Vdubs Why did God create the pandemic?

 

[Total Power]

I'll take a wild guess they're viewing the acceptance of homosexuality, feminism, non-Christian science (evolution), and openness towards other religions as a basis for their stance as victims.

"How could we possibly accept human wisdom when god has given us his wisdom?"

Simple fact, outside of evolutionary survival traits, morality is purely subjective. Why i keep repeating this? Cause these traits are essential in preserving trust in a group, which increases our chance of survival. Evolution depends on the fact that you can pass on your genes. Cooperation would require honesty. That's why we have the sense of never to kill or steal or lie. If we kill our partners, then we've reduced the amount of individuals that would help us in achieving our common goal. If we steal from our partners, then we would eliminate trust which makes us more fragmented and less likely to achieve our common goal. If we lie, we would destroy the trust between each partner. etc etc.

Religion just adds a label on it plus some religion-specific stuff like to not say God's name in vain.

Outside of this no moral objectivity exists. Take a look at the middle east. If morality were objective, you'd share the same beliefs as those in Iraq. I am going to take a leap and say they don't believe in Hijab/Niqab, arranged marriages or female circumcision.

 

[Evolved1]

mikey127 Vdubs Why did God create the pandemic?

They're too busy building an ark to reply.

 

[Total Power]

They're too busy building an ark to reply.

Here comes the 'sin' argument. All sins are the same, if you are caught lying,, you are as bad as Hitler.


What an amazing thought. These Xtians are truly amusing.

 

[Evolved1]

Simple fact, outside of evolutionary survival traits, morality is purely subjective. Why i keep repeating this? Cause these traits are essential in preserving trust in a group, which increases our chance of survival. Evolution depends on the fact that you can pass on your genes. Cooperation would require honesty. That's why we have the sense of never to kill or steal or lie. If we kill our partners, then we've reduced the amount of individuals that would help us in achieving our common goal. If we steal from our partners, then we would eliminate trust which makes us more fragmented and less likely to achieve our common goal. If we lie, we would destroy the trust between each partner. etc etc.

Religion just adds a label on it plus some religion-specific stuff like to not say God's name in vain.

Outside of this no moral objectivity exists. Take a look at the middle east. If morality were objective, you'd share the same beliefs as those in Iraq. I am going to take a leap and say they don't believe in Hijab/Niqab, arranged marriages or female circumcision.

Modern Christians follow the common sense parts of the bible. The silly stuff about eating shelfish,, flat Earth, creationism, and fighting against mixed fabric clothes are ignored.

The rest of us don't need a commandment to stop us from killing and raping.

I feel sorry for anyone who needs a commandment to stop them from murdering their neighbor.

 

[Evolved1]

Here comes the 'sin' argument. All sins are the same, if you are caught lying,, you are as bad as Hitler.


What an amazing thought. These Xtians are truly amusing.

Hitler was a Christian. He's living in Heaven with many dead pedo priests.

 

[Total Power]

Modern Christians follow the common sense parts of the bible. The silly stuff about eating shelfish,, flat Earth, creationism, and fighting against mixed fabric clothes are ignored.

The rest of us don't need a commandment to stop us from killing and raping.

I feel sorry for anyone who needs a commandment to stop them from murdering their neighbor.

Which is exactly i asked this question many times, why are there parts of the Bible they don't approve of, even when Jesus says it? are they applying their morality and concluding Jesus was wrong? apparently yes.

Christians are raised with their own culture that values different things at different times. A modern Christian literally can't follow all the crazy rules without breaking the law in some serious ways and violating social norms. So they are forced to pick and choose from the get go. It's natural and normal.

If you do ignore these verses, the question then becomes, why do you disobey them? Are they not considered 'divine' teachings?

 

[Evolved1]

Which is exactly i asked this question many times, why are there parts of the Bible they don't approve of, even when Jesus says it? are they applying their morality and concluding Jesus was wrong? apparently yes.

