Continuing on from his last post on the troubles associated with the Theory of Evolution, Daniel Ayad discusses the concept of Cosmic evolution in his latest post on the Greatest lie Ever Told!
Succint and Brilliantly written. If you disagree or agree and would like to contribute please comment and we will do our best to respond.
CLICK HERE to Read part 2 of The Greatest Lie Ever Told!
bishoysblog.com 
The greatest lie ever told is that there is a God or gods who are somehow interested in our daily lives.
I guess we will find out when we die! You Just think of that moment and tell me where you are going!
But, in the meantime I will live my life to the fullest and not worry that some floating-in-the-sky misogynist evil old ogre is watching and grading me. This, by the way, does not mean I will go out and kill and rape…it only means I will live my life without guilt.
The old goat herder God is just silly any more. All the evidence points to it being a scam.
I live my life without any guilt as well, guilt is a product of going against what is natural to what nature teaches us is right and wrong.
And if your premise is correct, i could kill and have no guilt either!
Cheers,
If you killed would you not think of the loss of the person and all of his/her loved ones and how it affects them for the rest of your life?
A long time ago I was in the military and set down and seriously considered whether I could kill…I decided I could not.
I had already been an atheist for 5 years.
To kill a human is inherently an act of insanity. (assuming said human is not trying to kill you)
I find my code of conduct springs from the “Golden Rule.”
I think my conduct totally agrees with the Golden Rule, and it is what Jesus Christ Taught in the New Testament.
We find in scripture the following references (ill mention two but there are many).
Mat 7:12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Luk 6:31 And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
So i guess your beliefs are more in tune with Jesus than you think.
In regards to atheism, if you show me how something can come out of nothinig i will convert to!
Moreover my question in regards to killing was not why you wouldnt do it, its more of what instills that ideology or law in your persona. Why are we born with this mentality, who instilled it in us at birth?
Hello bishoymarcus, thanks for your reply.
You write:
“I think my conduct totally agrees with the Golden Rule, and it is what Jesus Christ Taught in the New Testament.”
Confucius wrote the “Golden Rule” about 500 years before the time of Jesus. The wording was slightly different, but it meant exactly the same thing. I think if you research the subject you will find that several other cultures had their own version of the “Golden Rule” as well and they were before Jesus.
The Christian and Jewish and Muslim religion, in the main, borrows much from other cultures, god myths, and mythical happenings that were described and known before Christianity got going.
You write:
“In regards to atheism, if you show me how something can come out of nothinig i will convert to!”
Sure I can show you something that came out of nothing…the myth about gods…any god. There was *never* any proof for any god…still isn’t, and yet some people swear that a god somehow controls who they are and what they do.
You write:
“Moreover my question in regards to killing was not why you wouldnt do it, its more of what instills that ideology or law in your persona. Why are we born with this mentality, who instilled it in us at birth?”
When early man was roaming the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago the evidence seems to show that humans hunted and killed each other with abandon. This went on for a looong time and probably reached its climax in early Biblical times and up until the Catholic Church was usurped as a political power over humans.
Nowadays there are so many of us and we have the ability to choose who rules over us (mostly), and it’s not politically correct to kill citizens with abandon. Humans have the innate desire for self preservation and the smart ones realize that they must act with compassion towards others if they expect the same back to them.
Of course there are some religions that continue to kill with seemingly no consequences. They do this by targeting enemies and citizens alike…scaring *everyone* to death. Christianity’s last big fling at this process was Hitler’s time; who along with the explicit help of the Catholic Church (which was violently against Jews at the time) and eventually the Lutheran’s and such…contrived to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. Of course we know they also went after the mentally deficient, the homosexuals, the Jehovah’s witnesses, some other small sects and, of course, anybody who disagreed with them.
