New guy who believes in God

@Cognostic

You’re the smartest guy here. Is there any objective evidence that we were born agnostic?

Sssssshiiiiiit! Shit-shit-shit! What the hell is wrong with you? How many times you gotta be told to NOT SAY things like that to Cog? You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You knew better, but did it anyway. Dammit, man!

Yeah but but but. He’s up there with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. That guy can argue someone into a black hole.

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Now I wasn’t real interested in this thread as I have been chatting with Andy; however, this last comment is just begging me to go back to Bobbies first post and see if that mangy mut needs a distemper shot. I’m starting to worry about all the diarrhea, vomiting, and thick yellow discharge contained in his posts. I know he has not been around Tin Man’s eggnog so I have ruled that out as the cause. Perhaps Sheldon is doing a Vulcan mind-meld? Hmmm… an evil spell cast by Ratty and the Overloard? Who knows why these creatures come onto the site to die. It’s a mystery to me. They could have just sat in the computer chair and died in peace. It just makes no sense.

Is “Suicide by Atheists” a thing?

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Aw, fuck! STOP! You’re just making the shit WORSE! That’s it! No more Mr. Nice Guy! Where the hell is my dirty gym sock and my roll of duct tape?.. (impatiently rummaging through kitchen closet)…

Never mind. He already threw in the towel in the other thread before going back on it. It’s kind of like someone who is color blind states that the sky is purple. But you tell them it’s blue and they’re like “Oh right, as if I didn’t know that”. The poor sod already rolled over.

Can you tell me what religion you were born with?

That’s an irrational question.
Can you tell me what political views you were born with?
Same shit.

Edit: to include quoted quote

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I like the “Agnostic” topic. On the one hand A = without and gnostic = knowledge of spiritual stuff. (Commonly referencing God or gods.) So a person is born ‘Agnostic.’ But I have a problem here. Everyone is and has always been ‘Agnostic’ whether they know it or not. You are agnostic, I am agnosic and so is the holy See. Name your favorite preacher, theologian, or apologist and they are all agnostic too. They have no empirically verifiable knowledge that is valid, sound and reliable. Ergo, I reject their claims as actual knowledge and relegate most theistic babbling to the realm of unevidenced assertion. My assertion is that 'Everyone is Agnostic."

Now, with that said, Every baby born is also born an atheist and worthy of death. Babies go to hell. They are born into the doctrine of original sin and unless you take them to a chuch and have some asshole sprinkle a little water or oil on their heads, they are at risk of burning in the pits of hell for all eternity. Babies burn in hell because they are born into “Original Sin.” A state of separation from the God thing, all powerful creator of the universe and baby hater.

Oh, really?.. Have you now?.. Ha! I KNEW it! See? I told ya! I TOLD you he would start bugging you for free therapy sessions! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Does Cog prescribe medication?

oprah-hmm

Well hello everyone I’m back (I’m sure you missed me lol)

@Andy-Stout Thanks for the question.

Here’s one thing I don’t get tho: if you don’t believe in God, the Bible or any of it, why do you care what the Bible says about God? Why do you put in the time and energy to learn about these stories if you don’t even believe they are true? I can give you a theological answer, but that won’t do you much good if you don’t believe in God. The fact that you just want to downplay God gives the impression that you simply don’t want to believe in him. Nevertheless I’ll answer your question assuming God exists (Though I don’t see why you care if you don’t believe in him).

  1. Why does God send the flood to kill all life?

First off, in Genesis 6:5 it says “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” Think about that.

We live in a pretty corrupt world with violence and immorality all over the place, but we aren’t always thinking about evil.

Just imagine if everyone on the planet right now only cared and thought about doing evil things. Can you imagine how terrible that would be? Violence, rape, and tons of other horrible things would be everywhere.

