Who really wrote the Bible?

Naicea misconceptions

The Trinity is BS

One Myth leads to another

What is the Holy Spirit?

On supposed contradictions

God`s name, Jehovah

The Lie that made God a mystery

The Lie that made God cruel

More on the Bible & Science

Limitations of Science

Why ancient Sacrifices?

About God`s Laws

Jehovah is NOT Omnipresent

Creation reveals the Living God



Ka-Tra

Well I figured that was something we could all agree on. Even if you believe in god, you can admit the bible was man made, right?

And even though it was man made, it still has that horrible translation history. Which often includes what stays in and what stays out.

I even remember from one of the "the big question" debates, one lady said something a long the lines of "Well if you have a secretary, and you ask her to write a memo, that is your memo, not the secretaries. Therefore yes, the bible was written by god." Inferring god had a human secretary. That he talked to.

I am (not) sorry, but talking to an invisible being is getting irksomely close to insane.

EDIT: @ Tetra-Vega
I find it mind boggling that you think a bunch of links from a Jehovah's Witness website does anything to prove what you are saying. Real research does not come from one single source....

I`m not an expert, sorry I don`t know the Word as well as Satan...
Exactly, the Secretary example. The Bible was Dictated to Man for Man.

Dictation being the writing down of words said to you, not the corrupt despot government concept.
He has been very patient with us all.

Funny you should attack me, for no reason.
They have done their research, using, and comparing various sources.
If you actually read anything in the links, there are references, and citations all over the place.

I also noticed a few posts back, you didn`t clarify which ``God`` doesn`t exist.
Your words betray you, dear Brother...



Ka-Tra

I don't care how well you know the bible. Saying anything from it does not prove anything.

Yes the bible was dictated by men for men and it was these men's idea. Not god's.

He has been patient? Why cause we all haven't bowed down to him? What kind of god asks for worship? I don't consider that moral.

I am sorry if anything I said came off as an attack, that is not the way it was meant. You are free to believe anything you are want, that doesn't mean I have to be tolerant of you telling me that it is "The truth" when there is no evidence to support such a thing.

Using and comparing multiple sources?! I did read through some of them, and the only source I found was the bible. Yeah, great research.

Even if that website did do good research, and no I didn't go through every single link, information to support you claims would be much more meaningful if it didn't come from a website called "Jehovah's witness". I doubt you touched any of the ones I have posted, and if you did, you didn't give any sort of related response to them.

Show me the sources they used, or any content that is not directly related to your religion, that supports it. That would actually have meaning and might be somewhat convincing.

I said it was mind-boggling that you think a website of your religion counts as a valid source. It is.

If you want truth, do your own research. The information and links you posted prove absolutely nothing and you presented it as if it does.

If you think that is an attack on you, then I am sorry. In no way did I mean to offend you as a person. But I am allowed to jump on the ideals of your religion, and the ideas you present. When you present these substantial claims the onus of proof is on you. You have yet to show any proof of your beliefs.

You have faith? Well that is your opinion and you are entitled to it.

Dear god. I asked why this was made, not "who else wants to continue this shitfest?"

Look, everyone...

Who gives a shit?

If someone wants to be Christian, let them. Someone wants to be Muslim, let them.

The key isn't the belief system.

I know Muslims and Christians in the US who are extremely nice and tolerant people. They never cared that I was atheist or bisexual, they merely cared that I was a good person.

Look towards the middle east, and you have non-heterosexuals and atheists/non-believers being jailed and executed for those exact reasons.

It's not religion, it's region and upbringing.

Yes, there are assholes in religion in the US. Guess what? There are atheist assholes too.

We don't need to prove the validity of the bible, the Qur'an, the Torah, or any religion's texts and beliefs.

What we need is to try and take the best of them, help humanity, and move forward.

Not everyone agrees on what is best, but that's the beauty of talking about it. We can compromise and think.

Any kind of fighting over this is moronic.

Oh, btw, the terrorists over in the middle east aren't really religiously fueled. Rather, the grunts and people may be, but let's face it, those in power don't care for it just like in the US. It's a power play and they know how to manipulate the people to their side.

This shitfest was already continued before you joined lmao.