Muslims are pretty much stuck in the 7th Century, where they will probably stay as long as the religion is allowed to continue. In the Middle East and some other parts of the third world they (Muslim’s) continue to kill with impunity, and of course the leaders are fanatically trying to bring this practice to America. The Muslim Allah is supposed to be the same as the Christian and Jewish God…is He (God/Allah/Yahweh) also instilling the same innate reverence for life and morality in the Muslim’s as Christianity is supposed to have.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that the argument that God/Allah/Yahweh provides humans with their basis for morals or reverence for life stands up. It’s only the last few years that these things and the concurrent arguments have started to appear and that more or less seems to be simultaneous with higher civilization.
Early Christianity may have spouted morality, but the record shows that it is responsible for millions of deaths, what with all the many religious wars…which by the way continue today in many places in the world.
Also for your consideration is the Catholic/Spanish Inquisitions and the witch hunts of the Dark Ages in which as many as three million innocent people were put to death by “Christianity.”
Also we need to remember that the Spanish Christian’s of the 15th and 16th Century and the later European Christians killed or enslaved as many as 100,000,000 indigenous people of the North, Central, and South America, and all the Caribbean Islands.
I wonder where their God given morals and reverence for life was.
Religion/God/Allah/Yahweh has never been a sound basis for morality, and it’s certainly not instilled in us from birth by some spirit.
Sorry for the late reply
Confucius wrote the “Golden Rule” about 500 years before the time of Jesus. The wording was slightly different, but it meant exactly the same thing. I think if you research the subject you will find that several other cultures had their own version of the “Golden Rule” as well and they were before Jesus.
I think Confucius must of borrowed it from the great “I Am” the God of Israel, who mentioned it clearly thousands of years before Confucius did as we read in the book of Leviticus.
Lev 19:18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
or
Lev 19:34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
The Great command to do love others as yourself is the Golden Rule, do to people what you would do unto yourself.
However the Orthodox Church ascribes to the Deutrocanonical Books. In the Book of Tobit we see the following.
“Do to no one what you yourself dislike.”
—Tobit 4:15
As you can see the Golden Rule is founded in Christianity for thousands of years.
Sure I can show you something that came out of nothing…the myth about gods…any god. There was *never* any proof for any god…still isn’t, and yet some people swear that a god somehow controls who they are and what they do.
I was talking about physicality. A bird out of nothing, a human out of nothing and so on….. we can’t all have come from nothing. Where did we come from?
One can also ask where is your evidence that we came from nothing.
When early man was roaming the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago the evidence seems to show that humans hunted and killed each other with abandon.
Your evidence is required here? Carbon dating is valid for about 5000 years, so how can we date anything further back.
Moreover how come we have so much from the last 5000 years and then nothing more before that?
Early Christianity may have spouted morality, but the record shows that it is responsible for millions of deaths, what with all the many religious wars…which by the way continue today in many places in the world. …..wonder where their God given morals and reverence for life was.
Im the 1st to be ashamed of such actions. They are satanic in nature. However i can say i believe in Jesus, however if i don’t live by his teachings does that mean i am a follower?
I don’t think so.
Learn from God, Seek God, not the Believers
Hi bishoymarcus, thanks for your reply.
You write:
“I think Confucius must of borrowed it from the great “I Am” the God of Israel, who mentioned it clearly thousands of years before Confucius did as we read in the book of Leviticus.”
There is no recorded history of contact between the Jewish people (or any others from around that area) and the Chinese. Also modern Biblical scholarship is saying that the Pentateuch, of which Leviticus is a part, was written by different people (not Moses) around 600 to 450 BC…supposedly as a means to unite and re-invigorate the tribes that had been scattered when the Jews were conquered and exiled in Babylon.
“The Golden Rule, as a concept, has a history that long predates the term “Golden Rule” (or “Golden law,” as it was called from the 1670s. The concept was present in certain forms in the philosophies of ancient Babylon, Egypt, India, Greece, Judea, and China.” Wikipedia
You write:
“However the Orthodox Church ascribes to the Deutrocanonical Books. In the Book of Tobit we see the following. “Do to no one what you yourself dislike.”—Tobit 4:15”
Tobit was written about 200 to 100 BC
You write:
“As you can see the Golden Rule is founded in Christianity for thousands of years.”
This is simply not true.
