Here Is Why I Don't Believe

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

God justifies himself throught the bibble. you should read it one day and stop plucking out verses and making up the meaning to them. I will try and explain the bible verses better in the future. they are being taken out of context horribly.

 

 

According to your mythology, your crappy gawd mandated the mass murder

of thousands of Canaanites, did he not? Are you telling me that if your gawd

would tell you to go massacre thousands of people just for not believing him,

that you would go and slaughter them? I don't give a rat's ass about context,

I am asking you what you would do. Would you be a mass murderer

for your gawd? Would you?

 

 

 

Everyone worshipped whatever gods their parents worshipped.

 

As Ingersoll said in one of his addresses to christians: "if you were born in India, you'd be worshipping one god with three heads instead of three gods with one head"

 

 

 

 

Time for some wisecracks about divine heads and gullible virigins......

[freeday]

 

its true you missed my point. My attempt was to humanize the people god supposedly ordered killed. they weren't just evil pagans, they were real people with families and hopes and dreams for those families, and according to the book you worship as absolute truth, God took those dreams and smashed them.

 

hitler had hopes and dreams.

 

 

According to your mythology, your crappy gawd mandated the mass murder

of thousands of Canaanites, did he not? Are you telling me that if your gawd

would tell you to go massacre thousands of people just for not believing him,

that you would go and slaughter them? I don't give a rat's ass about context,

I am asking you what you would do. Would you be a mass murderer

for your gawd? Would you?

 

 

once again, Old testament. try reading the new testament and find out how many christians were brutally murdered, just for there belief.

[Antlerman]

once again, Old testament. try reading the new testament and find out how many christians were brutally murdered, just for there belief.

Did God order the Christians in the NT killed? No? Then how does it apply to God ordering genocide in the OT?

 

Do you accept that the OT God is less evolved than the NT God? If you view him as the same God who changes not, then the NT God is responsible for ordering genocide.

[Ouroboros]

why are you blasting God for pronouncing judgement. He is the Father and creator. When you child does wrong, do you not correct them. If you murder somebody, do you not get sentenced to death. (unless you are in california)

 

God sentence people to eternal torture and pain for "not believing".

 

If my child does wrong, even big things, and not small things like not believing me, I do not sentence him/her to eternal torture and pain.

 

Ergo, I have more love for my kids than God.

 

 

I will try and explain the bible verses better in the future. they are being taken out of context horribly.

 

OMG is this dude in for a rough ride here.

Yup. I actually feel sorry for him/her. (only a little)

 

I think this guy's response is typical.

 

They were pagans. Evil. Deserved to die. Deserve to go to hell.

 

Shoulda worshipped Jesus.

 

Wait a minute. This was pre-Jesus. Pre-Hell. Everyone worshipped whatever gods their parents worshipped.

 

What the fuck. They're still evil.

 

Our God is a just God.

 

Amen.

You forgot:

Our God is a loving God

 

And God loves to torture people in hell, because he just.

 

 

hitler had hopes and dreams.

My Gawd! You killed the thread already?

[Ouroboros]

try reading the new testament and find out how many christians were brutally murdered, just for there belief.

Hmm... let's try this:

 

(snipped from Wikipedia)

When Constantine became the sole Roman Emperor in 323, Christianity became legal by the Edict of Milan. After the death of Constantine in 337, two of his sons, Constantius II and Constans took over the leadership of the empire. Constans, ruler of the western provinces, was, like his father, a Christian.

 

Constans was killed in 350, and soon after his brother became the sole emperor of the entire empire three years later. Constantius, also a Christian, decreed that all pagan temples in the empire be immediately closed. He warned that anyone who dared still offer sacrifices of worship to the once-revered gods and goddesses in these temples were to be put to death. Similarly, any governor to refused to enforce this decree was also to be punished.

 

But it wasn't just the emperors who persecuted the pagans. Lay Christians took advantage of these new anti-pagan laws by destroying and plundering the temples. Theologians and prominent ecclesiastics soon followed. One such example is St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. When Gratian became Roman emperor in 375, Ambrose, who was one of his closest educators, persuaded him to further suppress paganism. The emperor, at Ambrose's advice, confiscated the properties of the pagan temples; seized the properties of the vestal virgins and pagan priests, and removed the statue of the Goddess of Victory from the Roman Senate.

 

So, Paganism is the True Religion, since the Christians persecuted them.

