https://youtu.be/tyWcka7drWk
When I think about what made me an atheist the story of Noah's Ark always comes to mind. As a child attending Sunday school and vacation Bible school at the Methodist Church I found this story both impossible and upsetting. I remember the illustration of the people and animals drowning in the flood and thinking how horrible it was for the animals. At the time I could accept that people could be wicked, but not animals. I had a lot of exposure to animals and knew they were not good or bad. This story made God a bad guy, he wasn't the "loving God" the minister talked about in sermon. Next problem was the impossibility of an ark carrying carry two of every animal, which to my child reasoning was just as impossible as Santa fitting in a chimney flue (which I had investigated with a flashlight). Then there was the problem of God creating a rainbow promising he wouldn't flood the Earth again, which to me implied he made mistake-- a HUGE mistake. What also made me doubt the story was my Sunday school teacher, who was evasive when I asked for particulars on how this ark could possible fit all the animals and why didn't God just make all the wicked people go to sleep and not wake up (I learned you could die in your sleep from reciting "Now I lay Me Down to Sleep"), leaving the animals alone. Her reaction was the same uncomfortable response I got as a child when asking about Santa or the Easter bunny. So from all this I determined as a child that the Bible was not real life, it was like Aesop's Fables. Like Santa Clause, Grimm's Fairy Tales and other stories, Christianity was a collection of stories adults told children to make them behave, and you don't ask questions about it, you pretend to believe and play along because it makes the adults happy. I honestly believed through childhood that no adults, except crazy people, believed these stories, that Jesus LITERALLY came back from the dead. I was in high school before confronting the scary reality that most everyone ACTUALLY thought these stories were real.
(http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/images/noahs-ark.jpg)
I think one of the first reactions to the fairy tale, after reaching an age of reason, was that, not just why, but how could a loving god watch as terrified children watched the water rise slowly drowning their family members and then recognizing they were to die as well, with no reasoning? This is a very disgusting and sick "god" that thinks this is "just". For the life of me, I do not understand how reasonable people can view this in any other way except because they are so filled with their own selfish concerns that they don't care what happens to other humans who have differing views and opinions.
As for the rainbow, this is only because the humans who wrote the babble never saw the aurora borealis.
Quote from: aitm on June 30, 2016, 05:35:36 PM
I think one of the first reactions to the fairy tale, after reaching an age of reason, was that, not just why, but how could a loving god watch as terrified children watched the water rise slowly drowning their family members and then recognizing they were to die as well, with no reasoning? This is a very disgusting and sick "god" that thinks this is "just". For the life of me, I do not understand how reasonable people can view this in any other way except because they are so filled with their own selfish concerns that they don't care what happens to other humans who have differing views and opinions.
As for the rainbow, this is only because the humans who wrote the babble never saw the aurora borealis.
I've always wondered how Christians feel about worshiping a supernatural entity that intentionally killed all life on Earth, save for a boat full of specimens.
I got asked to not come back to Sunday School, age 7, because I asked awkward questions about the Ark story. Win.
I have never understood reality to be about morality. Same with fiction. Morality is a unicorn. So my question, had I been able to articulate it (and I was mostly reading about Hercules not Noah) was ... is this a good story? Not is it historical, or is Hercules killing the Hydra ... eco-justice? If you were thinking like an SJW back when you were seven ... you were a weird kid!
So for me back then, the Noah story would be ... that is about as silly as Santa Claus. I had already caught my dad bringing in presents in the dead of the night, the night before Christmas. And he didn't even bother to wear the funny red and white suit.
SJW? No, I just asked why God killed all the kittens. Made the rest of the class cry.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on June 30, 2016, 08:17:26 PM
SJW? No, I just asked why God killed all the kittens. Made the rest of the class cry.
You meanie! I bet you had cooties, and ate all the Playdough!!
Quote from: Baruch on June 30, 2016, 08:19:11 PM
You meanie! I bet you had cooties, and ate all the Playdough!!