The point of all this, is that the Bible does not have a lock on the invention of the “Golden Rule.” Other societies that were not at the time connected to Christianity or Judaism also had the same precepts.
You write regarding age dating:
“Your evidence is required here? Carbon dating is valid for about 5000 years, so how can we date anything further back.”
And:
“Moreover how come we have so much from the last 5000 years and then nothing more before that?”
Not to be rude, but your education in this area is very lacking. There are literally millions of pieces of evidence for mankind being on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. There are tens of thousands of prehistoric sites with bones, complete skeletons, ancient tools, buildings and other artifacts. They are found all over Europe, Asia, and Africa. Human occupation evidence from Australia is roughly 50,000 years old, from the Americas it is presently 15,000 to 22,000 years old…but this may change as new evidence is presently being debated.
Regarding age dating, there are presently 40 or more methods to date different things…not counting C-14. Tree ring dating can go back 11,000 calibrated years, ice core dating over 40,000 years. There is no debate at all in the scientific community that age dating works and is accurate.
From the introduction of a paper by Roger Wiens a Christian believer and worker in the age dating arena:
“Radiometric dating–the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements–has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating.”
Link to this paper by Roger Wiens: http://www.asa3.org/asa/resources/wiens.html
“This paper describes in relatively simple terms how a number of the dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes a number of misconceptions prevalent among Christians today. This paper is available on the web via the American Scientific Affiliation and related sites to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this issue, particularly within the Christian community.”
You write regarding religion and morality”
“Im the 1st to be ashamed of such actions. They are satanic in nature. However i can say i believe in Jesus, however if i don’t live by his teachings does that mean i am a follower?”
My argument about morality not springing from a belief in the Abrahamic religions still stands on the proof of them committing so many murders and so much mayhem in the world. They talk about morality, but don’t seem to practice it much.
By the way I am enjoying our little debate.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Amen
Yay, a debate! And you seem like a rational person, so woohoo, there is hope in convincing you that Christianity is not a just a big joke. Alright so to start off with your earlier post:
“floating-in-the-sky misogynist evil old ogre”
This is a complete misconception of the Christian God. The Christian God is a God of love not of cruelty. If God was as wrathful as you think, all those who ever sinned and those who didn’t believe in God would already be dead and there would be no hope of repentance. The rules set forth by God in the Bible are the guidelines of keeping God’s creation happy and society alive and well. Rules such as not to commit adultery and not to murder are God’s instructions to man if they wish to live happily without abusing the gifts He has given us. As St. Paul explains, “all things are permissible, but not all are beneficial.” It is God’s love, not His cruelty that gives us these rules, just like any parent. If we disobey, we suffer the consequences – violence in society, greater divorce, etc. The fact that several societies in ancient history were able to recognize these same principles reaffirms the validity that God’s rules are meant to save not to condemn.
Regarding your post on the times Christianity has been used as an excuse to kill:
In the Vietnam war thousands were killed in the name of democracy. In the Korean war another several thousand were killed in the name of democracy. Same with many other wars. By the reasoning you used, this implies that democracy should not be followed – yet many would beg to differ. The murders done in the name of Christianity have no bearing on the validity of Christianity itself, as so many things can be distorted as an excuse to kill. The Bible makes it clear that murder is wrong and one ought to love one’s enemies, and this is without any ambiguity. Any murder done in the name of Christianity is a distortion of the faith, as Satan works just as much if not more in Christians as non-Christians, stimulating pride and aggression.
Regarding your statement on the lack of “proof” of a God:
This notion makes it clear that God doesn’t want people to believe solely based on a sign. As Jesus says it best “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah” and by the “sign of Jonah” he is referring to Himself as being a messenger in the name of God, similar to how Jonah was to the Ninevites. Even when miracles happen, there is always controversy. God wants us first and foremost to listen to His message and its wisdom, without superficially basing belief solely on a sign. So how do you know it is not all just a bunch of made-up stuff ? The only way is to try. God makes many promises in the Bible, some for us personally and some for Israel in prophecy – many of which have already come true. Follow God’s instructions, try prayer schedule, read His word, see if the messages it promises are valid, and ask for God to reveal His glory to you – and if you open your eyes wide and long enough, you will see your “proof.” If you seek Him sincerely, and with all your heart, you will not be turned down , which Jesus Himself promises.
“Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper…And the word of the LORD came to him”
– 1 Kings 19
Hello Servent33, nice to “talk” to you.
Regarding the evil old ogre of a God; perhaps you have forgotten the God of the Old Testament. As I remember he went around telling the Hebrews to kill all…men, women, children, babies, cattle, goats, etc. His was a scorched earth policy, and some of His coerced kills were torture. And let’s not forget the Noachian Flood where He committed genocide of the human race. So, no, the OT God is not a “God of Love.”
You write:
“The murders done in the name of Christianity have no bearing on the validity of Christianity itself, as so many things can be distorted as an excuse to kill.
Of course when you doubt the existence of the Christian God (and all others) it makes life easy because then you are free to say that the old Hebrew people were just using the excuse of a God being mad at some tribe to kill them off and take their land and possessions…with no guilt. The Muslims are doing something similar today…killing the Infidels…Allah (our same Christian God) demands it. Even today there are Christians fighting and killing for religion. In the last 20-25 years probably 2 or 3 million (or more) have been killed in specific religious warfare.
It doesn’t matter that it’s crazy mankind that’s doing the killing…the fact is that religious dogma and precepts are being used as excuses behind the killing. You know that is another way to tell that this Abrahamic God is just as phony and like all the others that mankind invented back in the day. If this God were real, I really doubt there would be any doubt in anyone’s mind that He existed.
Think of what we have today just in the Abrahamic religions, Catholics and Protestants.
The Catholic type religions are spread into 2 or 3 different divisions, all claiming to be the “One True Church.” There’s just no hope at all for Protestants…they have well over a thousand divisions and they are all frenetically trying to convince everyone who will listen, that their particular sect is the “One True Church of God”…if you worship anywhere else you are bound- for-Hell-non-stop. 🙂 Then there are the Jews; still practicing about 5 different ways and still refusing to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. The Catholics connived with the Nazi’s in WWII …against the Jews and are at least partially responsible for Hitler’s pogrom.
Of course in modern times we have the Mother Church and all the pedophile priests all over the world, and you just know that this has been going on for over a thousand years…its human nature perverted to be celibate. If there were a God behind this church you would think He could help these young and not so young priests. But, No God–No help.
The Protestants are a little better in this regard, but I still read in the news about once every two weeks that a pastor has swerved from the “True Path.” Don’t even get me started on the Tele-Evangelists. Now just take these thousands of evil goings on in the last few years and multiply it by 1000 years, and what have we got? No God behind any of it. It doesn’t matter that it is fallible humans doing this evil. What matters is that religion does not show me a record or trace of a real God behind it. It’s all human folly.
You write:
“Rules such as not to commit adultery and not to murder are God’s instructions to man if they wish to live happily without abusing the gifts He has given us.”
Those laws are from the Hebrews writing about 600 to 400 BC around the time of the Exile in Babylon. They mirror the intellect and world-view of the times, by all too human minds. They are not ‘God-given’ or ‘breathed by God’ Any society, then or now, could not survive without the laws against murder, robbery, rape, etc. Whether the Jews made them up or not…any society would make them up for self preservation…and in fact they did.
You write:
“The only way is to try. God makes many promises in the Bible, some for us personally and some for Israel in prophecy – many of which have already come true. Follow God’s instructions, try prayer schedule, read His word, see if the messages it promises are valid, and ask for God to reveal His glory to you – and if you open your eyes wide and long enough, you will see your “proof.” If you seek Him sincerely, and with all your heart, you will not be turned down , which Jesus Himself promises.”
When I was young I tried very hard to believe and failed. The evidence is just not there. I declared to myself that I didn’t believe when I was 13. Off and on in the intervening years (many, many of them) I approached the subject and tried to find reason to believe and there were no proofs to be found.
In the last 3 or 4 years, because of my wife’s renewed interest in religion, and with the ease of the internet, I have really researched and there is still nothing there. No proofs, in fact just the opposite, plenty of proofs against. I will not waste my life on something that cannot be proven to be true.
