Why do Christians feel the need to defend their deity?
I have never understood why Christians get so aggravated to hear the words “I’m an Atheist, I believe that all deities are fictional including yours.”
If their deity were real, with actual evidence proving it’s existence. It could have prevented anyone and everyone from offending it via Old Testament. “God” killed people who pissed him off in the old testament. He flooded a whole planet just to rid the world of people who didn’t worship him. So why is this deity inactive if it were real?
I suspect Christians do so for many reasons. But why do they get so aggravated when confronted with an atheist, you ask. How often does that happen, and under what circumstances? I am a Christian and I have had a few people tell me that they are an atheist, but very rarely, and I didn’t feel a need to save them from selfs, tell them they are going to hell, or even offer to pray for their salvation. Some times I didn’t say anything, because I I felt like I was being baited for an argument. Other times I told them I was once an agnostic, but the conversation didn’t go much farther. Most Christians I know are pretty much like the secularist I know. Those that wear their hearts in their sleeve can easily be baited or become offended when the perceive an attack on their beloved football team or their God and Savior. Some go to far too easily. But reading through the posts on this site, I see many atheist getting worked up over things that they are passionate about.
Regarding the devine cruelty in the old testament, I agree that is a tough thing to understand. I really can’t rap my head around the Noah’s ark story. But it really is a very small part of the book of Genius. There are no doubt Christian that read that literally. Most are members of specific protistan churches that specifically teach a literal interpretation of Genesis. But world wide, I think they are in the minority. The stories about Jericho and Sodom and Gomorrah, where God either commands or acts to wipe them all out man, woman and child, is tough as well. I have heard apologists present reasons that I can’t articulate very well, that suggest that if read in proper context, and with an understanding of the authors writing style, it is presented as an example of justice—in that God knows their hearts of those being slaughtered and smited, such that they will be judged by Jesus upon his return. Something like the sinners in the group that didn’t really know any better—that still did some good—and the innocent children will be judged mercifully while those that knew better but rejected it, knowing that it will cut them off from God, would be judged harshly. Anyway, that is the jist of what I heard.
Welcome! Hopefully you’ll stay awhile. People can get passionate about all sorts of topics, so yes - even those without belief in god can debate passionately about morality, relationships, politics, money - real life things that have an effect on our day-to-day lives.
Apologists twist pretzels . Bronze Age middle eastern tribes write words that thousands of years later are “explained” to shine a more positive light on a god that was jealous, genocidal, misogynistic, forgetful, and doesn’t value human life or quality of life (slavery, sexual ownership, infanticide).
Well firstly that’s atheistic, but it’s not atheism. Atheism is not a belief. My apologies for the pedantry, but a belief is the affirmation of a claim, and all claims carry an epistemological burden of proof, unlike disbelieving a claim, which does not.
I think older religions with polytheistic beliefs found it easier to coexist with each other. Abrahamic or monotheistic religions were something of a paradigm shift, and intolerance towards other religions and deities, as well as atheism became the innate in those beliefs. This doesn’t mean all polytheistic religions were never intolerant of atheism and differing religions of course.
Well if you want a rati8nal answer it’s not going to come from tgeist here, they’ll equivocate and and wave away such questions in my experience. However I’ll never accept the bare claim that someone knows what a deity wants, if a deity exists then it would need to demonstrate that to me, no intermediaries with unevidenced claims will do. Why would I treat a god claim any differently to any other claim? They can get as annoyed as they like about it as well, I won’t mind.
Likewise. If I ever did meet a “deity” he/she/ It would have to show me, like you said, demonstrate. Deities, in my point of view, are not real until proven otherwise.
Small footnote. Worldwide genocide of all “creation” - bye-bye puppies and butterflies, kittens and worms fishes and birds…elephants and polar bears 🐻❄
LOL but god wrote himself a sticky-note after he regretted his temper tantrum
I dislike the word prove or proof, as I find it something of a misnomer here, I prefer the word evidence, and for me I believe something when and only when sufficient objective evidence can be demonstrated to support it. However I will listen to rational arguments with an open mind, though as others have said here, I don’t think you can argue something into existence.
I like how you point out that I might be waving away a legitimate issue. And I agree that apologists do put a spin on interpretations that are really out there sometimes. But it is there job, and I find most rather fascinating.
It was not my intention to “wave off” the Noah story because it is short—all thought, for myself I am doing that. But, I think it unfair to discard a complex ideology over a small part.