This is what this verse is saying. Man didn’t just do evil; evil was all he did and thought about doing all the time. If you really think about that, that’s extremely bad. That means all people thought about was violence and immorality all day long, everyday. They daydreamed about it, they intended to do it, they planned how to do it, and they did it.

So when you look at this as “God killing a bunch of innocent people,” you need to realize that these people were very far from innocent. They weren’t doing small things like lying and stealing, they were doing terrible things to each other; things which we today would probably deem well worthy of punishment. This wasn’t a massacre of innocent people; it was God carrying out justice.

If a judge sentences a criminal ,who has cruelly killed three innocent girls, to death, do you say the judge is a murderer? Is the judge wrong to punish those who deserve punishment? When someone commits a bad enough crime they will be punished based on our system of justice; it’s the same in God’s system of justice. The evil of the people on earth became too great for God to justly ignore.

Noah preached to the surrounding people telling them a flood was coming and trying to save them. So to be fair, God did give them a chance, but obviously they didn’t take it.

So finally, you compared the flood to Hitlers genocide of the Jews. There are two main problems with this from a theological perspective:

First, the Jews were innocent, doing absolutely nothing to provoke Hitler. The people before the flood, as I have shown, were very far from innocent.

Now from your point of view this one will be hard to grasp, but secondly, Hitler didn’t create the Jews; he had no authority over them whatsoever. God created humans so, in the same way a parent has authority over their children, God has authority over his people; even the authority to punish them. That’s where it gets very difficult to explain to an atheist. Part of it is realizing we are God’s creation under his rule and he can punish us if we deserve it. Obviously that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.

  1. Why does a loving God send people to hell?

I was going to write this all out but watch these and they sum it up well:
How Can A Loving God Send Someone to Hell? SeanMcDowell.org
Dr. Frank Turek to Atheist- Why God Sends People to Hell

So God doesn’t send people to hell; people choose it over God. Like he said God’s not going to force people to love him, so what hell is really described as is separation from God; not some place where he tortures you for all eternity. (note many of the verse referring to hell are metaphorical, not literal)

If you don’t want to believe in God, God will respect that decision; he gave us the free will to do that. But wouldn’t you rather know you are saved and not having to worry about hell rather than just trying to ignore it by convincing yourself God isn’t real? If you don’t want the gift of salvation, that’s your choice, but God wants you to accept it.

Please note that these are theological questions. There’s very little point in discussing them if you don’t believe in God in the first place so I don’t expect y’all to understand this or take it seriously

@David_Killens you said you were 100% sure the God of the bible isn’t real, however, you can’t ever be 100% sure something doesn’t exist unless you literally have all the knowledge in the universe (Which obviously no one does) so I would like to know: why are you convinced the God of the Bible isn’t real?

Relating to Jesus there’s two different questions:
Did he exist?
And was he actually the son of God?

Now first off I find it to honestly be quite ridiculous that y’all don’t even think Jesus existed. How could the most influential person in history never have existed? Do you think the world’s largest religion came from nothing? Do you realize that the measurements A.D. and B.C. that are used in any history class are based on the birth and death of Jesus Christ? Sure some people could have written a story about a guy doing miracles, but that alone would never actually get so may people to believe it and be willing to die for that belief.
There are sources outside the Bible mentioning Jesus

  • Tacitus (You could argue the existence of Jesus well on this one alone)
  • Suetonius
  • Lucian
  • Josephus (his writings were most likely tampered with by a later Christian to make Jesus sound better, but the Arabic text of his writing about Jesus is less suspicious and remains a historic source of Jesus although I admit this one is hotly debated)
    The first two remain unsuspicious because they do not talk highly of Christians at all showing authenticity.

Now these sources were written after Jesus’ life yes, but the time gap between these writings and Jesus is nothing compared to the time gap between other common historical figures from that time and the writings we have solidifying them.

This is a non-Christian source btw
Note the line: “No serious historian doubts that Jesus existed” and “To doubt Jesus’ existence is to doubt every other historical figure from his time.”