There is reason to care when people are indoctrinating there kids with this. Even more so when religious schools are being funded by the government (That is the case in Canada, and because of it the catholic school is by far much more wealthy than the other public schools.)

I do not care what adults choose to believe. I am going to ridicule them when they say that they have the ultimate truth and infer that every one else is living a lie.




I never said religious people are bad people. I never inferred it either.

I never said atheists are good people, nor did I infer it.

We are talking about ideologies, and I tried to make it clear that in no way do I mean to attack anybody on here. But their ideas? Of course I will. If somebody truly believes that Elvis is alive, and there were a group of people that avidly preached this belief, we would laugh at them. It would be hard not to, because their belief is ridiculous and has no basis in truth or evidence.



Uhh... If you are going to belief that it is the ultimate truth, you should probably prove the validity of the text. No, you don't have to in order to believe it. But isn't it common sense that something you consider truth should come from a valid text.

For example, the person who created Mormonism is a conartist. He wrote the book as if it was in 18th century language, even though some 21st century words and other linguistics came through in it. All of this has been investigated and proven, yet people still believe in the book of Mormonism. That is not valid, and people who are going to say that Mormonism is truth deserve to be ridiculed. That is not to say we discriminate against the person, but we should ridicule ridiculous ideas. That is how a society progresses.

At one point in our history, when we figured out that the world is not flat (*cough cough* The bible says it is flat *cough cough*) the people who were "flat earthers"-- the one's that still believed the earth was flat-- were ridiculed. Rightfully so when they are presented with the evidence. Same with the earth revolving around the sun as opposed to the sun revolving around the earth.



Yes, and that can be done by ridiculing ideas that have absolutely no evidence to support them.



Like I said, I was not trying to attack anyone. However it is frustrating when you ask someone for any evidence and they give you 12 links to a website by the name of their religion and only has one source- The bible.

What do you think we are doing here? I am willing to compromise, and I have been thinking during my replies and while reading this whole thread. I would be surprised if it did not spark a lot of thinking within the people posting on this thread.

That is the point anyways. Constructive thinking, collaboration, discussion. I was not trying to start a fight, I was trying to start a discussion. I do not understand your problem with this thread, other than maybe the fact that it has some harsh undertones.



By no means am I informed enough to take a strong opinion on the topic of terrorism in the middle east. That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the powerful people in the middle east "aren't really religiously fueled". They are probably just as religiously fuelled as America is. Now what may go against that is some of the laws in the middle east which are quite obviously based in religion. Again, not educated in their laws in the middle east either, I am not going to pretend to know. But I find it hard to believe that religion does not play a major role from both sides. Obama will say shit like "God Bless America". A lot of American soldiers probably believe what they are doing is "for god", and that "God is on our side". It is probably more or less the same mentality coming from the middle east.

Again, you could bring to light some facts that refute this. I would love to hear it and am open minded! I don't keep up with current politics as much as I wish I did.

Your post was well written and insightful, hopefully I learn something from the next one too.

I can concede that.



You've inferred that atheists are better because you keep downplaying religious beliefs. By saying "they are dumb" or that their beliefs are "ridiculous", you imply the opposing side isn't.

Attack ideas and laugh at people? That makes you a bully. It doesn't matter how valid you find their beliefs, you're still bullying them over it.

It doesn't matter how little or how much evidence someone has. It's primarily about what they do with it, and how it affects others.



You don't have to prove anything you don't want to.

If I ask YOU to prove the non-existence of deities, you might say you don't have to because the religious made the claim.

Guess what? To them, it's reversed. You made a claim against their truth. It doesn't matter your "logical" high ground, what matters is if you can prove your point without needing to defer the question to others.

Ok, great, he was a con artist. Have you met a Mormon? They're the nicest people I've ever met. They have the best weed, they tolerate EVERYONE I know, they care less about converts and more about keeping the community safe and families intact, and in the end, they're far a better people than I have met.

I'm a bisexual atheist. They treat me as family, the ones I know, and they've NEVER tried to convert me. Yes, we'll talk on theology and philosophy, but guess what? They don't care if I'm atheist and I don't care if they're Mormon. A lot of this has to do with who they are and what they're taught, not the actual book. Yea, churches can get annoying with converting, but in the end, the people are indeed nice people. Ofc, again, this depends on the PERSON and not the RELIGION.