Yeah, something like that. The reverend's son was a stoner, and gave me a joint as a reward for pissing off his father. I had no idea what to do with it.
Quote from: Baruch on June 30, 2016, 08:03:44 PM
If you were thinking like an SJW back when you were seven ... you were a weird kid!
When a classroom of children all get punished because a few of them were talking I was the kid who said, "But I wasn't talking. Why should I miss recess when I was doing my work? It's not fair!" It wasn't fair the animals were punished because the people misbehaved.
This is also reinforced my aversion to being part of a group and resentment of peers who couldn't stay on task.
Punishing the whole group of people for the actions of a few is lazy.
Only 39? Probably about twice that if you look harder.
[Is there a text list of the 39 points?
Its like you say, that cringing moment when you look back on stories you were told as a child, many of them bible stories they read to children in schools, and you realize just not only how horrible these things are, but also know their are grown up people like yourself who still believes these stories to be true.
(https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5555369/il_570xN.94271353.jpg)
Christianity loves to gloss over so much about itself in the modern times, but things like this allow insane religious fanatics to push their messed up beliefs onto others to spread the same messed up indoctrination.
I remember the story books my mum read to me when I was a kid, stereotypical as it was, but all classics like the frog prince, the ugly duckling, the red shoes, jack and the beanstalk, the goose that laid the golden egg, all of these stories from childrens books designed to tell children made up stories to help them either sleep or escape to something more magical then the real world.
Its just that you don't see full grown adults claiming that things like golden eggs, giant beanstalks that reach the sky, or talking frogs actually exist, these stories are designed to grow out of them, and just impart some kind of moral. Yet with the bible, the made up stories in it, are things full grown adults believe to be real, going against all sense of logic and reasoning.
this is why the very nature of all religions are the same, they are all cults with made up stories used to lure people in, people who have been indoctrinated into it from an early age with made up bullshit stories, or to lure in hapless people who can't process logic or reason (and of course those who claim to be deeply religious but only are doing some to milk cash from said hapless morons).
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on June 30, 2016, 08:31:50 PM
Yeah, something like that. The reverend's son was a stoner, and gave me a joint as a reward for pissing off his father. I had no idea what to do with it.
Gotta love those PKs (preacher kids). My own daughter is one ;-)
Quote from: aitm on June 30, 2016, 05:35:36 PM
For the life of me, I do not understand how reasonable people can view this in any other way
Why do you assume they are reasonable?
Quote from: SGOS on July 01, 2016, 07:15:43 AM
Why do you assume they are reasonable?
It isn't unreasonable to want to exterminate the human race. It deserves it (sometimes). We all are Caligula inside. But since there is no evil, that doesn't endorse Original Sin.
Quote from: Baruch on July 01, 2016, 07:04:10 AM
Gotta love those PKs (preacher kids). My own daughter is one ;-)
PKs and CKs. (Cop's kids.) The first live set of boobies I ever saw belonged to a friendly CK.
Quote from: Baruch on July 01, 2016, 07:17:48 AM
It isn't unreasonable to want to exterminate the human race. It deserves it (sometimes). We all are Caligula inside. But since there is no evil, that doesn't endorse Original Sin.
I'm not Caligula on the inside.
A saint? Never one iota of urge to do something terrible, never the urge to hate humanity in general? Not that I approve of acting on those emotions.
Quote from: Baruch on July 01, 2016, 07:29:17 AM
A saint? Never one iota of urge to do something terrible, never the urge to hate humanity in general? Not that I approve of acting on those emotions.
Read what I said carefully.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on June 30, 2016, 05:25:23 PM
When I think about what made me an atheist the story of Noah's Ark always comes to mind. As a child attending Sunday school and vacation Bible school at the Methodist Church I found this story both impossible and upsetting.
