I'm done

[rikuoamero]

Right, so this is it. I'm done. I'm leaving the site. I've been here just shy of a full four years and to be honest, it often feels like I'm just banging my head against the wall, for all the good it does.
This isn't to say I haven't gotten something out of this site. I have made some wonderful online friends, and learned a lot. However, when it comes to Christians, it often does seem like they refuse to learn or apply themselves.

My view of Christianity, as of me leaving this site, is that it is a hateful evil cult. The rhetoric it spews about humans is just abominable. To be told that humanity is wicked, evil, sinful, and that all this is because a proto-ancestor ate a magic apple...? I have debated the morality of following Christianity's God, of their claims of their messiah, and been told that by & large, Christians would not prevent Jesus's torture and execution, they stand to gain from it.
Christianity inverts what is good and evil. It makes a virtue out of torture and executions, and a sin out of a respect for life. It commends authoritarianism and denigrates democracy.

A few parting shots as I leave
1213 - You're an idiot. I've seen that from you since day one. Your arguments are childish and simplistic. You apply no real logic that I've seen, and basically just repeat "The Bible is good, and that's enough for me to believe it" (or variations of that)

Still small, EarthScienceGuy - You are not scientists in my eye. No-one who cites Statement-of-Faith YEC sites is, because SoFs preculde science, because SoFs demand that their followers promote a certain answer no matter what is said, no matter what evidence is gathered or not gathered. Nothing you say on the topic of science has any weight, as you have destroyed your own credibilities.

Liamconnor - You're not a historian. All you can argue and all you seem capable of arguing is that with my (and other atheist's) standards, we should discard Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Well guess what? I call your bluff. I'm willing to do just that. If it turns out that I absolutely, positively HAVE to discard what I think I know about Alex or Julie, then I'll do it.

Dio9 - as seen from my latest round with you, you are uninformed about your own religion. Seriously, God doesn't send plagues? Try reading a Bible for once in your life.

Jagella - Great guy in my opinion, but you need to think through your arguments just a little bit better. You seemed to be uninformed as to the lack of a future tense in the Ancient Hebrew language. Don't give the Christians this excuse to dismiss what you say.

I don't mind if mods ban me for this post. I'm already on a Final Warning, and this ought to be enough to tip me over the edge. I'll just finish by saying that this is the best website I've ever seen in terms of debating religion. The mods are fair and even-handed, and I quite literally have never seen any partisan-ship in terms of moderation - no Christian mods covering for Christian abuses, or vice versa.
However, it's come time to leave. I've said my piece and at this point, I'm just repeating myself. Sayonnara and farewell.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 17 by William]

I suggest than that you read the thread in question. It's in the Ask a Group subsection

viewtopic.php?t=34068&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[William]

Rikuoamero: I suggest than that you read the thread in question. It's in the Ask a Group subsection

William: Okay - well I read the thread...I am correct that you are wasting your time trying to convert Christians who have faith-based non-negotiable beliefs. I am correct that your Christian faith was negotiable and that is why you are not a Christian anymore. I was correct that there was more to the story than your interpretation of what the Christians who responded to your OPQ in that thread were saying.
I found it interesting that the thread itself was created over a year ago, and you had a rather obvious emotional investment in it...and 10 days (on Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:01 pm) before you created the thread in the Ask a Group subsection (on Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:05 pm) you wrote the words;

Rikuoamero: "Basically, a short little goodbye from myself. Long story short, I want to reduce the amount of time I spend debating. Kinda getting tired of it.
This doesn't mean I'll just drop off the site completely. I plan to write essays in the Member Essays section I started. Been meaning to do that, but kinda kept getting sidetracked. Look for the first one next week.
There's a couple threads I'll still reply to, but other than that, I don't plan on getting involved anywhere else."

William: Apparently you didn't listen to your self re getting sidetracked...I see also that you still haven't shared any essays from that date...

Re the "Moral Question for Christians" thread, I can understand the sides of the argument, and generally don't have much interest in any side in relation to my taking sides...if indeed that is why you asked me to read the thread.

In relation to THIS ("I'm Done") thread
Posts #7 and #10 - in relation to your current state of mind - are the best posts I can suggest you follow the advise of.

There is an old 'pagan' saying..."Be careful what you wish/ask for." You asked and you got answers to which you don't like and unwisely attempted and failed to convince people to abandon their faith in their beliefs, as you were able to abandon yours...and now you have resorted to name-calling as a way of venting your dissatisfaction at the predictable outcome.

Listen to your SELF - take a break from being sidetracked and come back when you have thought of other approaches which might be worth trying.