Society doesn't progress on bullying others. It progresses once we come to compromise and understanding on topics. You realize that many scientific discoveries, and even the big bang itself, was suggested by religious people, right?

"the bible says it is flat cough cough"

Again, bullying tactics. You realize you are being a complete asshole right now, ye? It doesn't matter how dumb they sound, you're being mean to them about it.

Anyways, it's NEVER right to ridicule someone. It's better to educate and show them what is true. Read the Allegory of the cave by Plato. He talks about truth and belief in there, and how even if you teach others, they may not believe.

If you're too distracted to read it, watch the Matrix. It's the same idea.

Yea, if I said I believe in X and was wrong, I could regress into stronger belief or I could come and believe Y. But ridicule? That never helps.

Imagine if a god WAS proven and suddenly everyone trashed you for being retarded? You'd hate it.



No. WRONG. Ridiculing others does NO good. It's about understanding and teaching. That's the one thing I can say is wrong entirely, that you think that hurting people is the right way to go.



Then don't ask. Why bother? If you're looking for answers, figure out your own. Don't challenge others' beliefs just so you can smugly assure yourself of your false intellect.



We're not doing that at all. You're making passive-aggressive remarks against religions and claiming innocence.

My problem with this thread is entirely that asking a crowd to defend shit never works out. All you ever get is extreme opinions posted against each other, and nothing gets done. You haven't been discussing, you've been adding fuel. Why do you think religious people hate this shit? They don't wanna sit there and have you insult their beliefs.



You find it hard to believe because you choose no to research it so you can take comfort that it's a morality war vs a resource war.

Obama says God Bless America to keep assholes off his back aka PR service.

Soldiers go to war for many reasons, some religious. So do the soldiers in the middle east.

Do you think Obama or the leaders of ISIS actually give half a shit? Obama is making sure he can do what he needs to in his presidency, same as any politician. The ISIS leader know they can recruit young radicals to their cause with that, so they use them.

They pander to certain groups to get support. Republicans tend to attract religious people, so they pander there. Democrats tend to attract secular people, so they pander there. It's not truly fueled by morality, it's fueled by gain.



Any facts I would need to bring are pointed out. I'm not here to defend a religion, I'm here to defend people. The way you argue is passive-aggressive bullying tactics.

How would you like it if I called you a fat, neckbearded fedora tipper? I bet you'd feel offended. Just like the Christians who you call ignorant and racist, just like the Muslims who you call backwards and angry.

I'll be honest, I'm not happy at all after reading your bullshit. I am literally needing to calm my shit down now, and I hope to whatever that you start realizing that being an asshole is not how you change shit.

I never inferred atheists, the people, are better. Not once. If I did, show it to me, and I will apologize. That is not what I meant to do. I do not go up to people on the street, ask their religion, and ridicule them. Nor do I see a guy with a religious head piece and go "You know you are following a sham, right?"

I have religious friends, I do not ridicule them every day. We have had serious talks about it, and obviously we ended up agreeing to disagree. But if they say something like "Oh don't worry, god will take care of that." I will ridicule that idea. Not them. The idea. It is majorly different.

I can downplay religious beliefs all I want if I think they are ridiculous. I do not think people are lesser because they are religious. And therefore I don't treat them as lesser because they are religious. That would be bullying.

But yes, I think their ideas are dumb. And no, I don't think my beliefs are dumb. That DOES NOT imply that I think atheists are better than religious people.

so NO, I didnt infer atheist are better by downplaying religious beliefs. Yes, I said religious ideals are dumb, because I think they are, I am entitled to that opinion.




I will have to respectfully disagree. Attacking ideas is a good thing in my view. It is the basis for critical thinking, and if it weren't for it we would still be living in a world dominated by religion.

I am not bullying someone by criticizing their beliefs.

I have never learned more in my life than when someone has attacked something I believe very dearly. It caused me to re-evaluate what I consider to be true.

If you scroll back, and read some of the earlier posts, you will see temporaryusername with some amazing points and arguments coming from the religious side of things. Posts like that is what I wanted to evoke.



If you are only worried about society getting a long, sure. But I am actually concerned about reality and truth. So yes, it does matter how little evidence someone has to support their beliefs.

