7 ms·

That is not the bible god wrote. That is a book written by people. And written far later than the year 0.

by mokkol 12y ago

super_mario 12y ago
Of course not. I'm an atheist, anti-theist in fact, and I know perfectly well the history of the bible how it was written, and that it is not the word of imaginary god etc. I am just saying what the religious people say it is. And this is the irony.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  As a fellow atheist I would very much appreciate it if you educated yourself a bit further before hurting your self-proclaimed cause.
  - super_mario 12y ago
    You know when in the worlds only constitutional secular democracy it becomes impossible to actually be secular and be elected, when school boards constantly try to teach stultifying pseudoscience to our children, when demand for equal time for creationism and evolution or outright refusal to teach evolution in biology classes becomes the norm, when even coming out as gay or atheist in large parts of the country can get you in trouble at home or at work or the street, then remaining silent and polite is the worst thing to do.
    - jeremysmyth 12y ago
      the worlds only constitutional secular democracy whut? There are several, and most don't have the problem you're talking about. Which one are you talking about?
      - super_mario 12y ago
        Yes there are a few secular states, but less of those that have complete separation of church and state guaranteed by the constitution. USA is the oldest and most well known one.
        icebraining 12y ago
        There's a big gap from the "only" to "the oldest and most well known". I'm actually a citizen of a constitutional guaranteed secular democracy where politicians very rarely speak about gods or religion, where decriminalizing abortion² was done by popular referendum, where all drug consumption is decriminalized² and where self-proclaimed Christians are generally pro-divorce and pro-contraception. Just because the US had a head start centuries ago, you shouldn't assume you're exceptional today. ¹ (I can't remember the last time it was mentioned. There's certainly no "god bless you" or any other clichés that you're supposed to say) ² (good or bad, they are issues on which religion - and especially Christianity - heavily influences choice)
- uid 12y ago
  I'm sorry to tell you this, but your ignorance of religion and monotheism is astounding. Reading your comments it is very apparent that you take any mention of a belief in God to mean a follower of the American branch of reformist protestant Christianity with biblical literalism. That is a very broad brush, as the fundamentalists literalists are a tiny part of Christianity and of broader monotheism. They make up about a quarter of American Christians, which is a much higher proportion than any other country in the world. A lot of people associate that branch of Christianity with all monotheism simply because they tend to be noisy and dominate political issues. You'll rarely find that view outside of the USA, and of the overall global monotheist population the literalists are a tiny percentage. The biggest critics of the literalists and their views are in fact other Christians. Even the Catholic church, which itself is a conservative branch of Christianity - accepts evolution, the age of the universe and other dominant issues associated with fundamentalist Christians in the USA such as the rights of homosexuals. To associate all Christians or monotheists as meaning fundamentalist is no different to the bigots and wackos who believe that all Muslims are Salafist jihadi. Tim mentioned nothing more than a belief in God, it is a huge and unsubstantiated leap to conclude from his single word that he is a fundamentalist literalist. There would be a lot more tolerance in this world if people who hated at least understood what it was they were hating. I see your views as being as ignorant and fundamentalist as the very views you disagree with.
  - super_mario 12y ago
    You know I don't really care if people are literalist fundamentalist bible thumpers or unitarians, muslims or even deists. They are all wrong, and they all believe in things unsupported by evidence or completely debunked lies. I only care about what is true, and I don't have any reservations about telling people what they believe isn't true, esp. when they bring it out to the open and implicitly invite the discussion on it. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory (which is the highest pedestal a scientific hypothesis can be placed upon, only mathematics has theorems). There is now strong evidence that theistic gods i.e. gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, god who stops the motion of the sun around earth so certain people in the Bible can finish their work, god who takes "our" side in a war, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity are man made invention. Religion comes to us from other human mammals who not only know there is a god, but they also know his mind what he wants us to do. And how do they know? Revelation of course, god told them something often times contradictory what he told others. And the religious never even seek evidence for their extraordinary claims. But revelation is useless and unreliable as a way to discover truth Revelation can only ever be relevant to the person to whom something is revealed. As soon as that person shares and relates the revelation to someone else, it becomes a testimony at that point. And then it becomes a matter of trusting that person for the claim they are making. Also, the person to whom something is revealed should be apprehensive and wonder which is more likely that laws of nature have been bent in their favor no less, or if perhaps they are under apprehension. Revelations are dime a dozen. Numerous people have claimed that something has been revealed to them. Even worse different people have claimed same god has revealed things that are contradictory to the things god has revealed to other people. In Christianity god reveals himself as a human, he dies on the cross, and resurrects. In Islam, Jesus is not only not the son of god, he never died on the cross and never resurrected. Believing otherwise will have you condemned to hell. In Christianity god says love your enemies, in Islam he says kill your enemies and apostates. Yet it's the same god, and both sides claim divine revelation for the "wisdom" they preach. Content of revelation paints a picture of a god who is quite frankly incompetent, stupid and has morals lesser than average decent human being today. And most importantly he leaves it to chance what you will believe about him and if you will be damned to eternity. What religion you get indoctrinated into has very little to do with its truthfulness, but everything to do with where you were born. If you were born in Saudi Arabia for example you would be a Muslim defending Islam right now. Yet both Islam and Christianity and Judaism (the three desert dogmas) all claim to posses the true and perfect words of the creator of the universe. And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made. All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really? Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either). But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can plausibly come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Besides positing an intelligent god capable of creating universes, god that always existed, or that spontaneously came into being is assuming a lot more than assuming the same about the universe itself i.e. dumb matter. Occam's razor cuts him out of existence as superfluous assumption that does not explain anything. I for one am really glad there is absolutely no evidence for this at all. Wishing this to be true is wishing to live under dictatorship. If it were true it would be a worthy goal to fight against this ghastly god figure.
jeremysmyth 12y ago
There is no year 0. Also, presuming you meant "2014 years ago" (the most sensible interpretation of "year 0"), it's pretty universally accepted that the old testament that we know best was written hundreds of years before then.