It does for me too. It may be the most well known Bible story, and it looms in the collective psyche because of the clarity with which it describes God's cruelty. It's darker than most other Bible messages. And the rainbow and promises at the end don't bring much hope. In modern day, everyone knows what causes a rainbow. And if you accept the claims of Pat Robertson, God has been manifesting his cruelty through tornados, earthquakes, and plane crashes ever since, in spite of any promises he may have made.
I didn't have your upsetting reaction to the story though. By the first time I had heard it, I had already lost hope and I had become deadened to the unescapable reality that God was sending me to Hell for eternity. My reaction was no small thing, hardly the same as just a simple misunderstanding of the Bible metaphor. It was a fundamental perverted twist of my psychological nature that wiped away all hope and self confidence, and I can remember the exact moment that psychological flip flop occurred in my consciousness.
That experience was as though a black curtain came down and smothered my emotional happiness. The lasting effect was not that I no longer felt happiness as a child. I did, but everything I experienced from then on was clouded by a pervasive knowledge that I had been beaten, and nothing could change my destiny. I became a beaten person and that perception followed me into midlife affecting all my relationships with other people.
I almost think I should be immensely pissed off for being sold a bill of goods that negatively impacted my life for so long, but I don't have the time or energy to be as pissed off as I am probably entitled. It's just a bad thing that shaped much of my early life, a thing that happened, and if it hadn't happened, there probably would have been something else. So we move on.
Buying into a religion is like stepping in dog shit. You first feel the squish and realize what just happened, but you don't dare reach down and brush off the shit. You walk along finding some grass you can rub your shoe in. Your walking is impeded as you half drag your foot, first on one side, and then the other, trying to get rid of the shit, until most of it is gone, but you still realize some of that shit is going to be there until you get home. That's kind of the way I see religion.
SGOS, hearing your story and the stories of other people regarding religion has helped me appreciate how damaging believing a religion can be.
I've not quite figured out yet when was the point that made me decide to be an atheist, but I feel like the process just happened over a long time. I've always been a fan of fiction, fantasy, I was heavily into the kinds of tolkein type fantasy worlds, dragons and magics in those stories, as well as the sci fi genres and comics in the 90s.
I guess its the fact that I was never really fed the bullshit the bible had to it at home, unless you include back in the 80s when most British schools had bible and prayer sessions pushed on kids before it stopped being a mandatory things in schools. I never was dragged into thinking all the lessons in the bible were based on real events, they were just stories, and when I began to learn things like father christmas and the tooth fairy weren't real, as to did I think the same about the bible and god.
I think I became an atheist when I began to surf online, and read actual stories of what people went through under religious parents and practices, that it dawned on me what a cult it was.
Want some real fun? Any time a creationist insists on arguing Noah's Ark and the flood, go a few pages further in the Bible and insist on talking about the Tower of Babel.
It came so close to reaching heaven that Gawd had to strike it down.
Ask them about that tower, and how high it had to be to reach heaven.
Quote from: Jason Harvestdancer on July 01, 2016, 11:28:43 AM
Want some real fun? Any time a creationist insists on arguing Noah's Ark and the flood, go a few pages further in the Bible and insist on talking about the Tower of Babel.
It came so close to reaching heaven that Gawd had to strike it down.
Ask them about that tower, and how high it had to be to reach heaven.
Do we have any Biblical numbers for how many people were working on that thing? Plus infrastructure people, and non-involved people, and people in Tahiti, etc.?
QuoteThis means that there were 339 years between when Noah and the others left the ark and when the Tower of Babel was built.
Source. (http://www.jewishanswers.org/ask-the-rabbi-3463/noah-tower-of-babel-population-growth/?p=3463)
Quote from: Munch on July 01, 2016, 11:08:39 AM
I've not quite figured out yet when was the point that made me decide to be an atheist, but I feel like the process just happened over a long time. I've always been a fan of fiction, fantasy, I was heavily into the kinds of tolkein type fantasy worlds, dragons and magics in those stories, as well as the sci fi genres and comics in the 90s.
