An introduction and maybe some questions

[SB Leader]

Wow, that's a lot to cover. Today I am compiling the results for this project, so I don't have a ton of time, but I wanted to respond to what I could.

- Very wide selection you use there. Only Christian churches, or other religions too? All in all they share a few problems: they instruct people not to think critically and accept dogma and they control peoples lives in destructive ways (though the matter of destructivity fall in a scale with some more dangerous than others).

One thing that I really appreciate about this community is the diversity of its members. You all have such different stories and many of you are even from different countries. That's really cool.

Mr. Obvious, I should have been careful when wording that question, because you are right, there are many different churches for many different religions. I was specifically referring to Christian churches, but even within those there is a vast diversity of sub-beliefs and members (Much like here!). It is very hard to generalize such a broad spectrum of people and Christians are no exceptions.

an opinion by someone who has neither power or money

Again, aitm, you assume something about me which you do not know to be true. Comparatively with most of humanity, I live with great wealth and probably power too. But I can assure you my happiness is not found in those things. Furthermore, I can look at great men and women in my own life and throughout history who have achieved power or wealth or notoriety and yet died as unhappy individuals. Alexander the Great, who had conquered the entire known world, was thrown into deep depression because he didn't have enough. Joy is not in this world because this world is fleeting. :)

"I think man invented gods because we seek idols to fulfill our desires."
The problem appears to be that you refuse to apply this to yourself.

Berati, that is an awkward statement in that light. What I mean by that is this: Humans have historically been drawn to the divine--the vast majority of human history has been characterized by those who seek the divine; atheism is a relatively new development and a great minority compared with the billions of humans throughout time. Now are we to just say that the majority of mankind has been ignorant, superstitious brutes or that perhaps humans have always been drawn to something beyond this world because something beyond this world exists. If we are basing this off of numbers alone, we are compelled to believe the latter. So the following of idols is a chasing after the spiritual realm, but a misunderstood chasing. Baal worship is dead, probably because of the powerlessness that was found in the worship of him, but Christianity remains. This is an imperfect argument, admittedly, but I think that there is something worth considering here.

Again, what's a god?

antithesis, I have seen you post this a couple different places around this board, but I haven't seen any responses yet. So I will take a swing at it, but humbly--its a pretty daunting task ;)

There are a lot of problems with the Noah movie, but one thing it was dead on about was the importance of a Creator. I look around the world and see beauty in the sunrise, in the flowers, in the eyes of a young lady and I cannot help but see design. So primarily, I see a god as a Creator. A god that created this world must be transcendent, because in order to create all he would have had to start with nothing. He must be powerful, he created this universe after all. He must be logical because he created the laws of reason. He must be personal because he created persons and made relationships a valuable part of their existence. Those are a few things I see as being a part of a god. If you don't mind me asking, how would you describe what a god is?

1) Unnecessary capitalization is childish, or should I say Childish

Ugh, sorry. I came on here with the full intention of not capitalizing pronouns or the like because I knew it wouldn't relate; I thought I did a good job early on. It is an absolute must in a lot of the Christian academic world so I carry a lot of that over.

As for your example, I think it is insufficient because the Bible is not one man writing the story of God. It is 40 authors writing over the period of hundreds of years all saying the same thing. I think that's incredible! There really is not a contemporary comparison that I can think of, but I would be open to hearing any out.

And while we are on free will, why not come down here and show himself to be true? Then we would actually have a choice. Currently all religions seem equally invalid, and to the believers they all seem valid. Why not set the record straight? That wouldn't remove free will (if it existed). I for one could never have followed your god, at least not honestly, because I know "in my heart" that the character described in the bible is a disgusting monster with horrible moral, and is inferior to me in every way aside from muscles. Like the mob boss he could probably have tortured me till the point I cracked, but in my mind I would never respect or consider him good.

I would say that he did come down and showed himself to be true in Jesus, but people still did not believe him!

Sorry, I missed so much. I am really strapped for time!

[La Dolce Vita]

I would say that he did come down and showed himself to be true in Jesus, but people still did not believe him!

That was a dodge and not a reply to my question regarding free will, but ok:

So your god is so incompetent and powerless that he is incapable of even making people understand that he's real? Say you're right. Say Jesus was god. He then only attempted to convince less than 1% of the world personally. He came to one region. Even if he has such limited skills and power, he could at least attempt to demonstrate his realness to the same extent for the rest of the people on earth, no?

Hell, today we have advanced science and actual ways of testing his claims. Couldn't he at least have taken the James Randi challenge so that we could see that there's anything at all to his claims?