Like I have stated before, everyone has the freedom to religion. That is a good thing, and obviously we all have to get along. I wanted to talk about this. Maybe the passive aggressiveness came out by accident, I can concede that. But that is probably because the same passive aggressiveness existed in the other side of the posts. It could also be because I ask for evidence and either get none or bible quotes. That is frustrating, and if a little bit of passive aggressiveness came out because of that, my bad. Does that really through the validity of having this conversation out the window though?



No... but if you tell me it is truth and expect me to believe you then you do...



Okay, there is a lot wrong with what you just said.

I understand that it seems reversed to them. But that is simply not true. Atheism is the default position. There is NO claim.

It is literally impossible to disprove a negative claim. You cannot prove that we weren't all born 30 seconds ago, and simply have a memory implanted that we have lived all these years. You can't disprove that.

You can prove a positive claim though.

You also cannot prove that The Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist.

I am not claiming logical high ground. Why is logic in quotation marks?

It is worth mentioning that every religious person is 99.99% atheist. That's because they think every other religion is false.

Simply: it is literally impossible to prove a negative claim. It is possible to prove a positive claim.

Simpler EX. Prove that humans exist= easy
Prove talking machine guns that think for themselves don't exist= impossible, even though it is extremely likely that they don't exist, it is impossible to prove.

Now my guess here is that you are going to say all that is me using my ""logical" high ground" ( that term still confuses me)



I have met a Mormon family, my ex was related to them. She thought they were a group of weirdos, but I met them and yes they perfectly nice people (but they didn't have any weed unfortunately :P).

This has nothing to do with the point I am making. I don't know why you keep going back to me hating on religious people. . Buuuut "they are far a better people than I have met." That isn't quite clear. Do you mean they are better people than the average person you meet or...? Sorry was just confusing, I don't really know what you meant there.

The point of him being a con artists the point that it becomes quite obvious the guy made that shit up. Again, these Mormon people I met, I didn't start making fun of them for believing something that isn't true.

But, the purpose here is to find and discuss truth, which many people consider their religion. I did not make this thread. If I did, I wouldn't have named it what it is.




I have tried to make this point over and over again. I am not attacking the PERSON, but I am attacking the RELIGION. It is obviously not true, and a large amount of these people indoctrinate their children with this theology.

I never said that makes them bad people, particularly if they are unaware of the nefariousness of it. But when an adult tells their child they are going to burn in hell for eternity if they misbehave, I have a problem.



As I have stated I was not bullying people. Bully from google define: "use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants."

Do I have superior strength or influence? Did I seem intimidating? Did I seem to be forcing other people to believe what I believe? I thought I made it quite clear I was not trying to do these things.

What does it matter if it was suggested by religious people?!

I never said religious people are bad! I never said religious people are unintelligent! Intelligent people can believe stupid things, stupid people could believe intelligent things. I have made it VERY clear that I had no intent on attacking people! Ideas can be attacked. If we cannot attack ideas, we must just be tolerant of whatever ideas people throw at us? I hate to bring up this example, but we should have just let Hitler's Germany believe whatever they want and let them go on doing what they are doing?

No, we are allowed to say "that is stupid" and it is not bullying to think an idea is stupid and express that thought.



Mean to them? No! Mean to their ideas? Of course! I do not have to respect someone's beliefs. I still do, to an extent. But I certainly do not have to respect what anyone believes.

It does matter how dumb they sound! Why should I not ridicule an idea that is ridiculous? Out of respect and niceness for the person that believes that ridiculous idea? I find that disrespectful. If someone tells me they believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, pray to him 10 times a day for 10 minutes, and consider him before everything they do, and rely on him for all of his moral choices, then the responsible thing is to do anything you can to help him realize what he is doing. It is unhealthy to do something like that, and by not attacking those ideas you are hurting him. If you attack those ideas, you might provoke some critical thinking, and actually help the person.

No, I am not saying all religious people need help and are unhealthy. But I do think any religious person that truly relies on a book for their morals, is not a healthy person. Granted I understand most religious people do not follow the bible ... religiously (LOL, couldn't think of a better word) and that is a very good thing.

