aimed to all religions (and atheists)

What would you do if?

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TheViral
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aimed to all religions (and atheists)

Post #1

Post by TheViral »

You have decided that a change in faith is in order after proof is revealed that yours is fake (for atheists: a message from a higher power is proven to be legitimate) however you don't know if this is a test or not my question...Is your faith in you religion strong enough to surpass the evidence provided to you by your fellow humans?
(for atheists: do you believe in this religion or risk being judged by humanity?)

P.S this hypothetical religion is the only one left that makes sense

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McCulloch
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Re: aimed to all religions (and atheists)

Post #11

Post by McCulloch »

TheViral wrote: You have decided that a change in faith is in order after proof is revealed that yours is fake
It is not so much a decision as a discovery. Yes, I have been there. When I discovered that my chosen religion was not valid, I actively sought to find something true. Humanism, I now accept provisionally as being as honest and truthful as I can tell. When someone can show me something that appears to be more truthful, I will accept that.
TheViral wrote: for atheists: a message from a higher power is proven to be legitimate
What kind of higher power? How had it been proven to be legitimate?
TheViral wrote: Is your faith in you religion strong enough to surpass the evidence provided to you by your fellow humans?
I strive not to have faith. To me faith is a specific form of gullibility.
TheViral wrote: this hypothetical religion is the only one left that makes sense
I strive to believe only that which makes sense. Quantum physics therefore is troubling to me, however, it does have empirical support and there appears to be no sensible alternative. Thus, reluctantly and provisionally, I will accept it.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John

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Post #12

Post by Dantalion »

Haven wrote: If atheism were proven false (i.e., if a god/gods were proven to exist), there is no way I would remain an atheist. In such a case, I would go with the religion/path that was true.

If I had a choice of religion, I would go with either Sikhism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism), Jainism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism), or theologically liberal Christianity.
not me

if some god would be shown to exist, that doesn't automatically make it worthy of worship.
If the bible god were true for instance, I would just give that cruel inept maniac the finger

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Re: aimed to all religions (and atheists)

Post #13

Post by mavis »

TheViral wrote: You have decided that a change in faith is in order after proof is revealed that yours is fake (for atheists: a message from a higher power is proven to be legitimate) however you don't know if this is a test or not my question...Is your faith in you religion strong enough to surpass the evidence provided to you by your fellow humans?
(for atheists: do you believe in this religion or risk being judged by humanity?)

P.S this hypothetical religion is the only one left that makes sense
Isn't the basis of every religion to believe in something that isn't proven by evidence? I doubt proving anything would affect too many peoples choices to believe in something that makes no sense anyways. atheists, agnostics and the like would believe in a religion if it was proven because their beliefs are based in facts, and not stories from thousands of years ago.

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Choakem
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Post #14

Post by Choakem »

Simple question - As an atheist if I were receive evidence enough to convince me that I'm wrong I would switch immediately. It would be foolish to say otherwise.

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Post #15

Post by jeager106 »

Whew! After I saw all the banned responders I'm afraid to veture an opinion. :D
I'm kidding for course.
The question is vague and a bit confusing tho it holds my interest for the moment.
I'm a Christian- one of those non denominational types that can't claim a denomination for myself but maintain an open mind.
I've read there are upwards of 44,000 Christian denominations.
Wow! We all read pretty much that same Bible yet there are that many differences?
We need so many denominations? Incredible to me.
About the question.
No. I would not abandon Christianity. It IS the only religion that makes sense to me and I've read a whole bunch about a whole lot.
I feel strongly enough about being a Christian that I got baptized. To me that is
a serious big committment.
It would take somekind of "devine" intervention to cause me to abandon
my belief in God and His Son Jesus.
To me Jesus was the perfect example of a perfect man who preached the love
of His Father for mankind. There is no violence in what Jesus preached. No command to dominate the world, no command to murder those that don't believe, only a sound moral code that if followed only benefits mankind.
Anyone care to argue that? Then argue with God, not me, I'm hardly worthy.

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Divine Insight
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Post #16

Post by Divine Insight »

jeager106 wrote: There is no violence in what Jesus preached. No command to dominate the world, no command to murder those that don't believe, only a sound moral code that if followed only benefits mankind.
Anyone care to argue that? Then argue with God, not me, I'm hardly worthy.
This is a quite old thread you kicked up here. I was going to respond to the OP since you kicked it up, but after reading your post I feel more like commenting on what you said above.

You say that Jesus preached no violence. The problem I have with this is that according to the New Testament Jesus did preach that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from the law until heaven and earth pass. The only jots and tittles that Jesus could have been referring to (since he never wrote anything down himself) were those of the Old Testament, and there's plenty of violent directives in the jots and tittles of the Old Testament, including that we should seek out and kill heathens who preach of other Gods.

So your claim that Jesus preached no violence cannot be supported in light of Jesus condoning that every jot and tittle of the Old Testament Law must be upheld.

I don't want to get into a major debate here, but there are also places in the New Testament where Jesus tells people that they must hate their mother, their father, their brother and their sister if they are to follow him. He tells them that they must be against their own family and that he actually came to pit people against each other.

I'll grant you that this is strange stuff and seemingly contradictory to many other things that Jesus was said to have preached. But none the less, they are contained in these Gospel rumors. Therefore they are either contradictory hearsay errors, or Jesus himself preached violence. I'm willing to accept that they are contradictory hearsay errors, but allowing for that places the credibility of the Gospel rumors in question.