[stromboli]

Once again, from inside the box. Try outside- first of all, prove that Jesus actually existed, the Messianic miracle producing Jesus of the bible. See this is the advent of god- the single greatest event in recorded history with all the attendant miracles attached. Strangely enough, all that incredible stuff managed to not get noticed by any historians or record keepers outside those very few quoted by Christian sources.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/09/biblical-scholar-claims-jesus-was-invented-by-romans/
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ

Hmmmm... funny thing, that. 

[aitm]

by the by Stroms....its sammich goddamn it.....god gets pissy if'n you eat a ham sammich....

[stromboli]

Been a long time since I read the new testament, but I thought Paul in particular had a lot to say against it.

There are many references to whoremongers and other similar scriptures, but i should modify that and say that Jesus specifically is not quoted as saying anything against it.

[Berati]

Now are we to just say that the majority of mankind has been ignorant, superstitious brutes or that perhaps humans have always been drawn to something beyond this world because something beyond this world exists. If we are basing this off of numbers alone, we are compelled to believe the latter.

This is a fallacy known as Argumentum ad populum. For the majority of human existence humans believed the world was flat and at the center of the solar system. Both are as incorrect as the belief in a magic omnipotent father figure.

So the following of idols is a chasing after the spiritual realm, but a misunderstood chasing. Baal worship is dead, probably because of the powerlessness that was found in the worship of him, but Christianity remains.

A great many religions remain and more are created all the time. Did you just forget that?
What you are doing here is called special pleading. It's another type of logical fallacy that results from a one sided assessment. You leave out the majority of the world which happens to not be christian to produce the result you want.

This is an imperfect argument, admittedly, but I think that there is something worth considering here.

Actually there is nothing worth considering here. I suggested that you were not applying your own reasoning to yourself and you replied with two huge logical fallacies.  Not only that, you still refused to apply the reasoning to yourself.

"I think man invented gods because we seek idols to fulfill our desires."

So what are your desires? Is it a need to have "meaning" in your life? Do you fear dying and long for eternal life?
Do you think you accepted an invented god to help you fulfill these desires? This is a rhetorical question. The answer is... yes you did. All you need now is the emotional maturity to accept the truth of this answer.

[SB Leader]

This is a fallacy known as Argumentum ad populum. For the majority of human existence humans believed the world was flat and at the center of the solar system. Both are as incorrect as the belief in a magic omnipotent father figure.

The people who were wrong about the earth and sun still experienced the sun's heat and earth's ground beneath their feet and the motion of the two bodies. They were wrong about the sun's movement, but their experiences still had real causes. But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

[Mr.Obvious]

The people who were wrong about the earth and sun still experienced the sun's heat and earth's ground beneath their feet and the motion of the two bodies. They were wrong about the sun's movement, but their experiences still had real causes. But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

Meh, unfathomable... You wouldn't believe how big variants of 'folie a deux' can get. 'folie en masse' is not unthinkable.
That being said, I think it's not best understood as mass psychosis just mass indoctrination. Positively reïnforcing things that make you part of the group and actually feel part of the group (aka socializing) is something best studied through sociology, not psychology. (Though as a sociologist I may be biased.) Perhaps a better way for you to approach this would be that people experience their relation to God like they experience their relation to their country. Patriotism is indoctrinated much in the same way as religion: as dogma without question. We Americans are the most free, period. Us Belgians have the best beer, chocolate and fries, period. We Germans are the most efficiënt, period. Us Britains have build the greatest empire in the world, period. We Indians have brought forth the greatest pacifist of all time, period.
And most of us keep a special place in our heart for our country, convinced of it being 'the best' and true.
I feel Belgian. And I'm proud to be Belgian. And you probably feel proud to be American.
But is there really something as Belgium or America? They, like all nations, are man-made concepts that only exists because we say they do. Their borders are not a part of nature. The people within the countries are as closely related as they are to the inhabitants of neighbouring countries. Their order and laws and principles only exist to the extent of our agreement. Without us, there are no nations. Without us, there are no Gods.

[aitm]

But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

So you have to admit then, that the psychosis that seems to prove (by your way of thinking) a god, must apply equally to every god ever to have been thought to exist. This, by your infallible logic, proves that every god ever believed to exist does indeed exist, and thusly by extension, one god is as good as another as no culture shows obvious signs of favoritism by having mass "miracles" as such.

Wow, you did it...YOU DID IT!! YOU PROVED EVERY GOD EXISTS! Wow congradulations.

