Pensee

As stated in this thread , I may soon have a conversation with my aunt concerning why I don't believe in god, the Bible, etc.

It really has been a long time. Like I said in the above-mentioned thread, I know generally why I don't believe in those things. But I'm not sure I can remember all the specifics as in Scripture and Verse.

Can any of you help me out? Refresh my memory? Why don't you believe? Any helpful resources you can point me to?

I'm mainly looking for ludicrous scriptures, but any ludicrous beliefs (in general) that you'd like to elaborate upon why you consider them to be so ridiculous would also be helpful.

Thanks!

mjbeam

Hi Pensee!

I usually like to keep it short and sweet.

1. I don't believe in god.
2. Even if the christian god was proven to exist I would not follow him because he is cruel and unjust. "I just don't think I could ever follow a god who ordered his followers to dash babies against rocks or to take virgins as war plunder or condoned slavery."

Then I don't have to go thru 100's of screwed up passages in the bible and listen to all of the appologetics for the 1000th time.

-Mike

Postcard73

One of the things I find ludicrous about Christianity is that it is a religion founded on the concept of human sacrifice. The Incas do it and it is savage; the Romans/Jews do it and it is the beginning of the greatest event in human history.

The Christianity section of the Secular Web Library has tons of information on various problems, incongruities, etc., about the Bible, Jesus resurrection, Biblical history, etc. Definitely worth checking out...

christ-on-a-stick

Hey Pensee!

One of the big reasons I like to point out is by first putting it in (rhetorical) question form: i.e., "Why do you believe? Most people's faith happens to conform to whatever general religion they were born into/raised in/are surrounded by".

"BUT... what good, solid reasons are there that (insert faith here) is any more "true" than (insert other faiths here)? The adherents of those other religions all have holy books, supposed evidence, supposed revelation.... what is so special about X religion"?

The whole multiplicity of religion thing.

That quote somewhere about the atheist just disbelieving in one more god than the theist, sums it up fairly well.

"Why don't you believe in Zeus, then? Or Vishnu? Or Allah?"

(There's more but I just wanted to type that real fast while I think about it).

L

GypsyLife

Generally... Christianity has changed and evolved to conform with society.. if it's The Truth, why would it need to do that? For example, the Christian god condoning rape in OT times - as you
mentioned in the other thread (it's Numbers 31:14-18) - when women were considered property.

Specifically.... anything in the SAB is enough to make me wonder how I ever explained it all away.

The end of my belief started because I couldn't believe that I was any more deserving of heaven than someone much more devout but who made the 'mistake' of being born in the wrong culture and worshipping the wrong god.

Also what COAS said about other religions... The ancient Greek mythology is insane huh? Gods punishing mortals, boulders being pushed up hills for eternity, water being turned into wine, rising from the dead, walking on water-- oh, wait...

Artemus

My approach is to first say that there is absolutely no evidence for any religious beliefs. When they inevitably fall back on Pascal's wager I use the line I borrowed from someone (can't remember who): "So the only way the omnipotent, omniscient creator could find to avoid eternally punishing his creations for behaving the way he created them to behave was to impregnate an innocent woman so that the offspring would suffer a painful death? Do you realize how incredibly stupid that is?" It probably won't convince anyone, but it usually ends the conversation.

trendkill

Yes, the Argument from Confusion is probably the most compelling argument for the incorrectness of all religions (if not for the nonexistence of deities), because it throws the validity of personal religious experience, which is the basis of the overwhelming majority of devout religious belief, into massive doubt. In one person's life, the effects of religious experience can seem on par with the evidence of the senses in terms of reliability, but when you compare the religious experiences of different people, you get massive and often irreconcilable differences, as evidenced by the numerous different religions. Even within religious denominations which claim some uniformity of belief, claim to worship the exact same deity, and are even based on the exact same religious texts, there are massive differences that often manifest in the existence of countless different sects. Assuming the existence of that deity, the logical conclusion would be that God creates religious confusion on purpose, by inspiring people to believe different, even opposite, things. However, if being the author of confusion is contrary to that god concept, then the most reasonable conclusion is that the explanation of religious experience is something other than the posited God.

As it happens, science is pursuing a number of possible explanations for religious experience that are consistent with the nonexistence of the supernatural.


http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Health/health19.htm
http://www.science-spirit.org/articl...article_ID=132
http://www.andrewnewberg.com/qna.asp

MonkeyMan

Too many to sum up, so here's just a few:

Jesus didn't die for "us", i.e. Xians, on the cross, but for "the children of Israel", i.e. the Jews. So unless you're a circumcised yarmulke-sporting fella, JC ain't for thee.

Corollary: if you're a Xian, you're actually a Paulist, as you're taking Paul's authority over Jesus', the Son of God (tm).

Gawd's Kingdom was supposed to arrive during Jesus' lifetime. When that didn't fit into Gawd's EasyPlanner, up came the Millenium argument. After that the Y2K... Don't hold your breath, I'd say!

Gawd, according to the OT, behaves like a foaming-at-the-mouth psychopath. Sorry, don't have respect for those.

Gawd's OT laws have not been abolished by the NT Jesus, he stated clearly: not a iota of the OT laws has changed. IOW, Xians, you've been had!

Lack of Gawd's interfering in, say, the last 2000+ years. If I should believe in the Creator of the Universe (tm), let me see some OT-style friggin' miracles, like another Flood or the Seven Plagues.
In absence of that...

VIR1: (Very Important Reason): I live HERE AND NOW, not in the Bronze Age, not in the desert amongst circumcised goat and camel shepherds, making blood sacrifices etc.

VIR2: Society has changed, those that went before us did a pretty decent job of defanging and declawing "ole time religion (tm)" with education/science and Enlightenment. I'm sure as hell not going to diss 'em and backslide!

VIR3: I don't need religion to lead an ethical/moral life, I'm pretty capable of deciding for myself what's ethical/moral and what's not.

VIR4: I'm neither a sheep in need of a shepherd, nor a fish in need of getting netted. I'm a free man!

VIR5: There's better explanations to be had for just about everything than way back when

AdamWho

The reason I don't believe in the Christian god.

1. Original Sin: This concept is plainly evil and its sole purpose is the propagation of the church.
2. Substitutive Sacrifice: By taking punish for my sins, Jesus, destroys the concept of justice and robs me of responsibility for my actions. Just imagine running into a court house and saying to the judge, please let the murders go, I will take their punishment; so society is better if one martyr is exchanged for a murderer? It is a perversion of morality and irrelevant if original sin is abandoned.
3. The trinity: The trinity makes Jesus sacrifice wholly absurd; sacrificing himself, to himself, to save people from his own rules (?!!). Plus the trinity + Satan + Mary + 1000s of saints make on of the most polytheistic religions around all at the same time claiming (straight faced) to be monotheistic.

There are more absurdities but I like those three the best.

I don't believe in other omni-gods because their omni-characteristics are contradictory.

So I am left with less than perfect gods, like the Olympian gods which science can easily dispose of...

Adora

The Abrahamic god is the simulated tool of the Patriachy. It allows humans to live for hundreds of thousands of years in our evolved form, but only cares to reveal itself just when the Patriachy forms into a social controlling force. It then proceeds to hand out doctrine, left right and centre, to any mid-life-crisised male who is unhappy with his lot in the social order, that de-values only half of the population to sub-human levels (yes, even Buddha didn't like women in the religion until his mother gave him a severe spiritual beating).