Finally I would like to comment on the following statement you made:
jeager106 wrote: Anyone care to argue that? Then argue with God, not me, I'm hardly worthy.
Sorry. That's not permitted on these debate forums. If you make claims and assertions then you are the one who needs to argue for them. You won't last long if your just preach your religious views and refuse to debate them. That will eventually be tagged as preaching and you'll be in danger of judgement. ;)
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Re: aimed to all religions (and atheists)

Post #17

Post by Divine Insight »

TheViral wrote: P.S this hypothetical religion is the only one left that makes sense
And now I would like to respond to the OP of this ancient thread. :D

I have yet to find any religion that makes any real sense. The closest religions I've seen that even remotely have the potential to make any sense at all are Taoism and Buddhism. But even they have problems in terms of making perfect sense.

Moreover, even if they did make perfect sense that doesn't mean that they would need to be true. It used to make perfect sense to assume that the universe is infinitely old and that the Earth is at the center of creation. But just because that made sense at the time didn't make it true.

So even if we have a religion that makes perfect sense that doesn't mean that it's true.

Having said all of the above, I think it's crystal clear that the Abrahamic religions make no sense at all. And the proof of that is in their own divisive factions. Even the followers of the Abrahamic religions continually divide into more and more disagreeing sects and denomination trying to "make sense" out of a religion that is clearly "nonsense".

If the religion made any sense in the beginning it would have never become so dramatically divisive and self-argumentative. So we can be certain that these religions make no sense based on their behaviors. ;)
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Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
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relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
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Re: aimed to all religions (and atheists)

Post #18

Post by wiploc »

TheViral wrote: You have decided that a change in faith is in order after proof is revealed that yours is fake
Change of "faith"? After "proof"? How would it be faith after proof? How is recognizing nonsense as nonsense faith now?


(for atheists: a message from a higher power is proven to be legitimate)
Hey, if you prove it, I'll believe it.


however you don't know if this is a test or not my question
This part here doesn't make sense. Doesn't scan. If people ask you to rephrase, this is what they want clarified.


...Is your faith in you religion
Atheism isn't a religion.


strong enough to surpass the evidence provided to you by your fellow humans?
I'm a strong atheist (I believe there are no gods) because that's what makes sense given the existing evidence. If you change the evidence so it makes sense to believe in gods, then I'll believe in gods.


(for atheists: do you believe in this religion or risk being judged by humanity?)
Again, this part isn't very clear. But I'll believe what the evidence indicates is true, regardless of any "risk" of being judged by humanity.


P.S this hypothetical religion is the only one left that makes sense
I'm guessing here. You're saying something like, if Howard the Duck descended from Heaven on tongues of flame, and turned all big-enders into pillars of salt, that wouldn't justify me becoming a Calvinist. Right? You don't want me to just convert to my favorite religion; you want me to convert to something related to the new evidence.

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Post #19

Post by McCulloch »

jeager106 wrote:Anyone care to argue that? Then argue with God, not me, I'm hardly worthy.
I would love to argue with God, but God is silent. There are no shortage of people who claim to speak for God, and people who claim that some other guy speaks for God, but I have absolutely no way to validate any such claim. Do you?

How do you know that Paul speaks for God but Joseph Smith does not? How do you know that David, the author of the Psalms speaks for God but the authors of Guru Granth Sahib do not? How do you know that John the Evangelist speaks for God but Mohammed does not?
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John

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Divine Insight
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Post #20

Post by Divine Insight »

McCulloch wrote: I would love to argue with God, but God is silent.
Not only that, but let's pretend a God actually exists that we could converse with.

Question: Would I even need to argue with such a God?

Answer: No. There is no reason why I should even need to argue with such a God.


Let's consider the following two possible scenarios.

Scenario #1: God truly is all-wise, all-intelligent, loving, and benevolent:

Well, if this is true then I would have no reason to argue with God because She would obviously be in total agreement with me. So we would have nothing to argue about.

So that's an easy scenario to deal with. ;)


Scenario #2: God is the hateful male-chauvinistic pig described in the Bible who is threatening to condemn me if I refuse to love him:

Now, here's a God I could argue with. However, would I even want to bother arguing with this God? Perhaps it might be worth a try in the naive hope that this God might actually wake up to his evil ways and change his tune. But according to the Christians that's never going to happen.

So if argument is futile what's the next course of action that can be taken?

It appears that the only option left in this scenario is to either give into this bully God and worship him, even though he is clearly unworthy of anyone's worship, in a last ditch effort to appease him thus saving myself from being damned.

Or, I could try to converse with this God intelligently and politely. I would simply explain to this God that I've read his book and I'm not interested in what he has to offer. I have no desire to spend eternity living under his rules which I personally feel are extremely ignorant and immoral.

I would politely and respectfully ask that he simply un-create me as painlessly as possible. No hard feelings on my part. I'll be just happy being un-created or peacefully "annihilated" with no hard feelings between us.

According to the Christians that's not an option. Instead, they claim that this God will throw a temper tantrum and become extremely violent and mean to me casting me into a state of eternal torture and punishment.

That may not be a nice end for me, but at least I would have the consolation of having been the moral superior in the interaction.

Any God who would become angry, hateful, and brutally harmful simply because I had made a polite request to simply be un-created peacefully would indeed be a demon far worse that even Satan is made out to be.

And more to the point, this God will have proven beyond any doubt that he is not benevolent, intelligent, wise, loving or anything along those lines at all. On the contrary, he would have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is as malevolent as it gets.

There would be nothing to argue about with such an impossibly hateful God.

So Christianity is a lose-lose religion for their God. He can't be benevolent and remain true to the Christian paradigm. The God of Christianity is necessarily an immoral unrighteous malevolent God that no decent person can trust. There's no getting around it.
[center]Image
Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
[/center]

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