[stromboli]

The people who were wrong about the earth and sun still experienced the sun's heat and earth's ground beneath their feet and the motion of the two bodies. They were wrong about the sun's movement, but their experiences still had real causes. But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

This is an if-then fallacy. there have been societies that did not believe in your god that came up with other gods or other explanantions. The Chinese and other cultures were ahead of western civilization on many fronts. there is no mass psychosis involved, but knowledge that there wer other causes for natural phenomena.

Inside the box. Your entire viewpoint is myopic Christian rhetoric.

[Solitary]

Welcome aboard!  Solitary

-How would you describe your religious background and church involvement? Atheist since 6 years old, went to church (Methodist) at ten years old, had pastor slam my had onto my desktop leaving a goose egg. Got married in a Catholic Church, and could not stop laughing when my future wife prayed at the Virgin Mary statue and it fell over knocking the flower pot over.

-To you, what is God like? Describe God. Or if you do not believe in God, then: what is important in life? Life itself is important, as well as my family and health (mental and physical), reality is important, not superstitious nonsense.

-What do you think is important and unimportant to God? (Feel free to skip if you do not believe in God, or you are welcome to speculate as well if you are agnostic) Obviously, nothing is important to God if He exists, if He doesn't exist nothing in the world in the past or now would be any different.

-What do you think it takes to be straightened out with God? (Same as above) Placating him and sacrificing this life with the hope of being with Him bored to death for eternity.

-Describe what the term Jesus Christ means to you. A symbol of Love, corrupted by Christians into a real person that died for their supposed sins.

-From your perspective, what are the major problems of churches today? That they have failed mankind in the past and still do with superstitious nonsense with magical thinking, and not facing reality.



-To you, what is God like? Describe God. Or if you do not believe in God, then: what is important in life? Life itself with my loved ones, health (both mental and physical), not superstitious nonsense or imaginary things that don't exist, but reality.

-What do you think is important and unimportant to God? (Feel free to skip if you do not believe in God, or you are welcome to speculate as well if you are agnostic) Nothing if He exists, because for 2,000+ years it has been the same for every living creature as if He didn't.



-Describe what the term Jesus Christ means to you. A symbol of love corrupted by Christians to be a real person.

-From your perspective, what are the major problems of churches today?

Failing mankind to better itself with superstitious nonsense in the past, as well as now with magical thinking, and the clergy being hypocritical parasites that prey on their fellow mans credulity and ignorance..  Solitary

[Berati]

The people who were wrong about the earth and sun still experienced the sun's heat and earth's ground beneath their feet and the motion of the two bodies. They were wrong about the sun's movement, but their experiences still had real causes.

So let's agree that they felt something, thought something,  but were ultimately wrong about it even though they were in the vast majority. A perfect example of why the argumentum ad populum is a fallacy.
So surely you're not going to double down on a logical fallacy you yourself agree has led to a huge number of people feeling something but in the end being wrong about the nature of what they felt.

But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

Ooops, I guess not.
Try going back to step one above and understand that people lacking in information will often make big assumptions and big mistakes... and do this en masse. Not only is it fathomable, it's actually to be expected.

Unfortunately you did not address the real difficult question. You know that man invents gods for psychological reasons. You said it yourself "we seek idols to fulfill our desires."
So do you have the honesty to admit that you are also doing this?

[stromboli]

The difference between your god and an idol is a matter of interpretation. Mormons don't wear crucifixes because by their belief, Christ's death wasn't the point, but rather what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. I was raised to believe that images of the virgin mary, crucifixes and every other symbol was idolatry. Yet they have images of angels on top of their temples- go figure.

Like i said, until you start from outside the box and learn to judge objectively, your interpretations are all going to be colored by what you have been indoctrinated into. And yes, you were indoctrinated.

[Hydra009]

But if God does not exist then what have believers been experiencing? It would have to be a mass psychosis on a scale that is unfathomable.

By that logic, there must also be some truth in the following beliefs:  pagan gods, witches, bigfoot, and alien visitors.

Ironically, Christians typically assert that the pagans were wrong in their beliefs without supposing that such beliefs were either the result of some "unfathomable" mass psychosis or actually true.  But when it comes to Christian beliefs, this argument is very popular. (and therefore true)

[stromboli]

I was a Christian for 18 years after leaving the Mormon church, and a Youth Leader for 2 years. I understand what you mean by the holy spirit or whatever because I was in the Assemblies of God at the start. I felt the same "spirit" at times as a Mormon; can't have holy spirit in 2 separate religions, can you?

And what about the fervor of Islamists or any other religion? All the same vibe under a different name. As has been posted here previously, I've had similar "exalted" feelings in my outdoor activities, seeing some beautiful place in the wild. You can call it spiritual or what you want, but it is common across the human experience and not confined to a Christian church.