[Kuroikaze]

hitler had hopes and dreams.

 

 

 

and your point? Hitler was a mass murderer, not a small child or a inocent mother....did you actually read what I wrote? Sorry this statement is meaninless, try again.

 

You've also fallen prey to Goodwins law here so you automaticly loose the debate, sorry lol

 

 

once again, Old testament. try reading the new testament and find out how many christians were brutally murdered, just for there belief.

 

I fail to see what the point of this statement is? Again, I don't worship the roman gods, nor do I have anything to do with roman law or the system that ordered christians killed. If I followed the Roman gods you might have a point, but I fail to see what this accomplishes.

 

I have admited that there were many other cultures who did bad things, but this hardly excuses your god. Either genocide is right or wrong, but you can't have it both ways. Are you saying that since christians were killed for their belief it was ok for the Jews to kill others simply for their belief? I would disagree with both, so sorry, this doesn't really say anything useful.

 

And my gosh, do you really think I haven't read the New Testiment? I've studied NT Greek for crying out loud. Are you saying hte OT isn't important? If you toss out the OT you don't have much theology left since substitutionary grace theology is bassed upon the Jewish laws regarding ritual blood sacrifices.

 

Please tell me you know enough about theology to know what substitutionary grace is, and why it is central to protestant theology....

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

once again, Old testament. try reading the new testament and find out how many christians were brutally murdered, just for there belief.

 

 

Try reading history, and see how many pagans and heretics were exterminated in

the name of Christ, just for their belief.

 

Plus, you didn't answer my question.....

[freeday]

 

 

According to your mythology, your crappy gawd mandated the mass murder

of thousands of Canaanites, did he not? Are you telling me that if your gawd

would tell you to go massacre thousands of people just for not believing him,

that you would go and slaughter them? I don't give a rat's ass about context,

I am asking you what you would do. Would you be a mass murderer

for your gawd? Would you?

 

sorry took me so long to answer, I am a little outnumbered here. for every post i put, there are 10 responses. you pose a good question. if I recieved a vision, i would have to think long and hard on it. not in 2000 years has God sent a message to do such. so obviously not.

 

the bible makes clear that God is a zealous god (not sure if i spelled it right). and in the OT there are several documented cases of judgement that appear unrulely. not so much the pagans you have described, but his own people. read about he exile of the jews, this is what i am reffering too. but if you read the OT he consistently judges, people change and then revert to there old ways.

 

God gives you several opportunities to repent. the most well documented in the OT are the numerous prophets God sent (actually they were humans that recieved visions) to warn judah to repent or face judgement. obviously they never did and were sent into exile. many were murdered.

 

is that harsh, maybe. but it makes clear that sin will ruin your life.

[Mythra]

i would have to think long and hard on it. not in 2000 years has God sent a message to do such. so obviously not.

 

The Crusades come to mind.

 

But, in reality you are absolutely correct. Because God has never told anybody to do anything. Ever.

 

Plenty of people have thought God told them something. Every christian and his dog thought they have had a message from God.

 

Mind games.

[nick5]

i would have to think long and hard on it. not in 2000 years has God sent a message to do such. so obviously not.

 

Just in the last 100 years, the holocaust happened because god told hitler that it was the right thing to do.

And bush invaded another country because god told him to do it.

There is no difference between those and the OT stories.

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

the bible makes clear that God is a zealous god (not sure if i spelled it right). and in the OT there are several documented cases of judgement that appear unrulely. not so much the pagans you have described, but his own people. read about he exile of the jews, this is what i am reffering too. but if you read the OT he consistently judges, people change and then revert to there old ways.

 

God gives you several opportunities to repent. the most well documented in the OT are the numerous prophets God sent (actually they were humans that recieved visions) to warn judah to repent or face judgement. obviously they never did and were sent into exile. many were murdered.

 

is that harsh, maybe. but it makes clear that sin will ruin your life.

 

 

The exile of the Jews happened after the massacring of the Canaanites.

Exactly how does the exile of the Jews justify what the Jews did to the

Canaanites? Especially since the exile of the Jews was perpetrated by the

Babylonians? And because the exile of the Jews was supposedly gawd's

judgement for the Jews' "disobedience"? Your logic makes no sense

whatsoever.