I believe that if God created everything. So God can do whatever God wants with it. No doubt it can be judged as cruel under human perception. But given that humans can’t comprehend God’s realm how can we know? An age old question, that is the basis for “waving away” the biblical passages that—in a literal since—don’t inspire love or contradict the larger understanding. I believe it is philosophically correct to say humans can’t understand what is beyond our senses—or at least that it is extremely difficult. But I am NO philosopher at Metaphysics blows my mind.
I never mentioned you, my observation was based on my general experience of theists and the answers they have given here.
I don’t care what anyone thinks their job is, if people indulge cognitive dissonance with wishy washy rationalisations I don’t find that very compelling. Christian dogma often depicts a deity with characteristics that are at odds with their own bible, and how it depicts that deity acting.
Again I made no direct comment on you.
Pointing out that the claims christianity traditionally makes for their deity is roundly contradicted by the bible is a legitimate topic for debate, and obviously those contradictions don’t support that core belief, but the lack of any objective evidence alone is sufficient for me to disbelieve the claim a deity exists.
That’s not a given, that’s a bare assertion, you’re simply making an unfalsifiable claim, that doesn’t make it true. I must remain agnostic about all unfalsifiable claims, but I also withhold belief, as that is the only unbiased and rational position I can take.
Firstly you are assuming something exists beyond our senses, if as you assert we can’t know anything about such things the claim that such things exist and the claim we can’t know anything about them, is pure assumption. I don’t believe unevidenced assumptions sorry.
My wife is a psychologist, and it is simple to extrapolate the character of a person by their actions.
And if you do not cherry pick the good parts and ignore the messy and cruel parts, this god is an insecure psychopathic monster.
And if you cherry pick the good parts and ignore the messy and cruel parts then you have decided beforehand what character you wish this entity to be. I could do the same with the devil and paint a picture of a kind uncle who could never hurt a butterfly.
Exactly, like the occasional theist who blithely asserts that “god is love” and love exists, therefore god exists, then sticks their tongue in their cheek and looks smug as if they’ve said something astonishingly profound, rather than tooth itchingly stupid.
And I’m sure you know this, but I’d like to point it out to people who aren’t familiar with the topic: it seems rather counterintuitive, but that silly proof Sheldon described is technically logically valid!
If you believe god is love, and that love exists; then the conclusion god exists is logical.
Along those same lines: if you believe people with “Nyar” in their name are the banana king of mars, and you have Nyar in your name, then I’m the banana king of Mars! becomes a logical conclusion.
I don’t understand your question. My point is that, as I understand, is supernatural no bound by time or anything else. It seems kinda hard to psychoanalysis God.
Do you mean that one can read bible an extract a character of God?
Of course, easy peasy. One examines the utterances and actions of an individual, one learns their inner self. That is basic psychology.
How do you know? You are claiming that this god is not bound by time or anything else. If something has no effect on this material universe and is not subject to time, then it is indistinguishable from NOTHING.
A black hole cannot be directly observed, yet we have been able to observe the effects it has on other objects, the math supports the existence of a black hole. Yet your god does not even come close to a black hole. Apart from folklore and stories, there is absolutely nothing to support the proposition that a god exists.
@Sheldon. I agree with you. No one can argue something in or out of existence. The magic just isn’t there. Christians have a horrible habit of doing that here with their arguments.
Yes. Someone can read the Bible and come to the conclusion that it’s a work of fiction as there is no historical evidence supporting the existence of any of those characters including Moses, Jesus, and your God.
Where is the empirical evidence that this entity is supernatural and not “bound by time or anthing else”? If you have none, it is just a fairy tale.
IF this entity exists and can interact with the time, space and matter that we can observe in such a manner that it breaks the laws of physics that we know, then this should be observable and measurable. Where are these observations and measurements?
If this entity exists, but cannot interact with time, space and matter, then it is equivalent to nothing, and does not exist, for all practical purposes.
So have your non-interacting god outside of time and space, but be aware that this god cannot affect us in any way. Or have your god capable of interaction, but for some reason does not. This is also for all practical purposes equivalent to not existing. Or have your god actually interacting with our time, space, and matter, but not capable or willing to break natural laws – again this is indistinguishable from not existing. What remains is a god that can interact with this world by breaking natural laws. In doing so, this should be observable. So where are the observations?
. Bronze Age middle eastern tribes write words that thousands of years later are “explained” to shine a more positive light on a god that was jealous, genocidal, misogynistic, forgetful, and doesn’t value human life or quality of life (slavery, sexual ownership, infanticide).
fishes and birds…elephants and polar bears 🐻❄
but god wrote himself a sticky-note after he regretted his temper tantrum 