Religion offers no protection against temptation. If your need religion and the fear of hell to ward off temptation, they you are truly amoral, and your religion will eventually fail you.Whats your point? cant others commit sin? What about priests that are pedophiles? you actually think we believe thats right? No of course we don’t but people fall to temptation.
Not quite.Atheists like to think that their lives are of their own making, and that they are in control of their own destiny. It seems to me that an atheist should, therefore, be able to appreciate the fact that if God exists then we shouldn’t blame Him for the consequences of our unrepented sins. Atheists should at the very least “man up” on this one. Atheists should believe that, if God does exist, then people need to take responsibility and ownershlp for the consequences of their actions. Why blame God?
Hitler was a pagan, I think. Pax is correct on this one.You are seriously mistaken about Hitler. He did nothing for or in the name of God. The statement you quoted is nothing more than a calculated ploy on his part in his rise to power. Get real!
Keep counting because I guarantee you that any thoughtful and serious research on your part will totally dismantle your erroneous thoughts on the body counts mounted by the atheist and materialist monsters that I named versus those killed because of religion.
You have missed my point. Atheists, as you have willingly admitted, “believe that they can control some things, possibly many things in their own lives, but probably not all things.”Not quite.
Atheists do not believe that a *god *is in control of their destiny. They believe that they can control some things, possibly many things in their own lives, but probably not all things. Atheists don’t blame god since they don’t believe in it. They may blame themselves or shift the blame, like most peopledo. Everyone “need(s) to take responsibility and ownership for the consequences of their actions” anyway. Atheists don’t blame a god they don’t believe in.
Atheists never have to reconcile evil with an all powerful, all loving god. They never say “Why did god let this happen to me?” They realize that, as Jesus said, rain falls on the believer and unbeliever alike. Sh*t happens to everyone, good Catholics and good atheists. The difference is, atheists don’t blame god.
There is absolutely no evidence to show that Christianity would be killing people off like Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin did even if the Church had the same power during the same historical periods in which these men lived.Hitler was a pagan, I think. Pax is correct on this one.
The killings related to religion were mainly in the past, when there were many fewer people on the earth, and killing was much more inefficient than in modern times. (Tho’ Islam did slaughter huge populations in the east, as I mentioned).
True, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin killed many more,–but they controlled vast empires containing hundreds of millions of people, and used war and famine to do it, among other things. More efficient methods. Religion isn’t as powerful as it’s been in past centuries, so it’s harder now to kill a lot of people in the name of religion, but when it WAS powerful, it managed , thru humans, to kill a lot of people.
The god that you believe in is invisible.Your answer is a dodge.
Why is this, A?I am strongly opposed to suffering.
Hell doesn’t exist. Threatening people, especially children with this imagined horror is awful.In other words…if atheists believe that people must accept personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions within the atheist mythology, then atheists must believe that people must accept personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions within religious mythology. Atheists cannot logically attempt to shift responsibility off the individual and then blame God and make God out as some evil monster within the religious mythology.
Jesus? Even if he ever did exist, he has been invisible for a couple of thousand years, give or take a few.Jesus is the refutation of your position.
Because I don’t like experiencing it myself, so I don’t want to see others going through it.Why is this, A?
This is an unsubstantiated opinion. I personally find Christians to be more well adjusted than the atheists I have met. One would think that the imagined horor that you find so awful and that constitutes child abuse would have made Christians into a bunch of outcasts and weirdos. Perhaps that is how you view us.Hell doesn’t exist. Threatening people, especially children with this imagined horror is awful.
It is child abuse.
Empathy and compassion have value.Because I don’t like experiencing it myself, so I don’t want to see others going through it.
We don’t even know that he really existed. I think you just believe this.It is the all encompassing and unqualified statements that you make that bother me. Your statements are frequently strawman in nature. We know that Jesus could be seen
You know by faith. There is no evidence that there even is a god, and no evidence that this particular Jesus lived at all (the records start some decades after his death). There is nothing here but faith, Pax.and we know by faith and by the evidence that Jesus is God just as he claimed to be.
Invisible.If you do not believe that our God is visible and you wish to make that statement while ignoring Jesus, then you are misrepresenting our view of God.
I simply described your god as male, invisible and living in the sky. This is all strongly suggested, or implied in the very bible which the catholic church is based on. Why argue this point? What is wrong with saying he is not visible? Is stating the glaringly obvious somehow offensive to your religious sensibilities?You are free to believe or not to believe whatever you wish, but you routinely make statements that misrepresent what we believe. Sometimes they are even offensive.
If you don’t think it is abusive, that is allright, you are in the majority. I do. I think that threatening a kid with imagined horrors for imagined wrongs (like masturbating) is just plain abuse.This is an unsubstantiated opinion. I personally find Christians to be more well adjusted than the atheists I have met.
Not all, but the more people focus on, or talk about their religion, the less sane they seem to me. I never thought my catholic neighbours were crazy, but when I see the pope in that ridiculous get up going on publicity tours from his gold-plated city, well, I can’t help but think that he must be taking it way too seriously.One would think that the imagined horor that you find so awful and that constitutes child abuse would have made Christians into a bunch of outcasts and weirdos. Perhaps that is how you view us.
PaxAre you saying that Jesus was invisible? Are you saying that Jesus was invisible after He rose from the dead and people saw Him? Are you saying that the more than five hundred eye-witnesses saw an invisible Jesus?
All that aside, even if he did exist, he has been invisible for thousands of years.You’re the only person I have ever had a conversation with that doubts that Jesus existed or that the evidence is suspect.
This kind of skepticism is not based on the data…it’s based on bias.
This is laughable. There is no evidence that Jesus existed. Even bible scholars agree to this. Have you been living in a cave your whole life?You’re the only person I have ever had a conversation with that doubts that Jesus existed or that the evidence is suspect
This kind of skepticism is based on FACT…This kind of skepticism is not based on the data…it’s based on bias.
Oh we’ve all considered it remember we weren’t all Followers at one point. But thanks for keeping an open mind.It sounds to me like you don’t dare to even consider the possibility that your god is just a myth.
Whats that you don’t have an open mind? Are you open to the possibility that the Universe didn’t just create itself one day, but that there was intelligence involved? Just be open to the possibility.That is just it - I don’t choose not to believe. There is not enough evidence to cause me to believe. You might have been able to make yourself believe with poor evidence, but my standards are higher.