However it’s fun to debate and I truly enjoy the mental exercise. 🙂
Peace
Hey, sorry for the delay. Ok here we go:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.
Regarding the God of the OT:
Here is a conversation God had with Abraham
And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? 25 Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
26 So the LORD said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
27 Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: 28 Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?”
So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.”
29 And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?”
So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”
30 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?”
So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
31 And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?”
So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”
32 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”
And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.”
…lol you get the point. Basically, this illustrates that God would never kill anyone who didn’t deserve death. Paul makes it clear in the NT that “the wages of sin is death.” Thus, the death from the flood, wars, etc are fully justified by man’s own wickedness. It is only through Christ that we have hope.
Regarding the religious wars:
So what of spreading democracy being used as justification for war? Are you going to stop being democratic? What if I decided to use natural selection as a justification for killing the disabled or killing homosexuals? Would that cause you to stop believing in evolution?
Have you looked at any of the Orthodox churches? The Coptic Orthodox Church, for example, has not affiliated with any military power and yet it is still alive today by God’s grace. The Coptic Church is the church of the martyrs and has been persecuted since the early first millennia and is still being persecuted today. And despite all the difficulties you mentioned, somehow the gospel is still being spread. St. Paul was attacked one time by people who questioned, if God was really with him, why was he facing so much difficulty and persecution. Paul explained in 2 Corinthians 4 (a good chapter to look at) :
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So then death is working in us, but life in you.”
In other words, the persecution and suffering is a testament to God, who is causing the word to spread – not by a man’s own ability. Even when there is corruption from within, God’s Word endures forever.
About “If there were a God behind this church you would think He could help these young and not so young priests. But, No God–No help.”
This excuse to blame God has been around from a really really long time – even since Adam. When God questioned Adam about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam said:
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
LOL! He is blaming God for the eating of the apple .This brings up an important point – it is so easy just to blame God, “It’s God’s fault that the church is divided” “It’s God’s fault people are killing one another” and your argument leads to “It’s God’s fault that some priests rape young children.” What?! When are we going to realize that the problem is with ourselves?! Are we to blame God for people who pervert the humanity He has given us – those who misdirect their sexuality to young children, those who blow up their pride and use religion to justify murder. God is not going to control our lives – he lets us make decisions and when we falter we ought to face the consequences of our own actions – while the whole time God is trying to tell us, I made you, I’m telling you what I know is best for you, just listen! And those who are the wisest are those who put aside their own perception of wisdom for the wisdom of their Creator. In church, we always pray “Lord have mercy”, because we screw up when we rely on our own judgments and we need someone to fix things.
“What matters is that religion does not show me a record or trace of a real God behind it.”
Well, God never promised a life of ease and comfort. On the contrary, Jesus indicated it would surely be one of difficulty in a worldly sense, yet with it comes a promise of strength. No matter how miserable things seem, God is with us and in the end, “all things work together for good to those who love God” Romans 8:28. The survival of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the nation of Israel despite the most intense persecution testify to this truth.
Regarding: “Whether the Jews made them up or not…any society would make them up for self preservation…and in fact they did.”
Many of the rules that were made were counter to human rationality. The law called for offering your best cattle, fruits, grain, etc. and burning it as an offering to God. Why would anyone want to offer up their best items? This makes no sense in human wisdom! The law also called for the perpetual freeing of slaves – now that doesn’t make sense either. The God-breathed nature of commandments is evident in these laws that counter human intuition, but result in a better outcome. The sacrifices, for example, taught the Israelites to remember their Savior above and before all – that material wealth is nothing because God can always provide.
And lastly, with your final point, what more proof could there be than God himself coming down as man, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, fulfilling thousand-year old prophecies, and showing death has no power over him. What more could one want? Do you want Saint Mary to appear on a church as a bright image of light and be seen by thousands and heal all those around? Lol, ok well here you go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Zeitoun It is not about there being “no proof” but that people always make excuses and dismiss the signs all around them. “Jesus was just a myth” “The healing was just luck” or in the St. Mary case “The lights were just from seismic activity” as stated on that Wikipedia article LOL. This view was predicted since the old testament:
‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
(Isaiah 6).
