Why I am not a Christian

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Clay_McAleer said:
A small point but the OP has titled this thread “Why I am not a Christian” and then goes to great lengths to tell us about his issues with the Catholic church. As one situation does not necessiarily depend on the other, has the OP given up on both? (Christianity and Catholicism)
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I think the first 2 points of the OP can apply to both Catholicism and the rest of Christianity. Point 3 I suppose is more specific to Catholicism.
 
Catholicc said:
I would like to see how he proves that “Love” exists.
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If it is just an emotion and chemical response that is measurable then that is what LOVE is to that person. In the case of chemical responses and feelings we can relate it to animals and genetics.

But to take the biblical meaning of LOVE we will have to consider free will and actions based on not only chemical reactions in our bodies but also on logical decisions by humans to act a certain way towards other humans.

Consider the LOVE Jesus showed by allowing himself to be tortured and killed for all men out of LOVE. Or how Jesus forgives people the tresspasses against him.

Like I said earlier… consider 1 Corinthians 13 when we discuss LOVE and we will know it is more than chemical responses in our bodies.
 
Atheist1 wrote:

“But we have christians who are guilty of enslaving a race of people and trying to wipe out another race of people. Believers are capable of commiting atrocities just as easily as atheists are…perhaps more so. I would say that as we in America move closer to becoming a secular society with less religious influence we will become more peaceful.”

Atheist1, my point wasn’t to show that Christians aren’t capable of doing evil. The atrocity of slavery was addressed and overcome by movements of Christians in a Christian nation. Can you imagine a movement of Christians in Russia successfully opposing Stalin’s forced collectivization of Ukranian peasants? Neither can I. They would’ve all been snuffed out. That was my point.

“I haven’t read anyone explaining how “pick your favorite communist county” is founded upon atheism. I’m not sure what that means.”

I am honestly not sure what the above sentence actually means. Please elaborate so I can respond. (and please address my above point directly!) Thanks for your response to my post.

Ishii
 
Peter J, I sure would like to be a fly on the wall at your Judgement day! I always wanted to know how someone would tell God that He had it all wrong!

We were not put on this earth to live pleasure filled lives. We were put here to praise God and to do His will. A lot of people call Him many terrible things. Do you really want to put your soul in a flux? This is not the Kingdom of God on earth. Jesus said when he returned He would establish His Kingdom on earth and in Heaven. This is satan’s world and he is out to get people to give up on God, just so he can get their souls for eternity.

I beg you to rethink your faith. Or why you truly left it. Today in the Divine Mercy Novena, the intention was for the souls separated from God by their choice. Jesus (and God) love you!!

I will be praying double time for you!😃

God Bless! (I don’t mean that lightly)
 
PeterJ said:
But these feelings are no less real because they are biological. If love were proven to be biological (nor a product of the soul) would you dismiss it?

A perfect human being would display empathy, because it is part of human nature to desire to be empathetic. Why does it matter that this desire is biological? No man says I desire knowledge (or love or food) - but this desire is just biological, so I shall ignore it. In the same way man cannot say I desire to be empathetic - but this is just biological - so I shall ignore it.

An animal does dismiss its nature, but acts on it. I believe this is the case with humans. Empathy happens to be part of our nature - so we act on it. There may not be an ‘objective morality’ in the broad sense but there is a subjective morality relative to a standard human nature.

They are very plausible reductive analyses of morality.
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Man has a tendency towards anger, hatred, aggressiveness, jealousy and other conflict-oriented emotions and passions as well. If these are part of our biology, can we really fault people for acting on them, as in violent ways?
 
Scarlet2009 said:
I hadnt thought about everlasting life getting boring…but that did make me laugh out loud!!
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Asimov has quite a funny short story where everyone is given eternal life, but only with btheir bodies being resurrected and the being given nothing to do, so really it turns out to be a kind of hell since, as one character put it, “We never know what to do on rainy afternoons”.

Of course I’m aware that Catholic teaching on the afterlife is substantially different from that…
 
PeterJ said:
The Christian faith faces a number of crushing logical objections. I can no longer hold it in good conscience. 😉
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Your outbursts sound like me at times, but they’re no reason to renounce your faith. Rather it’s a reason to dig deeper for answers. Stick around:)
 
PeterJ said:
  1. Catholic moral teaching is ridiculous:
3.1 The Catholic teaching on contraception is dangerous, absurd and logically unsupportable.
I defy any serious scholar to produce a valid argument, from plausible premises that proves contraception to be immoral. It simply cannot be done.
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One argument to your satisfaction? I agree, it simply cannot be done.
3.2 The Catholic teaching on masturbation is equally logically unsupportable, equally ridiculous and puts people under great pressure for no good reason. Again no scholar to my knowledge has produced a sound argument to its detriment – don’t send me links to Aquinas.
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Admitting you have a masturbation problem is much better than denying that it’s a problem.
 
eyeofliberty said:
It is preferable for a man in the eyes of God and man to seek out a whore or prostitute as a release of his passions over the unhealthy and more sinful means of masturbation. The release of a man’s seed is a gift to man’s partner - woman. It is very harmful to men, both mentally and spiritually, to remove the woman from this God-created act.
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How can unprotected sex with prostitutes (or using primitive pig bladder condoms which viruses can travel through) in an era when syphilis etc. would kill you, and childbirth was very risky, less harmful than masturbation? Particularly for the prostitutes, since women are more likely to get infected with some STIs than men.
 