 

What you do have is a gawd who is vicious to his enemies and vicious to

his worshippers. Oh, sure, he gives his worshippers a few chances to

"repent," and then he executes them or hands them off to slavery.

"Zealous" is nice spin, bloodthirsty, nasty, ill-tempered, murderous

and psychotic are more accurate. A deity like that is not worthy of

worship but of utter contempt.

[Kuroikaze]

 

sorry took me so long to answer, I am a little outnumbered here. for every post i put, there are 10 responses. you pose a good question. if I recieved a vision, i would have to think long and hard on it. not in 2000 years has God sent a message to do such. so obviously not.

 

the bible makes clear that God is a zealous god (not sure if i spelled it right). and in the OT there are several documented cases of judgement that appear unrulely. not so much the pagans you have described, but his own people. read about he exile of the jews, this is what i am reffering too. but if you read the OT he consistently judges, people change and then revert to there old ways.

 

God gives you several opportunities to repent. the most well documented in the OT are the numerous prophets God sent (actually they were humans that recieved visions) to warn judah to repent or face judgement. obviously they never did and were sent into exile. many were murdered.

 

is that harsh, maybe. but it makes clear that sin will ruin your life.

 

Actually the bible says he is a Jealous God, which is exatly what I object too...the creator of the universe can't stand it when we don't pay attention to him? How narsisitic is that?

 

And according to you're own rules its not the sin that ruins life. After all, by definition sin is disobeying or not worshiping god...therefore he sends you to hell for this. He never gives the pagans any warning though does he. Those people he just slaugthers without thought, I guess they weren't really human eh? If god wants to kill people it must be moral because god never does anything wrong? Sorry I don't buy that, which is why I don't buy christianity...which of course is the whole point of this thread.

 

Understand, I'm not really concerned with what you belief...be a christain it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

 

However, without fail almost all christians automaticly jump to one of two conclusions about my unbelief. Either I actually know its true, but pretend its not in order that I may "get away" with sining....or I was hurt by some christian and left the church because of that.

 

The point of this post is that neither of those are true.

[Golden Meadows]

Everyone worshipped whatever gods their parents worshipped.

 

As Ingersoll said in one of his addresses to christians: "if you were born in India, you'd be worshipping one god with three heads instead of three gods with one head"

 

One of the gifts of the Holy Mist is to worship god with no head at all.

"Abandon all reason, abandon all common sense all ye who enter here"

[Lycorth]

Actually the bible says he is a Jealous God, which is exatly what I object too...the creator of the universe can't stand it when we don't pay attention to him? How narsisitic is that?

 

And jealousy is a sin, according to the Babble™, but according to the Ten Commandments™, the Abrahamic god is a jealous one, like you said, and hence a sinner. More contradictions

[Seth C Triggs]

Your god is unthinkably cruel, Freeday. Infinite torment for finite sins is nothing short of unthinkably cruel. I could never worship such a callous, sadistic bastard as that god you worship. Never.

 

I know I'd be doomed anyway. So why bother worshiping such a vile deity? I'll be tormented forever and ever anyway. Besides, depending on your denomination's theology, even if you do act the way he wants to and kiss his ass all the time, there's still a good chance you'd get snuffed.

 

I think I'll just live my life out in atheist fun.

 

-Seth

[Ouroboros]

God justifies himself throught the bibble. you should read it one day and stop plucking out verses and making up the meaning to them. I will try and explain the bible verses better in the future. they are being taken out of context horribly.

Does reading OT three times, and NT 10 times count? Or going to Bible school 10 months?

 

What you don't understand is that the explanations you have for the verses to make up excuses to how to interpret them is not in the Bible. When the Bible says something, and you take it literally one time, and the next verse you interpret figuratively, you are molding, mending and fixing it to fit your belief rather than the opposite.

 

Example: Isa 53:5 - How do you interpret that one? (I've color coded how you probably interpret that verse by Red=Literally, Blue=figuratively.)

 

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

 

Jesus supposedly were pierced, but not crushed, he was killed, not literally crushed, yet literally pierced. So two different ways of interpreting that same paragraph.

 

He was punished to bring peace, but if someone claims they are healed by Jesus wounds and still sick, something isn't literal. Most Christian interpret "healed" at that part as "healed in the spirit" or "saved" and such. Which isn't literal.

 

Do you disagree?