Even if more signs are made, people will still not be any more likely to believe because they would just dismiss it. There is a parable in the NT of a dead man wishing to tell his family to repent so they don’t end up in Hades like him, but he is told that if they don’t listen and open their eyes to the signs already all around them, it will make no difference of him warning them.
We all had to step down and throw away our pride and our false wisdom for the wisdom of God. It is not too late for one to turn back to God – after all, He made us and knows us best and loves us above all. And if you are worried about some of the problems pervading modern churches, I would suggest looking for an Orthodox one =).
God bless you and your family. I will keep you in my prayers.
Hello Servant33, I hope you are well.
You write:
“Hey, sorry for the delay. Ok here we go:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.”
Is this some kind of spell you are casting to save you from the evil demon or Satan you think you are talking too? 🙂
You write:
“And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?… Yada, Yada, Yada. (not meant to be mocking…just meaning there are many more words)
I know the story from many years ago. Of course nowadays we realize that this is just an allegorical story, and there never was a god that threw down fireballs at cities. Just as we know there never was, a god who flooded the whole earth, garbled mens languages, parted the Red/Reed Sea, rained down manna on a million Hebrews, and in fact there never was a departure of that million or so from Egypt…as they were never there. We also know there was never an Adam and Eve as portrayed in the Bible.
You write:
“…lol you get the point. Basically, this illustrates that God would never kill anyone who didn’t deserve death. Paul makes it clear in the NT that “the wages of sin is death.” Thus, the death from the flood, wars, etc are fully justified by man’s own wickedness. It is only through Christ that we have hope.”
If in fact there was a real god behind this story, it might make sense. It was supposedly written by Moses, but we now know that Moses probably did not write it. It was written by Hebrews around the time of the Exile looonng after Moses (if he in fact existed) was dead. All of the Pentateuch was written after those ancient times and the stories were probably passed down as verbal history or made up on the spot.
Other than the Bible there is NO evidence for Moses, Abraham, Isaac, or Ishmael and some others. No evidence for Moses and all those Hebrews in Egypt’s (or the Flood of Noah) history either. Remember these were historical times and most all of the surrounding civilizations were literate.
Do you have any idea how many innocent deaths that the Abrahamic religions are responsible for down through history?
You write:
“So what of spreading democracy being used as justification for war? Are you going to stop being democratic? What if I decided to use natural selection as a justification for killing the disabled or killing homosexuals? Would that cause you to stop believing in evolution?
Spreading of democracy by war is the evil invention of President G.W. Bush and his religious advisors. Killing the disabled and homosexuals has already been done by Hitler and many who follow the Abrahamic religions. All over the present Muslim controlled parts of the world homosexuals are routinely executed, and Christians in our sphere, I’m sure, wish they would all die in some horrible way, but saner heads prevail thankfully.
To the best of my knowledge homosexuals have existed in about the same percentage of the population…forever. If you accept that god is responsible for our existence then he seems to be responsible for the making of them. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating homosexuality, but I do not propose harming them or worse, they are after all humans, they just don’t follow your idea of religion.
The Old Testament depiction of God is horrible…he is a murderer and evil personified. Remember though he is a mirror of the people of the time.
You write:
“Have you looked at any of the Orthodox churches? The Coptic Orthodox Church, for example, has not affiliated with any military power and yet it is still alive today by God’s grace. The Coptic Church is the church of the martyrs and has been persecuted since the early first millennia and is still being persecuted today. And despite all the difficulties you mentioned, somehow the gospel is still being spread.”
I’m sorry sir I do not know the history of the Coptic Church, I will do some research so that I might comment intelligently in the future.