That is not the bible god wrote. That is a book written by people. And written far later than the year 0.

by mokkol 12y ago

That is not the bible god wrote. That is a book written by people. And written far later than the year 0.

Of course not. I'm an atheist, anti-theist in fact, and I know perfectly well the history of the bible how it was written, and that it is not the word of imaginary god etc. I am just saying what the religious people say it is. And this is the irony.

jacquesm 12y ago
As a fellow atheist I would very much appreciate it if you educated yourself a bit further before hurting your self-proclaimed cause.
- super_mario 12y ago
  You know when in the worlds only constitutional secular democracy it becomes impossible to actually be secular and be elected, when school boards constantly try to teach stultifying pseudoscience to our children, when demand for equal time for creationism and evolution or outright refusal to teach evolution in biology classes becomes the norm, when even coming out as gay or atheist in large parts of the country can get you in trouble at home or at work or the street, then remaining silent and polite is the worst thing to do.
  - jeremysmyth 12y ago
    the worlds only constitutional secular democracy whut? There are several, and most don't have the problem you're talking about. Which one are you talking about?
    - super_mario 12y ago
      Yes there are a few secular states, but less of those that have complete separation of church and state guaranteed by the constitution. USA is the oldest and most well known one.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        There's a big gap from the "only" to "the oldest and most well known". I'm actually a citizen of a constitutional guaranteed secular democracy where politicians very rarely speak about gods or religion, where decriminalizing abortion² was done by popular referendum, where all drug consumption is decriminalized² and where self-proclaimed Christians are generally pro-divorce and pro-contraception. Just because the US had a head start centuries ago, you shouldn't assume you're exceptional today. ¹ (I can't remember the last time it was mentioned. There's certainly no "god bless you" or any other clichés that you're supposed to say) ² (good or bad, they are issues on which religion - and especially Christianity - heavily influences choice)
uid 12y ago
I'm sorry to tell you this, but your ignorance of religion and monotheism is astounding. Reading your comments it is very apparent that you take any mention of a belief in God to mean a follower of the American branch of reformist protestant Christianity with biblical literalism. That is a very broad brush, as the fundamentalists literalists are a tiny part of Christianity and of broader monotheism. They make up about a quarter of American Christians, which is a much higher proportion than any other country in the world. A lot of people associate that branch of Christianity with all monotheism simply because they tend to be noisy and dominate political issues. You'll rarely find that view outside of the USA, and of the overall global monotheist population the literalists are a tiny percentage. The biggest critics of the literalists and their views are in fact other Christians. Even the Catholic church, which itself is a conservative branch of Christianity - accepts evolution, the age of the universe and other dominant issues associated with fundamentalist Christians in the USA such as the rights of homosexuals. To associate all Christians or monotheists as meaning fundamentalist is no different to the bigots and wackos who believe that all Muslims are Salafist jihadi. Tim mentioned nothing more than a belief in God, it is a huge and unsubstantiated leap to conclude from his single word that he is a fundamentalist literalist. There would be a lot more tolerance in this world if people who hated at least understood what it was they were hating. I see your views as being as ignorant and fundamentalist as the very views you disagree with.
- super_mario 12y ago
