aa5874

But, burning flames, a christian still sin everyday even though a person claim to be a believer. The sins they commit daily is no different to the sins of the unbeliever, the only difference is that they believe they will go to heaven.

Being a Christian in no way eliminates a Christian from carrying sinful acts.

achristianbeliever

Steamer said that we reject the God of the Bible right here:
So I want to know what description I need to follow according to steamer otherwise how do I know if the God I describe is the one steamer says goes according to the Bible. So steamer needs to give me the "correct" Biblical description.

steamer

I'm afraid it isn't possible to give you the correct biblical description. We would have to have a god to compare that description to in order to determine which one is correct. I don't suppose you have an actual god about do you?

I had hoped that there was some attribute of god that the bible mentioned that wasn't contradicted by some other passage of the bible, but I can't find any. I opened a new thread to address that here.

Do you believe that the god of the bible destroyed the world in a flood? If not, then it is impossible for a being to both destry and not destroy a world. The god of the bible has this attribute, does your god? If you do believe in the flood, do you believe god hid all the evidence from us to decieve us?

achristianbeliever

But you said this:

So if there is no specific description, then a Christian cannot give a description that is not biblical. Your being inconsistent.

Plognark

Although I probably shouldn't speak for him, he may be speaking to the point that the bible contains many contradictory characteristics and behaviors of god.

Anyone can interpret muddled text to either support or attack just about any interpretation of god they want.

Astreja

Seems a bit unrealistic. Sell everything, and become poor yourself? Why is this a good thing?

And yet there's the paradox of preparing for a future in heaven. Wouldn't it be easier to do positive work in the world if one factored the future into the equation?

<nitpick>Medieval.</nitpick>

False dichotomy. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with defending oneself from attack, or evading the attack altogether. And one can still feel for one's enemies without standing there and letting 'em pummel you physically or metaphorically.

That admonition exists in other religions as well. It's part of the Buddhist five precepts, for instance.

And if anyone tries to enforce Leviticus 20:13 against my gay neighbours I will be out there in an instant to defend my friends.

Yes, I think so.

Well, one does not need to seek honour. Either one behaves honourably, or not. And knowing that one has done the right thing just feels good. Props from other people are just icing on the cake.

Me? Yup. Absolutely. If Jesus stops by I'll give him a cup of tea and a nice sandwich. Win-win situation. In the meantime, I'm holding onto what I consider more real.

burning flames

I would love to know you guys thoughts on this...

achristianbeliever

That's a good point. Of course I'm doing it this way because skeptics get mad if I say context.

You ignored the next 5 of my responses. May I ask why you only picked and chose specific ones? I really worked hard to answer all the points made earlier. Seems kind of I don't know what's the word insulting?.....and it seems to affect the legitimacy of your position if your only picking and choosing reponses.

I don't think this really answered my response about what is evil about preparing to be a rotting corpse. Also even if we were say preparing for the future for future generations then that is still irrelevant since the earth is going to burn up anyway. So I still don't understand how preparing for the future is evil from an atheistic standpoint. Talking about paradox with Heaven does nothing to refute that.

Sounds like you agree with the idea of loving your enemies. So what exactly is your problem. If you agree with the idea that loving your enemies is ok then we agree with each other.

Irrelevant this point was to describe that following the law of Moses was evil. Whether or not other religions accept it is irrlevant to whether or not its evil to follow the law.

So in other words its evil to follow some of the law of Moses? Because obviously you wouldn't mind if Christians followed some of it right?

Like what? What do you deserve? I actually don't think I deserve anything in this world. Anything I get is a gift.

Hold on a minute your quoting his words not mine so I don't know how I'm suppose to respond to this.

Again the question of if Jesus is real is irrelevant to my point. This actually brings us to the point of who deserves "stuff" the most. Just because you don't think Jesus is real doesn't mean that automatically you deserve stuff more.

steamer

I am not free to reject any god any more than I am free and able to reject a specific pixie. I reject pixies and gods as being real things and cannot also reject them as I might a real being.

Much like the rape victim submitting to rape to avoid being killed, but to offer a more precise analogy it is more like a little girl becoming enslaved because she fears the boogeyman in her closet. Some men and women spend their entire lives in service at slave’s wages to the church because they fear the invisible magic man in the sky. Others love the feelings they have when engaged in imagining god that they become like junkies, mindlessly seeking their next high by getting the church to tell them that the god they so keenly imagine is something more than just a thing they imagine.

Indeed, as an atheist, rejecting god and bugs bunny has the exact same consequences. Perhaps there is an actual talking rabbit or a god, but I’ve no reason at all to assume either exists and even if I did assume it, it would not poof them into existence.

Not really, what we are trying to do is point out how stupid the story is so that you’ll be tempted to do your own thinking on it. God, if he exists, acts exactly as he would if he did not exists anywhere but in the minds of men. God does nothing and never have but men are forever claiming that they are special and god does things specifically for them. This confirmation bias is what makes a lucky penny lucky.
Oh good, yet another spokesman for god. Do tell us what god’s nature is, I need to create a list of what Christians suppose god’s nature to be.