PeterJ said:
The Christian faith faces a number of crushing logical objections. I can no longer hold it in good conscience. I will outline these objections below:

1.) The Bible is not inerrant, neither factually nor morally:

1.1 Factually:

20th and 21st century Biblical scholarship has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Bible errs. The character of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) is entirely different from that of John and the accounts are riddled with inconsistencies. The infancy narratives - to state one notable example - of Matthew and Luke cannot be rationally reconciled (see the census of Quirinius).

It may well be rational to suggest that the Bible is loosely accurate, compiled from eyewitness accounts and adapted to fit the audience, but to suggest that it is accurate to the letter is simply untenable.

1.2 Morally:

Let’s face it, the Old Testament is filled with immoralities. In the Old Testament God is portrayed as a genocidal deity an iniquitous, underhanded master, a senseless murderer who kills children with great floods and commands the extermination of entire peoples. Yes some people will contend that what God allegedly orders is good. But is it?

Take 1 Samuel for instance, God through the prophet Samuel orders that children be massacred. Some Christians no doubt would say that his actions are perfectly moral. Well maybe they are- if God did command them. But how can one be sure that he did? Herein lies the problem, how can God - infinitely separated from man ever infallibly reveal his will without the possibility of doubt. It is certainly immoral if Samuel ordered genocide if there were any room for doubt.

Would the believer today commit this genocide on the word of Samuel, certain as the Bible teaches that he is a prophet of God? Or would doubt creep in? It certainly did for me.

2.) Faith, without some corresponding supernatural experience, is not only unjustified but is immoral.

The famous Clifford lectures conclude that is wrong for everyone, everywhere to form a belief based on insufficient evidence. To me this is clearly the case.

To show that this I will use Clifford’s example - of the ship owner who fails to inspect an unseaworthy vessel. In Clifford’s example the owner of a certain vessel is required to test his ships for seaworthiness before he allows passengers to sail on them. Yet he does not do this, instead he forms a belief by ‘faith’ that the vessel is seaworthy. Is this man not guilty of a most heinous crime? What if his patrons die because of his ‘faith’? I defy the believer to show how Christian faith differs.

In response to Clifford the believer may assert that his faith is justified, as it is formed in him by God himself. Yet what evidence does the believer have for this. Faith merely moves up an order and an infinite regress follows – or a rigid dogmatism, and the believer cannot quell his irrationality.

As a final retort the believer may contend that God produces this faith in him by some special means - a Sensus Divinitatis, and because of this his belief is produced by a reliable belief producing mechanism and is perfectly justified. But really? Does such a faculty exist, surely not. The great diversity of religious belief goes to prove this.
  1. Catholic moral teaching is ridiculous:
3.1 The Catholic teaching on contraception is dangerous, absurd and logically unsupportable.
I defy any serious scholar to produce a valid argument, from plausible premises that proves contraception to be immoral. It simply cannot be done.

3.2 The Catholic teaching on masturbation is equally logically unsupportable, equally ridiculous and puts people under great pressure for no good reason. Again no scholar to my knowledge has produced a sound argument to its detriment – don’t send me links to Aquinas.

3.3 The principle of double effect in some instances seems an absurd way of working around dogmatic rules e.g. in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.

Yet even without these objections (which I believe are crushing and decisive defeaters) Catholic moral teaching is too rigid, it will not change depending on the circumstance, it simplifies where human nature is complex and will not listen to reason. In the end Catholic morality comes down to uncompromising dogmatism, natural law its’ facade.

For these reasons I have renounced my faith. Any comments?

P.S Sorry if my tone is angry - I do not mean to cause offense 😉
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I see this all the time. Atheists and or anti God folk who can’t stay away from Christian sites. I know we’re not supposed to read anything into that but it’s just too obviously conflicted NOT to. I know all the excuses for following Christians around yapping at their heels about your anti God perspective. None of them work.

You guys are no different than the person who leaves the Catholic church but twenty years later, still yapping at the heels of Catholics about why he left. Actually seeking them out on sites like this, just as you’re doing right now.

Time to put yourself under the looking glass…if you’re capable.

When a person leaves something but can’t leave it behind, it’s very telling.
 
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