[Asimov]

Do you think the enemies of Israel were peace loving gentle and kind folk? In ancient times only the strong survived and wars were constantly fought over lands and territory. Don't you remember the Pharoh drowned thousands of Jewish babies in the Nile? What about Samson who had his eyes burned out of his sockets?

 

Did you know that some pagan gods, Molec and Baal to name a few, demanded children to be sacrificed in the fire? Human sacrifices was a common among some ancient pagan cultures. Unlike the One God Yahweh who limited sacrifices to animals as a type of Christ the Lamb of God.

 

There was also temple prositution, great sexual misconduct, including beastiality.

 

Remember the story of Jonah? God threatened judgement. The people repented and the city was spared.

 

Some of these ancient cities had such evil practices in them that God wanted them out of the way and the opposing warriors were not about to yeild to Joshua. Don't think the enemies of Israel were any less ruthless, killing men, women and children.

 

Two rights don't make a wrong, Amy. Just because other gods act like barbarians doesn't mean your god should.

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

Do you think the enemies of Israel were peace loving gentle and kind folk? In ancient times only the strong survived and wars were constantly fought over lands and territory. Don't you remember the Pharoh drowned thousands of Jewish babies in the Nile? What about Samson who had his eyes burned out of his sockets?

 

Did you know that some pagan gods, Molec and Baal to name a few, demanded children to be sacrificed in the fire? Human sacrifices was a common among some ancient pagan cultures. Unlike the One God Yahweh who limited sacrifices to animals as a type of Christ the Lamb of God.

 

There was also temple prositution, great sexual misconduct, including beastiality.

 

Remember the story of Jonah? God threatened judgement. The people repented and the city was spared.

 

Some of these ancient cities had such evil practices in them that God wanted them out of the way and the opposing warriors were not about to yeild to Joshua. Don't think the enemies of Israel were any less ruthless, killing men, women and children.

 

 

 

Well, that was.....lame. Did the Hebrews slaughter all those pagan people to

rescue those pagan kids from human sacrifice? No. So are you arguing that

having those pagan kids get slaughtered by the Hebrews was somehow

better than having them get slaughtered in a human sacrifice?

 

Oh, and incidentally, there is no evidence that the Exodus ever happened.

None. No evidence of thousands upon thousands of Hebrews traipsing through

the desert, no mention of all those plagues befalling Egyptian in any non-Hebrew

sources, none. See, for example, Finkelstein and Silberman's The Bible

Unearthed.

 

As for Samson: Samson is derived from Shamash, the sun god of ancient

Assyria and Babylon:

 

In the Hebrew text which English translations of the book of Judges are based on, Samson is named Shimshon (Samson is an English rendering). Standard translations of the meaning of this name are usually ...who serves... or of the sun, but it can also be translated as Little Shamash (essentially as Shamash-ino). Shamash itself translates as sun or ...who serves.., but it is also the name of a Semitic sun-god, Shamash. In the Tanakh, Samson was born in a place known as Tsorah. Tsorah is very close to Beth-Shamash (meaning House of Shamash), a Shamash cult-center. Shamash was a major god of Assyria and Babylon, which were situated near to Israel and Judah, whose name is thought to indicate that at earlier times Shamash was a more minor god. Samson is also described as having to undertake Naziritic vows. Nazaroth is the word used in Hebrew for the Zodiac. Vows of the zodiac were taken by the sun-gods as they grew up, to guarantee the passing of the year.

 

 

Incidentally, Shamash would be one of those pagan deities you so despise.....

 

And the Jonah story is a midrash that borrows elements from other pagan myths

(a little bit of Tiamat and Marduk here, a little bit of Jason and Orpheus there....).

Funny how steeped your Bible is in all that pagan religion that fills you with so

much bile.

[Asimov]

As for Samson: Samson is derived from Shamash, the sun god of ancient

 

Yea, the name...but so what?

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

As for Samson: Samson is derived from Shamash, the sun god of ancient

 

Yea, the name...but so what?

 

 

Not just the name, the story archetype. Solar hero deities were very common

in the ancient world - the story of Hercules was another one.

[Asuryan]

Do you think the enemies of Israel were peace loving gentle and kind folk? In ancient times only the strong survived and wars were constantly fought over lands and territory. Don't you remember the Pharoh drowned thousands of Jewish babies in the Nile? What about Samson who had his eyes burned out of his sockets?

 

 

But God is all powerful.