Maybe I sound like a bit of an asshole, but when I met my greatest mentor I thought he was an asshole. But then I learned the reason behind what he was doing. The first one, you can skip to 2:55 to see what I mean. The second one is Penn Jillette, and it hits the nail on the head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARBz03XH7lU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNRw7snmGM

"I wanna live in a place where everyone is busted on their bullshit all the time."- "What we call tolerance is often condescending."



I disagree. The videos above explain why ridicule is important. Yes, education is important, and they still may not believe. That is a given. Ridicule goes a long way to shake that foundation, and make people rethink.

Educate all you want, it often takes more than that to really make somebody think about what they believe.



That is all refuted above. It certainly can help.



That's what you think lol. If it was proven that there was a god, I hope people wouldn't bash me for being retarded. I would change my mind and believe in god. I do not bash people who change their mind according to evidence, let alone when people used to be religious but changed to Atheism. I don't go "ahah your retarded because you used to believe this". That is the situation you are presenting me with. If there was proof of a god, and I continued to deny it, I HOPE my ideas get ridiculed. They should be if they are ridiculous, which they would be if there was proof of a god! That ridicule would basically force me to rethink my ideas. That would be a good thing.








Attacking someones ideas should NOT hurt him. It doesn't hurt me when someone says "You're wrong". I like it. I never said hurting people is the right way to go.



That was as rude as anything I have said on this thread. Message boards are for discussing. That is what we are doing. I learned more from reading TemporaryUserName's posts than I have doing research about religion on my own. It is not a crime to challenge others beliefs. Let alone on a message board. Do not tell me I am "smugly assuring myself of my false intellect" while accusing me of bullying other people. I attacked ideas, you are attacking me.

I would rather discuss with other humans who live in the religion, than read from religious websites to learn about them. Go ahead and tell me to do that on my own all you want, but that isn't going to get you anywhere. It is a message board, for sending messages, and exchanging ideas. That is what I am doing. You actually attacked me for doing so, whether I had passive aggressive undertones or not.





Yeah, I am making remarks that go against religions. I have admitted there might be a passive aggressive undertone. How is that claiming innocence.

There were discussions in this thread earlier. Like I said, I didn't make the fucking title.

I did not necessarily re-bump this to get a crowd to "defend shit", but to ignite a discussion about religion.

I haven't been discussing, I have been adding fuel?! Everything I have said is related to religions, truth, and reality in one way or another. I am talking about the topic. How in the hell is that not discussing, and just "adding fuel"?



Well fuck right off that was rude. I didn't take the assumption that it was a morality war, or a resource war. I simply stated that the religious motivations behind both are probably equally as strong. I didn't even assert that. I said probably, and made it obvious that I have not been keeping up, but you automatically take that as "I choose not to research it". You have been ruder to me than I have to anyone else on this thread!



That was my point.



I don't know. However I am curious, what makes you so sure they don't give a shit?



I never said or implied the opposite....



You didn't say anything that goes against the only claim I made about this- I think they both have similar religious motivations; whether it be strong or not.

If what I said came off as passive aggressive, I already said that was not my intent.

Like I said, I never attacked the people in this thread. Bullying attacks people. I didn't attack people. It would be condescending if I had your attitude which seems to be "yeah go ahead and believe whatever you want, good for you" oh wait this next part is great....



Well obviously, I wouldn't like that. Did I attack anybody on a personal level?! No. I didn't. Ignorance and racism are actually related to ideas. Fat, neckbearded, fedora tipper has nothing to do with ideology.

You know what? Fuck you for saying that shit about me. I don't call those people ignorant, racist, backwards or angry unless a specific one of those people do or say something that makes me think they are. This is you attacking me, and assuming shit about me you don't know. I would never call someone "backwards". You are clearly putting me into a group, and generalizing me as a person. Even if I was attacking these people, you are clearly guilty of the exact same thing. And justify it by saying "You are defending people". By attacking me? Good one.



Yeah and I hope you realize how hypocritical your post was. I had stated, that I was not trying to be an asshole. However, as it entails in this post, I think it is sometimes a good thing to be intolerant. Many people including Penn Jillette agrees with me.

At least I apologized because I may have come off as rude. You were just straight out attacking me. You basically accused me of attacking every religious person, When I said multiple times in my earlier posts that is not what I mean to do with this, and that my posts are comments on the ideologies, not the people who believe in them.