You write:
“St. Paul was attacked one time by people who questioned, if God was really with him, why was he facing so much difficulty and persecution. Paul explained in 2 Corinthians 4 (a good chapter to look at) :”
Paul was probably schizophrenic. You know, of course, that he claimed to receive knowledge of what Jesus wanted him to do as he was traveling on the road to Damascus. I have known two people who claimed the same thing…that Jesus appeared to them in a blaze of light, but they weren’t on the road to Damascus. 🙂
I have always accepted that Jesus was trying to bring the Jewish “Kingdom of God” to earth…not what Paul preached. And by the way Paul made up the concept of “original sin.” The Hebrew God mentioned nothing of this concept…according to the Hebrews.
You write:
“In other words, the persecution and suffering is a testament to God, who is causing the word to spread – not by a man’s own ability. Even when there is corruption from within, God’s Word endures forever.”
I’m sorry I don’t understand what you are trying to say here.
You write regarding no help from god:
“This excuse to blame God has been around from a really really long time – even since Adam. When God questioned Adam about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam said:
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
LOL! He is blaming God for the eating of the apple .This brings up an important point – it is so easy just to blame God, “It’s God’s fault that the church is divided” “It’s God’s fault people are killing one another” and your argument leads to “It’s God’s fault that some priests rape young children.” What?!…”
What I was attempting to say is that the “Mother Church”, the “Infallible Church,” the one church that claims exclusive custody of “The Truth” was hosting thousands of evil priests all over the world, people who were, and probably still are, preying on unsuspecting and innocent people who are trying to follow the path of Jesus or God and are being horribly mistreated.
The Mother Church seems to be more concerned about women being ordained, than by pedophiles committing homosexual acts upon its members. They have excommunicated those women; they have hardly excommunicated any of the wayward pedophiles. So I ask you; do you think a personal God, one who really cares about His own creations, would not at least warn the Pope what was going on? Would He not care the least little bit and interfere just a tiny bit; after all he parted the Red Sea for Moses and He is Really against homosexuality—right?
Religious adherents, Christians primarily, have been at war with themselves and other religions since they were invented. Christians and Muslims have been constantly fighting each other since at least 600 to 700 AD. Christian Catholics were fighting and killing themselves up into the 1600’s. Catholics and Protestants were fighting and killing each other up into the 1600’s. No, wait, they’re still doing it.
In Rome the society was fairly tolerant with religions until the Christians came along. Rome tried to wipe out Christianity, and when the Christians finally won out and took over, they retaliated and started seriously killing pagans and that went on for a very long time.
The Mother Church was responsible for the Inquisition and the horrible torture with newly invented torture devices. The Mother Church also decided to follow the Biblical injunction to “not suffer a witch to live” and tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the middle ages.
The point behind all of this discussion is that before the Abrahamic religions were invented the earth probably had a chance to survive this human invasion. Now the Abrahamic religions all have nuclear weapons and the wars go on. I fear for the survival of me, my family, my friends, my country, and the whole earth. Religion will be behind the death of us, and I am really concerned. Individual members of these cults may be nice people, but their dogma is very deadly and they must be controlled.
G.W. Bush had access to the nuclear codes and he is a evangelical fundamentalists and he had meetings with pastors every week and he still lied to us about the whole Iraq matter and we end up losing more people than were killed in the 9-11 attack, and the people of that country lose perhaps a million citizens killed by either us or them because we were there on a “Godly” mission.
Religion is madness…and based on lies.
You write:
“Well, God never promised a life of ease and comfort. On the contrary, Jesus indicated it would surely be one of difficulty in a worldly sense, yet with it comes a promise of strength. No matter how miserable things seem, God is with us and in the end, “all things work together for good to those who love God” Romans 8:28. The survival of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the nation of Israel despite the most intense persecution testify to this truth.”
I never expected life to be easy, I don’t think anyone does.
Regarding God being with us and all things working for the good…where is God when a child dies of hunger or disease every few seconds (24/7) in this world? Is He hovering over these children and trying to calm them?
You know the Christian/Catholic Spanish priests who came to the New World were christening little Indian babies in the Middle and South Americas and them bashing their heads in on rocks. Saved their souls and killed them????
Don’t you think a real God would somehow get the message across that crap like this is WRONG.