Now I believe that Jesus was the son of God for several reasons one of them being the later accounts of the disciples willingly dying for their faith in Jesus. You don’t die for someone unless you truly believe they are extremely special.
I also believe because the New Testament is easily the most well attested document in ancient history with no other writing coming anywhere close to the amount of manuscripts, little time span between original and copy, and the accuracy of the New Testament.


Those 5600 manuscripts are only the greek ones; add other languages and there are over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts.
I don’t believe that all this means nothing.

That’s my point though. We know computers are made by humans, and you don’t need evidence know that; the fact that it exists is evidence enough. Honestly, if you come across a random brick building never having seen the builder or any physical evidence there was ever one, do you think “Hm this must have formed over millions of years by complete chance”? I bet you don’t; you know someone made it because you can clearly see the design in the building** It’s plenty simple.
That’s why I believe in God, because I can clearly see design in life, the earth, and just about everything. If you want to spend your time trying to come up with a way a brick building could have fallen into place by chance, knock yourself out; but do you have any idea how much more complex life is than a building? No materialistic explanation comes anywhere close to explaining how life exists as complex as it is.
If you want to believe you’re merely rearranged pond scum evolved over billions of years go right ahead, but you really can’t make my beliefs seem stupid when you look at your own.

Oh but wait, I just believe in a “God of gaps” because I don’t know what else to believe. This is partially true as God fills in the gaps that are impossible any other way, but things I see in life such as intelligence, consciousness, and ability to feel emotion; and in the universe such as all of the laws that require a law giver and the extremely favorable conditions of the earth that make life on it possible simply leave no other explanation than an intelligent, personal designer.
In reality, there is lots of evidence for God if you actually look for it and accept it rather than just try to explain it away.

So I have simple question: where do you think life, intelligence, emotion, and moral absolutes came from if not from an intelligent, emotional, and morally upright God? And don’t brush it off by just saying “Oh just because we don’t know where those things came from doesn’t mean it came from God” that’s for sure a “No True Scotsmen” not even having an argument.

I don’t. I only “care” as far as theology in all its forms influence society’s laws. Separation of religion and state. I’m good. Influencing laws based on these “books” - well, we’ll have a debate.

I was indoctrinated with “these stories” from birth. Didn’t have a choice.

Hahahaha. Nope. God has not been demonstrated to even exist, let alone inspire Bronze Age goat herders. I don’t believe because I am unconvinced. Pretty simple. You don’t believed in a shitload of “gods” - I’m just one further.

I skipped the blah blah blah part. I’ll let other have fun - BUT to answer this:
Come from? It began with this thing called the “Big Bang”. Evolution of matter in all various forms through time.

Human intelligence, emotional and morals came from social evolution and physical evolution. It is observed in different levels in all areas of the animal kingdom.

Actually “A no true Scotsman” argument is more along the lines of “well, that Christian isn’t a true Christian because…”

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Howdy, Cr2187. Golly gee… So many topics to cover, it’s hard to know where to start. Well, I suppose I’ll just go through and address the ones that catch my attention the most. Seems like a logical approach. Oh, and just to be clear, I will be answering for MYSELF only. I do not pretend to speak for any other atheists, as everybody has their own views and reasons for what/how they think. Alrighty then…

If you don’t believe in Allah, Thor, Odin, or any of the other thousands of gods created by man, why do you care about what their followers have to say about them? Or, maybe you actually don’t care. Hmmm… :thinking:… I’m guessing you don’t care. Which would explain why you think your god of the bible has some sort of monopoly over religion. But you, by the dictates of your faith, are basically “forbidden” to do such research under penalty of eternal damnation for doubting your god. Have fun with that.