Telling me I call Muslims angry and backwards was out of the blue and totally uncalled for. I haven't even had a chance to speak to a Muslim, and if I have, their religion didn't come up. So yeah, thanks for doing exactly what I tried to avoid the whole thread quite clearly. Even though you were bashing me for doing so the whole time. Great stuff.

Do not add anymore wood to the fire. Enough.


This thread needs to be open, and personal bickering has no place in it.

I do not think tetra-vega's links are worth discussing. I have read through that and they do not hold up. At all. None of them. Presuppositionalism has no place in any kind of discussion.

While I never forgot our true LORD`s name, Jehovah, I too have mistakenly merged one of his aspects with he, himself, by teaching about the Holy Spirit, Gravity.
I always defer worship from myself, only bow to Jehovah. I always told you Jehovah is God, Jesus is his son, they are not the same entity, and to read the WORD for yourself, so you cannot be tricked by deceivers with their own agendas. You can reason for yourself, that their false claims have no weight. You should KNOW God in your heart & mind.

Bible info, and explainations

Bible Table of Contents

I didn`t want to do this, I always tried to do my own thing, but I still ended up teaching about God anyways...
Everything has come full circle. Houki Boshi
Reality can be a real mindfuck.
What are the scientific odds, that an alien grim reaper called Javex, would grow up to watch an anime called Bleach, about reapers?
Before they were, I was...

Turn back now!



Ka-Tra

I think what chrome is saying, is all of this information presupposes that the bible is actually true. If you expect us to believe you, you will first have to show that the bible is true.




You are teaching us *some* of what it says in the bible. This still doesn't show anything you are saying is true. You are presupposing the bible is the word of god, but you have yet to show any reason or evidence to support that god wrote it, let a lone what should be more simple: proof he exists.

Reality certainly can be a mindfuck, that is one thing we can agree on lol. Please don't make "God of the Gaps" argument.

Well, unless we have found aliens or grim reapers, I would say the chances of that are slim to none. Are you inferring you are an alien grim reaper? I am a little confused.

"Before they were, I was..."? What do you mean? It still seems to be a claim with no evidence to support it.

If you're saying that Jesus doesn't share the same being as YHWH, how do you explain John 1:1?

It means that Jehovah, and Jesus both embody Life, Love, Compassion, and Understanding. They are seperate entities, seperate beings. The Son shares the same Values as the Father.

What about all the other verses, where Jesus clearly states they are seperate beings, or the visions of Jesus standing at the right hand of God?

Jehovah, and Jesus are not a one man hillbilly dynasty or mentally ill, like their followers.

Scriptures, and historical records all attest that the Human Jesus was of Sound Mind, Reason, and Judgement.

Proof the Bible is real? The Jews are still here after countless attempts to destroy them, and the Word of OUR creator, returned to the land of the covenant as prophesied. Archeological evidence of Biblical places, and people keeps getting unearthed all the time. For Sodom, and Gamorrah, they even found a Babylonian astronomy tablet, with the trajectory of an asteroid, that splashed into the Dead Sea region after clipping a mountain in Europe. Who RULES the Heavens?

When the people have the Word as their shield, their city needs no walls, for they have the LORD keeping them safe.



Ka-Tra

I am the one being passive aggressive, bullying, and bashing people? Oh... Okay...



"A specific group of people didn't die even though a lot of people tried to kill them therefore bible is truth."

Yeah, no. Doesn't fly with me.



Yeah the bible is a huge book and if you look hard enough you are bound to find some correlations with what is happening in real life.

People wrote the bible. People lived on earth. Therefore, those people knew about places on the earth. Places mentioned in the bible matching up with places on Earth doesn't mean anything.

What about all of the clearly inaccurate prophesies and scientific statements in the bible? I.E. It mentions the earth is flat multiple times.

It also says that the Earth was created at the beginning, when we know that the Earth was formed a long time after the beginning of the universe.



.... Do you not live in a house with walls? Because you have the lord keeping you safe?

What about all of the people praying to the lord but end up suffering a horrible death? Why didn't the lord keep those people safe?

The Jews still being around isn't proof that the Bible is true. There are numerous canons of the Bible, and even within shared books, you have different text sources. For example, there are things in the Septuagint that don't match up with things in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures. You also have the Samaritan Torah, the Aramaic Peshitta, etc. If YHWH is the true god, why are there these discrepancies with the texts?