Actually, since you apparently aren’t opposed to dishing out unsupported assertion, men are greater than god so men can apply standards larger than god and his punishment. What we know god to be is a thing that men imagine. Men encompass their imaginations and thus they encompass the god. Since we both can imagine god, we know that it is true that god can be and is imagined. Can you show that god is something more than a thing you imagine? No. So what we know is that men are greater than the gods they imagine and thus men have every right to judge the things they create within their imaginations. All Christians including yourself and your friend flame, only imagine god, do you even doubt it?

I don’t believe you know anything at all about god’s nature. You imagine plenty but you have zero knowledge. Since you don’t know what is or is not his nature or even if he exists, your speculation seems utterly pointless.

I assert with equal evidence that god’s nature is to do evil and to deceive, care to try and refute that this isn’t true of an actual god? Ask me for evidence and I’ll give as much as you’ve given.

Certainly a hypothetical god who has the power to provide absolute justice could enforce that justice and that would entail nothing more or less than making one feel the exact amount of pain that one had caused. Anything more would be too much and anything less to little. Certainly endless punishment without end is not justice and if the purpose of punishment is correction then it must end when the person becomes correct.

One of the greatest crimes of Christianity was to convince men that a god of eternal punishment existed. This gives rise to any number of earthly “punishments” and perverted “justices” all being supposedly better than the imaginary terror of imaginary gods.

That depends only on how you define god and not on any attribute you know an actual god to have. If an actual god is not good then it is not good. Since you know nothing of an actual god your assertion is vacuous.

Nice hamster wheel you’ve climbed onto. God is good, but only by definition and there isn’t any evidence that this definition is true. Since men are greater than the gods men imagine, men can also know the tree by the fruit and the biblical gods fruit, that of the fictions of the flood among other things suggest that the definition is false. Yahweh is not defined as being good by everyone. Yahweh, the imaginary character god of the bible is in many cases quite evil. (That would be me judging another man’s story of the imaginary Yahweh.)

It means you are kidding yourself when you think you know that your god exists. You’re kidding yourself even more when you pretend you have any idea what an actual gods attributes are. No one, not even you is rejecting or accepting any actual god. At best you are only ignoring that you are imagining a god.

How any of the above could be said to apply to Yahweh as mentioned in the bible is beyond me.

Not to beat a dead horse, but do you have any evidence that this story you’ve concocted has any counterpart in reality? I say your god is nothing more than something you imagine. Men decide what qualities are good or bad. You’ve decided to round them all up and without the slightest reason to do it, gift your imagined god with those attributes.

It is very nice that in your imagination all men who don’t think as you do will not have any positive qualities in their existence. I’m sure you must even be happy about having such sad, sadistic and perverted thoughts for your fellow man. If the devil were to make you think evil thoughts, what more evil a thought could you have than the gladness of your heart that the being you imagine and love has made the universe this way when he could have made it any way he pleased.

You and Paul both seem like self professed authorities on the subject of god. Just like Paul though, you have no evidence of any god. You know nothing of any punishments from god and the only reason you think they exist is because Paul or other equally suspect individuals wrote it. Personally I think you would probably be a better person if you understood that life is short and the god you imagine will die with you. You know nothing of any non-human concept of punishment.

Since a sin is an offence against a god you only imagine, it is false to say that anyone is telling an actual god anything.

When we pass ourselves off as knowing of gods or what gods think then I believe you must hate the truth. (Mods: This is an external article I am posting too. I am not calling any IIDB poster a liar.)

Flaky, Flaky Flaky.

What do you ask for when you presume to speak for god? Is it power?

I don’t think this would bother you much. You don’t have truth now as you speak as if you have some knowledge of an actual god. This is knowledge you do not possess so it cannot be true that you know anything of an actual god. Hence your entire tale is a fiction yet you pass it along as fact.

You haven’t the foggiest notion what that might be, but you sure like to tell a tale as if you do.

How the fuck do you know? Answer: You don’t.

I’m only rejecting that you have some knowledge of what an actual god knows or wants. You don’t have such knowledge. You are pretending. Wake up now.

Actually the penalty is just something you imagine. Why you would want this to be true is just part of the sickness that Christianity has spawned within you. You probably believe that Jesus saves you from all this, but you can’t see that this “sacrifice” if it occurred was just for show and god never was bound by his nature to do anything. The bloody spectacle sacrifice was as arbitrary as hopping on your left foot to avoid an imaginary hell.

Grace is bullshit. It argues against everything you’ve said about god’s nature. God cannot just forgive us because it is his nature, but god can forgive us after a bloody farce, because that is his nature. If a bloody farce is required by god’s nature then there is something defective about that nature.

Well shit Flames, I tried, but that is about as much of this guys soapbox that I can stand. He doesn’t know anything more about an actual god than you or I or that power-seeker Paul from the bible.

steamer

I am being as consistent as the bible is. I just hadn't realized how many of Yahweh's attributes were completely optional.