Wow, I didn’t realize infants and toddlers could be so damn evil and malicious. I can only imagine how severely corrupt the five and six year old children were. Yikes! And EVERY ANIMAL ON THE PLANET? (Except for those on the ark, of course.) Holy cow… Never knew animals were capable of such malicious behavior. So, like, what? Gangs of bunny rabbits roaming around terrorizing villiages and kidnapping the evil children and holding them for ransom? Just trying to figure it out. Regardless, as you said, your god DID create all humans… IN HIS PERFECT IMAGE. And, yet, the ONLY WAY this ALL-KNOWING and ALL-POWERFUL god could think of to solve the problems IT CREATED was DROWN (a horrible way to die, I might add) every man, woman, CHILD, and animal on the planet. But “save” a small FAMILY (blood-related) of humans and a boat full of animals to repopulate the ENTIRE planet once the flood waters receded. Uhhhh… Sure. Sounds totally plausible. :roll_eyes:

:joy::joy::joy::joy: I always love this one. Ever heard of extortion? You own a small store. You run an honest business, and you treat your customers well. You are not greedy. You make enough to keep you and your family comfortable, and you even do what you can to help others if they are going through a bad time. One day a guy in a nice suit comes in and tells you, “Hello. Pleasure to meet you. Looks like you have a wonderful little store here. My associates have been watching you for awhile, and we would like to offer you our protection services. And it will cost you only ten percent of your profits. Oh, and you would need to attend a couple of short weekly meetings.” You politely decline the man’s offer, because you have never had any problems during all the years you’ve been working. The man looks disappointed and says, “Well, that’s a shame. Because if you do not accept our services, I’m afraid you may end up suffering some horrible consequences by refusing. See, thing is, I happen to know some really nasty evil people. And if they somehow found out my company wasn’t protecting you, there is no telling what kind of terrible things they might do to your shop, to you and, to your family. I really like you and your family, so it would grieve me badly to see anything happen to you. But - hey - I cannot force you to use our services. It is entirely up to you.”

:joy::joy::joy::joy: Another good one. How can you possibly “threaten” me with something in which I do not believe? And just so you know, I spent OVER FORTY YEARS of my life living with the anxiety and fear and indecision induced by worrying about hell and whether or not I was good enough to avoid it. And once I finally broke free from that insidious indoctrination a little over four years ago, I have not had a single concern over hell since. My mind is more free and more clear now than it has ever been. Thanks for playing, though. :blush:

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It’s real simple and it’s not how you put it. Believe it or not there are a LOT of Christians out there that go around talking about it in our real lives. We also have family members that are just as superstitious as you are. Some of us live in the Bible Belt of America. Some of us have to put up with people going on and on about their beliefs like you’re doing. We can’t exactly tell them to put a sock in it. It doesn’t mean we secretly believe in it or that we’re in denial. So get that dumb fucking assumption out of your mind. A lot of us had this religion forced onto us by our families at a young age.

The Bible is a claim. Not evidence. It does not offer any objective, historical, empirical, or compelling evidence the existence of Jesus, The Apostles, Moses, Noah, Lucifer, or your God. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

No this is just a case of you justifying an immoral religion. This makes me question your integrity. Some of those characters in the Bible were innocent but proclaimed evil and needed to die by your deity. Because when you justify the shit that happens in the Bible then you’re also defending misogamy, rape, slavery, the murder of children, homophobia, and other passages stating it’s okay to kill off non believers and people from other religions. That is not okay.

Do you ever listen to yourself when you talk?

Claim and Argumentum Ad Populum. What objective evidence can you demonstrate for the existence of any deity?

The fact that you openly admit that you want us to believe your "God’ exists automatically gives you the Burden of Proof.

You don’t believe in the existence of the other gods. How you do know you 100 percent found the right one? What if Allah is the one true god and you fucked up?

If those other gods existed. You’d be going to hell in a whole bunch of religions. We just believe in one less god than you do.

There’s an absence of evidence for every deity in every religion. The Burden of Proof hasn’t been met for ANY and ALL of those superstitions including Christianity. Your argument is no different then that of a Hindu’s or a Muslims argument as why their deities exists. In fact you’re just giving the same bland argument over and over again.