[John Human]

I ask these questions because it works both ways. My faith is based on evidence. You can reject that evidence if you want to. That's your prerogative. But to assume that those of us who follow Jesus are wrong to do so because you are of the opinion that it is foolish smacks of the arrogance some Christians are accused of (and in some cases rightfully) by atheists.

For me, this kind of argument is false when addressed to me.

From my perspective, you are one of the very worst offenders on this forum, as evidenced by the bile in your recent post.

Two of my four younger brothers, as vulnerable teenagers, embraced my elder brother's fervant evangelizing. I think it's fair to say that as they "drank the kool-aid" and immersed themselves in Christianity, something spiritual changed within them: an opening to the divine (for lack of a better phrase) occurred, that persisted after they got out -- and this enduring opening, left untended, made them susceptible to spiritual/psychological ailments to which they would not have been vulnerable if they had never had their conversion-to-Christianity experiences.

During this period (30 years ago, toward the end of my zealously anti-Christian phase), I wrote a song about my family's spiritual life:

For you, my brother, I come
We praise the Lord where I'm from
I talk to Jesus each day
And now he wants me to say
You must surrender, give in
And let Him cleanse you from sin
To you my brother, I say
Accept salvation today
Brain-dead teacher
Full of stupid lies
A hole so empty
Right between your eyes
You sell salvation
At such a ruinous price
I stand against you
I will not compromise
Brain-dead teacher
Such a mindless point of view
Such cruel deception
In what you say is true
You're full of answers
But you haven't got a clue
A flood of error
And it's all because of you
Don't need your service
Or your collection bowl
Don't need your warning
'Bout the status of my soul
Don't need your message
Your brain-dead thought control
Just want the truth now
And the brother that you stole

My earlier hostility to Christianity was fueled by my reaction to an aggressive proselytizing mentality that twisted and broke family relationships. As I now see things, when rejecting Christianity and developing talking points for anti-Christian apologetics, it is all too easy to throw out the baby with the bath water.

[Divine Insight]

From my perspective, you are one of the very worst offenders on this forum, as evidenced by the bile in your recent post.

I would be interested in knowing which post you are referring to. Surely not my post in this thread?

I believe that one problem is that people often misinterpret objections of the core principles expressed by the theology of Christianity with a misguided notion that this somehow represents some sort of unwarranted vile attack on the theology.

Consider the following statement which is a statement I totally support and often express in terms of what I consider to be an absolute truth of Christian theology.

Statement #1: Christian theology, at its core, accuses all humans of being obsessed with evil and a desire to do evil actions, and to purposefully and willfully disobey God.

At first sight this may appear as a vile attack on the theology. But let's face the truth. Christianity holds that all humans are willful sinners unworthy their own salvation and even incapable of obtaining their own salvation via their own merit.

And this brings us to statement #2:

Statement #2: Christian theology, at its core, demands that all humans are deserving of the most vile condemnation that most certainly include death at the very least, but also apparently includes all manner of *hellish punishments.

*note: I'm using the term "hellish" here to simply mean highly undesirable forms of anguish, discomfort, rejection, etc, of both the physical and mental kind.

Again, at first sight this pay appear as a vile attack on the theology. But let's face the truth. Christianity hold that all humans are deserving of hellish damnation, and condemnation to death. This is a core principle of the theology, there's no escaping it.

So by bringing these core issues to the surface I have already introduced topics that automatically appear to the Christian Theist to be vile topics that they would prefer to not need to embrace. Yet these are indeed core principles of Christian theology.

So what about the so-called "Good News"?

So humans are disgusting and deserved to be damned. So what? God has sent his Son to become a public spectacle and escape goat for this deserved damnation and condemnation that humans deserve. God arranged to have humans themselves brutally crucify Christ who was totally innocent and undeserving of either damnation of condemnation. And he did this all to become are penal substitute.

So all we need to do now is confess that we are indeed the most vile evil persons and thank Christ for taking our deserved damnation on our behalf. If we do so, then we will be granted undeserved amnesty for being such an evil unworthy person and be exonerated for our crime.

So now we have:

Statement #3: Christian theology, at its core, claims that Christ has paid the price of our sins for us so that we can now lay claim to an undeserved eternal life. But only if we confess our evil nature and accept this penal substitution on our behalf.

Again, a Christian theist may see statement #3 as being worded in a somewhat negative light, but regards of how they judge it, the content is a true description of what the theology demands.