I guess its the fact that I was never really fed the bullshit the bible had to it at home, unless you include back in the 80s when most British schools had bible and prayer sessions pushed on kids before it stopped being a mandatory things in schools. I never was dragged into thinking all the lessons in the bible were based on real events, they were just stories, and when I began to learn things like father christmas and the tooth fairy weren't real, as to did I think the same about the bible and god.
I think I became an atheist when I began to surf online, and read actual stories of what people went through under religious parents and practices, that it dawned on me what a cult it was.
I too was an avid reader, especially of fiction and fantasy, and I think this made a difference regarding religion. When you are exposed to a lot of different stories and ideas, especially stories that resonate or ideas that are complex, then Noah's Ark becomes just a really bad story. I didn't think of myself as an atheist until I was an adult because I didn't seriously think about whether a god could actually exist.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on June 30, 2016, 09:21:21 PM
When a classroom of children all get punished because a few of them were talking I was the kid who said, "But I wasn't talking. Why should I miss recess when I was doing my work? It's not fair!" It wasn't fair the animals were punished because the people misbehaved.
This is also reinforced my aversion to being part of a group and resentment of peers who couldn't stay on task.
Aaaaahhhhhhh; group punishment for the sins of one/a few. The hallmark of piss poor managers the world over............................no matter the organization they're with.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on June 30, 2016, 06:09:43 PM
I got asked to not come back to Sunday School, age 7, because I asked awkward questions about the Ark story. Win.
(http://images.memes.com/meme/396227)
An old meme but certainly worth sharing again:
(http://i67.tinypic.com/23u7ln7.jpg)
BIBLE NEWSFLASH UPDATE REGARDING NOAH'S ARK!
I have understood for a long time that you can't discuss reason with the inept pseudo-christian mind-set relative to science, paleontology, etc., but only to use their primitive Bronze and Iron Age bible against them where you'll either hear silence in the aftermath, or some of the funniest apologetics and far reaching apologetics, hermeneutics, and metaphysical constructs known to man so as to save face in still believing in their Christian cult.
Regarding the topic of this thread being Noah's Ark, and to use their Yahweh god's direct inspired word, to wit: "Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate," (Gensis 7:2)
Barring any dinosaurs, the simple math states that 7 pairs = 14, plus 1 pair = 2. 14+2=16 OF EACH SPECIE! Yes, the bible contradicts itself ad infinitum, but I like to use this particular inspired by their Yahweh's word to put the final nail in the coffin. Now, thus far, there’re 1.2 million different species on earth that Yahweh had to create at the onset for them to be here today, then x 16 pairs = 19.2 million species that had to be on Noah’s Ark. Yes, rarely do you see the church bring forth Genesis 7:2 for obvious reasons!
Number of animal species on planet earth:
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001127
Furthermore, Noah and his incestuous family were on the waters in the Great Flood with
19.2 MILLION ANIMAL SPECIES in the 750 foot long and 75 foot wide Ark for 371 days. I know, stop laughing! Can we assume that poor Noah’s work kept piling up on him? (Genesis 8:15â€"19)
This is what the primitive Bronze and Iron Age belief in Christianity will do to it’s adherents going into the 21st century, and that is, making them the laughing stock to all rational thinkers.
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.“ (Proverbs 30:5) EVERY word includes Genesis 7:2 where it states with specificity that 8 pairs of each animal specie was upon the Ark. *Cough.*
Please, we all should know that the Christian god was one of many within the Before Common Era (Zeus, Mithra, Horus, et al.), therefore, please call him by his true name of "Yahweh, the Christian Jew god," or if you're conversing with a Trinitarian, the god is named Jesus/Yahweh. In this way, it helps define even further in just how primitive the foundation of the Christian ruse actually is going into the 21st century. Thanks.
The Noah's Ark story is so silly that I think that listing reasons to debunk it is kind of a waste of time, like trying to figure out how much money it would take to build a real life Death Star. A fun waste of time maybe, but still a waste. The people who listen to reason have already figured out for themselves that this story is bologna.