Which proves nothing. I’m sure there was a few thousand men with the name Jesus wondering around back then and I’m real damn sure none of them were the fictional “Gospel Jesus” that you so desperately wish you could prove existed.

I find it ridiculous that you believe in any of this crap. None of which demonstrates the existence of a deity. You’re still NOT meeting your Burden of Proof.

Again, the Bible is a claim. Not evidence. As you’ve been told before. What objective evidence can you demonstrate for the existence of any deity?

That means it was written by The First Council of Niceae In 325 AD. The first 50 Bibles were written in Greek so Constantine could unite his empire and Christianity was used for his political agenda to control the masses. You know nothing Jon Snow.

It’s an objective fact that humans design things. It doesn’t mean a god did it.

Science isn’t stupid. It’s based on actual empirical evidence and discoveries. You’re just downplaying it so you can promote your own religious bullshit.

Correct. That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s true.

Claim. Provide empirical and objective evidence for this assertion.

Claim. If there was evidence you would have provided it already and collected your Nobel Prize. The only thing you’ve offered is more bullshit.

The simple answer is WE DONT FUCKING KNOW. Just because science doesn’t offer up a 100% answer doesn’t mean there won’t ever be an answer. They don’t have a technology that can go past Planck Time on the origins of the universe. I find that the Big Bang Theory offers a much more valid conclusion then a book written by superstitious idiots from the Bronze age.

No. That’s you making another claim and trying to deflect.

You’ve made a tremendous amount of claims while offering ZERO evidence. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Until you can meet your Burden of Proof. I dismiss your argument.

Either give evidence or go on and proselytize somewhere else. And every time you post I will hit you with this question over and over until you prove it because I’m tired you deflecting and evading. You came on to an Atheist forum and declared yourself a Christian with the claim that God exists. Here’s your chance.

What objective evidence can you demonstrate for the existence of any deity?

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Great! Post it onto this site, call the NY Times, call the White House, call Reuters!

You’ll have produced what no other person, living or dead, has been able to cough up. Ever.

They’ll throw a parade in your honor! Congratulations!

Shut this nonsense AR site down guys and gals; atheism had a good run but it’s at an end.

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Good question. I’ll give it a shot, though. Ummm… :thinking:… Eric the Rainbow-Farting Unicorn… Uh, no, wait… :thinking:… The Flying Spaghetti Monster (Pasta Be Unto Him)… Nah, hold on… Oh! The Big Blue Invisible Universe-Creating Bunny! :grinning:… Well, maybe… Oh, okay. I give up. From where did the universe appear? Personally, I’m no astrophysicist, but it’s my understanding there are some really smart ones out there working on the problem. Meanwhile, if believing in an imaginary universe creator makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, then I’ve just provided you with a few other fun choices. And each of them is just as plausible as your god from the bible.

Edit to add: And you obviously have No Clue what a “No True Scotsman Fallacy” is.

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The bible makes unsupported assertions and not much else. Demonstrate one thing the bible says about god and how you know what the bible has said is true. JUST ONE THING Your VERY BEST example. God said… " … " and this is true because ’ ______.’ Your VERY BEST example “FROM THE BIBLE.”

  1. Many atheists were raised Christian. 2. If I do not believe in a God thing, I want to know why I don’t believe. I need a good foundation for my non-belief so as not to sound as ignorant as you when you assert your belief. The way to do that is through a good understanding of the subject matter.

So you admit that there are no good reasons for believing in your God thig.

Nonsense. Demonstrate the exitence of the murdering, child butchering, fool of the old and new testaments and I will believe in him. I may not worship him until he sufficiently explains his murderous childlike tantrums but I willl believe in him.

No. Let’s not ASSUME shit. Give me one good piece of evidence. The very best example of evidence you have. The most convincing SINGLE bit of evidence for the existence of your god that you have. Let’s hear it.