About Jesus and The Father, well, the mainstream Christian teaching is that Jesus (The Son) and The Father are two different persons who share YHWH's being. "Person" describes "who" and "being" describes "what". Also, it has been argued that the Jewish scriptures teach at least two YHWHs even though YHWH only refers to one specific god. Genesis 19:24 and Amos 4:11 are two examples.

I tend to believe that faith is good, and religion is bad.

I also believe that whatever "god" or "God" or whatever you want to call it is, it's far above human comprehension, and this idea that the deity has human morality, or tries to push morality on us is laughable. The reason why I say that is because we have free will. Or do we? If you believe everything is fated, and predetermined as say, the ancient Norse did, then can anything we do really be wrong? If you believe that "God" knows what we're going to do, then how can certain actions really be bad?

That's where I don't get the "puritanical" beliefs some people have. They say 'god created us in his image' but then call homosexuals abominations or people who have sex outside of marriage 'sluts/whores.' If god made us in his image, then these things are part of his image.

The Bible is written by man. Did any of these things exist? I don't know. What *I* believe is everyone's following the same entity, but it's far behind anything we can comprehend and the only commandment is to live your life to the fullest.

Morality shouldn't be dictated by one faith over the other. IMO.

What's with the religious obsession of reaching an higher plane of existence that doesn't require our physical bodies?

It seems like many religious people (of various faiths) treat the human body as a disgusting thing, and that only the worst sinners enjoy physical pleasure.

I think I'd pass on reaching a so-called higher plane of existence, if there were no physical pleasures nor any spiritual pleasures that could either make up for the lack of them or be even better. I enjoy jerking off, eating, drinking, pooping and other physical activities far too much to give them up for a disembodied existence, and intellectually, there's already plenty to do in this plane.

Not that a lot of religious people's idea of an higher plane of existence involves much intellectualism, either. Isn't the christian heaven about worshipping god forever, and ever, and ever?

Basically, no physical nor intellectual pleasures? Ha, religious people and their obsession with sacrifices.

Sacrifices are no longer required, Jesus was the last sacrifice you`ll ever need.

At least by reading a few links, you can comfortably learn about God, without the creepy suits, singing, forced hugging, or cult activities like getting molested in the dark by some not so holy spirit.



Ka-Tra

Yeah, and my concern is that a sacrifice is promoted as such a great thing. Doesn't it go something like, God loves us, so he sacrificed his son? I did some reading from that site you posted, and I could never consider the parts about sacrifice moral. Let alone how unbelievable it is.

Paraphrased from it: http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/the-ransom-jesus-sacrifice/


That includes us! To me this sounds like a scare tactic to get children to never question their parents. How could a reasonable person consider this type of thinking moral or logical?

Just so you know I am not cherry picking and making this stuff up, I took the next ones word for word:



How is the moral, logical, or believable? I hear it like this:

God made perfect human, perfect human didn't do what he said, so perfect life taken away. Let's Adam and offspring suffer for a long time, then sends his "only begotten son" to earth so he can be sacrificed. Somehow, Jesus dying makes other people have a chance at redemption, as long as we appeal to that specific god and ask to be forgiven?! It repeats that we have to show this God we love him back, and we have to show him that we are thankful for the gift he has given us. That sounds like a jealous god to me. If I give a gift to somebody, I don't expect them to show thanks. I certainly wouldn't expect them to show thanks by reading a huge old book. But this is worse than that.

This is them saying you need to have FAITH that Jesus did this for you and that because he died we have hope again. Faith is believing in something with no evidence. Faith would not be emphasized so much unless the people writing it knew it was a sham.



You really do prejudge other religions don't you? Not every church is full of that kind of stuff you know. By the posting of the links, I would assume you are a theist, meaning you think the religion is true. But when you phrase it like that (even though you still only link to the one religion), you start to sound like a deist. A deist to me, sounds like a much more reasonable position, but there is still one logical fallacy that alludes me:

If we were created by a creator, then that only makes the question of "where did it all begin" much more complicated. If we were created by a creator, then that creator must have come from somewhere as well.