But none of should be judged as being "vile" unless, a Christian truly believes that this scenario truly is a vile scenario, in which case they have no choice but to agree that Christian theology is a vile theology.

~~~~~~

My point is that the theology is indeed vile. Period. Let's make no pretense otherwise. There should be no joy in finding ourselves in this hopeless predicament. And there should absolutely be no rejoicing that an innocent Christ paid for our deserved damnation. To the contrary, if that really is true it should be the greatest shame we could ever imagine. Certainly nothing to rejoice over.

Does this make Christian theology sound vile? Of course it does. But that's because I hold that that's precisely what this theology is. It's a vile condemnation of all humanity, and every single human individual without exception. This is what this theology demands.

Let's make no mistake about this.

~~~~~

You say:

My earlier hostility to Christianity was fueled by my reaction to an aggressive proselytizing mentality that twisted and broke family relationships. As I now see things, when rejecting Christianity and developing talking points for anti-Christian apologetics, it is all too easy to throw out the baby with the bath water.

For me there is no way to separate the baby from the bathwater in Christian theology.

Based on the statements I enumerated above Christianity holds three main principles:

The Bathwater:
1. All humans are evil.
2. All humans deserved to be damned.

The Baby
3. Only Christ can save them.

The Baby is meaningless without the bathwater.

It's pointless in Christian theology to pretend that you can toss out the bathwater and retain a meaningful baby. There would be nothing for the baby to do in Christian theology if not for the existence of the filthy bathwater.

So the theology cannot stand without the "bathwater". Toss the bathwater out, and you no longer have a meaningful theology.

~~~~~~~

From Another Perspective:

Ok, now let me address a potential social point you might be attempting to address.

As a social tradition (ignoring any meaningful theological points), can we acknowledge that as a purely social structure the religion could potentially have some positive benefits and effects on some individuals?

Sure we can. And I will certainly be among the first to acknowledge this, but only, if we simultaneously recognize that it can also have quite negative and depressing effects on other individuals as well.

None the less, the issue of whether or not a social religion may or may not have social benefits is a whole other topic.

I for one am not about to support an entire theological framework just because some individuals might be positively influenced by it. As far as I'm concerned there are secular motivations for positive attitudes that can be just as effective.

On this form I debate "Theology", not "Social Psychology". Social psychology is a totally different topic.

Even if we needed religion for a healthy society that wouldn't make a religion true. All that would mean is that humans can't be good without believing in fantasies.

And in the case of Christian theology the "fantasy" they need to believe is that they are a horrible person so unworthy of salvation that someone else had to pay the price of damnation for them.

I'm not sure that I would even consider that to be a healthy social fantasy.

~~~~~~

My position is as follows:

1. Let's first recognize the fallacy of this religious theology.

2. Only then can we move forward to discuss how we might help to inspire people to be the best they can be.

[John Human]

From my perspective, you are one of the very worst offenders on this forum, as evidenced by the bile in your recent post.

I would be interested in knowing which post you are referring to. Surely not my post in this thread?

Yes, your post on this thread, compounded by the one that you just posted.

It's not the intellectual point that you raise (your presentation of the Christian view that our state of sinful depravity makes us unworthy of salvation), which is well worth discussion and debate; it's the combination of your endemic attitude of wounded hatred and your arrogant I'm-not-going-to-listen-to-you certainty that is so toxic. For example:

My point is that the theology is indeed vile. Period. Let's make no pretense otherwise.

For you to take that attitude of contemptuous pedantic "shut-up-I-can't-hear-you" certainty is neither civil nor respectful, and it will tend to drive habitually civil and respectful people away from this forum.

EDIT: You missed the boat on what I meant by "the baby and the bathwater." From the way you appropriated the phrase to push your own view, you evidently have little interest in trying to understand what I actually meant. With that type of attitude, "debate" becomes a futile and depressing exercise of talking past each other, with the winner being the one who shouts loudest and longest.

[Divine Insight]

My point is that the theology is indeed vile. Period. Let's make no pretense otherwise.

For you to take that attitude of contemptuous pedantic "shut-up-I-can't-hear-you" certainty is neither civil nor respectful, and it will tend to drive habitually civil and respectful people away from this forum.

Please point to where I have ever told you to "shut up".

You have created in your imagination a very vile imaginary adversary in me. One that has no existent in reality.

I am not the product of your imagination.

Nowhere have I told you to "shut-up" nor have I been uncivil toward you in any way. All of that is a creation of your very own imagination.

If you believe that my summation of Christian theology is wrong, simply make your case. No one has told you to shut-up.

The fact is that you know I am right. Christianity theology demands that all humans are sinners deserving of damnation. It also does not allow that any human can obtain salvation on their own merit. Christian theology only allows salvation through Christ.

If I'm wrong about any of this, please demonstrate where I am wrong instead of making false claims of incivility of my position when no such incivility exists.