IF there were a real God…all of humanity would be aware of this, and there would be no divisions and sects such as we find all over the world today. Everybody would worship the same and there would be no deaths or killings in his name. There is absolutely no logic, rhyme, or reason behind any religion on earth today. Every apologetic given for any existing religion can be logically defeated on almost all points…this is not indicative of a real God.
You write:
“…while the whole time God is trying to tell us, I made you, I’m telling you what I know is best for you, just listen!”
“God tells us nothing. There has been no word from God, no sign, not the slightest bit of any communication from the Abrahamic “God.” You are being conned. If I wanted to believe, I would examine and be sure I was investing my time and money in that which is true.
You write:
“And those who are the wisest are those who put aside their own perception of wisdom for the wisdom of their Creator.”
In regard to this “Wisdom” I don’t think I have ever seen it; the only wisdom that might come from the Bible and Christianity is the borrowed “Golden Rule.” Men of faith have shown no more wisdom in this world than non-believers.
You write:
“Consequences of our own actions –In church, we always pray “Lord have mercy”, because we screw up when we rely on our own judgments and we need someone to fix things.”
Usually, it is our leaders who screw up and cause dire consequences for many many people, and since about 300 to 400 AD most of those leaders were at least nominally Christian in Western societies. Individually people screw up by committing adultery or murder or theft, rape or some other heinous crime. Christianity has been pretty clever by setting up the con that if you pray to Jesus for forgiveness you’re home free. Seems to work for the Mafia and other bad guys in the world and even brings in money for the Church. I find it’s easy to not screw up and have to ask for forgiveness from some make-believe god, but then I’m an atheist and pretty moral all on my own.
You write:
“Many of the rules that were made were counter to human rationality. The law called for offering your best cattle, fruits, grain, etc. and burning it as an offering to God. Why would anyone want to offer up their best items? This makes no sense in human wisdom!”
What is not rational and deserving of a true God is the requirement for ANY offering, burnt or otherwise…this is purely ‘ancient human’ logic…not Godly.
You write:
“The law also called for the perpetual freeing of slaves – now that doesn’t make sense either.”
Somehow those darn Abrahamic religions seemed to believe that God had made some humans natural slaves and it hangs on even now. Took us American Christians till 1865 to get rid of it. If God and Jesus were real He would of course recognize how bad it was and not condone it as he has in the Bible. Just a line or two would have got rid of it in future generations.
You write:
“…and before all – that material wealth is nothing because God can always provide.”
Yeah, just try surviving in the world today without at least a modicum of wealth. 🙂 God provides nothing; we have to work (unless you are rich) to provide for us and our families. You can only survive for a short time on charity.
You write:
“And lastly, with your final point, what more proof could there be than God himself coming down as man, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, fulfilling thousand-year old prophecies, and showing death has no power over him.”
Of course you know that the “Trinity” wasn’t an original Christian concept. It didn’t come about till the 4th century AD. There are several passages in the bible where Jesus is “talking” to his father.
From Wikipedia:
“The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and took substantially its present form by the end of the 4th century as a result of controversies in which some theologians, when speaking of God, used terms such as “person”, “nature”, “essence”, “substance”, terms that had never been used by the Apostolic Fathers, in a way that the Church authorities considered to be erroneous.”
Who wrote of this “man” Jesus in his own time? Retired Bishop John Shelby Spong says we may not even have the true words of Jesus. Bart Ehrman says that Princeton Theological Seminary (where he studied) is teaching that the Gospels are not written by those whose names are on the header. There were plagiarizers and forgers in those times that preyed on the early Christians. There are many discrepancies in the Gospels, some of them irreconcilable. They were never expected to be observed side by side.
There are No proofs of God, or Jesus for that matter, and if someone somehow comes up with some logical proofs that can be studied and verified, than I will be the first to sign up among the atheists. Prayer has not been shown to work either.
Peace and love to you and yours.
twom
I think a debate like this will bring no fruit
I encourage you to research the Coptic Church and when you have we can discuss it!
We have not changed in 2000 years, what we are doing now is the same as 2000 Years ago.
Looking forward to discuss the Church with you soon!
Bish