BULLSHIT: 1. I don’t believe in your god and I don’t believe in “evil.” Evil is a judgment I place on the actions of other people when their actions are so egregious as to seem ouside the bounds of any measure of human morality. It’s just me judging the world around me. I don’t use the word. I just say people are capable of atrocities and atrocious behaviors. I don’t need your idea of ‘evil.’

A very “The cup is half empty.” philosophy. A shitty way to go through life if you ask me because the cup is also “Half Full.” and the world has a whole lot of kindness, morality, and remarkable feats of love and caring as well. Look at that wonderfull mommy who killed all 3 of her children just so they could get into heaven. She was willing to risk murder charges in this world of existence just so her lovely children could get to heaven. She proved beyond a shadow of doubt that there is no limit to a mother’s love. FACT: The cup is there and it has .“X” amount of water in it. Facts are facts.

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Christians like @Cr2187 get “free will” confused with extortion. If I told him at gun point that he could give me his money and social security or I’d dump diesel gasoline all over him and light him on fire. He’d know right then he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. He’d think I was a psycho. But when he a gets a book that has a Sky Father giving him that very same option: slavery or an eternal fiery death. He just eats it up.

People who are wanting to serve an imaginary sky father are like slaves in the 1800s wanting to serve a new master. It’s pathetic. Talk about having a para relationship with an imaginary friend.

Something just dawned on me about that particular question of yours. In the manner in which you asked, it is apparent you have an EXTREME misunderstanding about atheists in general. You seem to think all atheists have been atheists their entire lives and have never believed in your god. Therefore, it puzzles you as to why we care about what is in the bible. If I may, please allow me to clear up some of that misconception for you, so that you do not sound like such an ignorant doof in the future…

With a few exceptions here and there, MOST atheists (myself included) were born and raised in a religious family (Baptist/Methodist for me). In my case, church and Sunday school every week. Vacation bible school every summer. Baptized at age 8. Was taught all the bible stories and listened to countless sermons. Bottom line, I had NO CHOICE but to learn about the bible and god and satan and heaven and hell. And guess what… Even as a little kid, the more I learned about it, the LESS AND LESS it made sense to me. I just didn’t know WHY at the time. And as I grew older, became better educated, and learned more about life and society in general, the teachings of the bible made EVEN LESS sense. At least I sorta knew WHY by then, but - unfortunately - the fear of Satan and hell kept me from questioning things too much. Thus, a majority of my life was spent with my rational brain in a perpetual “tug-of-war” with the part of my brain indoctrinated with the bible teachings. Indecision, anxiety, and fear were ever-present companions within my psyche. It was a miserable way to live, to say the least.

Wanna know how I finally “escaped” that mental anguish? Well, for starters, I met an amazing woman (my wife) who is EXTREMELY knowledgeable of the bible. (Kindergarten through high school graduation in a private Christian school where a bible study class had to be passed every year to advance. She made straight A’s.) She also happens to be something of a research fiend with an avid interest in different religions and ancient cultures. (She is a Pagan, by the way.) Anyway, long story short, she provided me with information I had never heard before in regards to stories in the bible that were “hijacked” from religions that existed centuries prior to Christianity. She also encouraged me to read parts of the bible that were never mentioned in Sunday School. In the end, the PRIMARY REASON I am now an atheist is BECAUSE OF what I read in the bible itself. It simply makes ZERO rational, reasonable, logical sense. And it is suppose to be THE PERFECT WORDS of an all-knowing/all-powerful PERFECT GOD??? Seriously? But - hey - whatever floats your boat, man. No skin off my nose. Make no mistake, though, most atheists out there know more about your bible and god than many preachers I have known, and they learned about those things long before they ever considered themselves atheists. Sooo… Uh, just wanted to fill you in there to help keep you from looking so foolish when asking questions in the future. You’re welcome. :blush:

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