I have not made any negative or condescending remarks or comments toward you on a personal level in any way. Nor do I have any reason to. So please refrain from accusing me of being uncivil when that accusation is empty and devoid of any truth.

If I'm wrong about Christian Theology just present your case on that specific point.

You are more than welcome to do so.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 21 by William]

I am correct that your Christian faith was negotiable and that is why you are not a Christian anymore. I was correct that there was more to the story than your interpretation of what the Christians who responded to your OPQ in that thread were saying.

If you want a single mental image that encapsulates what I was thinking in the lead up to all of this...picture Hannibal Lecter in the movie, after he's attacked the prison guards and his mouth is all bloody. Then imagine Lecter has the gall to accuse all humanity of being evil, wicked, and that the only way forward is for an innocent man to be tortured and executed, that he wouldn't prevent that.
That is what I "saw". A religion of ritualistic cannibals (note for mods - I am referring here to the practice of the eating of the wafer and drinking of the wine, which are believed to be either metaphorically or literally the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, depending on one's denomination) saying that we are all wicked and evil, saying that
I am wicked.
So I thought I'd expose it at last, with my Moral Question. I like to think I succeeded. I showed that Christianity puts its adherents in a double bind. If they were somehow present at the scene of the crucifixion of their innocent messiah saviour, would they try to save him? No, was the answer I got. This religion, supposedly from a wise loving god, has its adherents so afraid of death and so desirous for eternal life, that they are willing to torture and execute innocent people (or have it done on their behalf). Is this anything different from a bloodthirsty satanic cult? Check other threads, other discussions, other famous apologists. William Lane Craig comes to mind - he's infamous for postulating how awful it would have been if the Nazis had won World War 2 and the Holocaust was looked back on as being justified, its perpetrators admired...all the while he is on the record as saying he believes the extermination of the Canaanites happened and was justified, that the murder of Canaanite children at the end of Israelite swords is an infinite good, and all this supposedly because the Canaanites were guilty of sacrificing children to what they believed was their god?

I found it interesting that the thread itself was created over a year ago, and you had a rather obvious emotional investment in it

I'm very slow to anger, but when it does happen, I do kinda go all out. It was a very slow boil.

Apparently you didn't listen to your self re getting sidetracked...I see also that you still haven't shared any essays from that date...

Meh, real life is a pain in the bum. I did initially have a desire to write essays, but I also have a desire to do other things, and they kinda got top priority.
In short, sorry I guess for not following through on the essays? Unless you think I'm somehow beholden to do them, I don't see why you even mention it.

You asked and you got answers to which you don't like and unwisely attempted and failed to convince people to abandon their faith in their beliefs, as you were able to abandon yours...and now you have resorted to name-calling as a way of venting your dissatisfaction at the predictable outcome.

Yup. We all fall down and stumble. I recognise what you're saying, you are not wrong.

Which is why from now on, I'm not going to get angry. Instead, I'm going to be writing for readers. I would be very surprised indeed if there was literally no-one who comes to this site anonymously (without an account), who has read my posts and not at the very least had a think to themselves afterwards.

[Divine Insight]

EDIT: You missed the boat on what I meant by "the baby and the bathwater." From the way you appropriated the phrase to push your own view, you evidently have little interest in trying to understand what I actually meant. With that type of attitude, "debate" becomes a futile and depressing exercise of talking past each other, with the winner being the one who shouts loudest and longest.

Clarification of your position when you believe it has been misunderstood is your responsibility. No one else can do that for you.

Also, the win-lose mentality of debating is apparently your view. It's certainly not my view, nor is it my purpose. I just make points based on the issues and topics other people bring up. You can either address them, or not. That choice is entirely your's to make.

[Divine Insight]

If they were somehow present at the scene of the crucifixion of their innocent messiah saviour, would they try to save him? No, was the answer I got. This religion, supposedly from a wise loving god, has its adherents so afraid of death and so desirous for eternal life, that they are willing to torture and execute innocent people (or have it done on their behalf).

Exactly!

If we go back to Calvary here's what happens according to Christianity theology,...

I refuse to have anything to do with the crucifixion of Christ and renounce the act.

For this I am condemned to hell. Fine, I accept this fate for my choice.

But what about the Christians?

They stand there screaming, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!"

And for this they are rewarded eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

How is that not a vile religion to its very core?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 25 by Divine Insight]

Please point to where I have ever told you to "shut up".

You have created in your imagination a very vile imaginary adversary in me. One that has no existent in reality.

I am not the product of your imagination.

I must say, I'm a little confused that John Human is going after you for your supposed rudeness, when my own OP here is full of rudeness towards some of this site's long-standing members. I went all out and yet...apart from being (rightfully so!) smacked down by the mods, I am unscathed.