Clean animals and unclean animals were not the same. A cow was a clean animal, a pig not so much. So you would have 14 of each clean and 2 of each unclean animals.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 02, 2016, 06:38:46 PM
Clean animals and unclean animals were not the same. A cow was a clean animal, a pig not so much. So you would have 14 of each clean and 2 of each unclean animals.
I have shoveled shit from both animals. Clean is a relative term. :biggrin: (yes I know. Levitical yada yada) Which is why I will continually point out that aspect of Ark dwelling. Count the animals, figure minimum one dump per day.... you do the math. Or shoveling.
Quote from: TomFoolery on July 02, 2016, 04:08:21 PM
An old meme but certainly worth sharing again:
(http://i67.tinypic.com/23u7ln7.jpg)
Double-think is a required skill for becoming this deluded.
Quote from: stromboli on July 02, 2016, 07:04:05 PM
I have shoveled shit from both animals. Clean is a relative term. :biggrin: (yes I know. Levitical yada yada) Which is why I will continually point out that aspect of Ark dwelling. Count the animals, figure minimum one dump per day.... you do the math. Or shoveling.
Well, you see... The Ark had a toilet system for each pair of animals, and God would make them use the toilets so that they wouldn't make a mess everywhere. But after a few days, this was no longer necessary, because God allowed the animals to survive on photosynthesis so that the carnivores wouldn't each the other animals and the herbivores wouldn't starve.
As a child if the Bible indicated God gave Noah a magic ark that was larger on the inside than on the outside, like those tents in Harry Potter, I would have totally bought it.
Ken Ham:
"What this atheist wants to do (and really I find it quite childish) illustrates how intolerant many atheists can be in regard to Christianity in this culture. They’re so insecure in their blind faith that, even with all of the evolution-based museums and evolution-saturated curricula in public schools and colleges, they’re very scared of the Ark and the Creation Museum."
https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2016/07/02/atheists-help-promote-ark/
Quote from: GSOgymrat on July 03, 2016, 04:42:24 PM
Ken Ham:
"What this atheist wants to do (and really I find it quite childish) illustrates how intolerant many atheists can be in regard to Christianity in this culture. They’re so insecure in their blind faith that, even with all of the evolution-based museums and evolution-saturated curricula in public schools and colleges, they’re very scared of the Ark and the Creation Museum."
https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2016/07/02/atheists-help-promote-ark/
Ham is under the impression that there will be a flood of people pouring through the ark from day one, which is possible. But once reviews in local and national papers start coming in, there is bound to be a few that won't be faith promoting. The ark will stand ultimately as another example of human stupidity for our future progeny to laugh at.
I need to break out the leather harness and organize a Gay Day at the Creation Museum. "Created to Be Fabulous!" Ken is all about tolerance.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
Quote from: GSOgymrat on July 03, 2016, 06:10:08 PM
I need to break out the leather harness and organize a Gay Day at the Creation Museum. "Created to Be Fabulous!" Ken is all about tolerance.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
That one I definitely got to see.
Quote from: stromboli on July 04, 2016, 11:47:59 AM
That one I definitely got to see.
(http://rationalia.com/forum/images/smilies/brainbleach.gif)
Quote from: GSOgymrat on July 03, 2016, 06:10:08 PM
I need to break out the leather harness and organize a Gay Day at the Creation Museum. "Created to Be Fabulous!" Ken is all about tolerance.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/06/tumblr_inline_mnuwr3TsXh1r79k32.gif)
(http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee365/solost4words/Tumblr%20Gifs/tumblr_lnk42yqTcy1qb6ng9.gif)
Question- how many pregnant women and newborns did god kill in the flood? Judgment against the unborn?
Quote from: stromboli on July 05, 2016, 10:53:16 AM
Question- how many pregnant women and newborns did god kill in the flood? Judgment against the unborn?
How many kittens, puppies, baby birds,
baby spiders, baby elephants?