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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Bohandas]

So he's God, who died meaninglessly, and brought a new message of everlasting suffering for nonbelievers.

So conveniently he boosted the Jewish faith by allowing, even morally forcing people to believe or be damned.

Damnation for non-belief was introduced by your supposed "prince of peace".  It makes perfect sense from the perspective of an infectious dogma.  A mutation of an existing, race-centric deity which allowed the faith to cover the globe.

The way you see Jesus' death is different from the way every christian I know see it. We see it as a sacrifice to allow us a way into heaven.

The more valid issue here is that if he was truly omnipotent he wouldn't need some farcical blood sacrifice to forgive everybody's sins, he could just declare them forgiven.

If you read the Disciples accounts and Paul's teaching, you do not get any hints towards the monster you are making Jesus seem like. Why would most of the Disciples also willingly decide to die terrible deaths for a person who only promised suffering? Why would they spread the news? They describe the news of Jesus as a wonderful thing.

I believe that was in reference to the new testament being the first part of the bible to deal extensively with the concept of hell and damnation, and he's inferring from this that the concepts were made up by Jesus and/or the early christians.

This seems flawed to me however, as it seems quite plausible to me that the ideas were already part of the zeitgeist of the time.

Furhermore the term "Gehenna" (one of the words translated as "Hell" in many biblical translations) originally referred literally not to some twisted otherworld but to a specific earthly location which had a reputation for being haunted. Furthermore, its genericized sense of any place of suffering after death is apparently used in Jewish religious writings as well, so - going back to my previous point - the concept of suffering after death for sinners was not necessarily something we got from Jesus.

Also, what do you mean race-centric?

Much of the old testament paints the jewish people (as in the race/ethnicity as well as the religion) as a master race destined to take over the world.

<snip> I wish I was making that up.  I'll also stop before I derail the thread on that, since I know that's not representative of Christians as a whole.  It's just amusing.

A long time ago, I had an argument with a room full of religious folks once who thought nuclear weapons didn't exist and that they were all part of a global conspiracy. Again, not representative of anything except that group of people.

EDIT ... Not really related but I was just browsing the relevant websites and some claim that nuclear power doesn't even exist.

Christian religious folks? Because I can't see how denying the existence of nuclear weapons could tie into Christianity (I can, however, see how it could tie into Shinto)

Whereas I like to think that faeries are based on real phenomena,

Sentient phenomena? Or relatively simple natural lights like ignis fatuous or st.erasmus' fire?

EDIT:
Or possibly the result of someone encountering a dragonfly after consuming the right kind of mushroom, cactus, vine, or spoiled bread product.

[Telgin]

It's probably more tinfoil hat people than Christians or even religious people in general.  It just seems that around here anyway (rural South Carolina), there is a distressing overlap between these groups.  I think it boils down to an extreme distrust of the government / liberals and kind of snowballed.  I know it got much worse after Obama was elected.

[Reelya]

Yeah, I put it down to tinfoil brigade types who also happen to be Christians, since it's not really something your pastor would teach you.

[Orange Wizard]

One could ask the question of why God thought it was necessary to sacrifice His son anyway, since He could just make the new rules take effect.  So it all comes down to the question of why He had a son at all, or why He does anything he does really, I guess.

The usual idea is that God the Father has to punish sin, as being intrinsic to his being.

The more valid issue here is that if he was truly omnipotent he wouldn't need some farcical blood sacrifice to forgive everybody's sins, he could just declare them forgiven.

Exactly. God is supremely powerful, but he's still bound by rules. The word usually translated as all-powerful is probably more accurately all-controlling.
An omnipotent and omnibenevolent god would never allow a world like ours to exist. There is also no real evidence to suggest the Christian God is either, and in the case of omnibenevolence, a fair bit of evidence to the contrary.

...

Anyway, the argument was that if Jesus and the new testament never came around, then the concept of going to heaven or Hell for humans never would have either.  Before that, you just died, or if you were one of a very few exceptional people you got called up to heaven.  There was no eternal suffering for doing the wrong thing: you just died.  With the new testament, you suffer forever if you do something wrong.

A fairly popular interpretation is that Hell is eternal but the souls sent there are destroyed rather than tortured indefinitely.

As a side note, the whole afterlife thing is vaguely present in the OT. Because it's not a major theme, it's hard to say if it's actually meant like that, but it's worth noting that heaven/hell are not unique to Jesus' teachings in the Bible.

...

Christian religious folks? Because I can't see how denying the existence of nuclear weapons could tie into Christianity (I can, however, see how it could tie into Shinto)

Pretty sure the point is that they're bonkers, rather than anything explicitly religious.