One of the best arguments, I have ever heard for creationism is that the universe seems so fine-tuned. If gravity were the tiniest bit stronger, or nuclear strong or weak force, or speed of light, was off by just a little bit... Our universe would be wacky. People think this points to a creator, because everything is so fine-tuned and therefore, so complex.

But if something fine-tuned the universe, then that thing doing the fine-tuning must have been even more finely-tuned itself. Saying there was a creator doesn't solve anything.

and @Bryden88

How is faith a good thing? The definition is belief without evidence. How is that good?

This thread is going to go on forever, so I may as well throw some stuff in here that's not debate-bait.

I feel kind of alone in my belief (as in, not many people share my views)

The thing is, I'm a hardcore, to the death, die-hard devout Christian. Former Evolutionist. I don't agree with abortion, but I absolutely believe that homosexual marriage should be %100 LEGAL. I swear like a sailor, and despite my lack of faith in it anymore, still LOVE to learn about Evolution, Abiogenesis, and the Big Bang (though nobody believes that it was a bang, more of a rapid fallout). I'm a Creationist now, but not a Young Earth Creationist (only 6,000 years, really guys?) and in my opinion, an official national religion is kinda silly.

So I can, but kinda can't relate to a lot of people. It's odd.

Your post was refreshing. These talks do always tend to get heated. I admire your love for learning, and realistic attitude toward "official national religion."

By no means are you obligated to answer, but I am curious so I am going to ask. If you don't want to answer here because, well you did say you were not trying to make debate-bait, then I would even appreciate a PM to satisfy my curiosity. Where you born into a Christian family? If not, what is the reason for turning to Christianity let alone considering yourself a "die-hard devout Christian"? I am just curious, I will do my best to not ask any follow up questions.

Thankfully, if you tried to teach this as fact in our schools, you would get booted off by the comitte pretty fast.


Opposition to such things to me is a moral imperative.

The Bible is demonstrably false, morally bankrupt, full of outdated attempts of scientific explanations intertwined with religion,

I will not go to hell, as there is none. And while I cnnot be absolutely sure of that, I would take pride in annihilation or condemnation if I cannot avoid it, because it still shows more integrity than to accept the genocidal, xenocidal, philicidal, omnicidal megalomaniacal, petty, insecure cowardly dickhead that is even worse in the New Nestatment. If he would exist, that is. And so far there is exactly 0.0 evidence for that.

I do have a Christian family, but I was raised alongside my Atheist friends, whom I met when I was 8 (and I would die for them) so it wasn't just a strict one side thing, though I did believe
In a God, but I never truly accepted Christ until my teen years. My belief in Evolution was off and on, but it wasn't until College that I accepted it as fact. I won't bother as to explain why I gradually lost faith in the Theory, but I will say it wasn't " because the Bible said so" or something. It wasn't based on the spiritual as to why I changed my mind, is all I will say (so as to keep the peace here)

I don't necessarily remember what I wrote, so this may all be repeated text, but it's quicker to respond then it is to reread the thread, lol.


Though I believe in purpose, I don't believe purpose is entirely necessary for basic theism. I usually put topics like purpose on the back burner. It's the same reason I don't spend a lot of time defending Biblical morality (I can, but I don't). If we can't agree on the first premise, debating the 2nd and 3rd isn't time well spent, lol.


Thanks, dude.




If it exists in the time-space contingency, then yes, but that's the whole point the transcendent being. It transcends time. That's what makes it capable of creating the time-space contingency.

For temporal beings, a first cause and a first moment are necessary prerequisites. If you exist outside of time, you need neither. One could argue back "well how do things predicate without time or "moments." That's a good question, and it's not an easy one, but I still think it's more rational than appealing to the infinite causal chain or the causeless ex nihilo.

Here's what it boils down to. Starting from a neutral stance, you have to believe one of the three following things: A) time-space manifested without cause or agency, B) time-space has always existed without a first cause and we stand at the edge of an infinite set of moments, or C) time-space was caused into existence by an agent that is prior to time-space and is not restricted to time-space.

Those are the only three choices. There is no fourth stance. I can't believe the first one because it violates the principle of sufficient reason. I won't believe the second one because it breaks fundamental mathematical axioms. That leaves me with the third. That's my starting point, and I essentially work from there.