 

He used his divine powers to help the hebrews win their fights, did he not? In the OT, he uses his powers a lot. So, instead of throwing on aegypt the 10 plagues, he could've simply willed the pharaoh's heart to soften, and just leave the hebrews free.

 

Amy, why? He could've created a peaceful solution, without deaths and sufferings, just by using his godly powers which are infinite. Why didn't god do that, in your eyes?

 

Oh, right.

 

- You shouldn't answer that it is because God respected the pharaoh's free will to exterminate hebrews: this isn't true, since the OT clearly states that god *hardened* the pharaoh's heart on purpose. So he's ok with hardening, but not ok with softening?

 

- If your god told you, in a very clear vision, to grab your sword, search for our houses, and kill us all, one by one, because of our lack of faith and sinful lives... after all, he kills people for their sins constantly, see sodom... would you, amy? In this fictional situation, you are VERY sure that the vision came from god, and not from the devil, mind you: you felt jesus presence in your heart when he told you to kill us. If no, why?

Did you know that some pagan gods, Molec and Baal to name a few, demanded children to be sacrificed in the fire?

 

 

 

But I don't worship Molec and Baal.

 

This is not a "my god is not worse than your gods!" contest here, amy, because we don't worship those cruel gods you spoke of. We think that a cruel, unjust god, shouldn't be worshipped, no matter his name. You seem to think, though, that if Yahveh is cruel and unjust, that's OK since you worship and fear him, but it is not OK anymore if other gods did that in ancient times. Why the two standards?

 

There was also temple prositution, great sexual misconduct, including beastiality.

 

 

 

Why do you think that temple prostitution would and should grant a ferocious answer from god?

 

Have we no free will? Those babylonian women you're speaking of were considered priestesses, and highly respected. Plus, if you've ever seen some porn with women and dogs, you'll notice that the dogs always have rather an happy expression on their faces!

 

Do you really think that the sexual behaviour of a person is reason enough to exterminate him or her?

 

 

Don't think the enemies of Israel were any less ruthless, killing men, women and children.

 

 

 

And again, Yahveh could've just wished BOTH Israel and its enemies to stop being ruthless and killing other people. He didn't do that. So he was ok with the bloodshedding, it seems.

[Golden Meadows]

Do you think the enemies of Israel were peace loving gentle and kind folk? In ancient times only the strong survived and wars were constantly fought over lands and territory. Don't you remember the Pharoh drowned thousands of Jewish babies in the Nile?

Are you assuming ami that the bible is describing actual events here? Others might see it as pure myth, not even good myth, but lies.

 

 

What about Samson who had his eyes burned out of his sockets?

Again you are in the realm of myth.

 

Did you know that some pagan gods, Molec and Baal to name a few, demanded children to be sacrificed in the fire?

 

Human sacrifices was a common among some ancient pagan cultures. Unlike the One God Yahweh who limited sacrifices to animals as a type of Christ the Lamb of God.

This seems doubtful. One example would be the sacrifice of jephthahs daughter. (judges 11:39) Note that the bible says the Holy Spirit was upon him when he offered his daughter up as human sacrifice to to Yahweh.

 

There was also temple prositution, great sexual misconduct, including beastiality.

Sex is never far away from religion - even xtianity. The sacred whores would often act as the incarnation of the Goddess. Some people who veer to towards mystical prayer quite often unashamedly talk of making love to Jesus. The abuse scandals that have racked xtianity in recent years would seem to suggest that xtians are not immune to misconduct.

 

Remember the story of Jonah? God threatened judgement. The people repented and the city was spared.

Do you believe the story of Jonah is literally true or a great story with an important truth to convey?

 

Some of these ancient cities had such evil practices in them that God wanted them out of the way and the opposing warriors were not about to yeild to Joshua. Don't think the enemies of Israel were any less ruthless, killing men, women and children.

You are assuming that what the bible describes is literal history and not the usual demonisation of the loser by the victor. Anyhow even if there was some truth in what you are saying does that mean the ends justify the means? This is not a typical xtian response.

 

 

[Asimov]

As for Samson: Samson is derived from Shamash, the sun god of ancient

 

Yea, the name...but so what?

 

 

Not just the name, the story archetype. Solar hero deities were very common

in the ancient world - the story of Hercules was another one.

 

I read about the story of Shamash and the story of Samson...neither are similar.

[nick5]

.

[nick5]

.