[Reelya]

I think the common thread is the general distrust of science. When you're saying evolution is a global conspiracy orchestrated by satan himself, it's not a huge stretch to lump other "science" stuff as part of the same conspiracy.

[Adragis]

I think the common thread is the general distrust of science. When you're saying evolution is a global conspiracy orchestrated by satan himself, it's not a huge stretch to lump other "science" stuff as part of the same conspiracy.

Remember:
Evolution is bad.
Evolution is science.
Biology is science.
The human lung has been studied in biology.
Human lungs are evil.

can't you see that flawless logic

[Orange Wizard]

can't you see that flawless logic

REMOVE LUNG remove lung
lungs are libetarian satanist conspiracy to make EVERYONE THE HOMOSEX

[Adragis]

the lungs are the devils

[Arx]

Blissfully unaware of the actual story of Jesus, at least the Biblical version.  Jesus is literally an abuser making a show of "hurting" himself to shame his victims into compliance.

Far-out claims like this are always interesting, but I'm going to ask you for a source on them.

Along with a threat of literally infinite punishment.  As if life on Earth wasn't already abuse enough...

Even the God of the Old Testament allowed people to end!

Or better yet, explain how he wasn't inducing guilt through an absolutely meaningless sacrifice, and threatening us with the NEW concept of eternal damnation.

Note: your first point seems to be predicated on your second. Clarify?

Sheol was basically the Fields of Asphodel except possibly with a side of torture, depending on who you believe, and the Old Testament is thick with references to it. Jesus provided a way out that wasn't there before (even by living a righteous life).

The New Testament is WORSE than all the explicit racism and sexism.  Systematic-rape sexism.  The New Testament goes even farther.

Whilst I'm willing to take this at face value, I'd still like to see a source (I'm pretty sure you have one).

Well, the church I was brought up in was Southern Baptist...
I don't honestly know how it is in other churches, particularly the less evangelical ones.

As far as I can tell, if Westboro Baptist Church is a fair representation of Southern Baptists (which could be entirely untrue, I don't know), it's possible to construct a strong Biblical argument that they're grosser sinners than homosexuals, etc.

you don't have regular meetings with a bunch of other people who reaffirm those prejudices

that's basically the internet

Only if you absurdly misuse it

damn b12 is now an absurd misuse of the internet

[scrdest]

can't you see that flawless logic

REMOVE LUNG remove lung
lungs are arch-libetarian arch-satanist conspiracy to make EVERYONE THE HOMOSEX

FTFY. You forgot the arch. You can't have a proper mention of a belief system in a conspiracy theory without the arches. Conspiracy theories are the cathedrals of interwebz crazy, yo.

[SirQuiamus]

can't you see that flawless logic

REMOVE LUNG remove lung
lungs are libetarian satanist conspiracy to make EVERYONE THE HOMOSEX

NOT MY LUNGS NOT MY LUNGS NOT MY LUNGS

MODERN MEDICINE IS HITLER THOU SHALT NOT MUTILATE GOD'S HOLY TABERNACLE WITH SATANIC SURGERY EVERY ALVEOLUS IS SACRED PULMONARY CYSTS ARE GOD'S OWN HANDIWORK BURN DOWN HOSPITALS RESCUE INNOCENT LUMPS OF TISSUE FROM NAZI VIOLENCE

[Adragis]

can't you see that flawless logic

REMOVE LUNG remove lung
lungs are libetarian satanist conspiracy to make EVERYONE THE HOMOSEX

NOT MY LUNGS NOT MY LUNGS NOT MY LUNGS

MODERN MEDICINE IS HITLER THOU SHALT NOT MUTILATE GOD'S HOLY TABERNACLE WITH SATANIC SURGERY EVERY ALVEOLUS IS SACRED PULMONARY CYSTS ARE GOD'S OWN HANDIWORK BURN DOWN HOSPITALS RESCUE INNOCENT LUMPS OF TISSUE FROM NAZI VIOLENCE

amen brother

[Helgoland]

God, did this thread turn into the usual atheists bashing Christians fest again? Guys, you are \so original\. We haven't had those exact same arguments before \at all\.

[Adragis]

Is this the lungs thing you're talking about?
Because that wasn't really my intention.

[Reelya]

no, we said several times that it's about conspiracy theorists, and them being religious is a secondary thing. Ani-science people are going to have some sort of religious or spiritual belief, because you have to have some worldview, and if it's not science you have to accept some form of gods or magic was responsible for everything. We're just as likely to be talking shit about Wiccans here as we are about Christians.

This was my contribution for the record:

A long time ago, I had an argument with a room full of religious folks once who thought nuclear weapons didn't exist and that they were all part of a global conspiracy. Again, not representative of anything except that group of people.

How do you get "bashing Christians" from that?