  You know I don't really care if people are literalist fundamentalist bible thumpers or unitarians, muslims or even deists. They are all wrong, and they all believe in things unsupported by evidence or completely debunked lies. I only care about what is true, and I don't have any reservations about telling people what they believe isn't true, esp. when they bring it out to the open and implicitly invite the discussion on it. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory (which is the highest pedestal a scientific hypothesis can be placed upon, only mathematics has theorems). There is now strong evidence that theistic gods i.e. gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, god who stops the motion of the sun around earth so certain people in the Bible can finish their work, god who takes "our" side in a war, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity are man made invention. Religion comes to us from other human mammals who not only know there is a god, but they also know his mind what he wants us to do. And how do they know? Revelation of course, god told them something often times contradictory what he told others. And the religious never even seek evidence for their extraordinary claims. But revelation is useless and unreliable as a way to discover truth Revelation can only ever be relevant to the person to whom something is revealed. As soon as that person shares and relates the revelation to someone else, it becomes a testimony at that point. And then it becomes a matter of trusting that person for the claim they are making. Also, the person to whom something is revealed should be apprehensive and wonder which is more likely that laws of nature have been bent in their favor no less, or if perhaps they are under apprehension. Revelations are dime a dozen. Numerous people have claimed that something has been revealed to them. Even worse different people have claimed same god has revealed things that are contradictory to the things god has revealed to other people. In Christianity god reveals himself as a human, he dies on the cross, and resurrects. In Islam, Jesus is not only not the son of god, he never died on the cross and never resurrected. Believing otherwise will have you condemned to hell. In Christianity god says love your enemies, in Islam he says kill your enemies and apostates. Yet it's the same god, and both sides claim divine revelation for the "wisdom" they preach. Content of revelation paints a picture of a god who is quite frankly incompetent, stupid and has morals lesser than average decent human being today. And most importantly he leaves it to chance what you will believe about him and if you will be damned to eternity. What religion you get indoctrinated into has very little to do with its truthfulness, but everything to do with where you were born. If you were born in Saudi Arabia for example you would be a Muslim defending Islam right now. Yet both Islam and Christianity and Judaism (the three desert dogmas) all claim to posses the true and perfect words of the creator of the universe. And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made. All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really? Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either). But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can plausibly come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Besides positing an intelligent god capable of creating universes, god that always existed, or that spontaneously came into being is assuming a lot more than assuming the same about the universe itself i.e. dumb matter. Occam's razor cuts him out of existence as superfluous assumption that does not explain anything. I for one am really glad there is absolutely no evidence for this at all. Wishing this to be true is wishing to live under dictatorship. If it were true it would be a worthy goal to fight against this ghastly god figure.

jeremysmyth 12y ago

There is no year 0. Also, presuming you meant "2014 years ago" (the most sensible interpretation of "year 0"), it's pretty universally accepted that the old testament that we know best was written hundreds of years before then.