Christians are raised with their own culture that values different things at different times. A modern Christian literally can't follow all the crazy rules without breaking the law in some serious ways and violating social norms. So they are forced to pick and choose from the get go. It's natural and normal.

If you do ignore these verses, the question then becomes, why do you disobey them? Are they not considered 'divine' teachings?

Only those who wear the Jeebus goggles can understand the holy babble. It's hard to explain to outsiders, much like the Essendon doping saga.

 

[Total Power]

Only those who wear the Jeebus goggles can understand the holy babble. It's hard to explain to outsiders, much like the Essendon doping saga.

So they are half atheists?

 

[Evolved1]

So they are half atheists?

To put it lightly.

Of the thousands of gods proposed by men, Christians only believe in three. Monotheism is far more logical afaic.

 

[Total Power]

To put it lightly.

Of the thousands of gods proposed by men, Christians only believe in three. Monotheism is far more logical afaic.

3! lol now you opened a can of worms.

LOL love your work.

 

[Evolved1]

3! lol now you opened a can of worms.

LOL love your work.

A trolling stone gathers no moss.

 

[Total Power]

A trolling stone gathers no moss.

Would you believe this, my current business partner who is a very very orthodox Christian believes because he named his previous venture TRINITY , he was able to be successful and sell it eventually for several millions. There is were diplomacy comes in, i have to listen to a lot of his garbage lol but he is the one who opened his wallet up and invested in my startup 3 years ago. Now it's going great and we didn't name it Trinity but he still thinks Trinity is the reason why it's successful. Ummm ok lol

 

[Ghost Patrol]

 

[Baltimore Jack]

If christains in the US think they don't need to wear a mask because jesus will save them, why do they need guns?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

View attachment 1188169

Simultaneously managing to show us she doesn’t understand the difference between a spoiler and a spoiler alert.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Simple fact, outside of evolutionary survival traits, morality is purely subjective. Why i keep repeating this? Cause these traits are essential in preserving trust in a group, which increases our chance of survival. Evolution depends on the fact that you can pass on your genes. Cooperation would require honesty. That's why we have the sense of never to kill or steal or lie. If we kill our partners, then we've reduced the amount of individuals that would help us in achieving our common goal. If we steal from our partners, then we would eliminate trust which makes us more fragmented and less likely to achieve our common goal. If we lie, we would destroy the trust between each partner. etc etc.

Religion just adds a label on it plus some religion-specific stuff like to not say God's name in vain.

Outside of this no moral objectivity exists. Take a look at the middle east. If morality were objective, you'd share the same beliefs as those in Iraq. I am going to take a leap and say they don't believe in Hijab/Niqab, arranged marriages or female circumcision.

That view of morality would appear to be self evident. But of course we are defining it then viewing it from our human perspective, and through a certain metaphysical lens that separates the objective and subjective.

 

[Total Power]

That view of morality would appear to be self evident. But of course we are defining it then viewing it from our human perspective, and through a certain metaphysical lens that separates the objective and subjective.

A lot of things in morality are evolutionary traits that comes from natural selection. These parts of morality are objective. So if you acknowledge natural selection theory, an all powerful being can be immoral by simply violating these objective rules, possibly including no killing on innocents, no hurting of children, and no flooding the whole world. We know genocide, murder rape is wrong from a survival and evolutionary perspective. Outside of that I do not believe objective morality exists independent of humans. Look in the nature, it's brutal, look at the universe, a whole galaxy got gobbled up by a black hole. It's brutal.

Nietzsche writes on this rather extensively in "Beyond Good and Evil" and "On the Genealogy of Morals". Morality exists only because of humans. It does not objectively exist. Morals and values are created by the herd or by a small number of individuals (not having to do with their political power at all) and thus these values serve the good of the herd or affirm life. He investigates values like "love thy neighbor as thyself". If you hated your neighbor, wouldn't it be great if you could convince him to love you, instead of dismiss you or not even recognize you?

"God is dead and we have killed him" is often a misunderstood quote.